The Rosetta Key

“Catch what?” Ned asked dubiously.

“Gage, I understand you have succeeded in using electricity as a weapon against Bonaparte’s troops.”

“As a necessity of war.”

“I think we’re going to need Franklin’s expertise when we near the Book of Thoth. Are you electrician enough?”

“I’m a man of science, but I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”

“It’s why we need the seraphim, Ethan,” Astiza broke in, more softly. “We think that somehow they’re going to point to a final hiding point the Knights Templar used after destruction of their order. They brought what they’d found beneath Jerusalem to the desert and concealed it in the City of Ghosts. The documents are enigmatic, but Alessandro and I believe that Thoth, too, knew of electricity, and that the Templars set that as a test to find the book. We need to draw down the lightning like Franklin did.”

“So I agree with Mohammad. You’re both mad.”

“In the vaults beneath Jerusalem,” Silano said, “you found a curious floor, with a lightning design. And a strange door. Did you not?”

“How do you know that?” Najac, I was certain, had never penetrated to the rooms we’d explored, and had not seen Miriam’s oddly decorated door.

“I’ve been studying, as you said. And upon this Templar door you saw a Jewish pattern, did you not? The ten sefiroth of the kabbalah?” t h e

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“What has that to do with lightning?”

“Watch.” Bending to the dust on the floor by our fire, he drew two circles, their edges joined.

“All things are dual,” Astiza murmured.

“And yet united,” the count said. He drew another circle, as big as the first two, overlapping both. Then circles upon those circles, more upon more, the pattern becoming ever more intricate. “The prophets knew this,” he said. “Perhaps Jesus did as well. The Templars relearned it.” Then where circles intersected he began drawing lines, forming patterns: both a five-sided and a six-sided star. “The one is Egyptian and the other Jewish,” he said. “Both are equally sacred. The Egyptian star you use for your nation’s new flag. Do you not think this was the intent of the Freemasons who helped found your country?” And finally, at the interstices, he jabbed out ten points, which made the same peculiar pattern we’d seen in the Templar Hall under the Temple Mount. The sefiroth, Haim Farhi had called them.

Once again, everyone seemed to be speaking ancient tongues I wasn’t privy too, and finding import in what I would have assumed was mere decoration.

“Recognize it?” Silano asked.

“What of it?” I said guardedly.

“The Templars drew another pattern from this design,” he said.

From dot to dot he drew a zigzagging, overlapping line. “There. A lightning bolt. Eerie, is it not?”

“Maybe.”

“Not maybe. Their clues tell us to harness the sky if we wish to find where the book is. The lightning symbol is in the map we found here, and then there is the poem.”

“Poem?”

“Couplets. They’re quite eloquent.” He recited: Aether cum radiis solis fulgore relucet Angelus et pinnis indicat ore Dei,

Cum region deserta bibens ex murice tortoSiccatis labris arida sorbet aquas

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w i l l i a m d i e t r i c h

Tum demum partem quandam lux clara revelatQuae prius ignota est nec repute tibiOpperiens cunctatur eum dea candida VeriFloribus insanum qui furit atque fide

“That’s Greek to me, Silano.”

“Latin. Do they not teach the classics on the frontier, Monsieur Gage?”

“On the frontier, the classics make good fire starter.”

“The translation of this document, which I found in my travels, explains why I was anxious to make your reacquaintance:” When heaven blazes with the lightning of the sun’s rays And with his feathers the angel points out at God ’s command When the desert, drinking from the twisted snail shell Thirstily sucks up water with dried-out lips Then at last the clear light reveals a certain part Which formerly was both unknown, nor was it cognized in your estimation