The Rosetta Key

“Monsieur Gage, surely the situation is plain by now,” Silano said t h e

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impatiently. “You join me, join the Egyptian Rite, and win a share of power.”

“Join a man who in Egypt sent me my friend’s head in a jar?” He sighed. “Or, you can leave with nothing.”

“And what claim of ownership do you have?” I had to play my part.

He looked around, amused. “Why, all the guns, most of the provi-sions, and the only hope of deciphering what we’re about to find.” Najac’s men raised the muzzles of their weapons. It especially annoyed me to have to look down the barrel of my own rifle, in Najac’s greasy hands. “I really don’t know what Franklin saw in you, Ethan. You have such a slow grasp of the obvious.”

I pointed to the building clouds. “It won’t work without me, Silano.”

“Don’t be a fool. If you don’t help, then no one gets the book and you have nothing. Besides, you’re as curious as I am.” I looked at Astiza. “This is the deal, then. I help you set the seraphim. If it works, you do get the book. Take it, and be done with it.”

“Guv’nor!” Ned cried.

“But I want Astiza in its place.”

“She is not mine to give, monsieur.”

“I want you to let us go, without harm or interference.” He glanced at her. She was avoiding both our eyes. “And you’ll help if I agree?”

I nodded. “We’d better hurry.”

“But it’s her choice, not mine,” he cautioned. Astiza’s face was a mask.

“Her choice,” I confirmed confidently. “Not yours. That’s all I’m asking.”

“Agreed.” He smiled, the grin as cold as a beaver trap in a Canadian creek. “Then help us prepare.”

I took a breath. Could I trust her? Would this work at all? I was gambling all on a Latin riddle. I fished my pyramid souvenirs out from my clothing and watched the sorcerer’s eyes gleam as he seized them. “Use the clasps that attached them to Moses’ staff to mount them on the top of your metal poles,” I directed. “We’re going to make a Franklin lightning rod.” I’d noticed two holes drilled in the 2 1 0

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top of the leveled plateau, and Silano confirmed they were mentioned in the Templar documents, so we inserted them. But there was no connection between them.

I studied the flat plane. There were grooves in the sandstone rock, I saw, forming a six-pointed star. The poles were at opposite points.

“We need a connection between the poles,” I said. “Metal strips, to conduct electricity. Do you have any?”

Of course not. So much for Silano’s research! It was growing darker, thunder rumbling as the cloudworks swelled and mounted. Funnels of dust skittered on the valley floor far below, weaving and bending like drunks.

“I don’t see what the rods will do, if isolated,” I warned.

“The Templars said this will work. My studies are infallible.” The man had an ego to match Aaron Burr. So I thought of what could replace the metal strips, because my enemies were right: I was as curious as anyone. “Najac, do something beside scowl,” I finally suggested. “Use your water bag to fill these grooves with water, and add some salt.”

“Water?”

“Ben said it can help conduct electricity.” The water filled the little runnels until the star gleamed in the thick, green-purple light. The sun was swallowed and the temperature dropped. My skin prickled. More thunder, and I could see first tendrils of rain curling downward like feathers, evaporating before they touched the ground. Lightning stabbed to the west. I backed to the edge of the plateau. Ned and Mohammad followed me, but no one else seemed frightened. Even Astiza was waiting expectantly, hair swirling, her eyes on the sky and not me.

The storm swept down on us like a cavalry charge. There was a gusting wall of wind, hurling grit, and the clouds overran us, great bags of rain and thunder that glowed silver as they billowed and ballooned. Lightning flashed and struck the peaks around us, nearer and nearer, the thunder like artillery. Fat drops of rain hit, hot and heavy, more like molten lead than water. Our clothing shuddered, and the wind rose to a shriek. And then there was a blinding flash, an instant h e

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taneous roar, and the mountain quaked. One of the rods had been hit! My knees went weak. Sparks blazed, and bright blue light flashed from rod to rod along the wet star grooves, and then arced across space from angel to angel. The seraphim turned glowing white. They swung, the iron rods turning, and their wings pointed northeast, tilt-ing toward each other so that lines drawn from each would meet about twenty yards away. The lightning bolt had passed, but the rods held power, everything bathed in a purple glow not too different than the one we’d seen in the chamber below the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

And then beams of light flowed from the wings of the seraphim, met in midair, and a single beam streaked like a rifle bullet, as if pulled, to strike a grand pillared doorway of another cliffside temple, two miles from where we stood. Sparks flew in a fountain.

“Yes!” Silano’s henchmen cried.