The Rosetta Key

The ray held a moment, like a momentary peek of sun into a dark cave, and then faded. The mountaintop went dark. Dazzled, I looked at our metal poles. The seraphim had melted, the tops of the poles flattened like mushrooms. Silano had his arms up in the air in triumph. Astiza was rigid, her gown soaked, water dripping from the tendrils of dark hair plastered on her cheek. The storm was moving on toward the east, but behind its flashing prow came more rain, cooler this time, a hiss to cleanse the air of ozone. It poured down. We could all feel the electricity in the air, our hair still dancing to it. Water was sluicing everywhere off the cliff tops.

“Did everyone mark that?” Silano asked.

“I could find it with my eyes closed,” Najac promised, a note of greed in his tone.

“Satan’s work,” Big Ned muttered.

“No, Moses’!” Silano answered. “And that of the Knights Templar and all those who quest for truth. We are at God’s work, gentlemen, and whether the god is Thoth or Jehovah or Allah, his guise is the same: knowledge.” His eyes were alight with energy, as if some of the lightning had entered him.

I’ve nothing against knowledge—I sailed with savants, after all—

and yet his words and look disturbed me. I remembered childhood 2 1 2

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sermons of Satan as serpent, promising knowledge to Adam and Eve in the Garden. What fire were we playing with here? Yet how could we allow so tempting an apple to go unpicked?

I looked at Astiza, my moral compass. But she had to avoid my gaze, didn’t she? She looked awed—that something had really happened—and worried.

“Gentlemen, I believe we are about to make history,” Silano said.

“Down we go before nightfall. We’ll camp in front of the temple that was illuminated and search it at first light tomorrow.”

“Or with torches tonight,” the eager Najac said.

“I appreciate your impatience, Pierre, but after a thousand years I don’t think our goal is going anywhere. Monsieur Gage, as always your company has been intriguing. But I daresay neither of us will entirely regret our parting. You have made your bargain, so now I can say it. Adieu, frontiersman.” He bowed.

“Astiza,” I said. “Now you can come with me.” She was silent a long time. Then, “But I can’t, Ethan.”

“What?”

“I’m going with Alessandro.”

“But I came for you! I left Acre for you!” I displayed more bluster than a barrister facing damning evidence for a guilty client.

“I can’t let Alessandro have the book by himself, Ethan. I can’t walk away from it after all this suffering. Isis has brought me to this place to finish what I started.”

“But he’s mad! Look at his companions. They’re the devil’s spawn!

Come away with us. Come with me to America.” She shook her head. “Good-bye, Ethan.”

Silano was smiling. He’d expected this.

“No!”

“She has made her choice, monsieur.”

“I only helped with the lightning to get you!”

“I’m sorry, Ethan. The book is more important than you. More important than us. Go back to the English. I’m going with Alessandro.”

“You used me!”

“We used you to find the book: for good, I hope.” t h e

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In mock frustration I jerked out one of the iron poles to use as a weapon, but Najac’s gang raised their muskets. Astiza wouldn’t look at me as Silano shepherded her off the plateau, wrapping her head with her scarf.

“Someday soon you will realize what you just threw away, Gage,” Silano called. “What the Egyptian Rite could have given you! You will rue your bargain!”

“Aye,” Najac growled, his pistol steady. “So go back to Acre and die.” I let the pole drop with a clang. Our acting had succeeded. If, indeed, Astiza was acting. “Then get off my mountain,” I ordered, my voice shaking.

Smirking, they filed back down the trail, taking the melted seraphim and the rods with them, Astiza glancing back just once as she made her way down.

It was when they were out of earshot that Big Ned finally erupted.

“By the saints, guv’nor, we’re going to let that papist scoundrel steal our rightful treasure? I thought you had more grit!”

“Not grit, Ned, wit. Remember how I bested you at swords?” He looked chastened. “Aye.”

“That was by brain, not muscle. Silano doesn’t know as much as he thinks. Which means we have our own chance. We’re going to find a trail off the back side of this mountain and do our own exploring, well away from that tribe of cutthroats.”

“Away? But they know where this book of yours is!”

“They know where the lightning strike threw its light. But I don’t think the Templars would be that obvious. I’m hoping they were students of the Great Pyramid.”

He was baffled. “What do you mean, guv’nor?”

“I’m betting we’ve just witnessed a little misdirection. I am a gambling man, Ned. And the Great Pyramid incorporates a series of numbers known as the Fibonacci sequence. Surely you’ve heard of it.”

“Blimey, no.”

“The French in Egypt taught me about it. And this sequence, in turn, is a representation of some basic processes of nature. It’s holy, if you will. Just the kind of thing Templars would be interested in.” 2 1 4