The Rosetta Key

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

“I’m sorry, guv’nor, but I thought this was all about ancient treasure and secret powers, not numbers and Templars.”

“It’s all those things. Now, there’s a ratio that comes up in any geographic representation of the sequence, a pleasing proportion of a longer line to a shorter one that happens to be 1.61 and some-odd.

It’s called the “golden number” and was known to the Greeks and the builders of the Gothic cathedrals and to Renaissance painters. And it’s encoded in the dimensions of the Great Pyramid.”

“Gold?” Ned was looking at me as if I were daft, which perhaps I was.

I found a patch of dirt and drew. “Which means the book may really be at an angle to what we’ve just seen. That’s what I’m betting, anyway. Now, let’s suppose that the base of a pyramid is represented by the line we saw shooting across the valley here.” I sketched a line pointing at the ruins where Silano and his team were headed. “Draw a line perpendicular to it, and it runs off more or less west.” I pointed toward the rugged range where the storm had come from. “Somewhere along that new line is a point that would be represented if we completed a right triangle by drawing from where Silano is going to my other line going west.”

“A point where?”

“Exactly. You have to know how long the third line, the sloping line, should be. Let’s suppose it is 1.61 times, roughly, that of the line to Silano’s Temple—the golden ratio, the physical embodiment of Fibonacci and nature, and the slope of the Great Pyramid itself. A pyramid built to incorporate fundamental numbers, the kind that go into snail shells or flowers. It’s hard to gauge distance, yes, but if we assume the temple is two miles away, then our adjoining line is a little over three . . .”

He squinted, following my arm now as I left the temple where the lightning beam had struck and swung it from north to west. “I’m guessing it would strike my imaginary western line just about where that imposing ruin is.”

We stared. On the floor of the valley was a wreck of an ancient building that looked like it had been battered by artillery for a hunt h e

r o s e t t a k e y

2 1 5

dred years. The dilapidation was actually just time and decay, yet it still stood higher than all the rubble around it. A line of old pillars, holding nothing, jutted up along what appeared to be an ancient causeway.

“You saw this angle where, effendi?” Mohammad tried to clarify.

“In the slope of the Great Pyramid. My friend Jomard explained it to me.”

“You mean that Count Devil is going to the wrong temple?”

“It’s just a guess, but the only chance I’ve got. Lads, are you willing to take a look and hope that the Templars cared for this number game as much as the ancient Egyptians did?”

“I’ve learned to have faith in you, effendi.”

“And my, what a joke it would be to find the bloody book first,” Ned laughed. “And some gold, too, I’m betting.” And he gave me that wide, menacing smile.

c h a p t e r

1 9

We pretended to descend as if we were making for the entry canyon to leave the City of Ghosts. But after picking our way around some rocks, out of sight of Silano, we found a tricky descent down a wet, beautiful ravine on the west side of the mountain. We passed more caves and ruined tombs, next to spraying falls spawned by the rain—the desert was drinking its fill indeed, as the Templars had prophesized—until we were on the city’s floor. It was dusk, the rain over. Using low hills as cover to keep out of sight of the others, we reached the large temple we’d seen just as it was getting dark. It was cool after the storm, stars beginning to stud the sky.

This structure was in worse repair than the Temple of Dendara I’d explored in Egypt, and much less impressive. Its roof was gone, and what was left was a windowless pen of rubble with minimal decoration. It was big—the walls seemed a hundred feet high, with an arch tall enough to sail a frigate through—but plain.

A tunnel leading downward was not hard to find. In one corner on the inside of the temple there was a crater in the rubble, as if someone had dug in search of treasure, and at the bottom were rough boards t h e

r o s e t t a k e y

2 1 7

weighted down with rocks. “Here it is then!” Ned quietly exulted. We threw the boards aside and found a set of sandstone stairs leading downward. Using dry brush to make crude torches, we lit one with steel and flint and descended. Yet we were soon disappointed. After thirty steps the staircase ended abruptly at what appeared to be a well, its sides of smooth sandstone. I took a rock and dropped it. Long seconds passed, and then there was a splash. I could hear water running below.

“An old well,” I said. “The Bedouin closed it up so their goats and children wouldn’t fall in.”