Serpent of Moses

by Don Hoesel

  Romero grunted. “It’s not Arabic. It’s an old European symbol for alchemy.” He pointed to the edges of the outer box. “This looks similar to an Arab technique common to Muslim craftsmen of the time period.”

  Espy absorbed that and was about to ask a follow-up question when she saw her brother frown.

  “What’s that?” he asked, pointing to something blue along the edge of the outer box.

  Espy followed the line of his finger and saw what he meant. It was just a small amount of color, hardly noticeable. She traced the edge of the box with her finger, and when she pulled it back, her fingertip was blue. Puzzled, she rubbed together her finger and thumb, then watched as the powdery substance spread.

  She stared at her discolored fingers for several seconds, brow furrowed. When the answer came, a smile replaced the former expression. Turning to Romero, she held her finger up for investigation.

  “It’s powder,” she said. Her smile grew wider. “Jack was here; he took an etching.”

  Romero reached for her hand, using his own larger finger to wipe a portion of the blue powder from Espy’s. Then he turned his attention to the stall panel, his eyes tracking downward. He pointed to a short trail of the same powder on the floor.

  “I’d say we’re on the right track,” he said.

  Esperanza felt her excitement level growing, yet she tempered it by realizing that neither she nor her brother understood the significance of the symbol.

  “I suggest we study the rest of the panels,” Romero said. “I don’t think that this by itself will take us where we need to go.”

  With no further prompting, Espy backed away from the find and continued on, this time keeping an eye out for any telltale marks left by Jack’s etching chalk. However, in studying the rest of the panels, she didn’t find anything that stood out. The rest of the ornamentation, excepting the alchemy symbol, looked solely decorative, forming a semicircle with what appeared to be a bisected flower at the midpoint of the handrail. Romero thought so as well, and as he and Espy took a break to sit against the wall, the stall paneling across from them seemed content to retain its secrets.

  “There has to be more than that,” Espy said.

  Romero nodded his agreement. “Perhaps it’s in the loft we haven’t yet searched.”

  “Perhaps.” Although . . . while she lacked Jack’s, and to a lesser extent Romero’s, experience with this sort of thing, she thought that finds like the one they’d made often followed a definite pattern. Which meant they would find another symbol—perhaps even the same one—in the other loft. Assuming that was true, she tried to envision what they could do with the information. How could they take two different symbols and learn something meaningful from them?

  “That can’t be all of it,” she said. “Symbols are one thing, but what about instructions about how to use them?”

  “Maybe Jack already had those,” Romero suggested.

  Espy supposed that made as much sense as anything else, and she released a resigned sigh and lapsed into silence. After a few moments, though, she heard footfalls on the steps to their left. Neither sibling moved as a head came into view—an older woman with a camera, followed by a younger woman who bore a family resemblance to the first woman. Catching sight of Esperanza and Romero sitting against the wall, both sets of eyes turned in her direction, the woman stopped before reaching the top of the steps, a startled, almost guilty expression on her face—as if she, rather than the Venezuelans, had been caught hiding in the choir loft.

  “Excuse me,” she finally said and, grabbing the younger woman by her elbow, disappeared back down the stairs.

  “Well, now she has a story to tell when she gets back home,” Romero said.

  Espy didn’t answer but found that the incident had left a smile on her face. As she turned back to the panels that had tantalized but ultimately disappointed her, her spirits were higher. She decided to enjoy the moment, to appreciate the fact that she was in another part of the world, in one of the most extraordinary buildings she’d ever seen, and had stumbled onto a clue left by an artisan almost four hundred years ago. When considered in those terms, she was rather pleased with their progress. Too, the last choir loft still remained to be searched and might yield something they could use.

  She was about to suggest that to Romero when something about the design on the panels struck her in a way it hadn’t before they’d been interrupted. At first she couldn’t figure out what it was about the semicircle design that bothered her and she tried examining it from afar piece by piece. When that yielded nothing, she changed her focus, trying to take in all of it at once. How long she remained like that, absorbing the panels as a single unit, she didn’t know, except that when she emerged from it, when what had been pressing itself upon her suddenly clicked and she snapped to alertness, she found her brother watching her.

  Rather than saying anything, Espy rose and walked over to the loft wall, placing her hands on the rail and peering down at the lower level of the cathedral, toward the dais that had so intrigued her earlier. After committing its shape and basic features to memory, she moved back and studied the panel walls. She did this twice more, and by that time Romero had reclaimed his feet, though he knew better than to interrupt.

  When she’d satisfied herself that she was on the right track, she turned her attention to Romero.

  “It’s a representation of the dais in front of the altar,” she said, pointing at the outline. “While al-Idrisi didn’t reproduce the pictures from each of the stones, you can see where he identified the edges.”

  She watched as Romero studied the panels with new eyes, and then as he performed the same back and forth dance she’d done.

  “Okay, I’ll grant you that,” he said. “Now, what does it mean?”

  “I don’t know. But it can’t be coincidence that the alchemy symbol sits right in the middle of one of the stone block segments.”

  Espy went back to the alchemy symbol, knowing she would have to return to the dais to see if the stone represented on the panel held the same symbol. Letting her fingers trace the lines of the outer box, she was surprised when a word popped into her head, coming as if from nowhere. And as she considered the word, she was even more surprised by the fact that it was neither Spanish nor English.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” she said.

  “What is it?” Romero asked, but Espy shushed him.

  Pulling back her hand, she looked at the ornate outline in a new light, working to separate the words from the unnecessary line that gave it the appearance of trim. It took some time; after all, the language had been extinct for hundreds of years. But after some trial and error, she was convinced she had it.

  “It’s Gafat,” she said.

  Romero looked at the panel and then back at his sister.

  “I’ve asked you not to curse at me in foreign languages,” he said.

  “It’s a language that went extinct in the mid-seventeenth century,” Espy said. “About forty years after al-Idrisi carved this.” At Romero’s incredulous look, she shrugged and explained, “It’s a Semitic language, so the basic structure isn’t hard to identify if you know what you’re looking for.”

  “What does it say, then?” Romero asked, sounding unconvinced.

  Espy turned to the panel and used her finger to point out the message. “Two parts; two steps.”

  He frowned. “And that means . . . ?”

  “I have no idea,” she admitted. “But I’m going to head over to the other loft and see what I can find.”

  Less than ten minutes later, they had another symbol, different from the first, and even Romero was unable to provide it with a meaning. The words around this symbol, though, were the same as those around the first. Having exhausted their well of ideas, they descended the narrow stairs and headed straight to the dais, where they were pleased to discover that the symbols on the stall panels matched the positions of their marble cousins. They studied the dais for a long while, trying to determ
ine how to use the information but came up with nothing. Espy, seeing a priest walking up the far aisle, hurried to corral him.

  “Excuse me,” she said in Italian. “Could I ask you a few questions about the dais over there?”

  The priest smiled and followed her over to where Romero waited.

  “Can you tell me about these symbols?” she asked.

  She had hardly finished the question before the priest began to answer, causing Espy to believe that hers was not the first inquiry into the nature of the designs.

  “In each of the smaller naves, you will see sarcophagi for some of the duomo’s prominent saints,” he said. “This monument was installed after the last interment—that of Archbishop da Intimiano. The symbols you see here are also found on the sarcophagi.”

  Espy nodded. “And is each symbol on each sarcophagus? Or is each combination of symbols unique to the deceased?”

  “While several of the symbols are used on more than one of the tombs, the combinations are all unique,” he said. “But to the best of my knowledge, the symbols do not represent anything beyond the whims of those who designed them.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate the information.”

  They waited for the priest to leave before speaking again.

  “We treat it as a road map,” Romero said. “My guess is that only one of the tombs will have both symbols.”

  The layout of the cathedral made for quick work, and they found the sarcophagus they were looking for on the third try. To be thorough, they examined the fourth and last tomb as well to be sure the one they’d selected was indeed the only one with both symbols in the stone.

  As they moved around the tomb of the Archbishop Ottone Visconti, the two symbols assigned an unobtrusive spot on the lid at the position where Romero suspected the man’s feet to be, they worked to determine what the symbols and their positions meant—and if the other tomb markings and adornments were tied together. But with no point of reference, nothing to give them direction, they foundered.

  “There are several symbols along this side of the lid and lower, along the containment vessel here,” Romero said, gesturing. He pointed at one in particular. “This one is on Intimiano’s tomb but in a different spot.”

  “So position is a clue,” Espy said.

  Romero nodded, but slowly, as if his thoughts had suddenly gone somewhere else. As Espy watched, Romero retrieved his phone and began to scan through the pictures he’d taken of the symbols around the dais. When he’d cycled through them, he frowned.

  “This one here,” he said, pointing at a symbol on the side of the tomb. “This one does not appear on the dais.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Romero didn’t answer. Instead, he muttered, “I need a pen.” He pulled the cathedral guide from his pocket. While Espy looked among her belongings for a pen, Romero unfolded the guide until he found a panel with white space. Taking the pen from Espy, he quickly drew one of the symbols and then, after studying the sarcophagus for a moment, he drew the second symbol directly over the first. When he finished, he held the paper out for Espy’s inspection.

  The result of Romero’s efforts was a near-perfect representation of the symbol that was not on the dais.

  “I knew there was a reason I brought you along,” Espy said.

  She knelt down and began to trace along the outer edge of the new symbol. A moment later, she looked up.

  “It’s not Gafat,” she said. “It’s Latin. Two words. The first is—I’m not sure I’m reading this right—Nehushtan? The second is easier: Cyrene.”

  “Cyrene is the name of a Greek settlement. I’ve sold pottery recovered from the ruins there.” He shook his head and aimed a wry smile at Espy. “It’s in Libya.”

  The smile the two shared was one of satisfaction, but floating along the edges of that feeling was the ugly fact that knowing Jack had gone to Libya was not the revelation they’d hoped for. However, there was still the promise of the second word.

  “Any idea what Nehushtan means?”

  Romero could only respond with a shake of his head.

  “Give me a minute,” he said, pulling his phone out again. It took what seemed a long while to Espy before Romero could establish an Internet connection and find any information about what they’d uncovered. When he did, he released a low whistle. “I know now what Jack’s searching for. And why Sturdivant wouldn’t tell us even after I threatened to fly there and present a convincing argument.”

  He handed his phone over to Espy, who brought it close so she could read the small screen.

  “You’re kidding . . .”

  “I never knew the name for it,” Romero said.

  “You’re kidding,” Espy repeated.

  “I think we’ve covered that,” he said, reaching for the phone. “According to legend, it had the power to heal snakebites.”

  “I remember,” Espy said. “I was the one who always paid attention in Sunday school.”

  Romero chuckled but the laughter faded quickly. “Does your boyfriend ever do anything that doesn’t have quite so dramatic a flair?”

  Esperanza knew that the question was meant to be lighthearted, but it had a sobering effect. Now that she knew what Jack was after, she felt an iciness grip her insides. There were simply too many similarities to the last time Jack had gone after a biblical artifact. And since she couldn’t reach him, she couldn’t help but imagine a number of horrible possibilities.

  Her brother didn’t have to rely on their familial relationship to understand that his normally strong sister was falling into a dark place, and he did the only thing a brother could do. He reached out and drew her into a hug that all but enveloped her. When a few moments later he released his embrace, tears were trailing down her cheeks.

  Yet her eyes held a smile. Stepping back from Romero, she nodded her thanks and wiped her face with the back of her hand.

  “So what now?” she asked.

  “We study,” he said. “We build on what your friend Duckey is doing in Al Bayda and we figure out what happened to Jack once he reached the ruins.”

  “Okay,” she said. “But I think we need to be prepared to accept that Jack had to know more than he learned here. Or what he learned here provided him with a specific plan of action we know nothing about right now.”

  Romero nodded and turned to leave.

  Espy absorbed her own words, considering the difficulties posed by their imperfect understanding of Jack’s profession. Then, as she pondered that, something occurred to her. “What about the Gafat text?”

  Romero turned back around. “What about it?”

  “It wasn’t necessary to use the text to find this symbol,” she said. “So why put it there?”

  He shrugged. “What did it say?”

  “Two parts; two steps.”

  Espy went to the tomb, stopping in front of the symbol they’d just discovered. Using that one as a starting point, she found the symbol two spaces to the right. It was a representation of one of the symbols on the dais and was absent of any writing around its outer edge. She tried again, this time moving left, and landed on a symbol she was reasonably certain she’d not yet seen. It was surrounded with the markings of the dead language.

  It took her longer than it had with the Latin, but when she looked up at Romero, her face was flushed.

  “It says Cyme,” she said.

  “Are you sure it doesn’t say Cyrene?” Romero asked.

  “It’s Cyme,” she repeated.

  “Alright, Cyme it is. So what does it mean?”

  Espy stood and stepped back from the sarcophagus, wiping her hands on her pant legs. “Two parts; two steps.”

  She and Romero pondered the mystery for a while as tourists shuffled around them, some of them coming near to take pictures of the tomb, oblivious to what it had just revealed to the Venezuelans.

  “Doesn’t the Bible say that Hezekiah destroyed this pole?” Romero asked.

  “Supposedly people were pray
ing to it and so he had it destroyed,” Espy affirmed. “But if Jack is looking for it, and if the effort that went into these clues is any indication, I’d say that Hezekiah wasn’t successful in destroying it.”

  “Unless . . . he didn’t destroy it completely. What if he broke it, perhaps in two pieces?”

  “Two parts; two steps,” Espy said, excitement in her voice.

  “Two parts; two steps,” Romero agreed.

  Espy’s eyes widened.

  “Jack wouldn’t have known.” At Romero’s questioning look she explained, “He wouldn’t have seen the Gafat. He wouldn’t have known there was a second symbol.”

  “And so even if he finds it, he will have only found a portion of it.”

  “If he’s in any position to find it,” Espy said quietly.

  Romero had no response for that, and Espy, despite what they’d accomplished, felt her mood darken.

  21

  As Duckey mounted the single flight of narrow wooden steps to his room, he tried to think of a time when he felt wearier than he did at that moment and found himself hard-pressed to do so. Waking up that morning, he’d followed a few more leads, but after nothing panned out he’d caught a cab to the Al Bayda university district and had spent much of the afternoon questioning students about things to see and do in and around the city—especially those things that might require a motorbike to reach. He’d reasoned that, regardless of nationality, college students were adventurous compared to most other demographic groups. Too, they would be plugged in to their surroundings; they could narrow Duckey’s search quicker than he could ever hope to accomplish on his own.

  The jury was still out on whether his stroll around campus had been an efficient use of time. The students he’d talked with had given him a great deal of information, though he had to parse all of it against what he knew of Jack. He hoped, once he could think about things in the morning with a clearer head, he could make a connection worth investigating.

  His room was at the end of a dark hallway, and while it wasn’t the Ritz, the bed was large and comfortable. Once inside, he dropped onto the bed with a grunt, removed his shoes, and leaned back against the headboard to relax a little. A cigar and a scotch would have helped him achieve that state, but on his side of the closed door was a sign in Arabic that he didn’t have to be able to read to know that it warned him against lighting up on the premises. The picture of a cigarette with a red X through it transcended all difficulties with the written word. As far as the scotch, Libya was a dry country, and Duckey had no interest in getting dragged off to a Libyan prison by the country’s version of Eliot Ness.