The Codex

by Douglas Preston

  “Place of tombs,” said Borabay.

  The wind shivered and gusted around them, bringing with it the sickly-sweet smell of some nightblooming flower. Here they could not hear the sounds of the jungle above them—only the rising and falling of the wind. It was an eerie, haunting place.

  My God, thought Tom, to think that Father’s up in those cliffs somewhere.

  Borabay led them through a dark doorway in the cliff, and they now ascended a spiral staircase cut into the rock. The cliff face was honeycombed with tombs, and the staircase passed open niches with bones inside them, a skull with a bit of hair, bony hands with rings winking on the fingers, mummified bodies rustling with insects, mice, and small snakes, disturbed by the light and retreating back into darkness. Several niches they passed contained fresh corpses, emanating a smell of decay; there the rustlings of animals and insects were even louder. They passed one corpse on which several large rats were crouched, eating.

  “How many of these tombs did Father rob?” Philip asked.

  “Only one,” said Borabay. “But it was richest one.”

  Some of the tomb doors were smashed, as if broken into by grave robbers or shaken loose by ancient earthquakes. At one point Borabay stopped and picked something up off the ground. Silently he handed it to Tom. It was a shiny wing nut.

  The staircase turned and ended on a ledge halfway up the cliff face, about ten feet wide. There was a massive stone door, the largest they had seen, which faced outward across the dark sea of mountains and the starry night sky above. Borabay held the burning brand up to the door, and they stood looking at it. All the other tomb doors had been unadorned; this one, however, had a small relief carved into its face, a Mayan glyph. Borabay paused, then took a step backward, saying something in his own language, like a prayer. Then he turned and whispered.

  “Father’s tomb.”

  65

  The old gray men sat arrayed like mummies around the boardroom table, high above the city of Geneva. Julian Clyve faced them across the wilderness of polished wood, beyond which, through the wall of glass, was spread the Lake of Geneva with its giant fountain, like a little white flower far below them.

  “We trust,” said the head man, “that you received the advance.”

  Clyve nodded. A million dollars. These days not a lot of money, but more than what he was earning at Yale. These men were getting a bargain and they knew it. No matter. The two million was for the manuscript. They still had to pay him for the translation. Sure, there were others who could now translate ancient Maya, but only he could manage the difficult archaic dialect that the manuscript was written in. He and Sally, that is. They hadn’t yet discussed the particulars of his translation fees. One step at a time.

  “We called you here,” the man continued, “because there is a rumor.”

  They had been speaking in English, but Clyve decided to respond in German, which he spoke fluently, as a way of throwing them off balance. “Whatever I can do to help.”

  There was an uncomfortable shifting in the wall of gray, and the man continued to speak in English. “There is a pharmaceutical company in the United States by the name of Lampe-Denison. Do you know of it?”

  Clyve continued in German. “I believe I do. One of the big ones.”

  The man nodded. “The rumor is that they are acquiring a ninth-century Mayan medicinal codex containing two thousand pages of indigenous medical prescriptions.”

  “There can’t be two. It’s impossible.”

  “That is right. There can’t be two. And yet the rumor exists. The price of Lampe stock has risen more than twenty percent over the past week as a result.”

  The seven gray men continued looking at Clyve, waiting for his answer. Clyve shifted, crossed his legs, then recrossed them. He had a momentary frisson of fear. What if the Broadbents had somehow made other arrangements for the Codex? But they hadn’t. Before she left, Sally had reported back to him in detail on how things stood, and since then the Broadbents had been incommunicado in the jungle, unable to strike deals. The Codex was free and clear. And he had great faith in Sally to do his bidding. She was bright, capable, and very much under his thumb. He shrugged. “The rumor’s false. I control the Codex. From Honduras it’ll be coming directly into my hands.”

  Another silence.

  “We have deliberately refrained from inquiring into your affairs, Professor Clyve,” continued the man. “But now you have one million of our dollars. Which means we are concerned. Perhaps the rumor isn’t true. Very well. I would like an explanation for the very existence of this information.”

  “If you’re implying that I’ve been careless, I can assure you I’ve spoken to no one.”

  “No one?”

  “Except my colleague, Sally Colorado—naturally.”

  “And she?”

  “She’s deep in the Honduran jungle. She can’t even contact me. How could she contact anyone else? And she is the soul of discretion.”

  The silence around the table stretched on for a minute. Was this what they had called him all the way to Geneva for? Clyve didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all. He was not their whipping boy. He rose. “I am offended by the imputation,” he said. “I’m going to keep my end of the bargain, and that’s all you gentlemen need to know. You’ll get the Codex, and you’ll pay me the second million—and then we’ll discuss my fees for translating it.”

  That was greeted with a further silence. “Fees for translating it?” the man repeated.

  “Unless you intend to translate it yourselves.” They looked like they’d just sucked lemons. What a gaggle of morons they were. Clyve despised businessmen like these: uneducated, ignorant, their slavering greed hidden behind a genteel facade of expensively tailored fabric.

  “We hope for your sake, Professor, that you will do what you’ve promised.”

  “Don’t threaten me.”

  “It is a promise, not a threat.”

  Clyve bowed. “Good day, gentlemen.”

  66

  Seven weeks had passed since Tom and his two brothers had gathered at the gates to their father’s estate—but it felt like a lifetime. They had finally made it. They had reached the tomb. “Do you know how to open it?” asked Philip.

  “No.”

  “Father must have figured it out, because he robbed the tomb once,” said Vernon.

  Borabay set some burning torches in niches in the rock walls, and together they made a minute inspection of the tomb door. It was solid stone, set into a doorway squared out of the white limestone of the cliffs. There was no keyhole, no buttons or panels or hidden levers. Surrounding the tomb, the rest of the rock had been left in its natural state, with the exception of a number of holes drilled into the rock on either side of the door. Tom held his hand over one and felt a cool flow of air—evidently airholes to the tomb.

  The eastern sky brightened with a predawn light as they examined the area around the tomb. They rapped on the door, called, hammered and pressed and tried everything to open it. Nothing worked. An hour passed and the door remained immovable.

  Finally Tom said, “This isn’t working. We need a new approach.”

  They retired to a nearby ledge. The stars had disappeared, and the sky was brightening behind the mountains. It was a stupendous view across a fantastical wilderness of jagged white peaks, like teeth rising from the soft green palate of the jungle. “If we take a look at one of those broken tomb doors,” said Tom, “maybe we can figure out how it works.”

  They retraced their steps and, four or five tombs back, came to a broken door. It had cracked down the middle, and one part had fallen outward. Borabay lit another brand, then hesitated at the door.

  He turned to Philip. “I coward,” he said, handing him the brand. “You braver than me, little brother. You go.”

  Philip gave Borabay a squeeze on the shoulder and took the brand. He went into the tomb. Tom and Vernon followed.

  It was not a large space, perhaps eight by ten feet. In the c
enter was a raised stone platform. On the platform sat a mummy bundle, still upright, its legs drawn up to its chin, its arms folded in its lap. Its long black hair was braided down its back, and the dried lips were drawn back from its teeth. The mouth had fallen open, and an object had dropped out. When Tom looked more closely he saw it was a piece of jade carved in the shape of a chrysalis. One hand of the mummy held a polished cylinder of wood about eighteen inches long, decorated with glyphs. Ranged around were a small selection of grave goods: terracotta figurines, broken pots, some carved stone tablets.

  Tom knelt down and examined how the door worked. There was a groove in the stone floor; set into the groove were polished stone rollers on which the door rested. They were loose, and Tom picked one out and handed it to Philip. He turned it over in his hand.

  “It’s a simple mechanism,” he said. “You get the door rolling and it opens by itself. The trick is, how do you start the door rolling?”

  They examined it all around, but there was no obvious answer. When they emerged from the tomb Borabay was waiting for them, an anxious expression on his face.

  “What find?”

  “Nothing,” said Philip.

  Vernon emerged from the tomb holding the cylinder of wood that the mummy had been clutching. “What’s this, Borabay?”

  “Key to underworld.”

  Vernon smiled. “Interesting.” He carried it back along the passageway to their father’s tomb. “Funny that the stick should fit so perfectly into these airholes,” said Vernon, shoving the stick in several holes, almost losing it in one. “You can feel the air coming out of these holes. See?” He went from hole to hole, testing with his hand the flow of air from each one. Finally he stopped. “Here’s an airhole with no breeze coming out of it.”

  He inserted the stick. It went in about fourteen inches and stopped, leaving four inches exposed. Vernon picked up a heavy, smooth rock. He handed it to Philip.

  “You do the honors. Whack the end of the stick.”

  Philip took the rock. “What makes you think this’ll work?”

  “A wild guess, that’s all.”

  Philip hefted the rock, braced himself, drew back his arm, and brought the rock down hard against the protruding end of the stick. There was a chunk as he drove the stick into the hole, and then silence.

  Nothing happened. Philip examined the hole. The wooden dowel had gone all the way in and stuck.

  “Damn it!” Philip cried, losing his temper. He rushed at the tomb door and gave it a savage kick. “Open up, damn you!”

  A sudden grinding noise filled the air, the ground vibrated, and the stone door began to slide open. A dark crack appeared and gradually widened as the door moved in the groove along its stone rollers, In a moment, with a clunk, it came to a halt.

  The tomb was open.

  They all waited, staring into the yawning black rectangle. The sun was just breaking over the distant mountains, pouring golden light across the rocks, at an angle too oblique to penetrate into the tomb itself, which remained in utter blackness. They stood without moving, paralyzed, too afraid to speak or call out. A pestilential cloud of corruption—the stench of death—came drifting out of the tomb.

  67

  Marcus Aurelius Hauser waited in the pleasing dawn light, his finger stroking the blunt trigger of his Steyr AUG. The weapon was perhaps the most familiar object he knew besides his own body, and he never felt quite normal without it. The metal barrel, warmed from constant contact, felt almost alive, and the plastic stock, polished by his own hands for years, was as smooth as a woman’s thigh.

  Hauser had tucked himself into a comfortable niche along the trail that led down the cliff. While he couldn’t actually see the Broadbents from his vantage point on the trail above, he knew they were below and would have to come back the same way. They had done exactly what he hoped. They had led him to old Max’s tomb. And not just one tomb, but a whole necropolis. Unbelievable. He would have found this trail eventually, but it might have taken a long time.

  The Broadbents had now served their purpose. There was no rush; the light was not high enough, and he wanted to give them plenty of time to get comfortable, to relax, to assume they were safe. And he, Hauser, wanted to think this op through. One of the great lessons he had learned in Vietnam was patience. That was how the Viet Cong had won the war—they were more patient.

  He gazed around with delight. The necropolis was stupendous, a thousand tombs filled with grave goods, a tree laden with fruit ripe for the plucking. Not to mention all the valuable antiquities, stelae, statuary, reliefs, and other treasures in the White City itself. On top of that, there was the half billion dollars’ worth of art and antiquities in Broadbent’s tomb. He would bring the Codex out with some of the lighter stuff and finance his return with the proceeds. Yes, he would definitely be back. There were billions to be made in the White City. Billions.

  He felt into his musette bag, fondled a cigar, and with regret allowed it to remain undisturbed. It would not do for them to smell cigar smoke.

  One had to make certain sacrifices.

  68

  The four brothers stood rooted to the ground, staring into the rectangle of darkness. They could not move, they could not speak. The seconds ticked on into minutes as the flow of foul air ebbed. No one made a move to go inside the tomb. No one wanted to see what horror lay within.

  And then there was a sound: a cough. And another: the shuffle of a foot.

  They were paralyzed, mute with anticipation.

  Another shuffle. Tom knew it then: Their father was alive. He was coming out of the tomb. Still Tom could not move, and neither could the others. Just as the tension became unbearable, in the center of the black rectangle, a ghostly face began to materialize. Another shambling step, and now an apparition appeared in the gloom. Another step brought the figure into reality.

  He was almost more horrifying than a corpse. The figure halted before them unsteadily, blinking his eyes. He was stark naked, shrunken, stooped, filthy, cadaverous, smelling like death itself. Snot ran from his nose; his mouth hung open like a madman’s. He blinked, sniffed, blinked again in the dawn light, his colorless eyes vacant, uncomprehending.

  Maxwell Broadbent.

  The seconds ticked by, and still they remained rooted to the ground, speechless.

  Broadbent stared at them, one eye twitching. He blinked again and straightened up. The hollow eyes, sunken in great dark pools of flesh, were darting from each of their faces to the next. He took a long, noisy breath.

  No matter how much he wanted to, Tom could not move or speak. He stared as their father straightened up a bit more. The eyes roved once again across their faces, more penetrating. He coughed, the mouth worked a bit, but no sound came. Broadbent raised a trembling hand, and finally a cracked sound came from his lips, They leaned forward, straining to understand.

  Broadbent cleared his throat, rumbled, and took a step closer. He inhaled again and finally spoke:

  “What the hell took you so long?”

  It roared out, ringing off the cliffs, echoing back out of the tomb. The spell was broken. It was their old father, there in the flesh after all. Tom and the others rushed forward and embraced the old man. He gripped them fiercely, all at once and then each one in turn, his arms surprisingly strong.

  After a long moment Maxwell Broadbent stepped back. He seemed to have expanded to his usual size.

  Jesus Christ,” he said, wiping his face. “Jesus, Jesus Christ.”

  They all looked at him, unsure how to respond.

  The old man shook his great gray head. “Christ almighty, I’m glad you’re here. God, I must stink. Look at me. I’m a mess. Naked, filthy, revolting!”

  “Not at all,” said Philip. “Here, let me give you this.” He pulled off his shirt.

  “Thank you, Philip.” Maxwell put on Philip’s shirt and buttoned it up, his fingers fumbling clumsily. “Who does your laundry? This shirt is a disgrace.” He attempted a laugh and ended up coughing
.

  When Philip began taking off his pants, Broadbent held up a large hand. “I’m not going to strip my own sons.”

  “Father—”

  “They buried me naked. I’m used to it.”

  Borabay reached into his palm-leaf pack and pulled out a long piece of decorated cloth. “You wear this.”

  “Going native, am I?” Broadbent awkwardly fitted it around his waist. “How do you tie it up?”

  Borabay helped him tie it around his waist with a knotted hemp cord.

  The old man knotted it and stood there, saying nothing. Nobody knew what to say next.

  “Thank God you’re alive,” said Vernon.

  “At first I wasn’t so sure myself,” Broadbent said. “For a while there I thought I’d died and gone to hell.”

  “What, you? The old atheist now believing in hell?” said Philip.

  He looked up at Philip, smiled, and shook his head. “So much has changed.”

  “Don’t tell me you found God.”

  Broadbent wagged his head and clapped a hand on Philip’s shoulder. He gave it an affectionate shake. “Good to see you, son.”

  He turned to Vernon. “And you, too, Vernon.” He looked around, turning his crinkly blue eyes on each of them. “Tom, Vernon, Philip, Borabay—I’m overwhelmed.” He placed a hand on each of their heads in turn. “You made it. You found me. My food and water were almost gone. I could only have lasted a day or two more. You’ve given me a second chance. I don’t deserve it but I’m going to take it. I did a lot of thinking in that dark tomb ...”

  He looked up and out over the purple sea of mountains and the golden sky, straightened up, and inhaled.

  “Are you okay?” Vernon asked.

  “If it’s the cancer you’re talking about, I’m sure it’s still there—just hasn’t kicked in yet. I’ve still got a couple of months. The son of a bitch got into my brain—I never told you that. But so far, so good: I feel great.” He looked around. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”