The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 2

by Christopher Cartwright

  Zara swore loudly. She’d never been any good at those games. She picked up the image and simply read it out loud once more. There were two letters missing. The first was most likely a “C” to form the word Conceived. The second was possibly an “O” to form the word Out. It could also be a “B” or “H,” – however But and Hut didn’t make much sense. Now that she looked at the quatrain, the whole damn thing barely made any logical sense. The lines were strangely worded, giving it the appearance of some sort of attempt at poetry and rhymes by a school student rather than a great Seer and master of the languages.

  She stopped. Grinned widely and then read only the words on the left hand side.

  Only.

  Conceived.

  To.

  Out.

  Christ! It’s a vertical word – OCTO! The Latin word for eight. She highlighted the letters to make sense, incorporating the slight dent in the word CODE – X, so that it looked like this:

  Only the Chosen,

  Conceived with one faith and born on the day of truth may open;

  To see the future, the correct date must be selected, or poison will be the next

  Out, to run free like nine fires and flood the CODE-X

  Along the left-hand side spells the Latin word OCTO – which means eight. The final word spells codex which is book in Latin, but also Code – X, which means the number ten.

  So we now know he wants the number eight and the number ten included in the code. Great, so now all I need is to work out all the other numbers…

  Begins with 8

  Ends in 10?

  Zara ran her hands along the rest of the chest as she examined it looking for any hints or clues which would shed some light on the cryptic message. There were a series of seven latches on the left-hand side. Each with a separate pictograph formed by a protruding piece of metal to make an ornamental dial. She carefully turned the first one, and watched as it rotated on an axis containing the numbers zero to nine in modern numerals. Zara carefully returned the dial to zero where it had begun.

  Seven dials in total. Starting with the furthest along the right-hand side of the box was the image of a staff, followed by the heel bone, coiled rope, lotus flower, pointing finger, tadpole, and finally the astonished man. They were ancient Egyptian numerals and at a guess, by turning the dial she was increasing the number of the matching images. Each dial increased the number by a factor of ten.

  For example, three staff represented three; three heel bones represented thirty; three coiled ropes represented three hundred, and so forth. But how and why, for that matter, Nostradamus would have chosen to use ancient Egyptian numerals for his blood codex was beyond her. He was known to write his more scholarly verses in Latin, his simple rhymes in French and Italian – but she’d never heard of him writing in ancient Egyptian.

  She suddenly began to laugh. Shaking her head, she tried to find an explanation for the impossible. The Rosetta Stone wasn’t found in Egypt until 1799 and Jean-Francois Champollion didn’t successfully translate it until 1822. All in total, it was almost two and a half centuries after Nostradamus wrote the numbers for the intricate locking mechanism, which meant the brass chest was either a fake, had been built by someone who knew how to write in ancient Egyptian, or Nostradamus really did see the future.

  Zara stared at the ancient Egyptian numbers again. She slowly ran her fingers along the locking mechanisms, and over the ornamental dials, trying to see how the chest remained secure after all these years. Whoever built the chest had been a true craftsman. In a time long before computers, when braziers were masters, the chest had been crafted so perfectly that it was impossible to see where the sections joined. Like a complex jigsaw puzzle, everything locked together on its own.

  She took out an electronic notepad and drew each of the seven Egyptian symbols. Zara saved the images so she could copy and paste them at her discretion. Zara tried a dozen or so combinations trying to see if any triggered some sort of higher order, gut instinct of hers.

  Nothing was standing out to her. She shook her head, chiding herself for giving it so many attempts. The chance of randomly selecting the correct series of images was astronomical. She closed the application, and opened another. This one was an English to ancient Egyptian translator.

  Time to take a new approach…

  She began entering significant dates into the English to Ancient Egyptian translator. She tried Nostradamus’s birthday, using the European style of writing dates – 14/12/15. It converted to 141215, which was represented in Ancient Egyptian by the image of one astonished man, followed by, four tadpoles, one pointing finger, two lotus flowers, one coiled rope and five heel bones. The beginning and ending numbers didn’t match. She tried the day he died – 2/7/15, but had the same problem. She tried the date of the supposed expedition. Still nothing.

  Zara stopped and stared at the ancient Egyptian numbers. A few minutes passed before she got another lead. The ancient Egyptians wrote numbers from right to left – meaning the number she was looking for began with ten and ended in eight, not the other way around.

  Zara retried the original numbers and found they were all off somehow. She added another twenty odd numbers to the list, which might have coincided with the quatrain, but all failed to match the requirement of beginning with ten and ending with eight. Last, Zara tried one number she was certain had nothing to do with Nostradamus.

  She smiled as she typed the numbers into the English to Ancient Egyptian calculator. It was stupid trying, but she decided she must anyway – if only to appease her late father. She then pressed enter and the calculator displayed an image she’d seen many times before.

  No, that can’t be possible.

  It was an image she’d seen a thousand times before. She opened the top buttons of her shirt. Slowly and tentatively, as though frightened by what she might discover, and removed a medallion from where it hung between her small breasts. She stared at it for a moment. A family history, so incredible, and so fanciful that she was certain it was all a lie.

  On one side the bronze medallion depicted an island that no longer existed – or at least didn’t on any navigational map, satellite images, or maritime journal she’d ever seen. While on the other side, were a series of pictographs depicting ancient Egyptian numerals.

  They included one pointing finger, followed by two coiled ropes, seven heel bones, and eight staff. Zara had often stared at it without ever really seeing what it meant. Converted to English, the pictograph represented the numbers 10.2.78.

  Her own date of birth.

  Chapter Five

  The sound of Zara banging startled Adebowale into a sudden state of consciousness. His chest felt tight, and his heart pounded. It was an uncomfortable sensation that was becoming increasingly familiar to him. He felt like he’d just run a sprint for his life. Sweat beads littered his skin, but he felt cold inside.

  He’d had another vision.

  It was a mixture between a nightmare and a wonderful dream. He wasn’t quite asleep, but nowhere near awake. Like a micro sleep, lasting no more than a few seconds, the dream felt like it had spanned hours of not-yet-lived memories in his mind. The visions were bombarding him with a much greater frequency these days. It was as though they were telling him the time was near. His future memories had become more frequent, vivid and intense – and no less painful than the first time he’d experienced them.

  Adebowale had seen his death for as long as he could remember. It was one of the first memories of his life and it took him until he was five before he was able to make any sense of it. He didn’t complain about it. After all, he was to have a good life. Not necessarily a long life, but longer than some. Besides, his life would have meaning and purpose beyond that which most men could imagine.

  He could have tried to avoid his death, as so many try to do. Adebowale, if he really wanted to avoid it, could simply choose not to return to his homeland. The land that was taken from his father nearly thirty years ago when he was just t
hree years old. He certainly didn’t have any desire to return. And much less desire to be killed in response, but that’s what he was going to do, and that was how he was going to die.

  There was no point trying to change it. He knew the future was set firmly in the books of time, and he could no more change it than he could the past. Adebowale wondered if he could truly be so cruel as to play the part he had been given in this abhorrent prophecy. He looked at his men celebrating in the distance. They were weak, barely more than prisoners in their own kingdom, forced to work for a foreigner, but they looked happy, and he was about to watch that happiness be taken away.

  Adebowale stood guard at her tent. He looked up at the clear sky. The stars glowed bright, unhindered by any cloud. That much didn’t match up with his vision, but he was certain tonight was the night. He looked at the men who’d followed him. He considered if his part in the prophecy was really true. The thought frightened him, as much as he longed for it.

  He grinned viciously. Yes. If the rest of the prophecy came to fruition, he would commit to play his part – as the betrayer.

  Chapter Six

  Zara tried to consider any possible explanation for the coincidence. The chance it was entirely random was mathematically so astronomical as to make it impossible. There were two likely explanations she figured.

  10.2.78 wasn’t her real date of birth. Her father had simply registered her as that so she would one day work out the image in the medallion and believe the prophecy. Or the medallion was a fake. Something her father had contrived to make her believe in the prophecy. There was a third possibility, but it was so unlikely she refused to even entertain the thought: the prophecy was true, and Nostradamus could indeed see the future.

  She stared at the number again trying to see a reason her own date of birth didn’t fit the equation. Zara wrote down her full date of birth on the top of her work desk. Next to it she copied the exact number found on the bronze medallion.

  10.2.1978

  10.2.78

  She stared again. Tapping the back of her pencil on the wooden desk next to the two numbers, frustrated, as though the answer was staring right back at her and she was just being too stupid to see it.

  The numbers 19 and nine were missing. Zara nearly ignored the relevance of the two missing numbers. After all, it wasn’t unusual to leave out the 19 part of 1978. Everyone knows you’re either born in the 1900s or 2000s. That is, everyone except Nostradamus. He wouldn’t have been so careless to leave out two numbers which were ultimately required to make up the correct date of birth.

  So she was wrong. Her birthday didn’t match the image on the medallion and neither did it equate to the number found in the quatrain Nostradamus had left her. If Nostradamus had meant her date of birth, he would have expressly accounted for it in the quatrain.

  She read the original, unadulterated message from the top of the brass chest again.

  Only the Chosen,

  onceived with one faith and born on the day of truth may open;

  To see the future, the correct date must be selected, or poison will be the next

  ut, to run free like nine fires and flood the CODEX

  It wasn’t until she read it through for a third time that she saw the numbers had been right in front of her all along. She underlined the word, one and nine from the quatrain. Nostradamus had written them on the second and fourth prophetic verse. The same two lines which had letters missing.

  She hit the table in glee. Her heart pounded and she wanted to scream. Nostradamus was telling her to remove the 19 from the equation. So he told her the first number would be a ten, the last number would be an eight, the number nineteen would be missing – what about the two and the seven?

  Zara felt like it was all becoming clear to her. Could the two represent the amount of letters missing? The thought seemed more like she was clutching at straws. Even if it did account for the two, what about the seven?

  She stepped towards the brass chest. She ran her hands over each intricately carved, ornamental ancient Egyptian dial. The astonished man. Tadpole. Pointing finger. Lotus flower. Coil of rope. Heel bone. Staff –

  Sweet Jesus! There’s seven dials!

  10278 – The entire series of numbers had been accounted for. Her numbers. The date of her birth. Zara shook her head. I don’t believe I’m trying this.

  She carefully entered her date of birth into the blood codex and stared at the number, 10.2.78 – finding it difficult to find a reason for the impossible coincidence. She took in a deep breath and pressed the final two activation numbers. She held her breath as nothing happened.

  The sound of two locked seals popping could be heard, followed by the release of liquid running through tiny tubes inside.

  Zara swore. Because she’d gotten it all wrong. The poison was being released and the book of Nostradamus was about to be destroyed.

  Chapter Seven

  Zara looked at the solid lid, running her hands along the sealed edges and frantically searching for some means of stopping the damaging process. It was impossible. The process had begun and if Nostradamus had been such an admirer of Leonardo Da Vinci’s blood codex as she was led to believe, the destruction process had now commenced.

  A lifetime of work destroyed in minutes!

  The sound of flowing liquid finally stopped. Zara continued to search for a way to enter the brass chest. Hoping there was at least some means of salvaging some of the remaining works of Nostradamus.

  The lid suddenly became loose and no longer secured by whatever internal locking mechanism had previously held it. She slowly exhaled and removed the sealed lid. Inside were two large brass containers with a liquid inside. She quickly withdrew both of them after inverting and carefully standing each one upright on the floor beside her. A copper tube ran from the lid to the inside of a second sealed container. By setting the dials to the right place earlier, she’d moved an intricate piece of plumbing that now blocked the passage of the ink, making it impossible to send the ink into the book. After removing the two bottles of ink, she examined the locking mechanism. If she’d turned the dials in the opposite direction, the contents would have spilled inside the second chest. The released liquid changed the pressure inside the chest – releasing the hydrogen bond.

  She removed the locking mechanism and poured the contents of the first container into a bucket. The air smelled acrid, and toxic. A moment later a hole in the wooden bucket formed and the strong acid continued to burn. Zara guessed sulfuric acid, but as an archeologist and not a chemical engineer, it was nothing more than a guess.

  Zara sighed. Thankful she’d picked the correct combination to enter into the old chest. She returned to the remaining case. This one was much smaller, and sat in the middle of the original brass one. It was made from iron and had been wrapped with an oiled cloth to ensure it survived. She carefully removed the smaller container from the latches which held it in place. Two small holes remained where the other end of the copper pipes would have potentially spilled the strong acid inside, destroying the book she hoped to find.

  She carefully unwrapped the oiled cloth and examined the sealed box. The metal looked in good condition. It was sealed so perfectly she could barely identify the slight dip where the two sides of the container came together. The box had no ornamental markings, scratches, or damages. It looked like it had been put together for this specific purpose and then locked away for the ages.

  A single small placard made of wood was firmly imbedded into the top of the container to form an intricate handle. It had the simple words,

  Here’s the proof you’re looking for.

  Zara smiled again and wondered if someone was somehow playing the most intricate hoax on her. Or could Nostradamus have really had the foresight to know she needed proof of the date. She patiently removed the piece of wood and placed it in a sealed piece of plastic and put that in her side pocket. She would have the wood carbon dated when she got the book secured and in the lab. The buyer would be
looking for proof before payment.

  Zara turned the box over in her hands. It weighed around twenty pounds. On the opposite side, were four turning mechanisms. Each one numbered from one to nine. She thought back to her high school math class. A lesson in permutations and combinations told her the four digit code could be anything between 0000 to 9999, hence 10,000 combinations. This is going to take a long time. God how she hated math in school.

  It will be four centuries before you open;

  And by then I will be long removed from this world –

  So by then you will see the year I was overcome by dropsy;

  While others before you shall never know.

  Zara read the second quatrain and grinned. It was the sort of thing Michel De Nostradame was known for. The type of game he played. The answer was to place the date of his death into the code. There was no way he’d know he was going to die then, unless he really did see the future – which she was certain he didn’t.

  She adjusted the numbers until the code read, 1566 – the year Nostradamus had died.

  The latch unhinged and the damned box opened. Zara wondered for a moment whether Nostradamus, keen to perpetuate his myth after his death had committed suicide in 1566 for this specific purpose.

  She carefully opened the box. Inside was a relatively small codex. She opened the first page. It was made of paper, and bound by thick leather to form rigid hand-bound, leather codices. She read the first sentence. Re-read it again and sat down and swore. Because the first page of the codex was addressed to her, and stamped with a wax seal containing today’s date.

  Which meant everything she believed was wrong – the prophecy was true.

  Chapter Eight

  Zara gently bit the top edge of her lip, a nervous habit she’d developed as a child, but almost never did anymore. She started at the beginning and read the first full page of the Book of Nostradamus. If the stories were to be believed, which she doubted, this was the life’s work of the master seer.