“And it will all be here in the morning!” Admiral Vanderbilt’s fatherly charm then kicks in. “Your soldiers have enough weapons to invade a small country.” He points to them and they nod back. Next, he points into another corner stocked with foodstuffs. “And there is enough food and water for a colony of hibernating bears to make it through the winter.”
For this night and those still to come, the Admiral will lock my eight men (dressed in combat fatigues), the five codices, and the ‘recovered’ gem inside the CIC. This room near impenetrable and guarded by those I trust most – aside for the translations, I have little to worry about. I sneak a quick glance at my Patek Philippe; it is now close to 2330 hours.
We absolutely hate this, but agree – it has been a long day. But to show our displeasure, we leave the CIC single file and with our heads down. Five little ones told they would receive no presents for Christmas could not have owned firmer pouts.
Admiral Vanderbilt escorts me back to my barracks in one direction and the four scientists wander off in the other. Desperate to get to sleep so I can rise early to begin, I hastily bid him goodnight.
Alone and in proper nightclothes, I walk by the safe that holds my newly found jewel. A maddening moment suddenly sweeps over me … as if it calls to me. I open the vault door, remove the blood red jewel, and admire it in my open palm. Aside for its thin necklace, it appears the exact same as its twin I have owned for many years. In my mind, however, I feel as if it is wholly different. The same weight, texture, and color – I sense this one owns a ‘heartbeat’ I cannot feel, but am sure exists. After closing the safe door, I walk to my bed and lay atop it. The crimson gem clutched tight and its thin necklace wrapped around my hand, I close my eyes. As I rub its hard edges, this brings about a peace I have not felt since arriving in Antarctica. A peace my whispering lips pray will last the night….
*****
Rolling prairies of tall grasses that appear as if painted in swirls of gold and copper run as far as the eye can see. Swathes of purple wildflowers dot these open fields bathed in sunlight. Only a great mountain range and massive body of dark blue water to the south stops the plains from wrapping itself around the world. This sea splits the mountain range into two equally massive uplifts of rock and stone. High above, a cloudless sky dyes the heavens in the dreamiest of blue hues. The sun rises in the east, it is light, then the sky grows darker and the sun sets in the west. This rising and setting of the sun repeats itself many times.
As if time itself slows down, the sun rises more leisurely the next time it does so. The snow-capped mountains towering behind them, five noble figures make their way onto the spacious field. They soon gather close to one another. For the most part, only these five beings can now be seen. In a straight line from left to right and facing the same direction: a mighty Gryphon, an elegant Mermaid using the bottom third of her tail pressed against the ground to keep upright, a cloaked Sapien woman, a brawny Arachna Majora, and a proud Centaur. They look pleased, convey authority, and dress splendidly. Each obviously the ruler of his or her respective nation, the Centaur wears a decorative headpiece while the other four wear mighty crowns.
The rippling Gryphon King exudes a savage power, yet owns a lion’s face ending with a beak that knows wisdom. Pinned to his sides are massive wings whose feathers possess several bold colors. The Mermaid Queen is positively stunning. She owns flowing long red hair and emeralds for eyes so green they appear to glow. Her skin is not white as is the Sapien’s, but of a very light blue. This skin tone does not lessen, but instead magnifies her magnificence.
The Sapien Queen is pretty, but nowhere near as striking as the Mermaid Queen. Although a coal black hood covers most of her dark hair, smoky grey eyes that look ready to cast a spell on all in their sight peek through.
The Arachna King stands nearly as tall as the Centaur. The thick hair visible under his blackened armor is a fiery red and the parts around his mouth are bright orange. The world around him reflects off two massive eyes set between six smaller ones. With both a white hide for horse parts and white skin, the fair-haired, bearded Centaur is at the same time rugged and handsome. His hazel eyes are of a learned being, but their fiery glint suggests a temper as well.
From the thin gold chain around the Sapien Queen’s neck hangs a pendent. Set in this pendent is a jewel in the shape of a perfect sphere. To her obvious delight, this gem now gives off a brilliant red glow. The sun beginning to travel along its downward path, this splendid scene turns gruesome.
Each sovereign – aside from the Sapien – is suddenly under attack from many foes just out of view. Only the strikes of enemy weapons from many directions can be seen. The Sapien Queen does nothing. She just watches and waits as if unaware of the chaos all around … or in league with it. The first to fall is the Centaur, then the Arachna Majora, then the Mermaid, and finally the Gryphon. The promise of the coming sunset now casts an orange shadow upon the tallest peaks of the mountains set behind the carnage.
The moon moments away from dismissing the sun, only the Sapien Queen still stands. Satisfied and confident, with no warning, her smug smirk twists into a fearful frown. The gem attached to her necklace still glows, but its crimson color is so dark that it appears closer to pitch black than red. The sun just a touch away from setting, the queen too comes under attack from what appears to be all sides. Sparkling dust flying about the air and frantic hands making arcs in the sky to cast spells – this is not enough. Just like the others, the Sapien Queen falls to the ground dead and the jewel sitting atop her lifeless robes shows a light no more.
Only moments after, night comes. Another sunrise, this time the sun does not shine bright, but is of a dull grey. In the form of massive rains, tears shed in mourning plunge from the heavens. As if melting into the grasses, the scarlet gem, its necklace, and the bodies of the dead rulers fade away. The sun swiftly sets and dark comes once more, but no stars twinkle brightly in the sky on this night or for the next two. Although no more living creatures are in view … this is not the end.
The rising and setting sun having repeated twice more; on the third cycle, it sets into its highest point in the sky and is still. It now burns so brightly as to be near blinding. Deluges of rain that fell unabated for three straight days are no more.
A single Sapien wanders onto the field – a field that is now somehow dry. Dressed in the clothes of a commoner, this adult man is definitely neither a noble nor royalty. He looks across the plain. Next, he shifts his gaze to the mountains and then to the sky. Then, looking directly into the depths of my mind, the man motions to join him. But his invite is not for me, it is for others. A young woman walks onto the field. Then comes another and another – these are children.
They next appear in groups, small and large, of both genders and all ages. Their skin tones are of every shade and color. Dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of them emerge as if from nowhere, yet everywhere, and explode onto the open grasslands. Many now run not only through the open fields, but toward the mountains and into the sea. They climb upon rocks, pick wildflowers, and frolic in the foaming surf. Curiously, not one wears shoes of any kind. The men laugh, the women dance, and the young ones filled with joy sing, skip, and jump all around them.
As this gleeful scene fades out of sight, a loud whisper in a haggish voice comes next:
“Remember.…”
A little time passes, then again, this single, slowly spoken word:
“Remember.…”
The third time nothing like the first two, each syllable tears through the darkness as if swirling wisps of frost:
“RE – MEM – BER….”
*****
With a sharp scream, I sit up in my bed. The chilled fog of fear shows itself with each gulped gasp for breath. The room is freezing, yet sweat drenches my nightclothes. Curiously, the gem I still hold offers my body its only touch of warmth.
I leap out of bed and stammer toward the safe. I open its door and again look down in awe at the
red jewel. As if it knows I am about to lock it away – it resists. Thoughts burrow into my mind as if begging me not to. These thoughts suggest that I am the master the gem has sought for millennia; that the gem will grieve if not by my side.
Je sais que je suis bien sur mon chemin, mais Bon Dieu! Je suis trop jeune pour être aussi fou![9]
Dumped into third-world prisons a few times, loaded guns pointed at my head many more – fear has never gripped me as tightly as it does now. In my possession the most brilliant five codices on the planet, on the cusp of a discovery that promises to reshape history, this gem in hand with a great power I struggle mightily to understand – intrigue has never so thoroughly captured both my heart and soul.
The image of the fifth codex suddenly overtakes my mind. I set the gem in its safe and hurriedly close the door. The moment the safe door locks, a brief but terrible pain tears through me. I do not want to lock the jewel away, to remove it from my sight, but for now, this is best.
I throw on some clothes, wrap my mussed up hair in a sloppy chignon, snag my darkened glasses, and more run through the barracks door than step through it. No time to calm my racing heart, no time to set still my spinning mind….
There is work to be done.
Chapter Nine
FOUND IN TRANSLATION
The hopeful morning of March 4th has bled into the grueling evening hours of March 5th. To this point, we have made little progress concerning a translation. To our surprise, the Sapien Codex utilizes all three of the languages I had previously identified. Its ancient authors scribed a group of copper plates in one language, then another group in a second language, then a final group in the third. For the time being, we do not know what to make of this.
With their three-dimensional scanners, Drs. Leitz, Ravensdale, and Korzhak tirelessly scan the copper plates from the Sapien Codex into my computers. To scan each plate is no simple matter as it takes a good bit of time and precise effort to do so. As for the other four codices, I had already scanned their copper plates years ago. My computers work to find phrases from one codex that match up with others in the Sapien Codex, but this happens rarely. Now near the end of this second day of dutiful work, we have discovered barely sixty new words.
“And that is the last plate to scan!” Victor’s jolly spirit masks a shared anxiousness; both of us are dying to know what the codices say.
Copper plates lay scattered across the marble table; somehow, they are still in order. At least I think they are. With a deep sigh, I thank my three helpers, but the frustration in my voice is obvious. Dr. Saddlebirch spins around in his chair and nods his agreement. We are not doing well.
“However,” Chance says with a sudden cheeriness as he leaps from his chair, “I think I have found something of interest. Two things actually.” He carries a copper plate in each hand and sets both on the marble table next to where the rest of us stand. Next, he pulls a digital tablet close and props it up between the two plates.
“Okay, y’all, so far we have guessed that each block of assorted hieroglyphs and the scripts surrounding them are what we call a paragraph. In some cases, there are only a few glyphs, in other cases a bunch of em’. These blocks in the shape of a rectangle – dozens of which are on each plate – script is always wrapped around glyphs like a border no matter what, right?”
I nod my head for both myself and, as they are not linguists, the other three.
“Alistair, please come to my left side,” Saddlebirch says. “Alfred, to my right.”
Both do as told. Dr. Korzhak and I now across from the three scientists on the other side of the table, we lean over it. Dr. Ravensdale stands in front of the copper plate on the cowboy’s left, my right. Dr. Leitz just the opposite, he stands in front of the other copper plate on Chance’s right, my left.
“We won’t know for sure,” he continues, “until we decipher more, but I think two hunches are a good bet. For the first one, let’s start with you, Alfred.” He points to a spot on the plate with his finger. Dr. Leitz moves his finger to the same spot. “With eight glyphs and the script around them, see these scripts here?”
“Yes, I see them,” Alfred answers.
The rest of us nod. Saddlebirch then moves his finger slightly.
“Now, take a good look at this symbol. It looks a lot like a group of asterisks. They sit at the bottom left corner of the rectangle – a paragraph – and the script comes after. Does everyone see this?”
“Yes,” we reply to our teacher as if a chorus. To show greater interest, we all move even closer to each other.
“Okay, bottom left. Let’s remember that. Moving over to mine here on the digital tablet,” he zooms into a single rectangle and points to one of its corners, “the symbol on mine sits at the top left corner and the script bordering the glyphs comes after it as well. We have two different positions for this symbol, but they mean nothing without the third. Now, let’s look at Alistair’s copper plate to find out why.”
Chance now points to the largest rectangle filled with script and glyphs. The room deadly silent, we barely breathe.
“This third symbol is on the bottom right corner and the script goes, well, backward I guess you could say.”
“To the past …” I whisper. “The symbol on the top left indicates the present and the bottom left is for the future! That’s brilliant, Dr. Saddlebirch!” As if I offer this compliment in thought only, he says nothing in return. He does not even bother to look up.
“But why are there scripts and hieroglyphs?” Victor asks.
Oh, but he can look up and acknowledge Korzhak!
“That brings us to my second hunch.”
Saddlebirch pauses. Perhaps he expects applause, but we are too entranced to offer it.
“I think those who wrote these used the glyphs only for what we refer to as nouns – people, places, things. Script is for everything else! Throughout each script that borders the glyphs are these tiny nicks.” He points out a few. “I am betting that each tells the reader when to pull a glyph, which is a noun – the reader does so – and then just keeps on reading the script. For this one, there are five tiny nicks and five glyphs. The counts are always the same in every block I have found.”
I had realized long ago that the tiny cuts scattered about script were for the placement of each glyph. What I had never considered, however, was that the glyphs could be nouns only.
“If so, that would be quite elegant, I think. It reminds me of books from the Middle Ages that have decorations and images about the text.”
“Illuminated manuscripts,” I suggest. Dr. Ravensdale nods his thanks and smiles.
“The hieroglyphs are beautiful,” Dr. Leitz breaks in, “but if they had script in addition to glyphs, then why continue to use glyphs at all? Help me out on this Dr., but hasn’t history shown a progression from these pictures to script in writing?”
“Hmmm … that is a good question,” Saddlebirch drawls. “You’re right.”
It is now my turn to contribute to the conversation. “Having stared at the Mermaid Codex for days at a time,” I announce confidently, “each plate is a work of art. As if written by beings who did not prize function over form, but rather wished to meld them together. Perhaps these ancients simply viewed the glyphs as we do now, that they are beautiful and did not wish to discard them. Although they could have moved to straight scripting, I believe they wished for their writings to be magnificent concerning not just the tales they told, but of how they appeared while telling them.”
“Maybe,” Chance returns dryly. Either he does not like my idea or, more likely, is not so happy I considered it first. “But if I am correct in how the texts relate to past, present, and future, then we are very, very lucky.”
“Well, of course,” Dr. Korzhak howls, “it will help tell us what they say!”
Saddlebirch chuckles and flashes us a smile the Cheshire Cat would envy.
“Well, yeah, sure. But look closely at the two plates. Where do you see these symbols
most?”
“The top left,” Alistair answers. “Of the ones I scanned, nearly all of them are in the present. So … what does this mean?”
“It means,” the beaming cowboy explains, “that those who scribed these plates did not simply retell history they had heard from others, but were there when it happened.”
*****
Dinner is next. Aside from Chance’s unending goofy grins for having made his first contribution to the group since arriving, it is rather uneventful. This discovery will certainly be helpful when it comes time to read the texts, but does not get us any closer to a true translation. The other scientists off to their barracks, after a shower, I return to the translation room around 2100.
Now far past midnight, two of my men do as I ask and pile up the still in order, but scattered about, copper plates. As they do this, I fritter about and pay little attention to them. Finally, I plant my bottom in an overstuffed sitting chair that faces the table about five meters away, prop a digital tablet against my pulled in knees, and bury my head in it. In truth, I really do not wish to gaze any longer at the copper plates atop the marble table.
What would be the point? They will just laugh at my failures right to my face if I do so.
My men finished and bidding me bonsoir, I curtly wave them farewell and continue doing, for the most part, nothing. After a few minutes, I let out a heavy sigh to ensure the soldiers standing watch in the CIC can hear how sorry I feel for myself. Next, I lower my knees and look straight ahead. The pure brilliance in the form of three equally sized stacks of copper plates my men had assembled do not laugh at me as I expect, but instead, simply offer their congratulations.
For the past four hours, I had expectedly discovered nothing new. Quite unexpectedly, I am suddenly on the cusp of discovering everything.
“Il ne peut pas être[10],” I gasp at the very welcome sight before me. I leap up and stand dumbfounded before the three stacks. I hurriedly look through the first few plates in each stack – yes, indeed; they are still in order and separated by each language. “Could they have been so brilliant and I so stupid!”
The Fifth Codex Page 8