by Joanne Pence
The connection felt deeper, stronger, than anything he had known before; perhaps because it had been so startlingly unexpected. And real. He would swear that to his dying day.
Why was he out here? Suddenly, he didn't know if he was awake or asleep, or if this was one of those dreams so vibrant that when you woke, you could scarcely believe it wasn’t real.
He sensed her again. Lady Hsieh. She called to him. Even as he argued with himself about the impossibility of what he heard, something drew him toward the kurgans, away from the camp, out into the open. He couldn't fight it. He turned toward the dig. To Lady Hsieh. He needed to see her again, to answer her call.
He rose as straight as he could, shoulders broad and squared, and forced his steps toward the dig.
The air remained thick and murky, the stars and moonlight dim. All road marks had been covered by a heavy layer of sand and dust that sucked and grabbed his boots.
Yet, he knew he headed in the right direction. She drew him to her, led him there. A dream, but not a dream. He pressed forward.
Another burst of wind and sand hit, and he pulled his scarf low to cover his face. Head bowed, he stumbled, blinded, and then slid down a steep embankment into nothingness.
Chapter 9
Paris
CHARLOTTE HAILED A TAXI to take her from Charles de Gaulle airport into the city.
The night before, in Jerusalem, as the wail of sirens filling the streets, she thought of the gunman who had appeared ready to shoot her as she drove Al-Dajani’s Mercedes. At the same moment, a police car sped by. The gunman faded into the darkness, and she drove away.
At the Tel Aviv-Jaffa airport, she purchased an El Al ticket to Paris. When living in Israel, she had always carried her passport, papers, and credit cards with her and had reverted to that system without thought. The few clothes, books, and toiletries back in her hotel room weren’t worth going after.
She went through the special internal security division, showing her U.S. Homeland Security credentials and weapon. She scarcely breathed until the plane left Israeli air space. Three men lay dead, and she feared security cameras had captured her leaving the parking lot in a victim's car. She had no idea how long it might take before the Israeli police identified her.
On the plane, she looked through the papers she had picked up from Al-Dajani's desk. Most of them were photocopies of ancient Egyptian Demotic script. She remembered a few of the consonant glyphs, but would need her books and dictionaries to make any sense of the writing. The only thing clear to her was a symbol drawn on a sheet all by itself:
Given Al-Dajani’s area of study, the symbol very likely had an alchemical connection. In alchemy large outer circles represented boundaries of energy fields, and the four elements that made up all matter were represented by triangles.
But she had no idea what the complete symbol with two vees and the solid circle above them represented.
The taxi brought her to the Latin Quarter. She got out at the Rue Saint Jacques, two blocks south of the Seine, and began walking. The Musée National du Moyen Age Thermes de Cluny with its flamboyant Gothic turreted walls and dormers with seashell motifs was located on the Place Paul-Painlevé.
She slowed to make a thorough scan of the area, then hurried to the Cluny. The medieval mansion housing the museum had been built originally for Benedictine abbots in the fifteenth century. In 1515 it became the residence of Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, and widow of Louis XII. The newly formed French republic confiscated in 1793, and turned it into a museum in the mid-nineteenth century.
She entered an open cobblestone courtyard with gargoyles peering down from beneath a stone parapet. At the museum entrance, she gave her name, and asked to see the curator, Pierre Bonnetieu, saying she needed to see him about a mutual friend, Mustafa Al-Dajani.
After a short wait, a pointy-faced woman led her up the stairs, past the rotunda which housed the six Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, the museum's most famous collection, to the administrative section.
Bonnetieu's office was paneled in dark wood covered with paintings and small tapestries. Shelves held fine pottery and figurines as well as leather bound first editions. The curator sat behind a massive inlaid mahogany desk. He wore an expensive but overly snug suit, as if refusing to admit his weight. His brightly florid face with sagging jowls spilled over a too-tight collar.
As he rose to greet her, he studied her face. “Miss Reed? You look familiar. I'm sorry, I can't quite place...”
Although her heart pounded, her stance remained stiff, devoid of expression. “Many years ago I met you through my husband, Dennis Levine.”
His eyebrows rose with recognition. She watched his expression shift as the full impact of the memory hit. “Dennis...oh, my. Yes, I do remember. I'm so sorry for your loss. He was a good man. A brilliant scholar.”
“Yes, thank you,” she murmured, then hurried on. “The reason I'm here may have something to do with what he had been investigating when he died.” She said no more, wanting to gauge his reaction to those words.
He showed no surprise. “Please sit.” He gestured toward the leather chair facing his desk. “May I offer you something to drink? A liqueur? Tea, perhaps?”
“No, thank you,” she said curtly, then added, “Mustafa Al-Dajani is dead.” The words were a sharp crack in the air.
His face drained of color.
She quietly relayed the details of her visit with Al-Dajani, and how he'd mentioned the possibility of danger. “He said that after speaking with you about the visit of Lionel Rempart, an American professor of anthropology, he began to piece together information, and that caused him to think about what Dennis investigated. Perhaps it had to do with alchemy. Do you know what he referred to?” she asked.
The Frenchman grew agitated as he thought about her words. “Non! Impossible! The American, he wanted to know about an old alchemical text. Nothing special; nothing dangerous! That is all. I showed him the information I had, and when he asked what the symbolism meant, I referred him to Mustafa who is the greatest scholar of alchemy in the world…or, so he was.” He placed his hand against his mouth and whispered, “Mon dieu! Mon ami!”
She waited while he composed himself. “Please, you must tell me what you know,” she said, her gaze hard.
He took a deep breath, his hands atop the desk, clasping and unclasping them. “Texts on alchemy are always written in symbolic, poetic language, impossible to understand. Mustafa and I learned that one book, and only one, existed which made everything understandable. We wanted it; we dreamed of finding it.”
Bonnetieu crossed to a wooden cabinet, and poured two glasses of Courvoisier. He handed one to Charlotte despite her earlier refusal.
“The book we looked for had once been owned by an alchemist who lived here in Paris in the fourteenth century. It was called The Book of Abraham the Jew. It is the text Professor Rempart asked about.”
She put down the drink. Her hand shook. “Did Dennis talk to you about that book as well?”
“He did.” He drained his glass. “I think it will be best if I show you, just as I did him. The book, you see, vanished centuries ago, if it every truly existed. Most people say it is merely apocryphal, and legends of its existence are simply that, mere legends.”
Their footsteps echoed loudly as Bonnetieu led Charlotte through dark, stone-covered medieval corridors filled with exhibits from the Middle Ages.
Bonnetieu unlocked the room with the Nicolas Flamel display. The space had a musty smell, the stone walls dank and cold. He switched on the lights. Several didn't come on at all, leaving the room heavily shadowed.
“No one paid any attention to this collection for years,” he said. “Periodically, there's a flurry of interest in Flamel, then it all dies down again. The last time was because of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, or the Sorcerer's Stone as you renamed it in the States. The book mentioned Nicolas Flamel, and people were shocked to learn there actually once liv
ed such a man. But, few are interested now, so we rarely bother to open up this display.”
The Flamel materials, tracings of engravings, stone sculptures, and a manuscript allegedly written by Nicolas Flamel himself, fit in a single glass case. Beside it were translations in a number of modern languages.
Bonnetieu waited patiently as Charlotte read.
Born around 1330, Flamel had been a bookseller and had a stall next to the Saint Jacques la Boucherie in Paris. Copyists and illuminators did their work at his house in the Rue de Marivaux. He married a slightly older widow named Perrenella. They had no children.
Flamel's quiet, happy life changed when a stranger in need of money came to him with a unique book to sell. He wrote:
…there fell into my hands for the sum of two florins, a guilded Book, very old and large. It was not of Paper, nor or Parchment, as other Books be, but was only made of delicate rinds (as it seemed unto me) of tender young trees. The cover of it was of brass, well bound, all engraven with letters, or strange figures; and for my part I think they might well be Greek Characters, or some such like ancient language….
Upon the first of the leaves, was written in great Capital Letters of Gold the words: Abraham the Jew, Prince, Priest, Levite, Astrologer, and Philosopher, to the Nation of the Jews, by the Wrath of God dispersed among the Gauls, sendeth Health.
Flamel concluded his description by writing:
After this it was filled with great execrations and curses (with this word Maranatha, which was often repeated there) against every person that should cast his eyes upon it, if he were not Sacrificer or Scribe.
Charlotte stopped reading. A chill came over her. “Maranatha….Mustafa said both Dennis and the professor, Lionel Rempart, used that word. Do you know what it means?”
“Ah, an interesting question,” Bonnetieu replied. “Saint Paul used it in the first Epistle to the Corinthians and currently it is interpreted to mean 'The Lord comes' or 'The Lord is coming.' However, he used it right after the word 'anathema,' a curse for damnation or excommunication. And since ancient Greek has no punctuation, in the past many kept the two words joined in their mind. As a result, anathema maranatha was believed to be the most extreme sort of curse, as in 'The Lord is coming to execute vengeance.' The word has now mostly lost its negative connotation, but in Flamel's time, it was a strong, horrible curse. I believe the book contained the warning if anyone not permitted to read it did so, they would be forever damned.”
Charlotte heard a quiver in his voice, as if he believed such nonsense.
Chapter 10
Idaho
LIONEL REMPART HADN’T said a word to the students after the guide left them. Instead he marched off in the direction he alone had determined. The others trailed behind, silent and fretful. Soon, they reached the powdery silt Nick Hoffman had warned against. They made an effort to climb it, but kept sliding back down. Even crawling on hands and knees, they reached a point where the loose soil and steep ground could no longer hold their weight.
Rempart, his pale skin red and perspiring from the effort and the sun, studied the topographical map once more, and every so often he took out another map. This one appeared to be hand-drawn, but he didn’t allow anyone else to inspect it. The more he referred to the two maps, the more nervous the students became. He led them through a stand of quaking aspen and pine, and then down a treacherous naked slope to a jagged canyon with talus and jumbled boulders.
By the time they reached the bottom, they were too exhausted and nervous to go on. The students spoke among themselves as they made camp. They had expected to hike two days before reaching the anthropological site, but now they wondered how far out of their way they had gone.
The next morning the group started out early. Hours later, past a grove of willows, they found a creek with crystal clear water flowing over rocks and white sand. Two men, rough and hard-looking, stood by a couple of beached orange rafts.
“Hey, there! What brings all you out here?” The man who spoke was a mountain. Everything about him was big, from the filthy, misshapen cowboy hat, to his wide, beefy shoulders, enormous belly, and thick legs. He wore a stained flannel shirt, heavy boots, dirt-crusted shapeless jeans, and wide belt. His companion was as skinny as the first man was fat. Similarly small eyes and bulbous vein-covered noses were surrounded by thick beards and hats pulled low. Each man held a can of beer.
Rempart answered the big stranger's question. “We were trying to get around a landslide on what’s called the Sheep Hill Trail and head northwest. Instead, we seem to have been forced south by the topography.” He held up his folded map as he spoke, as if to blame it for their troubles.
“Where you goin'?” The barrel-chested fellow asked as he and his skinny friend ambled toward the students.
Rempart clearly warred with himself before answering the question. He had kept an important fact from the guide and Melisse when they asked why he insisted on following his map. It was a secret, something he didn’t trust others to know about until he had succeeded in his quest. But since the map didn’t match what he saw on the ground, divulging the secret might mean the difference between finding the site or not. Finally, he said, “I'm trying to find a couple of pillars, tall and upright. I don’t know much about them. They’re probably made of wood. Have you ever seen anything like that out here?”
The river rats glanced at each other. “Why? What’s so special about them? Are they valuable?” the skinny one asked.
“Not of value to anyone but archeologists and anthropologists,” Rempart stated. “We're the latter. Any Tukudeka tribe artifacts around those pillars may be invaluable to the scholars of the area.”
The thin guy looked at the barrel-chested one. “Sounds like a lotta bull crap to me, Kyle.”
Big Kyle bellowed with laughter. “Yeah, me too, Buck.” His eyes narrowed as he looked over the professor. “Listen, man, we know the pillars. Double Needles, we call them.”
“You do? You know them?” Rempart could scarcely contain his excitement.
“Sure. But you're goin' way the hell out of your way. It'll take you over a day to walk to them. Why don't you use the creek?”
Again Rempart held out his all but useless map. “According to the map, they aren't near any creek, but miles inland to the north.”
“Map?” Skinny Buck shook his head. “I never heard of no map of the Double Needles area. This whole wilderness is crisscrossed with creeks and streams that don't show up on no map, ones that only have water part of the year, flood you out, and then go bone dry. But this here creek is a big one. It'll take you right near the Needles' front door. If you're sure that's where you're wantin' to go.”
“They got a rep-u-ta-tion of being kinda hard to find.” Big Kyle gave a knowing glance at his companion. Skinny Buck nodded.
“It's all right,” Rempart said. “We're scientists.”
No, we're not! Devlin wanted to shout. He had a bad feeling about this. Didn't Rempart have the brains not to trust those two?
“Ah.” The two men nodded at each other as if Rempart's words explained everything.
“Now, you need to know,” Big Kyle added, “nobody much goes to that area. You head out there and get yourself hurt, it's not gonna be good.”
“I understand.” Rempart beamed. “We'll be just fine, but if you could tell us how to get there—”
“Professor,” Melisse warned, but he ignored her.
Big Kyle folded ham-like arms. “Tell you what, I'm Big Kyle Barnes, and this here's Skinny Buck Jewel. We worked this area all our lives, and I'll tell you, the direction you were headed, the mountains and cliffs would be too steep for you and these kids. If someone said they'd take you overland to the Needles you been snookered. It happens out these parts. Don't trust nobody. That's the safest way. But maybe we can help.”
“You're right, Kyle.” Skinny Buck said earnestly, then smiled at the group. His teeth were black from decay. “We ain't doing much but sittin' on our asses waiting 'til
Saturday when we got a group for a raftin' trip down on the Salmon. If you'd like, we'll take you close as we can get on this here creek. It'll be easy. This creek's child play to float.”
“I don't think so.” Rempart said with regret. “The university has more time than money. We have no authorization—”
“We could get you close to those twin pillars in just about ninety minutes.” Big Kyle's tone sounded smooth, encouraging. “It's an hour's walk from there, but it'll shave a day off your trip. You're talking some real rough country.”
“A day?” Rempart was aghast. “It'll take another day? We've already wasted a day trying to get around the landslide. How much does it cost to hire you?”
Big Kyle scratched his beard and thought a moment. “I'll take you for only fifty each. That's a cut rate, believe me.”
Rempart looked over his students. “Can't do it.”
“You sure?” Big Kyle scrounged through a duffle bag for an old flyer advertising their service and handed it to Rempart.
The students gathered near. The grimy, wrinkled flyer looked like it had been printed off a Word file on someone's computer:
White water rafting on the Salmon River!!
River of No Return thrills, chills, and no spills!!
Forty-years of combined experience with
Big Kyle Barnes and Skinny Buck Jewel!!
“I don't reckon you want to walk through the forests around here,” Big Kyle added. “There's some strange things in them.”
“Oh?” Rempart said.
“I got an idea,” Big Kyle said as he looked over the group. “Since you people are involved with ed-u-ca-shun, and that's a good thing, and since me and Buck are leavin' anyways, we'll take you for only twenty-five each. But no less.”
Rempart and the students got together and emptied their wallets. A quick counting and sharing of funds, and they turned up enough money to get away from here and save a day's travel besides.