by Maggy Diak
***
We exchanged glances. “I don't understand,” said Maurice, drawing his eyebrows together in a frown. “It seems as if he tried to scare her, to dissuade her from her intention to become the new ruler.”
“What a change,” I said, remembering the conversation between Isabelle and Otrin that I had read when visiting the Head of the Sorbonne. “First he makes every effort to prove to her that she is the one who is chosen to be the ruler, and then this! Why, Maurice? Because he finally sees that she is expecting the impossible?”
“She’s not expecting the impossible and the Professor knows it. I don’t know why he tries to dissuade her from the throne, but I know he won’t succeed. Isabelle firmly believes in her future role as the European ruler and will do anything to make him help her.”
“Everything means threatening him with the razor?”
“If it is necessary.”
When turning the Otrin’s piece of paper in my hands, I suddenly noticed some letters at the edge of the paper, written nearly invisibly.
I neared it to my eyes. The letters were SPL! SPL! SPL!
“What, the hell, is that?”
Maurice bent over my shoulder.
“The code,” he cried out excitedly. “The code!”
“What code?”
“The one which will awake our DNA! We have to vibrate the sounds of the letters!”
I turned around and my look stopped him. After a while, a thought came to my mind. It was not a code for DNA, of that I was sure, but it still might be a code, a message written in …
I turned to Maurice who sullenly stared out the window.
“Maurice, how does it go, you know, Otrin mentioned it here … wait, wait, I’ll find it, it’s also written in Da Vinci’s Code … well …the thing with letters … Something like replacing letters.“
He slowly turned to me. “Atbash? Is that what you have in mind?” There were still traces of sullenness in his voice.
“Yes, exactly! I want you to decipher these letters using Da Vince’s Code.”
“Da Vince’s code is a piracy. That’s what Professor says,” he exclaimed. “It should be called the Merovingian Code, not Da Vince’s. Besides, it’s not complete. In addition, it’s a forgery of an old Egyptian Code AS-AR (meaning OZIRIS)–NEFER-MARNAS. Da Vince’s Code is based on the presumption that John is Mary Magdalene. However, it does not take into account Rudolf Steiner’s discovery, which proves that John is, in fact, Lazar. LAZAR- MAGDALENE-JOHN. Do you see what we get by taking into account Steiner? A trinity! A three layered person, if you want! One person composed of three …”
Now that was one drop too many!
“Damn, Maurice, if you do not stop talking about trinities and other stuff, I’ll throw you out the window! Decipher these three letters! That’s all I want!”
Even though offended, he took a pencil and started to scribble down the letters of the alphabet. He crossed out the vowels and put numbers above the consonants. “Let’s see,” he said. “The first letter S has number fifteen. Fifteen from the back is letter H. The second letter P has number twelve. Twelve from the back is letter L. The third letter L has number nine. The ninth letter from the back is P. The word he wrote is HLP.”
“HLP,” I said. “Does it remind you of anything?”
He shrugged.
“Hlp, hlp, hlp, hlp. … Help!” he cried out. “It means help!”
“Of course! Help. He’s asking for help!”
“That confirms my theory about the razor,” I said.
Maurice looked at me in admiration. “How did you know we must use atbash?”
“God’s inspiration! Awakened DNA! Everybody around me seems to have it, why not me?”
I took my notebook out of my pocket and crossed out the possibility that Otrin voluntarily escaped with Isabelle.
“There is still a chance that the three letters are the code,” insisted Maurice. “The one stimulating the twelve helix DNA to action …”
“Maurice, I’m not interested in that anymore. Without any doubt, Isabelle had forced Otrin to go with her. It doesn’t matter why, yet according to his cry for help he is in danger and I have to find him as soon as possible. How big is the chance of her cutting his throat with the razor?”
“Big,” he finally admitted. “If he does not help her get supernatural abilities.”
“But if she kills him, he’ll never be able to help her, “I said feverishly as if Maurice was Isabelle and I was trying to talk sense into her.” Dead he will be of no use! You yourself told that.”
“Don’t be so sure, “he answered.” He might be more useful dead than alive.”
“I have no time for jokes, Maurice!”
“This is not a joke. The Professor told Isabelle that after his death his skull was to be prophetic.”
I couldn’t believe my ears! Speechless I gazed at him.
“I was there when they were discussing the talking skulls,” he continued. “I remember him mentioning Adam’s skull and Mozart’s. He was especially enthusiastic about Mozart’s skull. Isabelle asked him if he possessed it because he knows so much about it and he answered that he did. He had it beside his bed!”
“Rubbish,” I said.
“It’s not a complete rubbish, Tibor. Talking skulls are mentioned by quite a few writers and the Bible too, so there must be some truth in that. I don’t believe that talking skulls really exist and rest on people’s night tables, but I do believe that by talking skulls are meant a sort of computers. Nevertheless,” he laughed, “I’d be happy to have a prophetic skull now. It would help me find Isabelle and show me how to escape you.”
“Well, my dear Maurice, if you had used your own, you wouldn’t be in all this shit now.”
“There you are right.”
We sat in silence for a while. It was Maurice who broke it.
“The Professor must tell Isabelle the word that would take her to the throne or find a descendant of the Annunaki.”
I jumped up.
“Spare me with that, Maurce! Spare me!”
“As you wish,” he said wearily, “but it’s an important part of the whole plan and you might get a hint how to go on with the investigation.”
“I know how! I don’t need any of your hocus-pocus!”
“Have you asked yourself, why Isabelle and Professor are not in St. Rémy anymore?”
“Of course I have!”
“Well, one of the possibilities is that they were kidnapped by the Annunaki.”
I pointed my shaking finger at Maurice. “I warned you, Maurice! Get up and get dressed! We are going out! Now!”
“To find information about Anunaki?”
“Dammit, Maurice, shut your mouth!”
16.