The second, even more time-consuming job, was to then actually translate the book and make sense of it.
Now that he had his hands on a scroll he’d been seeking for years, Silano exhibited some of that genteel charm with which he’d seduced the ladies in Paris. Lines disappeared from his face, his limp became less pained, and he was eagerly animated as he began charting symbols and trying to find connections. He had charm, and I began to understand what Astiza had seen in him. There was a courtly intellectual energy that was seductive. Even better, he seemed content to concede Astiza to me, even though I caught him looking at her longingly at times. She too seemed accepting of our treaty. What an odd triumvirate of researchers we’d become! I didn’t forget the death of my friends at Silano’s hands, but I admired his diligence. The count had brought trunks of musty books, and each educated guess would send one of us to another volume to check the plausibility of whether this grammar might work or that reference made sense. The dim pret h e
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history when this book was supposedly written was slowly being illuminated.
Laboriously, we puzzled out chapter titles on the scroll.
“On the diaphanous nature of reality and bending it to one’s will,” read one. The disturbing promise excited me, despite myself.
“On Freedom and Fate,” read another. Well, there was a question.
“On Teaming Mind, Body, and Soul.”
“On Summoning Manna from Heaven.” Had Moses read that? I didn’t see any sections on parting the sea.
“On Life Everlasting, in Its Various Forms.” Why hadn’t that worked for him?
“On Underworld and Overworld.” Hell and heaven?
“On Bending Men’s Minds to One’s Will.” Oh, Bonaparte would like that one.
“On Eliminating Ills and Curing Pain.”
“On Winning the Heart of a Lover.” Now that could be sold faster than Ben’s Almanac.
“On the Forty-Two Sacred Scrolls.”
That last was enough to make me groan. This book, apparently, was just the first of forty-one other volumes, which my Egyptian mentor Enoch had claimed were but a sampling of 36,535 scrolls—one hundred for each day of the year—scattered around the earth. They were to be found only by the worthy when the time was right. Thank the saints that I wasn’t particularly worthy! Just getting this first one had nearly killed me. Silano, however, was dreaming of new quests.
“This is astonishing! This book I’m guessing is a summary, a list of topics and first principles, with knowledge and mystery deepening with each volume. Can you imagine having them all?”
“The pharaohs thought even this one needed to be sealed away,” I reminded.
“The pharaohs were primitive men who didn’t have modern science or alchemy. All human progress comes from knowledge, Gage. From fire and the wheel, our world is a culmination of a million ideas, shared and recorded. What we have here is a thousand years of scientific 2 7 8
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advancement, left by someone, a god or wizard or some exalted being from who knows where—Atlantis, or the moon—who started civilization and now can restore it. For five millennia the greatest library was lost, and now it’s found again. This scroll will lead us to others. And then the wisest men, like me, can rule and put things in order. Unlike kings and tyrants, I will decree with perfect knowledge!” No one was going to accuse Silano of humility. Stripped of his fortune by the revolution, forced to crawl back into favor by courting democrats who’d been mere lawyers and pamphleteers, the count was a man driven by frustration. Sorcery and the occult would win back what republicanism had taken away.
While we had some chapter headings, the actual text was proving tedious to piece together. Its construction was utterly foreign, and simply identifying words did not make the meaning clear.
“This is the work of whole universities,” I told the count. “We’ll spend the rest of our lives trying to puzzle this out here in Rosetta.
Let’s give it to the National Institute or the British Academy.”
“Are you a complete fool, Gage? Letting a common savant have at this is like storing gunpowder in a candle shop. I thought you were the one who feared its misuse? I’ve studied the traditions around these words for decades. Astiza and I have labored long and hard to be worthy.”
“And me?”
“You were necessary, oddly, to finding the scroll. Only Thoth knows why.”
“A gypsy told me once I was a fool. The fool who sought the fool.”
“That’s the first time I’ve heard those charlatans be right.” And as if to prove the point, that night he had me poisoned.
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I ’m not the most gentle and contemplative of men, and generally don’t give much thought to God’s creatures unless I want to hunt or trap or ride them. But there are hounds I’ve warmed to, cats I’ve t h e
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