don’t understand—that this energy may be nothing more than thought itself? Or . . . electricity?”
“I would say that the Nile you crashed into was no spiderweb, but instead substantial enough to break your hip,” I replied.
“Illusion upon illusion. That is what some of the sacred writings maintain, all inspired by Thoth.”
“Gold is mere spider’s silk? Power grasps nothing but air?”
“Oh no. While we are but a dream, the dream is our reality. But here, then, is the secret. Let us suppose the most solid things, the stones of this church, are matrices of almost nothing. That the tumble of a boulder or the fall of a star is a simple mathematical rule. That a building can encompass the divine, a shape can be sacred, and a mind can sense unseen energies. What becomes of beings who realize this?
If mountains are mere web, might not they be moved? If seas are the thinnest vapor, might not they be parted? Could the Nile become blood, or a plague of frogs spawned? How hard to tumble the walls of Jericho, when they are but a latticework? How hard to turn lead into gold when both, essentially, are dust?”
“You’re mad,” said Mohammad. “This is Satan’s talk.”
“No. I am a scholar!” And now he pushed to his feet, Najac giving him a hand that he shook off as soon as he was able. “You denied 1 9 6
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me that title once, at a banquet before Napoleon, Ethan Gage. You insulted my reputation to make me seem petty.” I reddened despite myself. The man forgot nothing. “Yet I’ve probed these mysteries for twenty years. I came to Cairo when it was still in the thrall of the Mamelukes, and explored old mysteries while you were frittering your life away. I followed the trail of the ancients while you hooked your opportunism to the French. I’ve tried to understand the enigmatic hints left behind for us, while the rest of you wrestled in the mud.” He hadn’t lost his high opinion of himself, either. “And now I understand what we’re seeking, and what we must harness to find it. We have to catch the lightning!”
“Catch what?” Ned asked dubiously.
“Gage, I understand you have succeeded in using electricity as a weapon against Bonaparte’s troops.”
“As a necessity of war.”
“I think we’re going to need Franklin’s expertise when we near the Book of Thoth. Are you electrician enough?”
“I’m a man of science, but I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”
“It’s why we need the seraphim, Ethan,” Astiza broke in, more softly. “We think that somehow they’re going to point to a final hiding point the Knights Templar used after destruction of their order. They brought what they’d found beneath Jerusalem to the desert and concealed it in the City of Ghosts. The documents are enigmatic, but Alessandro and I believe that Thoth, too, knew of electricity, and that the Templars set that as a test to find the book. We need to draw down the lightning like Franklin did.”
“So I agree with Mohammad. You’re both mad.”
“In the vaults beneath Jerusalem,” Silano said, “you found a curious floor, with a lightning design. And a strange door. Did you not?”
“How do you know that?” Najac, I was certain, had never penetrated to the rooms we’d explored, and had not seen Miriam’s oddly decorated door.
“I’ve been studying, as you said. And upon this Templar door you saw a Jewish pattern, did you not? The ten
r o s e t t a k e y
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“What has that to do with lightning?”
“Watch.” Bending to the dust on the floor by our fire, he drew two circles, their edges joined.
“All things are dual,” Astiza murmured.
“And yet united,” the count said. He drew another circle, as big as the first two, overlapping both. Then circles upon those circles, more upon more, the pattern becoming ever more intricate. “The prophets knew this,” he said. “Perhaps Jesus did as well. The Templars relearned it.” Then where circles intersected he began drawing lines, forming patterns: both a five-sided and a six-sided star. “The one is Egyptian and the other Jewish,” he said. “Both are equally sacred. The Egyptian star you use for your nation’s new flag. Do you not think this was the intent of the Freemasons who helped found your country?” And finally, at the interstices, he jabbed out ten points, which made the same peculiar pattern we’d seen in the Templar Hall under the Temple Mount. The
Once again, everyone seemed to be speaking ancient tongues I wasn’t privy too, and finding import in what I would have assumed was mere decoration.
“Recognize it?” Silano asked.
“What of it?” I said guardedly.
“The Templars drew another pattern from this design,” he said.
From dot to dot he drew a zigzagging, overlapping line. “There. A lightning bolt. Eerie, is it not?”
“Maybe.”
“Not maybe. Their clues tell us to harness the sky if we wish to find where the book is. The lightning symbol is in the map we found here, and then there is the poem.”
“Poem?”
“Couplets. They’re quite eloquent.” He recited:
