The Judas Strain - James Rollins [70]
Seichan did not even have the temerity to flinch at his accusation. “I had no choice. Two years ago, the library bought me my life after I helped the two of you. I had no idea what horror it hid.”
Gray had remained silent during their exchange, watching, eyes narrowed. Vigor could almost see the gears turning, tumblers falling into new slots. Like Alberto, Gray had a unique mind, a way of juggling disparate fragments and discovering a new configuration. It was no wonder Seichan had sought him out.
Gray nodded to her. “You read this text, Seichan. The true account of the return voyage of Marco Polo.”
As answer, she shoved her chair back, leaned down, and unzippered her left boot. She removed a sheaf of three papers, folded and tucked into a hidden inner pocket. Straightening, she smoothed the papers open and slid them across the table.
“Once I began to suspect what the Guild intended,” she said, “I made a copy of the translated chapter for myself.”
Vigor and Gray shifted closer, shoulder to shoulder, to peruse the sheets together. The large seaman leaned over, too, his breath spiced with anise from the raki.
Vigor scanned the title and the first few lines.
CHAPTER LXII.
Of a Journey untold; and a Map forbidden
Now it came to pass, a full month beyond the last port, we sought to restore our waters from a fresh river and repair two ships. We ported in small boats, at which time the abundant bird and thickness of vine astounded. Salted meat and fruit were also depleted. We came with forty and two of the Great Kaan’s men, armed with spear and arrow; and as nearby islands were populated by naked Idolaters who ate the flesh of other men, such protection of body was considered wise.
Vigor continued reading, recognizing the cadence and stiffly archaic prose from The Description of the World. Could these words truly be Marco Polo’s? If so, here was a chapter only a few eyes had ever laid eyes upon. Vigor craved to read the original, not fully trusting the translation—but more importantly, he wanted to peruse the original dialect, to be that much closer to the famous medieval traveler.
He read on:
From a bend in the river, one of Kaan’s men shouted and pointed to a steep rise of another peak from out of the valley floor. It lay a score of miles inland and deep within the thickness of the forest; but it was no mountain. It was the spire of a great building; and other towers were now spotted, half hid in mists. With ten days to idol in repairs and as the Kaan’s men wished to hunt the many birds and beasts for fresh meat, we set off to seek these builders of mountains, a people unknown and unmapped.
After the first page Vigor sensed a palpable menace growing behind Marco’s simple narrative. In plain words, he related how “the forest grew quiet of bird and beast.” Marco and the hunters continued, following a trail far into the jungle, “trampled by these mountain builders.”
At long last, as twilight neared, Marco’s party came upon a stone city.
The forest opened upon a great city of many spires, each covered with the carved faces of Idols. What devilish sorcery were employed by such a people, I would never discover; but God in His merciful vengeance had smote this city and the forest proper with a great blight and pestilence. The first body was a naked child. Her flesh was boiled to bone and covered with large black ants. Everywhere one turned, the eye came upon another and another. A count of several hundred would not match the slaughter here; and the death was not constrained to the sin of man. Birds had fallen from the sky. Beasts of the forest lay in twisted piles. Great snakes hung dead from branches of trees.
It was a City of the Dead. Fearing pestilence, we sought to leave with much haste. But our passage was not unwatched. From the deeper forest, they came: their naked flesh was no more hale than those strewn across the stone steps and plazas, or floating in the green moats. Limbs were rotted to expose the flesh beneath. Others bore