The Judas Strain - James Rollins [97]
Vigor began to turn away, but a bit of color from the pottery caught his eye. He retrieved the chunk of reddish clay from the tabletop.
“It’s a piece of the hollow brick,” Gray explained sourly. “I didn’t want to leave it up there. Heaven knows, things went badly enough.”
Vigor briefly examined it. On one side, a bit of purple plaster still clung to it, but on the other side, a thick skein of sky-blue glaze coated the clay. Why would someone glaze the inside of a hollow brick?
“Did you see any angelic script up there,” Vigor asked, and returned the chunk to the table.
“No. No writing, nothing unusual.”
Balthazar bent down and flipped the golden paitzu over. “But there is angelic writing here.”
Vigor leaned closer. As expected, a single letter of angelic script decorated the back side. A crude circle enclosed it.
“The second key,” Vigor said.
“But what’s this?” Balthazar asked. He nudged the tube.
Vigor picked it up. It was as thick around as his thumb, unadorned, except for the old hammer marks of its forger. “It may be a scroll tube.” He examined one end. A thin coin of bronze had been stamped over the end, sealing it.
“We’ll have to open it,” Gray said.
Vigor felt some discomfort at his suggestion. As an archaeologist, he feared mishandling such an ancient artifact. It needed to be photographed, its measurements taken, cataloged.
Gray reached to a pocket and slipped out a penknife. He opened the small blade and held it toward Vigor. “We’re running out of time.”
Taking a deep breath, Vigor accepted the knife. With a twinge of professional discomfort, he used the tip to pry the cap off the end. It popped cleanly, as if only crafted yesterday.
Vigor cleared a space on the coffee table, tilted the tube, and slid out its contents. A roll of white material dropped to the mahogany table.
“A scroll,” Gray said.
Without touching it, Vigor made an assessment from his years of study and lifetime of experience. “It’s not parchment, vellum, or even papyrus.”
“What is it?” Balthazar asked.
Vigor wished he had examination gloves for handling the old scroll. Fearful of the oils in his hands, Vigor collected a pencil from the curator’s desk and used the eraser to unroll the free edge of the material.
It fell away easily, delicate and gauzy.
“It looks like cloth,” Gray said.
“Silk.” Vigor unrolled more and more, teasing it across the length of the table. “It’s embroidered,” he said, noting the fine stitching of black thread across the white silk.
But the needlework did not form a picture or an intricate pattern. Instead, lines of cursive text, stitched into the material, spread down the length of the unrolled bolt of silk.
Gray twisted his head to read, but his frown deepened, not comprehending.
“It’s lingua lombarda,” Balthazar declared with awe.
Vigor could not take his eyes from the writing. “The Italian dialect of Marco Polo’s region.” He reached a trembling hand and followed with the pencil eraser, translating the first line aloud. “‘Our prayer was answered in a most strange manner.’”
He glanced to Gray. He read the understanding in the American’s eyes.
“It’s the rest of Marco’s story,” Gray said, “continuing where the Guild’s copy of his book ended.”
“The missing pages,” Vigor agreed, “embroidered onto silk.”
Gray glanced to the door, plainly edgy, and waved to the silk diary. “Read the rest of it.”
Vigor started from the beginning, continuing the story of Marco’s party. The first section left them trapped in the City of the Dead and surrounded by a cannibal horde. Vigor carefully translated the next part of the tale, his voice tremulous with the power of Marco’s original words.
Our prayer was answered in a most strange manner. And was thus brought about:
Night fell over the City of the Dead. From the vantage of our sanctuary, the moats and pools of the city below shone with light of a sepulchral nature; the hue and sheen was that of molds