James Rollins - Map of Bones

Gray felt his pulse quicken. “By the Dragon Court.”

“Or someone in their employ. They have fingers everywhere.”

“But if the book is just a bootleg of the original,” Monk said, “what’s the significance?”

“The Papyrus of Ani has hundreds of stanzas. I wager someone forged this copy and hid these specific stanzas”—Vigor tapped Gray’s pad—“among the more ancient ones.”

“Our lost alchemists,” Kat said.

“Hiding needles in a haystack,” Monk said.

Gray nodded. “Until some scholar in the Dragon Court was wise enough to pick them out, decipher the clues, and act on it. But where does that leave us?”

Vigor turned to the street. “You mentioned on the train a desire to catch up and pass the Dragon Court. Now is our chance.”

“How so?”

“We decipher the riddle.”

“But that could take days.”

Vigor glanced over his shoulder. “Not if I’ve already solved it.”

He waved for the pad of paper and flipped to a new blank page. “Let me show you.”

Then he did the oddest thing. He wet his finger in his espresso and dampened the bottom of his tiny cup. He pressed the cup upon the paper, leaving a perfect ring of coffee stain on the blank page. He repeated it again, applying a second ring, this one overlapping the first, forming roughly a snowman shape.

“The full moon mating with the sun.”

“What does this prove?” Gray asked.

“ Vesica Pisces ,” Rachel said, her face dawning with understanding.

Vigor grinned at her. “Did I ever tell you how proud I am of my niece?”

RACHEL DIDN’T like abandoning their Carabinieri escort, but she understood Uncle Vigor’s excitement. Her uncle had insisted they take alternate transportation to investigate the new lead.

So she had called in to the station and recalled the patrol cars. She had left a cryptic message with General Rende that they all had an errand to run. This last was upon Gray’s suggestion. He thought it best not to broadcast their destination. Not until they could investigate further.

The fewer people who knew of their discovery, the better.

So they sought alternate transportation.

Rachel followed Gray’s broad back down to the rear of the public bus. Kat and Monk held a row of seats open. The air conditioning clanked, and the engine rattled the floorboards as the bus left the curb and shouldered into traffic.

Rachel climbed into a seat with Gray. Their row of seats faced Monk, Kat, and Uncle Vigor. Kat looked especially stern. She had argued for proceeding to the Vatican and securing an escort first. Gray had overruled her. She looked unsettled by this decision.

Rachel eyed Gray beside her. Some new resolve seemed to have hardened in him. It reminded her of his attitude atop the fiery spire in Cologne, a certainty of manner. His eyes shone with a determination that had disappeared after the first attack. It was back now…and it scared her slightly, made her heart beat faster.

The bus rumbled into traffic.

“Okay,” Gray said, “I’ve taken you at your word that this side excursion is necessary. Now how about a bit of elaboration?”

Uncle Vigor raised a palm, conceding. “If I had gone into detail, we would’ve missed our bus.”

He opened the pad again. “This shape of overlapping circles can be seen throughout Christendom. In churches, cathedrals, and basilicas around the world. From this one shape, all of geometry flows. For example.” He turned the picture horizontal and shaded the lower half with the edge of his palm. He then pointed to the intersection of the two circles. “Here you can see the geometric shape of the pointed arch. Almost all Gothic windows and archways bear this shape.”

Rachel had been given the same lecture as a child. One couldn’t be related to a Vatican archaeologist without knowing the importance of those two joined circles.

“It still looks like a couple of doughnuts smashed together to me,” Monk said.

Vigor righted the picture back around.

“Or like a full moon mating with the sun,” her uncle said, bringing up the stanza from the cryptic text. “The more I consider those lines, the more layers I keep coming across, like peeling an onion.”

“What do you mean?” Gray asked.

“They buried this clue within the Egyptian Book of the Dead . The very first book to refer to manna . Later Egyptian texts begin to refer to it as ‘white bread’ and such. It’s as if to find whatever the alchemists hid, you had to start at the beginning. Yet the very answer to this first clue also traces back to the first era of Christianity. Multiple beginnings. Even the answer itself implies multiplication. The one becoming many.”

Rachel understood what her uncle meant. “The multiplication of the fishes.”

Vigor nodded.

“Is anyone going to explain it to us novices?” Monk asked.

“This conjoining of circles is called Vesica Pisces, or Vessel of the Fishes.” Vigor leaned down and shaded the intersection to reveal the fishlike shape rested between the two circles.

Gray peered closer. “It’s the fish symbol that represents Christianity.”

“It is the first symbol,” Vigor said. “‘When the full moon mates with the sun, it is born.’” Her uncle tapped the fish. “Some scholars believe the fish symbol was used because the Greek for fish, ICHTHYS, was an acronym for Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter, or Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Savior. But the truth lies here, between these circles, locked in sacred geometry. You’ll often find these locked circles in early paintings with the Christ child resting in the center junction. If you turn the form over on its side, the fish becomes a representation of female genitalia and a woman’s womb, where the baby Jesus is painted.

“It is for this reason that the fish represents fertility. To be fruitful and multiply.” Vigor glanced around the group. “As I said, there are layers upon layers of meaning here.”

Gray leaned back. “But how does this lead us anywhere?”

Rachel was curious, too. “There are fish symbols all over Rome.”

Vigor nodded. “But the second line that reads, ‘It is born eldest .’ Plainly it’s directing us to the oldest representation of the fish symbol. That would be found in the Crypt of Lucina in the Catacombs of Saint Callistus.”

“That’s where we’re heading?” Monk asked.

Vigor nodded.

Rachel noted Gray was not satisfied. “What if you’re wrong?” he asked.

“I’m not. The other stanzas in the text hint at it, too…once you solve the Vesica Pisces riddle. Look at the next line. ‘Where it drowns, it floats in darkness.’ A fish can’t drown, not in water, but it can in earth. And the mention of darkness. It all points to a crypt.”

“But there are many crypts and catacombs throughout Rome.”

“But not many with two fishes, twins to each other,” Vigor said.

Gray’s eyes brightened with understanding. “Another clue, from the last stanza. ‘The Twin waits for water.’”

Vigor nodded. “All three stanzas point to one place. The Catacombs of Saint Callistus.”

Monk settled back to his seat. “At least it’s not a church this time. I’m tired of getting shot at.”