Charles Brokaw - The Lucifer Code

‘Maybe at your age they didn’t exist.’

Lourds ignored her snarky attitude and continued. ‘People had to come up with a name for telephones that were fully portable. The term “cordless” had already been taken. So people started calling them “cellular telephones” at first. That quickly became bastardized to “cellphones”, and that gave way to just calling them “cells”. Mention “cell” after 9/11 and many people think of terrorism. However, the cell terminology didn’t take in Britain. Over there, they call them “mobiles”.’

‘I’m aware of that. I’m not a child.’

‘I have no doubt that you’re aware of it. Your accent tells me you’re acquainted with Ulster. I’d go as far to say that you’ve been in Ireland often. Probably grew up there.’

From the way her face went blank, Lourds knew he had hit close to home.

‘But being aware of language and thinking about it are two different things,’ he continued. ‘Just because you know something doesn’t mean you’ve thought about it. Language was created to express thoughts and ideas, to hand down education and history, to paint pictures of things that could only be imagined. Words have such an ephemeral quality to them because language is so organic that many words quickly pass in and out of usage and disappear. Or the way they are employed changes. Take the word text. Until that function was created for cells, it was never used as a verb. Now when people think of a text, they don’t think of books. They think of electronic messages they receive on their cellphones.’

‘Professor,’ Qayin interrupted sharply, ‘you don’t have time to give a lecture.’

‘I wanted to make a point. Not only is language geographical, but the time a document was written is also tremendously important.’

‘You are running out of time.’

Lourds fixed the man with his gaze. ‘Fine. Then tell me where this rubbing came from and when it was made.’

Qayin’s hot, angry gaze held Lourds. All the fear the professor had been holding at bay returned in a gut-twisting rush.

You’ve just got yourself killed. Lourds tried not to be sick, but his mouth turned dry as cotton.

After a moment, Qayin said, ‘I’m told that the rubbing was taken from somewhere inside this city. The writing is from early in the second century after the death of Christ.’

The enormity of the statement settled over Lourds. Almost two thousand years had passed since these words were written. He focused on the rubbing.

‘This ought to be some form of Greek language, then,’ he mused out loud. He opened the water bottle and drank as he thought. ‘We’ve done a lot of work with Mycenaean Greek, Ancient Greek and Koine Greek. But we can’t rule out the possibility that this is some kind of proto-Greek.’

‘It’s Greek?’ Qayin asked.

Lourds shrugged. ‘Possibly. Some of the characters look familiar, but they’re not quite right. They bear some resemblance to Greek characters, but they’re unique at the same time.’

‘Why Greek?’ Cleena asked.

‘Because Greek was one of the primary languages in this area at that time: the language of the conquerors, of Alexander the Great. At the time, he ruled almost all the known world. When he put his people in place to hold different lands, they were trained to read and write in Greek. Conquerors build buildings. As a result, the Greek language is still scattered throughout Europe and parts of Asia. There was Latin as well, by then, but these letters don’t look Roman. I’m guessing they’re some form of Greek.’

Qayin and his followers listened silently.

‘When this rubbing was taken, was the inscription new?’ Lourds asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Qayin answered. ‘I was told it was taken soon after.’

‘Soon after what?’

Qayin shook his head. ‘What I know will not help you.’

‘I think I’d be the better judge of that.’

‘You’re not going to get to know any more. Now you tell me which Greek language this is.’

‘This isn’t simply any Greek language,’ Lourds said. ‘If it was, you would have already had it translated. But it does have its foundation in the Greek language. Of that, I’m sure.’ He paused. ‘If we can assume that the date this rubbing was taken was somewhere around the second century AD, then the root language would most likely be Koine Greek. That was in use from the middle of the fourth century BC to the middle of the fourth century AD.’

‘Then it is based on this language?’ Qayin asked.

‘It could also just as easily be based on the Mycenaean and Ancient Greek languages.’

‘Are those so very different?’

‘Of course they’re different,’ Lourds answered. ‘The Greeks were a culture of traders. They went everywhere across the known world. They were successful in what they were doing, which made other people want to be like them. The Mycenaean Greek language is the most ancient Greek language we can research. Several clay tablets were found in Knossos and Pylos, and those weren’t translated until 1952. It was pretty dry stuff, too. Mostly inventories and lists, accountants’ work. That language had seven grammatical cases, including the dative, locative and instrumental. Both the latter two grammatical cases fell out of favour when Classical Greek was born, and dative has been dropped from modern Greek.’

Excitement drummed through Lourds as his mind began grappling with the symbols. He could almost make sense of part of it, not what it said, but how it was put together.

‘Ancient Greek was also used heavily in Constantinople. Most of Europe stopped using it during the Middle Ages, but after Constantinople fell to Mehmed II, the language flourished again for a brief time because of all the people that fled the city. Both Ancient Greek and Koine Greek were used in Constantinople.’

‘Was any one favoured more than the other?’ Cleena asked.

‘That’s an interesting question.’ For just a moment, Lourds felt a glow of satisfaction. Even here, at gunpoint, he loved being an instructor. There is something definitely wrong with you, my friend. ‘Rome preferred Ancient Greek because they thought it was more pure. Koine Greek was actually a blend of several Greek dialects with Attic, which was the language spoken in Athens. As I’ve mentioned, that language is spread primarily through Alexander the Great’s armies and it was spoken from Egypt to India. Early Christians adopted the Koine Greek language, possibly to differentiate themselves from the Romans and their gods, which were actually made over from the Green pantheon. The Apostles preached in it. That language also became known as the Alexandrian dialect, Post-Classical Greek and New Testament Greek because the Apostles wrote the New Testament in that language.’

‘The Apostles?’ Qayin asked.

Lourds nodded absently, still trying to wrap his thoughts round the language.

‘How can you know so much about this and still not be able to read it?’ Cleena asked.

‘Knowing something about the language isn’t the same as reading it. As I stated, language evolves, sometimes even from generation to generation. And if you have someone deliberately trying to disguise information, as I believe was done here, deciphering that language becomes even harder. If you consider the New Testament and its subsequent translations that have fractured churches and religions, you’ll get an idea of what I’m talking about.’ Lourds looked up at her. ‘Given the religious division between England and Ireland, I’d have thought you might have known that.’

‘Religion is a touchy subject.’

‘Let me give you another example. Have you ever written down a note, then gone back a few days later and seen it without understanding why you had written it?’