John Schettler - Touchstone

“The two eyes,” Paul nodded, suddenly absorbed in the translation Nordhausen was making. “You really can read these things.”

“I’ve been saying that all along. In fact, I may be the only person on earth in this milieu who can read them.”

“So you’ll live three weeks longer,” Paul teased.

“Well, are you telling me you aren’t curious about the references to time and eternity in those symbols?”

“Of course I am, but what does it all mean?”

“What does it mean? Think, man! You were the one sitting in Castle Massiaf. The Wolf was the nickname the Arabs gave to Reginald of Kerak. They called him Arnot—the Wolf, and his behavior made the handle quite appropriate. He raided the sultan’s caravan, capturing Saladin’s niece in the process. The sultan was so enraged that he invaded the Christian lands, which led to the great battle at the Horns of Hattin. Remember?”

Paul’s eyes had a distant look in them as he recalled the breathtaking sight of the host of Teki Ad Din riding down from the north. The sound of the horses hooves still beat in his mind, and he could see the sinuous line of the rider’s torches as they made their way through the valley. “Right…” He was piecing the message together with the history in his mind now, following the professor at last. “Reginald was a Primary Lever on that event. If he hadn’t looted that caravan—”

“Exactly!”

Nordhausen hurried along. “Now remember this bit here… ‘Yet if he be slain for his sin, then all will be overthrown.’ That sure sounds like a warning to the operatives in that castle to keep their bloody hands off Reginald.”

“Are you suggesting—”

“Of course I am! They’re using the hieroglyphics as a code . Maeve suggested it herself in the debriefing sessions, and I’m convinced of it now. Then I go off to look for some primary source material and when I get back none of you have even heard about the hieroglyphics. But I was in the Nexus this time. I know. I can read them, damnit, so the rest of you will just have to believe me on this.”

“Calm down, Robert. Nobody is questioning your take on this.”

“That’s encouraging. Then you can see why they wanted the stone damaged, right?”

Paul paused rolling his eyes, a look of recognition on his face. “It sure is a good way to preserve the secrecy of these message scrolls.”

“Yes! Rasil was carrying that scroll as a message. Didn’t you say this Kadi figure questioned you about it? You said they called you a Gray Walker on the eternal Hajj. How’s that for a nifty metaphor for a Time Traveler?”

“Yes! In fact they called me the Walker come from the Valley of the Moon.”

“That’s what the Arabs call Wadi Rumm.” Robert fanned the flames of Paul’s thinking, trying to build heat for his argument. “They expected Rasil, and they were supposed to get this message. The Wolf shall go forward and prey upon the bounty of the lord… Yet if he be slain for his sin, then all will be overthrown. It was a warning for them—a set of instructions, if you will. These guys were Assassins. It was warning them not to exact revenge upon Reginald!” The whites of his eyes added emphasis to his conclusion. “Therefore,” he pointed at his drawing again, “When the Old Man returns, the Lord’s Army shall come to the Gate of the West.”

“The Old man was Sinan,” said Paul. “The Gate of the West was the Horns of Hattin.”

“Precisely. Maeve and Kelly will both agree on that. They found it in the variance reports they ran during your inadvertent mission. So we have a warning, and consequence if that warning instruction is followed. It was an outcome favorable to the Arabs. The whole Christian army was slaughtered at Hattin and ninety years of Western occupation was ended in the holy lands. Rasil was carrying a message intended to make sure that happened.”

“It certainly seems that way,” Paul agreed.

“Why, there’s no question about it! Now then—” The professor clapped his hands, rubbing his palms together with anticipation. “The writer of that scroll would have to be from the future to be aware of the importance of Reginald in this matter.”

“Yes,” said Paul. “The scroll identified a Primary Lever and warned against contamination. It clearly predicted the outcome if the instruction was followed. But what’s that last bit you translated?”

Nordhausen looked at his drawing again. “Ah, yes. It reads: The Priest of Time shall go forth and see the Lord of Eternity . It could also read ‘to meet the Lord of Eternity. The Temple Priest was equated with the Old Man in this symbol.” He fingered his diagram. “The Lord of Eternity… Hummm, I wonder who that was?”

Paul took a deep breath. “Me,” he said glumly.

“Oh?” Nordhausen was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, eager to have his support for his interpretation.

“Sinan was on his way to the castle—probably to intervene in the quarrel between the Sami and the Kadi. That was why Jabr ali Sad smuggled me out of the castle and hid me away in the library. But he was also going to eyeball me, I’m sure of it. Word certainly reached him of my unaccountable arrival. He was coming to take a look for himself.”

“Sinan is from the future, Paul.” The professor’s voice was hushed with the implication of his statement. “He’s like a permanent CIA agent assigned to a given Milieu—and look what he does in the history: he sets himself up in these secret mountain strongholds to recruit and train Assassins to carry out operations aimed at influencing events.”

“It sure looks that way. The Assassin cults survived for over 200 years, until the Mongols finally stomped them out for good.”

“Who knows if they really succeeded?” Robert had the bit between his teeth now. “Good lord! I’ve almost forgotten it, but Rasil said something—more to himself than to me. He blew up the entrance to the Well of Souls, as he called it, and said something like: ‘It will never again deliver the souls of the faithful to our agents in Massiaf.’ Yes! Then he said: ‘I wonder how Sinan will fare without the scrolls to guide him now?”

They looked at each other, and the conclusion was plain on both their faces.

“Sinan is an agent,” Paul agreed. “From the future.”

“And Rasil was sending instructions from Egypt. That threw me at first, but the more I thought about that scroll the more I was convinced that it was a rubbing.”

“A rubbing?”

“Yes, you hold the papyrus up to carved stone characters and the pressure of your rubbing imprints the images, like modern printing, only without the ink. It was a rubbing, Paul, and that meant the original message was carved somewhere, carved in stone . That’s why I wanted to look through the collection in the British Museum. I couldn’t find any reference to these characters in the existing data. If Rasil’s scroll was a rubbing then—”

“The touchstone had to be somewhere…” Paul reached the obvious conclusion. “Good for you, Robert. You’ve convinced me. Rasil opened his big mouth and now someone has run a mission—at least according to this Golem report—to the year 1799; to Egypt, to Rosetta.”

“They broke it,” Nordhausen nodded. “They’re trying to preserve the integrity of their code.”

“Interesting,” said Paul, his tone hinting that he had some clear conclusion in mind. “Why would they be using stone carvings to keep a record of the history? Because that’s the real touchstone. It has to be. It’s not the Rosetta Stone, but this hidden record of the history.”

“Are you suggesting they have some kind of archive or something?”