Tony Abbott - The Serpent’s Curse

Imagine being the master of this room! I would totally live here.

“Becca, are you with us?” asked Lily. “Or lost in your own head?”

“Yes, yes,” she said. “I mean, no. I’m fine.”

She set down on the table in front of her a book disguised in a wrinkled copy of the London Times , knowing that the librarian would envy her if he only knew that, ten feet away, was the five-hundred-year-old diary of Copernicus.

Before running for their lives in San Francisco, Becca had discovered in the diary’s final pages a sequence of heavily coded passages along with a tabula recta , a square block of letters. When she’d discovered the right key word, the square had allowed her to decode a particularly difficult passage. That passage, among other things, had confirmed that the original Guardian of the Scorpio relic was a Portuguese trader named Tomé Pires. The clue had eventually led to them locating not the original relic, but a centuries-old decoy.

Then, just this morning, when the pain in her arm had woken her, she’d distracted herself by studying the other coded pages. As in San Francisco, where she’d come across a tiny sketch of a scorpion in the margin of a page, Becca had discovered a date written in tiny letters— xiii February 1517 —and another drawing. It was so faint as to be nearly invisible.

At first, she’d thought the image—almost certainly sketched by Copernicus himself—was meant to be two diamonds touching end to end. But now the “double-eyed beast” of the scytale message suggested that the drawing was really of two eyes, and that the passage next to the drawing might tell the story of the Guardian whose name they were searching for. Either way, the first line of the double-eyed passage was impenetrable.

Ourn ao froa lfa atsiu vlali am sa tlrlau dsa …

Without the right key word, it might prove fruitless to try to decode it, but maybe she had to try anyway. Still, where to start? Ourn ao froa …?

“Becca, can you read Greek?” asked Darrell, holding an old volume bound in red leather. “This one’s about the lives of monks in the time period we want.”

“Sorry,” she grumbled. “I feel like I’m doing it now.”

“I can help,” the librarian whispered at the counter. He then showed Darrell to a scanner whose output was linked to a translation program. “I suggest you scan the book’s table of contents first, find the pages you think you want, then scan them . The translation will appear on this computer.”

“Perfect,” said Darrell.

After some minutes of quiet work, in which they all searched for anything that might connect to the scytale message, Julian sat back from the table. “First of all, there are over twenty monasteries in Athos. Some are like fortresses built on cliffs over the ocean. You have to climb these endless narrow stairs cut into the rocks. But it makes me wonder if Copernicus ever visited Greece. I mean, how did he meet the Athos Greek?”

Lily did quick word searches through the several biographies on the tablet. “Copernicus traveled, but it doesn’t look like he ever visited Greece. At least I can’t find any journey recorded in these books. So we’re back to square zero.”

“I think you mean square one,” said Wade. “But they’re pretty close together.”

“Um, yeah, until me,” said Darrell inexplicably. “It scrambles my brain, but I think I found something. It’s from a Greek book called something like Holy Monks of Athos . The translation is rough, but listen to this.”

He cleared his throat and read the words on the computer. “‘One big monks Athos be Maximus, living 1475 until 1556 when he became no longer.”

Wade stared at him. “Which I think means … the same time as Copernicus.”

“I think so, too,” Darrell said. “Now … ‘unlike monk brothers of his, Maximus studied far Italy, Padua, when 1502 came round.’” He grinned. “Nice style, huh?”

“Padua,” said Becca. “We know Copernicus was in Bologna … Lily?”

Lily scanned the indexes again. “Yep. He was a student at the University of Padua from 1501 to 1502.”

Becca looked up from the diary and grinned. “Darrell, it proves what you said.”

“Probably. What are we talking about?”

“That everybody knew everybody back then. The world had lots fewer people, and they all gathered in the same places.”

Darrell nodded. “I did say that. So, yes, I am right. Plus, Italy, right? Everybody went there because of the weather.”

“Well, that’s just it, isn’t it?” said Julian. “ The land of snow and endless night doesn’t sound like either Italy or Greece. Something more northern, maybe …”

Darrell squinted at the screen. “‘Maximus can be known as Greek Maxim or Maxim Grek or Maximus Grekus or Grekus Maximus.’”

“Huh,” said Lily. “Greek Maxim. I get it.”

“You do?” asked Wade.

“Sure, I mean, I ask myself why they would call him Greek Maxim, right?” They shook their heads. “Well, think about it. Would you call a Greek a Greek when he’s in Greece? No, you wouldn’t, because they’re all Greek in Greece. So … anyone—”

“Ooh!” Becca said. “They called him ‘the Greek’ when he lived in another country!”

“A country with snow?” asked Julian. “Darrell, what does the book say?”

Darrell squinted at the screen. “Um, yeah. Lots of snow. The endless kind …”

“Norway!” said Wade. “No! Iceland!”

“Russia, my friends,” Darrell said, pleased with himself. “At least I think that’s what this says. Listen. ‘Come later Maxim was by Russia Duke Vasily the Three invited Moscow to. There he Russian make of Greek into Russian word pages.’”

“That makes sense,” said Becca. “They wanted Maxim to translate Greek stuff into Russian because the Greeks probably had all kinds of books they didn’t have in Russia.”

Darrell grumbled. “Which is exactly what I said.”

“When did Maxim go to Russia?” asked Wade.

“ If you’ll let me continue—”

“It’s hard to listen to,” said Wade.

“So are you.” Darrell cleared his throat and started up. “It says … 1515. Exactly when we need him to be in the land of endless snow. I totally bet Maxim Grek is the second Guardian.”

Becca stood. “Darrell, this is huge. I think maybe you did it—”

“Russia is huge, too.” Lily pushed a map to the middle of the table. “Look at it. Where do we even begin?”

“Wait. There’s more.” Darrell scanned another page of the book. “‘His life problems came big in Russia. Duke Vasily make him prison for Maxim when Maxim say Duke no marry.’ Which means that after going to Russia things turned pretty rough for Maxim. Vasily threw him in jail because Maxim didn’t like him marrying some lady.”

“As opposed to who?” asked Becca.

Darrell scanned the text. “His wife.”

“Oh.”

Julian stood and paced the length of the table. “Did Maxim die in Russia? If he did, the relic may still be there. Besides that, sometimes people do important things on their deathbeds. Like the Frombork Protocol, right? Maybe before he died, Maxim left a clue about where he hid the relic.”

Darrell stood away from the computer. “I anymore read cannot. Eyes of me blur big. Anyone …?”

“I’ll do it,” said Lily. She slid over to the computer and read the screen for a few seconds. “Oh, and double oh. It says … ‘Duke Vasily many had of alliances. One of with’ … ack! Guess who?”

“The pope,” said Darrell. “Napoleon. Dracula! Final answer!”

She shook her head. “The Demon Master, AVH himself!”