James Rollins: The Eye of God: A Sigma Force Novel

She watched the blood bubbling out of his nostrils with each labored breath. She listened to the harsh gurgle in his chest as he lay on his back. A weak cough brought more blood to his lips, where it flowed through his forked beard and pooled into the hollow of his throat. The beating of his heart could be seen there, shimmering that dark pool with each fading thud.

She prayed for him to die—and quickly.

Burn in the flames of hell where you belong . . .

As if heaven heard her plea, one last rough breath escaped the man’s flooded throat, pushing more blood to his lips—then his rib cage sagged a final time and rose no more.

Ildiko cried softly in relief, tears springing to her eyes. The deed was done. The Scourge of God was at last gone, unable to wreak more ruin upon the world. And not a moment too soon.

Back at her father’s house, the cardinal had related Attila’s plan to turn his forces once again toward Italy. She had heard similar rumblings at the wedding feast, raucous claims of the coming sack of Rome, of their plans to raze the city to the ground and slaughter all. The bright beacon of civilization risked going forever dark under the barbarians’ swords.

But with her one bloody act, the present was saved.

Still, she was not done.

The future remained at risk.

She shimmied on her bare knees off the bed and moved to its foot. She approached the small chest with more fear than she had when she slipped the poison into her husband’s drink.

The outer box was made of black iron, flat on all sides with a hinged top. It was unadorned, except for an inscribed pair of symbols on its surface. The writing was unknown to her, but the cardinal had told her what to expect. It was said to be the language of Attila’s distant ancestors, those nomadic tribes far to the east.

She touched one of the inscriptions, made of simple straight lines.

“Tree,” she whispered to herself, trying to gain strength. The symbol even looked somewhat like a tree. She touched its matching neighbor—a second tree—with great reverence.

Only then did she find the strength to bring her fingers to the chest’s lid and swing it open. Inside, she discovered a second box, this one of the brightest silver. The inscription on top was similarly crude, but clearly done with great purpose.

The simple strokes meant command or instruction .

Sensing the press of time, she steadied her shaking fingers and lifted the silver box’s lid to reveal a third coffer inside, this one of gold. Its surface shimmered, appearing fluid in the torchlight. The symbol carved here looked like a union of the earlier characters found inscribed in iron and silver, one stacked atop the other, forming a new word.

The cardinal had warned her of the meaning of this last mark.

“ Forbidden, ” she repeated breathlessly.

With great care, she opened the innermost box. She knew what she would find, but the sight still shivered the small hairs along her arms.

From the heart of the gold box, the yellowed bone of a skull glowed out at her. It was missing its lower jaw, its empty eye staring blindly upward, as if to heaven. But like the boxes themselves, the bone was also adorned with script. Lines of writing descended down from the crown of the skull in a tight spiral. The language was not the same as atop the triple boxes, but instead it was the ancient script of the Jews—or so the cardinal had told her. Likewise, he had instructed her on the purpose of such a relic.

The skull was an ancient object of Jewish incantation, an invocation to God for mercy and salvation.

Pope Leo had offered up this treasure to Attila with a plea for Rome ’s salvation. Additionally, the pontiff had warned Attila that this potent talisman was but one of many that were secured in Rome and protected by God’s wrath, that any who dared breach its walls were doomed to die. To press his point, the pope offered up the story of the leader of the Visigoths, King Alaric I, who had sacked Rome forty years prior and died upon leaving the city.

Leery of this curse, Attila took heed and fled out of Italy with this precious treasure. But as in all things, it seemed time had finally tempered those fears, stoking the Hun’s desire to once again lay siege to Rome, to test his legend against God’s wrath.

Ildiko stared across his prostrate body.

It appeared he had already failed that trial.

Ultimately, even the mighty could not escape death.

Knowing what she had to do, she reached for the skull. Still, her eyes fell upon the scratches at the center of the spiral. The skull’s invocation was a plea for salvation against what was written there.

It marked the date of the end of the world.

The key to that fate lay beneath the skull—hidden by iron, silver, gold, and bone. Its significance only came to light a moon ago, following the arrival of a Nestorian priest from Persia to the gates of Rome. He had heard of the gift given to Attila from the treasure vaults of the Church, a gift once passed to Rome by Nestorius himself, the patriarch of Constantinople. The priest told Pope Leo the truth behind the nest of boxes and bone, how it had come from much farther east than Constantinople, sent forward to the Eternal City for safekeeping.

In the end, he had informed the pope of the box’s true treasure—along with sharing the name of the man who had once borne this skull in life.

Ildiko’s fingers touched that relic now and trembled anew. The empty eyes seemed to stare into her, judging her worth, the same eyes that, if the Nestorian spoke truthfully, had once looked upon her Lord in life, upon Jesus Christ.

She hesitated at moving the holy relic—only to be punished for her reluctance with a knock on the chamber door. A guttural call followed. She did not understand the tongue of the Huns, but she knew that Attila’s men, failing to gain a response from their king, would soon be inside.

She had delayed too long.

Spurred now, she lifted the skull to reveal what lay below—but found nothing . The bottom of the box held only a golden imprint, in the shape of what had once rested here, an ancient cross—a relic said to have fallen from the very heavens.

But it was gone, stolen away.

Ildiko stared over at her dead husband, a man known as much for his keen strategies as for his brutalities. It was also said he had ears under every table. Had the king of the Huns learned of the mysteries shared by the Nestorian priest in Rome? Had he taken the celestial cross for his own and hidden it away? Was that the true source of his sudden renewed confidence in sacking Rome?

The shouting grew louder outside, the pounding more urgent.

Despairing, Ildiko returned the skull to its cradle and closed the boxes. Only then did she sink to her knees and cover her face. Sobs shook through her as the planks of the doors shattered behind her.

Tears choked her throat as thoroughly as blood had her husband’s.

Men shoved into the room. Their cries grew sharper upon seeing their king upon his deathbed. Wailing soon followed.

But none dared touch her, the grieving new wife, as she rocked on her knees beside the bed. They believed her tears were for her fallen husband, for her dead king, but they were wrong.