"So, we do not have very much time. We have to prepare ourselves for the big night," said the hooded figure with the white beard.
"Yes, master. I am going to start the preparations right now."
"Very good, and you, young messenger, find the rest of the groups and inform them. Complete your mission."
Before covering his back again, the young messenger knelt in anticipation of receiving a pagan blessing.
"Thank you, master," he whispered before departing.
Now, hidden by the blackness of the night and surrounded by the privacy that solitude provided, the master with the white beard pulled back the hood and left his face exposed. His dark red eyes resembled the flames of a fire as he looked at an ancient manuscript that was more precious than gold to him. He ran his hand over the invaluable treasure and said:
"Finally, the temple of one thousand crystals will be mine."
*
Today... on the outskirts of Messina...
"Claudia, Claudia! Look what I found," Nino, a young archeology student, shouted ecstatically.
The excavation sponsored by the University of Palermo was being carried out more for educational purposes than any other reason. In Italy, it was next to impossible not to come across some historical piece from the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Tunisians, Moors or any other culture that had set foot on these lands. It was common to find coins, the remnants of a pilum*, a helmet corroded by rust and other things in that vein. But Nino got goosebumps this time when he unearthed that unusual piece.
'What is it?" Claudia shouted, unable to disguise her curiosity.
"Not so loud or people will notice," he told her, gesturing with his hands.
"Yeah, well, a minute ago you were yelling at the top of your lungs."
"True, but that was before I decided to keep it to myself."
"Keep what?" asked Claudia, moving her head back and forth trying to catch a glimpse of what her partner was hiding.
"This."
Nino moved to one side, leaving a small ivory jewelry box exposed for Claudia to view. The engravings were almost indescribably beautiful, boasting an attention to detail that not even the most skilled craftsmen using the most precise machinery would be able to easily reproduce. Two sheets were waving in the wind, intertwined with one another and creating a perfect circle in the middle with a cross of thorns inside it. The border, designed to look like a white wood frame, gave the impression of having been conceived to imitate a window of that period. Half a dozen hooded figures prayed towards the inner circle while half a dozen others depicted on the other side carried lances with a blade that emulated the shape of a shark's fin, or something resembling that. On both the upper and lower sides, some type of mud had captured the remains of dying men, while skeletons, snakes and eagles sank down into the morass.
"Oh, my God, it's beautiful!" —exclaimed Claudia.
"Yes, it certainly is. And sinister, too. Now we have to find the best way of taking it out of here ourselves without anyone finding out."
"You're crazy. That's not only against the rules, it's illegal. If they realize..."
"No one has to realize," interrupted Nino, "not if we're careful."
"That doesn't seem like a good idea to me."
"What do you want? That they take this wonderful piece to a museum so they can catalog it before they stick it into a wooden crate that ends up getting lost in some damp basement they use for storage? Is that what you want? Me, I'd rather take it. Who knows what we'll find inside?"
Claudia's hands began to flutter about like sails being blown around by the wind. Unable to come to a decision, she went back and forth in her mind. She was trying to think clearly but her curiosity was clouding her conscience about doing the right thing.
"What am I going to do, what should I do?" kept running through her mind incessantly.
She looked at the box and simultaneously dreamed of tales of treasures hidden by a group of rebellious legionnaires, perhaps the jewels of a barbarian princess or the plunder of some Tunisian pirates.
"I still don't agree with taking it," she finally managed to say.
"Well, truthfully, I don't really care. I'm going to take it whether you like it or not."
Claudia reacted.
"You're going to get in trouble."
"What I'm going to get is the box inside my jacket."
"Great, you're stupid on top of being crazy. Or perhaps you aren't aware that they're going to notice the bulge? Better to bury it again."
"You're the one who's out of your mind."
"I told you to bury it again. When night falls, we'll come back to uncover it again and then we'll take it," Claudia insisted, pointing her index finger at Nino for emphasis.
"Ah, of course... good idea."
*
Only the moonlight pierced the mysterious veil of the darkness. The two youths were riding toward the excavation site in a noisy, albeit very comfortable, Vespa. Nino could barely contain his impatience to reach the place where they had reburied the box. He was anxious to discover what was inside it, since he hadn't been able to find a way to open it during the few brief moments he held it in his hands. It didn't appear to have any obvious lock or safety catch before, yet there was great resistance when he tried to open the top.
"Will it contain gold, silver or precious stones?" Nino wondered, accelerating as fast as the scooter’s handlebar controls allowed him to go so that they could get there as quickly as possible.
Claudia rode in back on the Vespa, her hands gripping Nino's waist from behind. She was no less anxious to recover that box and her imagination was also galloping full speed through the prairies of the unknown, contemplating the great riches to be discovered, the temptation of the forbidden and the eagerness every curious person has for acquiring greater knowledge. But far from worrying over the secrets the box was hiding, her thoughts focused on a far more practical detail.
"How are we going to carry the box on the Vespa?" she asked.
"What did you say?" shouted Nino, straining to hear her over the noise.
"Where the hell are we going to put the damn box?"
"Ah, that... I'll carry it up front, on my feet.”
"Great, but... how will you slow down or stop?
"I'll use the front brake. And if need be, I can downshift and that'll work, too."
"So what you're trying to tell me is that the odds that we'll get killed are pretty high, right?”
"You just trust me," Nino yelled, patting her reassuringly on the thigh. "I know exactly what I'm doing."
Half an hour later, they arrived at the excavation site. Luckily for them, since it was a site that lacked any archaeological interest, the security guard wasn't someone who might potentially pose problems in carrying out their plan. Instead, it was an older man who was posted there as his final assignment before he retired. He couldn't see anything at night, or anything during the day for that matter. Who was going to be interested in some old tools, anyway?
"We have to be careful so the guard doesn't hear us," Claudia warned.
"You don't have to worry about a thing. He's as stone deaf as a bat," Nino commented as he got off the scooter.
Without further delay, the two approached the spot where the box was buried. To avoid making things difficult for himself, Nino had covered a small shovel with a little bit of sand from the same hole.
"Hurry," whispered Claudia.
"I'm going, I'm going," he repeated as he dug.
After a few minutes, Claudia got excited:
"I can see it."
"Then get in here and help me, pull your own weight. I don't want to hit it by mistake."
Together they hoisted the box out of the hole. Unable to resist the urge, they ran their hands over the surface, looking for a switch or lock or anything that would reveal a place where they could open it. Nothing. Parts of the box were hidden by dirt embedded on it and the dark night didn't allow them to see anything clearly. The only thing they did
was waste time.
"Let's get out of here," Nino said, "and when we get home, we'll look it over more closely."
"OK."
Claudia was the first one out but when Nino jumped, the ground that supported him gave way and he fell back into the hole again.
"Are you all right?" a concerned Claudia whispered.
"Yeah, yeah... I'm all right. Something hard hit me in the back but it didn't hurt very much. I'll live."
"Something hard?"
"Yes, like a stone or rock."
"Look and see what it is."
"I don't care. I already told you I'm all right."
"But I want to know what that other thing is," Claudia insisted. "Maybe it's another box."
"Now that you mention it...," Nino said before he started cleaning off the hard surface.
"It looks like a marble block," she remarked, tilting her head.
"You're right, that's all it is. Just a waste of time, let's get out of here."
"Wait a sec, I think there's something written in Latin."
"Would you know how to translate it?"
"I think it says 'Ecclesia Defunctorum'."
"And what does that mean?"
"The Church of the Dead."
III – The Box
The adventure of returning to the flat on the Vespa, with its attendant risk that the box might fall and/or the scooter would flip over, ended without incident. Luckily for them, no one was there when they went in. The rest of Nino's roommates had gone home for the weekend so they weren't going to bother them.
"Where shall we put the box?" asked Claudia.
The disorderly flat offered convincing proof of the lack of interest in hygiene and cleaning up after themselves displayed by students everywhere. It could either be considered a disaster area or a battlefield, since the combination of laziness mixed with indifference had resulted in absolute chaos. Of course, the fact that none of the guys who lived there Monday to Friday had a girlfriend was probably the primary reason why the flat was turned upside down.
"Wait until I clear off a space."
Nino stretched his arm across the dining room table and in a single motion swept everything in their way on to the floor.
"There you go," he said, quite pleased with himself.
Under any other circumstances, Claudia would have raced out of that pigsty as fast as she could run, but her interest in finding out what was hidden in that box compelled her to overlook the mess all around her.
"Let's look the box over closely," she remarked. "We must have missed something important. First of all, we should clean it off completely."
"Good idea."
"I'm surprised to hear that coming from you," she said sarcastically, glancing at the disorder around her out of the corner of her eye.
Nino ignored her. Now determined to solve the mystery of the box once and for all, he took a couple of towels out of a drawer and spread them over the table.
"First, I'll get rid of most of the dirt. Then I'll get brushes to go over the details if we need to."
In a matter of minutes, they cleaned the four sides and revealed four striking, remarkable scenes. It was a somewhat theatrical portrayal of the four levels of hell. Taken aback, they examined each detail very carefully to ensure that they weren't overlooking any corner, no matter how small. They may have been young, but they were also two of the best students at the University of Palermo, and specialized in Roman history.
"I've never seen anything like this," Nino remarked. "I'm almost certain it comes from the 9th century, but the scene of the crucified Roman legionnaires, on the first level, really puzzles me. The concept of hell, as it appears on the box, is relatively early."
"You're right." exclaimed Claudia. "First, we see a painful representation of death, then the ties that bind them forever with hell. On another side panel appear the sinners who are cooking in giant cauldrons and then, in the end..."
"Yes, Satan himself in person. Look at this, his throne is placed so that he can see everything, the whole process, from beginning to end."
"The guardian of the tortures," Claudia mused.
"The church of the dead," said Nino enthusiastically. "Remember the inscription you read in the marble block?"
"Of course! That wasn't there by accident."
"Someone hid the box away there for safekeeping."
"That's not all. That man, or men, built a structure to protect it. Marble has always been a very difficult material to handle. That's why it's expensive, so that must mean this was the site where they saved it. It must be important," Claudia speculated.
"Good hypothesis, interesting theory. Shame that we don't have the resources to prove it."
"Now that I think about it," continued Claudia, "I remember having read something about a temple dedicated to the ancient gods. If I'm not mistaken, it was a legend where they basically told the story of a transformation."
"A transformation? What? You mean like the werewolves?"
"Oh, come on, don't be ridiculous. I'm referring to a reform. Throughout history, the dramatic changes initiated by the invasion of a new cultural element has induced what I call transformations. A Christian church winds up converted into a mosque, like what happened in Constantinople, the city we know as Istanbul. Even a temple built in honor of the sun god, meaning the ancient Egyptian god Ra, is an apartment building now."
"That's true, I read something similar in the newspapers," agreed Nino, furrowing his brow.
"OK, let's get ourselves focused here because I went way off topic. What I'm telling you was that that temple was a bona fide work of art. A place that was covered but open at the same time.
"And what exactly does that mean?"
"I have no idea," Claudia replied, "but if I remember correctly, there was one part where they wrote that an ancient order took advantage of an uprising to seize control of the temple.
"I guess they were successful."
"So the legend said. The members of that ancient order worshiped the dead..."
"...and when they took over the temple, they transformed it into the church of the dead."
"Something like that," concluded Claudia, excited by their discovery.
"Then it's likely that we'll find some of their relics inside the box."
"Or an anti-Bible, or the sacred remains of some priest, or there could be nothing."
"Know what? Now I want to open it more than ever. The problem is we still haven't found the way to do that," explained Nino.
The two examined the edges, the top, any detail that could potentially serve as the hole of a lock but without any luck. They focused on following the eyes of a group of men heading towards a torturous descent directly to the heart of hell. They were astonished at the clarity the artist achieved in capturing every gesture, every posture, every expression in the engraved figures. More than a work of art, it was a genuine marvel. You could describe it as the object representing a living god or a gift that had fallen from heaven. Impressive.
"We have to think," said Nino, stroking his chin.
"You're right. Messing around with the box won't make it open. And now I'm tired."
Nino looked at Satan right in the eye.
"I think I got it!" he cried, throwing his hands up in triumph.
"Well, then... what are you waiting for? Open it!"
"Are you ready?" he asked, as he stroked the head of the epitome of evil.
"Yes, yes."
"Maybe the mechanism for opening it doesn't work."
"We'll never know until you try," said Claudia, growing more impatient now.
"It's also possible that...
"Oh, just shut up and open the damn box once and for fucking all!" she shouted angrily.
"OK, OK... you don't have to get like that.
Nino pressed Satan's head, triggering the mechanism. When they heard it click, their pulses accelerated and stimulated all their senses, injecting an extra charge of adrenaline that went racing through their ve
ins.
After wrestling with the top to finally open it after so many years of remaining closed under lock and key, Claudia put her arm around Nino’s waist, held her breath... and they opened it.
IV – Journey to Syracuse
"Oh, my God!" Claudia shouted. "There's a corpse in there."
Nino carefully moved her aside.
"Let me see."
He covered his nose before he looked inside, just in case he felt the urge to vomit. Narrowing his eyes, he inclined his head carefully without being entirely sure of what he was going to do once he observed the macabre contents.
"Wait a minute," he said, "this isn't a corpse. It's a piece of leather.
"Oh, thank God," Claudia gasped and moved back close to the box. "I thought I would die from fright... or being disgusted. What do I know! It looked so revolting to me."
Nino stretched out his hand to take hold of the leather.
"Wait, hold on a second. Shouldn't you put gloves on before you try to touch it?"
"You're absolutely right. We shouldn't contaminate the discoveries," he declared.
"I'll bring some gloves from the kitchen."
Once his hands were covered, he very carefully gripped the leather to take it out of the box. It was folded over to form a perfect square, as if whoever had saved it was trying to send a message.
"Is there anything else?" asked Claudia.
"A stone."
"What did you say?"
"That there's only a stone. Nothing else," Nino repeated.
"How weird!"
It was odd, this unusual thing that revealed nothing remarkable at first glance. It was the size of a pear and weighed a little less than half a kilo, something unusual enough given its size. At first glance it gave the impression of having two parts. The wider one was rounded and had several cuts in the upper part. The slimmer one strongly resembled the edge of a dagger, except that instead of a two-sided blade, it had an octagonal tip that stuck out in a very striking way.
Tales from the Voynich Manuscript and the Island of Jan Mayen Page 7
