Trifariam, The Lost Codex (2012)

by Diego Rodriguez

  He continued leafing through all the pages in search of some familiar character, until he came across a number of blank sheets, right at the end of what seemed to be the first chapter. When he touched them he realized that they did not form part of the book, but were instead part of a large sheet folded back on itself until it was a similar size to the other pages. He unfolded it and saw that it was indeed a huge, white page approximately ten square feet in size. It didn’t contain any writing and was covered only a series of quarter-inch holes which were in no particular pattern. James was puzzled and had no idea what it was. He guessed that the holes had been caused from the page being folded up for so long - the paper must have deteriorated.

  He continued turning the pages until he stumbled across something very strange. At the end of the second chapter was a metal object whose shape was similar to the illustration on the cover of the book - it was much thinner, but still the same size. However hard he looked, he couldn’t figure out which material it was made from, since it didn’t remind him of anything he had seen before.

  He didn’t find anything interesting in the following chapters, except for a grid of 23x23 letters which really stood out to him, not least because of its solitary location on the last page of the book. This gave him the impression that he was looking at the Holy Grail - he would need to decipher it.

  Incredible! he thought. I have the discovery of the year in front of me and I can’t work out what it is about!

  He mulled it over for a few minutes, thinking about the numerous friends he had, many of whom were experts in semiology and extinct languages. Maybe one of them could help him.

  The shower in the bathroom stopped. Mary had finished freshening up and the noise of a hairdryer began to echo throughout the flat, making it difficult to concentrate.

  He had sometimes heard Margot, one of his fellow university professors, mention how a group of experts in extinct languages and academics from universities across the country met once a month in the name of research. They debated the latest discoveries and studied the most implausible topics which had yet to be discovered. He knew that his knowledge of extinct languages was rather limited. He much preferred art, studying ancient civilizations, archaeological remains… For a moment, he toyed with the idea of attending one of those meetings to see if they were as rewarding as they were said to be.

  The bathroom door opened and a cloud of steam wafted out. James was sitting on the living room sofa and the door was ajar, allowing him to see Mary emerge from the bathroom with a towel around her body, covering her most compromising areas. She was a beautiful woman with very feminine curves. Her hair, still damp, also gave her an extra touch of sensuality.

  The girl surreptitiously looked towards the living room to check where her guest was, but their eyes suddenly met. James just looked away and cleared his throat as if he hadn’t seen anything.

  Mary couldn’t stifle a smile when she noticed that James had become nervous. “I’ll be right with you, and then you can tell me everything you’ve discovered.”

  Although on first impressions the room had been perfect, after having spent an hour in there he had begun to feel on edge and observed. This was in part due to the masks and sculptures which adorned filled the room, all of them facing the sofa. One of these masks in particular stood out to him. It had a black face with a prominent jaw, white teeth and eyes as red as blood. It took center stage and was surrounded by various others positioned lower down. It most likely represented the chief of an ancient African tribe listening to his warriors.

  The young woman finally came into the living room wearing some sweatpants and a loose top. “So, what have you discovered?”

  “In all honesty, not much. I can’t manage to decode a single word, it seems to have been written in some kind of extinct language, unknown to most of the world. Perhaps it is encrypted.”

  “Encrypted? Don’t you think the author has gone to a lot of trouble to hide the content of the book? Obviously it must lead to something very valuable!”

  “I completely agree. That much was made clear when those two thugs tried to kill me this afternoon, but I intend to get to the bottom of it. I’ve been thinking, I could call in a few favors, get a group of specialists together to decipher its content. They could start on it in a couple of days.”

  Mary sat on the sofa next to James, gently lifted his right hand and placed it next to hers on her lap. She looked him straight in the eyes and spoke to him with searing honesty. “James, I don’t know if we’ll still be alive tomorrow. Don’t you realize they want to kill us? How would you fly to the United States without those two assassins finding you? Besides… are you seriously thinking about handing it over to a group of people who could use it for their own gains and benefit at our expense? We have to find another solution.”

  “But what good is it having the book in our hands if we aren’t able to decode its meaning? I’ve only discovered a couple of things.” James noticed how the young woman was starting to pay more attention to him. “It seems that the book is made up of a series of well-structured chapters, some of which even seem to have a number of objects which look as if they are linked to the text. I’ve found several, which makes it all the more mysterious.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “The first is a large blank sheet without any writing which measures about ten square feet. It seems to be related to the first chapter.” James passed the sheet to Mary while she looked at it in astonishment, but she didn’t even unfold it. “I found some kind of emblem at the end of the second chapter. It’s made from an odd material which I couldn’t recognize. If you look hard, you’ll see that it is identical to the carving which appears on the cover of the book, and to the symbols that I found in your house.”

  “And what do you think this symbol could mean?”

  James shrugged his shoulders. “The first time I saw it, I thought that it was a masonic symbol due to the pyramid shape. Have you heard of the Illuminati?” Mary nodded. “Well, as you know, the symbol par excellence of that order is the pyramid with an eye at the top, otherwise known as the ‘All-seeing Eye’ or ‘Eye of Providence’. It is a symbol which was also adopted by the Freemasons. I have to say that it bears a great similarity to the symbol I found in your house, but it isn’t the same.”

  “So, do you think it belongs to some kind of secret order?”

  “I don’t know. The story I heard spoke of the emblem of a powerful family which had commissioned a series of woks from Michelangelo. From what I can tell, they wanted to hide something and they’ve done that very well. At first glance, I think that the book is a kind of map which will guide us towards something much more important and of unimaginable value. However, without understanding the language in which it is written, it will be impossible for us to understand it.”

  Suddenly a noise from the kitchen startled them. After a faint whistling sound, the boiler switched itself on and they both looked at each other with relief.

  James got up off the sofa and paced around in circles while he looked at the canvases on the wall. After a few seconds, he spoke again. “Mary, I have to get away from the city. They are highly-trained professionals - no doubt they will find us in no time and, realistically speaking, we wouldn’t last five minutes at their hands. They’ve probably been hired by very wealthy people who have offered them exorbitant amounts of money to retrieve the book. Clearly they won’t stop until they have it. I will leave first thing tomorrow. Besides, they haven’t seen you, they don’t know who you are or what you look like. You’re safe.”

  “You’re crazy! I’m coming with you!”

  “What are you saying?! That’s impossible!”

  “You’ve got something amazing in your hands - one of the most important discoveries of the last decade, without a shadow of a doubt. And I’m not talking about that book which is over five hundred years old, but the secret it hides. I’m sorry to disappoint you, James, but I’m coming with you.”

  The you
ng professor was vaguely annoyed, he didn’t understand why she wanted to put herself at so much risk. Right now, you are an anonymous person and they don’t know you. But on the other hand, he knew how she felt. She was tired of giving classes to university students who lacked all motivation, except when it came to finding out how many gallons of beer they could knock back in an hour. He had told her about his recent brushes with adventure just minutes before, and she wanted to get her name in the history books. It was only logical that she wanted to join in!

  “Mary.” James spoke to her tenderly as he checked the time on his Breitling watch, a gift from his ex-wife. “It is quite late and we have to wake up early tomorrow morning. We’ll talk when we get up tomorrow, and if you still feel the same, then I won’t stop you. I understand how you feel; I would do the same. Anyway, sleep on it, and bear in mind that it won’t be at all easy hiding from those two assassins.”

  The pair stood up and left the living room.

  “It’s already been decided,” she reminded him, accompanying him along the hallway to the guestroom. “This is your room, you can use that bathroom. I’ll go and find you some shower gel and leave it in the cupboard. Ah, of course!” she teased. “I don’t have shaving foam or razor blades. I don’t use them.”

  He immediately stroked his beard in a reflex action and realized that it was longer than normal. Clearly she was dropping a not-so-subtle hint, suggesting that now was the time for a shave. James looked for excuses but the woman had already left.

  It had been a very long afternoon. Those minutes during which his life had hung by a thread while a madman pointed a gun at him had been interminable. He lay on his freshly made bed and closed his eyes in the hope of finding a moment of peace, but he quickly realized that his date with Morpheus would have to wait a few minutes more. The door to the guest bathroom had slammed shut, as if Mary had wanted to tell him that she had left everything he needed and had gone to bed.

  James decided to freshen up before going to bed.

  The bathroom was rather modern. There wasn’t a bath, just a shower cubicle surrounded by a frosted glass screen. The washbasin was large, with an old-fashioned faucet and a large mirror, essential for every woman who took pride in her appearance. On the wall were two rustic-style cabinets, inside which Mary had left everything James needed.

  What a dreadful mess! I look like a hobo!

  His hair was somewhat greasy, nothing like his usual style. His beard hid his chiseled facial features and a nauseating body odor emanated from his body. His shirt was torn in several places due to the shoves and threats he had received, and his jeans were bloody and covered with dust after having been kneeling in chimney debris.

  After having got himself back together with the help of the mirror, he remained thoughtful, looking at the words printed on his hoodie. It was one of the many hoodies which final year students sold to make a few extra bucks towards some nice vacations. The design was rather tacky, although the sales figures disputed this. It was a huge red circle, with the words Columbia University spelt out around the top half of the perimeter, and the same words appeared around the lower half but back to front. At first glance they were illegible, but when they were placed before a mirror, the meaning could be understood perfectly.

  This little discovery triggered a wave of excitement for James. He ran to his room, picked up the book off the bedside table and returned to the bathroom to open it in front of the mirror. He was unable to suppress a cry of joy when he realized that he recognized the characters which appeared before him, although he still didn’t understand the meaning.

  Maybe I could get something out of trying different combinations of letters, rearranging them in a certain order…, or by substituting some letters for others.

  But every one of these procedures would involve a great deal of time that he didn’t have to spare right now. He remembered the grid which looked like a word search and which was drawn on one of the last pages of the book. He had had it clear right from the start that this was the Holy Grail as far as decipher it was concerned, and perhaps he could use it now. The page displayed the following array of letters:

  This time, no sooner had he seen it than he knew what he had to do. “Oh my god! I’ve got it!”

  James shouted so loudly and started laughing so hard that Mary got out of bed and burst into the bathroom, panicking. She thought that something had happened. “What’s the matter? Is something is wrong?”

  “Come here! Look at the mirror! Do you know the alphabet it uses?”

  Mary got so close that her nose bumped into the glass, hurting her a little. The woman’s face turned white as she saw how the characters, before indecipherable, were now revealing their true nature before the mirror. However, she still didn’t understand the words which were appearing. “James,” said Mary in a faltering and shaky voice. “Tell me that you understand what it says.”

  The young man nodded. “The message is encrypted and the key to deciphering it lies in the grid which appears on the last page of the book. I studied the rows first of all and I came to the conclusion that each contains the twenty-three letters of the Latin alphabet, in their respective order and without repetition. If you think about it, the same thing happens with the columns. Suddenly, everything became clear. It is the famous Trithemius cipher which has given cryptanalysts headaches to this day.”

  “The Trithemius cipher?”

  “Yes. Trithemius was a German Benedictine monk who was famous for his books on cryptographic techniques disguised as an esoteric treatise. His most important technique, the so-called ‘Trithemius cipher’ or ‘tabula recta’, kept cryptanalysts busy for nearly half a millennium. The table is made by choosing an alphabet, such as Latin, and writing it along the top row. The second row is formed from the one above, but the first letter is removed and the others are all shifted one position to the left. Finally, you place the letter you removed at the end of them all and you follow the same procedure for the other row.”

  James noticed that Mary wasn’t following him at all, so he gave her an example. “Say we wanted to encode a five-letter word, such as PAPER. The first letter would correspond to the one which occupies the position of the letter P, but on the alphabet in the first row. In this case, that would still be P. The second letter would correspond to the position of A but on the second row, in other words B, and so on. Eventually, the word PAPER would be encoded as ‘PBRHX’.”

  “Impressive!”

  “Definitely. We’re looking at a true cryptographic masterpiece. If you look carefully, you see that the author would have to have spent a lot of time writing the book, because not only are the characters back-to-front, but also encoded. Another feature which makes it impressive from an artistic point of view is that it is not only written in Latin, but also using a certain kind of script - Visigothic.”

  Mary looked him in disbelief.

  “Don’t get scared,” he laughed. “I know because a month ago, I had to supervise an exam for paleography professors. It consisted of translating an ancient text about the sale and exchange of monasteries and kings’ orders. The text was written using Visigothic script and it piqued my curiosity. I spent a couple of days finding out a little more about the topic.”

  Despite fearing that the young woman might think she was faced with a veritable bookworm, he continued.

  “From what I can gather, the Visigothic script originated in Spain between the eighth and twelfth centuries and judging by the few examples which remain, it wasn’t used for writing classical texts. I think the author must have been somebody related to the church. If not, I don’t see how they would have knowledge of this kind of script three centuries later, in a place far from Spain. Besides, Trithemius was born in 1462, and he was named Abbot of the monastery where he lived when he was twenty-two years old. It’s highly likely that the author of the book knew of his work and contacted him in search of a trustworthy cryptographic method. When he saw that he was a servant of God, he trusted h
im and divulged his secrets. In any case, what is clear is that he thought about hiding the content of the book in the best way possible, and what better way than using a script which was unknown in that area?”

  “So you know how to decode the content?”

  “No, my interests revolve more around the age in which it was used, by whom and for what reason.”

  James glimpsed a look of indifference in the woman’s eyes. Meanwhile he searched desperately for his cellphone. “Anyway, I know who can help us. I know the best paleographer in the world and, funnily enough, he’s my best friend.”

  Chapter 7

  A blue Ferrari slowly cruised by, taking its two occupants through the streets of Florence. A large blue and white logo was plastered on the side of the vehicle, running from the hood to the trunk, and it read Polizia. For some years the Italian police had been infamous for purchasing one luxury sports car after another for their taskforce, in order to catch slippery criminals. However, not content with that, they had also increased their fleet free of charge by bringing in all those Ferraris and Lamborghinis they had seized on special operations. In fact, in a recent mafia sting, they had managed to acquire over a hundred luxury sports cars.

  The Ferrari turned right and slowly drove down a cobbled pedestrian road, with few people walking about. At the end of it, the driver turned left onto a highway, but he suddenly braked without warning and gestured with his right hand, pointing out something strange to his companion. “Did you see that car parked there?”

  “Yes,” he answered, surprised. “Now that you mention it, it’s strange that it’s parked right there when practically all the spaces in the street are vacant.”

  About a hundred yards away, a black all-terrain vehicle with blacked-out windows in the back was parked right in front on the garage door. There was enough space on either side, but its position meant that it was blocking access for other vehicles.