There was no place for her to go, nothing for her to do. The hotel remained empty, bought out by Nasim for however long she wanted, so there weren’t other visitors for Estelle to interact with. Nasim herself wasn’t great company. Once she’d gotten over the disappointment of being sidelined, a part of Estelle had been nervously looking forward to spending a bit more one-on-one time with her, maybe learning more about Pharos. But Nasim was busy taking calls or making them, almost around the clock. The few times Estelle stopped by her room in the Gondar Hotel, Nasim had been pacing and speaking into the air, conversing in various languages with whoever was at the other end of her device. If she noticed Estelle hovering in the doorway, she’d smile and hold up a finger, indicating that now was not a good time and effectively dismissing her. Estelle would wander back down the hall, feeling more upset than she would have liked to admit to herself. She still felt guilty about messing things up so badly in Axum, and then again in Gondar when she lost her head after viewing her father’s message. Nasim seemed to have moved on, but Estelle still felt she needed to make up for her mistakes. Narcissistic as it may have been, she couldn’t shake the feeling that those conversations Nasim was having were about her in a way. About cleaning up the mess she’d made.
Exactly how she could make amends while waiting around for Rick and Booker, Estelle didn’t know. She whiled away a few hours browsing the internet on her glasses, looking at the same pictures of Toulouse, sending vague messages to Isa explaining that she would be away a while longer without actually explaining anything. She also made a habit of checking the local news feeds to keep up on the Ethiopian military’s search for K’ebero. The majority of the Free Army had been captured or killed over the last three days, but the body of their leader had yet to turn up. This hadn’t stopped Parliament from declaring the conflict effectively over and congratulating themselves on a job well done. Estelle wasn’t so sure; but then, it wasn’t her call to make. She only wished Berhanu had lived to see Tigray liberated.
The only place where she felt she could be of any use at all was the hospital. She spent most of her time there, talking with Kai in the brief spaces between his physical therapy, imaging sessions, checkups, and drug-induced naps. This, too, amplified her sense of guilt. It was, after all, because of her that he was in such a state, and nothing Kai told her could dissuade her of this belief.
“We were going into that arena one way or another,” he told her one time over bowls of pudding, when she had reluctantly given voice to her feelings. “And I probably would have gotten fucked up regardless. This way, at least, it wasn’t a waste of time.”
Estelle wasn’t certain how to respond to that, so she only stared at him. At the stitches and bruises, now starting to heal but no less visible. A white plastic cuff encased his right arm from elbow to fingertips, a soft pink light on it indicating that it was administering the ultrasonic therapy meant to aid the reknitting of his bones. He was getting better -- he could walk around his room, albeit in a slow shuffle -- but he was far from the man she’d first met.
“I -- thank you,” she finally managed. Estelle turned her gaze to her bowl, mushing around the remains of her pudding without much interest. “It’s good to know I wasn’t a waste of time.”
“Oh -- hey, I didn’t mean it like that.”
She glanced up to see Kai looking uncomfortable and quickly shook her head. “No, I didn’t mean it like that. It came out wrong. I just…I’ve never had someone nearly die for me. I’m still trying to come to terms with it.”
Kai nodded, looking a bit relieved. His face was kinder, more readable without the beard. She could also make out the thin white lines of old scars. “Well, not to downplay it or anything, but I’m pretty used to stepping into the shit when it starts flying. Kind of a way of life for me, what with Rick…”
Estelle couldn’t help but laugh at that, though it was more out of disbelief than anything. “You really are his keeper, aren’t you?”
“Without me, Rick would’ve run himself off a cliff years ago.” Kai paused thoughtfully. “But, without him, I’d probably be a lot worse off.”
“How do you mean?”
He shrugged. “You don’t live long enough to escape the CDZ if you’re not strong. I was plenty strong. Without Rick I would’ve survived. Would’ve been able to look after myself. But there’s a difference between going it alone and having someone else that you need to keep alive. They keep you honest. Human. It’s that daily interaction with another person, in a way that isn’t just trying to figure out if you need to kill each other or not. Keeps you from crossing lines -- or, at least, it helps you come back when you do.”
Kai said this all very matter-of-factly, as if commiserating with her on the mundane hassle of buying new shoes. And in a way, Estelle supposed, she could relate. Being responsible for her dad had certainly shaped who she was today. But his was a perspective she had no experience in. They’d talked earlier about his and Rick’s backgrounds. Living in the CDZ as children, growing up all alone -- she couldn’t imagine what that was like. What effect that would have on a child and the person they would become.
Looking at Kai now and hearing him talking -- seeing those scars on his face and thinking about what they meant, what he must have done, not just for her in that arena but for Rick their entire life -- she began to think she could see the way the CDZ had shaped him. And she thought it a miracle that he had turned out the way he had. A protector rather than…something else.
“I get it,” she said slowly. Kai cocked his head. “I do. I mean, obviously not the way you do. But I had to look after my dad while he was alive, after my mom died. He always tried to be independent, but that didn’t make me any less responsible. Even though I knew ninety-five percent of the time that he was perfectly fine, perfectly independent, it was always there in my mind. Heavy. A -- a burden.” It was the first time she’d named it as such aloud. Doing so gave her a twinge of shame, but she also knew it was true. “But I think it must have made me better. In a way.”
He was nodding. “Yeah. I think it did.”
They regarded each other for a moment, the room falling into silence. It was strange, feeling this unique, almost private connection with someone she barely knew -- someone who, until relatively recently, had technically been her opposition. Both of them understood the world in a certain way that, while not entirely identical, came from the same root of love.
A knock at the door jolted Estelle out of her thoughts, and she turned to see a man poking his head in. It wasn’t a member of the medical staff but a police officer. Nasim had enlisted the local authorities to stand watch over Kai’s suite, now that they knew Ibis might be in the area and could still be looking to eliminate his former employees. How she had managed to do that, Estelle couldn’t say -- except for the fact that Nasim was Nasim.
“Doctor,” the man said simply, then withdrew to let the doctor in with a wheelchair.
“That time already, doc?” Kai asked, setting aside his pudding. He smiled at Estelle as they prepared to wheel him away for more physical therapy. “Be around when I get back?”
She returned the smile with ease. “Definitely.”
* * *
After the boat ride back to Bahir Dar, Rick and Booker wanted nothing more than to find a local hotel and collapse for a few hours. Instead they caught the next bus to Gondar, their disheveled state drawing a few looks. Booker passed out almost as soon as his butt touched the seat, but Rick couldn’t keep himself from examining the cylinder seal. From his backpack he retrieved a soft toothbrush and tried to remove some of the oxidation, flakes of rust covering his lap like a red snow. He worked slowly, gently, determined not to damage the message inscribed on the cylinder. After twenty minutes or so he convinced himself that he’d done what he could. The iron cylinder was now only somewhat mottled with oxidation, the inscription more visible. All that was left was to read it.
Short on wet clay, Rick was forced to improvise. He broke open the pe
n he’d been using to write in his notebook, spilling its ink into one cupped hand. He then carefully dipped the seal in it, coating all sides. Then, with bated breath, he began to roll the seal across a blank page in his notebook.
Printed in tiny marks of black ink, cramped lines of text began to unfurl. Almost every millimeter of the seal had been used for text. Only at the end, on the bottom-right of the paragraph, was the writing broken up by something different. An oval shape with a symbol inside it. A symbol that he instantly recognized.
“No. Way.”
Booker jerked awake with a snort and looked blearily over. “Whazzat?” Rick held up the notebook to show him. He leaned towards it, blinking. “What am I…is this from the seal?”
“Yeah, it’s from the seal. Look at that.” Rick tapped the symbol with a finger.
Booker’s sleepiness vanished. “That’s not…”
“Yeah.” Rick looked down at the mark: an oval containing a cross with flared bars. “It’s a cross pattée -- a Templar cross.”
“Which makes that a Templar cylinder seal…” Booker trailed off, both of them staring at the ink imprint. He shook his head. “What does it mean?”
“It means we’re not the first to set foot on this trail. The Crusaders beat us to it.”
Booker looked up at him with a drawn expression. “You mean the real Ark, wherever it was hidden, was already found?”
“I don’t know… If they found it, then where is it? Why hasn’t it been put on display in the Vatican? And why would they leave a cylinder seal? Why place it inside a betyl? Why leave anything behind at all?”
Booker appeared to be awaiting an answer to all this. “Well?”
Rick shrugged. “Maybe they’ll tell us.” He returned his attention to the ink imprint, part of him frustrated to have met yet another kink in the trail -- while another part was excited that the game was not yet over. “This message, it’s written in Medieval French.”
“Can you read it?”
Rick rolled his eyes at Booker. “Please.”
And with that, he bent over the cylinder seal’s ink stamp and began translating, unable to shake the feeling that he was on the verge of a major revelation. All the while he held the tiny cylinder, keenly aware of the ancient hands that had crafted it.
* * *
They reached Gondar late in the evening. After briefly stopping at the hotel to trade their ripped and sodden clothes for new ones, Rick, Booker, Estelle, and Nasim convened in Kai’s suite at the hospital. There, after quickly retelling their experience on Tana Qirqos and showing off the cylinder seal, Rick presented his translation of the Medieval French:
Our company has travelled for one and one-half month’s time, by mount and by sea, having followed the trail of the scribe Baruch ben Neriah, of which we read in the vellum codex, having been recovered from the catacombs beneath Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem by Hugues de Payens, First Grand Master of our Order, and those eight fellows who traveled with him throughout the Holy Land. Though met with much hardship and many strange wonders, my brothers and I have come to the place where the Ark of the Lord was said to have found its rest.
I must now confess that our journey is not yet at an end. Though we did find a golden chest, much adorned and held in reverence by the caretakers of this island, it is not the true Ark of the Covenant as fashioned by Moses in the Desert of Sinai at the Mountain of the Lord. When questioned the caretakers revealed their full knowledge of the falseness of the Ark which they possess, yet they also admitted the charge they were given many years ago by those who first brought this false image to their island: To safeguard it as if it were the true Ark of the Lord and to let none remove it from this island sanctuary. Why this false image holds such importance, they knew not, or would not tell.
Under cover of night to circumvent the watch of the caretakers we entered the sanctuary. Several among us were reluctant, wary of transgressing in this place or setting an unworthy hand upon the chest, lest it be the true Ark of the Lord after all. In the end we cast lots, and it fell to Munro to uncover the chest and remove its lid. He gave thanks to the Lord and entreated He watch over him in this task. No ill befell our brother, and within was discovered a lodestone that had been cleaved as if by God’s own hand, containing a cylinder of clay inscribed with the words of the scribe Baruch ben Neriah, describing the fate of the true Ark of the Covenant.
Our quest has not yet ended. We follow the words of the scribe now, with the original cylinder of clay in our keeping. This recounting I have transcribed for posterity and have left in place of the cylinder of clay for the glory of the Lord and to uphold the charge of the caretakers. Should we fail in our search, let these words serve as a waypost for those that follow: We travel to the Mountain of the Lord, in the Desert of Sinai, where Moses met with God and received His commandments. It is here that the Ark of the Covenant was returned by the scribe Baruch ben Neriah, to await discovery in the proper time. We pray that it is that time, and that we are worthy of this task, to bring glory to the Lord our God and return His Kingdom to this Earth.
The room fell silent as Rick finished reading. He looked up from his notebook and found everyone staring at him: Booker, leaning against the wall; Estelle, sitting in a chair; Kai, propped up in his bed; and Nasim, standing by his shoulder like a silent and judgmental schoolmarm.
He cleared his throat. “That’s a rough translation, obviously, and I had to fudge a few words here and there, but…” Rick glanced back at the page and nodded to himself. “I’m, like, ninety-seven percent certain that’s what the seal says. Ninety-eight percent.”
Kai raised the hand that wasn’t encased in a cast. “Question.”
“Yeah?”
“Just to be clear, and this is based solely on what you just read: It sounds like the Knights Templar dug beneath the temple in Jerusalem, found some secret documents, and followed them to locate the Ark of the Covenant. That right?”
Rick sighed. “Yeah.”
Kai grinned. “Just wanted to be super clear on that. Just wanted to make sure we all understand exactly what happened. Because, see, a few days ago I had this idea --”
“Yes, alright, you were right,” Rick said, exasperated. “That what you want to hear? You were right, it’s a grand Templar conspiracy, an ancient secret guarded by the Order for hundreds of years. Good? We done?”
Kai’s grin had widened. “Yeah, I’m good.”
Estelle was looking like she was trying not to laugh, and even Booker was smiling. The only one who didn’t look amused was Nasim. She peered down at the notebook over Rick’s shoulder. “So what does this mean? The Ark was found by the Knights Templar?”
“I don’t think it was,” Rick said. “Otherwise we’d know, wouldn’t we? The Catholic Church would have shown it off, used it to reinforce their holy claim. Or the Templars would have done the same thing.”
“Maybe they hid it,” Kai offered.
“Why would they do that?”
He shrugged. “Dunno. Didn’t want the Church to get a hold of it and take away their power?”
Rick shook his head. “No. I think it’s more likely that the Ark is still out there. Either the Templars couldn’t find it, or the company that was searching for it died before they could reach it, or something.”
“Is this what you think?” Nasim asked, watching him closely. “Or is it what you want to be true?”
Rick met her eyes. “It’s what I think,” he said firmly.
She studied him for a moment longer, then nodded. Rick thought she might have looked a bit relieved, in the instant before she returned her attention to his notebook. “Alright. So we’re going to Mount Sinai. That’s what they meant by the Mountain of the Lord, correct?”
He nodded. “That much is clear, yeah. There’s only one problem. Nobody actually knows where the Biblical Mount Sinai is. There’s a Sinai range, covering pretty much the entire Sinai Peninsula, with a few candidates -- Jabal Musa, Mount Serbal, Mount Catherine, Mount Helal, Mou
nt Sin Bishar. Of course, some scholars don’t think it was on the Sinai Peninsula at all, but maybe in Jordan, or the Negev Desert, or Saudi Arabia…”
“A few candidates,” Nasim repeated, exasperated. She rubbed her eyes wearily. “Do you at least know what the most likely option might be?”
“Well, there’s an argument for all of them.”
“I’m not asking for a dissertation, Rick. Just your best guess.”
That was a tall order, but Nasim clearly wasn’t in the mood for nuance. Rick considered for a moment. There were dozens of possibilities, ranging from a mountain near the stone city of Petra to Jabal al-Lawz, the “Mountain of Diamonds” in Arabia. If he had to only pick one, however…
“Jabal Musa,” he said finally. “In the Sinai Desert. It rises above a flat plain that matches the description of the area where the Israelites made camp while Moses spoke to Yahweh. It’s also been considered sacred by different cultures in the region for thousands of years. Prehistoric dwellings were found arranged in a ring around the mountain slopes, and artifacts have been recovered in the area bearing iconography of moon worship. Which, in case you don’t know, is a tradition as old as humanity itself. It’s even in the name of the mountain: Sinai comes from Sin, the Sumerian moon deity. The mountain would’ve been known to the Egyptians and to Moses as a holy place. If he was going to meet with God somewhere, it would’ve been there.”
Rick found Nasim staring at him strangely, but he stood his ground. “Is that where the Templars would have looked?” Booker asked.
He shrugged. “Maybe. It was known to be one of the candidates during the Middle Ages.”
“So they could have found the Ark. This could still end up being a wild goose chase.”
A Covenant of Thieves Page 53
