ut, to run free like nine fires and flood the CODEX
Zara read the message again and sighed. It was a simple quatrain, the four lined prophetic verse, in which Nostradamus wrote all his visions. He wrote a hundred in a book like an almanac and named each book a century. The basic concept behind the quatrain was simple, but she knew Nostradamus worked on many levels. Piling layer upon layer of hidden meanings inside.
This one, she noted was missing the first letter of every second line. It might have been left out by accident, or worn away by years of movement, but it was most likely left out intentionally — and that meant Nostradamus wanted their absence to mean something. She nodded to herself, willing to play the game.
In its simplest form, Zara knew that the quatrain meant that only the chosen person would know the answer, and if the wrong number was inserted, a poison would destroy the book.
The rhymed quatrains of Nostradamus were written mainly in French with a bit of Italian, Greek, and Latin mingled in. He intentionally obscured the quatrains through the use of symbolism and metaphors, as well as by making changes to proper names by swapping, adding or removing letters. The obscuration was claimed to have been done to avoid his being tried as a magician, although Zara had always figured Nostradamus did so to avoid ever being caught out as a fraud and charlatan, who never had any idea what the future held.
This quatrain, she noticed, was written entirely in English with the exception of the last word, which was written in Latin and in capitals. At first glance it could have been simply to make the English word, Book, become Codex so that it rhymed with Next. Zara recalled that Nostradamus wrote in a number of languages, but for the more simple he wrote in his native French, or in the language of the intended audience. In her case, it made sense he’d use English or French. If Latin was used, the quatrain almost always had a higher, intellectual meaning. Which meant Nostradamus was trying to make another point about the word Codex.
Well that clears that up, doesn’t it?
The crest of her lip formed a smile. Nostradamus had been a great admirer of Leonardo Da Vinci. One of Da Vinci’s many inventions was a blood codex — a locking mechanism designed to destroy whatever valuables were stored inside if any attempt to force an opening was done by any other than the chosen person. Zara suddenly wished she’d concentrated harder during her cryptology classes when she studied for her undergraduate archeology degree.
Great!
So only the Chosen may answer this damned question!
Doesn’t really help me much, does it?
Zara ran her fingers along each groove to get a sense of the entire word. Her finger stopped at the end of the final word, CODEX. She’d missed something the first time she’d read it. A slight lateral indentation was found between the letters CODE and X.
Could it be Nostradamus was talking about the tenth code?
Or the answer to the code being the number ten?
Or even the ending is ten.
The ending to what, though?
Zara thought about that for a moment. If there was an ending number, there must surely be a beginning, too. She stared at the image as a whole, trying to gain some sort of additional information. Trying to search for a higher plane of information. Anything that Nostradamus might have done to give her another hint. She brought her face right up to the image and then moved back again. Not looking at it in any particular order, simply letting her eyes relax both in and out of focus. The same technique used to see those magic images that frustrated her as a child, where the image ordinarily looked like a thousand dots randomly arranged, but if you relaxed your eyes just right, your mind could derive a unique picture as though by magic.
Zara swore loudly. She’d never been any good at those games. She picked up the image and simply read it out loud once more. There were two letters missing. The first was most likely a “C” to form the word Conceived. The second was possibly an “O” to form the word Out. It could also be a “B” or “H,” — however But and Hut didn’t make much sense. Now that she looked at the quatrain, the whole damn thing barely made any logical sense. The lines were strangely worded, giving it the appearance of some sort of attempt at poetry and rhymes by a school student rather than a great Seer and master of the languages.
She stopped. Grinned widely and then read only the words on the left hand side.
Only.
Conceived.
To.
Out.
Christ! It’s a vertical word — OCTO! The Latin word for eight. She highlighted the letters to make sense, incorporating the slight dent in the word CODE — X, so that it looked like this:
Only the Chosen,
Conceived with one faith and born on the day of truth may open;
To see the future, the correct date must be selected, or poison will be the next
Out, to run free like nine fires and flood the CODE-X
Along the left-hand side spells the Latin word OCTO — which means eight. The final word spells codex which is book in Latin, but also Code — X, which means the number ten.
So we now know he wants the number eight and the number ten included in the code. Great, so now all I need is to work out all the other numbers…
Begins with 8
Ends in 10?
Zara ran her hands along the rest of the chest as she examined it looking for any hints or clues which would shed some light on the cryptic message. There were a series of seven latches on the left-hand side. Each with a separate pictograph formed by a protruding piece of metal to make an ornamental dial. She carefully turned the first one, and watched as it rotated on an axis containing the numbers zero to nine in modern numerals. Zara carefully returned the dial to zero where it had begun.
Seven dials in total. Starting with the furthest along the right-hand side of the box was the image of a staff, followed by the heel bone, coiled rope, lotus flower, pointing finger, tadpole, and finally the astonished man. They were ancient Egyptian numerals and at a guess, by turning the dial she was increasing the number of the matching images. Each dial increased the number by a factor of ten.
For example, three staff represented three; three heel bones represented thirty; three coiled ropes represented three hundred, and so forth. But how and why, for that matter, Nostradamus would have chosen to use ancient Egyptian numerals for his blood codex was beyond her. He was known to write his more scholarly verses in Latin, his simple rhymes in French and Italian — but she’d never heard of him writing in ancient Egyptian.
She suddenly began to laugh. Shaking her head, she tried to find an explanation for the impossible. The Rosetta Stone wasn’t found in Egypt until 1799 and Jean-Francois Champollion didn’t successfully translate it until 1822. All in total, it was almost two and a half centuries after Nostradamus wrote the numbers for the intricate locking mechanism, which meant the brass chest was either a fake, had been built by someone who knew how to write in ancient Egyptian, or Nostradamus really did see the future.
Zara stared at the ancient Egyptian numbers again. She slowly ran her fingers along the locking mechanisms, and over the ornamental dials, trying to see how the chest remained secure after all these years. Whoever built the chest had been a true craftsman. In a time long before computers, when braziers were masters, the chest had been crafted so perfectly that it was impossible to see where the sections joined. Like a complex jigsaw puzzle, everything locked together on its own.