Map of Bones (Sigma Force 2)

Her uncle leaned back. “Is anyone still wondering if we’re not on the right track?”

Rachel and Gray stared at his handiwork.

“Christ…” Gray swore.

“It forms a perfect hourglass,” Rachel said.

Vigor nodded. “The symbol for the passage of time itself. Formed by two triangles. Remember that the Egyptian symbol for the white powder fed to the pharaohs was a triangle. As a matter of fact, triangles were also symbolic for the benben stone of the Egyptians, a symbol of sacred knowledge.”

“What’s a benben stone?” Gray asked.

Rachel answered. “They’re the caps placed over the tips of Egyptian obelisks and pyramids.”

“But they’re mostly represented by triangles in art,” her uncle added. “In fact, you can see one on the back of your own dollar bill. American currency shows a pyramid with a triangle hovering over it.”

“The one with the eye inside it,” Gray said.

“An all-seeing eye,” Vigor corrected. “Symbolic of that sacred knowledge I was talking about. It makes one wonder if this society of ancient mages didn’t have some influence on the early fraternities of your forefathers.” This last was said with a smile. “But certainly for the Egyptians, there seems to be an underlying theme of triangles, sacred knowledge, all tying back to the mysterious white powder. Even the name benben makes this connection.”

“What do you mean?” Rachel said, intrigued.

“The Egyptians implied significance to the spelling of their words. For instance, a-i-s in ancient Egyptian translates to ‘brain,’ but if you reversed the spelling to s-i-a, that word means ‘consciousness.’ They used the very spelling of the words to connect the two: consciousness to the brain. Now back to benben. The letters b-e-n translate to ‘sacred stone,’ as I mentioned, but do you know what you get if you spell it backward?”

Rachel and Gray shrugged at the same time.

“N-e-b translates to ‘gold.’”

Gray let out a breath of surprise. “So gold is connected to sacred stone and sacred knowledge.”

Vigor nodded. “Egypt is where it all began.”

“But where does it end?” Rachel asked, staring down at her map. “What is the significance of the hourglass? How does it point to the next location?”

They all stared out at the pyramidal tomb.

Vigor shook his head.

Gray knelt down. “It’s my turn at the map.”

“You have an idea?” Vigor said.

“You don’t have to sound so shocked.”

1:37 P.M.

GRAY SET to work, using the back of his knife as a straight edge. He had to get this right. With the felt marker in hand, he spoke as he worked, not looking up.

“That big bronze finger,” he said. “See how it’s in the exact center of the room, positioned under the dome?”

The others glanced out to the tomb. The water had settled to a flat sheen again. The arched starscape on the ceiling was again reflected perfectly in the water, creating an illusion of a starry sphere.

“The finger is positioned like the north-south pole of that spherical mirage. The axis around which the world spins. And now look at the map. What spot marks the center of the hourglass?”

Rachel leaned closer and read the name there. “The island of Rhodes,” she said. “Where the finger came from.”

Gray smiled at the wonder in her voice. Was it from the revelation or the fact that he had discovered it?

“I think we’re supposed to find the axis through the hourglass,” he said. He took the felt marker and drew a line bisecting the hourglass vertically. “And that bronze finger points toward the north pole.” He continued, using his knife blade as a guide, and extended the line north.

His marker stopped at a well-known and significant city.

“Rome,” Rachel read off the map.

Gray sat back. “The fact that all this geometry points right back to Rome must be significant. It must be where we have to go next. But where in Rome? The Vatican again?”

He stared around at the others.

Rachel’s brow had bunched up.

Vigor slowly knelt down. “I think, Commander, that you’re both right and wrong. Can I see your knife?”

Gray handed it over, glad to let the monsignor usurp his position.

He played with the knife’s edge on the map. “Hmm…two triangles.” He tapped the hourglass pattern.

“What about it?”

Vigor shook his head, eyes focused. “You were right about the fact that this line hits Rome. But it’s not where we’re supposed to go.”

“How do you know that?”

“Remember the multiple layers of riddles here. We have to look deeper.”

“To where?”

Vigor dragged his finger along the edge of the blade, extending the line past Rome. “Rome was only the first stop.” He continued the imaginary line farther north, into France. He halted at a spot just a bit north of Marseilles.

Vigor nodded and smiled. “Clever.”

“What?”

Vigor passed back the knife and tapped the spot. “Avignon.”

A gasp arose from Rachel.

Gray failed to see the significance. His confused expression made that plain.

Rachel turned to him. “Avignon is the place in France to which the papacy was exiled in the early fourteenth century. It became the papal seat of power for almost a full century.”

“The second seat of papal power,” Vigor stressed. “First Rome, then France. Two triangles, two symbols of power and knowledge.”

“But how can we be sure?” Gray said. “Maybe we’re reading too much into it.”

Vigor waved away his concern. “Remember, we already had pinpointed the date when we thought the clues were planted, when the papacy left Rome. The first decade of the fourteenth century.”

Gray nodded, but he was not totally convinced.

“And these crafty alchemists left us another layer to the riddle to help firmly establish this location.” Vigor pointed to the shape on the map. “When do you think the hourglass was first invented?”

Gray shook his head. “I assumed it was at least a couple thousand years…maybe older.”

“Oddly enough, the hourglass’s invention matched the time of the first mechanical clocks. Only seven hundred years ago.”

Gray calculated in his head. “That would place it back to the start of the thirteen hundreds again. The beginning of the fourteenth century.”