She read the original, unadulterated message from the top of the brass chest again.
Only the Chosen,
onceived 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
ut, to run free like nine fires and flood the CODEX
It wasn’t until she read it through for a third time that she saw the numbers had been right in front of her all along. She underlined the word, one and nine from the quatrain. Nostradamus had written them on the second and fourth prophetic verse. The same two lines which had letters missing.
She hit the table in glee. Her heart pounded and she wanted to scream. Nostradamus was telling her to remove the 19 from the equation. So he told her the first number would be a ten, the last number would be an eight, the number nineteen would be missing — what about the two and the seven?
Zara felt like it was all becoming clear to her. Could the two represent the amount of letters missing? The thought seemed more like she was clutching at straws. Even if it did account for the two, what about the seven?
She stepped towards the brass chest. She ran her hands over each intricately carved, ornamental ancient Egyptian dial. The astonished man. Tadpole. Pointing finger. Lotus flower. Coil of rope. Heel bone. Staff –
Sweet Jesus! There’s seven dials!
10278 — The entire series of numbers had been accounted for. Her numbers. The date of her birth. Zara shook her head. I don’t believe I’m trying this.
She carefully entered her date of birth into the blood codex and stared at the number, 10.2.78 — finding it difficult to find a reason for the impossible coincidence. She took in a deep breath and pressed the final two activation numbers. She held her breath as nothing happened.
The sound of two locked seals popping could be heard, followed by the release of liquid running through tiny tubes inside.
Zara swore. Because she’d gotten it all wrong. The poison was being released and the book of Nostradamus was about to be destroyed.
Chapter Seven
Zara looked at the solid lid, running her hands along the sealed edges and frantically searching for some means of stopping the damaging process. It was impossible. The process had begun and if Nostradamus had been such an admirer of Leonardo Da Vinci’s blood codex as she was led to believe, the destruction process had now commenced.
A lifetime of work destroyed in minutes!
The sound of flowing liquid finally stopped. Zara continued to search for a way to enter the brass chest. Hoping there was at least some means of salvaging some of the remaining works of Nostradamus.
The lid suddenly became loose and no longer secured by whatever internal locking mechanism had previously held it. She slowly exhaled and removed the sealed lid. Inside were two large brass containers with a liquid inside. She quickly withdrew both of them after inverting and carefully standing each one upright on the floor beside her. A copper tube ran from the lid to the inside of a second sealed container. By setting the dials to the right place earlier, she’d moved an intricate piece of plumbing that now blocked the passage of the ink, making it impossible to send the ink into the book. After removing the two bottles of ink, she examined the locking mechanism. If she’d turned the dials in the opposite direction, the contents would have spilled inside the second chest. The released liquid changed the pressure inside the chest — releasing the hydrogen bond that held it together.
She removed the locking mechanism and poured the contents of the first container into a bucket. The air smelled acrid, and toxic. A moment later a hole in the wooden bucket formed and the strong acid continued to burn. Zara guessed sulfuric acid, but as an archeologist and not a chemical engineer, it was nothing more than a guess.
Zara sighed. Thankful she’d picked the correct combination to enter into the old chest. She returned to the remaining case. This one was much smaller, and sat in the middle of the original brass one. It was made from iron and had been wrapped with an oiled cloth to ensure it survived. She carefully removed the smaller container from the latches which held it in place. Two small holes remained where the other end of the copper pipes would have potentially spilled the strong acid inside, destroying the book she hoped to find.
She carefully unwrapped the oiled cloth and examined the sealed box. The metal looked in good condition. It was sealed so perfectly she could barely identify the slight dip where the two sides of the container came together. The box had no ornamental markings, scratches, or damages. It looked like it had been put together for this specific purpose and then locked away for the ages.
A single small placard made of wood was firmly imbedded into the top of the container to form an intricate handle. It had the simple words,
Here’s the proof you’re looking for.
Zara smiled again and wondered if someone was somehow playing the most intricate hoax on her. Or could Nostradamus have really had the foresight to know she needed proof of the date. She patiently removed the piece of wood and placed it in a sealed piece of plastic and put that in her side pocket. She would have the wood carbon dated when she got the book secured and in the lab. The buyer would be looking for proof before payment.
Zara turned the box over in her hands. It weighed around twenty pounds. On the opposite side, were four turning mechanisms. Each one numbered from one to nine. She thought back to her high school math class. A lesson in permutations and combinations told her the four digit code could be anything between 0000 to 9999, hence 10,000 combinations. This is going to take a long time. God how she hated math in school.
It will be four centuries before you open;
And by then I will be long removed from this world —
So by then you will see the year I was overcome by dropsy;
While others before you shall never know.
Zara read the second quatrain and grinned. It was the sort of thing Michel De Nostradame was known for. The type of game he played. The answer was to place the date of his death into the code. There was no way he’d know he was going to die then, unless he really did see the future — which she was certain he didn’t.
She adjusted the numbers until the code read, 1566 — the year Nostradamus had died.
The latch unhinged and the damned box opened. Zara wondered for a moment whether Nostradamus, keen to perpetuate his myth after his death had committed suicide in 1566 for this specific purpose.
She carefully opened the box. Inside was a relatively small codex. She opened the first page. It was made of paper, and bound by thick leather to form rigid hand-bound, leather codices. She read the first sentence. Re-read it again. Sat down and swore. Because the first page of the codex was addressed to her, and stamped with a wax seal containing today’s date.
Which meant everything she believed was wrong — the prophecy was true.
Chapter Eight
Zara gently bit the top edge of her lip, a nervous habit she’d developed as a child, but almost never did anymore. She started at the beginning and read the first full page of the Book of Nostradamus. If the stories were to be believed, which she doubted, this was the life’s work of the master seer.
Her mind raced, trying to formulate a scientific explanation for what she’d found. Could it be a fake? The carbon dating of the leather bound codex would tell her for certain. It was either made during the time range when Nostradamus lived or not. What if someone else had left it for her? She shook her head — impossible. She watched as the laborers tried to pry the box free from the sand. The box was fixed hard which meant it had been there for centuries, not days, weeks or months like a hoax.