Murphy put on a pair of white cotton gloves, opened the door to the chamber, and carefully removed the scroll. "Let's see what we have baked," he said quietly.
Gently he began unrolling the papyrus over a plastic tray. Laura held her breath, amazed at the steadiness of his hands, considering he was holding something that had been made in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, the time of Daniel. Right now ,
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she thought, in this room, we three living, breathing people are linked to the Biblical past through this impossibly fragile object that could crumble to dust at any minute .
But the ancient papyrus didn't crumble. Like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, it slowly unfurled, intact and beautiful.
"Will you look at that," said Murphy as line after line of ancient cuneiform appeared. Solid triangles with linear tails, and V shapes like birds against the sky, crammed together in narrow columns. Fully unrolled, the sheet of papyrus measured about nine inches by fifteen. It was scarred by long creases across its tobacco-brown surface, the edges were tattered, and much of the surface had flaked away. But more of the lettering remained than Murphy had dared to hope.
"I'd say that was Chaldean."
Laura couldn't bear to look away from the strange geometrical symbols, in case they faded to nothing in front of her eyes. "That makes sense. In Nebuchadnezzar's day, half the priests and sorcerers in Babylon were Chaldean. Can you read it?"
Murphy tilted the scroll slightly to get a better angle. "Well, I'm not exactly fluent. I can order a salad or ask directions to the post office, but anything more complicated than that ..."
Laura gripped his arm. "Be serious. I've seen you doodling in Chaldean. What does it say?"
"Well, that's the funny thing." Murphy squinted intently at the letters. "I can definitely make out the symbol for 'bronze,' and here"--he pointed to a barely legible smudge-- "is the symbol for 'serpent.' And look, there they are again, with the symbol for 'the Israelites.'"
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They were silent for a moment, and Shari watched as it seemed both Murphys' minds were racing to make sense of the images before them. "What does it all mean?" she asked.
"The Brazen Serpent," whispered Laura.
"Exactly," said Murphy. "Made by Moses thirty-five hundred years ago ..."
"And broken into three pieces by King Hezekiah in seven fourteen B.C."
"But, ladies, this doesn't make any sense. Methuselah said this prize was an artifact that had to do with Daniel. He lived in the time of King Nebuchadnezzar--which was almost a hundred fifty years after the time of King Hezekiah."
Murphy pushed his chair back and started pacing. "It doesn't make sense. What would a Chaldean scribe be doing writing about the Brazen Serpent? And what's the connection to Daniel?"
Laura peered at the scroll to see if she could make out any more details. "Any chance of asking the crazy person who gave it to you?"
"Gave it to me?"
"You know what I mean."
Murphy shook his head. "Methusaleh likes me to figure things out for myself. That's part of the game." He snapped his fingers. "But there's no reason I can't ask for a little help. Come on, let's take some photographs. I know someone who practically speaks Chaldean in her sleep."
Laura folded her arms and gave him a stern look.
"Not," he added quickly, "that I know from personal experience. In fact, I've never even met her."
"Relax, Murphy. I know you love only me--and anything
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that's been lying in the ground for two thousand years. Who is this oracle?"
"You're not going to believe me, but her name," said Murphy, pronouncing each syllable carefully as if he were ordering an exotic bottle of wine in a fancy restaurant, "is Isis Proserpina McDonald."
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ELEVEN
THE PARCHMENTS OF Freedom Foundation was one of hundreds of private organizations headquartered within the very official-looking stone buildings in Washington, D.C., that many citizens automatically assumed must be government offices. The plaque on the door of the office on the second floor of the PFF building read simply DR. I. P. MCDONALD and only initiates would have known that behind the door was one of the smartest living experts on the subject of ancient cultures.
Nor would anyone passing by this office make the connection between the study of dusty, forgotten civilizations and the very loud, persistent commotion coming from behind the closed door.
The noise of books thudding to the floor one by one was followed by the gentler swish of cascading paper, then a crash as a heavy object (a lamp? a paperweight?) connected with
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something solid. It was lucky for the perpetrator of the chaos that few people ever did pass down this particular corridor.
The small, windowless office was lined with bookshelves on three sides, but many of the volumes--some irreplaceable, almost all of them rare or at the very least out of print--now lay in a sprawling heap on the faded brown institutional carpet. Standing in the middle of the carnage, a petite, lithe figure was scanning documents from a large pile on an antique roll-top desk and furiously tossing them aside.
"It must be here. It must be," rasped a voice as a tottering column of academic journals was heaved onto the floor. Now the desk's drawers were exposed and these were systematically rifled, but judging by the hiss of anger that accompanied the search, the desired object was not inside.
The figure stopped suddenly, head cocked toward the door. Footsteps. High heels tapping their way down the corridor. In the office all was still. The footsteps continued, coming nearer. Then stopped. A pause. Then a knock, soft, tentative. Then another, louder, more insistent.
"Dr. McDonald? Do you need any assistance?"
The prim young woman in the neat navy blue suit hesitated. Sometimes when Dr. McDonald didn't answer, she was simply concentrating so hard on a manuscript that she literally didn't hear you knocking, and woe betide you if you marched in without being invited. One thing she'd learned early on was that Dr. McDonald didn't take kindly to being interrupted in her work. It was a little like sleepwalkers, she thought to herself--if you woke them up, they could get terribly confused, violent even. Best to leave them well alone until they found their own way back to the land of the living.
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But this was different. She'd distinctly heard several loud crashes as she turned the corner, and as she neared the door there was no doubt in her mind that someone was trashing Dr. McDonald's office.
Fiona Carter wasn't brave. The thought of any sort of physical violence made her nauseated with fear. But if there was one thing she feared more than a confrontation with a determined burglar, it was trying to explain to Dr. McDonald why she had allowed someone to decimate her precious library.
Her hand shook as she slowly turned the knob and pushed the door.
It swung open gently, revealing a slim female figure in a tweed skirt and a shapeless fisherman's sweater standing ankle-deep in tattered journals and manuscript pages, a few of which stirred briefly in the sudden draft. The figure glared at her.
"Dr. McDonald!" Fiona took a step forward and almost tripped over a hefty black volume. "Are you all right? I heard such a noise--I thought there was an intruder. I thought someone was--"
"I can't find the blasted poem of Charybdis! I was looking at it only yesterday, and now it's disappeared. Fiona, have you been interfering with my manuscripts again?"
Fiona stifled a nervous laugh. How could anybody, however ill intentioned, make Dr. McDonald's office any more chaotic than it already was?
"The poem of Charybdis? Is it possible you were consulting Merton's Early Coptic Literature while you were reading it?"
Dr. McDonald looked dubious. "Possibly. I suppose."
"In which case perhaps you put the poem inside the book
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for safekeeping?" If she remembered correctly, Early Coptic Literature was bound in dark green cloth with red lettering on the spine. It wasn't in its
usual place on the shelf against the far wall. Very little was. She looked down at the book-strewn floor.
"Is that it? Over there, next to Eliade's The Sacred and the Profane?"
Dr. McDonald turned in the direction Fiona was pointing and scooped up a fat green book. She riffled nimbly through its pages and a single sheaf of parchment fluttered to the floor. The poem of Charybdis.
Dr. McDonald turned back to Fiona, beaming. With her matronly clothes and permanently severe expression, it was easy to miss the fact that Isis Proserpina McDonald was a stunningly beautiful woman. It was only her rare smiles that gave it away. Not that you were likely to see her smile if you called her by her given name.
"Clever girl. How on earth do you put up with me?"
Before Fiona could frame an appropriate answer, they were both frozen in place by a sudden ringing. Turning instinctively to the empty desk, they then scanned the floor, trying to pinpoint where the sound was coming from. Fiona pushed back a pile of journals and picked up the phone.
"Hello, Dr. McDonald's office, Fiona speaking. Oh, good morning, Professor Murphy." She turned back to Dr. McDonald, who was still standing amid the rubble of her library, furiously shaking her head and mouthing no .
"No, she's not busy at all, Professor Murphy. I'm sure she'd love to speak with you." Fiona smiled sweetly and held out the phone.
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Isis sat at her desk, arms folded, lips pursed, and waited for her computer to register an incoming e-mail. While she had been standing in the wreckage of her office, listening to Professor Murphy and his rather wild story about a Babylonian scroll, she had hardly noticed as Fiona began the laborious task of restoring order. Now almost everything was, if not in its place, then at least off the floor and in neat-looking rows and piles. She'd even done her best to rearrange Isis's collection of ancient pottery figures--her goddesses--in the correct chronological sequence on the top of her one filing cabinet.
As Isis's eye traveled over the dear, familiar forms, beginning with a bloated fertility goddess from the Neander valley in Germany and ending with a graceful Sumerian moon deity, she felt a tear welling up and quickly blinked it back. The little figures were a precious legacy from her father, another Dr. McDonald and one of the most eminent archaeologists of his day, the result of a lifetime's digging around the Mediterranean and Near East.
"For my own little goddess, worshiped and adored above all others," he'd said when he'd presented her with the big, square cardboard box done up with ribbons. To her thirteen-year-old eyes, the little figures, some missing an arm or a little hand, all grooved and pocked with the dirt and dust of civilizations long disappeared, were better than any Barbie doll. The gift marked the beginning of her own passionate commitment to the secrets of the past.
Unfortunately the goddesses were not the only legacies of his obsession that her father had passed on to her. There was also her name.
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She supposed there were girls called Freya who had never been teased at school. She knew a Greek paleontologist called Aphrodite who didn't seem in the least self-conscious about it. And wasn't there that tennis player called Venus? No one gave her a hard time because she was named after the Roman goddess of love. But Isis Proserpina was a different matter. It was like being born with a circle of stars around your head. Or writhing snakes instead of hair. It made it rather hard to blend in.
At the little Highland school it had been Issy or Posy , both of which she loathed. Why couldn't she be a Mary, Kate, or Janet like the other girls? In the museum, in the haven of her office, at least she was able to insist on Dr. McDonald . But with friends it was a little trickier. Which was perhaps one reason, she supposed, she didn't really seem to have any.
She drummed her fingers--narrow, elegant, with nails bitten down to the quick--on the desk, impatient for the promised pictures of the scroll. A watched kettle and all that. She frowned.
Professor Michael Murphy had seemed something of an oddball. Very concerned with Biblical prophecies. Babbling on about the Book of Daniel. But the scroll did sound intriguing. Could be a forgery, of course, or just turn out to be something rather mundane--a three-thousand-year-old shopping list or a form for a hyena permit. God knows, those Babylonians could be a bureaucratic lot.
Over the years, as her reputation as a philologist had grown, the trickle of ancient enigmas in need of her language skills had become a steady stream. If you dug up a shard of pottery with a puzzling inscription or discovered a scrap of papyrus covered in a meaningless scrawl, eventually you would turn to Isis McDonald. And nine times out of ten, even if it
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took her six months and she nearly drove herself to distraction in the process, she would solve the riddle, crack the code, or unravel the linguistic knot that had had the rest of the experts stumped. It was her unique gift.
Her father, happily watching her career begin to bloom as his faded, had speculated that it was a matter of memory rather than expertise. Surely only someone who had been an Egyptian priestess in a previous existence could have such a facility with their sacred hieroglyphics. Ridiculous, of course. But it was the sort of silly thing he said toward the end. Probably just his funny archaeologist's way of saying how much he loved her.
She blinked the memory away as the screen began to fill with images of the scroll, and she turned with relief from the troubling world of emotion to the much more straightforward one of ancient Babylonia.
What she saw instantly got her attention. And kept her staring at the screen and scribbling furious notes for the next two hours.
He was jolted back into the present by the phone.
"Professor Murphy? Dr. McDonald. I've been reading your scroll."
He gently put the Bible aside. "Good to hear from you. And please, the name's Michael. Though most people make do with Murphy."
There was an awkward pause.
"Well, Mr. Murphy, it seems you were right. We're definitely dealing with the Biblical Brazen Serpent--"
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"But the scroll dates from a period a hundred fifty years after the Serpent was destroyed." He could sense her frowning at his impatience. "I'm sorry. This thing has got me wound a little tight. Please go on."
"Well, the scroll appears to be a sort of diary written by a Chaldean priest named Dakkuri. As far as I can make out, the Serpent was indeed broken into three pieces, as in the Biblical account, but someone apparently forgot to put the pieces out with the trash. The pieces must have been stored in the Temple, and when the Babylonians came to sack Jerusalem, they found them somewhere in the Temple and obviously thought they were worth taking back home."
"And when the pieces got to Babylon, this priest, Dakkuri, put the pieces of the Brazen Serpent back together?"
"I think so, yes. But that was just the beginning. I think Dakkuri believed this Serpent had far greater value than as a handsome bronze sculpture."
Murphy's mind was racing ahead. "So, what you're saying is that the Babylonians heard the stories in Jerusalem about the Serpent's healing powers when Moses first made it and they felt it was worth letting Dakkuri see if he could get it working again."
Isis was not pleased with Murphy's interruptions, and she realized she would have to be just as pushy if she was ever going to get through her piece. "Actually, Professor Murphy, my point is that I think Dakkuri tried to use the Serpent as part of a cult."
"You mean Dakkuri had his Babylonians worshiping the Serpent just like the Israelites in the time of Hezekiah?"
"Not many of them. The scroll seems to indicate that there
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was some kind of priestly inner circle led by Dakkuri that surrounds the lines of power that are drawn from the Serpent symbol."
"And then doesn't it look like the Serpent-worship turned out to be a big mistake for the Babylonians, as it did for the Israelites back with Hezekiah?"
"Well, there is some reference to trouble with the Serpent, but there's some damage to the scroll at a crucial
point." Isis made it sound as if this were due to carelessness on Murphy's part.
He let it pass. "It looks like that trouble, as you call it, was big trouble. The king symbol is there, which could mean that Dakkuri's cult of the Serpent was banned by Nebuchadnezzar himself, right?"
"Yes, I'm sure you don't need me to teach you your Bible, Mr. Murphy," Isis said smugly. "According to the Book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar built a great statue with a golden head, a likeness of the one in his famous dream. And all the princes from far and wide were ordered to bow down and worship it at certain times. When they heard the sound of the cornet, the flute, the harp--let me see, what else?"
"Sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer," said Murphy without hesitation.
"Thank you. Yes, psaltery and dulcimer --how poetic the King James can be. Takes me right back to Sunday mornings in our little kirk in Scotland." The memory seemed to derail her for a moment, but she quickly got back on track. "Anyway, the long and the short of it was, God made the king mad as a March hare as a punishment for his arrogance, and when he finally
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regained his sanity, Nebuchadnezzar got the message that idol-worship was evil. So he banned it."
"Right, and, of course, the ban would have included the cult of the Serpent."
"So I would imagine."
Murphy tried to put it all together in his head. "So this priest--Dakkuri--gets the order to stop worshiping the Serpent, to get rid of it."
"But I'm beginning to think this Serpent is rather hard to get rid of. Nobody who possessed it ever wanted to just melt it down and recast it."
Murphy bolted out of his chair. "Yes! That's it! The reason for the scroll. Dakkuri isn't taking the trouble to write all this down just to let people know he's been a naughty Serpent-worshiper. No. He made it look as if he broke it again and got rid of it, as ordered by Nebuchadnezzar. He wasn't stupid. But he hid the three pieces, and that's what he's telling us in this scroll, isn't it, Dr. McDonald?"