The Serpent’s Curse. Tony Abbott

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СКАЧАТЬ about the shadowy origins of the relics? Copernicus had supposedly found an old astrolabe built by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy. But that was all pretty hazy.

      “Let’s bring it into the study,” said Julian.

      Julian seemed to be really bright. His father was kind of brilliant, too. How many books had he written? Ten? A hundred? She and the others were surrounded by smart people, so you had to think they really would get Sara back and find the relics.

      The study off the living room was large and lined with thousands of books—not all of them written by Terence Ackroyd, thank goodness. It was traditional in a way, sleepy almost, but also equipped with a really high level of computer gear.

      There was a long worktable with a wide-lens magnifying device perched on it. Several shelves of cameras, printers, and scanners were next to the worktable along with stacks of servers. On the wall behind them was a range of twenty-four clocks showing the current time in each of the world’s major time zones. Except for a gnarly old typewriter on a stand by itself like a museum piece from another century, the room was like she imagined a secret CIA lair would be.

       The only other thing I’d need would be … nothing.

      “First things first,” Julian said, opening a small tablet computer that lay on the worktable next to five sparkling new cell phones. “These are for you. We’ve loaded this tablet with tons of texts and image databases that can help with the relic hunt.”

      “Wow, thanks,” Lily said, practically snatching it from his hands. “I’m kind of the digital person here.”

      Julian laughed. “Ooh, the tech master of the group. The intelligence officer. Very cool. I’ve modified each phone’s GPS function with a software app I invented. The tablet likewise. Except to one another, and mine and Dad’s, these units will emit random location coordinates, making them essentially blind to most conventional GPS locators.” He passed a phone to each of them, and turned to Roald. “Now … the relic …”

      Roald set Vela gently on the worktable. When he did, Lily realized they’d been so completely focused on hiding and protecting Vela over the last few days that this was only the second time since Wade and Becca discovered it that they’d been able to bring it safely out into the open.

      Wade and Becca, she thought.

      Wade had been giving Becca goo-goo eyes ever since Mission Dolores in San Francisco, where they’d discovered that the Scorpio relic was a fake. Maybe it was because of the stare the Order’s assassin, Markus Wolff, had given Becca in the Mission. Or maybe Wade realized something about the twelfth relic that Wolff had been all cryptic about. Either way, something was up, those weird looks meant something, and Lily would find out. She could read Darrell. He was hot or cold. Not so much in between. And by hot or cold she meant either hilarious or ready to explode. Wade was a different story. Becca, too, for that matter, and … Wait, where was I? Oh. Right. Vela.

      Triangular in shape, about four inches from base to upper point, with one short side and two of roughly equal length, Vela was something Roald called “technically an isosceles triangle.” Except that one of its long sides curved in slightly toward the center like a sail in the wind. Which made sense, since Vela was supposed to represent the sail in the constellation Argo Navis. It also had a slew of curved lines etched into it.

      When they examined the stone closely they saw that even though it was about the same thickness from the front side to the back—about a quarter of an inch—Vela was undoubtedly heavier in the middle than in any of the corners, a fact that she was the first to voice. “Look.” She placed it flat across her finger and it balanced. “Something’s in there.”

      “Maybe an inner mechanism,” Roald said. “Something hidden inside its heart.”

      “Yes, yes,” Terence said, taking it now from Lily. “I can see the faint design on both sides of the stone and a series of very tiny, even infinitesimal, separations that could mean that the stone somehow opens up. It is far too heavy to be a normal stone.”

      Passing it around, they gently tried to coax the stone to reveal its secret, but short of prying it open and maybe busting it, they couldn’t find a way. Vela told them nothing.

      “Have you considered that it’s fairly dangerous to be lugging this around with you?” Julian said. “There are vaults in the city that are pretty near uncrackable, even by the Order.”

      Roald nodded. “A good idea, I agree. But the legend says ‘the first will circle to the last,’ meaning that something about Vela is a clue to the next relic or maybe its Guardian. We need to discover something soon or we won’t know where to look.”

      “There’s also this.” Becca slid her hand into her shoulder bag and tugged out the cracked hilt of the Magellan dagger. “The handle cracked when I … you know. I’m sorry …”

      “I’m so glad you did,” Lily said, shuddering to see the hilt again. “It was, well …” She was going to say that what Becca had done—stabbing the goon on the bridge and saving her life—was something so beyond amazing, but she felt suddenly on the verge of tears, which she never was, so instead she just closed her mouth, which was also pretty rare, and smiled like a dope at whoever, which turned out to be Wade, who, as usual, was staring at Becca with his googly eyes.

      “That’s quite something,” Julian said, drawing in a quiet breath when Becca set the hilt on the table. “Italian, by any chance?”

      “Bolognese,” said Wade, finally tearing his eyes from Becca.

      “Yes, yes.” Julian picked it up gently, but it suddenly separated into two pieces of carved ivory and fell back on the table. “Ack! I’m sorry!”

      “Hold on …” Lily used her slender fingers to tug something out from inside the hilt. It was a long, narrow ribbon. “What is this?”

      Terence stood. “Oh, ho!” He pinched one end of the ribbon and held it up. It dangled about three feet.

      “Microscope!” said Julian. He snatched the ribbon from his father, then jerked away from the table to the far end of the room, where he sat at a small table. Not ten seconds later, he said, “Dad, we’ve seen this kind of thing before.”

      They all rushed over to Julian in a flash, but Lily pushed her way through the crowd to be the first one leaning over the lens. “Letters,” she said. “I see letters. They’re pretty faded, but they’re there, written one under the other the whole length of the ribbon.”

      Darrell moved in next. “T-O-E-G-S-K, and a bunch more. We’ve done word scrambles and substitution codes. Is this one of those? They look random.”

      Terence took his own look and smiled. “Not random at all, actually. These letters are one half of a cipher called a scytale.” He pronounced the word as if it rhymed with Italy.

      “Invented by the ancient Spartans, the cipher consists of two parts: a ribbon made of cloth or leather with letters on it, and a wooden staff,” he continued. “The staff has a number of flat sides on it, rather like a pencil. You wrap the ribbon around the staff like a candy cane stripe, and if the staff is the right size, the letters line up in words.”

      Julian grinned. “The trick is that you always have to keep the ribbon separate from the staff until it’s time to decode the message.” He paused and looked at his father. “Dad, are you СКАЧАТЬ