Lost Empire (38 page)

“Good morning, Remi, nice to see you again.”

“And you, Professor.”

“And that man beside you would be Sam.”

“Nice to meet you, Professor.” Sam introduced Pete and Wendy. Dydell nodded in greeting. “My secretary is helping me with all this. You don’t mind, do you? I think technology has outpaced me a bit.”

“Not at all,” said Remi.

“I imagine you’re anxious to talk about your find, so I’ll get right to it. First, let’s talk about the photos you sent. The vessel itself isn’t unique: canoe shaped, two outriggers, and a single mast. The size is impressive, however. Next: I’m probably not telling you anything you haven’t already worked out for yourself, but the carving on the bowsprit looks remarkably like Quetzalcoatl, the Great Plumed Serpent God of the Aztecs.”

“Our guess as well.”

“We’ve talked about Quetzalcoatl,” Sam said, “but what’s the significance?”

“As in most Aztec myth systems, Quetzalcoatl plays an array of roles that depend on the period and the circumstances. In some cases, Quetzalcoatl was related to the wind, the planet Venus, arts, and knowledge. He was also the patron god of the Aztec priesthood. He was also believed to be responsible for the separation of the earth and sky, and an essential player in the creation of mankind.”

“That’s a lot of hats to wear,” Sam remarked. “And what about the other carving, the one on the stern . . .”

“Clearly it’s a bird of some kind, but I don’t recognize it. As for this parchment you have . . . It’s a copy of the Orizaga Codex, but I’m guessing you already knew that, too.”

“Yes,” said Remi.

“Do you also know you may have the only known copy in existence?”

“No, we didn’t.”

“In fact, until now it was believed there were no copies. Just the original. Here’s the short story: Javier Orizaga, Society of Jesus, was said to have arrived in Mexico as part of Cortés’s landing force. He carried with him a whole bevy of monks and such—presumably to help convert the savages.

“A few months after Orizaga penned his codex, he was ordered home by the powers-that-be. When he got back to Spain, his codex was confiscated by the Church. Orizaga was jailed and interrogated for two years, then released, having been denounced by the Church and the state. He left Spain and traveled to what is present-day Indonesia, where he remained until his death in 1556.”

“Indonesia again,” Sam murmured. Professor, do we know where exactly in Indonesia?”

“I’m not sure. I can check for you. This codex you have, Remi . . . Where did you find it?”

“In Africa.”

“Interesting. If it’s genuine, it’s an incredible find. Have you had it physically examined?”

“Not yet.”

“You’ll have to do that eventually. For now, let’s assume it’s genuine. There are a number of things about it that are not just remarkable but potentially groundbreaking.”

Sam said, “You mean that it was dictated to Orizaga by the last king of the Aztecs?”

“That and more. I have to admit, the upper part has me stumped. As for the lower part . . . Here’s what strikes me: The scene in the middle of the parchment clearly depicts a sea voyage of a great number of vessels. On the lower left side of the parchment is, I think, a depiction of the Aztecs’ arrival in the area that would become their capital city of Tenochtitlán.”

 

 

SEEING THEIR STUNNED EXPRESSIONS, Dydell chuckled and went on: “Let me refresh your quintessential Aztec imagery. Legend has it that the Aztecs knew they’d found their homeland when they came across an eagle perched atop a cactus while eating a snake. The image on your codex is depicting essentially the same thing. The bird is different and the flora is different and there’s no snake, but the theme is present.”

“Why wouldn’t it be identical?” asked Sam.

“My guess: It’s a case of what I like to call MDI—Migrational Displacement Iconography. It’s a theory I’ve been toying with for some time. Essentially, it’s this: As ancient peoples migrated, they tended to change their myths and imagery to suit their new geography. It’s quite common, actually.

“If these Old World Aztecs—for lack of a better term—arrived in Mexico nine centuries before the Aztec Empire rose, it’s perfectly reasonable to think their original iconography would have changed drastically—not to mention their appearance as they interbred with the locals.”

Sam and Remi looked at each other. Sam said, “I can buy that.”

“Well, that’s good, because that was the easy part,” Dydell said. “The image in the lower right-hand corner, the one clearly meant to represent Chicomoztoc, is where the real wow factor is. How closely did you examine the image, Remi?”

“Not very,” she admitted.

“Well, there are a number of differences between the traditional depiction of Chicomoztoc and the one you have. First of all, there’s no high priest at the entrance, and the faces you usually find clustered in each of the seven caverns are missing.”

“I can’t believe I missed that.”

“Don’t be hard on yourself. In class, we barely touched on Chicomoztoc. That aside, it is what’s in the center of the cavern I find so fascinating. I took the liberty of enlarging the scan you sent me.” Dydell looked off camera and said, “Gloria, would you mind . . . Okay, good, thanks.” He faced the camera again. “This image is enlarged four hundred percent. Gloria says it should be on your screen now. Do you have it?” Dydell asked.

“We have it,” replied Sam.

“The first thing you’ll probably notice is the creature between the two male figures in the middle of the cavern. The placement suggests it is a focus of reverence. The lower half of the creature appears to be Quetzalcoatl. The upper half, though, is hard to make out. It could be the tail, or something else altogether.”

Sam said, “One of the figures is standing, the other kneeling. That has to mean something.”

“Indeed. It suggests supplication. Also, did you notice that the figure on the right is holding something?”

“It’s the Nahuatl symbol for flint,” Remi said.

“Right you are. Normally, I would classify this scene as a sacrificial ceremony of some kind, but you have to remember that the Aztecs were highly metaphorical in their ‘written’ language. Flint can also represent separation and the breaking of old ties.

“Now, here’s the kicker: In traditional drawings of Chicomoztoc, you’ll find two sets of footprints: one set going into the cave and one set going out. In your drawing, there is only one set.”

“And they’re going out,” Sam said.

“When you combine all of this—the supplicant figure, Quetzalcoatl, the flint, the footprints—you get what I believe is a ceremony of exile. The figure on the left, along with all of his followers, was banished. Based on the rest of the codex, they left Chicomoztoc, boarded their armada, headed west, and ended up in Mexico to become what history considers the Aztec people.”

Remi asked, “Professor, do we know what became of Orizaga’s original codex? Did the Church destroy it or is it tucked away in some archive somewhere?”

“Neither, but I’m sure they’d intended that it never see the light of day. In 1992 the Church held an auction of old but generally mundane artifacts—letters, illustrations, etcetera. Apparently someone messed up, and the Orizaga Codex was included in the lot. It was purchased by a Mexican millionaire, I believe. A coffee magnate.”

“What was his name?” asked Sam.

Dydell hesitated, thinking. “Garza. Alfonso or Armando, I can’t remember which.”

 

 

THEY TALKED WITH DYDELL for a few more minutes, then disconnected. As they often were, Sam and Remi were on the same wavelength. Almost in unison they said to Wendy, “Do you think you can do something to clean up the—”

“I know . . . the Quetzalcoatl image. I’m on it.”

Next, Sam and Remi turned to Selma, but she was a step ahead of them, already seated at her computer, typing. “Got it. Alfonso Garza, father of Cristián Garza. Currently known as Quauhtli Garza, president of Mexico and leader of the Mexica Tenochca Party.”

Sam and Remi shared a smile. “That’s where it all started,” he said. “Just like Blaylock, Garza got ahold of the codex and caught the bug. It consumed him.”

Remi nodded. “And took him somewhere he didn’t expect.”

 

 

THIRTY MINUTES LATER Wendy was done. “I had to do some creative connect-the-dots, but I think I’ve got a fair representation of what it would’ve looked liked like originally.”

“There’s a familiar face,” Sam said.

Remi nodded. “Blaylock’s bird.”

 

 

THE DAY ENDED with a phone call that Sam and Remi, in their exhaustion, had forgotten they were expecting. Selma answered, listened for a few moments, then hung up and walked to her workstation. A minute later the laser printer started whirring. She walked back to the table with a sheaf of papers.

“The lab report on the samples you took from the outrigger.”

“Do the honors,” said Sam.

Selma scanned the sheets, then said, “The wood is from a durian tree, native to Borneo, Indonesia, and Malaysia.”

“Score another point for Indonesia,” Sam said. “There seems to be a trend developing.”

“The resin you scraped from the hull consisted of the sap from a subspecies of rubber tree, also found in Indonesia. Finally, the material you scooped from inside the hull . . . They found traces of pandan leaf, rattan, and gebang palm.”

“Let me guess,” Remi said. “All materials used in the construction of natural sail cloth?”

Selma nodded.

“And all native to Indonesia,” Sam added.

“You’re batting a thousand,” replied Selma. “Shall I book your flights now or wait until the morning?”

 

 

THE TIRES CRUNCHED ON GRAVEL AS SAM PULLED THE CAR OFF the road and coasted to a stop beneath the boughs of a kapok tree. A steady stream of compact cars and scooters whizzed past Sam’s door, honking and swerving as though trying to beat a checkered flag.

“Okay, you win,” Sam said to Remi. “But before I risk my life and step into this traffic to ask for directions, let me see the map one more time.”

While like most men, Sam prided himself on being equipped with a supernatural internal compass that kept him from ever being lost, he’d also learned to concede those rare times when that compass seemed to be in temporary disrepair. Now was one of those times.

Trying to conceal her smile, Remi handed him the map and sat quietly while Sam studied it. “It’s gotta be around here somewhere.”

“I’m sure it is.”

As was the case with many of Sam and Remi’s revelations since finding the
Shenandoah
’s bell buried in the sand off Zanzibar, Winston Blaylock had, as the saying went, been there and done that. In this case, one of the latitude and longitude points they’d deciphered from his dot-grid system happened to fall where Javier Orizaga, S.J., had spent the final years of his life. It was no coincidence, they knew. Still, there were many questions unanswered.

Having spent years hunting for the origin of his “great green jeweled bird” and discovering along the way the true story of the Aztec Empire, had Blaylock heard of Orizaga’s codex and come here looking for a copy or had he found the codex elsewhere and deduced the location the same way Sam and Remi had? Similarly, what had brought Orizaga here: a quest for treasure or for the history of a people whose destruction he witnessed?

 

 

AN HOUR AFTER THEY’D ended their video-conference meeting with Professor Dydell, he’d called back with the name of the village Orizaga had called home the last two decades of his life: Palembang, Sumatra.

While Palembang, the “Venice of the East,” might have been considered just a hamlet during the sixteenth century, today it was not only the oldest city in Indonesia, dating back to the seventh century, but also the biggest in southern Sumatra, boasting a population of 1.5 million.

Neither Sam nor Remi had any grand ideas about what, if anything, of value they’d find by investigating Orizaga’s adopted homeland. However, all the hoops they’d jumped through since Zanzibar seemed to be leading them in one direction. Blaylock’s quest, his journal, the maps, the codex, Orizaga himself, and now the lab report—all of it pointed toward an unknown location in Indonesia.

 

 

“IT WOULD HAVE MADE our lives so much easier if Orizaga had left an address,” Sam said. “It’s a bit inconsiderate, really.”

“I’m sure if he’d known we were coming, he would have,” Remi replied. “Did the woman at the last place say the house was red or green?”

“Green.”

Since arriving in Palembang the previous day, they’d visited six local museums or historians said to specialize in the pre-Dutch colonial period of the city’s history. So far, none of the curators had heard of Orizaga, and each one had suggested Sam and Remi go to the city’s administrative building and peruse centuries’ worth of microfiche newspapers for any mention of their friend.