“Yes, I would,” Max answered without hesitation.
She knew that, in and of itself, should frighten her. The guardians worked tirelessly to hide and protect the elixir to avoid its exploitation and ruin. He knew about the elixir and had seen its powers firsthand. Max, if he so chose, could ruin them all.
CHAPTER18
Sabine and Max climbed up the wide staircase, and this time they actually walked through the pillared entryway of the British Museum. They were here to visit the King’s Library.
“Are you certain the next clue leads us to Alexander the Great?” Sabine asked.
“No, not certain at all, but if I’m right, we’ll see the truth in moments,” Max said.
“You’re beginning to sound like a riddle yourself,” she said, with a smile. She’d been smiling a lot more lately. Strange, considering life had become more complicated and dangerous in the last two weeks. But Max made her laugh.
“Great army—Great’s army. It was capitalized. Shortly before he died, Alexander the Great made one final decree,” Max said.
“And put it in stone?” she asked. “Not precisely the medium they used during that time period.”
“On the contrary, there were still official proclamations made in stone,” Max said.
They crossed through a quiet corridor, and she kept pace to walk next to him. “I suppose I’m more familiar with the history of my own people. Was our civilization really so much more advanced than the Macedonians’ that we were using scrolls when the rest of the world was still using tablets?”
“Perhaps we might all still be whittling in stone had it not been for the few Atlanteans who came along to civilize the rest of us,” Max said drolly.
“You are truly hilarious,” she said. “Thank you.”
They walked past the reading room and a few exhibit halls. Finally they came to the library. It was dim, with very few lamps. Windows surrounded the top of the room like a ribbon of light, but with today’s clouds, they didn’t provide much illumination.
Aside from that, the library was magnificent. Books and scrolls and other artifacts, including King John’s Magna Carta and the Rosetta Stone, surrounded them. And perhaps a piece of her own people’s history was here among Britain’s most valuable treasures. Pride swelled within her. If she survived this prophecy, she should come back here someday to enjoy all of the artifacts.
She paused and glanced back at the Rosetta Stone. “Just to be certain,” she said as she walked over to it.
“You know, this actually dates a little more recent than Alexander’s decree?” Max said.
“You are a font of information,”
“A member of Solomon’s found it,” he said.
She circled the display, looking closely for any sign of the dove. “I thought a Frenchman had discovered it.”
Max shrugged. “He claimed it. But whose museum is it in?”
There were no symbols resembling their dove. “Nothing. Shall we?”
They walked into a smaller room, and there, atop a podium, was a large stone tablet.
“Some theorize,” Max spoke in a low voice, “that Alexander was attempting to put himself on the same level as God and thus chose the same medium to proclaim his own commandments.”
As they moved closer, Sabine could see the Greek inscription carved into the granite. She read the entire decree, and it was, in fact, about war, an extended battle cry and promise to be ruler of all.
“That mentions nothing about a dove or a specific weapon,” Sabine said.
“No, it doesn’t. But…” Max turned around to ensure they were alone before he picked up the massive tablet and turned it over. The stone had chipped in a few places and wasn’t entirely smooth, but there were no significant marks on most of the surface. “There,” he said, pointing. On the right-hand corner was another inscription directly below the now-familiar carving of the bird. The letters looked familiar, but something was peculiar about them. And without proper lighting, it was far too difficult to read.
She reached into her bag and retrieved her notebook and a pencil. With a firm yank, she pulled a couple of blank pages out of the notebook, then handed them to Max.
He set the tablet facedown, then spread the sheet of paper over the inscription. As he moved the pencil across the stone, Sabine watched the message appear on the parchment.
A scholarly-looking gentleman with spectacles entered the room and eyed them disapprovingly. He cleared his throat. Sabine ran a hand seductively down Max’s back, then leaned over to his ear pretending to whisper something.