He joined her, standing at her shoulder. “It’s everywhere,” he whispered in awe.
Across the breadth of the room, hundreds of blue tiles were engraved with tarnished silver, shining with Glagolitic symbols in every shape and sigil.
He gaped at the sheer expanse, coming to one firm conclusion. “We need Commander Pierce.”
9:31A.M.
Gray shuffled across the tiled floor, shining his flashlight down. The others were spread across the chamber.
“What do you make of it?” Monk asked.
“Considering the symbols we found in the old Greek text, this must be important.”
He examined another few tiles, rubbing a bit of tarnish off one, getting it to shine brighter. As he did, he felt something give under his thumb, accompanied by a barely perceptibleclick.
Huh...
He did it again, getting the same result.
He sat back on his heels and cast his beam across the expanse of tiles and letters. “I think there’s some mechanism hidden under the lettered tiles.”
The others gathered closer, and he demonstrated by pushing on the tile. It depressed a quarter inch, then popped back into position.
“Spring-loaded,” he mumbled.
“It can’t beallthe tiles.” Jason pointed to a gap in the floor. “I dislodged one. And there’s only bare rock under it.”
Gray joined him, dropped to a knee, and examined the spot. “You’re right.”
Bishop Yelagin stood to the side, leaning on his staff. “What does that mean?”
“We’ll have to test each tile.” Gray stood up. “Find out which of the engraved ones move and record each symbol.”
Jason slipped out a digital tablet from a pack. “I’ll build a database.”
In short order, the team set about testing the hundreds of tiles. Even Yelagin used his metal staff to press lettered pieces. When anyone found one that moved, Jason snapped a picture of it and digitized the letter for clarity.
Anna, down on her hands and knees, offered a theory. “I wonder if this helps explain why Catherine’s designers covered up the astrolabe and its Glagolitic symbols in the Greek book. Maybe it wasn’t just that the puzzle was too easy to solve. Maybe she feared it was too direct of a connection to what lay down here.”
“You could be right,” Gray admitted, appreciating her insight.
After several more minutes, they had a complete recording of the mechanized tiles. Gray looked over Jason’s shoulder to study the result. On the screen, a row of eleven sigils formed a neat row.
Gray turned to Anna. “Can you translate these symbols?”
She nodded and took the tablet from Jason. “I still have the conversion chart saved. It should only take a moment.” As she worked, her frown slowly deepened. “This makes no sense. It’s just gibberish.”
She shared the result with everyone. Each symbol now had a corresponding letter or number written below it.
“Maybe it’s not gibberish,” Monk offered. “Maybe it’s ananagram. We just randomly recorded those symbols. They’re not likely to be in the correct order.”
Everyone tested aloud various options, coming up with answers just as nonsensical.
Gray took the tablet and studied it. “That’s not the answer. In this list, there are no repeating letters. Most words and phrases, especially those with ten letters, would reuse at leastoneletter.”
“What are you thinking?” Monk asked.
“Whatever the code is, it must require reusing some of the letters.” He waved across the breadth of the room. “To spell it out, we may need to press some of the tiles two or three times.”
