The Lost Island

12

Gideon and Garza followed the wheelchair of Eli Glinn as it glided through the long, silent upper corridors of EES, heading to an area Gideon had never been in before. They passed through a door leading into two small rooms, dimly lit. Gideon, still struggling with surprise and residual anger, looked around. The first room was a gem-like library, its mahogany bookcases filled with rich leather bindings, winking with gold. A Persian rug covered the floor, and at the far end stood a small marble fireplace, in which burned a turf fire. There was a rich smell of leather, parchment, and buckram. In the middle stood a refectory table and chairs. The room beyond was exactly its opposite: a sterile white-walled laboratory, all stainless steel and plastic surfaces, lit by stark fluorescent lighting.

Glinn motioned toward the table. “Please, sit down.”

Gideon complied silently, and Garza took a seat opposite him. A moment later a lab-coated technician came in carrying an enlarged digital reproduction of the strange map that had been hidden beneath the Chi Rho painting. With a nod from Glinn, he laid the map out on the table, then withdrew.

Glinn opened a sideboard beside the fireplace, revealing various cut-glass decanters and bottles and a small refrigerator. “Would anyone care for a drink?”

Gideon shook his head.

Glinn poured himself a measure of port in a hand-blown tumbler. He brought it to the table, took a sip, gave a small sigh of satisfaction, and laid his claw-like hand down on the map.

“I’d like to tell you a story about a man named Saint Columba.”

Gideon waited.

“Columba entered the Clonard Monastery in Ireland around the year 550. He was a big, powerful man, strong and self-assured, not at all the stereotypical image of a humble monk. He was also charismatic and intelligent, and he quickly attracted notice. His mentor at the monastery was a monk named Saint Finian. As the years passed, Columba’s fame and circle of friends grew. However, over the course of a decade, the two men — student and teacher — gradually came into opposition. In 560, they got into a terrific argument over who had the right to copy a rare psalter. Both had fiery tempers, and both had powerful friends. The dispute escalated, drawing in others, until it culminated in a fight — a battle, in fact. A horrific slaughter ensued, in which as many as three thousand people were killed. It became known in history as the Battle of the Book. The church was horrified and, blaming Columba, decided to excommunicate him. But Columba pleaded with them. He managed to avert excommunication by agreeing to go into exile in the savage hinterlands of Scotland and convert three thousand pagans to atone for the three thousand killed in the battle.

“So he and a group of monks departed by sea from Ireland to Scotland, carrying with them Columba’s priceless collection of manuscripts. They landed on a lonely island off the coast of Scotland, in the heart of the tribal lands of the Picts. There, Columba founded the Abbey of Iona.”

Glinn paused, slowly lifting the glass full of tawny liquid to his thin lips and taking a long sip.

“Enter our client. I regret that I cannot reveal his identity. Suffice it to say he is a man of unimpeachable integrity who has only the good of humanity as his goal.”

“Or so the client assures us,” Garza rumbled.

Glinn turned to Garza. “So I assure you. You well understand, Manuel, our requirements about client confidentiality.”

“Of course. But as chief of operations for this project, I’d like to know who I’m working for.”

There was a brief, uncomfortable silence. Finally, Glinn cleared his throat and went on. “Our client is, among other things, a collector of medieval manuscripts. In his searches, he came across an incomplete set of documents kept at Iona: Annales Monasterii Columbae, ‘annals of the monastery of Columba.’ It was a sort of daily journal of the goings-on at the monastery. They were written in Latin, of course. It was a very rare find, as these sorts of records almost never survive.

“The Annales told a curious story about a monk who found an old Greek manuscript among the monastery’s stores of secondhand vellum. The vellum had already been scraped, ready to be bleached and reused. According to the journal, however, the old Greek text was still legible. The monk read it, was amazed, and brought it to Saint Columba.”

Glinn plucked a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and referred to it. “The manuscript in question was an early Greek geography, and it described various legendary wonders of the world. Among these was a most intriguing place: an island ‘far in the West, where the earth meets the sky.’ The geography went on to mention a ‘great cave overhung with laurels on the face of a cliff far above the sea.’ There, the manuscript claimed, a ‘secret remedium could be found, the source of eternal healing.’ The manuscript contained directions to this location, which was ‘beyond the land of Iberia, two thousand dolichoi west of Tartessos.’ Iberia was the name the ancients gave to Spain, and Tartessos was believed to be an ancient city at the mouth of the Quadalquivir River. A dolichos was a Greek measure of distance equaling about a mile and a half. In short, this was a location far, far beyond the boundary of what was then the known world.”

“Two thousand dolichoi west of Spain?” said Gideon. “That’s three thousand miles. That would put this cave in…in the New World.”

Glinn smiled and replaced his glass on the table. “Exactly.”

“So you’re saying these Greeks discovered the New World?”

“Yes.”

Gideon merely shook his head.

“The old Greek manuscript gave this wondrous island a name: Phorkys, after an obscure god of the sea. Columba believed that God had placed this manuscript into his hands for a reason. He and his monks, being Irish, were already expert seafarers — and they had excellent ships. So Columba ordered an expedition to seek out Phorkys and bring back the remedium, the healing balm.

“According to the journal, the monastery outfitted three ships, and a group of seafaring monks sailed from Iona, initially bound for the Mediterranean, preparing to follow the directions in the old Greek manuscript. They were gone for years. Columba eventually gave them up for lost. Finally, one sorry ship returned with half a dozen survivors. The monks had quite a story to tell.”

Glinn paused dramatically, his eyebrow raised, then went on in his gray, neutral voice.

“It had been a terrible journey. They traveled beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, only to have their ships caught in a storm in the Atlantic and driven southwestward, wrecked among some unknown islands that were, most likely, the Cape Verdes. They built new ships and set sail again. This time they encountered ideal weather, favorable currents, and steady trades that carried them across the sea to ‘unknown islands off a savage coast.’ Following the directions in the old Greek map, they finally reached Phorkys. Here they were beset by ‘the most dreadful monsters and giants,’ who guarded the healing balm, referred to in the Annales as ‘a secret physic, the jewel of the deep-delved soil.’ Many of the monks were slain by these monsters.”

Glinn paused again to slowly savor another mouthful of the port. He was enjoying retelling this story.

“Nevertheless, the surviving monks defeated the monsters long enough to steal a cista, or ‘chest,’ of the physic. Returning to the abbey, they presented it to Columba. He was overjoyed and ordered the monks to draw a new map, a Christian map, showing the route to Phorkys. And he ordered the old, pagan map destroyed.”

He stopped, eyes glittering. “And that is the map we now possess — thanks to you.”

“That’s quite a legend,” Gideon said drily. “So ancient Greeks, and then Irish monks, visited the New World long before Columbus.”

“Yes. But that’s not the main point. The last surviving fragment of the Annales tells that the monks used this cista full of the physic to heal themselves of ‘grievous wounds, afflictions, diseases and infirmities.’ Columba himself took the physic, and as a result lived such a long and vigorous life that he was able to fulfill his mission and convert those three thousand souls.

“But at the end of Columba’s life, the monastery fell on hard times. They were repeatedly attacked by Viking marauders. Columba, terrified that the Phorkys Map would fall into the wrong hands, ordered it hidden ‘beneath layers of gold and lapis and other colors of the greatest brilliance.’ Not long after that fact was recorded in the Annales, the monastery of Iona was destroyed by the Vikings. Many of the monks were butchered, and the rest fled back to Ireland — to take refuge in the Monastery of Kells. The map was never spoken of again.”

Glinn drained his glass, replaced it on the table.

“Enter my client. He was sure the map described in the Annales still existed. But he couldn’t find it. So he came to me.”

He removed a silk handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his lips, carefully refolding it and slipping it back in place.

“The problem proved an elementary one. When the monks fled Iona ahead of the marauding Vikings, they carried with them their most holy relics. Among those was a book, a wondrous illuminated gospel. Which became known — after its new home — as the Book of Kells.”

He paused significantly.

“Recall Columba’s instructions: to hide the map ‘beneath layers of gold and lapis and other colors of the greatest brilliance.’ Naturally, I concluded it had been painted over and bound into the Book of Kells. But which page? That was even easier. One of the pages of the book had already excited scholarly interest because it appeared to be of a different material than the others.”

“The Chi Rho page,” Gideon said.

“Exactly. The Book of Kells was written on the finest vellum available — fetal calfskin. But the vellum of the Chi Rho page is different — stronger and thicker. And the Chi Rho page is the most heavily painted page in the entire book. The vellum was first painted with flake white — which has lead as its base — which was totally unnecessary: the fine vellum was snow white to begin with. It seemed obvious to me the Phorkys Map was hidden under the paint on that page. And thanks to you, we’ve now found it.”

He tapped the enlargement of the map with a crooked finger.

“Which brings me to your new mission: to follow this map to Phorkys.”

Gideon was no longer able to keep the sarcasm from his voice. “And find the secret to eternal life?”

“Not eternal life. Healing.”

“Don’t tell me you actually believe that legend?”

“I do.”

Gideon shook his head. “I’m not sure who’s more gullible — you or this mysterious client of yours. Greeks discovering the New World. Monsters guarding some kind of magic medicine.”

Glinn said nothing.

Now Gideon rose. “I thought you had a real mission for me. It’s bad enough that, thanks to me, a priceless masterpiece has been destroyed. Now you want me to head off on some wild goose chase? I’m sorry, but I want no part of this.”

Without a word, Glinn removed a manila folder from his briefcase and laid it on the table, giving it a gentle push toward Gideon. It was labeled PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, IONA. “This is a confidential report on an archaeological excavation of the graveyard at Iona Abbey. Archaeologists recovered the remains of quite a few monks, many dating back to the time of the Phorkys Map.”

“So?”

“The archaeologists found skeletons of monks who had suffered dreadful injuries, many no doubt at the hands of Viking marauders. Arms chopped off, skulls split, eyes gouged out. They found evidence of birth defects, deformities, various illnesses. But here’s the rub: the skeletons had healed up almost perfectly. These monks had recovered from wounds, deformities, and illnesses that should have been permanently disabling or even fatal.”

“Medicine is replete with amazing recoveries,” said Gideon.

“Perhaps. But that report notes that some of the monks had regrown entire limbs.”

There was a dead silence. Gideon finally said, “I don’t buy it, Eli.”

“When a frog or lizard loses and regrows a limb, the process leaves unmistakable, unambiguous signs. You can see where the bone was severed, where it began to grow back. The new limb is often smaller and weaker than the old one. The bone is newer, fresher, younger. This is exactly what the physical anthropologists found when they examined the skeletons of some of these monks. It’s all here, in this folder. The science is impeccable. They are mystified. Their research continues. But we…we know why these monks healed.”

Gideon simply stared in disbelief. Now he was sorry he hadn’t accepted a glass of port.

Glinn opened the folder, displaying an array of electron micrographs of bones. “See for yourself. The dig was sponsored by the Scottish government and — not surprisingly, when they discovered this — was immediately hushed up. That of course was no impediment to EES. So you see, Gideon, this isn’t a wild goose chase after all. The monks truly did find a remedium, a physic, that could make the blind see, the crippled walk, limbs regrow.”

Once again the crooked finger tapped the paper with its long witch’s nail. “This is no legend. The skeletons don’t lie.”