Part 4: "Certain persons have achieved concealment by means of letters not then used by their own race or others but arbitrarily invented by themselves." -- Roger Bacon, Letter on the Secret Works of Art and the Nullity of Magic [May 1292, Oxford] His hood carefully raised over his head, the Immortal monk trudged on bare feet up the rickety steps of the tower, his goal a tightly shut wooden door at the top of the staircase. Once reached, he knocked softly, then more loudly, realizing the eighty year old man sitting inside the cramped room was, most probably, slightly deaf. "Who's there?" a cranky, thin voice called out. Glancing around instinctively, to make sure there was no one else in earshot, the Immortal calmly called out, "Enkidu," then lowered his hood. After a moment of silence, the sound of shuffling feet could be heard from within the room, then the door cautiously opened. "It is you -- praise be to God!" Roger pulled the door aside, a smile beaming on his wrinkle creased face. "Come in, come in!" Enkidu gladly entered, patiently waiting for the frail Franciscan to close the door behind him. "What a lovely view of the river," he commented, peering through a large window at the tranquil waters below. "Yes, it calms me, watching the water flow," Roger commented. With obvious difficulty, he shuffled back to his bed, and carefully lowered himself down to sit on the mattress. "To tell you the truth, I also like watching who is crossing over my bridge!" He laughed briefly, then began to cough. When Enkidu tried to pat his back, Roger waved him off. "Thanks, old friend, but I fear it is of no use. One by one, the parts of my body are failing me. I fear I will not live to see the autumn." Unable to think of a suitable, comforting comment, Enkidu said nothing, merely claiming a simple wooden chair beside the bed, as a seat. "I received word that you wanted to see me. How you found me, I do not know." An impish smile curled the withered lips, defying the seriousness of the mor tal's age and condition. "I have fostered my own connections with the Watchers, over the decades. It was a trivial matter to find your current location. But, really, Enkidu, you disappoint me. A Dominican?" The Akkadian flashed one of his enigmatic half-smiles. "One cannot devote one's entire life to a single Order. At least, not when your life is as long as mine." "How true, my friend, how true!" The smile fell from Roger's face. "You heard about de Maricourt?" Enkidu shook his head. "No." "Ah. He died, over a decade ago. Poison, they say. I believe he was trying out his latest elixir recipe on himself." "Fool." Sighing, Enkidu wished he hadn't uttered that honest, but tactless, remark. "He died as he lived -- true to his beliefs," Roger offered. "But, that is not why I called you here." "So, why did you? Besides the delight of my company." Smiling, once more, Roger pointed under the bed. "Reach under there, and pull out the chest." Slowly kneeling onto the floor, Enkidu did has he was instructed, retrieving a small, wooden chest from under the bed. He accepted a small key Roger offered, and opened the lock. "A book," he muttered, carefully lifting the thick volume from its secure home. "Yes, a book, like none other. The results of my failed search for the secret of Immortality." Enkidu's gaze raised to the mortal's face. "You wrote it all down?" "Every trial, every failure," Roger affirmed. He watched as Enkidu opened the book, and frowned at the illegible handwriting. "In code, of course." "Of course," Enkidu parroted, quietly. He ran a finger along the scrawled ink and sketched pictures. "It is a good code -- I cannot see the pattern." "You disappoint me, for the second time today. You should recognize the underlying alphabet, from your own past." Enkidu stared at the scrawl for another minute, then shook his head. "I cannot discern the pattern." He raised his eyes to the author's smug face. "What is the key?" "Chaldean... Jewish numerology... and ancient Greek," he pronounced. "A tri-level code." "Brilliant." Enkidu marveled at the work he held within his hands. "A brilliant tribute to a miserable failure." A short coughing spell interrupted the conversation. "It is now yours. I entrust my life's work to you, in the hope that others may learn from my failures. For, although I did not succeed in duplicating your life force in a flask, I *did* stumble upon many allusions to your kind in the hermetic literature, and, I believe I learned *something* of the physiology of your kind." Enkidu was utterly fascinated by what he had just heard. "I am honored," he genuinely replied, raising the volume to his chest. "Very honored." ################################### "So, that's *your* book," Richie incredulously remarked. "Only for a brief period of time," Enkidu noted, with regret. "It should have met with an unfortunate accident," Methos snidely offered. "It was nothing but trouble then, it's nothing but trouble now." "Yeah, why didn't you destroy it?" Richie inquired. "Many reasons. It was obviously too dangerous to circulate, but too important to destroy. Think of it, Richie. The first scientific study of Immortality, no matter how crude the techniques." "I bet Jo's colleagues would kill to get their hands on that thing -- if they knew the key." The fountain of pessimism erupted, once more. "Let's not give her any suggestions, shall we?" As he had before, Enkidu ignored Methos' comments. "I kept the book hidden, close to me, for over a century. Many times I started to translate it, but never seemed to have the patience, or the time, to get much farther than the first dozen or so pages. Then, there came a time when my possessing such a book was, shall we say, dangerous to my health." "What he means, is that the Inquisition didn't approve of books written in arcane code," Methos smugly explained. "No, indeed," Enkidu agreed. "Therefore, I gave it to my old friend, here, for safe keeping, for two decades. He was in England, then Heidelberg, studying medicine. I believed it would be safe with him." Richie noted the satisfied smirk on the eldest Immortal's face. "So... what happened?" "It met with a rather unfortunate accident. Just not unfortunate enough." Enkidu rolled his eyes in exasperation and disapproval. "The original volume was stolen from his *dorm room*, as you might call it. He suspected a fellow medical student, and started a small fire outside the perpetrator's room, hoping to create a diversion where he might steal back the book." Richie shook his head. "Sounds like the kinda stupid thing he'd do." "Wait a minute, it was a *brilliant* plan." "It was?" Enkidu queried. "Why did you not retrieve the book, then?" Methos shrugged, sprawling even lower into the chair cushions. "I was about to -- but I was interrupted by the Headmaster." "Wait -- you called it the *original volume*," Richie suddenly blurted out. "You mean what they have at Yale is a *fake*?" "A copy, actually," Enkidu corrected. "A very carefully created copy." Richie was intrigued. "Wow. Who did it? What happened to the original?" Enkidu shrugged slightly. "Two questions I can only speculate on. Apparently, the original was damaged in the fire, but not destroyed. There are a number of missing pages, probably due to the fire damage." The young Immortal became wary at the amount of detail Enkidu could rattle off about this copy. "Wait -- you've seen it? In person?" "No. I did, however, learn of its existence, soon after it surfaced in the Royal Court of Prague...."