Chapter Five: The Second Scroll of the Tiger

"I didn't leave those there to tempt you out of bed," Francesco de la Piedra scolded, from where he stood framed by the doorway to Nigel's room.

"Oh, good morning, Francesco," Nigel greeted, distractedly. He briefly glanced up at the Frenchman, then picked up another buff-coloured card folder and pulled out its contents. Riffling through these new pages, he cross-referenced the information with the rest of the research that was spread out on the desk in front of him.

"You shouldn't be up, you know," the Frenchman complained, striding over to the table with a slight frown across his forehead.

"Hmm…" Nigel was clearly not paying attention to anything but the work he was engrossed in.

Francesco sighed and perched on the edge of the desk. With a faint smile on his lips, he watched the historian beavering away with such intense focus that it was a surprise that he remembered to breathe.

"So…have you made any progress?"

The question took a few seconds to get through to Nigel's brain, but when it did he finally looked up.

"Uh, well…" He fingered the sheet that Francesco had noted the first clue to the whereabouts of the Guardian Stone on the evening before. "It talks about going to a summit, which is likely to be referring to the peak of a mountain not far from the tomb. 'Es marcado por el ojo', I think this means the place will be marked by an engraving of a tiger's eye like above the entrance to the tomb's main chamber."

"But there are mountains to the East and South of the tomb," Francesco said, "which does the Scroll mean?"

" 'Look at the tiger'… I can't tell without seeing the landscape. It could mean that something looks like a tiger, probably part of a mountain."

"So: climb to the summit of a mountain shaped like a tiger, and the Second Scroll will be hidden somewhere there, marked by an engraving of a tiger's eye."

"Yes, I think so," Nigel agreed. "When will we be leaving? We need to get there before D'orage."

"You aren't going anywhere, my friend," Francesco said, firmly.

"But –"

"As I said, you shouldn't even be out of bed," the Frenchman insisted, cutting off Nigel's protest. "You need to let your wound heal."

Nigel turned away to stare out of the window into the bright morning sunlight, hating the truth of the other man's words. Now that he wasn't absorbed in research, he was aware of the growing ache in his side caused by sitting up and he could feel the beginnings of light-headedness as his tiredness caught up with him.

"Come on," Francesco said, quietly. He stood up and put a hand under Nigel's arm to raise him to his feet. "I'll have Marietta fix up a telephone near your bed, so I can call you when I get to the tomb. I might still need your help."

Nigel nodded, tiredly, and allowed himself to be steered back to the comfort of the bed.

.

.

"I'm telling you, none of these mountains look even vaguely like part of a tiger!" de la Piedra insisted, irritably, for the fifth time.

"But they must!" Through the mobile phone, Nigel's voice was just as insistent.

"There's nothing!" Francesco cried, crossly, waving his arm up and down. Sighing heavily, he suggested, "Can't the clue mean something else?"

" 'Mire el tigre'…"

"But where is this blasted tiger?"

Nigel was silent for a few moments.

Suddenly, he cried out triumphantly, "That's it!"

"What is?"

"Where do tigers live?" Nigel asked, excitedly.

"What are you talking about?" Francesco demanded.

"In the East. Tiger's live in India, as did the man who gave your ancestor the Stone."

"Yes…"

"So, look at the tiger. Where's the tiger? In the East! Look to the East!"

"You're saying that the Second Scroll is at the peak of the eastern mountain?"

"Yes!"

"Ok, we'll take a look," Francesco said, his usual good-humour returning. Then added, "You'd better be right though. That's one hell of a hill. I don't want to go all the way up there only to find it's the wrong damn mountain."

"I'm sure," Nigel assured.

*******

*******

Sydney Fox ran her fingers over the engraving of the tiger's eye identical to the one in the tomb. The mid-afternoon sun hardly reached into the gap within the mountain rock, and the faint highlights it gave the edges of the carving made the oval eye seem to burn softly in the surrounding gloom.

At last she'd found it – the hiding place of the Second Scroll. If only Preston and Karen hadn't let her sleep late, she thought, irritably, then they'd have arrived sooner. The quicker she found this relic, the quicker she'd see Nigel again.

Behind Sydney, Preston appeared at the opening in the rock, his short brown hair tugged back by the high winds sweeping over the top of the mountain. He took a step into the sheltered fissure, narrowing his watering eyes to make out the marking on the wall.

"Is that… It is!" He turned to yell into the wind, "Karen! Over here! Sydney's found the eye."

Preston excitedly entered the crevice, the young secretary hurrying in shortly after. Sydney looked away from the engraving and shone her torch into dark depths of the cave beside it.

"Someone's been here," Sydney mumbled, noticing prints in the sandy entrance. "Be on your guard."

The three of them walked into the natural cave and began to make their way to the back. They hadn't gone more than six foot in, when the light of Preston's torch caught the edge of a roll of yellow-white paper. The Scroll lay against the rock wall with a short trail of disturbed grey sand leading up to its position indicating that the parchment had been thrown back into the cave from the entrance.

"Here," Preston said, and the others turned to look. He pocketed his torch and bent down to pick up the Scroll. "The seal's been broken," he announced, turning the rolled paper in his hands.

Questions streamed through Sydney's mind: Someone else had found the Scroll before them and left it…for her to find, what did this mean? The black-clothed men…had they found it? What if the writer of the message she'd received the day before wasn't one of them? What if they had lied to lure her into a trap? What if they hadn't even meant that Nigel was safe? Or something may have happened to him since then. What if Nigel was dead?

Taking a hold of herself, Sydney forced herself to quell the useless fear churning her stomach and take it that the message and Scroll had been left by a friend. Nigel was alive. He had to be.

"What does it say?" Sydney asked, shining her torch on the parchment as Preston unrolled it.

Preston read aloud the Spanish words that were neatly written with ink long ago, " 'Entre uno y dos es el fluido de la vida. Cerca de la fuente es un pueblo grande. Bajo es el tercero.' "

*******

*******

" 'Between one and two is the fluid of life. Near the source is a large town. Under is the third.' "

Dropping the sheet of notepaper he'd read from onto his lap, Francesco leant forward, his elbows on the arms of the wicker chair he was sat in. The late afternoon sun was comfortably warm on the balcony of Nigel's room. The Frenchman rested his chin in his palm, looking down into the courtyard, while Nigel, in the cushion-laden chair beside him, pondered the meaning of the Second Scroll of the Tiger.

" 'One and two'…the Scrolls?" Nigel suggested, thoughtfully.

"Perhaps," Francesco replied, noncommittally, smiling as he watched his daughter, Nicole, and a young boy playing in the fountain below.

" 'The fluid of life'," Nigel continued. "Blood?"

"Or water."

"The Garonne!"

Francesco nodded slightly, still looking down into the courtyard.

"A large town near the source…a large town…uh…Bordeaux?" Nigel suggested. "The Third Scroll is underneath Bordeaux?"

"I'm willing to go with that," the Frenchman said, turning to grin at him.

"There's – "

Suddenly, the crack of a gunshot came from outside the villa walls.