The Geographer's Library

Jon Fasman
“Yes, we found safes, but not—”
“And in both safes you would have found sparkling green dust, correct?”
I didn’t say anything.
“And your educated professor friend, he knew where the dust came
from.” The sentence rose at the end slightly; it fell somewhere between statement
and question.
“What you found,” he continued, “is dust from an instruction book to
life. A manual that tells us how to be our own miniature gods. It explains—”
“What we found,” I interrupted, “were traces of a huge and very valuable
gemstone. What we also found is that Jaan had ties to jewel thieves that went
beyond just circumstantial or probable.”
“Thievery is beside the point. What you found was more valuable than
you can possibly imagine. Do you know, for instance, where the Emerald
Tablet was discovered?”
“No.”
“Clutched to Abraham’s chest as he lay in his cave, prone and dead. Sarah
found it. No doubt you know what the Tablet says.”
“Professor Jadid read a translation, I think. I really don’t remember it that
well; it didn’t make any sense to me.” I figured there was no point in playing
dumb anymore.
“That does not surprise me; with a poor translation, that often happens.
Also, what he read—what any of the scores of official translations and millions
of inane interpretations of the Tablet claim to explain—is nothing but
the preamble.”
“What language was it translated from?”
“The preamble? Aramaic. But the meat of the Tablet is written in a language
long disappeared from human use. Human memory, even. Perhaps an
unusually sharp expert in Semitic languages might, if he ever saw it, be able
to piece together a few words, but the meaning would escape him.”
“And the meaning doesn’t escape you?”
“Well, no. But then I was taught the language, and I have taught the language
to others. A small number of us use it for communication, and we
guard the language very carefully.”
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