22
November 19, 5:55 P.M. ULAT
Ulan Bator, Mongolia
Vigor paced around the conference table in the hotel suite, his heart thudding tiredly, his eyes sore. For the past hour, he had been balanced between jubilation at Gray’s recovery of the relics and frustration at his inability to solve the eight-hundred-year-old mystery.
The focus of everyone’s attention rested in the middle of the table: the macabre sailing ship made of bones and tanned skin.
Vigor had spent a solid hour with magnifying loupe in hand, poring over the relic that they had recovered from the Aral Sea. He could still smell the salt off the tarnished silver box sitting next to it, a bitter reminder of the loss of his friend.
Josip had sacrificed everything to uncover this artifact.
And to what end?
After an hour of study, Vigor had come to no firm conclusions, except a deep respect for the artisan. The rib bones of the hull had been boiled and bleached to make them easier to carve. Intricate waves had been scrimshawed into them, along with a plethora of fish, birds, even seals, the latter of which frolicked in the sea and leaped high out of the water. The sails were rigged with twisted human hair and ribbed in the traditional manner of Chinese junks of the Song dynasty, an era that matched Genghis Khan’s time period.
But what did it all mean? Where was this bread crumb supposed to lead them? To solve that, he had a laptop open on the table, where he had been researching anything and everything that might offer a clue. But he had hit dead end after dead end.
Everyone around the table looked to him to solve this mystery, but maybe it was beyond him. He wished for the hundredth time that Josip were here. He needed his friend’s mad genius now more than ever.
Gray spoke up, seated beside Seichan. “Since it’s a Chinese ship, it must be pointing to somewhere in China.”
“Not necessarily. Genghis was a great admirer of the science and technology of the nations he conquered. He absorbed and incorporated whatever he found, from Chinese gunpowder to the compass and the abacus. He certainly would appreciate such boat-making skills.”
“Still, it is a fishing boat,” Gray continued, pointing out the details of the scrimshaw. “Doesn’t that suggest the hiding place is somewhere along the Pacific Ocean or the Yellow Sea?”
“I agree. And that coast does mark the easternmost reach of Genghis’s empire.”
Josip’s earlier words played again in his head.
I believe Genghis had instructed his son to turn the entire known world into his grave, to spread his spiritual reach from one end of the Mongol Empire to the other.
His friend was right. Genghis’s head had been ceremonially buried in Hungary, representing the westernmost reach of his son’s empire. Then the bone ship was hidden in the Aral Sea, marking the western edge of Genghis’s conquered territory. So it only made sense that the next spot would be along that eastern edge.
There was only one problem, and Vigor voiced it aloud.
“If we’re right, that’s nearly a thousand miles of coastline. Where do we even begin to look?”
Rachel stirred on the opposite side of the table. “Maybe we need a break. To clear our heads and start again fresh.”
“We don’t have the time to spare,” Vigor snapped back at her, but he regretted his tone immediately and patted her shoulder in apology as he passed by her while continuing to pace.
Something kept nagging at him and wouldn’t let him sit still. Then contrarily, the stitch in his abdomen flared with every step, making it harder to think.
Maybe Rachel is right. A little rest might be a good idea.
Gray frowned and tried talking it out. “They buried his head in Hungary, and I guess, because the ship is made of rib bones and vertebrae, it represents his chest.”
“Or more likely his heart,” Vigor corrected, that nagging feeling flaring as he said that.
“Head and heart,” Kowalski mumbled. He was sprawled on a neighboring couch, an arm over his eyes. “Guess that means all we have to do is find this guy’s feet.”
Vigor shrugged. That actually sounded right.
Head, heart, feet.
Josip’s words repeated yet again.
. . . spread his spiritual reach from one end of the Mongol Empire to the other.
Vigor stopped so fast he had to steady himself on the back of an empty chair. He suddenly realized that it wasn’t Josip’s words that he should have been paying attention to.
“You smart, crazy man,” he mumbled. “I’ve been such a fool.”
No wonder Josip had looked so full of regret as he died. It wasn’t because his friend couldn’t finish this journey—though that was likely part of it—but because he had recognized the lack of understanding in Vigor’s eyes.
“He figured it out!” Vigor exclaimed.
“What do you mean?” Rachel asked. “Are you talking about Father Josip?”
Vigor placed his palm over his heart, feeling it beat. Josip had taken that same hand and put it on his own bloody chest—not just to say good-bye, but to communicate in the only way he could at the end, to offer a clue before he died.
“Head, heart, feet,” he repeated, patting his own chest as he emphasized the middle note of the chorus. “We’ve been looking at this all wrong.”
Rachel shifted straighter. “How?”
“The head marked the boundary of his son’s empire, representing the future of the Mongol Empire after his death. The heart embodied the empire of Genghis’s own lifetime, of his present. What we need to be looking for next is a marker where Genghis first put his feet down and made a name for himself, symbolizing his past.”
“Head, heart, feet,” Gray said. “Future, present, past.”
Vigor nodded, slipping back to his chair in front of the open laptop. “Genghis didn’t instruct his son to spread his body from one end of the empire to the other geographically. He wanted it spread from his empire’s past to its future.”
Rachel reached over and squeezed his arm. “Brilliant.”
“Don’t use that word yet.” He tapped at the computer. “Right now I’m feeling rather stupid since Josip all but told me this before he passed away. And we still have to use this knowledge to discover where to continue the search.”
“You’ll figure it out.”
Vigor brought up a map that showed the spread of the Mongol Empire during Genghis Khan’s reign.
“Here you can see the extent of Genghis’s empire,” he said, “stretching from the Pacific to the Caspian Sea, but the darker oval in northern Mongolia represents the great khan’s original territorial base.”