woman finished her scan of the room and looked his way instead, then lowered her eyes when he met them. Pretty eyes. Brown and flighty, like a doe’s eyes, but hidden behind a pair of tortoiseshell-framed glasses.
“Well,” he said, to break the ice, “it seems Kelly isn’t much for introductions, so we’ll have to do it ourselves. I’m Lester Folsom, here to plug a book.”
She smiled at him, finally meeting his gaze. “Professor Lucy Lanfair,” she said, moving closer, extending a slender hand. It was not a delicate, pampered looking hand, but a working one. He liked that. She had mink-brown hair that matched her eyes, but she kept it all twisted up into a knot at the back of her head.
He took her hand, more relieved than he wanted to admit that it was warm to the touch. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“Likewise.” She withdrew her hand, wiping it on her brown tweed skirt. “Sorry about the sweaty palms. I’m a nervous wreck. I’ve never been on TV before.”
“Nothing to be nervous about,” he assured her. “You look very nice, if that’s any comfort to you.”
“I’ve never been too concerned with how I look, but thank you very much. I appreciate it.”
A woman who didn’t care about looks. Well, now, that was interesting. “What is it you’ve come to talk about?” he asked.
She sank into a chair kitty-corner from his and unrolled the magazine she’d been clutching in one hand. “A rather startling new translation of a four-thousand, five-hundred-year-old clay tablet.”
He lifted his brows, his attention truly caught now. “Sumerian?”
“Yes!” She sounded surprised. “How did you know?”
“Not many other cultures had a written language in twenty-five hundred BCE. May I?” He nodded at the magazine, and she handed it to him. The Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Studies, J.A.N.E.S. for short, had a classic image of a ziggurat tower on the front, beneath which the headline screamed, New Translation Suggests Another Doomsday Prophecy for Mankind. He glanced from it to her. “This is your piece?” When she nodded, he said, “You made the cover. Impressive.”
“Yes, of a scholarly journal with a readership of about three thousand. Still, it’s nice to get the recognition. Though I could do without the sensationalism. What the prophecy predicts is meaningless.”
“Oh, don’t be so sure about that.” He shifted his gaze to the book he carried with him everywhere he went. “And you should be grateful for the sensationalism. You might not have gotten any coverage at all without it.”
“No, I guess not.”
“So, you’re a translator?” he asked, as he flipped pages to find her story.
“And an archaeologist, and a professor at Binghamton University,” she said softly.
Not bragging, just particular about getting her facts straight, he thought. She was a pretty thing. A bit skinnier than he liked, but women had been curvier in his day. She dressed down, though. Probably to be taken more seriously in her career. Pencil skirt, simple white blouse with a thin, cream-colored button-down sweater over it. Very plain.
“And now an author to boot,” he added.
“It’s mandatory in my field. ‘Publish or perish’ is more than just a figure of speech.”
Or in his own case, publish and perish, he thought. He found her article and, without time to read it all, skimmed ahead to the actual translation. Within the first few lines, he was riveted.
The offspring of the Old One,
All the children of the Ancient One,
Of Utanapishtim,
In a stroke, are no more.
In the light of his eyes, they are no more
To the last, to the very last,
Unless Utanapishtim himself … (Segment Missing)
“As I say, it’s not what it says that’s so interesting,” the skinny professor said, her voice breaking into his reading. “It’s that the Sumerians simply were not known to prophecy. But—”
He held up a hand to stop her distracting chatter as his eyes sped over the lines.
When light meets shadow,
When darkness is well-lit,
When the hidden are revealed,
War erupts.
Like a lion, it devours.
Like a tigress, without mercy, it destroys.
For the end is upon them,
The end of their kind,
The end of their race,
The race that sprang from his veins.
The door opened, and the redhead—Kelly—poked her head in again. “Time to go on, Mr. Folsom.”
“One moment!” he barked, startling both women. He had to finish reading. He could not stop there. He had to know.
Only the Old One … (Segment Missing)
The Flood-Survivor
The Ancient One
Utanapishtim
The Two must bring about … (Segment Missing)
The Two who are opposite
And yet the same,
One light, one dark,
One the destroyer.
One the salvation
“The twins,” he whispered. “This is about the legendary mongrel twins.”
“Excuse me?” Professor Lanfair asked.
“Mr. Folsom,” Kelly said. “We have to go.”
Ignoring them both, he flipped the page, but there was no more. Lifting his head, he speared the professor with his eyes. “That’s it? That’s all? They printed all of it?”
“Yes. At least, that’s all so far. There are still hundreds of broken pieces of clay tablets from that particular dig site in storage. There may be more to this tablet, but at the moment—”
“Mr. Folsom!” Kelly was not taking no for an answer.
He nodded, closing the magazine and handing it back to the doe-eyed bookworm. “It’s not a doomsday prophecy at all, Professor Lanfair. Not for humankind, anyway. This is about them.”
“About whom?”
He
