Selma said, “You’re talking about the Codex Borbonicus, the Mendoza, the Florentine . . .”

“Right. There are dozens. Usually they depict Aztec life either before, during, or after the Spanish conquest. Some are just tableaus of routine activities while others are meant as historical accounts of Cortes’s arrival, of battles fought or ceremonies, and so on.”Remi grabbed a magnifying glass from a drawer and bent to examine the codex. She spent ten minutes poring over every square inch, then stood up and sighed.

“In theme, this one’s a lot like the Boturini Codex. Allegedly, the Boturini was written by an anonymous Aztec author between 1530 and 1541, about ten years after the Aztecs fell. It’s supposed to tell the story of the Aztecs’ journey from Aztlan to present-day Mexico.”“Aztlan?” asked Sam.

“One of the two mythical ancestral homes of the Nahua peoples, which include the Aztecs. Many historians disagree about whether Aztlan is a legend or an actual physical location.”“You said two homes.”

“The other one’s called Chicomoztoc, or Place of the Seven Caves. It’s important in Aztec lore and religion. Take a look at our codex. You see the hollowed-out flower shape in the lower right-hand corner?”

Sam and Selma nodded.“That’s how Chicomoztoc is usually represented. But this one’s a little different, I think. I’ll have to do some comparisons.”

“If I’m reading this right,” Sam said, “it’s meant to represent a sea voyage. I assume the canoe is a metaphor?”

“Hard to say. But do you notice the comblike object on the side of it?”

“I saw it.”

“That’s the glyph for the Aztec number one hundred.”

“People or vessels?”

“Given its placement, I assume the latter.”

“A hundred ships,” Sam repeated. “Sailing from Chicomoztoc to . . . where?”

“Wherever that bird and the object below it live?” Selma offered. “What is that? I can’t quite make it out.”

“Looks like a sword,” Sam offered. “Or a torch, maybe?”

Selma said, “I don’t know about that, but that bird looks familiar.”

“It should,” Remi replied. “It’s from Blaylock’s journal. There’s something else you should all recognize, too.”

Sam tapped the rough-brushed shape occupying the upper half of the codex. “Also from Blaylock’s journal.”

“A gold star for Mr. Fargo. And one more,” Remi said, handing him the magnifying glass. “The inscription.”

Sam lifted the glass to his eye and bent closer to the codex. He recited, “My Spanish isn’t the best, but here goes . . . ‘Dado este 12vo dia de Julio, ano de nuestro Senor 1521, por su alteza Cuauhtemotzin. Javier Orizaga, S.J.

’” Sam looked up. “Remi?”“Roughly translated it says, ‘Given this twelfth day of July, the year of our Lord 1521, by His Highness Cuauhtemotzin. Javier Orizaga, S.J.’”

“Orizaga . . .That’s another tidbit from Blaylock’s journal: ‘Was Orizaga here?’”

“Here, where?” Selma asked. “Chicomoztoc?”

“Anyone’s guess,” Remi replied. “You’re missing the real bombshell, though.”

Without another word, she walked over to a workstation, brought up the Web browser, and spent five minutes navigating through pages on famsi.org-the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies. Finally, she turned in her seat.

“Obviously, the S.J. in Orizaga’s name means ‘Society of Jesus.’ He was a Jesuit monk. The date, July 12, 1521, is twelve days after what the Spaniards called La Noche Triste, the ‘Sad Night.’ It marks their emergency withdrawal from the Aztec capitol of Tenochtitlan after Cortes and his Conquistadors massacred hundreds of Aztecs-along with their king, Moctezuma II-at the Main Temple, the Templo Mayor. It was a watershed moment for the Aztec Empire. In August of the following year Tenochtitlan was razed to the ground, and the Aztecs’ last king, Cuauhtemotzin, was captured and tortured.”“Cuauhtemotzin,” Sam repeated, then turned back to the codex for a moment. “That’s who Orizaga claims dictated this codex.”

Selma murmured, “Cuauhtemotzin saw the handwriting on the walls. He knew his people were doomed and he wanted someone to know . . .” Selma’s voice trailed off.

Remi nodded. “If this codex is genuine, we may be looking at the last will and testament of the Aztec people.”

CHAPTER 29

MADAGASCAR, INDIAN OCEAN

“AFRICA AGAIN,” SAM MUTTERED, PULLING THE RANGE ROVER to a stop off the dirt road. He shut off the engine and set the parking brake. “Had to be Africa.”

“Don’t let the locals hear you say that,” Remi replied. “We’re three hundred miles off the African coast. As far as these folks are concerned, Madagascar’s a world unto itself.”

Sam raised his hands in surrender. He knew she was right. Their marathon, San Diego-Atlanta-Johannesburg-Antananarivo route had given them plenty of time to read up on Madagascar.They climbed out, walked to the rear of the Rover, and began gathering their gear.

The identity of the map inside Blaylock’s walking staff had remained a mystery for only a few hours as Pete and Wendy scoured the vast cartographical databases the Fargos had acquired over the years. As it turned out, the map in question was but a section of a larger chart penned by a French explorer named Moreau in 1873, some twenty-three years after France’s armed annexation of the island. The partial word in the upper left-hand corner was in fact Prunes-French for “plums”-the name given by an explorer to a series of atolls along the coast. From there Pete and Wendy had had little trouble matching up the river names and isolating the section of coastline in question.

What remained a mystery, however, was why Madagascar had been so important to Blaylock. It was a question Sam and Remi hoped to answer while Selma, the Wonder Twins, and Julianne Severson at the Library of Congress continued to dissect and analyze Blaylock’s journal, his letters to Constance Ashworth, and the newly named Orizaga Codex.

For their part, aside from a current topographical chart, all Sam and Remi had to go on was a laminated copy of the Moreau map and an enlargement of the area around the miniaturized annotation-which they’d matched to Blaylock’s handwriting-that Pete had discovered penned over a cove in the coastline. Having grown accustomed to Blaylock’s penchant for thought fragments, they’d been unsurprised to find the jot consisted of only seven words:1442 Spans 315°

Into the Lion’s Mouth

The fourth-largest island in the world, Madagascar was in many ways a world apart. For instance, it was home to five percent of the world’s plant and animal species. Of these, eighty percent were found nowhere else on earth: lemurs of every stripe and size, cave-dwelling crocodiles, carnivorous plants and spitting beetles, and giant centipedes, thirty-two species of chameleon, two hundred two species of birds, and an array of baobab trees that seemed plucked from the mind of a science-fiction movie director. And for all that, not a single endemic poisonous snake called the island home.

Madagascar’s history was no less unique. While the island’s official history began in the seventh century with Bantus using encampments along Madagascar’s northern tip as trading posts for passing Arab merchants, archaeological finds in recent decades had to probe deeper, suggesting Madagascar’s first settlers had arrived from Sulawesi, in Indonesia, between 200 and 500 C.E.

Over the next eleven hundred years, Madagascar became the melting pot of Africa, populated mostly by Portuguese, Indian, Arabic, and Somalian settlers, until the Age of Exploration arrived and the scramble for Africa began. European colonial powers and pirates alike rushed to Madagascar, and the island saw a series of ruling dynasties until the late eighteenth century, when the Merina family managed, with the help of the British, to gain control of most of the island in a hegemony that ended almost a century later with France’s invasion in 1883 and what became known as the Franco-Hova War. In 1896 France annexed Madagascar, and the Merina royal family was exiled to Algeria.