The 13th Tablet

Before long, they stood in front of the Grand Palace, in Bangkok’s historic centre. Here was the beating heart of the city. Most monks lived nearby, within walking distance of this, the greatest of all the shrines and glittering temples in the City of Angels. Mina gazed with awe at the temples, or wats as the Thai called them, constructed with millions of small pieces of coloured glass and ceramic, and spectacular gilt roofs. There were many temples but the one that struck her the most was Wat Pho, or the Temple of the Reclining Buddha. It was the largest temple in the city and was famed for its gigantic gilt Buddha, which was over forty metres long. Even the statue’s feet were more than three meters in size and its soles were covered with intricate decorations in mother-of-pearl. What surprised Mina most was the sound of money tinkling as pilgrims and tourists donated coins to the priests so as to gain merit from the Buddha.

‘So where’s the spa? I thought we were going to have a massage?’ asked Mina, jokingly.

‘Ah. Women, you lose all patience from the moment you hear of a good pampering.’

‘I don’t see you complaining,’ said Mina.

‘True. Follow me.’

After a short walk through the temple complex, Jack suddenly stopped in his tracks, ‘Voila.’

Obviously a great many visitors to the Wat Pho complex came for an invigorating massage rather than for religious zeal. Jack paid out two hundred bahts for each of them and they entered the real world of Thai massage, an odd mixture of yogic postures, deep muscle massage and body pressure points which the practitioners pressed on painfully hard with flat wooden sticks. Relaxing into the massage, Mina let her thoughts roam freely and through a curious association of ideas, started thinking about time-travel. They had lost a day, travelling to Thailand, although the actual journey had not lasted much more than half that time. She had the strange sensation of being a thought away from something important that she should remember. It was just out of her grasp. Trying to chase it down would never work, so she let go of her thoughts and focussed on enjoying the massage fully.

Mina and Jack walked hand in hand on the river bank until they reached a pier, where a tiny booth offered boat tours exploring Bangkok’s backwaters. Jack bought a two-hour tour. The boat moored and Mina and Jack boarded, waiting in line behind other tourists to show their ticket. Only one traveller got on without paying his fare, a chubby monk in saffron-coloured robes. No-one seemed to mind, Mina guessed that in Thailand monks probably didn’t pay for public transport. He sat there, near the helm, his plump face looking out at the watery furrows on the boat’s flanks, as it sliced through the river. Mina was mesmerised by this overweight monk, holding his begging bowl tightly against his chest. Most monks woke up early in the morning and left their monasteries to beg for food from passers-by on the streets of Bangkok. This one had obviously been collecting money, as his begging bowl tinkled every time the boat swayed in the wash.

The riverside landscape was fascinating, with many of the houses perched on stilts. Families were going about their daily lives, far away from the bustle of the city’s tourist trade and big business skyscrapers. Stroking Mina’s hair distractedly, Jack couldn’t help thinking about the tablet and its meaning.

‘Mina?’ Jack said.

‘Yes?’ she answered, dreamily.

‘How sure are we that it will happen?’

‘Oh,’ she said, a little disappointed that Jack had not opted for a more romantic sentiment. ‘We can’t know for sure, but Daniel’s calculations have confirmed that past disasters were predicted by the authors of the tablet.’

‘So what are we really talking about?’ asked Jack, matter-of-factly.

‘I hope nothing will happen, but if something does it will probably be an earthquake.’

‘Can’t you give me a more educated guess?’

‘OK. The tablets describe events to come, as well as how to forecast them. Unfortunately the Mosul tablet was only partly preserved and the Jerusalem one… basically we don’t know how they forecasted the events, but my personal feeling…’ she broke off.

‘Yes?’

‘… The events described are incremental in magnitude and destructive power.’

‘You mean they get worse over time?’

‘Yes, they make me think of warnings.’

‘Of what?’

‘Of worse things to come.’

‘And I thought you weren’t religious.’

‘I don’t feel like joking, Jack. What time is it?’

‘Almost time to get back to the airport to catch our flight. We’re getting off at the next pier.’

Jack’s mind drifted back to his time in Iraq. He wondered how the qanat work had progressed, if the villagers had followed his notes conscientiously and been successful in channelling the water. Since the fateful day he had met Mina, he had pursued an ancient tablet in four countries and come up against Wheatley and Shobai, possibly the deadliest foes he had ever faced. ‘Some month,’ he thought to himself.

Phuket airport.