Angelopolis(56)

“You’ve clearly succeeded in creating a working system to classify them,” Vera said. But is it

really possible that the seeds could be viable after more than five thousand years?”

“In geological numbers, it isn’t such a long time,” Azov said. “It has been a mere seven thousand

years since the Black Sea flooded. Any basic history of botany will show that prehistoric plant life

flourished hundreds of millions of years before this, and these seeds were remarkably durable. The

atmosphere we breathe developed because of the oxygen released by massive groupings of leaves.

Many species of dinosaurs existed solely by eating plants, and so we must conclude that the majority

of the planet was covered in vegetation. The cache of seeds we’ve recovered is surely only a tiny

fraction of the actual pre-Deluge flora, most of which died. It is miraculous that these seeds remain,

but when you think of the amount of plants that went extinct, you will see that these seeds are the

exception. The seeds that remained viable were the strongest seeds, the most resistant to the

elements.”

Vera followed Azov and Sveti into another cramped room. Azov’s laboratory was a mixture of

modern equipment and an old-fashioned angelological research center—an antiquated computer sat

among plants on a glass-topped desk, emitting a soft glow over a set of bronze scales. There was a

statue of Mercury and a series of glass containers, a velvet divan stacked with papers, and a

bookshelf stretched across an entire wall. Vera could see, at first glance, herbal encyclopedias; books

of chemistry; French, German, Greek, Latin, and Arabic dictionaries; the collected works of

Dioscorides. The hunch she’d had upon first walking into the room was confirmed: This was the

home of a workaholic of the first order.

As if reminded of the task at hand, Azov said, “Vera, the album. Sveti, did you bring the seed list?”

Vera gave the album to Sveti, watching her reaction carefully, as if something in her expression

might tell her the meaning of the Enochian symbols etched onto the page.

“You understand it?” Vera asked.

“I do, for the most part,” Sveti said. “Written around these flower specimens are ingredients and

proportions varying in number and volume.” She stopped at something Vera had missed earlier, a

mostly blank page with what appeared to be a heart drawn at its center.

Intrigued, Vera asked, “What is this symbol?”

Azov took a pen from his desk and drew a similar heart on a piece of paper. “This shape was

derived from the shell of the silphium seed, which was tapered at one end and cleft at the other. It

eventually became known as a symbol of love, a heart, one of our most powerful modern symbols.

Indeed, the heart’s association with romantic love could be said to have stemmed from the use of

silphium as an aphrodisiac in ancient Cyrene.” Azov glanced at the album, as if to verify the symbol,

and continued. “When I was in contact with Angela Valko, there was one plant in particular she was

looking for, but she was never able to name it. I wonder if this heart symbol was the element she was

trying to decipher.”

“Surely she would have known that the heart symbol’s origin lies in silphium,” Sveti said.

“Angela was a skeptic,” Azov answered. “Silphium is one of the most intriguing plants of the

ancient world. Many modern botanists refuse to verify it, claiming that there is no proof that it even

existed.”

“I get the feeling that you don’t agree,” Vera said.

“The plant has been extinct for over one thousand years, but you are right, Vera. I have no doubt

that silphium existed. Whether it was the cure-all it was purported to be in ancient Mediterranean

cultures, I cannot say. Indigestion, asthma, cancer—silphium was allegedly used to treat all of these

maladies. Perhaps most important, the plant was believed to both aid in contraception and, as I

mentioned, act as an aphrodisiac. It was considered so precious that it formed an important part of

trading between Cyrene, now Libya, and other coastal countries, so much so that glyphs and coins

were created bearing its image.”

Sveti examined the album page once more. “It is intriguing in this context, because silphium

appears to be the single nonfloral ingredient in the formula, and the only one that is extinct.” She

flipped through the pages of rose petals. “For example, there are over one hundred varieties of roses

in the book. Clearly the formula would have required a distillation of rose oil.”

“But rose oil is so common,” Vera said. “Roses can be found everywhere.”

Azov said, “Now, yes. But after the Flood there would have been only a few seeds keeping the