Oracle

by David Wood

  “Perhaps the theft of the Omphalos is what caused the fall of the Mycenaens,” suggested Ophelia, warming to the subject. “The Sibyl’s guidance is what protected them, and when the source of her visions was taken, they were unable to prepare for the disasters that followed.”

  “There’s a problem though. If the original Omphalos was a dark matter sphere—and how it got here in the first place, I have no idea—but if it was, and the Phoenicians took it, then how was it that the Delphic oracle was able to continue making accurate predictions, a thousand years later?”

  “Perhaps there is some residual effect, like the way a magnet can temporarily magnetize a piece of metal. Or maybe that sphere was part of a larger source of dark matter. You’ll recall that Paul said it might be possible for an object with a strong dark matter field to seed another. Or the sphere you found was just such a created Omphalos. Possibly, the original is still here.”

  “Paul also said this was the first place he looked. If there is a dark matter field here, he would be the person most likely to find it.”

  Ophelia spread her hands. “Have you ever lost something important—your keys or maybe your wallet—and you looked everywhere for it, and then you went back and looked again and found it in a place you had already checked two or three times? Maybe our search is like that?”

  Professor chuckled. “Yeah, I guess you always find something in the last place you look. So if there is some lingering dark matter here, how do we find it?”

  “Simple,” Ophelia said. “We look again.”

  They made their way back outside, up the trail to the site where the Temple of Apollo had once stood, the place where the oracle had delivered her pronouncements. The tour guide that had answered their questions in the museum was now delivering his canned speech about the procedures that had been followed when Delphi had been, figuratively at least, the center of the ancient world.

  “You might have seen pictures of the oracle, a beautiful young woman, levitating in a cloud of mystical vapors,” he was saying, “but that’s not quite the truth. It’s true that in the early days, a young virgin was chosen—being beautiful was not a requirement—consecrated and given the title Pythia. Or I should say, virgins since there were at times, as many as three Pythias, sharing the duties, which involved breathing poisonous volcanic gasses. Communing with the gods was not good for one’s health and the life expectancy of a woman chosen to be Pythia was not long. You children, listen to your parents when they tell you not to smoke cigarettes.”

  There was a ripple of laughter, right on cue.

  “The idea that Pythia was a young virgin is also somewhat inaccurate. Sometimes, the women chosen were older, married women. Later on, they were chosen from among the very poor and uneducated. In any case, those seeking the advice of Pythia never actually saw her. She sat behind a wall, breathing the vapors and chewing bay leaves. The questions were written down and given to the priests, who gave them to Pythia and received her answer, which they in turn wrote down in the form of a poem.

  “And it wasn’t as simple as writing your question and handing it over. There was an elaborate procedure that had to be followed. A supplicant had to travel to Delphi in person. If you think the drive here from Athens took you a while, just imagine what it was like two thousand years ago. The supplicant would have to provide a gift to the oracle and present their question to be reviewed by the priests. Just as with today’s psychics and mediums, there were some questions the oracle didn’t want to be asked; questions that might have made people question her abilities.”

  More chuckles. It was evident that the tour guide wasn’t a believer.

  “Pythia also had to go through quite a bit of preparation to get ready for communing with the gods. She would have to undergo a period of fasting, followed by a ritual cleansing at the baths, which I showed you on the way up here, and then make the final ascent to the Temple here. Because the oracle would only speak nine times a year, on the seventh day of each month from spring to fall, a supplicant might have to wait for weeks to have his question answered.”

  “Why the seventh day?” asked Professor, raising his hand like student in a classroom.

  “Seven was a sacred number for Apollo,” the guide replied, offhandedly as if he had heard the question many times before, and then went right back into his spiel. Professor however had stopped listening.

  He leaned close to Ophelia. “I need to talk to Paul. Can you arrange that?”

  She nodded. “Why?’

  “I think I know why he didn’t find anything here. He wasn’t looking in the wrong place, but he might have been looking at the wrong time.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m not sure I do either. But I think he might.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Mortlake, England

  A small park, nestled between blocks of flats, occupied the land where Dr. Dee’s summer house had once stood. Jade, who had traded in her normal working attire for a pair of light cotton slacks and a loose fitting silk blouse, waited there gazing out at the peaceful water of the Thames. She watched scullers darting across the river channel like water skippers, thinking about the people that might once have contemplated the same view: Dee, himself, Queen Elizabeth, who visited her favorite astrologer on several occasions, and of course, the man whom she was most interested in, Gil Perez. She was alone, though Dorion and the security detail were in a car parked nearby on Mortlake High Street.

  “Miss Ihara?”

  She turned to greet the speaker, a fit looking man in his late twenties or early thirties. It was not Roche, she was certain of that; a personal assistant or more likely a bodyguard. She affected her most supercilious demeanor. “Doctor, actually.”

  The man blinked as if the distinction meant nothing. “Mr. Roche will see you. Follow me please.”

  “I thought I was going to meet him here?”

  “No ma’am.”

  Evidently, that was all she was going to get from the flunky. No doubt the assignation at the park was merely to give Roche or one of his lackeys a chance to check her out, maybe look for surveillance or perform an electronic sweep to see if she was wearing a hidden microphone.

  Paranoid much? “Where are we going?”

  “Mr. Roche’s flat is nearby.”

  “That wasn’t what we arranged.” She tried to sound irritated to hide just how pleased she was. If Roche did have the crystal, she had a much better chance of getting him to show her in the privacy of his home. She wasn’t too worried about being on his home turf, though considering how whacky some of his ideas were, maybe that was a naïve belief.

  The man led her toward the water, and then along the river walk. From here, it was impossible to tell exactly where she was in relation to the street; the buildings eclipsed even her view of the tower at St. Mary’s parish church. About a hundred yards from the park, they turned onto a flight of steps that led up to a patio overlooking the river. There, seated at an outdoor table calmly sipping from a cup of tea, was the notorious Gerald Roche.

  He rose and inclined his head in a gentlemanly bow. “Miss Ihara? Or rather I should say, Dr. Ihara. You are much more beautiful that your reputation led me to expect.”

  It sounded rehearsed to Jade, but she managed a charmed smile. “I might say the same about you. I mean, you don’t appear to be an ogre after all.”

  It was true enough, though she could have judged that from viewing the headshots on his website. Roche was in his late fifties, pleasantly rotund with a beatific smile on his ruddy face, hands in the pockets of his silk smoking jacket. He looked positively jolly, like an off-duty Buddha or department store Santa Claus on holiday. Looks, Jade knew, could be deceiving.

  He laughed, then continued. He had a deep, radio friendly baritone voice, colored with a broad Yorkshire accent. “You’re American? When I heard the name, I naturally assumed you were from Japan, but I don’t hear even a trace of an accent.”

  “No. I was raised in Hawaii
by my mother. If you listen to me long enough, you might hear a little pidgin creeping in.”

  “Jolly good. Can I interest you in a spot of tea?”

  Jade wasn’t a tea drinker, but decided it would further her cause by accepting. She nodded and Roche passed the nod to the man who had escorted her from the park. He promptly went into the flat and returned a moment later with a tea service. Jade took a cup with milk and sugar.

  “Now,” Roche said, clapping his hands together. “At the risk of being rude, I’m eager to hear about this journal you recovered.”

  Jade’s plan was simple, and had the benefit of resting on a mostly factual foundation. She was no con artist, not even a very good liar. Instead, she would lead with the truth. Offer the journal for sale as a collectible, and then when a deal was more or less concluded, try to wrangle a peek at the Shew Stone. She would only need just a few seconds with the crystal ball to pull this off.

  She launched into her only slightly modified version of what had actually happened. “I was excavating a ruin in Mexico and found the remains of a Spanish tomb robber. In his possession was a journal, which described how he had learned of the tomb from a manuscript stolen from Dr. Dee. I asked around and was told that you were the leading authority on the good doctor.”

  “And you were hoping that I might be able to…what, exactly?” While his manner remained cordial, Jade sensed an underlying wariness. “Authenticate the document? Or perhaps direct you to the Dee manuscript that talks about this tomb?”

  “Well, I am curious about the latter, but to be perfectly frank, the journal doesn’t much interest me. My field is pre-Columbian archaeology. The Spaniard is most definitely not pre-Columbian, so the journal isn’t really of much value to me.”

  “Ah, but you thought it might be of value to me, as a Dee enthusiast?”

  Jade inclined her head. This was the critical part of the plan. Would Roche accept that she was an unscrupulous trader in illicit artifacts like himself? Or would his paranoia slam the door shut?

  “May I see it?” he asked.

  “I don’t have it with me. It’s old parchment and hasn’t been properly restored. It shouldn’t be handled excessively. Of course, I don’t expect you to make a commitment without seeing it first. I merely wanted determine if you were someone I could do business with.”

  Roche nodded slowly and sat back in his chair. “Of course, of course. You do understand that I am not merely a general collector, and this business of a Dee manuscript that talks about a lost tomb sounds rather fanciful. Almost like the sort of thing a forger might try to peddle.”

  “I can assure you, the journal is real.” It’s a lump of soggy parchment, but it’s real.

  “Oh, I’m not suggesting that you are a forger. However, your grave robber might very well have been taken in by a clever fake. There are quite a few occult manuscripts attributed to Dr. Dee in circulation. Perhaps this Spaniard was taken in by one.”

  Jade frowned. This was not exactly going according to plan. “Well, I suppose that is something we would have to investigate before proceeding.”

  “Just so. Can you tell me more about this alleged manuscript?”

  Might as well go all in. “According to the journal, the Spaniard broke into Lee’s Mortlake house, while the doctor was traveling in Europe, and found a manuscript that was penned in a strange language, which I took to be angelic script. He claimed that he was able to read it with the help of a crystal ball.”

  “And what did this manuscript say?”

  “It described a vision that Dee had received from an angel named Orphaniel, It told of a ruin in a place called the Navel of the Moon, which is the literal meaning of the word Mexico.” Jade added a few more details, while omitting mention of what they had actually found beneath the Pyramid of the Sun.”

  “Ah. Yes, that sounds very familiar.”

  Jade wondered what he meant by that, but before she could phrase the question, Roche stood. “Would you like to see my collection?”

  Jade was momentarily taken aback. “Very much.”

  He led her into the flat, which was tastefully modern if a bit austere. Jade thought it looked like a model home, not a place where someone actually lived. Roche led her to an interior staircase which descended two flights, into a windowless room that she could only assume was below ground level. There, she found herself in what might have been a small gallery from the museum she had visited the day before.

  There were dozens of display cases containing unusual objects—not merely the sort of thing Jade would expect from a man with Dee’s reputation as a conjurer, but also astrolabes, sextants, and mechanical devices that might have come from the pages of Leonardo da Vinci’s sketchbook. There were dozens of bookshelves with leather bound tomes in outward-facing display stands. Nowhere, however, did Jade see the legendary Shew Stone.

  Roche stopped at one case which contained something that looked like a toy bird made of wood. “This is a working replica of the dove of Archytas, built by Dee in 1578. It was designed by a Greek inventor who lived in the fourth century before Christ. It runs on steam power, and can actually flap its wings.” He gestured to another case where sat a bronze bust of a man’s head. “That is a Brazen Head, a sort of automaton that speaks. It only says ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but for the sixteenth century, that’s rather remarkable, don’t you think.”

  Jade nodded, not insincerely. “Dee made that?”

  “Yes. All of the objects you see here were constructed by Dee, based on his own designs, or those he found while traveling abroad. He was a true Renaissance man, a polymath. During his lifetime, his enemies tried to caricaturize him as an evil magician studying witchcraft and communing with the devil. He was, in fact, a devout Christian. In the years since his death, people who imagine themselves students of the occult have only made it worse by embellishing those ludicrous charges, turning him into some kind of necromancer. Here, this one is my favorites.”

  He opened a case that contained what looked like a brass dragonfly. After winding a small key, he held it out at arm’s length and released it. It leapt from his hand, wings buzzing furiously, and flew right toward Jade, who started—visions of Shelob flashing through her mind—and jumped out of the way. The clockwork insect continued flying but gradually turned in a wide circle that brought it right back to Roche’s waiting hand where it settled, its energy completely spent. Roche returned the item to its case and his hands to his pockets.

  “Marvelous, don’t you think? Dee saw items like these at courts and universities in Geneva, Prague, St. Denis, and reverse engineered them in his own mind. Quite an accomplishment for a charlatan, wouldn’t you say?”

  Jade wasn’t sure where any of this was going. “I never said I thought he was a charlatan. Honestly, I don’t know that much about him.”

  “Obviously.” Roche smiled, but the humor was gone from his eyes. “Did you know, for example, that he never received visions? Never saw the future in a crystal ball? It’s true. He did make accurate astrological predictions, but he never could get the trick of scrying. The angelic visions were received by spirit mediums, working at his direction, and he would then record and interpret what they saw. That’s how I know this journal you are trying to foist on me is worthless.”

  Alarm bells were sounding in Jade’s head. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. “I’m sorry you think that,” she said slowly. “I’m only telling you what was in the journal.”

  “Some of the visions were utter rubbish,” Roche continued, as if he hadn’t heard. “Dee was too trusting. Edward Kelley, a changeling, took advantage of Dee, stealing a fortune from him, stealing his wife, discrediting the man, even as he used Dee’s fame to enhance his own reputation as an alchemist.

  “But some of the visions were real. I know because I also have received them, using the very tools that Dee made available to his mediums. Tools such as this.”

  He removed his left hand from his pocket and held it out to reveal a clear cryst
al ball, less than two inches in diameter. “This is what you came for isn’t it?”

  Jade swallowed nervously. When she had called to set up the meeting, she had not mentioned the Shew Stone.

  “I know that you came here to steal it,” Roche continued, his voice taking on a hard edge.

  “Steal it?” Jade’s voice sounded strident in her own ears. “Why would you say that?”

  “Because it’s true.” He raised his other hand and Jade saw that it held a compact semi-automatic pistol, pointed right at her. “Do you think you’re the first agent the changelings have sent to blind me?”

  Jade raised her hands and took an involuntary step back. “You’ve got it all wrong,” she said hastily. “Yes, I did come here hoping to get a look at that. I was told that you might have it. But I don’t want to steal it.”

  “You’re lying,” Roche hissed. “I saw you take it.”

  Despite the roaring of blood in her ears, the primal urge to flee or if necessary fight, something about the statement pulled Jade back from her panic.

  He saw? Is it possible?

  “You think I want to steal it?” she said defiantly. “Like you stole it from the Science Museum?”

  Something changed in Roche’s expression confirming the truth of her accusation, but also revealing the deeper implications of that fact. Roche could not simply turn her over to the police because doing so would bring his own crimes to light. Jade felt a premonition of her own; not the déjà vu of a dark matter-fueled glimpse into alternate dimensions, but a grim certainty that this paranoid lunatic had no intention of letting her merely slink away empty handed. Roche was going to kill her.

  Dorion gazed out the window of the SUV, desperately hoping to see Jade strolling toward them, but there was no sign of her. This was taking too long. He never should have let her go to this meeting alone.