Cassie jammed her hands into her pockets for warmth. Even though it was a sunny summer day, the temperature at this altitude was nippy.
Their guide marched purposefully up the mountainside through the shrubs and short grass, dodging the occasional boulder sticking out of the dirt. The others followed his lead. They had hardly walked two hundred paces before Lars stopped abruptly.
“Here is the place.” He pointed toward an odd rock formation directly ahead of them.
The three halted in their tracks and stared at it. Just at the margin where the last of the heath gave way to bare rock, stood a large boulder. Its front was a perfectly smooth slab of stone, about seven feet high, with four edges forming a rough diamond shape. On closer inspection, it appeared that the rock’s angles were an accident of nature rather than the work of human hands.
“This is a seide,” Lars told them. “When the Saami people find a strange rock shape like this one, they sometimes make it a holy place where they can leave offerings or perform rituals. This site must have been used a very long time ago because there is an ancient carving on it. Do you see?”
The trio stepped in closer to inspect a weathered human figure cut into the slab. The body was a long rectangle, perhaps indicating a dress, with stick feet protruding from beneath. The stick arms were bent upwards at the elbow and spread to the sides. The head was a circle with dark hollows for eyes and dots for the nose and mouth. Instead of hair, rays shot upward from the figure’s crown.
“This is Grandmother Ahkka herself,” their guide said. “She lives in this mountain. Because she comes here so much, the Saami carved her image in the stone thousands of years ago.”
Daniel furrowed his brow as he contemplated the likeness. “Doesn’t this look a lot like the cave painting we saw in Australia?”
“Yes, it does resemble Yingana,” Griffin agreed. “Another goddess raising her arms in benediction over her children.”
“Why here?” Daniel asked Lars bluntly. “Why would your goddess Ahkka favor this spot more than any other?”
“Because this rock marks the entrance to the underworld,” the guide replied. “Grandmother Ahkka is the goddess of the dead as well as the living. There is a tunnel here which the Saami believe leads to the realm below. That is where the ancestors go and those who are about to be born wait.”
For the first time, the trio noticed a narrow gap in the mountain face. It would have been easy to mistake it for a deep fissure unless a person knew it to be a cave entrance. The diamond-shaped stone stood right beside it, like the open door to a crypt resting on its hinges.
“Some of the overlord Norse legends say that Stortoppen holds the entrance to Valhalla,” Lars continued. “They must have been thinking of this place when they made up that story. Lucky for us that nobody comes here anymore.”
He paused to regard his listeners, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “But I did not bring you all this way only to meet Grandmother Ahkka. The Lule Saami trove keeper said you were looking for flowers carved into stone. She thought I might know of such a thing.” He pointed to the apex of the seide. “Is this what you are seeking?”
They all gazed upward. A few inches below the tip of the boulder was a tiny carving of a Minoan lily. Its shape was unmistakable, but its design had been simplified—almost as if the carver wished it to be mistaken for another specimen of Saami rock art.
“They were here!” Griffin exclaimed.
“I could sense them the whole time we were driving this morning,” Cassie said.
“But surely after all this time,” the scion objected. “The Sage Stone can’t still be in its hiding place.”
“Yes, it is.” The pythia smiled. “I can feel it.”
“Then let us go inside and find your treasure,” Lars prompted. He switched on the LED lantern and moved forward. Turning sideways, he squeezed through the gap in the mountain.
The others all reached into their packs for flashlights and followed him.
The narrow entrance opened into a tunnel which was only slightly wider—about three feet across and seven feet high. They followed its twists and bends for a hundred yards until it opened out into a large cavern.
Lars paused just beyond the tunnel opening so everyone’s eyes could adjust to the dimness.
“I didn’t expect something this size,” Griffin whispered in awe.
The ceiling arched fifteen feet above them. The chamber measured at least thirty feet across. Its walls branched off into corridors that led deeper into the mountain.
Daniel swept his flashlight beam around aimlessly. “I don’t see anything here that would offer us a clue to the Sage Stone’s hiding place.”
Their guide strode toward the far wall and set his lantern down on the ground, forcing the shadows to retreat. “That is because all flowers bloom best when there is light.” He chuckled at his own joke.
His three visitors all gasped. The wall which their guide had illuminated held five Minoan lilies like the one carved on the seide guarding the entrance. These were arranged in a staggered pattern. The left-most lily was carved about five feet above the ground. A foot below it and two feet to its right was a second lily. Two feet to the right of that was a third lily carved three feet above the ground. Two more lilies followed which were the mirror images of the two on the left side.
“Brilliant.” Griffin smiled appreciatively.
“But what are these flowers supposed to tell us?” Daniel seemed disheartened by the prospect of yet another puzzle to solve.
Cassie walked up to the lily on the left and placed her hand over it. She caught a brief flash of the Minoan priestess and two men working beside her.
“They made all of this,” she murmured, running her fingers over the carving and the wall surrounding it which seemed to bubble outward slightly.
“They covered everything over, so it would blend in, and nobody would know.” The pythia’s eyes narrowed as she turned her flashlight beam on the lily. “This isn’t a carving at all. I think the image was stamped into wet clay. It’s some kind of seal.” She wrapped her knuckles lightly across the protrusion in the rock. “And it’s hollow.” Without warning, the pythia smashed the butt of her flashlight against the lily.
Daniel yelped.
Brittle pieces of clay shattered and fell to the ground exposing a shallow niche about eighteen inches high and a foot deep. It housed a round disk resting on a thin metal rod.
Griffin hurried forward to inspect the discovery. A perplexed look crossed his face as he tried to lift the disk. “It’s connected to the supporting rod, and that must be fused to something deeper inside the wall. I can’t remove it.” He hesitated, pressing down with his hand. “Oh, my goddess!”
The others drew in closer.
“What is it?” Lars urged.
The scrivener drew back in surprise. “I believe it’s a spring scale.”
“For what?” Daniel demanded.
“For weighing things,” Cassie answered flatly.
“But how did they...” Griffin trailed off.
“I’m only getting snapshot images of what they did here,” the pythia hedged. “This wasn’t originally a wall. It was a blind tunnel that goes back maybe twenty feet.” She closed her eyes to concentrate, one hand touching the scale. “They built a huge contraption inside. After it was finished, they stacked rows of stones in front of it and cemented them together to make a wall. Last of all, they covered everything with clay so that it would match the rest of the cave.” She opened her eyes. “The only parts that were meant to be exposed are the niches and the scales.”
“For all their elaborate efforts, I’m sure some impatient barbarian might simply have smashed through the wall and taken what was inside,” the scion observed.
“If he did, he’d have gotten a nasty surprise.” Cassie directed her flashlight to a point above their heads. “Do you see that deep crevice running across the ceiling?”
Her companions peered upward where a dark fissure ran the entire length of the cavern.
“The Minoans did that,” Cassie explained. “They figured out where the cave was weakest and then they chiseled along that rift to weaken it even more.”
“You’re saying they deliberately compromised the structural integrity of this entire cavern?” Griffin studied the ceiling. “But why?”
“Look at where that fracture ends,” the pythia instructed. She trailed her beam across the ceiling to the wall holding the scales. “The fault line runs right through the ceiling of the blind tunnel. The Minoans set a booby trap to split that gap wide open if somebody takes a sledge hammer to this wall.”
“I see.” The scrivener’s tone was grim. “Theoretically, any strong percussive blow might trip the mechanism and bring the roof crashing down.”
“Yup,” Cassie agreed. “The Minoans intended that anybody who used force to grab their artifact wouldn’t make it out of here alive. They’d be crushed by the mountain and the Sage Stone would stay buried here forever.”
“It’s clear that if we want to retrieve the relic, we need to play by the rules,” Daniel cautioned.
“No argument there.” The pythia returned to the task of cracking the next clay lily seal, though she tapped more gently this time. Her companions stepped forward to help chip away at the remaining seals.
“They did something like this to conceal the artifact at Napata, didn’t they?” the scrivener asked of no one in particular. He seemed to be thinking out loud. “Of course, that was on a much smaller scale.”
“On a much smaller scale?” The pythia raised an eyebrow. “You couldn’t leave it alone, could you?”
“Someone had to say it,” Griffin protested in mock innocence.
They all worked steadily at their tasks until the niches and their contents had been fully revealed.
“Five hidden scales,” Lars said.
“Five,” Daniel repeated. “As in five artifacts?”
“Yes, of course. It’s obvious now, isn’t it?” the scrivener said.
In the face of their blank stares, he hastened to explain. “We’ve forgotten about the last line of the riddle. ‘Her reliquary holds the key.’”
Stepping back a few feet, Griffin swept the beam of his flashlight across the scales. “This wall, my friends, is the reliquary mentioned in the riddle. A repository for precious relics. In our case, the five artifacts retrieved on this quest.”
“I suppose the scales are weighted to match the relics,” the scion ventured.
“I would assume so,” Griffin concurred. “And if the weights don’t tally exactly, then the hiding place of the Sage Stone will never reveal itself.”
“That means our final task is simple.” Daniel sounded relieved. “All we have to do is place the artifacts on the scales.”
“Not so fast.” Cassie was eyeing the middle scale. “This metal plate is smaller than the rest.” She pushed it with her fingers. “It doesn’t move downward, so it isn’t a scale at all.” She directed her flashlight at the plate. “There’s also a hole right in the center. This must be where the labrys key fits.”
The pythia ran her fingers across the wall below the middle disk, crouching down where the wall met the floor. “The Sage Stone is sitting right behind another clay seal here.”
They all knelt around her.
“It’s inside a metal box,” Cassie said. “I just got a mental flash. Its container is being held in place by that scale contraption. Once we turn the labrys key in the lock, the box will be ejected through the final clay seal.”
Lars rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “So, we go to work now?”
“No, we stop here.” Cassie stood up.
“What?” the guide cried in disbelief.
“She’s right.” Daniel rose too. “We promised my father that we wouldn’t take any action until he arrived on the scene.”
“We don’t have what we need to release the box anyway,” the pythia said. “All we can do is go back home to arrange a rendezvous.” Turning to Daniel, she added pointedly, “Unless, of course, your old man plans to double-cross us.”
“He would never do that!” the scion protested.
“More to the point, he can’t do that,” Griffin said, rising and dusting off his hands. “We have custody of the key.”
“And he has custody of Hannah and Erik, not to mention the other four artifacts,” Daniel reminded them.
Cassie and Griffin exchanged a swift glance, both of them realizing that Daniel still believed the Nephilim held the original relics rather than copies.
“And that’s how you guarantee honor among thieves,” the pythia said smoothly. “We all need to bring something to the party.”
Lars appeared crestfallen.
“Don’t worry, big guy,” Cassie consoled him. “I’ll see that you get an invite to the grand unveiling. In the meantime, you have an important job to do. Now that we’ve broken the seals, curious hikers might wander in and start poking around. You’ll need to keep watch and make sure nobody messes with the reliquary til we get back.”
The guide brightened at the news. “Excellent! My usual job is never this exciting.” He consulted his watch. “Einar will be returning soon. We should go outside and pile some stones across the cave entrance. Then nobody will try to get inside while I am gone. Tonight, I will return and make camp to guard Grandmother Ahkka’s home.”
Satisfied with their plan, they all filed out through the exit tunnel. Cassie hung back a moment, pausing to contemplate the treasure chamber one last time. The Sage Stone hadn’t seen the light of day for three thousand years. If Abraham Metcalf succeeded in getting his way, the brave new world that greeted it wouldn’t be worth the wait.
Chapter 40—The Devil Is in the Details
Hannah heard the key slide into the lock just in time to throw her ebook reader inside a dresser drawer and bury it under a pile of stockings. She whirled about as Joshua entered the room.
His face was grim. “For someone who doesn’t speak, you certainly provoke a lot of chatter among the community. Tongues are wagging about Mother Rachel’s last visit to you and the tragic aftermath. No one can seem to talk of anything else.”
The girl gave a slight smile and shrugged.
Joshua stared at her intently. “You think you’re clever, don’t you?”
Hannah regulated her expression to its characteristic blankness.
“You have them all fooled, not simply my father. No one can believe a child who looks so sweet and innocent could be capable of such monstrous duplicity. But you are, Sister Hannah, and I intend to prove it.”
The girl made a supreme effort to keep from rolling her eyes. She had heard this particular rant so many times by now that it had lost its power to frighten her. Joshua might bluster all he liked, but she would never confirm his suspicions that she could talk.
The spymaster removed a small object from his pocket and set it on the dresser. It appeared to be some sort of digital recording device. He switched it on and then turned back to the girl.
“The brotherhood is in crisis. My father has set us on a path to destruction and I alone can avert disaster. To do that, I must persuade the diviner that I am the only one he can trust—the only one who has his best interests at heart. And you’re going to help me convince him.”
Hannah had no idea where this rambling monologue was leading, but she began to grow apprehensive. After Mother Rachel’s deranged assault, she needed to prepare herself for anything. The girl realized that Joshua hadn’t locked the door behind him. That was fortunate since her own stolen key was hidden in the closet. She crossed to the middle of the room in order to slip past her visitor if things took a bad turn.
The spymaster blocked her path. “I went to visit Mother Rachel in the asylum yesterday. It was a sad sight. She was out of her head much of the time. Small wonder since the doctors are keeping her heavily sedate
d. However, I was able to filter through her ramblings and discover one pertinent fact. She repeated it over and over.” He glared at Hannah accusingly. “She heard you speak.”
The girl blanched. Yes, it was true. During the matron’s rampage, Hannah had screamed aloud and called for help.
Joshua was still talking. “Mother Rachel has told everyone your secret. It’s a shame nobody believes her. What a cruel irony. That a highly respected consecrated bride should lose all credibility. That I, myself, should suffer the same reaction from my father. Mother Rachel and I have both spoken the truth, but our words are doubted while the silence of a scheming witch like you is believed. I see the devil’s hand in this. You have cast an enchantment over my father and the rest of the brethren. Only Mother Rachel and I were strong enough to withstand it. Had she succeeded in killing you our problems would be over, but Satan protects you still. That’s about to change.”
He lunged toward Hannah. Before she could dart away, he grasped her by the neck.
She flailed her arms around in panic but wasn’t close enough to a wall to pound on it and alert Erik.
Joshua increased the pressure on her throat. “It seems you only use your voice when threatened. Is this enough of a threat for you?”
Hannah had no choice. Joshua loosened his grip by only a fraction, but it was enough. She let out a high-pitched shriek. Then another and another.
The spymaster smiled sadistically. “At last. A scream is a good start. How about a few words now?”
Hannah struggled to pry his hands away, but they remained fastened to her windpipe.
He relaxed his hold a bit. “Isn’t there anything you’d like to say? Not even the word ‘Help’?”
Hannah was ready to oblige, no matter what the consequences. She opened her mouth to speak when she thought she heard a tiny sound. She fancied it was the doorknob turning.
Joshua was so engrossed in getting her to talk that he apparently hadn’t heard it. She screamed again to drown out whatever noise the person outside might make.
Arkana Archaeology Mystery Box Set 2 Page 81
