The Great Thirst Boxed Set

by Mary C. Findley

  “Wow,” Keith said. “But that doesn’t sound like anything that’s going to help me find the Testaments, or Naddy and Sophie.”

  Keith swung the ax upward and it caught the sun again. All at once a beam of scarlet light shot from it and focused on Jiggly’s donkey-pack.

  “What is that?” Keith gasped. He started to lower his arm and the beam faded.

  “No idea.” Jiggly said. “Can you get it back up in the exact same position where the beam came out?”

  They spent almost half an hour turning and twisting the ax until the beam shot out again. “What have you got in your pack?” Keith demanded. “Hurry up, before those guys decide to shoot you.”

  Jiggly tore into the pack and threw everything on the ground. The red beam focused on a small packet.

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot the geeks gave me some of the red crystal chips they got when they picked up the ax.”

  “Wait. That means the ax can home in on other pieces of corundum.” He pointed it toward the bus, trying his best to recover that perfect alignment with the sun.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I gave Talia a piece of the corundum that I had mounted on a chain. Why isn’t it picking up on that? I wonder what the range is?”

  “No, Aunt Sophie didn’t give me anything,” Talia managed to inform them when he and Jiggly returned to the bus and told her what they had learned.

  “Hey, that means maybe Sophie still has it,” Jiggly said.

  “Yeah. Even if they take it away it should still be nearby.” Keith risked giving Talia a hug. “Maybe we can use the ax to find them.” Talia tried to smile and let his arm stay around her. “I think them taking Sophie and Naddy means they’re still not sure what we have,” Keith added. “Talia might be right, and it might be someone who has been tracking me since the conference.”

  “Then why didn’t they take you?” one of the security guards asked.

  “This way they get leverage.” Keith set his lips in a thin line. “They know we’ll try to rescue them. And they think I’ll be prepared to bargain to let them find out what we have or even give it up.”

  “But you can’t go running around Syria waving that ax,” Talia stormed, pulling free and putting her fists on her hips.

  “Maybe Jiggly can watch my back,” Keith smirked. Jiggly stared up at him in disbelief, as did Talia. “Look, unless you’re gonna knock me out and tie me up, I am going, by myself or with whoever wants to help me.” He eyed the security guards but they didn’t even look back at him.

  “What about the Testaments?” Talia asked. “Jiggly, did they tell you anything about how to find them?”

  “Oh, yeah, yeah!” Jiggly tried to avoid Keith’s intense gaze and focused on Talia. “They said – um – they said they had figured out that the map was pointing to an underwater site. Here, this is a new chip with more information on it. Looks like it’s diving time again.” He handed the mini chip over to Talia and she popped it into her tablet.

  “We have to find Naddy and Sophie first,” Keith said. “The Testaments have waited this long.”

  “Will you endanger the Guardians and everything we have tried to do to protect the Word from destruction?” Talia asked, almost in a whisper. “If you are captured they can make you tell them things. That will mean many more deaths than Amu and Zanamu’s, and much more destruction of the Word than the world can afford. My heart’s breaking to say this, but there’s so much more at stake than them.”

  “We’ve got to do something,” Keith pleaded.

  “We’ll see what’s on this chip,” Talia said. “We’ll work as fast as we can to discover what the Guardians mean us to find and do. Keith, these students are also our responsibility. Your family is also waiting for you and needs you safe. We have to let our heads govern our actions, not our hearts. Amu and Zanamu would say the same thing.”

  Chapter Thirty-eight – Diving into Darkness

  “He’s going down with us?” Keith cast a sideways glance at Jiggly as they prepared for the dive. “I’m having flashbacks about movies where the traitor cuts your airline and swims away with the priceless find while you drown.”

  “I think you’d suffocate,” Talia murmured. “The airlines have safety valves to keep water out, but you still won’t get any air.”

  “You know I can hear you, right?” Jiggly grunted. “And I don’t have a knife. The security guys searched me three times.”

  “I notice you didn’t say you would never do such a thing,” Keith responded. He turned his back on Jiggly and said to Talia, “You checked out the certified divers? Nobody got bought off this time?”

  “They have been checked out as thoroughly as we can,” Talia finished her final strapping and connecting. “They even made some good suggestions. They said there’s a shelf that’s close to the shore and not very deep where people have seen niches that look manmade. But before us, no one has had the proper permits to go in, and amazingly enough, no one seems to have tried to sneak in. They showed me photos they have collected, and, while they warned us very sternly that they want us to obey their instructions for safety’s sake, they will accompany us down there.”

  Keith, Talia, Cindee, and Jiggly all took the trip down to survey the niches under the ledge. They shined powerful lights inside and the cameras clicked nonstop. Talia stopped the others more than once from entering the openings before the certified divers could even react. She managed the dive like a drill sergeant and, in the end, they had to surface empty-handed.

  “Why couldn’t we at least bring some of the stuff up to get a better look at it?” Cindee complained. “You got to see how much we collected from Naxos. Remember how much of that turned out to be useful?”

  “I didn’t see anything down there that we needed to lug out of here,” Talia replied. “Forget it.”

  They spent a couple more hours snorkeling and underwater sightseeing with those students who could pass the certified divers’ safety tests. After that it was time to head back to the hotel. Talia ate almost nothing during dinner. When all the kids were tucked in for the night Keith pulled her aside.

  “What happened on the dive today?” he demanded. “Seems to me like we could have at least taken a closer look into some of those niches. And what are we going to do about finding Naddy and Sophie? I’m not going to be an idiot and ask if you care, because I know you do. But I want to know if you’re keeping this all bottled up because you think you have to handle everything alone. You don’t, you know. I know I’m no Indiana Jones, but I got no reason to be here except to help you. Let me help you carry this load.”

  “You are going to help me.” Talia took a deep breath and made her chin stop quivering. “We can’t do it with people we aren’t sure we can trust. Today we surveyed. Tonight we collect, you and me, and we do it fast, and then we can turn over what we find to the Guardians. As far as anybody knows we found nothing and we have nothing. Even if they search us they won’t find anything, because as soon as we get the artifacts, we go straight to the Guardians and get rid of them. That way they can’t extort anything from us. I’m praying they see that, and that they let Amu and Zanamu go.”

  “How do you know where to find the Guardians?”

  “Jiggly knows. I’ll make him tell me.”

  “So you never did trust him?”

  “Keith, I thought Jiggly was telling the truth the whole time – from when he first confessed that those men paid him to let them steal the artifacts. He did what he did to try and save Maria. He wasn’t trying to hurt us. But it shows that we can’t trust him not to react the same way again. If he is a believer now, he’ll understand and cooperate. We’ll only have trouble with him if he was sent to infiltrate us.”

  “The Guardians trusted him.”

  “Yes, they did, and I want to be able to trust him too, but the truth is we don’t need him, except to find the Guardians. People who don’t know anything can’t tell anything. Cindee and Jiggly don’t need that burden, of having knowledge
someone can kidnap them to get.

  “I am almost positive I saw what we need down in those niches. I think we can suit up, dive down, and get out of there in an hour or so if we go and do it. But first I need to go make Jiggly tell me where to take the find.”

  “I’ll go with you. Just in case he is a plant.”

  “Keith, how could he bring you the ax if he didn’t convince the Guardians he was trustworthy?”

  “The Guardians could all be dead, and we’re on the mop-up list.”

  “Please don’t say that, Keith.” Talia’s eyes filled. He had no choice but to wrap his arms around her and hold on.

  “I’m sorry. I know what that means for Naddy and Sophie. But I think, as soon as we get the artifacts and the Guardians have them, that we should use the ax and go find those two.”

  “The Guardians could make us give the ax back.”

  “Not when they understand what could mean. C’mon. Jiggly’s waiting. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

  “You don’t trust me?” Jiggly stopped shouting because Keith put him in a headlock and covered his mouth until he quieted down. He continued in a whisper from the floor of his hotel room with Keith’s knee on his chest.

  “Do you know what it’s like to ride a donkey, and sleep on stones, and have people throw you in a hole and threaten to kill you for three solid days?”

  “I’ve done the first two lots of times,” Talia replied. “The third one, no, but, Jiggly, I never said I didn’t trust you. We’re not taking you or Cindee so that you won’t have information somebody can beat out of you. We very publicly didn’t find anything today, and you can truthfully tell people that. So can Cindee. So can the professional divers and every one of our students and their chaperones. This is to protect you.”

  Jiggly pushed Keith’s knee off his chest and stood up. “Okay. It’s not like I’ve ever won an argument with you, anyway, Warrior Angel. But you’re going to give the ax back, right? I promised them I wouldn’t come back without it.”

  “They’ll get it back when we find Naddy and Sophie,” Keith answered.

  “You ain’t gonna find them alive. You’re crazy to think that. What reason have these people got to keep them alive? You ignored the kidnapping. They see they got no leverage, just liabilities. They ditch the old man and the old lady.”

  Talia slapped Jiggly across the face and burst into tears. Jiggly rocked and swore and smeared his hand over his face.

  “I’m sorry. God, do you hear me? I’m sayin’ sorry to You, too! This is so hard! I can’t do this believer stuff. It’s too freakin’ hard.”

  “Too late to give up, if you meant what you said when you decided to believe,” Keith said, rubbing Talia’s back and wanting to hold her again. But not with Jiggly around. “You are stuck being a believer. It doesn’t come off. Babies gotta learn self-control, and a bunch of other lessons, to grow. It takes time, but you can’t give up, because you belong to God. You asked for forgiveness, and you got it. So move on. Tell us how to get to the Guardians when we get the stuff from the dive.”

  Jiggly told them, and even drew a map on a hotel pad and flushed the rest of the sheets down the toilet. “You eat that if somebody catches you. I mean it. That’s a bunch of people’s lives scratched on that thing. Make it disappear or they all die after you do.”

  Talia kissed Jiggly’s cheek. “Thank you, Jiggly.”

  “That makes no sense, you kissing me, Warrior Angel,” he mumbled. “But I liked it better than the slap.”

  “I love you in Christ, my brother,” she said with a big smile, sniffling and wiping her eyes. “Go to bed in a real bed tonight. I can’t promise there won’t be more rocks to sleep on tomorrow.”

  “Or dirt to nap under, or fishes to sleep with.” Jiggly disappeared into his room.

  “His English has improved a lot,” Talia observed. “Come on. Precious treasure awaits.”

  “I already got mine,” Keith said, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her. “But make sure you don’t let Naddy bury me in a dig site when we get him and Sophie back. Jiggly said he does that to guys.”

  “I’ll make sure.” Talia kissed him back.

  Keith and Talia slid into the water with a pair of underwater scooters and collection nets. They swam down below the shelf. Keith let her lead and she focused her headlamp on one of the smaller niches. He groaned, realizing he couldn’t fit inside it, and fretted about jellyfish and eels and whatever else might be inside there. Talia darted right in and disappeared from his view for a minute before the light bounced off something highly reflective. Hands pushed an object almost the size of a briefcase out toward him. Keith grabbed it and almost blinded himself staring at the orichalcum tablet etched with symbols he didn’t recognize.

  Whoa. I hope Talia’s ready for whatever language this is. Something popped out of the opening at him and he hastily put the tablet into the collection net fastened to his scooter. Leather bags like the one that had contained the map scrolls popped out so fast he had to juggle to keep them from falling as he pulled the scooters closer and loaded the nets. Some tablets were loose; some were in bags. He wondered why, since clearly the bags wouldn’t rot away. Maybe the people didn’t have time to bag them all, or didn’t have enough bags, or … Or someone interrupted them.

  Finally the stuff stopped popping out, and Talia came out instead. They checked several niches to be sure but found no more artifacts Talia considered worth keeping. She signaled up and Keith was only too happy to obey. Their scooters could barely make the climb with the added weight, but finally they crawled out onto the shore and dragged the collection nets along behind them.

  “Tell me you did not expect to find this many tablets in there,” Keith panted.

  “All I knew was that I saw something shiny, and I got everybody away from that niche as fast as I could, and kept them away. That niche had passageways to other niches, so I guess it must have been their main entrance.” Talia dragged the net a little farther through the sand. “Oh, Keith, how in the world are we going to carry all these to the Tesla?”

  “Here a little, there a little,” Keith shrugged. He opened one of the nets and grabbed an armload. “We got all night.”

  “No, we don’t. We have to be back at the hotel before anybody knows we’re gone. Remember the chaperones are supposed to do bed checks at midnight and report to us that everyone’s safe and accounted for. That’s only three hours from now.”

  “Oh, man.” Keith staggered to the Tesla and dropped his first load into garbage bags. “At least it’s got two trunks.”

  Chapter Thirty-nine – Curfews and Crimes

  “Praise God! Praise God!” Keith thought the man who was their contact to the Guardians was going to hug each individual tablet. He broke off to hug both of them numerous times. The tent glittered with orichalcum in the light of the lamp hanging from the center pole.

  “But I don’t even know what language that is!” Talia exclaimed. “How are we going to read them and translate Scriptures from them?”

  “They are very similar to the two types of Linear A,” the man replied, caressing one of the tablets. “This dovetails with the Grecian finds. Cretan, Minoan – they are ancient symbols no one has really translated. But there are thousands more examples here than scholars have ever had before, and I can see some patterns now. Perhaps we will find that the Phaistos Disc, or one of the other examples of Linear A, is the key.”

  “Wait, you’re a language expert? I thought you were a merchant. Anyway, do we even know if this is all there are?” Keith asked.

  “I am a merchant, but the Guardians must wear many hats, as the expression goes, since we are so few. Almost certainly these are not all of the tablets.” The man and several women bustled around, first stitching the tablets into protective sleeves, and then sliding them into nondescript bags already filled with various grains. Talia and Keith helped, even though they were still rubber-armed and rubber-legged from carrying the tablets across the sand to the Tesla
.

  “The Guardians say the scrolls tell them there are no less than five thousand tablets,” the man explained. “Some are not real parts of the Scriptures. False tablets were created to throw off those who tried to unlock the code, and to give an impression that they were untranslatable and therefore harmless and worthless.”

  “You are leaving here with them tonight?” Talia asked.

  “Of course. No one must find them here, or find them all together. They will go to several locations where they can be studied. Perhaps there are even directions or clues in among these to others. We can only hope and pray.”

  “So you didn’t know where they were, and you can’t read them,” sighed Keith. “And there are a whole lot more. Great. God bless you with success. We are going to get back to the motel and go to bed.”

  “Please, I must ask for the return of the ax.” The man caught Keith’s arm. “We must study it more thoroughly, and see whether it has any real connection to the Testaments, or if it was an accidental find. I am thinking now that this stronger Greek connection means there must be significance,”

  “We didn’t bring it,” Keith replied.

  “What? Where is it?”

  “Back at the hotel stable, watched over by Jiggly’s donkey,” Talia answered. “We need it to find my aunt and uncle. Did you know they were kidnapped?”

  “Yes. Terrible. Terrible. But how will the ax help you find them?”

  Keith explained.

  “Strange that we did not discover this property of the ax and the shards,” the man mused.

  “You guys don’t spend a lot of time out in the sun,” Keith shrugged. “And it doesn’t work shard-to-shard. Just ax to shard. Doesn’t even work shard to ax. Maybe the way the ax is cut focuses light a special way.”