It didn’t seem to Jed Haines that the paper’s readers would be at all interested in the sixty-eighth meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Especially as it had taken place a couple of weeks previously, and at Yale University. But Felix was keen to publish what he called ‘lighter’ material to distract from the news of the war.
The challenge for Jed was coming up with some sort of local angle to give the story some interest. He hadn’t been out of the city for months. For one thing he was too busy, with the paper and with seeing Cynthia. For another, the few times he had driven out in the hope of finding someone who had seen the mysterious aircraft back in February had soon convinced him he was looking for a needle in a field full of haystacks. Now, looking back, he couldn’t be sure he hadn’t imagined the whole thing.
But on his last trip, he’d driven past a sign to the Mount Wilson Observatory. Maybe that was his local angle? The astronomers on our doorstep … He found the number and gave them a call. The next afternoon, he was driving out of Los Angeles again – but this time with a defined destination and a specific purpose.
The Mount Wilson Observatory was a collection of small buildings hidden away amongst the trees. The pale structures could be glimpsed through and above the woods as you approached. A narrow lane afforded the only way in.
The interviews went better than he had expected. It turned out that one of the senior staff at the observatory had actually been at the Astronomical Society meeting. They were happy to show him the telescope and explain what they did – some of which Jed understood. He took copious notes and snapped a few photos.
He waited until he was leaving before asking, as casually as he could, if any of them had seen anything on that night back in February when it seemed like Los Angeles was under attack. There were some exchanged glances, but it seemed that no one had seen anything unusual.
‘Hell of a light show though,’ the senior guy – Meredith – said. But no, he assured Jed, no one had seen anything. There were no unexplained sightings in the sky on the night of 24 February. And thank you for coming, it had been a pleasure.
It was a disappointment, but hardly unexpected, Jed thought as he returned to his car. The photos had come out blank and even under a magnifying glass they’d remained defiantly devoid of detail. No one had seen anything that would help him find out where the strange craft he had seen was from, or where it went. If he had seen it – he could barely recall now what he had witnessed. A shadow, a trick of the light … Time to let it drop. Again.
The tap on the window made him flinch with surprise. It was one of the men from the observatory, probably come to check he knew the way back to the main road. Jed wound down the window.
‘It’s OK, I remember the way. And I’ve got a map.’
‘A lot of what we do here is government funded,’ the man said. Trevor, Jed remembered his name was, though that could be his first or last name. ‘Or at least, dependent on the government’s good will.’
‘I guess it is,’ Jed replied wondering where this was leading.
‘So you can believe us when we tell you we saw nothing. Back in February, I mean. We saw nothing at all.’
‘I don’t doubt it.’
Trevor nodded. ‘Good. That’s good. Because,’ he went on, ‘if we had seen something it probably would have been to the south east of here. There’s a few farms out that way – let me show you.’
He gestured for Jed to pass him the map he had open on the passenger seat. ‘This is the area I’m talking about.’ He pointed to the empty space on the map south east of where the observatory was marked, broken only by a few thin roads on their way to somewhere else. ‘Just to save you the journey, you understand. But there are a few farms and a couple of homesteads in that area. If you ask people down there, they probably won’t have seen anything either.’
* * *
There were photographs of everything in the Vault. Even of himself, soon after he arrived, helping to catalogue and label some of the artefacts and one of the dead creatures.
Hoffman paused, his fingers glossing against the surface of the photograph. He looked so young. So naïve. So human.
He set aside his emotion, like flicking a switch he turned on his concentration and returned to the task, leafing through each picture. A steady, systematic movement. As soon as he finished one box, he returned it to its place on the shelf and started on the next. No pause for sleep or food. Like a machine.
Until he found it.
There were two photographs. One of the artefact lying on the ground in the forest where it had been found. The other was on a plain background, a measuring stick laid alongside to give the scale. He was surprised how small it was. It would fit into the palm of his hand. It was made of a single piece of stone, the symbols carved into it, just as the girl had sketched. An angular hourglass with a reference number displayed on a card at the edge of each photograph: V-962-X7.
The number yielded a single card in the index drawer. Neat block handwriting told him:
Stone implement. Likely buried at the site in antiquity and disturbed by the crash.
Given the location it was found, suggestion that it could even be the mythical ‘Axe of Thor’. The runic markings support this theory. Thor is said to have used the axe to hammer on the Gates of Asgard to awaken Odin and the other gods when they slept through the Long Dark Night of Damnation.
Hoffman turned over the card. On the back, someone else had written:
Artefact removed from Archive on 27 October 1938. Authorisation – Standartenfuhrer Hans Streicher.
Streicher was dead, so Hoffman couldn’t ask him. But where was the artefact now?
* * *
Papers and manuscripts were spread across the table of the conference room at Station Z. Guy and Leo sat one side of the table, Elizabeth Archer and Miss Manners on the other. Brinkman, already briefed by Mrs Archer, left them to get on with it. All Guy knew was that he and Leo were going to France. He had yet to discover why.
‘Sumner is holding a reception to open the new wing of his personal museum or gallery or whatever he calls it next week,’ Leo was saying. ‘He’s already sent out a catalogue to various local collectors and luminaries, which is how we found the axe-head.’
‘Assuming it’s the same artefact as Miss Roylston saw,’ Guy said.
‘It’s the same,’ Miss Manners confirmed. ‘I showed her the catalogue at lunchtime when she managed to slip away from Crowley’s house for a while. There’s no doubt.’
‘What I do doubt,’ Elizabeth said, ‘is the supposed provenance.’
‘How do you mean?’ Guy asked.
‘Its apparent origin. According to the notes in Sumner’s catalogue, he believes the axe-head to be an ancient artefact that originated in North America.’
‘That’s possible, surely,’ Guy said.
‘It is,’ she agreed. ‘But it is also possible that the artefact in Sumner’s possession is this.’
She pushed an ancient parchment towards Guy. He leaned forward to inspect it. The writing was Greek, he could tell that much. But it wasn’t modern Greek, which he could read fairly easily. He didn’t spend time trying to interpret what he did understand. His attention was focused on the picture.
It was a drawing of an axe, complete with its wooden handle. But the head of the axe looked identical to the photograph in Sumner’s catalogue.
‘It’s the same,’ he murmured, pulling the catalogue closer so as to compare the two.
‘Perhaps,’ Miss Manners said.
‘Or,’ Leo added, ‘we think it’s possible that there are two of these axes.’
‘If not more,’ Elizabeth said. ‘But we have to be sure. We know the Vril are after the one in Sumner’s possession. Or we have to assume that they are.’
‘Though we don’t know why,’ Guy said. ‘And of course, they may be after this Greek one as well, if there are indeed two. We have no way of knowing. It is Greek, I take it?’
‘From the text,’ Elizabeth explained, ‘this is the axe that Theseus took from Procrustes.’ She pulled the parchment back and started to gather up the other papers and documents, obviously assuming this explained everything.
Guy looked at Miss Manners, who seemed to be trying not to smile. Leo cleared his throat.
‘I’m sorry,’ Guy said at last, ‘all I know about Theseus is that he killed the Minotaur in the Labyrinth.’
Elizabeth looked up, and caught Guy’s puzzled expression. She sighed. ‘Procrustes had a bed.’
‘So do I,’ Guy offered. ‘Did he also have an axe?’
‘Procrustes, also known as “the Stretcher”, was a son of Poseidon. He was a smith, and he waylaid travellers on the road between Athens and Eleusis. He forced them to try out his bed for size.’
‘Doesn’t sound too bad,’ Guy ventured.
‘If they didn’t fit the bed,’ Miss Manners said, ‘then he stretched them out and hammered at them until they did.’
‘Hence “the Stretcher”,’ Leo said. ‘The process killed the poor travellers, of course.’
‘Unless they were too long for the bed,’ Elizabeth went on. ‘In which case, he cut their legs off. With an axe.’
‘Ah, I see. That axe.’
‘Exactly.’
‘So you had to be a perfect fit to survive,’ Guy deduced.
‘Well, no,’ Leo told him, ‘because Procrustes cheated. He actually had two beds of different sizes. So he’d produce the one he knew you wouldn’t fit.’
‘And how does Theseus come into it?’
‘He got the better of Procrustes,’ Leo said, ‘which must have been a huge relief to everyone else. He made him lie on his own bed, and sure enough Procrustes didn’t fit either. So, according to one version of the story, Theseus took his axe, and cut his head off with it.’
‘Theseus was trying to find a way to the underworld, and Procrustes guarded the Sixth Entrance to Hades. There is also a version of the legend that says Theseus used the same axe to slay the Minotaur,’ Miss Manners said.
‘Ah, the Minotaur.’ At least Guy knew that story.
‘But let’s not get carried away,’ Elizabeth told them. ‘These are just myths, after all. But it’s interesting that the axe was known as the Labrys, from which the Labyrinth took its name. And from that, it’s come to mean a maze, of course.’
‘The double-headed axe has always been important in Minoan legend and ritual,’ Miss Manners said. ‘Which would tie in with the Minotaur and the Labyrinth.’
‘I’ll tell you something else that’s interesting,’ Guy said, ‘if only to prove that I do know something about Greek history as well as their language.’
‘And what’s that?’ Elizabeth asked.
‘Well, it’s probably just a coincidence, but until very recently the double-headed axe was also the symbol of the Greek Fascist Party.’
‘You never know,’ Leo said, ‘like the Nazi adoption of the Swastika, ancient symbols seem to have a resonance with the fascists. Harking back to an earlier, purer age or something, no doubt.’
‘Perhaps the French manuscript will enlighten us,’ Elizabeth said.
‘Finally we get to France.’ Guy smiled. ‘I was wondering what the connection might be.’
‘The connection is a manuscript, as Elizabeth says,’ Miss Manners told him. ‘It is said to be a copy of writings by Plutarch, though he himself took the ideas from his grandfather, Lamprias, whom he almost certainly paraphrased.’
‘So what’s it about?’ Guy wondered.
‘It is unique,’ Leo told him, ‘in that it apparently brings together and reinterprets myths and legends from the ancient worlds of Greece, Rome, Scandinavia and Northern Europe.’
Elizabeth nodded. ‘It seems to suggest a common thread, possibly a common origin, for all these myths. Which is obviously unusual. But Lamprias, the original author of much of it, seems to be the original source for the story of the Axe of Theseus, including the embellishments about the Minotaur. So this manuscript may well give us more background information about the axe itself and its history and relevance. By drawing together the different legends, it may give us a common origin for both these axes, or make it clear there is only the one.’
‘So if this manuscript is so important and unusual, how come there is only one copy?’
‘Suppressed by the Catholic Church.’ Miss Manners’ tone made it clear what she thought about that. ‘They’re so closed-minded. But at least they preserved the manuscript rather than burning it.’
‘And they preserved it in France?’
‘It’s held in the library of a monastery just outside Paris,’ Leo said. ‘And Elizabeth thinks it would be a good idea for you and me to go over and fetch it.’
Guy laughed. ‘Easy as that?’
‘Not quite, old boy, no. Apart from the fact that we’d be stealing a priceless manuscript from a collection of monks who won’t care to part with it, we have to get into occupied France, and then survive long enough to identify the right manuscript.’
‘The library at St Jean-Baptiste de Seine has a large collection of ancient writings,’ Elizabeth said. ‘It’s quite famous for it.’
‘But if you can recover the manuscript,’ Miss Manners said, ‘then it might tell us more about the Axe of Theseus, how it relates – if it does – to the axe that Sumner has, and why the Vril are after it.’
Elizabeth smiled. ‘Exactly.’
‘All right, let’s go and get it, then.’
‘There is just one other complication,’ Leo said as Miss Manners helped Elizabeth gather up her papers. ‘The Monastery of Jean-Baptiste de Seine has been requisitioned by the occupying power.’
‘So it’s no longer a monastery?’ Guy said.
‘Oh, the monks are still there, apparently,’ Leo assured him. ‘And the library, and hopefully the manuscript. But the buildings are now also home to the local headquarters of the Gestapo.’