| |
GRIFFIN FELL TO HIS knees in front of the boulder, his fingers tracing the lily pattern on its face. The stone was four feet high, rounded in the back, but the front half had been polished flat to allow an inscription to be carved on it.
Erik kept his flashlight focused on the rock, so Griffin could try to decipher the message. “I don’t believe it,” he said incredulously. “Between the two of you, you actually managed to find it.”
“You don’t have to sound so surprised.” Cassie’s tone was less hostile than it might have been. The fact that Erik was paying them any kind of compliment, even a backhanded one, was a welcome change from his usual attitude. She sat on the ground at the base of the stone holding her flashlight over the photos of the key markings, comparing the symbols to the carving.
“Yes, this is definitely it!” Griffin could barely contain his excitement at the find. “The lily above the inscription is an exact match to the ones on the key. It’s a coded way of saying, ‘To find The Bones of the Mother.’ His hand traced another line etched a foot below the lily. “And here we have a line of symbols that I ought to be able to translate in a few moments.”
The scrivener sat on the ground in front of the boulder and drew a small notebook and pencil out of his jacket pocket. From another pocket, he drew a thick stack of folded pages. “This will take a bit. I have to compare the symbols on the boulder to the ones on the key, translate those to Linear B, then translate the Linear B text to modern Greek, and then to English. Cassie, if you wouldn’t mind training your torch on these pages while I write.” He began scratching on the pad and referring to his various reference sources. For several minutes he seemed to be conducting a monologue with himself. “No, that’s not it. The syntax is wrong. Let’s try it this way. Ah, that’s better. Now we’re making progress.”
Cassie thought about taking a nap, flashlight in hand, while he nattered on, but then he snapped his notebook shut decisively. “Right, that’s it then.”
“You got it?” Cassie asked, instantly alert.
“Yes,” he replied somewhat guardedly.
Noting his tone, Erik asked, “What is it?”
“Well, the good news is that now we know how many relics there are. The bad news is that they aren’t hidden together.”
“Why don’t you just tell us what the line says?” Cassie urged.
Griffin sighed. “It reads: ‘You will find the first of five you seek.’”
“Five,” Erik echoed. “I guess this isn’t gonna be a slam dunk after all.”
“They could be hidden anywhere.” Cassie felt dismayed. “Scattered halfway across the planet for all we know.”
“Not to worry,” Griffin said reassuringly. “We have more code to translate. Hopefully, the next set of characters will give us the location of the first relic at least.” He ran his hand over a second line of symbols carved several inches below the first.
It took several more minutes of page-shuffling and note-scratching before Griffin glanced up, scowling slightly.
“That is not a happy face,” Erik observed.
“Admittedly this line is a bit obscure,” Griffin hedged. “It reads: ‘When the soul of the lady rises with the sun.’”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” the security coordinator challenged irritably.
Griffin shrugged. “Haven’t a clue. It may be a metaphor. It may be a reference to a point in time. In either case, this will take additional research to sort out.”
Cassie slumped forward and rubbed her forehead. “Guess we aren’t going to be able to scamper off and collect those bones tomorrow, are we?”
“Don’t give way.” Griffin tried to sound comforting. “There’s bound to be something less abstract in the next line.” His fingers traced some additional markings carved in the middle of the stone. “Oh dear,” he said in dismay.
Erik pointed his flashlight on the spot. Directly below the first two lines of code, the rock had been hollowed out. Beneath the niche were additional glyphs.
“Hmmm,” the scrivener said ponderously.
“More problems?” Erik sounded tense.
Griffin referred to his photos of the symbols and then back to the boulder again. “You see these markings just here? They don’t seem to match any of the characters we have.”
“Great!” Cassie exclaimed. “We came all this way to translate two lines that don’t tell us anything yet.”
“Oh, ye of little faith,” the scrivener intoned. “Give me a few moments to sort this out.” He sat down cross-legged on the ground in front of the stone and stared at it.
Cassie thought he’d gone into a trance because he continued to stare at it for about ten minutes without moving. She groaned. This didn’t look good. What were they missing?
“Would this help?” Erik asked laconically as he held out the granite key toward Griffin.
“What?” the scrivener looked up at him distractedly, not realizing what he was holding. Then recognition dawned. “Good grief, where did you get that?”
“You left it behind at the hotel. I thought it might be important, so I brought it with me.”
Griffin took the stone key contemplatively. “Despite my initial ideas about the key, I’ve come to the conclusion we don’t need it physically at all. In fact, I’m not quite sure what good it will do to—” He stopped short and caught his breath. “Hello, what’s this?”
Cassie shone her flashlight up at Erik. “Do you know what he’s talking about?”
The security coordinator rolled his eyes. “I hardly ever know what he’s talking about.”
Griffin was on his knees in front of the boulder again, trying to fit the granite key into the slot in the large rock.
Erik and Cassie both focused their beams on the hollow spot on the boulder.
After Griffin positioned the key, he studied it for a minute. “No, that’s not it,” he murmured half to himself. He rotated the stone cylinder and tried fitting it into the slot again. “Not quite yet.” Rotating it yet again, he leaned back on his heels to consider. “Ingenious!” he exclaimed, his voice filled with admiration.
Cassie leaned forward to peer over his shoulder. “What is?”
Erik held his flashlight steady over the key.
“You see these markings on the boulder, just here?” Griffin asked her.
“What about them?”
“They constitute half of a symbol. The other half is on the edge of the key itself.” It would be the same as if I did this.” He took one of the pages of symbol photographs and drew a line across the row of hieroglyphs, bisecting each of them through the middle.
“I get it.” Cassie nodded approvingly. “Those hash marks on each edge of the key. They’re actually the top half of a symbol.”
“Yes, but the trick is to know which side of the key to fit into the groove on the boulder. The key has five sides, hence five edges with half symbols.” Griffin observed the boulder again. “I believe I’ve aligned them properly now. Let me try to translate the next line.”
He sat back down in a cross-legged position. Cassie held a flashlight over his various note papers, so he could write unencumbered while Erik held a light over the inscription on the boulder.
It took Griffin another fifteen minutes of muttering and leafing through his notes to finish the job. “Aha!” he exclaimed. “A useful clue at last!”
His companions exchanged an eager look.
“It reads: ‘At the home of the Mountain Mother.’”
Cassie felt more than a little deflated.
Sensing her reaction, Griffin protested, “Just be glad I was able to make it sound even that intelligible. Linear B is not a language that lends itself well to poetry. I might as well be using an accounting glossary to write blank verse!”
The pythia relented. “I know you’re doing the best you can.”
“Moreover, that line isn’t as cryptic as you might think.” The scrivener smiled for the first time. “The term ‘Mountain Mother’ is a very precise epithet for the goddess. It was used specifically in connection with her place of worship on Mount Ida.”
“So that line gives us a place to look?” Cassie asked uncertainly. “There’s a mountain on Crete that’s called Ida?”
“Exactly so,” Griffin affirmed. “And a peak sanctuary where the great goddess was venerated. The home, if you will, of the Mountain Mother.”
Erik rubbed his head wearily. “Time for a recap. What does the message say when you put it all together?”
Griffin referred to his notes. “The entire text now reads: ‘You will find the first of five you seek, when the soul of the lady rises with the sun, at the home of the Mountain Mother.’”
“So, we know how many relics there are and where the first one is hidden,” the security coordinator mused out loud.
“All that remains is to solve the riddle of the second line,” Griffin added. “A task which cannot be accomplished here. Might I suggest we continue this discussion in more comfortable surroundings?”
Cassie stood up, dusting off her jeans. “It looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us.”
From out of nowhere, an arm shot out across her throat, pulling her backwards. She could feel a gun barrel pointed at her temple.
A voice with a southern accent punctuated the darkness. “I’d say your work is just about done, folks.”