Oracles of Delphi Keep (35 page)

“What facts?” asked Thatcher.

“In reviewing Laodamia’s scrolls I did indeed discover that the great Oracle of Delphi was extraordinarily gifted. Her writings talked in great detail of events that had not happened yet and they also discussed something rather profound. You see, Laodamia was haunted by dreams involving the god of the underworld.”

“That Gorgony character?” Carl asked.

“Demogorgon,” corrected the professor. “But you’re close. As I was saying, Laodamia’s dreams suggested a direct telepathic link with this nasty character, and in one of her writings, she recounted a most disturbing dream in which she had seen four maidens asleep in a chamber hidden deep underground.

“Within this chamber she beheld the horrible vision of Demogorgon himself laughing and plotting and suggesting to his underworld servants that he had finally developed a master plan to break out of his fiery prison. He said that each of the four maidens would soon bear him a child, one male
and three females who would grow up to become the greatest sorcerer and sorceresses the world had ever known. As Laodamia watched, the underworld god pointed to each woman’s belly and called out four names—Magus, Caphiera, Atroposa, and Lachestia—and each unborn babe he gifted with command over one of the four earthly elements.”

Ian scrunched his face up. “Excuse me, Professor,” he said. “But aren’t there lots more than just four elements?”

“Well, yes,” said the professor, “but I’m not talking about the modern version of elements. I’m talking about the Greek version during Laodamia’s time, which were only the four tangible elements of fire, earth, air, and water and one intangible element, which was thought, or ideas.”

Ian gasped, finally understanding. “Oh!” he said. “It’s just like those clay pots you found at Grimspound! The four maidens gave birth to those children that destroyed that village with fire, water, air, and earth!”

The professor smiled at him. “Yes, Ian, exactly. And how Laodamia could have dreamed such a tale and written it down in almost the exact detail as that Druid elder recalled half a world and probably several centuries away is profound indeed.”

“So what do these children have to do with helping Demogorgon escape?” Ian asked.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “The rest of Laodamia’s dream told that once the children were born, they had one sole purpose, and that was to incite conflict.

“You see, in early Greek mythology, Demogorgon was one of the original offspring of the Titan King Cronus, along with his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, and their three sisters.
But it was Demogorgon who took after his father in his truly evil ways.

“The mythology suggests that Zeus and the other gods discovered a plot crafted by Demogorgon to imprison them all deep within the earth. Their jealous brother had secretly forged out a place underground that no god could escape from. But in the end it was Demogorgon who was imprisoned as his brothers and sisters managed to ensnare him in his own trap within the fiery underworld.

“In her dream of the four maidens, Laodamia learned some important things: she learned that Demogorgon fed from human suffering. The more a mortal suffered before death, the more it fed and nurtured the underworld king.

“And this gave Demogorgon a truly hideous idea. He would have his halfling children, Magus, Caphiera, Atroposa, and Lachestia, serve him by inciting ever greater conflicts. The more people that populated the earth, the more sheep for his slaughter and his feast. And Demogorgon saw a time thousands of years later when the earth would be so densely populated that if enough mortals were swept up in a great conflict and suffered or died, he could gain enough power to allow him to break free of his prison and exert his revenge on the gods by destroying their precious planet.

“Laodamia foretold of a time when the earth would be generously populated and a great war, larger than any that had ever been waged, would be incited by and propelled by Demogorgon’s children, and millions and millions would suffer and die. And because of this vision, she also knew that the future of mankind was in great peril.”

Ian heard Carl gulp next to him. He turned and saw that
his friend’s eyes were large with fear, and he knew that Carl must be thinking, like he was, of Theo’s horrible prediction of the rise of the Fury and the devastation that would follow “What would happen if he broke free?” Carl asked meekly.

The professor sighed heavily “Armageddon,” he said simply. “The god of the underworld would turn the world over to his children, who upon his release would be ten thousand times more powerful. He would give each child one quarter of the world to rule. Magus, the ruler of fire, would turn his quarter to a wasteland of lava and ash. Caphiera would bury her quarter in one hundred kilometers of ice. Lachestia would churn the earth in her quarter down to rubble and rock and not much else. And Atroposa would strip all the land bare in her quarter with wild cyclones and hurricanes. No mortal would be left alive and the earth would soon find itself as barren as the moon.”

Silence fell on the room as everyone absorbed what that world would be like, and Ian felt a deep chill settle into his stomach. His logical mind told him that this was all a bit of myth that coincidentally matched up with another bit of myth a world away and just happened to slide nicely next to Theo’s predictions of impending doom, but still, it all rattled him to the marrow.

Finally, Ian asked, “Did Laodamia say when these events were likely to occur?”

The professor lifted his hands into a steeple and rested his chin atop his fingertips. “That is where our story gets a bit murky,” he said. When Ian cocked his head in confusion, the old man explained, “We believe that around the time Laodamia prophesized this gloomy portrait, things within
her own city took a turn for the worse. The political climate shifted against her for some unknown reason, and she was forced to divine all other prophecies secretly. This was when the Oracle covertly commissioned the creation of the silver boxes to hold her most important prophecies. It was rumored that Laodamia knew of a power greater than Demogorgon and it became her mission to assist this beacon of hope by hiding her six most precious prophecies in the far corners of the earth. I know through the journals of Adria that Laodamia left these boxes with trusted friends, relatives, and disciples with explicit instruction that they were to hand them down from generation to generation until the offspring identified by Laodamia were to hide the boxes in specified locations.

“After authenticating the silver box that you discovered against Adria’s blueprint—which has always rested in my sole possession and, to my knowledge, has never been reproduced—I believe that it, Master Wigby, is one of the boxes Laodamia had commissioned. I further believe that the great Oracle of Delphi knew that you and your friend Theo would play an integral role in some grand prophecy involving what she called the Rise of Demogorgon.”

Ian felt the air leave his lungs, and the room took on a hot and stifling atmosphere. He struggled to breathe, panic overwhelming him. As if from the other end of a tunnel, he heard Carl exclaim, “Ian and Theo? But what’ve they got to do with it?”

“Professor Nutley has translated all of the writing on the cavern wall and the scroll found in the treasure box,” Thatcher answered, snapping Ian back. “Professor, would
you like to explain to the boys what you told me about the deciphering?”

“I took a cue from you, young lad,” said the professor with a wry smile as he pointed a crooked finger at Carl. “It was how you looked at the writing on the scroll and saw the word ‘the.’ I told you then that it was impossible for the scroll to start out that way. For one, you were reading in the wrong direction, and for another, the ancient Phoenicians had no vowels in their vocabulary. Instead, the vowels were implied in the way the consonants were arranged. But when I took the scroll out and looked at it with fresh eyes, I realized that the characters that were unfamiliar to me actually
were
crude renditions of vowels that closely resemble ours in the English language.

“Further, I noticed that some of the consonants that were unfamiliar in Phoenician, because they were backward or completely invented, also resembled some of the consonant sounds in our own language. It took me the better part of the week to work out the alphabet, but once I worked that out, I also began looking at the wording from left to right, just as Carl had. That’s when I made the remarkable discovery that the scroll was written in English using Phoenician traditional scripting and some of these crude letters for vowels and other missing consonants!”

Ian’s heart was racing and he felt as if the unnatural events of the last several weeks might finally be catching up with him. “May we hear what it says, then?” he asked in a croaky whisper.

“Yes, yes,” the professor said, and waved at Thatcher to come to his desk and take the small notebook he was lifting
toward him. “Master Goodwyn, if you will read first the translation from the walls in the cavern where the silver box was discovered by Master Wigby?”

Thatcher took the notebook and flipped it around to read.

“‘For the eyes and ears of Ian Wigby’” Thatcher began. “‘Laodamia sends her heartfelt thanks and greetings. May this prophecy serve you and the Oracles well.’” Thatcher looked up again and the professor gave him an approving smile. “Now to the prophecy itself,” the professor said. Ian was still trying to absorb that the great Oracle of Delphi had personally greeted and thanked him.

The professor flipped through his own notes and cleared his throat before reciting what sounded to Ian’s ears very much like a dark poem.

The professor set his notes down, and a long moment of silence followed while Ian blinked rapidly in confusion. He had no idea what most of the poem was saying, nor what he could possibly have to do with any of it.

Thatcher finally spoke. “What do you think, Ian?” he asked.

Ian looked up at his schoolmaster, his expression doubtful. “I’m afraid that I haven’t the faintest idea, sir,” he said. Then something occurred to him. “But maybe this Seer that Laodamia is referring to—could that be Theo?”

Thatcher beamed. “That’s what I believe,” he said, and he looked at the professor. “I’ve brought Professor Nutley up to date on all Theo’s abilities and predictions.”

“Remarkable girl,” said the professor with a nod. “Much of the middle and end of this, however,” he said with a wave of his hand over the translation, “doesn’t make a great deal of sense to us either.”

“That part about gathering Delphi’s mystics …,” said Carl thoughtfully. “Do you think she was talking about her Delphi or ours? You know, how our home is called Delphi Keep?”

The professor shook his head. “I can’t be sure,” he said. “But I’ll give you that it is a rather remarkable coincidence that both Laodamia and you lot should be gathered in a place named Delphi.”

Ian agreed; the coincidence seemed too remarkable to shrug off and he wondered again what the Oracle could possibly want with him.

“Do you have a theory on what the Star could be?” asked Thatcher. “Perhaps this is a constellation that Laodamia referred to in other prophecies?”

The professor furrowed his brow. “There was no mention of any star or constellation in any of the scrolls Barnaby discovered on his dig in Delphi—but then, I must conclude
that we likely have only uncovered a portion of the Oracle’s writings.”

“What’s a Seeker?” asked Ian.

“Ah, well, that I may know a little bit about,” said the professor. “One of Laodamia’s many talents was her alleged power over crystals. She used them extensively in her healing practices and fostered a school for other gifted Oracles who gravitated toward harnessing the individual power of crystals.”

“Crystals have
power
?” Carl asked, taking the question right out of Ian’s mouth.

The professor looked thoughtful. “I have personally never given much credence to the idea, but it is based on a bit of real science. Crystals, you see, are formed from the condensation of gases and pressure deep within the earth. The result is a series of repeating lattices made up of molecules that form an overall unique structure. This latticework is what gives the crystal its shape, color, and clarity. Within every crystal there are molecules that get left out of the chain of latticework and become free-floating. When energy is introduced to the crystal in the form of, say, heat, it can excite these free-floating molecules and they begin to vibrate, bouncing back and forth within the walls of the latticework in a unique rhythm.