The Oracle Code (27 page)

49

Temple of Hades Ruins

Elis

Peloponnese Peninsula

Hellenic Republic (Greece)

February 23, 2013

Disgusted and exhausted after hours of fruitless searching, Lourds walked the course he had set for himself on his search path. So much of archeology was this: laying out a grid and walking it till everything that could be found was found. He didn’t care so much for archeology during the boring times. He preferred finding things or having documents that had already been found brought to him. Translating was so much better than just walking and looking.

He sighed. At least walking and looking was better than digging. The wind nearly lifted his hat from his head. He took it off and resettled it, raking the terrain constantly with his gaze.

Captain Fitrat walked beside him like a hunting hound. Corporal Rahimi flanked Lourds on the other side. They seemed dedicated to the search as well, but now that they were in the evening of their second day at it, they didn’t have the same curiosity or anticipation. Those were always the first things to go.

And the confidence that the original assumption was correct. That was going too.

“Perhaps the temple location was in another place.” Fitrat was trying to be helpful, but the frustration in his voice was evident. He didn’t like Lourds being out in the open like that, easy prey for a sniper.

“No.” Lourds hitched his shoulders and drew his jacket up a little more. The wind blowing in from the west, out over the Adriatic Sea, was cool to the point of being uncomfortable. “It’s here. Somewhere. Adonis and I pored over that document. We didn’t make any mistakes. From the descriptions we found, the temple is here somewhere.”

“Times change the land. I know in my homeland that my city changes nearly every day.”

“Your city is still at war.”

“And the Greeks made war for generations. Things change. What points of reference do you have?”

Lourds halted and pointed west. “Over there, we have the Adriatic Sea.” He pointed to the north. “There, the mountains. To the south of us is Elis.”

“The old city or the new?”

“It doesn’t matter. They built the new city right on top of the old one. That’s why it has so many archeological digs in and around it.”

Fitrat looked around. “Surely there are other physical characteristics you were given? Trees? A group of rocks?”

“Those weren’t mentioned in the scroll. Trees would have been cut down. Rocks would have been used for buildings. Callisthenes only referred to things that would stay.”

“What about stone quarries? I know many of the cities, like some in France, dug out their own bedrock to build their homes and buildings.”

“Yes, and that practice has caused lots of problems as the city kept growing. Cave-ins, especially.” Lourds swept his gaze around. “We’re looking for a cave.”

“Callisthenes said a
cave
?”

“A passageway underground usually means a cave.”

Fitrat nodded toward a primitive structure at the bottom of the foothills. “There is no mention of a well?”

“A well?”

Fitrat pointed. “There. That one looks like one that was advertised on Delos Island, correct?”

“Yes, that’s a well. I think.”

Lourds saw a small depression in the ground, rectangular in shape and nearly ten feet by six.

Curious, wanting something to explore other than endless and similar-looking terrain, Lourds walked down the incline to take a look.

***

Linko lay up on the high ground behind Lourds and the men he traveled with. An AK-47 lay beside him, and he knew that the rifle had a much greater reach than the pistols the Afghanistan police assigned to Lourds carried. Killing them would be an easy matter, and he was looking forward to doing so.

But there remained the fact that Lourds hadn’t given up the hunt. The possibility existed that he might yet find whatever it was that he searched for.

Linko hoped that would happen. He was certain President Nevsky was not pleased with how things had turned out with Anna Cherkshan. But no one had known that she had discovered so much information or that she would be granted airtime on a television station.

Nevsky and his generals and his public relations people were working hard to undo the damage. Some of the control that had been taken in the Ukraine was crumbling, but the military operations there had been stepped up to compensate.

Things would be all right. Linko kept telling himself that as he followed Lourds with his binoculars.

Come on, you idiot. Find whatever it is you are looking for. Find it so that I may kill you and go home.

***

The well was ancient. Lourds estimated that it had been constructed centuries ago. Over the course of time, much of the rock that had gone into the building of the low retaining wall around the well had been scavenged and taken elsewhere. Weeds and brush had grown up around it.

Fitrat gazed down into the well. “Not very deep.”

Lourds nodded. “It didn’t have to be deep. It only had to reach the water table in order to keep a steady supply of water. Out on the peninsula here, the water table wasn’t very deep.”

He navigated the narrow stone steps that led down into the well at one end. Roots had twisted through the mortar, and stubborn grass clung to the stones in places where seeds had blown in the past. The well had no smell, no mold, no mildew.

And it was dry as a bone. The bottom of the well was overgrown with grass and weeds as well.

“You had good eyes to see this.”

Above, kneeling on the edge of the well, Fitrat shrugged. “Finding this only seems like another waste of time.”

Lourds took a flashlight from his backpack and shone the beam over the rough walls. There was some graffiti left by children or teenagers, drawings of monsters or declarations of undying love.

“Perhaps we will have more luck at the next well?”

Glancing up, Lourds saw Corporal Rahimi standing on the well wall across from his commander. “Next well?”

“Sure.” The young corporal nodded and pointed to the east. “I have found another one about a hundred meters to the east.”

Lourds clambered up from the well. “Where?”

“There.” Rahimi pointed again.

This time Lourds spotted the hint of a rectangular area in the grass. The shape was too uniform to have occurred naturally. He hitched up his backpack. “Let’s go.”

***

Elis Harbor

Dmitry Dolgov clambered from the boat at the harbor in Elis. The pilings were old and decrepit, and only a few people still lived there. The man who had rented Dmitry the boat had said that the old town had fewer than two hundred reglar inhabitants and that, in the summer, during tourist season, there were often more visitors than residents.

His boots echoed on the wooden pier that swayed drunkenly beneath him. He did not like deep water or boats or ships, and traveling through Greece had promised much of that.

Catching up with Lourds had proven problematic. At first, Layla Teneen had been cautious, unwilling to even talk about Professor Lourds, and Dmitry had understood. She had wanted Lourds kept out of harm’s way. Dmitry had calmly, professionally told her that the only way to do that was to remove the threat.

“That is exactly what Thomas said.” She had sounded anxious and tired. “He told me that if he could find Alexander’s tomb, then this would be over. That there would be nothing to be taken or hidden or kept secret.”

“In one respect, Professor Teneen, that would be correct. But Anna Cherkshan will not be avenged. That is what I will do. And I can protect Lourds at the same time.”

Eventually, she had agreed, but she had not spoken with Lourds in a while and did not know his exact location. He had not told her his plans, and she did not know for certain where he had gone.

Dmitry had tried using tracking software from low earth orbit satellites that were available to the SVR, but even the LEOs had failed to pinpoint Lourds’s satphone ping. Past experience had proven that even using the Doppler shift calculations could be off by several kilometers.

Finally, last night, Lourds had spoken with Professor Teneen and told her where he was. As Dmitry had requested, for fear of being overheard by Colonel Linko, she had not mentioned Dmitry and his group.

Dmitry wore combat armor under his long coat, and he carried a Heckler & Koch MP3 submachine pistol on a Whip-it sling on his shoulder under the garment as well. The rest of his unit, all hard men who had seen action in Chechnya and other covert actions around the globe, were similarly attired.

Standing once more on the solid ground of the shoreline, Dmitry took a map from his chest pouch and unfolded it.

An old fisherman approached them. “You are visitors, yes?” His English was stilted but easily understandable.

“Yes.” Dmitry smiled at the man.

“Visitors do not usually come this time of year.”

“We thought we would come when it was not so crowded.”

The man nodded. “Not so crowded now. But cold.”

“Not too cold for fishing, I see.”

The old man grinned. “Never too cold for fishing.”

“Have you seen many other tourists?”

“Yes. Many men. Two groups go into the old places.” The man pointed in the direction of the ruins. “They not come back yet. Camping. Probably archeologists.” He had trouble with the word.

“How many men?”

The old man thought for a moment. “First group ten men. Second group, maybe thirty.”

That caught Dmitry by surprise. He had thought Linko would have tried to keep his operation small. Dmitry had only brought six men with him. Moving even that many through customs and getting the proper identification in order had been difficult. Linko must have hired local talent to supplement his forces.

“Thank you for your time. I wish you good fortune with your fishing.”

“Thank you. And may you have good fortune with your travels. You come back later, I fry you some fish. We will have wine.”

“I will be back.” Before Dmitry had gone three steps, the ground beneath him quivered and shook and rolled, then snapped back into solid earth again.

The old man laughed. “That was an earthquake. We have many of those here. There is nothing to worry about. The old stories say it is because Poseidon is angry out to sea. He strikes the ground with his trident and causes the earth to tremble.” He nodded out at the Adriatic. “Somewhere out there, a storm is brewing. You will see.”

Dmitry nodded and continued on. To the west, the sky was darkening, obscuring the setting sun. It would be twilight in another three hours or so. He hoped to have located Lourds—or at least Linko—in that time.

50

Temple of Hades Ruins

Elis

Peloponnese Peninsula

Hellenic Republic (Greece)

February 23, 2013

The second well was in worse shape than the first. More stones had been scavenged, leaving almost nothing of the original retaining walls. Dark patches of earth filled with roots and worms and grubs marred the walls. A few wine bottles and the remains of a campfire occupied one corner.

Fitrat smiled at the ashes and the bottles. “Boys trying to be men.”

“Thousands of years ago, you would have probably found the same thing in many abandoned or out-of-the-way places like this, only they would have been wineskins, not bottles.”

“We do not change so much over all this time.”

“Not really.” Lourds swept the walls with his flashlight. “It’s getting darker.”

“A storm is rolling in from the sea.” Fitrat sniffed. “You can smell it.”

Lourds had noticed the changes in the weather as well. “Perhaps we should head back for the night. There’s no sense in staying out here and getting wet.”

Fitrat nodded. “I would like a chance to eat a meal made over a campfire rather than trail bars inside a tent. Even though we will only be opening cans, that is better than granola.”

Lourds chuckled. “It’s a shame you can’t just whip up something while we’re out here.”

Fitrat shrugged. “Perhaps we could buy a goat from one of the men in the town.”

“Hey.” Rahimi stood at the top of the well. “I found another well.”

“Another one?” Lourds started up from the well, and he felt a spark of excitement. He took the small walkie-talkie the team had purchased to communicate while on the exploration from his backpack. “Adonis?”

“Yes?”

“Have you found anything that looks like wells where you are?”

Marias was silent for a moment. “Two, but they go nowhere. Why?”

“I have an idea. I need you to mark those wells with something we can see from a distance. Use the orange fluorescent spray paint. Then we need to meet up on the hill.”

***

Twenty minutes later, they gathered on the small rise that overlooked the ruins and the vicinity they’d been searching. Lourds held a copy of the strange geometrical shape they’d made by connecting the mysterious dots on the back of the Oracle scroll.

Marias peered over his shoulder as he consulted the map.

“We’ve found five wells so far.” Lourds pointed down the hill to where the orange Xs glowed in the gathering gloom. “See how the ones we marked correspond to the dots?”

“It’s a map?”

“More than that. This is something you should have caught.” Lourds loved being ahead of the curve on his friend.

“Why should I have caught something I plainly still do not see?”

“Because you’re the expert on Greek mythology. This isn’t a map, Adonis. It’s a constellation.”

Marias looked at the shape a moment more, then he grew more excited. “You are right.” He leaned in closer. “This is Auriga. Eight stars comprise the constellation, the brightest of which is Capella.”

“Excuse me.” Fitrat looked at both of them. “What is Auriga?”

Marias talked excitedly. “Not a
what.
A
who.
He was believed to be the hero Erichthonius of Athens. He drove out Amphictyon, who had taken the throne from Cranaus. According to the mythology, he was the
chthonic
son, born of the earth when Hephaestus tried to rape Athena. Hephaestus did not manage the task because Athena fought him off, but the seed of the god fell to the earth, and Erichthonius was born anyway.”

“Why would Auriga be important to Alexander?”

Marias shook his head. “That we may never know. But the wooden rollers on the coded scroll had serpents on them. Ericthonius had a son, Pandion I, whose symbol was a snake. His mark is on the statue of Athena in the Parthenon—the snake hidden behind her shield.”

“Snakes were associated with the Oracle of Delphi too.” Lourds sipped water from the canteen he carried. “She was also called Pythia, named for the monstrous serpent Python after Apollo slew her. He claimed the cave she lived in as the home for the Oracle.”

Marias checked his watch. “Even though it grows dark, my friends, we still have a couple hours to look for the other three wells if we wish to. I, for one, would like to press on.” He grimaced up at the gathering storm clouds. “Unless the rain comes and we are forced to quit.”

“Maybe we don’t have to find
three
wells.” Lourds considered the map.

“What are you saying?”

“Maybe we need only find the one.”

“Which one?”

“You said Capella was the brightest star?”

“Yes.”

“We haven’t yet found that star, though we have found the two that anchor it on a straight line through the heart of the constellation.” Lourds looked out at the orange markers. “Given all that we’ve found so far, you’d think we’d have located that well, too.”

Marias took in a breath. “Unless it was hidden.”

Lourds rolled up the copy of the map. “That’s what I’m thinking.”

“And you wouldn’t put the gateway to Hell in plain sight, would you?”

“I wouldn’t.”

Lourds put the map back in his backpack. Just as he was slinging it back over his shoulder, the earth quivered and he staggered slightly.

Marias noted his reaction. “Do not think anything of it. There are tremors through this area all the time.” He started off, aiming for the point between the five wells they had found.

***

The well that represented Capella wasn’t hidden. It was just grown over to the point that getting to it was difficult. Lourds and Marias hacked their way to it using machetes, then were disappointed when it was as dry and empty as the others.

They pressed on and found the next one nearby, but it, too, held nothing of interest.

Lourds hadn’t lost hope when they found the last well, the one that represented Eta Aurigae, which was supposed to have been one of the kids of the she-goat Capella or the nose of Auriga, depending on which interpretation one wanted to believe.

He shone his flashlight beam around, struck at once by the loamy smell trapped in the enclosure. But maybe that had been caused by the coming storm. This well was just as dry as all the others had been, and he was disappointed.

Marias grinned wryly. “Maybe we’ve just outthought ourselves, Thomas.” He sighed. “Maybe we’re wanting to see something so badly that our minds are playing tricks on us.”

Lourds hadn’t wanted to admit it, but he was thinking the same thing.

“No.” Captain Fitrat spoke in the calm voice of reason. “You said this place was small. Why would they then have so many wells here? There was only one that I saw on Delos Island.”

“That was a communal well. There were probably smaller ones in the past.” Lourds pushed a spiderweb aside and examined the walls more closely. His boot thumped against the solid earth. He focused his attention on the back wall. This well was different. It had been dug into the side of a hill.

“But why so many of this size?”

Marias worked on the other side of the wall from Lourds. His flashlight tracked slowly. “They had the Olympic Games here. Maybe they needed the extra water.”

“And maybe it was to mark a hiding place.” Exultation flooded through Lourds as he shone the light on a stone on the back wall.

“Did you find something?” Marias joined him.

“In addition to the Helm of Darkness and a three-headed pup named Cerberus, what else was Hades known for?”

“I do not remember anything else.”

“Do you remember the legend of Minthe?”

Marias thought for a moment. “She was a nymph. Hades saw her and was attracted by her beauty. She, in turn, was attracted to him. Before anything could happen, though, Persephone arrived and turned the nymph into a plant.”

“A mint plant. You know how I know this?”

“No, nor do I know what all of this has to do with anything.”

“The myth of mint was on the placard at Café Trident. I read it while you were telling the story of Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus splitting up the world.”

Marias sighed. “You’re as attentive as my students.”

“More so. I remember what was on the placard.”

“Enlighten me.”

“Do you know why the nymph was so attracted to Hades?”

Marias frowned and shook his head.

“Because in addition to the Helm of Darkness and a pup named Cerberus, Hades also had a chariot of gold that was drawn by four black horses. She was reportedly
dazzled
by the chariot.”

Corporal Rahimi laughed. “It is always about the ride.”

Lourds chuckled as well. “In this case, I think it really is about the ride. Do you know what else Auriga is known for?”

Marias pulled at his goatee for a moment then shook his head. “No.”

“He’s credited for inventing the chariot. In particular, he’s remembered for inventing the
quadriga
, the four-horse chariot that he used in battle to gain the throne of Athens.”

A smile framed Marias’s lips. “Hades drove a
quadriga
.”

“Exactly. And look what I found.” Triumphantly, Lourds pulled aside dead grass to reveal the small carving of a four-horse chariot in one of the stones on the left side of the wall.

Cautiously, Lourds put out a hand and pressed on the stone.

Nothing happened.

He hooked his fingers around the edge and tried pulling.

Nothing happened.

“Perhaps it is just a stone.” Marias leaned in more closely.

Frustrated, Lourds bunched up a fist and banged on the stone.

Still nothing happened.

He stepped back and sighed in disgust. “Either that’s a smokescreen, or there is a trick to it.”

“Perhaps if the mortar around it were loosened.” Fitrat produced a wicked-looking knife and stepped forward. Carefully, he chipped away the mortar from the stone.

For a few long minutes, the sounds of the chipping and of the men breathing echoed faintly within the well. Thunder crackled overhead, and a lightning bolt sizzled across the dark sky. The wind picked up and blew dust down into the well.

Finally, Fitrat stepped back to observe his handiwork. “All the mortar around the stone is gone.”

Lourds kept his flashlight trained on the stone. “Press it. Let’s see what happens.”

Fitrat pressed and pulled and tried to wiggle the stone, all to no avail. He stepped back again and shook his head. “It is just a stone with an engraving. A decoration.”

“In an undecorated well?” With grim determination, Lourds looked around the well. They were missing something.

On the heels of another burst of thunder, the ground trembled and something shifted behind the back wall of the well. Lourds tried the marked stone again.

“Hey.”

Everyone turned to look at Corporal Rahimi.

“I was just thinking. If you believe that wall is some kind of door, and if the mechanism that is supposed to open it is stuck, why not just take the door apart?”

Lourds and Marias and Fitrat swapped looks.

Lourds shook his head and sighed.

***

Closer now, Linko studied Lourds and his team in the well. The colonel hadn’t known the structure was a well until he’d heard Lourds talking to the Greek professor earlier. To Linko, they simply looked like shallow holes in the ground.

Light rain fell, pattering against the leaves of the tree whose shadows he hid in. The shadows had almost faded now, absorbed by the coming night and the darkness of the storm.

Then he noticed movement on the hillside. Shifting his binoculars, he tracked the movement and saw a small person, dressed in robes, scurrying toward the well.

***

Thousands of years had stripped the mortar of its vitality, and it crumbled beneath the concerted efforts of the picks the team had brought in their equipment bags. Lourds and Fitrat attacked the wall, quickly discovering the cave that lay beyond. Lourds’s heart sped up as the scent of fresh earth filled his nostrils. There was a hint of something else as well. Something sweet.

He freed another stone block, curled it into his arms, and handed it back to Rahimi, who passed it back to the man behind him. They were dumping all the stones outside the well.

Lourds picked up his flashlight and peered through the opening they’d made. It was almost big enough to crawl through now. The flashlight beam was lost inside the long black passageway on the other side.

“Now I am excited.” Marias took the stone Fitrat passed back. “This could be the way Heracles ventured down into Hades.”

“I know.” Lourds played the beam around the front of the opening. The light revealed the tracked grooves where the stones were supposed to slide across the floor.

“You must stop!” A high-pitched voice echoed in the well, and thunder followed the command.

Lourds spun, turning his flashlight with him. The beam squarely caught a hooded and robed figure standing at the well’s edge. The cloth it wore was black as the night.