The granite key, p.18
The Granite Key, page 18
Leroy immediately lost interest and lapsed back into his previous state of apathy. “Oh.”
The young man shifted his attention from his papers to Leroy’s hat. “Pardon my curiosity, but I’ve never encountered one of the Fallen who dresses or speaks the way you do, Mr. Hunt.”
“What can I tell you, son? My heroes have always been cowboys.”
“Were you ever a cowboy?”
“Nope, I just watched ‘em on the silver screen. I’d see John Wayne or Gary Cooper or, hell, even Montgomery Clift ridin’ off into the sunset. Man, that was a sweet way to live. Simple too. Wasn’t a single problem them fellers couldn’t solve with a gun.”
Daniel looked perplexed. “What silver screen are you talking about? Were those men you mentioned all professional cowboys?”
Leroy regarded him sourly. “I gotta say, your daddy left some big holes in your education, boy.”
At that moment, the waiter came back to the table and asked Daniel in broken English if he wanted to order something.
The young man recoiled in panic. “No, nothing, thank you!”
Hunt observed his reaction with amusement. “It ain’t poison, son.”
“I never partake of food or drink outside of the sanctuary.”
“Too bad. For a travelin’ man that just ain’t practical. Now, what if you was to find yourself on a desert island someday, and that there waiter asked if you wanted somethin’. What would you do then?”
Daniel squinted at Hunt, trying to make sense of the question. “Why would a waiter be on a desert island?”
Leroy waved his hand airily. “Never you mind why. Just answer the question. What would you do?”
“I don’t imagine I would ever have any reason to be on a desert island,” Daniel replied seriously.
Leroy reached into his coat pocket but stopped himself short of gripping the handle of his gun. He could dream, couldn’t he? A change of topic seemed to be in order. He wanted to get this interview over with, so he could concentrate on some serious drinking.
“Well, what you got in mind to do tomorrow then?”
The anxious look returned to Daniel’s face. “My brethren and I are going to spend the day at the palace ruins outside of town. If nothing turns up there, I’ll have to call Father and let him know.”
“Bet that’ll be a hoot,” Leroy observed mordantly. “Then what?”
Hunt could see the reaction his question provoked. The boy’s pasty complexion lost what little color it had. Leroy wondered how a body could spend all day outdoors in the Greek sun and still look as pale as a fish’s belly.
“We’re running out of options. There are only two other known locations where Linear B tablets have been found. Those would be the palaces at Chania and Knossos.”
“They anyplace hereabouts?”
“No, they’re on the island of Crete,” Daniel explained.
“Crete, huh. They got ouzarias there?”
“Ouzarias?” the young man repeated blankly.
“Never mind, boy. Never mind.” Hunt waved him away. “See you tomorrow around four.”
“Until tomorrow then. Good day, Mr. Hunt.” Daniel tensely gathered up his papers and left.
The amount of alcohol in Hunt’s bloodstream rendered him briefly philosophical. He hadn’t spent much of his life contemplating the fiery inferno. In fact, he didn’t believe in it. But now that he was working for a cult that was obsessed with it, the nether realm featured prominently in his musings. This trip to Greece had convinced him that hell was real and that he had managed to land smack in the middle of Satan’s back forty.
Chapter 31—Knossos
CASSIE AND GRIFFIN wearily staggered off the plane at the Heraklion airport on the island of Crete. The pythia’s head was spinning and not merely from jet lag. Everything was happening so fast. It had only been three short days since Faye had revealed her plan, and already they were in Greece.
At the last minute, Erik had been called away to handle an important relic shipment which meant he would travel separately and arrive later. Cassie was relieved. The thought of being trapped on a transatlantic flight with the security coordinator was unnerving. Ever since Faye’s pep talk he had maintained a sullen silence around her. While she considered this a good thing, it was tempting fate to assume he could behave himself all the way from Chicago to Crete.
Once Griffin and Cassie had cleared customs and picked up their luggage, they took a cab to the hotel where their Minoan contact was supposed to meet them. Cassie saw her immediately when the pair entered the lobby since the woman’s leopard print dress was hard to miss. It was the tall dark-haired trove keeper from the Concordance meeting. Her name was Xenia Katsouris. At close range, she appeared to be an attractive fortysomething with shoulder length hair, prominent eyebrows, and hawk-like features. Not the sort of person you’d want to cross even though she was smiling at the moment.
“Ah, I see you have arrived safely. Welcome to Crete!” She stepped forward to shake hands with them.
They walked together to the reception desk to check in, despite the fact that it was only 9 o’clock in the morning. They had agreed that sleep was a luxury they couldn’t afford, and it would only make the jet lag worse. The trove keeper waited patiently while they went to freshen up and stow their gear in their rooms. Half an hour later they were all seated together in the hotel restaurant drinking coffee and struggling to shake off their fatigue.
Xenia smiled sympathetically. “It is a long trip, is it not? I just returned myself two days ago.”
“How do you do it?” Cassie asked in amazement. “I feel like I’ve just been run over by a truck.”
“I am a very good actress,” Xenia joked. “I only appear to be awake.”
“Have the Nephilim been seen on the island yet?” Griffin asked worriedly.
The trove keeper hastened to reassure him. “Do not concern yourself. I have sent several members of my team to monitor Minoan archaeological sites. They tell me that no tourists are engaging in any unusual search activity. I believe we are still ahead of them.”
The scrivener relaxed his troubled expression.
While Cassie ordered another cup of coffee, Griffin passed out sheets of paper to his companions. “These are enlarged photographs of the markings from the granite key. Study the line of hieroglyphics on each page. Those characters are what we’re trying to find.”
Xenia perused the sheets. “Where do you propose to start the search?”
Griffin hesitated a moment. “I brought along the field journal of the operative who first mentioned the Bones of the Mother. According to legend, the secret of finding the relics was kept at the high place of the goddess. It seems to me the most likely location would be Knossos.”
The trove keeper nodded her agreement. “Yes, that would make sense.”
“What’s Knossos?” Cassie looked around for the waitress with the coffee pot.
“The ruins of a Minoan palace. The largest Minoan palace on the island,” Griffin explained. “Though palace is an inaccurate definition. The site fulfilled many functions, one of which was to act as a shrine to the Minoan great goddess. It might have been considered her high temple, so the reference in the journal to a high place of the goddess may well refer to Knossos. Aside from that, Knossos is also strongly connected to the Linear B language. The largest cache of Linear B tablets found on the island came from the palace.”
“And you think we’re going to find these symbols carved into a rock at Knossos?” Cassie squinted at the photographs.
Griffin sighed. “It’s a stab in the dark really. We have so little information to go on, but we have to start somewhere.”
While the other two were speaking, Xenia had been studying the pages carefully. When she spoke, her voice held a note of concern. “So much of the palace has collapsed. Fire and earthquake have taken a great toll. Not to mention the reconstruction of the early archaeologists. What you seek may still be buried under piles of rubble.”
“I think it very likely that an inscription of this importance would have been placed in one of the ceremonial areas. Not in the underground storage rooms or the artisan’s workshops. We won’t have to cover the entire complex—just the central court, the corridors, and the main chambers.”
“But do you not think that strange markings such as these would have been catalogued already if they had been found?” Xenia persisted.
Griffin smiled knowingly. “Ah, but you see that’s the genius of the code. Look closely at these hieroglyphics. They are all common Minoan artistic motifs. The hourglass, spirals, meanders, dots, flowers, birds, fish, and so on. An archaeologist who viewed them would consider them nothing more than decoration. It’s the arrangement of images that provides the meaning.” The scrivener quickly sketched several symbols in succession. “For example, if I draw these symbols in this particular order, I’ve just spelled the word potnia.”
“And that means?” Cassie prompted.
“Potnia is a Greek word which means ‘lady’ or ‘mistress,’” Xenia explained. “In this context, it would mean ‘the goddess’ much as Catholics would use the expression ‘Our Lady’ to speak of the Virgin Mary.”
The pythia studied the composite image Griffin had created. “So, we need to start by looking for this combination of symbols?”
“Actually, you should look for this symbol first.” Griffin drew a picture of a flower. “It’s a lily and the sacred flower of the Minoan goddess. Look at the photograph with three lines of code displayed on it. The top line is written in Linear B and says, ‘To find the Bones of the Mother.’ If you look at either end of the inscription, you will see a lily. I would assume that the lily is the symbol we should associate with that message. It acts like a directional arrow to get our attention. ‘Look here’ is what it seems to say. ‘Pay attention. The symbols that follow will be about the Bones of the Mother.’”
“Got it,” Cassie said. “Find the lily.”
Griffin looked around the table to see if there were any other questions. Tentatively he asked, “Shall we get started?”
The trove keeper stood up, retrieving her keys from her purse. “Come, we will take my car.”
XENIA MANEUVERED HER small Citroen through the narrow city streets and out into the countryside. Apparently, Griffin’s ordeal of being seated in a confined space wasn’t over. As if being crumpled in coach wasn’t bad enough, he insisted on folding himself in half so that Cassie could sit in the front seat of the car. It took nearly an hour to reach the site. As they motored down into a valley surrounded by green rolling hills, they were confronted with a sprawling multi-level hodgepodge of exposed stairways, two-story chambers, heaped stones, and reconstructed pillars. After parking the car, they walked up a winding path toward the entrance. The palace had collapsed in many places exposing underground vaults and massive storage urns to the sky.
“This place is enormous!” Cassie exclaimed in dismay.
“Yes, it is,” Griffin agreed, “but not to worry. We aren’t going to search all of it. The palace complex takes up approximately six acres of land and consists of over one thousand interlocking chambers. Parts of the original structure were five stories high. Calling it a palace is really a misnomer since it had a very different function than housing royalty. There are artisans’ workshops and food processing areas that contain grain mills and wine presses. It served as a central storage facility for the region and was very likely the religious and administrative center as well. At its height, Knossos and its surrounding countryside had a population of several thousand people.”
“You know a great deal about the history of this place,” Xenia noted approvingly.
“It’s what he does,” Cassie confided. “He knows everything about everything.”
“Hardly,” Griffin protested. “I’m sure to get at least a few of the details wrong. I’ve only been here once before as a child.”
“I think you are doing a good job. Please continue,” the Greek woman said.
“As you wish,” he conceded. “For Cassie’s benefit, we’ll have a short history lesson first. The site was originally excavated by Sir Arthur Evans in 1900. Like Heinrich Schliemann who was convinced that Troy really existed, Sir Arthur believed the fantastic stories of classical writers. They said that a great civilization had once flourished on the island of Crete. He set about proving it and unearthed the treasures of a culture which was unlike anything else in the ancient world. Even though Greece and Rome owe most of their cultural advancement to what came before in Minoa, it’s still quite distinct.”
“What makes it so different?” Cassie challenged.
“A great many things,” Xenia said. “You will see as we walk along.”
“Let’s talk about where Knossos is situated for a start,” suggested Griffin.
Cassie studied her surroundings in surprise. “It doesn’t look all that different from pictures I’ve seen of other ancient ruins.”
“Location, location, location,” Griffin hinted.
Cassie raised an eyebrow. “It seems like a great location to me. Rolling hills, lots of greenery. A photographer would love this place.”
They were standing in the middle of an area that was called the central court.
“Let’s pause here for a moment,” Griffin suggested. “Try to look at the location from an overlord perspective. Tactically speaking, this location is terrible if you’re trying to fend off an invading army. It’s in a middle of a valley, exposed on all sides. There are no battlements, no fortifications, no moat. Nothing.”
“Then why build here?” Cassie asked perplexed.
“Because the Minoans were not a people in love with war,” Xenia said softly. “They were in love with life. When this location was first chosen, the people who lived here had nothing to fear from invaders. They lived in a peaceful land, and this place was built as a tribute to the goddess they worshipped. Look here.”
She drew Cassie over to a large stone sculpture that looked like the goalposts in a football stadium. “These are called the horns of consecration, and they are one of the most common symbols in Minoan culture though they did not originate on Crete. Horns of consecration first appeared in the artifacts of old Europe eight thousand years ago. In the ruins on the island, you will see them everywhere. Much like the crucifix is seen everywhere in the Christian religion. Come stand behind the horns and look through them. What do you see?”
Cassie complied. “First, there’s a round hill, and then back in the distance, a mountain top.”
“Yes, that is Mount Jouctas which was sacred to the goddess in ancient times. There is a reason why the palace was built exactly here, and it was not for military defense. It was an act of worship.”
Griffin picked up the thread. “All four palaces on the island take advantage of the same topographical features. First, there is an enclosed valley where the palace is set, then a mounded hill on axis with the palace and beyond that, a mountain peak, also on axis with the palace. The landscape becomes part of the shrine.”
“You have heard of the monoliths at Stonehenge and Avebury, have you not?” Xenia asked.
“I’ve heard of Stonehenge,” Cassie admitted.
“All such structures had a cosmic significance to the people who built them. The monoliths connect the sky with the earth through their sophisticated calendar measurements,” Xenia said.
“Nineteenth-century archaeologists posited that the monoliths in Britain had been built by some war chief and had a military function,” Griffin added. “But, of course, they were wrong. Just as wrong as it would be to assume Knossos was built for defense.”
Cassie remained standing behind the horns of consecration and considered the landscape from that perspective. “When Faye first started my training, she told me about ancient civilizations that didn’t go to war.”
“And this was the last of them,” Xenia murmured.
“The last of them?”
“The palace was damaged and rebuilt many times because of natural disasters, but it was finally destroyed by fire around 1350 BCE,” the trove keeper said.
“That’s still over three thousand years ago,” Cassie insisted. “How can this be the last of those peaceful civilizations?”
Griffin nodded. “I’m afraid she’s right, Cassie. Cultures nearly as sophisticated and equally peaceful go back ten thousand years.”
The pythia shook her head in disbelief.
“Perhaps we should begin our search now,” the trove keeper suggested.
They paced through the central court, their eyes sweeping every stone for the lily symbol that matched the one on the granite key. As they moved farther afield, their search led them through a confusing array of short passageways, interlocking rooms, light shafts, and stairways.
Cassie found herself becoming disoriented. “Wait, stop for a minute. I think I’m getting dizzy. Where are we?”
Her two companions paused and exchanged a look. “That’s probably how the invading Hellenes felt when they first came to this place,” Griffin commented. “That’s why they invented the myth of the labyrinth and the minotaur.”
“The what now?” Cassie asked blankly. “Classical mythology always rated high on my list of trivia I could live without.”
“Surely, you know the legend.” Xenia sounded surprised. “That is the story that gives the civilization its name.”
“It’s safe to assume that Cassie’s knowledge of antiquity is sketchy at best,” Griffin confided to the trove keeper.
“But she is the pythia,” Xenia protested.
“I’m afraid she came late to her calling,” the scrivener explained.
“Would somebody please tell me about this—”
“Labyrinth and minotaur,” Griffin cut in. Turning to Xenia, he asked, “Would you like to do the honors?”
“If you wish.” She nodded and launched into the tale.
