Oracles of Delphi Keep (28 page)

Magus paused before he said, “My she-beast has communicated to me that one of Laodamia’s treasure boxes might have been discovered in a cave near the cliffs. My servants
have confirmed this with the boy, who claims that the box was stolen from him by another boy at the orphanage. I would like to recover the artifact and I would like the true Oracle and her Guardian disposed of.”

“Consider it done, my brother,” said Caphiera coolly. “And consider them dead.”

T
he group of five from Dover stopped outside Number 11 Cromwell Road. Thatcher reached the top step first and pressed the buzzer on the side of the door, and after a time they all heard a gruff “Coming! I’m coming.”

The door was yanked open and a tiny man—no taller than Carl—with curly white tufts of hair sticking madly out the sides of his head and matching his overgrown mustache, stood there, squinting through round wire glasses up at the person on his doorstep. “Hello, Professor!” Thatcher said enthusiastically.

“Who’s there?” asked the professor as he held his hand up to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun. “Ah, Master Goodwyn,” he said. “Right on time.”

Thatcher gestured to his side. “Good to see you again, Professer Nutley You remember my brother, Perry?”

The professor looked at Perry and nodded. “Yes, yes,” he said. “Good of you two to drop by.”

“And we’ve got the young lad who found the artifact I told you about,” continued Thatcher, turning to look behind
him for Ian, who smiled and held up the box so that the professor could squint down at him.

Ian climbed the stairs and introduced himself. Carl and Theo followed suit, and after everyone’s name had been passed around, the professor shuffled away from the door with a “Come in, won’t you?”

Thatcher and Perry hurried through, but Ian and Carl exchanged a look as a rather foul smell coming from the interior of the flat met their nostrils. “Hurry up!” urged Theo, pushing from behind. “You don’t want the professor to think you’re being rude.”

Ian grimaced at the scent of something old and musty, but hurried in, anxious to hear about his treasure box.

He noticed immediately that their host was living a life as unkempt as his hair. There were newspapers, books, and what looked like bits of tossed-away paper everywhere. Even the stairs leading to the next floor were covered in piles of clutter, making them look precarious to navigate. He suspected that if Madam Scargill were ever to see this place, she would faint dead away. His headmistress believed
strongly
that a virtuous life was a sparkling clean and uncluttered one.

“This way,” directed the professor as Ian and the others lingered in the hallway, taking in the mess. Thatcher coughed uncomfortably and swung his head toward the professor’s form disappearing around a corner. “After him, children,” he said.

They all followed the professor, winding their way through the piles of clutter to turn a corner into what looked like a sitting room by design but was now a depository for
more papers, books, newspapers, and odds and ends. “In here,” called the old man, his voice drifting to them from the dining room beyond. Ian and the others continued with mild trepidation.

Finally, the group filed into a room at the back of the flat that appeared to be the professor’s library. Ian looked around amazed. Bookshelves lined all four walls and were squeezed with so many books that the shelves themselves were barely distinguishable. Bits of paper were stuffed between the books, and here and there the odd clay pot or ancient relic managed to find a perch on top of piles of paper, books, and other junk. Among it all sat various cardboard and leather tubes. Ian could only wonder at what they might possibly contain. Only a small square in the center of the room was clear of debris.

The professor squeezed between a stack of books almost as tall as he was, around to his desk, and taking a seat, he peeked over the top of his overcrowded workspace at the group. “Let’s have a look at what you’ve brought along to show me, shall we?” he said.

With little butterflies of excitement fluttering in his stomach, Ian handed over his box to the professor, who took it and set it on his desk. He then fumbled through several piles of paper and unearthed a bit of cloth. With this he wiped his wire-rimmed glasses before focusing on the artifact. “Hmmmm,” he said as he focused on the relic, picking it up and turning it over several times before setting it down and opening a nearby drawer.

For what seemed like a frustratingly long time, the professor rummaged through the contents of the drawer, tossing
bits of twine, paper, pencils, paper clips, and ink pens onto the desk as he searched for something. Finally, he gave a happy “Aha!” and pulled out a magnifying glass. This he placed over the top of the box, lowering it to focus as he whispered, “Fascinating.”

Ian resisted the urge to fidget nervously while Thatcher asked, “You recognize the writing?”

“It’s very old,” said the professor. “The writing is Phoenician, from a period which saw some of the first lettering ever to come out of Greece, in fact. I’d put it at 1600 to 1200 BC,” he concluded, looking back up at them. Blinking to focus his eyes again, he asked Ian, “Wherever did you find such a treasure?”

“In a cavern near the Cliffs of Dover, sir,” Ian said. He wasn’t sure how much detail he was supposed to give about the location of his discovery.

The professor turned to Thatcher quizzically. “You found this in a cavern near Dover,
England
?” he asked.

“Yes, Professor, about two kilometers southeast of Castle Dover, along with this bit of writing we found on the walls where the box was hidden,” he said, passing forward the messages he’d copied from the cavern.

The professor pulled Thatcher’s notebook close, and his bushy eyebrows rose in surprise. “Is this some sort of a trick, then?” he demanded, and Ian cringed as he thought about the earl’s identical reaction back in the cavern.

But Thatcher seemed taken aback by the question. “No, sir,” he insisted. “That’s where we found the box and the writing.”

The professor glanced back at Thatcher’s notes and Ian
watched as his lips moved silently before he mumbled, “It isn’t possible.”

“What, Professor?” asked Perry.

“I’m afraid you two are the butt of a joke,” the professor said, leaning back in his chair with a contemptuous smirk.

Ian and Theo exchanged looks, and Ian noticed she didn’t at all seem pleased. “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” said Thatcher, pulling their attention back to the professor.

“This,” said the professor, pointing to Thatcher’s notes from the wall, “is written in Linear B script, or what is commonly recognized as ancient Greek and what the Phoenician alphabet—like the writing from this box—evolved into. I would date this writing from your notes as much younger than the lettering on the box, approximately 400 BC. As the Greeks weren’t anywhere near the British Isles four hundred years before Christ, I believe someone’s pulling a lark here, and I suspect it’s these very clever children you’ve brought with you today.”

Ian took a step back when both his schoolmasters turned as one to stare reproachfully at him. He vigorously shook his head. “I swear!” he said, holding up his hands in surrender. “I’ve played no prank!”

“He’s telling the truth,” said Theo, stepping up to Ian’s defense. “He’s not lying. We discovered the hidden tunnel with writing on the walls and the box in one of the chambers of the tunnel by accident. We had nothing to do with putting the script or the box there.”

The professor gave them a doubtful look. “Then you are also the recipients of a rather sophisticated prank.”

“But who would have done such a thing?” asked Thatcher, putting Ian’s thoughts into words. “And who would have written this line?” he asked, pointing to the first page of his notes.

The professor held his magnifying glass up to the paper and translated out loud: “‘Young boy, Wigby, come this way’” The professor furrowed his brow and he glanced back at Ian. “Your last name is Wigby?”

Ian felt that same haunting feeling he’d had when Thatcher had read that line in the cave. “Yes, sir,” he said with a gulp.

The professor pushed the paper dismissively away while laughing merrily. “Which confirms that this is part of a prank, specifically on you, my young man. This box has obviously been stolen from someone’s collection and was placed in a cave that they knew you would find. To cover their burglary, they wrote out this cryptic message pointing to you.”

Again Perry and Thatcher looked at Ian expectantly but he thrust up his hands in surrender and shook his head. “But I swear,” he insisted, “I don’t know of anyone who would do that.”

Everyone in the room glanced at one another as if hoping for an explanation. Theo broke the silence. “It’s not a prank,” she said softly. “There’s something important in that box, Professor. I believe it is some sort of a message. One that we’ll need your help deciphering.”

Ian glanced at Theo and noticed that her eyes held that faraway cast she got when her gift of sight was acting up. He
almost groaned when he noticed that the professor was regarding her with great skepticism. “What do you mean there’s a message in the box?”

Theo’s eyes suddenly focused, and she stepped up to his desk, picking up the silver box. “There’s something inside here,” she said, holding it up to him. “Something of great importance and I believe it’s a message for Ian.”

Ian gasped. What was she talking about? How could there possibly be a message for him inside that ancient relic? He caught Perry rolling his eyes and Ian glared hard at his schoolmaster, who quickly covered the look with a cough.

Meanwhile, the professor was blinking furiously at Theo as if he were trying to understand a foreign language. Finally, as if to humor her, he pulled the box closer and ran his magnifying glass slowly along the side of the metal container before he gasped and jumped to his feet. “Impossible!” he said, setting the box and the magnifying glass down before quickly shuffling past them to the far corner of the room. He searched among the many tubes nestled in the shelves, then quickly tugged one free and carried it back to his desk.

Pushing some of the clutter out of the way, the professor opened the top of the tube. Gently tipping it onto the desk, he tapped it until a very old-looking scroll slipped out. This he carefully unrolled, placing two paperweights at the top and bottom corners to hold it flat.

“What’s happening?” Carl whispered into Ian’s ear.

“I’ve no idea,” said Ian, and he suddenly wished he’d never found that stupid box.

The professor ran his finger down the scroll to what
looked to Ian like a small drawing, and glanced back at the silver box.

“What is it?” Ian finally asked. “What have you found?”

The professor didn’t answer him right away; instead he picked up the box and the magnifying glass, and after eyeing the artifact once more, he moved the glass to the drawing and peered at it with great interest. Ian leaned in and saw a stenciled drawing that even upside down closely resembled his silver box.

Finally, the professor sat back with an amazed expression and gently set the treasure on his desk. Looking up at Ian, he explained, “This is a scroll I discovered on an archaeological dig I was a part of some forty years ago just outside Delphi, Greece. The scroll was part of a collection found in a clay pot, remarkably left intact in the cellar of a prominent wine merchant. The merchant’s daughter, Adria, was a disciple of Laodamia, the greatest Oracle the Greek world has ever known.

“Legend has it that Laodamia was able to foretell future events so accurately that her word was undisputed. Her powers were said to have been miraculous; she was credited with healing the sick, predicting the outcome of any Greek campaign, and moving objects without touching them, and her ability to predict incoming storms and yearly rainfall was uncanny.”

“She sounds extraordinary,” said Thatcher, and Ian had to agree.

“Yes,” said the professor, sitting down in his chair again. “And that’s quite the point. The Greeks were given to
exaggeration. So much so that many historians consider her legend mostly that—exaggeration.”

“What does this have to do with my treasure box?” Ian asked, feeling a burning excitement he couldn’t explain building inside him.

The professor eyed him thoughtfully. “Laodamia was said to have commissioned several silver boxes to hide her most secret prophecies. Adria, who was quite the gifted sculptor, developed the design for the boxes, and this sketch is the one that was given to the silversmith.”

“Were any of the boxes found in the dig that you excavated?” asked Perry.

“No,” the professor said. “None of the boxes have ever been found, but many men have long searched for them. It is said that whoever finds one of Laodamia’s treasure boxes will discover a great secret kept hidden from the world for thousands of years.”

Ian was suddenly aware of the heavy silence that seemed to overtake the room. His heart was hammering and he felt a great compulsion to grab the box and run out of the room, but his feet seemed rooted to the floor.

“And you believe that
this
is one of those boxes?” Thatcher asked, his voice incredulous.

“There is only one way to find out,” said the professor as his eyes darted back to the scroll that contained the sketch. Everyone waited with breathless anticipation while he read the ancient writing, mumbling to himself in a language Ian didn’t understand.

Finally, the professor held up the box and studied the four balls that served as its feet. He gently attempted
to turn the knobs one by one. On his fourth attempt, something extraordinary happened. The little foot began to unscrew.

“Blimey!” breathed Carl.

As the professor freed the ball from the box, everyone could clearly see that on the end of the little screw was a tiny key.

“Fascinating,” the professor said. Glancing back at the sketch on the scroll, he turned the box right side up again in search of the keyhole. Ian let out a huge breath when the man finally exclaimed, “There you are!”

With shaking fingers, the professor wiggled the tiny key into the keyhole, and with great care, he slowly turned it. There was the faintest of popping sounds, and the box’s lid separated from the case.