The Oracle Code

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.