READINGS
Dorian stood beside a bench in the
As Indy crossed the park toward her, she reminded him of a Greek statue.
He stopped a few feet away and cleared his throat. 'How are you feeling today?'
'Much better.' She didn't turn her gaze from the valley.
The intensity in her eyes led Indy to believe she was watching something in particular. But all he could see was scenery. Great scenery, yes, but nothing that he or anyone else would stare at like she was. 'What do you see down there?' he asked quietly.
She didn't hesitate. 'History... culture... the past.' Her voice was soft, distant.
Indy glanced out over the valley. It had been two days since Panos had carried her from the temple. She had slept for eleven hours and when she awakened, a doctor examined her, but found nothing wrong. He'd said she was probably suffering from stress and overwork and needed a rest. However, by noon the following day, she'd gone to the workshop, which was near the ruins, and had stayed until nine.
She seemed detached, as if only part of her were
present. Was it just exhaustion, or the vapors? He'd been thinking a lot about it. It was both, he'd decided.
She must have been fighting off exhaustion for days, and the vapors, or at least Dorian's suspicions about them, had triggered her collapse, a nervous breakdown.
'Well, Jones,' she said, turning away from the valley. 'We can't just spend our entire morning in the park. We've got work to do.'
'You sure you're up to it?'
She straightened her back. 'I'm feeling fine. Make that great. I'm feeling great.'
The sudden change in her mood, her energy, surprised him. It was as if she'd just awakened from a dream.
'What are we going to do?'
She looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. 'Don't you know that we have to get the tablet out of the fissure as soon as possible? We've wasted too much time as it is. I want the tablet cleaned and on display by the time the king arrives the day after tomorrow.'
'Aren't you rushing things a bit? I thought archaeology was slow and detailed work.'
She smiled at him. 'It is, but we have an emergency. Every hour that tablet remains in the crevice, the danger of losing it increases.' Now she was sounding as anxious as he had been before she walked into the vapors.
'Why do you want to show it to the king?' he asked. 'Don't you think his trip here might be a way of harassing you for coming back?'
She laughed. 'Come on now.'
'What's so funny?'
'The king may be petty, but he doesn't change his plans and take emergency trips because of someone like me. I really doubt that he even knows I'm here.'
'You don't think there's any danger now from your family's political enemies?'
She shook her head. 'No, especially not in Delphi.
Don't worry. We're safe, and when the king sees the new find, he'll see that even earthquakes have a good side to them.'
Indy shrugged, still perplexed by the sudden urgency to remove the tablet and her benign attitude toward the king. 'So what do you want me to do?'
'Everything is being prepared. You'll be making the descent right at noon.'
'What about the vapors?' he asked.
She brushed her mane of thick dark hair off her shoul ders. 'I've taken them into account. This morning they rose at 9:03 a.m., five hours and thirty-five minutes after the last rising, an increase of six minutes in the interval. The same pattern.'
He took out his pocket watch, and started to calculate the next rising.
She watched him a moment, then said: 'At 2:44. You'll have plenty of time. All you have to do is set the net in place over the tablet, and chip away the earth at the base of it.'
'What if the vapors start early?' He was curious about her reaction, since she'd said little about her experience.
'We have no reason to believe that they won't continue to follow the pattern,' she answered, evading the intent of his question.
Indy glanced at his pocket watch again, then put it away. It was 10:35. He wondered what they were going to do until noon. 'I suppose I should get some rest before noon. You going back to the hotel?' If she recognized his sly overture, she didn't show it.
'I said we have work to attend to, Jones. Let's go to the workshop, I want to go over the tools with you.'
She walked at a quick pace toward the hotel where the horses were hitched. 'Coming, Jones?' she called over her shoulder.
He tugged at his fedora, and strode after her.
'Hey, what about Doumas?' Indy asked as they mount ed their horses.
She frowned. 'What about him?'
'I heard he was against my going down for the tablet.'
She waved a hand. 'Oh, he's over that now. It was just a matter of wounded pride.'
Indy nodded, but he couldn't help thinking about Doumas's connection with the Order of Pythia. As they rode out of town, he wondered if the archaeologist was as interested as Panos and his son in protecting Dorian from outsiders. If so, going into the crevice with him anywhere in the area could be dangerous. But Doumas was also interested in the tablet, he rationalized, and probably would do nothing to endanger its recovery.
They'd ridden almost halfway to the workshop when Indy spotted a lone figure standing on the roadside.
As they neared him, he saw it was the old man in the Greek sailor hat who had talked to him in the taverna.
The Crazy One. With everything else that had happened since that night, he'd forgotten about him. He tried to recall what the man had said to him. Something about Pythia. She would swallow him. That was it. Now it meant considera bly more than it had at the time. Still, it was probably just an old-timer's barroom babble.
The old man stared as they cantered by. 'Do you know him?' Indy asked.
She smiled, and it was obvious that she did. 'He's no one to be concerned about.'
'I've heard he's a member of the Order of Pythia, and that he's made predictions.'
She laughed, and shook her head. 'Maybe that's why he's known as the village fool. No one takes him seriously.' As if to tell him she didn't want to talk about the old man any longer, she prodded the sides of her horse and galloped ahead.
Indy chased her all the way to the stable where they left
the horses, then walked to the nearby workshop. It was a wood frame building that looked on the inside like a dusty, poorly lit library. But instead of books, the rows of shelves held artifacts. As far as he could tell, none was the type of ancient handiwork that would interest treasure hunters. No gold, silver, or valuable stones. No sign of a single piece of the vast treasure that Croesus had donated for a single reading: one hundred seventeen bricks of precious metals, a gold lion weighing five hundred seventy pounds, a four-and-a-half foot statue of his pastry cook, and a variety of other treasures. The entire fortune had long ago vanished, claimed by emperors and kings and others. Nero alone had stolen five hundred gold statues from Delphi.
Most of the shelves were stacked with row after row of hand-size tablets on which were inscribed ancient read ings. A dozen or so were laid out on the long table where Dorian did most of her work. 'Been catching up on
