'I did not.'
'I'm going.' He backed out of the stall, and moved to the adjoining one. But as he saddled the horse, Dorian blocked the doorway.
'I haven't always done the right thing, Indy,' she said in a soft voice. 'I've let Alex manipulate me. But that's over. I swear. I can help you get your friends away from him. I'll prove to you that I'm not what you think.'
'Thanks, but I'll work on it myself.'
'If you go to the hotel, you will be killed.' She said it matter-of-factly. 'That is exactly what Alex expects you to do. He won't kill them until he has you. They are his bait. If you want to live, hide until morning. I'll bring your friends to the temple at eight-thirty.'
He thought about it. She was probably right about the hotel. He had little chance of getting Shannon and Conrad away from Mandraki without at least one of them getting killed. 'Make it earlier.'
'No. Eight-thirty. Be on time. No later.'
Indy knew from the schedule in Dorian's locker that the vapors would rise at 8:38. What the hell did she have in mind now? But then what choices did he have?
It came down to this: Dorian was the least trustworthy person he knew, but at the moment her help seemed his only option.
'I'll be there.'
20
New Rising
Fog covered the ruins like piles of freshly cut wool. Panos could see only a vague outline of the thatched hut where he had spent the night, and turned away from it in disgust. Despite the fog, he was confident that Belecamus—Pythia—would be here within minutes. She would be drawn to the vapors just as the rich and powerful would soon be attracted to Delphi like ants swarming over spilt honey. Soon, Delphi would flourish in a renaissance of the ancient ways. The Oracle's cof fers would weigh heavy, and a new temple would be built on the ruins of the old. There would be no place for thatched huts at Delphi. He would make sure of that.
The hut had been Doumas's way of connecting the past with the present, but it had been a feeble link in compari son to the potent strength of the Return. But Doumas had been a contradiction. He had ponderously sought to un derstand the Order of Pythia in the same way that he had studied old crumbling buildings. Although he was never actually inducted into the Order, he had become privy to many of its secrets. But in the end he must have been jealous of the power the oracle priest would amass. He'd foolishly tried to change the tide of history and erase the inevitable return of Pythia.
No, that wasn't quite right, Panos realized. Doumas had wanted the power himself. That was why he had attacked him, instead of Pythia. But of course he was unsuccessful, and his life had abruptly ended in failure. Thanks to Grigoris, Panos had escaped a similar end.
In the two hours since he'd gotten up, Panos had eaten nothing, and he would continue fasting until after the rising. This morning he would ask Pythia how the king would respond to what had happened yesterday, and how long it would take before her power was widely recog nized. The more specifics he knew, the better he could plan.
He'd spent more than an hour this morning seated on the dirt floor of the hut figuring out how long the spans between risings would be in a week, a month, a year, and longer. At first, he had been worried about how rapidly the span between risings was increasing. Soon there would be only one rising a day, then one every two days. But he realized that as the quiet periods became longer, the speed of change slowed down.
By the time there was a week between risings, it would take ten weeks before the quiet time expanded by another hour, and two hun dred forty weeks or almost five years before the breaks would increase to eight days. After that, the increases would be even slower. Decades would pass before the breaks were two weeks long.
He heard footsteps approaching from behind the hut. She was here. He knew it. But then Grigoris emerged from the fog. 'What are you doing here? I told you to stay away this morning.'
'They are coming, Father. I saw Pythia leave the hotel.'
'I knew she would,' Panos snapped, then forced a smile. 'Thanks for telling me.' He had a hard time staying angry with Grigoris, especially so soon after his son had saved him from tumbling into the crevice.
Grigoris always tried to do what he thought was right, just as Panos had taught him. But he'd also taught him to obey his com mands, and that lesson was the one Grigoris had the most difficulty following.
'But I thought you would want to know that she is not alone.'
Indy had slept in what he had hoped would be the least likely place that Mandraki would look for him.
The fact that he was still alive told him that the cave above the ruins had been a good choice.
Now, he slowly worked his way along the ledge. He couldn't even see his feet through the fog. It was much thicker than yesterday, making the walk particularly treach erous. One step in the wrong place and he would plunge down the mountainside. The walk was nothing less than a metaphor of what his life had become. One wrong move and he was dead.
As he carefully worked his way around the boulders, he thought back to those first days here when he had spent hours waiting and watching as he timed the risings of the vapors. He'd been terribly bored and restless. Now he was neither. The struggle for survival had honed his senses, making him keenly aware and interested in what was going on around him.
Finally, he reached the end of the ledge and moved along the path. By quarter after eight he was still on the mountainside a couple of hundred feet above the ruins. But when he gazed down at ancient Delphi all he saw was a harsh white haze that looked like a fresh blanket of snow.
He climbed down the rest of the way, not bothering to hide; he was already hidden, but so was everyone else, if indeed there was anyone. He stopped as he reached the Sacred Way and peered through the fog. He couldn't see
more than ten feet in front of him. He moved forward, looking from side to side with each step.
Then he heard voices. He listened. Yes, voices like the distant gurgling of water. He couldn't tell which direction they were coming from, or how far away they were. He moved ahead again, stopping every few feet to listen. Had he imagined the voices? Maybe they were the collective babble of all the Pythias drawn back to wander in the fog looking for their sacred Delphi, or to greet the new Pythia. Then again, maybe he hadn't heard anything at all.
Suddenly, the pillars at the entrance of the temple loomed in front of him. He pulled out his watch. It was 8:33. The vapors would rise in five minutes. He looked around, wondering what to do.
'Jones, where are you?' It was Dorian's voice and it echoed through the temple. So she
He peered past the tilting columns toward the crevice. 'Right here,' he shouted.
'Come up here. Right now,' Dorian commanded. 'I have your friends.'
He hesitated.
'Quickly. I've kept my side of the bargain.'
He walked into the temple, and approached the mound. 'How do I know?'
'Tell him,' Dorian said.
'We're here with her. No one else,' Shannon said. But Indy thought he detected a sharp edge to his voice.
'Get up here, Jones.'
He stopped at the bottom of the mound. 'Why up there?'
'The vapors, of course. I want you here to see what happens.'
He was halfway- up the mound before he saw three silhouettes shrouded in mist. 'What's the point?'
'You'll see.'
He kept climbing, and now he could make out more
details. Shannon and Conrad stood to one side of Dorian. Neither was handcuffed. Why hadn't they tried to get away? Then he saw the reason. Dorian raised a revolver, and aimed it at him.
'Sorry, Indy,' Shannon said. 'She was holding it on my head.'
He heard a sound behind him, and realized what he had feared all along; it was a trap.
Panos didn't like the fact that the two outsiders were with her, or that Jones was climbing the mound to join
