Cassie eyed the entrance. The walls were practically touching, and the interior was pitch black. “This’ll be fun,” she murmured to herself.
“We will need lights to go forward,” Ortzi suggested.
Everyone reached into their backpacks for flashlights.
Once past the entrance, a jagged corridor sloped downward leading into total darkness. They were forced to travel single file.
Ortzi went first to act as their guide. He was followed by Cassie and then her two teammates.
It only took a few moments for them to walk far enough into the recesses of the cave to be completely cut off from daylight. As the ground grew more uneven, Cassie stumbled over a rock protruding from the cavern floor. She bumped against one of the walls and threw out a hand to steady herself.
“Oh oh,” she said and immediately felt herself falling.
The last thing she heard as Erik rushed to catch her was, “Here we go!”
She felt she was still in the cave but farther inside than the place she had just been standing. She observed a group of five people all holding torches. They were studying a section of cavern wall which had been inscribed with the familiar lily symbol. Then something quite unexpected happened. One of their number turned around to face Cassie. It was an old woman with long grey hair. Cassie remembered glimpsing her at the stone circle on Ida. The woman looked her directly in the eye and smiled. Cassie tried to move her lips to speak, but nothing came out. Then she was back in the present.
“Not too bad this time,” Erik said, grinning. “You didn’t toss your cookies.”
She realized she was sitting on the ground with her back resting against Erik’s shoulder. His arms were wrapped around her.
She glanced at him, flustered. “Sorry you had to catch me again.”
“Any time,” he said, a trifle too softly.
Even more flustered by his tone, she scrambled to get to her feet. Still dizzy, she listed to the side. “Whoa!” she exclaimed.
Griffin and Erik each grabbed one of her elbows.
“I take it they were here?” the scrivener hinted tactfully.
“Yuppers!” Recovering her balance, Cassie darted past Ortzi. She marched directly to the spot where her vision had shown her the lily. Training her flashlight on the wall, she revealed the now all-too-familiar symbol.
“Eureka!” Griffin shouted.
“It was the oddest thing,” Cassie commented to her companions. “This vision was different than the one I had on Ida. Last time, I was standing alongside them after they’d placed the artifact in the ground. I didn’t become one of them, and they didn’t know I was there. I was just a bystander watching the whole scene. But this time...” She paused. “It was like we were skyping across time.”
“I beg your pardon?” Griffin peered at her in confusion.
Cassie continued. “One of them was an old woman with long grey hair. I remembered seeing her in my last vision. I got the impression she was the leader of the expedition. Sort of like their high priestess. Anyway, this time she turned around and looked right at me. Then she smiled.”
“You mean she saw you?” Erik asked incredulously.
The pythia nodded. “Yeah, I think so. I tried to say something to her, but that’s when I came out of the trance.”
“How very extraordinary,” Griffin murmured.
“Anyway, I could feel that the artifact is hidden in a recess in the ground, right below the lily,” Cassie added.
The others immediately focused their flashlights on the spot she indicated. Ortzi bent down to scrape the loose gravel away from the cavern floor.
With an exclamation of surprise, he said, “Look!”
They all saw it—the faint outline of a square.
The men bent down and dug furiously around the outline, loosening gravel with the trowels they had brought along for the purpose. Eventually, they unearthed a small metal box and dragged it to the surface. They pried the lid off and eagerly craned their necks to see the contents.
Cassie pointed her flashlight into the box. It revealed nothing but empty space. “Oh no!” she cried in dismay. “I was afraid this would happen sooner or later. We were really pushing our luck to expect that all the relics would have stayed put after three thousand years.”
At that moment, the scuffle of footsteps could be heard from deeper inside the cave. In unison, they shot the beams of their torches toward the sound.
A thin, grave-looking man emerged from the shadows and stood before them. “You will not find what you came for. It is not here.”
“I’m becoming rather annoyed at hearing those words so frequently on this trip,” Griffin complained.
“Who are you?” Erik challenged.
“Someone who has been waiting for you a very, very long time.”
Ortzi began to fire questions at the stranger in Euskara. A rapid exchange of dialogue occurred between the two men while the Arkana team swiveled their heads from one side to the other vainly attempting to catch some meaning from the conversation.
Eventually, the trove keeper threw his hands up in disgust. “He wants to sit down outside and explain things to you.”
“Fine by us,” the security coordinator assented.
They all filed silently out of the darkness and seated themselves in a semi-circle at the mouth of the cave.
In the outdoor light, Cassie could see the man’s features more clearly. She was surprised that although he spoke the Basque language, he possessed the olive complexion and dark eyes of a typical Spaniard. Tall and lean with long facial features, he must have been around forty.
“My name is Iker Mendiluze,” he began. “As I said, I have been waiting for you a very long time.”
“Why’s that?” Erik asked suspiciously. “Did somebody put you onto our trail?”
Iker gave a thin smile. “Nothing so simple as that. I am the most recent in a long line of those who have been waiting and watching for this day.”
“This day?” Cassie echoed.
“For the day when a seer with grey eyes would come to this cave—a young woman with the second sight who would know immediately where the treasure was hidden.”
“Who told you about
