“So, you’re wondering if the Haudenosaunee have any legends about a Basque fisherman coming to our lands and leaving some kind of artifact here?”
As she asked the question, Cassie felt a strange fluttery sensation in the pit of her stomach. “It’s here. I know it. I’ve gotten the feeling ever since we walked into the trove.”
“You mean the relic is hidden among the People of the Longhouse?” Griffin asked.
“No, I mean it’s here in this building.”
“What!” the scrivener exclaimed. “How can you be sure?”
“I can’t be. I just know it, that’s all.” Cassie turned her attention to Grace. “Do you have any idea where it could be?”
The trove keeper gave her a mysterious smile. “I guess you’re the seer with grey eyes, after all. I just had to make sure.”
“So, you do know.” Cassie pounced. “If it’s in the trove, how did it get here?”
“About a hundred and fifty years ago a white man from across the sea came to talk to the jigonsaseh.”
“You mean the clan mother?” Cassie asked.
“Right,” Grace assented. “He said he was from a place called ‘Ar-Kay-Nah.’”
“Arkana,” Griffin said, his interest piqued. “He must have come from the vault when it was still based in England.”
Grace continued. “He told the jigonsaseh that he would help find a place to hide the things we kept sacred—especially the things that related to the old ways and to honoring the mothers of the tribe. He said if we didn’t hide them someplace safe, that everything would disappear and be forgotten. The jigonsaseh and the women’s council agreed, and that’s when the Haudenosaunee trove was born. We already knew about the cave here and thought it would be a perfect spot to conceal artifacts.” Grace looked briefly around the room. “Of course, we’ve made a few improvements over the years. One of the items that was brought to the trove had a very strange history. It was associated with a white fisherman who came to live among the Onondaga tribe.”
Grace stood up. “I’ll be right back.” She left the room only to return a few minutes later bearing a metal box. She held it out to Cassie. “This belongs to you now.”
Cassie glanced at Griffin. “Who knew? Right on our own doorstep.” She took the box and hesitantly removed the lid. “Oh, my goddess!” she exclaimed. “Will you get a load of that!”
Griffin leaned over to peek inside. “Amazing.” He removed the object. I’d say from a purely monetary perspective that this artifact is the most valuable we’ve seen. Worth quite a bit more than the golden bee.”
“It’s a little bit bigger, too,” Cassie observed. “And there doesn’t appear to be as much writing as usual.”
“That could mean the riddle is either ridiculously simple or well-nigh impossible to decipher,” Griffin replied.
“Which option do you think I’m banking on?” Cassie asked archly.
She took the artifact out of Griffin’s hands, not thinking about the possible risk.
“Cassie, wait!” Griffin said, but his warning came too late.
She was moving quickly through time. Images streamed through her consciousness. The sensation was much like the kurgan dagger but without the violent episodes it contained. First, she was looking across time at the old woman in the cave on Anboto. Then she was standing on the seashore observing a man carrying a box. Another scene in which he was speaking to a band of native warriors in a forest. Then the face of an ancient Haudenosaunee woman. Then a much younger woman. A long house. A little girl. In rapid succession, a series of faces, the style of clothing changing. The passage of time. The final face in the sequence was extremely familiar. Then she was back.
She blinked and stared fixedly at Grace. “You’re her. You’re the one.”
Without needing any explanation, Grace replied, “Yup, I’m the guy.”
Griffin transferred his attention from one speaker to the other. “Please do explain yourselves.”
Without taking her eyes away from Grace, Cassie said to Griffin, “She’s the sentinel. Probably the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of the Basque who left Spain.”
“Oh, I say,” the scrivener remarked. Turning to Cassie, he asked, “You saw that in your vision?”
“It wasn’t so much a vision as sight bytes.” She focused on Grace again. “I saw the lost sentinel when he first came here from the Old World. I got the impression he was adopted by the tribe. He settled down and started a new family. He must have trained somebody to be the sentinel after him, and that knowledge got passed down in each generation to the next sentinel. I saw a lot of faces from right after his time all the way down to now. All the way down to Grace.”
The trove keeper nodded approvingly. “That’s how I was told it all happened. I have to say, Griffin, our new pythia is pretty good. It’s not often that we get a chance to validate an artifact by having somebody who can confirm her findings from personal experience. The story goes that the people who left these relics posted a sentinel at each place,” Grace explained. “They promised to look after the treasure to see that it wasn’t disturbed until the right person came along to claim it. A seer with grey eyes.”
“We didn’t run across any sentinels on Crete or in Turkey,” Cassie objected.
“In all probability, they were killed at some point,” Griffin said quietly. “Both those areas lie directly in the path of overlord destruction. We were very fortunate that the Basque sentinel lived in a much more remote area. Iker and his relatives may, in fact, be the only sentinels who are still in place.”
“That’s grim,” the pythia observed. She placed the artifact back into its box. “We’re gonna have to make a fake of this artifact pronto.”
“Yes, I agree,” said Griffin. “Our best chance of duplicating this relic lies with my team back at the vault. We need to return to Chicago immediately. While we’re there, we can
