“A bloodless form of religious genocide,” Griffin noted sardonically. “I’m sure those myths correlated closely with the actual extermination of shamans living in the newly-conquered overlord territories.”
“Speaking of which,” the pythia said. “It’s obvious that your Nu Kwa was based on some kind of matristic shaman until the overlords got hold of her story. So where did the overlords come from? Those barbarians on horseback couldn’t have ridden all the way from the Caspian Sea to carve up China.”
“Ah, but that’s exactly what they did,” Jun countered knowingly.
“But when?” Cassie persisted. “How?”
Without answering at first, Jun glanced around the restaurant. His listeners followed his gaze. Cassie noticed a group of people standing near the entrance and eyeing their table. She glanced down guiltily at their now-empty plates and remembered Jun’s caution to talk fast, eat faster, then leave.
“Maybe we should continue this overlord discussion somewhere else,” she suggested sheepishly.
“A very good idea,” the trove keeper agreed. “We should go to Lanzhou.”
“Lanzhou!” Griffin exclaimed. “Correct me if I’m wrong but that city is over a thousand miles away.”
“Yes, it is,” Jun agreed calmly. “But that is where your quest must begin. You wish to follow the Yellow River to pick up the trail of your Minoan relic, don’t you? What better place to start than where the river itself starts. Lanzhou is near the headwaters, and it also happens to be the place where the overlords first entered China.”
Griffin and Cassie exchanged dubious glances.
“Do you have a better idea of where we should start?” the pythia asked.
“Not at the moment, no.” Turning to Jun, the scrivener said, “Right then. Tomorrow we fly to Lanzhou.”
“Next time, remind me not to unpack my suitcase,” Cassie murmured to her colleague. “I have a feeling Lanzhou won’t be our final stop on this trip.”
Chapter 11—Informed Observer
Daniel’s mind wandered while the sound of his father’s voice droned on in the background. He was sitting in the Nephilim chapel enduring a memorial service for his departed wife, Annabeth. There was no casket as would have been customary. His father’s explanation to the congregation was notably lacking in detail. According to the diviner, Annabeth had passed away unexpectedly at the hospital where she was recovering from mental exhaustion. Circumstances prevented her body from being returned for burial. Daniel eyed the center aisle of the chapel where an open coffin should have been placed. He felt a transitory sense of regret that he would never get the chance to look at her one last time and bid her farewell. He laughed grimly to himself. The phrase almost sounded romantic—bidding farewell to a lost love. But he had loved her, he protested fiercely. An inner twinge of guilt told him otherwise. His conscience couldn’t be fooled. He relented. All right. Perhaps he hadn’t loved her, but at the very least he never wished her any harm and certainly not a death as tragic as hers had been. Perhaps if he’d stayed behind. If he’d defied his father and refused to pursue the fourth relic he might have been able to prevent her collapse. Mere idle speculation, his conscience told him coldly.
He glanced surreptitiously around the chapel. The room could barely hold fifty people, so the event had been limited to close family. Some of his brothers and their principal wives were in attendance. A few of his father’s own wives were there as well. Mother Rachel sat in the foremost pew, her eyes closed to prevent distraction as she drank in every word of the sermon.
The scion turned his attention to the small girl seated next to him. He gave her hand a soft squeeze. She looked up at him solemnly. Her expression showed less of a sense of loss than of confusion. Sarah was his youngest daughter. She’d just turned five and, earlier that day, Daniel had been forced to tell her that her mother was dead. He explained that Annabeth had gone to heaven and that they would all meet again someday. His words had little effect. Notions of heaven and hell meant nothing to a child that young. Sarah only knew that her mother was gone. Of course, Annabeth had been missing from the child’s life for several months now. First, because of the birth and subsequent death of a baby brother and then because Annabeth had been taken away to a hospital. The diagnosis was nervous prostration. It was a dry, clinical description to cover his principal wife’s embarrassing sleepwalking episodes and dramatic hallucinations.
Sarah squirmed on the hard bench and yawned unselfconsciously. Daniel made no move to correct her behavior. It seemed natural, unlike the masks worn by the adult members of the congregation. They might have been so many stone pillars, listening through deaf ears to his father’s fevered exhortations. In a highly improper gesture by the standards of the Nephilim, Daniel put his arm around Sarah’s shoulders and let her nestle against him. She closed her eyes and seemed to drop off to sleep. His other wives reported she was no longer crying in the middle of the night or waking them up calling for her mother. Daniel realized that while his other spouses tolerated her presence, they felt no urge to care for Sarah as her biological mother might have done. They had daughters of their own to consider. The scion felt remorse that he wasn’t spending more time with the girl. Yes, he would make a point of doing that. He needed her to know that she hadn’t been entirely abandoned.
The diviner fulminated for another ten minutes. It was nothing Daniel hadn’t heard before, so he allowed his attention to drift to more immediate concerns. He knew he’d have to produce tangible results in the quest for the next artifact soon or face his father’s wrath. Ostensibly, he still spent his days at the library researching the subject. In actuality, he’d spent the past four months accumulating a storehouse of knowledge
