Hannah poked her head out the front door. She called to the boy loud enough for Leroy to hear without his fancy spy equipment. “Zach, Granny Faye needs something from the grocery store. Would you mind driving me?”
“Sure thing,” he called back. “And don’t forget to remind Gamma that she needs to call my dad about the car for prom night.”
“OK, I’ll tell her right now.” Hannah ducked back inside to transmit the message.
The boy leaned against the door of his car and waited for her.
A few minutes later, she ran out to meet him, giving him a quick kiss before climbing into the car.
Hunt raised his eyebrows in surprise. So that’s how it was. Hannah had surely taken to the Fallen World in a big way. A boyfriend. Prom night. The preacher would fairly blow a gasket if he could see her now. The cowboy ducked down as the two of them tore off down the street. Then he sat up straight behind the steering wheel to assess everything that he’d learned. He knew all the players now. Little Hannah had a boyfriend named Zach. The old lady’s name was Faye. She was probably the boyfriend’s grandma since he’d called her Gamma. Hunt knew for a fact she wasn’t related to Hannah even though the gal had called her Granny Faye.
It was pretty clear that nobody in that house knew squat about the doodads or the trio or Mr. Big. A kindly old lady looking after a teenager. A teenager with a boyfriend. It was about as vanilla as could be. He’d continue to scope out the place for a week or so just to be sure, but Hunt had seen enough for one day. He grinned at the thought that his long-standing loose end was about to be snipped off for good. He started his engine and drove off.
Chapter 18—The Pits
One hundred and fifty miles to the east of the ruins at Erlitou, the Arkana group continued their search for a trace of the Minoans. After checking into a chain hotel in the contemporary city of Anyang, they took a short drive to the outskirts of town and stepped back three thousand years in history.
Jun steered their car into a gravel lot outside what appeared to be a public park. They walked through the gates and headed toward a long pagoda-roofed building surrounded by trees, grass and an enclosure wall. The layout was much like what Cassie had seen in her vision of Erlitou.
“The ruins of Yin,” Jun announced. “This was once the palace grounds of the Shang Dynasty. They ruled this part of China from 1600 to 1300 BCE after taking control from the Xia.”
“Another legend,” his granddaughter mused softly. She glided toward the exhibit hall, leaving Griffin and Cassie to exchange puzzled looks.
Jun elucidated. “At one time, the Shang were also considered mythical—just like the Yellow Emperor and the Xia Dynasty. That is until this site was discovered in the early twentieth century. Farmers digging in their fields discovered turtle shell fragments strewn about in great numbers. These came to be known as ‘oracle bones’ because the shells were inscribed with writing for divination purposes. A priest would carve a question onto a shell and then the object would be heated. When heat caused the surface to crack, the priest would interpret the cracks in the carved letters to find an answer to the question. After archaeologists began digging in the area where the shells were unearthed, they realized that the original town stretched for eighteen square miles. It’s the largest site found in China to-date. Aside from the palace and other aristocratic dwellings, other structures such as shrines, tombs and workshops were also revealed.”
They reached the exhibit hall and walked inside.
“This is way beyond what I saw in my vision at Erlitou,” Cassie remarked. “Within the space of a couple of hundred years, it looks like civilization took a huge leap forward.”
“Backward.” Rou’s face was somber.
“What do you mean?” the pythia urged.
“You’ll soon see,” the girl warned gloomily.
Jun turned to the pythia. “Cassie, do you recall your impression of the culture that lived at Erlitou?”
“Sure,” she replied. “Rigid, domineering. I didn’t much like the feel of it.”
“Then I imagine you’ll like this far less.” The trove keeper’s tone was even darker than his granddaughter’s.
The four clustered around an exhibit consisting of a deep pit in the floor which had been exposed so visitors could stand on an observation deck and view its contents from above.
“We’re seeing a royal grave which, remarkably enough, escaped looting over the centuries,” Jun explained.
Griffin pointed to an object standing in a corner of the grave. “A bronze battle-axe. The quintessential overlord weapon of choice.”
“Yes, but observe the ornate design,” the trove keeper noted. “You can see how far metal-working techniques progressed since the crude knives found in Gansu a thousand years earlier.”
The scrivener transferred his attention to the plaque describing the grave’s contents. “This pit originally contained the body of Lady Fu Hao. In addition to being the king’s principal wife, she was also a military general and a high priestess.”
“Who says you can’t do it all,” Cassie quipped. “That must mean the Shang were matristic.”
“Hardly,” Griffin countered. “From what little I know of the Shang Dynasty, they were decidedly overlord in their perspective. Fu Hao must have been an extraordinary woman to have achieved such distinction in her own right.” He paused to read further. “In addition to the grave goods, the pit also originally contained the skeletons of six dogs and sixteen humans.”
Cassie rolled her eyes. “Looks like blood sacrifice just reared its ugly head in China.”
“And on a very big scale,” Jun said. “Come this way.”
They followed him to an exhibit of excavated chariots and animal skeletons in harness. Each chariot was meant to be drawn by a pair of horses.
The pythia couldn’t believe her eyes. “You mean they dug a pit
