The pythia rolled her eyes.
Maddie intervened. “If the kid messed anything up in your office, he’ll fix it. Right?” she glanced at Zach menacingly.
The tyro gulped and gave a vigorous nod. “Absolutely.”
Griffin folded his arms across his chest, unconvinced.
The pythia decided it was time to change the subject. “Zach, did you manage to crack any part of our riddle while we were gone?”
The boy brightened. “Yeah. I worked with Griffin’s research team, and we came up with a really good possibility.” He hesitated. “Can I sit down?”
Cassie was about to slide to the middle of the couch when Maddie forestalled her.
“Take the chair.” The chatelaine gestured toward the purple armchair in the corner.
“That’s Gamma’s seat,” the boy protested softly.
“It’s just a piece of furniture,” Maddie countered. “We all need to stop tiptoeing around Faye’s absence and get on with business as usual. You know that’s what she’d say if she was here.”
Zach crossed the room and sat gingerly on the very edge of the chair. Balancing the computer on his lap, he powered it up.
“I assume we’ll be heading in a northerly direction now,” Griffin hinted.
“Yup, way north from Australia.” Zach murmured, his attention focused on his computer. He tapped several keys and waited for the screen to refresh. Then he rose and placed the laptop on the coffee table, so they could all see the result.
Leaning forward, Cassie read the caption on the map which the screen displayed. “Sakhalin Island?”
“Sakhalin Island,” Zach repeated. “Six hundred miles long and only sixteen miles wide at its narrowest point. With the Sea of Japan to the southwest and the Sea of Okhotsk to the northeast, it’s been the center of a tug of war between Russia and Japan for centuries. The Russians claimed the northern half of the island and the Japanese claimed the south. That set-up continued until the end of World War Two when Russia saw a chance to take over. Stalin’s troops invaded the southern part of the island and kicked the Japanese out altogether. Given the oil and gas reserves that were discovered there, Sakhalin has turned into a prime piece of real estate.”
Griffin moved forward to peer down at the screen. He turned to Zach with puzzlement. “While it may hold great economic value, why did you think it would hold any value for the purposes of our artifact quest?”
“There are a couple of reasons,” the tyro explained. “For starters, some of the island’s natives are Ainu. That’s a tribe descended from Jomon Culture.”
“Which was matristic,” Griffin said.
“Exactly,” Zach agreed. “Jomon Culture flourished mainly in neolithic Japan between 16000 BCE and 300 BCE. After that, the overlords from China moved in, and it was goodbye golden age, hello patriarchy.”
“Look at you,” Cassie remarked. “All grown up and spouting factoids.”
Zach blushed self-consciously. “Everybody around here has started calling me ‘Griffin Junior.’”
“I fail to note any resemblance,” the scrivener remarked dryly.
“Anyway,” Zach forged ahead. “The Ainu are descended from the Jomon and still hold onto some matristic customs. It seems pretty logical that the Minoans would look for a female-friendly culture in the north to help stash their most precious relic.”
“Around 1000 BCE when the Minoans were visiting Asia, vestiges of matrism still remained in Korea and Japan,” Griffin objected. “They would have had no need to travel as far north as Sakhalin Island.”
“Which brings me to another reason why we picked it,” Zach countered. “Geography. Your riddle says to go past the golden road of Boreas where his islands kill the sea. We still don’t know what the golden road means but Boreas means that you should go north and look for islands that can kill the sea. Sakhalin Island is only separated from the mainland of Asia by four and a half miles across the Tartar Strait. The strait itself is narrow and shallow. When approached from either the south or the north, it looks like a dead-end bay where the sea dies. Early explorers were fooled into turning back the way they came, not knowing they could pass right through the channel to the other side.”
“That’s plausible,” Griffin nodded. “The island and the strait might be said to ‘kill the sea.’”
“But wait, there’s more,” Zach added impishly. “In the winter, the Tartar Strait freezes solid.”
“That would kill the sea alright,” Cassie agreed.
“Aside from which, the second line of the riddle has some connection to Sakhalin too.”
“Which is?” the scrivener prompted.
“It says to follow a great river. The Amur River flows across half of Asia and empties into the Tartar Strait right across from the northern tip of Sakhalin Island.”
“I’m sold,” Cassie concluded. She glanced at Griffin quizzically.
He seemed to be pondering the evidence for several moments. Eventually, he glanced up and gave the tyro a rueful smile. “Well done, Zachary. You may put me out of a job one day.”
The boy grinned with relief. “I’m glad you think so.” He paused. “Not the part about taking your job, I mean.”
“Yes, I quite understand.”
“It’s good that you two are on board with the location,” Maddie said. “I’ve already sent a recon team to Sakhalin to see if they can turn up anything before you get there. I also contacted the Jomon trove keeper and told him to meet you once you’re ready to leave for the next leg of your trip.”
“We should wait a week, just to be convincing,” Cassie said. “Daniel might get suspicious if I instantly announced I got a vibe about Japan.”
“That makes sense,” Maddie concurred.
“A short delay will give me time to do a bit of tidying in my office,” Griffin added sotto voce.
Everyone chose to ignore the comment.
In a sheepish voice, Zach asked, “I don’t suppose you’ve gotten an update on Hannah, have you?”
Cassie gave him a consoling smile. “Don’t worry. Daniel promised to check in on her as soon as he got to the compound. He said he’d call if there’d been any
