Daniel yelped.
Brittle pieces of clay shattered and fell to the ground exposing a shallow niche about eighteen inches high and a foot deep. It housed a round disk resting on a thin metal rod.
Griffin hurried forward to inspect the discovery. A perplexed look crossed his face as he tried to lift the disk. “It’s connected to the supporting rod, and that must be fused to something deeper inside the wall. I can’t remove it.” He hesitated, pressing down with his hand. “Oh, my goddess!”
The others drew in closer.
“What is it?” Lars urged.
The scrivener drew back in surprise. “I believe it’s a spring scale.”
“For what?” Daniel demanded.
“For weighing things,” Cassie answered flatly.
“But how did they...” Griffin trailed off.
“I’m only getting snapshot images of what they did here,” the pythia hedged. “This wasn’t originally a wall. It was a blind tunnel that goes back maybe twenty feet.” She closed her eyes to concentrate, one hand touching the scale. “They built a huge contraption inside. After it was finished, they stacked rows of stones in front of it and cemented them together to make a wall. Last of all, they covered everything with clay so that it would match the rest of the cave.” She opened her eyes. “The only parts that were meant to be exposed are the niches and the scales.”
“For all their elaborate efforts, I’m sure some impatient barbarian might simply have smashed through the wall and taken what was inside,” the scion observed.
“If he did, he’d have gotten a nasty surprise.” Cassie directed her flashlight to a point above their heads. “Do you see that deep crevice running across the ceiling?”
Her companions peered upward where a dark fissure ran the entire length of the cavern.
“The Minoans did that,” Cassie explained. “They figured out where the cave was weakest and then they chiseled along that rift to weaken it even more.”
“You’re saying they deliberately compromised the structural integrity of this entire cavern?” Griffin studied the ceiling. “But why?”
“Look at where that fracture ends,” the pythia instructed. She trailed her beam across the ceiling to the wall holding the scales. “The fault line runs right through the ceiling of the blind tunnel. The Minoans set a booby trap to split that gap wide open if somebody takes a sledge hammer to this wall.”
“I see.” The scrivener’s tone was grim. “Theoretically, any strong percussive blow might trip the mechanism and bring the roof crashing down.”
“Yup,” Cassie agreed. “The Minoans intended that anybody who used force to grab their artifact wouldn’t make it out of here alive. They’d be crushed by the mountain and the Sage Stone would stay buried here forever.”
“It’s clear that if we want to retrieve the relic, we need to play by the rules,” Daniel cautioned.
“No argument there.” The pythia returned to the task of cracking the next clay lily seal, though she tapped more gently this time. Her companions stepped forward to help chip away at the remaining seals.
“They did something like this to conceal the artifact at Napata, didn’t they?” the scrivener asked of no one in particular. He seemed to be thinking out loud. “Of course, that was on a much smaller scale.”
“On a much smaller scale?” The pythia raised an eyebrow. “You couldn’t leave it alone, could you?”
“Someone had to say it,” Griffin protested in mock innocence.
They all worked steadily at their tasks until the niches and their contents had been fully revealed.
“Five hidden scales,” Lars said.
“Five,” Daniel repeated. “As in five artifacts?”
“Yes, of course. It’s obvious now, isn’t it?” the scrivener said.
In the face of their blank stares, he hastened to explain. “We’ve forgotten about the last line of the riddle. ‘Her reliquary holds the key.’”
Stepping back a few feet, Griffin swept the beam of his flashlight across the scales. “This wall, my friends, is the reliquary mentioned in the riddle. A repository for precious relics. In our case, the five artifacts retrieved on this quest.”
“I suppose the scales are weighted to match the relics,” the scion ventured.
“I would assume so,” Griffin concurred. “And if the weights don’t tally exactly, then the hiding place of the Sage Stone will never reveal itself.”
“That means our final task is simple.” Daniel sounded relieved. “All we have to do is place the artifacts on the scales.”
“Not so fast.” Cassie was eyeing the middle scale. “This metal plate is smaller than the rest.” She pushed it with her fingers. “It doesn’t move downward, so it isn’t a scale at all.” She directed her flashlight at the plate. “There’s also a hole right in the center. This must be where the labrys key fits.”
The pythia ran her fingers across the wall below the middle disk, crouching down where the wall met the floor. “The Sage Stone is sitting right behind another clay seal here.”
They all knelt around her.
“It’s inside a metal box,” Cassie said. “I just got a mental flash. Its container is being held in place by that scale contraption. Once we turn the labrys key in the lock, the box will be ejected through the final clay seal.”
Lars rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “So, we go to work now?”
“No, we stop here.” Cassie stood up.
“What?” the guide cried in disbelief.
“She’s right.” Daniel rose too. “We promised my father that we wouldn’t take any action until he arrived on the scene.”
“We don’t have what we need to release the box anyway,” the pythia said. “All we can do is go back home to arrange a rendezvous.” Turning to Daniel, she added pointedly, “Unless, of course, your old man plans to double-cross us.”
“He would never do that!” the scion protested.
“More to the point, he can’t do that,” Griffin said, rising and dusting off his hands. “We have custody of the key.”
“And he has custody of Hannah and Erik, not to mention the other four artifacts,” Daniel reminded them.
Cassie and Griffin exchanged a swift glance, both of them realizing that Daniel still believed the Nephilim held the original relics rather than copies.
“And that’s how you guarantee honor among
