The trio had been instructed to meet their contact at an address in a suburb that catered to technology companies. The steel and glass skyscrapers which sprang upward from acres of palm trees, jogging paths, and carefully-tended flower beds gave the impression of a Silicon Valley business park. A high-speed elevator shot them to the top floor where the trove keeper’s office was located.
The tyro staffing the reception area acknowledged their arrival by a curt nod. “Please go in. She’s expecting you.”
Erik strode forward and opened the door to the inner office. “Anybody home?” he asked tentatively.
The room was decorated along post-modern minimalist lines in shades of black and grey. Seated at a sleek desk against a curtain wall of windows, the trove keeper glanced up from her computer. A delighted smile spread across her face.
“Erik, my goodness, I haven’t seen you in ages.” The woman rose, crossed the room and hugged the paladin, kissing him on the cheek before releasing him. “I’d always hoped you’d find a reason to visit my country one day.”
Cassie stiffened at the welcome her teammate was receiving. A girl in every port. Even the southern tip of India. So typical!
To her surprise, the trove keeper gave the same treatment to Griffin. “And you!” she exclaimed in mock-surprise. “Somebody finally pried you out of the vault, I see.” She hugged him and then, standing on tiptoe, pecked him on the cheek.
Before Griffin could perform any introductions, the woman spun on her heel and fixed Cassie with her full attention. “You see I saved the best for last. Our new pythia!” She rushed forward to give Cassie’s hand an enthusiastic shake. “I finally get the chance to meet you!”
“Cassie, this is Damini Pandala,” Griffin interjected. “She’s the Malabar trove keeper.”
“Malabar?” Cassie echoed.
“It’s rather a catch-all term for anything matristic that happened in southern India,” the scrivener explained. “Since this area used to be known as the Malabar Coast in ancient times, the name stuck.”
The pythia gave the trove keeper a tentative smile. “Hello, Damini, it’s nice to meet you.”
“Oh please, call me Dee,” she replied breezily. “Everybody does.”
“That’s not an Indian name, is it?” Cassie was struck by Dee’s accent. It was American English with only the slightest wisp of something foreign in the inflection.
“No. I earned my degree in anthropology at UC-Berkeley. I’ve probably spent more years in the States than I have here.” Dee paused to give Cassie’s face a searching look. “There’s just a hint of your sister in your eyes. She had unusual eyes too, you know. All the better to see what the rest of us can’t.”
The pythia stepped back, flustered by the keen observation.
Addressing the trio, Dee said, “Everybody, come in. Sit down, and we’ll have a nice long chat. You have to tell me the latest gossip from headquarters.” She gestured toward an alcove which had been fitted up as a conference area with couches and chairs surrounding a central coffee table. The alcove’s windows offered a spectacular view of the garden belt below. Late afternoon sunlight glinted off the windows of high rises sprouting above the green canopy in the distance.
As they were sorting out the seating arrangements, Cassie took a moment to study the trove keeper. Dee must have been in her early forties. Not much taller than Cassie herself, she was quite attractive—dressed in a tailored pantsuit which did little to hide her curvy figure. Her thick black hair was styled in a smooth pageboy, her nails were perfectly manicured in a subdued shade of red, and her make-up gave her skin the texture of bisque porcelain. Cassie remembered Griffin’s explanation about skin tone and social rank in India. Dee’s family must have come from one of the upper Hindu castes—Brahmin or Kshatriya. Not a hair out of place, she appeared to be a typical buttoned-down businesswoman, but there was something more to her. She exuded an odd combination of flirtiness and intensity. What would you call that? Cassie remembered an old-fashioned word that seemed to fit—vivacious. The pythia blinked herself back to attention when she realized Dee had asked her a question.
“Can I offer you some refreshments?” the trove keeper repeated.
“I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee,” Cassie suggested weakly. Bouncing around from one end of the country to another had aggravated her old friend—jetlag.
“Oh, I can do better than that.” Dee smiled archly. She walked out to the reception area and murmured instructions to her assistant.
“It will take just a few minutes,” she explained, returning to her seat. She swept them all with a bright gaze. “I don’t get many visitors. What an exciting day this is.”
“Is your trove stored onsite?” Cassie asked doubtfully as she glanced at the ultra-contemporary surroundings.
Dee gave a slight moue. “Yes and no. The physical artifacts are all stashed away in a secure location in the Western Ghats. That’s a mountain range to the east of here. These days, my job consists of collecting other things—the kind that can be stored digitally.”
“Like what?” Cassie registered surprise.
Without answering, Dee stood up and returned to her desk. She selected what looked like a piece of parchment encased in plastic. Bringing it back to the alcove, she handed it to Cassie. “Like this,” she replied.
Cassie scanned the document, but it was written in some ancient language she couldn’t decipher. She handed the sheet back to Dee, still puzzled.
“I’m in the business of collecting legends, myths, fragments of folk tales,” the trove keeper elaborated. “Anything that will help me to reconstruct the matristic origins of the people of the Malabar Coast. There are megalithic sites in Kerala dating back to 6000 BCE which show a connection to the IVC. It may well be that the matriarchal traditions which are present here can trace their roots to the Indus Valley. I’ve only just begun to tug on that thread. Time will tell if I can establish the
