The Granite Key (Arkana Mysteries) (13 page)

The smile faded from Cassie’s face. She changed the subject. “I’m with you so far but I don’t see a connection between women and domesticated animals. I mean, you said it yourself. If the men were out hunting already, wouldn’t they be the more likely sex to capture an animal that they wanted to tame?”

Griffin looked at her askance. “You can’t be serious.”

She returned a puzzled gaze.

“Try to imagine yourself as a gazelle on the savannah. A man with a pointy stick starts running at you. If you’re an intelligent gazelle in full possession of your faculties, you will take to your hooves and run like the wind. Hunting is hardly an occupation friendly to animals and domestication requires a certain exchange of benefits.”

“But what about the necessity argument?” Cassie objected. “Isn’t it a hunter who has a greater need to supply a dependable source of meat for the tribe?”

“You’re forgetting about the greatest need of all,” Griffin countered. “The need to feed a newborn infant.”

Cassie tilted her head, trying and failing to connect the dots. “Go ahead. Unpack that one for me.”

“Right. As far as we can determine, the earliest species of animal which was domesticated was the wild goat. Goat’s milk is of a similar consistency to human milk. Much more so than cow’s milk. If lactation proved difficult for a new mother, it stands to reason that she would be motivated to make the acquaintance of the nearest friendly goat—offering food and protection from predators in exchange for milk. Cows were domesticated for the same reason. Though it is possible that other species, such as the horse and dog, were domesticated by males, the process of taming animals is far more likely to have begun with the females of the tribe.”

“You have an answer for everything, don’t you,” Cassie observed. She was secretly disappointed that she hadn’t tripped him up on anything yet. He and Maddie had both made some radical claims about invention and the girl wasn’t willing to blindly believe everything they told her just yet.

“Research is my life. It’s hard not to,” Griffin admitted.

“Well, I have one more for you. What about writing? How do you connect that one to a female inventor?”

Griffin sat back in his chair with the faintest hint of smugness apparent in his smile. “And I thought you were going to ask me something difficult.”

“OK, enlighten me Mr. Librarian.”

“It’s Scrivener, if you please. Mr. Scrivener.”

She could tell he was enjoying this.

“The connection between women and writing is fairly easy to establish. For one thing, calendar sticks are a form of symbolic marking and we have already established that these were invented by women. Aside from which, we’ve also established that women were the most plausible inventors of pottery.”

Cassie’s eyes narrowed. “What’s pottery got to do with it?”

“The earliest symbolic script is found on clay pots. Until the bronze age, pottery-making was a female occupation.”

“Oh, I heard the earliest writing was on clay all right. Clay tablets in Sumeria around 3000 BCE and the writers were male.” Cassie was proud that she paid attention in history class that day.

Griffin seemed unconcerned with her objection. “Sumerian cuneiform is not, in point of fact, the earliest writing. Proto-writing goes back to about 5000 BCE though it’s likely we may uncover artifacts which will move that date even earlier. We speculate that writing was originally used for ritual purposes, on objects needed for religious rites. In fact, the symbols found on early pottery are carried through to scripts found three thousand years later in other parts of the world so we know they were something more than wiggly lines carved into a pot.”

Cassie threw up her hands. “OK, you win. You’ve convinced me.”

“You needn’t sound so disappointed about it,” Griffin protested. “I should think you would be pleased to know that the female of the species has so many illustrious inventions to her credit.”

“I suppose,” Cassie grinned. “I just hate to think that I’ve spent the last fourteen years of my life learning facts in school that aren’t true.”

While she was speaking, Griffin had gotten up and started rummaging through drawers and bookcases again. He was muttering to himself until he finally found what he was searching for. With a triumphant, “Aha! I’ve got you at last,” he dug the object out of the back of a desk drawer and returned to his seat next to Cassie. Holding up the article, he said, “Tell me what you think of this.”

Cassie gasped. In his hands, he was holding the stone ruler. “How did you get it back?”

Griffin smiled. “We didn’t. It’s just a replica that we built here but I’d like your opinion. Does it look anything like the original?”

Cassie took the ruler from him and examined it for several seconds from every angle. When she looked up, she perceived Griffin with an entirely new level of respect. “You got it exactly right. This is just like the one that was stolen. Same size, same markings. Even the same color. Everything.”

Griffin seemed pleased at her words. “I’m relieved to hear you say that. We want this to be just right.”

The girl was puzzled. “Why would it matter?”

“If you made a duplicate house key that was a fraction of an inch too big to fit the lock on your door, do you think it would work?”

“I get your point. But it sure doesn’t look like it would unlock anything.”

Griffin took the object back and considered it. “It may not unlock a physical location. It’s far more likely that it unlocks information of some kind.” He hesitated and looked away for a second. “I’m very sorry to have to ask you this, but do you think you could describe to me the encounter Sybil had with her attacker? Precisely what did they say to each other?”

Cassie’s face drained of color. “I don’t want to think about that.”

“But you must,” Griffin’s tone was urgent. “So much depends on the information only you can give us. I know how difficult this must be for you. Please try.”

The girl gave a deep sigh and shut her eyes, trying to remember. “They didn’t say much. He kept asking her where the key was. She said she didn’t know what he was talking about. They struggled, she fell and then there was shattered glass everywhere. Sybil didn’t get up.” The girl blinked several times to wipe away the memory and a few fresh tears.

“He wasn’t specific about the name of the key or the language of it?”

Cassie shook her head. “No, he just called it ‘the key.’ That’s why I didn’t connect that this stone ruler might be some kind of key when I first saw it.” She sighed. “So you don’t recognize the language of any of those doodles on it?”

“Sorry, not yet but some of the glyphs appear vaguely familiar. I know I’ve seen at least a few of these before. I’ll keep searching our records. Something is bound to turn up.”

Cassie felt a sense of foreboding. “I sure hope you figure it out before Cowboy does. If he didn’t mind leaving a dead body behind to get it, it can’t unlock anything good.”

Chapter 22
– Damnation Motivation

Abraham found himself standing in the middle of a rope bridge. It swayed precariously over a flaming gorge. He could feel the heat from below, roaring upward to bake his face, his clothing. He imagined he saw a face in the flames. A demon leering at him. A demon with his own features. At the opposite end of the bridge he saw the Lord staring at him. His father was there too and behind him scores of Diviners past. Abraham looked down and realized he held the stone key in his palms. He raised his hands in supplication. “Look, I have the key. See, it is here. I have done your will.”

The Lord was unmoved by his cries. He raised his staff and stamped it on the ground. It sent a tremor through the ropes that held the bridge together.

In horror, Abraham watched the ropes fray and the wooden steps begin to fly apart, to disintegrate in the blaze. He ran forward toward the other Diviners. Toward the Lord. They all frowned at him. None reached out a hand to help. He felt himself falling as the bridge dissolved in flame. He felt himself dissolving into the demon shape that came rushing up out of the fire to absorb him.

“Nooooo!” He sat bolt upright in bed, drenched in sweat. An ordinary person might have breathed a sigh of relief that it was just a bad dream. But he was the Diviner. For him, a bad dream was never as simple as that.

***

The following morning, Abraham decided to pay a long overdue visit to his son Daniel. He wanted a progress report. The evil sending of the night before had convinced him that they were running out of time. Fortunately, this was one of the rare days when his son hadn’t sequestered himself in the libraries of the Fallen. He found the young man alone in the compound study room.

Daniel was seated with his back to the door, poring over a stack of volumes he had brought with him from the city. He didn’t turn around to see who had entered. Abraham noted the public library tags on the book spines as he drew up behind his son.

“Father!” Daniel exclaimed in surprise and alarm when he saw who was looking over his shoulder. “I…uh…that is…uh…I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

“I daresay you weren’t.” The old man attempted to soften his fierce gaze. No sense in alarming the boy too much. Nothing could be gained by that. Abraham took a chair across the table.
 
“I see you are hard at work,” he began pleasantly.

“Yes, yes I am.” Daniel bobbed his head in agreement. “I spend most days at the library in the city until Brother Jeremiah comes in the van to bring me home.”

“And what have you learned so far?” The old man kept his tone deliberately mild.

Daniel sighed deeply. “I have made very little progress. At first I tried on my own but it was too difficult navigating the Fallen library records so I finally had to ask for help.”

Abraham felt a shockwave travel down his spine. “You spoke to one of them? You know that our community is set apart. We are God’s chosen ones. We cannot allow ourselves to be contaminated.”

His son looked guilty. “Yes, father, I know but there was no other way. I had to ask a research librarian and he was very kind. Not at all what I expected.”

“Really?” The old man raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“He was dressed very neatly and he wore a gold cross around his neck. He said he was a Christian.” Daniel smiled at the memory. “To me he looked like one of the seraphim. His hair was golden and it curled around his collar. He must have been about thirty. My age.”

“Remember my son that the devil often appears in a pleasing shape. He adopts the guise of the young and fair, the better to gain the trust of the unwary.”

Daniel frowned slightly, unconvinced. “His name was David and he seemed very knowledgeable. He had the most beautiful blue eyes
—
”

Abraham cut in. “And how did this knowledgeable young man help you?”

“He showed me something he called the Internet. A wondrous device that can call up information instantly from anywhere in the world.”

“Yes, I’ve heard of it,” Abraham said darkly. “I feared you might be exposed to its evil influence.”

“Evil?” His son looked puzzled. “How could it be evil? In the space of a day I was able to learn more information than I had been able to accomplish on my own in a week.”

Abraham felt a growing sense of uneasiness. “My son, remember I told you there would be unexpected dangers in the world of the Fallen. This device, this Internet, is a gateway to all sorts of temptations. Only think what other pernicious information is also available to you at the touch of a button. Vile things that no Nephilim ought to know.”

“But father, I was very careful. I asked only about ancient languages and David did all the typing. He knows how to command this Internet machine. I really think it will help us find the answer.”

Abraham’s attention was caught by the title of the book sitting on top of a stack of other library volumes. “What is this?” His tone was deliberately sharp.

“Why, it’s something David thought I might find interesting. A history of comparative religion.”

“Religion is never comparative!” the old man thundered. “Your immortal soul is never comparative!”

His son was taken aback and stammered a protest. “F…Father, he m…meant no harm. I meant no harm by reading it. P…please don’t be angry. I had no idea there were so many other faiths in the world.”

“The faith of the Fallen has nothing to do with us! We are not like them! We are a race set apart!” Abraham sprang out of his chair and pounded his fist on the table for emphasis. “My son, you are being seduced by their world. This is the way their evil influence begins. They convince you there is no harm in anything they say. They draw you in and before you know it, they have taken your soul.
 
Do you understand what you are risking? You would be cut off from us for all eternity!”

Daniel’s eyes grew wide. He said nothing but looked up at his father in shock.

Abraham could feel the shadow of the outer world inching closer to his flock. Already it was corrupting the mind of his own son. He feared that in his zeal to unlock the secrets of the stone key, he had unlocked a portal for the devil to creep into this bastion of purity. He leaned forward over the table and sighed heavily. “Daniel, nothing has prepared you for dealing with these people. They are not like us. Their ways are treacherous and you must remain on your guard.”

“Yes, of course, sir,” Daniel hastened to agree.

“Remember the task I have set you,” Abraham urged earnestly. “Ask only about ancient languages and nothing else, is that clear?”

“Absolutely. I am sorry, father.” The young man bowed his head in submission. “I wasn’t thinking.”

The Diviner became unnerved as a new thought struck him. “You didn’t tell this David why you wanted the information, did you?”

“Oh, no sir!” Daniel quickly reassured him.
 
“I was very careful. I showed him photographs of the characters I wanted to translate. He didn’t ask me anything about them.”

The old man relaxed his stance. “Good. That’s good. Have you been able to establish anything at all yet?”

Daniel grew thoughtful. “Well, we are certain of all the things it isn’t. With David’s help I’ve been able to rule out every ancient language including Egyptian and Sumerian but that’s where the trouble begins. All the history books in his library say that the earliest written language is Sumerian cuneiform. These characters look nothing like that. They may, in fact, be older and we’ve gone back as far as 3000 BCE.”

Abraham attempted to conceal his dismay. “My son, I don’t think I need to remind you how important it is that you solve this puzzle for me.”

Daniel stared at the tabletop, afraid to meet his gaze. “No father. I know. I would hate to disappoint you.”

Abraham gave a humorless laugh. “It isn’t me you would be disappointing, Daniel. It’s God. This has all been set down in prophecy for nearly a century now. You will find the answer I seek or I fear the Lord will be mightily displeased with both of us.”

***

Daniel listened to his father’s footsteps retreat out of the library. He swallowed hard. He remembered Annabeth’s terror of damnation. Suddenly, her dread didn’t seem so ridiculous anymore.