The Arkana Mysteries Boxed Set

by N. S. Wikarski

  “Never mind.” Cassie stepped forward and shook hands. “It’s nice to meet you.” Barely pausing, she added, “So, how do you know Erik?”

  At the mention of his name, Fifi turned to gaze at the paladin fondly. “Oh, Erik and I met a long time ago in Paris.”

  “I was working on a recovery in France,” he explained. “Fifi was my contact. Back then, she was getting her doctorate in archaeology at the Sorbonne.”

  “And we became good friends.”

  The accent on the word “friends” made Cassie think they had been a lot more than that. “So, if you’re French, what are you doing here?” she asked abruptly.

  Fifi smiled condescendingly at her ignorance. “My family is of French and Berber descent. You must not be aware that Morocco was once a French Protectorate and still has a strong French influence. In fact, French is the unofficial language of the country.” She finally moved out of the doorway. “Please, you must all come in. My father will be here soon. He was delayed and asked me to make you welcome until he arrived.”

  The office wasn’t very large, but the floor to ceiling windows on the opposite wall gave a commanding view of the campus and the city beyond.

  Fifi retrieved several folding chairs. She grouped them in sets of two on either end of the desk, making sure to seat herself next to Erik at the far side of the room away from the others.

  While Cassie and Griffin were getting settled, Fifi leaned over confidentially and began whispering in Erik’s ear. The paladin darted a swift look at Cassie who was shooting daggers in his direction. He quickly leaned away from Fifi. Undeterred, she lunged in farther and continued to whisper in French. Apparently, Erik knew the language because he replied rapidly in a low voice.

  At that moment, the office door swung open and a burly middle-aged man entered. “I am so sorry to be late.” He walked over to shake hands with his visitors. Cassie noted that his accent was as heavily French as Fifi’s. He had bushy eyebrows over piercing blue eyes. His grizzled beard came to a neat point just above his shirt collar. His hair which had once been the same shade as Fifi’s was now streaked generously with grey. Exuding a sense of benevolent authority, he seemed to be the quintessential college professor except that his tweed jacket didn’t have leather elbow patches.

  “I hope my daughter has made you feel at home.”

  “Oh, absolutely,” Cassie assured him. “She gave us quite a welcome.”

  Not sensing the irony in her comment, Michel nodded curtly. “Good, that’s very good.” He sat down behind his desk and regarded his guests. “It has been a long time since visitors from the Central Catalog have come to this region. We are honored by your visit.”

  “I’m surprised the Arkana even has a trove here,” Cassie observed. “I mean, the Sahara is nothing but sand.”

  Michel chuckled. “Ah, but it wasn’t always that way.”

  “The Sahara didn’t dry out as quickly as other areas did,” Griffin interjected. “By current estimates, the Russian steppes dried out first around 5000 BCE. The Arabian Peninsula followed around 4000 BCE, but portions of the Sahara remained verdant well into historic times.”

  “That is true,” Michel agreed. “It seems unlikely that my ancestors would have evolved in a landscape as harsh as the Sahara has become.”

  “Your ancestors originated here?” Cassie regarded him skeptically. “But you’re white.”

  “Not all native Africans are dark-skinned,” the trove keeper replied. “The most recent DNA studies indicate that the Berber peoples sprang up in east Africa thousands of years ago. Most of them migrated into Europe at some point and then returned via the Iberian Peninsula.”

  “Why bother to come back at all?” Cassie persisted. “I mean the Sahara had to be drying out by the time they made the return trip.”

  “The desiccation was a gradual process that took thousands of years to accomplish,” Michel countered. “There was plenty of time to grow crops and establish cities in North Africa. In fact, a civilization called the Garamantes once flourished in what is now one of the most forbidding parts of the Libyan Desert. They were the ancestors of the Tuareg tribe. Their capital, Garama, was excavated several decades ago revealing subterranean water extraction systems and large-scale agriculture. The great desert is not the lifeless expanse of sand which most people think it is. Quite recently a Berber city purported to be fifteen thousand years old was discovered near Aoussard.”

  “Fifteen thousand years old?” Cassie repeated in disbelief.

  Michel shrugged. “The dating of the ruin is still hotly debated but the fact that an ancient town exists where none was expected calls into question what we assume we know about this part of the world. No, no, there is a rich mine of artifacts to be found here. The Arkana considers much of it valuable since Berber culture is strongly matristic.”

  Cassie peeked furtively at Erik and Fifi who were paying no attention at all to the conversation. To be fair, Fifi was doing most of the whispering. Erik merely listened and nodded. But then again, Cassie was in no mood to be fair. She transferred her attention back to Michel.

  He was still speaking. “The Berber people are a loosely-affiliated group of clans. In ancient times, there was no overarching ideology which connected them together. They owed their loyalty to the members of their individual tribes and no one else. They jealously guarded their independence from one another and from the invaders who repeatedly plagued this part of the world.

  “The most fiercely independent of all the Berber tribes were the Tuareg. They fought with one another as much as they did with everybody else until a remarkable woman united them. Her name was Tin Hinan which means ‘the mother of us all.’ Around 500 CE, this extraordinary queen was able to inspire the various Tuareg clans with a sense of tribal identity. She led them south into the Sahel where they settled and have remained to this day.”

  “What’s the Sahel?” Cassie asked. “I’ve never heard that term before.”

  “It’s the area just to the south of the desert proper,” Griffin explained. “There’s still a minimal amount of rainfall which can support life, so it’s possible to graze flocks and engage in agriculture there.”

  “Yes, that is where Tin Hinan led the Tuareg,” Michel agreed. “The tribe remembers her with gratitude. She was considered a myth until her monumental tomb was found in Algeria. The remains inside were of an unusually tall woman whose bones showed the spinal deformity which had always been attributed to the queen. So, we are sure she existed. Her legacy to the Tuareg has been their strongly matristic social order. Descent is still traced through the mother’s line. Women maintain their own property. The tribe was nominally converted to Islam during the onslaught of the Ottoman Empire but, strangely enough, it is the men who wear the veil and not the women.”

  Cassie laughed. “That’s something I’d like to see.”

  “I have a picture right here,” the professor offered. He quickly thumbed through a volume on his desk and slid it forward. “Here is an example. The men wear a blue turban and cover the lower half of their faces. They never take the turban off in public. Because of the distinctive indigo dye of the garment, the Tuareg are sometimes known as the ‘Blue people.’”

  Cassie leaned forward to study the photo, trying to block out the sound of Fifi and Erik laughing together over some private joke. She wasn’t the only one nettled by their behavior.

  Michel turned to his daughter and said, “Perhaps, Fifi, you would like to catch up with your old friend out in the hall while we discuss business.”

  Not at all fazed by the veiled rebuke, Fifi grabbed Erik by the hand and sprang up out of her chair. “That is a very good idea, papa. Come, Erik. Allons-y.” Without waiting for a reply, she dragged the surprised paladin to his feet and out of the room.

  Cassie could hear the click of her heels as the couple retreated down the hall. Griffin darted a worried glance in her direction. Suppressing her annoyance, she turned her full att
ention back to the professor. “You were saying?”

  Michel seemed relieved to be rid of the distraction. “Yes, we were discussing the strong matristic current in Berber culture. Though the Tuareg are the most obviously matristic tribe, the Berber group as a whole has a long history of female leadership. Take, for instance, Dihya. She was known as Al Kahina by the Arabs. It is a term which means something like ‘priestess-soothsayer.’ She was a Berber prophet and queen who briefly succeeded in driving the Arabs out of Northwest Africa. Unfortunately, she believed that the only way to keep the invaders from returning was to deprive them of the resources they sought.”

  Griffin picked up the narrative. “I’ve read that she ordered all the coastal cities to be burned to the ground and the orchards and fields to be despoiled so that nothing would grow there again. Sadly, her actions may have hastened the desiccation of this part of the world. Also, she managed to alienate the town-dwellers whose property she destroyed. In the end, her plan failed to deter the Muslim hordes from returning, and her territory was recaptured around 700 CE.”

  “So, what happened to her?” Cassie asked.

  “There are various stories,” Michel replied. “Some say she took poison. Others say she was executed after her capture. Still, others say she died fighting the enemy with a sword in her hand. No one knows.”

  “I don’t get it,” Cassie said abruptly.

  Her two listeners regarded her with curiosity.

  “If the Kurgans and Semites turned into male-dominated overlords because their homelands dried up, then why didn’t the same thing happen to the Berbers? The Sahara was drying up too. From everything you’ve told me, it sounds like Berber women still have a lot of clout in spite of that.”

  Michel nodded approvingly. “That’s a very good question.”

  “I think it has to do with migration,” Griffin speculated.

  Cassie turned slightly in her chair to look at him. “How do you mean?”

  “Well, in the case of the Kurgans and the Semites, they migrated outside of their homelands in search of more habitable regions. Or at least the males did.”

  “And the Berbers didn’t.” Cassie completed his thought.

  “If I’m not mistaken, Berber DNA of both the female and male parent is quite homogenous.” Griffin glanced at Michel for confirmation.

  “This is quite true,” the professor averred. “Berbers have historically interbred only with other Berbers.”

  “But how’s that possible?” Cassie persisted. “North Africa was invaded by everybody from the Romans to the Turks. There should be Semitic and Indo-European DNA all over the place.”

  The two men paused to consider the notion.

  Griffin replied first. “I suspect the Berbers were unlike the typical matristic cultures which overlords usually preyed upon.”

  “So, you’re saying all this desiccation started to work on them the same way it had on the Kurgans and the Semites,” Cassie theorized. “They must have learned how to fight because of the competition over resources.”

  “There is a strong militant streak in North African culture,” Michel added. “Much inter-tribal rivalry. After the Sahara began to dry out, the social order became increasingly stratified. The Tuareg, in particular, started preying on their weaker neighbors to the south and instituted a thriving slave trade.”

  “That sounds a lot like overlords to me,” Cassie said.

  “With one essential difference,” Griffin countered. “The Berber tribes never left their homelands. The men never separated off to conquer new territories and steal brides from the ranks of the conquered. That may explain why Berber women retained some semblance of authority.”

  Cassie heard a burst of laughter coming from down the hall. She gritted her teeth and forced herself to concentrate on the conversation instead. “So, the Berbers were better at defending themselves against invaders than your average matristic culture because they’d had it tough for centuries.”

  “Yes, and something more,” Griffin said. “Do you remember why the Basques retained their cultural identity?”

  The pythia thought back to the trio’s time in Spain. “Probably because they lived in the mountains and the terrain gave them a natural defense against invasion.”

  “Precisely.” Griffin smiled approvingly. “In a similar way, the Berbers knew the desert in a way the invaders never could. If pressed too hard, they would simply retreat where no one would follow them.”

  “And quite frankly, the parched overlords were more interested in controlling dependable water supplies,” Michel said. “That meant they focused most of their energy on subduing towns along the coast. Chasing rebels over sand dunes wasn’t a good use of their time.”

  Cassie nodded, satisfied with the explanation. “Well, that all makes sense. Thanks for letting me badger you with questions. I’m still kind of new at this job, so I need a lot of backstory.”

  “It was my pleasure.” Michel beamed back at her. “You are a quick study, my dear young pythia. But tell me how I may help you today. I understand you are searching for megaliths in North Africa?”

  “Perhaps Erik should join us for this part of the conversation,” Griffin suggested.

  Cassie sprang out of her chair. “I’ll get him.”

  She darted to the door before anybody could object, curious to see exactly what was going on in the hall.

  She had to walk down the corridor until it branched at the end. Peering around the corner, she saw Erik pinned against the wall with Fifi pressed up against him whispering something in his ear. They were about to kiss.

  “Ahem!” Cassie cleared her throat emphatically.

  Erik darted a flustered glance in her direction. Fifi stared at her coldly.

  “Play time’s over. We need you back at the meeting.” Without waiting to see if they followed, Cassie spun around and marched back to the professor’s office.

  Chapter 23—Don’t Hate the Playa

  The conversation hung temporarily suspended until Erik and Fifi filed into the room and took their seats. Griffin seemed alarmed by the expression on Cassie’s face.

  “Everything all right?” he whispered anxiously.

  She gave him a grim smile. “Just peachy.”

  Disregarding the temporary interruption, Michel resumed the discussion. “I understand you are searching for megaliths in North Africa. There are several in the immediate vicinity and, no doubt, many more buried beneath the sands of the Sahara.”

  “Papa, perhaps you should tell them about the stone circle at Mzora,” Fifi prompted, focusing on the topic at hand for once. “It is the closest.”

  “That is true,” Michel concurred. “I have a few photos.” He sorted through a pile of papers on his desk and produced several letter-size pages of photographs which the Arkana team passed around. They displayed aerial shots of a large circle consisting of a few hundred stones of various sizes. Some were tall and pointed like obelisks, others much shorter.

  “As you can see, there was a large tumulus at the center of the ring which was excavated sometime in the 1930s,” Michel explained. “Now all that remains are the X-shaped trenches that were cut right through the center of the mound. This stone circle was used to mark the solstices, and it is believed to have been constructed by the same megalithic builders who erected sites in Europe and the British Isles.”

  “Well, Mzora seems to fit our criteria.” Griffin’s voice held a hint of enthusiasm. “The calendar stones are of the right age. They would certainly have been in place at the time the Minoans reached Africa.”

  Cassie squinted at the image. “I don’t think so.”

  Everyone stared at her in blank surprise. She hastened to add, “I don’t mean that Griffin’s wrong. I mean I’m not getting a hit on this site.”

  Michel didn’t question her comment. Instead, he moved on to another stack of papers. “Then perhaps you might want to consider something farther afield. Here is a sit
e in Algeria near Djelfa. It is called Mechra-Sfa or the Ford of Flat Stones.” He passed around more photos. “We have very little data about its origins. And here is another series of megaliths in the Atlas Mountain region.”

  The Arkana team circulated the pictures, and the men looked hopefully toward Cassie.

  “Anything?” Griffin asked.

  The pythia shook her head. “Nope.”

  “Then let’s look at Tunisia next,” Michel continued. “Here are photos of the megalithic tombs near Makthar.”

  This time the photos revealed vertical stone blocks holding up immense horizontal slabs. After the pages were passed around, Cassie shook her head once more. “Sorry guys, but I’m not getting anything.”

  Fifi scowled at her but kept quiet.

  Erik, who had been silent up to this point, said, “I think I know how we can speed this up. Griff, are any of these sites in line with the latitude you recalculated?”

  The scrivener sighed. “I should have thought of that sooner, shouldn’t I? Michel, I’m very sorry not to have begun at the beginning. We’re actually looking for megaliths at approximately twenty three degrees north latitude—somewhere around the Tropic of Cancer.”

  Michel sat forward in his chair. “The Tropic of Cancer did you say?”

  “What’s the Tropic of Cancer?” Cassie asked.

  “It’s a line of latitude at twenty-three point-five degrees north which has special significance,” Griffin replied. “Around the time of the summer solstice in June, it marks the position where the northern hemisphere is tilted toward the sun to its maximum extent. If one were to stand on the Tropic of Cancer at noon on the longest day of the year, the sun would cast no shadow because its rays are hitting the earth directly. The Tropic of Cancer derives its name from the constellation in which the sun was positioned when this phenomenon was first discovered. Its counterpart in the southern hemisphere is called the Tropic of Capricorn because the sun was stationed in the constellation of Capricorn around the time of the solstice in December.”