“There’s a very simple explanation for that association,” Jun said. “And it’s not the silly phallic connection that overlord historians are so fond of making.”
Both Griffin and Cassie gave him puzzled looks.
The trove keeper continued. “It all has to do with shamans—women who were the oldest spiritual guides of humankind. They existed in every culture around the world. In order to visit the phantom realms, they had to rely on substances to alter their states of consciousness. To this day in the Americas, shamans will ingest mushrooms or smoke peyote. Siberian shamans depend on repetitive drumming ceremonies to induce a hypnotic state. But the most ancient tactic used by shamans was snake venom.”
“I never thought of that,” the scrivener murmured in surprise.
“But snake venom is so toxic it would kill the shaman who used it,” Cassie objected.
“That depends on the species of snake,” Jun countered with a smile. “Not all are lethal. In fact, most produce the kind of venom that is a powerful hallucinogen. Shamans knew which snakes to use for their rituals. Have you never wondered why so many folk religions revere the wisdom of the snake?”
“It always seemed odd to me,” the pythia commented. “There’s nothing particularly brainy about reptiles.”
“Not as such,” Griffin said. “But the idea makes sense in light of Jun’s explanation that their venom can induce paranormal states which impart wisdom to the shaman.”
“Of course, shamans and their snakes were a threat to overlord religion and needed to be driven out,” Jun added.
“Just like Catholic St. Patrick drove the pagan snakes out of Ireland,” Cassie joked.
“Exactly so,” Jun concurred in all seriousness. “There are many examples of serpents being destroyed by one overlord hero or another. The snake who caused all the trouble in the Garden of Eden was crushed under the foot of the Christian Virgin Mary. The Python who protected Delphi was slain by the Greek god Apollo. Tiamat was destroyed by Marduk in Babylonian origin stories. These are all examples of shamanic religion being eradicated to make way for overlord ideology.”
“A bloodless form of religious genocide,” Griffin noted sardonically. “I’m sure those myths correlated closely with the actual extermination of shamans living in the newly-conquered overlord territories.”
“Speaking of which,” the pythia said. “It’s obvious that your Nu Kwa was based on some kind of matristic shaman until the overlords got hold of her story. So where did the overlords come from? Those barbarians on horseback couldn’t have ridden all the way from the Caspian Sea to carve up China.”
“Ah, but that’s exactly what they did,” Jun countered knowingly.
“But when?” Cassie persisted. “How?”
Without answering at first, Jun glanced around the restaurant. His listeners followed his gaze. Cassie noticed a group of people standing near the entrance and eyeing their table. She glanced down guiltily at their now-empty plates and remembered Jun’s caution to talk fast, eat faster, then leave.
“Maybe we should continue this overlord discussion somewhere else,” she suggested sheepishly.
“A very good idea,” the trove keeper agreed. “We should go to Lanzhou.”
“Lanzhou!” Griffin exclaimed. “Correct me if I’m wrong but that city is over a thousand miles away.”
“Yes, it is,” Jun agreed calmly. “But that is where your quest must begin. You wish to follow the Yellow River to pick up the trail of your Minoan relic, don’t you? What better place to start than where the river itself starts. Lanzhou is near the headwaters, and it also happens to be the place where the overlords first entered China.”
Griffin and Cassie exchanged dubious glances.
“Do you have a better idea of where we should start?” the pythia asked.
“Not at the moment, no.” Turning to Jun, the scrivener said, “Right then. Tomorrow we fly to Lanzhou.”
“Next time, remind me not to unpack my suitcase,” Cassie murmured to her colleague. “I have a feeling Lanzhou won’t be our final stop on this trip.”
Chapter 11—Informed Observer
Daniel’s mind wandered while the sound of his father’s voice droned on in the background. He was sitting in the Nephilim chapel enduring a memorial service for his departed wife, Annabeth. There was no casket as would have been customary. His father’s explanation to the congregation was notably lacking in detail. According to the diviner, Annabeth had passed away unexpectedly at the hospital where she was recovering from mental exhaustion. Circumstances prevented her body from being returned for burial. Daniel eyed the center aisle of the chapel where an open coffin should have been placed. He felt a transitory sense of regret that he would never get the chance to look at her one last time and bid her farewell. He laughed grimly to himself. The phrase almost sounded romantic—bidding farewell to a lost love. But he had loved her, he protested fiercely. An inner twinge of guilt told him otherwise. His conscience couldn’t be fooled. He relented. All right. Perhaps he hadn’t loved her, but at the very least he never wished her any harm and certainly not a death as tragic as hers had been. Perhaps if he’d stayed behind. If he’d defied his father and refused to pursue the fourth relic he might have been able to prevent her collapse. Mere idle speculation, his conscience told him coldly.
He glanced surreptitiously around the chapel. The room could barely hold fifty people, so the event had been limited to close family. Some of his brothers and their principal wives were in attendance. A few of his father’s own wives were there as well. Mother Rachel sat in the foremost pew, her eyes closed to prevent distraction as she drank in every word of the sermon.
The scion turned his attention to the small girl seated next to him. He gave her hand a soft squeeze. She looked up at him solemnly. Her expression showed less of a sense of loss than of confusion. Sarah was his youngest daughter. She’d just turned five and, earlier that day, Daniel had been forced to tell her that her mother was dead. He explained that Annabeth had gone to heaven and that they would all meet again someday. His words had little effect. Notions of heaven and hell meant nothing to a child that young. Sarah only knew that her mother was gone. Of course, Annabeth had been missing from the child’s life for several months now. First, because of the birth and subsequent death of a baby brother and then because Annabeth had been taken away to a hospital. The diagnosis was nervous prostration. It was a dry, clinical description to cover his principal wife’s embarrassing sleepwalking episodes and dramatic hallucinations.
Sarah squirmed on the hard bench and yawned unselfconsciously. Daniel made no move to correct her behavior. It seemed natural, unlike the masks worn by the adult members of the congregation. They might have been so many stone pillars, listening through deaf ears to his father’s fevered exhortations. In a highly improper gesture by the standards of the Nephilim, Daniel put his arm around Sarah’s shoulders and let her nestle against him. She closed her eyes and seemed to drop off to sleep. His other wives reported she was no longer crying in the middle of the night or waking them up calling for her mother. Daniel realized that while his other spouses tolerated her presence, they felt no urge to care for Sarah as her biological mother might have done. They had daughters of their own to consider. The scion felt remorse that he wasn’t spending more time with the girl. Yes, he would make a point of doing that. He needed her to know that she hadn’t been entirely abandoned.
The diviner fulminated for another ten minutes. It was nothing Daniel hadn’t heard before, so he allowed his attention to drift to more immediate concerns. He knew he’d have to produce tangible results in the quest for the next artifact soon or face his father’s wrath. Ostensibly, he still spent his days at the library researching the subject. In actuality, he’d spent the past four months accumulating a storehouse of knowledge about the outer world. Chris called him an information sponge because he absorbed it all so quickly. If there was one bright spot in Daniel’s life, it was the h
ours he spent surrounded by books in the company of his beloved friend. He sighed inwardly at the realization that this pleasant interlude would soon come to an end.
The scion knew he must apply himself to the next riddle but balked at the prospect. Somehow, he had formed a mental association between Annabeth’s death and the relic hunt. She might still be alive if he hadn’t left to blindly follow his father’s orders. Who knew if his next absence might not result in a worse catastrophe than a dead wife? He realized the notion was irrational, but the two events had become fused in his psyche and, try as he might, he couldn’t separate them. The association had drained his enthusiasm for solving the next riddle.
He snapped to attention when he realized his father had finally finished speaking. People were standing up and filing out of the chapel. He woke Sarah and set her on her feet. Taking her by the hand, he led her through the gauntlet of congregation members who waited to offer them both condolences. She behaved patiently enough during the ordeal until the crowd dispersed. His other wives came up last of all with their daughters to claim Sarah.
He bent down and told her, “I’ll come by to see you later this afternoon. Alright?”
She nodded without a murmur, looking back over her shoulder at him as she was led away by the rest of his small family.
He stood and straightened his coat, preparing to go back to the study room. As he turned, he realized a man blocked his path. It was his brother Joshua.
***
“Oh, it’s you,” Daniel observed without enthusiasm.
The spymaster barely noticed his brother’s less than warm greeting. Joshua was too irritated by the inordinate fuss their father was making over Annabeth’s death to register offense at this minor slight. One dead wife was hardly worth considering when one had so many others. No doubt, Abraham had already selected a younger and prettier woman as Annabeth’s replacement—a reward which his brother scarcely deserved. Since Joshua was denied the pleasure of expressing any overt hostility toward the scion, he settled for rubbing salt in the wound of Daniel’s grief.
“I’m very sorry for your loss,” he began, his voice heavy with sympathy.
“Thank you.” Daniel nodded curtly and started walking down the corridor.
Joshua joined him. “It was quite sudden, wasn’t it?” he asked in hopes of churning up painful memories which his brother was probably doing his best to suppress.
“I couldn’t say. I was out of the country at the time.”
“But surely Father gave you some details,” Joshua persisted, seeking to find a weak spot.
Daniel sighed. “He said she took a turn for the worse while I was gone and suffered a nervous collapse.”
Joshua nodded gravely. “Yes, her behavior grew uncontrollable shortly after your departure. She needed to be sedated and confined to her room.”
Daniel wheeled on him fiercely. “How do you know this?”
At last, Joshua had struck a nerve. Suppressing a sense of triumph, the spymaster innocently raised his eyebrows. “It was hardly a secret. Everyone knew. Father tasked me with posting guards in front of her room. No one was allowed to see her but the doctors from the hospital. Several of them came and went for a week or so. She was rambling much of the time, out of her head. Soon after that, she was taken away.”
The spymaster watched Daniel’s face contort with regret at the pitiful picture of Annabeth in her last days. Joshua drove the knife home. “Poor lost creature. I’m sure your presence would have made all the difference to her. She might still be alive today.” He shook his head. “But you were thousands of miles away when she died all alone. How sad.”
Daniel turned his back though Joshua was sure he’d seen his brother’s eyes well up with tears.
The spymaster paused, choosing his next words carefully. “Did Father tell you anything more about the circumstances of her passing?”
Daniel’s shoulders slumped in an attitude of defeat. He turned back around to face his brother’s relentless cross-examination. “He said she contracted a highly contagious disease while she was at the hospital. It was so dangerous that her body had to be cremated afterward.”
Joshua’s sharp intake of breath sounded like a hiss. He felt genuinely startled. The spymaster had heard nothing of this, and it was his business to know everything that passed among the Nephilim. Quickly recovering his composure, he offered a bland smile of condolence. “What a tragedy.”
Daniel was studying him intently.
Apparently, Joshua had betrayed himself. His desire for information had become too apparent. “It must have been a deadly disease to require such drastic measures,” he observed, still hopeful that his brother might drop a few additional crumbs.
“Yes, well, everybody dies,” Daniel countered acidly, not offering any further details.
“That’s quite true,” Joshua agreed. “But not everybody dies in such a way. What a misfortune for you.”
Daniel barely heard him. They’d arrived at the reading room door, and the scion was on the point of entering. “I’ll leave you here,” he announced, obviously relieved to have arrived at his destination.
“Yes, goodbye.” Joshua nodded pensively. Baiting his brother no longer held any interest for him. The scrap of information Daniel had unwittingly provided made the spymaster long for solitude. He needed to be alone with his thoughts because they were beckoning him down quite an unexpected path.
Chapter 12—It’s Hip to Be Square
A mere two days after Cassie and Griffin had landed in Shenyang, they found themselves following Zhang Jun and Zhang Rou through another urban landscape a thousand miles to the west. This time they were trudging the streets of the equally modern city of Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province in northwestern China.
Cassie’s first impression, formed as their plane was descending, was that this city of four million was virtually indistinguishable from the city of eight million that they’d just left. Admittedly, Lanzhou did have one distinctive geographical feature. The Yellow River ran right through the middle of town.
Jun told them that Lanzhou had been an important trading center since ancient times. It was the largest urban area in the upper reaches of the Yellow River and had originally been one of the few towns with a bridge that allowed people to cross the river itself. During the first century BCE, it had been a major stop on the northern Silk Road which transported goods from China as far west as Rome and back again.
A Silk Road caravan was nowhere in evidence as the four made their way through the downtown section of Lanzhou which now consisted of block after block of retail space and high-rises. Although the city was still a mercantile hub, the fabrics on display in storefront windows weren’t embroidered silk goods. Designer clothes and consumer electronics had taken their place.
Because the shopping district didn’t allow motorized traffic, the center of the streets were used as pedestrian walkways. The Arkana group ambled down the broad promenade at a leisurely pace, passing quartets of people seated at card tables playing mahjong.
After strolling for several blocks, Cassie asked, “Where are we going exactly?”
“To the office of the Majiayao trove keeper,” Jun replied. “She’s off at a dig site for the rest of the week but said we could use the place while we’re in town. It isn’t much farther. Another block or two.”
Cassie’s attention was drawn to a gathering in the middle of the promenade just ahead of them. Two dozen middle-aged and elderly women appeared to be staging some kind of demonstration. When she paused to watch, her companions did the same.
Somebody switched on a boom box which blared out a peppy instrumental march. Once the music started, all the women picked up identical green volley balls and began going through a series of choreographed aerobic moves.
“What are they doing?” Cassie murmured in surprise.
“They’re square dancing,” Jun said.
The pythia squinted at him in disbelief.
“Square dancing? But nobody’s calling the steps.”
“I don’t believe he means an American-style square dance,” Griffin remarked.
Jun chuckled when he realized Cassie’s confusion. “It’s called square dancing because they find a square and dance in it. This is a new fad in China these days. Every city has troupes of dancing grannies. They show up at all hours, from sunrise to sunset and go into their various routines.”
Cassie was having trouble grasping the concept. “But why?”
Jun shrugged. “Exercise, companionship, patriotism. Not everyone thinks it’s a good thing though. Some people who live near the favorite squares of these grannies complain about the loud music early in the morning or late at night.”
Rou whispered in her grandfather’s ear, and he laughed out loud. She nudged him to repeat her comment for the visitors.
“Rou wanted to remind me about the turf wars.”
“I beg your pardon?” Griffin’s eyebrows shot up.
“You mean to say these grannies slug it out over the best places to dance in?” Cassie asked.
Rou giggled and nodded.
Cassie turned to contemplate the energetic elderly ladies circling their green volley balls in synchronized arcs over their heads. “This is the hottest trend in China?” She rubbed her eyes in disbelief. “Now I really have seen everything.”
Jun was already walking ahead. The rest followed him in silence until the echoes of the marching music had receded in the distance. He entered the lobby of a high-rise and made for the elevator where he pressed the button for the 20th floor. The little party was conveyed upwards in a matter of seconds.
When they exited, Jun went directly to a door in the middle of the corridor and unlocked it. “I know my way around, you see, because this used to be my office. My first assignment for the Arkana was to oversee the Majiayao trove.”
Arkana Archaeology Mystery Box Set 2 Page 36