The Oracle

by Clive Cussler

  – AFRICAN PROVERB –

  José had loaded the photos of the mosaic onto a tablet and he pulled it from his backpack. As everyone sat on the steps in the shade of one of the olive trees, taking turns looking at the tablet, Nasha wedged herself between Remi and Lazlo for a better view. “That doesn’t look like a map.”

  “It’s a secret map,” Remi said.

  “How?”

  Lazlo enlarged the photo, bringing up the area of the blue and white tiles. “This is supposed to be a pool of water in front of the temple.” He pointed to the flat field in front of them. “It used to be there.”

  “How do you know it’s water?”

  “Because the temple’s reflected in it. See the columns?” He looked over at her, then back at the screen. “And here, where Narcissus is pointing at the reflection, which is darker than the reflection on the other side. It looks like steps.”

  Remi studied the reflection in the mosaic while Lazlo spoke. The six temple columns depicted at first looked identical in height and width. But now that Lazlo pointed it out, she realized the base of the second column on the left contained far more blue tiles. “You’re absolutely right. It does look like stairs. If the map’s accurate and we’re sitting where Narcissus is sitting, the stairs would be located somewhere out there in the pool.”

  Renee looked over Remi’s shoulder, then turned to Amal. “What was it your grandmother told you? I mean, besides the show you put on to distract Hank?”

  “Something about the Usurper finding the scrolls from the Underworld through the eyes of the penultimate king.”

  “What’s penultimate mean?” Nasha asked.

  “Second to the last,” Amal said.

  “Like the column that’s different from the others?” she asked Lazlo. “Second to the last?”

  “Exactly like that column.”

  Nasha’s eyes sparkled at the praise in his voice.

  “Where was I …?” Amal furrowed her brow. “Something about the Festival of Saturnalia and he’ll lose that which he holds dear until all that is left is shadow, and naught remains but vanity.” She stood. “My grandmother and I used to explore down here together. Maybe if I follow the same route, that’ll stir up memories of what she told me.” Nasha saw her walking down the stairs and quickly followed.

  As they wandered toward the other end of the ruins, Lazlo returned his attention to the photo. “Oracles and riddles. The festival around Saturnalia was all about role reversals …”

  “Saturnalia.” Remi smiled. “You’re brilliant, Lazlo. If the penultimate king sees it from the Underworld, he’s looking up. Vanity, water, Narcissus … And, Amal had a vision where she was looking up through the water.” She nodded at the photo on the tablet. “Alice through the looking glass.”

  “Remi,” Sam said. “We’ve already gone down that rabbit hole.”

  Renee looked at Lazlo. “Is it always like this between those two?”

  “Always.”

  “If,” Sam said, “it has to do with obscure history and leaps of logic, then yes.”

  Renee laughed. “I’m with Sam about the leaps of logic. How’s a children’s book going to help?”

  “Not a book,” Remi said. “The concept. We know the ancient Tunisians put water on the floor to act like a swamp cooler in the summer. If we’re correct about a map being hidden on the floor, the artist would’ve known this and used it to his advantage. He would’ve also known that Saturnalia was a festival that had to do with role reversals. It fits with everything we’re seeing here.”

  Sam nodded at the photo. “The only thing I see is Narcissus pointing to the water.”

  “Forget about where he’s pointing, Fargo. Think about where he’s looking—at his reflection. Remember, everything’s opposite.”

  “Quite right,” Lazlo said. “If Hilderic’s the penultimate king looking up from the Underworld and the Usurper is Gelimer …”

  “Who,” Remi said, “would be looking in the same direction as Narcissus—and us …”

  “We were searching in the wrong part of the ruins.”

  “No doubt about it,” Remi replied. “Anyone looking at that mosaic would assume that Narcissus was pointing to the reflecting pool. He was pointing to the reflection. The reflection of the hidden steps, which should be behind him in the temple.”

  Lazlo’s eyes gleamed. “Quite right, Mrs. Fargo. But don’t forget about Saturnalia, which seems to have been brought up frequently in these old legends passed down by Amal’s family. According to the rules of the festival, we can safely assume that the hidden steps are on the opposite side of that depicted in the mosaic. It’s not here behind us at all. It’s over there.”

  Everyone looked in that direction, seeing nothing but the ancient twisted ivy vines that seemed to be holding up the ruins. The wind gusted, rustling the leaves, causing a soft, plaintive wail deep within the temple. Then, just as suddenly, it died and all was quiet.

  “That was spooky,” Renee whispered.

  “Nasha …?” her uncle said, his voice laced with concern. “She was with Amal. Where are they?”

  Remi shaded her eyes from the glare of the sun. The two had been standing on the edge of the ruins just a few minutes ago. “Maybe that wasn’t the wind at all.”

  “Nasha … Amal …”

  Sam and Remi ran to the other end of the ruins, seeing nothing but the thick vines and the marble beneath. They called out again, but no one answered. “Let’s split up,” Sam said. “Half take the right side of the ruins, half the left.”

  After several minutes of searching without finding the pair, they reconvened in front of the ancient temple. Nasha’s uncle shaded his eyes, searching the hillside leading up to the olive grove. “Could they have gone back to the house?”

  “We would’ve seen them,” Sam said.

  He was just about to suggest they make another pass around the temple when he heard Nasha’s voice coming from beneath the tangle of ivy as though she were singing a jump rope rhyme. “Sator … arepo … tenet … opera … rotas. Behold …” She parted the thick vines, peering out, surprised at the sight of everyone watching her. “Is something wrong?”

  “Where’s Amal?” Remi asked.

  “Down there.” She pulled the ivy curtain wider, revealing a passageway that led into the hillside behind the crumbling temple. “Amal was showing it to me. It’s where she used to go when she was little.”

  Relieved, Sam took his phone, turned on the flashlight, and checked the passage. One of the fluted columns had collapsed onto the hillside, providing a trellis over which the ivy had climbed, hiding the entrance from prying eyes. In fact, had Nasha not pointed it out, Sam doubted they would’ve been able to find it behind the vines at all. “Amal?”

  “Here,” she called out.

  Sam led the way, discovering Amal sitting on the floor of a small cave.

  She narrowed her gaze against the intrusion of light. “Sorry. I just wanted to show Nasha where I used to play when I was her age. I’d mostly forgotten about it.” She looked around the small cavern, then stood. “This is where I used to come to escape. It always relaxed me, sitting in the dark.”

  Nasha scurried in and sat next to her, looking equally at home.

  Lazlo was drawn to the inscriptions carved on the cavern walls. “If nothing else, I’d say we’re on the right track.”

  “Ancient graffiti,” Amal said.

  “Indeed …”

  Remi followed the direction of Lazlo’s gaze. “Sam, bring that light closer.”

  He aimed the beam at the spot Remi and Lazlo were focusing on. Scratched into the wall was a graffito that looked very much like the temple in the mosaic. And below it, what looked like a staircase set directly below the penultimate column on the right-hand side.

  The very column they’d passed under on their way into the cavern.

  CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR

  A man who is patient is rewarded.

  – AFRICAN PROVERB –


  Nasha had been excited about the find, until she realized how long it would take to do the excavation just to find the hidden steps—assuming they really existed. Suddenly the prospect of returning to Nigeria with her uncle seemed far more tantalizing than the countless days of carefully removing centuries of dirt and crumbling ruins just to find them. When it came time for her and her uncle to leave for the airport an hour later, she didn’t protest.

  Standing just inside the terminal, Remi was faced with saying good-bye to her. But unlike their previous parting at the school, this time when Nasha hugged Remi her face was filled with joy. “You won’t forget me, will you, Mrs. Fargo?”

  “How could I?” Remi said. “You stole a piece of my heart.”

  “No I didn’t. You gave it to me.”

  Remi’s throat closed up, and it was a moment before she could speak. “Keep it safe for me?”

  Nasha pulled her backpack from her shoulder, patting it. “Right here.”

  “Nasha,” her uncle said. “It’s time.”

  She nodded, then followed her uncle toward security, turning back to wave at Remi and Sam just before they disappeared into the crowd.

  Remi leaned her head into Sam’s shoulder as they left the terminal.

  “We’ll see them again,” he said.

  “I know. Soon, I hope.” Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she pulled it out. “This should help distract me from that ache in my heart. Renee thinks they may have found the secret entrance. Looks like home will have to wait.”

  Ground-penetrating radar helped Renee’s team map the actual remains of the chamber hidden beneath the ancient mudslide. Once they’d removed several feet of dirt from that side of the temple, they were able to get to the pedestal belonging to the fallen penultimate column. The entire process of working the site was slow and tedious, but when they had uncovered the base, they found that the marble flooring was darker and cracked, whereas the rest of the temple floor appeared to be yellow marble, all still intact.

  José documented their progress with photos and a measuring rod. Once he’d finished, he helped Sam, Lazlo, and Osmond carefully lift the top half of the broken slab and then the bottom. Crumbling stairs led down beneath the temple into a tunnel carved from the rock.

  Remi moved next to Sam, staring into the narrow passage below the temple floor, while José took more photos. He stepped back and Sam turned on the flashlight, holding his hand out to Remi. “Shall we?”

  “Thought you’d never ask.”

  They led the group downward, Sam’s flashlight reflecting off inscriptions carved in the rock walls much like the ones they’d found in the cavern hidden behind the ivy. They followed the passageway beneath the temple and eventually emerged into a cavern much larger than Amal’s. At first, it appeared empty, until Sam lowered the beam of his flashlight. Two chests sat at the far wall, the wood rotted, the contents partially spilling out to the cavern floor. The near-black patina of the tarnished silver plates, goblets, and bowls made it difficult to see the exquisite workmanship hammered around the edges. The other chest held spoons and a few pieces of jewelry, also tarnished with age.

  “Okay, so not a king’s ransom,” Renee said.

  “But a worthy find nonetheless,” Lazlo replied.

  Remi moved closer. “So why would the Vandal King hide it?”

  “Perhaps,” Lazlo said, “it was hidden from the Vandals when they invaded North Africa.”

  “We may never know,” Sam said.

  “Amal, look at that.” Remi pointed to the other side of the cavern. Sam aimed his light at a square oxidized-bronze charcoal burner. “That looks like it matches the lid on your mantel.”

  As they moved closer, they noticed a tall, lidded cylindrical vessel made of bronze, standing behind it. Simple in structure, there were no markings anywhere on its surface except a Greek inscription in chased silver on the lid that read

  Alítheia kai armonía.

  “Truth and harmony,” Remi translated.

  Lazlo moved closer. “Truth—from Parmenides’ poem ‘On Nature,’ perhaps?”

  Amal took a breath. “If my grandmother’s stories are correct, this is what we were meant to protect.”

  Renee, her attention on the vessel, circled around it and the charcoal burner, leaning in close. “Exquisite. We need photos, José.”

  He opened his camera bag and set up his tripod and took photos from several angles around both artifacts. When he finished, Renee examined the taller vessel. “The moment of reckoning. Who wants to open it?”

  Sam said, “You should do the honors.”

  “Me? If not for you and Remi, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Remi?” Sam said.

  “Sorry, Fargo. Or are you forgetting there’s a curse?”

  José laughed nervously behind them. “I don’t want to die a violent death.”

  “Me neither,” Osmond said. “Look what happened to Hank.”

  “Lazlo?” Sam said. “You’re the one who translated the map.”

  “I’ll be glad to look. After you break the curse.”

  Remi laughed. “Open it, Fargo. His loss.”

  “Or gain,” Lazlo called out. “Depending.”

  Renee nudged Sam forward. “Aren’t you the one with royal blood? Just be careful. It’s over fifteen hundred years old.”

  Sam looked at Amal. “Any warnings from the oracle?”

  “Sorry. Fresh out of prophecies.”

  “Have at it, Fargo,” Remi said. “Before the curse changes its mind about your royal lineage.”

  Sam approached the cylinder, lifted the lid, and peered in.

  “Well?” Remi asked.

  “It’s here. The scroll.”

  CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE

  A happy man marries the girl he loves,

  but a happier man loves the girl he marries.

  – AFRICAN PROVERB –

  La Jolla, California

  Goldfish Point

  Sam opened up that morning’s newspaper as the light ocean breeze swept across the balcony where he and Remi sat drinking their coffee. Neither was surprised by the article that came out in the Lifestyle section of the paper, describing the historic find of the silver hoard and the Parmenides Scroll in Tunisia by Dr. Renee LaBelle, all of which was turned over to the Bardo National Museum in Tunis by Amal’s family. Of the treasure, it was Parmenides’ entire poem “On Nature” that was the greatest find since it had previously existed only in fragments. The mudslide sealing the tunnel had helped to preserve the scroll intact and it was the world’s only surviving copy.

  Sam reached for his coffee cup, pausing when he saw Remi over the top of the newspaper. A soft smile played on her face as she tucked an errant strand of auburn hair behind her ear. At the moment, she was absorbed in something she was reading on her tablet. Sam lowered his paper, content to simply watch her. After everything they’d been through over the years of their marriage, it was the quiet moments like this that he appreciated most.

  Eventually, she noticed him staring at her. “What,” she asked, “do you find so intriguing?”

  “Besides you?”

  She leaned over, kissed him. “Look what Wendy just sent. A class photo.”

  Remi turned the tablet toward him and he saw everyone grouped in front of the new dorm. Pete and Wendy stood on one side of the girls, Monifa and Yaro on the other. While there were several new faces, he recognized most of the girls, including Okoro’s daughter, Zara. Beside her stood Maryam, Tambara, and Jol. But he had to smile at the sight of Nasha—front and center—wearing her little blue backpack.

  THE BEGINNING

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  Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

  First published in the United States by G. P. Putnam’s Sons 2019

  First published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph 2019

  Copyright © Sandecker, RLLLP, 2019

  Book Design by Kristin Del Roasrio

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Jacket image: Lee Gibbons and © Shutterstock

  ISBN: 978-1-405-94108-2

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