Riddle Of The Diamond Dove (The Arkana Archaeology Mystery Series Book 4) Page 15

  Chapter 28—Dunes Day

  The sun was just beginning to glimmer over the horizon. Cassie stood in the hotel courtyard and breathed the cool morning air. She thought regretfully that this might be the last cool air she would feel for many hours to come. They were heading into the desert today to find the calendar circle known as Nabta Playa.

  It had taken days to get this far even though Egypt wasn’t a huge country—only a little bigger than Texas back home. The flight from Rabat to Cairo had been a breeze. However, getting from Cairo to southern Egypt was another matter entirely because commercial airports were scarce in this part of the world. After a long layover in Cairo, they’d caught a flight to Aswan. Then they’d had an even longer layover in Aswan to get to their final destination of Abu Simbel. It was only a forty five minute flight but an eight hour wait between planes. The alternative would have been even worse. A pre-dawn bus ride in a police-escorted convoy through the desert. Not surprisingly, the Arkana team opted to go airborne instead.

  The small town of Abu Simbel existed primarily as a destination for tourists who wanted to visit the temples of Pharaoh Ramses the Second and his principal wife Nefertari. Cassie wanted to see the ruins but Griffin sniffed that they were on a tight schedule which didn’t allow time to view a narcissistic dead overlord’s monuments to himself.

  Cassie comforted herself with the notion that they were going to see something far rarer than the ruins at Abu Simbel. Most tourists had never heard of the place they were going—a calendar circle sixty miles west of the temples in the heart of the desert.

  “You ready, toots?” Erik came up beside her.

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  The couple walked to the Land Rover that had been provided for the expedition. Getting to Nabta Playa was such a big deal that it required a government permit. Thankfully, Michel Khatabi had called in some favors and gotten them the paperwork they needed in record time. They had also been provided with a government-issued vehicle and driver since tourists weren’t allowed to wander the desert unaccompanied. This wasn’t the sort of trip they wanted to tackle under the radar. None of them had any experience navigating through sand.

  Their driver was a young Arab in his early twenties named Bakri. Even though he wore jeans and a cotton shirt, his head was wrapped in a white turban. It made his thick horn-rimmed glasses seem anachronistic.

  As Cassie and Erik walked up to the vehicle, Bakri greeted them and climbed into the driver’s seat. Griffin claimed the passenger side leaving the back seat for the other two.

  The Brit turned to explain, “I’ll need to act as co-pilot.”

  “Fine by me,” Erik agreed.

  Cassie secretly suspected the Paladin wanted to sit with her for a change. In fact, his whole attitude had changed since the night they’d spent together in Rabat. He’d stopped treating her like a bratty kid sister. For her part, Cassie felt less defensive and sarcastic which made her more pleasant to be around. An unexpected harmony had developed between them. The only one who seemed disoriented by the change was Griffin. In order to minimize the Scrivener’s discomfort, Cassie and Erik privately agreed to keep their relationship strictly professional, at least during work hours.

  “So what does that gizmo do?” Cassie leaned forward over the front seat and directed her question to Griffin. He was frowning at the digital display of an electronic device in his hand.

  “This little object is how we’ll find Nabta Playa.”

  “So it’s a digital map?”

  The Scrivener smiled ruefully. “There is no map because there is no road which leads to Nabta Playa. We’ll need to rely on this GPS receiver to find the spot. The readout tells me our current latitude and longitude. Since we know the calendar circle’s geographical coordinates, by comparing our coordinates to those of Nabta Playa I can tell if we’re on course or off.”

  Their conversation ended when the Land Rover shivered to life and sped out of the little town. It took only minutes before its tires were no longer riding on asphalt but on sand.

  Cassie looked out through the windshield to see a narrow ribbon of black cutting across the dunes. In many places it was completely buried beneath them. “So there’s no road at all?” she asked Griffin in disbelief.

  Bakri answered. “There is a road part of the way but the wind sweeps the sand back and forth. Once a dune starts to form, it keeps getting bigger.”

  Cassie slid back into her seat and looked out the side window. There were no trees. Just endless stretches of desert. Occasionally there were low ridges of rock against the horizon but nothing else to use as a landmark to find their way. She didn’t see how anybody could find a destination over this wasteland.

  “How far away is Nabta Playa?” Cassie raised her voice to be heard over the sound of the motor.

  “About fifty miles as the crow flies,” Griffin replied.

  “Then we should be there in no time.” The Pythia breathed a sigh of relief. The sun was getting very hot very fast.

  “He said as the crow flies, toots,” Erik corrected. “Not as the Land Rover drives.”

  On an American highway, the trip would have taken about an hour. But, as Cassie soon learned, this wasn’t anything like an American highway.

  When Bakri tried driving over a very soft dune, the rear tires sank and the Land Rover got stuck in the sand. The Arkana team had to dig out the wheels and push the vehicle out of its trap.

  As the sun beat down on top of her head, Cassie wished she had worn a white turban like their driver’s. Wiping a trickle of sweat from her forehead, she said, “It must be a hundred degrees out here and it isn’t even summer yet.”

  Griffin consulted his hand-held GPS device. “Ah good, we’re still on course.”

  The trio slogged up the sand hill and climbed into the now-freed vehicle.

  “Remind me never to visit Death Valley when we get home,” Cassie confided to Erik.

  They got stuck twice more over the course of the next hour.

  Cassie assumed they had to be nearing their destination until Griffin said, “Oh dear.”

  “That can’t be good,” Erik commented.

  “I’ve lost my signal.” Griffin tapped the GPS. “Ah, there it is. Hmmm.”

  “That ‘hmmm’ can’t be good either,” Cassie added.

  “Bakri, would you stop up ahead so I can get a proper reading?”

  Their driver steered toward something Cassie hadn’t expected to see—a clump of forlorn palm trees in the middle of nowhere.

  “How can these things even live out here?” She stared at them in amazement as she climbed out of the back seat.

  Erik shrugged. “Underground stream, I suppose.”

  By tacit agreement, they all headed for the meager shade provided by the trees while Griffin checked his readout. He then walked several paces away to consult with Bakri who nodded and pointed off into the vacant expanse of dune to their left.

  “I sure hope he knows where he’s going,” Erik whispered to Cassie.

  “You mean Griffin?”

  “Either one of them.” His voice sounded worried. “They don’t look too sure of themselves.”

  The two men returned.

  Griffin smiled brightly at his teammates. “I believe we’ve sorted that out. It shouldn’t be much farther now.” Flopping down on the sand beside them, he suggested, “Why don’t we take a break for a few minutes?”

  “Fine by us,” Cassie agreed.

  Bakri murmured something about a mid-day rest. He then walked to the tree farthest from the Arkana team. Sinking down to lean his back against its trunk, he tipped his turban over his eyes and promptly dozed off.

  “I wish I could sleep like that,” Cassie observed wistfully.

  The Scrivener passed around a canteen. “Our lengthy transit time through Egypt has given me an opportunity to read up on Nabta Playa. Fascinating place.”

  “Oh?” Cassie took the proffered canteen and drank before passing it to Erik.

&nb
sp; “Yes, it seems it was once a ceremonial center for the tribes that lived in this area. In recent years, archaeologists have unearthed numerous artifacts radiating out from the calendar circle, as well as stone carvings directly beneath it. This evidence suggests that the site was a major gathering place for thousands of years. Of course that was millennia before desiccation set in. In fact, the calendar circle itself is situated near a natural basin in the desert. During the rainy season, it would fill with water.”

  “Rainy season!” Erik snorted in disbelief.

  “As incredible as it sounds, this region once had a rainy season. Grass, trees, wildlife, herds of cattle and a thriving human population.”

  Cassie scanned the arid wasteland surrounding them. “Hard to believe that now.”

  “Well nigh impossible,” Griffin agreed. “At any rate, the calendar stones at Nabta Playa were positioned to keep track of the equinoxes and solstices much like other megaliths around the world. Additionally, stones erected at the center of the circle were used to mark the position of stars in the constellation of Orion. That would explain why our lapis dove has a cluster of emeralds in the middle of the diamond circle. It’s meant to be a depiction of Orion. Astronomers have calculated that the position of the central stones at Nabta Playa would have corresponded to the sunrise position of Orion’s stars at the spring equinox during the seventh millennium BCE.”

  “So they were doing all that three thousand years before the Babylonians supposedly invented astronomy,” Cassie observed archly.

  Griffin paused to regard her with amazement. “I had no idea you knew that.”

  “Maybe it’s time you stopped thinking of me as the slow kid in the back row,” the Pythia cautioned. “I’m starting to catch up with you guys.”

  “Point taken,” the Scrivener said. “And you’re quite right about the Babylonians. Overlords enjoy taking credit for inventions which they actually appropriated from the civilizations they conquered. In the case of the Babylonians, they borrowed astronomy, and I use the term ‘borrowed’ loosely, from the matristic Sumerians who preceded them.”

  “The Egyptians are glory hounds too,” Erik offered. “You can’t believe everything you read in the hieroglyphs.”

  “Also spot on,” Griffin agreed. “Much, if not all, of the astronomical lore which dynastic Egypt claimed as its own came from the region we’re exploring today—from the cattle culture of Nabta Playa. The people who inhabited pre-pharaonic Egypt possessed a highly sophisticated knowledge of the stars thousands of years before Kurgan and Semitic invaders took over their lands.”

  “And nobody knows about any of it.” Cassie sighed.

  “That’s because tourists pay to see pyramids, toots,” Erik countered. “They’ve bought into the overlord myth about the pharaohs bringing civilization to this part of the world. It would spin their heads to realize that nothing they’ve been taught is true.”

  Cassie stood up and dusted sand off her khakis. “Maybe we’d better get going,” she suggested. “We don’t want to be stuck out here after dark.”

  “Certainly not.” Griffin leaped to his feet and Erik followed suit.

  After rousing Bakri from his siesta, they all sauntered back to the Land Rover.

  The remainder of the trip was as quick as Griffin had promised. After traveling for about fifteen minutes, the vehicle came to a halt. Cassie looked out the window but didn’t see anything worth noting.

  “Yes, this should be it,” Griffin confirmed.

  Bakri switched off the engine and got out to stretch. The others followed suit.

  Surveying the landscape, Cassie said, “This isn’t what I expected.”

  Chapter 29—Trash Talk

  The Arkana team regarded the Nabta Playa site in silent dismay. It was nothing but a jumbled scattering of rocks and sand. There was no sign or other marking to designate the calendar circle.

  Bakri took refuge on the shady side of the Land Rover. He sat down on the ground, resting his back against one of the rear tires presumably to continue his interrupted nap until the crazy tourists had finished looking at whatever they had come out here to see.

  The Arkana team circled the rubble despondently.

  “Not too impressive as megaliths go,” Erik commented.

  “Some of the articles I read about Nabta Playa mentioned vandalism in recent years but I had no idea it would be this extensive.” Griffin studied the remnants of the circle. “With no protection around the perimeter that’s hardly a surprise.”

  The circle could easily have been mistaken for a natural rock formation. At least until a person noticed the equidistant placement of some of the taller stones.

  Cassie stepped into what she guessed would have originally been the center of the circle. She smiled. “They were here. I’m sure of it.”

  “What, no vision?” Erik registered surprised.

  The Pythia shrugged. “It’s more like a trace heat signature that you might pick up with infrared goggles.”

  Apparently satisfied with her explanation, the Paladin asked, “So what’s our next move?”

  “Look for lilies, I should think,” Griffin replied. “Though given the deplorable condition of this site, I’d be surprised if we find any. It appears as if someone made off with several of the taller stones.”

  “Did you bring those photos of the reconstructed site from the Nubian Museum?” Erik asked the Scrivener.

  Snapping himself out of his temporary slump, Griffin perked up. “Yes, I see. We still might be able to extrapolate something from the pictures. They’re in the Land Rover. I’ll fetch them.”

  Erik walked up beside Cassie. “You getting anything else?”

  She narrowed her gaze, regarding the random mess that had once been a calendar circle. “Not much. Only that there’s something here for us. I’m sure of that.”

  Griffin scurried up to join them. “Here we are.” He passed out several images of the calendar circle. Some were simulations, some reconstructions from the museum exhibit and some taken by archaeologists when the actual site was still intact.

  “I was never good at puzzles when I was a kid,” Erik said ruefully. “I don’t think I’ve gotten any better over the years.”

  “Wait a minute, guys,” Cassie intervened. “Let’s see if we can find anything in the ground here that might be an original calendar marker. Maybe I can get a hit off of it.”

  They all scrutinized the photos intently, comparing the images to the rubble that remained.

  “That one,” Griffin said decisively, pointing to a rock jutting up out of the sand. “The shape is quite distinctive. It would have been one of the Orion stones in the center of the circle.”

  “OK, then,” Cassie said cheerfully. “We have a place to start.” She walked over to the megalith and sat down on the ground in front of it. The sand was very hot. She reached out to position both her palms flat against the standing stone. It burned her hands. Immediately a succession of images flickered through her brain causing her to blink rapidly while trying to process all the information. When the zoetrope show was over, she turned to her companions.

  “You didn’t get anything, did you,” Griffin said gloomily.

  “On the contrary, my dear Eeyore,” she replied.

  “Eeyore?” Griffin echoed.

  “You know. The sad sack donkey from Winnie the Pooh?”

  “Am I really that bad?” Griffin asked in an alarmed tone.

  “Ummm, yeah a little bit.” Cassie jumped to her feet. “But not to worry. I did get something. They were here.”

  “It sure didn’t seem like you had a vision,” Erik remarked skeptically.

  “That’s because it wasn’t so much a vision as snapshots flashing in front of me. I saw one of the Minoans chiseling a lily symbol on a rock. Not up to their usual standard, I have to say.”

  “In what way?” The Paladin squinted at her uncomprehendingly.

  “I mean it was a hurried job. Not elaborate like their usual lily carv
ings. Just the bare outline of the flower. Maybe they didn’t like being stuck out here any longer than they had to be. Judging from where we’re standing...” She paused to look around and get her bearings. “It would have been over there.” Cassie pointed to a now empty spot about six feet away and to her right.

  “This is just as I feared.” Griffin shook his head in discouragement. “The lily rock is gone. We have no idea where to dig for the treasure.”

  “But they didn’t bury anything here,” Cassie added almost as an afterthought.

  “What!” Both men exclaimed in unison.

  “Nope. They just carved the symbols. On two rocks, not one. At opposite ends of the circle. Then they left.”

  “What the bloody hell were they playing at?” Griffin cried in irritation.

  “Calm down. It’s all good.” Cassie patted him reassuringly on the back. “I got the feeling that the lily marks were just meant to point us to the real hiding place. And by the way, you should be glad they didn’t bury anything here.”

  “I should?” the Scrivener asked half-heartedly.

  “Yeah, she’s right.” Erik came to Cassie’s defense. “Remember you told us this place was dug up awhile back. Archaeologists were crawling all over this site. What if they’d found our artifact?”

  “Oh, I’d quite forgotten.” Griffin seemed slightly contrite. “Sorry for the outburst. I just don’t see where we’re to go from here. “

  “Then it’s a lucky thing my eyes can see a little farther than yours,” Cassie reminded him. “Let’s take a look at that snapshot of the dove relic.”

  Griffin flipped through the photos in his portfolio and drew out the picture of the lapis dove.

  The three of them bent over the picture and studied it.

  “There!” Cassie announced triumphantly. “Look at the two rubies. One’s bigger than the other and they’re at opposite ends of the diamond circle. Maybe they’re meant to be a pointer. The bigger ruby would be the tip of the arrow and the smaller one would be its tail.”