“There it is,” Pierce said, motioning with the light. He moved to the narrow fissure and lowered himself into it, shining the beam into its depths. The bright flashlight illuminated a flat stone wall, clearly worked by a human craftsman and adorned with a strange symbol.
“The Horns of Consecration,” Fiona said. “The symbol of the Sacred Minoan Bull. Just like the monuments in the palace at Knossos.”
Pierce nodded. They had seen several examples of bull iconography at the museum, ranging from the simple motif like that carved into the cave wall — dubbed ‘The Horns of Consecration’ by Sir Arthur Evans, the archaeologist whose work in Knossos had laid the foundation for the modern concept of the Minoan civilization — to much more realistic paintings and sculptures. Despite being lost to history for three millennia, the significance of the bull to the Minoan civilization had been immortalized in Greek mythology, particularly in the legend of the Minotaur, the half-man, half-bull chimera that roamed the subterranean Labyrinth, devouring human sacrifices.
There was even a connection to the story of Hercules. One of the legendary Labors imposed upon Hercules by King Eurystheus, as penance for killing his family in a fit of madness, had been the capture of the monstrous Cretan Bull. Pierce knew that much of that story was a fabrication — there had been no mental lapse, no family tragedy — but the stories hid an account of actual deeds. He had seen ample evidence that some of the Labors were based on real events, and of them all, the tale of the capture of the Cretan Bull seemed the least fantastic. It might simply have been a metaphor for a victory against the bull-worshipping Minoans, but Pierce suspected that there was probably a real bull in the story somewhere.
However, it was not the petroglyph of the horns on the wall that had drawn him to Ideon Andros, but rather a set of smaller images carved into the rock between the bull’s horns.
Pierce took the Phaistos Disc from his satchel and held it at arm’s length. He oriented it so that the outermost totem in the spiral — the beginning or the end, depending on whose interpretation was to be trusted — was in the six o’clock position.
Fiona looked over his shoulder. “It’s a match. You were right.”
“Of course I was right,” Pierce answered with a grin. “You didn’t think I’d come all this way on a hunch.”
Fiona’s shrug suggested that she thought him capable of doing exactly that.
“Alexander wrote that the Phaistos Disc was a key,” Pierce went on. “He established a protocol in the event that a discovery like this was made.”
“Right. More protocols. In this case, steal the Disc. Only we replaced it with an exact replica. I’m not sure how that changes anything.”
Pierce held up the Disc. “I was a little worried about that, too. But the likeness of the Disc is everywhere, especially here on Crete, so if it was just a matter of hiding the message…well, that ship sailed a long time ago. I thought there might be something important about the physical disc itself, though. And guess what? I was right again. The Disc reacts to magnetic fields.”
“No one ever noticed that?”
“I don’t think it occurred to anyone to check. It’s just a clay tablet after all. My guess is that there are flakes of magnetized iron embedded in the clay.”
Fiona narrowed her eyes. “We didn’t come all the way out here in the middle of the night just to compare the script, did we?”
Pierce grinned again. “Smart girl. Alexander said it was a key. I don’t believe he was speaking figuratively.”
He stepped closer to the wall and held the Disc up so that it was situated in the valley between the horns. The artifact was abruptly yanked out of his grasp, hitting the wall with a hollow clank, like a terra cotta bell. It did not slide to the ground but remained fixed in place between the horns. An instant later, there was a grinding sound from beyond the wall, and then a crunch, as some unseen force battled thousands of years of inertia and calcification. The wall began to move, rolling away into a hidden recess. Not a wall after all, but a circular door, with the Disc still affixed to its center. It rotated only half a turn before stopping, revealing a crescent-shaped opening.
“Open Sesame,” Pierce said. “It would appear that the Phaistos Disc is actually an ancient Minoan key card.”
He shone the light into the opening. The shape of the passage was too straight and uniform to be the work of nature. There was just enough space to accommodate a single person. It continued for at least fifty feet, at which point the black walls devoured his light. What lay beyond remained shrouded in darkness. “Shall we?”
“I thought we were just supposed to make sure no one gets the key,” Fiona said. “Wasn’t that what the protocol said to do?”
“Sometimes you have to go outside the letter of the law to keep the spirit of the law. Even without the Disc, someone might be able to get through that door. We need to know what Alexander wanted kept secret. If it’s something we can remove or…” he frowned, “…destroy…then this is our chance. Besides, I’m curious. Aren’t you?”
“I should call you Curious George,” Fiona replied before following and sticking close behind him. As Pierce advanced into the passage, his own eagerness diminished a little. The tunnel was more confining than he had imagined. The weight of the earth above seemed to press down on him, making it difficult to breathe. The air felt warmer, and there was something else about it that seemed…off.
“What’s that smell?” Fiona asked. “It’s like…blood.”
Pierce played the light against the walls of the passage. The black surface was mottled with what looked like a dull orange fungus. “Rust. These walls are sheeted with iron plates.”
“Iron? I thought the Minoan civilization pre-dated the Iron Age.”
Pierce gave an approving nod. Fiona had been paying attention to her studies. “They did. This is…interesting…to say the least. Some of the legends about this cave mention a race of spirit beings called Dactyls.”
“As in ‘fingers?’”
“When Rhea gave birth to Zeus, she dug her fingers into the earth, and the Dactyls were created. They were expert metal-workers, and they gave the secret of forging iron to mankind.” He shrugged. “That’s the myth, anyway.” He stopped as the light revealed a T-junction at the end of the passage. The passages leading off in either direction were, like the first, finished with walls of featureless iron, vanishing into darkness beyond the reach of the flashlight.
Fiona peered over his shoulder. “Which way?”
“Good question. In many ancient belief systems, the choice of right or left had great symbolic significance, but in this instance, we may just have to flip a coin.”
“What’s that?” Fiona pushed past him and moved closer to the facing wall a few steps down the right hand passage. She pointed to a large patch of rust which, after a closer look, revealed lines and curves that were too precise to be random.
“The Horns again,” Pierce said. “It’s the same as the glyph on the door. But it’s different. The Phaistos symbols aren’t the same.” He approached and brushed away some of the rust to get a better look.