“Have you found anything yet?” Sophie asked. “We need to hurry things along.”
“There’s everything in here — loads of published articles in what look like highly respected peer-reviewed journals to me — all on subjects like the origins of Persian pottery and even one here on the early Roman oil trade.”
“She means anything of use to us today, Ryan.”
“Oh, sorry. Yes, I think so. I’m in a private folder — pretty rudimentary security, actually, which took me less than a minute to crack — anyway, some of it looks like his original research — all the stuff you might expect — ancient Greece, antiquities, artifacts of various kinds and also a pile of stuff on Ancient Greek — the language itself.”
“That must be why Zaugg’s so keen to get his hands on him,” Lea said.
“You think?” Sophie said sarcastically.
Lea ignored it and leaned over Ryan’s shoulder, squinting at the Greek letters on the screen, unintelligible to her. She leaned closer and touched the screen gently with her index finger. “What’s that there — the one marked Fabula — it’s written in English.”
“It means fable, or legend in Latin,” Ryan replied.
“A good place to start then.”
Ryan clicked open the file.
“Shit — it’s all written in sodding Latin,” Lea said. “I thought it was going to be in English.”
“It’s his research into the Poseidon myth,” Ryan said, casually reading the Latin as if it were his own mother tongue.
“Anything else?” she asked, once again impressed with Ryan’s capacity to hold otherwise useless information in his head.
“Let’s see…” he said. “It starts off simple enough — positing that Poseidon was more than a mythological figure, and that consequently his trident was also real.”
“Not sure this is good news or not,” said Lea. She sighed. “We know all this. Isn’t there anything new?”
“Actually, yes — and this is weird.”
“What does it say?” Sophie asked. She walked to the window and peered outside into the street.
Ryan translated. “He writes something here about the number seven having some important part to play in all this — something to do with seven levels.”
“What’s the significance of the number seven?” Lea asked, casting a suspicious eye across the room to Sophie.
Ryan’s eyes crawled over the screen as fast as he could translate the Latin. “From Pythagoras onwards, the ancient Greeks were obsessed with numbers and numerology — and created something called isopsephy, where they attributed numeric value to letters and added them up to induce meaning,” he said.
“So?”
“The number seven represented mysticism and magic. Clearly the Ancients knew they had something of terrible power in their grasp and perhaps in deciding to hide it behind seven levels they were obviously hoping to protect themselves from the wrath of the gods — presumably Poseidon himself.”
“They thought that would protect them?”
“It’s not so silly,” Ryan said. “Using numbers in a divinatory way or a superstitious way like this was very common then. Even today some people are very superstitious when it comes to numbers — look at the way some people choose lottery numbers. The Ancients believed numbers were sacred, and that they formed a sort of bridge between mortals and the divine.”
“But does it give us any more clues?” Lea asked.
“She’s right, Ryan” Sophie said. “We need anything we can get our hands on.”
Ryan continued to scroll though the chunks of Latin on the screen.
“Not really — it’s just his thoughts on the subject which are surprisingly rambling, actually, and…” he slowed down and peered closer to the screen. “But this is odd.”
“What?” Lea and Sophie asked in perfect unison.
“He’s quoting Homer here, but I don’t recognize it. I’m not altogether up to date with Herodotus but I know my Homer. He’s from a much earlier period, of course.”
“Of course,” Lea said, smirking.
“But this isn’t right — Homer never wrote this, I’m convinced of it.”
“What does it say?” Lea asked, placing her hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her and smiled in return.
“Well, if my translation is correct it means — is that the ablative or locative declension?”
“We don’t have time for this, Ryan!” Lea said. “We have to make sure we get ahead of Zaugg. For all we know Demetriou has already told them everything.”
Ryan stared up at his ex-wife. “Do you want to translate it?”
“Sorry — I’m sorry, honestly.”
Ryan stared at the simple sentence again: “Take thine hands into the earth, and share the Victory of Theseus and Pallas.”
“What’s that, a riddle?”
“I think it must be. It certainly isn’t Homer.”
“Fantastic — I was never any good at word games.” Lea frowned.
“Perhaps if you could shoot it you would be of more use,” Ryan said with a smug smile.
“If I could shoot you I would be of even more use,” she said. “Something I should have done years ago,” she muttered under her breath. “I was never any good at word puzzles.”
“Luckily I was,” Ryan said. “Pallas is just another name for Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom and courage, so that bit’s easy.”
“Easy, he says!” said Lea. “I’ve never even heard of Pallas.”
“It all just seems too weird to be true,” he said, almost to himself. He stared at the screen. “Take thine hands into the earth, and share the Victory of Pallas.” He repeated the sentence again almost in a whisper. “The only thing I can think of in terms of Athena and a reference to victory is the contest she took part in with Poseidon.”
“Him again,” Lea said. “He seems to be popping up a lot these days.”
“We’re talking about a contest that took place long ago even relative to ancient Greece itself — far back in the time of the gods. The first king of Athens was called Cecrops. He was half man and half snake.”
“A lot of men are like that,” Lea said softly.
Ryan ignored her, his eyes fixed on the little cursor blinking at the end of Demetriou’s mysterious clue. “He decided he must find a deity for his subjects to worship, and he discovered that both Poseidon and Athena wanted to be their god, or goddess in her case. Poseidon and Athena were very ancient and powerful rivals, and they were on the cusp of going to war when Athena suggested they held a contest for the right to be worshipped by Cecrops and his subjects.”
“So not unlike two politicians fighting for the leadership of their party then?” Lea said.
“You’re not funny, Lea,” Ryan said, sighing. “Beautiful, but not funny.”
Lea looked at him from behind, unsure how to respond to such an obvious flirtation. She chose to ignore it and hope he moved on. He did.
“An enormous crowd gathered to watch the contest. It started with Poseidon — he was well known for his temper — he struck the earth with his trident. It broke the earth up and brought forth a spring, which became a flood, and that in turn became a body of water named the Sea of Erechtheus.”
“A good opening gambit, I would have thought.”
“Not really,” Ryan continued. “The people were overjoyed until they tasted the water, which was salty because Poseidon was the god of the sea. They weren’t happy.”
“Bummer,” said Lea. “Fifteen love to Athena then.”
“Athena’s approach was different. Instead of a dramatic event like the creation of a sea, she gently knelt on the ground and buried an unknown object in the earth. It grew quickly into an olive tree. The people loved it because it gave them olives for food, the oil for cooking and cleaning, and the wood for fires.”