Feeling defeated, he headed back to the shelter for the night. He would wait until morning.
Suddenly, an eagle swooped low over the mesa and landed on the top of the wall of his shelter. He stopped and stared, and again heard the voice of Changing Man. He will always guide you. In spite of everything, or maybe because of it, he had found his protector.
He recalled all of it as he watched the eagle soaring above him. He could see it turn its head as if it were looking for prey. Or maybe back at him. It made a noise. What was it saying? The eagle faded, but the sound continued.
"Indy, Indy."
It was Dorian. She sounded frantic. "Answer me."
He tugged on the rope.
"There's not much time. The vapors."
Vapors. Christ. He'd forgotten all about that. Had he been down here that long? He pulled his pocket watch
from inside his jacket. It had survived his fall and was still working. It was 2:44. He stood up and tightened the loop of rope. He wasn't convinced the vapors were dangerous, but there was no reason to take any chances.
No time now for the cone. He must have drifted off for a minute. But he'd come back for it, he told himself. He tugged once.
A moment later, he felt himself rising and swinging out from the debris-strewn overhang. His eyes focused on the black object frozen in the wall. Then it was blanketed in darkness, lost in a lightless abyss.
He held the torch out and watched for the spot where the tablet had been. Ten, fifteen, twenty feet. He contin ued rising. It was hazy from the torch smoke, but then he saw it. A dark hole, and above it a smaller indention where the torch holder had been yanked from the wall. God, he was lucky People fell three feet and broke bones. He'd tumbled two stories through pitch darkness and sur vived with cuts, bruises, probably a couple of cracked ribs.
He heard a deep rumble from somewhere below. It was followed by the same hissing that preceded the rising of the vapors, and he knew he would not escape them. The slow, easy swing of the ascent continued, and there was nothing he could do to speed it up. He swung the torch in front of him, noticing a haze. There was too much of it to be torch smoke.
He squeezed the rope tighter and sucked in a deep breath. It hurt his ribs, and he expelled some of it. He wondered how much longer it would take to reach the surface. A minute passed. Slowly, he released the rest of the air. Tainted air. No use holding his breath if he was already breathing the vapors.
He sniffed at the air. It didn't seem to have any effect, except he was feeling drowsy. He was exhausted from the fall and his injuries. He pressed his forehead against the rope and closed his eyes. Within seconds, he felt himself drifting, half asleep, half awake.
His head jerked up, and he grabbed the rope. He must have dozed. Then he saw the vapors rising around him. How long had he been breathing them? He forced himself to concentrate on the rope and keep his balance.
Just hold on. Stay awake. Try not to breathe. God, he ached.
Another minute passed, an elastic minute that felt like hours, but finally he popped through the lip of the hole, and drank in the cool air. The mound was covered in mist, and he couldn't see anyone. He climbed to his feet, wincing in pain, and felt himself being pulled down the mound.
"Indy, down here."
He stumbled forward, picking up momentum. He raised his arms to block his fall. Then suddenly hands were grabbing him. The rope was pulled over his chest, shoul der, arms. He crumpled to his knees, fell onto his stom ach. Someone rolled him over.
"We've got to get him to the doctor." Dorian's voice. "Carry him to the wagon. Fast."
He saw movement around him, shapes, blurs. He felt himself being lifted again. He closed his eyes.
"What happened down there, Indy?" Dorian asked. "How did you survive?"
"I found a stone, a black stone," he mumbled.
"What kind of stone?" It was Doumas's voice.
"Shaped like a cone, thatching on it."
"Can you find it again?" Doumas asked.
But Indy never answered. His eyes closed and he was out.
15
MANEUVERS
Dorian looked up from a stack of stone tablets on the workshop table as she heard a tapping sound. It was so faint that she thought it might be the wind. Then she heard it again, louder this time. "Come in."
The door creaked slowly open; she saw a shadow in the doorway, then recognized Panos. "Well, I've been waiting for you."
Panos hesitated, looked down at his hands. "Not as long as I've waited." The words were forced, a confession. Then he stepped inside and peered at the rows of stone tablets. "Soon, a new, modern house of records will be built." His voice was stronger, and the words were spoken like a challenge. He watched her closely.
"I know," she answered.
"Do you?" Again, he shifted his eyes as she met his gaze, and she realized that he was feeling self-conscious, maybe overwhelmed.
"It will be needed," she added.
"Tell me who you are," he demanded, but his eyes still shifting about uneasily.
She smiled and answered without hesitating. "Pythia, of course."
He nodded, glancing up at her. "The veil is receding. I knew it would."
She picked up one of the stone tablets and ran her fingers over it. "I understand now that the oracle never left us. The last Pythia merely put it to bed, and now it is reawakening."
"Well said."
"It's very strange, but I understand now that my life's work has been only a prelude to the Return. A week ago I would have laughed at such an idea. Now, I know it for a fact."
Panos paced in front of the long table covered with stone tablets. He picked one of them up, examined it briefly, then laid it back down. There was something defiant in the act, as if he were making claim to the workshop and everything it represented and daring her to challenge him. "My son, Grigoris, told me that Jones found something in the crevice. What was it?"
"I'm not sure. He said something about a black stone."
Panos spun on his heels and faced her. "The stone is important, and Doumas must not ever touch it." He spoke sharply; his eyes flared. "It is ours, and we must have it."
Dorian was baffled. She was surprised by his outburst. She didn't know what he was talking about.
"Don't you understand? He has found the Omphalos. We must claim it."
The Omphalos was a mysterious aspect of the Oracle of Delphi that Dorian had never clearly grasped. In legend, it was sometimes described as a stone that was as large as a room, other times as one that was small and portable, cone-shaped, like Jones had described. Sometimes, even Delphi itself was called the Omphalos, the navel of the world. She'd always viewed it as more symbolic than real, more of a definition of Delphi than a relic that could be recovered.
"How do you know it's the Omphalos?"
"The Oracle could not return without the Omphalos," he answered.
"Why is that, Panos?"
He frowned at her. "You still have much to remember. Pythia should know the great secret of Delphi."
She smiled at him. "I am Pythia, but I am also Dorian Belecamus, and I do not know everything that Pythia knows. Tell me about the Omphalos."
Panos paused a moment; she had the distinct impression that he wasn't sure he should say anything.
Then he made up his mind, and spoke. "The secret is simple. The vapors only enhance what the Omphalos creates. The Omphalos is the power of Delphi."
"Yes. Simple." She made it sound like an interesting fact. Nothing more. But in all her years of study and her work at Delphi, she had never heard such a thing. The Omphalos had always been nebulous, symbolic, never the power itself.