Doumas glanced warily over this shoulder, making cer-
tain that Mandraki wasn't listening to them. "That's a possibility."
"Then, Belecamus will be angry with him, which will also be to our advantage."
"But her allegiance is with Mandraki," Doumas said. "She won't turn against him."
"Maybe not for long. But the shock of finding out who has killed her young lover-student will surely alienate her, at least temporarily, and all we need is a few hours."
Doumas threaded his fingers, and cracked his knuckles. "Two birds, one stone. You're clever, Panos. You should have been a politician."
Panos looked over at the foreigners, who were getting up from their table. When the transformation was com plete he would be a politician of sorts, a power broker for the world's leaders who would come to him seeking access to Pythia, Oracle of Delphi.
"Let's not waste any more time, Stephanos."
"All right, I'll go tell him about Jones."
"No, I'll do it myself. You intellectuals have a hard time dealing with emotional matters. I want to make sure it gets done right. I want him angry so he acts."
Panos pushed his chair away from the table, and moved away without another word.
Doumas watched as Panos leaned over Mandraki's table and said something to him. This should be interest ing, he thought, and refilled his glass. The colonel nod ded, and turned to the other man at the table.
The soldier abruptly stood, and walked over to the bar. Mandraki motioned Panos to sit down, and listened as the little man rested an elbow on the table and raised a hand to his mouth in a gesture of confidentiality.
Doumas looked away as two of the foreigners from the other table left the taverna. He knew exactly what Panos thought about him. To rugged, earthy people like the
stonemason, excessive weight was a sign of weakness. Panos saw him as a bumbling, overeducated guardian of the ruins. But that was fine. Just what he wanted.
He knew that Panos envisioned himself as the new high priest of the oracle, but he was a fool to think that Dorian Belecamus would let him manipulate her. Belecamus had her own agenda. Even if the vapors affected her as Panos said, she would not always be under their influence.
Panos didn't know Belecamus; he only knew of her. He didn't know the stories about her, which anyone in the archaeology faculties could tell him. Even the Crazy One, who supposedly knew so much, didn't know anything of her private life. Doumas knew Belecamus; he knew the stories, and knew they were true.
Mandraki's face darkened and clouded over. The corners of his lips turned down. He rubbed his chin and nodded, then with a flick of his hand dismissed Panos as if he were chasing away a fly. Panos literally leaped to his feet, and knocked over his chair.
The colonel sneered and pointed to the door; Doumas clearly heard Mandraki's angry voice. "Get out of my sight, malaka."
Panos quickly retreated. The colonel's companion moved back to the table and picked up the fallen chair.
Mandraki waved a hand, as if to say it was nothing, then motioned for the soldier to sit down. "Malaka,"
Mandraki repeated loudly.
Doumas laughed to himself. It felt good to see the leader of the Order of Pythia, who thought so much of himself and so little of him, called an asshole and dismissed like a servant who performed his duties poorly.
If Belecamus was a normal woman, she would act as Panos expected. She would shun her Colonel Alex if he killed Jones. But to Belecamus, Jones was already a dead man. He was sure of it.
Now everything was in his hands, Doumas thought. The colonel would never let Panos near Belecamus long enough for him to lead her to the crevice and if Panos failed, the blueprint would no longer be viable. The opportunity would be missed. Panos, his lifework destroyed, would go back to Athens and his masonry work, and Dorian Belecamus, the failed Pythia, would return to Paris and her teaching.
But that wouldn't be the end of it. After all, the message he'd uncovered on the tablet before Belecamus arrived had convinced him that Panos was on the right track. However, the inscription clearly had left open the matter of who would assume the duties of the new Pythia. Even the Crazy One's old prophecy, which had mentioned the return of a Dorian, did not specify that she was the oracle.
In spite of what had happened at the crevice, he was certain she was not Pythia. She was ruthless and cunning, and those were definitely not traits of a good Pythia. Maybe the high priest was cunning, but Pythia was an innocent, an immaculate peasant woman transformed to a divination tool.
When everyone left and he was alone and in charge of Delphi, he would quietly recover the black stone—the Omphalos. Then he would test the young village girls, and maybe among them he would find the true Pythia. More and more, he was feeling that it was his destiny, not Panos's, to nurture the new Pythia.
He would be the interpreter, the priest, and the one who would present her to the world.
The power would be his.
16
Royal Reception
His eyes blinked open, but Indy didn't move, barely breathed. He felt something in the air that shouldn't have been there, a presence. Someone was in here with him. His limbs tensed instinctively. Slowly, he turned his head, scanning the room.
Then he saw a figure standing in front of the window, silhouetted by the afternoon sunshine. "Ah, Christ, Nikos," he said as he recognized the aquiline nose and classical Greek features. "What are you doing now?"
The kid was getting to be a pest. He'd been looking in on him every few hours for the past two days, and Indy had just talked to him before he'd fallen asleep.
"Sorry. I was just leaving, and didn't want to wake you up. I got the knapsack. I put it under the bed."
"That was fast."
"You slept almost four hours."
"I did?" Indy grimaced as he sat up, and touched his side. The last time they'd talked he'd asked Nikos if he would discreetly pick up his knapsack from the workshop. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. "Did anyone see you?"
Nikos shook his head. "No one was there. I got in through a window."
Indy's gaze strayed to the bedstand. He squinted, trying
to make sense of what he saw. A ceramic bowl rested on the bedstand, and inside it were three heads of garlic twisted together. "What's this?"
Nikos's dark eyes moved from the bowl to Indy. "Moly. It will help you."
Indy looked at it again. "Moly. God, I haven't heard anyone call garlic by that name since I was a kid."
Nikos took a couple steps closer to him. "I didn't know there was moly in America. What did you use it for when you were a kid?"
"It's a long story."
"Tell me," he said, sitting at the foot of the bed.
Indy clasped his hands behind his head, and recalled the incident, one of those he would never forget.
"Get me the moly," his father had said one day, and when Indy admitted he didn't know what he was talking about he was forced to eat a clove of garlic a day until he knew why it was called moly. The question mystified Indy for nearly two weeks, long enough for him to lose a couple of friends who thought he smelled. As a result, he spent more time reading Homer, another task required by his father.
Finally, while struggling through a scene in The Odyssey, he discovered moly. It was a species of garlic which supposedly possessed magical power. Hermes gave it to Odysseus for protection against the enchantments of Circe. After that his father never required him to either eat garlic, or call it moly.
"You think I need protection, Nikos?"
"Yes, I do."
"Why?"
"There are strange things going on."