The Last Oracle (Sigma Force 5)

She gazed around her. This could be it.

Thrilled and amazed, her heart thumped in her chest. She was surprised no one else could hear it. At the same time, she pictured her father following these same footsteps. She imagined his heart had thundered the same as hers. In this moment, she felt a strange intimacy, a closeness they’d never shared in life. And never would. Her throat closed a bit as emotion racked through her.

The stairwell was not long and ended in a small chamber, cut from the sandstone. Water gurgled and echoed on the far side. A natural spring poured out of a knee-high hole in the wall and flowed through a crack in the floor, then vanished out the opposite wall.

“A Harappan well cave,” Elizabeth said, recognizing the configuration. “Living alongside the Indus River, the civilization grew skilled at irrigation.”

Gray shone his light around the space. It was crudely circular. Cut into the stone floor was another chakra wheel. But the center of this one wasn’t empty. A large egg-shaped stone rested there.

“It’s a copy of the omphalos,” Elizabeth said.

She and the others were drawn to it. It stood as high as her midriff and was twice as large as the one from the Delphi museum. The dome’s outer surface was carved with trees and leaves.

Elizabeth swallowed hard and stared around her. “Someone has re-created the original adytum, the inner sanctum of the Oracle, where she cast her prophecies.”

Elizabeth stepped over to a toppled bronze chair. It had three legs. “Here’s a tripod. The classical seat of the Oracle.”

“Or oracles.” Gray had wandered a few steps away. He pointed his flashlight to more toppled chairs.

Five total.

Elizabeth snapped several pictures. What was this place? What was it doing here?

Rosauro called from the wall, hiking up her pack. “You might want to see this,” she said.

Luca stood farther down the wall. His arm was raised to the surface, but not touching. Even in the shadows, Elizabeth noted how his hand shook.

Elizabeth crossed to Rosauro. A mosaic, nearly black with age, covered the wall. Several tiles littered the floor, fallen away. Someone had wiped sections of the mosaic down, removing centuries of mold and grime. It looked hastily done. Elizabeth imagined her father swabbing a cloth over the artwork, seeking what lay beneath.

She stared at what was revealed.

From floor to ceiling, it depicted a siege on a temple set amid mountains. “Parnassus,” Elizabeth mumbled. “Under attack by Romans. It’s showing the downfall of the Temple of Delphi.”

The next section revealed a room not unlike the one they were in, even with an omphalos in the center—but the stone was shown in cross section. Hidden beneath its dome crouched a small girl, cradled in the arms of a young woman, curled tight together as a Roman soldier searched for them.

Elizabeth glanced to the stone behind her. It couldn’t be…

She stepped along the wall. The next tableaux revealed a caravan of horses, donkeys, and carts. At the head of the train, the same slender woman led the child. The long caravan climbed up and over a mountain. The last cart was hauled by two fiery stallions, clearly representing the steeds who drew Apollo’s sun chariot across the skies. But they were not dragging the sun here. In the back of the cart rested the same stone that had protected the woman and child. The omphalos of Delphi.

Elizabeth turned and faced the stone behind her. She trembled all over. “That’s not a copy,” she said with a shudder. “That’s the original omphalos. The one spoken of in the histories of Plutarch and Socrates.”

“And see this,” Rosauro said.

The woman drew Elizabeth to the next scene. It was a picture of the canyon, a joyous scene of the Greeks building temples into the cliffs. The adytum was also depicted, but instead of one Oracle seated atop a tripod, there were five. They circled the omphalos, which smoked like a volcano from the hole at its top. The smoke formed a figure of a young boy with outstretched arms. His eyes were fire, and flames climbed from his open palms.

Was the boy indicative of prophecy in general or something more specific?

Either way, Elizabeth found those fiery eyes staring back at her.

At her shoulder, Gray had also followed the story. He waved an arm along the wall, encompassing the tale.

“The last Oracle, the child, must have been spirited away after the downfall of the temple. In secret, the Greek temple guardians and supporters fled the Roman persecution and settled here, where they rebuilt among these Harappan ruins, and stayed hidden.”

Elizabeth remembered Abe’s story of this place. “They remained safe for seven hundred years, perhaps intermingling with the local tribes in secret. And after so many generations, the Greeks were slowly absorbed into the Indian culture.”

“Then they grew afoul of religious persecution and the growing Indian caste system,” Gray said. “All the bones. A massacre occurred here.”

Luca spoke at the end of the wall. “And they fled again,” he said.

They joined him. He stood a step from the churning spring. The art here was not mosaic tiles, but someone had painted a hurried frieze. It was done in black paint, showing the attack of the temples. People fled in all directions, but one group, highlighted by radiant streaks, escaped in a caravan of tall wagons with large wheels. It faded smaller and smaller across the wall, heading far away.

Luca placed his fingers gently to the wagons. His voice cracked with emotion. “These are our people,” he said. “The Romani. This is where we came from. This is our origin.”

Gray shifted back. He stared across the wall, his face stunned.

The Greek guardians escaped with the last child and the omphalos, hiding in this valley and absorbing over the span of seven centuries into Indian culture, then that same culture persecuted them and sent them wandering once again, but under a new name.

Gypsies.

Gray waved an arm to encompass the wall. “The story depicted here must trace a genetic line that has been preserved throughout history. Flowing from Greece, to here, and out again. A genetic line of savant power.”

“This is why we wander,” Luca said, still staring at the caravan. “As the Hindu man said, no place is safe forever. So we kept moving, trying to protect the secret held within the heart of our clans.”

“Until the secret was stolen from you,” Gray said.

“A secret that trails all the way back to Delphi,” Elizabeth added.

She pictured the child back in Washington. Could she truly be a descendant of the last Oracle of Delphi?