Prince of Time

She gave him a startled look. With her cap of dyed copper hair and large eyes, the petite Frenchwoman looked more like a fashion model in her designer jeans and knit top than a forty-seven-year-old anthropologist with two controversial best-sellers and three grandchildren to her credit.

“I didn’t expect you back so soon,” she said. “I was just going over to survey the damage. The local police have finally packed up their little meters and magnifying glasses and decided we won’t embarrass them by dying of carbon monoxide poisoning.” She shrugged expressively. “As if we didn’t have equipment ten times as sensitive as theirs.”

Zeke unsnapped his helmet. “You’re breaking your own rule about going in alone?”

“I won’t have to, now that you’re here. Let’s go take a look,” she called over her shoulder as she took off again.

Grabbing his tool pack from the motorcycle’s carry case, Zeke trotted after her to the cave entrance. As always, it was a tight squeeze through the narrow opening for his six-foot-three, one-hundred-ninety-pound frame, and he had to take it sideways all the way to the main chamber where they’d been working. While Marie adjusted the battery lantern and checked the air quality, Zeke trained a high-powered flashlight on the damage from the homemade bomb.

He grimaced as the beam played over the stone walls in the far corner of the gallery where only two days before he’d been transcribing picture script. Now much of the stone engraving had been obliterated by the blast. But that wasn’t the worst. A burial pit, which had yielded a decorative vase, a curved plow called a crook ard and several smaller tools forged from iron had evidently taken the brunt of the explosive. It was now black ash and rubble.

Marie’s eyes flashed with anger. “How could anyone do such a thing?”

“Who knows?” Zeke muttered. “At least we rescued some of the artifacts before the blast. And I’ll be able to work with the low light exposures of the wall script and the notes I’ve transcribed.” Disgustedly, he stepped closer to the scarred stone. The light beam caught on a crack that ran from floor to ceiling. Had the explosion caused that, too?

Starting at the bottom and moving upward, he felt along the break. It seemed solid. Relieved, he stepped back and inspected the surface again. The beam played down the limestone and up again, illuminating a strange mark a good foot above his head. At first, he thought it was residue from the blast. On closer inspection, he could almost make out a faint imprint.

“Qu’est-ce que c’est?” Marie asked.

“I don’t know.” Stretching, he pressed his palm against it. The stone seemed to warm. They both gasped as the hard rock split along a six-foot seam to reveal a small room no bigger than a walk-in closet.

“My God!” Zeke exclaimed as the flashlight illuminated the space inside. A large, finely engraved bronze box sat on a pottery tile on the floor.

Marie was by his side in an instant. “The explosion must have broken the seal on a hidden tomb.”

His pulse raced with excitement. Gently, as if working with the most delicate glass, he felt over the surface of the box until his fingers found a hidden latch. Inside were several perfectly preserved panels covered with writing.

“Well, I’ll be damned!”

Marie leaned over his shoulder, shining the light directly on the script. “Can you tell what it is?”

Being careful not to touch the material, he studied the characters. One panel resembled ancient Greek script, yet it appeared to be another language altogether. There was a picture, too. A naked man in a strange-looking capsule.

Tentatively he touched the surface. “This doesn’t make sense,” he told Marie. “Feel the covering. It’s almost like plastic.”

She touched the panel and nodded. “As far as I know, no one from the ninth century B.C. had anything like this. You think it’s a fake?” she asked.

“Do you?”

“I want you to check it out before we tell the others. We might be sitting on the most important discovery since the Dead Sea Scrolls. Or...”

“Someone could be playing a very nasty joke,” she finished for him.

* * *

TO HER EMBARRASSMENT, Cassie’s stomach growled.

Thorn said something in his own language and made eating motions.

She nodded. “I suppose there’s a kitchen somewhere around here,” she said in an artificially chipper tone. “But it may not have anything I’d recognize as a stove. And even if you’re willing to do the cooking, the equipment could explode in your face when you touch the controls. So why don’t I dig into my emergency supplies?”

Thorn leaned back and watched her, apparently very interested in what she intended to do.

The scrutiny made her feel self-conscious, and she lowered her eyes. She was coming to realize that in the confines of this room, the simplest actions had monumental meaning. Each thing she and Thorn experienced together was fresh and new. An adventure. A clue to understand each other. And more. A strand of the growing bond tying them to each other. Part of her was wary. The way she’d always been. Part of her longed to get closer to this man.

Ducking her head, she pulled some packets of dehydrated soup from her knapsack and handed them to Thorn. He shook them, listened to the dry grains rattle inside and shrugged.

“Just add hot water and you’ve got a meal in a bowl,” she announced, imitating a TV commercial. It was so much easier to make silly conversation he couldn’t understand than to cope with the confusion she felt.

In the bathroom, she filled two cups with hot water. When she brought them back, she found Thorn had torn open one of the envelopes.

After sniffing the contents, he dipped a finger inside and cautiously brought a bit of the dry mix to his tongue.

He made a face, then looked on with interest as she added the mix to the water and stirred with a plastic spoon.

“Chicken soup,” she informed him as she looked at her watch. “Good for what ails you.”

He took her wrist and examined the timepiece as if he’d never seen anything like it. She pointed to the second hand, made a circle around the watch face and held up three fingers. “It’ll be done in a jiffy.”

Apparently more interested in the instrument than her scintillating commentary, he slipped the expansion band over her wrist.

After studying the face, he grabbed her pencil and notebook and copied the numbers from the dial to a clean sheet of paper, writing them in a line across the page.

As he pointed to each, she gave him the name. “One, two, three, four...” Up to twelve.

He held up his fists and began to raise one finger at a time, reciting, “One, two, three, four, five...”

“Yes!” she exclaimed.

He went through the ten fingers and examined his hands like a magician who’s just made a coin disappear. “Eleven? Twelve?”

“Hmm,” she mused. “I guess I never thought about it. Our number system is based on ten. But the day is divided into twenty-four hours.”

Taking the pencil she drew a circle and bisected it. On the right she drew the sun; on the left, a crescent moon. Then she marked off twelve divisions on each side.

When she looked at Thorn expectantly he nodded and pointed to the numbers on the watch.

“Right. Twelve hours in a day.” She tapped the sun. “And twelve hours in a night.” She tapped the moon. “Give or take variations for summer and winter, of course.”

His face was a study in concentration.

“Understand?” she asked.

“Understand,” he repeated, nodding vigorously.

“Good.”

Snatching up the notebook, he flipped back several pages to the third drawing she’d made. Thorn lying in bed. Eyes closed. “Thorn...sleep...night,” he said slowly but distinctly.