Vault of the Oracle
Chapter 12: The Jade Key

In the roughly forever since I last updated, the formatting in my earlier chapters seems to have gone all out of whack. Hopefully this chapter will be better-looking.

Abigail was still none too sure how she'd managed to get into this mess. Managed. As if she'd actually put some effort into it. Ha. She sighed and stared out the window of the car—she had the back seat to herself, which was something, anyway. Every so often she'd catch sight of her reflection in the window and be very confused for a few moments. Having red hair was weird. She wouldn't have expected the change to be quite so dramatic, really. Selene knew what she was doing.

Speaking of Selene, she was sitting in the front passenger seat. Elias was driving. And they were holding a fairly animated conversation in Greek, which had gotten annoying very quickly. Yes, she was a hostage, but so far her captors had at least been polite.

...Of course, she'd been annoyed when they were polite. Nothing makes you happy, does it? Then again, you're a hostage on the other side of the world. Don't be happy.

Finally she couldn't take it anymore. "So where are we going, anyway?"

Selene turned around, looking confused. "We've just been discussing that, haven't you been liste..." She trailed off as Elias interjected something in Greek. "...Ah... oh... yes, right. My apologies."

Oh. Despite herself, Abigail laughed.

"We're going to Thebes," Elias explained when it became clear his boss was too flustered to answer. "So far as we know. That may change."

"Well we're going to Thebes no matter what," Selene frowned, "it's just..." For a moment she hesitated, studying her 'guest' carefully and apparently weighing her options. Then she shrugged. "You have an interest in history as well, perhaps you will appreciate the search, if not its circumstances. In order to prevent the vault from being disturbed, the oracle ordered its two keys to be widely dispersed. Gates has found one; we must keep the other out of his hands."

"Because the treasu—the items in the vault are cursed," Abigail clarified, trying to keep the skepticism out of her voice. If she wanted to know what was going on, it was best not to mock the explanation... but still. Cursed. Who believed that nonsense anymore?

The same type of people who believed in the Templar treasure and the City of Gold, probably. Thinking of it that way made her uncomfortable. Just slightly. Surely it was... it was different, it was ridiculous.

Wasn't it?

In any case, Selene nodded seriously. "Yes. Precisely. In a series of visions, the oracle personally decreed where the keys should be hidden, and the records of these statements are the only clues to where the keys can be found. These records were on scrolls discovered as part of the Templar treasure... this is how Gates obtained the information."

That seemed to imply Selene had found the information elsewhere. She probably wanted Abigail to ask about it, so despite her curiosity, Abigail didn't. "Okay, and...?"

If the other woman was disappointed she didn't show it. "The instructions are maddeningly vague, and for this key in particular, there are aspects which simply make no sense."

"And as I am continuously reminding you, the oracle thrived on not making sense," Elias broke in, with the same cool tone as always, but there was a hint of frustration. Abigail wondered how many times they'd been over this before they started speaking English. "I doubt that dwelling on it is going to change matters."

Selene sighed. "Even so..."

"What's the clue?" Abigail inquired, more out of idle curiosity than anything. If she had to be dragged along on the hunt, she may as well keep herself occupied.

Besides, maybe if they found this key, they would also find Ben. And then she was pretty sure all hell would break loose—and all hell breaking loose was usually a great help for getting out of a hostage situation.

It looked like Selene was about to hand her a sheet of paper, then thought better of it. Abigail wondered if that was a way of limiting her information, or just because it was written in Greek. "The reference is quite direct, really... 'The second key lies protected within the many gates of Thebes. Let it be shrouded in shadow, revealed by the light of Zeus'. The seven gates of Thebes are simple enough. Light of Zeus?" She shook her head. "Peculiar."

Abigail's first thought was that it probably said lightning of Zeus, but she cast that aside quickly. The clue was in Greek, and she had no idea if the words would be similar there. Unlikely. Besides, Selene surely knew the language well enough to avoid such mistakes. But... wait. Thebes. Of course! "It's in Egypt," she blurted before she could stop to think about it.

Even Elias was giving her a strange look. Selene frowned. "Egypt? ...Thebes of the Hundred Gates, of course, but... the light of Zeus, yet... I don't see how putting the key in Egypt changes things. Unless... no, it was the oracle giving the clue, not the Egyptians, so—how do you figure that?"

How did she figure that? It'd hit her as a gut feeling, not something overly rational. She'd learned to go with those feelings a bit more in her time with Ben. "Well, either Thebes could be said to have many gates, and you said the oracle wanted the keys to be widely dispersed. Why not send one to Egypt? It was the greatest civilization in the ancient world."

The expression on Selene's face had become almost comical, and Abigail decided she might've been a little less than tactful there. "Egypt was th... what kind of nonsense are you on about?" After a moment she recovered her composure. Mostly. "That is ridiculous... we will continue on to Thebes. Greek Thebes. I'm certain the clue will make sense by the time we get there."

Amazingly, for something the oracle had written, the clue made perfect sense.

"The ancient Greeks tended to pigeonhole any pantheon they came across into their own. So they equated the Egyptian Amon-Ra with Zeus. The clue references the light of Zeus, which is very strange if we're talking Thebes in Greece, where Zeus would be associated with lightning. It makes a lot more sense if it's referring to Thebes in Egypt—Amon-Ra was a sun god."

"Ahh, of course. It's just how the oracle would think."

"Okay, great, great, we're supposed to be in Egypt. We're here. So now where are we supposed to be going?"

What had once been Thebes of the Hundred Gates was now Thebes of the Two Gates: namely, Ben and Patrick. Oh, and an ex-Gates and a plucky sidekick... not that Riley would have suffered anyone actually calling him a plucky sidekick.

Ben was leading the little troop through the ruins like he knew where he was going. He didn't, really. But had that ever stopped him before?

That wasn't quite true anyway. He knew where he wanted to go, just not quite how to get there, and following the flow of tourists seemed like a good bet. "We're going to the Karnak temple complex. Fortunately the Precinct of Amon-Ra is open to visitors, because that's surely where the key's going to be hidden. The light of Zeus."

"Right. Sounds good." Riley was glancing over his shoulder every few seconds, which wasn't making them look suspicious at all, though they had cleared customs with no difficulty. Ben watched his friend carefully; Riley had been far more on edge than usual, and that was saying something, since taking them to the photography shop. No surprise, but still.

Someday you've got to tell me... or I'm going to burst from the curiosity.

For now, at least, he could handle letting the questions build up. After all, he had the current predicament to distract him. Being on the run wasn't enough; ducking the law was really starting to get a little boring. But there was still the fact that Abigail was missing. He wasn't quite sure what he planned to do when he found her captors, but... he was working on that.

Following the tourists came through; before long Ben and his companions were wandering the majestic ruins of Karnak. "So what are we looking for now?" Riley asked, glancing uneasily at a row of crumbling sphinxes. "Keep walking until we find the one with the thunderbolt?"

"I'd expect some representation of Amon-Ra himself," Emily suggested. She's barely spoken since they arrived in Egypt—and when she had it was mostly to tell Patrick to stop talking—so Ben took that as a good sign.

Actually, she was taking life as a fugitive pretty well, other than the alias. And Patrick calling her Marge every chance he got probably wasn't helping.

It took two hours to find the appropriate statue. Would've taken about fifteen minutes if Ben hadn't stopped to admire the scenery every three steps. We've got the entire FBI on our tails and he's worried about the age of the sandstone! Riley shook his head and bit back a laugh. It was so... so... so very Ben.

So now the four of them stood in front of a huge statue that looked strangely familiar, really. "It's kind of like the big bluish-green man from the Templar treasure room," he declared, looking over the grand sculpture. "Except, y'know, the hat's a lot taller. I'm going to assume that's also significant."

Emily gave him an odd look. "I would call the creator deity significant, yes..."

"He's always like this, Mom." Ben was already pacing around the statue, casting occasional nervous glances at the entrance to the room, but there were hardly any tourists even passing by. They'd gone far off the main thoroughfare of the ruins to find this place. "Now I'd imagine there's something about this statue that would cause some unusual reflection of the sunlight. That would explain how the light of Zeus could be directed to a certain point."

Emily crossed her arms. "So we could be waiting here all day for the light to the light to come in just right, if we haven't missed it already?"

"We could, if you want to look at it that way." Ben pulled two flashlights out and tossed one to Riley. "Or we could start trying to trigger the reflection ourselves. By the way, have I mentioned that you sound exactly like Dad did when he was trying to talk me out of finding the Templar treasure? You two really do have a lot in common." With that, he started waving the flashlight around, pointedly avoiding looking at his mother.

She and Patrick exchanged glances; they never seemed quite certain whether they ought to be more worried about being anywhere near each other, or about their son trying to get them back together. Riley thought it was cute. Of course, Riley also admitted to himself, his finding things like this funny might have some small bearing on why he'd never had a girlfriend.

Contrary to popular opinion, he had some sense of tact. Minimal, but there. So he refrained from actually saying they were cute.

Waving the flashlight around at the statue, he suppressed the natural urge for such an act for about ten seconds... then he started making lightsaber noises. "Bzzzt! Whoosh! Bzzzt! Shoooom! Bzzz—ack!" As if he'd personally offended the sun god by his irreverence, the light reflected right back at him. These were high powered flashlights—he ought to know, he'd picked them out. And if he'd ever had any thought that Egyptian flashlights might be inferior to their American counterparts, it was erased as his whole field of vision went painfully blue-white. "Owww..."

"Riley!" Ben rushed over "You found it, great!"

"Yeah." Riley rubbed his eyes, and blinked back afterimages of a vaguely Darth Vader-looking form with a strange goatee. "I'm fine. Thanks for asking."

Ben, being Ben, had stopped listening.

Riley stepped aside and watched as Ben moved over to the wall, near where he'd been standing when he owned his own face with the flashlight. The older man was frowning. "I don't see..." Running a hand along the wall he hesitated, looked at the statue again, then switched his light on. With a bit of trial and error he successfully found the spot where the reflection was perfectly straight—searing right into his eyes, but he didn't seem to concerned.

Of course, this was the same Ben Gates who'd sliced his finger open on a creepy old ship rather than wait five minutes to hunt down some ink.

Again he felt the wall, with his companions simply watching him. Everyone in the room knew how to deal with Ben Moments by now. Emily was shifting a little impatiently, but Riley and Patrick just leaned back and waited.

"Got it!" A dull click as one of the bricks—the one the light would have fallen on if Ben's face weren't in the way—shifted and swung outward. Something green and glistening sat in the dark chamber he'd just revealed, and he removed it with his usual reverence for anything older than the Eniac.

The key was similar to the first one in design—a slab of opaque gemstone with a series of jagged ridges on one side, and an intricate carving on the other. This time rather than a dragon, the carving depicted a man in flowing garments holding some sort of harp. During the course of their research Riley had seen that harp before, so he didn't need to ask; even he could recognize the god Apollo when he saw him.

Naturally, by the time he was done studying the artifact's appearance, his friend was worrying about less practical things. Like, say, its composition.

"It's jade," Ben said softly, drawing shocked looks from both of his parents. He nodded to confirm some question neither of them had asked. "The keys weren't just for utility; the oracle's making a statement."

"What, that she's jaded?" Riley asked promptly.

Patrick rolled his eyes. "Jade would have to come from the Far East; it'd be exceptionally rare and valuable in Greek society."

The words rare and valuable rarely failed to perk Riley's interest, but he was pretty sure that asking for any more detail would just get him a lecture on trade routes. He could deal with Ben trying to expand his historical education. He could deal with running from the cops. Both at once was asking a bit much... not that this had ever stopped Ben.

Or his father.

Or his girlfriend.

Right, his girlfriend. They were supposed to be looking for her, too.

Ben placed the key in a small padded box he'd brought along for the purpose, then replaced the wall panel. "Okay, let's get out of here."

Riley stared at him. "You mean we're not going to stand here continuing our oooh-ing and ahhh-ing over the statue, and the architecture, and the quality of the sandstone, until we have a bunch of thugs with guns breathing down our necks? Ben, have you taken your temperature lately?"

His friend arched an eyebrow. "We can spend longer if you want."

"No! Let's go. Move. Leave. Now." He bolted for the door, leaving Ben's parents blinking after him; Ben himself just chuckled. He was more than used to this by now.

About three steps after turning the corner, Riley skidded to a stop. He was certain he'd just seen a familiar face in the crowd of tourists, and there was absolutely no reason he should be recognizing anyone in the middle of Egypt...

He waited, tensed and ready to start zapping thugs with a flashlight, but the thugs never showed up. This time.

Next time might be totally different.