Tiyana reached out and touched the funicular hologram. The glowing, translucent light stuck to her fingers. As she pulled her hand away, the elastic light stuck to it for a while before snapping back into place.
“We can move it.” She said.
“We untie it?” Hongo posited.
Tiyana shrugged, “I guess.”
“Can you do it?” Hongo asked.
All eyes were on Tiyana.
“I don’t know.” She said softly.
After a long pause, “There should be a free end somewhere inside it. A lot of it is tied with one loop around another. We’ll have to separate the loops.”
She reached out and pulled at a section. A loop sprang free.
“Ah ha!”
“Ok, now what?” Hunter asked impatiently.
“Well, just give me a minute.” Tiyana looked thoughtful.
With a few deft strokes of her fingers, she whipped the holographic rope around. More loops came free. Some of the knot came unwound.
“There.”
She continued to unravel it.
“And there.”
She furiously worked at the knot for the better part of an hour. She moved in waves, thinking, then acting. The motions syncopated tirelessly until they reached a furious crescendo. She unraveled the knot faster and faster. It seemed about to give way. She uncovered a new loop.
“There you are. I think this is the end I’m looking for.” Tiyana said as she gave the loop a great yank.
When she yanked it, it sprung free. She pulled more and more of it out. It seemed to go on forever. Everyone’s eyes were fixated on the loop. Everyone thought that at the end of the line, the knot would crumble and vanish. No one noticed the slack disappearing at the other end. Eventually, the rope went taught. It would unravel no further. When Tiyana leaned in, however, to inspect her handiwork, a look of dismay crossed her face.
“Oh no!”
“What?” Everyone replied.
All five of them leaned in and stared at the knot. The slack from the newly uncovered loop had simply come from pulling another previously uncovered loop back into the knot. The knot had come loose in the middle, but tightened up and become more intricate at the side. The progress was illusory.
“I believe that it is a cryptogram.” Virgil finally said.
“Cryptogram?” Hunter asked.
“Indeed, the denizens of the underground city here were known for puzzles. There may be a clue on the door of how to open the knot.”
“Like a cipher?” Tiyana asked.
“Possibly, I do not know.” Virgil shook his head resignedly.
“Look here.” Hunter said.
He stood barely an inch from the door and stared intently at it. Everyone gathered around him.
“Oh, there’s writing there.” Tiyana remarked. The door was covered with tiny inscriptions. The inscriptions were all written in the same minimalistic, boxy characters that the hologram machine back in the Egyptian labyrinth had displayed and that Virgil’s tracking device had used.
“Great, I can’t read this.” Tiyana remarked, “Can you Virgil?”
Virgil squinted, “No, it is… gibberish. Most of it is numbers.”
With that, a three-hour long conversation ensued with Virgil and Tiyana reading and discussing the writing on the door. Meanwhile, Hunter and Hongo fiddled with the knot. Vito had brought some of their food and he prepared a small meal. While eating, Hunter became enthralled with the images depicted on the door. He saw Krishna hurling his legendary weapon, the 108-edged Sudarshana Chakra Discus at his immortal foe, Narakasura. Interestingly, however, the depiction of Narakasura looked nothing like it should. Narakasura had a long, white beard; a muscular, human build, and a Greek-style toga. He hurled thunderbolts and carried a trident. Hunter thought he looked more like Zeus holding Neptune’s trident, then like Narakasura hurling the sataghini. The blend of ancient mysticism confounded Hunter. Hunter realized eventually that the scene did not depict a war. It depicted gladiatorial combat. The gods were in attendance at a spectacle. The fighters in the pit were competing for sport. Strangely, however, Hades was in the pit, but he was not fighting. Hunter could tell it was him because he looked exactly as he did back in the Egyptian labyrinth. Hades seemed wholly ambivalent to the carnage going on around him. He simply looked off into the distance and pointed with his outstretched staff. Hunter followed Hades’s gaze to the corner of the room.
A light bulb clicked on inside Hunter’s head. Hunter felt the queasy nausea in his gut of a hunch. He sprung from his cross-legged seat on the floor of the hall and strode to the corner. He locked eyes with Hades. From his perspective, the knot shifted. Hunter adjusted his head and tried to get the right angle.
“Interesting.” Hunter said.
Tiyana and Virgil were engrossed in conversation, but they perked up at his exclamation.
“What?” They both asked.
From Hunter’s position, the knot looked as if it bound a cart to a post. From his position, with his eyes in the right place, the hologram fell neatly into place. The knot was meant to tie the cart to the column.
“How much do you all want to bet, that that is an ox-cart?” Hunter asked.
“What in the world are you talking about dear?” Tiyana exasperatedly replied.
“Look, there’s only way one to open a Gordian knot.” Hunter replied. “Move back.”
Tiyana and Virgil merely stared at him with a puzzled expression in their eyes. Then, their eyes widened and they stepped back as Hunter drew a sword from his satchel and raised it over his head. Tiyana and Virgil stepped back.
The sword swooshed through the air passing silently through the hologram. When it hit the stone floor, sparks flew out from underneath the blade. The crash of metal on stone pounded everyone’s eardrums like a sledgehammer as the sound echoed relentlessly amidst the small enclave. The knot snapped violently at the center and dropped to the ground. As it dropped, it faded and disappeared. Hunter heard a crack. The door swung ajar. All that they had to do now was grab one of the heads of Cerberus and pull it open.
“Hunter!” Tiyana screamed. “What in the world did you do?”
“It’s the Gordian Knot.” Hunter said with a smug grin. “As legend has it, Alexander the Great entered the Satrapy of Phyrgia, whereupon he found an ox-cart dedicated to Zeus and tied to a post. The father of King Midas had tied it there. When he did, it was prophesied by the priests that the person to untie the knot would become the King of Asia. The knot could not be untied, however, because unknown to anyone but the priests, the ends had been fused together. When Alexander arrived, the knot stumped him, so he sliced it in half with a stroke of his sword. Rather than being enraged, Zeus was impressed and granted him many victories.”
“You never cease to amaze.” Hongo said. “Come on, let us do this thing.”
With that, Hongo put his back against the closed left side of the door, raised his pistols, kicked open the ajar right side of the door, and ducked inside with practiced dexterity. Hunter covered him.
YOU ARE READING
Dawn of the Epoch
ActionHunter called himself an archaeologist, but he was a modern day treasure hunter. Tiyana was a scientist devoted to her craft. They were passionate people, wholly devoted to their work. Neither of them had time for love. Neither of them could resist...
