The Minoan Cipher

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

Lily stood in front of the altar in the sanctuary, praying for a sign from the Mother Goddess when she felt the tremor under her sandals. A rapt smile came to her face. The goddess had heard her voice. She was shaking the earth deep in the Labyrinth to signal eagerness for the sacrifice.

Lily gazed down on the lovely face of Kalliste who lay in a fetal position on the sacrificial table between the sacral horns. Her arms and legs were trussed with rope and she was heavily drugged. Lily’s heart welled with happiness as she thought back to the first sacrifice she had attended so many years before.

She and the other young priestesses were standing in a grove of trees around the victim, a lamb that lay on a platform in much the same position as Kalliste. This was long before the High Priestess became the withered crone in the Paris sanitarium. She was in her eighties, but her pale, translucent skin was still tight against her cheekbones.

Lily remembered the flash of sunlight on the dagger blade, the last pitiful bleat and the bright river of crimson against white wool. With blood dripping from the dagger, the crone had looked up from her work to gauge the reactions of the young girls. Some had covered their eyes. Others stood with mouths open in shock. The crone’s blue eyes had fastened on Lily, whose face showed neither fear nor loathing, but rather cold interest. She had smiled, and from that moment, Lily had been groomed as her successor.

The High Priestess was dead, but she would never die. Her spirit had merged with all the high priestesses before her to be reborn in the great goddess Potnia, the Lady of the Labyrinth. Potnia, herself, was a combination of all the Minoan deities — the Snake Goddess, the Goddess of the Earth and the mistress of the animals, Britomartis.

By impersonating the goddess, Lily would become the goddess in an epiphany that gave her complete control over the Way of the Axe. Once she had made the transformation, she would speak with the voice of the goddess. There would be no hesitation when she ordered the priestesses to tear Salazar to pieces. The Mother Goddess would be pleased with the double sacrifice and shower the faithful with good fortune. The success of the operation in the United States would be ensured. Lily would take control of Auroch Industries and expand her power around the globe.

She looked up at the mummy of the High Priestess sitting on its throne. Under the influence of the opiates she had taken to prepare for the ceremony, she imagined that the leathery features of her predecessor’s face once again glowed with health and life. This was not a four-thousand-year-old pile of withered flesh and brittle bones. She saw the lips widen in a smile. The voice of the long-dead priestess filled her head.

She must die.

Lily heard the piping of the flutes. Once Salazar brought in the rhyton the ceremony would begin.

Soon, Mother. Very soon.