“Aramaic,” Thalia said distractedly. “Which leads me to believe this was carved in, maybe, 1000 B.C. or so, just like the little tag that came with it asserts.”

“Okay, follow me here.” Thalia pointed to one track of carvings. “We have the Great Goddess starting to share space with a male consort, most frequently represented as her son or lover. This starts when society makes a connection between intercourse and babies. Then a little further along.” She shifted her finger. “Here we find the Goddess and her God equal in size.” Her finger advanced several inches along the spiral. “Things accelerate very quickly; the Goddess gets smaller and smaller until we get to the end of the story line.”

Her finger followed the spiral out to its end, leading to a very large solitary male carving positioned just inside a border of snakes and leaves. A very thin line of writing followed the very outside rim.

“What’s the inscription say?” Zoe asked.

“Yahweh,” Thalia said.

“Fascinating,” Zoe said as she stood up and rubbed at her eyes. They felt tight and ready to explode after squinting for so long at the tiny, exquisite carvings and delicate inscriptions. “And you’re telling me that the changes in the form of God were a reflection of culture.”

“No doubt about it,” Thalia said as she extended her hand up to Zoe. “Here. Help me up.” Zoe looked down at this amazing woman. A brilliant academic, snared in her father’s troubles. Not once in the past months had she complained about being pressed into service in his place. Zoe felt her heart strain against the sorrow of never seeing her again. Thalia took her hand and Zoe felt strength and love—and the rare connection with a kindred soul that had grown from the months of sharing such an intense intellectual effort. Zoe had pulled strength from her and, in the past days, a better understanding of the distant echoes of human culture.

Thalia looked at her directly, her face open with concern. Zoe averted her eyes as she helped Thalia to her feet

“You okay?” Thalia asked.

Zoe avoided looking at her. ‘Tine.”

“I mean, if you want to talk about…”

The impending separation hung darkly between them. She knew that Thalia felt it was going to mean death for Zoe.

“No,” Zoe lied. “I don’t want to.” But she did! She wanted to ease Thalia’s concern by telling her how the escape would happen. But any accidental slip, any innocent, inadvertent slip would scuttle her plans. Pulling it off would be hard enough. Everything had to happen perfectly and secretly.

“If you’re sure—”

“Very sure,” Zoe snapped more abruptly than she intended. Thalia gave her a puzzled frown.

They stood there for a long moment, looking at each other the pale, athletically trim American, eye to eye with the large, imposing Russian woman with the olive skin and curly red hair. Zoe thought she saw some kind of understanding settle in Thalia’s dark eyes as a small smile softened her frown of concern.