Her father opened the vault doors with a ponderous key and nine twists of a combination dial hidden in a locked recess. He preceded her into the cool darkness, past casks of wine and olive oil and dry stores of food hermetically sealed in steel drums, through a second door into a tiny rear tunnel. Only when the gloom became impenetrable did Rhamōn press a black button and turn on a light.

They stood in a low, wide cavern, the air sweet with the smell of the dry rock. In the yellow glare of the single light bulb, her father advanced behind his looming shadow to a rough-hewn, stout wooden cabinet and pulled out a deep drawer. The wood’s groan sounded heavy and sad between the hard walls. Within the drawer were several fine wooden boxes, one as large as a traveling case. He withdrew that one first and carried it to where she stood, kneeling before her and unlocking the lid.

Within, surrounded by a cushion of velvet molded for something at least three times its size, was an object barely as wide as her two palms spread together. It resembled a pair of handlebars from one of the sophē’s bikykloi, although much thicker, with a curved saddle pointing away from the juncture.

“These are yours now, your responsibility,” he said, lifting his hands as if refusing to touch the box any more. “She was saving them for you. You were the only one she thought could take up her work. Her task. None of her sons were up to the job. She thought we were suited for administration, not adventure. I never argued with her…these things scare me.” He stood and backed away, his shadow swinging off the box and its contents. The sculpted-looking thing within gleamed white and pearl.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It is one of the Objects,” he answered. “She called it a ‘clavicle.’”

The sophē had brought three Objects with her from the Way in her wonderful journey to this world. Their powers had never been explained to Rhita; Patrikia had simply told her what some of them did, not how. Her father brought forward the other boxes, laying them on the dry floor of the cave, opening them. “This was her teukhos,” he said, indicating a flat metal and glass pad a little larger than her hand. He reverently touched four small shiny cubes nestled next to the pad. “These were her personal library. There are hundreds of books in these cubes. Some have become part of the Hypateion’s sacred doctrine. Some have to do with Earth. They’re in languages that don’t exist here, mostly. I suppose she taught you some of them.” His tone was not resentful, merely resigned; perhaps even relieved. Better his daughter than him. He opened the third box. “This kept her alive while she came here. It gave her air to breath. All of these are yours.”