"It's honey." Only a thin layer remained, nearly dried onto the pottery shard. The sugar had crystallized into a gritty, sandlike texture. It had been there for a long time, but less than six months.
"A marker? Who left it?"
"I think so. I doubt anyone came here to brew honey tea."
It was an encouraging discovery. Though it differed somewhat from what they had first expected, it also strongly supported their theory. Everyone's mood shifted; it was like seeing a progress bar pass the halfway mark after a long wait, proof that their efforts hadn't been in vain and that a goal lay ahead.
Green didn't show it as clearly, but his short, uneven breaths betrayed his inner turmoil. At last, he let out a long breath.
The mystery that had plagued them for months had finally yielded tangible progress. A corner of the elusive shadow had emerged, one they could trace. It made him feel much better, and his attitude had shifted, too. After Kraft had examined the pottery shard carefully, Green approached and asked, "Was it the professor you mentioned?"
"I'm not sure, but it's very likely." Kraft, by contrast, didn't feel that things were becoming any clearer.
The cryptic directions, the shattered honey jar, and the fissure before them: a jagged, zigzagging crack, like a bolt of lightning. Deep within, beyond the reach of their light, loomed uneven rectangular shadows. They brought to mind rows of mismatched teeth in jawbones embedded in the walls, set into a quarry where the cut marks were unnaturally neat.
Even as they realized it was man-made, instinct told them it was as old and dead as the bones, buried at a depth where nothing should ever see daylight again.
The quarry's expansion had reached this underground space. It seemed whoever