When the bright light had gone they looked again, and lo and behold there was the passage in front of them. The wall had disappeared and the way to the artefact was open.
“We were going nowhere,” said Amartia. “There were far more than millions of possibilities.”
“But how did you do it?” the others chorused excitedly.
“I just saw the solution.” Amartia was very low-key about it all. “It was only a matter of adding some numbers. We had to suss it out quickly because it's almost midnight.”
The went through the passage and into the courtyard. They walked right round the artefact and back to the front again.
“What should we be looking for?” asked Muko in a
hushed voice. “When will we know it's midnight, anyway?”
All of a sudden the whole mechanism went into motion, making a tremendous racket. The gears rotated and somehow the walls around the courtyard also moved. The symbols on the pillars changed places. Then, just as suddenly as it had started, all movement ceased and everything went quiet.
In the abrupt silence Amartia's calm voice could be heard
clearly: “I'll know when it's midnight.”