by Chris Howard
As the Rexenor soldiers carried the director back through their ranks, I jumped in behind them, throwing my sword around like a lumberjack gone mad, hacking off clutching claws of bone at the wrist, cutting through neck vertebrae and sea-rotted collar bones.
If they were going to risk their lives for Matrothy, I damn well wasn’t going to allow them to be struck down while doing it.
The Olethren who’d lost their weapons reached out knobby skeletal fingers to pull soldiers to the ground, to be trampled and crushed. Phaidra rescued one of her mates who’d stumbled, tripping over the mounds of bones, the remains of the Olethren we’d broken on the charge toward the bulkhead door.
Phaidra, a sword in her right hand, drew a dagger with her left and fended off the dead warriors, cutting off grasping claws at the elbow. More of them lurched forward, armless, biting and snapping at anything alive.
I spun, my sword swing short, the tip grating along rib bones that made my arm shiver. Spears from the Rexenors above us on the steps held off the dead while the rescue party clambered over the low wall to safety.
Standing on the St. Clement’s steps, above the dead, I couldn’t stop my hands shaking. Fear had caught up to me. I didn’t seem to have anything left inside—no courage, no rage, nothing to hold it off.
Kallixene got right in my face. “The whole point of this is to keep you alive!” She pointed at the top step next to the naiads. “Stand over there. Don’t move.”
Matrothy, hanging limp in the grips of her Rexenor saviors, stared up at me as they hauled her toward the entrance, blinking like a child, something gentle and very different from anything I’d ever seen in Director Matrothy—a woman staring at the shores of a world she never thought she’d see again. Her face had changed, smoothed out. She clutched at my armored sleeve, pulling me closer.
“You...saved mine.” Her voice was cloudy and soft. It sounded like the voice of another person. The tone was higher, almost girlish compared to Matrothy’s hard squawk.
One more cry from Matrothy as the Rexenors carried her inside. “Kassandra...saved mine!”
And I stared after her, the roar of the battle around me. Who was Matrothy? I’ll probably never find out. Certainly looked to me like the director had gone irrecoverably mad, fed to the Olethren by Fenhals, the Thalassogenês who didn’t like the sea, the agent of King Tharsaleos.
Then the noise and death came back to me like a tide.
Rexenors dying on the front steps. A crash of thunder rattled the windows of St. Clement’s.
The cold wasn’t doing what it was supposed to, freeze or even slow the Olethren, and my father hadn’t been found.
Fail and die.
The Rexenor soldiers were tiring and dying. They’d already lost eleven to King Tharsaleos’ dead army, clawed and hacked into pieces. Menophon had gone down swinging, bellowing war cries, stabbing and hammering at the dead with his sword. Until one of the Olethren caught him by the jaw, punched its bony fingers deep into his mouth, and dragged him to his death.
The Olethren marched forward, an endless sea of them, thousands stamping the previous thousand into the dirt. They broke against the walls of Clement’s like storm waves against a cliff.
The snow piled up. No rot green and gray, the snow washed all the colors from the dead army. Ice gathered on their shoulder bones, rimed bare skulls and armor.
Even the day was dying, and most of the Rexenor soldiers had thrown off their sunglasses. The bones and rot piled up around the cars and trucks, and the Rexenors fought the dead eye to eye. Well...to eye socket.
When I reached the naiads, Helodes was deep in a trance, some sort of energy sharing thing going on with her sister, Limnoria. She nudged me and mumbled something like, “help us” with lips she had trouble moving.
Parresia, still tall and majestically straight, stood on Limnoria’s right side with Olivia hunched over in pain, trembling, holding her hand.
I reached down, took Helodes’ hand.
Our palms snapped together. I stumbled, lost all the strength in my legs, dropped to my knees next to the naiads, ended up on my butt, leaning against Helodes’ leg with my elbow sticking out, my right hand over my head holding her hand.
Then the weight of my armor melted away. The sword vanished. The cold wind and ice struck my bare legs, gusts of it whipping my hair around my face and throat.
A glimpse of the blur of battle gray, a glance up at the naiads. More of my strength drained out of me to feed Limnoria’s storm—and the clouds overhead ripped apart, breaking into a cold clear evening sky.
Helodes tried to pull away, my grip too much to bear. But I couldn’t open my hand. I looked up to tell her—and had trouble opening my mouth.
Sweat dripped off Helodes’ nose and chin. Her lips shivered. The naiads were in bad shape. Curls of steam rose off them and the snowy ground melted away to wet concrete around us.
The storm shifted, going first to soft pillowy flakes, then to hard ice pellets and then finally stopped. The air shimmered, clear and gray, and a cutting wind scythed through the Olethren, shredding skin. It loosened their teeth and drowned the sound of their mourning horns.
Still didn’t stop them.
Much.
And I couldn’t keep my eyes open, leaning with all my weight against Helodes.
Armored shapes coming up the steps, the noise of battle and Rexenors dying, and through it all, I heard a woman calling my name, screaming it. She sounded so far away.
“Kassandra! He’s here!”
I retched, a spasm shoved my chin forward. “Father?”
It was Phaidra’s voice, next to my ear.
“It is your companion, the ancient one, Ephoros.” She yelled the words, still sounded tinny and faint. “And there is one more, another, kin to Ephoros by his looks. With enormous claws.”
I tried smile, managed a whisper. “Ochleros?”
“Princess?”
My head rolled back on my shoulders. I was too weak to hold it up. My mouth sagged open. “Ephoros.” I begged for more breath to carry my words. “You did it.”
“Ephoros is here,” said the rumbling voice. “It is me, Ochleros.”
Then a much weaker growl from Ephoros. “Your father is not in the Nine-cities. He is here. I have recovered Lord Gregor’s book with my brother’s help. I have not failed you...” He placed his hand over mine, a cold fluid skin covering everything up to my elbow. “...or your mother.”
A jolt of energy shot through me. I was losing the slim connection my senses had with the battle and icy wind.
Ephoros curled his massive fist tighter around my whole hand and wrist and sent the ocean’s spirit through me.
All four naiads screamed, and I repeated the same panicked thought. We’ve run out of time. Fail and die.
Lady Kallixene shouted, “Fall back! Rexenor! Fall back!”
Then the violent energy that Ephoros poured through me swept my mind away in its currents.
Chapter 30 - The Wreath of Poseidon
I opened my eyes underwater, darkness and a rolling current dragging me inconsiderately along a rough stone bed.
Slammed my elbow into the ground, and I tucked my arm against my chest.
The water tossed me around, and I let it. It took me a minute to understand where I was.
My legs flipped over my head, the pull of the water tightening on my skin, towing me toward a central well of darkness.
“No. I don’t want to go there.”
The floor slid by, my fingers clawing at it, dug my nails in and caught a jagged piece of rock that jerked me to a stop.
I pulled in my legs, got my toes gripping the gravelly surface, slipped a couple times, hit the bottom, and the full rage of water ripped at my fingers, trying to free them. I pulled my knee up, and a patch of heat shot up my leg.
There was blood in the water, and I tasted it on the next cycle of the vortex. I levered my body up in the current, dug in again with my feet, and jammed my face above the surface
.
A moment later, I was on my feet, looking around. This looked familiar, a circular room of wet gray bricks. Apparently, Ephoros, the naiads, and every last ounce of my own energy stores had been enough to get me here.
Yeah, I’d seen this room before. When I’d grown angry with the naiads, and in Red Bear Lake before that. Then the sunless eyes of Lady Kallixene fixed on mine, transferring power, pushing me deeper into my own mind until I’d caught a glimpse of this room. The same whirling water. The endless deep black ocean pit in the center.
A roll of water hit me in the hips, and nearly ripped my feet off the ground.
This is the Wreath of Poseidon. That had been my guess in Lady Kallixene’s sitting room. Even more certain now. The Wreath wasn’t inside my head anymore. Instead, I was inside it.
The water slammed against my thighs, and I grabbed my shorts before I lost them. Straightening, and with solid footing, I pulled my shirt into a twist in the front, wringing it out, and made my way to the edge, a glance over my shoulder to watch the water spiral into a hole at the center of the room.
Grabbing the pool’s stone lip for balance, I got a good look around. The circular motion seemed never-ending, but I couldn’t tell where all the water was coming from. It definitely drained into the central pit, but never rose more than about four feet deep.
And I felt its pull, wanting me to let go, fall through it, and never return. I wasn’t supposed to be here...but isn’t that the story of my life, in Nebraska, in St. Clement’s, out of the ocean, always somewhere I wasn’t supposed be?
I stepped in a slow, careful circle. Didn’t want to fall back into the currents. The outside wall was a ring of ninety-six facets, not a smooth curve, and a square shadowy doorway opened into each face, leading to who knows where.
“Ninety-six,” I whispered and my own voice hurt my ears. It echoed off the stone, hard and violent, like ricocheting bullets and lightning.
I shut my mouth. My voice sounded different, stronger, the pressure and force of the abyss, a voice to rend empires, to start wars...or end one.
“What are you counting?” Praxinos’ voice echoed down one of the tunnels to my left.
I turned toward it.
“Tunnels,” I said, wincing at the word so sharp in my ears. “Keep talking,” I added in what should have been a barely audible whisper. Sounded like hammers striking the damp walls.
“How does Rexenor fare? Tell us of the battle with the Olethren,” said Andromache, and I stopped at the edge of the water, narrowing down the source of their voices to two tunnels.
“I don’t know,” I whispered with my hands over my ears.
“Whe—Where are you?” Praxinos came back with more concern in his voice.
I stepped into the tunnel as Praxinos’ voice came stuttering out of the dark, water dripping on me from the ceiling. The air, the walls, everything reeked of the sea. The sound of rushing water came from both directions, before me and behind me.
Like hearing the ocean in a seashell.
I walked on, tried to touch the ceiling with my fingers but I still had a hand’s length to reach. The tunnel brightened, the walls worked in a paler stone. Glancing back, everything was dark.
“Kassandra?” Andromache’s voice sounded worried now—and louder.
“I’m here.” I let the words catch the faintest breath from my throat, but they winged down the tunnel like hawks fighting and screeching over the same prey.
“The tunnel’s getting brighter.” The stones along the ceiling, old blocks, carved and fit tightly together went from gray to white, some kind of marble.
Suddenly I’m standing in light intense as a summer’s day.
Who designed this thing?
Tiny sparkles of white fire blinked along walls. It was as if the builder had placed finer stone where someone might see it, but beyond that, deep in the interior of the Wreath, it was strictly functional and the rougher blocks would do.
The tunnel ended in a mirror-like sheet of glass, a tight clear rectangle. End of the line.
Where were the other Wreath-wearers?
Cupping my hands around my face, I peered through partially mirrored wall into a dim expanse of some ocean’s abyssal plain, rocky outcrops thrusting through a sandy floor and slow clouds of snow, the debris from the distant surface, raining from above.
What the hell is this?
Then I touched the glass and fell through it into the ocean beyond.
Got my legs up, knees bent, but I still lost my balance, clawing at the floor, stirring up sand around me. I was still crawling around like an idiot when I found the tombs or resting places, a pale line of glowing cut-out hemispheres that started about ten feet down from the tunnel entrance. There was a long row of them, like candle-lit alcoves, dug into the cliff face, hundreds of them going off into the gloom.
Getting to my feet, I looked back. This side of the mirror door was a dark shiny rectangle that didn’t show much of the hall on the other side. That held my attention for a moment, and then I was on to the important stuff, the long line of alcoves—what looked like resting places for every past Wreath-wearer.
Cupping my hands, I pulled myself through the water toward the first.
In the water I didn’t need more light. It was enough to have the glow surrounding me—that radiant pale green I’d first noticed in my explorations with Ephoros.
Still had trouble getting my bearings.
I’m on the steps in front of St. Clement’s with the king’s dead army on us. I’m inside my own head, and at the same time I’m inside the gift of a god, inside the Wreath. I’m also somewhere at the bottom of the sea.
Returning to the series of alcoves cut into the rock, each one lit, but without a source, as if the stone itself glowed. Walking was taking too long. I kicked for the first. A woman dressed in a pale green tunic and leggings slept on a platform in the first alcove next to the tunnel entrance, her arms folded peacefully across her chest.
She was older than me, looked like she was in her late twenties, with long brown hair arranged in three braids. Two fell on her right side, one over her left. Her fingers were spread slightly, a fine web of skin between each.
Drifting a foot off the alcove floor, twirling my hair in my fingers, I bent closer to study the woman’s tranquil features—her dark eyebrows, the soft curve of her eyelids, arcs of black lashes, a slightly buttoned nose, the gentle line of her lips.
“She looks like me.”
My first thought was, is this me after I die?
She wore a gold bracelet like mine. It would say “ALKIMIDES” of course, but there was another name, tiny and scratched by hand, above the family name.
And a hard thump of my heart.
“Ampharete? Mother?”
I bent down, afraid to touch her at first, then slipped my hand along the woman’s cheek and lips, her skin warm on my fingers. She was alive, asleep...inside the Wreath of Poseidon.
Ampharete’s eyes shot open.
I kicked back, flailing arms and legs, even scraped my head on the alcove’s ceiling.
Ampharete blinked, focusing on the world around her. She sat up, clutching at the stone bed for support, and noticed me. Her eyes widened when she got a good look at my face, and then she took in the rest, passing, stopping and returning to my right hand. Then she found my left.
“What happened to your hands?” Ampharete scowled at the webbing cut away from my fingers. “Who are you?”
I made fists and pulled them behind my back. “It’s me, mother.”
The woman’s deep blue eyes shot to mine, blurring with tears. “Kassandra?”
Pain slashed across her face. The weight of the revelation crushed her to the floor—and I could read her expression so clearly, like looking in a mirror. It was like all the oceans on earth died in an instant to become a desert.
The tremble started in her lips, spreading to the rest of her body. She struggled to climb up the stone platform, stuttered something and fell
off it to the sand, too weak to hold her body up. I dropped down after her.
On her hands and knees, she crawled toward me.
Sorrow twisted her face, wrenched her jaw down, and punched out a scream. Her braids coiled around her head in the water, and she fell back on her knees, rocking side to side, holding herself, her eyes pointed up, lost in the blackness of the abyssal heaven.
“I...betrayed you,” she moaned. “It was my weakness...I...So stupid of me to...”
I fell to the sand, threw myself against my mother, put my arms around her. I dug my chin into her shoulder. Tears squeezed from my eyes and with a shudder that hurt, they flowed freely into the sea around us. Clouds of blurry water, not quite as salty as the surrounding water.
“Mother,” I sobbed, and some distant part of me relaized I was crying real tears. And it didn’t seem to matter. “I found you.”
“I’m so sorry, my baby girl.” She held me tight.
Time shifted around dizzily inside the Wreath. Hours may have passed while we held on, saying nothing. Ampharete’s weeping slowed, she sang a song under her breath, broken every few minutes by a spasm of fresh tears. She rocked me on her knees, her face against the back of my neck, buried in my hair.
We woke when Praxinos called out nearby, “Kassandra?”
“What do you think has happened?” Andromache asked when I didn’t answer.
I lifted my head, looked around for the old king and queen, stopping on a dimly lit tunnel entrance in the cliff wall opposite the side with the alcoves. The other Wreath-wearers were somewhere over there.
Ampharete grabbed me, not wanting me to break away, whispering, “How did you get here? How old are you?”
“Fifteen. I think I climbed through—or something pushed me through—the well in the whirling pool’s center.”
I pointed to the tunnel entrance that led to the circular room.
“You wear the Wreath? You are too young to pass it on.”
