by Laura Powell
One of the priestesses had brought down a gold chalice and set it on the altar. Opis lifted its lid and steam rose into the air. There was a smell of wine and honey. With the point of the gold arrow, she made a cut in her wrist, and let a couple of drops of blood fall into the cup.
‘The gods’ veins run with ichor,’ she intoned. ‘And mortal veins run with blood. They drink nectar, and we drink wine. Blood to ichor, wine to nectar, human to divine. Tonight, you will face the miracle of metamorphosis.’
‘What . . . what is my task?’
‘To guard the goddess’s light and tend her flame. The rest is for Artemis to reveal.’
Then she reached out and stroked my cheek. ‘Dear Aura,’ she said, ‘you are so nearly one of us. I hope you have been thinking about what we discussed. I am sure you have prayed for guidance.’
‘I have, Honoured Lady.’
‘So do you renounce your false prophecy?’
She spoke so tenderly that in spite of myself, tears sprang to my eyes.
‘I – I can’t, Honoured Lady.’ I licked my cracked lips. ‘I don’t want to make you angry. But I have to speak the truth. My prophecy was real.’
The High Priestess sighed, soft and low.
‘It is your choice,’ she murmured. ‘Remember that.’
The Lord Herne lifted the cup to my lips. I saw his cufflinks glint from under the green cloak. The reflected flame danced in his eyes. I hesitated, just for a moment, and then I drank.
Chapter 9
I’d gone more than forty-eight hours with hardly anything to eat and very little sleep. I’d been feeling faint all day. But this weakness was different. My limbs had suddenly become slow. The taper I was holding had become almost unbearably heavy. Everything seemed very small and far away.
I don’t even remember going through the curtain and into a second stone room. The Chamber of the Oracle. Through bleary eyes I saw an alcove that had been carved out of a wall of sheer rock. The alcove contained a small statue. It was Artemis Selene, Lady of the Moon, veiled, with a crescent moon as her crown. But it was nothing like the elaborately carved sculpture in the temple. It was worn and crude, smoke-blackened. This was the goddess that had been carried out of the ruins of Troy.
I walked unsteadily towards the statue. There was a bronze tripod seat in front of it next to an unlit brazier on a stand. A dish was set above the coals, containing dried leaves or herbs of some kind. In the wall on my right was a small door, also of polished bronze. It was locked.
I must light the fire, I told myself. I must tend the sacred flame. I must think good thoughts about the goddess and her cult, and then Opis and Artemis wouldn’t be angry with me any more. When the kindling caught light and the coals began to glow, tears of relief filled my eyes. Maybe everything was going to be all right.
I climbed on to the tripod. It felt precariously high. The heat from the brazier soon caused the dish of leaves to smoke, releasing a heavy herbal scent into the room. I don’t know how long I sat there, gazing at the goddess, woozily soaking up the warmth. It could have been ten minutes or two hours. I closed my eyes.
I awoke from my sleep or trance or whatever it was with a start. Panic seized me. For a moment I didn’t know where I was.
Even when I remembered, it made no sense. There was a draught blowing through the room and the fire had gone out. Yet the darkness was filled with smoke; I could smell it on me, and the air had a strange thickness to it. I thought of Troy again, of burning houses, charred flesh. I thought of the dank black hole that was the place of punishment.
I’d failed my initiation. I’d failed the goddess. I was going to Hades –
But there, after all, was a small spark in the blackness. A fleck of light. Something was moving in the smoke.
I clambered down from my seat. I thought I heard footsteps and staggered after them, tripping up on my mantle, my garland slipping crookedly down over my eyes. I must catch the light, save the fire . . . Shape-shifting wraiths loomed out of the darkness, before falling back and dissolving into smoke. My ears rang and my breath rasped.
I found a gap in the wall. I groped for the curtain, and touched cool metal instead. The little bronze door was now open. There was a curved passage beyond. Was this another part of the initiation? How far did the crypt go?
I stumbled forward, following the light. No longer was it a small guttering flame, but a steady glow. It was coming from another door along the passageway, which had been left ajar.
The ringing in my ears was deafening. The smoke swirled in my head. I didn’t want to go on. But the door was already opening.
A green man, with the head of a stag, stood on the threshold of a forest.
I shrank back. I remembered my vision of the golden wood. The leaping, twisting body . . . the antlers springing from the skull . . . Metamorphosis, as Opis had promised. Or was it? My mouth tasted sour. Chemical.
I needed to run, like a hunted animal. I was sweating and panting, yet frozen to where I stood. Trapped prey.
The stag-man advanced upon me. The trees behind him flickered. It was a room covered in leaves. Painted leaves. Through the flickering and the fog, I saw an oil lamp and frescoed walls, a carved wooden bed. As the man drew me into the room, I tried to push him off and grabbed a fistful of velvet cloak. My hands were too weak to hold on to it. A new terror rose in my throat. I knew the goddess wasn’t here. I wasn’t possessed. I’d been poisoned.
The man had me by the wrist, was leading me towards the bed as I struggled limply in his grasp. My screams were trapped in my lungs; I was choking on them.
‘It’s OK, it’s OK. Hush. Aura, please . . .’
I recognised the antler headdress and the cloak. They belonged to the Lord Herne. This wasn’t Lionel Winter, though. It was a boy with green eyes and tangled hair. The poison was everywhere. Everything was infected.
‘Get – away – from – me –’
He let go. I lurched into a corner of the room, where I crouched on the floor, arms wrapped round my knees, stiff and shuddering.
‘Aura, it’s me. Aiden. I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. I’m here to help.’
He removed the headdress and knelt down beside me. I flinched away.
‘Listen to me, Aura. You’ve been drugged. You’re ill. I can make you better, but you have to trust me. Here.’ There was a little pink pill in his hand. ‘Take it. It’s medicine – an anti-hallucinogenic. It will help.’
I shook my head, so the room dipped and swayed, and the leaves on the wall seemed to rustle. His voice became more urgent.
‘I’m going to get you out of here, Aura, and take you somewhere safe. But we have to make you better first. You have to trust me.’
‘Why . . . why . . . should I?’
He took a deep breath. ‘Because I believe in you. I believe in your oracle.’
We stared at each other.
‘Please, Aura. Take the pill.’
In the end, I was too exhausted to go on resisting. Afterwards, I lay curled on the stone floor, eyes closed, for what felt like a lifetime. Time slowed; so did the racing of my heart. My mouth still tasted of chemicals. But when I opened my eyes again, the painted forest was flat and motionless, and the smoke had cleared. Aiden was sitting at the end of the bed, chewing his nails and staring at me anxiously.
‘How did you get here?’ I said at last. I couldn’t raise my voice above a whisper.
‘I volunteered. They – Opis and Lionel and the rest – think I’m one of them now. They think I’m part of it. But I came to help you escape. I’ve got a key – I can take you out the way I came in.’
‘I can’t leave the cult,’ I said numbly.
‘You have to.’ Aiden sounded exasperated. Despite myself, tears rose in my eyes. I knew he was right.
‘It’s not safe for you here. They’ll find a way of shutting you up, driving you crazy. Aura . . . they want to break you.’
‘Why?’ I whispered, though I already knew.
&
nbsp; ‘Your prophecy is getting in their way. Look, I’ll explain more later. But, if you’re feeling strong enough, we need to get out of here. It’s half past three now. Leto will be waiting.’
‘Leto?’
‘Yeah.’ Aiden rumpled up his hair distractedly. ‘She’s the one who told me you were in trouble, and that I had to get in with the Council.’
He helped me to my feet and picked up the lamp. I wondered if that was the moving light I’d seen earlier. We walked out into the passageway, which curved away from the Chamber of the Oracle and went on for some distance underground. The stairs at its end took us out to a dark cul-de-sac just a couple of buildings down from the Trinovantum Council’s clubhouse.
A hunched figure emerged from behind a skip. It was Leto. ‘About time,’ she harrumphed.
‘Wait here,’ Aiden told me, ‘while I go get the car.’
Leto had brought me a small overnight bag, as well as an oversized hooded sweatshirt and tracksuit bottoms. In silence, I pulled them over my ridiculous costume, while she stuffed my mantle and garland into the skip. I knew the old priestess had taken a huge risk. I had so much I wanted to say to her, so many questions to ask. Yet I was so dazed I hardly knew how to start.
‘Leto . . . if Aiden hadn’t been there to help . . . what would have happened to me?’
‘A wedding night,’ she said brusquely. ‘Of sorts. Between the council and the cult. Isn’t it the usual remedy for troublesome girls? Find a man to put ’em in their place.’
I felt a wave of nausea. ‘How – how –?’
‘Obviously there’s nothing like it in the true ritual. That would be an abomination.’ She screwed up her face. ‘Mind you, I doubt Opis was the first to think of it – the Trinovantum Council has a history of getting a bit too close to pretty priestesses.’
I thought of pretty Cynthia – how she tried to run away after becoming a priestess and hadn’t been the same since. I thought of Cally’s strange attempt at confession.
‘Cally –’
‘Callisto’s deluded enough to fancy she’s in love. She and Seb Winter will make a fine power-couple, just like Opis and Lionel before them. The girl’s been groomed for stardom and she knows it. Don’t you worry about her.’
I kept silent.
‘Where’s that boy got to?’ Leto muttered. ‘Flighty. That’s his problem. Both of your problems. I told you not to cause trouble, didn’t I?’ she said, suddenly angry again. ‘I warned you. And you never listened.’
‘I had to speak the truth. I – I had no choice.’
‘Hah. Such a meek little thing, you were. Nothing but milk and water in your veins. But you’ve a stubborn streak after all. A rebel spark. Just like your m–’
Her mouth abruptly clamped shut.
‘What do you mean? Do you – did you – know my mother?’
She didn’t answer. She didn’t look at me either.
All the breath seemed to leave my body. ‘Leto . . . was my mother . . . a priestess too?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she mumbled. ‘She’s dead and gone, poor girl. Leave the dead alone.’
‘Then . . . who was my father?’
She looked up, eyes glinting. ‘Trouble, that’s who. And see,’ she said with evident relief, ‘here’s your knight in shining armour. It’s time to go.’
‘Leto –’
‘Go. Before her Honoured Ladyship and Lionel come looking.’
She practically bundled me into the back seat of Aiden’s beaten-up car. I tried to ask more questions but she was suddenly deaf. The car’s engine was running and Aiden was tapping his hands impatiently on the wheel. ‘What about you?’ I managed to get out.
‘What if Opis discovers you helped me?’
‘Hmph. I know how to look after myself – which is more than can be said for you.’
With that, the old priestess slammed the door shut and shuffled away into the night. Aiden wasted no time in driving off.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Somewhere you’ll be safe. Somewhere people will listen to you.’
He attempted a reassuring smile but his face was tense.
My shock was ebbing way, to be replaced by a hot and bloody rage. And, in spite of myself, the ache of bereavement. I had been betrayed by the only family I’d ever had, in the heart of the only home I’d ever known.
It wasn’t just the horrors of the crypt. Leto’s revelation was a different kind of betrayal: it exposed the fact that most of the people I’d grown up with had lied about who I was. I wasn’t an anonymous orphan; I was the daughter of a priestess. In which case . . . could my father be one of those fat old Trinovantum Councillors I’d made chit-chat with over canapés? My skin crawled.
I had one comfort, however: nobody would be able to lie to me ever again. I had the power and authority of the oracle. I would broadcast the truth to the world. I would take revenge on the cult for myself and the goddess, and all the other people it had exploited and deceived. I would –
The car screeched to a halt. Aiden swore. I jolted upright, heart jumping. Had we been caught already?
But no – Aiden had braked because an animal was standing in front of us in the otherwise deserted road. In the glow of the headlights, it looked huge. A silver wolf with burning black eyes, staring right at us.
I screwed up my eyes, and when I looked again gave a hiccupy laugh of relief.
‘Argos! He must have snuck out from the Sanctuary. Perhaps Leto left the gate open.’
Aiden stuck his head out of the window. ‘Shoo! Go home! Bad dog!’
Argos didn’t move. He raised his head, gave a low howl. The back of my neck tingled.
‘He’s coming with us,’ I said.
‘What? No, wait –’
Before Aiden could stop me or I could think better of it, I scrambled out of the car. Argos immediately trotted over. I opened the door to the back seat and he jumped in, with a little grunt of contentment. I squeezed in next to him.
Muttering, Aiden drove on. I leaned against the dog’s warm furry bulk and closed my eyes. He nudged my cheek with his nose, huffing gently. I remembered the hunt in the golden wood. I remembered the hounds snapping at my heels. I knew why Argos had been sent to me. It was a sign of favour, but also a warning.
Maybe I could outrun Opis. I couldn’t outrun the goddess.
Chapter 10
As he drove, Aiden filled me in on how he’d come to rescue me, talking quickly and nervously to fill the silence. I didn’t take much in. Later, I got the story in full.
The morning after I’d given the oracle, Leto had telephoned Aiden to say that I was in serious trouble and needed somebody on the inside of the Trinovantum Council who would be able to look out for me. Almost immediately afterwards, he was summoned to a meeting with both Opis and Lionel, where they offered to make his community service and police record ‘go away’ if he’d cooperate with the cult.
‘I’ve always been curious about what the cult and council get up to behind the scenes. So I also asked to be elected to the Trinovantum. Dear old Dad was so pleased his prodigal son had seen the light that he sealed the deal with a hefty donation.’
Though Aiden didn’t make it explicit, it seemed the cash had also helped secure his place at my initiation. Leto had told him what might happen there too.
Aiden then explained how the smoke I’d inhaled had probably come from the same mix of laurel leaves and other opiates that Opis used to ‘get in the mood’ for the oracle, and it was the drugged wine that had had the most toxic effect. He’d got the anti-hallucinogenic pill off a friend of his who did some dealing on the side.
Aiden kept glancing at me in the mirror. I avoided his eye. I felt an overpowering mix of gratitude for his rescue of me and humiliation that he’d seen me in such a state, out of control of my own body and mind.
‘I’m really sorry you had to go through that,’ he said abruptly and, I thought, uncomfortably. ‘It was . . . horrible.’
I realis
ed he was embarrassed too.
‘Thank you.’ I had no other words. I was trying not to wonder what his instructions had been. I didn’t want to think of that room – the high wooden bed, the painted forest – ever again.
Instead, I stared mindlessly out of the window. It was a damp night and the roads were oily with rain. There was hardly any traffic about and just a few lost souls huddled in doorways or weaved unsteadily through the puddles.
‘I’m taking you to a safe house,’ Aiden said. ‘It’s a retreat for people who aren’t happy with the system, or need to keep their heads down for a while.’
‘How do you know them?’
‘I got into activism at school. Mostly to piss off my dad, if I’m honest. I’d wind him up over dinner with grand socialist theories. But the more I learned about what was going on in the world, the more I realised I had to do more than just whinge about stuff. So I joined some groups, went on demos. One thing led to another, I guess.’
‘Your friends will let me join them?’
‘They’re expecting you. Leto and I weren’t the only witnesses to your oracle. There were other people in the shopping centre, remember. Most couldn’t see or hear you properly, and didn’t know what was going on. But enough people were there for word to get out – word that contradicted the official oracle, that is. I think the Trinovantum Council bought off or intimidated the other witnesses. But one woman refused. She’s in hiding too.’
Aiden turned the car into a wide residential street and swore. ‘Crap. There’s a checkpoint.’
‘Is it . . . is it the cult?’
‘Unlikely. I was meant to leave the temple at five, and nobody was supposed to check on us before then. But even if they did, or if Leto got caught, I don’t reckon they could get organised so quickly.’
The way was blocked by a simple STOP sign flanked by two men in slim-fitting blue uniforms and flat peaked caps. Another car was slowing down ahead of us, which gave us a little time.
As if he knew he needed to be as inconspicuous as possible, Argos curled himself up and tucked his head into his paws. I pretended to be asleep too, pulling my hood down to shadow my face.
