Gods and Warriors

by Michelle Paver

  Nothing.

  She tapped again.

  On the other side of the rocks, something tapped back.

  25

  “Pirra!” Hylas paused to listen.

  From the other side of the rocks came that tapping again; then a clicking cascade of sound, like the speech of hawks. He sagged with relief. “Pirra, it’s me! Talk Akean, I can’t speak Keftian!”

  An astonished silence. “Hylas?”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Just a bump on the head. You?”

  He shook his head, then remembered she couldn’t see. “No.”

  He started clawing at the stones. From the sound of it, she was doing the same.

  She asked how he’d found her, and he told her how he’d cleared a way through the first rockfall, then got lost in a maze of caves. He’d whistled to Spirit, and caught the dolphin’s answering squeal; then he’d heard her voice. “It sounded like you were talking to someone.”

  “I was.”

  “Who?”

  “Myself.”

  He dislodged another boulder, and felt her hand thrust through the gap. He gripped it. Her fingers were as cold as claws. “We’ll get you out,” he told her. But the gap was too small, and as they made it bigger, pebbles rattled and rocks creaked overhead.

  “It’s going to come down,” Pirra said tersely. “I’ve got to try now.”

  She was right. The rocks wouldn’t hold much longer.

  Hylas took hold of her wrist with both hands. “Keep the other arm behind you,” he said, “twist your shoulders sideways and tuck your chin to your chest. I’ll pull you out.”

  “What if I get stuck?”

  “You won’t.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Breathe out,” he muttered—and pulled with all his might.

  She didn’t budge. Bracing his heels, he pulled again. Rocks groaned. Dust sifted down. Pirra yelped. Then she was through and they were scrambling back as the rocks came crashing down.

  Coughing and covered in dust, they listened to the echoes die. It was so dark that Hylas couldn’t see her face, but he heard her breathing. “You all right?” he panted.

  “Mm.” But he knew she must have been badly scratched, and he’d nearly wrenched her arm from its socket.

  “Hylas?” she said in a low voice.

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks.”

  He scowled. “Come on. A while back I saw a glimmer of light. It might be a way out.”

  He went first, groping with hands and feet. The walls were slimy, and the air smelled dank. He sensed that they were heading farther from the Sea, into the unknowable heart of the island. Behind him he heard the shuffle of Pirra’s sandals and the whisper of her breath. He thought what a difference it made that he was no longer alone.

  He asked her how she’d survived the earthshake, and she told him a horrifying story about a lost people called the Vanished Ones, and having to crawl over corpses turned to stone. He wondered how she’d kept her wits. Perhaps if you were the daughter of the High Priestess of Keftiu, you weren’t afraid of ghosts. Or perhaps she was simply brave.

  They reached a place where the cave split in two. One way was black and silent, but from the other came an echoing gurgle of water and a glimmer of light.

  “I don’t like the feel of that one,” said Pirra.

  “Although it’s lighter, there’ll be more chance of getting out.”

  “I know, but it feels—strange.”

  Hylas knew what she meant, but he didn’t think they had much choice. After a brief argument, they took it.

  The glimmer grew to a watery blue-green glow. The rocks around them were rippled and folded—as if they’d once been waves, and some immortal had turned them to stone. They were running wet; the cave was full of dripping, trickling, gurgling. The echoes wove in and out in a mysterious song, just beyond the edge of understanding.

  Hylas’ spine prickled. He’d heard that song before. It had called to him across the waves on the day when Spirit had first brought him to the island. The hills that walk and the caves that sing…

  Then suddenly there were no more rocks on either side, and the echoing song was louder, and beside him Pirra gasped.

  Before them yawned a vast cavern filled with a lake of astonishing blue. From the roof hung folds of pale, glistening rock. Spears of white rock rose from the still surface of the lake, and at its heart lay an islet thronged with twisted pillars standing guard, like people turned to stone. Above the islet, a shaft of brilliant blue light poured down from a rent in the roof.

  Hylas swallowed. “That crack,” he said quietly. “It might be big enough for us to climb out.”

  Pirra didn’t reply, but he guessed what she was thinking. To reach it they would have to swim the lake and get onto that island, then scale one of those brooding pillars.

  “We can’t do it,” she said.

  “I think we have to.”

  The lake was cold. Rocks tilted underfoot. Something slithered past his ankle. That weird bubbling singing rang in his ears, interwoven with sounds of running water—and yet he couldn’t see any: The lake was eerily still.

  As they waded deeper, the blue became more intense, until they were wading in light: the same otherworldly light that the dolphins had brought with them when they’d rescued him from the shark. It washed over him, staining his flesh blue. The shadow of the Goddess.

  “We can’t get onto the island from here,” whispered Pirra. “It’s too steep.”

  “We’ll go around the other side,” he whispered back.

  When she didn’t reply, he turned to look at her. She wasn’t a girl, but a water spirit: blue face and black lips, long crinkly black hair.

  The ground shelved and he stumbled up to his chest. “I’ll swim,” he said through chattering teeth. “If you can’t remember how, hold on to my shoulders.”

  Close up, the columns guarding the island were enormous: some hunched and squat, others tall and thin. All stood with bowed heads and arms clamped rigid to their sides.

  Hylas felt Pirra’s hands tense on his shoulders. “If they move…” she breathed.

  Above them, the crack was wider than it had looked from the shore. If they could reach it, they might be able to climb out.

  Hardly daring to make a ripple, Hylas swam slowly around, till he found a place where it shelved more gently, as if inviting them ashore. His feet touched stone.

  Suddenly Pirra’s fingernails dug into him. “Hylas!” she hissed. “Look! She’s here!”

  He raised his head.

  The way was blocked.

  Not by the guardians of stone.

  By the Goddess Herself.

  26

  She had stood for thousands of summers, and She would stand for thousands more. The Great Goddess. The Lady of the Wild Things. She Who Has Power.

  Her arms were folded beneath Her sharp stone breasts, and Her smooth oval face glowed white as the Moon. Human hands had painted Her inhuman stare in ancient blood. They had set Her image here, so that when She visited this singing cave, She would breathe life into the marble flesh.

  Pirra stood with tears pricking her eyes. Never in the House of the Goddess had she felt the Presence so strongly. She bowed her head, unable to bear such terrible perfection.

  Beside her, Hylas stood transfixed.

  “Don’t look too long,” she whispered. “You’ll go blind; it’s like staring at the Sun.”

  He licked his lips. Then he indicated the crack in the roof. “How do we reach it?”

  She stared at him. “We can’t! It’s too close!”

  “We’ve got to! How else do we get out? That pillar, the one farthest from—from Her. If we can reach it, we can climb out.”

  Pirra swallowed. Stone snakes coiled about the feet of the Goddess, who stood upon a great mound of bleached bones. Perhaps they were the remains of offerings by long-dead supplicants; or perhaps they were the supplicants themselves. To reach the crack in
the roof, she and Hylas would have to climb those bones beneath the watchful gaze of the stone guardians and of the Goddess Herself…

  But Hylas was right. They had no choice.

  “First we have to make an offering,” she muttered, “or She’ll never let us out.” Already she was tearing off her jewelry. She couldn’t get one of her bracelets over her fist, so instead she tore off as many spangles from her tunic as she could reach. “Here.” She gave half to Hylas. “We’ll leave it there by that stone snake. Ask Her to let us out, but only in your head—and don’t meet Her eyes.”

  Bones crunched underfoot as they started to climb. Pirra felt the painted gaze of the Shining One beating down on her. She resisted the urge to raise her head and look.

  She noticed that in among the bones were the seedheads of poppies, and seashells and the brittle wings of birds. Earth, water, and air, she thought. Whoever had left these offerings had known what they were about.

  The gold clinked coldly as she and Hylas set it down. The watery singing grew louder. Blue light rippled over the stone snakes coiled about the glistening feet of the Goddess. For a moment, Pirra thought one of the snakes stirred.

  Hylas touched her wrist, and together they approached the guardian they had to climb. Pirra’s belly tightened. The guardian was lumpy and beaded with moisture, like clammy flesh. Pirra pictured a stone arm wrenching free and gripping her in an embrace from which she would never escape.

  Hylas had already linked his hands to make a step. “You first. Quick! Climb!”

  He boosted her so high that she scarcely touched the guardian. She found a ledge inside the crack and perched there, dazzled by the distant glare of the world above. Wasn’t that another ledge, just within reach? And there, a peg hammered into the rock? Astonished, she made out more pegs and ledges, spiraling all the way to the top: perhaps cut to allow some priestess from an earlier time to enter the cave.

  “There are steps!” she whispered down to Hylas.

  He didn’t respond. He was standing motionless before the Goddess.

  “Hylas, hurry!”

  He glanced up at her, and she was startled by the determination in his face. “You go on,” he said quietly. “I have to find out.”

  “What? What are you doing?”

  “I have to—I have to ask Her.”

  In horror, she watched him move closer to the Goddess. Appallingly close. He knelt at Her Moon-white feet. Shakily, he reached out his hand. He touched his forefinger to one marble knee. Then put his finger to his mouth and licked.

  Raising his head, he spoke to the Goddess. “Is Issi still alive?”

  “Is Issi still alive?” said Hylas, and his voice echoed through the cave. Alive?… Alive?…

  His fingertip tingled where it had touched the Goddess, and his tongue burned. The water song rang in his head—as always, just beyond the edge of understanding.

  All at once, the sounds of dripping and gurgling sank to nothing. His chest seemed to open, and he felt a sharp tug, as if a thread of light had hooked his heart and was drawing it out of his body.

  Something shifted inside him, and he was suddenly intensely aware of everything around him. The lake blazed with cold blue fire, and in its depths he heard the currents sliding over each other. He heard fish nibbling on the bottom, and the soft suck of mollusk feet. He glimpsed the flash and flicker of water spirits with sea-green hair and fluid silver limbs. From the world above he smelled the musky scent of the wild beasts guarding the island. On his skin he felt the cool, salty breath of the Lady of the Wild Things…

  The watery singing was inside him, and its tangled sounds were smoothing out, like seaweed flowing in a powerful current. The voice of the Goddess breathed through his mind. Your sister lives…

  He swayed.

  Slowly, he raised his head. He shielded his eyes with his arm. The marble Goddess was ablaze with light.

  “Is sh-she all right?” he stammered. “Will I find her? Why are the Crows after me?”

  Immortal laughter filled the cave. You seek the truth… But beware… the truth bites…

  The thread hooking his heart snapped.

  He shuddered. He was back on the mound of bones, with the song of water gurgling in his ears.

  “Hylas!” cried Pirra from above. “Look out!”

  On the mound of offerings, something moved. Shells clinked and bones rolled as a long, thin shadow slid toward him. One of the stone snakes was coming alive.

  He struggled to his feet. The snake’s forked tongue flicked out to taste his scent. He scrambled back. In the blink of an eye the snake struck. Hylas threw himself sideways. Fangs grazed his calf. With a cry he drew his knife—but the hilt snagged on the sheath, he couldn’t get it out. The snake came at him again. He seized a bone and hit the flat serpent head. It recoiled with a hiss.

  Floundering through the bones, he reached the foot of the guardian and clawed his way up. Below him the snake twined around it and hissed and dropped back.

  “Climb! Climb!” he gasped to Pirra, a black shape against the glare.

  Terror spurred him on; he found pegs and ledges and climbed till his muscles burned. Below him the echoing hisses fell away. Dust rained down on him, gritty and bitter as ash. Now all he could hear was the scrape of Pirra’s sandals and his own sawing breath.

  Pirra vanished into the world above—then reappeared, reaching down to help him. He heaved himself over the edge and lay panting, unable to believe that he’d gotten away. He heard a falcon crying high on the wind. Above him he made out a black ridge and an angry red Sun.

  A red Sun? But the Sun had been low when they’d entered the caves; how could it still be low now? Either they’d spent a whole night and a day in the caves, or else… or else in the caves, time didn’t exist.

  His mind reeled. He couldn’t take it in. But Issi was still alive. He clung to that.

  Pirra was looking at him strangely. “Down in the cave, you spoke to a voice I couldn’t hear.”

  He hesitated. “It said my sister is alive. It said—‘The truth bites.’ I suppose it meant the snake.”

  “Maybe,” said Pirra. “Although the words of the Goddess can have many meanings.”

  Getting to their feet, they stared about them.

  Hylas sniffed an acrid smell that was horribly familiar.

  Pirra raked her fingers over the ground and raised her hand, letting fall a scattering of fine gray ash. “What is this place?” she said.

  27

  What is this place? wondered the dolphin as he swam through the twisting channel. The breath from his blowhole sounded scarily loud, and when he poked out his head he heard the singing echoes and the twitter of ghosts, many clicks away. But still he swam, determined to find the boy.

  At first, when the One Beneath had been slamming his tail, the dolphin had swum frantically up and down outside the cave. The Sea had raged and he’d had to dodge boulders crashing down from the cliffs. How could the humans survive this?

  At last the gigantic tail-slams had lessened to a rumble, then a shudder, and finally a ripple. Anxiously, the dolphin had strained to catch the sounds the boy made when he ran, or when he slapped the waves with his poor little flippers. Nothing. Just the voice of the Sea and the growls of angry stone.

  The dolphin had sent out long, ringing squeals—and finally, from deep within the earth, he’d heard the boy’s answering call. Again and again the dolphin had squealed, guiding him out of the cave. But after a while, no more answers had come back.

  The dolphin hadn’t hesitated. When he’d been stranded in the Above, the boy had saved him. Now he had to save the boy.

  Fearlessly, he’d plunged into the jaws of the cave: the cave that no dolphin had ever braved before.

  With terrifying suddenness it had narrowed to a channel. The dolphin had heard how twisty it was, how spiky with limpets and coral, but still he’d swum on.

  That had been a while ago. Now as he swam deeper, the channel became many: a branching tangle,
like a forest of kelp. His clicks echoed confusingly. Which way to go?

  He headed for where it felt coldest and sounded deepest—but it was frighteningly narrow. Weeds snagged his snout, and coral scratched his flippers. At times he could barely squeeze through, and twice it grew so shallow that he nearly got stranded. An eel poked its nose from a hole and snapped at his tail. An octopus mistook him for a rock and fastened on his blowhole; he was panicky and breathless by the time he’d managed to scrape it off.

  Worse even than that, the water was turning strange. It was the Sea—and yet it wasn’t the Sea. It felt weirdly thin, and it didn’t carry him as well as it should. It didn’t even taste of the Sea.

  The singing echoes grew abruptly louder, and beneath them he caught a bubbling sound of laughter.

  Poking his nose above the surface, he saw that before him the channel went on for a few more tail-flicks, then opened into a wide bay beneath a glittering blue stone sky. All around he saw the frail ghosts of humans, and in the still water, tall standing stones warning him back. In the middle of the bay stood an island—it sounded as if it was made of the bones of seabirds and fishes—and from this reared a terrible white stone ablaze with cold blue fire.

  The dolphin’s courage faltered. He would never find the boy. He had to go back.

  The channel was too narrow. He couldn’t turn around.

  He sank deeper and tried again, twisting his snout awkwardly onto his tail, but the rocks clamped his flanks like the claws of a crab.

  Frantically he struggled. The rocks held him fast.

  He felt tiny tremors in the water as the ghosts drew nearer, leaning over him and fluttering their long, thin flippers over his back. He heard the bubbling laughter of the Shining One.

  Desperately, he whistled for the boy.

  The boy didn’t come.

  Something else did.

  28

  “What happened here?” said Pirra, blinking in the red glare of the setting Sun.

  They’d emerged into a steep-sided valley where no green thing grew. The ground beneath her feet was covered in cinders, and she breathed the throat-catching stench of ash. She stared at strange black trees with leaves the color of dried blood.