Greek Key

by Spangler, K. B.

  He nodded in the direction of the barista’s counter. “They aren’t coming. No physical assault occurred, so they aren’t spending the resources on it.”

  “You’re kidding. It’s a good part of town, and someone had a gun.”

  The koala did that rolling-shoulder motion that passed for his shrug. “They’re tapped out,” he said. “Emergencies only. This doesn’t count since everybody is still standing.”

  “Grim,” I said, as the cousins reentered the store.

  “Reality,” he said, and nodded towards the cousins. “Money trumps all else. Watch.”

  Mike sighed, and went to go put the barista at ease. He took a chair with him, just in case.

  Atlas reclaimed his seat at the table, and pulled the spreadsheets towards him.

  “I am sorry,” he said to me. “I should have realized working for Hanlon would have been a conflict of interest for you. I hope I have made it clear that I respect my clients’ privacy; I did not mean to mislead you in any way.”

  I don’t think I grunted or swore, but Speedy still chuckled.

  “Our personal problems? They will not be an issue for you,” Darling said. Her words were clipped and hard. I got the impression that if I let down my mental shields, I’d be swimming in some rather unpleasant emotions.

  “Great,” I replied. “We leave tomorrow for…uh…”

  “Kos,” Speedy said.

  I nodded and pretended to know where—or what—Kos was. It was a name that hadn’t come up in our briefings or anything… Wait, no, Mike had mentioned Kos when we were exploring the Asklepion. It was a city, maybe, or an island? Possibly both.

  “What’s at Kos?” I asked.

  “Surviving documents from the Library at Alexandria,” Speedy said. “Archimedes studied at Alexandria, and there’s some anecdotal evidence that Posidonius did, too, since he used the stars at Alexandria in his equations.”

  “Kos is also a location I did not check for Hanlon,” Atlas said. “There may be new information there, hidden in what remains of the Great Library.”

  “As good a place as any,” I said.

  Then it was logistics. And more drinks; we tipped the poor barista so heavily she was actually sorry to see us leave. Since I was paying the bill, I was the last one out the door. Darling hung back; I thought she was being polite until she grabbed my arm. It was such a sudden gesture that I had covered her hand with my own before I remembered that I shouldn’t hurl her across the room.

  She didn’t notice, preoccupied with watching Atlas through the window.

  “My cousin is an evil man,” Darling said. “Beneath that face, he is ugly. Listen to me—I know.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I was back in the dream again, and the long-legged boy before me thought he was a man.

  He was standing on a high rock, the sun at his back. There was no doubt in my mind that he had positioned himself as such to appear as impressive as he could.

  I walked on.

  He had tricked me, and I cursed myself for it. I loved the old shrines more than those in the cities, and, as was my custom, had traveled many miles to make sacrifice to Artemis. As I neared the shrine, I heard the screaming of a rabbit in a snare, and wandered from the road to retrieve it for my Goddess.

  Now, I was surrounded by soldiers who did not look to my father.

  I almost smiled; he felt he had needed an army to catch me.

  He scampered down from his perch, his footing more luck than skill, and pushed past me to bar my way. “They say you’re the child of a god,” he said.

  “They say my mother lay with a swan, who also happened to be a god,” I said. “Both of those are stories for fools.”

  The forest around me rustled, as the soldiers he had brought with him moved ever closer.

  I dropped the rabbit as my hand moved to the dagger at my waist.

  “Helen, no.”

  The voice came from the brush behind me. It was that of Pirithous, king of Larissa. Friend to Sparta, or so he had claimed.

  “What a lovely thing you have found for me,” said the long-legged boy, as he looked upon me with hot eyes.

  “Do not touch her,” Pirithous said. “She’ll gut you like a fish.”

  “I will,” I promised the boy.

  “I am a king,” the boy said to Pirithous. “She’ll show me respect.”

  “You are a child in the body of a king,” I told him.

  “And you,” he said, as he reached for my hand, “are a queen in the body of a child.”

  I hit him.

  I had yet to come into my own strength. Still, I knocked out a tooth, and smiled as the blood came rushing down his chin.

  He would have returned my blow, but Pirithous stopped him. “Theseus! No! It would be war.”

  The boy glared at his companion. “When I take her, it will be war.”

  The King of Larissa gazed at me, as if realizing only now what was being asked of him. “Perhaps—”

  “Look at her, old friend,” said the boy. “Not nearly a woman, and still perfect.”

  Pirithous moved to put his body between me and this old and ugly boy. There appeared to be lines some kings would not cross.

  “Your word,” Pirithous said. “Your word that you will not touch her until she comes of age.”

  “Of course,” the boy said, as his eyes traveled up and down my form.

  The man before me placed his hands on the shoulders of the boy. The two of them shared a size and had lived the same length of years, and still I could not help but think that one had wisdom that the other would never find.

  “Your word, Theseus.”

  The boy’s eyes moved from me, and I saw there was indeed some age within them. Some men were rendered powerless by women: the king of Athens appeared to be one of these.

  His friend shook him, gently, and I heard spears move within the brush.

  Theseus sighed. “My word, old friend. I’ll send the girl to my mother’s house until she is fifteen.”

  My heart, already choking in fear, seized at the thought of years in prison.

  Followed by a lifetime with this horrible boy.

  “I will make my offering before you try to take me,” I said.

  I did not wait for them to answer. I took up the rabbit that had put me in their trap, and walked the last league to the shrine. There, I prayed to my Goddess, protector of hunters and virgins, and reminded her that as such I was twice in need of her assistance.

  Once done, I burned the rabbit.

  I removed my necklace and cut it in half, and laid this and my dagger upon the altar.

  “Sister,” I whispered. “Hear me. Come and find these things, and know I did not vanish in the hunt.

  “Brothers, come and find me, and burn Athens to the ground.”

  I tied the other half of my necklace around my wrist to remind me of all I was about to lose, and then I turned to face the soldiers.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The train ran low along the coast as we made our way to the port that was the second leg of our journey to Kos.

  I had my forehead pressed against the window. A light rain was falling, and beads of water streamed past on their way to the ground. A sleeping koala was using my thigh as a substitute for a tree branch, his warm, soft weight pressed tight against mine.

  I was exhausted, but I didn’t trust myself to nap—I was ready to be rid of Helen.

  I no longer thought those dreams were anything but her memories. My attention span is a notorious galaxy-devouring black hole. I rarely have a full-sensory dream experience, and when I do, I’m incapable of having one with a sustained plotline. Especially a plotline with sociocultural horrors that my waking brain would nope out on before I could accidentally follow them to their logical ends.

  Ever been on a wooden ship? Ever been on a wooden ship from two thousand years ago? First of all, there’s a lot of slave labor, and while Helen might have been okay with that, I wasn’t. It’s a living misery.r />
  Second? I…

  —oh God!—

  Okay. Deep breath.

  There’s only so much a prepubescent girl can do to keep a boatload of men off of her. Helen might have been a hurricane crossed with a wildcat, but holy shitballs! If that nice King hadn’t guarded Helen at swordpoint the entire trip back to Athens, last night’s dream would have been a literal fucking nightmare.

  I was drinking way too much today, and I didn’t mind at all.

  There was a knock on the door to our private car, and Mike returned with another couple of bottles. I grabbed one gratefully, and had downed most of it before I realized it was only soda pop.

  “Damn it, Mike,” I snapped. “You said you’d find more beer.”

  “I did,” he said. “Then I left it where I found it.”

  I detached myself from the koala and stood. Speedy, grumbling in his sleep, waved his forepaws in the air where my leg had been before he settled down. “Where’s the club car?”

  “Four cars towards the rear,” he said. “Or, you could talk to me.”

  “We’ve already talked,” I said, and went in search of alcohol.

  I regretted taking my frustration out on Mike the moment I shut the door on him, but…

  In those dreams, I was a powerless observer. Absolutely powerless. I couldn’t even wake myself up. And since I was riding along from her point of view, if something unspeakable happened to Helen, it’d also happen to me.

  Yes, was a selfish thought. Yes, I felt miserable for that poor little girl, all alone and stolen from the family and the land she loved.

  Hell-to-the-fuck no! I didn’t want to be gang-raped, vicariously or otherwise.

  Mike thought I should simply meditate my way out of it, the epitome of clear your mind, and the rest will follow.

  I…well…

  Simple for him, maybe. Not for me.

  I found the club car. Greece’s railways got a lovely influx of cash around the time of the Athens Olympics, and while the patina was wearing off, the nuts and bolts of the train were still sturdy. I plopped myself in a chair covered in cracked polyester, and told the attendant to get me something strong. He came back with a bottle, and I made him wait while I drank it before I asked for three more.

  I was most of the way through the second bottle when two paws appeared on the other side of my table. Speedy hoisted himself up, glaring at me the entire time.

  “What?” I asked him.

  “The hippie wanted me to check in on you,” he said.

  “Tell him I’m doing much better,” I replied, as I rapped my wedding band against the mostly empty beer bottle.

  “Tell him yourself. Better do it fast—he’s writing an email to his mother.”

  I thought about that one. “Oh.”

  “Yeah. He’s that worried.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, and tried to ignore the guilt that had begun to bore holes in my pleasant buzz.

  “Sure,” the koala replied, as he flagged down the attendant and ordered water and cereal. The attendant brought these, but made the tragic mistake of serving the water in a shallow bowl, and I had to intervene before Speedy turned him into his toy.

  A superintelligent koala’s paws work better than my hands. Koalas have extra thumbs for gripping tree branches, and Speedy is smart enough to know how to put them to use in the human world. With the exception of cell phones and other devices that work best with fingers sans inch-long claws, Speedy is better than us bipeds at manipulating objects. The attendant watched in horrified amazement as Speedy tucked into his lunch, silverware flashing at a rate never seen outside of knife commercials.

  “A bowl,” he finally said, scorn the only thing dripping from him as he drank his water straight from the bottle, lips be damned. “Like I’m a dog.”

  “He thought he was being polite.”

  “Fuck a bunch of polite,” Speedy grunted. “Carry me back to our room. It’s warm there, and I want to go back to sleep.”

  “Carry yourself,” I said, and went to get myself a cup of coffee. I doused this with enough sugar to choke an anthill, but left out my usual serving of milk so as not to alienate the caffeine.

  Speedy was still sitting on the table when I got back. We sat and glared at each other for a while.

  “I need you to pull your head out of your upper intestine,” he finally said. “We’re working. You can wallow in misery when we get home, but here? C’mon, Hope, you must have spotted those assholes who got on the train with us at Athens.”

  I didn’t reply, but yes, I had. Hired Goon Squad Version 2.0 was coming with us to Kos, and it was only a matter of time before they made their presence known. They probably wouldn’t be so subtle as to jump us in an alley next time, either.

  “Here’s the thing,” he said, his voice dropping to a burry whisper. “It’s not like you can stop sleeping. And it’s not as if Helen’s memories are some sort of Nightmare on Elm Street scenario, where you’ll get tortured and murdered.”

  “Just tortured,” I replied. “For now. Maybe murdered in the final act. They’re her memories, Speedy! I feel what she felt, plus I’ve got an extra layer of yikes because I’m watching it happen in real time and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

  “Why would you want to stop it?” he asked, and before I could brain him with an empty bottle, he added, “Everybody who knows anything about this weird world of yours says psychometry and object-reading are bullshit. Which makes sense—how can pieces of glass beads remember their past? They’ve got no brain, no soul… These memories are coming from somewhere, kitten, and that means there’s a ghost involved.”

  He glanced around the car to make sure no one was listening in before saying, “Helen of Troy? If she’s still around, she’d be one supremely powerful ghost. She’s a central figure in some of the greatest surviving works of literature in Western civilization. I think you got her attention when you took possession of those beads.”

  “Fan-fucking-tastic,” I growled into my coffee. “So, what? Helen’s decided I’m her biographer and she’s uploading her life story into my head?”

  “No,” Speedy said. “I think she’s telling you something you need to hear.”

  I laughed; how could anything in Helen’s life be applicable to mine? We were separated by thousands of years, insanely different cultures…

  Speedy got that Look on his furry face, the one he puts on right before he starts biting the shit out of you to make sure he’s got your undivided attention. Being on the receiving end of that Look is better than dousing your head in a bucket of cold water to sober up.

  “All right, say she does want to tell me something,” I whispered back. “Why come to me in dreams? You can see ghosts—you can speak ancient Greek! She can cut out the middleman and tell you what she wants.”

  “Maybe she can’t,” he said. “Maybe your hypotheses on ghosts and cultural alignment are right. And even if she could…” He wiggled his freakish fingers at me. “Hello? Genetically-engineered koala here. Try shoving that one down an old dead woman’s throat.”

  “Right, right,” I sat back in my seat, and spun my now-empty coffee cup on its saucer. “Think Helen is powerful enough to hop into the future?”

  “Definitely. The ancient Greeks were all about fortune-telling. She’s probably an expert at it.”

  “If there’s such a thing as an expert at time travel,” I murmured to myself.

  Speedy heard me and nodded. “You want my best guess?”

  “Always.”

  “Once you took possession of those beads, you pinged on her radar and she decided to check you out. She followed your path into your futures and weighed the outcomes. I doubt she’s telling you her life’s story because she’s bored.

  “Her timeline doesn’t align with the Mechanism’s,” Speedy added. “But something that happened in her life will be applicable to yours. She’s trying to help you, you selfish twunt!

  “Now,” he finished, as he crawled onto my s
houlders and buried his face in my hair. “Go back to our room so we can both go to sleep. I’m tired, and you’ve got mail.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  On the journey to Aphidna, I had acquitted myself as would any Spartan prisoner, and so they brought me to the king’s mother in chains.

  The old woman looked at me, and the lines on her face that had grown soft in her son’s absence reappeared.

  “Another one,” she said.

  “Mother—”

  “Come,” she ordered him, and he bound me to a column before he followed her from the room.

  I stood until the sun went down, and ignored those who brought me food and drink.

  As the stars rose, the old woman returned, a key in one hand and a Spartan dagger in her other.

  “Would you like to know how my son has fallen into your father’s trap?” she asked me.

  When I nodded, she undid my chains, and offered me the dagger.

  “Your people are only at home when armed,” she said. “Please allow me to welcome you to your new home.”

  I nodded, and accepted the blade as my own.

  She allowed me the use of her toilet and bath, and provided me with clean linens before she asked me to join her in a light meal. We reclined on overstuffed couches as she encouraged me to try new and too-sweet dishes.

  “I am Aethra,” she said. “A mother who speaks ill of her son speaks ill of herself, but I am deeply sorry that you are here with me tonight.”

  “They say Theseus is a good king.”

  Aethra nodded. “He is a good and great king,” she said. “He is a terrible man. You are not the first woman he has stolen from her home.

  “Though,” she added, “I pray you’ll always be the youngest.”

  “Women are his weakness.”

  Aethra stared at me with sharp eyes. “You are your father’s daughter.”

  I knew she meant Tyndareus, and none of that nonsense about swans. “You’ve met my father?”

  “No,” she replied. “But I know his reputation, and I know you’ve come here because of him. How did they take you?”