[The Book of the Gods 01] - The Face of Apollo

by Fred Saberhagen

  "Very well. But you are hereby enrolled in the ready reserve, subject to being called to active duty at a moment's notice." The Scholar spoke quietly but was obviously in dead earnest. His servant had sidestepped one episode of military duty but could expect to carry his full share of the load next time.

  "Yes sir." Jeremy decided that trying to salute would not be a good idea.

  Arnobius soon let the two surviving members of the Expedition know what was coming next. Moving closer to the Mountain and its Oracle, their original goal, would offer them the best chance to reunite with the troops under his brother's command, whose primary mission would take them in the same direction.

  Besides, the Scholar still was drawn to learn the secrets of the Oracle.

  Meanwhile the villagers were offering to provide their hon­ored guests with a guide who would, so the elders assured them, show them the shortcut trail by which they could shave hours or even days off the time necessary to reach the Mountain!

  Katherine volunteered for the job.

  "Won't your family be ... well, worried about you?"

  "I think not. Why?"

  "Well. Going off for days, with three men ..."

  "I've done it before, and I know the route better'n anybody else. Besides, Dad says I'll be under the special protection of Apollo."

  "Oh."

  Arnobius and his two aides spent one more night in the village, as honored guests. That tonight's celebration was somewhat tamer. A general exhaustion had set in, and the stocks of madhu were depleted as well.

  During the night, Jeremy dreamed that Apollo had drawn Katy Mirandola to him, just as unfamiliar maidens had come in other dreams, on other nights. But Jeremy, his mind filled with fresh and ugly memories of women being forced, awakened the sleepwalking girl and sent her back to her own house.

  In the morning he was disturbingly unable to determine whether or not it had only been a dream.

  Not even when he saw Kate again could he be entirely sure. He said, "I dreamed last night that you were walking in your sleep."

  She sat there fingering her braids, a practical treatment for her long honey-colored hair. "But... I never do that."

  Jeremy, uncertain of what might actually have happened, de­cided not to press the matter further.

  On the morning of the next day, after another substantial meal consisting largely of bread and honey, and several speeches, the surviving Honeymakers, after observing the rituals of formal mourning for their murdered friends and relatives, gave the sur­viving pilgrims (as they conceived Jeremy and his companions to be) a joyous send-off.

  With their parting wishes, the Honeymaker elders urged their visitors to watch out for more bandits. Or for soldiers of the army that was opposed to their overlord.

  An elaborate ceremony in honor of Apollo was held in the lit­tle village square. Various animals were sacrificed—something in Jeremy winced inwardly each time the blood of an offering was spilled—and a pot of honey poured into the earth. There was a little madhu also, though not much of the precious stuff could be found after two nights in a row of celebration. The long-neglected statue was in the process of being cleaned and freshly decorated, and Jeremy learned a little more about the god with whom he had become so closely associated. Still no one else seemed to realize how intimately Jeremy had been involved in the rout of the bandits.

  Before leaving the Honeymakers' village, Arnobius insisted that everyone in his little band be well armed; the weapons taken from the dead bandits amounted to quite a little arsenal, and the unwarlike village elders were content to let the visitors help themselves.

  The Scholar gestured at the pile of blades, clubs, and other death-dealing devices before them. "What sort of weapon takes your fancy, lad?" Arnobius himself had belted on a short sword, suitable for a commander, and a serviceable knife, much like the one that Jeremy had had from Sal, then lost. Ferrante had put on a couple of extra belts, and he now bristled with blades, like a storybook pirate. Everyone had reclaimed a backpack or ac­quired a new one from the newly available stockpile, and the vil­lage was still in a generous mood when it came to filling the packs with spare clothing and food supplies.

  Jeremy's hands moved uncertainly above the array of lethal tools. The fingers of both of his hands began to twitch, and something in the display glowed brightly in the sight of his left eye.

  What his right hand lifted from the disorganized pile was quite an ordinary bow—actually, the Intruder silently judged it a lit­tle better than ordinary, though the man who'd been carrying it hadn't been giving it the best of care. And nearby there lay a quiver containing half a dozen arrows. With two fingers Jeremy thrummed the string, which according to his left eye looked a trifle frayed. But there was a spare bowstring, wrapped around the quiver.

  Standing, he planted both feet solidly, a modest stride apart, and then angled the bow between his braced legs, with one end on the ground. Now able to use two hands on the free end, he could, without exerting any unusual strength, flex the wood suf­ficiently to get the old string off and the sound one on.

  Ferrante commented, in mild surprise: "You look like you know how to handle that, Jonathan."

  Jeremy nodded and murmured something. The truth was that he had never in his life so much as touched a bow before picking up this one. But it seemed that his body's onboard mentor had al­ready taught his nerves and muscles all they needed to know on the subject—and considerably more.

  His left eye noted meaningful differences among the arrows. With careful fingers he selected one of the better-looking shafts from the quiver and inspected it closely. Something in him sighed at its inadequacy. But for the time being, it would do. It would have to do.

  The villagers' hospitality did not extend to loaning or giving away anything as valuable as the few cameloids they possessed. And Arnobius on thinking it over decided that he and his com­panions would do better on foot anyway, making more convinc­ing pilgrims. All were in good physical shape, quite ready for a lengthy hike.

  After getting clear of the Honeymakers' village, the party of four, Jeremy, Arnobius, Ferrante, and Katy, retraced on foot the path by which the bandits had herded and driven their hostages away from the Mountain.

  Arnobius spoke no more of the Oracle except as a goal, a place where they could most likely rejoin the force commanded by his brother, while avoiding the enemy.

  There was no particular reason to doubt that most of John's force of four hundred lancers was still intact, but there was equally no reason to suppose them anywhere near the Honeymaker's village.

  Arnobius said: "If it was odylic force, or magical deception, that tore down the bridge and separated us in the first place, then I suppose they could be prevented by the same means from following our trail."

  Apollo seemed to have no opinion.

  For people traveling on foot, as the most serious pilgrims did whenever possible, the Oracle was several days away, even with the benefit of the shortcut trail.

  People walking, if they took any care at all to avoid leaving a conspicuous trail, were bound to be harder to track than the same number mounted on cameloids. Of course the footsloggers were also condemned to a much slower pace.

  Jeremy was not the only one who noticed that Arnobius no longer had much to say about discovering truth. The Scholar seemed to have been shocked out of such concerns and was absorbed now with the need to straighten out the practical business in front of him. Obviously he enjoyed the role, now that it had been thrust upon him.

  "At the moment, philosophic truth is whatever happens to promote our survival."

  Ferrante, like most of his fellow lancers, considered himself something of an archer. And now with some satisfaction he had regained his own bow and arrows.

  It was only natural that, on seeing Jeremy arm himself with a bow as well, Andy would challenge him to an impromptu con­test. And that their new guide should pause to watch.

  "How 'bout it, Katy? Winner gets a kiss?"

 
The girl blushed. But she said: "All right."

  Jeremy just for practice shot one arrow—at a soft target, hop­ing not to damage one of his usable weapons. That the shaft should skewer the mark dead center seemed only natural and right.

  And the kiss, when he claimed his prize, was more than sweet. Something far more serious than any voluptuous dream had begun to happen between him and this girl.

  Ferrante, whose arrow had come quite creditably close to the bull's-eye, kept looking at him strangely, more with puzzlement than jealousy.

  * * *

  The trail along which Katy led them carried them mostly uphill, and sure enough, there was the Mountain in the distance, not yet getting perceptibly closer. After Katy had guided them through a day of careful progress on back trails, the party crossed a larger road. At this point they might fall in with and join a larger pack of pilgrims who were bound for the Cave Shrine.

  Arnobius would have been pleased to join forces with a bigger group and offered Katherine's services as guide, but the dis­trustful pilgrims declined the union, being too suspicious to be led away from the main road.

  Jeremy remained as determined as ever to complete the mission that Sal had bequeathed to him, almost with her dying breath. Or so he told himself. The trouble was that sometimes he forgot what he was doing here, for hours at a time. But if he couldn't find Margaret Chalandon at the Cave of the Oracle, he didn't know what he would do next.

  He tried cautiously questioning Arnobius for any additional information about this woman, Scholar Chalandon, who had been missing in the vicinity of the Mountain ever since her own expedition had miscarried. But the Scholar was evidently unable to tell him much.

  Well, damn it, he, Jeremy, was doing the best he could. With this—this god thing in his head, he was lucky if he could re­member who he was himself.

  It bothered Jeremy that the image of Sal was fading some­what in his memory—the details of how her face had looked and what her voice had sounded like. But he was still committed to fighting the entities that had destroyed her.

  In the middle of the night he woke up with a cold chill, sus­pecting that maybe Apollo didn't want him to remember her.

  It was natural that, as they walked, Jeremy spent a fair amount of time talking to Katy. She listened so sympathetically that he soon found himself stumbling through an attempt to explain his situation to her.

  He realized that he was becoming increasingly attracted to the girl, who was in many ways quite different from the other girls and women he had known, since they had begun to be of inter­est to him.

  It was obvious that Ferrante was getting to like her, too, if only because she was the only young and attractive woman around.

  Jeremy told Katherine that he had made a solemn promise to someone, and naturally she wanted to know more about that.

  "Then you and this girl are engaged?"

  "Engaged? No. No, nothing like that." He was only fifteen; did she think he was about to get married? A pause. "The truth is that she's dead."

  Katy said how sorry she was. It sounded like she really meant it.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The four who traveled together continued to make good time along the little-used trail, which after much going up- and downhill rejoined the main road comparatively near the Mountain.

  Katherine continued to lead the way, giving every indication of knowing what she was about. The route she had chosen, she told her clients, went through some tough hills by an unlikely-seeming path. Apollo's memory was empty of information on this pas­sage through the hills and woods.

  After the first day, when they had come to a section of the trail with which she was less familiar, she spent a good portion of the time scouting ahead alone.

  This morning Jeremy walked with Katy when she moved ahead. They exchanged comments on strange wildflowers—of whose names she seemed to know at least as many as Apollo did. Je­remy admired her backpack, which bore, in what she said was her mother's embroidery, a design showing the same flowers being ravished by industrious bees.

  Katy and Jeremy spoke of many other things—including the strange diversity of life-forms, which was said to increase dra­matically on the Mountain's upper slopes.

  "Some say it's all the Trickster's domain, up there," Katy of­fered, tilting back her head in a vain effort to see the summit, which was lost behind setbacks and clouds.

  He didn't want to think about Carlotta. "I've heard it is Olym­pus." So Apollo's memory suggested—it was no more than a suggestion, for the Sun God had no recollection of ever being that high on the Mountain. "What god do you like best, Kate?"

  She gave him a look. All right, it was a strange question to be asking anyone.

  Katy seemed more attractive the more he looked at her. Je­remy was impressed by her—to the Intruder she could hardly be anything but one more conquest, but to the boy she had assumed deeper importance, and Jeremy found himself some­times tongue-tied in her presence. When he would have commanded the supposed eloquence of Apollo, it was nowhere to be found.

  One night when they were well in among the foothills, as Jeremy was taking his regular turn on watch, while his companions slept, he turned round suddenly, feeling himself no longer alone.

  Carlotta, dressed as when he had last seen her, on the day when Arnobius had given her away, stood there smiling at him.

  Her neat, unruffled presence sent a chill down his spine. There was no natural means by which Carlotta could be here on the Mountain now.

  Her eyes were unreadable, but she put out a hand in the man­ner of a friendly greeting. "You look surprised to see me, Johnny—but no, that's not really your right name, is it?"

  "You know it isn't. I am surprised ... by how much you've changed." His left eye showed him a multicolored aura sur­rounding her figure, as bright as that worn by Thanatos, but less suggestive of danger. On her feet were strange red sandals, more heavily marked.

  "Let's talk about you first. You've grown in the days since I've seen you, Jer."

  "Have I? Maybe I have." His clothes were starting to feel tight again.

  Carlotta put out a hand and familiarly stroked his cheek. "Still no whiskers, though."

  "Truth is, I doubt I'll ever grow any."

  "Oh well. Whiskers aren't that important. Having no beard is just a way of saying that you'll possess eternal youth."

  "I don't know about that."

  "I do. I can now understand you much better, Jeremy—if I may still call you that? Because I have a goddess in my own head now, and I can see you through her eyes."

  "And I can see you through Apollo's.. .. You have the Trickster, don't you?" The glow in Carlotta's eyes and mouth was like that of a house at dusk, where you could tell that candles were glimmering inside even though windows and door were shut. "I always pictured the Trickster as a man. That's how I always heard it in the children's stories."

  "Well, she's a woman, now that she lives with me. I'm not sure what she was before."

  Memory, quickly and shallowly probed, could find no hard reason why the Trickster—or, for that matter, Apollo or any other god—should absolutely be required to be male.

  Jeremy looked around. He and Carlotta effectively had this spot in the deep woods all to themselves. Arnobius and Kate and Ferrante were still sound asleep.

  She seemed to read his thoughts. "I put them to sleep. Apollo of course can wake them if he wishes."

  He shook his head slightly. "So, the Trickster and you . . . Want to tell me the story? I mean how ... how it happened?"

  "That's one reason I came to see you. I've been aching to tell someone. Here, sit down beside me." With a gesture she smoothed the surface of a fallen log, brushing away sharp branch stubs and rough bark like so much sawdust, changing the very form of the wood, leaving a smooth bench-like surface.

  Jeremy sat, close to the goddess who sat beside him, but not quite touching her. He said, "You moved the window, in the Scholar's rooms."

  Carlotta's laughter
burst out sharply. "It was nothing, for the Trickster. I bet he was impressed!"

  "Totally confused."

  "As usual!"

  For a moment they looked at each other, sharing memories in silence. Then Jeremy spoke. "You were going to tell me how you ..." He finished with a vague gesture.

  His companion ran a hand through her white ringlets. "The Lord Apollo can say it, if he likes. I expect he can say just about anything he wants. As for me, it all began on the day we met— you and I."

  He cast his mind back. "I thought maybe ... I saw you hide a little black and white box. Never mind; go on."

  Carlotta jumped up restlessly from the log and strolled about, her fair brow creased as if in meditation. Jeremy found himself distracted by the display the red sandals made in his left eye.

  Presently she said, "It started only an hour or so before you showed up. I expect it was your arrival that threw Arnobius into a fit, though of course he never made the connection. I didn't know he was knocked out, because I happened to be in the tem­ple when it happened."

  "Yes, his seizure.... Go on."

  That day on the stone wharf beside the ruined temple, Carlotta had thought her master safely occupied with his usual rituals and incantations, adequately served and guarded by half a dozen men.

  "I told him that I was going into the building to take a look around, but I wasn't sure he'd even heard me. That was all right. I certainly didn't mind having a chance to do some exploring on my own."

  She'd gone into the temple, not searching systematically, only wandering. Arnobius wasn't going to begin his own official ex­ploration until he was sure he'd done all the proper incantations as correctly as possible.

  "He was very big on incantations, and on trying to divine what the gods wanted—I don't know if he still is."

  "He's changed," said Jeremy. "Changed a lot in the last few days."

  "Has he indeed?" But the idea aroused no interest. "I didn't re­alize how big that temple was until I started wandering around inside. I might actually have been worried about getting lost in there, except that I could see daylight coming in at so many places. The windows and holes were all above eye level, but I could easily tell where the river was, because the trees I saw look­ing out on that side were far away, while on the other sides they were growing right into the ruins....