A strong draft of rotten eggs blew over her. “Okh!”
“That odor is not my perfume!” the woman protested.
“Then what is it, mistress?” Neotne asked. The perfume stank. The stink still filled the air. She looked at the other shoppers. Everyone had stopped; many had pinched their noses, frowning at the stench. Maybe it wasn’t the perfume, but what could cause such a horrid smell? Neotne left the market and walked uphill to the temple. She would pick up some fresh fish for the noonday meal and go home. The rest of her list could be purchased later.
The red-columned building was empty of buyers, and Neotne sighed in relief. She hated to wait. Inside, the Shell Seekers had laid out the day’s catch—fish, shrimp, and octopus. Fresh vegetables and fruits from the Clan of the Vine and spiced meat from the Clan of the Horn were attractively arranged in baskets.
The earth moved again, and Neotne caught herself against a table. She watched as a pomegranate crashed to the ground, splitting and spilling seeds the color of blood. Please Kela, let that not be an omen! The shudder continued, and pieces of whitewashed ceiling fell. Neotne raised her arm, shielding herself. Beneath the roar of the Earthshaker, she heard human cries. She tried to look up, but a fog of white powder hung in the room. Crouched next to a column, she felt a crack begin beneath her palm. The column would fall. She would be crushed!
Dodging and jumping pieces of building falling around her, Neotne ran in the direction of the door. The temple steps had cracked down the middle; this was the worst Earthshaker had ever been.
A burning powder fell, stinging her bare breasts and face. The smell of sulfur was strong in the air, and panicked people ran through the streets to the harbor. Caught up in the mass, Neotne was pushed along. Sela, she thought, what about Sela? Her clan sister could scarcely move, she was so full of child.
People shoved at her back, and Neotne shoved at the people ahead of her. What she had thought was a powder were tiny, hot, stinging pellets, falling from the sky. Neotne couldn’t turn, couldn’t break from the crowd. On all sides she saw broken buildings and fires. Bright pieces of fresco lay shattered on the ground, quickly being covered by gray. A weaver’s house had fallen in on itself, the cloth still on the loom scarlet as a splash of blood.
What was happening?
The sound struck like a blow, and Neotne was felled, people beneath her and atop her. She felt the ground shudder as though it longed to birth, and Neotne struggled away, terrified.
With strength prompted by fear, she wrestled out of the group and got to her feet. They were at the harbor, except the sea had vanished! Ships and boats sat mired in sand. A crack seemed to rip from behind her, a deafening sound that threw her to her knees. Neotne turned and saw fire shoot from Apis’ Nostril.
The Bull roared!
Only a few people still stood. Buildings had fallen, bodies lay in the mucky seabed like swathes of drying linen. She watched as streaks of red and green and orange shot into the sky. Lightning glowed in the gathering darkness, and Neotne knew that Arachne was doomed. Sela, could she get to Sela?
She turned to the sea. Where were the waves? Was there no escape? A low sound, like hordes of buzzing bees, grew louder, closer. Mount Calliope began to bleed, red and black smoke billowing from the smoking Nostril. The blood moved fast, and Neotne jumped off the pier, onto the wet sand. A tiny boat listed to one side, stranded on the sand but small enough for her to push. Neotne grabbed at it and it moved.
A little.
The blood had reached the outer edge of Arachne. The beautiful nobles’ homes built high on the cliff’s edge were swept under in the blink of an eye. Neotne got in front of the boat and pulled. It moved more.
Other people moved and screamed and ran, but Neotne felt as though she alone faced the fury of the Bull. What had they done that Apis would destroy them? The boat slid farther out. Neotne grabbed the anchor rope and twisted it around her wrist, granting more leverage to her pull, tossing the anchor end inside the boat.
People’s screams tore through the air, and Neotne ran, the hot breath of Apis on her back. The boat dragged behind her as the sand grew wetter and it grew harder to gain footing. Beached octopus and fish lay dead all around her. Darkness approached, and the falling ash seemed to gouge her everywhere it touched.
A crack of wood sounded behind her, and Neotne turned, watching the Bull’s blood crush the wooden pier. She saw people vanish under its deadly wave. Arachne was gone. Sela, the child, her clan, her family. The Bull despised them! She felt the heat of its power but could no longer move. A rush behind her made her turn again.
The sea!
A wave higher than Arachne’s cliffs approached. Neotne looked at the fiery blood about to embrace her and then at the churning white waves. She dove into the sand as the sea crashed into the lava, jerking Neotne with violent force.
It ripped her blue-stained hand off her arm like the snap of a thread.
AN ICY COLD WAVE WASHED OVER HIM and Niko sat up, clutching the prow of the boat. A cloying darkness surrounded him and he coughed, heaving ocean water and gritty phlegm from his chest. He watched as the Mariners fought with the sail and the wind. The air stank of sulfur. Niko’s skin itched, but that thought was lost as the boat rose high in the air, almost tossing them out. Lightning and thunder flashed in the distance, momentarily illuminating the night.
In a glimpse he saw orange and red glowing in the distance. His boat was caught in the waves again. He began bailing water. The boat was sinking, water was up to his knees and Niko could see nothing except a furnacelike glow on the horizon. The sail ripped away and Niko heard the finely woven Aztlantu cloth flap in the wind like a Coil Dancer’s skirt.
The boat turned and Niko hung on for blessed life as he felt them spin in an eddy. The deck tilted and Niko heard a man cry out, then a loud splash. Through the flashes of lightning Niko could see the Mariner’s dark head in the white-capped waves. The boat pitched again and Niko felt his body lift completely from the deck, then crash down again.
Utterly disoriented, Niko squinted through the whipping wind to get his bearings, landmarks. Before he’d fallen asleep they were supposed to pass into the narrow channel between Delos and Paros. That was the location of the stone’s island, according to the map. Was that fiery, angry mass Delos?
The island glowed as though it were in Talos’ forge. Red, orange, yellow, and black covered the side of the mountain, and there was no sign of Arachne. The boat bounced on the water. Niko was certain he was going to die.
Niko had never contemplated death before. It happened to the aged, the infirm. He was the brightest student ever to sit in the Scholomance. And he was going to die. Little use all his knowledge was now, he fumed.
The boat was whirled by the winds and the waves and the blackness of whatever was coming from the sky. “Help me!” he cried, his words eerily distorted on the rising wind. The echoing cries bounced around him. Knowing that they were merely a trick of nature did not dissuade him from the possibility that a wandering skia was torturing him. Ocean spray and falling ash mixed on his cheeks, and Niko resisted forbidden tears. Was this his answer to searching for the great god’s stones? You deserve to die?
Or was this storm a product of Apis’ jealousy? For the Bull did seem an entity now, a bucking, frothing-mad creature bent on destruction.
He pulled an oar flush against his body. The Mariners had disappeared. Was he alone? Niko used his sash to tie the oar to him. The wood should help keep him afloat when his boat broke up. “Please help me!” he whispered as he watched the burning mountain stretch fingers of fire into the sea.
The boat spun again and Niko fell to the deck, clinging to the oar as he slid back and forth on the slick wood. Lightning flashed and ash fell on him, his face, into his eyes. Niko curled into himself, groaning as his sliding body was battered. The wind was a live thing, and Niko begged for mercy.
The sea calmed. Niko sat up, dazed. The waters were placid. The island was to his back, the unea
rthly glow cast on the sea in reflection. Frantically Niko began to row, pulling his boat into the deeper water as quickly as he could.
It began as a low rush, a reverberation that ran up his spine and made the oar tremble. He pushed deeper and yelled as the oar was torn from his hands. Bracing on both arms, he held himself in the boat as the oar, still tied to him, danced on the waters. In another eyeblink he knew it would pull him down with it. Suddenly a sucking sound followed and Niko turned, splashed with water. The power of the crests raised the boat, but kept it in one place as the sea roared beneath him, across the murky night, to crash on the shore of the flaming mountain.
He pulled out the oar and began paddling furiously, begging whatever, whoever had saved him, to save him just a little further.
Just a little further … The wave knocked him over, sucking him from the boat. Niko felt his waist tighten almost unbearably as he was pulled along by the weightless oar. Impact to his head …
Niko opened his eyes. Grit clustered at the edges of his vision and he blinked, trying to move it away. His cheek felt abraded. He looked about: the east side of the world was slick black, the west was rushing waves to the sky.
It took a moment, then he realized he was lying on a beach, the waves appearing horizontal. Wincing, he sat up, the cold air chilling the side of his body he’d kept warm against the black pumice.
Where was he? Shaking, he rose to his feet—noticing the cuts and abrasions covering his body. Yet he was alive. He scanned the shoreline for his boat, his map, food, clothing. The beach was empty.
The tide was coming in, rising from his ankles to his knees. His tender feet were cut by the rough rock, but he had to walk.
Apparently he’d washed up on a small island, densely covered with trees and foliage. How far had he been blown off course? The volcano had erupted on Delos, that was certain. Why and how—he didn’t know. Had the inhabitants managed to send off birds to Kallistae? Had the clansmen at Paros summoned aid? Had those at Tinos? A gray smoke fog still hung over the sky, casting the day into false twilight.
Niko began walking, listening for sounds of people or animals. The quiet was ominous, no birds called, no maeemus chattered. No wind, either. He stepped into the trees and saw what appeared to be an overgrown path.
Pine trees grew beside bougainvillea that had not yet been killed by winter frost. Basil rose in bushes as high as his chest. Roses grew wild, their petals sprinkling the black soil with yellow, red, pink, and peach spots.
What was this place? A sense of reverence hung as thickly as the smoke covering the treetops.
Niko kept walking, his breath coming faster. The path twisted and wove, overhung with grapevines, fig trees, pomegranate bushes, and a grassy covering of oregano and hardy thyme, hyssop, and rosemary.
At least he wouldn’t starve.
He walked for hours yet felt as though he traveled nowhere. Niko began to tire. His legs ached from the unaccustomed activity. It was getting darker, and he ate the grapes he’d picked along the trail.
Pine needles poked his bare feet as Niko headed in one direction, paused, turned around, and ran in another. Cold sweat glazed his body. Where was he?
The thirst that had appeared from time to time now manifested itself fully, and he found he could barely swallow. He tried to calm himself, but Niko was a man of civilization. Water was simply a matter of drawing it from the clay pipes that wove like threads through the walls of the palace. He was a refined man. He could speak all known languages. The formulae for Aztlan’s greatest accomplishments were buried in his brain. Like all courtiers, he could dance, he could ride, and he could sail.
But in the wildness of this island, he was blind and mute, ignorant as a child and as vulnerable as a hatchling. Despairing, fearful of the growing darkness, he looked frantically for a place to hide. Wind began rustling in the trees, raining tiny needles onto his bare skin.
He hunched down beneath the spreading lower limbs of a pine, shivering. After surviving so much, would he die here? Would his bones eventually become one with the roots of this huge tree?
Would all he’d hoped for come to naught? He thought of those he would miss: Phoebus, Spiralmaster, his students, his maeemu. He’d never know if Dion perfected his air sail; if Irmentis and Phoebus finally consummated their love; he’d miss Phoebus’ Becoming Golden.
He would break his word to the person dearest to him. “All I wanted were the stones,” he pleaded in a whisper. “Just a chance to talk to the first god of this land. Maybe apologize for forsaking him? Intervene and ask him to heal Aztlan?” Was that so wrong?
As darkness threw the trees into wicked, shifting horrors, Niko, feet bleeding, throat swollen, and eyes red, slept.
AT SEA
THE BULLS’ RUMBLING ROCKED THE DECK beneath his feet. Mariner Batus raced for the hatch before the commander could send him; he had no taste for a lashing. After his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he ducked under the beam that ran the length of the ship.
The bulls were unhappy. They were making odd noises. Of the forty that had been loaded in Avaris, not many were standing.
Mariner Cynaris hissed from the darkness.
Batus knelt. “What are you doing?”
“One of the bulls is dead!”
“By the gods, say it isn’t so!” he cried, pushing between the hot bodies of the animals. Lying on its side, the bull was still. Several others lay around it, but they all were breathing, hot, fetid breath in the close darkness. “What happened?”
“I know not,” Cynaris said. He moved his hand over the still flank of the animal. It had no smell. It appeared to be resting.
“It’s dead?” Batus asked, kneeling beside the animal.
“It was lowing. I reached to touch it and the cursed thing collapsed and died right before me.”
An omen of the Apis god? What did this mean? “We must tell the commander.”
“How many bulls were there altogether?”
“One hundred twenty.”
“Who knows that number, save you, me, and the Egyptian priests?”
“Maybe that Egyptian on board!” Batus was silent a moment. “You think to deceive the high priest? The Minos?”
“Eee, well …” Cynaris grew silent. “Nay, it will not be deception, for he will not ask us.”
“We should just confess.”
“We could be blamed!”
“For what? Sick Egyptian bulls?”
“These are Apis bulls,” Cynaris said. “This mark of the inverted pyramid makes them more than just cattle. Dare we offend the gods like this?”
Batus snorted. “Either offend the gods or be punished! Our choices are grim.”
Cynaris stopped patting the animal and stood. “What will we do with the carcass?”
Batus looked at the dead bull, debating. “Who is in the galley?”
“An Alayshiyu serf. Why?”
“We shall dine well on this journey,” he said with a smile.
“Feed the sacred bull to Mariners?”
“We serve the gods as much as or more so than any of the priesthood,” Batus protested. “Our lives are subject to the whim of the Olimpi. We have earned the right to eat this sacred meat.”
“Just so,” Cynaris said. “But how will we get it to the cook?”
Batus knelt. “Pull out your blade, we must work quickly.”
“What of the other bulls?”
“They are well. See, they stand in silence and watch us.”
Cynaris knelt, blade in hand. “Just so, they watch us blaspheme.”
THE MIST CLEARED AROUND HIM, and Niko saw two flickers of light. One after the other lit in an awkward rhythm. He moved without walking, drawing closer to the lights.
A low clicking noise grew louder, emanating from the flashes of color. He stood, looking down on an oddly shaped two-sided box. Its sides were curved into a point at either end. The top consisted of two pieces joined at an angle on the long sides.
His hands, the color of
bleached linen, touched it, and he marveled at the smoothness of the wood. The clicking was growing louder, the flashes of color brighter.
He set aside the lid and looked in.
Niko shielded his eyes from the blinding contents.
Two rocks lay inside, each throbbing with color after color. One stone flashed in a continual spectrum of black to deep purple, blood red, clear red, orange, yellow; the colors were beautiful but inexplicably tragic, and Niko felt melancholy. The other stone flashed from purest piercing white through a range of blues and greens so indescribably rich that Niko blinked back tears.
Like living things, they flipped again and again, clattering against the sides of the smooth wooden box. The clear rhythm penetrated through to his bones. When Niko reached for them his hands exploded into flames.
Exquisite fire.
The pleasure was soul searing, his head filled with the song, the call, the clicking of the stones. Louder and louder …
He woke to see a bird pecking away at the tree, just next to his ear. Niko sat up, so thirsty he ached, disoriented from his dream. He rose to his feet, angry and confused. The Scholomance had taught that many times one’s dreams were hidden truths.
Of course, such dreams could also come from eating undercooked squid.
In contrast with the previous day’s silence, the island was brimming with life. Birds filled the trees, small animals poked their heads out of their holes, noses twitching. The woodlands were coming alive. Niko felt watched.
He ate what fruits he could gather, hoping the rich, juicy flesh would help him swallow, his mouth was so dry. He slept again, within the protection of the trees.
Shadows on the Aegean Page 16
