Shadows on the Aegean

by Suzanne Frank

  Phoebus wished he were with Eumelos, playing in the garden, far from friends who thought he was all-powerful. “What is the other request?”

  Dion indicated a tree in the garden, and they crossed the pavement and sat beneath it, the shade just touching their feet. “He wishes to open the body of the most recently deceased hequetai.”

  “Profane the dead?”

  “Phoebus, not as a profanity, but to determine why they are dying.”

  “He cannot tell from what we know? What kind of mage is he?”

  Dion gazed at him. “Spiralmaster did not know why people were dying,” he said dryly.

  “Just so,” Phoebus agreed reluctantly. He looked toward Mount Krion on Folegandros, the island of the Cult of the Bull. “I want you there, Dion. I want you to watch, see this man’s magic and skill.”

  “No magic, Phoebus. A lot of skill, though.”

  Phoebus rose abruptly. “I must train.”

  Walking away, Phoebus felt as though the sky were falling in. He wanted Irmentis. All I must do is wait the twelve decans till the sun fades and she awakens, he thought. He gritted his teeth. Today he would outwit his trainer in practice. He needed to win in some arena.

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, I AM NOT PREGNANT?” Ileana screeched.

  Embla shrugged. “My mistress, I cannot root the seed in your body.”

  “Then what good are you!” The Queen of Heaven tapped her fingers, for once unconcerned about her frown lines. If these men didn’t have powerful enough seed, her skin would be the least of her worries. Ohk Kela.

  “Are you sure your lover is virile?”

  “He has children, Embla. However, if he is not impregnating me, then I must find another.”

  “What are his children’s ages?”

  “Young. The newest not even a year.”

  “Take an additional lover,” Embla said. “You do have another selected?”

  “Aye,” Ileana answered distractedly.

  “Drink this manroot infusion twice daily and more when the moon is upon you.”

  “Aye,” Ileana said, grasping the vial as though it were her crown.

  “Sleep with this beneath your pillow,” Embla said, giving her a packet of herbs. “Drink a lot of nanny goat’s milk. A strong nanny with many offspring.”

  Ileana grimaced as she stood to leave. She snapped her fingers and three serfs came in, bearing baskets and trays of food. “My gifts, Embla,” Ileana said.

  The priestess fell on the baskets as Ileana closed the door.

  Embla had one more chance to make the seed root; Ileana had to get pregnant.

  CHLOE HAD JUST FOUND HER PACE, that rhythm that lifted her over hills and sent her sailing down them, that quickened when she was in shade and slowed down in the growing heat of the sun. As best she could figure, the competition would take place midsummer.

  July. Running in July. On purpose.

  She nodded at herself, then remembered to look up, her hands pumping from her face to her hips, her fingers open. An earth tremor made her stumble. She was facing east when Mount Apollo coughed for the first time in five hundred years.

  The mountain’s top, at one moment stark against the blue sky, was suddenly obscured by a gray cloud. Chloe felt a low rumble like a train, but this was Aztlan; there were no trains.

  She froze while the cloud swirled artfully across the hills, bits of it misting away as the wind caught and diluted it. If she’d not seen it happen, she’d not have believed it. Now the mountain looked the same.

  The puff of smoke? Ash had blown away.

  Swallowing, she stretched a little and began to run back to where Atenis waited, where her time was now twice as long as usual.

  As she ran, Chloe felt the mountain behind her.

  That was a warning shot, it said.

  She ran even faster.

  THE END OF JUNE, the eve of the Season of the Lion, was hot and dry. Grain harvested from Caphtor was sent to Aztlan’s clans. The seed would be stored during the rainless summer and planted in the fall.

  Cheftu put his head down on the tall table. This room, lost in the bowels of the palace, was cool, but the mingled stink of flesh, blood, and the sewer made his stomach curdle. He had a perpetual headache, and Chloe had chided him for not eating enough. He was losing weight.

  He grinned. Chloe. She had suggested autopsies. Only after he’d opened the first body, moons ago, had she remembered that he’d have to compare diseased insides with healthy ones. He and Phoebus had almost come to blows regarding his inquiries, Cheftu petitioning for approval on new methods in doctoring and Phoebus blocking his every move.

  Thank the gods the Rising Golden was preoccupied training for the upcoming Megaloshana’a rituals. The table shook. Another earth-wave, Cheftu thought wearily. He stood, fighting for balance, and walked to the freshest corpse.

  The first autopsy had made him sick for days, but Chloe was right, he’d built a tolerance. Nestor slammed into the laboratory, Vena trailing him. Cheftu slipped into the back room. The couple fought constantly. Nestor did not want her to challenge Ileana; she was training vigorously for the race.

  Cheftu dared not think what would happen if Chloe won. The one time he’d broached the topic she had flatly refused to withdraw, claiming she’d made an agreement with Sibylla. He suspected she liked running, liked the discipline of training, despite her lengthy complaints about it.

  He looked at the cadaver. Mon Dieu, what was killing these people? He’d seen so many hearts, livers, intestines, and lungs in the past few moons that even thoughts of foie gras were nauseating. His gaze rested on the man’s face; it was frozen in a perpetual grimace. What more can I see? Cheftu asked himself, staring.

  That is what I can see!

  Stricken by what he proposed to do, Cheftu retrieved a utensil Imhotep had brought from Egypt. A brain hook used in embalming. Egyptian custom required removing the brain and entombing it with the body. Cheftu concentrated, summoning skills he’d learned long ago.

  Navigating the hook up the nasal passage, he turned his wrist when he felt the tool was slightly past the forehead’s heavy bone plate. The instrument slid and sliced into the soft tissue, then Cheftu reversed the process. Laboriously he retrieved the man’s brain in tiny pieces.

  When Nestor and Vena finished fighting and reconciling, Cheftu set Nestor to work on another corpse. During a plague, however subtle, there was no dearth of bodies.

  They set the specimens side by side for inspection and comparison. Chloe had said he needed a microscope—not that she could explain what it was—yet before the invention even of plain glass, lenses were an impossibility. To compensate they looked very, very closely, the scribe in the corner taking down every word of their discussion.

  When they had worked so long he could no longer focus, Cheftu sat back. “I cannot think of another location to look.” Nestor shrugged weary agreement, and they climbed the spiral stairs into the land of the living.

  Later, lying clearheaded and heavy limbed beside Chloe, Cheftu told her about his examination of the brain.

  “You saw nothing? Well, chances are if something is infecting the brain, it is too small to see.” She was quiet, and he kissed her forehead. It was a marvel to love her body and learn from her mind. What a blessed man he was.

  A tremor rocked them, and Cheftu shielded Chloe until it stopped. Whitewashed dust had rained on them, and they got up, cleared the bed, and resettled, skin to skin. As he was almost asleep, Chloe sat bolt upright.

  “Ninth grade!”

  Startled, Cheftu cursed, but she was babbling in a mixture of English and Aztlantu. “Ninth grade. Anatomy. The brain is the center of the central nervous system, which controls motor skills, coordination, and …” He felt her tapping her foot against his shin. “Damn, I don’t remember! But Cheftu, didn’t you say the symptoms are loss of speech and swallowing? They can’t walk, they stumble at first. Wouldn’t that be the central nervous system?”

  “Aye,” he said slo
wly.

  “Well, that’s not the front part of the brain, it’s the back. Did you, oh this is gross—did you get it all out?”

  “You, ma chérie, are brilliant!” he said, kissing her head and springing from the couch. He snapped for serfs, sent a message to Nestor, and was racing to the laboratory in moments.

  Nestor joined him, and Cheftu turned a bodiless head toward the man. “How do we get into the back of the brain?” he asked. Nestor blinked, rubbed his eyes, and showed Cheftu the fragile part of the skull.

  It took force to crack it, but he proceeded through, getting to the back of the brain. Seeing the untidy job he’d done on extracting the frontal lobes made him wince, but the back part was untouched. Gingerly he and Nestor pulled it out, setting it on the table and ringing it with oil lamps.

  After dividing the back portion into two sections, they began to look. They looked for decans. Cheftu stared long and hard, moving the light and the fleshy parts, seeking out aberrations in the tissue, cutting it into fractions. The texture was consistent until they reached the innermost part.

  “Nestor.”

  Little black dots were sprinkled through the mass. Hands trembling, Cheftu lifted the flimsy sample so they could examine it better. Nestor, over his shoulder, raised the lamp, casting a shadow onto the table.

  “Do you see what I see?” Nestor asked after a moment.

  Cheftu looked at the black dots, trying to see what else might be there. He glanced toward Nestor and saw that the young man was looking not at the section but at the table.

  A hundred pinpricks of light shone through the thin matter, not visible to their eyes, but discernible with shadow. There were holes in the brain. Mon Dieu!

  CHLOE KNEW WITHOUT LOOKING she was neck and neck with Selena; she could feel the woman’s breath on her arm. The finish line was just ahead over a small rise, and Chloe threw back her head, taking the hill as though she were racing up stairs, her heels not even touching the ground.

  As Atenis had trained her, she surged over the hill and crashed through the line of nymphs awaiting them. Selena was two steps behind her, and they hugged, panting and sweating.

  It was bloody hot, six days before the start of the midsummer festival, roughly June nineteenth, Chloe thought. The earth shook, and no one even stopped talking. Mount Krion had puffed several times, and Mount Apollo had even sent down ash on Daphne, but the Aztlantu had grown accustomed to the frequent interruptions. Ash was just one of the drawbacks of living on a land where the ground was fertile and magma chambers kept the water hot for bathing.

  Tonight was a kickoff feast for the whole fourteen-day festival, and today was the last time Chloe would train before the race. Her body and mind needed rest in preparation, Atenis said. My body needs a few days to forgive me for what I’ve done to it, Chloe thought wryly. The differences were marked, though. Where she’d always been lean, now she was toned. Nothing jiggled except her breasts, a circumstance Cheftu gave thanks for every night. She smiled. It was good to be alive.

  The ground twitched again, and she and Selena began walking back to the palace. Traveling through the residential wing toward the Scholomance, she admired the wall paintings. Selena departed to Kela’s temple, and Chloe went to Cheftu’s apartments.

  She learned from Cheftu’s serf that he was in the laboratory. The lab was a dark, dank place with sickening smells. At least Cheftu kept it well lit. Sneaking exaggeratedly on her tiptoes toward the back room, she thought she might surprise him and—

  Chloe tripped over something in her pathway, barely catching herself. Cheftu!

  He was crumpled on the ground, and Chloe searched frantically for a pulse. Yes, still steady. She ran her hands over his body, searching for wounds, abrasions—he’d really gotten thin. He was still major hunk material, but thinner, a runner’s body instead of a hiker’s.

  Chloe called for a serf as she turned Cheftu onto his back. Nestor came running in behind the serf. “Spiralmaster!” he cried. “Come quick—By Kela, what is the matter?” he asked, kneeling by Chloe. The two men carried Cheftu to his apartments and placed him on his couch.

  “What is wrong with him?” she asked Nestor.

  “I cannot say, Sib. No one can examine him. You know that no one can treat Spiralmaster.”

  “What?” Chloe asked in outrage.

  “He is the master. If he falls ill, then—”

  “Then he perishes from neglect? Get out,” she said.

  “My mistress,” Nestor protested, raising his hands.

  “Get out, I said. I will take care of him.”

  “My mistress, Kela-Ata Embla is ill,” a serf said from the doorway. “She needs attention.”

  “Nestor will take care of Embla,” she snapped.

  Chloe was shaking with fury as she tried to figure out what to do. Cheftu had no fever, no sweating, just chills. He tossed and turned as though he were in the throes of a bad dream, and he was badly dehydrated.

  With the serf’s help, she undressed him and massaged peppermint oil into his skin, feeling helpless. Was his collapse merely exhaustion?

  “I came as soon as I heard,” Dion said, closing the double doors behind him.

  “Thank Apis. What can you do?”

  The chieftain visually inspected Cheftu and declared he was well, but in need of rest and food. Sibylla, however, was needed at the swearing-in of the new Kela-Ata, he said. Embla was dead: apparently her indulgence in food had been fatal. She’d been found with a half-eaten shrimp in her hand, her throat clawed as though she’d tried to dislodge something.

  Too much information, Chloe thought, running through the palace corridors and halting abruptly. She snapped for a carrying chair. Don’t forget you are trying to rest your body these last days before the race, she thought.

  DION PULLED BACK THE SHEET and gazed at Cheftu’s body. He’d known it would be like this, perfection in every lean line, the sensitivity, power, and control of the Spiralmaster tangible even in his flesh.

  With a glance over his shoulder to make sure no one watched, Dion touched Cheftu’s skin. He shaved and waxed like an Egyptian even in his pubic area, but bareness only highlighted Apis’ gifts to him.

  How Apis had gifted him.

  Dion’s breath caught as his fingers slid along the man’s skin. His complexion was a shade lighter than Dion’s, though still dark. He touched the man’s flanks, and Cheftu jerked in his sleep. With a wary eye on Cheftu’s face, Dion slowly moved his hands up Cheftu’s body.

  That was when he felt it. A lump, a hard protrusion beneath the oil-smooth skin of the Spiralmaster. Dion leaned closer, focused on the sore, very aware of how close his mouth was to—

  Cheftu’s knee caught him in the jaw, and Dion spun away, eyes watering.

  “What in the name of Apis were you doing?” the Egyptian snarled. He covered himself and glared at Dion, fury sparking from his sand-colored eyes.

  Dion wiped a streak of blood from the corner of his mouth. “You were ill. I was flouting Council decrees, endangering my own chieftainship to examine you. I was being a friend!” He ended on a tone of outrage. “This is your gratitude?” Glaring at Cheftu, he tested his teeth and jaw, all of which were still fixed in his head.

  Cheftu looked away first, his face and chest darkening with blood. “My apology, of course you were. I …” He looked back. “Why am I here? It is yet daylight, and I am in bed? Where is Ch—Sibylla?”

  “Training, I would think,” Dion said. “She has a good chance of becoming the next mother-goddess. I believe she would be excellent, do you not? Phoebus is anticipating bedding her, I can tell you,” he said with a laugh.

  Cheftu laughed, but he didn’t seem happy.

  Interesting, Dion thought. “As for your being here, instead of in the laboratory. I think you fell, hit your head, and were sleeping it off.” He refused to voice his fear, the possibility that Cheftu had this strange illness. After all, Spiralmaster Imhotep had gotten it from caring for the ill. Cheftu was doing no
less.

  Frowning slightly, Cheftu agreed that must have been the cause.

  “Tell me,” Dion said, touching Cheftu’s leg, ignoring his flinch, “how long have you had that bubo?”

  “What bubo? ”

  “May I?” Dion asked, tugging at the linen. Reluctantly Cheftu let him take it. Dion pointed at the sore on Cheftu’s groin. “What is that, if not a bubo?” Dion fought for calm as he watched Cheftu touch his own body. His hands were darker skinned than his groin, and Dion concentrated on being composed. If he became aroused now, he would stand no chance with Cheftu.

  The Spiralmaster focused on the sore. It was about the size of a child’s fingernail and seemed to cause no pain as Cheftu poked it. Spiralmaster brushed his member and Dion saw a response. He had to leave, immediately.

  With lies for excuses, the clan chieftain escaped the room.

  THE MEGALOSHANA’A ARRIVED. Every nineteen summers the fields and hills of Aztlan were covered with the visiting clans. Azure, saffron, and crimson tents scattered across the green hillsides like overgrown flowers. The wind died and the sun shone hotly on the golden-topped Pyramid of Days.

  In fourteen days, the Aztlantu world would change.

  Events were scattered throughout the days, in accordance with the prophecies and charts of the Daedaledai and the cycles of the moon and sun. Tonight, a feast. Tomorrow, the first race for mother-goddess. Though only the Olimpi ever won, hundreds of young women raced in the hope that they might catch the eye of the Golden.

  Once the mother-goddess claimed her position, then the Rising Golden was tested, first in the bull dance and then in the pyramid. Then he was Hreesos, his predecessor was athanati, and the people were blessed in the blood of the bull. More feasting and later, when the sun and moon, Apis and Kela, were joined in the sky, the new Hreesos would be conceived in a ritual for women and Hreesos only.

  The feasting had no end or beginning, Coil Dancers were free, wine flowed like seawater, and the Aztlantu congratulated themselves on their good fortune to be born on these islands.