Beneath them, the earth churned; their fortune was changing.
CHLOE FELT THE EXQUISITE TENSION EBB AWAY and collapsed on Cheftu’s chest.
“You,” he said, trying to catch his breath, “have developed stamina.’
“Almost kill you?” she said with a smile. “Desserts will do that, you know.”
His eyes closed, and Chloe looked at him in astonishment. Cheftu went to sleep? Immediately? He must be exhausted from working so late every night. This festival time would be a good holiday, she thought. No students, no corpses, just a vacation.
Pulling away from his body, she noticed that he’d stopped being shaved Egyptian style. When in Aztlan, do as the Aztlantu do? Chloe grinned and got out of bed, covering Cheftu. She would go see Selena, who was more than freaking out at her new responsibilities. Then meet with Sibylla’s clanspeople, who never wanted more than “just so” anyway.
She had no memories regarding Sibylla’s clan chieftain duties. Sibylla herself had disappeared. Chloe had apparently absorbed her, though it wasn’t flattering to see herself as a psychic vampire. She kissed her husband’s forehead and bounced out of the double doors.
“Do not forget tonight,” she whispered.
He muttered, and Chloe laughed.
The Megaron was filled with torchlight and the smell of flowers. The night was hot, and Chloe felt perspiration building up where she touched Cheftu. They looked as Aztlantu as the rest, and Chloe grinned at Cheftu’s visible effort to keep his eyes above the necks of the many bare-breasted women moving around the room.
Chloe twisted the skin on his arm, and he glared at her. “Stop it!” she hissed. He frowned, then tried to look innocent. “I’m your wife,” she said. “I’ll always know what you are thinking.” They walked toward their respective clan tables and, with a quick hand squeeze, separated.
The feast was elaborate and exquisite: lobster, shrimp, crab, squid, cucumbers, figs … all seasoned and placed in arrangements before her. Chloe glanced over her shoulder and saw Cheftu walking away, Dion beside him. She turned back to her conversation with Selena. Acrobats flew across the pavement, some playing the bull and some enacting the bull dancers. They juggled grapes, then clay pithoi, and finally two of Hreesos’ newborn sons.
The Golden Bull rose, and the court grew silent in fear, admiration, and respect. “Citizens of Aztlan! My brothers, my sisters, my lovers.” That got a laugh. “My fellow clanspeople! To Kela, the voluptuous earth goddess! Celebrate her life and love tonight!” Zelos’ toast was slurred and full of good humor. Serfs appeared to refill the many rhytons.
The mood was expansive, sensual and carefree. Selena excused herself to pursue the stag Adonis, one of Dion’s castoffs, and Chloe found herself alone, picking at congealing seafood and wondering why she wasn’t satisfied. She still didn’t know why she was here. This was nothing like Egypt, she had no guidance, no clear path. Just enough freedom and rope to hang myself. It was a discouraging thought.
She shook her head politely as Hreesos’ gaze fell on her. Phoebus inclined his head and turned to kiss a dark-haired nymph at his side. She was a dead ringer for Irmentis, Chloe thought.
A gentle caress of her shoulder made her turn. “Are you well?” Chloe asked as Cheftu sat down. “You were gone so long I was afraid you’d slipped through a portal and were now in JFK’s time.”
“I was needed,” he said, avoiding her gaze.
“The dancers will be here in a moment,” she said. “The acrobats were good. Not quite Cirque du Soleil, but impressive.”
“You speak in riddles,” he muttered. “Has everyone seemed well?” he asked clearly.
“Well, do you see that tall lady over there, the one with the pierced—”
“Aye, I see her.”
“Well, before the second course she and that gentleman over there were—
Coil Dancers, without snakes, began to writhe before them. The women danced around the fireplace in the center of the room, twisting and turning, their pupils pinpoints in their eyes from kreenos. Chloe joined them, spinning and swirling, enjoying the freedom of the movement. Since purloining Sibylla’s skills, dancing had become a lot of fun.
Her stomach began to cramp and she sat down, motioning for water. Maybe the wine was upsetting her system?
A while later, Cheftu sat down next to her. “Why are you not dancing, Chieftain?”
“Not in the mood,” Chloe said. “I overate, I think.”
His gaze was tender but quick. “Go rest, then, belov—er, Sibylla.’ He smiled over his cup. “As Spiralmaster, I command it.”
“I think I will,” Chloe said, rising. She really didn’t feel good.
“Do you need to be tucked in?”
Chloe shook her head. “Just tucked in, though.”
Immediately Cheftu’s gaze sharpened. “What happened?”
“I ate too much,” she said, then clapped her hand over her mouth and exited through a side door.
As he held her head, smoothing her hair while she threw up, Cheftu asked her about what she had eaten. Anything that she alone had eaten? Chloe couldn’t remember; the thought of food made her sick to her stomach. Again.
“I think you were mildly poisoned,” Cheftu said. “It wouldn’t take much to weaken your body a little, throw your system into turmoil.”
“Why?” Chloe croaked.
“Ileana.”
The name was answer enough. As Chloe rested between bouts, her face cold with sweat, she became even more determined to beat the Queen of Heaven. Anyone who would poison just to win a competition was not fit to be a ruler.
She laid her head on the pavement, nice and cool. Cheftu stroked her head. “Shall I take you to bed?”
“Only if you promise to hold me,” she said, sniffling. God, I hate it when I’m weepy!
“Eee, ma chère,” he said, lifting her into his arms. “Do you think I am a beast? You are unwell—”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just didn’t want you to leave me alone.” Chloe snuggled closer to him, feeling safe, secure, and comforted. He kissed her bowed head and started up the stairs.
“I need a witness, Sibylla.”
Chloe rubbed her eyes, then covered a yawn. “It is late, Selena. Can this not wait?.”
“Revenge has its own schedule,” said the new Kela-Ata.
Chloe sighed. “Let me get a cloak.”
“We can do it here,” Selena offered. Thinking of Cheftu sleeping in the next room, Chloe declined. Her relationship with the Spiral-master was a secret she wanted to keep. She threw a cloak over her running shift and followed Selena down two floors to her apartments. Selena walked into the cleared room, and Chloe propped herself against the wall, wishing for a toothbrush.
Selena chanted to Kela, drawing elaborate patterns in sand on the floor. “You must defend my body while I am away,” she said.
Chloe yawned again. “Defend?”
“Aye. While I spirit travel.” She looked up at Chloe. “I mean no offense, but I do not want to wake up with a changed appearance. I don’t want to be like you.”
“My gratitude,” Chloe said dryly.
THE PATTERNS DRAWN, Selena stepped into the center, bowing to each of the four elemental points—fire, water, wind, and earth—then sat down, naked and crossed-legged. From the satchel around her neck she withdrew poppy gum and placed it under her tongue, reciting the formula that would help her psyche leave her body temporarily. Feeling her body grow heavier, Selena loosened her grip on the flesh, fastening a silver noose tightly around her spirit self. Selena’s psyche flew across the black skies, then sank into the palace building, passing through walls and ceilings like heavy air. She floated over her quarry and spoke, bringing him into the state between waking and sleeping.
“I HAVE A TALE FOR YOU, Phoebus.”
The voice rose out of the darkness, out of Phoebus’ thrashing, sweat-filled dreams.
“Once lived a woman so beauteous that even her brothers loved her. One be
came her husband, another her lover. Her husband was unfaithful—he found new women endlessly appealing. He could not have enough of them. This burned into his wife’s heart. She vowed her children would never know this grief.”
The voice, low and melodic, continued. “When her oldest daughter was yet a babe, merely three summers, the mother took her to an exiled priestess who lived in the mainland forest. There, for a price of precious stones, she had the girl’s sex cut.”
Phoebus jerked on his couch, cupping himself in sleepy protection.
“It was a tiny cut, but the mother knew it would forever rob the girl of her desire for men.”
He tried to open his eyes, but he couldn’t. His limbs felt weighted, and he was condemned to listen to a story whose end he did not want to hear.
“The youngest was not so fortunate. By the time the girl was five summers, the mother’s fears had grown larger; her ability to reason had fled. The girl had caught her husband’s eye, and rather than attributing his attention to paternal affection, the wife imagined he lusted after his child. The woman feared her daughter would rise up and take the mother’s role. The priestess in the forest had long since died, yet she had to do something, strip the girl of her desires. The mother waited, planning carefully, for the child’s clan brother, the heir, was the girl’s constant companion. He could prevent this deed from being done.
“Then one week, her prayers were answered. The boy was gone.
“So the wife got out her own blades and she cut the girl. It didn’t seem enough, however. She cut more, then more, then stitched where she could. The child bled badly and only intervention by a Kela-Tenata protected the girl from dying of poisoned blood.
“Then the mother killed the priestess to protect her actions.”
Phoebus felt tears burning down his face, a welling of pain in his chest. Please don’t let it be who he thought it was! Please, please, for the love of Kela—
“Irmentis was the girl; she is condemned to live her life beyond pleasure’s touch. Slowly she kills herself in the arms of a green, insidious lover who fills her veins and twists her mind. Ileana did this; she murdered, she mutilated, she robbed you of your heartlove.”
He was shaking with rage, with fear, with revulsion. Irmentis had never disrobed before him. Never had he seen her without her tunic. Could this be true? Could this be why she’d lain still in his arms a dozen times?
“Revenge, Phoebus. Revenge. You will be Hreesos, the time for your revenge is dawning.”
He hissed as he felt something across his palm. His hand was wet, then his lips were wet, coated with blood. “Swear vengeance, Phoebus. Speak now.”
The constraints on his movement and speech were gone. He muttered his vow of vengeance, then felt his sticky fingers wrapped around the haft of a blade. The vow kiss made him moan—such passion, such love, such lust! He could not kiss deeply enough.
Then he was kissing only air. Tears, semen, and blood mingled in his linens.
SELENA FELT HER SPIRIT RETURN to the cavern of her body. In the flickering light, she could see Sibylla’s features masked in horror. “How could you do that? Now that he knows the truth, he will never forgive her. You promised Ileana sanctuary; it was your duty. What is your purpose with revealing this story?” Sibylla protested.
“Phoebus will destroy Ileana now. It will be justice,” Selena said.
“Do you seek to take her place?”
“Do not we all seek it? We all run the race.”
“He loves Irmentis.”
“Aye. She loves him, but she doesn’t feel eros for him. Irmentis’ greatest love is for the wilds. And her potion.”
“Potion?”
“Okh, Sibylla! For an oracle you can be so blind! The drink Phoebus concocted for her. It eases the pain she lives with in the darkness.”
Sibylla looked at the elaborate patterns of colored sand on the floor. Her eyes were growing paler as the poppy burned and her pupils contracted. “Ileana is the mother-goddess; you are sworn to protect her.”
“Aye.”
“But—doesn’t this undermine your promise?”
“She should die,” Selena snarled.
“I would have thought death too easy an answer,” Sibylla said.
“She will die unbathed. Forever she will wander, a skia.” Selena leaned over the poppy and inhaled deeply. “Death is but the beginning of her harvest in this life,” were her last coherent words.
CHAPTER 13
UTTER DARKNESS CLOAKED THE NIGHT OF THE RACE. Kela was now the hag, newly deceased, waited to be reborn. In this blackness the race would be run, over the rough hills, through the winding passages, and finally across the bridge onto Aztlan Island.
It’s dark, I’m barefoot, with decidedly aggressive women on my heels, Chloe thought. These people could really use an Olympics committee. Observation was forbidden; lamps and direction were not allowed, violators were punishable by banishment. It was not only a test of the body, skill, temperament, and endurance, the race was a search of the psyche through the shadows of night.
They would run from almost midnight until dawn. Fortunately it was summer, so night was only six hours.
Six hours; don’t think of it like that, Chloe. You can do this. You know how. You can do this. She repeated the words continuously to herself as she stretched. The cooler night breeze ruffled the skirt of her shift and tossed tendrils of hair into her eyes and mouth.
A final strip of cloth around her forehead, a test of her “bra” bandage, and Chloe was ready. It had come down to a four-way battle: Selena, Vena, Sibylla, and Ileana. Just as long as one of the challengers, though preferably not Vena, won, it would be okay. Ileana would be deposed.
The Minos had his bull head on and sprinkled scented water on them. “By the serpent of Kela, may the vessel of the goddess be revealed.” He extinguished the torch, and they started.
Though Chloe had to fight her desire to use her energy now and whip in front, she remembered Atenis’ words. Pace, conserve, relax, look up. The night began to reveal itself in the silhouettes of ink black trees against blue-black sky. No stars, no moon … just silence and darkness and her own body.
She was so aware of her blood pumping, her muscles stretching and moving, her bound hair as it slapped her back, the slight jog of her breasts … Chloe allowed her mind to quiet, listening to her rhythm, resting and preparing for the mental side of the race.
Her shift was soaked; before her to the left she could almost make out the shape of Vena, her milky skin more visible in the darkness. Selena was ahead of them both, Ileana far ahead.
The aching had begun, and Chloe realized it was like sex in that aspect. Sometimes you had to strive, even suffer a little, until the pleasure began. They were going downhill, and Chloe kicked back with her stride, letting the pull of gravity do most of the work. She passed Vena in a burst of momentum and was in a copse of trees when the earthwave hit.
Chloe banged against an olive tree, slicing her shin as the ground continued to fibrillate. Swearing at the pain, the loss of her pacing, she waited until the earth stopped moving and limped back onto the path. Slowly she started again, her shin throbbing with every step.
Damn, damn, damn! She was still swearing when the next wave hit, throwing her to the ground, where she clung, sweating and nauseated, until it stopped. Hesitantly now, she got to her feet. Her shin was slick with blood, and she ripped a strip from her tunic and tied it over the gash.
She couldn’t see or hear any other women. Chloe began to run again, starting slow, then picking up speed as her heartbeat easily leapt back to where it had been. More hills, more valleys: Keep going, keep going. She didn’t think of the others, or how far she had run, or the distance to the finish line; there was only her body, the wind, and the earth.
Forward, keep going.
Blood was streaming freely down her shin. Finally she couldn’t take it and slowed to a stop, looking for some way to stem the bleeding.
The quake hit vi
olently, bouncing her around like a body surfer on a wave. Thank God I wasn’t running. The two minutes of the quake were two of the longest minutes in her life. After coughing up the pomegranate juice she’d had hours ago, Chloe began to walk, then jog, then run—again.
She didn’t care about the race anymore, she just wanted to get back! To Cheftu, to safe ground, to light! Following a sharp curve, she caught sight of the land bridge and, across it, Aztlan. No signs of anyone else.
At least I’ll finish the race, she thought, encouraged by the sight. It was a straight shot from here to the island, mostly downhill to boot! This will be the easiest part of the night! She was flying down the hill when she passed Selena.
“Win, Sibylla!” the priestess cried after her. “Yazzo!”
Gaze fastened on the ground as she negotiated the uneven rise, Chloe almost ran over Ileana. With a yelp she sidestepped, wincing as her ankle turned a little. Ileana didn’t waste a second, she put on a burst of speed as Chloe hobbled a few steps.
The vicious witch who’d kept her up half the night with dry heaves was not going to win.
Her shoulders as relaxed and motionless as she could make them, her hands pumping from her face to her derriere, Chloe kicked back all the way down the hill, propelled halfway across the bridge. She was catching up!
Ten steps behind Ileana when they crossed onto the island, Chloe knew she had minutes to overtake the older woman or she would lose. Extra energy, she told her body. More! Give me more!
Flick your feet, she remembered Atenis telling her.
The distance was closing, and Chloe hadn’t felt her heels hit the earth in forty paces. She flicked one foot back, then the other.
In her mind’s eye she saw the Road Runner’s legs in a flurry of motion.
There! Just ahead. Ileana was wasting precious energy weaving, and Chloe ran taller, passing Ileana and crashing into the line of nymphs first.
Their hands pushed her, and Chloe dazedly realized it was a maze. Art, think artwork! She didn’t ask how it came to be here or what the whole point was, she jogged through. It wasn’t a Greek key, it wasn’t a spiral. She turned another corner, and they cheered her.
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