The man was speaking, his voice high-pitched and slurred. Zelos laid a hand on Phoebus’ shoulder. “He is a frightened old man and speaks nonsense sometimes. We have nothing to fear.”
Phoebus shook his head in agreement, but the thoughts tickled the back of his consciousness. They had everything to fear: earthquakes, eruptions, plague. The Minos suddenly screamed and fell convulsing to the floor.
Leaping to his feet, Phoebus stared as the other priests carried the old man from the room. The nobles were speaking, casting wary glances toward Phoebus. What had happened? The hair on Phoebus’ neck had risen from that shriek. He turned to Zelos, whose face was ashen in the light. “What does this mean?”
“Select them now, Phoebus. Now!”
Phoebus looked over the company. They were sickly, shuddering and drooling, a few could barely walk. He needed young men!
“We enter a new era!” he cried out. “An era of expansion and prosperity as never before seen in any land!” He would go ahead and share his wishes to conquer, Phoebus thought. “No longer shall we barter for what we want; we will be rulers of it! Egypt cowers before us! The cities of Canaan can be our market basket! My wish is for every people related to the sea to be Aztlan’s vassals!”
The thunderous applause he’d expected did not come. They stared in stunned silence. None of these men shared his vision for a new Aztlan.
A priest ran into the room, screaming. “Minos is dead! Minos is dead!”
“What have you done?” Zelos hissed. “The high priest is dead? Speak now, before they leave you!”
Phoebus was losing his kingdom before he’d even inherited it?
“Is there another bull?” Phoebus asked.
“Another?”
“Aye, more of the sacred Apis bulls?”
“Aye, of course! Choose, Phoebus.”
Phoebus sat and picked up the first piece of hole-ridden meat. It was the symbol of power for his minister of finance. Phoebus ate it. Everyone straightened, and Phoebus fought to keep a smirk off his face. They were aware of his insult. Next, he took the piece for his minister of public properties. Phoebus ate it. His minister of barges, Phoebus ate; minister of canals, he ate. Were they getting his point?
He rose, drunk on power. “I am Hreesos. I am ruler of Aztlan. I will rule with your sons.” Phoebus walked out, the direction he’d seen the priests go. Another silent priest met him and led him to a tunnel. Another tunnel. Phoebus felt hot but invincible. The priest opened another door, and Phoebus stepped through. The smell of manure touched his nostrils, and he glanced up and down the passageway. There, in the sunlight, was a nymph.
“You!” he called. She looked up, a figure in the distance. “Come to me,” he commanded. He would prove he had gained the virility of Apis, despite the Minos’ death. He would fill her with child; spite Ileana.
That was it, he realized in a flash of clarity. He would have his revenge; he would withhold from his stepmother! If she were not pregnant by the dark of the moon, she would be sent to the Labyrinth or killed. He smiled at the nymph again; she backed away, then fled.
No mind, he would sate himself with Coil Dancers until he met with Ileana.
It was the perfect revenge: Ileana would lose that which was most dear to her—her precious position.
The new Hreesos’ drugged laughter echoed through the obsidian tunnels.
THE CITIZENS REVELED IN THE BLOOD. The stink of it, the thickness of it, their sanctification in it. Though Apis was their god, they were the rulers of the god, for they could destroy and devour him. The bull of spring was gulped by the lion of summer.
The day was fading, the crowd more boisterous as peddlers with spicy wine and honeyed treats moved by those still standing in line. Dancing had begun, and everyone bore the crimson stains of the celebration. This was kefi: abandonment, revelry, thrilling to life when death was so close. Wearing the bull’s blood was a triumph, a blessing, and a recognition that death came to everyone.
Kefi rejoiced that death had not yet come.
Blood had dried on the layered skirts of the women; it had caked the carefully extended eyebrows of the men. It was smeared on the faces of children, and even the aged wore traces of it on their wrinkled brows.
Its stench was a perfume; it boiled in their veins as they laughed and cavorted, a people bigger than their gods, their land, the earth itself.
A voice, a single voice, high on the wind, cut through the blood-crazed shouts of the populace. A white-cloaked figure stood on a ledge of the Pyramid of Days. The Calling Place, where by some magic, every word uttered from that height was audible for henti. The crowd became silent, all of Aztlan became silent, watching the woman as she walked the narrow ledge. She spoke clearly, authoritatively, her voice rolling away from the pyramid like waves on a beach.
The Lion creeps up on you
The storm clouds gather
Darkness, fire, blood, and water come
Mercy beckons; flee while you may
Seek the truth, the stable ground, the power you worship will destroy
Flee for your lives
The Lion growls
Flee for your lives
The Bull rumbles
Aztlan will be a cavern of bones, if you pay no heed!
Your children will be dust; your legacy will be ashes.
Death comes, guised as a dance.
Flee!
From the crowd a drunken voice called out, “Olimpi power will destroy you!” The enchantment was broken, though everyone heard the woman’s next words.
“This is cursed land! We have all wisdom and treat it as dust! Learn from the past; our land was shaken to pieces. We must now flee before we are submerged in our arrogant pride. Do we seek to die? Do we wish our weakest vassal to be remembered as the greatest culture? Flee, citizens, flee!”
Was that the Sibylla? Prophesying against Aztlan?
Hreesos’ private guard could be seen scaling up one side of the pyramid, the fading sun glinting off the gold in their clothing.
CHLOE LOOKED DOWN FROM THE IMPRESSIVE HEIGHT of the temple as it perched above the ring. The citizens were tiny creatures, and she thought, You are born in blood today. The smooth rock of the Pyramid of Days felt odd to her bare feet, and she felt dried tears on her face.
Selena was dead; they had danced while Selena was dying. These people had no heart, no sense to listen, neither to her nor to the ground that shook beneath their feet. They were suicidal.
She felt the presence and turned. A cubit away stood a crop-haired guard. “Come with us, don’t disturb the festival,” he said.
Chloe nodded her head; she would not go with him.
He took a step forward.
She took a step back.
Into air.
CHEFTU WATCHED AS THE WHITE-CLOAKED FIGURE fell backward off the Pyramid of Days. The crowd screamed and rushed forward in a mass; the two guards stood on the edge, looking down. Nestor grabbed his forearm. “That was Sibylla.”
The news hit Cheftu like a kick in the gut, and he hissed in pain. The two men moved forward quickly as the arena balconies emptied. Cheftu caught fragments of conversation.
“Where is she?”
“I saw her fall!”
“Kela—”
“A sign—”
“Not dead?”
Nestor’s grip had not lessened as they pushed through the crowd of gawkers. Cheftu stiffened when they saw the white cloth on the ground. Then he frowned; there was no one and nothing inside it. Immediately he looked up, searching the side of the pyramid for any clue.
“It is a great miracle!”
“A priestess of Kela, certainly!”
“She is above the clan!”
“She’s gorgeous—”
What had Chloe been thinking? What had possessed her? She was bewildering, his wife; he never knew what she would do next. A beautiful, magnificent, amazing creature. He squinted into the shadows around the pyramid. Also a cunning woman … and very, ver
y agile.
CHAPTER 14
CHLOE SAT IN THE SHADOWS, WHIMPERING. Her heart still pounded in her throat, and if her hands stopped trembling before the year I A.D., it would be a miracle. The crowd swarmed like ants over her white cloak, and she could hear the bewildered comments of the guards above her, wondering about the penalty for murdering a Golden, Kela-Ileana’s inheritor.
Leaning her head against the stone, Chloe replayed the last few seconds. Stepping backward into nothing, she had fallen. Because of the shape of the pyramid—smooth casing stones with narrow staircases that scaled its sides—she had fallen over the smooth part but managed to roll onto a step. Her cloak, which had come loose, had continued to fall. It must have been quite a sight, the white against the rainbow background, distracting enough that the thousands never saw her body, a tiny figure against the mass of stone. Chloe had immediately rolled into the shadow of the step. A little cubbyhole beneath a larger set of steps was the perfect hiding place for a terrified, sweating, mostly naked impostor oracle.
Or was she?
The group was dispersing along with the sunlight, and she could hear the guards coming down the steps above her. What should she do?
I ruined the Bull Dance ceremony, the kefi of the day. Phoebus would not be happy.
I had no choice, Chloe thought. In those few moments I was compelled. She realized with a shiver that she would have given her life to speak those words. Where had they come from? They sounded vaguely like a song she’d once heard … a prophecy of disaster gone unheeded. The mountains were coughing ash. Did the Aztlantu think they were athanati, that they wouldn’t perish, that Aztlan couldn’t fall?
Please, God, don’t let it happen to them. Even though they let Selena die, they aren’t any worse than any other people.
Every civilization was good and bad; no culture was pure.
She shivered as the guards walked past her, still arguing.
Chloe huddled under the stair and wondered what to do. A chilly breeze began blowing at dusk. Could she return to the palace? Just how irritated would Hreesos be? Curling into herself, she napped, waking to a black summer night.
Seated in her perch between heaven and earth, she thought the world seemed like a pointillist masterpiece in silver and gold. Fires burned golden below her: homes, taverns, palaces, and gardens. Silver fires burned above her, constellations yet unnamed.
Talk about a paradigm shift.
“Sibylla!” the night air seemed to whisper, and Chloe smiled, feeling the comfort of the darkness.
“Sibylla!”
She raised her head: the night air was sounding rather irritated.
“Sibylla! Where in the name of Kela are you?”
She recognized the I-900-FONE SEX voice as Dion’s. How did he know? “Here!” she whispered.
The sound of sandals on steps, and then she saw a flicker of light, quickly extinguished. “Come out and do not speak!”
Covering her very bare, very cold breasts, Chloe unbent herself from her hideaway. Wincing with stiffness, she crept down the stone steps. They were worn in the middle, and she was grateful she was barefoot. She didn’t remember climbing them. All she remembered was holding Selena’s hand as the life faded from her eyes, Atenis’ muffled sobs in the background. Chloe pressed her lips together. Poor Selena.
Dion stood in the darkness, his smile and the whites of his eyes the only things visible. She walked down to him, and he pulled a frontless jacket over her shoulders. Chloe tugged it on as he handed her a tiered skirt. She shimmied into it, trying to tuck in the top. “It is no matter, come along,” he said.
Like skia they slid from shadow to shadow until she felt the rock-strewn concrete pavement beneath her feet. Dion put his arm around her waist and pulled her against the wall. Voices first, then people passed. Chloe’s heart was pounding again, and she wondered why he was being so secretive.
Slowly they made their way from the temple complex, past the snake goddess’s temple and into the palace area. Hundreds milled about, dancing, drinking, and making out. Dion pulled her beside an oleander bush, and they fell to the ground. Chloe groaned as her back hit the less than padded turf. What was going on? He loomed over her, his bare chest against her naked breasts. He was undoubtedly one of the sexiest men she’d ever seen, but there was absolutely no chemistry.
“Phoebus would like to push you from the pyramid again,” he said quietly. Chloe tried to sit up, to face him, but he moved his lips close to her ear, speaking softly. “Why would you say such things? Why did you do that?”
“I—”
“Do not speak. Everyone thinks you are quite dead. Maybe that is for the best now. You can return to life later. Phoebus is furious. So is Hreesos. Kela-Ileana claimed you offended the goddess.”
Chloe blanched. Zelos angry would not be a pretty sight; trust Ileana to manipulate facts to suit her. Where was Cheftu? “Atenis is willing to smuggle you away,” he said.
She nodded her head.
“Why do you say nay? Are you mad?”
Damn reverse gestures, she thought. I really am frazzled. Frantically she shook her head. “Wise choice,” Dion said. His mouth hovered over her collarbone, and though their proximity was devoid of sexual tension, Chloe was beyond uncomfortable.
She rolled over, pinning him to the ground. His hands automatically grabbed her waist, and she resisted the urge to bat them away. “I said aye. Where do I go and how long should I stay away?”
His eyes were night dark, his mouth against her cheek. “Tonight Atenis will take you to Prostatevo.”
Phoebus’ new city, she thought. Sweet Atenis! “May I masquerade as an artist?”
“Aye, if you want.”
Thank God, no more lame-ducking it as the chieftain of the Clan of the Horn.
“If anyone asks you, claim your husband was lost in the eruption. Grief has kept you from the festival. You will wear a tattoo, and no one will look twice.”
“Just so.”
“Stay for a day or two, let Phoebus’ anger cool.”
What would she miss? Didn’t she have responsibilities? Chloe was opening her mouth to ask when someone recognized Dion. She quickly lay on the chieftain’s chest, hoping it would prevent the man from inquiring further.
“By the gods, man, can you not restrain yourself for one night? Cheftu is very upset, worried,” Nestor said.
Chloe froze. If Cheftu heard about this, she didn’t want to think what he would do.
“Greetings, Spiralmaster.”
Was it her imagination, or had Dion practically purred that?
“Greetings, Chieftain,” Cheftu said.
Chloe could have screamed with frustration. This looked bad, really bad. She and Dion were lying with legs tangled like frisky teenagers. Leave! she thought. Cheftu, walk on by! Please don’t think the worst. Would Cheftu recognize her? Horrified that he would, Chloe debated how to extricate herself. Literally.
Dion propped himself up on his elbow. “What did you think of our bloodstained ritual today? I don’t see the blessing of Apis on your forehead. Join me.”
Chloe dug her nails into his side. That was the last thing they needed.
“Okh, I think you have more than a lapful,” Cheftu said, his voice sounding strained. Had he recognized her? Oh dear, oh no.
“Dion?” another voice called from the darkness.
Dion bolted upright. “Ileana,” he hissed. “Nestor! You must distract her. Pretend you want to seduce her!”
“She’s my stepmother. Let the Egyptian pretend to seduce her!”
“Seduce?” Cheftu said.
“Seduce?” Chloe echoed.
“Delay her with flirtation, anything,” Dion commanded. “I must get”—he paused—“this nymph away.”
Dion gripped her arm, pulling her up, her back toward the two chieftains. Cheftu grabbed her shoulder, turned her around for a brief moment, and she looked into his eyes. Forgive me, she pleaded. Understand what is happening! Dion whipped her arou
nd and they were off through the gardens, Chloe stumbling as she blinked back tears.
Dion’s pace was impressive. In drag he could have beat Ileana flat and married Phoebus, Chloe thought. However, the fertility angle would be challenging. …
In the dark they ran down whitewashed steps still warm from the day’s sun. The one time a couple approached them Dion pulled her into his arms and kissed her. It was like kissing a mirror when she was teaching herself—she thought—how to kiss. Dion pulled away and they raced down more steps, zigzagging in the half-moon night.
The smell of the sea enveloped her, and Chloe grimaced when she saw the boat. The small boat. The tiny, rinky-dink boat. It bobbed in the water, and Dion whispered that he would keep her clan seal until she returned, and he would send her messages daily. Then Chloe was sailing away, the rower a silent old woman with impressive biceps who shushed Chloe until they were a considerable distance from Aztlan Island.
The wind was brisk and the voyage incredible. Chloe felt as if they were rowing across the river Styx, it was so dark, so silent, within the lagoon. Walls of stone towered on each side of them, and her feelings of claustrophobia were only slightly assuaged by her tremendous nausea.
The rocking motion grew worse as they pulled into the more open channel south of Aztlan Island. Chloe patted seawater on her forehead and throat, trying desperately to think of anything but her roiling stomach.
Normally she did not have motion sickness. She’d traveled on planes, trains and automobiles. She’d been in cargo jets, on camel backs, and in hydrofoils. Little boats, however, were her nemesis. When Mom and Father had first taken her and Camille to their getaway on Santorini, they’d thought it would be so much fun to sail there.
Instead of the normal tourist transport, Father had chosen to hire a small boat. Within fifteen minutes Chloe, even at fourteen, would have given anything—her dog, her beloved grandmother, heck, she would have given her virginity—just to get off that boat. The nausea had continued for three days after landing, and she’d hated Santorini because of the association.
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