THE ADEPTS WANDERED like skia through the back alleys of the city. Y’carus was indeed in port. Cheftu felt a burning inside that warned him time was slipping through his fingers like seawater. Today he felt well, and he thanked God for that, for there was much to do.
The adepts were seeking those who would survive. Ostensibly those they asked were being taken to the pyramid to receive the bull. Cheftu took only those who protested, who had chosen not to eat it because they found the idea distasteful.
Chances were they would find the idea of breakfasting on each other even more so.
Cheftu was amazed at the squalor that lived behind the palaces and villas of the wealthy. Open ditches were filled with refuse that plumbing did not carry away, rotting food was covered with flies as the starving forsaken children and adults of Aztlan ate.
These people were not allowed on the streets, nor were they allowed in the fields or on the walkways until well after dusk. No religious ritual was allowed them; they were utterly and completely ostracized. Nestor gathered a few, and they promised to meet him at the doors of the pyramid after nightfall.
Cheftu left Nestor to take care of things and went in search of more people. Keep looking, his intuition said. Search, you will find.
He was in a wealthy section of town, lush greenery draped over the brilliantly painted housing. He went from servants’ quarters to servants’ quarters, asking who had partaken of the bull.
His band was pitifully small when he knocked on the door of the largest house. A young woman opened it, her face badly burned, her arm cradled against her breast.
“You have come … to … sail away?” she whispered.
Cheftu was so stunned at her guess that he shook his head silently.
She reached behind her and pulled a woven bag awkwardly onto her back. “Take me.”
By the rising of the moon, the motley crew had assembled. Cheftu and Nestor walked them down the zigzag steps to the docks. Water slapped against the hulls, and laughter seeped out from the doors and windows of brightly lit taverns. These were the few who hadn’t eaten the bull, who weren’t infested with the illness that ate holes in the brain.
Y’carus’ gaze was bright as he watched the remnants of Aztlan march aboard his ship. He and his crew had not eaten the bull; still, some wanted to stay with their wives and children. Those who remained on board knew the purpose of this voyage, and each man’s expression was bleak. Cheftu handedY’ carus a huge trunk of scrolls and tablets from the library: the plans for diving bells, indoor plumbing, maps of the seas, an Aztlantu dictionary, the cherished formula for alchemy. These secrets would be shared with the world.
“Aztlan will soon be but a memory. You carry your empire on your ship.”
Y’carus looked over the broken and rejected people. “We start with poor stock.”
“Do not see them as clansmen; free everyone from their class and clan and then begin to see anew.”
The commander looked at him. “My eyes will not hold you again, my friend.”
“Not in this lifetime.” He and Y’carus embraced as the last of the passengers, the prepared young serf woman, stepped aboard.
Cheftu walked down the gangplank. He looked back for a moment and saw the serf and the commander step closer and closer, then finally fall into each other’s arms.
Cheftu smiled; apparently the commander wanted to set about improving the stock immediately.
Under the waning moon, the huge Aztlantu ship pulled away, the sound of the timekeeper’s drum faint, a throb in Cheftu’s temple and throat.
SO THE MARINER AND THE DYER sailed for the open sea, journeying beyond the channels of Aztlan, through the wine-dark Aegean and into the Great Green. On the shores of the Mediterranean they founded small cities beneath graceful cedars.
The three hundred grew, the boats multiplied, and the tribe became famous for their skills: sailing and dyeing. Though they stayed by the sea, they kept to the plains, avoiding the fury and madness of the earth within its mountains.
So the Phoenicians, who worshiped an angry god who demanded blood and fire, circumnavigated the globe. They brought cedars to King Solomon, took Egyptian faience to the Caspian, and left coins in the Azores, consulting the same maps Alexander the Great would use. Maps found in the ancient texts of the library in Alexandria, written in an alphabet the world has used ever since, taken from a land called Atlantis….
CHEFTU COULDN’T BELIEVE HIS EARS. “You are certain?”
“The serf said her mistress has sailed for Hydroussa. This is for you.”
Cheftu opened the tiny slip of papyrus and frowned. Chloe wrote to him in tile typing? This was new and odd. “Dearest Cheftu, Clan business calls me away. I cannot wait to return to your arms and languish there. Sibylla.”
He dismissed the serf and stared at the note. Chloe used the word “languish”? More significantly, she had signed it Sibylla. He looked at the typing carefully. Was he being paranoid? She wouldn’t flee Aztlan without him; that wouldn’t be her way, unless she were forced.
But who could force a clan chieftain? There must be another explanation. If she were gone, she would send him a message. Perhaps she had been watched or knew someone would read the note. If he had not heard from her in a few days, then he would react. However, he could do nothing now.
He left for his next medical call. The last of Zelos’ hequetai was dying.
As Cheftu walked across the footbridge set in ari-kat stone that spanned the shallow lagoon of Aztlan Island, far, far beneath the surface time ran out.
The hairline cracks and crevices had widened to the span of a man’s hand. The basket holding the bay began to unravel. The earth shuddered, splintered, and heaved, and the strands unwound faster.
Beneath the lagoon hairline fissures filled with water and grew. The pressure and weight of salt and fluid rushed into the cracks until the section broke completely, the first of many that would crumble away.
Cheftu was halfway up the steep walk to the dying man’s villa when the terrified cries wafted up to him. He ran back to the cliff’s edge. He watched, speechless, as the lagoon began to drain.
Huge waves created by suction swirled at the far end of the bay, then crashed against the dock. The few brave sailors fled up the zigzag path in a frenzy.
Ships were smashed against the rocks as the water level dropped. Cheftu was deaf to cries and screams. The bay was falling! In moments Aztlan’s flotilla had become driftwood.
“The Sibylla warned us!” was the first clear call he heard. What did this mean? How could they flee, if there were no ships?
The waves had gained strength and rose high against the rocky walls of Aztlan.
“Flee for the mountains!”
“Run for your lives!”
Theros Sea, the beautiful, bountiful sea of summer, had become Therio Sea—the Beast.
He hoped Y’carus was safe. It would be aw—Chloe! Mon Dieu, she was at sea!
TIME HAD NO MEANING. The darkness was unrelenting. Bouts of terror gripped Chloe like fits, and she fought herself for calm. She now knew the maze was constructed in three dimensions. Not only were the passages vertical, the side ledges led into horizontal mazes of their own. How deep was a question she didn’t want to have to find out.
Her clothes were drenched, and she’d ripped at the seams of her skirt fruitlessly, settling for taking it off and wearing just the apron. It covered front and back, arcing from her hips to her knees and back up. Great for movement and a thousand times cooler.
She’d twisted her hair up and around as she’d seen Cammy do a thousand times, but there was nothing to secure it. Her head pounding again, she slid down one wall, her tears mixing with sweat on her cheeks.
The last maze had been a square with a swastika, the first one a five-point star with a Greek key pattern beneath it. Patterns, patterns, these people had a thing for mutating patterns.
How long had it been? Eternity was one night, Chloe thought. One sulfur-scented night. P
atterns swirled beneath her closed eyelids, morphing from one into another. Greek key, swirl, swastika, star, rose, key, swirl.
Incredibly, Cheftu was sucking on her fingers … ouch! with his teeth! Chloe jerked her hand away, contacting flesh with a scream. Darkness, sulfur, Cheftu wasn’t in hell with her. Chloe kicked out instinctively, and her ankle was caught.
“If I had known you were alive, Sibylla, I would not have tried,” a woman’s voice said. Chloe struggled to place it, low, husky, almost masculine. She heard a whine that had nothing to do with humans. Hot breath, long, sloppy tongues …
“Ir—Irmentis?”
“Who threw you down here?”
“Ileana.”
The woman laughed, bitterly. “It would be a justice if all the skia she has created haunted her at once.” The dogs were panting. They threw Irmentis’ dogs in here, too?
“Why are you here?”
“The Kela-Tenata thought I killed my brother.”
“Who? Phoebus?”
“Aye. My brother?”
“He lives. He’s fine.” What a very weird conversation to be having in utter darkness with hound breath in your face!
“Then he has left me here as punishment for not returning his pothos.”
Not sure she wanted to hear more about irresistible longings, Chloe got to her feet, her hands outstretched against hot, furry bodies.
“Would you like some water?” the huntress asked. Greedily Chloe slurped it down.
“How are you living down here?” Chloe asked.
She felt Irmentis’ shrug. “I have always lived in the dark. Here is really no different than my grove. I have my hounds,” she said with warmth.
Chloe heard voices around them and then heard Irmentis’ sniffing, then the dogs’ sniffing. “Someone is dying,” she said. “Come quickly.”
Are we the graveyard detail? Chloe didn’t ask, she just followed, wondering how she could help. “By the way, where did you get fresh water?”
“The lowest level. There is a well.”
Chloe was thinking a well on the lowest level of a dungeon was ridiculous as she tried to follow Irmentis and her four-legged entourage through the darkness. The huntress stepped confidently, and Chloe followed, stumbling on the changing turf, trying to visualize the pathway. Lots of left turns; familiar. What was the pattern?
They stopped.
“Do you have a blade?” Irmentis asked in the constant darkness. Chloe began to feel a little nervous. Something stank, a sickly sweet smell. The dogs were going nuts! “They took mine before they threw me,” the woman explained.
“Nay, I do not.”
“Very well, you take the other side. He’ll be tough, but fairly fresh. We’d best go before the hounds.”
Before Chloe’s mind could interpret it, she heard a sound she would never forget, the sound of human teeth sinking into human flesh. Irmentis sighed as she chewed noisily, and Chloe ran. Down the darkness until she felt the floor beneath her drop away and she was sliding into midnight.
TWO DAYS AGO CHEFTU HAD RECEIVED A MESSAGE that Chloe’s ship had landed at Hydroussa. The note was not from Chloe, but rather a serf saying she arrived. Now, today, another message that she was lost at sea.
Not for a moment did he believe that. She was alive; moreover she was nearby. At night he could almost sense her calling out to him.
Aztlan was in chaos. Cheftu had gotten back to the main island the day the harbor sank, but not before the city of Daphne had effectively emptied itself on the slopes of Mount Apollo. Like chicks under a hen’s wing, the citizens fled for the hills, fearing the water’s rage.
At some point in that night the bowl of the bay had crumbled utterly. Not a ship was left. Kallistae was now a much larger island in the middle of a very deep sea. Even if it were still there, the port would be useless, impossible to anchor in. How such a thing had happened, Cheftu could not explain, just marvel.
The moon was out tonight, shining on the distant waters. The palace was full to overflowing, for those who had not fled to the mountain had run here. Cheftu had been taking care of a young Mariner who’d gotten trampled in the panic, among many others. Where was Chloe?
“Do you gloat in the moonlight?”
Cheftu sighed and turned around. Niko. Couldn’t the man be satisfied with ruling Aztlan through his patron? “Why would I gloat? Aztlan is destroying itself, yet the Council refuses to meet.”
“I think you are more concerned about the whereabouts of a certain clan chieftain.”
Cheftu licked his lips. “Why would I be concerned?”
“Possibly because Ileana had her thrown into the Labyrinth?”
Cheftu laughed, genuinely amused. “Why would I care? Tell your tales to someone who will believe you.”
“You laugh at me? I’ve seen the way you look at her. Don’t dare laugh at me, for I am the one who knows! You may have deceived Spiralmaster, but I have the stones! I have the elixir! I visited the island!”
Rubbing his face, Cheftu shrugged. “Do not tell me falsehoods about Sibylla, and I will not laugh.”
“The stones say she will die.”
“What stones?”
“The talking stones.”
Cheftu stilled. Stones had been mentioned in the chamber where he’d undergone the various testings. Mystical stones that enabled the Aztlantu to ask questions of the former god of this place. “Take some wine with me?”
“You think I am such a fool as to drink your poison?”
“Nay. I would think you know I’m not such a fool as to murder you in my own apartments,” Cheftu said acerbically, stepping away from the window and pouring a cup of wine. “Tell me about this island.”
“You cannot find it,” Niko said, strutting around the room, touching various objects, running his fingers over the furnishings. He thought this would be his chamber, his possessions, Cheftu realized. This is painful to him.
“I cannot imagine that I would.”
“I was taken there, taken to the altar with the archway and the colored stone pavements.”
Coughing, Cheftu asked, “Archway?”
“Aye. As fine as anything built by the Scholomance. Red stone that reached into the heavens, protecting the place where the speaking stones lay. Their god gave me a vision, inviting me to join him.”
Cheftu somewhat doubted the veracity of the invitation, but he wanted Niko to continue talking. A red stone archway, could that be the way out of here? Out of this time? Was this the counterpart of the gateway in Egypt that had ultimately delivered him to this myth-shrouded island? Cheftu hoped it was a sign to leave Aztlan.
Someone knocked on his door and Niko opened it. “My master!” a serf said. “Eumelos has fallen ill! Hreesos commands your attendance.” With a smug smile, Niko bade Cheftu a cool, confident farewell and followed the serf out. Cheftu closed the doors behind them and leaned against the wood.
There was a doorway; all he had to do was find his wife.
NIKO’S HANDS TREMBLED AS HE TOUCHED EUMELOS. The boy was not hot, he was not vomiting, but he was sick. Phoebus’ expression was taut, his eyes pleading. He knew. Eumelos had the illness, the plague, that had struck the hequetai and was decimating the populace.
“Where has he been these past days?” Niko asked.
“He stayed with the priests for a few days, then rejoined me. He was well, until he fell last night.” Phoebus swallowed audibly, and Niko pulled back the linen sheeting. Ataxia was setting in, already Eumelos’ wiry body was twisting, his shoulder and arm held awkwardly.
It had struck so quickly!
“Do something, Niko,” Phoebus pleaded. “You are the best, the brightest. Please, help my son.” Niko had never heard Phoebus sound so weak, so needy. Part of him wanted Phoebus to fight for him like that, the other part wanted to heal Eumelos and receive Phoebus’ adulation. Yet nothing could be done. They had seen that. Once death set in—
The elixir!
Niko covered the boy, trying to stop h
is shivering. “He will live, Phoebus,” he said. Though he hated to touch Ileana, the elixir had saved Phoebus from certain death. Would it do the same for Eumelos? If Niko saved Eumelos, then surely Phoebus would love him, Niko, again.
“You swear to me?”
Niko looked into the weeping face of his dear friend. He touched Phoebus’ pale skin, still darker than his own. “By the Spiral and the Shell, I swear it. I will return. Do not leave his side.”
Running from the room, Niko stopped a serf and gave him a message, then ran down the steps to the laboratory. He would look for the elixir, see if he could uncover Spiralmaster’s hiding place. If that failed, he would mate with Ileana and take it from her.
Eumelos must live so Phoebus would be Niko’s again.
She arrived faster than he expected. Niko spun around.
“Do you seek this?” She held out the vial, and Niko’s hands clenched.
“I need more. Your grandson is dying.”
“Children often die. There are always more,” she said. “He’s no blood relation to me, at any rate. Are you willing to agree to the terms?”
“I said as much in my message.”
“You are fortunate I came on such a rude, flimsy request,” she said coldly.
Niko ground his teeth. “My apologies, mistress.” Slowly she smiled. Niko forced one foot before the other, walking to her. “What must I do to have the whole supply, Ileana?”
She laughed. “You think I will give you all? You are an idealistic fool, are you not?”
He placed his hands on her breasts, squeezing until she panted. “I need the rest of it, Ileana. Give it me.”
Her face was growing flushed, her eyes losing some of their glitter. “I will tell you what to do, and if you please me, I will give you all of it. If not, I will give you a generous portion. Training does take time.” He hated her smile, her hands that worked the bindings of her skirt.
Shadows on the Aegean Page 42
