Pleione had never visited him in bed before. She was more attached to Hephad. Dam stroked the back of her neck and opened his eyes to look at her. He did a double take. He saw by the glow of the room’s altar lamp that it wasn’t Pleione. Her muzzle was brown with one thin strip of orange down the line of her nose. The cat luxuriating against him looked like Alcyone. She had an orange spot around one eye and a brown spot around the other. But the kittens were barely weaned from their mother. Alcyone had grown as big as Pleione in that short span of time?
That curiosity didn’t amount to much that night. Dam had bigger troubles on his mind. He gently closed one arm around the cat, shut his eyes, and tried to sleep. At least the cat didn’t shun him for what he had done in the past.
Chapter Five
Dam woke up to movements around him. When he opened his eyes, he noticed first that Alcyone had left the cradle of his arm. The red light of the Oomphalos washed into the room from the doorway. That strange radiation was vibrant. Its intensity meant it was well into the height of the day.
Hephad and Attalos were laying out clothes on Hephad’s bed. They had tracked in wet footprints from washing up, and they looked very serious about their task. Meanwhile, the kittens scampered back and forth across the floor attacking the two boys’ ankles.
Those three kittens had grown big for sure. They were playful like young ones, but they were the size of house cats. Dam spotted their mother in one corner of the room. She was cleaning her brown face with the scoop of her paw. Dam pushed up on his elbows. He wondered again how her babies had become as large as her so quickly.
Dam called out, “What’s the grand occasion?”
Hephad had kept to the habits of a priest with a shaved scalp and a single hair braid at the crown of his head. He scowled at Dam like he was dim-witted. Attalos was short and scrappy, and his overgrown brown hair was damp from washing. He answered Dam more helpfully.
“Ysalane’s feast. Did you forget?”
Of course Dam had forgotten. He felt itchy from head to toe. How much time did he have to get washed and dressed? He was going to the feast with Hanhau.
“Hephad can’t decide what to wear,” Attalos said. Hephad shot him a baleful look. But he hardly had much to decide. It was either a shift and trousers or the novice kilt that Hephad had worn the night he had escaped the flood. Hephad was partial to his traditional outfit, but his kilt was dingy from many wearings.
“Pick a pair of trousers,” Dam said.
Attalos smirked at Hephad. “Told you.”
Hephad picked up a pair of laced trousers from his pallet and frowned at them. That made Dam grin. Hephad had always been fussy about dressing, though he supposed he should allow his friend some give. They hadn’t had a reason to dress up for anything since they had come below. Dam’s stomach twinged as he remembered he had decided to talk to Hanhau about his past. Should he ask for Hephad’s and Attalos’ opinions about it?
Those two were preoccupied by something. Attalos was making hand gestures. A bashful shadow passed over Hephad’s face. Attalos’ gestures turned more emphatic. He put his hand on Hephad’s shoulder and spoke. “Show him.”
Hephad dragged himself over to Dam’s side of the room. Attalos quickly retrieved an oil lamp from the floor and lit it with a flint. Hephad sat down next to Dam on his pallet while Attalos stepped around the two with the lamp trying to get a good reflection of light on Hephad’s face. Dam had no idea what it was he was supposed to be looking at. Hephad stretched his mouth open wide as though Dam was a physician ordering an examination of his teeth. Dam stared into his friend’s mouth keenly.
He blinked in disbelief. By the light of the lamp, he saw an enlarged stub of pink flesh that had grown from the blackened wound where Hephad’s tongue had been cut out.
“It’s twice the size as yesterday,” Attalos said. Hephad closed his mouth and smiled.
Dam knew about lizards and possums that grew back tails, but he had never heard about body parts growing back on men. He looked at the overgrown kittens. Maia and Electra were pouncing on a pair of trousers on Hephad’s bed while Alcyone had dragged a pair onto the floor. The red crystalline light of the Oomphalos shone upon them from the terrace like a heavenly shower.
Dam surrounded Hephad’s skinny frame with his arms and pulled him into his chest. Everything suddenly made sense: his toenails growing so fast, the kittens maturing so quickly, and now Hephad’s tongue regrowing. Tears welled in his eyes. It was the miracle of the Oomphalos.
*
While Hephad and Attalos went around the middle-houses to show the other boys Hephad’s regrown tongue, Dam grabbed drying cloths and a sponge. He headed to the yard below where the spigots for washing were. Ysalane’s feast was to begin at dark, when the Oomphalos was cloaked completely in the pinnacle gallery of its tapering granite tower.
Already, Dam could see and feel that the stone was at least half-shuttered. The tower rose above the city’s highest stages. Housed in its pinnacle, the Oomphalos was like a fragment of the sun caged in stained glass. That monument was both a tribute and an impenetrable keep for the Old Ones’ prized artifact. An elite corps of warriors managed the shuttering and unveiling of the stone in its slotted gallery, and a pair of guards was always on watch at the tower’s sole gateway. Rumor had it that inside, intruders would find a winding stairwell engineered with traps. Even if a thief managed to get past the guards and sidestep the deadly triggers on the steps, the climb to the pinnacle gallery was long and grueling, with plenty of time for the guards to summon reinforcements. They could surround the tower well before anyone made it to the top. A thief would have no way out, unless he wanted to leap from the gallery and splatter his guts on the cobblestone square below.
Dam reached the ground-floor yard. He was grateful that he had the place to himself. Everyone else must have washed up earlier in the day, and that gave him some precious privacy. With some luck, he wouldn’t have to worry about Calyiches and his friends strutting into the yard and claiming their territory.
Dam headed to a spigot in one corner of the yard. He slipped off his trousers and set them aside. He gave the spigot lever a few creaky pumps to get the water flowing. Dam knelt down and doused his head to rinse the salty lake water from his hair.
His breath caught in his throat, and goose pimples scored his arms and chest. It wasn’t like the water from the bathing lake. The yard spigots drew down icy, freshwater from wells higher above the city shelf. Dam turned his head so that the water flow spilled over his open mouth. It was brutal to bathe in but deliciously quenching.
Since waking up that morning, Dam kept slipping in and out of believing that he was really going to Ysalane’s feast as Hanhau’s guest. The memories from the night before jangled, and he felt like he had been spun around and blindfolded, fumbling around to make his way. If he’d been dreaming, he wouldn’t have to tell Hanhau his shameful secret, but he knew he had to own up to it. His armpits were damp, and he was sure he would be sweating and possibly stinking no sooner than he had dried off. Dam scrubbed himself and rinsed and scrubbed and rinsed until he worried that he was scraping blemishes into his skin.
The water tapered off from the spout, and Dam was startled to notice that he was no longer alone in the yard. Some paces away a pair of elderly men made their way to a spigot.
One of them was frail and older. His companion supported his weight on his shoulder while he limped along. They were freed prisoners of the New Ones, and two of the most weathered of the lot. Some of those men were centuries old. They had been kidnapped by Zazamoukh and had spent an unfathomable lifetime mining a precious substance called mori-mori to feed the evil serpents.
The one man managed to bring the other to the spigot. The older man hunched down to his knees. He looked like he was barely able to hold himself upright. His companion struggled to free him of his tunic. Dam quickly patted himself dry, stepped into his trousers, and traveled over to help.
With just a glance to confi
rm their cooperation, Dam lifted the older man’s arms while the other rustled to pull the tunic over the older man’s head. The old man’s arms were so delicate, it felt like the bones could break in Dam’s hands. Naked, the man was horridly pale and shivering. No wonder—he didn’t have an ounce of fat to keep him warm. His head bobbled like he was continuously catching himself drifting off to sleep.
Then Dam remembered. The man’s name was Silenos. He had helped Aerander solve the riddle of the Lost Daughter, the Seventh Pleiade, which had released Calaeno from her exile in the heavens. Silenos was the oldest prisoner from the New Ones’ slave camp. He had been stolen underground a millennium ago when Poseidon’s first-born son Atlas was emperor. He was so old he had known Atlas’ daughters, the Pleiades, himself.
His companion gave Dam a kind look. He was aged and gaunt but held himself proudly. It had to have been one hell of a labor bringing Silenos to the yard. The old men kept their own schedule, washing in the yard early in the morning, well before the boys woke up in the upper houses. Some of the highborn boys complained, wanting a separate washing yard for the young and the old. Dam wondered why the two men had come out so late.
“Got to get him ready for Ysalane’s feast,” Silenos’ companion said, a twinkle in his eye. Dam was stunned. He hadn’t considered that the prisoners would be going to the feast. Then again, why shouldn’t they? Hanhau had said that everyone in the city was invited. Dam realized it was presumptuous of him to think the old men would be left out.
Dam lowered Silenos’ arms to his sides and stooped down to brace him from his armpits. “You want me to hold him while you get the pump?” Dam said to the other.
The man pshawed. “You’ll get yourself all wet again.” He crouched behind Silenos to take over supporting the old man’s weight. Silenos’ head bobbled just inches from Dam’s chest. He was a skull with a few long spindles of white hair barely rooted to his scalp.
“I know you,” Silenos said.
The old man raised his bony hand and fumbled it over Dam’s chin and lips. That was awkward and unpleasant. But it felt like it would be impolite to shove the man’s hand away. His eyes were clouded by milky cataracts.
“The second prince,” Silenos said. “You saved us from the snakes.”
“No sir. I’m Damianos. You’re thinking of my cousin Aerander.”
The old man’s face shrank up irascibly. “I know Aerander. And I know you. You’re twins, but never have two different boys been born from the same mother’s womb.” His mouth hung open, and he wheezed to regain his breath. “How are the emperor’s girls? Still living in the apple orchard?”
Dam grinned. He glanced at the man’s companion, who smiled knowingly. Supposedly, Emperor Atlas had kept his six daughters in a secret apple grove to protect them from suitors. That was ages ago. The old man’s mind was so eroded, he couldn’t distinguish the past from the present. When they had first met, Silenos had thought that Aerander was the emperor Atlas himself. Now he thought that Dam was Atlas the Golden’s twin, Gadir?
Dam gently redirected the man’s hand from his face. “The girls are fine, sir.”
The old man nodded or bobbled. Dam wasn’t sure.
“Good,” Silenos said. “You keep them safe. You keep yourself safe too. There’s more adventures ahead of you, second prince.”
His companion had a good hold on Silenos from the back, so Dam carefully released the old man and turned to the spigot pump. It seemed cruel to subject Silenos to the frigid water, but that was the only way to wash him. He cranked the pump, drawing up a vigorous gush. The other man ducked Silenos’ head beneath the flow.
Silenos barely budged. He was too weak to put up a fuss. He could only quiver his lips as the cold water gushed over his head. The man should have died hundreds of years ago. It was the Oomphalos that kept his corpse-like body still breathing and pumping with blood. A frightful shiver ran down Dam’s spine. How long could the Oomphalos keep Silenos alive?
*
As Dam made his way upstairs, red daylight was eclipsing, and the gas lamps around the Honeycomb had sparked on. A commotion hailed from the upper houses. The highborn boys were getting rowdy in anticipation of Ysalane’s feast. It reminded Dam of the clamor in the palace courtyard when the boys had waited to be ushered to some event for the Panegyris. Dam picked up his pace.
Entering his house, he smiled at the sight of Hephad dressed in trousers and a tunic. Then he spotted Aerander in the middle of the room. His cousin had fixed his hair in sculpted waves with some sort of concoction and put on a fancy chiton that draped from one shoulder down to the middle of his calf in the style of a statesman. It was spun from elegant silk, and its seamstress had embroidered hems across the top, the single sleeve, and around the bottom in the indigo hatch mark pattern of the House of Atlas.
Calaeno’s trident amulet hung proudly on the outside of his clothes. With his shadow of a beard growing in, Aerander was looking more like his father by the day. The only thing missing was a gilded lariat for his head. Dam glanced around for Lys, but he was nowhere to be found.
“Naturally, you’re the last one to get ready,” Aerander said.
“I overslept.”
“You wouldn’t have that problem if you got to bed at a normal time.”
“What happened to your hair?”
That left Dam’s cousin chuffed for a moment. His hair didn’t actually look bad, but a mischievous little ember inside Dam glowed.
“It’s a special oil they get from fish,” Aerander said. “But it doesn’t smell. See?” He bowed his head, inviting Dam to take a sniff.
“No thank you.”
“A lot of the boys are using it. I brought some for you.”
Dam stepped past him to pick out some clothes. He needed a dry pair of trousers and a clean shirt.
“I brought you an outfit too.”
Dam followed Aerander’s gaze to his bed. There was a chiton laid out there. It was the same style that Aerander was wearing. All the highborn boys must have requested noble clothes for the occasion. He was supposed to wear a chiton to the feast while Hephad and Attalos were going in plain shifts and trousers?
“There’ll be two head tables,” Aerander said. “One for Ysalane and her people, and one for us.”
Dam skirted his glance. He felt like a cold shadow had descended on him from above.
“Go on,” Aerander said, glancing at the bed. “We have to get over to the hall.”
“I made plans for the feast.”
Aerander twitched his nose, and then he grinned as though Dam was putting him on. Of course, Dam wasn’t. “What do you mean?”
“Hanhau asked me to go with him as his guest.”
“Hanhau?”
Dam nodded.
During the long silence that ensued, Attalos came to the doorway dressed for the feast. Hephad hurried over to leave with him, and they waved good-bye. The oversized kittens must have been out exploring the Honeycomb. Their mother, Pleione, was the only one left in the house. She had a firm eye on the conversation between Dam and Aerander from her comfortable sprawl on the floor at one side of the room.
“I thought—” Aerander started to say. He grimaced. “It’s a public occasion, Dam. People are supposed to sit with their family.”
“You’ll have Lys and Dardy and Evandros.” Dardy and Evandros were Aerander’s best friends. They were from House Gadir. But they were all so close, they called each other brothers.
“They’re friends. Not family,” Aerander said.
“It’s just a dinner. We’ll all be in the same room.”
“It’s not just a dinner. It’s diplomatic. You knew that, and you made plans without even talking to me about it.”
“It only came up last night.”
“How could you do that to me?”
Dam winced. He pushed on. “Hanhau asked me to go with him, and I told him would. Because I want to.”
“Because you want to. Did it ever occur to you that I need you
at the feast? I’m representing everyone. Is it too much to ask that my only flesh and blood could sit beside me?”
Dam looked at his cousin helplessly. Ever since they had been reunited by the disaster, they were like lost pups who rediscovered each other in the wild. Aerander pushed too hard, and Dam nipped and clawed back. He needed time to go back to the way they had been with one another.
Aerander’s face was flushed and trembling. Dam stepped near.
“I’ll be there to support you. Does it matter that we’re at the same table?” He reached to clasp his cousin’s shoulder. Aerander jerked away from him.
“What did I do to you to make you treat me like such a shit?”
Cold irons sank into Dam’s chest.
“Why can’t we be brothers, the way we used to be?”
Aerander had lost his birth mother when he was a baby, just like Dam had lost both his parents. They had been raised together by nursemaids in the Governor’s palace. They had both been taken into a household where they didn’t belong, which made them feel like they belonged to each other even more.
“When the flood came, and I couldn’t save my family, all I wanted to do was bury myself in my bed and die,” Aerander said. His eyes were watery and haunted. “You pulled me out of that. You told me that people needed me to give them something to believe in. You said we would stand together. Just like I took your side when everyone thought you double-crossed Leo and Koz, I might need your help someday.”
Dam stared at Aerander, frozen. “It’s only a feast.”
“Is everyone right about you?” Aerander said. “You lie and steal, and you only care about yourself?”
“Aerander, don’t.”
He eyed his cousin steadily. If Aerander wanted to have a conversation about the past, they could start with Aerander’s family brushing Dam aside like a domestic to clear a gleaming path for their one and only rightful legacy. Maybe Aerander couldn’t have done anything to intervene, but at least he could admit that it was House Atlas that had abandoned Dam, not Dam abandoning them.
Banished Sons Of Poseidon Page 5
