Mystic Isle

by Patricia Rice

  If she truly believed the tide would destroy them, it was his duty to keep her calm. The quaking earth was the least of their worries if he had a ship full of hysterical women.

  The gold in his pocket didn’t come from a goddess, but from the state that paid him to protect the vestals—even from themselves, if necessary.

  Bowing to her command in this, Nautilus left Lady Tasia to her charges. He stalked up and down the beach, balancing loads and crews between the two galleys. He cursed the slowness required for this large an expedition, and cursed his men for stumbling over their own feet while stealing looks at the maidens. If they must leave this safe port, they needed to be sailing now.

  The younger boys were trying to be brave, but the excitement was too much for them. Some were weeping. Others were simply underfoot.

  To his relief, a cross-eyed vestal ushered the more excitable into the care of several seemingly steadier older girls. Startled to be in the company of a mother figure, the boys settled down. With a task to perform, the girls lost their anxious expressions and set about finding places for their charges.

  Nautilus hoped they could reach the mainland before the waves worsened, if they worsened. Already, the tremors had slowed. He cast a glance to the lowering clouds. It would make a nice break in his duties to spend a mighty storm in the arms of the raven-haired beauty to whom he’d been promised.

  Someday soon, he’d have the home and family he’d worked so hard to achieve. He had the gold, he had a chosen wife, and her family would welcome his trading skills. All he needed was to finish these last months of his obligation to the temple guard.

  When he could do no more, when the priestess had turned so pale and her sea-blue eyes had grown so wide that she looked as if she might expire of terror, Nautilus ordered the boats out of the harbor.

  “Have you sailed before?” he asked, steering the priestess in the direction of the hatch.

  She shook her head. “Not since I was a child too young to remember.”

  “The distance to the mainland is not great once we leave the harbor and sail past the curve in the island.” He nodded toward the outcropping of land that protected the island harbor.

  Only then did it occur to him that if she’d been on that hill since infancy, she’d never spoken to a man. Half her terror was no doubt of him and his men. Mentally cursing his obtuseness, he bowed and strode away so as not to frighten her more.

  He checked the billowing clouds on the distant horizon. They should have time to reach the village before the worst of the storm struck, thank Poseidon. Inexperienced sailors like the women could wreak havoc if forced to sail too long in turbulent water.

  He turned his attention to the mighty sea, expecting whitecaps. Instead . . . the sea was unnaturally retreating from shore

  He had heard of the mighty waves produced by an earthquake, but he’d never seen such a tide. He’d not believe the tales . . . except he didn’t like this strange phenomenon. Could the priestess have sensed the waves better than he had?

  His pulse beat a little faster, and he barked curt orders to his crew. Reacting to his urgency, the last of his men shoved the galley deeper into the water and jumped over the bow just as the sails opened.

  The priestess, too, spoke to her women, sending them below with the children, watching the other galley anxiously. But she did not leave the deck. She settled on a bench and clutched her arms, watching as Nautilus commanded the sails to be unfurled. The lady was as beautiful as any goddess and needed to be out of sight. Her behavior was as maddening as any mortal female’s.

  Having been raised among men, he consider women interchangeable, but this one . . . maintained a dignity despite her panic, a poise he’d not noticed in any but the highest authorities—who were never women.

  Until now, none of his crew had ever spoken directly with the women on the mountain. The temple sent messages over the bluff via a rope lift when the inhabitants required anything. His duty was to provide what they needed, and he had always been in charge of how it was done.

  He was unaccustomed to having his orders overruled by anyone, dignified, beautiful, or otherwise.

  “The storm is moving in; we should have whitecaps,” Demetri, his first mate said as Nautilus took his place at the stern.

  “The lack of wind is unnatural,” Nautilus agreed. Anxious to gain sight of the mainland, he signaled for full sail. “Without wind or tide, we can’t row these heavy loads.”

  Nautilus studied the lap of the waters against the galley bobbing behind them. “We’ll need to go deeper and hope for a breeze.” He nodded to a darker blue current outside their normal route. “We can’t reach the village from there. We’d best aim for the fort.”

  A wave rolled the galley, and one of the women screamed.

  “The vestals are poor sailors,” Demetri warned. “We need to land as quickly as we can. Hysteria will spread if not nipped in the bud.”

  Cursing under his breath, Nautilus debated sending Demetri to settle the screamer. Before he could do so, the priestess sent her cross-eyed handmaiden below. A moment later, the screaming stopped, he noted in relief.

  “West,” Nautilus shouted to his oarsmen after testing the winds and his other senses. “To the fort!”

  The fort was farther than the village, but a more direct route to the west, out of the storm’s path. Built on a natural harbor formed by a high barrier of boulders, the fort should keep them safe from high tides.

  As they rowed away from the island, into the sea, the current abruptly changed and wind filled the sails, rapidly carrying them away from the coast.

  A crash echoed over the waters, and the crew halted in horror.

  The mainland heaved as if giants stomped across the countryside in anger. Trees toppled into splinters. The columns of the city’s acropolis fractured, bent, and smashed in a smoky haze of dust. Smaller structures crumbled as the earth heaved and cracked—letting in the sea.

  Like ants, people swarmed around the distant structures, scurrying down the streets carrying their possessions on their backs or in barrows and carts. They raced for the distant hills—for better reason than crashing pilasters.

  As Nautilus watched in horror, the mirror-like tide was followed by an enormous wave so high that the ocean trembled.

  The storm wind caught the sails and raced the galleys in an opposite direction from the mighty wave. All Nautilus could do was watch in disbelief as the powerful wave broke over the island, drowning the temple on its mountain. It continued onward, roaring in a turbulent wall of water that smacked high against the mainland. The bluff the village was built on slid into the waves, taking the pier, the warehouses, and all the boats with it. What had survived the quake now floated out to sea in splinters.

  Nautilus saw the destruction with horror. All the jolly women with whom he’d flirted, the men he’d come to respect, the woman he’d hoped to marry . . . He prayed they’d escaped with their lives, but their homes and livelihoods were demolished—along with all his hopes of a wealthy, contented life in an established community. With no harbor, there could be no village again.

  He conquered the urge to steer against the current, to seek the family he’d wished to marry into. But it was a fool’s notion to fight the sea. The people in the village had had time to flee. He could not help them, and he had over six dozen people and his ships to save.

  He turned his eyes ahead, only to watch the indestructible fort on the promontory smashed by the tide and crumble beneath the tremors. Columns fell, roofs crashed. Waves beat higher than the boulders that had once offered them safety.

  Hot lead sat in the pit of Nautilus’s belly—the priestess had been right? It was all gone?

  The women who stayed on deck wept and keened. The priestess spoke sharply and ordered them below to care for the children.

  Nautilus kept staring in disbelief at the land that was no longer there. Bits of debris bobbed in the water, tossed by the storm moving in and the rip tide forming from the impossib
le surf.

  “Further west?” Styros, one of his sailors, asked in shock as he gazed to the flooded mainland.

  “If the wind and current hold,” Nautilus agreed, hiding his trepidation. Once they passed where the fort had been, they were sailing into enemy waters, at risk of pirates and Romans—with nowhere safe to land.

  He caught the eye of the priestess. Instead of sitting on her throne, she now stood with one arm circling the mast, straining to see the shore, her expression one of taut restraint as she watched the mainland turn into sea.

  The wind tore at her white blond hair, freeing it from her headpiece. Her robes clung to every shapely curve. Nautilus knew it was a sin to think lustful thoughts of the women he’d been sworn to protect, women who’d given themselves to the goddess, but he was a man, one long denied the comfort of prostitutes ashore. Sin and nature went hand in hand.

  The lady caught his eye and nodded worriedly at the bend of the shore ahead. There was no fort beyond that point, no civilization. Still, they had little choice but to outrun the quakes and waves. He nodded acknowledgment that they would have to sail further into the sea and not to shore.

  With a look of despair, she glanced back to the place where land should be, then accepted the aid of one of her handmaidens to go below. Nautilus breathed easier having her safely out of sight.

  Dark was closing in. The sea was increasingly tempestuous as the force of the enormous tide spread. He prayed for safety.

  The next tidal wave struck before they sailed past the battered fort.

  * * *

  Tasia grabbed the smallest girl and flattened the child beneath her, yelling at her other vestals to do the same. As the women covered the children with their bodies, the galley rose out of the sea. A wave flung it as if the long ship was no more than driftwood.

  Around her, women and men alike wept and prayed. The boat went airborne, making it impossible for the men to row. It hit the water again, still upright, only to be carried high again.

  Fighting her terror, Tasia found strength in Aelynn. She prayed aloud, placing the boats and their occupants in the hands of the goddess. Even the sailors joined in her fervent prayers as their oars struck water and pushed them past the next roll of water to the trough in between.

  The instant the ship stopped its wild leaps and dives and the men manned the oars again, Tasia hastened above to speak with the captain.

  Fog had set in. The temple island was no longer visible, hadn’t been since that first wave of water. Her heart sunk to the soles of her new sandals.

  Worse, in this fog, the second boat was no longer in sight. Half their people were on that boat, and her heart cried despairingly to Aelynn. Through the moist miasma, she could hear Captain Nautilus shouting orders, trying to keep his crew calm. But their panic was almost palpable.

  She had heard whispers of sea monsters. The sea itself was a monster as far as she could tell, but this was not the time to express fear. Fear was their enemy. How would Alexandra handle a moment like this?

  In shock, Tasia realized the vestals had always buffered the elderly priestess from emergencies, except to ask for her help in prayer. Swallowing her terror at realizing she had no example to fall back on, Tasia drew on her own need for security.

  “Aelynn has blessed us!” she cried through the damp murk, hoping this would give everyone courage as the boats crossed another swell. “We are saved from the mighty tide! All hail Aelynn!”

  Her cry carried through the gloom. The other women picked up the familiar chant. Sirene sang her musical version of the prayer.

  Over a brief calm, they could hear the women on the other galley pick up the chant. The others were alive!

  She could not ask for more. Heart pounding, she dropped to her knees in thanksgiving.

  The Captain shouted his commands. The oarsmen struck up a rhythm in accompaniment to the chant. Tasia adapted her prayers to the hard strokes of the men trying to stay abreast of the strong current.

  Behind them, she could see nothing of the island they had left—or the mainland they’d hoped to reach. Huge waves rose and fell as far as the eye could see.

  Chapter Two

  Late that evening, after the storm lightened, Nautilus spooned up the mush that had been created with their limited stores and no fire. With his sailor’s strong instincts, he watched for a glimpse of stars through the thick clouds and thicker fog. He had not sailed this far beyond the Greek islands since his youth.

  “Perhaps we could turn back now?” Styros suggested. A sailor who’d lost his hand in a pirate attack, he knew these waters as well as Nautilus, knew the treachery on every coast they passed.

  “I’m fairly certain the wind has blown us into the Ionian,” Nautilus admitted with a pang of deep sorrow. This sea was even more turbulent than the protected Aegean. He’d hoped after thirty years at sea, he might finally settle down, but there could be no turning back until the wind and water calmed.

  Instead, another major storm was brewing, if he was any judge at all. He held up his finger to the wind and nodded at the current. “The wind and tide are against us. Even if they weren’t, we could only hope to return to devastation and debris that would sink us. We have to sail south and hope the wind and waves favor us come morning. You have sailed this sea. What are our chances?”

  “Not favorable,” Styros agreed in resignation. “We’re heading toward Sicily, where the war rages on. We can’t port there. Do you know any safe harbors until we can turn back?”

  “Massalia,” Nautilus said, after giving it some thought. “Small and very far to the west, but our countrymen have settled there.”

  He did not express his greatest fears—that they would never be able to return to Greece, that the destruction they’d seen was worse than the priestess’s dire warnings. That he suggested a port of Greek colonists beyond the spreading Roman empire said all he dared say.

  As if she’d heard his thoughts, the priestess stepped from the shadows. “The gods have not favored Greece these last years. The world is changing. I have Seen it.”

  “What can you know of the wars of men, sheltered as you are?” Nautilus asked, grumpier and less respectful than he should have been. Had she allowed him to take only the one ship, he wouldn’t be worrying about the others now.

  “I know very little of the world,” she admitted. “But the goddess lets me See the strife and hunger, the droughts and storms. Since I am powerless, it is not always useful information. Once, kings came to peaceful Aelynn to beg our favor. No longer. Now they turn to war gods.”

  “The world does change, my lady. Sometimes, I am sorry for it.” Nautilus bowed his head in acknowledgment, although his interest was captured more in her fair form than the topic. In his experience, nothing stopped change. One just took advantage of the opportunities that arose.

  Opportunity stood before him. Thinking of the virgin priestess in his bed was not just disrespectful, but heretical. Still—they had no temple, no island to protect. What was a priestess without a temple and worshippers? Opportunity, whispered through his mind.

  “You are not always sorry,” she said haughtily, understanding his modifier—or his mood.

  The lady was more clever than her beauty should allow. He didn’t want to acknowledge that because respect stood in the way of opportunity.

  She seemed ready to say more, but the waves swelled beneath their feet. The wind took a blustery cold direction that puffed the sails and threw the oarsmen off balance.

  “I will do my best to keep us safe, my lady,” Nautilus promised.

  “The other galley?” she asked in concern. The other ship had disappeared in the fog. They could no longer even hear them. “Is there any hope we’ll see them again?”

  “Pray to your goddess,” he answered cynically, hiding his despair. He had good friends and brave young boys on the other ship. They’d be with him now had she listened. Before he was forced into a wasted argument, he walked away to change their course to a less dangerou
s one.

  Despite the increasing storm winds whipping the sails, an unnatural fog closed in. Without the stars to guide them, all they could do was hold on and pray to stay upright.

  The women took turns chanting their prayers, sleeping, keeping the children settled, and preparing what nourishment could be provided without heat.

  On the brisk sea breeze, Nautilus inhaled scents he didn’t recognize. His senses had been trained to identify his position from sight and sound and smell. He hoped it was the women diverting his instincts. He feared it was not.

  His instincts warned: Ahead, there be dragons.

  * * *

  Two more days of black clouds, two nights of heavy fog, and everyone was weary, hungry, thirsty, and terrified. Those children who weren’t seasick cried themselves to sleep at night. The women prayed and, like Tasia, helped the ill.

  Prayer wasn’t enough to stop fever from spreading. One of the sailors helped carry six-year-old Myra to the deck where Tasia hoped the breezes might cool the child. Kneeling beside the sick acolyte, she spooned water past Myra’s dry lips, trying not to spill a single precious drop.

  At a shout from the prow, Tasia wearily glanced up. Through the heavy dawn fog, she could see little except the captain standing high above the others. His metal arm bands caught a glint of sun.

  Sun? She gazed behind them, to the east. On the horizon, a single beam of light seeped through a thin break in the heavy gloom. A lone seabird circled against the piece of blue. She prayed fervently to the goddess and searched for any sight of the second ship.

  She saw nothing—literally and figuratively. The fog still hung on the water—and the goddess sent her no vision of their fate. Tasia’s heart was as heavy as the moisture-laden haze sealing them off from the world.

  “Rocks ahoy!” one of the sailors shouted.

  Tasia could sense the crew’s unease at this cry. The rowers stopped hauling on their oars, waiting for further command. The sail flapped limply without a breeze to feed it.

  If there was land, she longed to be on it. She hated being buffeted by the winds and waves of fate. She needed solid ground to stand on. And so did the women in her care—women who relied on her for everything. Everyone turned toward the prow, hopeful that rocks meant land.