As he spoke, Aavi looked out at the nearby docks. “I’m sure someone here will take us. There are so many boats.” D’Molay raised an eyebrow at her sudden confidence.
As they approached one of the taverns, Aavi could smell cooking meats and other spices mixing with the scents of the lake and the fishing boats. A small gust of wind blew a strand of her flaxen hair out from under her hood as they came to a stop in front of a two-story, weathered building with open doors. She thought about how ordered and pretty Mazu’s dock house looked by comparison. Then she winced as she recalled that D’Molay had killed a man there just a little while ago, all to protect her from some unknown danger. She started to feel tears welling up again. This time she forced them back.
“This looks like a good place to start,” D’Molay said, strolling toward the opening.
“Have you been here before?” Aavi’s voice cracked slightly, but she tried to hide it.
“No. That’s the whole idea. Now stay quiet while we’re inside,” he reminded her.
“Oh, right,” she whispered. Aavi tucked the stray hair under her hood.
The tavern was a dark place compared to the sunny day outside. It seemed to be perfect for people who wanted to hide. She realized that must be why D’Molay had picked this place. The room was even more obscured by the smoke drifting up and around the room from the cigars and pipes that a fair number of the patrons were puffing on. Aavi recalled she had seen one or two people doing this while at the slavers. She assumed they had discovered a way to cook their food and eat it at the same time.
Against one wall several men stood along a tall wooden counter, holding small goblets and drinking. On the other side of the counter stood a balding man with a mustache and a white apron who busied himself refilling their cups. Aavi remembered seeing a similar arrangement near the eating area of the slavers’ den. Scattered around the room were about a dozen old heavy tables and chairs. Most had men seated at them. There didn’t seem to be any women in the room. Then Aavi noticed the stairs leading to the second floor and saw two women dressed in outfits somewhat like the one she had worn for Namtar. They were leaning against the wooden railing that ran along the balcony of the second floor. One of them looked over at D’Molay and half-heartedly waved at him. D’Molay ignored her, but Aavi remembered that one was supposed to wave back when someone waved to you and did so. The woman giggled, shaking her head and turning away to whisper to her companion. Again Aavi felt embarrassed for doing yet another thing wrong, it seemed. She was glad that D’Molay was in front of her and hadn’t seen her wave.
Just then he turned around to check on her.
“You all right?” he whispered.
Her face turned a little red, but he did not notice. “Uh, yes. What happens next?”
“We look for a boat captain. Follow me to the bar.” As he spoke, D’Molay looked around the room, assessing the customers. Then he walked over to the long table and leaned against the top of it. He spoke to the bald man. “Let me have some mead.”
Aavi followed and watched from a couple of steps back. “So that’s a bar,” she said softly to herself. She was sure she had heard the term a couple of times at the slave den, but hearing someone say they were going to a bar had made no sense at the time.
The man gave a nod of his head, reached for a goblet, and turned around to fill it from a large wooden keg placed in the wall. He turned back, handing the goblet to D’Molay. “Five coppers.”
D’Molay put twenty coppers on the bar, knowing the extra money would make the bar man more helpful. “Thanks. Can you point me to a boat captain?”
The barkeeper sized D’Molay up, and then pointed to a table off to the right. “There are plenty of sailors here, but talk to Zosimus. I think you’re looking for a man like him.” He slid the twenty coppers off the table and went to fill another patron’s goblet.
D’Molay turned and looked over to the indicated table. The man sitting there was a bit on the portly side and wore Roman-style linen robes in shades of grey and blue. He was unshaven and bore the somewhat dazed and distant smile of someone who had been drinking for a while. Two other men sat with him. They all appeared to know each other quite well from the way they chuckled and talked. D’Molay patted Aavi on the shoulder. “Come on.”
As Aavi followed him over to the table she looked at his inner glow, which was back to its normal color again. She realized that D’Molay was felt comfortable here among people with no special powers. There were no gods here as far as she could tell, and he seemed all the more confident for the fact. He faced the men and addressed the one in the middle of the group, “Are you Zosimus?”
“I’m Captain Zosimus. What’s your business?” He looked D’Molay in the eye and then glanced back to the hooded Aavi.
“We’re looking for passage to the Olympian Realms, doesn’t matter what port.”
Captain Zosimus eased back in his chair and smiled a bit. “Just you and your... associate? No cargo, no one else?”
“Just us. Are you taking passengers today?”
“We are leaving for Dioscrias in about two hours. For you and your associate, the fare would be eight gold each. Eight more if you need passage back,” Zosimus said. It was a high fee for passage, and they both knew it.
D’Molay took on the look of a concerned buyer as he replied. “Sixteen gold to take just the two of us one way? Let’s say we make it fifteen.” D’Molay shaved a little off the fare, knowing he could have bargained for less, but he didn’t want to annoy the Captain too much.
“All right, then. Fifteen gold for the two of you. You can pay me when you come on board.” He slapped his hand down on the table as if he was closing a book. He turned to the man sitting to his right. “Meikos, take them outside and show them where we are docked so they won’t get lost, eh?” Captain Zosimus picked up his goblet and toasted his two new passengers, silently gloating over the high price he’d gotten them to pay.
“Yes, Captain. Come with me, you two.” Meikos stood up and led them out of the tavern. No one seemed to pay them any attention, which was a relief to D’Molay.
They stepped out into the bright sunlight. It seemed almost blinding outside after being in the dark tavern, and the men both raised their hands to shield their eyes. Aavi seemed completely unaffected by the glare of the sun and looked around, taking in the picturesque scene of the shore, the boats and the various people of all persuasions passing by. Meikos pointed off to the left at a Roman-styled cargo ship with a mast and sail. “That’s it, there. We call it the Hektor. It is tied up at dock seventeen. You see it?”
“I see which one you mean. So you leave in two hours?” D’Molay wanted to make sure he got the time correct as he studied of the ship. He could see the mast and sails and part of the back, but the rest of the vessel was obscured by the other boats tied up to the dock.
“Two hours. I’d get there early just to be sure, if I were you. So, does the woman talk?”
Aavi’s eyes opened wide upon hearing herself being referred to as female. She had hoped no one would be able to tell underneath her cloak. D’Molay did not seem surprised as he replied. “Only when she needs to. I prefer that you address only me. She is of no concern to you.”
Meikos took issue. “Everything that goes aboard the Hektor is of concern to me. I don’t want any bad omens or bad business on our ship. If I hear that she is causing trouble or selling herself to the crew or passengers on the journey, I’ll have both of you gutted and thrown overboard. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly clear. Don’t worry, we just need to get across the great lake, nothing else,” D’Molay tried to reassure the man.
“Good. Keep it that way.” Meikos turned and headed back into the tavern, leaving Aavi and D’Molay standing outside.
Aavi came forward to D’Molay and nervously gripped his sleeve. “He knew I was a woman. I tried not to give it away.”
“I didn’t expect the hood and cloak to hide that fact completely, especially to anyon
e who looked closely at you. Everything about you exudes femininity. There’s not much else we can do about that without some magic and I have none at hand.”
A new idea struck Aavi. “Do I have a glow that lets others see I’m a woman?”
He smiled and rolled his eyes slightly. “No, but the way your hips move when you walk, your height, and even how quiet you are gives you away. Don’t worry, Aavi. Just keep doing what you’ve been doing. The idea is not to completely fool anyone, just to make it hard to identify you. Come on, let’s go back in.”
They went in the tavern again, got a couple of goblets of wine and found an empty table in the corner. “If we were in different circumstances, I’d take you around and show you some of the sights on this side of the city,” he said quietly as he leaned back in the chair. “Instead we’ll just wait here until it’s time to go.”
Aavi held the goblet with both hands and took a sip from time to time. The liquid was dark red and bitter, but not as harsh as what she had tasted at the slavers’ den. This kind had a taste that was a bit like the fruit juice she’d had this morning. She looked up at D’Molay. “What sights are there to see? Tell me about them.”
“Well, there’s the Great Library. It holds many lost treasures from Earth. The gods brought with them many of the finest manuscripts and art from the libraries of Alexandria, Rome, Egypt and China. They built the Great Library to hold them all. The Council keeps all its records there. It’s huge, Aavi; filled with great art and texts. It’s awe inspiring just to walk around inside it. I would definitely take you there, and many other places, like the Monument to the Fallen. It’s a huge obelisk built as a memorial to the gods that have fallen in battle or died in other ways. Water flows down it from the top to a lagoon. It’s beautiful when the sun is setting.”
“Gods can die?” From what little Aavi had heard in her travels, she thought the gods were immortal and beyond death.
“Yes. Yes a god can die, but killing one is not something that is easily done. Only another god or a god-like power can do such a thing, and even then it doesn’t always work. Set chopped Horus up into pieces and threw him into a river, but Horus returned to life. I think that’s how the story goes.”
Aavi turned pale and got a terrified look on her face at the mention of Set. “He . . . he chopped someone up?” Aavi felt a lump growing in the back of her throat as the image of Set torturing her flashed through her mind’s eye.
“Aavi, I’m sorry! What was I thinking?” He felt like a complete fool. How could he have forgotten what Set had done to Aavi only yesterday? He took her hand in his and tried to calm her, seeing the panic in her face. They sat there for a few minutes as Aavi’s flood of fearful thoughts and flashbacks to her tortures slowly subsided. She was almost petrified and staring off into the distance, seeing things that weren’t there. Finally, her panicked breathing slowly started to return to normal again.
“I’ll . . . I’ll be fine. I just keep feeling . . .” She tried to concentrate on just looking at D’Molay, the one person who had always been there for her, a man who she thought might even give his life for her. Her thoughts ran deeper as she put the pieces together. Almost everyone she met had wanted something from her. Kafele used her to please Set. Es-huh, though they became friends, had been ordered to make her a slave. Even Mazu had been paid to take her across the lake. D’Molay was the only person that expected nothing from her. She looked into his eyes and saw the glow shimmering around his head. It was full of concern and made her feel safe. She sighed a little and felt herself become calm again.
D’Molay gave her hand a squeeze. He looked around the tavern to see if anyone had noticed their exchange. As intense as the passing moment had been for him and Aavi, no one had paid them a bit of attention. The patrons continued their drinking, talking and occasionally laughing. Looking up to the balcony, he saw that one of the house women had gone, no doubt with a sailor as a new customer. He looked back at Aavi and saw that pure, sweet smile she got when she was happy.
“All right then, let me tell you about some other sights while we wait for that boat. We might as well order something to eat. There may not be any food for passengers on that ship.”
Soon they were dining on apples and bacon while they waited for the ship to leave port.
Chapter 28 - Navigating Rough Waters
A gentle breeze swept across the small inlet tugging on Aavi and D’Molay’s cloaks as they walked along the wood-planked dock towards the Hektor. They could see a bustle of activity as crewmen loaded cargo and prepared the sails for the two masts. The crew was a hard-working mix of Greek and African men. They wore short tunics and loincloths. Many of them were bare-chested and had scarves that tied around the back of their heads. The Hektor was a seasoned Greek cargo ship about fifty feet long. It was sleek and built to cut swiftly through the water. It was painted red, though the color had faded to a grayish tint. At the bow a large stylized eye was painted in gold. The large wooden deck was stacked with cargo boxes and at least a hundred large clay urns, each about three feet tall. These were carefully tied up and separated by ropes in a grid pattern so they wouldn’t collide during transit. An opening in the deck’s center led down into the hold of the ship where the crew slept and additional cargo was kept. There were ropes and rigging all over and most of them connected to the sails above. Captain Zosimus and Meikos waited by the gangplank, making final arrangements to set sail.
“Ah, our passengers, and early too. Good. You have the payment?” Captain Zosimus turned away briefly to yell at a crewman as he struggled with a large clay urn. “Careful! You break that and we’ll have oil all over the deck! And it will come out of your pay!”
D’Molay reached into his money pouch and took fifteen gold out. “Here’s our fare.”
Zosimus took the coins and counted. “Fifteen? I thought we said sixteen for your passage?”
“We agreed on fifteen, Captain.”
“Fine, fine, just get on board.” He jiggled the coins in his hand as he stalked towards the prow of the Hektor, shouting additional orders to his crew.
D’Molay crossed the gangplank between the ship and the dock and beckoned to Aavi. Carrying the bag with their belongings, Aavi gingerly walked across. Once on board, she felt the ship gently swaying under her feet. Although she had been on Mazu’s small boat, this was a different and unexpected feeling.
“Something this big shouldn’t move like this,” she said. For a few seconds she felt dizzy because everything was moving up and down.
“You’ll get used to it,” D’Molay said, noticing her unsteadiness. “Let’s lean up against one of the railings for a while.”
They walked across the deck, finding an out-of-the-way place between a cargo box and some clay urns. Leaning on the wooden railing with Aavi, D’Molay pointed out into the distance. “The ship will probably go to the north, and then up the coast. I don’t know how fast it can go, but it will probably take us most of a day to get to the other side. We could have taken a faster method, like one of the airships or even a magical transport, but I want to keep as low a profile as we can. No one has time to check all the cargo ships that travel back and forth on the lake.
“So what is this Dio-crea place like?” She was unable to pronounce the town’s name.
“Well, I’ve never been to Dioscrias, but I don’t think it’s a very large town. It’s the farthest port under Olympian rule. Just beyond it is the Hindu Realm. I’m sure we’ll be able to get some kind of transport from there.” He looked off at the distant horizon as they both stood on the starboard side of the ship. Aavi moved a little closer to him to try to stay out of the breeze that kept trying to lift her cloak and throw off her hood. “As we head to see the creature in the fort, I’ll make a few inquiries about Circe and Scylla.”
“Are those other towns we have to visit?”
He gave her a kind smile, realizing he had not told her about the pledge he and Mazu had made. “No. They are people I’ve promised to find, ju
st like I promised to find and help you. In fact, that makes the perfect cover story. We’ve been sent by Glaucus to find Scylla and do what we can to reverse the curse that has been placed upon her. What better reason for two travelers to wander the Olympian Realm?”
Aavi regarded D’Molay with a shy, slightly embarrassed smile. “You’re so kind to others. You truly are a good person. The best person I’ve met. I haven’t met a lot of people, but still . . .” She didn’t finish the comment, almost as if she was too embarrassed to say what she was thinking.
“Aavi, I wish I was as good as you think I am. Actually, you are probably the winner of the goodness trophy.” Putting his arm around her, he gave her a sturdy hug. He wondered if it was the fresh air or the wine that had cleared her earlier sorrows. He just hoped she could forget her pains as easily as she had forgotten her past.
Other thoughts churned in his head as they stood looking out over the great lake. He still didn’t really know who or what, she was. What would happen when her memory came back? If her past was regained she might not even remember him or anything that had happened to her. In many ways she was like a child, an innocent. The feel of her under his arm cautioned him that she probably had no idea of the things that go on between men and women.
Aavi looked up at him and smiled, her eyes filled with adoration. “I feel safe again, thanks to you. I - I’m sorry about what happened earlier today. I just couldn’t control myself.”
He stared at her with an earnest intensity that locked her gaze to his, as he cupped her face in his hands. Before he spoke, the thought that she might be falling in love with him crossed his mind. Aavi was beautiful and precious, but somehow that potential feeling between them made him feel like he was taking advantage of her lack of identity.
“There’s nothing wrong with anything you said. It’s just that the world is not as pure as it should be. I wish it wasn’t so, but sometimes good people have to do bad things. Sometimes good people make mistakes. Sometimes bad people even do good things. But I promise that I will try to shield you from the dark side of life, Aavi. I promise.”
CITY OF THE GODS: FORGOTTEN Page 31