This was why the dolphin had to stay near the island: He was tied to it by a tangle of worry, pity, and love. He had to find his pod, and he had to look after the humans.
But why had they disappeared into that hole?
The dolphin had known for a while that both the boy and the girl were hiding from someone, because often they stared at the Sea, and he felt their fear crackling through the water. He’d guessed that they were hiding from other humans, and now he knew he was right, because when he’d warned the boy about the floating trees, he’d fled.
But why hide in a hole, like a pair of eels? And why in that, of all possible holes?
That was the hole that led to the Place of Singing Echoes. Every dolphin knew of it, but none had ever been there. It was not a place for dolphins; or for humans either. It was a place for the singing echoes and the poor, thin ghosts—and at times, for the Shining One Herself.
As the dolphin rode the tricky currents outside the cave, he wondered what to do. From deep within the island he caught the humans’ muffled voices. What were they doing so far in? Didn’t they know how dangerous it was?
The sky was turning a deeper blue. Soon it would be dark. And still the dolphin swam, straining to catch their voices.
Suddenly he became aware of a new threat. He felt it in his fins and in an ache along his lower jaw. He began to be afraid.
Someone was angry. And when He was angry, He slammed the Sea with His enormous tail, and brought whole mountains crashing down.
Above all else, the dolphin feared Him.
The One Beneath.
“There!” whispered Hylas at Pirra’s shoulder. “Two ships. D’you see?”
She nodded.
After the darkness of the cave, it had been wonderful to emerge into this big rocky chamber that opened onto the Sea. It hadn’t been easy to get to, because an underground stream flowed through it, which meant they’d had to edge sideways against the walls, in constant danger of falling in. When at last they’d reached the cave mouth, they’d seen Spirit swimming up and down, clacking his jaws. He’d seemed agitated; Hylas couldn’t tell if it was because of the ships, or something else. Pirra had scarcely noticed. As her heartbeats slowed, she’d taken hungry gulps of salty air.
Beside her, Hylas blew out a long breath. “They’re smaller than when I first saw them. They’re moving away.”
Shading her eyes against the Sun’s red glare, Pirra squinted at the specks on the horizon. Relief washed over her. “They’re not Keftian,” she said.
“How can you tell?”
“Sails are the wrong color, ships’ noses the wrong shape.”
“You can see all that? You must have the eyes of a hawk.”
“They’re not Crows either. I think—I think they’re Phoenician.”
“How come you know so much about ships if you’ve never been anywhere?” He sounded suspicious.
“Because,” she snapped, “the House of the Goddess is covered in paintings, and lots are of ships from all over the world—Makedonia, Akea, the Obsidian Isles, Phoenicia, Egypt—and I’ve had nothing to do since I was about three summers old but stare at them and get very familiar with what they look like.”
A wave crashed against the rocks and they recoiled, shielding their fennel stalks from the spray.
“We’d better get moving,” said Hylas.
Pirra glanced anxiously behind her, where the cave mouth gaped, waiting to swallow them. “Can’t we find another way back?”
“How?” He pointed at the sheer cliffs above them and the Sea crashing against the rocks on either side. “If we tried to swim for it we’d be smashed to pieces. Although you’d probably drown first.”
There was nothing for it but to plunge once more into the cold and the dark. And it was darker this time, because their fennel stalks were nearly spent.
Pirra told herself grimly that she’d done it before, so she could do it again; but as the voice of the Sea fell away, she was shocked to see that the outside world had already dwindled to a pallid disc of light. Then she rounded a bend and it was gone.
There was no Hylas up ahead.
“Hylas?” she called.
Nothing but the drip, drip of water and her own urgent breath.
“Hylas!”
A sound of running—then light flared and there he was, looking strangely excited. “I found another cave,” he panted. “It’s a perfect hiding place, we can camp there for the night!”
“What? Camp down here?”
“It’s got everything! Water, space, air.”
“But the ships have gone!”
“They might come back.”
He saw that she was afraid, and his face hardened. “They may not have gone far, Pirra. It’d be madness to camp on the beach where they could see us. Much better down here.”
“Well then, go ahead,” she said stonily. “I’m turning back.”
“Don’t be stupid, we can’t split up now, that’d increase the chance of being seen.”
“Why can’t we? You’re planning to abandon me tomorrow.”
He ignored that. “Listen—”
“No, you listen! Your nightmare is not finding your sister; mine’s being buried alive. So do what you like, but I’m getting out of here!”
She ran, clutching her torch in one hand and groping at the rocks with the other. Hylas didn’t come after her, which made her even angrier.
The way back felt shorter than the way in, and she soon passed the red rock like a hand that marked the turn. Just as her fennel stalk was flickering out, she glimpsed the black pillars and the blessed light pouring in through the mouth of the cave.
Chucking away the fennel, she grabbed a rock and hauled herself up. The rock came away in her hand. She grabbed another. It moved.
She just had time to wonder what was happening. Then the earth growled—and she knew. In the blink of an eye the growl grew to a roar and the rocks were shaking, the daylight above her juddering from side to side. Rocks were crashing down and the earth roaring louder and louder, roaring through her. The Bull Beneath the Sea was stirring in His sleep, and she was in the worst place possible: She was inside a cave.
“Hylas!” she screamed, but her voice was engulfed by the Earthshaker’s furious roars.
Somehow she found a hollow and crawled in. Then she pictured it collapsing on her, and crawled out again.
Something hit the back of her head, and sparks exploded in her eyes. She struggled to get up, but the earth was shuddering so hard she couldn’t stand.
The last thing she saw was the daylight turn black as the mouth of the cave snapped shut upon her.
24
Hylas opened his eyes. Closed them. Opened them. No difference. Everything black.
He lay with his arms over his head, feeling the last of the Earthshaker’s anger growling through him. He was covered in dust and he coughed till his eyes ran, but amazingly, he wasn’t hurt. And he still had the knife in the scabbard at his hip.
When at last the growls had died to silence, he got to his feet. Wherever he was, it was high enough to stand up, if he stooped. Behind him he caught a whiff of air and a glimmer of light. Ahead—nothing.
With pounding heart, he felt the rocks before him. Solid. The earthshake must have brought down the roof of the cave.
He called to Pirra. No answer. Only a distant gurgle of water, and the watchful hush of stone.
Again and again he called. He sounded frightened. He stopped. The silence was worse.
He couldn’t take it in. One moment she’d been right there, shouting at him. Now there was only a pile of rocks and a plunging sense of loss. She’d deserved better than to be crushed by an earthshake. He hoped it had been quick, and that she’d felt no pain.
Blinking and spitting out dust, he turned and stumbled toward the light.
He hadn’t gone far when he heard a faint, echoing squeal.
Spirit.
He tried to whistle back—managed a dusty wheeze—trie
d again.
An agonizing wait.
Then a distant, answering call.
Hylas gulped. He was not alone, not while he had Spirit. He pictured the dolphin swimming up and down before the mouth of the cave, perhaps even venturing up the stream that poured from the cave into the Sea, while sending his clear call ringing through the dark, like a silver thread leading Hylas toward the light.
If he could just get back to the Sea, then with Spirit’s help he could swim around into the bay. And then he could—
What about Pirra? said a voice in his mind.
What about her? countered Hylas. Nothing I can do for her now. She’s dead.
But if she isn’t. She might be alive, somewhere behind those rocks. Trapped. Injured. Terrified.
Spirit’s whistles rang through the dark, drawing him to safety.
Hylas ground his fist against stone. He had to look after himself. If he didn’t, he was finished, and so was Issi.
“Your nightmare is not finding your sister,” Pirra had told him. “Mine’s being buried alive.”
She might last for days, even without food or water. Dying slowly. Alone in the dark.
Pirra lay huddled on her side. She knew from the rasp of her breath and its heat on her face that she was in a horribly cramped space. She didn’t dare find out how cramped.
The back of her head hurt, and the scab on her cheek was throbbing, but she didn’t think she’d been injured anywhere else. It was so dark that she couldn’t see her fist in front of her face. The whole world was gone. She was the only one left.
“Hylas?” she called. “Hylas!”
No answer. He was either dead, or trying to find his way back to the Sea. She was on her own: trapped like an ant under a mountain of rock.
Panic gripped her. She clutched her sealstone, tracing the familiar bird with her finger. She tried to see a real falcon in her head, like the one she’d watched with Userref on the ship. She tried to make it dive fast and free through the limitless sky…
She couldn’t do it. The falcon in her head was trapped, just like her. She could almost hear its panicky fluttering as it dashed itself against the rocks.
Awkwardly, she turned onto her belly, and her hair snagged on stone a finger’s breadth above her head. She tried to stretch one arm in front. Her fingers hit stone. She flexed one leg, and stubbed her toes. Her heart hammered against her ribs. The falcon in her head went wild.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she fought the urge to scream, to lash out with feet and fists. Breathe. Breathe. Slowly. In, out.
Her heart steadied a little. The falcon in her head grew calmer.
This tiny victory made her feel a little stronger. She decided to pass her hands over every patch of stone around her, in case she could find a way out.
Blindly, she moved her hands over the crusted stone in front of her face. She found a hollow about the size of her fist. Inside, something rattled. A—a drinking cup? It was broken; she caught the earthy smell of pottery. She sniffed deeply. People had made this cup. The world above still existed.
Groping beneath her, she was startled to come upon what felt like a needle of polished bone; then an oval lump of clay with a hole in it that she recognized at once. It was a loom-weight. In the House of the Goddess, women tied groups of threads to weights like this one, to keep the wool in their looms hanging taut. On windy days, the lines of weights made a dull clacking noise. Pirra had grown up with that sound.
But what was it doing down here? People didn’t offer loom-weights to the gods.
A suspicion flickered at the edge of her mind, but she pushed it away.
Her hands traveled above her and around. Not even a crack. Ahead of her—dead end. Again her heart began to race. Biting back panic, she felt behind her with her toes.
A gap. Was it big enough to squeeze through?
Twisting like a snake, she pushed herself backward. The spangles on her tunic scraped stone, and for one heart-stopping moment she was stuck. Then she was shooting through and half falling, half sliding down a clattering slope of loose rock.
She landed in a heap, streaming sweat and gulping air.
Wherever she was, it felt bigger, and less impenetrably dark. And she could see.
In the gloom she made out a long, narrow cave with a floor covered in strange, glistening mounds of yellowish stone, and a roof so low she could touch it. The roof was dark red and ridged, like an enormous mouth. At the far end, about thirty paces away, a spear of dusty light slanted down.
Pirra licked her lips. If that light could get in, maybe she could get out?
Panting with eagerness, she started toward it. The cave was too low even for crawling, so she hauled herself on her elbows, boosting herself with her toes. Grabbing one of the yellow mounds, she pulled herself forward. The stone was slimy, and her fingers slipped. She got a better grip on an outcrop shaped like a hand…
She froze.
It was a hand. A hand turned to stone.
With a cry, she recoiled—and came face-to-face with the head.
Stone had flowed like thick mud over the skull, sealing in flesh and bone forever. The stone mouth gaped at her in a silent scream. Stone eyes glared with terrible hunger.
In one horrified heartbeat, the truth about those yellow mounds crashed upon her. She’d been crawling over dead people turned to stone.
Everywhere she looked, they thronged the cave: men, women, and children, lying where they’d fallen as they’d crawled over each other to reach the light; frozen forever in their final agony.
This was the long-kept secret of what had become of the Vanished Ones. They must have taken refuge in these caves, just as she and Hylas had taken refuge; but the Earthshaker had brought the roof crashing down, shutting them in.
Perhaps when the earthshake had first started, they’d had time to bring a few random possessions; that would explain the cup and the needle and the loom-weight. And down here they would have had air, and they could have licked water off the rocks. They might have survived for days. But they would have known that they would never get out.
Pirra’s belly tightened. To reach that crack, she had to crawl over them, trying not to wake them from their long sleep.
Baring her teeth, she started feeling her way over the bodies. Here and there the light showed her a nightmare glimpse of an arm flung out, or a knee drawn tight to a chest. She saw splayed fingers webbed with stone. Stone pooling in a mouth that would never shut.
As she passed, her shadow seemed to give them life. Was that a stone hand reaching for her ankle? She shot forward, squeezing between two corpses that lay face-to-face, their crusted arms outstretched. Again her tunic snagged. She couldn’t get loose. She reached out to pull herself forward. With a brittle crack a stone finger snapped off in her hand.
A whisper echoed through the cave.
Her mouth went dry. In horror, she stared at the finger on her palm. With a cry she flung it from her.
Had that stone arm just twitched? Had that head ripped free from the rock and turned to follow her with blind, angry eyes?
Around her she saw dim hollows in the walls, where shadowy figures crouched just beyond the reach of the light. The whispering grew louder. The shadows began to move.
Whimpering, she crawled faster. Behind her she felt the dreadful eagerness of the hungry dead.
At last she reached the light. Her last hope snuffed out. The crack in the roof was too narrow; she couldn’t even thrust in her fist. And before her the cave was blocked by another fall of rocks.
A sigh from the hungry ghosts. We know… Ah… we know.
Pirra collapsed, gasping and pressing her face into the stone.
Was this how it was for them? she wondered. Had they been dead when they’d turned to stone—or still alive?
She thought how it would be to feel cold stone hardening over your feet. Stiffening around your legs, clogging your nose and mouth and throat…
Panic rose inside her. She clenched her fist
s.
“You are the daughter of the High Priestess,” she told herself sternly. “You do not give in.”
Behind her the hungry ghosts uttered a rattling sigh, and drew back into the shadows.
“You do not give in,” she repeated.
Pirra hated her mother, but now the thought of her was oddly steadying. High Priestess Yassassara was not like other women. She lived only to serve the Goddess, and she’d never loved any living creature—but she was strong. Maybe some of that strength flowed in her daughter’s veins too.
Gritting her teeth, Pirra heaved herself to her knees and peered about her.
The Vanished Ones had gone still. Around her she made out nothing but rocks.
The one by her knee resembled a triton shell.
Shakily, she reached for it. It was a triton shell. She cupped her hand around the curved base in which the big sea snail would have lived, and traced the whorls that narrowed from there to the tip. But it wasn’t a real shell; it was made of marble.
There was one just like it in the House of the Goddess, carved from white alabaster. It was very sacred: Only her mother could touch it. She used it for the rite of First Barley—and sometimes, in times of trouble when she sought help from the gods, she would put the tip to her mouth and blow.
The triton shell that Pirra held now was flawless, except for a tiny nick in its lip. It must have been made on Keftiu; only there did they have the skill. This link with home made her feel a little better; but she didn’t dare blow it. She might bring the whole cave crashing down.
Clutching the shell, she began to explore the rockfall that blocked her escape. She couldn’t find any cracks. “Well then, I’ll make one,” she muttered.
She dislodged one small rock and placed it behind her. Then another and another. She worked faster, rolling away those too big to lift. The cave echoed with the clatter of stone, drowning out the sighs of the hungry ghosts. To Pirra, it seemed as if she was building a wall of sound to keep them at bay.
At last she paused for breath. With the tip of the triton shell, she tapped the rocks before her, listening for any hollowness that would tell her she was about to break through.
Gods and Warriors Page 13