The stones said aye.
Spiralmaster felt his breath shorten and the pain in his head begin again. Nay, nay. He must stay calm and coherent. What had he said? “Kohl.” He threw the stones.
Nay.
“A nymph’s kiss.”
Nay.
“Lettuce and onion salad.”
Nay.
“Figs.”
Nay.
“Orange.”
Nay.
“Crab.”
Aye.
“Crab.”
Aye.
Crab was the missing ingredient? There were dozens of types of crabs! What kind of crab? What part of the crab? He snapped for a serf and sent him for a Shell Seeker. Surely she would know what kinds of crabs there were? Imhotep grinned, self-consciously wiping drool from his cheek.
They would be like gods!
Decans later Spiralmaster knew what needed to be done. Who was brave enough? Reckless enough? It was a rare type of crab, one that regenerated itself. The crab would give its essence to the elixir, combine with the other herbs and elements, to regenerate, to maintain life! It had been eaten time before mind for its healing powers; consequently only a few remained, hidden in caves beneath the sea.
Who could go? Who would go?
CAPHTOR
CHLOE AWOKE IN THE SUNSHINE, achy and deliciously rested. For three days Sibylla had had the body. Apparently now she was willing to share. Wow! What did she do while I was gone? Chloe thought, sitting up gingerly.
Her skin was scented, musk so familiar that Chloe’s throat tightened. She’s been having sex with my body! Did she even use protection? Please God, don’t let me wind up pregnant in this ancient time. Please, don’t let that happen!
Sibylla was silent, and for that matter, so was God.
Needing a bath desperately, she snapped for her serf, who filled the cramped stone bath with warm water.
So Sibylla had fooled around, the festival was over, and Chloe … Chloe what? What was the point? The water in her tub sloshed over the side in a violent stirring of the ground. It lasted only seconds, but it seemed like forever.
A divine answer?
The serf wiped up the spilled water and helped Chloe out, dressing her and leading her down to the main chamber to dine. Exchanging greetings with those Sibylla knew, and Chloe knew from her late night excursions into Sibylla’s consciousness, Chloe listened to see if anyone mentioned the tremor they’d experienced this morning.
She accepted bread, cheese, and fruit—European breakfasts hadn’t changed in four thousand years, she thought—and took a bench seat along one wall. If only they had coffee.
“My mistress,” a clansman in a cowskin cloak said, “we will be ready to sail in a matter of days. Would you care to travel to Aztlan proper first? Or the clan?”
The clan. Green fields torched. Marble covered in soot. Bodies rooted in mud?
The vision was like electricity through her body, a shock that made every hair stand on end, from the stubble on her knees to the waist-length locks flowing from her scalp. Some place, some people, destruction; Chloe concentrated. She felt as though she were a tuning fork for better reception. Terror, not for self but for others, seized her. It was too late! They were too late! She fought to reconcile her vision with Sibylla’s memories.
Velvet fields were torn in half. Buildings fell into gurgling pools of slime. People fought to climb up, out, only to be engulfed in flames. No! Chloe thought. Don’t make it too late!
“Birds,” Chloe said aloud, her grip strong around the clansman’s wrist, her eyes wide and staring. “Now. Get me birds.” He backed away, and she noticed people were staring. It didn’t matter. What had she seen?
Sibylla! she screamed in her mind. Wake up. Tell me, what island is verdant and has lots of marble? Tell me, damn you. The shouting and sheer panic woke Sibylla, who answered tersely.
Naxos.
NAXOS, CLAN OF THE VINE, was the greenest, lushest island in the Aztlan empire. It provided not only wine, but vegetables and grains to every clan in the empire. The island was well protected, watchtowers built from peak to peak, guarded by clansmen who defended the island with their lives. If even one of them lit the bonfires already laid out on the many stone roofs, the island would mobilize to fight against fire, insect swarms, or invasion. Naxos was the market basket of the empire.
To the north was Delos, or what remained of the smoldering land. Ash still fogged the air, and the Naxos clanspeople had spent decans dusting off the plants to make sure they got sun and water. The aqueducts that laced the terrain of Naxos brought fresh water from the main reservoir to the many small tracts and fields stretched along and up the hills’ sides.
Natural coves on marble beaches made it easy for ships to anchor, and many of the days on Naxos began with merchants meeting and greeting, bartering and stealing from each other over rhytons of watered wine and fresh fruit. The spine of the island, peak after mountain peak, ran in a jagged line from north to south. A fertile valley lay between the coastal cities and the ridge of mountains, filled with budding orchards and climbing vines.
Above the city of Demeter, the clan chieftain Bacchi’s villa cascaded down levels, each terrace filled with a profusion of flowers, overlooking the channel to Delos and Paros. It was evening now, all the homes lit with the warmth of oil lamps, the chieftain’s no exception.
A clansman brought him a rhyton of wine and a message from Caphtor. “Open it,” Bacchi said.
“ ‘The Sibylla oracle warns of a disaster here,’” the clansman read from the slip of papyrus.
Disaster? The chieftain looked out over his clan. The air was scented with growing things, oregano and thyme overlaying the smell of a thousand women preparing dinner. The sea was calm, the white ruffle of waves crashing against the rocks below, jostling the ships in the harbor gently.
His gaze fell to the cats that treated his terraces like personal sleeping porches. Not a feline stirred, absorbing the stones’ remaining warmth from the sun.
Disaster?
Never before had the orchards been so heavy with blossom. Prices were better than they’d ever been. The Clan of the Vine was developing into a substantial community with a great deal of say in the workings of the Council.
“Perhaps Sibylla was forecasting the eruption on Delos,” Bacchi said. “There is nothing to fear here.”
“Should I send a warning to my clansmen, my master?”
The chieftain looked at the sturdy man. “Go take a walk along the shoreline if you need to. Rest between the thighs of a Coil Dancer, but do not alarm the clansmen.” He shrugged. “Sibylla’s timing is inaccurate. Bring me more wine and light a few more lamps.”
The air was still around the port of Demeter. Men stumbled home, rotten with drink; water slapped against the hulls of hundreds of ships; and the occasional yowl of a male cat mingled with drifts of laughter as doors opened and closed.
The clansman walked his lonely pathway, looking out to sea. Delos still glowed faintly red and orange on the northern horizon, and he felt pain for the loss of a clan. A little ash still powdered the harbor, but the clanspeople claimed that this would be the most abundant growing season Naxos had ever seen. Could the Sibylla be wrong?
An archway rose from Naxos to a tiny islet. Ships coming to harbor frequently sailed beneath it. The Scholomancers built an archway here first, demonstrating the design before the expense of building a larger one on the Breakwater. The clansman paused suddenly, the hair on the back of his neck rising. Slowly, he looked over his shoulder.
The town was silent, too silent. He lifted his gaze to the mountains. Unable to shake his sense of unease, he continued walking, a bit faster, toward the steps that led to the islet.
Beneath the islet, beneath the lace of the waves on the shore, the faint coating of ash on the sea, beneath the level of fish and squid, beneath the wreckage of ancient ships, their lichen-covered wealth scattered on the ocean floor, the earth trembled.
; It trembled again, then convulsed, the Aegean microplate nudging its African brother, the brother sliding beneath the smaller plate, buckling and rending the earth. Throughout the empire of islands, life changed.
Channels brewing with lava began to boil.
Chambers of magma that had been content resting deep within the mountains began to push up, building pressure.
The water table shifted, and ground that had been floating on a mixture of pressurized soil and water sank. Some places quickly, some slowly.
Fractures the size of hairs widened, letting the sulfuric stink waft upward, a signal to the animals, to the fowl. The wispy, discerning stamen of spiderwort flowers changed from a safe blue to a deadly pink.
Nature’s countdown had begun.
The epicenter of the quake was out to sea, strategically placed along the underlying plate of land that comprised Naxos island. A seismic pebble was dropped, and Naxos was in the path of the resultant wave. No wining, dining, and laughing human felt the shot running through the island.
The clansman jumped in surprise as the cats of Demeter began howling, the mules kicking, and thousands upon thousands of rats came running toward the water.
Before the clansman understood that anything was happening, the primary wave shook Naxos.
Walls wobbled, roofs collapsed. Breakables stored on shelves teetered and fell, dinnerware, still slick with olive oil and the remnants of the meal, slid off the tables and smashed on the floor.
Lamps, the hundreds and thousands of oil lamps, rocked, turned over, or fell.
The shock lasted only heartbeats, giving the clanspeople time to reach for the hands of their loved ones and duck.
The second wave was the killer.
Naxos gyrated, rattling the walls until they fell or exploded with pressure. The ground was a live thing, bucking beneath those who tried in vain to flee. Roofs caved in, objects seemed inhabited by skia as they flew through the room, felling people, bursting midair.
Those clanspeople who had sensibly fled to the safety of a doorway were crushed as the power of the quake shook even the resilient wood into splinters. Rocks shattered and rained down from the cliffs, smothering and killing. The quake lasted only eleven seconds yet left little alive.
The third wave was gentler, though most of the island’s inhabitants were already dead or dying beneath their stone walls, impaled by their own handiwork or trampled by their own animals. Yet the third wave touched what the others had not.
Aqueducts that stretched across the island met at the central point of the dammed river, forming a reservoir. The Scholomance had invested summers of work and had poured kur upon kur of stone before the waters of the lake could be restrained. During the first quake a few stones slipped.
A few more.
During the second quake, an agitated wave of water hit the weakened wall, but the Scholomance’s stones held. Then the third quake hit. The stones shifted and the roiling water burst free, leaping the rest of the dam, flowing down the hillside from Mount Zelos, overflowing the ditches and aqueducts, carving new channels of fury, mixing with dirt and ash, flowing downhill, gaining momentum. Unleashed.
Bruised and bloody, the clansman rose to his knees. Pain filled his body; he was hemorrhaging internally, though all he knew was agony. He feared he was the only person alive on Naxos, though something else lived.
Fire.
His only thoughts were for his clan, the empire, the fields that fed the thousands. Had birds been freed? Was there any hope of rescue? He ran.
The air was dense with noise and the smell of burning. His sandals slipped on the slick stone, and he braced himself before the sharp turn.
Gasping with pain, he stumbled, falling the last few steps. Salt water stung his wound, bringing him sharply alert, and he fought with the door that led to the tunnel.
Steps. He paused, trying to still his breathing, aching with pain. He felt blood streaming down his back, soaking his loincloth. He opened the door and stepped into the tunnel.
The tunnel was another experiment of the Scholomance. He ran through the mold-scented darkness to the island and the archway. He ran faster, each step more difficult than before, each step taking longer. Only a few more steps to the other doorway.
Hands slippery with blood, he wrenched open the door and ran up into the night air. A brief glance over his shoulder confirmed his worst fears.
While the towers remained dark, fire raged in the fields. He ran up the archway steps, weeping and groaning. He fumbled for the small torch, left always burning. He could hear nothing except his own body begging for the release of death. Tears wet his cheeks as he witnessed the conflagration of Naxos.
The deliverance bonfire was laid out. All he need do was throw the torch onto the tinder.
Paros was barely visible through the darkness. He knew if they did not see a watchtower aflame, they would not summon help. They would assume the fields were being burned as a farming practice or ritual. They were idiots, working beneath the earth instead of in the sunshine.
A sudden blast of heat made him look down in horror. His kilt was on fire. “For the Triton and the Vine!” he mumbled. Staggering forward, with all his weight, strength, and love of his clan, he threw himself on the prepared bonfire.
The Sibylla was right; disaster had come.
“THE WATERS ARE CHOPPY,” DION SAID. It was dawn, the only time Spiralmaster claimed that the elixir-saving crab could be found.
“Spiralmaster said it glows, eee?” Nestor asked, newly arrived from Egypt and unwilling to face Vena.
“It will be in a cavern, just beneath the surface,” Dion said. “It glows purple.”
“Should be easy to see,” Nestor reasoned.
Dion looked at the diving shell. Though Mariners and Shell Seekers used them often, Spiralmaster wanted a member of the Clan Olimpi to do this, seek this crab. He claimed it was a sacred task, fit only for the Golden. He’s getting paranoid in his old age, Dion thought. He looks his age and then some. Dion noticed Nestor staring in horror at the shell and remembered that Nestor didn’t like going underwater.
Okh, it’s the coin you pay for being Golden, clan brother.
The diving shell was approximately seven cubits tall, formed of pottery clay and designed to hang in the water by ropes, secured to the ship above. A person could swim inside it, rise to the top and get fresh air, then dive out. The shell eliminated the swimmer’s need to rise to the surface when diving. Posidios, chieftain of Clan of the Wave, was designing a shell that could be worn on the swimmer. Dion chuckled at his uncle’s imagination.
The only dangers of the diving shell were that the air would become stale and poisonous or that the swimmer would stay down too long.
“It does work, Nestor,” Dion said with a smile. “Surely you have submerged a cup beneath wine or beer?”
“Aye, but I was interested in returning it to the surface full rather than empty,” he said with a twist of his lips.
Dion laughed. “Just so.” He knelt beside the huge shell, pointing to the metal drops hanging from holes in the lip. “These weights will hold the shell evenly in the water. Inside the shell, the water level will rise.” He touched a point on the shell about the height of Nestor’s chest. “Above this level will be air for you to breathe. Then you can swim out, search, and swim back for a breath of clean air.”
“When you come up, do so slowly.” Dion pulled off one of the weights. “Keep hold of these—they won’t weigh you down, but when you remove them, the shell will rise higher, giving you air to breathe. Go slowly.”
“What happens if I go quickly?”
Dion looked away. “You will not be deep enough to truly hurt yourself.”
“How deep is ‘deep enough’?” Nestor asked nervously.
“We will hang a rope, weighted, beside the diving shell, marked with depths. Do not go lower than the level of the rope.”
“Is that deep enough to find this crab?”
“Since the caves are
fairly shallow, the crabs should be there.” Dion smiled. “I will be right with you. Besides, you were the one who wanted to hide where Vena couldn’t find you to mourn your broken liaison.”
“I was hoping that would be in a tavern,” Nestor muttered.
THE MARINERS BEGAN LOWERING THE SHELLS. Nestor sat on the edge of the boat, watching as Dion stripped off his kilt, the feathers in his hair, and the many bands around his arms. Only his seal was left. Nestor took off his clothing, leaving just the bag around his waist.
“Your air time has begun, my master.” the Mariner said as the men slipped into the cold water.
“By the horns of the bull, I cannot believe I am willingly swimming this early in the season,” Nestor said.
“Already we have welcomed Kela,” Dion said. “You are acting like a child.”
“We will keep an eye on you, my masters,” the Mariner called, pointing to the dyed cork that would indicate where the men were. The Mariner handed them bronze mirrors “for light?”
Nestor greatly disliked floating naked in the salt water. He felt exposed and disconnected. Touching the dagger tied to his arm, the other one on his calf, and the third in a hilt around his waist comforted him little. He had a decan to search. After that he would be too weak to come back up or he would be struck by the infant’s death, as the illness was called. Victims died in a fetal position, wailing, as helpless as an infant. Vena would definitely not be impressed by that.
Dion shouted to him and dove, his feet breaking the surface of the water a heartbeat later.
Nestor swallowed and beseeched protection from Kela. After breathing deeply several times, he dove. Amazed, he looked around slowly.
Schools of fish swam beside him, turning as a unit to the command of an unheard voice. He swam down farther. Pressure built in his ears, and his chest began to hurt. His eyes finally adjusted to the dim light and he swam in the direction of the hulking shell hanging in the water. The weights caught at the bag around his waist and he spent precious moments untangling himself, then rose up, up.
Shadows on the Aegean Page 21