Shadows on the Aegean
Page 24
“The prophecy of our downfall. Take the disk,” Spiralmaster whispered. “Never let it from your sight. The wisdom of this empire is there.”
The next decans were a mist for Cheftu. He could not believe what he was doing, yet his intuition told him to do it, accept the honor, the position, and responsibility Imhotep was offering.
He found himself on his knees, the Minos from the Cult of the Bull, the Kela-Ata from the Clan of the Snake, lame Talos from the Clan of the Flame, and others gathered around him, watching with outraged eyes. “You are entrusted with the life, welfare, and productivity of the Clan of the Spiral,” Imhotep whispered. “Their blood is yours; you are defender and cultivator, you are mentor and chief. Seek the welfare of your people, your land, and the betterment of Aztlan.
“What say you, Cheftu Necht-mer, Clan of the Spiral?”
Someone handed Cheftu a blade, thick and black. Once his vow was made, he was linked to this land and people until he died. Or until they did, he realized with sadness. As instructed, Cheftu drew his own blood, rubbing the blade on both sides, then swiping Imhotep’s drooping mouth. “I swear to be defender and cultivator, I swear to be mentor and chief. I swear by the Spiral and the Crab.”
He kissed the man’s blood-wet lips even as a scream echoed through the chamber.
“Nay!”
Everyone turned as a white-haired, lavender-eyed man ran in. He stopped short when he saw the stains on Cheftu’s and Imhotep’s mouths. “Are you mad?” he yelled at the room. “I am the inheritor! I know Spiralmaster! This man, he is, he is …,” the towhead sputtered, and Spiralmaster spoke softly.
“Niko, greet Cheftu, the new Spiralmaster.”
Cheftu watched as blood suffused the man’s face and chest, mottling his skin with rage and embarrassment. He shook his head curtly at Cheftu. The clan seal’s new weight on Cheftu’s chest felt like lead when Niko knelt next to Imhotep’s couch. “It was for me,” he whispered. “All these summers, that is what I thought.”
“Come away, Niko,” another man said. “It is Spiralmaster’s decision. You were never named inheritor.” The room emptied of Council members quickly.
Imhotep laid a trembling hand on Niko’s shoulder. “We need new blood. New ideas, new perspectives. The Egyptian is an answer to my prayers.”
Niko’s gaze met Cheftu’s, and Cheftu knew that the man hated him; if he had been promised this position and then had it taken away by someone who could barely speak the language—but I am speaking the language, and understanding it, fluently, Cheftu thought.
Imhotep’s breath was racked and wheezing. His eyes went wild suddenly, his gaze unfocused, and he began to jerk and twitch.
“His journey begins,” Niko said in a voice thick with tears. “Kalo taxidi,” he whispered. Niko and Cheftu stared at the couch. Complete silence, no breathing. “He had changed and come to hate me, I think,” Niko whispered. “Why? Why would he cut me so?”
Cheftu debated on what to say, on the wisdom of saying anything. “Often with the aged the shield of tact is thrown away and they speak exactly what is on their mind.” He fingered the seal around his neck. Was that what Imhotep had done? Chosen Cheftu just to hurt this young man? Nay, there was more at work here. He could sense it. “My sorrow for your loss.”
Leaning over the couch, Cheftu closed the old man’s eyes and frowned at his expression. Denial, anger, fear—forever carved on his features. “Call Nekros,” Niko instructed the serf. Cheftu heard the door close and began to move the old man’s hands into position for burial. After much prying, he was able to lay them flat. A stone fell from the deceased’s palm.
He laid it on the table, then continued to straighten in readiness for whoever prepared the bodies here. Leaving the quiet room, he saw Niko, now standing in the dark hallway. “Go in and speak to him,” Cheftu said. “The dead need to hear the words we need to say before their kas find security.” Shaking his head, Niko walked through the doors, closing them firmly behind him.
Cheftu could hear him crying. “Leave be,” he instructed the attendants. “Now we have time.” The serfs, clansmen, and Kela-Tenata healing priestess left. Cheftu looked back at the door; but mourning should be done alone.
“Shall I take you to your laboratory, Spiralmaster?” a serf asked. Cheftu was startled, then realized he was Spiralmaster. He started to nod, then remembered to shake his head in assent.
NIKO STARED INTO THE FACE of the man who had been his father, his mentor, his guide, his idol. The man who had betrayed him, choosing another. Did this Cheftu know the secrets of Aztlan? Did he know the formulae and the powers the Scholomancers controlled? “Why not me?” Niko whispered to the face of the corpse. “What did I do wrong?”
Sitting back on the couch’s edge, Niko gazed around the room, then suddenly returned his attention to the table. The stone! The new Spiralmaster knew nothing of the stones! Niko picked up the black stone and looked around frantically for the white one. There! Under the edge of the couch. He had them both. They seemed to burn his hands.
The clansmen of the Stone soon entered to prepare Spiralmaster’s body. First an artisan sat down, laying a thin sheet of gold on Imhotep’s face. He looked up at Niko. “Did Spiralmaster want to be interred on Paros or in the land of the pharaohs?”
They had discussed this many times, Niko recalled. Imhotep loved Aztlan, had spent his life with her, but his final request was to join his forebears in a tomb in Egypt.
Niko smiled. “He requested an Aztlantu burial, but he wanted his body to be burned before interred.” The clansman was shocked but turned back to his exacting work, fitting the sheet of gold to the man’s face, drawing his impressions of life from Imhotep’s skin.
How does it feel to have your requests and needs and rights ignored? Niko thought, his fingers caressing the stones. Even though the Spiralmaster had betrayed him, the Egyptian did not know about the stones. In spite of Imhotep’s wishes, Niko would be inheritor of his power.
He quit the room; he needed to see Phoebus.
CHLOE COULD DO NOTHING EXCEPT STARE. She’d seen artwork by modern artists that looked like this—a swathe of gray, murky with hints of green and brown, laid over the entire canvas in forbidding, all-encompassing strokes.
This was not art, however. This had once been an island. A beautiful place; she knew because she’d been rifling through Sibylla’s memory again. Now—devastation. What the fire had not consumed, the mud had embalmed. The few high points that had been spared were desolate islands in a sea of chaos.
How had anyone survived?
Chloe directed the few men she’d managed to bribe, cajole, or bully into assisting her. Apparently the ancients weren’t big on recovery. Their reaction to disaster consisted of, “Oops! The gods got angry. Better leave it alone.” She shuddered when she thought of the many people who were probably trapped, hoping to be rescued. Without her intervention, they would die with that hope.
“Over there,” she said, pointing to a small, still existing cove. The silence was eerie as they stepped from the small boat onto the shore. Using Sibylla’s memory, she could imagine where the areas of greatest need were. What remained of Demeter was to her left. A tiny pass cut through the beach cliffs before her. She nudged her reluctant volunteers, and they agreed to meet on the shore before dark. No one wanted to be here alone with the uninterred.
Taking the youngest man, actually named Thom, by the arm, she propelled him toward Demeter. The residents had erected what appeared to be the prototype for an apartment building. Stacks of buildings housed families who hired themselves out to the farmers farther inland.
As though cement had been poured over the whole scene, everything in Demeter was frozen in motion. The mud had had the effect of stopping the action in freeze frame. Chloe shuddered as she looked at collapsed homes. Some areas had been flattened into slabs of dried gray mud as impersonal as a foundation. Bodies, like half-carved statues, were gray coated and immobile, running, ducking, lying down.
/> Shivering despite the sunshine, Chloe walked on, wishing she had a search dog. Of course, when she’d suggested this to the clansmen, they had not understood. Apparently dogs were slightly above wolves on the karmic chain, and only Irmentis knew how to control them. Man’s best friend had yet to be recognized. Chloe had given up hope of finding anyone alive when she heard an animal chirp—a zoo sound.
A monkey?
They both stopped; in this shattered place the sound of life was eerie, uncanny. Thom was already calling for the monkey, looking around for it. It would be able to seek out the living. Not as fuzzy as a dog, but it didn’t need walks, either. Chloe marched to the first multistory dwelling, calling out. The mud had swept around it, drenching the fire that had been burning. Parts of it were undamaged by fire or mud; were there survivors? Chloe called out.
“Me,” a thin voice responded, “help me …”
“Thom, here!” Chloe said, stepping toward the voice. Mud brick felt like concrete, and Chloe tested the charred wooden door frame before stepping into the house. Shabby in any time, it smelled of urine and rancid grease. “Where are you?” she called out.
“Me!” the voice said, and Chloe feared the owner was too far gone to be much assistance. It seemed to be coming from above her. Biting her lip, she tried the stairs—so far, so good. She ran up them and found herself in a smoke-stained hallway. “I’m coming!” she called out, listening for the voice to guide her. Don’t give up yet, Chloe thought.
She fumbled with one door, then the next. They were hard to open, the normal width of a door divided lengthwise to make sure the two sections fit together. Fire and mud had swelled the wood, jamming the two parts together. Chloe threw her body weight at the door closest to the whimpering voice.
Thom joined her, and they crashed into a room whose outside wall was burned away. Underneath the couch, open to the gray-blue sky, was an old woman, wheezing and wide-eyed. Listening to her breathe, Chloe guessed she had a pierced lung or a broken rib. As gently as they could, Chloe and Thom moved her on the top of the couch, then tied a linen to the window so they would know where to find her when they returned.
Fortifying her with wine and bread, the two left again, hurrying this time, calling out to those who struggled beneath the deadly ooze. Bodies were locked in action everywhere or charred bones poking through the gray ooze. Fire and mud, Chloe thought. Dear God!
The sun was low. Among the eight of them, they had found twenty people. Hundreds of corpses, but only twenty people. The waters had swept many away, the fires had taken thousands. Rescue efforts had not extended to the interior of the island where the damage was worst. The bulk of the clanspeople would never be found.
Chloe relinquished her charges into the medical care of the Kela-Tenata on Paros and stumbled back to her ship, her mind swimming with the image of a woman’s arm, waving above the sea of mud, down for the count, crying to heaven for help.
Not being answered.
She shivered and forced herself up the gangplank. Bed, she thought. I just want to slee—“Greetings, Sibylla.”
Chloe blinked, focusing on the man who sat regally in the center of her deck. Even through her exhaustion, Chloe’s body zinged. He was gorgeous. Drop-dead, Calvin Klein underwear—model dazzling. Who was he?
The magnificent creature stepped to her and took her in his arms, nuzzling her neck and ear. “My poor Sib, you are exhausted! How hard you have worked today. Let me relax you, Sib.” He kissed her cheeks, then her mouth, before holding her close. Chloe prodded the sleeping Sibylla, Who is this?
“Do you feel me, Sib?”
Chloe’s eyes popped wide open. The man’s fragrance was musky, dark, and erotic, and her heart pounded. His voice was low pitched, rumbling through her nerves like distant thunder. Who was he? “Do you feel that against you?” he whispered in her ear. “Do you know what I learned today? Apart from you, I sorrow to say.”
Running her tongue over dry lips, Chloe tried to think of a response. Obviously she was well-, make that intimately, known by this man. “It’s harder than I remember,” he said, and she wriggled free of his embrace.
Ohhh, my gosh, she thought, looking up into his eyes. For one, looking up was a new thing. At her height she’d not looked up to many men, particularly since she’d been masquerading in ancient times. Then his eyes; this boy could have such a future with the Ford Modeling Agency! He was too beautiful for words, he was—
He’s gotta be gay.
“See!” he said, touching his throat. Chloe dropped her gaze from his face to his bronzed, muscular throat. Finally she focused on the pendant. That was what was hard, what was new! A flicker of a stolen memory fit the pieces together.
“You have accepted your clan again, Dion?”
He smiled sadly, gesturing to the piece of rock across the strait from them: the once fertile and lush rock. “There is not much of a clan anymore, Sib.”
“Zelos sanctioned the rescue team.”
“For today,” Dion said. “The twenty you found will be the twenty with whom I renew the Clan of the Vine.” He glanced at her. “Tell me, there are both men and women?”
“Even a few children,” she said, vaguely repulsed at his attitude. Was it all about profit with these people?
He took her arm and pulled her into the tent she’d slept in last night, erected against the main mast. “I thought you might be hungry,” he said. A feast steamed on a tiny table, and Chloe was instantly starving. Yet before the first piece of bread touched her lips, she saw the hand again, frozen as it reached, begged, pleaded … and was unanswered.
What more could I have done?
Chloe laid the bread down and accepted the wine Dion handed her. “We have a new Spiralmaster,” he said. “Imhotep began his journey and the inheritor was sworn in.”
“Niko?”
Dion grinned. “Nay. The new Spiralmaster is not even Aztlantu,” he said in the international, trans-time tone of a gossip. Make that a Ford model with a tabloid talk show, Chloe thought.
Her cup of wine finished, she leaned back onto the pillows scattered on the floor. Eee! This felt so good! Now if she could just get a bath—”
“—so this Egyptian,” Dion was saying.
She sat up abruptly. “What Egyptian?”
“The one Spiralmaster made the chieftain of his clan! Haven’t you been listening?”
It’s not possible, she thought. Don’t go there, you will only be disappointed. It can’t be, not in a thousand years! Oh please, oh please … Chloe swallowed, her voice strained. “What is his name?”
“Eee, well, he is now the Spiralmaster, though already they are referring to him as the Egyptian Spiralmaster, which is silly since we all know that Spiralmaster was Egyptian, he has those Egyptian tattoos, but we never called hi—”
“What is the new Spiralmaster’s name?”
“Something foreign—”
“What!”
Dion closed his eyes. “Ch-something. I only just received the message. In fact, you probably have one, too.”
Chloe was outside, demanding her bird-delivered messages before Dion finished the sentence. Hands trembling, she looked through the tiny slips of paper that had come from all over the empire that day. Prices on beef, on skins; weather reports from Hydroussa … She inhaled sharply as she read the next note. “New SM Cheftu at Imhotep’s demise.”
Oh God. Cheftu!!
CHEFTU AND Y’CARUS STOOD ON A BALCONY, looking north to the sea.
The island of Aztlan was stunning. Though they’d sailed north, toward Greece, this was not classical Greece. This was no culture he’d ever read about, save perhaps in myths. Who were these people? He had no idea why so many Egyptian-flavored rituals, symbols, and buildings were used. Was Aztlan an ancient Egyptian outpost? But that made no sense, for Egyptians’ concern was maintaining Ma’at. No true Egyptian would seek to leave the Nile. Conquer, aye; colonize, never. Cheftu felt tired to his very bones, bewildered by this strange land.
Ships of a dozen different sizes and models crowded the lagoon to their south.
“Apis stones!” Y’carus said suddenly.
Cheftu followed his gaze and saw two ships on the horizon. Both were flying red sails. “Is it code? What does it mean?”
“A Golden is wounded.”
One of the ruling class, Cheftu recalled.
“There you are!”
The two men turned, and Cheftu frowned when he recognized Nestor. Without his peacock’s dress and bearing, he looked very young and gravely concerned. Y’carus immediately crossed his chest in respect, and Cheftu did the same. “Spiralmaster?”
“Aye.”
“Posidios Olimpi is wounded; he arrives now.”
“I am a Mariner,” Y’carus said quickly. “Posidios is my chieftain. Pray, what happened?”
“Naxos claimed another life,” Nestor said. “Lands the gods have forsaken should be left alone!” He sighed. “It’s the chieftain of the Horn’s fault. Sibylla is such an interfering woman,” Nestor groused. “While seeking to free those still alive from Naxos, Posidios was hit during another earthwave.” Nestor looked over their shoulders, and they all turned. The red-sailed ships were pulling into the tunnel beneath Aztlan Island.
Y’carus saluted and then turned to Cheftu as Nestor walked on. “My ship is due in for maintenance,” he said. “It has been my pleasure to know you, Egyptian. We are brothers of sorrow, you and I. Call on me if you need anything.” He grinned. “Though, being the new chieftain, and so young, I daresay you will have more than enough company during your days and nights.” Y’carus and he embraced. “Until our eyes hold each other again,” the commander said, walking away.