Adam of Albion

by Kim McMahon

  But what if it happened in a much less glitzy way—like those thoughts that had come into her head from nowhere at critical moments, prompting her to do this or remember that? Theodora seemed to be saying that you helped make that kind of luck. Suddenly, thinking about all this—thinking about thinking—seemed to be an adventure in itself, and in a way, the same adventure.

  “Now, Artemis—you’ve won the right to what you asked for,” Theodora said.

  “You mean you’ll take me to see Eurydice?” she said excitedly.

  Theodora nodded. But she seemed worried now—even distressed.

  “What is it, Theodora? Are you afraid I’ll do something wrong?”

  “It’s not that, my dear. On the contrary, I’m afraid that I may have done something wrong.” Then she touched Artemis’s cheek. “And I know I was wrong to treat you so brusquely before. I’m hoping you can help.”

  “I only know what Orpheus has told me,” Artemis said, feeling a new set of worries herself. “But I’ll try, of course.”

  “Come, then.”

  Theodora led her again through the labyrinth of echoing, torchlit stone hallways. Artemis had the sense that this time they were circling inward, toward the center of the fortress. Her grogginess had vanished, with her mind fired up.

  But she was torn in different directions. Part of her was thinking that this might conceivably be a chance to grab Eurydice and run for it. Another part pointed out that it was insane to even dream that she could escape these powerful women. And still another reminded her that she was a Sister now—how could she contemplate the treachery of stealing their most sacred possession?

  Eventually, Theodora stopped at what looked like an ordinary section of wall. Her hands quickly touched it in a few places—and the stones parted, rumbling aside to open a narrow doorway.

  “This is our inmost sanctuary,” Theodora said quietly. “None but the Sisters even know it exists. If we’re ever overpowered by invaders, at least they won’t find our treasures.”

  When Artemis stepped inside, she went wide-eyed. The chamber walls were honeycombed with niches filled with splendor that looked straight out of the Arabian Nights—chests of jewels, sculptures and ornaments, gem-encrusted chalices and bowls, and hundreds of other delights to the eye. It seemed a reliquary for all that people valued most, a holy place.

  At the far end stood a marble altar, with a raised, delicately etched column of burnished gold at its center.

  On top of that rested a small, emerald green ankh.

  Theodora walked toward it and Artemis followed, trembling with excitement. Theodora’s steps slowed as she approached, out of reverence—or uncertainty.

  “Is this how Orpheus described her?” she asked quietly.

  Yes, exactly, Artemis started to say, with her gaze riveted on the ankh. But she paused. It—she—was exquisitely carved, with subtle hints of breasts, hips and a face framed by flowing hair, and made of some metal or stone—it didn’t quite look like either—that must have been very precious.

  But—Artemis hated this thought, hated her mind for even allowing it—

  Eurydice really looked rather ordinary. A beautiful art object, yes—but otherwise, she wasn’t all that different from the inexpensive earring Artemis had been wearing back home in England, when Orpheus had noticed it.

  The harsh truth was that there wasn’t anything magical or otherworldly about the little ankh—certainly nothing to suggest the presence of the Goddess.

  “Orpheus did describe her as glowing,” Artemis whispered. “She’s lovely, but somehow, I thought she’d seem more—special.”

  “That’s precisely what I’m worried about,” Theodora murmured. “The Sisters are burning with impatience to gaze upon her splendor—they risked their lives for her. I can’t keep putting them off—but if they see her like this, they’ll be crushed.”

  Then Artemis’s conflicting thoughts clicked into a plan.

  “The only one who can tell us is Orpheus,” she said, boldly meeting Theodora’s eyes. “We have to get him here.”

  “No! This treasure stays within the Sisterhood. She’s ours and ours alone, and no man will ever touch her again.”

  “Orpheus isn’t a man, he’s a miniature head!”

  “He’s still a man’s head. And you will obey me, Artemis. You may be a Sister now, but I’m your superior.”

  They glared at each other, with Artemis’s gaze declaring that she wasn’t having any part of that obeying thing, and Theodora’s promising that oh, yes, she would.

  Then the sound of running footsteps came from the hallway outside the chamber. Theodora strode to the entrance and met one of the Sisters, who spoke to her urgently. Her eyes narrowed as she listened, and she answered with her face taking on the same grim look as when she’d held the knife to Artemis’s throat in the desert. The other Sister turned and hurried back the way she’d come.

  Artemis stared at them, stunned—first, because she’d understood clearly what they said, even though they’d spoken in Arabic. And second, because of what they’d said: Someone was breaching the fortress through a secret entrance—two boys. The Sisters were poised to intercept them.

  Then immediately put them to death.

  “Theodora, stop her!” Artemis cried out. “Those boys are my friends that I told you about, Adam and Mustafa.”

  Theodora swung around to stare at her. “How did you know what we said?”

  “That’s it exactly! Orpheus acts as a translator when he’s close by—he must be here with Adam!”

  Theodora shook her head firmly. “The more likely explanation is that you know more Arabic than you’ve let on. As for them being your friends, it’s beyond farfetched to think that two young boys could have found their way here from Jerusalem, all alone—and then found the hidden entrance. They’re probably shepherds who were wandering around looking for a lost animal and stumbled upon it. We hate to harm the innocent, but we have no choice. That passage is our secret lifeline in times of danger. If we allow them to go free, they’re sure to tell about it, and enemies would use it to trap us.”

  “Farfetched?” Artemis said heatedly. “What’s farfetched is to think this is all just coincidence. It has to be my friends, and someone told them how to get here and where the entrance is.”

  “Only a very, very few outsiders have ever known about it, and only those who earned the Sisters’ highest trust.”

  “Then it is possible that someone told them,” Artemis insisted. “Who could it have been?”

  Theodora’s eyes suddenly widened, and she half-turned away with her hand going to her face, as if something startling had occurred to her.

  “It seems more farfetched yet,” she murmured. “But if it’s true, he’d only do it in a matter of life or death.”

  Then she swiveled back around, with her gaze hardening again.

  “But you proclaim that your friends want to take the image of the Goddess—Eurydice, as you call her—away from us,” she said. “And I sense that’s still where your own loyalties lie.”

  “But Orpheus can give you the answers you need. And yes, I’m here to help him. But once we’re all in the same room, surely we can reason together—come to an agreement. Please, can’t we at least try?”

  “Reason is well and good—but this land abounds in treachery,” Theodora said, now with the air of a judge ready to pronounce a sentence. “We shall find out. Go back to your chamber and wait—I want to question them alone.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The hidden entrance to the fortress was exactly where Cristof had said it would be—a small cave mouth at the base of the Mother of Life, away from the main cliff that faced the valley, and out of view of anyone approaching. It was carefully covered by rocks that looked as if they’d fallen there naturally, just like the thousands of others around them. Inside was a vertical tunnel that led up a long flight of stone steps to the fortress itself.

  But calling that a “flight of steps” was like calling
an old beat-up Volkswagen a Rolls Royce. The shaft was as dark as a well, and the steps were just irregularly spaced knobs of rock barely big enough for hands and feet to get a grip on.

  Those Sisters must be tough, Adam thought.

  As he panted and struggled upward behind Mustafa, Orpheus was his usual helpful self, chiming in words of encouragement from the hemp sack, with the hearty tone of a football coach.

  “Forget about what’s below you, buddy. Don’t even think about how every step means you’ve got that much farther to fall, and one tiny slip, boom!—you’re a mushy puddle of worm food down on the cave floor.” Then, anxiously, he added, “But if you do take a dive, try not to land on your back, okay?”

  It felt like it would go on forever. They’d probably only been climbing for about fifteen minutes, but it seemed like hours before they glimpsed a faint circle of light at the top.

  Mustafa finally reached the opening, and Adam expected him to squirm and kick his way up over its rim. But instead, he seemed to suddenly levitate—he just shot straight up, with his feet swinging in mid-air, and disappeared off to one side. It was as if some huge creature, like a balrog, had grabbed him and snatched him into its lair.

  Adam stopped and hung there by his precarious grips, shaking with exhaustion and trying to clear his mind. It wasn’t any balrog—that was stupid—and Cristof wouldn’t have sent them into a trap. But he’d said that the Sisters wouldn’t be pleased about this, and Adam had better explain things, pronto.

  “Please, I need to talk to Theodora!” he yelled up. “I’ve got a message from Cristof, and it’s really important.”

  He heard a quick murmuring of female voices. Then a face appeared in the opening—a woman with wheat-colored hair.

  “Come up—hurry,” she said. Adam clenched his teeth and forced his weary body up the final steps, until hands reached down to clasp his wrists and lift him out.

  He hunched over, working to catch his breath. Mustafa was pressed back into a corner, looking as scared as Adam felt. They were surrounded by the Sisters of Isis—all with hands on their wicked curved swords.

  “I’m Theodora—tell me your message,” the fair-haired woman demanded.

  “The Templars are on their way to attack,” Adam gasped out. “They’re close, within a couple of miles by now.”

  The women glanced at each other in alarm.

  “This had better not be some kind of ruse,” Theodora said with narrowed eyes.

  “No, I swear! Look, here’s the map Cristof drew.” He pulled the scrap of bandage from his pocket and gave it to her. She studied it quickly and seemed to agree that it looked genuine.

  Then her gaze zeroed in on Adam again. “Why isn’t he with you?”

  “He stayed behind to stall them.”

  Theodora’s eyes darkened with pain.

  “And yet, they come,” she murmured—realizing the same thing Adam had about what that must mean, that Cristof had been killed. She looked stricken, and now Adam remembered King Richard’s sly remark about Cristof learning the arts of love while the Sisters healed his wounds. It seemed a good guess that Theodora was his teacher—and that he’d taken on the Templars single-handedly in hopes of saving her.

  But she took charge again immediately, turning and speaking to the women.

  “Sister Cleo, sound the alarm—everyone prepare!” They dispersed, moving with such swift stealth that they practically seemed to vanish.

  “Theodora, there’s a girl I was with,” Adam said anxiously. “She tried to follow you yesterday—is she here?”

  Theodora hesitated, but then gave a curt nod. “All right, you may see her.”

  Adam and Mustafa both lit up with joy—but Theodora raised a hand in warning.

  “Don’t try to deceive us,” she said sternly. “Eyes will be watching, and while you may not see them, believe me, they’ll see you.”

  They believed her.

  She led them quickly to an open courtyard, the center of the fortress. The surrounding walls stood another twenty feet higher, and on top of the front one—the cliff rising from the valley floor—they could see the dark figures of the Sisters taking their stations.

  “Theodora, it’s true!” one of them called down urgently. “The Templars are entering the valley—they number about sixty. They’re approaching in stealth—they don’t know that we’ve been warned.”

  “They are too many for us, but I’ll reap my share of vengeance,” she said, as if to herself. Then she called up to the others: “Any who wish to escape, do so quickly. I will stay and fight.”

  Not one of the women moved.

  Theodora then turned back to the boys. “Forgive me for doubting you—we owe you great thanks.”

  “We’ll help you fight, Theodora,” Adam heard himself blurt out—hardly believing he’d said it, as soon as the words left his mouth.

  “Yes!” Mustafa agreed, with timid excitement. “I’m training to be a soldier for the Sultan—I’m good with a bow, the best among my friends.”

  She answered with a surprisingly gentle smile—but her answer was firm.

  “You’re going to stay right here while I get Artemis—and then you’re all going to leave this place, the same way you two came in.”

  Adam stared helplessly after her as she strode away across the courtyard. What could he possibly do? This was their last, only hope of finding Eurydice—if they failed, it was a death sentence for Orpheus. But the Templars were a death sentence for all of them, and they’d be attacking within minutes.

  “Get me out of here, will you?” Orpheus demanded from behind his back. “I’ve got something to do, and I can do it a lot better if I’m not stuffed in this bag.”

  Adam unslung the sack and set him on a rock. There wasn’t much point in keeping him hidden any more.

  “What’s the something?” Adam asked anxiously.

  “If you’d just let me do it instead of yammering, maybe you’d find out,” Orpheus snapped.

  Then—just as Artemis came rushing out into the courtyard, and Adam and Mustafa ran to meet her, and they all hugged, hopping around and whooping—

  Orpheus started to sing.

  His rich baritone voice filled the air with a haunting melody and words in an unknown language—so enchanting that everyone who heard got lost in it, almost forgetting where they were. Theodora stopped in her tracks, and the Sisters on the battlements gazed down in wonder.

  Orpheus paused—he seemed to be listening intently—and for several seconds, there was total stillness.

  And then, from deep inside the fortress, echoing sweetly through the thick stone walls, another voice answered—female, every bit as beautiful, and singing the same mesmerizing song.

  “At last!” Orpheus cried, leaping joyously a good six inches off the rock and bouncing around.

  But Theodora was moving again, hurrying forward with a determined look.

  “Stop that right now!” she called sharply to Orpheus. “I’m not about to let your sweet talk lure her back!”

  “Excuse me, but I haven’t heard her voice in a good 800 years,” Orpheus said acidly. “Kindly give us a little privacy, and we’ll work this out ourselves.”

  “You see, Artemis?” Theodora fumed. “You see how men insist on power and control?” She whirled to face Orpheus. “No! The Goddess is now in her true home.”

  “Theodora, wait,” Artemis pleaded. “You can’t just leave her locked up in that vault. Maybe the Templars won’t find her, but no one else ever will, either—she’ll just languish there, buried alive, and Orpheus will die. Do you think that’s what she wants?”

  “Sister Theodora,” Orpheus interrupted, all sarcasm gone. “I think we can help you win this battle.”

  “I already told Adam no,” she said impatiently. “Three children and a head hardly bigger than a goose egg? Absurd! Back to the escape tunnel, and begone.”

  “I’ve got an ace up my sleeve,” Orpheus said—then, seeing her glare, added hastily, “Sorry, poor
choice of metaphors, but you get my point. As for these children, they’ve already put themselves in great danger, with nothing to gain for themselves—just to help me, who they only just met. I dismissed them at first, too, but they’re a tough, resourceful little gang—good when they can be and bad when they have to be. True, there’ve been a couple of minor discipline problems—” he shot Artemis a stern glance— “but what they’ve managed to accomplish is amazing.

  “Give us a chance, Sister. If we succeed, all I ask is that we let Eurydice decide what she wants to do.”

  “Yes, Theodora, it’s only fair,” Artemis urged. “That’s what you you and the Sisters believe, isn’t it?—a woman should have the right to make up her own mind.”

  They waited tensely while Theodora walked a few paces away and turned her face up to the night sky. In the quiet, they could hear a faint sound coming from the valley below, like the rumble of distant thunder.

  It was the hooves of galloping horses. The Templars were done with their stealthy approach—now they were coming on in an all-out attack.

  “Very well,” Theodora sighed. “The Sisters will abide by her decision—if there are any of us left alive to witness it. I’ll be truthful, Orpheus—my faith in your promise is as thin as gauze, and I fear that these young ones will die needlessly. But there’s no more time to argue. I’m off to fight with my comrades—you’ll have to take care of yourselves from here on. You’ll find weapons in a storeroom under the staircase. Remember, the knights are powerful, but slow—use your speed and your wits.”

  Then she embraced the three kids quickly.

  “Our fate is in the hands of the Goddess,” she said. “I’ll pray that She protects you.”

  Theodora hurried across the courtyard and up the stone staircase that led to the top of the battlements. The kids all turned to stare at Orpheus, with their faces showing that they were realizing what they’d gotten themselves into.

  “Okay, let’s get moving,” Orpheus said briskly. “First stop is the weapons locker, then follow Theodora. Mustafa, you go join the Sisters’ archers. You other two stay with me. We need to find a good spot for me to work from. After that, we’ll take it as it comes.”