The Orpheus Descent

by Tom Harper

  He licked meltwater off his lips and tasted salt. Lily was crying. He kissed her on the forehead, then softly on her lips again.

  ‘Promise me one thing.’

  He leaned back and looked into her eyes, shining blue as the winter sky. ‘Anything.’

  ‘If I ever walk away from you – because I’m proud, or hurt, or stupid, or anything – promise me you’ll follow? You won’t give up on me too soon?’

  He buried himself in the folds of her scarf and whispered his promise.

  Italy

  At first, the road wound along a stony river valley. Then it began to climb. They went through a village and the road got steeper, switching back every fifty yards or so. Rocks littered the surface, big enough to damage the van. Off the road, huge concrete drainage channels made steps down the mountain, and strange fists of rock erupted from the trees as if the titans below the earth had begun to break out from their captivity.

  Jonah swung the van hard around a corner and slammed the brakes. Three concrete barriers blocked the way, staggered like tank traps. Beyond, the road broke off abruptly in a tangle of mangled asphalt and steel rods where a flash flood or subsidence had taken a giant bite out of it. The only way through was a narrow strip of sand, barely wider than the van. Or maybe not quite as wide.

  He edged the van forward, stalling three times. He winced as one of the barriers took a swipe at the paintwork. He put it close enough to the mountainside that the wing mirror scraped the rock. He still wasn’t sure he had enough room to cross the gap.

  He opened the door and jumped down. After five hours in the van, his legs had cramped badly. He took two steps, swaying dangerously near the ravine. The mountain’s silence left him breathless.

  The makeshift repair filling the road was about four feet wide. The van was wider. Only a matter of inches – but they were non-negotiable.

  ‘How far are we from the turn?’ said Ren.

  Jonah stuck his head in the cab and checked the mileometer. ‘We’ve come about eighteen miles from the main road.’ It seemed so little for the effort involved – it had taken the best part of an hour.

  ‘That’s almost twenty-eight kilometres,’ Richard said.

  ‘We have to be close.’ Jonah took the tablet, his phone and a bottle of water out of the van, then backed it up so it wasn’t blocking the way in the unlikely event anyone else wanted to come through. The only other car he’d seen was a wreck gathering rust on the edge of a precipice.

  They crossed the infill and carried on up the road. As soon as they got around the next corner, Jonah saw they needn’t have bothered worrying about leaving the van. A landslip had broken through the concrete retaining wall, completely blocking the road. Just before it, beside a small chapel, a dirt track led off into the trees.

  ‘Adam seems very familiar with this neighbourhood,’ Richard said.

  ‘Or someone he knows.’ You think Maroussis doesn’t have friends in this part of the world? He put his hand against his trouser pocket, feeling the toffee tin against his leg. A golden ticket, he thought. My ticket to Lily.

  ‘Do you really think he’ll go through with it?’

  ‘What’s he got to lose?’

  Without waiting, Jonah set off up the dirt track. Ren fell in behind him. A few moments later, so did Richard.

  The three of them walked in silence, along the edge of a defile that led around the shoulder of the mountain. Below, the slope fell away towards the distant sea. A dawn breeze blew cool air around them. Jonah didn’t notice. His eyes had disengaged: all he could see was Lily, a blur rushing to meet him. Nothing else.

  Ren glanced at the dry earth underfoot. ‘No footprints or tyre marks.’

  ‘They’ll come.’

  The sea vanished. The path turned a corner and suddenly the world closed off. They were in a high valley folded between two massive arms of the mountain. Ren pointed to the cliffs opposite.

  ‘The village.’

  He had to squint to see it. Even then, he wasn’t sure. The red-brown houses hovered against the red-brown cliffs like an illusion, almost vertical.

  ‘Who the hell would live there?’

  The path wound up to the village, climbing higher and higher. The sun had come out and there was no wind in the valley: Jonah began to sweat. His hair plastered against his forehead and fell over his eyes, so that, even as they came closer, the village never grew clearer.

  At last they arrived at a stone arch at the top of the slope. Jonah wiped the hair back out of his eyes and stared. The village was a ruin: empty windows, hinges without doors, skeletal beams stretched across gaping roofs. Bright red flowers blossomed from the cracks in the stone.

  ‘It’s a ghost town.’ The silent houses echoed Richard’s voice back at them.

  ‘What time did Adam say?’ Ren asked.

  ‘He didn’t.’

  Would he come? He wandered on through the village, leaving the others behind. At the very top, looking down on the cascade of broken houses, stood the church. It was the only intact building he’d seen. It even had its bell, still hanging in the tower, and a pair of stout wooden doors padlocked shut.

  He hammered on the doors until his knuckles bled. The knocking rang around the valley, but no one answered.

  ‘Have a look at this.’

  Ren had come up behind him. She took his hand, and led him down the hill to a house he hadn’t noticed before, sunk below the road on the downhill slope. It was the only building that showed any signs of repair. The windows and doorway had been filled in with cinderblocks, and corrugated iron sheets thrown over the bare rafters at one end. Looking down into it, he could see straw covering the floor, and an iron ring bolted to the wall. Perhaps a local goatherd had used it as a makeshift stable.

  The mortar was new, and no rust grew on the iron ring. Jonah knelt, braced himself between two roof-beams and jumped down.

  Smells of dung and urine came up from the straw at his feet. He paced around the tiny enclosure, ending up at the ring. The old stone around it was scratched, fresh white scars that made his heart race. Then stop.

  Near the mess of lines where the ring had chafed the stone, a mark stood out. A simple piece of graffiti, a heart surrounding two initials. JB LW.

  Jonah Barnes, Lily Wilson.

  Ren’s face appeared above him, dark against the sky. ‘Did you find something?’

  ‘This was where they kept her.’ Shock was already distilling into anger, a raw fury that they’d treated her like this. Penned up like an animal. He felt the claustrophobia, the stink of the filthy straw rising in his mouth. An evil place.

  What did they do to her?

  He needed to get out. The wall wasn’t high: he could reach the top. Lily probably could have too, if she hadn’t been chained up. With Ren pulling, he hauled himself back out onto the road above.

  ‘Lily was here,’ he said. Ren wasn’t listening. ‘What?’

  ‘They’re coming.’

  She pointed down the slope. Across the valley behind the trees, a column of dust spiralled into the clean morning sky from the track they’d come up. If he listened hard, he could hear the drone of an engine.

  ‘Where’s Richard?’

  ‘He was tired. He waited by the gate.’

  Jonah glanced down into the empty house and took another hit of anger. Dark music played in his head.

  Turn it down, he told himself. You won’t save her that way.

  ‘Last chance,’ Ren said. Over the valley, sunlight flashed off the cars coming up the track. Jonah clung to the music.

  They walked back down through the deserted village. The trees hid the cars, for the moment, but the engine noise grew steadily louder, like a giant insect circling its prey.

  ‘I suppose we’ll never know why Maroussis wanted the tablet,’ Ren said.

  ‘He’s crazy.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Ren halted. ‘Can I borrow your phone? And the tablet?’

  Jonah gave them to her. She spread the gold leaf on a f
lat stone in the shade of a house, and held the phone a few inches away to take a photograph. ‘A souvenir.’

  An image of the tablet appeared on the phone’s screen. Ren spread her fingers to enlarge it. The pressed letters swelled into shape.

  ‘The world’s first text message,’ Jonah said, trying to break his own tension. Ren stared at the screen, her eyes flitting back to the gold tablet, until Jonah couldn’t stand it.

  ‘You can read it when I’ve got Lily.’

  She looked up, though she hadn’t heard him. ‘This is different.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The tablet. It has a different text to the others.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  She fiddled with the phone. ‘This is one from the museum. You can see the letters of the opening line – MNHMOSUNAS. Now look at yours.’

  Jonah held the tablet in the palm of his hand and stared at it. He didn’t speak a word of ancient Greek, but he could see the letters were different.

  ‘Every other tablet that’s been discovered begins the same way. MNHMOSUNAS. Mnemosyne, Memory.’

  ‘But Charis said … ’ A dreadful thought began to shake him. The cars were louder, too – they must be almost at the gate. He snatched his phone from Ren, found the number he needed and dialled. No one picked up; he dialled again. This time she answered.

  ‘Six five eight oh.’

  Who else answered their phone like that any more? ‘It’s Jonah.’

  ‘Darling, it’s six o’clock in the morning. Even the children don’t wake me up this early.’

  ‘The tablet I gave you. The transcript. Why did you tell me it was the same as all the others?’

  A sigh. ‘Can’t this wait?’

  ‘The tablet has a different beginning. Why didn’t you say so?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ A pause. ‘I don’t keep it on my bedside table.’

  ‘Did you tell Adam? Did he tell you not to tell me?’

  ‘I didn’t …’ She trailed off into a long silence that ended with a sniff. ‘Adam’s always been better at Greek.’

  Crouched beside him, Ren was mouthing something.

  ‘What do the extra words say?’

  ‘Darling, I have to go. Xander’s waking up.’

  ‘What do they say?’

  ‘Where hundred-headed Typhos shakes open the earth, I went down into the bosom of the goddess.’ She spat it it so quickly, she must have been chewing on it for days. A sob swallowed the final words, and he imagined the tears running down her face. He felt no pity.

  A car door slammed, not far away. He gripped the phone tighter, trying to keep hold of her. ‘Did you give Adam the whole translation?’

  Another stifled sob. ‘He knows everything. He always does.’

  Realisation dawned, blood-red and ominous. ‘But if you told them what the tablet says, they don’t need it.’

  ‘What? Who doesn’t need it? What are you talking about?’

  He wasn’t speaking to Charis any more. He hung up and stared down the mountain. The jeeps’ plumes of dust had begun to settle; the engines had stopped.

  ‘Adam already knows what the tablet says,’ he told Ren. ‘He isn’t going to bring Lily.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  Could he be sure? If you turn around now, you’ll never see me again. The empty houses gaped at him, dead souls envious of the living. Even their pain.

  ‘Let’s see what they say.’

  She gave him a look that was half despair and half admiration. ‘Whatever they’ve done with Lily, they’ll do it to you too.’

  ‘I have to find her.’ He kicked at a stone and watched it roll over the cliff. ‘It’s too late for anything else.’

  Two small 4x4s had pulled up outside the village gate. Five men stood around them. Four wore dark suits and sunglasses, wide bodies and hard faces. The fifth was Adam. Standing a little in front of the others, in his black jeans and black turtleneck, he looked like their prisoner.

  Jonah descended the slope towards them. Ren hung back.

  ‘Where’s Lily?’

  ‘We’ll take you to her.’

  ‘You said you’d bring her here.’

  ‘Did you bring the tablet?’

  Jonah considered bluffing. But he could see the white sleeve of Richard’s shirt hovering just behind the gateway, and Richard would have told them everything. There was no reason to lie.

  ‘You know what it says already.’

  Adam nodded.

  ‘Why do you need the tablet?’

  ‘We don’t.’

  ‘Then why did you bring me here?’ A vast space had opened around him and he felt as if he’d fall forever. His words vanished into the mountain sky.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d believe me if I told you the truth,’ Adam said. A noise in the sky chopped up his voice, the drumming of rotors coming closer.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I’m going to take you to Lily.’

  Thirty-five

  Visitor: There are two main kinds of hunting on land

  Theaetetus: What are they?

  Visitor: You can hunt tame animals, or wild ones.

  Theaetetus: Does anyone really hunt tame animals?

  Visitor: Yes – if you count human beings as tame.

  Plato, Sophist

  I’m in a low grey room filled with people. Diotima is there, and I have to talk to her, but the people around me keep getting in the way.

  All the other people are me: prior versions of myself, hanging over my shoulder. A great crowd of us. They look slightly shamefaced – they know I don’t want them there – but they won’t leave. Every time I move towards Diotima, they fall in behind like a flock of sheep.

  I woke up.

  ‘Were you dreaming?’

  Dion’s hand reached out and touched my bare arm. On the far side of the tent, young Dionysius snored and snuffled like a pig.

  ‘Diotima says that Etna is a good place for dreams. She says souls creep out of Hades through the vents, and whisper truths in our ears.’

  ‘It wasn’t a good dream.’

  ‘Then let’s hope it isn’t true.’

  I rolled over, trying to shake off the image of my other selves. ‘How well do you know Diotima?’

  He thought about that. ‘I don’t think anyone knows her well. She comes and goes without reason. She pops up where you least expect her, and then she’s never there when you want her.’

  ‘Want’ has various meanings. ‘She’s afraid of your brother-in-law,’ I said.

  ‘I think he’s more afraid of her.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She’s got power. Dionysius can sense it – he’s good at that – but he doesn’t understand it. So he feels threatened.’

  I didn’t disagree – I’d felt it too. But I wanted to hear Dion’s opinion.

  ‘What sort of power?’

  ‘She can read dreams.’ The mattress rustled as Dion turned onto his back. ‘She’s a Sicel, did you know that? One of the prehistoric tribes of Sicily. The village she comes from is a sacred place. They say the temple there is to Demeter, but really it’s to Hybla, an old Sicel goddess. She gives dream oracles. If you go there, the priests interpret them for you.’

  ‘Are they accurate?’

  ‘I’ve never been. It’s not far from here, actually.’

  ‘Here’ was Etna, our camp in the forest on its middle slopes. We’d reached it yesterday at sunset after a hard day’s riding. From mid-morning, ever since we came down from the hills north of Syracuse, it had dominated our horizon: its snow-capped summit puffing smoke into the blue sky. I’d barely spoken a word. Dion rode at the front with Dionysius and his son; I picked up the rear with the spear-carriers and grooms. I’d spotted Leon in the party ahead of me, but we pretended not to know each other.

  It had been a good day to be alone. The night before had ended, at last, but I hadn’t slept. I felt like sand in the ring: bruised from the impact of heavy men falling, unable t
o move. Everywhere I looked I saw Euphemus’ corpse, except that each time his lolling head grew more inflated, until the bulging eyes were bigger than his hands. I couldn’t escape the accusation in those eyes.

  I don’t dress up what I’m saying as some sort of absolute truth. I’m honest.

  Outside the tent, an owl hooted; another replied. I imagined the bird like the ones they mint on our silver drachmas – short and stout and round-eyed, sitting on a branch and listening for mice or toads. How close was it to our tent? Was it sitting on the silver birch opposite the door – the one with the hollow in its trunk? If it looked carefully with its big round eyes, could it see the gleam of steel deep in the tree where I’d hidden the knife?

  I rolled over again and tried to sleep.

  Tyrants love trumpets. Dionysius’ woke us at dawn – so loud, they must have scared off every animal on the mountain. Perhaps he wanted to give them a sporting chance.

  In a glade nearby, we sacrificed at an altar to Artemis. The stone looked ancient, worn smooth in the middle where so much blood and wine had poured down its sinkhole. The ends of the altar curved upwards, like horns or the tips of a bow.

  Dionysius disembowelled a hare his men had trapped and laid the innards on the altar. ‘Mistress maiden, ruler of the stormy mountains, let us cross the threshold of your realm and return with success.’

  I looked at the tiny organs oozing onto the altar, the blood like red gloves on his hands, and thought of the knife in the tree. Could I really do that?

  I can’t believe we’re here talking about … this … and you want to turn it into a philosophy exercise.

  We milled around when the ritual was done, while slaves sharpened the spears and folded the nets. Hounds smelled the blood in the air and strained their leashes. Across the glade, I saw Leon drinking from a wineskin. He caught my eye and gave a small nod. Wine dribbled out of the side of the bag and splashed his tunic red.

  I turned to look for Dion. Instead, as if he’d been stalking me, I found Dionysius right behind me.

  Every man has his natural habitat, the context where he makes sense. Take Achilles out of battle, or Socrates out of the agora, and they look ridiculous. Here, in the wild, was where Dionysius belonged. His shaggy mane of red hair, his dangerous energy and wary eyes fitted the mountain forest perfectly. It didn’t make him any more pleasant.