Marco awoke to the sound of screams.
His head was tilted forward, his chin rested on his chest as he slept, and the screams startled him, so that he raised his head abruptly and banged it against the solid marble wall behind him, making a resounding whacking sound from the painful contact.
He staggered upward, one hand pressing the sword out in front of him protectively while the other hand rubbed the back of his skull, and he looked up.
He let out a shout of his own, conscious immediately of his own dire circumstances.
Four girls, wearing white gowns that flowed elegantly along the lines of their bodies, were standing in front of an open doorway. One held a silver platter that held a single apple, identical to the fruit he had eaten during the night.
He was standing naked before them, with only the sword in his hand as insufficient coverage, and all the girls were staring at him, screaming. Their screams were loud and piercing, and at first they were wordless shrieks, but they evolved into words as the girls continued to stand, and stare, and shout.
“Iasco! Help us!” shouted one girl.
“A blasphemer in the temple,” screamed another.
“It’s a boy, a naked boy!” a third voice drilled her words into the air.
“He’s naked, completely naked! This boy is naked!” another voice insistently screamed.
Marco glanced around in terror, then spotted the empty platter on the altar, the one he had eaten the apple off the night before. He lunged towards the altar, which was also the same direction the girls were in.
The girls screamed with renewed vigor as he moved, but they remained rooted to the spot by the doorway, staring at him as they screamed, and Marco was conscious of the direction of their eyes.
Marco grabbed the platter and swung it quickly down in front of himself. “Go away!” he shouted. “Stop staring at me! Go!”
The girls looked up from the platter to his face, and their screams stopped. They stood silently together in a cluster by the doorway, then, without any spoken communication between them, they turned as one and ran out of the doorway, leaving it ajar, and leaving Marco alone in the temple.
“Holy mother!” Marco swore in astonishment.
“You may call me that if you wish, but it doesn’t really fit,” a deep feminine voice addressed Marco from the doorway. He reflexively checked the platter to make sure it provided his strategic coverage.
“I’ve been head priestess here for a long time, and I’ve heard many stories from my predecessors, but finding a naked boy in the Apex temple is something new,” the woman paused.
Marco studied her. Like the young girls who had first discovered him, the woman wore a simple white dress, sleeveless and elegant. She was older though, much older, or perhaps not, Marco couldn’t decide. Her hair was a brilliant silver color, but didn’t appear to be the gray hair of an aged person. The hair color stood out in its contrast with the exotically striped skin the woman sported, a dark complexion that had stripes of lighter skin precisely detailed in refined stripes. She reminded Marco of a few alley cats he had seen in the Lion City, with stripes that were as clearly defined in their fur as the lady’s stripes were defined on her skin.
“Who are you?” the woman asked. “Are you the champion?”
Her question reminded Marco of the bodiless voice that had spoken to him in the cavern the day – or night – before. There too he had been asked if he was a champion.
“Were you the one who spoke to me down there?” Marco asked.
“So you answer a question with a question, do you,” the exotic woman replied. “Either you are extremely confident of your position – exposed though you appear to me,” she smiled at her own pun, “or perhaps your manners are just poor, or perhaps your wits are too addled to know how to answer.”
“I can answer questions,” Marco replied brusquely. “I just want to know what this is all about. Who are you? Why did you bring me here? Is Kreewhite okay?” he asked.
“We seem to be speaking past one another,” the woman replied patiently. “I – we – did not bring you here. Somehow you have placed yourself in a temple where you should not be, on an island upon which you should not be. If you are here as the great healer’s champion, then we welcome you, and we’ll even offer to clothe you,” she said with a ghost of a smile.
“And if you are not here as a champion, then I must know how you got here, and who you are,” her tone was not threatening, yet there was no mistaking the implications of her comment.
“My friend and I swam into a cave yesterday, a cave that was a temple, and I climbed up the caves last night and came out here in this temple,” Marco said. “And the voice started talking to me; that’s why I went up into the cave.
“May I have some clothes?” he suddenly asked. “And some food?”
“I was wondering how long we were going to go before that subject came up,” the woman told him. “So just tell me, who are you, and how did you really get here? Answer that, and we’ll get some clothes for you, we’ll feed you, and we’ll figure out what we’re going to do with you.”
“My name is Marco. I’m from the Lion City. I was taken by Corsairs, and when their ship wrecked in a storm, my friend and I swam to this island. We saw a cave in a cliff, and we swam in,” Marco recited, feeling angry and drained and defeated by all the circumstances piling up. “The cave was a temple, much like this one,” he repeated. “I climbed up from it – and I got healed,” he remembered to add that detail, “then I climbed out into this temple last night, and I woke up when all those girls started screaming.”
The woman looked at him, her head cocked slightly to one side, giving him a measuring stare that made Marco nervous.
“I think I believe you believe that is the truth. Stay right here while I have some clothes brought up,” she commanded, then stepped back out the doorway and spoke to someone apparently close by, though out of Marco’s sight.
“Your clothes will be here in a minute,” she told him as she looked back into the temple.
“What is this place? Where am I?” Marco asked, hopeful that something was going to finally go right for him.
“This is the temple of Asclepius, on the isle of Ophiuchus, where no man may ever set foot,” the woman’s voice was brisk. Her words shocked Marco, who had no idea that there was a place that forbid men to be present.
“That was the name of the place where I was healed,” he told the woman instead, remembering the bath he had walked through in the cave.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“In the cave below, I walked through a big trough of liquid of some kind, and it healed away all my injuries,” he explained. “It was the bath of Asclepius.”
“We’ll talk,” the woman said, as a girl arrived and handed her a bundle of cloth. “Here are your clothes,” she said promptly, walking carefully towards Marco with the bundle. “Will you put the sword down please?” she asked as she approached.
Marco placed the sword on top of the altar, while holding the platter in place. The woman placed the bundle on the altar as well, then stepped back. “We will wait outside while you get dressed. Come out and join us,” she suggested, then walked back to the doorway, and took the delivery girl with her out of the temple.
Marco lunged at the bundle with one hand and hastily pulled out a pair of pants, then stepped into them and immediately lifted them to his waist, as he discarded the platter that had served him in his time of need. There was a shirt, which felt too tight, and a vest, that felt acceptable, and a cloak as well, though Marco felt no need to wear it.
He left the platter and the unneeded clothes on the altar, then cautiously stepped to the doorway and looked out. He stopped and consumed the extraordinary view. The temple was high upon the crest of the island, and as he looked out he could see the vast blue ocean shining in the sunlight in every direction. Somewhere out there was Kreewhite, and his way to leave the island, he knew.
Closer to him, on the
grassy sward that was adjacent to the temple, there was a small crowd of women. Most prominently in his eyes, the striped-skinned woman stood with a pair of enormous, heavily armed women flanking her, clearly serving as bodyguards, and looking at him as though he were a threat to be attacked.
“Marco, welcome to the island of Ophiuchus. For the time being,” she raised her voice slightly to emphasize her words, “we welcome you as our guest, and we will treat you with respect,” she said, causing a ripple of stirring to pass through the crowd.
“Come with me please, to my offices, and we will give you some breakfast while we discuss your situation,” she proposed.
“The weapon, my lady,” one of her bodyguards spoke up immediately. “The law not only forbids men on the island, but it forbids weapons to anyone who is not a high initiate in our order.”
The bodyguards were larger than him, and intimidating. He didn’t like the idea of being unarmed in their presence until he saw some demonstration of good faith, even though he knew he had little ability to wield the weapon effectively against anyone with training.
“No,” he immediately said. “I’m not giving up my sword.”
One of the guards instantly stepped in front of the woman who had met with him, while the other held her sword competently, and began to step towards him.
“Wait,” the head lady spoke up. “There’s no reason for this Marco. You will come to no harm.” She glanced around the crowd.
“So you say,” Marco answered, drawing an angry murmur from the others around the scene.
No one spoke for several long seconds, until a voice broke out from the crowd. “I can carry his weapon for him, and walk beside him, as a hostage,” someone offered.
“Stand forth, Porenn,” the leader directed. A diminutive girl, much tinier than anyone else present, slid between two larger girls who had blocked her from Marco’s view. She appeared to just as old, or slightly older even, than Marco, but her body frame was slender and petite. Had he only seen her from behind, Marco suspected he would have mistaken her for a girl many years younger.
“Will you agree to give your weapon to Porenn, to carry for you, as your hostage, when we go down to the temple complex?” the woman asked.
It was confusing for Marco. It was a complex situation – he had been thrust into a position where women with weapons threatened him, and he had no idea of what to expect. He knew he could win a fight with the small woman who offered to be his hostage, but he foresaw many scenarios in which she took the sword and ran with it, or threw it, or otherwise deprived him of it when he might need it.
“We can hold it together, each of us with a grasp on the handle,” Porenn spoke up, as if she read his mind, making another rustle of murmurs pass through the crowd, which appeared to be growing bigger as more women arrived to watch.
She sounded confident, Marco thought, as though she would still have the upper hand. Yet he had no alternative. He let the point of the sword drop to the ground, then held the hilt out in front of him, aimed at her, and he waited silently for her to walk up to him.
She reached him and stood directly before him. She made no move to grab the sword, but her eyes stared at his, seeming to judge him. She broke the long probe after the two of them had examined each for several seconds, gave a bob of her head, then grinned as she suddenly dropped into an elegant curtsy.
“Hello, my name is Porenn, and I will be your hostage while you are on the isle of healing and hope. I may be small, but I am mightier than I look,” she made the women around them laugh nervously, and Marco sensed that the girl had cleverly managed to defuse some of the tension in the situation.
“Thank you for your offer,” he mumbled his reply, and he gently shook his hand to offer her the opportunity to grip the sword with him.
“We’ll see you on the eastern balcony,” one of the bodyguards said to the two sword-holders as Porenn placed her hand atop Marco’s, and the temple leader departed with her bodyguards and with most of the crowd, going down a pair of paths on the hillside.
Marco watched them go, but barely noticed the movement, as his attention was distracted by the feeling of Porenn’s fingers lacing themselves among his on the sword handle. Her fingers were small, yet seemed long for a girl her size, and they felt strong. She had a fragrance, he suddenly realized as she stood so close to him, a fragrance that reminded him of the smell of the balsam powder that Algornia kept in his shop in the Lion City. He used the balsam in making healing potions he remembered.
“Come along everyone,” he heard a voice call from below, and the handful of women who remained watching the two turned to leave them alone.
“Who are you?” Porenn asked him looking up at him as the two of them stood in front of the temple.
”I am just a boy who is lost, and in way over my head,” Marco told her.
“How did you get here? We watch all the ships that come to the harbor. Even the sailors on our ships have to be women,” she said.
“It’s a long story,” Marco replied, and he gave a sigh.
“Come here,” Porenn tugged on his hand, and pulled him towards the edge of the green lawn. They stepped over, then stood and looked down, where Marco saw the crowd of women following the two paths down the steep hillside. “See that pink building?” Porenn pointed with her free hand to a building, one of several, in a village far below, down by a harbor. “That’s where we’re going. You’ve got plenty of time to tell your story while we walk. Come on,” she spoke in a gay tone of voice, as if they were going on a friendly walk in the countryside, and she tugged him towards the trail.
They passed a small building about one hundred yards down the hillside, but there were no other structures near the crest of the island’s mountain.
“I was in the Lion City,” Marco began, and he gave an abbreviated version of his story while they walked, leaving out only the fact that Kreewhite was a merboy, not sure why he felt it was important to keep his friend’s identity secret, but convinced that no one should be told. He finished the story before they were halfway down the trail.
“Why did you volunteer to be my hostage?” Marco asked Porenn moments after he was done talking.
“You looked like you needed a friend, and the priestess looked like she needed a solution, so it was good for you and it was good for her,” Porenn said. “And I haven’t gotten to talk to a boy in four years, so it was good for me too!” she said brightly with a laugh.
They reached another switchback on the trail, one that looked down over the village below once again. Marco stopped and stared. “What is this place?” he asked. Something about the girl, her attentive listening, the look in her eyes, ever her very posture, as well as the feeling of her hand pressed against his, made him feel that he could trust her. And he knew he badly needed to trust someone at that moment, isolated as he was.
“This is the heart of our world, the family of the temples of Asclepius. We have temples in all the great cities of the world, temples in which women treat and heal women. On this island we have our leaders and our holiest sites and relicts for miraculous cures,” Porenn answered.
“How did you decide to come here? Where are you from?” Marco asked as they stood and watched the shadows of the clouds race across the sea and the island.
“I was a girl, living with my family, growing up in Naples, when my little brother became very sick. My mother was desperate, and she took him to the temple and begged them to treat him. They did, and he survived the illness, so my mother gave me to them in thanks. I was sent here to the island, and I’ve been here for four years now, serving the temple,” she answered in a distant tone, her eyes looking off at the horizon.
Marco stared at her in fascination. It was an incredible story, but when he thought about how his own family had sent him away to be an apprentice in the city, it didn’t seem so different in some ways.
“I miss my family, but the women here are my family now, and I love them all, well, almost all,” Porenn turned to s
mile at him. “Let’s be on our way. It’s not a good idea to keep Lady Iasco waiting.”
“Is that the name of the lady in charge, the one I talked to up on top of the mountain?” Marco asked.
“Yes, it is, and you caused quite a stir to make the lady herself go racing up from the hilltop facilities as fast as she did when she heard the report that there was a man in the Apex Temple!” Porenn giggled. “Her bodyguards could hardly keep up with her. She was spending the night up there in the prayer house with several of us keeping a prayer vigil, so she was close by to start with.”
“What is she going to do with me?” Marco asked Porenn.
She looked up at him. “I don’t know Marco. There’s never been a man on the island before. It’s just not allowed. I don’t know if she’ll put you on the first boat that leaves the island, or if,” the girl stopped talking.
“Or if what?” Marco prompted.
“I don’t know. I was going to say she might make you stay here on the island, but I doubt that she wants to have you around stirring up all that attention from the girls here,” Porenn grinned again. “I know there are a dozen girls wishing they had been quick enough to think to offer to be your hostage!”
“I just want to find Kreewhite, and then we can leave together,” Marco told her.
“And that might be a whole other problem, if there’s been this other boy who’s been on the island too,” Porenn told him as they reached the beginning of the village settlement. They passed between small fields and pastures carved out of the mountainside, causing the workers to stop and stare at the sight of a man walking among them.
“Kreewhite hasn’t been on the island; he’s been in the water the whole time,” Marco made a point of the distinction.
“Do you really expect us to believe that the two of you swam in the ocean for more than a day to get here after your ship sank?” Porenn asked. “You must have had a lifeboat or something, and your friend must have landed on the island. I’ve never heard of this underwater or underground temple you claimed you found.”
“And I never heard of an island without a single man on it,” Marco retorted. “How does an island not have ships of men landing on it all the time?”
The Gorgon's Blood Solution Page 10