Not all the ships had been destroyed. One of the skiffs approached rapidly, a familiar figure on the foredeck, clutching her arm at her side.
“You missed the party,” Areto said. Her red hair was plastered to the side of her head, redder still from the blood of a recent wound. Her right arm hung limp, a vicious bite at the shoulder, bad enough to shred the lightweight armor she wore.
“What happened?” Artem said. Echo stepped up beside him while Yuri and Barnabas checked the water around them for survivors.
“They arrived like a swarm of locusts,” Areto said. She commanded her crew to haul the body of one of their fallen comrades from the ocean. “I don’t think they were looking for us. It was a mindless storm of hungry teeth. The illusions around our island didn’t matter—they were just passing through, killing whatever was in their way, and we were most certainly in their way.”
Yuri flipped one of the monsters with a boat hook. Its black eyes stared lifelessly up at them, its wide mouth, filled with razor-sharp teeth, familiar to everyone.
“Hi there,” Yuri said. “Isn’t this a handsome guy.”
“These can’t possibly be the creatures we’re trying to stop,” Echo said. “They can’t be ranging this far already.”
“They’re damned fast,” Areto said. “It’s terrifying, to be honest, and I’m not afraid of much. But when you see something that looks like that, with those teeth.”
“How many did we… did you lose?” Artem said.
“Too many,” Areto said. “But we drove them off. They don’t seem to be warriors. They’re predators. And even a nasty predator will back off if it thinks the prey isn’t worth the trouble.”
Areto cast her eyes out over the blood water. Her body slumped, exhaustion and sadness crashing into her.
“I can’t remember the last time we fought like this,” she said. “It’s been so long. We weren’t ready. No, no, we were ready. We’re fighters. We were ready. But for this? How do you prepare for this?”
“Areto,” Artem said. “Is my mother okay?”
The guard captain nodded.
“General Orithyia is uninjured,” she said, her tone professional. “Though she’s distraught about our losses. We haven’t had an Amazon slain in combat in decades.”
“Are they gone?” Yuri said. “Or do you think they’ll come back?”
“We think they’ve been driven off,” Areto said. “As far as we can tell. They seemed to be migrating. They arrived in a great swarm, all headed in the same direction. They left as such.”
“Fits with what we’ve seen, I think,” Echo said. “Pass through, destroy what’s in their path, carry on.”
“Only this time they met with more resistance than they’re used to,” Yuri said.
“Damned right,” Areto said, mustering a smirk despite the pain. “Were you successful?”
Echo nodded to Barnabas, who drew the Eye of Dreams from his coat.
“One relic down, one to go,” he said.
“Then we’ll have someone escort you in,” Areto said. “Maybe our librarian friends have found that other item for you.”
***
Artem was relieved—and again, surprised at his own reaction, that he felt any sympathy at all—to see the walls of New Scythia had held. The creatures had clearly made it to the docks, and a battle had left the coast of New Scythia bloody and battered, but the city itself appeared relatively unharmed. The Endless docked and the crew disembarked as Areto, her wounds and exhaustion catching up to her, accompanied them slowly to the main gates.
Word had arrived ahead of them. Orithyia waited just behind the gates, her armor bloody, a long spear resting casually against her shoulder while she held her helm, of a coppery Grecian design with subtle hints of high-tech additions hidden within, tucked under one arm. She handed her spear to a guard flanking her and, to Artem’s surprise, placed an affectionate hand on his shoulder.
“When I saw the damage these creatures did to our army, I worried what would happen if your small group encountered them,” she said. “I feared we’d…”
“It’s fine, mother,” Artem said coldly. “We saw no signs of them in our travels. No need to worry about us.”
Orithyia seemed taken aback for a moment, then switched into a more harder tone as well.
“I assume if you’ve returned you were successful,” she said.
“We found the Eye,” Echo said. “It was easier to acquire than expected. The guardian was willing to surrender it to us willingly.”
“Thank the gods for small favors, then,” Orithyia said.
“What about the Needle of the Moon?” Barnabas said.
As Barnabas spoke, Artem studied the silent Muireann, standing beside Barnabas, taking in the chaos with her deep green eyes. She’d been quiet since the fight with Tessier, and now, with the smell of blood on the air once again, she seemed even more withdrawn. Artem wondered at what point she’d become a liability. One of our crew, though, he thought. Liability or not, she’s with us.
“The Keepers of Athena had some luck before the attack. Follow me,” Orithyia said. She motioned to her guards to seal the gate and started walking toward the library, beckoning for Artem and the others to follow. “I want to hear about your encounter in the Amazon, but I don’t think we have the time for storytelling.”
“No,” Echo said. “I don’t think we do.”
Amazons stepped aside quickly as they saw Orithyia approach, the combination of respect for the general and distrust of the outsiders who followed her pushing them away. The path they took this time was different, along the outside of the central castle, up along a winding, outdoor staircase that led to a high balcony outside the library. Orithyia entered without knocking.
“Clio!” she called. “Our adventurers have returned.”
The Keeper of Athena emerged from the stacks, setting aside an ancient, leather-bound tome. She wore a put-upon expression and was dressed, somewhat incongruously for the library, for war in a metal breastplate with a longsword at her hip.
“Hands in your pockets, wizard,” she said, pointing directly at Barnabas, who complied immediately.
“We recovered the Eye,” Echo said. “Please tell me the Needle will be just as easy to find.”
Clio waved her hand at an empty table nearby. Yuri pulled out a chair for Orithyia, who looked at the younger man with an expression of confused shock before sitting down with an exhausted sigh, the battle’s toll on her suddenly very clear. She smiled at Yuri warmly. Echo looked at her own chair, then to Yuri, then back at her chair.
“What?” Yuri said. Echo pulled her own chair out and sat down, eyes twinkling with a hint of amusement. The others sat at the table as well, except for Artem, who chose to lean against a nearby column while he listened.
“So, this god-like figure from the stories, Korthos of Aramaias,” Clio began. “He’s an idiot.”
“This doesn’t sound encouraging,” Yuri said.
“It’s not,” Clio said. “I told you before he has a sort of Herculean mythology behind him, and if you’ve read of Hercules, you know he wasn’t the brightest light in the night sky either.”
“And yet somehow Korthos was able to stop this ancient threat the last time it emerged,” Echo said.
“With help,” Clio said. “He did not use the Eye of Dreams himself, but rather had a spellcaster, a wizard from Atlantis, who assisted him. That explains why your people seem somehow directly involved, but don’t have clear history of it. Adventurers don’t often leave clear notes of what they’ve done, and their deeds are left up to storytellers rather than historians.”
“And why was this Atlantean wizard not mentioned before?” Barnabas said.
“From the books I’ve skimmed, it’s quite possibly because Korthos was a braggart who over-spoke his own role in the battle,” Clio said, rubbing her eyes. “He was certainly there. And he wielded the needle, which is either a very large sword, like a claymore, or possibly a spear of some kind.
Translations are mutable things and the language is very old.”
“But it’s most likely a weapon, whatever shape it takes,” Echo said.
“So it would seem,” Clio said. “Which this idiot of an immortal dropped somewhere in the chasm where he and his companions defeated the ancient creature.”
“Dropped it,” Echo said.
“He was an idiot,” Clio said. “The battle was over, and he didn’t particularly like the weapon, so he just… left it there.”
“I feel so much better about myself as a hero right now,” Yuri said.
“To clarify,” Artem said. “He dropped it where the creature was laid to rest.”
“Yes,” Clio said.
“So, we have to go back to that bloody chasm in the ocean floor,” Artem said.
“You could choose not to,” Clio said. “Take your chances with one relic, see how it goes. I’m not telling you what to do.”
“The librarian is sassy,” Yuri said. “She’s sassing you.”
“Shut up, Yuri,” Echo said, sighing heavily. “Time, guys. We’re short on time. We can move around pretty quickly because of Barnabas and what he knows of the ley lines, but we don’t know how fast this great beast is shuffling toward whatever he’s shuffling toward, and now we have to go back to Atlantis and head down into Poseidon’s Scar to find this weapon?”
“There’s a bright side,” Yuri said.
The whole table turned and waited for him to finish.
“We know the creature’s not in Poseidon’s Scar, right? So it’s really just a fetch mission,” Yuri said. “Right?”
“He’s not wrong,” Barnabas said.
“Unless not all the creatures went with the ancient thing,” Muireann said, chiming in for the first time. “Maybe they left guards behind.”
“I’m so glad you waited to speak until you had something really depressing to add to the conversation, Muireann,” Yuri said.
“Look,” Orithyia said. “We weathered this battle. Others can as well. The important thing is the mission. When was the last time any of you slept?”
“I think I took a nap three days ago,” Echo said.
“Stay here for the night. Get some rest. We’ll come up with a plan in the morning,” the general said. “And if you give us the night, maybe we can come up with some other ways to help you.”
“I thought the outside world was of no interest to the Amazons,” Artem said.
“We’ve seen the face of this threat,” Orithyia said. “Now is no time to sit behind our illusions and stone walls.”
Artem and Echo locked eyes. Echo nodded. Artem saw the shadows beneath her eyes. They really had been on the run for days. Wherever they went from here, danger would follow. Artem returned her nod.
“We’ll rest for the night,” Echo said. “A few hours, at least. But I won’t let these things hurt anyone else if I can help it. The longer we stay here, the more people die.”
Chapter 37: The gods hate women
Echo’s crew were put up in a set of rooms high in the central palace, a floor clearly intended for guests and dignitaries. The rooms were simple, but more than comfortable and divine compared to berthing on a boat, but also eerily quiet. Few guards made their rounds on this floor, and the crew was left pretty much to their own devices, high enough above the city that they could barely hear the minimal activity on the streets below.
Barnabas waited until he suspected most of the others were asleep and found his way to Muireann’s room. He knocked lightly, not wanting to wake her if she had already turned in. The door opened, one deep sea-green eye peering out at him.
“Oh, hell,” she said, but opened the door the rest of the way and gestured to invite him in. She closed the door behind him as he entered.
“I’d ask if I were interrupting anything, but I don’t know that any of us have anything to interrupt tonight,” he said.
“I’m afraid to ask why you’re here,” Muireann said. “But mostly because I think I know.”
Barnabas stuffed his hands in his pockets and faced her.
“We have to talk about your friend the necromancer,” he said. “You and I. Magician to magician. We need a plan for the next time we see him. And we will see him again, won’t we?”
“Aye,” Muireann said. “One little fight isn’t enough to scare him off.”
“One little fight we barely got away from,” Barnabas said, rocking on his heels.
“Oh, sit down, would you now,” Muireann said. “You standing there makes me anxious.”
Barnabas found a backless stool with a surprisingly ornate cushion and sat. Muireann scooted onto the bed to sit cross-legged facing him. She seemed remarkably ordinary, Barnabas thought, for everything she’s been through. Echo wanders around in Atlantean battle gear, and Artem has an Amazonian breastplate and a pair of swords he takes everywhere. Yuri’s face might still look like a carefree young man, but he carried himself like he’d been through hell, and dressed to be able to transform at a moment’s notice. And I know what I look like, Barnabas thought, almost laughing at his ridiculous outfit. But Muireann, with her dark hair restrained only occasionally by a knit cap, her stolen sailor’s sweater of forest green, so long it made the leggings and sarong she’s taken from Atlantis look mundane, she could be anyone, anywhere.
Except you know her kind, Barnabas thought, and you can see it in her. She’s not some girl off the farm. There’s ancient knowledge behind her eyes. Magic crackles across her skin. Not unlike yourself, he thought. It suits her better.
“You’re almost out of time, aren’t you?” Barnabas said.
“You’re like me. You know that magic isn’t what it used to be,” she said. “It takes more effort.”
“It does,” Barnabas said. “You’re short on time.”
“I can’t lose this,” Muireann said, gesturing to her hand where the little globe of golden stolen life energy appeared as if from nowhere. “I don’t know how long I’ll last without it.”
“Why steal it, really? Don’t just say because he’s a bastard. We know that,” Barnabas said. “I have to ask. You know I have to ask. I’m no stranger to ondines. I know this isn’t the way things usually work.”
Muireann sighed angrily and turned to face the large window dominating the back wall of the room, facing out over the sea.
“Do you believe in the gods, Barnabas Coy?” she said.
“Not really,” Barnabas said. “I believe in a lot. I could believe in some immortal higher power. I have trouble believing anything as fallible as a god is in charge of things though.”
“I think they’re real,” Muireann said. “And I think they hate women.”
Barnabas nodded. He didn’t disagree. He’d seen enough throughout his life to find no reason to argue with that sentiment, not even a little.
“Ondines. Nymphs. Sirens. Harpies. Medusa,” she said. “Everywhere you look, the gods made women into something to be afraid of. Something that steals your soul, or takes your life, or turns you to stone. What did we ever do to deserve all this? Every mistake a woman makes in mythology, she doesn’t just pay for it, she is cursed for all of eternity for it. It’s women who steal men away, who steal their souls. Your mother is a nymph, yes?”
“A nereid,” Barnabas said.
“How much blame is placed at their feet? I know the place the nereids went to hide. The mermaids hide there, too.”
“They do,” Barnabas said.
“Poor creatures. Every sailor who doesn’t return home, they’re blamed for it,” Muireann said. “Women are monsters. Men get to be heroes. Even you, with your faux scoundrel airs, even you get to be a hero.”
“I’ll have you know I have full scoundrel credentials,” he said. “I’m certified.”
“My arse,” she said. “I’ve seen you risk your life like it means nothing to you over and over again since we met. All the heroes are men. Even here, on this island full of amazing women, they’re hiding, because the world will have none of
it from them; the world doesn’t want them, because they aren’t what the gods decree a good and just hero should be. But at least they’re not bogeymen. Nobody ever said an Amazon would rise up out of the river and steal your son away.”
Barnabas stayed silent, letting Muireann unfold her story. She inhaled, uncrossing and re-crossing her legs impatiently.
“I don’t want to be the creature who seduced a man to steal his soul. I don’t want to be someone who takes from someone unsuspecting. I don’t want to create a victim. I wanted something else. So I stole from men who were terrible. Terrible to women, to other men, to the world. If I am going to be a monster by nature, then I want to be an avenging spirit. And if that helps me to live a little longer, then…”
“Then so much the better,” Barnabas said.
Muireann turned the palms of her hands up in a gesture of agreement.
“This wasn’t the first bad man you stole from, then,” Barnabas said.
“I only took a fragment of his soul,” Muireann said. “That’s a funny thing, you see. Awful people, the currency of their life is worth less. They are sustained by forces other than life. So I had to siphon a bit here and there. I had to cobble together my prize. When I met Tessier, he’d put much of himself into a phylactery of sorts. I hit the jackpot. I had to take it.”
“How do you think we should handle him?” Barnabas said. “Kill him?”
Muireann shrugged.
“You’d do that?” Barnabas said. “I have no problem killing a man like Tessier, if he’s all you say he is, and I’m inclined to believe you after watching what he did to my ship. But killing a man is quite a thing.”
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