Cursed by the Sea God (9 page)

THE CAVE WALLS WERE smooth and round, like the lair of some huge
earthworm. A pale grey light came from all around, giving the fabric of our
tunics a strange glow. We weren’t even rowing—as the bow of the
Pelagios
had penetrated the cave, the waters of the lake had begun to draw back into the
tunnel, swallowing us with it down a throat barely wide enough for the ship. Our
steersman was straining at his steering blade to keep us away from the walls as
the oily current drew us further in.

The black water beneath us was as smooth as ever, but the ship was gradually
tilting downward, picking up speed until
we shot out into what
looked like a small underground lake, no more than two arrow flights across. Our
momentum carried us past chariot-sized lumps of what looked like half-chewed
meat, until we crunched to a halt on the gloomy shore opposite.

Lopex’s voice cut through the nervous mutters. “We’re here. Ury, we’ll need
picks, shovels, white barley, a full wineskin . . .” His voice faded as he
headed down the ladder and into the hold.

They hadn’t been ordered to, but most of the men were buckling on their sword
harnesses. Not for the first time, I wished I had one too. Just where had he
brought us?

The men had the same question, nervous anger growing in their voices as we
assembled on the pebbly shore. At Lopex’s command, they had brought out a
strange collection, including torches, both fire pots, several tarred faggots of
green wood, and strangest of all, the pure white ewe and the black ram that we
had loaded at Circe’s island.

“Is it not obvious?” Speaking from the bow railing of the
Pelagios
,
Lopex overrode their grumbles. “We have descended to where no living man born of
woman has ever been: the land of the dead. We are in the underworld realm of
Lord Hades himself.”

Dismay flickered through the knot of men.

“Hades? You’ve brought us to
Hades
?”

“Hera’s holy halter, what were you thinking?”

“Sweet gods, how will we get out? Great Zeus, please help us!”

I could see why Lopex hadn’t said so before. The men would have
sliced him up in a heartbeat. Even now, his chances looked poor. Fear turning to
anger, the men were reaching for their weapons.

Lopex spoke again. “Heroes of Troy!” His commanding tone quelled them for an
instant and his voice thrust into the gap. “You are under a curse!”

He had their attention now. The men stared up at him, wide-eyed.

“It was the sorcerer Circe, by whose art this was revealed to me.” A mutter ran
through the men. “Yes, a curse. For your part in destroying the city of Troy,
you are all fated to die. The gods who could not save Troy are determined to
vanquish you, the victors.” He paused, permitting the men’s frightened clamour
to build for a few moments before speaking again.

“But Circe revealed as well how you can avoid your fate. On your behalf I will
undertake it. Alone, I must speak to the shade of the seer Tiresias. Only he has
the knowledge to stay the curse.”

His voice rose over their clamour once more. “I speak the truth. This is the
only way home. And the story of this adventure will make your legs welcome under
any table, or in any bed, beneath the eye of Helios.” He left them no time to
think. “Now follow me.”

Climbing lightly down the boarding net, he headed up the beach into the dead,
colourless land beyond. After a moment of indecision, the men followed in a
tight knot. I trailed behind, holding a bronze-bladed shovel before me like a
weapon.
Lopex himself was tugging the two sheep along by their
halters, the ewe shining eerily white in the strange cave light.

The beach gave way to a sticky moss that smothered the rock beneath, glowing
with a pale light that turned black where the men had trodden. In the gloom
around me, wispy shapes writhed and twisted at the corner of my vision,
retreating when I turned to look.
Hades
. A cold shiver ran down my spine.
Those writhing shapes—were any of them people we once knew? The men bunched
tighter as we continued inland.

“Halt!” Lopex had stopped, holding a lit torch over his head like a beacon.
“This is the place.” A wide, black river lay before us, oozing past between
steep banks of smooth clay. Lopex scraped two marks a man’s height apart in the
moss above the bank. “Those of you with shovels, I need a trench between these
two points. Do
not
let the river touch your skin.”

I shuffled forward reluctantly and began to dig alongside the others, but the
clay beneath the moss was too hard for me to penetrate. The other diggers were
throwing their clods into the river where they vanished beneath the oily surface
without a ripple.

An elbow took me hard in the back and left me scrambling for balance. I lost my
footing and slipped over the lip of the bank, my heels gouging ruts in the slick
clay slope as I slid toward the water. I turned to grab at the bank but the
glowing moss tore out in loose clumps.

A hand reached down and grabbed me under the armpit.
“Fall not,
into that river.” Pharos’s deep voice rumbled near my ear as he lifted me
one-handed back onto the turf. He plucked the shovel from my grasp and took over
my digging.

I glanced around to spot Ury glowering at me nearby, his black eyes full of
hate, and backed away nervously until I bumped into a boulder. That had been no
accident. I’d never understood why Ury hated me so much. I had been mouthy with
him a few times, but his hatred came from something deeper. Looking at the dark
water he had nearly pushed me into, I felt my legs grow weak and sank onto the
boulder. Kassander was right about one thing. Someday, Ury was going to kill
me.

With Pharos’s help, the short trench was complete, and Lopex filled it with
wine, then slit the throats of both sheep and drained their blood into it,
carefully avoiding the spatter. I glanced over at a shout from one of the
soldiers. The dead land around us was suddenly crawling, swarming with . . . a
cold sweat broke out on my forehead.
Wraiths
.

Cold candle flames guttering in an unseen breeze, the dead souls of the
underworld twisted and drifted over the barren ground. Something was drawing
them to us. The Greeks automatically formed a tight circle, their backs to the
trench, swords waving anxiously as the wraiths pressed in on them from all
sides. Shadowy forms slipped past me on the rock mound, heading for the men
around the trench.

Too frightened to move, I huddled where I was, but the wraiths were ignoring
me, drifting toward the fresh blood.
Nearby, Lopex stood up with
a bundle of freshly-lit pitch torches and caught sight of the swords. “Put those
away,” he barked. “You think you can cut a wraith? Torches of green, living
wood are what they fear. Now keep them from the trench. This offering is for one
alone.” As he came past he caught sight of me perched on the boulder and stared
wordlessly for a moment before handing me a torch. The shades shrank back beyond
the circle of light as he handed out the others.

My stomach had knotted itself into a fist. I wanted to get up and join the
soldiers but didn’t trust my legs. Just beyond the circle of torchlight,
thousands of shades flickered and sighed, pressing in wherever the torchlight
faltered. If those torches failed . . .

“Tiresias!” Lopex’s voice boomed out through the gloom. “Show yourself! Drink
your fill at the blood sacrifice we have prepared, for you alone!”

One of the wraiths detached itself from the flickers beyond the firelight and
writhed closer. Lopex waved the torches off to let it approach. The men moved
aside hastily as it drifted toward them. Above the trench, it stopped, twisting
in the rising fumes of hot blood and wine.

I watched, amazed. As the wispy thing basked in the scent above the trench, it
began to solidify. One moment I could see the dull glint of Adelphos’s sword
through it; the next, I could not. I rubbed my eyes. The wraith was gone, and a
frail, pale old man with pure white skin, hair, and long cloak was
standing knee-deep in the trench where it had been.

“Tiresias of Thebes!” If Lopex was nervous, it didn’t show. He strode forward
and reached down to take its arm. “I am Odysseus, son of Laertes, destroyer of
Troy. I have crossed the seas with one goal: to venture into Hades to seek the
advice of the great Theban sage Tiresias, whose fame as a seer is undiminished
even by death.”

I grunted. Our misfortunes hadn’t soured his tongue any. As they walked past my
seat on the boulder, I caught a little of their conversation. Tiresias’s
high-pitched voice crackled as he spoke.

“. . . yes, yes.” I heard his impatient grumble as he shuffled past, Lopex’s
firm grip on his arm. “And I’ll bet you think daisies grow out of my
gloutos
too, don’t you, sonny? You young sprouts are all the same,
all honey tongue and hurry. Well, make it quick, I’m a busy man. And that wine
you used, what was it, vinegar? It makes my skin itch. I knew the man you call
your father, I’ll be seeing him again soon enough.
He
wouldn’t be shoving
an old man along like this, I can tell you . . .” His crackle faded as they
moved off.

I looked up in dismay as the hissing greenwood torch in my hand guttered and
went out. The tarred tip had been consumed, the wood too green to burn on its
own. Over by the trench, the Greeks had stood aside now that Lopex had
accomplished his goal. Wraiths were converging from all directions. I recoiled
as one of the drifting wisps paused before me. It seemed to be struggling to
hold a shape. The shape of
a man. No, a boy. I peered at what
might have been a face. From the writhing half-lips came a whisper like wind
through bulrushes.

“Alexi, my friend,” came a half-imagined sigh. “Is it really you?”

I froze. “Elpenor? Pen?”

Did it nod? The lips parted again, but I couldn’t make out the words. The
sorrowful almost-face contorted in an intense effort and its voice became clear
for an instant. “Bury me. Bury my body.”

His wraith whispered something more but the sounds were indistinct, as if the
effort had exhausted it. I glanced over at the trench, where hungry ghosts were
flowing over and under one another like coiling snakes, basking in the fumes. My
gut knotting, I blew on my smouldering torch and coaxed a reluctant flame from
it, then slipped off the boulder.

Gesturing for Pen’s wraith to follow, I headed for the trench, holding the
flickering torch before me like a sword. The wraiths drifted apart, and
Elpenor’s ghost slipped almost apologetically between them to stop above the
trench. As he hovered above it, he seemed to thicken and solidify. One moment I
was looking through an insubstantial wisp, and the next at the white form of
Elpenor, still clad in the
chiton
he had been wearing when I found his
body. He stepped out gingerly, his body and clothing still pale white, somehow
untouched by the bloody mixture in the trench.

I opened my mouth, fidgeting for something to say, but he
found
his voice first. “Thanks. I could never have gotten there before the blood
cooled. Even dead, the strong ones push the rest of us around. Especially the
unburied.”

A surge of guilt lanced through me. I had abandoned his body, unburied, in the
forest. I risked a glance at his face but his expression was innocent.

“It’s the life force in the blood,” he was saying. “It draws us. Human blood
would be best, of course.” A white tongue flickered over his lips as I took a
step back, almost tripping over a heavy pickaxe that one of the Greeks had
dropped. “Sorry,” he added. “Do you mind if we talk about something else,
Alexi?”

Good idea. “So, Pen, have you—” I floundered for something to say “—met anyone
you know?”

He seized on it gratefully. “Oh, yes. There are plenty of Greek soldiers down
here. We’re drawn to the people we knew in life. There are Trojans too, but they
won’t talk to me. Well, neither do the Greeks, much.”

A chill ran up my spine. Would Sophronios be around somewhere? It had been the
Cyclops that had killed him, not me, but I doubted he’d see it that way. I bent
to grab the pick I’d tripped over and started along the bank of the black river,
heading away from the trench. Pen trotted eagerly along beside me.

I took a deep breath. “Pen? There’s something I need to say. I’m really sorry.
About the night of the feast. And your . . . death. It’s just—”

Pen gave a nimble shrug. “I understand. I know you would have
stopped them if you could. You were afraid they’d go for you too.”

Gods, was he trying to make me feel worse? I wanted him to shout at me, to show
some anger, but he skipped on happily. “It’s my own fault, really,” he added.
“I wasn’t supposed to be here. With the war, I mean. A year ago, when my father
sent a ship back for the spring recruits, I was only fourteen, but I stowed away
on my father’s ship, with my brother’s armour.”

Pen had never said any of this while he was alive. Perhaps he would have, if
I’d been listening. As if reading my guilty thoughts, he added, “I don’t know
why I didn’t tell you this before . . .” He shrugged, embarrassed. “Well, you
know.” He pointed ahead at the round hill I’d seen earlier. “Want to see
something? Come on, I’ll show you. The view is better from the top.” Lopex still
seemed occupied with Tiresias, so I followed Pen to the top, breaking a sweat in
the humid air.