Gods and Warriors (29 page)

I
t was a huge relief to be back in the open Sea, but the dolphin was terribly worried about his pod—and about the boy and girl. It felt as if he’d been stuck in the caves forever, although what had happened there was already melting into a blue blur.

He remembered being stuck in the channel and twisting frantically to get free. He remembered the pain in his scratched flanks. He remembered ghostly flippers fluttering over his back, and bubbling laughter coming closer. Then the laughter had ceased, and he’d stopped struggling. Awe had washed over him. The Shining One was come.

Nearer and nearer She’d swum, until he was bathed in Her cold blue fire. She was vast and perfect as the Sea. On Her flippers was neither notch nor blemish, on Her flanks neither toothmark nor scar. Her tail was stronger than the storm, and Her eye was deeper than the Black Beneath.

With one flick of Her fin She had freed him from the rocks. She had healed his scratches, and miraculously washed away all pain. She had spoken to him in the
dolphin way that needs no voice—and he had understood.

Obedient to Her will, he’d swum to the Place of Singing Echoes, and She had shown him the shell that was not shell, but stone. Carefully, he’d taken it on his snout, and the Shining One had sent him back through the twisting channels; and when he was out again, he’d left the not-shell where it was meant to be.

Now all that seemed a long time ago, and very far away. He had done the will of the Shining One, and She had set him free.

But where was everyone else?

Ripples of anxiety shivered down his flanks as he squealed and clicked and squealed again.

Nothing.

He sped to the place where he’d caught the strange, muffled sounds of his pod, coming to him through the earth. He slammed his tail and squealed their name-whistles. He couldn’t hear them. What had happened to them?

He raced up the coast to find the boy. He was nowhere to be found. The dolphin swam right into the shallows, heedless of the pebbles scraping his belly. He called and tail-slammed, but the boy didn’t come.

Racing back to deeper water, the dolphin listened anxiously to the voice of the Sea. It was moaning restlessly, but he couldn’t understand what it was saying, and as he rode the swell, the currents were so strong that he had to swim hard to keep from being swept away.

He poked his snout above the waves, and the Above
was hot; he felt his hide beginning to tighten. And the sky wasn’t blue, but yellow.

He dived, hoping to hear the familiar shape of a sardine, or even a shark. But the fish were gone. They’d left the shallows and taken shelter in the deep. What had frightened them?

The dolphin’s courage faltered. For the first time in his life, the Sea felt too vast, too powerful. He longed for the touch of a friendly flipper, or a dolphin flank rubbing against his.

He swam farther down the coast, clicking fast and hard to pick up any living shape. He heard the familiar hills and valleys beneath him, and the great forests of seaweed, but no fish and no dolphins.

Then he heard something else: one of those great lumbering piles of floating trees that humans use for crossing the Sea. It had floated into a bay, and now lay rocking in the shallows like a sleepy whale.

The dolphin swam closer. He saw humans scuttling like crabs on the shore around their little red fires. They were all men. He didn’t like them. He sensed the violence in them.

Then he spotted a small, dark shape crouching on some rocks jutting into the bay. If it hadn’t been for the men on the shore, he would have flipped nose-over-tail for joy. He’d found the boy!

Dipping beneath the waves, the dolphin sped toward the figure on the rocks.

S
omething shining rose from the Sea—and Telamon gave a start.

For a moment the dolphin met his eye. Then it rolled on its side and vanished beneath the waves.

Telamon’s heart quickened. Could this be a good omen? Did it mean that Hylas was still alive?

Farther out, he spotted the arch of a gleaming back. The dolphin was heading north, up the coast. For a moment Telamon even wondered if the sacred creature might be giving him some sort of sign: perhaps showing the way to his friend.

Two warriors came running over the rocks with their spears at the ready. “We saw a fin! Was it a shark?”

“Dolphin,” said Telamon.

They lowered their spears, and one of them rubbed his hand over his face. “Lucky I didn’t try the shot,” he muttered.

“Lucky indeed,” Telamon said coolly.

He waited for them to return to camp, then went back to scanning the waves. The dolphin was gone. The Sea was a sheet of hammered bronze.

A wave of hopelessness washed over him, and he put his head in his hands. Nothing had turned out the way he wanted, and he couldn’t see how to put things right. He’d promised Hylas that he would find Issi, but he’d failed. He hated to think of her wandering alone in the mountains, and he hated himself for not having done more to find her. He’d failed Issi, and he’d failed Hylas. All he’d achieved was to anger and disappoint his own father—and deceive his uncle.

But how could he have done otherwise? Kratos had it all wrong. Hylas couldn’t have had anything to do with stealing the dagger. He couldn’t possibly be the Outsider whom the Oracle had mentioned.

Although maybe, Telamon reflected miserably, maybe none of that matters now. Maybe the worst has already happened, and Hylas is dead.

Telamon kept seeing the moment when the helmsman had found the wreckage of the rowing boat, during the crossing from Lykonia. The fisherman they’d brought with them had peered down at it and recognized a spar from his boat; then he’d spotted the shark, keeping level with the ship, and laughed. “Looks like it got him! Ha! Serves him right!”

As if it was happening in front of him, Telamon had pictured the shark attacking his friend: the Sea turning red as Hylas thrashed in the monster’s jaws…

He’d leaned over the side and retched till his belly hurt.

The men had put it down to seasickness, but his uncle
had cast him a thoughtful glance, as if wondering whether there was more to it than that.

“He’s still alive,” said a voice behind him. It was a quiet voice, but so cold it made Telamon shiver.

Kratos had left off his bronze armor, but unlike other men, being unarmed didn’t make him more approachable. His chest and his black leather kilt were streaked with ash, his eyes bloodshot from peering into the embers for signs. He was watching Telamon with an unreadable expression.

“Wh-what did you say?” stammered Telamon.

“The Outsider lives,” said Kratos. “I saw it in the ashes. He’s here, on the island.”

Telamon swallowed. “But—even if that’s true, he can’t be the one you’re after. He can’t have the dagger, I’m sure of it.”

“So you say.”

“He’s just a goatherd, he wouldn’t know anything about it—” He broke off. He mustn’t seem to be defending Hylas.

His uncle let the pause lengthen to an uneasy silence.

To fill it, Telamon told him about the dolphin. “Maybe it’s a good omen,” he ventured.

“Maybe,” Kratos replied. “Or maybe our sacrifice worked, and soon we shall have our reward.”

“I—I hope so,” lied Telamon.

His uncle bared his teeth in a smile. He looked disturbingly like Telamon’s father: the same high-boned features
and bristly black beard. But in Kratos, all kindness had been burned away.

But he’s
kin,
Telamon reminded himself. You owe him the same loyalty you owe to Father.

He knew this, but he couldn’t feel it. How could you be loyal to a man who wanted to kill your best friend?

“We’ll find the girl too,” said Kratos, still watching him.

“What?”

“The Keftian. The daughter of the High Priestess.” His lip curled. “The girl you’re meant to wed.”

“Oh. Yes. The fisherman said he left her here, didn’t he. So I suppose he must have.”

“Oh, I don’t think he would have lied to me,” said Kratos with unpleasant emphasis.

Again Telamon swallowed. No one would dare lie to Kratos. Except, as it turned out, his own nephew.

So far, Telamon had been lucky. Even though his father and Kratos were brothers, there was no love lost between them, and Thestor hadn’t told Kratos that the Outsider was Telamon’s friend, or that Telamon had helped him escape.

But now, as Telamon stared up at his uncle, he wondered whether kinship would save him if Kratos ever found out. One glance at the cruel cut of that mouth told him the answer was no.

“I’m taking some men south,” said Kratos. “I want to scout the coast before it gets dark. Will you come?”

Telamon licked his lips. “No. I’ll stay here. In case that
dolphin comes back.” He made himself meet his uncle’s gaze, and prayed that he wouldn’t detect the lie.

“It’s your choice,” said Kratos. He was still smiling, but something in his tone told Telamon that he’d made the wrong one.

As soon as his uncle was out of sight, Telamon started north. He didn’t have much time—it wasn’t long till dusk, and he had to be back at camp before Kratos—but he couldn’t shake off his hunch that the dolphin had shown him the way. Even if he was wrong, he couldn’t sit on the rocks, doing nothing, while they hunted his friend.

The heat was stifling, and by the time he’d got over the headland, he was pouring sweat. The slope below him was thick with sycamores—just the sort of place where Hylas liked to hide.

Feeling more hopeful, he began his descent. It was even hotter under the trees. The rasp of the crickets made his temples throb. “Hylas?” he whispered. “Are you there?”

Only the crickets replied.

Farther in, he tried again. “Hylas, it’s me! I’m alone. I’ve come to help!”

Still nothing.

Forcing his way through a prickly clump of juniper, he emerged into a little glade where pale moths flitted among man-high thistles.

He found a heel print in the dust and knelt to examine it.
Was
it a print, or just a hollow left by a displaced rock? Hylas would have known at a glance.

Sadness welled up in Telamon. He missed his friend. He remembered all the times when he’d slipped away from Lapithos and sought Hylas on the Mountain, scrambling up to the pass to check for signs at the meeting rock, then hearing Hylas’ bark of laughter as he erupted from the bushes and knocked him over, and they rolled and wrestled in the scrub…

Standing among the thistles, it came to Telamon that he could never go back to that time. Even if he did find Hylas, things would never be the same. The best he could hope for would be to help Hylas escape to some faraway land, and make him swear never to set foot in Lykonia again. And that would mean saying good-bye to him forever.

The mark in the dust didn’t look right. It wasn’t a heel-print after all. Angrily, he scuffed it out. What was he doing, stumbling around in a thicket?

An arm hooked him by the neck and wrenched him backward off his feet.