Hellenic Immortal (30 page)

I looked up and found Staphus staring down at me furiously.

“
You monster, what did you do to these people
?”

SILENUS:

I EVEN SPOKE WITH A GOD OF THE WOODS.

KING LAIOS:

AND WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

SILENUS:

ALAS, I SAID I SPOKE. I DID NOT SAY THE GOD SPOKE BACK.

From The Tragedy of Silenus. Text corrected and translated by Ariadne

“
I found them like this
,” I started to say, but he sprang at me before I could elaborate. I took a hard punch in the chin, and then he had me by the coat.

   
“
How could you
?” he demanded, hoisting me up in the air and preparing to fling me several yards into Zeus only knew what. He didn’t seem to want to calm down long enough to figure out I couldn’t have done this to three people with my bare hands, and I wasn’t going to last long if I stayed in his reach. So when he bent his arms to push me off, I swung both of my fists as hard as I could into the sides of his head and boxed his ears.

He shoved me away—not nearly as violently as he’d wanted—and grabbed his head.

“
You need to calm down and think, Staphus
,” I suggested, scurrying to my feet and looking about frantically for something I could use as a makeshift weapon. “
I didn’t do any of this
.”

He roared incoherently and ran hard at me, so hard that when I dropped to the ground, he passed directly overhead. My hands found a tent stake half-buried in the snow.

Staphus skidded to a stop and turned completely around faster than I thought anyone could in heavy powder. He came at me again. I yanked up the stake. But just before he reached me, he was tackled from the side. Dyanos had arrived, and was thinking much more clearly. The two satyrs disappeared into a snow bank.

“Don’t move!” I heard Hippos bark. Looking around, I saw he had just reached the edge of the clearing. Ariadne was still climbing down behind him.

The two satyrs burst free of the snow bank, Dyanos restraining Staphus.

“
Look at what he has done to these poor people
!” Staphus shouted.

“
Use your head, brother
,” Dyanos said. “
He has no blood on him. Nor weapon. Something else did this
.”

“
That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him
,” I pointed out.

Ariadne reached the clearing, and screamed.

“What happened here, imposter?” Hippos asked, walking slowly to where I was standing and assessing the damage as he went.

I should note that upon learning of my reluctance to voluntarily attend the ceremonies, Hippos had taken to calling me imposter again. He seemed to have reached the conclusion that the real Philopaigmos would have been happy to attend, and therefore I am not he. I couldn’t tell if he was serious about it or not, but it got annoying. “Something big and scary went on a frenzy here. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

He looked around at the carnage. “Nor have I,” he admitted. “Did you witness it?”

“No. But whatever did this can’t be far. Track it if you want. I plan to go in the opposite direction of wherever it’s headed.”

Hippos crouched down and examined one of the victims. “There is no scent,” he said.

“Maybe the snow is screwing that up,” I offered.

“Perhaps,” he mused. “I can understand Staphus’s reaction. He would have picked up only your odor and that of the dead. It should have been the correct conclusion.”

“You think I’m capable of this?” I asked. “I mean, this fast?”

“No. If you were, you would have done it to us long ago.”

Staphus, finally calm, walked over to me and held out his hand. “
I am sorry,
I should not have attacked you in that manner.
”

I ignored his hand. “
Don’t worry about it.
”
 

“
Thank you for understanding
,” he said.

“
Don’t thank me
.” I held up the tent spike. “
Thank Dyanos. He saved your life
.”

“What did this to these people?” Ariadne asked, trying to maintain her cool. She wasn’t coming any closer than the edge of the campground, and I strongly suspected that while we were talking she had been vomiting behind a tree somewhere.

Hippos addressed her question. “A wild animal,” he asserted. “Nothing we will not be able to cope with should we encounter it.”

“Don’t be . . .” I started to say. Hippos cut me off.

“Silence, impostor.” He shot me a look, but the look didn’t say shut up. It said we both know something else did this, but let’s not talk about it, okay?

He continued, still talking to me, “We must move on. You will swear to me that you will not run off again, and I will allow you to walk with us. Or I can have you bound and dragged the rest of the way. Is that fully understood?”

“Sure,” I said. And I meant it. If we came across the thing that had slaughtered the campers I’d much rather be with three satyrs than alone.

“Good.
Staphus
!
Give him an ice pack for his chin before the swelling gets worse
.” He gave me an appraising look. “We will talk more later on this,” he said, meaning the stew of dead people around us. I didn’t get a chance to reply before he walked away, heading down the ravine and holding up his GPS.

“Are we going back to the trail?” Ariadne shouted after him.

“No need,” he said. “The impostor has led us to a much better path. This valley is more direct, and out of the wind.”

Ariadne fell into step behind him, and Staphus, after dropping a chemical icepack in my hand (ironic given the weather, but useful as I
was
starting to swell) followed her. Dyanos came up beside me.

“
You will be dropping that spike here, will you not
?” he asked.

“
Of course
.” I flung it into the snow, not far from where the satellite phone had disappeared.

“
Very good,
” he said, nudging me forward.

As I stepped past the last spatter of blood in the snow, the words of the oracle rang out in my head.
Red on white.

*
 
*
 
*

It was getting dark.

We had left the Seattle airport around mid-morning. I gathered that under optimal conditions we’d have reached the campground at Azure Lake by nightfall, but the storm had screwed that plan to hell.

“Hippos!” Ariadne called. The winds had died down, so there were no longer whiteout conditions to combat. She could see, as I had, that our guide had picked up the pace. It was difficult for humans to keep up with him.

He stopped, reluctantly, and glanced down at his GPS. “If we hurry, we can still reach the camp before morning,” he said.

“No,” she said “The sun is setting and it’s getting too cold. We have to stop.”

“We have a schedule to keep.”

“Then radio the hierophant and tell him we will keep it tomorrow,” she said.

I did a double take.
 

Ariadne sighed. “Hippos. Please. We have been hiking all day. I need rest.”

He stared at her, possibly considering whether she was light enough to carry the rest of the way. “All right. We’ll make camp here.”

I pulled Ariadne aside. “ ‘Radio the hierophant?’ ”

“We had to find out where the ceremony was being held,” she explained. “This was the only way.”

“We’re expected.”

“Yes.”

“All of us?” I asked.

She couldn’t look me in the eye. “We told Gordon we’re coming to reconcile the schism. You’re part of the reconciliation.”

I looked around and wondered how far I would get if I started running. Probably not far. “So in addition to the whole raising-a-god thing, I’m being handed over to a crazy man who thinks he’s me and has a small army with him. That’s fantastic. What if he decides to have me shot before the ceremony even begins?”

“It won’t come to that,” she insisted. “I still have some sway over him.”

“He’s insane, Ariadne,” I countered. “The only thing holding sway over him at this point is his own delusions.”

“He will listen to me. I promise.”

I stared at her for a long second, wondering if she really believed what she was saying, or if she just knew how little choice she’d left herself and was hoping for the best. “I’m going to help build the camp. And then I’m going to see if we’ve brought any beer, because I’d like to spend my last night on earth drinking, if that’s at all possible.”

*
 
*
 
*

An hour later, the only tent in the party had been pitched, and we’d started a small fire to keep warm by. There were no sleeping bags and we had only one day’s supply of food: dried meats and fruit. And no beer whatsoever.

Ariadne and I sat up next to the fire and made an effort to regain some mild sensation in our extremities while Dyanos and Staphus searched for more wood to burn and Hippos stepped away to contact Gordon on his own satellite phone.

“This is turning into a disaster,” I said to her quietly, in the off-chance Hippos was in earshot.

“We’re just stopping for the night.”

“Bet that’s what the campers said. ‘Let’s just stop here and wait out the storm.’ ”

Her face turned grave. “I’m trying not to think about them.”

“I can’t help it.”

Hippos returned. “He will postpone the ceremony for a day.”
 

“Can you do that?” I asked. The Greater Mysteries at Eleusis always took place at the same time, every year. If you missed it, you were out of luck.

“You understand little,” Hippos grunted, settling to the forest floor beside the fire.

“Then enlighten me,” I said. “And try to sound like you’re on our side instead of his. I’ll sleep better.”

Hippos and Ariadne shared a meaningful look.

“The reason I’m here is my loyalty to the line of Papodopoulos,” he explained. “That doesn’t mean I disagree with what Gordon Alecto intends to do. And if you are who she says you are, you might agree as well.”

“I know only that he plans to revive an old god. Why don’t you help me better understand that decision?”

Ariadne shot Hippo a look and sighed. “Go ahead.”
 

“He is reinventing the Mysteries,” he explained.

“Reinventing how?”

“Into something more meaningful for the satyros. It was our line that kept the Mysteries alive all these centuries. Gordon would take us back to our roots. You saw for yourself how far we have strayed from our origins.”

“So you would do what? Divest your worldly possessions, shed your clothes and live off the land? I don’t think that’s possible anymore.” And we’re all better off for it. I complain from time to time about the lack of a genuine forest to visit, and I do feel the loss, but at the same time, living off the land kind of sucks.

“This is true,” Hippos agreed. “Which is why he is seeking the help from the old gods. The forests of the world are dying. Only they can help.”

I glanced at Ariadne. “He’s kidding.”

“No, that’s about right,” she said, a slight smile on her face.

“The Greeks called them nymphs,” Hippos added helpfully. “They were our gods before we came out of the woods.”

“Duh-ryadyh,” I said.

Hippos looked surprised. “In the archaic tongue, yes. Dryads. Wood nymphs.”

Before I had an opportunity to react appropriately to this, a high-pitched scream echoed through the valley.

Ariadne jumped. “What was that?”

“Staphus,” Hippos said, leaping to his feet. “That sounded like Staphus.”

“Put out the fire!” I started throwing snow on the fire as quickly as I could, not bothering to put my gloves back on first.

“What are you doing?” Ariadne asked. “Stop that!”

I ignored her and kept digging for more snow. The fire was smoking, but didn’t appear to be going anywhere.

“What could have happened to him?” Hippos asked.

“Staphus is dead, ambassador,” I said. “Now help me put out the fire.”

“Hippos!” Ariadne called. He finally noticed what I was doing.

“We need the fire, you fool!” he said, stepping in front of me. “Have you gone mad?”

“Actually, no, I’m the only sane one here.” I got to my feet to meet him face to chin. “Your ancestors didn’t
worship
the gods of the wood, you ignorant Athenian.”

To call a satyr an Athenian was a greater insult than referring to one as ignorant. In the old days, the satyros who left the forest and established a life in the city were looked down upon. Hence, it didn’t happen all that often.

“What do you know of it!” he roared, and for a second I thought he was about to hit me.

“Do you know what the gods were to the satyros?” I asked. “They were terrible things. Things that were so terrible the old tribes—your ancestors—feared them like they feared no other thing on this earth.”

Hippos looked a bit less certain. “I don’t believe you,” he insisted.

“It doesn’t matter if you do or not. But what you do need to believe, right now, is that there is something out there that is not afraid of us. The fire is a beacon.”

He looked off in the middle distance, expecting, I suppose, for Staphus to walk into the camp and explain that he’d been frightened by a bunny, and was sorry for the gut-wrenching scream.