Shadows on the Aegean (11 page)

“What are you researching for Spiralmaster?” Phoebus asked as they walked to the north bridge.

“You remember his elixir?”

“Aye, his eternal project.” Phoebus smiled at the Scholomance pun for Spiralmaster’s obsession.

“His eternity project,” Niko corrected. “Aye, well, he is convinced there is a secret ingredient.”

“That he will find in the library? What is it, dust?”

Niko’s gaze was solemn. “Nay. Something our forefathers knew and we forgot. I’m looking for it.”

“That means you are reading every scroll, every tablet?”

“Aye. Every one.”

Phoebus slapped him on the back. “You are too dedicated, my friend.” He stopped. The bridge, carefully wrought from woven
metal, cording, and enormous
ari-kat
stone pylons, stood before them. Narrowing his eyes, Phoebus turned to the left, the edge of the cliff approximately eight
hundred cubits above Theros Sea.

What mischief was Dion up to this time? Then they saw it, a square of white floating in the air between the tip of Kallistae
and Aztlan. “By the stones of Apis,” Niko breathed. The men ran, joining a few Scholomancers and one of the head instructors,
Daedalus.

Suspended between heaven and earth in a cradle amidst wings of flax and bone, Dion floated. Niko and Phoebus watched as gusts
of wind coming through the channel carried him higher and higher. “How will he get down?” Niko asked. Pretending not to hear
or ignoring him, Daedalus laughed as the inheritor to the Clan of the Vine rose upward in his air sail.

“What do we tell Sibylla if he gets hurt?” Niko whispered.

Phoebus blanched. Though Sibylla was exquisite and blessed by Kela, her temper rivaled that of Ileana. Sibylla had rescued
Dion from a cave of wolves, where
Hreesos
had hidden him after Ileana had killed his mother. The two were the same age and almost inseparable, though not linked by
eros
. Sibylla would make them all eat wood if Dion were hurt.

“Pray the winds are gentle,” Niko said in response to his own question.

“We checked the omens of the wind priestess,” Daedalus said, twisting his Labyrinth key pendant. “She does not fear for him.”

Phoebus and Niko exchanged dubious glances.

A bigger group was gathering on the cliff’s edge. Word had spread that Dion was in the air, and groups of women from all over
the two islands clustered for a chance to see him.

“Phoebus, my master!”

The Rising Golden turned at the cry and saw a palace serf running to him. Panting with exertion, the serf handed Phoebus a
tiny roll of paper. Niko met his glance questioningly. “Nestor. He’s in Egypt,” Phoebus reminded him. Carefully he unrolled
the note.

“Egypt barters. We will win. N”

“How goes it?” Niko asked quietly.

“Egypt still seeks to negotiate, but Nestor is certain of victory.”

“Is it necessary to rule Egypt, too?” Niko asked. His question was not meant personally or as a challenge, Phoebus knew. Niko
was a Scholomancer: he viewed every situation from each known angle, then two more.

“Egypt rules the Nile. They have honored their agreement to stay off the seas, but we need Egyptian grain. The clans cannot
continue to support us completely. The soil is losing its strength. We will deplete it if we are not careful.”

“Caphtor doesn’t provide enough?”

“Not once she’s fed her own, nay.”

“So how goes the plan?”

Phoebus sighed, squinting up to see Dion’s tiny figure, still floating in slow circles. It was rather nauseating to watch.
Phoebus was glad
he
wasn’t floating up there merely on flax and the word of a priestess. “Nestor has threatened invasion if they don’t send a
fifty percent tribute on produce, grains, and cattle.”

“Is not Egypt suffering a famine?”

Phoebus shrugged. “That is what rumor says, but it is Egypt! They have so much space—”

“Not much water, Phoebus.”

“Actually, too much water, from reports I’ve heard. Anyway, those are Nestor’s demands.”

“What will he settle for?”

Phoebus looked at his friend. “Bulls.”

“Aye, your rituals,” Niko said, understanding.

The wind died suddenly and the craft dropped. The crowd gasped in unison, watching as Dion and his contraption fell below
the level of the cliff. A moment before he hit the water, a gust of wind buffeted him upward. As the onlookers peeked over
the edge of the cliff, Daedalus commanded the Scholomancers to prepare a launch to retrieve Dion should he land in Theros
Sea. The wind pulled Dion back up, and Niko spoke as though nothing had happened.

“Have we always gotten the Apis bulls from Egypt?”

“Aye.”

They watched in silence as Dion floated level with the edge of the cliff, only ten cubits away. “How is it?” Phoebus shouted.
Dion’s mouth moved, but his words were torn away by the wind. They were close enough to see each other’s face, and Phoebus
smiled as Dion shouted mutely, careening suddenly away from the safety of the islands, above the open sea.

“But we have always paid for them before?”

“What?” Phoebus asked. His clan brother’s figure was getting smaller and smaller.

“The bulls, we’ve always paid before?”

“Aye. We’ve paid well: gold, animals, Coil Dancers, stones. We offer tokens this time.” Phoebus ran a shaky hand through his
blond hair. “Dion seems to be on an unfriendly wind.”

“You don’t think the wind priestess would be wrong, do you?” Niko focused in the distance where the speck of white floated
above the blue sea. “If Sibylla really does have direct communication to Kela, let us hope she is interceding now.” Two water
craft, minuscule compared to the expanse of the sea, sailed swiftly after the runaway Dion. “Have you heard rumors of blessed
stones?”

Phoebus watched, his forehead damp, wondering how to get Dion back. Niko’s tendency to change the topic was sometimes bewildering.
“Blessed how?”

“Direct communication with a mighty god.”

He turned to his friend. “What?”

Niko shrugged. “I have found oblique references to such stones in some of the older writings.”

“Is this the thing you are seeking in the library? What do they do?”

Niko shrugged. “You ask them questions and they speak.”

“Speaking stones? Niko, you jest. A child’s myth—”

“Nay. These stones let you talk directly to a powerful god. Just think, you could ask anything and learn the truth. You would
know when was a safe time to engage battle, or if a storm were brewing, what fields to leave fallow, who is untruthful… There
would be no more guesswork.”

Phoebus frowned. “We would be as children, always asking the permission of a parent.”

“Phoebus, Spiralmaster could ask this deity what else belongs in the elixir.”

Back to the elixir. Spiralmaster was an old man; perhaps his mind was beginning the final journey without him, Phoebus thought.

“Look!” Niko shouted.

Dion had caught an updraft and soared above the cliff. The crowd scattered and the vessel twisted, as though in a giant grasp.
With a ripping noise that echoed over the cliffs, Dion fell to earth, lost in his flax wings.

He landed with a thud, and the waiting dozens ran to him. Scholomancers pulled the cloth away and helped him stand. He listed
to one side and was instantly supported by a young woman, her painted breasts heaving with excitement. “It worked!” he shouted,
and the Scholomancers cheered.

Phoebus and Niko pushed through the crowd. Dion’s face was alive, his dark eyes purged of ennui. “How did you bring it down?”
Niko asked, looking at the mangled sail on the ground.

“I used a cord, designed to tear the sail enough that I could control descent.” Dion winced as he stepped on his left foot.
“Somewhat, anyway.” The nymph was running her hands over his body, checking for damage in places that bore no chance of injury.
A path cleared for Daedalus, and Dion pushed the nymph away, embracing his partner in design. Niko knelt on the ground, inspecting
the understructure, a cleverly woven basket of bird bones, hewn to be lightweight and fixed with wax.

The group began to make its way to the palace, Dion in a riding chair carried by the Scholomancers, Daedalus speaking to a
group of students that trailed his saffron-and-blue geometric-patterned robes, clinging to his every word.

Niko and Phoebus walked toward the rear, where the nymphs and young men flirted back and forth. The moment was near perfection,
Phoebus thought, a synthesis of all that Aztlan could and should be.

If only Irmentis could be with him. In the sunlight—here—in flesh and spirit. He thought of her, asleep in her dark catacombs.
Tonight he would not see her. It was a full moon, and she danced with the women on the hills, and with Dion. He was the only
man who dared to learn the women’s mysteries.

Phoebus made a mental note to send Irmentis more of the potion he had made her. He’d even given it her sacred throne name.
Artemisia. At least the green milky fluid could ease the pains that often gripped her. Insensible, yet suffering, she would
stare into the distance, frozen like a doe. Did her spirit journey? He thought not; it seemed more likely that she was trapped
in the grips of some violent
skia
.

Phoebus clenched his teeth. If only he could be close to her, really close. She should be his consort,
she
should be the Queen of Heaven. Arousal flowed through his veins; deliberately he focused on something else. Lusting after
Irmentis was as much an element of his existence as Eumelos was his son. She alone truly knew him. She saw beyond the “Golden”
to the shadows that dwelt with him. She knew his fears for Aztlan, his worry that the empire was outgrowing itself.

She shared his sick sense that the Clan Olimpi had become less than glorious. Only with her could he share the omens he’d
seen and heard. She would watch him, with dark, knowing eyes, eyes that made him want to flee into her body and soul, to share
that part of herself she kept for the moon alone. He wanted her for his queen. She could easily win against Ileana, why did
she not try?

His
eros
love was also
pothos
—Irmentis was for Phoebus the most valuable of prizes. He must win her; he wanted her more than anything, even more than
his throne.

Niko wandered off to the library when they returned to the palace. He offered no farewell, and Phoebus knew his mind was already
on the dusty leather-and-gold folded tablets, on scrolls. Greeting cousins and citizens on his way to the Scholomance, Phoebus
decided to visit the Spiralmaster.

The Scholomance was built at right angles to the palace. The rooms for the six thousand students and instructors were constructed
along narrow, dark corridors that ended at staircases that also served as light wells. Huge porticos supported with red columns,
the walls painted in the fluid style of Aztlan, bordered every side. The largest covered balcony housed the instructors’ suites,
each side open to sunlight. The instructors taught from the comfort of their couches or chairs, the students attending them,
reciting and repeating the wisdom of Aztlan until it was theirs.

The Scholomance was reserved for Aztlan’s brightest clansmen and -women. Intent on exploring every aspect of life in the mind
and body, the Scholomance had created the astronomical pavement of the Daedaledion in Knossos and collected an extensive menagerie
on Aztlan Island. No clan distinctions existed within the Scholomance; all of its adepts became Clan of the Spiral.

Education, like most things in Aztlan, was a dance. This dance led through the labyrinth of the mind. One set of steps formed
by rote and ritual complemented another set composed of imagination and experimentation. The same steps executed from differing
angles produced two utterly different dances. Agility, suppleness, strength of body and mind were required with both. This
versatility and elegance of thought characterized the mind of a Scholomancer.

Phoebus and Niko had met in the Scholomance when they were five summers old. From the first they had been close. Phoebus,
aware of his destiny even then, had been suffering over the loss—the murder—of his mother and the separation from his clan
sister, Irmentis. Niko had been painfully shy. His natural curiosity was winning out against the protective shield he’d worn
for his earliest years against his instinctive realization that he was not like the other clan children.

The Rising Golden flattened himself against the wall as a group of children raced past, screaming and pushing. The walkways
were narrow and open. A fall to the ground would be fatal, yet boys Eumelos’ age ran on, oblivious of the danger. Older scholars
sat along the wall, drank wine, and argued. A Scholomancer would debate any topic at any time; the purpose was to learn how
to turn a problem around and find the solution hidden within.

Phoebus stepped into the darkened room of his mentor. The old man was nowhere about, so Phoebus went to the painting of a
door, pressed the hidden catches behind a panel in the correct pattern, and waited as it opened slowly. Spiralmaster was in
his lab.

The smells of
al-khem
wafted up the stairs, burning Phoebus’ eyes and throat. He walked carefully in the near darkness. The steps were worn smooth
and he had fallen before, his leather sandals sliding out from him. Landing in an undignified heap at Imhotep’s door had been
a humiliating way to start the day. Phoebus held on to the railing.

Unlike the wide, square staircases of the outer rooms, this one coiled around in on itself. True to his title, Spiralmaster
was a master of every tool, technique, skill, and discipline ever pursued at the Scholomance. His skills were as intercoiled,
complex, and mysterious as the inside of a shell.

Phoebus paused outside the door, straightening his attire. Spiralmaster was also fastidious.

“Enter, Rising One!” Spiralmaster called. “How I loathe when you are indecisive! There is work to do!”

Phoebus pushed open the door, and the Spiralmaster turned to him. Though he labored in the service of
Hreesos
and Aztlan, the Spiralmaster had been born Egyptian. Myth said that his ancestor, the first great Imhotep, had been birthed
in a tumultuous time for Aztlan. He’d stolen Aztlan’s secrets of
al-khem
and used them to wheedle his way into the court of Pharaoh Khufu.