Shadows on the Aegean (27 page)

This couldn’t be the future, Sibylla thought. It couldn’t be her land.

Tell them
.

Let me go! Sibylla cried. Leave me alone.

Tell them
.

She opened her eyes to an audience of wide-eyed, openmouthed women.

The cave was too close. She needed air, she had to breathe. Pushing her way through the women, stumbling over the clay votives
of birds, bulls, butterflies, and men, Sibylla fled through the cavern.

For an eyeblink she hesitated on the threshold, terrified that her vision was reality.

Sunlight blinded her, and she rubbed her eyes, looking around.

Green fields, the cry of a father to his daughter, the muted bleating of sheep.

Sibylla fell to her knees, shaking.

Relief or fear?

B
ELIEF WAS MORE DIFFICULT FOR
N
IKO
when two days later he was still stranded. He walked along the shoreline, picking through driftwood and blocks of pumice
in search of usable material. If he could just find a big enough piece of wood, he could hew a boat.

Provided he could find a blade, he amended.

Other pieces of the clansmen’s lives had washed up: metal pots, linen sheeting, even a broken table. Try as he might, Niko
could not recall where this island was in relation to Arachne. His tablet did not appear.

The stones were stowed safely in their box, silent once distance separated them. Still, in his mind he could hear the stones
turning. Don’t turn too much, he thought. You are needed for important questions.

If you are going to save me, he told the god irritably, please make it soon. I have done what I came to do; I am ready to
leave.

So engrossed was he in searching the horizon for a ship and the shore for wood that he missed the sound. He attributed it
to an animal or the waters themselves. A sound, a cry of pain, separated itself from the rush of the water, pulling him to
awareness. Niko turned, trying to isolate the direction. There! Another cry!

Niko ran down the beach, following the sound, which grew louder with every step. He almost tripped over what he thought was
a large black stone.
A woman
. Her body was badly burned: long singed hair shielded part of her body as she rolled back and forth, moaning. She must be
in agony.

“Mistress?” Niko reached out toward her, recoiling when he saw her face. Lava burns. By the stones of Apis, was she dying?
Her whole eye was glazed with fever, the other burned shut. Niko hoped his Scholomance education would be enough. When he
lifted her into his arms, she screamed as her blistered skin pressed against him. She thrashed violently, upsetting his balance
and tumbling them both into the surf.

Water washed over her. She didn’t move. Ignoring her wounds, Niko turned her over, pounding the center of her back until she
sputtered and coughed. He carried her to the clearing.

He dribbled fresh water into her mouth and tried to rinse her wounds. More than half of her body was scorched, as though she
had been laid onto a sheet of scalding lava for just a few moments. One arm crossed her chest, her hand protected beneath
her opposite arm. Despite his efforts, Niko could not get her to remove it. Fever gave her strength and she curled up, ripping
at the sores swelling on her side and front.

After spending countless gray decans fighting her fever, Niko realized he had spent more time with this injured woman than
he had with anyone in his life. He estimated she was younger than he, judging from what remained of her features. He tried
to guess what she had looked like. She’d been a dyer, her hand was blue. Had she once been pretty? She never would be again.
He traced one finger over an arched brow, down the healthy half of her face, circling a round cheek and dimple, feeling sorrow
for her. Would it have been better to let her die?

On Niko’s fifth night on the island, her fever soared. He soaked his kilt in an icy well and draped it over her, but her fever
dried it faster than he could wet it. Stars were out when he fell asleep at her side, only to awaken from the heat of her
body.

Half-awake, Niko carried her to the stream. He laid her in the shallows, holding her shoulders steady as the icy water flowed
over her body. When he was shivering and sniffling, he pulled her back out, relieved that her body felt cooler. Lying her
on the stone-paved ground, he poured bucket after bucket of cold water over her until she was shivering and chilled.

Afraid he’d gone too far, Niko bundled her in some of the linens he’d found on the beach and held her close. Her body had
become as familiar to him as his own, and he was filled with a sensation he’d never felt before. She was his. He’d found her,
restored her, she belonged to him. Cradling her to his side, he lay down.

“Master Niko?”

Was he dreaming? Niko moved but felt weight holding him down. His arm was numb. “Master Niko?” the voice repeated. Niko’s
throat felt as though he’d dined on sand, and he swallowed gingerly before opening his eyes.

Mariners. They stood politely in a circle around him with their pressed green kilts and clean hair blowing in the wind. His
ship must have freed birds before they went down, so the Mariners knew where to search. Niko was very conscious of being naked.
The cool, soft body next to him made him very aware of his own body. “Her fever!” he croaked, rolling the woman flat on her
back, peeling his kilt off her. “It is down!”

She was still asleep, but her body felt cooler and her wounds were weeping. “Sheets,” he commanded one of the Mariners. “Wine.
Herbs.” He noticed the men look away from her damaged face and body. “Contact Spiralmaster, she will need immediate care.”

“She will have to wait, master,” a Mariner said. “We are treating the survivors, the few there are, of Delos first.”

“She is mine. That gives her precedence.” The Mariner didn’t argue and another gave Niko sheets. Gingerly he wrapped her,
then gave her drink. Despite his exhaustion Niko would not allow anyone else to carry her. Once aboard he remembered the stones.

Back at the clearing, he found the box where he had left it, the white and black stones safe inside. He couldn’t risk dropping
the box in the sea or someone stealing it. He ripped the hem of his kilt, then tied one palm-size stone into each side of
the makeshift sash and wrapped it around his waist. The stones thudded against his thighs as he walked, but they didn’t turn.
The boat was already in the shallows, crowded with the survivors of the Clan of the Muse. Niko pulled himself onto the deck
as the Mariners rowed to the ship. The blue-purple sail of Aztlan caught the wind, taking them home.

THE GREAT GREEN

T
HE RUSH OF WAVES WOKE HIM
, and Cheftu jerked alert. A northwestern, cutting wind pulled at the ship. He tightened his kilt and lurched toward the mast.
Lightning struck in the distance, and he could see the white froth of angry, churning waves. Thunder sounded around them,
and Cheftu held on to the ropes as he made his way back to his scarce possessions.

He sank down on the deck, wincing at his sore leg, clutching his cloak around him. The waves rocked the ship, and lightning
flashed again. The sailors’ shouts carried on the wild wind that whipped first from the west, then from the north, pushing
them farther away from Aztlan. From their direction, due north, he guessed this mysterious kingdom was close to Greece; maybe
it even was Greece. He’d never heard of Aztlan, except when he was in Hatshepsut’s Egypt. This clothing, this language, none
of it was familiar. He shivered.

Cheftu doubted they would arrive within five days, as the captain had claimed. The captain of the
Krybdys
had chosen to sail directly across the Great Green from Egypt to Caphtor, then on to Aztlan. Nestor and his shipment of cattle
were out of sight, aboard the
Cybella
.

Sailing across the Great Green in wintertime was unheard of in Egypt. The few times the Egyptians sailed at all, they always
stayed within sight of land. The Arabs, Turks and Greeks of Cheftu’s century did the same, tacking up the coast of the Holy
Land, then over to Turkey and into the Aegean Sea. The winds were too unpredictable, too many people had died on the Mediterranean
in the winter. Most ships docked until spring.

The Aztlantu sailed the sea year round, the feat that made them a powerful, intimidating thalassocracy. Water splashed Cheftu,
cold in sudden twilight. He huddled in his cloak, staring at the grayish substance sifting down from the sky. Warm and gray.

He’d seen this before.

Cheftu closed his eyes, reliving the pain and pleasure of that moment.
He and Chloe, together on their wedding couch, savoring the newness of each other. Skin sliding on skin, their mingled scents
… then the knock at the door and his loyal slave holding out a handful of this stuff. A powder was falling, he’d said, causing
weeping wounds
.

Volcanic ash.

Cheftu blinked as his vision became flat, filled with the falling gray. He could feel it accumulating on the deck around his
sandal-shod feet. It retained a small element of heat, and he heard the Mariners mumbling among themselves. They had quickly
adjusted their shields so that the rowers were protected.

He wished he understood Aztlantu.

Soon he was pressed into service, helping to clear the deck so the weight of the ash didn’t send them to the bottom of the
sea. It was too dense to see, and Cheftu blindly scooped and threw—over the side, he hoped. The wind was so loud, licking
the ash into dervishes, that he could hear nothing.

Except the crack of wood shattering as the mast was struck by lightning.

The thunder masked the cries of sailors crushed beneath the flaming upper mast. Fire consumed the wooden ship in a terrible
frenzy. They were going down.

Tongues of flame engulfed the deck, and the wind carried away both cries and commands. Cheftu looked around for escape. The
rest of the mast fell, creating a curtain of fire dividing the ship and casting a hellish glow on the screaming sailors and
tossing waves. Men jumped overboard, their bodies living torches. Others hacked away madly at the wooden planks. Cheftu grabbed
his bitumen-covered reed trunk.