Shadows on the Aegean (29 page)

Nay.

Nay.

Nay.

“What can we do to save our people?” he asked rhetorically, throwing the stones. They clattered repeatedly. What did that
mean,
eee?

Numbness stole his breath and pain squeezed his head. Imhotep’s hand went slack, the stones sliding across the painted floor
in two directions, the imprinted letters dancing on the tiles.

“F-L-E-E!”

Y’
CARUS MOVED STIFFLY ACROSS THE SLOPING DECK
. Without thought he helped raise the sail, the nearby conversations and timekeeper’s drum low throbs against his pain.
Neotne
. Just saying her name was like the scrape of a blade. He looked across the sea. Though it was far away, the vision of the
smoldering island was clear in his head.

As though a giant had cleaved it with a blade from above, Delos Island was torn in half. Where once the main street had run
past the shops of weavers, dyers, and merchants, now a deep, jagged hole, half-filled with houses and bodies, cut through
town. Lashed to flood levels by the sea, the river had submerged those who did not die in the quake.

Or in the fires.

Y’carus shook his head in absentminded agreement with some lesser Mariner’s inquiry, the man’s words lost in Y’carus’ memory
of the lava flows. Like uncoiling serpents, streams of molten rock had slithered from the peak to the shore. When Y’carus
had first heard of the eruption, he’d pushed himself, his ship, and his crew to the farthest reaches of their endurance.

Still, he had arrived too late.

They’d landed on the island at night, shocked silent by the view of the mountain, glowing red and black like the wood of a
banked fire. They couldn’t get to the shore; the harbor was clogged with debris, including bodies.

With a small rowboat he’d landed, commanding his men to pick up any survivors and take them to safety on the neighboring island
of Paros. Y’carus couldn’t help but think the safest place of all was the sea. The islands were suspect now; friend or foe?

Past sea skirmishes had not prepared him for the sights of destruction and loss. Though lava had ceased to flow, it covered
everything, so hot that the hairs on his legs were singed from walking by it.

Shapes bulged out from the mixture of mud and rock. Y’carus could make out the forms of women and children—caught in the savage
rush to the sea. The stink of roasted meat hung in the air. Above it all was silence.

Nothing lived in this once crowded city.

He’d gone toward the house of his bloodparents, but he could not get close. The building was indiscernible from another dozen
like it. All of them had been flattened, moved, and submerged by heated earth. Y’carus roamed past lush green gardens now
buried under glowing red rocks; a river silted motionless by ash and debris. He stumbled silently, hurting so badly that he
could do no more than put one foot before the other.

After his search he walked to the tip of the island, the last spot of green—the meeting point with his ship.

The few who’d survived the horror were gathered there. Most were naked, some burned so badly that they glistened as though
covered in oil or grape juice. These people were dying slowly, their mouths, tongues, and throats so burned, they could scarcely
breathe and swallow. One person, he couldn’t identify gender, had rasped, “Thirsty, thirsty, thirsty.” When Y’carus brought
water from a nearby well the person had choked on it and died in Y’carus’ arms.

He tightened the appropriate ropes, his thoughts on Arachne. Help had arrived from the empire—a belated sacrifice of men and
material. Four ships of fleeing survivors had made it to Naxos, Clan of the Vine, nearby, and another three shiploads of Arachne
survivors had been pulled from the sea.

No dyers among them.

Y’carus answered questions from the crew, doing his tasks while inside he smoldered just as the city now did.
Hreesos
Zelos had declared the clan dead—for certainly the sheep, the looms, the ships, and most of the citizens who worked them
were dead. And that was that. Thousands were lost, and the empire tallied, weighed, and sailed past. Now it appeared the island
was falling into the sea. His precious Neotne, encased in a sarcophagus of angry rock, would sink beneath the waves.

The Scholomance must have realized the eruption was coming. The Cult of the Snake oracles must have known! Obviously neither
cared about a small clan—not enough to warn the clansmen.

He pulled out his blade, polishing the bronze with the edge of his cloak. The empire was falling. It had forsaken him. He’d
spent his life at sea, trusting that the empire would care for his family while he was away, protect his loved ones even as
Y’carus protected the empire.

He had been deceived.

“Master?”

Y’carus looked up. His second in command stood next to a tall man whose features were nearly indistinguishable beneath a covering
of ash. Poor shipwrecked fools, he thought.

“Who are you?” he asked.

The man frowned slightly, then spoke in broken Aztlantu. He introduced himself as Cheftu, an Egyptian guest. Y’carus called
for the fleet log and saw that Cheftu had been on one of the three boats sailing to Kallistae from Egypt. A guest? Y’carus
realized the man was a hostage.

“The Apis bulls, they were drowned?” he asked.

It took the Egyptian a moment to reply.

“Send a swallow, find out if the other two shipments arrived,” Y’carus instructed his scribe. “I am Y’carus, commander of
this ship,” he said. “Welcome.”

The Egyptian bowed in his foreign way, and Y’carus began to move away.

“My … master,” the Egyptian said.

“Aye?”

“This ash, do you know where the eruption was?”

Y’carus looked away, blinking rapidly. “Aye.”

“Are there survivors? I am a mage, a physician.”

His Aztlantu was painful to listen to, but he seemed earnest.

“Those who lived are beyond aid. In the end, there will be no … survivors.”

“I am sorry,” he said in Egyptian, one of the few phrases Y’carus knew. “Did you have family there?”

“I did.”

The two men stared at each other, then turned away. The Egyptian made his way to the prow, and Y’carus called after him, “Egyptian,
you will dine with me tonight.” The man made his funny bow again, and Y’carus turned back to the business of sailing. He checked
his log.

Knossos tomorrow, the Greeting Kela Ceremony.

W
AS SHE SLEEPING OR AWAKE
? The room was dark, and for a moment Chloe was afraid, disoriented. However, there was no sense of oppression here as in
the cave. Something brushed her waist, and she turned sharply. Her hair? A mass of curls hung down her back. She leaned against
a wall, struggling to get her bearings.

Sharing a body with Sibylla was like trying to control a Chinese dragon, Chloe thought. One person could see out the front,
the rest had to follow and trust the consciousness in command. When Sibylla was in control, Chloe saw only bits and pieces,
not a complete picture. She was glad they had come to a “driving” agreement.

Hearing noises outside her chamber, Chloe fumbled for clothing. Clumsily she lit the alabaster oil lamp. A skirt hung on a
peg on the wall, and Chloe slipped it over her head, shimmying so it fell to her waist. It was a riot of pattern, five ruffled
tiers, each different, though in the same saffron-and-crimson color scheme. A jacket, the sleeves padded so that they were
stiff and very fitted, hung next to the skirt. Chloe slipped it on. It wouldn’t meet in the middle. The elbow-length sleeves
fit, the waist was in the proper place, but it tied
beneath
her breasts. No coverage.

She stared at her breasts and suddenly knew this was normal. Breasts were not erotic, they were nursing bottles. Her back
and shoulders,
they
were sexy. Breasts, no. A red leather belt wrapped twice around her waist and tied in back.

Her hair was everywhere, long, curly strands caught in her clothing and in her mouth. She felt like a molting bird. Spitting
out her errant hair, she picked up the heavy pendant that hung between her very bare breasts.

Her mind felt clearer than it had since she’d woken in Sibylla’s body, she realized as she read the symbols easily. She was
Sibylla Sirsa Olimpi, chieftain of the Clan of the Horn, born in the Season of the Snake … the equivalent of December 23.
Chloe felt chilled. The symbols on the disk looked vaguely familiar, even from her modern perspective.

Very familiar. She’d seen them on her mother’s desk her entire life. They covered a duplicate of the Phaistos disk, an as
yet undeciphered clue about the pre-Greek culture in Crete and Santorini.

Chloe sat down, her head with its wealth of black curls in her hands.

This was unbelievable. Was she dreaming? Sir Arthur Evans had discovered the palace of Knossos and named the wisps of culture
he found there after Greek mythology. Her own mother had worked on one of their ash-covered towns.

Minoans
.

Mom’s specialization. The mysterious, lost race of the Aegean.

Chloe snapped up, grabbing the oil lamp with trembling hands and pacing the perimeter of the room. Where was she? This wasn’t
Santorini, that was certain. So it must be Crete? “Oh God, Mom, why didn’t I pay more attention,” she muttered.

In modern Crete she’d gone shopping and wind surfing while the rest of the family hung out in the museum and the archaeological
sites. She’d never been to Knossos before. It was no surprise if she didn’t recognize it. Was this Knossos?

Setting the lamp down before she dropped it and made the question moot, Chloe racked her brain. Her mother’s specialty was
Santorini. She’d been working there when she met Chloe’s father.

Someone knocked and Chloe froze, staring at the door.

“My mistress?”

“Enter,” she called with Sibylla’s understanding of the language. A nymph came into the room. Her costume was similar to Chloe’s,
though not as finely crafted, and her skirt had only three tiers. She held her arms at right angles to her body, then bent
at the elbow for right angles again.

“The sun rises, mistress. Kela comes!”

Chloe listened intently for a clue from Sibylla, but the voice was silent. Was she asleep? I could use some hints, Chloe thought.
Like what the hell do I do? Priestess ritual stuff is your job!

Nothing.

The girl repeated her strange salute and held the door open. Presumably for Chloe—Sibylla—whoever I am, Chloe thought. The
hallway was so narrow and dark, she could barely see the edge of the girl’s skirt. Then light flooded them and Chloe looked
up. They stood at the edge of a huge staircase, the roof above cut through so a well of light fell to the bottom floor. While
the rooms and corridors had been plain, this chamber was not.

Chloe looked around as unobtrusively as possible. Pattern on pattern on pattern on pattern. It was like a Todd Oldham visual
cacophony in a four-color palette: spirals, squares, circles, diamonds, and stars. A painted procession of life-size gift
bearers walked down the steps with them, carrying fruit and grain, boxes filled with spices, rhytons with wine. Punctuating
the artwork were piano-legged columns in red, black, and gold.

Chloe swayed. She knew that column! A thousand images crowded in her mind: an interior design class examining the columns
of ancient people. “In Crete we find the first examples of many design motifs. First, they crafted a piano-leg-style column
that had a simplistic capital and base. They also are the first civilization who used the wave, the Greek key, and various
other repeating designs. The main color scheme of goldenrod, carnelian, and Mars black was probably inspired by the building
materials available to them.”

She was a Minoan!

A refrain of “Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod” followed her until they reached the ground floor. Chloe had to stifle an astonished
whistle. The room was enormous, brilliantly colored pattern covering every inch of the place: floor, roof, doorways. Paintings
were featured on each wall, framed in black and red.

People milled about, handsome men in very brief kilts with long hair, women, also with long hair, in the same costume as Chloe.
Most wore high-heeled sandals. The scents of perfume, sweat, and cooking permeated the room, and Chloe was grateful to follow
the nymph out into a garden.