Shadows on the Aegean (37 page)

Imhotep hardly dared to breathe.

“But when you began to ignore the divine laws within you, and your base nature gained the upper hand, you then, being unable
to bear your fortune, behaved unseemingly, and grew visibly debased, for you are losing the fairest of your precious gifts;
and to those who have no eye to discern true happiness, you appear glorious and blessed at the very time when you are full
of avarice and unrighteous power.”

“How can you say these things? What do you know?”

“They were revealed to me. Warnings have fallen on deaf ears repeatedly. I am but another cautionary word from a
Pateeras
who seeks your best future,” he said, inclining his head.

Pain seized Spiralmaster’s skull, a vise tightening over his ears and temples. He held out his shaking hand. “Put on the tiles!
Quickly! Type what I say! I have waited for you!” The Egyptian placed the tiles on his fingers. “The swallow,” Imhotep said.
It took the man a moment to find it, but he did, pressing it firmly into the clay. “The leopard skin.” The Egyptian found
one tile. “Nay! That is the bear skin. The leopard skin,” Laboriously Cheftu typed in the remaining few symbols needed for
the disk.

“Where did you come from?” Spiralmaster whispered. He could feel his lungs congesting.

“Egypt.”

He looked at the man more closely. “Where did you truly come from?”

The Egyptian’s expression faltered, and he spoke slowly, as if realizing the words as he said them. “I am a student of the
Scholomance’s legacy.”

“Be certain the library is saved,” Imhotep said. Loss of the knowledge was his worst fear. “We are a rotting corpse in Aztlan,
only our bones will tell our story. Help me to my couch.”

The Egyptian’s hands were sure as he led the Spiralmaster to lie down. He gave him some water, checking for temperature, swelling.
His questions were intelligent, but so misguided. “This is how it strikes,” the Spiralmaster wheezed. “The body does not rally.
Where did you learn Aztlantu?”

“I do not know it,” he said defensively.

“Then what are you speaking?” The color drained from the man’s face. Imhotep chortled. Aye, this was the one. As Spiralmaster
he had no more time. Already delirium ate at his mind. “Take the disk and guard it with your life. It carries the answers,”
he gasped out around his pain. His throat was closing, and he felt his lungs stretching for air, even as his legs began spasming.
“It will be a sign that you are the new Spiralmaster, inheritor to the Clan of the Spiral.”

“My master—”

“Help us outlive the prophecy, survive these trials. Save Aztlan from ignominious destruction. We are dancing into our graves.”

“What prophecy? Who will believe me? I am a foreigner.”

Spiralmaster snapped weakly for a serf. “A quorum! Now!”

“My master, the brothers, chieftains Sibylla, Atenis, all are away at Naxos,” the serf said.

“Find everyone else. I need them here immediately,” Imhotep said, and Cheftu heard the metal of command in his voice.

He was speaking, understanding, Aztlantu? Cheftu shivered. He’d just started speaking, repeating the words flowing from the
scroll in his mind. He’d given no thought to language. What had made him quote Plato he didn’t know. His words to the citizens
of mythical Atlantis applied to this culture and time, even though Cheftu had read them three lifetimes ago.

Imhotep’s words finally penetrated. “Did, did you say Sibylla?” Cheftu asked, unable to help himself. Surely, please God,
in this scattered country Sibylla was a common name?

“Aye. Chieftain of the Clan of the Horns and an oracle, also.”

Mon Dieu
, please, no! Cheftu thought. She was the first, the only woman he had heartlessly
left
after loving. His stomach tightened, and he feared he would regret his behavior. “What prophecy?” he asked the aged man as
he rested.

“The prophecy of our downfall. Take the disk,” Spiralmaster whispered. “Never let it from your sight. The wisdom of this empire
is there.”

The next decans were a mist for Cheftu. He could not believe what he was doing, yet his intuition told him to do it, accept
the honor, the position, and responsibility Imhotep was offering.

He found himself on his knees, the Minos from the Cult of the Bull, the Kela-Ata from the Clan of the Snake, lame Talos from
the Clan of the Flame, and others gathered around him, watching with outraged eyes. “You are entrusted with the life, welfare,
and productivity of the Clan of the Spiral,” Imhotep whispered. “Their blood is yours; you are defender and cultivator, you
are mentor and chief. Seek the welfare of your people, your land, and the betterment of Aztlan.

“What say you, Cheftu Necht-mer, Clan of the Spiral?”

Someone handed Cheftu a blade, thick and black. Once his vow was made, he was linked to this land and people until he died.
Or until they did, he realized with sadness. As instructed, Cheftu drew his own blood, rubbing the blade on both sides, then
swiping Imhotep’s drooping mouth. “I swear to be defender and cultivator, I swear to be mentor and chief. I swear by the Spiral
and the Crab.”

He kissed the man’s blood-wet lips even as a scream echoed through the chamber.

“Nay!”

Everyone turned as a white-haired, lavender-eyed man ran in. He stopped short when he saw the stains on Cheftu’s and Imhotep’s
mouths. “Are you mad?” he yelled at the room. “I am the inheritor! I know Spiralmaster! This man, he is, he is …,” the towhead
sputtered, and Spiralmaster spoke softly.

“Niko, greet Cheftu, the new Spiralmaster.”

Cheftu watched as blood suffused the man’s face and chest, mottling his skin with rage and embarrassment. He shook his head
curtly at Cheftu. The clan seal’s new weight on Cheftu’s chest felt like lead when Niko knelt next to Imhotep’s couch. “It
was for me,” he whispered. “All these summers, that is what I thought.”

“Come away, Niko,” another man said. “It is Spiralmaster’s decision. You were never named inheritor.” The room emptied of
Council members quickly.

Imhotep laid a trembling hand on Niko’s shoulder. “We need new blood. New ideas, new perspectives. The Egyptian is an answer
to my prayers.”

Niko’s gaze met Cheftu’s, and Cheftu knew that the man hated him; if he had been promised this position and then had it taken
away by someone who could barely speak the language—but I
am
speaking the language, and understanding it, fluently, Cheftu thought.

Imhotep’s breath was racked and wheezing. His eyes went wild suddenly, his gaze unfocused, and he began to jerk and twitch.

“His journey begins,” Niko said in a voice thick with tears.
“Kalo taxidi,”
he whispered. Niko and Cheftu stared at the couch. Complete silence, no breathing. “He had changed and come to hate me, I
think,” Niko whispered. “Why? Why would he cut me so?”

Cheftu debated on what to say, on the wisdom of saying anything. “Often with the aged the shield of tact is thrown away and
they speak exactly what is on their mind.” He fingered the seal around his neck. Was that what Imhotep had done? Chosen Cheftu
just to hurt this young man? Nay, there was more at work here. He could sense it. “My sorrow for your loss.”

Leaning over the couch, Cheftu closed the old man’s eyes and frowned at his expression. Denial, anger, fear—forever carved
on his features. “Call Nekros,” Niko instructed the serf. Cheftu heard the door close and began to move the old man’s hands
into position for burial. After much prying, he was able to lay them flat. A stone fell from the deceased’s palm.

He laid it on the table, then continued to straighten in readiness for whoever prepared the bodies here. Leaving the quiet
room, he saw Niko, now standing in the dark hallway. “Go in and speak to him,” Cheftu said. “The dead need to hear the words
we need to say before their
kas
find security.” Shaking his head, Niko walked through the doors, closing them firmly behind him.

Cheftu could hear him crying. “Leave be,” he instructed the attendants. “Now we have time.” The serfs, clansmen, and Kela-Tenata
healing priestess left. Cheftu looked back at the door; but mourning should be done alone.

“Shall I take you to your laboratory, Spiralmaster?” a serf asked. Cheftu was startled, then realized he
was
Spiralmaster. He started to nod, then remembered to shake his head in assent.

N
IKO STARED INTO THE FACE
of the man who had been his father, his mentor, his guide, his idol. The man who had betrayed him, choosing another. Did
this Cheftu know the secrets of Aztlan? Did he know the formulae and the powers the Scholomancers controlled? “Why not me?”
Niko whispered to the face of the corpse. “What did I do wrong?”

Sitting back on the couch’s edge, Niko gazed around the room, then suddenly returned his attention to the table. The stone!
The new Spiralmaster knew nothing of the stones! Niko picked up the black stone and looked around frantically for the white
one. There! Under the edge of the couch. He had them both. They seemed to burn his hands.

The clansmen of the Stone soon entered to prepare Spiralmaster’s body. First an artisan sat down, laying a thin sheet of gold
on Imhotep’s face. He looked up at Niko. “Did Spiralmaster want to be interred on Paros or in the land of the pharaohs?”

They had discussed this many times, Niko recalled. Imhotep loved Aztlan, had spent his life with her, but his final request
was to join his forebears in a tomb in Egypt.

Niko smiled. “He requested an Aztlantu burial, but he wanted his body to be burned before interred.” The clansman was shocked
but turned back to his exacting work, fitting the sheet of gold to the man’s face, drawing his impressions of life from Imhotep’s
skin.

How does it feel to have your requests and needs and rights ignored? Niko thought, his fingers caressing the stones. Even
though the Spiralmaster had betrayed him, the Egyptian did not know about the stones. In spite of Imhotep’s wishes, Niko would
be inheritor of his power.

He quit the room; he needed to see Phoebus.

C
HLOE COULD DO NOTHING EXCEPT STARE
. She’d seen artwork by modern artists that looked like this—a swathe of gray, murky with hints of green and brown, laid over
the entire canvas in forbidding, all-encompassing strokes.

This was not art, however. This had once been an island. A beautiful place; she knew because she’d been rifling through Sibylla’s
memory again. Now—devastation. What the fire had not consumed, the mud had embalmed. The few high points that had been spared
were desolate islands in a sea of chaos.

How had anyone survived?

Chloe directed the few men she’d managed to bribe, cajole, or bully into assisting her. Apparently the ancients weren’t big
on recovery. Their reaction to disaster consisted of, “Oops! The gods got angry. Better leave it alone.” She shuddered when
she thought of the many people who were probably trapped, hoping to be rescued. Without her intervention, they would die with
that hope.

“Over there,” she said, pointing to a small, still existing cove. The silence was eerie as they stepped from the small boat
onto the shore. Using Sibylla’s memory, she could imagine where the areas of greatest need were. What remained of Demeter
was to her left. A tiny pass cut through the beach cliffs before her. She nudged her reluctant volunteers, and they agreed
to meet on the shore before dark. No one wanted to be here alone with the uninterred.

Taking the youngest man, actually named Thom, by the arm, she propelled him toward Demeter. The residents had erected what
appeared to be the prototype for an apartment building. Stacks of buildings housed families who hired themselves out to the
farmers farther inland.

As though cement had been poured over the whole scene, everything in Demeter was frozen in motion. The mud had had the effect
of stopping the action in freeze frame. Chloe shuddered as she looked at collapsed homes. Some areas had been flattened into
slabs of dried gray mud as impersonal as a foundation. Bodies, like half-carved statues, were gray coated and immobile, running,
ducking, lying down.