Shadows on the Aegean (38 page)

Shivering despite the sunshine, Chloe walked on, wishing she had a search dog. Of course, when she’d suggested this to the
clansmen, they had not understood. Apparently dogs were slightly above wolves on the karmic chain, and only Irmentis knew
how to control them. Man’s best friend had yet to be recognized. Chloe had given up hope of finding anyone alive when she
heard an animal chirp—a zoo sound.

A monkey?

They both stopped; in this shattered place the sound of life was eerie, uncanny. Thom was already calling for the monkey,
looking around for it. It would be able to seek out the living. Not as fuzzy as a dog, but it didn’t need walks, either. Chloe
marched to the first multistory dwelling, calling out. The mud had swept around it, drenching the fire that had been burning.
Parts of it were undamaged by fire or mud; were there survivors? Chloe called out.

“Me,” a thin voice responded, “help me …”

“Thom, here!” Chloe said, stepping toward the voice. Mud brick felt like concrete, and Chloe tested the charred wooden door
frame before stepping into the house. Shabby in any time, it smelled of urine and rancid grease. “Where are you?” she called
out.

“Me!” the voice said, and Chloe feared the owner was too far gone to be much assistance. It seemed to be coming from above
her. Biting her lip, she tried the stairs—so far, so good. She ran up them and found herself in a smoke-stained hallway. “I’m
coming!” she called out, listening for the voice to guide her. Don’t give up yet, Chloe thought.

She fumbled with one door, then the next. They were hard to open, the normal width of a door divided lengthwise to make sure
the two sections fit together. Fire and mud had swelled the wood, jamming the two parts together. Chloe threw her body weight
at the door closest to the whimpering voice.

Thom joined her, and they crashed into a room whose outside wall was burned away. Underneath the couch, open to the gray-blue
sky, was an old woman, wheezing and wide-eyed. Listening to her breathe, Chloe guessed she had a pierced lung or a broken
rib. As gently as they could, Chloe and Thom moved her on the top of the couch, then tied a linen to the window so they would
know where to find her when they returned.

Fortifying her with wine and bread, the two left again, hurrying this time, calling out to those who struggled beneath the
deadly ooze. Bodies were locked in action everywhere or charred bones poking through the gray ooze. Fire and mud, Chloe thought.
Dear God!

The sun was low. Among the eight of them, they had found twenty people. Hundreds of corpses, but only twenty people. The waters
had swept many away, the fires had taken thousands. Rescue efforts had not extended to the interior of the island where the
damage was worst. The bulk of the clanspeople would never be found.

Chloe relinquished her charges into the medical care of the Kela-Tenata on Paros and stumbled back to her ship, her mind swimming
with the image of a woman’s arm, waving above the sea of mud, down for the count, crying to heaven for help.

Not being answered.

She shivered and forced herself up the gangplank. Bed, she thought. I just want to slee—“Greetings, Sibylla.”

Chloe blinked, focusing on the man who sat regally in the center of her deck. Even through her exhaustion, Chloe’s body zinged.
He was gorgeous. Drop-dead, Calvin Klein underwear—model dazzling. Who was he?

The magnificent creature stepped to her and took her in his arms, nuzzling her neck and ear. “My poor Sib, you are exhausted!
How hard you have worked today. Let me relax you, Sib.” He kissed her cheeks, then her mouth, before holding her close. Chloe
prodded the sleeping Sibylla, Who is this?

“Do you feel me, Sib?”

Chloe’s eyes popped wide open. The man’s fragrance was musky, dark, and erotic, and her heart pounded. His voice was low pitched,
rumbling through her nerves like distant thunder. Who was he? “Do you feel that against you?” he whispered in her ear. “Do
you know what I learned today? Apart from you, I sorrow to say.”

Running her tongue over dry lips, Chloe tried to think of a response. Obviously she was well-, make that intimately, known
by this man. “It’s harder than I remember,” he said, and she wriggled free of his embrace.

Ohhh, my gosh, she thought, looking up into his eyes. For one, looking
up
was a new thing. At her height she’d not looked up to many men, particularly since she’d been masquerading in ancient times.
Then his eyes; this boy could have such a future with the Ford Modeling Agency! He was too beautiful for words, he was—

He’s gotta be gay.

“See!” he said, touching his throat. Chloe dropped her gaze from his face to his bronzed, muscular throat. Finally she focused
on the pendant.
That
was what was hard, what was new! A flicker of a stolen memory fit the pieces together.

“You have accepted your clan again, Dion?”

He smiled sadly, gesturing to the piece of rock across the strait from them: the once fertile and lush rock. “There is not
much of a clan anymore, Sib.”

“Zelos sanctioned the rescue team.”

“For today,” Dion said. “The twenty you found will be the twenty with whom I renew the Clan of the Vine.” He glanced at her.
“Tell me, there are both men and women?”

“Even a few children,” she said, vaguely repulsed at his attitude. Was it all about profit with these people?

He took her arm and pulled her into the tent she’d slept in last night, erected against the main mast. “I thought you might
be hungry,” he said. A feast steamed on a tiny table, and Chloe was instantly starving. Yet before the first piece of bread
touched her lips, she saw the hand again, frozen as it reached, begged, pleaded … and was unanswered.

What more could I have done?

Chloe laid the bread down and accepted the wine Dion handed her. “We have a new Spiralmaster,” he said. “Imhotep began his
journey and the inheritor was sworn in.”

“Niko?”

Dion grinned. “Nay. The new Spiralmaster is not even Aztlantu,” he said in the international, trans-time tone of a gossip.
Make that a Ford model with a tabloid talk show, Chloe thought.

Her cup of wine finished, she leaned back onto the pillows scattered on the floor.
Eee!
This felt so good! Now if she could just get a bath—”

“—so this Egyptian,” Dion was saying.

She sat up abruptly. “What Egyptian?”

“The one Spiralmaster made the chieftain of his clan! Haven’t you been listening?”

It’s not possible, she thought. Don’t go there, you will only be disappointed. It can’t be, not in a thousand years! Oh please,
oh please … Chloe swallowed, her voice strained. “What is his name?”

“Eee
, well, he is now the Spiralmaster, though already they are referring to him as the Egyptian Spiralmaster, which is silly
since we all know that Spiralmaster was Egyptian, he has those Egyptian tattoos, but we never called hi—”

“What is the new Spiralmaster’s name?”

“Something foreign—”

“What!”

Dion closed his eyes. “Ch-something. I only just received the message. In fact, you probably have one, too.”

Chloe was outside, demanding her bird-delivered messages before Dion finished the sentence. Hands trembling, she looked through
the tiny slips of paper that had come from all over the empire that day. Prices on beef, on skins; weather reports from Hydroussa
… She inhaled sharply as she read the next note. “New SM Cheftu at Imhotep’s demise.”

Oh God. Cheftu!!

C
HEFTU AND
Y’
CARUS STOOD ON A BALCONY
, looking north to the sea.

The island of Aztlan was stunning. Though they’d sailed north, toward Greece, this was
not
classical Greece. This was no culture he’d ever read about, save perhaps in myths. Who were these people? He had no idea
why so many Egyptian-flavored rituals, symbols, and buildings were used. Was Aztlan an ancient Egyptian outpost? But that
made no sense, for Egyptians’ concern was maintaining Ma’at. No true Egyptian would seek to leave the Nile. Conquer, aye;
colonize, never. Cheftu felt tired to his very bones, bewildered by this strange land.

Though he’d been here almost a week, he’d yet to adjust. Lack of sleep and copious amounts of sexual guilt will do that to
you. He could hear Chloe in his mind, quipping with a sardonic smile and raised brow. By the gods! Would he ever stop thinking
of her, longing for her? She flowed through his veins, and he wondered if he would ever be free.

Ships of a dozen different sizes and models crowded the lagoon to their south.

“Apis stones!” Y’carus said suddenly.

Cheftu followed his gaze and saw two ships on the horizon. Both were flying red sails. “Is it code? What does it mean?”

“A Golden is wounded.”

One of the ruling class, Cheftu recalled.

“There you are!”

The two men turned, and Cheftu frowned when he recognized Nestor. Without his peacock’s dress and bearing, he looked very
young and gravely concerned. Y’carus immediately crossed his chest in respect, and Cheftu did the same. “Spiralmaster?”

“Aye.”

“Posidios Olimpi is wounded; he arrives now.”

“I am a Mariner,” Y’carus said quickly. “Posidios is my chieftain. Pray, what happened?”

“Naxos claimed another life,” Nestor said. “Lands the gods have forsaken should be left alone!” He sighed. “It’s the chieftain
of the Horn’s fault. Sibylla is such an interfering woman,” Nestor groused. “While seeking to free those still alive from
Naxos, Posidios was hit during another earthwave.” Nestor looked over their shoulders, and they all turned. The red-sailed
ships were pulling into the tunnel beneath Aztlan Island.

Y’carus saluted and then turned to Cheftu as Nestor walked on. “My ship is due in for maintenance,” he said. “It has been
my pleasure to know you, Egyptian. We are brothers of sorrow, you and I. Call on me if you need anything.” He grinned. “Though,
being the new chieftain, and so young, I daresay you will have more than enough company during your days and nights.” Y’carus
and he embraced. “Until our eyes hold each other again,” the commander said, walking away.

Cheftu crossed his breast in respect, honored that Y’carus would speak so to him, a foreigner. He ran to catch up with Nestor.
Within ten minutes he was grateful he had a guide to the palace. Within a half decan he was convinced he would never find
his way around. After an hour of touring passages, tunnels, dark hallways, light wells, large grand rooms, tiny staircases,
and ramps, he was certain he would die en route. Never had anything been as poorly planned as this sprawling complex.

A headache was starting on the left side of his head when they stepped into a well-lit corridor where men lined the walls.
Their bloodstained kilts identified them as Mariners who’d just returned from a skirmish with death. Cheftu was ushered through
the door.

A strapping man with a belly wound lay on a woven couch, a rotten piece of wood still protruding from his flesh. Without invitation
Cheftu moved forward, observing. The man was severely chilled, and the wound was seeping. The injury was a death sentence;
it was a wonder that he still breathed. If Cheftu were in Egypt, he would say the prescribed formula: “Man with fatal wound
to belly, this is not a wound I will treat.” Then he would see that the man was fed and cared for while he sent for the priests.

“Your patient, Egyptian,” the towheaded man said. Niko. The man was always underfoot!

A quick touch told Cheftu the patient was burning with fever. Methodically he named the implements he would require and then
stepped to the side of the room where a serf pumped up hot, sulfuric water and rinsed Cheftu’s hands while he intoned the
wisdom of Thoth, patron god of healers. Then, at his request, wine was poured over his hands.

It was a smooth extraction, but the resulting gush of blood was life-threatening. Shouts brought more cloths to stem it, and
Cheftu soaked them in wine before placing them in the wound. While they stanched the flow, Cheftu shaved the man’s body. Only
an eloquent plea kept the man’s long blond hair. After the rest of him was shaved he was wrapped in cold, wet cloths.