Shadows on the Aegean (49 page)

Cheftu dared not think what would happen if Chloe won. The one time he’d broached the topic she had flatly refused to withdraw,
claiming she’d made an agreement with Sibylla. He suspected she liked running, liked the discipline of training, despite her
lengthy complaints about it.

He looked at the cadaver.
Mon Dieu
, what was killing these people? He’d seen so many hearts, livers, intestines, and lungs in the past few moons that even thoughts
of foie gras were nauseating. His gaze rested on the man’s face; it was frozen in a perpetual grimace. What more can I see?
Cheftu asked himself, staring.

That
is what I can see!

Stricken by what he proposed to do, Cheftu retrieved a utensil Imhotep had brought from Egypt. A brain hook used in embalming.
Egyptian custom required removing the brain and entombing it with the body. Cheftu concentrated, summoning skills he’d learned
long ago.

Navigating the hook up the nasal passage, he turned his wrist when he felt the tool was slightly past the forehead’s heavy
bone plate. The instrument slid and sliced into the soft tissue, then Cheftu reversed the process. Laboriously he retrieved
the man’s brain in tiny pieces.

When Nestor and Vena finished fighting and reconciling, Cheftu set Nestor to work on another corpse. During a plague, however
subtle, there was no dearth of bodies.

They set the specimens side by side for inspection and comparison. Chloe had said he needed a microscope—not that she could
explain what it was—yet before the invention even of plain glass, lenses were an impossibility. To compensate they looked
very, very closely, the scribe in the corner taking down every word of their discussion.

When they had worked so long he could no longer focus, Cheftu sat back. “I cannot think of another location to look.” Nestor
shrugged weary agreement, and they climbed the spiral stairs into the land of the living.

Later, lying clearheaded and heavy limbed beside Chloe, Cheftu told her about his examination of the brain.

“You saw nothing? Well, chances are if something is infecting the brain, it is too small to see.” She was quiet, and he kissed
her forehead. It was a marvel to love her body and learn from her mind. What a blessed man he was.

A tremor rocked them, and Cheftu shielded Chloe until it stopped. Whitewashed dust had rained on them, and they got up, cleared
the bed, and resettled, skin to skin. As he was almost asleep, Chloe sat bolt upright.

“Ninth grade!”

Startled, Cheftu cursed, but she was babbling in a mixture of English and Aztlantu. “Ninth grade. Anatomy. The brain is the
center of the central nervous system, which controls motor skills, coordination, and …” He felt her tapping her foot against
his shin. “Damn, I don’t remember! But Cheftu, didn’t you say the symptoms are loss of speech and swallowing? They can’t walk,
they stumble at first. Wouldn’t that be the central nervous system?”

“Aye,” he said slowly.

“Well, that’s not the front part of the brain, it’s the back. Did you, oh this is gross—did you get it all out?”

“You,
ma chérie
, are brilliant!” he said, kissing her head and springing from the couch. He snapped for serfs, sent a message to Nestor,
and was racing to the laboratory in moments.

Nestor joined him, and Cheftu turned a bodiless head toward the man. “How do we get into the back of the brain?” he asked.
Nestor blinked, rubbed his eyes, and showed Cheftu the fragile part of the skull.

It took force to crack it, but he proceeded through, getting to the back of the brain. Seeing the untidy job he’d done on
extracting the frontal lobes made him wince, but the back part was untouched. Gingerly he and Nestor pulled it out, setting
it on the table and ringing it with oil lamps.

After dividing the back portion into two sections, they began to look. They looked for decans. Cheftu stared long and hard,
moving the light and the fleshy parts, seeking out aberrations in the tissue, cutting it into fractions. The texture was consistent
until they reached the innermost part.

“Nestor.”

Little black dots were sprinkled through the mass. Hands trembling, Cheftu lifted the flimsy sample so they could examine
it better. Nestor, over his shoulder, raised the lamp, casting a shadow onto the table.

“Do you see what I see?” Nestor asked after a moment.

Cheftu looked at the black dots, trying to see what else might be there. He glanced toward Nestor and saw that the young man
was looking not at the section but at the table.

A hundred pinpricks of light shone through the thin matter, not visible to their eyes, but discernible with shadow. There
were holes in the brain.
Mon Dieu!

C
HLOE KNEW WITHOUT LOOKING
she was neck and neck with Selena; she could feel the woman’s breath on her arm. The finish line was just ahead over a small
rise, and Chloe threw back her head, taking the hill as though she were racing up stairs, her heels not even touching the
ground.

As Atenis had trained her, she surged over the hill and crashed through the line of nymphs awaiting them. Selena was two steps
behind her, and they hugged, panting and sweating.

It was bloody hot, six days before the start of the midsummer festival, roughly June nineteenth, Chloe thought. The earth
shook, and no one even stopped talking. Mount Krion had puffed several times, and Mount Apollo had even sent down ash on Daphne,
but the Aztlantu had grown accustomed to the frequent interruptions. Ash was just one of the drawbacks of living on a land
where the ground was fertile and magma chambers kept the water hot for bathing.

Tonight was a kickoff feast for the whole fourteen-day festival, and today was the last time Chloe would train before the
race. Her body and mind needed rest in preparation, Atenis said. My body needs a few days to forgive me for what I’ve done
to it, Chloe thought wryly. The differences were marked, though. Where she’d always been lean, now she was toned. Nothing
jiggled except her breasts, a circumstance Cheftu gave thanks for every night. She smiled. It was good to be alive.

The ground twitched again, and she and Selena began walking back to the palace. Traveling through the residential wing toward
the Scholomance, she admired the wall paintings. Selena departed to Kela’s temple, and Chloe went to Cheftu’s apartments.

She learned from Cheftu’s serf that he was in the laboratory. The lab was a dark, dank place with sickening smells. At least
Cheftu kept it well lit. Sneaking exaggeratedly on her tiptoes toward the back room, she thought she might surprise him and—

Chloe tripped over something in her pathway, barely catching herself. Cheftu!

He was crumpled on the ground, and Chloe searched frantically for a pulse. Yes, still steady. She ran her hands over his body,
searching for wounds, abrasions—he’d really gotten thin. He was still major hunk material, but thinner, a runner’s body instead
of a hiker’s.

Chloe called for a serf as she turned Cheftu onto his back. Nestor came running in behind the serf. “Spiralmaster!” he cried.
“Come quick—By Kela, what is the matter?” he asked, kneeling by Chloe. The two men carried Cheftu to his apartments and placed
him on his couch.

“What is wrong with him?” she asked Nestor.

“I cannot say, Sib. No one can examine him. You know that no one can treat Spiralmaster.”

“What?” Chloe asked in outrage.

“He is the master. If he falls ill, then—”

“Then he perishes from neglect? Get out,” she said.

“My mistress,” Nestor protested, raising his hands.

“Get out, I said. I will take care of him.”

“My mistress, Kela-Ata Embla is ill,” a serf said from the doorway. “She needs attention.”

“Nestor will take care of Embla,” she snapped.

Chloe was shaking with fury as she tried to figure out what to do. Cheftu had no fever, no sweating, just chills. He tossed
and turned as though he were in the throes of a bad dream, and he was badly dehydrated.

With the serf’s help, she undressed him and massaged peppermint oil into his skin, feeling helpless. Was his collapse merely
exhaustion?

“I came as soon as I heard,” Dion said, closing the double doors behind him.

“Thank Apis. What can you do?”

The chieftain visually inspected Cheftu and declared he was well, but in need of rest and food. Sibylla, however, was needed
at the swearing-in of the new Kela-Ata, he said. Embla was dead: apparently her indulgence in food had been fatal. She’d been
found with a half-eaten shrimp in her hand, her throat clawed as though she’d tried to dislodge something.

Too much information, Chloe thought, running through the palace corridors and halting abruptly. She snapped for a carrying
chair. Don’t forget you are trying to rest your body these last days before the race, she thought.

D
ION PULLED BACK THE SHEET
and gazed at Cheftu’s body. He’d known it would be like this, perfection in every lean line, the sensitivity, power, and
control of the Spiralmaster tangible even in his flesh.

With a glance over his shoulder to make sure no one watched, Dion touched Cheftu’s skin. He shaved and waxed like an Egyptian
even in his pubic area, but bareness only highlighted Apis’ gifts to him.

How Apis had gifted him.

Dion’s breath caught as his fingers slid along the man’s skin. His complexion was a shade lighter than Dion’s, though still
dark. He touched the man’s flanks, and Cheftu jerked in his sleep. With a wary eye on Cheftu’s face, Dion slowly moved his
hands up Cheftu’s body.

That was when he felt it. A lump, a hard protrusion beneath the oil-smooth skin of the Spiralmaster. Dion leaned closer, focused
on the sore, very aware of how close his mouth was to—

Cheftu’s knee caught him in the jaw, and Dion spun away, eyes watering.

“What in the name of Apis were you doing?” the Egyptian snarled. He covered himself and glared at Dion, fury sparking from
his sand-colored
eyes
.

Dion wiped a streak of blood from the corner of his mouth. “You were ill. I was flouting Council decrees, endangering my own
chieftainship to examine you. I was being a friend!” He ended on a tone of outrage. “This is your gratitude?” Glaring at Cheftu,
he tested his teeth and jaw, all of which were still fixed in his head.

Cheftu looked away first, his face and chest darkening with blood. “My apology, of course you were. I …” He looked back. “Why
am I here? It is yet daylight, and I am in bed? Where is Ch—Sibylla?”

“Training, I would think,” Dion said. “She has a good chance of becoming the next mother-goddess. I believe she would be excellent,
do you not? Phoebus is anticipating bedding her, I can tell you,” he said with a laugh.

Cheftu laughed, but he didn’t seem happy.

Interesting, Dion thought. “As for your being here, instead of in the laboratory. I think you fell, hit your head, and were
sleeping it off.” He refused to voice his fear, the possibility that Cheftu had this strange illness. After all, Spiralmaster
Imhotep had gotten it from caring for the ill. Cheftu was doing no less.

Frowning slightly, Cheftu agreed that must have been the cause.

“Tell me,” Dion said, touching Cheftu’s leg, ignoring his flinch, “how long have you had that
bubo?”

“What
bubo?
”

“May I?” Dion asked, tugging at the linen. Reluctantly Cheftu let him take it. Dion pointed at the sore on Cheftu’s groin.
“What is that, if not a
bubo?”
Dion fought for calm as he watched Cheftu touch his own body. His hands were darker skinned than his groin, and Dion concentrated
on being composed. If he became aroused now, he would stand no chance with Cheftu.

The Spiralmaster focused on the sore. It was about the size of a child’s fingernail and seemed to cause no pain as Cheftu
poked it. Spiralmaster brushed his member and Dion saw a response. He had to leave, immediately.

With lies for excuses, the clan chieftain escaped the room.