Shadows on the Aegean (5 page)

Ileana ran to the balcony and pulled in a fellow Shell Seeker. The nymph’s first taste of wine had made her groggy, and the
poppy Ileana had added made her malleable. They traded tunics, Ileana’s blood-splattered one now clothing the dazed girl.
“Hold on to this,” Ileana whispered to her onetime friend, wrapping the nymph’s fingers around the knife’s haft.

Ileana heard footsteps in the corridor. “Don’t let go for anything,” she hissed.

Ileana watched from the shadows as the narrow double doors opened and two guards ran in. They saw the girl, her position condemnation
enough, then realized Rhea had not even been killed in her bath. She would never dance on the Isles of the Blessed.

Without the purification of the lustral bath, she was eternally dead. Soldiers bathed before they went to war, the ill were
bathed if the condition was feared fatal. Newborns were birthed in a shallow pool, in the event they died. Rhea was lost forever.

Following the guards, Zelos ran in and threw himself weeping on Rhea’s body. With the same blade Ileana had used to take Rhea’s
life, Zelos took the girl’s. Ileana’s path to the Queen of Heaven’s throne was now cleared.

Blinking herself back into the safety of her bath, the distance of those many summers, Ileana forced her mind to calm. No
one had guessed, no one had even known she’d been there. Feigned sorrow over the death of her mother seduced Zelos’ heart,
and sexual skills beyond her years had won her a place in his bed. She’d stepped easily into the role as Queen of Heaven.

No one knew. She was safe.

But safe until when? And whom? Safety was an illusion; danger always lurked. Friends were enemies waiting for opportunity,
children were the seedlings of one’s destruction, and even the goddess was fickle in her affections. Kela-Ileana destroyed
any realities of danger. Danger lived and breathed in Vena, Sibylla, Selena …

Not for much longer, however.

CAPHTOR

S
HE WOKE UP IN THE DARKNESS OF THE CAVE
, but instead of feeling familiar it felt foreign. Once again Sibylla was uneasy. She rubbed her eyes and reached for the
alabaster lamp to her side.

A gust of icy wind blew through. “That body is mine!” she seemed to hear around her. “Give it back to me!” It sounded like
her own voice, fear filled and furious. Why would her voice be outside her? It’s the part of my
psyche
that didn’t return, she thought. It hates me for that. The voice carried on the wind, and Sibylla, hands now shaking, lit
the oil lamp.

She lived in a simple room with whitewashed walls; a mattress of dried leaves and herbs lay on a shelf. Her few belongings
from Kallistae were grouped atop a small trunk. Two other skirts and jackets hung on pegs.

That’s a really beautiful contrast
, she heard the voice inside her say,
but what does it mean, and where am I?
Sibylla looked at the saffron-and-crimson skirt against the white-and-black-bordered wall and had to admit it was striking,
though so commonplace she didn’t know why she had suddenly noticed it. She ignored her own mind’s question of where she was.
She was in Caphtor, in the cave, where the spirit of Kela dwelt. Across the sea were the other islands of the Aztlan empire—her
home. She knew where she was. Sibylla rose and began to straighten the already neat room.

Something unspeakable had happened, was happening, to her.

She felt … lonely. It was an odd feeling, one Sibylla couldn’t recall having felt before. Images flashed in her mind, a man,
not unlike the men she saw all around her, yet different. He glowed through her perception, and she saw things in him that
were shielded from most eyes. Integrity, skill, honesty, wit, sensuality … they poured from him in tinted beams of light.
She’d never seen him before, yet she knew him. Some part of her mind wept for him. This memory, this vision, was not her own.

Was this a message from Kela?

The voice within screamed in frustration, and Sibylla fought the urge to run, run all the way to Knossos if need be. This
chamber with the wailing
skia
, her mind with the weeping unknown
psyche
, were too strange for her.

She pulled a cloak around her shoulders and walked outside. The lamp flickered feebly behind her. White chalky dust clung
to her skirts and feet. She breathed deeply of the night air, feeling its sting burn in her breast. Above, stars hung like
grapes from the arbor of the sky, and Sibylla felt tears in her eyes.

Why in the name of Kela would she be weeping? Her sense of loneliness and despair was so great, so engulfing, that she could
not keep the sobs from rising. Her crying was loud, harsh in the still night. Sibylla had no idea how long she wept, how many
times she wiped her face and hugged herself, desperate to feel the concern of one other person. An unknown, unnamed person.

Finally exhausted, she stumbled back to the cave’s entrance. Malevolence hit her in the face like a stench. Recoiling, Sibylla
looked into the shadows.
Skia
awaited her. Breathing deeply, she forced herself deeper into the cave. The
skia
surrounded her, pummeling her mind with anger, betrayal, pain, fury, whipping her into a pulpy emotional mass.

Sibylla ran the last steps to her shelf bed and huddled beneath her cloak. The very night seemed to whisper to her: she had
never desired to see the dawn more. The flickering lamp went out, and she screamed, quaking.

Skeletal fingers poked her, prodded her, and Sibylla retreated in fear to a corner of her mind. Another part of her, a stronger,
more adaptable
psyche
, stepped forward.

Chloe pulled the cloak off her head and stared into the darkness.

Holy shit!
Once again, she was sharing someone’s body. Was she sure of that? Who am I? she asked herself quickly. Chloe Bennett Kingsley,
second lieutenant, serial number 044–65-2089. Born December 23, 1970. Middle child of an American diplomat and an English
archaeologist. Older sister Camille, an Egyptologist. Younger brother Caius, a professional black sheep. Grandmother Mimi,
deceased. Degree in communications art. She lived at 767 Amber Lane, Dallas, Texas 75007.

Chloe swallowed. Those were the facts of her life. So far, so good.

So where was she? She wasn’t in her own skin—she didn’t have black hair. So who was the host body? Her vision of this current
world seemed to be viewed through rippling water. Nothing was clear. Nothing was recognizable. The other
psyche
in this body, Sibylla, treated her as if she weren’t here most of the time. Definitely not welcome, Chloe realized. It was
one of the few clear thoughts she’d managed to have over the past—how long had it been?
How can I figure anything out when I can’t even see to “drive”! We need to negotiate a body lease agreement. Living in this
body is like moving a puppet; I am a breathing Punch & Judy show. Oh God
.

Where was Cheftu? The pain of his loss was so crippling that she whimpered in the darkness. They’d had such a short time.
If she hadn’t returned to the modern world, and she was guessing that she hadn’t—caves were rather outmoded accommodations—then
where was she? Where was he? Had he stayed in ancient Egypt? Had he moved forward in time? Did he truly understand she’d not
wanted to leave? Had he, oh God, was he alive? Chloe shut her
eyes
tightly, holding back more tears. Did he know she was alive? Did he know where she was? Did
she
know where she was? Where was here?

The vision, Sibylla’s vision of destruction, rose behind Chloe’s eyelids. Because it had not been “her” seeing it, the edges
were torn and it was faded: a mental daguerreotype. Waves, fire, earthquakes … was she here because of her emergency management
training? Not to mention her emergency management
experience
. When the going got tough, the tough ate locusts.

Oh Cheftu, oh dear God I miss you…
.

Chloe shook her head, the intention taking a few moments to result in action. She didn’t feel quite settled in this body.
I sound like the next guest on Jerry Springer, “Modern Women and the Ancient Bodies They Inhabit.”

“I’m really losing it.” Even her voice was a little different—not to mention the language!

If I am here, sharing Sibylla’s body, then where is the body of RaEm—my former hostess—where is my body, and where is RaEm?
If RaEm and I changed places before, is RaEm still in modern Egypt in my body? Has Cammy realized I’m not me?

Where was Cheftu? I need you, she thought. I was stupid not to have admitted it before. God, Cheftu, I need you! He alone
would see the humor in this, understand how she could feel like laughing at the farce of it while she cried at the reality
of it.

Chloe wrapped her arms around her waist. Fires, monster waves, and earthquakes. Welcome to Sibylla’s world. She wanted something
so badly, almost as much as Cheftu’s touch, as a glance from his golden eyes. She could have bounced quarters off her nerves.
If she
had
quarters….

She licked her lips.
Man, do I want a cigarette
.

D
AWN CAME
, and with it the women of the village. Startled awake and disoriented for a few moments, Sibylla didn’t understand their
language. She blinked, focusing on a woman’s rapidly moving lips, and felt herself slide into the comfort of knowing. The
voice inside groaned in frustration and turned away, leaving Sibylla in control of herself once more.

With smiles and gentle orders they dressed her in a five-tiered red-and-saffron skirt and jacket, lacing her corset and brushing
her hair so that it fell in waves to her waist. Cool kohl ringed her eyes and colored her eyelids. No one commented that her
irises were still green.

That other
psyche
is still inside me, Sibylla thought.

She took some bread, and together they walked through a gentle rain into the main cave. There was no prophesying today, just
the companionship of young and old alike, listening to the tales of the village, the daily trials of smoky fires, cranky men,
crying babies, and irascible donkeys. The Season of Rains was for rest. Just as the earth and the sun and the sea rested,
so did the villagers.

The women had brought wool to card. Sitting around the fire, they passed out implements and fleece for carding. Sibylla accepted
two of the pronged plates and put a puff of wool—
Looks like a bunch of cotton balls
, she heard in her mind—between the plates. With a synchronized motion she rubbed the plates together, stretching and straightening
the wool. It was loud work, with all twenty women chattering, and the conversation grew louder to be heard over the slap and
scrape.

At the sun’s zenith they took a break and walked outside. The light was pale, the ledge before the cave slick from the storm.
The younger women played with a small ball, kicking it into the air, laughing and giggling as their elders sliced cucumbers
and spread goat cheese on flat bread.

A group of nymphs challenged one another to footraces, mimicking the games at the midsummer festival. After loosening their
waist cinchers, they stripped off their skirts and ran barefooted back and forth, tagging each other, shouting encouragement,
and causing such commotion that one mother banned them all to the next ledge. “Go run there, and we will all watch you,” she
said with a smile.

“Nera, you did that just to get them away!” an older woman whispered, her voice almost drowned out by the girls moving to
the ledge below.

“All season Lillina has been racing! Up and down the muddy lanes, back and forth through the fields! By the skirts of Kela,
if that girl doesn’t calm down, I may make her eat wood!”

Sibylla laughed, knowing this woman would no sooner beat her child than she would beat the oracle. The women of the village
laughed as they sliced onions and broke cheese onto coarse winter greens. As they sipped wine from the matriarch’s vineyards
they discussed how to follow Kela’s wishes. Should they flee before the Season of the Lion? Leave in the middle of harvest?