Shadows on the Aegean (67 page)

T
HE CALM BEFORE THE STORM
started to give way. Small quakes, deep beneath the earth’s surface, began. They shifted rock and jostled lava that surged
from the earth’s core, racing like molten blood freed from a tourniquet. As the shifts moved higher, the level of the lava
rose. On the ocean floor silent plumes of rock, gas, and steam burst forth, incinerating fish and roasting flora.

The quakes continued, a ripple effect in soil as they moved higher, above sea level, into the remaining channels of the Aegean
ocean rift. As indigo-sailed ships rowed above, the sandy bottom of the sea cracked, a break that ran north and south, east
and west, causing a dozen, then a hundred other fissures.

Slumbering inside the towering cones, the liquid rock surged and fell, compressing, tightening. The hundreds of earthquakes
felt and not felt each day thereafter shifted and irritated the boiling, writhing mass.

T
HE ADEPTS WANDERED
like
skia
through the back alleys of the city. Y’carus was indeed in port. Cheftu felt a burning inside that warned him time was slipping
through his fingers like seawater. Today he felt well, and he thanked God for that, for there was much to do.

The adepts were seeking those who would survive. Ostensibly those they asked were being taken to the pyramid to receive the
bull. Cheftu took only those who protested, who had chosen not to eat it because they found the idea distasteful.

Chances were they would find the idea of breakfasting on each other even more so.

Cheftu was amazed at the squalor that lived behind the palaces and villas of the wealthy. Open ditches were filled with refuse
that plumbing did not carry away, rotting food was covered with flies as the starving forsaken children and adults of Aztlan
ate.

These people were not allowed on the streets, nor were they allowed in the fields or on the walkways until well after dusk.
No religious ritual was allowed them; they were utterly and completely ostracized. Nestor gathered a few, and they promised
to meet him at the doors of the pyramid after nightfall.

Cheftu left Nestor to take care of things and went in search of more people. Keep looking, his intuition said. Search, you
will find.

He was in a wealthy section of town, lush greenery draped over the brilliantly painted housing. He went from servants’ quarters
to servants’ quarters, asking who had partaken of the bull.

His band was pitifully small when he knocked on the door of the largest house. A young woman opened it, her face badly burned,
her arm cradled against her breast.

“You have come … to … sail away?” she whispered.

Cheftu was so stunned at her guess that he shook his head silently.

She reached behind her and pulled a woven bag awkwardly onto her back. “Take me.”

By the rising of the moon, the motley crew had assembled. Cheftu and Nestor walked them down the zigzag steps to the docks.
Water slapped against the hulls, and laughter seeped out from the doors and windows of brightly lit taverns. These were the
few who hadn’t eaten the bull, who weren’t infested with the illness that ate holes in the brain.

Y’carus’ gaze was bright as he watched the remnants of Aztlan march aboard his ship. He and his crew had not eaten the bull;
still, some wanted to stay with their wives and children. Those who remained on board knew the purpose of this voyage, and
each man’s expression was bleak. Cheftu handedY’ carus a huge trunk of scrolls and tablets from the library: the plans for
diving bells, indoor plumbing, maps of the seas, an Aztlantu dictionary, the cherished formula for alchemy. These secrets
would be shared with the world.

“Aztlan will soon be but a memory. You carry your empire on your ship.”

Y’carus looked over the broken and rejected people. “We start with poor stock.”

“Do not see them as clansmen; free everyone from their class and clan and then begin to see anew.”

The commander looked at him. “My eyes will not hold you again, my friend.”

“Not in this lifetime.” He and Y’carus embraced as the last of the passengers, the prepared young serf woman, stepped aboard.

Cheftu walked down the gangplank. He looked back for a moment and saw the serf and the commander step closer and closer, then
finally fall into each other’s arms.

Cheftu smiled; apparently the commander wanted to set about improving the stock immediately.

Under the waning moon, the huge Aztlantu ship pulled away, the sound of the timekeeper’s drum faint, a throb in Cheftu’s temple
and throat.

S
O THE
M
ARINER AND THE DYER
sailed for the open sea, journeying beyond the channels of Aztlan, through the wine-dark Aegean and into the Great Green.
On the shores of the Mediterranean they founded small cities beneath graceful cedars.

The three hundred grew, the boats multiplied, and the tribe became famous for their skills: sailing and dyeing. Though they
stayed by the sea, they kept to the plains, avoiding the fury and madness of the earth within its mountains.

So the Phoenicians, who worshiped an angry god who demanded blood and fire, circumnavigated the globe. They brought cedars
to King Solomon, took Egyptian faience to the Caspian, and left coins in the Azores, consulting the same maps Alexander the
Great would use. Maps found in the ancient texts of the library in Alexandria, written in an alphabet the world has used ever
since, taken from a land called Atlantis….

C
HEFTU COULDN’T BELIEVE HIS EARS
. “You are certain?”

“The serf said her mistress has sailed for Hydroussa. This is for you.”

Cheftu opened the tiny slip of papyrus and frowned. Chloe wrote to him in tile typing? This was new and odd. “Dearest Cheftu,
Clan business calls me away. I cannot wait to return to your arms and languish there. Sibylla.”

He dismissed the serf and stared at the note. Chloe used the word “languish”? More significantly, she had signed it Sibylla.
He looked at the typing carefully. Was he being paranoid? She wouldn’t flee Aztlan without him; that wouldn’t be her way,
unless she were forced.

But who could force a clan chieftain? There must be another explanation. If she were gone, she would send him a message. Perhaps
she had been watched or knew someone would read the note. If he had not heard from her in a few days, then he would react.
However, he could do nothing now.

He left for his next medical call. The last of Zelos’
hequetai
was dying.

As Cheftu walked across the footbridge set in
ari-kat
stone that spanned the shallow lagoon of Aztlan Island, far, far beneath the surface time ran out.

The hairline cracks and crevices had widened to the span of a man’s hand. The basket holding the bay began to unravel. The
earth shuddered, splintered, and heaved, and the strands unwound faster.

Beneath the lagoon hairline fissures filled with water and grew. The pressure and weight of salt and fluid rushed into the
cracks until the section broke completely, the first of many that would crumble away.

Cheftu was halfway up the steep walk to the dying man’s villa when the terrified cries wafted up to him. He ran back to the
cliff’s edge. He watched, speechless, as the lagoon began to drain.

Huge waves created by suction swirled at the far end of the bay, then crashed against the dock. The few brave sailors fled
up the zigzag path in a frenzy.

Ships were smashed against the rocks as the water level dropped. Cheftu was deaf to cries and screams. The bay was falling!
In moments Aztlan’s flotilla had become driftwood.

“The Sibylla warned us!” was the first clear call he heard. What did this mean? How could they flee, if there were no ships?

The waves had gained strength and rose high against the rocky walls of Aztlan.

“Flee for the mountains!”

“Run for your lives!”

Theros Sea, the beautiful, bountiful sea of summer, had become Therio Sea—the Beast.

He hoped Y’carus was safe. It would be aw—Chloe!
Mon Dieu
, she was at sea!

T
IME HAD NO MEANING
. The darkness was unrelenting. Bouts of terror gripped Chloe like fits, and she fought herself for calm. She now knew the
maze was constructed in three dimensions. Not only were the passages vertical, the side ledges led into horizontal mazes of
their own. How deep was a question she didn’t want to have to find out.

Her clothes were drenched, and she’d ripped at the seams of her skirt fruitlessly, settling for taking it off and wearing
just the apron. It covered front and back, arcing from her hips to her knees and back up. Great for movement and a thousand
times cooler.

She’d twisted her hair up and around as she’d seen Cammy do a thousand times, but there was nothing to secure it. Her head
pounding again, she slid down one wall, her tears mixing with sweat on her cheeks.

The last maze had been a square with a swastika, the first one a five-point star with a Greek key pattern beneath it. Patterns,
patterns, these people had a thing for mutating patterns.

How long had it been? Eternity was one night, Chloe thought. One sulfur-scented night. Patterns swirled beneath her closed
eyelids, morphing from one into another. Greek key, swirl, swastika, star, rose, key, swirl.