Shadows on the Aegean (78 page)

There was no wood, Chloe was convinced. Pretty soon there would be no water, either. Huge rafts of pumice were starting to
gather, floating together, clogging up the sea. Exhausted, starving out of her mind, Chloe sat down.

The sapphire waters had turned gray. It looked like some bizarre traffic jam, with these big pieces lining up throughout the
lagoon. If we could just walk from slab to slab, she thought, we could get to Prostatevo.

“Cheftu!” she screamed.

He came down the beach, running, limping … and looking even healthier. “What? What?”

“Tom Sawyer. Rafts. Hop on.”

He looked from her, to the sea, back to her, and then Chloe saw the concept, not the reference, snap into place for him. She
wouldn’t tell him how long it had taken her to figure it out. The eruption has melted away my brain cells, she thought.

Grabbing hands, they began crossing the congested waterway.

I
T WAS HARD WORK MANEUVERING A PUMICE RAFT
with no oars in a rambunctious sea. Chloe’s knees were bleeding, and her palms were a strata of painful sores. All in all
she felt as if she were on fire in a gray world.

Ash continued to fall as they paddled and pushed their makeshift vessel. The hazy twilight robbed them of their sense of direction.
The wind kept them both permanently chilled. Prostatevo seemed farther away than Chloe remembered.

She was fighting tears when Cheftu called a halt. They were free of the other pieces of pumice, he said. Perhaps they would
float for a while, carried by tides. She nodded, then shook her head, then rasped out, “Just so.”

His hands on her shoulders made them both hiss—his blistered palms and her burned shoulders—and she lay down with her head
on his leg, staring up. Not that there was anything to see. Chloe shivered, too tired to know or care anymore.

“Do you know what the Aztlan empire was?” he asked. His voice was almost back to normal, strangely enough.

“Santorini.”

He was silent a moment. “I do not know that place.”

“In the Aegean. My mother studied it. Though she thinks the Minoans lived here, but the Minoans never had pyramids. I don’t
know who these people were.” She chuckled, half dozing. “However, my mother studies the painting I did.”

Cheftu braced himself on his elbows. “The boys? Are you certain?”

Chloe giggled. “It’s a really big deal because it’s the first recording of anyone using boxing gloves in ancient times.”

He was quiet. “I do not recall anyone using gloves for boxing.”

“Nope. My point.”

“Okh,”
he said, laughing.

Chloe looked at her palms. She really should wash them, but salt water was going to hurt. “So if you didn’t know it was Santorini,
where was—is—was …” She rubbed her face. “Where were we?”

“Did you read Plato?”

“Plato?”

“Aye, the Greek philosopher?”

Chloe licked her lips. She hated to admit ignorance. “Not exactly. I’ve never been a fan of ancient times. Quite ironic, that.”

“I thought women in your time attended university?”

“We do. We just have a lot of other things to study besides old Greek guys.”

“Eee
, for example?”

“Old …” Chloe paused for a moment. “European guys.”

Cheftu chuckled. “Plato tells a legend, a story of a submerged island.”

Adrenaline shot through Chloe’s body. A submerged island … She had always imagined that underwater island kingdom looked like
the palace in “The Little Mermaid.” Could it be? “I thought it was in the Atlantic?”

He sat up. “An Egyptian named Solon told Plato the story. Beyond the Pillars of Hercules, Solon said. To the Greeks, this
meant beyond Gibraltar, the mountains they called the pillars of Hercules—”

“But to the Egyptians?”

“It meant beyond the islands that began the Greek world. The Egyptians called Crete and the islands beyond her ‘Keftiu.’ The
root of that word is ‘pillar.’ We’ve seen the red pillars in their architecture. In Hebrew the word is ‘Caphtor.’”

“Aye, also the Aztlantu.”

“Aye,” Cheftu said, looking startled for a moment. “For the Egyptians, Crete was a far western isle, one of the four pillars
holding up the sky.”

“So how do we get Atlantis from that?” Chloe asked.

“The Greeks thought Atlas held up the sky, so a daughter of Atlas—”

“Would be Atlantis?”

“Just so.”

“So the Egyptians were telling a story about a kingdom by a sky pillar? And the Greeks believed that same pillar was in the
Atlantic, so the kingdom was somewhere in the Atlantic.” Perspective really was everything, she thought. “Yet Atlantis called
itself Aztlan which sounds so Mexican to me. Their clothing and architecture was Minoan. Well, mostly Minoan.” If you ignored
the pyramids, she thought. “So what else about them was familiar?”

“I could tick them off on my fingers. Plato extols for pages the red, black, and yellow stones used, the hot and cold springs,
the rings of land and water. Also, he describes the social structure. Each king ruling his island, then meeting in a Council;
each island providing a certain product to the people at large. The citizens are divided into districts. The craftsmen, the
warriors.”

“The Clan of the Muse, the Clan of the Wave.”

“Aye. Also, they have the wealth for leisure, competitions.”

“They chased a bull, with nooses and staves, through the palace,” Chloe said remembering hearing that from her mother. “History
morphs into mythology. Wow.”

His fingers played in her hair. “Which ‘old European guy’ taught you about Atlantis?”

“Wait a minute, mythology.” Chloe sat in silence for a moment. “Did you study classical Greek?”

“The language?”

“The culture.”

Cheftu shrugged. “It was not of particular interest, but I did read the classics.”

She turned to him, shaking with excitement. “History morphs into mythology. Zelos was Zeus.”

“Mount Olympus?” Cheftu blurted in French.

“Phoebus Apollo. Phoebus was Apollo. His sister Irmentis, the huntress. She could be Artemis.”

“You claim we have been on Mount Olympus?” Cheftu asked, appalled. “Let me see your head, you are wounded.”

Chloe pushed away his reaching hands. “Listen to me. I’m not saying these people were gods. I’m saying they were the inspiration
for the gods. They were borrowed and shaped, sometimes even keeping the name.”

“Dion was?”

“Dionysus,” they said in unison.

After a moment Chloe whispered, “Athena taught me how to run. This is unbelievable, but don’t you think it fits?”

“The original Mount Olympus was Atlantis, peopled with the Greek gods?”

“It sounds outrageous like that, but essentially, yep.”

They sat in silence, and Cheftu reached out to her, caressing the side of her face.

Chloe turned her head and kissed his hand—then pushed it away. She scurried to the farthest corner of the raft. Cheftu fought
for balance, before sliding off into the water. He came up sputtering and glared at her.

“What possessed you to do that!”

“Your hand is … healed,” Chloe stammered. She felt her heart thudding, her own scabbed palms braced on the pumice. She held
on as Cheftu hauled himself, dripping and shivering, onto the raft. She blinked in the twilight, looking at him. “What are
you?”

“Cease being ridiculous, Chloe! I am Cheftu, your husband,
non?”

“Your face. It’s healed. Completely.”

He touched his brow, closed one eye, then the other, touched his scalp.

“What happened, Cheftu?”

Slowly he turned his hands over. The skin was flawless. She saw the cuts were healed, the nicks and forming blisters were
gone. He licked his lips slowly. “I was dying, Chloe. I had the plague.”

“The shuddering-and-staggering-and-drooling plague?”

“Aye. The same. I had
buboes
.”

“Buboes?”

“Raised sores, in my groin. They were blackening.”

“My God.” That was why he’d ripped off his clothes and searched through his pubic hair—he was looking for the sores. “Do you
still have them?”

She met his gaze, both eyes perfectly whole. “Nay.” He looked away. “That is why I stopped, umm, being with you. Coupling.
I was afraid you would become infected.”

“That explains your reluctance in the paint.”

Cheftu smiled. “Aye. If I’d not feared it would kill you, I would have made love with you.
Mon Dieu
, you have no idea how tried I was in those moments!” He touched his brow again in wonder. “If I have my way, you will always
wear turquoise.”

She wasn’t sure what to say. Atlantis and Greek god prototypes were one thing, but this? She’d seen his eye heal, in two days.
How could it be? Water ran over the edge of the raft, throwing her closer to the center. Closer to Cheftu, which was still
a little eerie. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

His gaze was direct. “I don’t know. For fear you would do this, move away from me. Stop loving me. Leave me.”

She reached out hesitantly, laying her hand on his knee.

“Please do not leave me, Chloe. I’ve endured your death once, I cannot abide it again. Promise me.” His hand covered hers,
holding her tight to him.

“When I thought you were wounded, that you maybe loved Dion—”

“Loved Dion?”

“Aye, well, I did see you kiss him.”

“Did you see me blacken his eye also,
ma chérie?
” he asked testily.

“I ran away, and when I came back, I heard, well, unmistakable sounds.”

“It was not me.”

Her mind flashed the picture into her head again, and she saw details that had registered in the area of her heart, her intuitive
understanding of Cheftu, but had been missed completely by her tired, freaked-out consciousness. He’d not been responding,
he’d maybe even been asleep. Did she really think Cheftu would be unfaithful?

Yes, he had slept with Sibylla, but it had been her body in Sibylla’s skin, her face, her eyes. He’d known her instinctively,
even if not rationally. “I know it wasn’t you, Cheftu. I know.” She smiled.

He still wore a pained expression.

Inching closer, she touched his face, where only the tiniest ridge of scar tissue could be felt. It gave her the creeps. His
gaze searched hers, moving back and forth on her face.
When you thought he was wounded, you wanted him
. It didn’t matter, she reasoned with herself.
Now that he’s whole, you don’t?

Hello?

“This is weird, Cheftu.”

He kept looking, pleading.

“Something else puzzles me,” she began.

“That is?”

“Why do I change bodies? Twice now you’ve been the same person, the same body. What happened to RaEm’s body?”

“It was destroyed. Trampled.” Cheftu’s gaze flickered away. “If you’d been in it, you truly would have died.”

Chloe felt her skin crawl a little. If the body she’d had was gone, where was the real RaEm? Still wearing Chloe’s red hair
and fair skin in nineteen ninety … six, now?

“Also, if you had not been Sibylla, how would I have found you again?”

“You wouldn’t have deigned to look for me in a washerwoman?” Chloe said dryly.

“I carried your corpse, Chloe. I was not looking.” His gaze was intense, unnerving Chloe more.

“How did you get well, Cheftu? What is the elixir?”

“What is the elixir? Herbs and fluids and essence of crab.”

“Excuse me?” Chloe said.

“The formula. Spiralmaster gave it to me.”

“Your photographic memory did the rest,” she concluded.

“I never forget anything I read.”

“Exactly. So how did it work?”

Cheftu looked away. The ash was falling lightly, not so cloying and thick that they needed masks. Chloe waited, watching Cheftu’s
healthy body. Still she was scared, almost repulsed, but she fought to get over it.
He’s healthy, so be grateful
.

“In
al-khem
,” Cheftu said, “oftentimes a reaction is arrived at only by adding two compounds in a certain order. Taking all of the ingredients
and mixing them together would not work. But letting them interact with each other before combining, that is something entirely
different.”