The Black Stallion and the Lost City (12 page)

In the courtyard below, long shadows fell from the
towering colonnades of the palace and cast themselves in black bars over the steps. Farther back, beyond the environs of the acropolis and the high Acracian walls, the last flashing streams of late-afternoon sunlight purpled the mountain forest. Alec lifted his gaze to the horizon and the mountain peaks that rose up on all sides around them. A few specks of firelight twinkled like stars in the black night of the distant forest.

The breeze wafting in from the courtyard now brought with it the faint sounds of live music, the soft, faraway strains of a harp and flute. The music sounded off-key and ethereal, one more thing that seemed as if it belonged in another time. Alec looked in the direction the music was coming from and noticed the glowing of lights inside the palace. More people were gathering on the patio in front of the central building, on the steps and in the courtyard garden.

“Looks like something is going on over there, all right,” Xeena said.

Before long, Alec heard steps coming down the hall, and there was another knock on the door. Xeena went to see who it was while Alec stayed on the balcony with the Black.

It was Darius, the guide who had led them to their quarters. Two attendants followed him into the room and out to the balcony. The Black turned his head and eyed the strangers suspiciously as they came closer.
Alec moved to his horse and put a hand on the stallion’s halter. The attendants gazed up at the Black warily as Darius spoke with Xeena in Greek. Darius bowed and then beckoned for Alec and the others to come with him.

Xeena translated for Alec. “He says he will escort us to the megaron,” she said. “I think that is what they call that large building. He says to bring the Black with us.”

“Did he get in touch with your dad and the crew back at the monastery?”

“He says they sent a message.”

“We don’t need a go-between in this,” Alec said, his frustration boiling over at last. “Where’s the darn phone? I’d like to explain what happened in person. I also need to arrange to have the Black checked out by a vet when we get back. What am I supposed to do? Send smoke signals?”

Xeena relayed Alec’s request to Darius, who only smiled, lowered his eyes and gestured to the hall door. The two attendants stood to one side, quietly waiting for the strangers and the giant black horse to pass. Alec hesitated.

Darius gestured again. “Come, please,” he said.

Xeena looked at Alec. “Shall we?”

“Why not,” he said. “Maybe we can find that
Spiro guy. I need to speak with someone in charge around here, someone who understands English.”

Alec led the Black from the balcony and out to the hallway. They followed Darius down the hall to a ramp descending to the plaza below. The two silent attendants trailed behind them. Darius led them along a path of flat stone that cut through a lush lawn to the courtyard garden fronting the megaron. Young people were congregated there, including a group of women playing flutes and small, handheld harps. The music stopped and a hushed silence passed over the group as they turned their attention to the strangers and the magnificent black stallion.

The Black seemed to enjoy the notice he was getting, throwing out his forehooves, almost swaggering as he walked beside Alec and Xeena. His ears were pitched forward as he listened to every sound.

They climbed the stone ramp running through the center of the steps and up to the patio. As they reached the top level, the two attendants suddenly rushed up and stopped them before they could go any farther. Their quick movements startled the Black. He tossed his head and jerked on his lead line. Alec held the stallion tight while one of the attendants stepped over to him. The young man said something and touched Alec on the left shoulder.

“Hey,” Alec said. “Back off.”

The young man pulled back and lowered his head apologetically. Alec turned to Xeena. “What’s this guy want?” Alec said.

Darius spoke up and said something that sounded like an apology. Xeena seemed to understand. She smiled and laughed.

“It’s your cloak,” she said. “It’s supposed to hang over your left shoulder. I think it is some kind of protocol here in the megaron.”

The attendant held up his hands politely to show he meant no harm. Alec fumbled with the cloak and then acquiesced to let the attendant pull it from his back, where Alec had been wearing it like a sloppy cape, and adjust it so it draped evenly over his left shoulder. The attendant gave Alec a courteous nod and stepped over to Xeena. She gave him her cloak, and he folded it carefully, then slung it over her left shoulder, fussing with it a moment until it hung evenly. When that was done, Darius gestured them ahead toward the torch-lit interior of the megaron.

Alec looked up at the Black and touched the stallion’s well-groomed coat. Just pretend you’re going to a costume party, Alec told himself. And however silly he might be dressed, at least his horse looked great.

They started down a long hall toward a wooden door. Decorative vases stood on the floor or on
pedestals. Much of the interior walls, cornices, paneling and doors were painted in blue and gold. There were few people here. The Black’s hooves clicked sharply in the quiet.

The big doors swung open from the inside as if by magic, and Darius beckoned them ahead to a reception room. Tapestries decorated the wall, covered with picture writing and strange symbols. There was a bust of a young man’s head on a pedestal, the stone painted in flesh tones for the skin and red for the lips. From the next room came the sound of a crowd.

They passed into the main room, where more statuary of ghostly white horses stood like sentries on either side of the door. A golden cage sat on a pedestal of sculpted stone. Inside the cage, two blue birds trilled a welcome.

The room was as big as a football field and lit by thousands of candles burning in stands. At both ends of the enormous room, logs blazed inside fireplaces the size of small houses. Guests sat on the floor and at tables and on couches grouped around the three sides of a long slab of raised marble laden with platters of food. White-robed musicians strolled about playing lilting tunes on harps and flutes.

“Look,” Xeena said. “There are other horses here.”

It was true, Alec saw. On the other side of the
room, a chestnut Arabian mare stood beside a man reclining on a couch. A finely attired attendant carrying a tray of food offered appetizers to the man and then to the horse. Both declined.

Among the horses and people were three mares, all colored a powdery white, all strikingly similar to the albino mare he had seen at the waterfall that morning. These horses were not albinos, though. They looked more like a cross between a Lipizzan and something else, maybe Arab, with dark eyes, fine heads and short backs.

Perhaps he had been mistaken about the mare at the waterfall being an albino, Alec thought. Maybe it was one of these mares that had lured the Black into the cave. Except for those red eyes—he certainly couldn’t have imagined those. And Xeena had seen them too. No, Alec thought, that mare was not among these three. Their coats were not the same impossibly white color as the mare that had taunted the Black, though they could have all been sisters they appeared so incredibly alike. Their finely groomed coats shone like pale sheets of smoked glass in the candlelight.

“People eat together with their horses in this place?” Xeena said with surprise.

“I guess so,” Alec said.

Well, Alec thought, maybe it wasn’t all that strange after all. He knew from firsthand experience
that Bedouins sometimes shared their tents with their horses. So did the Mongols and probably other people too. The big difference here was that this place looked like a king’s palace, something far from a tent in the desert.

Darius directed them to one of the tables of honor near the long marble serving board. There were four finely carved wooden chairs with gold trim and gold velvet cushions, and there was plenty of room for the Black.

Alec stood beside his horse. The stallion was always unpredictable, but his years at the racetrack had instilled in him a high tolerance for crowds when necessary, and Alec was thankful for that now. The Black gazed around at the assembly, his eyes sparkling brightly. He was relaxed, Alec thought, and seemed to be enjoying all the attention he was receiving.

The guests’ voices were a jarring mix of languages from all over Europe and beyond, from Russian, to German, to Greek, to Italian. Like the people, the dozen or so horses gathered in the hall were a mixed group, from enormous draft horses to elegant Arabs to tiny Shetland ponies. All seemed as at ease as the people in the luxurious surroundings of the banquet hall.

The aroma of spices and fine cooking filled the air. Xeena looked around the great hall, gaping at it all in openmouthed wonder, and Alec understood how she
felt. It would have taken hours to ask about everything that caught his eye here. He lifted his gaze to the ceiling and saw murals depicting scenes out of mythology and a diagram of the orbits of the moon and seven planets.

At the sound of a gong, all the guests, horses and humans, took places at the dinner tables. The Black was served a bowl of fine oats that seemed ordinary enough to Alec when he gave them a taste test. Alec couldn’t tell what the other horses were eating. The human guests were brought samplings of meat pastries and spiced vegetables. Alec and Xeena were tasting their appetizers when suddenly Spiro and a tall, blond woman arrived to take the empty chairs at their table.

“Mr. Spiro,” Alec said casually. “Just the man I was hoping to see—”

Alec’s words were cut off by the blare of trumpets, a fanfare to announce the arrival of the governor. Everyone stood up, and a man strode in leading a white horse by a golden rope. Instantly Alec recognized her as the albino mare they had seen at the waterfall. It seemed it had been a week ago but in truth had been only that morning. Behind the governor and the albino, a groom walked a young, gray stallion. He was of the same breed as the mares, seemingly similar in every way except for the color of his coat and his virile, masculine swagger. The gray pranced in proudly,
then tossed his head and glared toward the Black’s side of the room.

Alec had a hand on the Black’s lead and quickly stepped up to his horse’s head to keep him steady. But much to Alec’s surprise, the stallion remained still, as if he was too mesmerized by the appearance of the ghostly albino mare to even notice the young stallion with her. The mare tossed her head but did not acknowledge the Black or the other guests.

The governor, the mare and the young stallion all took up places beside the three white mares at the center table. A hush fell over the assembly as the governor looked out among them like a king surveying his subjects. He was a big man with a soft, young face, almost like an overgrown baby, dressed in a velvet robe over a white tunic and wearing expensive-looking gold rings and bracelets. He addressed his guests in Greek and raised a goblet in the air. Everyone in the room stood up and raised their glasses as well. Attendants held bowls of water for the horses to share in the toast. The same attendant that had adjusted Alec’s cloak approached the Black with a bowl, and Alec intercepted him before he came too close.

“Hold on just a second here, pal,” Alec said as he took the bowl from the attendant and tasted the contents, just as he done with the Black’s oats. It seemed to be nothing more than water.

A cry went up from the crowd.
“Chalazi to spiti tou Diomidi!”

Alec glanced at Xeena. “It’s a salute to the house of Diomedes,” Xeena whispered.

Alec turned to see the governor on his feet and waving his cup. He was a giant of a man, easily six and a half feet tall, much taller than anyone else in the room, and yet his face was that of a child.
“Na Diomidi,”
the man called, gesturing to Alec’s table and beckoning from across the room. All eyes moved to the strangers and the big black horse.

“He wants us to drink,” Xeena whispered to Alec. “He’s making a toast to Diomedes.”

Alec raised his own glass and took a swallow. “I did,” Alec said, holding up his glass and gesturing to the governor and his guests.

“I think he means the Black too,” she said.

A murmur went up from the crowd, and some of the guests used their hands to pantomime lifting up a bowl and drinking. Alec looked out over the smiling, expectant faces at the tables around him. The governor raised his glass again. His gesture was more insistent this time.

The Black’s bowl had been refilled. Alec sniffed at the water and tasted it once more. It looked clean and tasted fresh enough. He held the bowl so the Black could drink again. The stallion sniffed the water and
took a sip. A roar went up from the crowd. Then the toasters sat down, and more trays were brought in. A moment later, everyone was once again merrily enjoying their food.

Spiro introduced the tall blond woman beside him as his wife. “Are you an American?” she asked in English, all smiles. Like Spiro, her accent sounded German. She had a boyish face with little blue eyes.

Alec nodded, then turned to Spiro and asked about making his phone call. Spiro told him that he had been in touch with the monastery and alerted them of their whereabouts. He promised to get Alec to a phone tomorrow morning, first thing. For now, Spiro said, Alec should relax and enjoy his food and the hospitality of Governor Medio.

Alec spoke, eager to share his thoughts with another English speaker. “What is this place?” he asked. “Where do these people come from?”

“All over the world,” Spiro said.

“How do they find out about it? Do you advertise?”

“Acracia does not seek out patrons,” Spiro said. “Word of its existence is known to but a few secret societies, the knowledge shared only when an initiate has reached a certain level of awareness.”

“Why did those men attack us in the woods?” Alec asked.

“Strangers are not welcome here,” Spiro explained.
“It is Medio’s law. As his subjects, we are honored to do his bidding and pay him homage.”

“Are you kidding me?” Alec said. “I thought this was a resort. And what do you mean ‘we’? I am no one’s subject. Who is this Medio person anyway? Can I talk with him?”