Cursed by the Sea God (8 page)

“Pen?” I called. “Is that you?” There was no sound. “Pen? I wanted to tell you
I’m sorry,” I added, picking my way through the thicket around the tree. “I’ve
remembered what happened last night.” I paused. “You’re right, I could have
stopped it. I was afraid they’d hate me too. I’m really sorry.”

“Pen?” Still no reply. “Please come. I said I was sorry. The ship’s nearly
ready to sail.” I stopped short as I came face to face with him.

He was lying on his side on the ground. For a moment, I thought he was asleep,
but his eyes were open. His hand
gripped a plant with a strangely
shaped purple flower. My grandmother used to keep a pot of them on a ledge
outside our door, until my father had noticed them. It was one of the few times
I’d seen him angry. I’d been too young to understand, but I recalled him saying
something about “deadly poison.” And the plant name,
akonitos
, “death
without struggle.”

I hoped you were still my friend
. Pen’s words drifted back to me in the
still air. How long had he waited here for me, wondering if I was going to show
up, before finally giving up? Had he found the poison first and sat here with
it, or gone looking for it only when he thought I wasn’t coming? Sweet
Hera.

Fighting the impulse to curl up into a ball, I picked him up as best I could,
easing his body onto my shoulder in a carter’s carry and heading back down
toward the beach. My path was taking me past the cottage when I heard footsteps
tramping through the brush nearby.

“What have you got there, boy?” Ury emerged from the brush with Aegyptos, the
solid, one-armed man who had been in charge of the slaves at Troy. Ury peered at
Elpenor. “What’s his problem? Cry himself to sleep again?”

“Asleep?” I shot back. “He killed himself!”

Ury’s eyes grew round. “Trenched himself, did he?” A smile split his face and
he elbowed Aegyptos in the side. “Couldn’t take the company of men, eh? Or did
he just miss his mama too much?”

“No!” I snapped. “I mean, he killed himself . . . by accident.”
At least I could keep them from dishonouring his memory. “He, uh, fell off the
witch’s roof. Broke his neck.” It wasn’t a hero’s death, but it was better than
suicide.

Ury hooted. “Fell off the roof? Little fool. Useless in battle, useless on an
oar. Now he can be useless in Hades. Drop him.”

I opened my mouth to argue but stopped, realizing where I was.
Be found
never, outside of camp
. Exactly what Pharos had warned me about. Ury’s
eyes narrowed as he realized the same thing. I thrust Pen’s body at him and
tried to run but he smashed his crutch against my leg.

“Grab him, Gyp!” he shouted. Aegyptos’s big hand seized me hard around the
neck. Ury limped up beside me, hand reaching for his knife, when Aegyptos
spoke.

“Your father, he was that Trojan healer, right? Him it was, gave me this,” he
grunted, twitching the stump of his right arm in my face. Beside me, Ury was
hissing in excitement as I struggled to get free.

“Stop that,
Trojan
,” Aegyptos frowned, giving me an impatient shake.
“This, you have to be told. Wouldn’t feel right, otherwise. Now listen. It was
the second Scamander battle. I’d fallen, pinned by a dead horse. My arm, it was
mangled,” he said slowly. “Crushed by hooves, torn open by a chariot wheel
behind.” Ury reached for me but Aegyptos blocked him with his elbow.

“I lay out on the field all night. The Greeks, they didn’t find me. Good thing,
too—a Greek healer would have nicked
and left me dead. Your
father it was, he found me, sunup the next morning. By then I was mostly dead
anyway.”

Aegyptos paused. “I thought I was headed to Hades for sure. Either he’d kill me
or my wounds would. But that’s not where my road was to go. He gave me some
water and tied off my shoulder. Then he took and sawed off my arm. It hurt like
four furies. I thought I was dying. It’s thanks to him I didn’t.”

Aegyptos held me at his remaining arm’s length and looked me in the eye. “Since
that day, I’ve owed your father a life. Now it’s repaid. Get lost.” He released
me with a shove as Ury spluttered, and I ran for the safety of the camp, leaving
Pen’s body where it lay.

WE PICKED UP THE coastline and followed it westward for nearly a
month after leaving Circe’s island. For me, it had been a month of painful
guilt. I kept picturing Pen’s body lying there on the ground where I had left
him. Would he be alive if I’d spoken up? Or even listened to him that morning? I
didn’t know, but the thought gnawed at me constantly.

Two days ago, Lopex had ordered the navigator to the stern and taken over
piloting the
Pelagios
himself, gazing fiercely at the land to starboard
between glances at a sheepskin chart. Just before noon today he’d shielded his
eyes to peer at a misty peak inland and shouted an order. Two men had leapt to
furl
the sail as Zanthos turned our prow in toward the coast. At
the benches, the men extended their oars and began to row for the mouth of a
nearby river, spilling from a valley off the starboard bow.

As we entered the valley, the water began to look . . . different. From my
usual place on the foredeck, I leaned over the forward rail to watch it slip
silently past our keel. If this was water, it was like none I’d ever seen. Black
as moonlit blood, it clung to the oars as they pulled free and dripped like slow
oil off the blades.

I shivered, watching the bubbles stream past the bow of the
Pelagios
.
The pacekeeper’s flute piped a slow counterpoint to the regular creak and splash
of the oars. My gaze wandered forward and I drew a sharp breath.

A calloused hand clamped over my mouth. “Shut it, boy. The men haven’t seen
it.” Lopex had crossed silently from the far rail and slipped up behind me the
instant I’d raised my head. His hand fell away as I nodded and I stared
upstream, the black water below us forgotten.

Squatting over the river ahead, a dark, sharp-edged cloud filled the entire
valley. I glanced up at Lopex, expecting him to order a halt, but he turned
toward the broad backs of the Greeks on the rowing benches behind us and spoke
up.

“Men of Ithaca! We will soon be entering a shadowed land, as foretold by the
sorceress Circe. With her foreknowledge, I can keep us safe. Nonetheless, if any
man here fears the dark, let him show it now by shipping his oar. A slave will
take your
bench while you rest in the hold.” His heavy hand
thumped my shoulder. “Otherwise, keep your tongue still and your oar
pulling.”

I stared at his back. Me, pull one of those huge oars? It took me a moment to
realize he was using me yet again. Of course. No soldier would admit being
scared now. I looked forward to see the black curtain as it seemed to swoop
toward us. I squeezed my eyes tight but a clammy rush told me the moment we
entered. My eyes opened again slowly.

The first thing I noticed wasn’t the darkness but the colours: there were none.
The bright red sash around Pharos’s arm had become a dark grey. Near my feet the
bow firepot, normally a shiny bronze, was ghostly pale, the fire inside now
flickering a cold white.

Behind me, the Greeks muttered at their oars. I braved a glance over the bow
rail at the shore. Leafless black trees reached for us from both banks, curls of
clammy mist drifting between their trunks like wraiths. Their roots clung to
black rock that swirled as though the stone had once flowed like water, while
long tendrils of ropy vine hanging from the branches clutched at us as we
passed.

Nearby, Lopex was ordering two men up to the bow to hack away the vines that
threatened to foul the oars. Glad of the distraction, I watched them leaning out
over the rail, cursing as the dark sap oozing from the twitching stumps
tarnished their bronze and stung where it touched their skin. Around us, the
land was silent, the only noises the slow, thick
splash as the
oars sliced into the river and the grunts of the men as they slashed at the
vines. There were no birds, and it was no wonder. If there were a land less
inviting to living things, I doubted mortals had ever seen it. Or come back, if
they had.

A few nights earlier, when Deklah had asked where we were headed, Lopex had
said only that he had to consult Tiresias, the seer. When I relayed this remark
to the other slaves, Kassander had looked surprised. “Tiresias the Theban? I
thought he was dead.”

Staring around at the brooding, lifeless land around us, I had an uneasy
feeling that he was right.

In that twilit place, time was hard to tell, but it might have been late
afternoon when the rowers finally pulled us into a tiny lake, scarcely an
arrow’s flight across, at the head of the river. Its murky surface was half
hidden by writhing curls of mist. On three sides, the shoreline was crowded with
twisting, dead trees, while on the fourth, a sheer cliff face stretched up from
the water to vanish into the gloom above.

Standing in the prow at the very front of the ship, Lopex peered at his
sheepskin map. “This is no grove,” he muttered. He broke off as he saw me
watching. “Find something to do, boy, or by the gods I’ll find it for
you!”

I dropped down the ladder into the hold to fetch oil for the bow fire pot,
although it didn’t need it. The olive oil was stored in a clay
pithos
in
the bow, and as I reached in with the
dipper, Kassander came up
behind me. “Alexi, we need to talk.”

“Stay away from me,
Greek
,” I grunted, putting the lid back on the
pithos
and heading for the ladder. Kassander was a Greek traitor,
hiding out from his countrymen as a Trojan slave.

“Alexi, I know you don’t trust me,” he said quietly, “but the Greeks are going
to get home to Ithaca sooner or later. When that happens, we’ll both die. Ury
will kill you, and the Greeks—” his voice dropped even further, although we were
speaking Anatolean, the language of Troy “—they’ll figure out who I am. We need
a plan.”

I stopped halfway up the ladder. “You’re a liar. Why should I believe anything
you say? Get away from me,
Arkadios
,” I added, spitting out his Greek
name like a curse.

His eyebrows rose. “Not that name!” he whispered urgently. “You know what
they’ll do if they hear it!” I shrugged and continued up the ladder as though I
didn’t care, but it wasn’t true. I wanted to believe him, especially what he had
told me about my sister Mela, but I didn’t dare.

As I emerged on deck, Lopex was ordering the men to circle the lake, his big
hands gripping the rail as he peered at the shore. Whatever he was looking for,
he couldn’t find it, and after a couple of circuits, he had the ship stop in the
centre, the bow facing the cliff face. The men leaned on their oars to hold them
out of the water, muttering to one another at their benches. I rested against
the rail and looked out at the trees. Was it my imagination, or were those dead
limbs reaching for us?

There was a sudden draft, and something appeared at the corner
of my eye. I turned to look but there was only the cliff face, and I turned
back. A moment later it was there again, like a whisper I couldn’t quite hear,
hovering at the very edge of my vision. I spun to look once more, but again
there was only the rock wall.

I glanced toward the Greeks. Had anyone else seen it? They were talking quietly
on their rowing benches, facing the other way. Lopex was studying his sheepskin
chart, his back to the rail. The navigator and the steersman were having a quiet
conversation at the stern. Nobody was looking this way.

There it was a third time, a cold draft on my back. This time I turned slowly,
forcing my gaze to fix on the trees to starboard. The draft was now at my side,
as though it was coming directly out of the rock face. Struggling not to turn, I
studied the rock as well as I could from the corner of my eye.

At the very edge of my vision, something was opening at the base of the cliff
wall, like a huge eye—or a mouth. Startled, I turned to look but it was gone,
vanished as if it had never been. A shiver ran down my back.

“What are you looking at, boy?” Silent as ever, Lopex had crossed from the port
rail and was standing beside me, staring out at the trees. I kept silent.

His fingers grabbed my arm painfully. “If you’re hiding something, by Athene
I’ll make you wish you hadn’t. What is it?” he growled. I bit my lip and said
nothing.

He dropped my arm, then looked into my face and said carefully, “I should have
known. A
nothos
like you has no
place among men. Get
below with the other slaves.”

Stung, I pointed. “I saw something. Over there.”
Kopros
. How had he made
me do that?

He stared impatiently at the rock face for a moment. “Don’t lie to me, boy.
There’s nothing there.”

I glared back. “I’m not lying!” I snapped, tensing automatically to dodge a
blow, but he just waited, fists on his hips. I glanced around and pointed to a
tree on the shore, half concealed by the drifting mist. “Look there. Don’t look
at the rock face. Just at the edge of your vision. No, don’t turn your head.
Watch for something to appear in the cliff.”

He might have been proud and bad tempered, but he was quick. After a moment his
bushy eyebrows shot up. “By the gods!” His voice sounded awed. “Just where it
should be. Big enough to sail into!” His brow furrowed as he turned toward me.
“Why shouldn’t I look at it?”

I hesitated. “I think it’s only visible if nobody’s looking.”

He turned to face the rock, and blinked as it vanished, then turned back to
face the tree again. After a moment, the slight draft resumed. He nodded to
himself. “The question is, which is real?”

I hadn’t thought of that. He climbed down into the hold and returned with his
bow. Stringing it in a single casual motion, he fitted an arrow and let fly. It
cracked against the rock face to tumble down into the water. His jaw
tightened.

“That’s it, then. The cave is the illusion. The rock face is real.”

So that’s what I was seeing, a cave. I frowned for a moment. What about the
draft? And why— “That’s not right,” I blurted.
“Who would
create an illusion we can’t even see?”

He squinted at me. “Mind the tongue, boy. And talk sense.”

I swallowed. “What I mean is—if the gods wanted to destroy us, wouldn’t they
make the cave the illusion, and hide the cliff? That way we’d row right into the
rock face.”

“You saw my arrow, boy. That rock is no illusion.”

“But what about the draft?” I licked my dry lips. “The cave and the cliff, I
think they’re both real. But the cave is only real when nobody’s
watching.”

Lopex looked at me thoughtfully. “You might have something there, boy. Can you
prove it?”

I paused. “Line up another arrow for the cave, then close your eyes and shoot.
The arrow should go into the cave if you’re not looking.”

He shook his head. “I have to see it myself.” He paused. “I hear you have a
good arm, boy. Can you get something into the cave mouth without looking?”

“I think so.” My throwing arm had been trained by countless squirrel and
seagull hunts back in Troy.

“Stay here.” He dropped into the hold and emerged a moment later with a goblet
and a rag. I recognized the embossed lion-and-owl insignia on the side. It had
been looted from the palace at Troy. Well, King Priam wouldn’t be needing it
now.

He handed it to me. “Wrap this and light it, then throw it into the cave. I’ll
look to the side and watch where it goes. Don’t light it until I say.”

He turned to face the men behind us, still sitting on their
benches, their backs to us. A few had turned and were watching us idly. “Men!”
he said loudly. “Look to the shore!” He pointed astern, at the shore on the far
side from the rock face. “Over there is the portal we seek. A gold drinking cup
to the first man who sees it!”

Their heads whipped around to peer through the mist at the twisting trees on
the shoreline, and he turned quickly back to me. “Throw it, boy, before they
look back.”

I bent to light the bundle in the bow fire pot, then stood up and stared at the
tree off to starboard. After a moment, I could make out the black mouth again at
the very edge of my vision. Could I do this without looking? Gripping the rail
with my left hand, I lined up as best I could, and threw the bundle hard to the
side.

At the far corner of my eye, the flaming bundle fluttered toward the cave mouth
and vanished into the blackness inside.