Cybele's Secret (33 page)

“Stoyan,” I whispered. “It doesn’t look very…What if…?”

“Come down slowly; let me help you,” Stoyan said. “This is the way out. It fits with our tree map. Stay behind me. No sudden movements.”

“Yes, but…” I crouched, then slid down to stand behind Stoyan in the boat, my legs threatening to collapse under me. “It’s not just a matter of getting past; we have to…” I fell silent as the wolf, or dog, sidled toward the boat, its growl acquiring a menacing edge. On my shoulders, the three little creatures maintained their silence.

Stoyan stepped out onto the rocks, one hand holding the boat against the shore. “Stay there for now,” he warned me. He remained crouching, his gaze not on the dog but directed away, though I could see he had the animal in the edge of his sight. His free hand was relaxed by his side, in a position where the dog could smell it but not actually reaching out. He was keeping up a continuous flow of quiet talk. It was Bulgarian, and I could not understand the words, but the meaning was clear in the tone.
I am a friend. I can be trusted. I know you are afraid. Smell my scent. I mean you no harm. You are safe with me.

Slowly the creature settled and the fearsome challenge died down. The dog crept closer. It sniffed at Stoyan’s hand. He waited awhile longer, murmuring all the time, before he tried a deliberate touch, a caress at the base of the ear, then a stroke down the neck. Gradually, with remarkable control, Stoyan got me out of the boat and squatting beside him while all the time petting the dog, talking to it, making sure my movements did not startle it into another defensive frenzy.

“Now extend your hand slowly; that’s it.” He put his large hand around mine, and we stretched out together to let the dog assess this new scent. Then Stoyan rose carefully to his feet, drawing me up after him, keeping close enough to grab me if he needed to. The dog was still nervous. I imagined few human creatures made their way to this subterranean realm and fewer still penetrated to the depths we had reached. Behind us, the boat had floated away.

“We can go on now,” Stoyan said quietly. “He will come with us.” He spoke a few words to the dog, and it moved to stand by his side, turning its eyes up to him expectantly.

“How did you do that?” I asked in wonderment. “How did you know?”

“I saw it was a good dog, but wary and afraid. One must take time to earn the trust of such a creature. With a more damaged animal it would be far longer—days, weeks of patience. This one is strong of heart. Paula, we can go on.”

For a moment we paused, looking at each other.

“You chose the right team,” murmured Stoyan.

A sudden thought came to me. “What about Duarte? We can’t go back to fetch him. The boat’s gone.”

“You have the artifact,” Stoyan said, and now his tone set a distance between us. “Whatever has happened, he would want you to take it on.”

There were possibilities behind this that I could barely bring myself to think of: Duarte at the mercy of Murat and his crossbow; Duarte carrying out a task of equal difficulty to ours, somewhere in the caves alone; Duarte trapped on the other side of the lake, unable to leave. I said nothing. If our mission was to take Cybele’s Gift on the last part of its journey and leave the pirate to his fate, the powers of the Other Kingdom were cruel indeed.

As we passed through another tunnel, leaving the lake behind us, the little creatures I had gathered from the cavern grew more and more excited, two flying up from my shoulder to dance around my head like a strange garland, the third creeping to and fro and making anticipatory wheezing sounds. The dog was silent, padding beside Stoyan as we emerged to the grandest chamber of all.

The sight that lay before us stopped us in our tracks. The walls were pillared, the ceiling vaulted, and in the central space…My eyes widened with amazement. Here lay every sort of treasure one could imagine: jewelry, gold coins, silver ewers and basins and platters encrusted with decoration, statues and vases and coffers of precious stones. Scattered amongst this wealth were books with covers of the finest tooled calf leather and manuscripts whose delicate calligraphy and dazzling decoration caught and enthralled my scholar’s eye. All was jumbled together, a brilliant chaos of merchandise, a veritable dragon’s hoard. If only my father could see this!

“Welcome,” someone said, and there before us was the old woman in black. “You have passed through Cybele’s Heart. I am the keeper of Cybele’s mysteries. We have waited a long time for your coming. Many years. Many long years.”

My hand slipped into Stoyan’s. “We greet you respectfully,” I said, wondering if we should have brought gifts. “Perhaps you are a friend of Drçžgu
a, the witch of the wood. If so, she would want me to give you her best regards. I understand that each of us has a quest to fulfill. Stoyan and I have traveled here as helpers to Duarte Aguiar. He is bringing the last words of the goddess home and should be close behind us.” How far across the lake would Murat and Irene have traveled by now? Was there another bee, another bird, another gargoyle and dog waiting for them? By my side, Cybele’s Gift in its soft wrapping hung against my thigh. “There are others following,” I told her, “people who think they have a claim to the statue.” I was not sure whether to warn her, to tell her Irene wanted to snatch Cybele’s Gift and keep it for herself to enhance her prestige with the cult in Istanbul—if what Irene had told us was true. I thought it must be; what else could have brought her all this way? Should I say it? The folk of the Other Kingdom tended to take offense when human folk tried to tell them how to conduct their own affairs. It was possible this crone already knew all about Irene and considered her a more suitable custodian for the artifact than the inhabitants of Mustafa’s mountain village.

“Ah,” said the old woman, “but Cybele’s Gift is in your possession, Paula. Why do you not go forward with it yourself?”

I shivered. It was like what Stoyan had said before, a choice that implied Duarte might be left behind. “It’s not right for me to do it,” I said. “Duarte made a promise to a friend, someone who saved his life. Duarte should be the one to finish this.”

“Let me make this plain to you,” the crone said. “There are two ways to Cybele’s treasure trove, which you must pass to complete your mission. One is before your eyes—simply walk forward across this chamber, and you will reach it. You have Cybele’s Gift. You are safe and so is your companion. That is the first way: the easy way.”

“And the second?” Stoyan asked.

“The second lies there.” The old woman pointed a long-nailed finger toward what had seemed a plain rock wall, and an archway appeared, through which a smaller cavern could be glimpsed. A reddish light flickered there.

“Which will you choose?” the crone asked quietly. “How brave are you, Paula?”

It was an echo of the dream, the one in which Ileana had interrogated my sister about my part of the mission. This was not the simple choice it seemed to be. Take the wrong path and it might not be just Duarte I abandoned to whatever fate awaited him but Tati as well. “The second one,” I said, glancing at Stoyan, who gave a nod. “We’ll go that way. I hope I’m brave enough for whatever it is.”
Let this be right,
I prayed.
Let all of us be safe.
Almost as much as that, I wanted Cybele to go to Mustafa’s people. It couldn’t be right for Irene and her cult to have the statue. The goddess was an old thing of earth, simple, wild, and good. She did not belong in the hands of a devious person like Irene, a woman who was prepared to lie and dissemble and kill to get the statue for herself.

“Be quick,” the old woman warned. “Those whom you have brought after you are almost here. Each in turn will have a chance to make a claim. If you would have Duarte be first, show us what you have learned.”

Hand in hand, Stoyan and I went through the arch into the smaller cave. The crone did not follow us, for there was another guide here, an ethereal woman whose hair was a shimmering cloud like spun silk, its color pure white. Tiny twinkling stars dotted her locks, and her gown seemed made of sea, or summer sky, or the wings of delicate blue-green butterflies. A peri, I thought, an Anatolian fairy woman. Her eyes were lustrous, her face creamy pale, but not as pale as Tati’s. I gasped in a shocked breath, then fell silent.

My sister was standing very still halfway across the chamber, which was rimmed by a ledge onto which we had emerged. Tati was on the lower level. She was blindfolded and her wrists were bound together. The floor of the cavern was a metal grille of elaborate design. Most of the holes in it were quite large, big enough for a slender woman like Tati to fall through. A red light came from beneath, as of fire not so far down, and the chamber was hot. Tati stood right at the center on a little platform. If she tried to move blind, she would quickly fall to those flames beneath the treacherous floor. There was a strange smell here, like bone, or iron, or something old beyond counting.

Across the narrow bars of the grille moved a number of creatures similar to the one I bore on my left shoulder, things like gargoyles, though these were much bigger and their mouths were open wide to show knifelike teeth. Their little avid eyes, shining red in the flickering light, were uniformly fixed on Tati, as if they were only waiting for her to stumble and fall. They scuttled from one crossing point to another, apparently heedless of the danger. When they met face to face, which was often, they snarled and scratched at each other. As they ran past my sister, this way, that way, each took a snap at her legs. I heard her suppress a cry as, through the cloth of her robe, a set of teeth found its mark. The gargoyle on my shoulder made an anxious chittering noise and hid its face under a wing. The shelf where we stood seemed too high for the creatures to attempt a leap up. If Tati could make her way over to us, we could haul her up beside us, out of danger. All she needed was a set of clear instructions. Or, better still, someone who was prepared to cross over and lead her back.

Footsteps behind us. I spun around, fearing Murat and Irene had reached us already, but it was Duarte, his face parchment white. He had an oozing slash on one cheek, as if from a whip. Around one arm was coiled a bright green snake, clinging but apparently quiescent, its pale eyes narrowed to slits.

“Don’t ask,” he said with a crooked smile. “Let me just say that this amiable little fellow had a lot of far less friendly and much bigger brothers and that I’ve changed my mind about my skill with ropes. If anyone ever asks me to climb one again, I’ll tie the thing around his neck.” What he saw on my face and on Stoyan’s stopped the flow of words. His eyes went to my sister, all alone amidst the circling creatures. “What in heaven’s name is this? Don’t tell me we’re not finished yet.”

“None may speak!” the peri ordered, raising her hand. “None may approach her!”

Tati had heard this interchange, despite the cacophony of the creatures’ shrill cries. She turned her head toward us. The blindfold concealed all but her mouth, the lips pressed tightly together. Perhaps she, too, was forbidden to speak. Fury and frustration welled up in me. To subject Tati to this kind of trial was barbaric. This was just too much. I was a hairbreadth from screaming childishly that it wasn’t fair, that they couldn’t treat my sister like this, that I’d never asked for a quest, and that I wasn’t doing it anymore.

I looked at the peri, wondering if I was allowed to speak to her, if not to Tati, but she made a sharp negative gesture.

“You must all remain silent,” she murmured. “You must remain here at the side, the three of you. There is a solution. Find it.”

It was horribly unfair. My mind ran in circles as my sister stood frozen on her little platform amidst the circling, slavering creatures. Cruel. Ridiculous. This seemed so arbitrary, so violent, when all Tati wanted was a chance to visit her loved ones, so simple and modest a reward. Why had the crone asked me how brave I was? What difference did that make if all I could do was stand by and watch?

“Curse it,” muttered Duarte. “What is the purpose of these tests? I’m here in good faith to return Cybele’s Gift to its people. Who is that woman anyway?”

“Shh!” hissed the peri, frowning at him.

Learning. The purpose is learning.
I did not say it aloud. Duarte might be prepared to risk speech, but my knowledge of the Other Kingdom held me mute. With Tati’s life in the balance, we could not afford a single error.

Tati took an unsteady step forward, the direction apparently random, and one of the gargoyles fastened its teeth into her ankle and hung on, jaws firm. She could not suppress a cry of pain.

Think, Paula. You’re the scholar, work this puzzle out. Stay calm and concentrate.
Words: we were forbidden to speak. Signs: useless with Tati blindfolded. Clapping, stamping, clicking: only helpful if everyone agreed in advance what they meant. Something to throw, a knife or rock, to deter those hideous creatures: it might get rid of one, if the aim was good, but there were so many of them, enough to use up within moments every missile we could lay hands on.

Struggling to dislodge the creature from her ankle, Tati lost her balance and fell to one knee. Immediately, four or five of the gargoyles leaped to cling to her, growling and shrieking. Stay calm? My heart was pounding and my breath was coming in panicky gasps. My blood was boiling with outrage on my sister’s behalf. A pox on the Other Kingdom! I gathered myself to break every rule I knew about quests. No peri was going to make me stand by and watch my sister being bitten to death.