Oceanborne (32 page)

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Authors: Katherine Irons

Tags: #Romance, #Paranormal, #Fantasy

BOOK: Oceanborne
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Another victim was dragged kicking and wailing toward the crack in the earth. The ever-burning fires below were the remains of an old volcano, thousands of feet below. She wondered how many of the humans who resided on Cyprus realized that their homes and places of business perched on top of a festering time bomb.
The priests began chanting again, off key as usual. It was all Halimeda could do not to cancel the entire production. Lord Melqart should allow her to bring mermaids into the temple. Their voices would put those of these puny humans to shame. She prepared herself for the prospect that nothing would go as she'd so carefully planned. With her luck, Halimeda thought, Poseidon wouldn't even notice that his grandchild was missing. One girl child more or less, especially such a troublesome one, probably meant nothing to him.
This second sacrifice was a joke as well. Not a girl, but a woman. Halimeda never could guess the age of humans, especially the females. But she would venture the squalling bitch, presented to Melqart's image by the two grinning priests, was at least forty. She was so skinny that the priests must have been gobbling her rations, rather than fattening her on sugary treats and fat meats, as they were supposed to do.
Back in the day, a real god like Artemis or Ares would have blasted the entire temple with a thunder bolt and started anew with a fresh batch of dedicated priests. No, to put it in human vernacular, in spite of his tricks with the earthquake and the tidal wave, Melqart wasn't quite up to par. It was past time that she took the reins of power into her own capable hands and set him straight.
“Bring out the princess!” she ordered. “Lord Melqart demands the Atlantean king's daughter.”
Daughter, granddaughter, what did it matter to him? Not being a humanoid, Melqart would have little grasp of personal relationships anyway. One was as good as the other.
The two priests by the edge of the pit stopped and stared at her as if unsure what to do with the shrieking woman.
“Throw her in!” Halimeda commanded.
What else would they do with her? Crown her with flowers and carry her back to her cage on their shoulders?
In an amazing burst of energy, the woman wiggled out of their grasp, fell face down on the floor, and began crawling away. The priests, forgetting all dignity, ran after her. One grabbed a handful of her dirty hair and the other a dirty bare foot. The woman continued to squeal so loudly that the chanters stopped singing and gaped fishmouthed at her audacity. The bald priest, the one who had the victim by the foot, began dragging her back toward the hole. She howled and scratched at the floor in a most undignified manner.
Halimeda covered her eyes with her hands in exasperation. When she summoned nerve to look again, she saw the priest closest to the pit had let go of the woman and was clutching a handful of feathers that had appeared in the center of his bare chest. The second priest, too concerned with his squirming offering to see what his companion was doing, had thrown the woman over his shoulder and was attempting to carry the bitch to the edge of the hole.
But then, as Halimeda stared at the fiasco the sacrifice had become, an arrow flew from the darkness at the back of the sanctuary and struck the second priest in the throat. He dropped the woman, staggered toward the pit, and toppled in. He screamed louder than the first sacrifice on his way down.
The female offering leaped to her feet, arms flailing, and took off like a shark after a bucket of chum. Bare-assed and tits bouncing, she fled past Halimeda, past the chorus of chanters, toward the front of the temple.
The humans who'd been singing dissolved into utter panic. Some ran one way, some fled another. At least two followed the first priest into the pit, one aided by another feathered shaft, and the third because he'd apparently lost his mind and sought the nearest way out. Two mermen dashed in among the throng and were happily slashing and stabbing anyone they could with wicked looking knives.
Halimeda didn't know whether she should pursue the escapee and bring the sacrifice back to finish her performance or simply to make herself absent. Lord Melqart would be heartily displeased by this display of total incompetence, and she didn't want his vengeance to fall on her. Tidal waves would be child's play compared to what he might do when he realized what a debacle this worship service had become. And anyone his gaze fell on would be fair game.
As she turned to make a safe exit, an arrow buried itself in her thigh. The pain nearly drove her off her feet. “You!” she screamed as Morwena stepped from the shadows, bow in hand. “You've killed me!” Halimeda howled.
“Not yet!” Morwena drove a second shaft into Halimeda's stomach.
A second figure ran toward Halimeda as she struggled to pull loose the arrow in her thigh. A priest fell into her, his blood soaking her beautiful gown. As he went down, he clutched at her, caught a necklace of priceless rubies and broke the string. A Hindu king's ransom in gems rained over his thrashing body and mingled with the gore.
“Where is she?” Morwena demanded.
Halimeda looked up to see Poseidon's daughter standing over her, the wicked bow drawn, an arrow only inches from Halimeda's head. Blood was running down her leg and pooling on the floor. The pain in her gut was excruciating. Halimeda knew that if she didn't get back to the salt water soon, she would bleed to death before she could have a chance to regenerate.
Morwena's expression was frightening. “You have three seconds,” she said. “One, two—”
“There! There!” Halimeda pointed toward the passageway leading to the crypt where the sacrifices were housed. “The brat is there.”
Morwena turned away, but before Halimeda could run back down the tunnel to the sea, the great statue of Lord Melqart began to crumble. Jagged pieces of stone fell around her, striking her flesh and destroying the remains of her lovely gown. And as she watched, the stone cracked and Melqart emerged. Not so much emerged as appeared, this time in the form of the life-destroying, bull-headed man.
“How dare you invade my temple?” he bellowed, his voice as powerful as the roar of an enraged bull. He threw up a hand, and a bolt of lightning flew from his open palm, blasting the nearest priest to eternity.
Morwena froze, eyes wide, mouth open. Even the two mermen ceased their harvest and stood staring in terror at the incarnation of Lord Melqart.
“Do you know who I am? Do you know what power I possess?” Melqart demanded.
Morwena dropped to her knees, her face ashen. The bow fell from her fingers.
“What are you? You're nothing but a child's nightmare!” came another woman's voice. This one was human, Halimeda was certain of it. “You don't exist. You've never existed.” There was laughter. “You're nothing but an empty sack of lies.”
CHAPTER 30
A
lexandros climbed the rise where Orion and the remaining troops of the Blue-Shields had drawn up in a circle. Waves of shades surrounded them on all sides except the west, the direction Alex had just come from. That side was all rocks and thick outcrops of sea grass which had grown up around the remains of a sunken ferry from the early twentieth century. It wasn't the best protection, but better than none, and there weren't enough able-bodied soldiers left to defend the entire perimeter.
“How bad?” Orion asked when he saw the warrior Alex carried in his arms. It was their younger half-brother Paris, so drenched in blood that Orion wouldn't have known him if it hadn't been for the blue tattoo of a trident—the mark of a king's son—on his right bicep.
Alexandros's eyes revealed the emotion he'd never admit. “Paris needs the healers. If we could get him to the temple …” The rest went unspoken as he laid the unconscious boy down on a bed of seaweed. Atlantis lay far away to the west in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. If there were men free to transport Paris, he would never have survived the journey through the seraphim's gut. Alex shrugged. “His chances are as good as the rest of ours.”
Orion nodded. “We could have used his sword. There are few enough of us left to hold …” He trailed off. Fatigue and blood loss had made him slow-witted. “Poseidon ? Wasn't Paris—”
“At our father's side?” Alex knelt in the sand and scrubbed his sword blade clean. “The horde swept over the wall. All who fought there died but Paris and a standard bearer, Klemenis. But Klemenis was too far gone. He told me where to find Paris.” Again, pain flashed in Alex's green eyes. “I had to fight my way back. I could only carry one of them.” His voice cracked. “As it was, the shades were on Klemenis before I'd gone ten yards.”
“All died?” Orion repeated numbly. “All?”
His twin rose and laid a hand on Orion's shoulder. “The king is dead. Long live the king.”
“Morgan …”
“… Is the new Poseidon,” Alex finished. “He died well, our father. As he wished. May the bards say the same of us.”
“Here they come!” a sergeant shouted. “Atlanteans to arms! The bastards come!”
 
“Are you some sort of child's joke?” Elena shouted at Melqart. “You're as pitiful as she is.” She pointed at Halimeda who was creeping away toward the tunnel entrance. “Maybe more.” Elena scowled and made a shooing motion with her hands, as you might do to clear the water of a bad smell. “Go away! Back to whatever hole you crawled out of.”
Melqart attempted a bull's roar, but it came out more of a bleat.
Morwena raised her head and stared at the god of war.
Melqart's face fell, and he looked as though he was about to burst into tears. One horn had sagged, and as they watched, he was visibly growing smaller.
Elena snickered, hands now resting on her hips. “This is what you are?
This
is what frightens people? Broken horns and a saggy gut?”
Melqart's other horn cracked off at his head and fell onto the floor.
Elena paused for breath, and Melqart's eyes narrowed.
“Keep it up!” Morwena cried. “He is ridiculous, isn't he? Laugh at him, Elena.”
Elena chuckled. “You really are nothing, aren't you?” She glanced around at the wailing priests who'd managed to evade the knives of the two mermen. “This is what you committed murder for? This is what you've damned your souls for? This … this nothing?”
Melqart threw up his right arm. With a sizzle and pop, both arm and hand shrank and dissolved before their eyes. This revelation sent another priest careering over the crack in the floor. He didn't make it. His screams could barely be heard above Melqart's howling.
Elena's voice had become a whisper. “No one believes in you, Melqart. No one ever did.”
The howling became a shriek as the rest of Melqart crumbled into a heap of dust. Morwena leaped to her feet, scooped up her bow, and ran to Elena's side.
“Be gone!” Elena shouted at Melqart's crumbled remains. “You're nothing.”
The dust settled. The temple grew silent as a tomb. And then, from the pile of dust, came a faint rustling. Morwena held her breath as a fat and loathsome toad wiggled out and hopped away. In the blink of an eye, the gray toad gave a giant leap and vanished into the pit.
Morwena inhaled sharply as she remembered her old enemy, but when she looked at where Halimeda had crouched only a minute before, the witch was gone. “Halimeda's escaping!”
“Danu,” Elena said. “We've got to find Danu.”
“This way.” Morwena hurried in the direction that Halimeda had pointed out. Elena followed, leaving Tadeu and Moises to keep watch in case Melqart returned in a more lethal form.
“How did you do that?” Morwena asked. “How did you know the magic that would destroy Melqart.”
“I didn't,” Elena admitted. “But it worked with Halimeda, didn't it? I was making it up as I went along.” Elena grinned. “But I really don't believe in monsters or in witches.”
“Danu!” Morwena called. “Where are you?” A flight of stone steps loomed ahead of them. She glanced at Elena. “Down there, do you suppose?”
Tadeu came up behind them, the point of his knife under a priest's Adam's apple.
The priest was shaking and pleading for his life. “I just get paid to sing,” he cried. “I never hurt anybody. I just sing.”
“Where is the princess?” the merman asked softly. “Danu.”
“I don't know. I just sing.”
Tadeu pressed the point harder. A bead of blood appeared on the knife tip.
“They keep the offerings in cages down there!” the priest squealed. “But they couldn't find her when they went to get her. She must have got away. I heard Moris say that her cell was empty.”
Morwena vaulted down the steps. The narrow room cut in rock was low ceilinged and dingy. The atmosphere here was one of pure evil. Morwena could almost taste the fear trapped in the stone-walled space.
Small cubicles with iron gates lined both walls. Elena ran from cage to cage searching, but the only thing that stirred was a scabby brown rat. It bared its teeth at her, squealed, and scurried away.
“Danu!” Elena shouted.
“Danu, come out!” Terror filled Morwena's throat and distorted her voice.
Had they come too late? Had little Danu already been tossed into the pit?
Tadeu came soundlessly down the stairs.
“Ask him again,” Morwena said. “Ask that priest if he knows anything else.”
The merman shrugged. “Can't.”
“Why not?”
Tadeu looked as rueful as was possible for one of his kind. “He had an accident. He fell.”
“On your knife?” Morwena asked, knowing the answer.
The merman nodded.
“But he said he was only a paid singer.”
“He watched. For that he deserved to die.”
“They're empty,” Elena said, throwing her arms out. “The cages are all empty. I looked in every one.”
 
“Shh,” Cymry whispered in Danu's head. “Someone is out there. Stay still. They can't see you if you're behind me.”
“It's Morwena,” Danu said, pushing at the sea horse's rump. “She's good.”
“Are you sure?” Cymry asked.
“Yes, I'm sure. She's my daddy's sister. She's come to get me.”
“All right, if you're absolutely certain,” Cymry said. “But don't tell them about me. And don't tell them I made you invisible.”
“In what?”
“
Invisible
. It means that I made a wall of blue light, but it was solid. The bad people couldn't see through it.”
“Oh. Am I
im-viss-ble
now?”
The sea horse shook her head. “Not if you don't want to be.”
“Why can't I tell anybody about you? You're my friend. My best friend.”
“Yes, and you're my best friend now, too. But this is our secret.”
“I can't tell anybody, not even Mommy or Grandmother?”
“Nope. Someday, Danu, but not now.” Cymry was growing smaller. Danu could see Morwena's face over the top of Cymry's withers.
“Are you going away? Don't go,” Danu begged, catching hold of the sea horse's mane. “I don't want you to go away.”
“I have to,” Cymry whispered. “But I'll be back. When you're older.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
And then, as Danu tried to hold on, the sea horse shimmered, melted into a shower of blue and gold stars and disappeared. “Cymry! Come back!” she cried.
“Danu?” A strange woman's face appeared at the front of the cage. “Morwena! She's here! She's in here!”
“And she's alive!” Morwena cried.
“Of course, I'm alive,” Danu exclaimed as she wiggled forward and put up her arms to her Aunt Morwena. “I was here all the time. Hiding. Is my daddy here? I've been waiting a long time for him to come and get me.”
Orion came to Elena in the coral garden outside her bedroom in Rhiannon's house after Elena had almost given up hope….
She, Morwena, and Danu had returned to Atlantis, and with the others, waited anxiously for news from the battlefield. First reports, which had come hours after they'd arrived in the city, had been both heartening and terrifying. Poseidon was lost. The king had met his death fighting Melqart's horde. Many had died with him, but there was no word of the safety of the royal princes. What was known was that when all hope was lost, the myriads of shades had inexplicably stopped in mid-assault and dissolved in a frenzy of smoke, stench, and black, oily steam.
“When Elena destroyed Melqart, his shades were destroyed as well,” was Morwena's explanation.
But nothing had eased the pain in Elena's heart as she waited and prayed for Orion to return to her. Even now, as she saw him walking toward her, her knees went weak and she rubbed her eyes to make certain that she was really seeing him.
“Orion? Are you
really
alive?” she called. “Or are you just another illusion?”
His answer was to enfold her in his arms and hold her so tightly that she could feel the beating of his heart next to hers. She laid her head on his shoulder and wept for joy. “I was so afraid for you,” she whispered. “When I heard that your father …” She broke down and sobbed. “I'm so sorry. The king …”
“Died a hero's death, as he would like to be remembered.”
“Alex?”
“Barely a scratch on him. He has the luck of Apollo.”
“No,” she whispered. “You're Apollo, my Apollo.”
He covered her face with kisses. “I couldn't believe it when Morgan told me what you and Morwena did … that you followed Halimeda to Melqart's temple and saved Danu.”
“Rescuing her was a lot easier than getting there. I hate the seraphim.”
“The seraphim serve us well.” He tilted her chin up and kissed her lips tenderly. “Rhiannon sent Lady Athena and teams of healers to the battle site by way of the seraphim transport system. Many good men, including my brother Paris, were saved because she and the other priestesses came.”
Elena couldn't stop trembling. “I love you so much,” she said, touching him to make certain in her mind that he was real and solid and not her imagination. “I was so afraid that I'd lost you.”
“Do you remember that I told you I had something to ask you, something important?”

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