Shadows on the Aegean (2 page)

I had no curiosity about RaEm’s missing Egyptian lover, Phaemon. Instead I wondered about my Egyptologist sister, Camille.
I thought in English, then Egyptian. The order had been reversed. I had vivid recollections of traveling at fifty-five miles
per hour, of transatlantic flights, of chocolate, coffee, and cigarettes. Of diet Coke.

I was once more only myself.

Before this concept settled, a scream of unbearable agony followed me through a channel of fire. It ripped at me, shredding
a heart that beat only in a metaphysical sense.

The fire burned me, consumed me, but did not destroy. My senses were jumbled so that I heard it and tasted it, instead of
seeing it and smelling it. Through it all a cry, a plea torn from deepest soul, encircled, echoed around me.

“Chloe!”

I recognized the voice. My husband, Cheftu—my lover—taken from me by fate, or circumstance, or the divine. I felt his grief
through the void. His pain was so intense, a cleaving ran down to my marrow. I wanted to join my voice to his, to reassure
him … but what reassurance was there? Was this dying? Was this the end now, my battle service done and death really nothing
more than not being?

Yet I
was!

Suddenly, in the midst of the dreadful, pressing loneliness, I was comforted. A tangible sense of love, acceptance, and rightness
flowed around me, billowed me up, carried me. It gave me ease. For a time—for time was meaningless—I rested.

The physical pain that time travel brought surrounded me in an instant. I was taken from cool refreshment to the fire. I understood
in a flash how gold felt. Heated, cooled, beaten, and molded … perfected.

Tension coiled all around me, radiating from me and through me. I was being reduced, expanded, in an agony of displacement.
My spirit self hunkered down, bracing, preparing to roll.

A face appeared before me suddenly, a woman with blank blue eyes, curling black hair, a woman of striking beauty. A body to
let, I realized. No one was home. Before I’d made a decision, I was flowing through her wide, empty stare. I screamed, and
as her flesh became mine, my fear was given voice. Her skin shaped over me, stretching to my height, adapting to my blood,
my DNA. Like a wetsuit, this new body tugged over my spirit, clothing it. A hundred million pins pressed into me as the carnal
casing grew tighter, closing over me, my atoms readjusting, my cells merging into the empty carcass.

The sensations were wrenching, too much to endure. As I gave myself into the drift of black peacefulness, I felt the rage,
the hating frenzy, of another spirit, outside me.

It shrieked, furious, lethal … and hopeless. “That body
is mine!!
”

S
IBYLLA
?”

They were gathered around her, nymphs and matrons, their heads clustered so that Sibylla could barely see the stalactites
that hung like drops from the top of the cave—or the red lintel that cast a faint shadow on her face. Feeling uncommonly chilled,
she allowed two of the Kela-Tenata healing priestesses to help her to her feet. They solicitously walked her out of the cave
and into the fresh air.

The beautiful land of Caphtor! It was the Season of the Snake, when the earth renewed itself as a serpent sheds its skin.
Rains had fallen, misting the whole valley. In the distance, sunlight glinted off the distant dark waters of the Aegean. Faint
winter shadows were cast in the dormant olive and grape groves surrounding this sacred mountain, the dwelling place of the
oracle.

Residence of the Sibylla.

It’s
my
winter home, she thought. Breathing deeply to purify her body after the ecstasies of prophecy, she felt something cut into
her ribs and looked down. Attire that seemed both ordinary and foreign clothed her. She wore a brightly patterned belled skirt
and a tightly fitted, short-sleeved, waist-length jacket with very little front. An embroidered waist cincher pressed her
full breasts up and out, blatantly visible through the sheer blouse she wore in winter.

A curl of dark hair lay like a comma on her tawny breast … yet it looked odd. What was a
comma?
Sibylla shook her head, dispelling the strange impressions. She didn’t feel completely herself. Was a vital element of her
psyche
still traveling for the goddess Kela?

Sibylla looked out then and shuddered. Instead of seeing the fields where olive and fruit still slept until spring, she saw
destruction. A veil slipped over reality for a moment, and once again she became the oracle.

The tiny village at the foot of the mountain was nothing more than a smoldering pile of ruins. White and gray particles fell
from the sky, covering the ground, suffocating the vegetation, standing as deep as a child was tall. She looked at the faces
of the women around her and saw them disfigured; blistered, bleeding, with charcoal tongues protruding from lipless mouths.
She looked at a nymph, a bride-to-be, and shrieked in fright. Swollen with child, the girl fell into the flames, her screams
rising momentarily above the roar of fire
.

“Mistress?” One of the charred bodies moved. Sibylla was rooted like a vine. “Mistress, the Kela is upon you?”

“Flee!” she cried in a voice stronger, deeper, than her own. “Your days of peace and joy are limited in this valley! Beware
the Season of the Lion! In his days, all will die, the earth itself will feel his wrath!” She looked over to the sea and saw
a wall of water crash onto the land, stripping away
henti
of earth as if they were grains of sand. “Days of darkness, nights of fire! The earth will vomit you up, the sea will swallow
you! Protect yourselves and your loved ones. You must flee, you must flee!”

Shuddering and weeping, Sibylla collapsed to the ground. They clustered around her, no longer corpses but deeply frightened
women. Respectfully they carried her inside to rest on her makeshift couch. Sibylla felt a malevolence stirring in the shadows.
A
skia
dwelt here, an angry spirit with no body. She wept, her eyes closed. Sibylla wanted to beg them to stay, to not leave her
alone with the
skia
, but exhaustion had sealed her mouth.

“The Kela is still upon her,” she heard a woman whisper. “Her eyes are still green.”

Green?
Sibylla knew that she should be frightened by the news that her eyes were the wrong color, but she was heartened. Her eyes
were green. My eyes are blue, she protested.
Not anymore
, said another voice inside her.

Fleet steps pounded away from the mountain toward Knossos. She knew that other Kela-Tenata would arrive and take her away
into the quiet of the Daedaledion. Nay! She must say more, tell about the mountains coughing blood and mortar, of skies where
no stars were visible, of sunrises filled with gore, but she was too tired, too weary. Your days are few, Sibylla wanted to
say to the villagers. Please, please, you must go. The Lion comes, he will ravage. You can return, but you must go. Flee before
the Lion.

Flee!

She awoke in darkness, her heart pounding as though she had run to Knossos. Sibylla stumbled to the mouth of the cave. Exhausted
as usual after a period of prophesying, she accepted wine and preserved fruit from some of the village women. They worshiped
her as an aspect of the Great Goddess. She spent the Season of the Snake, when she had fewer clan chieftain responsibilities,
dwelling in this lonely cave fed by the local women. Here she administered wisdom and acted as the voice of the Kela.

The Great Goddess was the giver
and
taker of all life. With one hand she created, with the other she destroyed. She was a pentad deity, represented as maiden,
bride, matron, midwife, and hag. She was the progenitor of the bull god Apis, she was his seducer, his bride, his wife, and,
eventually, his slayer. She was the moon, he was the sun; she was the odd numbers, he the even; she was serpent, swallow,
and ax, he was lion, bull, and boot. The lives of the gods paralleled the life of the land; soon the land would reawaken and
Sibylla would join the other priestesses in welcoming Kela.

Sibylla would return soon to Kallistae and the palace. The seasons of growing and reaping would be upon the Aztlan empire
and she would step once again into her position and authority. The chaos of Aztlan Island would all but erase the memory of
these cool, quiet fields, the snow-capped mountains in the distance. This was the nineteenth summer, the summer of great change
in the empire.

Aztlan Empire?
the voice inside her said.
Where am I? Is this a Mexican resort? Please don’t tell me I’m an Aztec
.

Sibylla shuddered at the voice and forced her thoughts to this summer. Her cousin Phoebus would become
Hreesos
, the Golden Bull, while his father, Zelos, would be made
athanati
, immortal. Phoebus was nineteen; this summer the sun and moon would stand as one. This summer the new heir to the throne
would be conceived. This summer would mark the end of the reign of Zelos and the beginning of Phoebus’ nineteen summers on
the throne. The annual midsummer festival would be fourteen, not the usual seven days.

What are you talking about? Where am I? Where did you get those names?
the voice pleaded, its fear tangible.

Sibylla ignored it. Kela-Ileana had ruled as Zelos’ wife and personification of the Great Goddess for the same nineteen summers.
This summer the nymphs of Aztlan would challenge her position as Queen of Heaven. Through a series of footraces and mazes,
the queen and the chosen racers would match strength and resilience. If Kela-Ileana won the competitions, she would marry
Phoebus. Becoming pregnant in thirty days would confirm her position as the Great Goddess and Phoebus’ wife, ensuring another
nineteen summers’ reign. If she proved to be infertile with Phoebus, then her position would be yielded to the runner-up.

Yielded to the runner-up? Does that mean she gets a lovely parting gift?
The voice alternated between fear and scoffing.
What is a runner-up wife? God! Where am I?