Shadows on the Aegean (55 page)

“Select them now, Phoebus. Now!”

Phoebus looked over the company. They were sickly, shuddering and drooling, a few could barely walk. He needed young men!

“We enter a new era!” he cried out. “An era of expansion and prosperity as never before seen in any land!” He would go ahead
and share his wishes to conquer, Phoebus thought. “No longer shall we barter for what we want; we will be rulers of it! Egypt
cowers before us! The cities of Canaan can be our market basket! My wish is for every people related to the sea to be Aztlan’s
vassals!”

The thunderous applause he’d expected did not come. They stared in stunned silence. None of these men shared his vision for
a new Aztlan.

A priest ran into the room, screaming. “Minos is dead! Minos is dead!”

“What have you done?” Zelos hissed. “The high priest is dead? Speak now, before they leave you!”

Phoebus was losing his kingdom before he’d even inherited it?

“Is there another bull?” Phoebus asked.

“Another?”

“Aye, more of the sacred Apis bulls?”

“Aye, of course! Choose, Phoebus.”

Phoebus sat and picked up the first piece of hole-ridden meat. It was the symbol of power for his minister of finance. Phoebus
ate it. Everyone straightened, and Phoebus fought to keep a smirk off his face. They were aware of his insult. Next, he took
the piece for his minister of public properties. Phoebus ate it. His minister of barges, Phoebus ate; minister of canals,
he ate. Were they getting his point?

He rose, drunk on power. “I am
Hreesos
. I am ruler of Aztlan. I will rule with your sons.” Phoebus walked out, the direction he’d seen the priests go. Another silent
priest met him and led him to a tunnel. Another tunnel. Phoebus felt hot but invincible. The priest opened another door, and
Phoebus stepped through. The smell of manure touched his nostrils, and he glanced up and down the passageway. There, in the
sunlight, was a nymph.

“You!” he called. She looked up, a figure in the distance. “Come to me,” he commanded. He would prove he had gained the virility
of Apis, despite the Minos’ death. He would fill her with child; spite Ileana.

That was it, he realized in a flash of clarity. He would have his revenge; he would withhold from his stepmother! If she were
not pregnant by the dark of the moon, she would be sent to the Labyrinth or killed. He smiled at the nymph again; she backed
away, then fled.

No mind, he would sate himself with Coil Dancers until he met with Ileana.

It was the perfect revenge: Ileana would lose that which was most dear to her—her precious position.

The new
Hreesos’
drugged laughter echoed through the obsidian tunnels.

T
HE CITIZENS REVELED IN THE BLOOD
. The stink of it, the thickness of it, their sanctification in it. Though Apis was their god, they were the rulers of the
god, for they could destroy and devour him. The bull of spring was gulped by the lion of summer.

The day was fading, the crowd more boisterous as peddlers with spicy wine and honeyed treats moved by those still standing
in line. Dancing had begun, and everyone bore the crimson stains of the celebration. This was
kefi:
abandonment, revelry, thrilling to life when death was so close. Wearing the bull’s blood was a triumph, a blessing, and
a recognition that death came to everyone.

Kefi
rejoiced that death had not yet come.

Blood had dried on the layered skirts of the women; it had caked the carefully extended eyebrows of the men. It was smeared
on the faces of children, and even the aged wore traces of it on their wrinkled brows.

Its stench was a perfume; it boiled in their veins as they laughed and cavorted, a people bigger than their gods, their land,
the earth itself.

A voice, a single voice, high on the wind, cut through the blood-crazed shouts of the populace. A white-cloaked figure stood
on a ledge of the Pyramid of Days. The Calling Place, where by some magic, every word uttered from that height was audible
for
henti
. The crowd became silent, all of Aztlan became silent, watching the woman as she walked the narrow ledge. She spoke clearly,
authoritatively, her voice rolling away from the pyramid like waves on a beach.

The Lion creeps up on you

The storm clouds gather

Darkness, fire, blood, and water come

Mercy beckons; flee while you may

Seek the truth, the stable ground, the power you worship will destroy

Flee for your lives

The Lion growls

Flee for your lives

The Bull rumbles

Aztlan will be a cavern of bones, if you pay no heed!

Your children will be dust; your legacy will be ashes.

Death comes, guised as a dance.

Flee!

From the crowd a drunken voice called out, “Olimpi power will destroy you!” The enchantment was broken, though everyone heard
the woman’s next words.

“This is cursed land! We have all wisdom and treat it as dust! Learn from the past; our land was shaken to pieces. We must
now flee before we are submerged in our arrogant pride. Do we seek to die? Do we wish our weakest vassal to be remembered
as the greatest culture? Flee, citizens, flee!”

Was that the Sibylla? Prophesying
against
Aztlan?

Hreesos’
private guard could be seen scaling up one side of the pyramid, the fading sun glinting off the gold in their clothing.

C
HLOE LOOKED DOWN FROM THE IMPRESSIVE HEIGHT
of the temple as it perched above the ring. The citizens were tiny creatures, and she thought, You are born in blood today.
The smooth rock of the Pyramid of Days felt odd to her bare feet, and she felt dried tears on her face.

Selena was dead; they had danced while Selena was dying. These people had no heart, no sense to listen, neither to her nor
to the ground that shook beneath their feet. They were suicidal.

She felt the presence and turned. A cubit away stood a crop-haired guard. “Come with us, don’t disturb the festival,” he said.

Chloe nodded her head; she would not go with him.

He took a step forward.

She took a step back.

Into air.

C
HEFTU WATCHED AS THE WHITE-CLOAKED FIGURE
fell backward off the Pyramid of Days. The crowd screamed and rushed forward in a mass; the two guards stood on the edge,
looking down. Nestor grabbed his forearm. “That was Sibylla.”

The news hit Cheftu like a kick in the gut, and he hissed in pain. The two men moved forward quickly as the arena balconies
emptied. Cheftu caught fragments of conversation.

“Where is she?”

“I saw her fall!”

“Kela—”

“A sign—”

“Not dead?”

Nestor’s grip had not lessened as they pushed through the crowd of gawkers. Cheftu stiffened when they saw the white cloth
on the ground. Then he frowned; there was no one and nothing inside it. Immediately he looked up, searching the side of the
pyramid for any clue.

“It is a great miracle!”

“A priestess of Kela, certainly!”

“She is above the clan!”

“She’s gorgeous—”

What had Chloe been thinking? What had possessed her? She was bewildering, his wife; he never knew what she would do next.
A beautiful, magnificent, amazing creature. He squinted into the shadows around the pyramid. Also a cunning woman … and very,
very agile.

C
HLOE SAT IN THE SHADOWS, WHIMPERING
. Her heart still pounded in her throat, and if her hands stopped trembling before the year I A.D., it would be a miracle.
The crowd swarmed like ants over her white cloak, and she could hear the bewildered comments of the guards above her, wondering
about the penalty for murdering a Golden, Kela-Ileana’s inheritor.

Leaning her head against the stone, Chloe replayed the last few seconds. Stepping backward into nothing, she had fallen. Because
of the shape of the pyramid—smooth casing stones with narrow staircases that scaled its sides—she had fallen over the smooth
part but managed to roll onto a step. Her cloak, which had come loose, had continued to fall. It must have been quite a sight,
the white against the rainbow background, distracting enough that the thousands never saw her body, a tiny figure against
the mass of stone. Chloe had immediately rolled into the shadow of the step. A little cubbyhole beneath a larger set of steps
was the perfect hiding place for a terrified, sweating, mostly naked impostor oracle.

Or was she?

The group was dispersing along with the sunlight, and she could hear the guards coming down the steps above her. What should
she do?

I ruined the Bull Dance ceremony, the
kefi
of the day. Phoebus would not be happy
.

I had no choice, Chloe thought. In those few moments I was compelled. She realized with a shiver that she would have given
her life to speak those words. Where had they come from? They sounded vaguely like a song she’d once heard … a prophecy of
disaster gone unheeded. The mountains were coughing ash. Did the Aztlantu think they were
athanati
, that they wouldn’t perish, that Aztlan couldn’t fall?