Shadows on the Aegean (65 page)

“You are from Kela-Ileana?”

“Aye.”

“People are dying in the lagoon, shouldn’t she be helping?”

“The Queen of Heaven requests you,” he said, his tone firmer.

“Where is your heart? Hundreds of people are down there,” Chloe said, tying on sandals.

“You are the inheritor; the fiancée of
Hreesos
requests you.”

“Until a few moments ago, there was no
Hreesos
and nothing to inherit!”

The serf smiled tightly. “Come with me, mistress.”

“Nay,” Chloe said from the doorway. “These people need help.”

“My mistress kindly requests your presence.”

“There are things more important than her request,” she said, stepping over the threshold.

“Nay. There are not,” he said sternly, following her.

Chloe turned around, tapping her foot. “She may be Queen of Heaven, but she can wait.
They
can’t.”

He grabbed her around her waist, and Chloe struggled, getting away, turning to tell him off.

All she saw was his fist.

C
HEFTU LAY ON HIS BED, SHIVERING
. He didn’t feel cold exactly, just … unsteady. Turning on the couch, he brought up his leg, easing the sore that grew larger
and larger each day. Another had started on his side, usually hidden by his corselet.

“Spiralmaster!” Nestor called. “Cheftu, where are you?”

Struggling upward from the morass that he seemed to be wallowing in, Cheftu tried to cry out, to call the young man, but he
heard the doors close and Nestor’s footsteps against stone as he ran upward.

What was happening to him?

You’ve got the disease
, his reason said.
You have seen this happen a dozen times. Can you still walk?

Determined to prove himself, Cheftu forced his body upright and took a step away from the couch. Then another. His legs didn’t
seem to be working together, and sweat soaked his kilt from the effort. Steadying himself against a table, he tried to think,
tried to reason.

Later, he would try later.

He fell onto his couch.

C
HLOE CAME TO IN AN UPSIDE-DOWN WORLD
. Her head throbbed in counterpoint to her head bobbing.

She
was
upside-down.

I’m going to be very sick, she thought. She twisted as her carrier walked down a set of steps. Chloe tried to pull away; his
shoulder was gouging her stomach.

“Cease moving!”

Oh great, the Tyson wannabe.

“Sick,” Chloe gurgled.

He bounced her into his arms, his touch as impersonal as a masseur. Not a moment too soon, either, Chloe thought. Her head
was splitting, her jaw ached, and her normal sense of outrage was muffled by her desire for Excedrin. Had she ever been hit
like that before? She certainly couldn’t recall it.

Double doors opened before them, and Chloe was set on her feet in a room of great beauty.

Dolphins swam gracefully on the walls, their humped backs forming a dado around the room. Beneath that ran a bench of gray
stone, its back waved to follow the dolphin design. Four-pointed stars covered the ceiling, and lilies bloomed between the
open doors. Chloe jumped at a piercing scream, then saw a peacock stroll in, his tail open and proudly erect. She heard a
snap of fingers, and her carrier pulled her into the next room.

“Greetings, Sibylla. My gratitude for accepting the invitation that you take your rightful place here.”

“Correct me, Ileana, but am I not a clan chieftain? So wouldn’t my rightful place be the island of Hydroussa? Or perhaps my
own apartments?” Chloe didn’t even bother to keep the sarcasm from her tone.

“Your position as inheritor to the Queen of Heaven takes precedence,” Ileana said.

“Are you still not with child?” It must be weeks into her month-long mate-fest with Phoebus. Of course, he had been allegedly
killed toward the beginning of it. Would Ileana get a complimentary month? When would this be over?

Ileana’s gaze was as warm as an ice cube. Her fingers flexed on her still-flat stomach. “Sadly, Phoebus has weak seed.”

“Or you are infertile,” Chloe quipped.

Ileana’s turquoise eyes narrowed like a bushy-tailed cat’s. Apparently it had never dawned on the Queen of Heaven that something
might be wrong with her. Chloe took a step back.

“Since the goddess has not yet blessed me, I must remove Phoebus’ options.”

Chloe began to feel a tad nervous.

Ileana smiled at her like the Grinch on Christmas Eve. “You are sailing away—”

“Nay, I am not.” Not yet, anyway.

“Nay, of course not,” Ileana said, further confusing Chloe.
Do I stay or do I go now?
The question was answered as Chloe’s arms were jerked behind her and tightly bound. She opened her mouth to scream, but that
just made it easier to stuff a wool scarf in. “Your ship has sailed, the clan horns were visible for
henti
around. You will be lost at sea, though because you are not expected, no one will know until it is too late to seek you out.’

No! I can’t do that to
Cheftu! But she couldn’t speak—she was eating a sheep, whole.

“Enjoy the Labyrinth, Sibylla.”

She was taken, sometimes carried, sometimes dragged, through narrow hallways and convoluted staircases until it was very,
very dark.

Blinking at the sudden brightness of two torches, she read the name above the doorway, then read it again. In Aztlan it was
a name too profane and too powerful to be spoken aloud.

Hades.

Eee!
the things Edith Hamilton didn’t include!

The serf blindfolded her, and Chloe twisted back and forth; it was inevitable that the serf would win, but some instinct rebelled
at the thought of blindness. He slapped her, and in the ensuing dizziness that reawakened her headache, her sight was hidden
behind a linen scarf.

Her last vision was of fire.

The serf pushed and she stumbled. Unable to catch herself, she fell forward into open space. Air rushed by her, and her muffled
shriek was the only sound in her ears.

“I
TRIED TO WAKE YOU, MASTER
, but I couldn’t find you,” Nestor explained.

Cheftu clenched his fists, gritting his teeth. Mon Dieu,
as soon as they find the cause
of
the illness, the entire populace is fed it!
It was too late. He’d forsaken his reason for being in this time, and because he could not rise from his couch, a whole culture
was doomed.

Surely he was not solely responsible for their demise? But ultimately those who were infected would die. All this vast knowledge,
wisdom, and experience would be lost.
Mon Dieu
, what could he do? “Is Commander Y’carus in port?”

Nestor didn’t know, so Cheftu sent a serf to learn. He gestured for the younger man to sit down and wondered how to say what
he needed to. “Your Spiralmaster selected me for this role because I know the future.” Nestor blinked, at once fearful and
suspicious. “In that future, Aztlan falls.” Cheftu looked away, brushing his long hair over his shoulder. “The legacy lives
on, and we must see to it that some people live on. Who would not have eaten the bull?”

“Anyone not on the island.”

“Nay. Here. Who on Aztlan would have been overlooked?”

Nestor sat back. “The serfs, the infirm, the poor.”

“I haven’t seen any poor.”

“They do not live side by side with the citizens. Ofttimes they were cast out of their clan for personal offenses and must
beg or leave Aztlan altogether in order to live.”

Cheftu stood up, holding on to the back of the stone chair. “We must find them, get them out of here.”

“I will call some Mariners.”

“Nay! I fear we must do this in secret. No one must know what we are about, and no one who ate the bull must be on that ship.”

Nestor paled. “Do I have it?”

“I know not. However, I do.”

C
HLOE GULPED FOR A NONSHEEP–FLAVORED BREATH
. She needed air. Nasty! What was that smell? She choked on her hard-won breath and vowed to use only her mouth for breathing.
Sulfur!

She really
was
in hell.

Her fingers twisted and turned at the knot holding her wrists together. Swearing at the rope’s burning, she slid it higher
up on her hands. She couldn’t see to know if anything sharp, like a razor blade or a pair of scissors, were conveniently stuck
in the wall, so she’d have to get her now bleeding wrists to her mouth and gnaw through, like a giant rat.

As if on cue, Chloe heard scampering and flinched. Maybe her blindness was a blessing incognito.

Holding her arms as straight as she could, she lay back on them and strained to inch her backside through the loop of her
arms without dislocating a shoulder. It hurt, she felt sweat on her forehead, but then her arms were beneath her legs—and
fourteen layers of ruffles. She wasn’t wearing the best exercise gear. Pulling her knees to her ears, she got her hands clear
of her feet and chewed on the knots.

It was actually easier to untie them, despite the straining that had tightened them. The serf was no Boy Scout, and the rope
was tough. Blindfold next. Another few seconds and she was free! Sight, at last.

Chloe blinked a few times, rubbed her eyes, and looked around.

There were many shades and terms for black: Mars black, black as night, black-cat black, midnight darkness, dark as a dungeon,
Stygian darkness. Black as Hades.

Oh God, oh God.

She felt panic rising in her throat like a tunnel being sealed shut.
Don’t freak! Oh God. You can get through this. Take it one step at a time
.

One. You can’t see a bloody thing. That’s okay—still, you have four senses and intuition
. She felt the ground. Hard-packed dirt.

The stink of sulfur. It was hot as an August night in Texas with no breeze, and it sounded eerie. Sad, whispering calls and
plaintive moans did nothing to encourage her.

Hopeless cries. Dante’s warning flashed through her mind: “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.”

She shook her head and continued her pep talk.
What do I already know?
Sibylla’s brain remained silent, so Chloe pieced together what she could.