Spiral: Book One of the Spiral in Time (66 page)

On the far side of the pyre, a mound of ox meat burned, fat dripping, sizzling as it struck the fire. A wave of heat flowed over Lorc’s skin. The flames were almost to the top.

Now!

He shed the hooded robe and holding the sword like an avenging warrior, ran up the stairs to the top of the pyre. A Sacred Battalion guard came out of nowhere and tried to stop him, swinging his bronze sword at Lorc’s chest. Lorc felled him with a quick slash to his arm, cutting it off. The man screeched, and Lorc kicked him out of the way.

Nothing could stop him now.

The
Rab-kohanim
didn’t see Lorc come charging up the stairs behind him. The priest faced the crowd. His arms dropped—the signal to open the trap door! The crowd roared. He turned as Lorc lunged toward him, and his face turned white in horror at the sight. Lorc was all Gaesatae warrior now. His naked body glistened from the heat as he towered above the priest. Lorc flew at him, and thrust the sword into the
Rab- kohanim’s
throat. Blood sprayed upward. The priest crumpled back in a bloody pile. Lorc yanked the sword free and sheathed it in the scabbard slung from his waist. He needed it for the girl.

He started for her. The trap door was opening! The heavy door moved slowly and then stuck halfway. The girl started sliding down, and her robe caught on the rough wooden edge. It burst into flames, flaring up around her head.

The head—he must save the head! Lorc stumbled over the priest’s body and fell down on the burning platform, his wild cry of pain and rage lost in the roar and din of the inferno. He crawled to the opening and shoved his arms into the fire, blindly feeling for her body, his skin instantly charring and blistering. He caught a strand of the robe and then an arm. His powerful hands held tight. Flames engulfed them both as he pulled her up to safety.

He rose up out of the flames, and the crowd saw him holding the smoldering body.

A god had appeared out of the blaze!

They screamed and moaned in fear. The crowd backed away from the pyre, and a cry rose from their lips. It grew until it became the cry of one word, a name that rippled through the frightened people, louder and louder, until the only sound heard was one sacred word:
Baal
!

Baal Hammon
had come to claim his sacrifice!

Lorc put down the unbearably hot body and, turning, grabbed the
Rab- kohanim’s
shawl off his body, throwing it down on the girl, smothering her fiery robe.

Slinging her over his shoulder, he ran down the stairs into the priest’s changing room.

There was no one there. He tossed her onto the table, knocking the cone headdresses across the room. Hurry, he must hurry. Someone would come looking. One clean cut was all it would take.

He grabbed for his sword and rolled the body over, sweeping the shawl off with one arm.

The face was blistered, almost black with burns. Then the eyelids moved. She was alive! Just. He faltered, then knew it would be a blessing from the gods to end her life now. Lorc raised the sword high.

The eyes opened.

Blue. Pale blue, like a summer sky. Not amber.

The blistered lips moved, barely audible.

“Not for you her head, but take mine if you want. We are enough alike and no one has ever seen me.”

Lorc’s knees buckled as he stared into those eyes and then at the head. Burned, yes, but the heavy hood had protected the scalp. Clearly visible was a large bluish spiral, not on the cheek, but on the shaven skull, where it had been concealed by masses of hair, light as a cloud.

A prophet will be born this night, a spiral on the head for all to see.

Lorc’s world collapsed into the boy’s gaze. He felt his soul plummeting into those eyes, like diving into cool depths of deep water.

In that instant, all desire for the girl’s death left him.

In that instant, his gut-deep need to regain his clan name floated away into those blue depths, leaving him emptied.

And a great new awareness rushed through his body, filling him.

I do not need her death to be who I am.

He wanted to shout, yes!

I am Gaesatae and live by rules of honor. My name is Lorc cù-luirg!

Everything he had been taught, the code he learned by heart, was right except for one thing. Always, he had obeyed whatever his king ordered. Without question.

Now he didn’t need anyone to tell him the right thing to do. No king. No Druid. He knew it in his heart. He had never felt free like this before. It was a gift from this god-like boy, this prophet. Joy surged through his body.

And I will serve this boy always. This prophet!

Then he looked down. The boy’s eyes had closed and his head rolled to one side, lifeless.

It was too late.

Lorc fell to the ground and wept.

CHAPTER 45

It was time to leave. Muffled oars slipped in and out of the water without a sound. Waves rocked the small rowboat hiding between the larger ships at anchor in Carthage harbor. The boat showed no lights, and three shadowy figures crouched low as it passed under the lee of a large trireme with oil lanterns swinging at the stern. A single watchman looked the other way, and the small boat went by unnoticed.

Not far behind, the shoreline blazed with a brilliant display of light. It rippled over the waves, casting red and yellow ribbons on the dark water, turning a single low-lying cloud a dull red, like old blood.

A cloud of dust, heavy with the black smoke of sacrifice, hovered over the
Tophet.

The boat slid quietly through the merchant’s harbor and, at the end by the chained entrance, a galley waited, flying flags of state, and the red and gold pennants of Carthage. The sound of the wheel turning as it guided the heavy chain open was faint, but steady. The passage would be open in a few moments.

“Hurry,” whispered one, in his Greek-accented Phoenician.

Hidden in the bottom of the boat under heavy covers, Sabrann heard his voice.

She pushed aside the cover and struggled to sit up. Her eyes would not focus. She reeked of wine. She felt a sickening lurch of her stomach as the boat rocked beneath her. She was alive. But how?

She pulled herself up and threw up over the edge of the boat. Still full of Akmu’s poppy syrup, she passed out again.

Glas’s voice whispered to her in the sleep that was not sleep, but a swirling land of memory. He came to her at the
Tophet
and spoke to her, told her something. What was it?

When she awakened again, the boat bumped up against something. She heard familiar voices, but not his.

“She can go with us. I know where to take you.”

She opened her eyes. Lord Gisco stood over her. His round face looked red in the reflection of a lantern.

“And find her some decent clothes.” He sniffed and made a face at Captain Adonibaal. “She smells like a drunken seaman.”

“It was the only way to get her past the guard. We poured a skin of wine over her dress and told them she was drunk.” Hero’s voice!

She tried to raise her head, but it fell to the side and she could only look back at the shore. Even from a distance it was easy to see the flaming inferno that lit up the sky above the sacrificial
Tophet
. In her drugged mind, she heard Glas’s voice.
I was always the one.

Then she remembered. That raging fire was his funeral pyre.

And one word he had spoken stood out among the others.
Sister!

Glas. Her brother. All that she had left was gone.

The small rowboat was empty now, tied up to a large galley. She closed her eyes so she would not see the flames. Threads of smoke drifted over the water. She wretched over the side again, and then knelt on the floor of the boat, sobbing.

A subtle sound made her eyes snap open. She thought she was alone. But at the stern end of the little boat, three women huddled close together. They seemed transparent.
Matrones!
Great eyes gazed at her. What message did they bring, now when all was lost?

What was she to do? Caught by the translucent images from the Otherworld, Sabrann felt the weight of the countless women who had lived before her – women who all knew in their bones what life meant them to be. Maigrid, Sirona and Rosmerta, their mother and grandmothers, and all the others Sabrann didn’t know, but, just as surely, had brought her to this moment.

She shivered, her eyes caught in the dark depths of each mother’s gaze that did not falter.

Sabrann could never doubt them, but now her soul was fueled with a great wrath. A part of her had been taken and died in that fiery inferno still burning behind them. From the corner of her eye, she saw a few flames still flared up, lighting the dark sky.

Then one of the mother’s lips moved, and the words poured through Sabrann like liquid fire. “To fight is one way” She held a small warrior’s shield by her side.

The one who carried a lamb said, “To Love is another.”

The third grasped a sheaf of grain and whispered, “Forgiveness”

Each word branded Sabrann’s soul; each was possible.

To herself she made another vow, fierce and terrible, for there was no love left in her heart, and she prayed the Matrones did not hear. A vow of death, not forgiveness.

She reached up and touched the amulets at her neck: the golden Ankh from Akmu and the bronze amulet with the small piece of the Matrones statue. She had nothing of Glas’s. He had never given her anything, except his love, his trust. Her heart felt twisted, wracked with pain.

She looked at the red-lit sky and cried his name, painfully, then touched her shaved head.

There was nothing left of the old Sabrann.

“No!”
She heard the voice—that voice that was like another self, a hidden part she had heard all her life.
“He gave you life. He gave you everything!”

There was a sound, and she turned toward it, tears streaming down her face. Hero was coming toward her, his arms and hands outstretched. Hands that had taught her to write. Kind- hearted Hero, who loved the world.

“Come,” he said. And lifted her up to Lord Gisco’s ship and held her close, safe.

The galley moved silently out through the gate, toward the open sea.

EPILOGUE

The creak of wheels broke the silence as a heavily laden wagon moved through the dark streets. You could smell it coming. A canvas covered the wagon’s load—carrion, dead bodies. The few people it encountered averted their eyes and turned their backs to its passage.

Lorc cù-luirg sat on the rough wooden seat, driving the mules. A hood covered his face.

A sandstone wall protected all of Carthage, and when the wagon came to the east gate that led to the coast and farther, to a desolate desert, the guards quickly waved it through. No one wanted to come near it.

They pointed towards the east and shouted a word, backing away from the wagon. Lorc guessed it meant what he was looking for: a burial place.

An hour later, the wagon rolled to a stop. Lorc’s burnt hands could not hold the reins any longer. He was by a cemetery. Small sandstone buildings, big enough for a cremation urn housed the dead. Stone stelae with names and inscriptions stood on top.

Perhaps he could leave the body here.

There had to be room somewhere for the small person he carried, this child of the gods. Lorc would be his servant, even in death.

His bent head raised a little. Close behind came the sound of hoof beats. They had been closing on the wagon for the past hour. His heart sank. All those priests and guards he had killed at the
Tophet
—there were bound to be guards searching for him. As two horses pulled up to the wagon, his foot touched the sword beneath the seat.
Dias!
His arms and face hurt. He was tired, too weak to fight; he could not even pick up the sword. He drifted in and out of consciousness.

“I think you need some help,” a familiar voice said.

Lorc’s head jerked up. His vision blurred, and then cleared a little. Through singed eyelids he saw it was Akmu, not a guard coming to kill him.

“Where are you going?”