The Book of the Seven Delights (24 page)

Squinting against the light, Smith dragged a steadying breath and pressed both hands to his throbbing head. As he began to sway Abigail arrived with Haffe and they slid under his arms to keep him upright.

"Where the devil are we?" Smith said, blinking to clear his vision.

All three explorers stared dumbstruck at the quartet of old women holding oil lamps aloft and scrutinizing them.

"Who are they?" Smith said on an indrawn breath.

"I have no idea," Abigail said, staring at the women and wondering if they were entirely mortal. The old girls all began to speak at once using the same word in sundry variations: "anir o," an ancient form of

"andras."

Man
. One of the old women stepped forward and poked Smith with a finger… in the stomach… hard.

"Owww." He flinched.

Her age-hooded eyes widened at that undeniable evidence of his corporeal nature. "
Anir o! Anir o
!"

"Now wait a minute—" Abigail intervened to push them back. "Is that any way to treat a visitor to your… your…" Home? Maze? Netherworld?

Just where
were
they? Abigail righted her wits enough to register that they wore white linen tunics and chiton-like overgarments pinned at their shoulders with tarnished gold brooches. Around their waists were frayed golden cords and on their feet were ancient-looking sandals. The entire group looked as if it had stepped right off a Grecian urn. A very
old
urn. And they spoke a form of Greek that was even more ancient than they were.

Abigail's knees went weak as the recognition struck and she stiffened, bracing to keep both herself and Smith up. She had to be sure.

"Who are
you
! And where are we?" she asked, using Greek words she couldn't recall ever speaking aloud.

"Who are you?" One of the lantern-bearers demanded in a recognizable phrasing of the old language.

She seemed a bit younger than the others and wore a great golden amulet on a chain around her neck.

Her hair wasn't entirely white and her skin wasn't quite as desiccated.

"We're explorers… from London, England," Abigail said haltingly, praying her pronunciation was faithful enough to be understood by these living anachronisms. "What is this place?"

"Where is this 'Engle Land?'" the woman asked more slowly.

Abigail glanced up at Smith, who was sagging, and came up with an answer that—if they were whom she hoped they were—they should understand.

"North of Gaul. The land of the Brettons. I am a librarian… come in search of the last remnant of the Great Library of Alexandria."

"
Librarian
!" The medallion wearer twitched as if she had been pinched. "The
Librarian
!"

Abigail's words had struck a spark in the women's eyes and after a word from the medallion-clad leader, the old girls withdrew a pace and fell into heated consultation, glancing over their shoulders and huddling together, clasping hands. As they talked their manner changed, their bearing grew more erect and dignified.

"Welcome,
Librarian
" the medallion wearer said, leading the others in a bow. "We have been waiting for you. By what name do the gods know you?"

"I-I am Abigail Merchant," she managed to get out. Expecting her? She glanced at Smith with growing concern.

He was shaking his head as if having trouble staying alert, and she could swear there was fresh blood on his bandage.

"Idera. Chief priestess. Your foremost servant," the leader said with a bow so low that Abigail feared she might hurt herself. But she straightened and gestured to the others. "My sister priestesses are Hathor, Calla, and Mercredes." Each nodded when her name was spoken. "Come with us." Then she turned back and flicked a look at Smith and Haffe. "Your servants may come, as well."

At a flick of Idera's wrist, two of the old women hurried to take Abigail's place under Smith's arm.

Reluctantly she relinquished her hold on him and followed their guide.

As the threesome accompanied the old women through a maze of passages, Abigail kept glancing back at Smith, who seemed a bit dazed but was walking on his own. Telling herself he would be all right, she turned to the head of the contingent of "priestesses" with a dozen questions.

"Who are you? Who is responsible for this tunnel? How long have you lived here? Where did you come from? How have
you
managed to survive in the middle of the desert?" And finally: "Priestesses of what?"

Idera put off all of her questions with the same response.

"Soon. Soon. You will see."

Frustrated but wary of giving insult, Abigail divided her attention between monitoring Smith's condition and examining the maze of worn steps and ancient passages they were negotiating. Smith seemed to be getting both his balance and his wits back, but Haffe was busy fending off the curious hands of the old women who escorted them.

"No, no. Bad woman. Bad! No touch—"

After a few minutes, the passage broadened abruptly into what appeared to be a street lined with doors that looked as if they hadn't been opened in a generation or two. At the end of the street, they arrived at a paved stone plaza dominated by a neglected but still working fountain and the startling facade of a replica of the Greek Parthenon.

Abigail stopped in her tracks, staring openmouthed, and Smith came alert to give a low whistle. Above the temple, which seemed to have been carved from the surrounding stone, rose an arched vault that looked like it was part natural cave and part human-made dome. The man-made parts were plastered with crumbling frescoes depicting stars on one side and the glory of the absent sun on the other.

But it was the temple itself that drew Abigail's attention and held her spellbound. It was the very image of the mirage she had seen earlier.

"Our temple," Idera said with a wave of hand. "To honor Athena, Goddess of Wisdom. It was her that sent us into the desert."

"A-Athena sent you here?" Abigail's heart was hammering.

"To preserve the knowledge and wisdom of the ages," Idera said calmly. "But you must already know that. Since you are the one prophesied to come."

Abigail could hardly breathe.

"This is our New Alexandria." Gooseflesh rose all over Abigail as the old woman smiled and turned halfway to the plaza, holding out arms as if to join Abigail to the city. "Forty generations of protectors and caretakers honor and welcome you."

Abigail's throat tightened as she surveyed the plaza and temple and tried to come to grips with the fact that she had indeed found the remnant of one of the most noble legends of ancient history, the Great Library of Alexandria.

Gradually she began to focus on the details of the subterranean complex, all of which lent credence to the priestess's claims of great age for the community. The stonework in the paving of the plaza was foot-worn and badly buckled in places. There was stucco missing from the fronts of the buildings facing the plaza and there were crumbled or missing bricks and cracks in every structure around the plaza. Even the elegant temple itself seemed the worse for wear… chipped stone and worn steps… figures missing from the frieze above the columns…

"Well, it was 'new' once," ancient Hathor said flatly.

"It has to look better than the
old
Alexandria," Calla opined wickedly.

"It has been a few hundred years," the one called Mercredes declared. "And with no Protectors left to repair the walls and vault…"

Protectors? The old woman had used the term
prostatis
. .. one of the terms that cleric Moulay Karroum had interpreted from Arabic into Greek for Abigail. These women called their long-departed cohorts "protectors." She looked in broadening dismay at the women. Were these the "caretakers" that had been likened to Muslim "houris," the virgins of Paradise?

Only now did the full impact of it register.

"This is it—this is really it!" She grabbed the priestess and hugged her, laughing wildly. Then she abandoned Idera to throw both arms fiercely around Smith. "We found it—
you
found it! You and the professor's astrolabe! You really are
Apollo
Smith!" As she released him and staggered down the steps to stare raptly up at the temple, the head priestess and the other old women chuckled with approval of her awe and excitement.

Abigail began to walk and then to run toward the half-toppled fountain where she spun around and around trying to take it all in. Then she raced to the steps leading to the temple, hardly able to contain the joy rising in her.

Idera and the others followed at a much slower pace.

Abigail threw her arms around one of the thick stone columns that formed the front of the temple, hugging it, running her hands up and down the grooved stone, absorbing with her entire body the wonder of its existence.

"We're really here!" she cried. "We really found it!"

As Smith, Haffe, and the old priestesses reached the pillars, she rushed into the temple and stopped dead, halfway through the sanctuary, staring in awe at a great statue of the goddess Athena sitting on an altar perusing a scroll. The altar was flanked by ranks of ancient oil lamps… only two of which were burning, giving off a sooty, flickering light.

"Athena," Abigail was finally able to exhale on a breath.

"Our patroness," Idera said, clasping her chest and puffing with exertion.

"You came here with the scrolls and books from the Great Library," Abigail declared, her face flushed.

Idera nodded and continued.

"Well more than a thousand years ago, our forebears brought what writings they could secret away from the Great Library of Alexandria… to protect and preserve them until it was safe to return them to the world."

"And they built this place, this temple." Abigail looked around her with awe, taking in the worn stone carvings and faded frescoes that celebrated the goddess's command and the journey of the forebears from Alexandria.

Idera drew Abigail behind the altar to see the pictorial representation of their history arrayed behind Athena's image.

"This place was chosen because there were natural caves. The first servants of Athena widened the entrances and built passages between the cave chambers… which became the scriptoria for the books.

Later, they discovered the underground spring and built a plaza and carved out the temple. We lived peacefully among our nomadic neighbors and traded, even married among them.

"But then the Arabs came and converted the Berbers to Islam." She sighed. "They declared our temple to be an abomination and the trading and marrying stopped. Then the era of raids and storms came upon us. Year after year… howling winds and oceans of sand invaded our village… until we realized it was a sign from the gods that we should let the desert overtake and hide us. The Protectors extended the walls over us as the desert invaded… and finally finished the vault you see." She pointed to the dome over the plaza.

"But with each generation that passed, there were fewer of us to do the work and to keep up the city,"

the oldest priestess, Hathor, said tiredly. "Now there are but a few of us left. We have grown old in the service of our goddess."

The priestess named Calla stepped forward.

"We are grateful you have come at last, Librarian."

Just then, Smith sagged against the altar and the women gasped and hurried to help him.

"He was injured. He needs rest." Abigail would have gone to him, but she was restrained by Idera.

"My sisters will see to him." The priestess gave quick orders to escort him and Haffe to nearby quarters, then as he and Haffe were led away, she turned back to Abigail. "Stay with me. There is something I must show you."

Abigail watched Smith being led away and was torn between going with him and satisfying her curiosity about this remarkable place. But when she turned back to Idera, the priestess had unpinned the brooches at her shoulders and allowed her draped chiton to fall to the floor of the temple.

Underneath the chiton, atop her linen tunic, she wore a halterlike garment made of two rounded metal hemispheres that fitted closely over her breasts and were held together and fastened around her body by rows of chains overlaid with flat metal plates like armored scales. Abigail gasped. The anatomical faithfulness of the thing was a bit shocking, but even more astonishing was the fact that the thing seemed to be made—from breast cups to scales—of pure gold.

While Abigail stared, the old woman unlatched the garment, removed it, and laid it on Athena's lap. And while Abigail's gaze was fixed on it, the old priestess attacked the buttons of her blouse.

"What do you think you're doing?" Abigail tried to keep the edges of her blouse together, but the old woman was determined and surprisingly quick.

"You must take the mantle of the high priestess of the Temple."

"I am no priestess—much less a 'high' one," Abigail insisted, yanking her blouse free of the old girl's hands. "I'm just here to find the books and carry—"

Idera retrieved the golden garment and held it up to Abigail's breasts, which seemed to fit it perfectly.

"You see? You truly are the one."

"Because I fit your bosom holder?"

Idera edged closer and trapped Abigail's gaze in hers. It was a disturbingly potent stare—those dark, penetrating eyes, so deep, so fathomless—privy to both knowledge and mysteries Abigail couldn't begin to guess. And the old woman seemed sincere in her urgency to introduce Abigail into the workings of her world.

Her mother's voice rose in her mind: "
For heaven's sake, Abigail, do something adventuresome,
something bold and unexpected for once. "

Being declared a priestess of Athena certainly qualified. Besides, if she hoped to take some of the library back to England with her, sooner or later she would probably have to borrow some of the old priestess's authority.

"All right. But if I have to wear it, I'll wear it
inside
my garments."

She unbuttoned her blouse and set it aside. When she turned back she found the old woman staring at her pink satin corset and scowling.