Guardian's Road: Preparation

[aithne]

Watching a house is not exactly the most exciting job in the world. Attis and Vesna had a decided routine to their days. They would take meetings late into the evening, with many people coming and going until all hours. They would rise and leave early in the morning, always together, and Vesna would return about noon alone. He would return an hour or two later, also alone.

On the third day, Melitta and I followed the two of them in the morning. They went first to the harbormaster, spending a bare minute with him--he just shook his head, and they left. They broke their fast in a square surrounded by merchants' establishments, from stalls to stores, and then going into one of the stores, one without a sign of any sort. From what we could see, they seemed to run this particular shop, complete with bringing the rugs out to shake them and opening the door wide.

As we watched, several people went into the store, and came out less than five minutes later. "You know, there are very few shops in which people don't spend some time browsing before they buy something," I said in a low voice. We were breaking our own fast with soft rolls and watered wine, sitting across the square from the unmarked shop.

"Which means they are selling something that everyone wants or needs without having to look," Melitta said. She set down her roll and looked at one of the men who'd just come out of the shop.

"My first thought is drugs of some sort," I said.

"Which is why he is contacting the harbormaster every day, waiting for his shipments. It's also possible, I suppose, that they are doing the buying and they're getting kicked out just as fast as they show them something."

I glanced around the square. Ordinary people all, a mix of laborers, merchants, girls carrying pots and children chasing dogs, a couple of men with inkstains on their hands, walking together and discussing something. Those who'd ducked into the shop didn't look out of place here. "Possibly. Probably the only way to find out is to ask around."

"Afraid so. But Vesna or Attis, then?"

"He spends more time by himself, down here. She'll probably leave in a few hours."

Melitta eyed the entrance into the shop. "Is he alone in there?"

There might be more than one door into the shop; most had at least two, one out into an alley behind. "Good question. And she does leave by herself." I took a bite of bun, chewed contemplatively. "You have any of those poisons that can bring someone down and not kill them afterwards? We could make it look like we were helping her."

"If they are not Wazet people, I have greater options. The one that I had to use on the knight is my own."

"They're spying for the Wazet temple," I said. "So maybe not."

"Which reminds me--" Melitta said, her hand diving into the bag she carried everywhere with her. She pulled out a small dart and without pausing she jabbed it into my leg. I gave a muffled yelp at the unexpected pain as she gave the dart a squeeze and pulled it out. "The beginnings of building up tolerance to a lot of poisons." I rubbed the place where the dart had gone in and Melitta continued, "So probably we won't be able to get Vesna down with a poison, but we can try."

"Maybe," I said. I could feel the flesh where Melitta had put her dark burning slightly. "Ouch. I suppose it's a necessary precaution."

"Hang around me and somebody is going to get poisoned, just don't want it to be you." Melitta smiled, and I wrinkled my nose at her. It was true enough, and also true that I was vulnerable to things that Melitta wasn't. It was one step closer to the Wazet side, though, and I was starting to wonder just what kind of practice of faith I'd have a year from now. Would I be getting tattoos, too? I reached to touch one of Kyrith’s blades.

It was an oddly tentative place to be in, though I knew I still had my faith. The Kyriths were both warm presences on my back, and reassured, I turned my attention toward the problem at hand. "Vesna is going to be a problem," I said. "If she takes the same route back home as she did here, she's going through the kinds of neighborhoods where kidnapping attempts won't go unnoticed. And if she's not susceptible to most of your poisons, we don't have much of a chance of taking her quietly. I wonder if Attis is going to be alone in there. If he is, or even if there's only a couple of guards, we can probably take them down."

"I can concentrate on the guards, if there are any," Melitta said. "And then what?"

I grinned. "Then we play it by ear."

We waited then, and saw Vesna leave. There had been several customers an hour since the shop had opened, but in the hour before Vesna left there were only two. "We can always turn around if there's more people in there than we think," I said quietly.

"Well, want to give our luck a try? Looks like this is about the right time." I nodded, steeling myself. "Me first," Melitta said, giving me a smile.

We crossed the square together, me in that calm anticipatory state that we're taught as preparation for battle. Melitta paused by the door, looking in, and behind her back raised one finger, shrugging. I nodded and stepped inside.

It wasn't a large shop, and it was dim enough in here that I had to blink a bit before my eyes adjusted. Behind a high table sat Attis on a tall stool. There was a crossbow on the table next to him, and several plates that held the remnants of meals. Beside the plates was a lantern burning.

I strode towards Attis, reminding myself to keep my shoulders loose and my face friendly. "Help you?" Attis asked, looking up.

I met his eyes, nodding, while several strides that were longer than they looked brought me into position. I took a breath to speak, but instead of talking, I simply tried to tackle him. He did pull that crossbow, but instead of firing it, he threw it at me. I went low to avoid it, hitting him at the knees, taking him and the stool over in a heap.

Attis brought his knee up to hit me in the jaw, and I saw stars. He was smaller than me, but he had a wiry strength, and he'd been taught how to fight dirty. Unfortunately for him, I could fight dirty as well, and I had more stamina than he did. I got pretty banged up in the process, but I did end up with him on the ground and me on his back with his arms up behind him. Melitta tossed me a cord, and I used it to bind his hands. "I think this place is closed for the afternoon," I said to Melitta. I wiped blood off of my face--I was bleeding from somewhere. It didn't hurt enough to be too bad, so I ignored it.

She nodded and went to bar the door. Once she'd done that, she came over to inspect me, looking at my cuts and bruises. "Nothing serious. That one above the eye is going to bleed a lot, so hold still." I did so, and she murmured and drew her thumb over the cut. I muttered as the healing took hold, a brief fire in my skin.

"Thanks," I said when she was done. I turned my attention to Attis then, as Melitta stepped back into the shadows of the shop. "We have some questions for you. If you're cooperative, you'll probably never see us again." Attis stared at me, blood running from one corner of his mouth. "That's what I thought. Well, let's start with an easy one. Why do you want the king dead so badly?"

His gaze flicked between me and Melitta in the shadows. "Who are you?"

I shrugged and loosed the silver Kyrith from her harness loop. I set the butt of her handle on the floor, resting my hand on the top, the blade facing directly towards Attis. "Someone most everyone thinks is dead. It's not really important. Answer the question."

"You are Minoan?"

Now I knew he was stalling. "Might be. Might not be." I eyed him, deciding where hitting him would hurt the most. The belly, I thought.

Attis shook his head urgently. "Makes a difference."

"I was born in Knossos, if it's that important to you," I said, demurring.

"Then this king is going to kill our king."

I twitched an eyebrow. "Personally?"

"No, but a war is coming and we wanted him dead before he started it."

"We. Who is we, exactly?" I asked.

No flicker of reaction from Attis. "The temple of Wazet."

I looked him up and down, lion surveying his downed prey. "Funny, I have another name. Xia."

"Never heard of them."

Behind me, I heard Melitta snort. "Might be easier if he was dead, then we could question him. He'd be less prone to lie."

"I'm starting to think so. Considering we know that last was a lie." I crouched down in front of Attis, meeting his eyes. "You have about ten seconds to start telling us the truth, Attis, before we do this the easy way."

He looked back at me, completely unafraid. "You are going to have to. Make sure you hide me well, because there is no place on Earth that Vesna will not look for me."

"Your choice," I said. I felt apart from myself, as if I had stepped out of my body and was standing beside the thing of muscle and bone that was my body. I could not back down now, and as I moved to take Attis's head in my hands, I waited for something from him--a gasp, a quick plea for his life--that would give me reason to pause, to not do this.

He gave me no sign, and I focused the strength in my shoulders and hands and snapped his neck. He shuddered a few times and went limp. I took a sharp breath in through my nose, and stood. Melitta knelt beside Attis as his body slumped to the ground, putting her hand on his head and concentrating.

This was something I'd only seen done a couple of times, both of them after a body had been found near the Palace at Knossos. The shade of the dead, a sort of memory of who the person in life had been, would speak through the body. Shades didn't keep most of the personality of the dead, but they did keep many memories for a little while after death. They were often more truthful than the living, having no motivation to lie.

Melitta uttered three sharp words in a tone of command. I felt the air go electric and saw the dead man's mouth glow. "You have three questions, no more. Make them good," she told me.

I nodded, concentrating on my questions. What was the most important for me to know? "Why does Xia want the king dead so badly?" I asked.

Attis's mouth moved, not enough to be truly producing speech. His voice, amplified by the spell, was clear. "He interfered and stole the book of prophecy."

"Why is he scattering the pages again?" I asked, remembering what Nestor had told us.

"We have two options, his thief never returned them to him and they are scattering the pages, or he is trying to make sure the weapon is never built."

I glanced around quickly before I asked my last question. There were boxes stacked against the back wall, and bottles on shelves. "Melitta, could you check those quickly?" I asked her, waving at boxes and bottles. "I want to make sure he's not our collector before I ask him who is."

She nodded and quickly started unstoppering bottles and opening boxes. "Alcohol, the kind that has wormwood in it from the smell," she said. "And look." She held up what appeared to be a piece of armor--a plate for the forearm, to be exact--that was engraved with axes with snakes wrapped around the hilts. "Relics. Collecting them, or trying to get some back in hopes that some of it was the book?"

"Right. Worth asking the question, at least," I said. Turning back to Attis's body, I asked, "Who in Athens is collecting the combined Porta and Wazet relics?"

The answer was slow in coming, but when it came it was enlightening. "Xia, Aeneas, Wazet Temple, Porta Temple, several people employed by a woman named Kolina, and Laria."

Aeneas was the Greek king's name, which hardly anyone used for him. I looked at the body, suddenly suspicious. "Well, that was more enlightening than I thought it would be. Now we have a body to get rid of."

"Very interesting, deeper and deeper we go." Melitta came up beside me, slipped an arm around my waist, joined me in looking down at the body. "I think that possibly we need to make this look like a robbery or something else, currently it looks just like it was, torture and then killed."

I nodded. "Clean out the supply of drink and whatever money's here. Leave the relics, I think. Most people wouldn't realize they were valuable, and a smart thief would know they couldn't sell them without being traced. Make the place look ransacked, and leave by the back door."

"Can do," Melitta said, and together we filled a couple of bags with the bottles. She found the cash box, peeked inside and whistled. Then she stashed the box in one of her own bags. "Fire?" she asked.

I'd already untied Attis's hands, and had arranged him facedown on the floor, sprawled as if he'd been struck a hard blow on the back of the head. "Might cover our tracks some, good idea." And it would take care of the livid bruises on Attis's wrists that proved he'd been tied for a whole before he died. "Bet this alcohol stuff would burn."

Melitta smashed a few bottles, poured some of the foul-smelling stuff over Attis, and gave the lantern a push. The liquor did indeed burn very well indeed--almost too well. We managed to escape out the back without getting too singed, and headed for lower ground.

We found a well that had been marked as fouled and dropped the bottles down into it. That particular dead-end alley was deserted, thankfully. I sighed and rolled my shoulders. "Well, we knew more than we did. I'm trying to decide if trying to get in to see the king might be a bad idea at this point."

"We do have an open invitation," Melitta said. She'd sat down on a chipped stone bench, and was adjusting her sandal. I sat down beside her.

"It's probably worth a try, anyway. We need to try and get some information we can drop to Obelia or Zarek, and then I think we might need to leave Athens."

"I wouldn't doubt it. I think we have caused enough damage for the moment. Vesna." She said the name with a grimace, and I gritted my teeth as I felt a stab of guilt. Yes, Attis had been a member of a conspiracy that was working towards goals that weren't good for the continued peace of this part of the world. But he and Vesna had obviously loved each other, and he'd died secure in the knowledge that he would be avenged.

I'd killed men with families before with little remorse, but this one just didn't feel very good. I'd hunted down Attis like a deer, knowing I was going to have to kill him in the end. I imagined someone doing the same thing to Melitta, and felt a bit ill. I reached over my shoulder to touch one of the Kyriths, comforted by the feeling of her--their--presence.

"My guess is that we're going to have to deal with Vesna sooner or later, if she's the woman Attis said she is. We're starting to leave a trail of bodies behind us, seems like."

"We are," Melitta said. "What do you want to do with this?" She handed me the cashbox, and I grunted with surprise at how heavy it was. I opened it to see a mixture of coins, most golden.

"Wonder where an anonymous donation would do the most good? We surely don't need it," I said. "There's got to be people working with the poor people here. If we can find three or four of them, we can divide up most of the money and give it to them. We probably ought to keep some of it, much as I hate to say it."

"I know." She peered into the cashbox, and then sat back as I closed the lid. "We can head down the poor section and see if somebody is sheltering the poor or even feeding them, we can give them most of the money."

"Sounds good to me," I said. "Let's find a sheltered place to find out how much is in here."

We did, and found that it was about two hundred drachmae in all. We elected to keep a quarter of it. The rest found its way into the hands of a couple whose pastime appeared to be feeding all of the poor who showed up on their doorsteps. Then we were off to take a room in a quarter of the city far from the square where we'd been staying when we arrived in the city.

It was the first night in a while that we hadn't been on surveillance or otherwise occupied, and after we'd eaten supper, I went to the window of our rented room and looked down at the street. It was a noisy, vibrant place, and the smell of cooking food and wood smoke drifted towards. Melitta joined me at the window. I put my arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into me. "What do you see?" she asked me.

"Nothing much. I was just thinking, was all," I replied.

"Oh? What about?" Her tone was light, almost teasing.

"This and that," I said, teasing back. "Mostly thinking about whether you might like to spend the rest of your life with me."

She looked up at me, a smile on her lips. "Theron, are you asking me to marry you?"

I chuckled. "Sounds like it, doesn't it?" I turned to face her, taking her hands in mine. "So. Melitta, will you marry me?"

There was a delighted grin on her face. "Oh, you know the answer to that one, love. Yes!" She threw her arms around my neck and kissed me soundly. And then we proceeded to find any number of ways to tell each other how happy we were about this particular development. I didn't get around to giving Melitta her token, the armband I'd picked up a few days ago, until the next morning.

After we'd washed and dressed the next morning, we walked to the palace. It took a bit of talking to first minor functionaries and then more major functionaries, but we finally got word that the king would see us in an hour or so. We sat in a grand reception room, which I thought was nice enough, but I liked the murals in the Palace at Knossos a bit better.

Finally, we were ushered into a smaller room. King Aeneas was a tall man, probably in his late thirties, his body completely overwhelmed by the amount of fine cloth he was swathed in. He sat in a chair before us, and behind us were two guards on the door. Both Melitta and I bowed to him, and I felt his sharp gaze on both of us. "Your majesty," I said, hoping that was the right term of address.

"So you are my benefactor," the king said, looking at Melitta. "Thank you."

Melitta had her lips pressed together, and she glanced at me. She'd suggested that I do most of the talking, since of the two of us I was more diplomatic. My love's bluntness was something I treasured about her, but she was correct that dealing with royalty would require softer words. "You're welcome. I'm glad we were in the right place at the right time."

King Aeneas was still looking at Melitta. "You were. You are Minoan and a priestess of Wazet. This your knight?"

I coughed. "Actually, your majesty, I'm a Guardian of Porta. It's something of a long story, really."

The king finally transferred his gaze to me. "Ah sorry, that is unusual. I am so used to the priestess doing all the talking. But she is a priestess of Wazet, correct?"

"She is."

"How is it that you came to be together?" he asked, interest on his face. "I thought there was dispute among your temples, or at least distrust."

I gave him a faint smile. "The two Temples tend to distrust each other. It's a long story, but to make it very short, Melitta and I fell in love with each other, and that began a long and strange chain of events that has brought us here. We think both of our Temples may believe us dead at this point, but we can't be sure." Let the King believe that we ran away together--in the end, it was reasonably close to the truth.

"Something you wish to continue?"

I nodded. "Considering that neither of them are probably happy with us because of our relationship, it would be an advantage to us."

The king sat back, looking at us. An intelligent man, I thought, but perhaps less than wise. He wore power well, though. "So what can I do for you?" he asked now. "Reward, house, money, land of some sort?"

I shook my head. "Actually, we just need some information about things. We've landed in the middle of a mess, and we're not entirely sure what's going on. It all seems to center on a book written about a thousand years ago by a woman named Phoena."

"Ah, yes, Phoena." Aeneas sat up, but whether that was interest or another emption, I couldn’t say. "What do you need to know?"

"We know the book was gathered together, and then was stolen and the pages scattered. Do you know who scattered them, and why?" It was an innocuous enough question, though it revealed a bit more than I really wanted.

"I gathered the book together in the first place, it was stolen from me and I stole it back."

That was new information; I'd thought Xia had gathered the pages together on their own. "Ah, so that's what happened to it. Do you have the book together, now?"

"I did and then I scattered it to the four winds, hoping they would never be found again. But they are hard things to destroy."

"Hard, how?"

The king spread his hands, lifting them a bit. "Burn them, and they restore themselves. Rip them apart and they return."

This was a book of prophecy that desperately wanted to exist, it seemed. "Which is why they haven't rotted away after a thousand years. And there are other things starting to come to light. Strange relics that seem to combine both Porta and Wazet symbology, apparently being collected by people in Athens. Have you heard of those?"

"I have, and have seen many recently. They are unique, but I could not find that they had any value other than simply being interesting."

"Do you have any idea why they're being brought to Athens?" I asked.

"Top money is being paid here by two women. One’s named Kolina, and the other is Laria."

Those were the two names I hadn’t recognized that Attis's shade had given me. "Do you know anything about either of them?"

Aeneas nodded. "Kolina is an old woman, wealthy by a merchant husband now dead. I think she believes that something in the relics will prolong her life. Laria is a very young woman but married well, her husband indulges her. I think she is just a collector of the unusual, but she is very hard to get at."

"Interesting. Collectors, it sounds like," I said. "As a distantly related question--you have, or had, two ambassadors here, one from the Wazet temple, one from the Porta temple. Have either of them been acting strangely lately?"

The king blew out a sharp breath, of annoyance, perhaps. "They both left on the same day. I have not heard from them since. The Minoan ambassador remains, though."

Minos himself had an ambassador here? That was news to me. "Did anything unusual happen before the two of them left, do you know?"

"Obelia was a friend of Laria's, I am told, but nothing that I can recollect."

It had been too much to hope for that there would have been a clue here as to what had started Obelia and Zarek down their strange road. "Ah, well. Who is the Minoan ambassador?"

"His name is Dymas. He is usually in the palace. If you want to see him, just ask," the king said.

I nodded. "I think that was all we needed, your majesty." Aeneas nodded, and waved us out.

Out of the king's presence, I felt my shoulders relax. Melitta took my elbow and steered me into a disused corridor, and beyond the corridor into a courtyard. "I think he has the weapon," she said in a low voice.

Goddess bless my quick-witted love. It made sense. "Why else would he scatter the pages? If he has the weapon, he'd want to make sure nobody else got their hands on it."

"And he tried to destroy them. I wonder if he got enough pages that he figured the rest out and he now possesses it?"

"I think we may have to assume that he does. Which means that we really do have to get the Wazet and Porta temples together, because there is an attack coming sooner or later."

We were walking around a brightly bubbling fountain, our sandals crunching on gravel. "Think he will still do it? Or do you think he is missing some of the pages to complete it and he stole back the book so that Xia couldn't get it?"

I thought about it. "Impossible to say for sure, but it did sound as though he had most of the pages from the past, and he probably worked out the weapon from those. Xia stole the book and he stole it back and then scattered the pages so they'll be years, maybe forever, putting it together again."

"And effectively stopping them for now and our own king. And this Kolina's claim?"

I nodded. "That's an excellent question, and I think we need to talk to her. We have an excuse to go find her, after all. We have relics we could sell her."

Melitta slipped her arm through mine. "True enough, and Laria?"

"Laria's more of a problem, if she's friends with Obelia. Obelia may even be staying with her, since she's not at the palace. I'd like to talk to her, too, but not if it means that Obelia knows we're alive."

She made a bit of a face. "I know what you mean. So do we have most of it?"

"I think so, except for one thing--proof that Obelia and Zarek are somehow being set up, convinced that starting a war between the sects is a good thing."

"And who started that, and why?"

"Right. I have a feeling Xia was involved, though I can't say why."

"Or it was Aeneas. Though for some reason, I don't know he did that." She glanced over her shoulder. "One thing is for certain. Xia will try again for Aeneas."

"I don't get the feeling he was involved with that. And they will, until they get him. Not the least for revenge, I would guess. Well. Should we go see if we can find Dymas?"

"Good idea. I think I know about where he might be," Melitta said. We walked through the halls of the palace, receiving many sidelong glances but no challenges to our presence here. We came to a section that we had walked past before, and Melitta said, "Saw some flags over here, I think this is where they keep the ambassadors." She went up to a guard. "Do you know where Ambassador Dymas is?"

"First left, second right, end of the hall."

"Thanks!" she said, and we were off. We knocked on the door and were admitted to a small reception room. "Can I help you?" asked a harried-looking man, apparently an assistant of some sort.

"We need to speak to Ambassador Dymas," I said.

"You're going to have to come back later, he's busy now," he said. "What are your names?"

"I'm Theron, and this is Melitta," I replied.

The man's head snapped up, and he blinked. "He's been waiting for you. Wait here." He turned and went through the doorway that was opposite the door we'd come in through, and vanished.

I glanced at Melitta, who was looking as startled as I felt. "Waiting for us? Odd."

Any reply she might have made was forestalled by the appearance of a man in flowing Greek dress, compactly built but with the look of a man who'd been a scribe his whole life about him. He beckoned us forward. "Time to go. Please follow me."

We followed, and he led us through several rooms into a private chamber. He pulled a desk out of the way, pulled up a rug, and pulled open a trap door beneath it. He took a lantern from the desk and lit the wick from a thick candle burning on a shelf nearby. "Follow me," he said, and climbed down through the trap door.

I went down, feeling my way down the ladder, and Melitta followed me. "Where are we going?" I asked Dymas.

"Out of Athens, quickly."

Melitta reached the bottom of the ladder, and I said to Dymas, "I assume you know things we don't that make that a good idea. Lead on."

He nodded and began to lead us through a tunnel that sloped downwards. After a little while walking, Dymas seemed to relax a bit. He said in a low voice, "I am sure you have questions. Please keep your voices low, but feel free to ask."

I made sure to speak quietly; the tunnel echoed a bit. "I suppose the first one is why is it so urgent that we get out of Athens?"

"Vesna reported Attis missing to the king." He glanced over his shoulder. "Know anything about that?"

Like I was going to admit that I did. "Heard there was a fire at their shop, or whatever it was they were running," I said in a casual tone.

Dymas snorted. "Well, Attis and Aeneas were old friends, best friends. Even though Attis was a spy for the Wazet temple on Aeneas."

Not to mention that the man had recently made an attempt on his so-called friend's life. "Amongst other things," I said. "I didn't know he and Aeneas were friends."

"Yes, they are. Vesna is sure he is dead, and is searching for a paladin of Porta and a cleric of Wazet as the guilty parties. Seems you had a meeting with the king, and he thinks it's you."

Well, that put a different light on things. "Thus, leaving Athens rather than stay and argue. Got it. So why were you waiting for us in particular?"

"Ah, Panos from Aegina paid me a visit about three months ago, telling me to watch for you. You would need my help."

Dryly, I said, "There's a man who's not surprised by much, it seems."

The light from the lantern danced as Dymas shook his head. The tunnel was leveling out a bit, even starting to rise some. "No, he asked me to take you to the Fallen, as they call themselves."

It was my day for surprises, it seemed. "Who are they?"

"Paladins and clerics that believe differently than the temples do, those that have seen the corruption or those that fell in love, breaking their vows to the temples." He looked over his shoulder again. "You are probably the latter, I would guess?"

I chuckled. "We are. And then we got thrown headlong into this business with the relics."

"Yes, you probably know more than I do about that."

"Well, we know at least a few people who are collecting them, and in one case we even know why. And we know why they're surfacing now. Not that we have much proof, that's what we were looking for."

"So you do know more information than I do, but for now we need you out of the city. If the king proves you killed Attis or somebody like you killed Attis--or just Minoans in general killed him--Aeneas will use it as an excuse to attack the Minoans, which he is itching to do."

I tried not to groan aloud. It appeared that my attempt to forestall the war might have backfired. "We've noticed. We think he has some sort of weapon that can destroy ships at a distance, and that alone is cause for worry."

"He has a grudge against us. He was in a relationship with Celandia. He requested she become his third wife, and she refused. She wasn't interested in leaving the temple. Now he is mad and looking for any excuse."

Behind me, Melitta laughed quietly. Celandia was the high priestess of Wazet in Knossos, and she was a handsome woman noted for certain appetites. "Seems a petty thing to go to war over," I said. "Melitta, did you know about Celandia and Aeneas?"

"We thought she'd taken up with Minos," Melitta said. "Might be both."

"Might be. An interesting situation, if it is." I asked Dymas, "I don't suppose these Fallen have anything to do with the fact that Obelia and Zarek have apparently abandoned their posts in Athens?"

"More have come to join the ranks after those two left for sure, but the Fallen have always been here, waiting."

I'd wished we'd known about them before. "Do you know what prompted Obelia and Zarek to leave?"

In the dancing light of the lantern, I could see Dymas shrug. "They uncovered evidence of the temples in Knossos moving these relics. They knew they found their way to the king or collectors, and then they stopped talking to me. Three days later, they were gone." We'd come to the end of the tunnel, and Dymas climbed the ladder at the end, pushing open a trap door. We climbed out into a dimly lit room. From a corner a shadow detached itself from other shadows, and resolved into a man. "This is Orrin, he will take you the rest of the way."

I nodded, then bowed to Dymas. "Thank you, Dymas. This has been a great help." I turned to Orrin, who was wearing the usual Greek toga but without a tunic beneath. I could see a snake tattoo on his chest. From his build, I'd guess he was a priest instead of a paladin. "This is Melitta, and I'm Theron."

He nodded and handed us Greek-style cloaks. "Put them on, we have a short walk."

As we cloaked ourselves, Dymas said, "Good luck," and disappeared back into the tunnels. We followed Orrin out of the back of the building, into one of the poor sections of town near the palace. We wound through the streets of Athens as the buildings began to get farther and farther away from each other, until we reached the fringes of town and turned onto a road that led into the countryside around Athens. The way was through rolling hills and under large trees, rutted with the thousands of cart wheels that had carved the road.

Orrin led us off the road and onto what looked like a donkey path. The path climbed a hill, and as we crested it the land opened out beneath us. We descended down into an olive farm, the dusty smell of olive leaves and the scent of ripening fruit almost overwhelming. Orrin escorted us through olive groves to a large house. As we got closer, I realized that this house was a lot larger than I'd thought at first. It looked like it could house twenty people with room to spare. Behind it were more houses, as large as this one or larger.

We were passing by any number of people working in the groves, most of whom stopped what they were doing to watch us pass. I saw Wazet tattoos on some of them, some the shield of the knights and others the wrapping snakes of the priests. There were others wearing Porta holy symbols as well. There were children running about, tagged behind by pet dogs, a pair of round babies carried by their older brothers herding some goats through the groves.

"This is home to the Fallen," Orrin said.

There had to be a hundred people or more living here. "There are so many people here. I had no idea."

"It used to be just a few of us. The years went on, we were ten, then children came and we were fifteen or twenty. In the last year, we have had some every week join us. The houses behind the first were built last fall." He chuckled. "We were on top of each other."

"Do you all come from Knossos, or from other places as well?" I asked. Melitta, beside me, slipped her hand into mine as she walked next to me. She was looking all around, trying to take everything in at once.

"Mostly, we have a few from the other Minoan islands. We have a few Greeks, but not many. The temples leave us alone here, they tend to kill the Fallen on sight. They don't like us." We were walking past the first house now, and I could see that there was a large paved courtyard behind it, shaded with trellises and grapevines. "We choose to live outside the rules of the temples and we still have our powers. They don't like that information known. So we came to Greece, to live in peace."

"How did you end up coming here?"

Orrin took a long breath. "I didn't believe in all the killing, assassinations, backstabbing that went on in the Wazet temple. I was mostly a person that wanted to ease people's pain and release them to Wazet to live their lives in less pain and suffering. I was ordered on one assassination after another, over and over again. I gave up and left the temple, thinking my powers would leave with me." He shrugged, pulling off the cloak he'd been wearing since we'd met him in Athens. "They never did. It’s been over ten years, now."

I nodded. "Neither of ours have gone, either. I was surprised by it, but the last few weeks have been enlightening in all kinds of ways."

"I am sure they have. Kind of upsets your world, doesn't it?"

"More than a little," I said ruefully. "And then there's everything else--those combined Porta and Wazet relics, and a book of prophecy."

"I have heard of those," Orrin said. "I have even seen a few. I just thought they were fakes."

"They're quite genuine, turns out. Made a thousand years ago, and they're evidently surfacing now by the will of the Goddess."

"She works in strange ways. Look around you to see that," he said with a gesture that took in the houses and the groves that surrounded them.

"Indeed she does. I never suspected a place like this existed."

Orrin smiled. "So, let's settle you in. We have a room for the two of you. I assume one room is acceptable?"

I chuckled, thinking of Melitta more or less moving into my cabin on the Siren the moment she'd come on board. "Yes, it is."

"This way, then." He led us to the last large house on the row, going in through an arched doorway. The house had obviously been built to take advantage of the local breezes. We went up the stairs to the upper floor, and to the very end of the hallway. He opened the door to show us the room beyond. "Here you go. Home, for now."

Melitta and I stepped inside. It was a large room, more than large enough for comfort, with a bed in one corner and windows on three walls. Two overlooked the olive groves, and one overlooked the main garden, I found as I stepped to each and looked out. The furnishings were sparse, but what existed was comfortable-looking, and the air was filled with the pleasant scent of olives.

"Dinner is in the first house," Orrin told us. "We eat at dawn, noon, and dusk, but it's open all the time for little things. Stay as long as you need or like. Leave and come back if you want, no matter how many years have passed. Once Fallen, you will always be Fallen."

Not for the first time that day, I was dumbstruck by the good fortune we had fallen into. "Thank you, very much," I managed, and I could tell that Melitta was as speechless as I.

Orrin nodded, smiled, and left, closing the door behind him. I let out a breath. "Well, this isn't where I expected to end the day." I beckoned Melitta over, and she slid her arms around my waist and set her head against my shoulder. "The thought of just staying here is tempting."

She nodded. "It is very tempting to hang it all up and stay here, but I wonder about the rest of the book."

So did I. "I think we need to go find those pages. We can't have this knowledge and not do something with it. The pages that describe the future may still be where they were hidden a thousand years ago. I don't think they have all of the book."

"I don't either, but if they didn't have all the book, does Aeneas really have a weapon?"

"Who knows? There may have been enough information in what they had to put it together--or there may not have." I turned my thoughts towards the axes I was still wearing on my back. "Kyrith? How much do you know about the contents of the book?"

"Some."

"Do you know if it would be possible to put together that weapon only from the pages about the past?"

"It would give you the basics. Possibly, with a good magic user, one could puzzle out the rest, but it would not be very refined. The later pages describe targeting and the techniques. He may be more of a danger to himself."

It was a cheerful thought. "Hm. You said you could lead us to where the pages were originally hidden. Are any of the pages from the future hidden anywhere near Athens?"

"Hydra is the closest island, and Delphi on the mainland. The other mainland one is Meteora."

I thought about one of the maps that Neoma had shown me, what felt like an age ago. Meteora was a good distance north from Delphi, if I remembered correctly. "Long walks, both of them. We'd need a ship to get us to Hydra. Five days or a bit more to Delphi, I think."

Melitta leaned into me, sighing, and I tightened my arms around her shoulders. "I just wanted to stay here for a bit and rest, but that's probably not a good idea."

"I really wish we could," I said, meaning it wholeheartedly. It would be good to spend some time here. The last few weeks had taken their toll on both of us. "I'm not sure we have that kind of time."

"Me either, but for today at least we can sit and just be."

I chuckled. "That sounds like an excellent idea. Nowhere to be, nothing urgent that needs doing, nobody to watch, however are we going to occupy ourselves?"

Melitta was wriggling out of my arms, and with a sharp tug undid the fastening of her dress. It fell to the floor and puddled around her feet. "I have no idea," she said, giving me a wicked look. The light coming through the windows set her dark skin aglow, and I breathed in sharply.

"I think I just had an idea," I said, and proceeded to shed my own clothes. We found out that the bed really was as comfortable as it looked, and afterwards we dozed together in the afternoon heat, listening to children shouting outside, the drone of insects in the trees.

At least, I was dozing. Melitta fell deeply asleep. The last few days had been wearing on us both, and I didn't blame her. I might have joined her myself, except that every time I started falling asleep, I saw Attis's face in my mind and woke most thoroughly.

I didn't feel good about killing him. It may have been necessary, but I didn't like having done it, and I didn't like the near-certainty that we were going to have to deal with Vesna in the near future. I didn't blame her. If someone had killed Melitta, I would stop at nothing to track down her killer and make them pay for her death.

What am I doing? I wondered. Murdering people for information, involving myself in a conspiracy I never suspected existed, breaking all the vows I took... A stab of guilt went through me. Beside me, Melitta muttered and shifted in her sleep.

I looked at her, at her face and its lines peaceful with sleep in the afternoon sunlight, and wondered how I could possibly think that I deserved this, that I deserved her. She was what I had given up when I had taken my vows. Who was I to say, No, really, I don't have to give up the world to serve my goddess?

And yet, if anything, Porta approved. I was clinging to that thought. I had tried to walk away from this, from her, and now I couldn't imagine trying it again. Deserving or not, this was the road I'd chosen. I tried to tell myself that the guilt I still felt was silly, but I didn't quite believe it.

Then there was the possibility--probability--that Melitta and I would have a child or two in the coming years. Me being a father was a wholly unfamiliar thought, and it was one that had no small amount of trepidation attached to it. It was something that my life hadn't really prepared me for.

I would figure it out. I had to. And the issue wasn't pressing; I didn't think Melitta would want to risk a pregnancy while we were still in danger of our lives. Whether or not to have children was wholly her decision, as was only proper; like all free Minoan women, she had the right to decide when to have a child, and who would father her children. As a priestess, she knew how to control her fertility. I assumed she was taking precautions now, though I hadn't asked; I probably ought to, one of these days.

I looked down at my wife-to-be fondly, and snuggled down next to her once more. All of these things could bear thinking about later. Right now, there was rest to be had, in a place that was as safe as anywhere at the moment.