Guardian's Road: Abduction
Jan. 1st, 2007 11:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aithne[A shortish entry to catch me up.]
Hydra Town was small and sleepy, with buildings the color of sand. It was oppressively warm, but clouds building up on the horizon promised relief from the heat within a couple of days.
We'd gotten to Itea without incident and easily found a boat that was stopping in Hydra. We disembarked about noon, and spent some time working out where the page was. Kyrith said that it was in Hydra Town proper, a thousand steps from the high cliff to the north of town, and after a bit of trial and error, we found a place that seemed to fit the bill.
A bit had changed in the last however many years. The place was now a butcher shop. It was built on an old foundation, though, and I'd bet that if the page was still here, it was beneath that stone. "Let's wander in, see what's there to buy," I said to the rest. They nodded and followed me in.
The shop was obviously prosperous and very well stocked; lamb and mutton parts were hung from beams, and there were even a few chickens there as well. There was about an hour before the matrons of the town ventured out to purchase food for supper, and the butcher was hard at work on carving up a freshly-killed lamb. He was a large man, with the comfortable air of someone who enjoyed their place in life. He looked up as we came in and asked, "What can I get you?"
I glanced at the displayed wares. "A lamb leg, or maybe a couple of the chickens. What do you recommend?"
The butcher prodded the carcass in front of him with the tip of his knife. "This lamb, just killed less than ten minutes ago. I can cut you the leg off right now. Makes for good roasting."
"Sounds good to me," I said, smiling. If nothing else, we'd eat well tonight. The butcher got to work on carving off the leg of the lamb, and we settled to small talk, as custom dictated. "It's a nice shop you have here. Built on good old stone."
"Old foundation was here when I bought it. Guy I bought it from said that it used to be a church for some old god or goddess that lost their power."
"Strange. You never know what's under this old stone, do you?"
He shook his head, working his knife into a joint. "Nope, but some lady this morning paid me for a look."
I raised my eyebrows, while somewhere in the back of my mind I groaned. That was likely Vesna. "That's strange. Did she find anything?"
"Nope, I told her it was empty except for some of my barrels that are curing meat."
"People are funny, sometimes. Was she a treasure hunter, do you think?" It was the only conventional explanation; there were those who made their livings ransacking old ruins and tombs for what gold and jewels the past had left behind.
The big man shrugged. "Don't know. She had a group of people with her. Not much treasure to be had down there. Nothing but a lot of old drawings and pictures."
"On the walls?"
"Yep, one on the ceiling too. Kind of creepy, that one."
"What's it of?" I asked.
"It's a hydra, of course, but all the eyes seem to follow you."
I blinked. "All right, that sounds like it's worth a look, there."
"Suit yourself, it'll take me about ten minutes to wrap up this leg." He pointed out a hatch behind him, and I opened it to see a rope ladder descending down into darkness. "Take the lamp, there," the butcher said, and I grabbed it and started down the ladder.
"Can I come?" Kaia asked.
"Sure," I told her as I went down. "As long as your parents are all right with it."
She glanced at Orrin and he nodded, and Kaia came down after me, followed by Melitta. It was a space about as large as the shop above it, and the butcher had been right about the paintings. The ones on the walls had been scuffed by years of barrels scraping against them, but the hydra on the ceiling was in its full glory, all of the eyes of the creature fixed on us as we stood at the base of the ladder. The body was a dark grey, and each of the heads was a different color, from bright red to deep black.
I took a few experimental steps and found that the eyes did follow me as I moved. I noticed that when we split away from each other, three heads followed each of us. It wasn't just an optical illusion, it was an actual magical effect. "Well, that's not a trick of the painter's brush. Wish they could tell us if the page is still here somewhere, or if it's been gone for years now."
"Something to do with eyes, maybe?" Kaia suggested. She was turning in slow circles, watching three of the heads follow her.
"Maybe, but what? Melitta, feel like sitting on my shoulders and getting up close to them?"
"Sure!" I put the Kyriths down near the rope ladder and lifted Melitta up onto my shoulders. She inspected the ceiling, running her hands over the painting, touching one of the eyes. "The eye's hard and raised, unlike the rest of the painting. Hand me a knife."
I drew my belt knife and handed it up to her. She used it to pop out one of the eyes, handing it down to me. It was a square-cut gem of some sort; in this light it was difficult to tell exactly what color it was. "So do these lead us somehow to the page?" I asked.
"I don't know, but let me get the rest out," she said. "Must be some sort of clue, otherwise why do it?"
"True enough." I held Melitta on my shoulders until she had eighteen gems, then let her down. She rolled her handful of gems around in her hand, looking at them. Kaia tugged on my shirt.
"Yes?" I asked her.
"Something is wrong," she said, a serious look on her face.
"Can you tell what?"
"No, but I can't hear the butcher and no one is moving up there."
There was suddenly a hollow feeling in my stomach. "Damn. Stay here, both of you, I'll take a look." I went to the rope ladder and put the Kyriths on my harness in two smooth motions. I climbed up the ladder, which was when something hurtled down through the hatch, hitting me on the shoulder and bouncing into the center of the room, where it burst--and burst into flame.
Greek fire.
I glanced back and saw that Melitta and Kaia were trapped behind the line of the fire, but the greasy smoke quickly obscured them. I started down the ladder, intending to get them to my side of the fire, but above me the hatch banged closed and I heard something heavy being dragged over it.
I swore. If I didn't get the hatch open, the fire would use up all the air in here, and we'd die. I climbed up to the closed hatch, and liquid dripped down onto my face. Blood, I thought. At a guess, that was a body that had just been dragged over the hatch.
I got right up under the hatch, ducked my head and put my shoulders against it, and began to shove. I had little leverage and the smoke in here was so thick that I could barely breathe, but I got it open just a little, letting in enough fresh air that breathing got a little easier.
Shove; set myself; shove again. Little by little, the hatch came up as the body began to slide off of it. Finally, the body rolled and the hatch opened all the way. I was drenched in blood and black with soot, and instead of people with weapons, I found--nothing.
Nothing except the body of the butcher next to the hatch, and a confused impression of great disorder in the shop. I took a deep breath, put my sleeve over my face, and dropped down, not questioning my good fortune. I needed to find Melitta and Kaia.
It might already be too late, the thought came, but I ignored it. Fire leaped and played, and the smoke was so thick that I could barely see. I felt my way over to where I'd last seen Melitta and Kaia, not finding them. I searched around, calling out, but there was no answer.
Where could they have gone?
Can you tell where Melitta is? I asked the Kyriths.
Their strangely doubled voice answered me. Through the wall in front of you.
Could you ask Melitta if they're all right?
Fine so far. But it will take a day to get out of here, came Melitta's voice, and I almost wept with relief.
You can tell me about it later. I'm going to go see if there's anyone upstairs and if I can figure out what happened, if you two are all right where you are.
Fine, for now. You need to see this when you can.
I retreated towards the rope ladder, climbing into the fresh air and coughing until I could taste blood. Once I stopped seeing stars, I replied, I'll be back in a bit, I hope. Can I get into it from this side?
I don't know if there is a catch or something to make the wall move, but I just took a chance with a spell and walked through the wall.
I'm glad you're all right. I'll be back in a bit, I'm going to see if Orrin and Evangeline are maybe still alive.
Good luck, she told me, and I hauled myself out of the hatch to see what had happened.
The butcher's throat was slit like one of his lambs, and sprayed blood decorated the walls and floor. I couldn't see any signs of Orrin and Evangeline, other than what seemed to be drag marks in the blood. There had been more than one person here, maybe as many as four.
The door was hanging open slightly, and cautiously I peered out into the street. The footprints and drag marks led down the street towards the harbor. The only person I could see was a boy sitting with his back to the door, evidently asleep.
I ducked into the shop once more. There was a bucket of water and a rag in here, and I cleaned myself up a little. People wandering around soot-marked and bloodstained were usually cause for alarm, and I tried to make myself look merely filthy. Then I went out and followed the trail that had been left.
To my horror, as I drew closer to the boy I'd seen before, I saw that what I had at first mistaken for a red shirt was his blood, spilled in a sheet down his front. His throat had been slit like the butcher's, and he was quite dead. He was about Kaia's age.
I thought about the parents who were going to find him when they came home tonight, and gritted my teeth. Then I bowed my head and continued on.
The trail petered out after a short distance, but I could tell that they were heading towards the harbor. When I reached it, I slipped along behind a bunch of crates, looking at the ships in the harbor. One of them was pulling out, and as I studied it I saw to my horror that it was the Siren, flying Minoan flags. But the man shouting orders on the deck looked nothing like Neoma, and I could see Orrin and Evangeline being dragged down into the hold. Vesna stood at the back of the ship, watching the docks with a sharp eye. Beside her were archers, six total.
What had happened to Neoma, and why was her ship here without her? I had some theories, and liked none of them.
There was one obvious thing--I could do nothing. I might be able to slip aboard even now, but I would be leaving Melitta and Kaia behind. I was on my own for the moment, and the only thing I might be able to do would be explode the boat--but that would kill Orrin and Evangeline.
Helpless, I watched the boat pull out of dock, and then walked back to the butcher shop.
I was cursing myself for not realizing that this had to be a trap. I should have known when the butcher mentioned that a woman had paid him to look at the cellar that she hadn't been looking for the page, but setting up an ambush. I had underestimated Vesna, and badly.
On the bright side, Vesna might think that Melitta and I were dead. At least, I assumed that was the meaning of not leaving anyone behind to try to take care of us if we escaped. As I reached the butcher shop and barred the door, I said through the axe to Melitta, I'm back. Any ideas how I can get through the wall here? I peered down into the darkness of the chamber. The fire had mostly burned down, and though there was still a lot of smoke, it was quite a bit better than it had been.
Melitta's voice came through the axes. Not yet, but I haven't been looking all that hard on this side. Let me take a look. What's up with Orrin and Evangeline?
I shook my head as I swung down the rope ladder. Vesna has them, she dragged them onto a ship that looked a lot like the Siren, but with a different captain. I couldn't do much of anything about it, and the ship's leaving the harbor at the moment. I located the lantern and swore as I realized that the fire had ruined it. I was going to have to do my searching with my hands, looked like. What spell did you use to get through this?
The one that lets you blend into stone, she said. I grabbed Kaia, thinking we'd be safe in the wall, but the wall is very thin and we stepped through. For that matter, you can probably bash it one with those big muscles of yours and get through if you can't find a door.
I chuckled. Let me look a little bit more, but I could probably break it down if it's as thin as you say.
It was so thin it wouldn't hold my cleavage.
Not that that's all that thin, love, I said to her, teasing. I rapped on the wall. This about where you are?
I heard a knock from the other side. Right there.
All right. I started tapping the wall, trying to find any evidence of a door. With my fingertips, I found a seam in the wall. So this moved somehow, but how?
I dragged a charred barrel over to the center of the room, thinking of something. I explored the ceiling with my hands, feeling for the pits where jewels had been, and finding two near each other that had what felt like catches. Praying that this was right, I pressed them both at the same time.
Behind me came the grinding of stone and a whoop from Melitta. I turned, and could see light spilling from the space created as the wall began to slide downward into the ground.
Once it was down enough that I could step over it, I did so and caught Melitta up in a fierce hug, swinging her around. "I love you," I said as I set her down.
"I love you too," she said, and then pointed at the walls. "Just look at this place!"
It was the first time we'd seen paintings that had been undisturbed. These were little dimmed by the years, and every surface, it seemed, was covered with pictures of me, Melitta, and Kaia, and maps of the Greek islands and the Minoan empire. I took a long breath. "You're right. This place is something else, all right."
"Look at this," Melitta said, pulling me towards the wall that was dominated by a map of all of the Greek and Minoan islands. "I think these jewels go into the points on the map, here and eighteen other places. See?"
There were indentations in the map, and as I surveyed them I felt a shiver building in my shoulders. There was one at Delphi. One at Meteora. One on Aegina. Locations of these bunkers.
There were more. One on Crete, one on Paros. Paxi, Limnos, Pisara, Kos. Amorgos, Ios, Siros, Andros. Mikonos, Dilos, Samothraki, Rodos.
It must have been Phoena's life's work to create these. More than a life's work, truly. If the same hand hadn't painted all of the walls we'd seen so far, I wouldn't have believed that one person could have done all of them. I glanced around. It didn't seem as if an altar had been built here. Kyrith, there used to be a page in here, yes? There's no altar here, I said to the axes.
There was no altar built here, the page is verbal.
Let me guess, the gems trigger it? I saw Melitta watching me and realized that she could hear us.
That is correct.
"Well, let's give that a try, then. Melitta, you have the gems, yes?" She nodded and handed me half of them. We spent the next little while fitting gems into holes. Kaia looked on, interested. I realized that neither Melitta nor I had said anything about Orrin and Evangeline to her. I dreaded breaking the news to her, but it was going to have to be done sooner rather than later.
A voice filtered out into the room. It was female, soft, and it sounded like Melitta only without as much of a Minoan accent. "By now, you have lost two of your five. They do not think you are dead, they expect you to follow them. But you can't. There is a small chance to retrieve them but it will happen three months, when they are to be killed. They are being taken to Ios, where they will lay traps for you. But I warn you, you will lose more than those two if you go. Accept the girl as your daughter and let it be done."
An instant denial rose in my throat--abandon our friends to their fate? And then I glanced at Kaia, who was looking at the wall with avid interest on her face, the news that her parents were captured and would be killed seeming to have had no impact on her whatsoever.
I said, "Can you hear and respond to us, now?"
I wasn't expecting a reply, but I got one anyway. "I have enough power left for three more questions."
Oh. Well, then. "What will the chance to retrieve Orrin and Evangeline look like?"
"They will be in a structure on a high hill, overlooking the sea. In three months from tomorrow, an earthquake will shake Ios, strong enough to crack the foundations and bring the structure half down. They will survive the first quake, a second will follow in an hour. It is during that hour of confusion you may make it in and rescue them. They will not survive the second quake and neither will any of the guards, the ground will give way and the structure and an acre of land will fall into the sea."
But we would lose more than them if we went there. I gritted my teeth. "What needs to be done to convince Obelia and Zarek to cease trying to drive the Porta and Wazet temples against each other?"
The soft voice replied, "They need the truth, but they will not believe it without Vesna, so she must be captured and brought to them."
So that brought up the inevitable question. "Where is the best place to capture Vesna going to be?"
"Limnos, where Xia's base is."
I closed my eyes. "I think that's our three questions. Thank you."
"Goodbye, and good luck." The voice faded.
My daughter's voice, if Kaia was to be believed. So many questions about her and what she had done, like how exactly she had done that, how did she get this stuff here, where and when she really was when she spoke, how she'd gotten her hands on Kyrith. Too many questions, and few answers to be had.
"Are you all right?" I asked Kaia, turning to her.
She smiled. "Fine. That was interesting."
A suspicion awoke in the back of my mind, perhaps a bit belated. "Did you know your parents were going to be taken?"
"Yes, which is why I begged them to come along."
My breath stuck in my throat. "Wait. What?"
Kaia shrugged. "I told them we had to come along with you."
"I'd have thought you'd want to keep them out of harm's way," I said, a small horror spreading through me.
"No, they were transient. I was meant to be with you."
I'm sure my disturbance was showing on my face. "I guess being a seer causes a...different perspective on some things."
The girl shrugged again. "It does. They began my life, but they couldn't walk with me on the journey to being a seer. They would have married me off, and I would have had children and ignored my sight." She sounded far older than her years as she spoke, the voice of someone who's seen too much to truly be a child any more. "That is not the way it was to be. They had to go with you, so that we could be together to set things right."
I grabbed the horror building within me, and told it to sit down and shut up before I did something stupid. "Well, then. All right." I glanced at the wall, and saw that the gems no longer appeared to have any life to them. They could be sold, though. "Let's get these out and leave before the authorities decide to break down the door in here." I turned resolutely towards the wall.
I felt Melitta come up beside me. She slid her hand into mine and leaned on me, just letting me know she was there. The unnerved feeling abated a bit, and then she helped me pluck the gems from the wall. I closed the wall behind us, and then we climbed out of the basement and were away, taking Orrin and Evangeline's packs with us.
We washed up at a nearby fountain, and then walked down to the docks. We wandered the docks for a bit and found that there was a ship headed towards Milos that night. Though we asked around, nobody seemed to have heard of or seen Neoma, to my disappointment.
So it was on the ship and away from Hydra we sailed, the three of us sharing one cabin. The first couple of days, I spent some time trying to settle down about Kaia. She was a child, and a seer. She'd likely seen her parents' disappearance years ago, and had had some time to get used to the idea.
The last thing I'd expected was to become a foster father to a child seer. I'd hoped I'd have more time in order to figure out how to be someone's father. It wasn't that I didn't like Kaia; I did, though she disturbed me on a regular basis. But she was in that uncomfortable space where she wasn't really a child any more but also still needed taking care of, and I was unsure what exactly my role was with her.
I told myself I'd just have to find out, and maybe I would make some mistakes along the way, but as long as she was with us, I'd do my best not to let any harm come to her. Fortunately, she was mostly self-sufficient. On the boat, she tempted Melitta into playing games with her, me keeping one eye on her as I studied the maps the captain was kind enough to let me look at. She was an active child, but she did her best to stay out of the way of the sailors. She did climb up into the crow's nest a couple of times, and overall she seemed more or less content.
Melitta and I talked a lot after Kaia fell asleep at night. She seemed more comfortable with her role as a foster mother than I was with mine; maybe it was because Kaia had obviously preferred Orrin over Evangeline. She was leaning towards heeding Phoena's words and not going to rescue the two of them. I was of two minds about it. Obviously, the safer course was to let them go. There was a part of me, though, that said that we had to go rescue them, no matter the danger. They were our companions, and our friends, and it seemed very wrong to let them go without a fight.
From what Kaia had said, it sounded as if she was going to be with us for the next few years, no matter whether Orrin and Evangeline were rescued. My prayers, on the ship south, were for guidance and direction. Was this truly what the goddess had in mind for me? What made me qualified to take on this particular task?
I was afraid, as the days wore on, that the answer to that last question was not necessarily anything about what I was now. Instead, it was what I was going to be.
*****
The ship's stop at Milos turned out to be a brief supply stop, and from there the ship was going to Chania on Crete, and then to Kithira, an island very near Andikithira.
Chania was far too close to Knossos for comfort, but there at least had been a page on Crete, on a spit of land at the western end. "We know eight have been found, so I think it likely that the Crete page started this whole thing. But it might be worth a look," Melitta said. We were curled up together in the sweltering afternoon heat in our dim cabin, two days out of Milos. Melitta had her head propped on my chest.
"I think it is. Not looking forward to rowing from Crete to Andikithira, but it's doable." I'd talked to the captain, who'd said he'd be willing to let us have a rowboat and drop us off on his way to Kithira, at the western end of Crete. It was a good twelve hours' row from Crete to Andikithira. "I think that the Crete one has probably been compromised, myself, but we can see if it's guarded or unguarded."
"And by who," Melitta added.
"Might tell us something about the players in this, true."
"Mmm. Up to you, love."
We lay there for a bit as I turned over the options in my mind. Melitta tangled her fingers in my hair, sighing with contentment. "I think we should go see it. I still think rowing across is our best bet--it's a fair distance from that particular spit of land to Chania, and the less time we spend on Crete the better at this point."
"Probably true, see if the captain will let us off there and we can look and then go."
"Sounds good, I'll go talk to him." I turned a little bit towards Melitta, and kissed her. "Later."
We were seven days on the sea from Hydra to Crete. The shot docked overnight at Chania, and we stayed in our cabin, out of sight. There were too many people about who might recognize me or Melitta, and the last thing I needed was to have her or I dragged back to Knossos and made to answer for our actions at this point. The penalty for deserting from the Guardians was death, and I had a few things I wanted to accomplish before I died.
Midafternoon after sailing from Chania in the morning, a rowboat was lowered into the water and we climbed down into it. We set out for the spit of land that was the northernmost point of Crete, where Kyrith said that the page was hidden. We found that we couldn't land the boat on the point, since the land rose steeply from the sea, but a few miles towards the rest of the island we found a beach that would suit for putting in at.
We hauled the boat high on the beach, and worked our way up the steep slope above it to the bluffs overhead. We were moving slowly, keeping to cover, keeping an eye out for signs of habitation. There wasn't much for vegetation here on the drier side of Crete, but there were plenty of large rocks to use for cover.
There was nothing, at first; a few wild goats and sheep was all. Then, about a mile from the end of the spit, I smelled smoke on the wind. Cautiously moving forward, I could see smoke, only enough for a small fire, probably a cookfire. Leaving Melitta with Kaia, I crept forward until I could see the fire itself, and the camp that surrounded it. At a guess, I'd say the camp supported about six people, and those I saw were definitely not herders. They were warriors, and if I wasn't mistaking the armor and swords, they were members of Minos's guard.
From the rubbish heap I could see a bit beyond and downhill from the camp, they'd probably been here several months. Watching the camp, I could see a path worn between boulders that headed north, to the end of the spit, to a large rock that looked a bit like a large head staring out to sea. Satisfied, I crept back to Melitta and Kaia. "This way," I said. "Looks like Minos's men, and I can see what they must be guarding. We'll work our way around to it."
It took us a bit, but we found ourselves in front of a carved stone face. The great mouth was open in a grimace, and the fangs in that mouth made the face look like a troll or something of that nature. There was no sign of a door, but I'd expected that. Phoena liked to hide the entrances to things, after all.
A quick look around made it clear that the soldiers didn't come up here all that often, which was a relief. We could always get unlucky, but I felt we were safe enough for the moment. Melitta and I took some time to carefully check out the stone face, while Kaia alternated between watching us and looking down over the cliff to where the ocean boiled white against the rocks.
It appeared the teeth might move, and so might the left eye. Remembering the hydra, I started with the eye. After experimenting for a bit, I found out that twisting the eye in the stone socket made the teeth move upward and the jaw downward. I stopped and peered into the hole this revealed; there was a downward slope into darkness, but nothing moved and nothing came out.
Quickly, I opened the mouth the rest of the way, and stooped as I entered into it. "Come on, Kaia," I heard Melitta say behind me as her snapping fingers brought into being a light. The slope led down into a small room. Even with only the three of us in here, it was quite crowded. Set against the back wall was an altar, but from the scrape marks on the ground it hadn't been there originally. And the walls had been recently whitewashed, obscuring any paintings or etchings that might be on the wall.
"Too bad we can't see the paintings. I don't see anything that indicates there's any more to this place than what we're seeing, though, and the page that was here is gone," I said.
"First place they cracked, likely. Still, have you ever seen a room this small that didn't have something else to it?"
"True enough." I drew my knife and started tapping on walls and floor, listening for something that sounded different. I had no luck until Melitta moved the altar, and we discovered that beneath it was a square stone that definitely sounded hollow underneath. We pried up the stone, and beneath it a ladder led down into a dark tunnel.
The ladder looked new, and I supposed that if there had been one here a thousand years ago, it had rotted away since. I went cautiously down into the tunnel, and Melitta and Kaia followed. The tunnel followed a long slope downward for what had to be a half a mile or so, emptying into a round room that was much larger than the one we'd left behind.
And in this one, the paintings hadn't been ruined.
The walls were dominated by pictures of a battle, Greeks and Minoans fighting it out. The Greeks were using some sort of a weapon represented by a staff with a crystal on the end that had a beam of light coming out of it. Wherever the light touched, there were big holes in the Minoan ships. "I'm guessing that's the weapon everyone wants. I can see why," I said. My voice echoed oddly in the circular room.
"Looks like it," Melitta said. As I turned around, I saw that Kaia had gone up to one section in particular, this one a map of Greek and Minoan waters. I went to look at it, and quickly found an anomaly--an island where I knew there wasn't one now.
"Wonder if that one used to be there, or if there will be one there someday?" I said to Kaia.
"It sank," she said in a small and solemn voice. She had a peculiar, intent look on her face, like she was trying to hear a faint sound a long way away.
"Ah. There are stories about that one. They're divided on why it sank. Some people think it was just an earthquake. Other people think the gods got angry at it and drowned it." And there were many who thought it had never existed in the first place, but obviously, it had.
"Their own weapon killed them," Kaia said. Her voice was becoming quickly stronger. "Destroyed the island, but the papers couldn't be destroyed. It's where Phoena found them, but she couldn't destroy them either and couldn't stop the island from sinking. So she changed the papers, but smart people found they were just cover-ups and saw the true weapon behind them."
"And this weapon likely has the potential to do the same thing again," I said.
"Yes, strong enough to sink Crete."
I glanced at Melitta. "I'm guessing Aeneas doesn't know this. At least, I assume he wants to take it over, not destroy it. Of course, I may be overestimating him."
Melitta made a face. "Likely, but he wants to keep his options open, I'd bet. I think that's about it in this room, the paper was probably over there or upstairs."
"Good enough. Let's get out of here. I don't like places with only one exit."
Kaia shook herself and turned away from the wall. Without comment, she turned and plunged into the darkness of the tunnel that led back to the surface. In a quiet voice, Melitta asked me, "How did she know that?"
I spread my hands. "Seer. There's some sort of connection between her and Phoena, I think."
"A bit unnerving," Melitta said, and I nodded.
As we walked back up towards the surface, I wondered about the connection. What could connect Kaia, seer born to two of the Fallen, with Phoena, who hadn't been born yet but had left all of these clues for us to find?
They might be sisters, I thought to myself. Someday. But what would that have to do with it?
I took Melitta's hand and we walked through the darkness, back towards the light.
Hydra Town was small and sleepy, with buildings the color of sand. It was oppressively warm, but clouds building up on the horizon promised relief from the heat within a couple of days.
We'd gotten to Itea without incident and easily found a boat that was stopping in Hydra. We disembarked about noon, and spent some time working out where the page was. Kyrith said that it was in Hydra Town proper, a thousand steps from the high cliff to the north of town, and after a bit of trial and error, we found a place that seemed to fit the bill.
A bit had changed in the last however many years. The place was now a butcher shop. It was built on an old foundation, though, and I'd bet that if the page was still here, it was beneath that stone. "Let's wander in, see what's there to buy," I said to the rest. They nodded and followed me in.
The shop was obviously prosperous and very well stocked; lamb and mutton parts were hung from beams, and there were even a few chickens there as well. There was about an hour before the matrons of the town ventured out to purchase food for supper, and the butcher was hard at work on carving up a freshly-killed lamb. He was a large man, with the comfortable air of someone who enjoyed their place in life. He looked up as we came in and asked, "What can I get you?"
I glanced at the displayed wares. "A lamb leg, or maybe a couple of the chickens. What do you recommend?"
The butcher prodded the carcass in front of him with the tip of his knife. "This lamb, just killed less than ten minutes ago. I can cut you the leg off right now. Makes for good roasting."
"Sounds good to me," I said, smiling. If nothing else, we'd eat well tonight. The butcher got to work on carving off the leg of the lamb, and we settled to small talk, as custom dictated. "It's a nice shop you have here. Built on good old stone."
"Old foundation was here when I bought it. Guy I bought it from said that it used to be a church for some old god or goddess that lost their power."
"Strange. You never know what's under this old stone, do you?"
He shook his head, working his knife into a joint. "Nope, but some lady this morning paid me for a look."
I raised my eyebrows, while somewhere in the back of my mind I groaned. That was likely Vesna. "That's strange. Did she find anything?"
"Nope, I told her it was empty except for some of my barrels that are curing meat."
"People are funny, sometimes. Was she a treasure hunter, do you think?" It was the only conventional explanation; there were those who made their livings ransacking old ruins and tombs for what gold and jewels the past had left behind.
The big man shrugged. "Don't know. She had a group of people with her. Not much treasure to be had down there. Nothing but a lot of old drawings and pictures."
"On the walls?"
"Yep, one on the ceiling too. Kind of creepy, that one."
"What's it of?" I asked.
"It's a hydra, of course, but all the eyes seem to follow you."
I blinked. "All right, that sounds like it's worth a look, there."
"Suit yourself, it'll take me about ten minutes to wrap up this leg." He pointed out a hatch behind him, and I opened it to see a rope ladder descending down into darkness. "Take the lamp, there," the butcher said, and I grabbed it and started down the ladder.
"Can I come?" Kaia asked.
"Sure," I told her as I went down. "As long as your parents are all right with it."
She glanced at Orrin and he nodded, and Kaia came down after me, followed by Melitta. It was a space about as large as the shop above it, and the butcher had been right about the paintings. The ones on the walls had been scuffed by years of barrels scraping against them, but the hydra on the ceiling was in its full glory, all of the eyes of the creature fixed on us as we stood at the base of the ladder. The body was a dark grey, and each of the heads was a different color, from bright red to deep black.
I took a few experimental steps and found that the eyes did follow me as I moved. I noticed that when we split away from each other, three heads followed each of us. It wasn't just an optical illusion, it was an actual magical effect. "Well, that's not a trick of the painter's brush. Wish they could tell us if the page is still here somewhere, or if it's been gone for years now."
"Something to do with eyes, maybe?" Kaia suggested. She was turning in slow circles, watching three of the heads follow her.
"Maybe, but what? Melitta, feel like sitting on my shoulders and getting up close to them?"
"Sure!" I put the Kyriths down near the rope ladder and lifted Melitta up onto my shoulders. She inspected the ceiling, running her hands over the painting, touching one of the eyes. "The eye's hard and raised, unlike the rest of the painting. Hand me a knife."
I drew my belt knife and handed it up to her. She used it to pop out one of the eyes, handing it down to me. It was a square-cut gem of some sort; in this light it was difficult to tell exactly what color it was. "So do these lead us somehow to the page?" I asked.
"I don't know, but let me get the rest out," she said. "Must be some sort of clue, otherwise why do it?"
"True enough." I held Melitta on my shoulders until she had eighteen gems, then let her down. She rolled her handful of gems around in her hand, looking at them. Kaia tugged on my shirt.
"Yes?" I asked her.
"Something is wrong," she said, a serious look on her face.
"Can you tell what?"
"No, but I can't hear the butcher and no one is moving up there."
There was suddenly a hollow feeling in my stomach. "Damn. Stay here, both of you, I'll take a look." I went to the rope ladder and put the Kyriths on my harness in two smooth motions. I climbed up the ladder, which was when something hurtled down through the hatch, hitting me on the shoulder and bouncing into the center of the room, where it burst--and burst into flame.
Greek fire.
I glanced back and saw that Melitta and Kaia were trapped behind the line of the fire, but the greasy smoke quickly obscured them. I started down the ladder, intending to get them to my side of the fire, but above me the hatch banged closed and I heard something heavy being dragged over it.
I swore. If I didn't get the hatch open, the fire would use up all the air in here, and we'd die. I climbed up to the closed hatch, and liquid dripped down onto my face. Blood, I thought. At a guess, that was a body that had just been dragged over the hatch.
I got right up under the hatch, ducked my head and put my shoulders against it, and began to shove. I had little leverage and the smoke in here was so thick that I could barely breathe, but I got it open just a little, letting in enough fresh air that breathing got a little easier.
Shove; set myself; shove again. Little by little, the hatch came up as the body began to slide off of it. Finally, the body rolled and the hatch opened all the way. I was drenched in blood and black with soot, and instead of people with weapons, I found--nothing.
Nothing except the body of the butcher next to the hatch, and a confused impression of great disorder in the shop. I took a deep breath, put my sleeve over my face, and dropped down, not questioning my good fortune. I needed to find Melitta and Kaia.
It might already be too late, the thought came, but I ignored it. Fire leaped and played, and the smoke was so thick that I could barely see. I felt my way over to where I'd last seen Melitta and Kaia, not finding them. I searched around, calling out, but there was no answer.
Where could they have gone?
Can you tell where Melitta is? I asked the Kyriths.
Their strangely doubled voice answered me. Through the wall in front of you.
Could you ask Melitta if they're all right?
Fine so far. But it will take a day to get out of here, came Melitta's voice, and I almost wept with relief.
You can tell me about it later. I'm going to go see if there's anyone upstairs and if I can figure out what happened, if you two are all right where you are.
Fine, for now. You need to see this when you can.
I retreated towards the rope ladder, climbing into the fresh air and coughing until I could taste blood. Once I stopped seeing stars, I replied, I'll be back in a bit, I hope. Can I get into it from this side?
I don't know if there is a catch or something to make the wall move, but I just took a chance with a spell and walked through the wall.
I'm glad you're all right. I'll be back in a bit, I'm going to see if Orrin and Evangeline are maybe still alive.
Good luck, she told me, and I hauled myself out of the hatch to see what had happened.
The butcher's throat was slit like one of his lambs, and sprayed blood decorated the walls and floor. I couldn't see any signs of Orrin and Evangeline, other than what seemed to be drag marks in the blood. There had been more than one person here, maybe as many as four.
The door was hanging open slightly, and cautiously I peered out into the street. The footprints and drag marks led down the street towards the harbor. The only person I could see was a boy sitting with his back to the door, evidently asleep.
I ducked into the shop once more. There was a bucket of water and a rag in here, and I cleaned myself up a little. People wandering around soot-marked and bloodstained were usually cause for alarm, and I tried to make myself look merely filthy. Then I went out and followed the trail that had been left.
To my horror, as I drew closer to the boy I'd seen before, I saw that what I had at first mistaken for a red shirt was his blood, spilled in a sheet down his front. His throat had been slit like the butcher's, and he was quite dead. He was about Kaia's age.
I thought about the parents who were going to find him when they came home tonight, and gritted my teeth. Then I bowed my head and continued on.
The trail petered out after a short distance, but I could tell that they were heading towards the harbor. When I reached it, I slipped along behind a bunch of crates, looking at the ships in the harbor. One of them was pulling out, and as I studied it I saw to my horror that it was the Siren, flying Minoan flags. But the man shouting orders on the deck looked nothing like Neoma, and I could see Orrin and Evangeline being dragged down into the hold. Vesna stood at the back of the ship, watching the docks with a sharp eye. Beside her were archers, six total.
What had happened to Neoma, and why was her ship here without her? I had some theories, and liked none of them.
There was one obvious thing--I could do nothing. I might be able to slip aboard even now, but I would be leaving Melitta and Kaia behind. I was on my own for the moment, and the only thing I might be able to do would be explode the boat--but that would kill Orrin and Evangeline.
Helpless, I watched the boat pull out of dock, and then walked back to the butcher shop.
I was cursing myself for not realizing that this had to be a trap. I should have known when the butcher mentioned that a woman had paid him to look at the cellar that she hadn't been looking for the page, but setting up an ambush. I had underestimated Vesna, and badly.
On the bright side, Vesna might think that Melitta and I were dead. At least, I assumed that was the meaning of not leaving anyone behind to try to take care of us if we escaped. As I reached the butcher shop and barred the door, I said through the axe to Melitta, I'm back. Any ideas how I can get through the wall here? I peered down into the darkness of the chamber. The fire had mostly burned down, and though there was still a lot of smoke, it was quite a bit better than it had been.
Melitta's voice came through the axes. Not yet, but I haven't been looking all that hard on this side. Let me take a look. What's up with Orrin and Evangeline?
I shook my head as I swung down the rope ladder. Vesna has them, she dragged them onto a ship that looked a lot like the Siren, but with a different captain. I couldn't do much of anything about it, and the ship's leaving the harbor at the moment. I located the lantern and swore as I realized that the fire had ruined it. I was going to have to do my searching with my hands, looked like. What spell did you use to get through this?
The one that lets you blend into stone, she said. I grabbed Kaia, thinking we'd be safe in the wall, but the wall is very thin and we stepped through. For that matter, you can probably bash it one with those big muscles of yours and get through if you can't find a door.
I chuckled. Let me look a little bit more, but I could probably break it down if it's as thin as you say.
It was so thin it wouldn't hold my cleavage.
Not that that's all that thin, love, I said to her, teasing. I rapped on the wall. This about where you are?
I heard a knock from the other side. Right there.
All right. I started tapping the wall, trying to find any evidence of a door. With my fingertips, I found a seam in the wall. So this moved somehow, but how?
I dragged a charred barrel over to the center of the room, thinking of something. I explored the ceiling with my hands, feeling for the pits where jewels had been, and finding two near each other that had what felt like catches. Praying that this was right, I pressed them both at the same time.
Behind me came the grinding of stone and a whoop from Melitta. I turned, and could see light spilling from the space created as the wall began to slide downward into the ground.
Once it was down enough that I could step over it, I did so and caught Melitta up in a fierce hug, swinging her around. "I love you," I said as I set her down.
"I love you too," she said, and then pointed at the walls. "Just look at this place!"
It was the first time we'd seen paintings that had been undisturbed. These were little dimmed by the years, and every surface, it seemed, was covered with pictures of me, Melitta, and Kaia, and maps of the Greek islands and the Minoan empire. I took a long breath. "You're right. This place is something else, all right."
"Look at this," Melitta said, pulling me towards the wall that was dominated by a map of all of the Greek and Minoan islands. "I think these jewels go into the points on the map, here and eighteen other places. See?"
There were indentations in the map, and as I surveyed them I felt a shiver building in my shoulders. There was one at Delphi. One at Meteora. One on Aegina. Locations of these bunkers.
There were more. One on Crete, one on Paros. Paxi, Limnos, Pisara, Kos. Amorgos, Ios, Siros, Andros. Mikonos, Dilos, Samothraki, Rodos.
It must have been Phoena's life's work to create these. More than a life's work, truly. If the same hand hadn't painted all of the walls we'd seen so far, I wouldn't have believed that one person could have done all of them. I glanced around. It didn't seem as if an altar had been built here. Kyrith, there used to be a page in here, yes? There's no altar here, I said to the axes.
There was no altar built here, the page is verbal.
Let me guess, the gems trigger it? I saw Melitta watching me and realized that she could hear us.
That is correct.
"Well, let's give that a try, then. Melitta, you have the gems, yes?" She nodded and handed me half of them. We spent the next little while fitting gems into holes. Kaia looked on, interested. I realized that neither Melitta nor I had said anything about Orrin and Evangeline to her. I dreaded breaking the news to her, but it was going to have to be done sooner rather than later.
A voice filtered out into the room. It was female, soft, and it sounded like Melitta only without as much of a Minoan accent. "By now, you have lost two of your five. They do not think you are dead, they expect you to follow them. But you can't. There is a small chance to retrieve them but it will happen three months, when they are to be killed. They are being taken to Ios, where they will lay traps for you. But I warn you, you will lose more than those two if you go. Accept the girl as your daughter and let it be done."
An instant denial rose in my throat--abandon our friends to their fate? And then I glanced at Kaia, who was looking at the wall with avid interest on her face, the news that her parents were captured and would be killed seeming to have had no impact on her whatsoever.
I said, "Can you hear and respond to us, now?"
I wasn't expecting a reply, but I got one anyway. "I have enough power left for three more questions."
Oh. Well, then. "What will the chance to retrieve Orrin and Evangeline look like?"
"They will be in a structure on a high hill, overlooking the sea. In three months from tomorrow, an earthquake will shake Ios, strong enough to crack the foundations and bring the structure half down. They will survive the first quake, a second will follow in an hour. It is during that hour of confusion you may make it in and rescue them. They will not survive the second quake and neither will any of the guards, the ground will give way and the structure and an acre of land will fall into the sea."
But we would lose more than them if we went there. I gritted my teeth. "What needs to be done to convince Obelia and Zarek to cease trying to drive the Porta and Wazet temples against each other?"
The soft voice replied, "They need the truth, but they will not believe it without Vesna, so she must be captured and brought to them."
So that brought up the inevitable question. "Where is the best place to capture Vesna going to be?"
"Limnos, where Xia's base is."
I closed my eyes. "I think that's our three questions. Thank you."
"Goodbye, and good luck." The voice faded.
My daughter's voice, if Kaia was to be believed. So many questions about her and what she had done, like how exactly she had done that, how did she get this stuff here, where and when she really was when she spoke, how she'd gotten her hands on Kyrith. Too many questions, and few answers to be had.
"Are you all right?" I asked Kaia, turning to her.
She smiled. "Fine. That was interesting."
A suspicion awoke in the back of my mind, perhaps a bit belated. "Did you know your parents were going to be taken?"
"Yes, which is why I begged them to come along."
My breath stuck in my throat. "Wait. What?"
Kaia shrugged. "I told them we had to come along with you."
"I'd have thought you'd want to keep them out of harm's way," I said, a small horror spreading through me.
"No, they were transient. I was meant to be with you."
I'm sure my disturbance was showing on my face. "I guess being a seer causes a...different perspective on some things."
The girl shrugged again. "It does. They began my life, but they couldn't walk with me on the journey to being a seer. They would have married me off, and I would have had children and ignored my sight." She sounded far older than her years as she spoke, the voice of someone who's seen too much to truly be a child any more. "That is not the way it was to be. They had to go with you, so that we could be together to set things right."
I grabbed the horror building within me, and told it to sit down and shut up before I did something stupid. "Well, then. All right." I glanced at the wall, and saw that the gems no longer appeared to have any life to them. They could be sold, though. "Let's get these out and leave before the authorities decide to break down the door in here." I turned resolutely towards the wall.
I felt Melitta come up beside me. She slid her hand into mine and leaned on me, just letting me know she was there. The unnerved feeling abated a bit, and then she helped me pluck the gems from the wall. I closed the wall behind us, and then we climbed out of the basement and were away, taking Orrin and Evangeline's packs with us.
We washed up at a nearby fountain, and then walked down to the docks. We wandered the docks for a bit and found that there was a ship headed towards Milos that night. Though we asked around, nobody seemed to have heard of or seen Neoma, to my disappointment.
So it was on the ship and away from Hydra we sailed, the three of us sharing one cabin. The first couple of days, I spent some time trying to settle down about Kaia. She was a child, and a seer. She'd likely seen her parents' disappearance years ago, and had had some time to get used to the idea.
The last thing I'd expected was to become a foster father to a child seer. I'd hoped I'd have more time in order to figure out how to be someone's father. It wasn't that I didn't like Kaia; I did, though she disturbed me on a regular basis. But she was in that uncomfortable space where she wasn't really a child any more but also still needed taking care of, and I was unsure what exactly my role was with her.
I told myself I'd just have to find out, and maybe I would make some mistakes along the way, but as long as she was with us, I'd do my best not to let any harm come to her. Fortunately, she was mostly self-sufficient. On the boat, she tempted Melitta into playing games with her, me keeping one eye on her as I studied the maps the captain was kind enough to let me look at. She was an active child, but she did her best to stay out of the way of the sailors. She did climb up into the crow's nest a couple of times, and overall she seemed more or less content.
Melitta and I talked a lot after Kaia fell asleep at night. She seemed more comfortable with her role as a foster mother than I was with mine; maybe it was because Kaia had obviously preferred Orrin over Evangeline. She was leaning towards heeding Phoena's words and not going to rescue the two of them. I was of two minds about it. Obviously, the safer course was to let them go. There was a part of me, though, that said that we had to go rescue them, no matter the danger. They were our companions, and our friends, and it seemed very wrong to let them go without a fight.
From what Kaia had said, it sounded as if she was going to be with us for the next few years, no matter whether Orrin and Evangeline were rescued. My prayers, on the ship south, were for guidance and direction. Was this truly what the goddess had in mind for me? What made me qualified to take on this particular task?
I was afraid, as the days wore on, that the answer to that last question was not necessarily anything about what I was now. Instead, it was what I was going to be.
*****
The ship's stop at Milos turned out to be a brief supply stop, and from there the ship was going to Chania on Crete, and then to Kithira, an island very near Andikithira.
Chania was far too close to Knossos for comfort, but there at least had been a page on Crete, on a spit of land at the western end. "We know eight have been found, so I think it likely that the Crete page started this whole thing. But it might be worth a look," Melitta said. We were curled up together in the sweltering afternoon heat in our dim cabin, two days out of Milos. Melitta had her head propped on my chest.
"I think it is. Not looking forward to rowing from Crete to Andikithira, but it's doable." I'd talked to the captain, who'd said he'd be willing to let us have a rowboat and drop us off on his way to Kithira, at the western end of Crete. It was a good twelve hours' row from Crete to Andikithira. "I think that the Crete one has probably been compromised, myself, but we can see if it's guarded or unguarded."
"And by who," Melitta added.
"Might tell us something about the players in this, true."
"Mmm. Up to you, love."
We lay there for a bit as I turned over the options in my mind. Melitta tangled her fingers in my hair, sighing with contentment. "I think we should go see it. I still think rowing across is our best bet--it's a fair distance from that particular spit of land to Chania, and the less time we spend on Crete the better at this point."
"Probably true, see if the captain will let us off there and we can look and then go."
"Sounds good, I'll go talk to him." I turned a little bit towards Melitta, and kissed her. "Later."
We were seven days on the sea from Hydra to Crete. The shot docked overnight at Chania, and we stayed in our cabin, out of sight. There were too many people about who might recognize me or Melitta, and the last thing I needed was to have her or I dragged back to Knossos and made to answer for our actions at this point. The penalty for deserting from the Guardians was death, and I had a few things I wanted to accomplish before I died.
Midafternoon after sailing from Chania in the morning, a rowboat was lowered into the water and we climbed down into it. We set out for the spit of land that was the northernmost point of Crete, where Kyrith said that the page was hidden. We found that we couldn't land the boat on the point, since the land rose steeply from the sea, but a few miles towards the rest of the island we found a beach that would suit for putting in at.
We hauled the boat high on the beach, and worked our way up the steep slope above it to the bluffs overhead. We were moving slowly, keeping to cover, keeping an eye out for signs of habitation. There wasn't much for vegetation here on the drier side of Crete, but there were plenty of large rocks to use for cover.
There was nothing, at first; a few wild goats and sheep was all. Then, about a mile from the end of the spit, I smelled smoke on the wind. Cautiously moving forward, I could see smoke, only enough for a small fire, probably a cookfire. Leaving Melitta with Kaia, I crept forward until I could see the fire itself, and the camp that surrounded it. At a guess, I'd say the camp supported about six people, and those I saw were definitely not herders. They were warriors, and if I wasn't mistaking the armor and swords, they were members of Minos's guard.
From the rubbish heap I could see a bit beyond and downhill from the camp, they'd probably been here several months. Watching the camp, I could see a path worn between boulders that headed north, to the end of the spit, to a large rock that looked a bit like a large head staring out to sea. Satisfied, I crept back to Melitta and Kaia. "This way," I said. "Looks like Minos's men, and I can see what they must be guarding. We'll work our way around to it."
It took us a bit, but we found ourselves in front of a carved stone face. The great mouth was open in a grimace, and the fangs in that mouth made the face look like a troll or something of that nature. There was no sign of a door, but I'd expected that. Phoena liked to hide the entrances to things, after all.
A quick look around made it clear that the soldiers didn't come up here all that often, which was a relief. We could always get unlucky, but I felt we were safe enough for the moment. Melitta and I took some time to carefully check out the stone face, while Kaia alternated between watching us and looking down over the cliff to where the ocean boiled white against the rocks.
It appeared the teeth might move, and so might the left eye. Remembering the hydra, I started with the eye. After experimenting for a bit, I found out that twisting the eye in the stone socket made the teeth move upward and the jaw downward. I stopped and peered into the hole this revealed; there was a downward slope into darkness, but nothing moved and nothing came out.
Quickly, I opened the mouth the rest of the way, and stooped as I entered into it. "Come on, Kaia," I heard Melitta say behind me as her snapping fingers brought into being a light. The slope led down into a small room. Even with only the three of us in here, it was quite crowded. Set against the back wall was an altar, but from the scrape marks on the ground it hadn't been there originally. And the walls had been recently whitewashed, obscuring any paintings or etchings that might be on the wall.
"Too bad we can't see the paintings. I don't see anything that indicates there's any more to this place than what we're seeing, though, and the page that was here is gone," I said.
"First place they cracked, likely. Still, have you ever seen a room this small that didn't have something else to it?"
"True enough." I drew my knife and started tapping on walls and floor, listening for something that sounded different. I had no luck until Melitta moved the altar, and we discovered that beneath it was a square stone that definitely sounded hollow underneath. We pried up the stone, and beneath it a ladder led down into a dark tunnel.
The ladder looked new, and I supposed that if there had been one here a thousand years ago, it had rotted away since. I went cautiously down into the tunnel, and Melitta and Kaia followed. The tunnel followed a long slope downward for what had to be a half a mile or so, emptying into a round room that was much larger than the one we'd left behind.
And in this one, the paintings hadn't been ruined.
The walls were dominated by pictures of a battle, Greeks and Minoans fighting it out. The Greeks were using some sort of a weapon represented by a staff with a crystal on the end that had a beam of light coming out of it. Wherever the light touched, there were big holes in the Minoan ships. "I'm guessing that's the weapon everyone wants. I can see why," I said. My voice echoed oddly in the circular room.
"Looks like it," Melitta said. As I turned around, I saw that Kaia had gone up to one section in particular, this one a map of Greek and Minoan waters. I went to look at it, and quickly found an anomaly--an island where I knew there wasn't one now.
"Wonder if that one used to be there, or if there will be one there someday?" I said to Kaia.
"It sank," she said in a small and solemn voice. She had a peculiar, intent look on her face, like she was trying to hear a faint sound a long way away.
"Ah. There are stories about that one. They're divided on why it sank. Some people think it was just an earthquake. Other people think the gods got angry at it and drowned it." And there were many who thought it had never existed in the first place, but obviously, it had.
"Their own weapon killed them," Kaia said. Her voice was becoming quickly stronger. "Destroyed the island, but the papers couldn't be destroyed. It's where Phoena found them, but she couldn't destroy them either and couldn't stop the island from sinking. So she changed the papers, but smart people found they were just cover-ups and saw the true weapon behind them."
"And this weapon likely has the potential to do the same thing again," I said.
"Yes, strong enough to sink Crete."
I glanced at Melitta. "I'm guessing Aeneas doesn't know this. At least, I assume he wants to take it over, not destroy it. Of course, I may be overestimating him."
Melitta made a face. "Likely, but he wants to keep his options open, I'd bet. I think that's about it in this room, the paper was probably over there or upstairs."
"Good enough. Let's get out of here. I don't like places with only one exit."
Kaia shook herself and turned away from the wall. Without comment, she turned and plunged into the darkness of the tunnel that led back to the surface. In a quiet voice, Melitta asked me, "How did she know that?"
I spread my hands. "Seer. There's some sort of connection between her and Phoena, I think."
"A bit unnerving," Melitta said, and I nodded.
As we walked back up towards the surface, I wondered about the connection. What could connect Kaia, seer born to two of the Fallen, with Phoena, who hadn't been born yet but had left all of these clues for us to find?
They might be sisters, I thought to myself. Someday. But what would that have to do with it?
I took Melitta's hand and we walked through the darkness, back towards the light.
