Gods and Warriors (22 page)

A sigh from the hungry ghosts.
We know… Ah… we know.

Pirra collapsed, gasping and pressing her face into the stone.

Was this how it was for them? she wondered. Had they been dead when they’d turned to stone—or still alive?

She thought how it would be to feel cold stone hardening over your feet. Stiffening around your legs, clogging your nose and mouth and throat…

Panic rose inside her. She clenched her fists.

“You are the daughter of the High Priestess,” she told herself sternly. “You do
not
give in.”

Behind her the hungry ghosts uttered a rattling sigh, and drew back into the shadows.

“You do not give in,” she repeated.

Pirra hated her mother, but now the thought of her was oddly steadying. High Priestess Yassassara was not like other women. She lived only to serve the Goddess, and she’d never loved any living creature—but she was strong. Maybe some of that strength flowed in her daughter’s veins too.

Gritting her teeth, Pirra heaved herself to her knees and peered about her.

The Vanished Ones had gone still. Around her she made out nothing but rocks.

The one by her knee resembled a triton shell.

Shakily, she reached for it. It
was
a triton shell. She cupped her hand around the curved base in which the big sea snail would have lived, and traced the whorls that narrowed from there to the tip. But it wasn’t a real shell; it was made of marble.

There was one just like it in the House of the Goddess, carved from white alabaster. It was very sacred: Only her mother could touch it. She used it for the rite of First Barley—and sometimes, in times of trouble when she sought help from the gods, she would put the tip to her mouth and blow.

The triton shell that Pirra held now was flawless, except for a tiny nick in its lip. It must have been made on Keftiu; only there did they have the skill. This link with home made her feel a little better; but she didn’t dare blow it. She might bring the whole cave crashing down.

Clutching the shell, she began to explore the rockfall that blocked her escape. She couldn’t find any cracks. “Well then, I’ll
make
one,” she muttered.

She dislodged one small rock and placed it behind her. Then another and another. She worked faster, rolling away those too big to lift. The cave echoed with the clatter of stone, drowning out the sighs of the hungry ghosts. To Pirra, it seemed as if she was building a wall of sound to keep them at bay.

At last she paused for breath. With the tip of the triton shell, she tapped the rocks before her, listening for any hollowness that would tell her she was about to break through.

Nothing.

She tapped again.

On the other side of the rocks, something tapped back.

“P
irra!” Hylas paused to listen.

From the other side of the rocks came that tapping again; then a clicking cascade of sound, like the speech of hawks. He sagged with relief. “Pirra, it’s me! Talk Akean, I can’t speak Keftian!”

An astonished silence.
“Hylas?”

“Are you hurt?”

“Just a bump on the head. You?”

He shook his head, then remembered she couldn’t see. “No.”

He started clawing at the stones. From the sound of it, she was doing the same.

She asked how he’d found her, and he told her how he’d cleared a way through the first rockfall, then got lost in a maze of caves. He’d whistled to Spirit, and caught the dolphin’s answering squeal; then he’d heard her voice. “It sounded like you were talking to someone.”

“I was.”

“Who?”

“Myself.”

He dislodged another boulder, and felt her hand thrust through the gap. He gripped it. Her fingers were as cold as claws. “We’ll get you out,” he told her. But the gap was too small, and as they made it bigger, pebbles rattled and rocks creaked overhead.

“It’s going to come down,” Pirra said tersely. “I’ve got to try now.”

She was right. The rocks wouldn’t hold much longer.

Hylas took hold of her wrist with both hands. “Keep the other arm behind you,” he said, “twist your shoulders sideways and tuck your chin to your chest. I’ll pull you out.”

“What if I get stuck?”

“You won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Breathe out,” he muttered—and pulled with all his might.

She didn’t budge. Bracing his heels, he pulled again. Rocks groaned. Dust sifted down. Pirra yelped. Then she was through and they were scrambling back as the rocks came crashing down.

Coughing and covered in dust, they listened to the echoes die. It was so dark that Hylas couldn’t see her face, but he heard her breathing. “You all right?” he panted.

“Mm.” But he knew she must have been badly scratched, and he’d nearly wrenched her arm from its socket.

“Hylas?” she said in a low voice.

“Yes?”

“Thanks.”

He scowled. “Come on. A while back I saw a glimmer of light. It might be a way out.”

He went first, groping with hands and feet. The walls were slimy, and the air smelled dank. He sensed that they were heading farther from the Sea, into the unknowable heart of the island. Behind him he heard the shuffle of Pirra’s sandals and the whisper of her breath. He thought what a difference it made that he was no longer alone.

He asked her how she’d survived the earthshake, and she told him a horrifying story about a lost people called the Vanished Ones, and having to crawl over corpses turned to stone. He wondered how she’d kept her wits. Perhaps if you were the daughter of the High Priestess of Keftiu, you weren’t afraid of ghosts. Or perhaps she was simply brave.

They reached a place where the cave split in two. One way was black and silent, but from the other came an echoing gurgle of water and a glimmer of light.

“I don’t like the feel of that one,” said Pirra.

“Although it’s lighter, there’ll be more chance of getting out.”

“I know, but it feels—strange.”

Hylas knew what she meant, but he didn’t think they had much choice. After a brief argument, they took it.

The glimmer grew to a watery blue-green glow. The rocks around them were rippled and folded—as if they’d
once been waves, and some immortal had turned them to stone. They were running wet; the cave was full of dripping, trickling, gurgling. The echoes wove in and out in a mysterious song, just beyond the edge of understanding.

Hylas’ spine prickled. He’d heard that song before. It had called to him across the waves on the day when Spirit had first brought him to the island.
The hills that walk and the caves that sing…

Then suddenly there were no more rocks on either side, and the echoing song was louder, and beside him Pirra gasped.

Before them yawned a vast cavern filled with a lake of astonishing blue. From the roof hung folds of pale, glistening rock. Spears of white rock rose from the still surface of the lake, and at its heart lay an islet thronged with twisted pillars standing guard, like people turned to stone. Above the islet, a shaft of brilliant blue light poured down from a rent in the roof.

Hylas swallowed. “That crack,” he said quietly. “It might be big enough for us to climb out.”

Pirra didn’t reply, but he guessed what she was thinking. To reach it they would have to swim the lake and get onto that island, then scale one of those brooding pillars.

“We can’t do it,” she said.

“I think we have to.”

The lake was cold. Rocks tilted underfoot. Something slithered past his ankle. That weird bubbling singing rang
in his ears, interwoven with sounds of running water—and yet he couldn’t see any: The lake was eerily still.

As they waded deeper, the blue became more intense, until they were wading in light: the same otherworldly light that the dolphins had brought with them when they’d rescued him from the shark. It washed over him, staining his flesh blue. The shadow of the Goddess.

“We can’t get onto the island from here,” whispered Pirra. “It’s too steep.”

“We’ll go around the other side,” he whispered back.

When she didn’t reply, he turned to look at her. She wasn’t a girl, but a water spirit: blue face and black lips, long crinkly black hair.

The ground shelved and he stumbled up to his chest. “I’ll swim,” he said through chattering teeth. “If you can’t remember how, hold on to my shoulders.”

Close up, the columns guarding the island were enormous: some hunched and squat, others tall and thin. All stood with bowed heads and arms clamped rigid to their sides.

Hylas felt Pirra’s hands tense on his shoulders. “If they move…” she breathed.

Above them, the crack was wider than it had looked from the shore. If they could reach it, they might be able to climb out.

Hardly daring to make a ripple, Hylas swam slowly around, till he found a place where it shelved more gently, as if inviting them ashore. His feet touched stone.

Suddenly Pirra’s fingernails dug into him. “Hylas!” she hissed. “Look!
She’s here!
”

He raised his head.

The way was blocked.

Not by the guardians of stone.

By the Goddess Herself.

S
he had stood for thousands of summers, and She would stand for thousands more. The Great Goddess. The Lady of the Wild Things. She Who Has Power.

Her arms were folded beneath Her sharp stone breasts, and Her smooth oval face glowed white as the Moon. Human hands had painted Her inhuman stare in ancient blood. They had set Her image here, so that when She visited this singing cave, She would breathe life into the marble flesh.

Pirra stood with tears pricking her eyes. Never in the House of the Goddess had she felt the Presence so strongly. She bowed her head, unable to bear such terrible perfection.

Beside her, Hylas stood transfixed.

“Don’t look too long,” she whispered. “You’ll go blind; it’s like staring at the Sun.”

He licked his lips. Then he indicated the crack in the roof. “How do we reach it?”

She stared at him. “We can’t! It’s too close!”

“We’ve got to! How else do we get out? That pillar, the
one farthest from—from Her. If we can reach it, we can climb out.”

Pirra swallowed. Stone snakes coiled about the feet of the Goddess, who stood upon a great mound of bleached bones. Perhaps they were the remains of offerings by long-dead supplicants; or perhaps they were the supplicants themselves. To reach the crack in the roof, she and Hylas would have to climb those bones beneath the watchful gaze of the stone guardians and of the Goddess Herself…