Painted Blind (25 page)

I fell back against him laughing.

He closed the sketchbook and wrapped his arms around me.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“Are you two going to sit out there all night?” Titus stood just outside the tent door, his coat unzipped and no boots on. He opened his arms to the west. The sun was down and the light waned.

I stood, clutching the sketchbook to my chest and took Eros by the hand. “Are you going to stay with me tonight?”

He squeezed my hand.

“We’ll behave,” I said to Titus.

“Not my business,” Titus replied.

“Correct.” I tugged on Eros’s hand. “I might end up liking Titus after all.”

I woke to a rock falling on my chest. At least I thought it was a rock until my hand found it and realized it had square edges and was wrapped in paper. The body that kept me warm all night was no longer beside me.

Without opening my eyes, I muttered, “You’re up already, and you didn’t make me breakfast?” I loved teasing him when he couldn’t say a word. “You probably can’t even fry eggs. Spoiled little prince.” I sat up just as a granola bar whizzed across the tent and smacked me in the forehead. It landed in my lap with the box.

Inside the small, heavy package was an iPod loaded with music. After I’d opened it, Eros tossed a second package into my lap. It was identical, but had a small card on top. Written in Eros’s script were the words:
for Titus
.

The little curtain to my sleeping area parted.

“Hey, wait! Are you leaving?” I jumped to my feet and followed him. I realized it was fully light, and yes, it was time for Titus and me to start climbing, but I didn’t want Eros to go.

I stood there trying to find the right words to say to him. He had shown me the kind of pure adoration I never expected to feel, and there weren’t words to express my gratitude. If I failed to get up the mountain on time, or if I didn’t make it down alive, I wanted him to know it was worth it. I stumbled over my thoughts, and all that I managed to express was my doubt. “What if I can’t make it?” I whispered.

He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to his chest. He ran his fingers through my hair, kissed my forehead, then held me close. I rested my nose on his warm neck, inhaled his skin and let the memories of our stolen time together swim into my mind. I wished I could stay in his arms and forget about Aphrodite’s contract. Sensing my weakness, Eros stepped back from me, lightly kissed my lips and unzipped the tent door.

“I’ll meet you here in a few days with Aphrodite’s reward.” I forced determination into my voice.

He opened my hand and placed an invisible object into it. Its shape was familiar. Even without seeing it I knew it was the ring from his first finger. I tried it on my thumb and my first finger, but each of my fingers was too narrow. It slipped right off. I needed a chain. Titus wore a chain around his neck.

Unzipping his side of the tent, I found that his sleeping bag had disappeared with him. “Hey, Titus. Wake up, so I can see you.”

“Huh?” He still didn’t appear.

“You veil when you sleep. Did you know that?”

Now he appeared, shirtless with the sleeping bag knotted around him. “No, I didn’t know that.”

I lifted the chain that lay against his neck. “Does this necklace have deep personal meaning?”

“It’s just a chain.”

“Can I borrow it?”

“Sure, why?” He rolled his shoulders grumbling, “I hate sleeping on the ground.”

I opened my hand and showed him the ring. “I can’t see it now, but when he gets far enough away, and unveils himself, it should appear, right?”

Titus nodded and took the ring from my palm. “It’s inscribed.”

“Some sort of hieroglyphics. I don’t know what it says.”

As Titus slipped the ring onto his chain and began to fasten it around my neck, it became visible to my sight. A moment later my satellite phone beeped the reception of a text message.

T
he ring was given to me by a man the Mayans esteemed as a prophet. The inscription says, “May wisdom and safety be your companions.”

I sent a thank you reply, then clapped Titus on the back. “Pack up. We’ve got climbing to do.”

Before leaving camp, I showed Titus how to use his iPod. I strapped it around his bicep and threaded the earphone cord through his shirt so it wouldn’t interfere with his movement. He nearly shouted for joy when the music began to play.

“What’s on there?” I stole one of his earphones to listen. It was an opera in Italian.

“What’s on yours?” He tugged on my earphone and brought it to his ear, only to wince when I turned on the sound. The first song that played was the one I had been caught dancing to at the palace—Eros’s own little joke.

After checking one last time to make sure I had the wooden box, we hefted our packs and bid good-bye to base camp.

Chapter 24

Mountain climbing was a test of will more than anything else. As the air grew thinner and glaciers rose unending before us, the most difficult obstacle was simply putting one foot in front of the other on the faith that eventually we would reach a destination. We believed we could see the meeting point above us where two cliffs rose together creating a triangular cave opening. However, we could not take a direct path to it. Between us and the cliffs was a wide crevasse in the glacier hundreds of feet deep. We were forced to go far beyond the location to the end of the glacier, cross over, and back track on the other side. Getting to the other side of the glacier was the first day’s journey. Once there, we would leave the protective shield of the cliffs and climb the spine of the mountain to the meeting point. When we passed out of the cliffs’ protection, there was only one area where we could camp, and it was just below the meeting point. We had to time our climb carefully so that we could reach it in daylight and with good weather. If we couldn’t, we would have to climb back down to the shelter of the cliffs and start again the next day.

Titus and I were tied together for safety, but I had to wonder about it. If I fell, I would probably take him down with me; and if he fell, I didn’t have a chance of staying on my feet. He outweighed me by about sixty pounds. Still, he insisted. Both of us wore ropes tied around our waists, and they were clipped to another, longer one, which tethered us together. About an hour into our climb, I realized this tether served a second purpose. When I got sluggish, Titus pulled me. He struggled with the altitude, but he was strong. If he just kept walking, I had no choice but to follow.

Monotony arrived as enemy number one. Exhaustion pulled in second. And third. Running a tight race for fourth were cold and numb.

We climbed for two hours on a relatively easy grade before the terrain shifted and we faced steep hills. At the base of the first really challenging climb, Titus stopped. “Sit,” he said. “It’s icy, and we need the spikes.” He meant the crampons we had dangling from our packs.

I was grateful for the chance to rest, unload the pack from my aching shoulders and down as much food as possible. We had gained distance, but not much altitude. This afternoon we would travel about a mile, but we would gain over three thousand feet in altitude. I was admittedly nervous about this. I could handle the long climbs, the boredom and the cold. A face of sheer ice was a different story. Now there would be cliffs and the possibility of falling.

On the other hand, Titus was thrilled. “Now, we can have some real fun,” he said as he eyed the way before us.

With the crampons securely on our boots and ice axes in each of our gloved hands, we started again. I watched Titus and tried to mimic his skill. He had not done a lot of high climbing, but he was naturally athletic, and he enjoyed climbing the cliffs around the Fortress. “Of course,” he added, “when you fall there, you just make a big splash.” We didn’t have that luxury here.

By kicking hard and digging in the toes of my boots, I could make footholds in the ice. The axes I used for balance on the milder grades and for hand hold as it got steeper. We were moving slower now, and the rhythm of the music in my ears began to irritate me. I switched it off and pulled the ear buds out so they dangled from the collar of my coat.

Ahead of me, Titus was slashing through the snow and humming a melody. I moved faster so I could hear him. At the song change, he began to sing quietly. His voice was a smooth tenor that moved through the notes with ease. I had to wonder if he didn’t sound better than the voice in his ears. That was the thing about these immortals. They were all so multifaceted. Though they varied from one another greatly, each seemed to have extraordinary talents. Aeas could do almost any mathematical calculation in his head. After attending my school for a single day, he could name every student who spoke up during class. Not all immortals received the same education. Their knowledge varied by class and necessity, but they all seemed to know more than me. A girl had to wonder why one of them would want to be with the likes of her.

We crested a steep climb and met some flat ground. Ahead of me, Titus seemed to be pulling harder. I looked up and saw an ice face directly ahead. As we drew near, it seemed to grow before my eyes. It was double my height—at least twelve feet—all compacted snow and ice with nothing to offer handholds.

“How are we going to climb that?”

Titus pulled more rope from his belt and lengthened the tether between us. “I’m going to climb it, and then you will. Watch carefully.”

He reached high overhead and dug an ax in hard. Then he stepped up with the toe of his boot, digging in with the spike and pulling himself up. With the other hand he made a second, higher stab with the ax. “Hand, foot, hand, foot,” he said. “Just like crawling.”

“Crawling,” I muttered. “Straight up.”

It took him all of a minute to reach the top and pull himself over the ledge. Then he stood, adjusting the ropes. “Come on,
Bellezza
. Up.”

While I climbed, he sang, and when I slipped, he pulled hard on the rope, so I didn’t lose any ground. I couldn’t get my toes to dig in far enough to offer a strong foothold, so I ended up doing most of the work with my arms. I pulled myself up by the axes and used my toes to keep me from sliding. Once I got my arms over the top of the face, Titus grabbed the back of my coat and pulled me the rest of the way up. I collapsed in the snow panting, while his song reached the crescendo. He stood, his arms out to the side, holding the last note. Then he pulled the earphones from his ears with a playful grin. “That’s good stuff.”

“You’re going to cause an avalanche,” I replied. “But, yes, you sing very well.”

He offered me his hand. “A compliment. I’m touched.” He pulled me to my feet. “Enjoy the view for a moment.”

I turned and looked. Below us were the face we had just climbed and our footprints in the snow. Beyond that everything fell away. Far below were the village where we spent the night and the peaks that sheltered it. Farther out I could see a fine line that was the paved highway running east to west. My stomach did a somersault, and I used Titus’s shoulder to steady me. “It’s beautiful.” I turned away. “But it makes me sick.”

We were less than halfway to our designated camp for the night, so I started walking.

“Sometimes I don’t understand you,” Titus said catching up with me.

“I talk like a hick?”

He hung his axes on his arm and pulled off one glove. With the bare hand, he unzipped an exterior pocket on my pack and found a package of dried fruit and nuts. In the short distance before the next big climb, we shared the snack. “I understand your words perfectly. I don’t always understand what’s behind them.”

“I’m fairly honest,” I countered.

“Yes, that much I know. Why aren’t you mad at him?”

“Eros? Why would I be? It’s my fault we’re in this mess. I betrayed him.”

Titus shook his head. “He hid from you, and he threw you off a balcony. You’re afraid of
heights
.”

Admittedly, it was a terrible moment—that fall—but I had never been mad because I was too devastated that he threw me out. “Pixis caught me. And it was dark, so I couldn’t see anything below.”

“That makes it all right?”

“Neither of us was right that night, Titus. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

He stepped in front of me and stopped. “It does matter.”

I didn’t have to explain myself to Titus, but a confession had been a long time in coming, so it was a relief to get it off my chest. “I was the coward that night, Titus. I could have demanded to see him. I could have told him I would leave and never come back if he didn’t show me his face, but I didn’t. I betrayed him because
I
was afraid—afraid that he was a monster, but more afraid that if he showed himself to me and he was hideous, that I wouldn’t love him anymore.” I pushed past him again and climbed harder than before.

It may have been cowardice that drove me to betray Eros, but it wouldn’t keep me from seeing him again. Whatever waited for me in the cave, I was going to face it and finish the task.

While the sun shined, it was cold. When it turned overcast, it got much colder. Bitter wind threw shards of snow and ice into our faces. Dark clouds hung on the peaks to the north.

“We have to move faster if we’re going to make it before that storm hits,” Titus told me, but I was moving as fast as I could with the wind beating me back at every step.

I cursed the mountain, Aphrodite and her contract a thousand times over. We reached another ice face, double the size of the last. Exhausted, I couldn’t help crumpling to the ground.

“Don’t give up. We only have to get over this face and around the break in the crevasse, then we can camp anywhere along the other side.” He forced a smile. “Think of warm food and a sleeping bag.” Titus was playing tough, but he was cold, too. He had trouble fastening his harness, and he beat his gloved hand against his leg before trying to sink the first screw into the face.

I shook my head to flick ice off my face. “The MREs are probably frozen.” I was harnessed, too; and as he clipped off to the first screw, I became his safety net, my weight and strength the only things able to catch him if he slipped. He had tied a loop in the end of the rope, and I wrapped it around my bum, which I figured was the heaviest part of me.

Three-fourths of the way up the face, Titus did slip and slid three feet before the rope tightened and nearly jerked me off my feet. I sat against it and resisted as best I could. He gathered his balance again and kept climbing with the wind beating at his back. I adjusted the rope to keep it taut, then ducked my head against the coming storm.

“Your turn,” he shouted down at me.

I raised my head to see him kneeling at the edge above.

“I’ve got you clipped off up here, and I’m tied to you, so you won’t fall.” He instructed me on how to clip off to the bolts as I climbed and then unclip from the lower one. Aside from that, I had to climb it the same way we climbed the last face—with axes for handholds and toes for footholds.

Any experienced climber would have rebuked us. We didn’t really know what we were doing, and we were on a dangerous mountain. We had all the right equipment, but we were learning as we went.

The footholds still gave me trouble, but I worked hard to get a solid dig into the ice before pulling up on the ax with my arms. Still, it took me three times as long to climb the face as it took Titus. With two feet left, my arms felt so weak, I was afraid they would give out and drop me. I dug my right foot hard into the ice and managed to get my arms and shoulders over the ledge. “Help me,” I moaned.

Titus grabbed my arm, dug his crampons into the ice and pushed back with his legs. He pulled me over the ledge right into his lap. Instead of scrambling up quickly, like I thought he would, he lay there gasping for breath. “I’m beat,” he confessed as the wind blew over our nearly frozen bodies.

It was just a short hike to the crossing. We could see the chasm growing narrower to our right. “Race you to the other side.” I said.

“You’ll lose,” he wheezed.

I rolled to my feet and started to push into the wind, but I was stopped by the harness. Titus was still on the ground chuckling. The rope that tethered us together was bolted into the ice so we created a pulley. He pulled the bolt out and unclipped it, but kept hold of the rope, so I couldn’t take off without him. Finally, he rolled to his feet and said, “Go!”

We were too exhausted to run hard. All I could manage was a weak jog, and with a few long strides, Titus passed me and headed toward the crevasse. He stumbled along the edge for five or six steps, then leaped across. “Titus!” I screamed.

Safely on the other side, he grinned. “It’s narrow enough here. Jump it.” He tugged on the rope attached to my waist. “I’ve got you.”

On an ordinary day jumping the gap in the ice might not have seemed like a monumental task, but my head was thick from lack of oxygen, my body completely tapped out, and I was carrying a thirty-pound pack. I wanted rest more than anything else, and it lay on the other side of the glacier. With a quick inspection of the distance, I drew back, took a running start and leaped across. As soon as I landed, I doubled over panting. “No problem,” I wheezed. “Let’s find a place to camp.”

We ended up hiking another half hour before finding a place sheltered enough from the coming storm. By the time we shrugged off our packs and dug out the tents, the wind was whipping relentlessly. Titus used the ax to drive the stakes of the first tent while I put together the cross supports, which threatened to blow away before I could get them secured. Snow and hail pounded down on us. With another ax, I secured the tie-downs, barely able to see the stakes as I struck them. Titus was about to unpack the second tent, but I stopped him. “Just get inside before we both freeze.”

We kicked off as much snow as we could, then ducked inside boots and all. It was a tight squeeze, the two of us and all our gear inside the tiny tent, but I didn’t care. Neither of us moved to unpack our sleeping bags or food.

“When I can feel my fingers again, I’ll find some hand warmers,” Titus said. His teeth chattered, and his lips were a shade of purple.

I braved the cold for moment to pull off one glove, check my watch, and stick my hand inside my coat. “The watch says it’s two degrees.”