Vengeance of Orion (17 page)

And I found myself in that other world of golden light so brilliant that it hurt my eyes.

"You think you can escape from me?"

I turned round and round, searching, straining for sight of the Golden One. Nothing. Only his voice.

"You have thwarted my plans for the last time, Orion. You cannot escape my vengeance."

"Show yourself!" I shouted. "Stand before me so I can throttle the life out of you!"

But I was sitting up in bed, my clawed hands clenching empty air, while Helen stared at me with wide frightened eyes.

That morning I took Helen and Poletes into the heart of the city, while Lukka—who had returned at dawn, true to his word—stood guard over our goods and dourly watched his men stagger back to the inn, one by one.

Ephesus was truly a city of culture and comfort, rich with marble temples and streets thronged with merchants and wares from Crete, Egypt, Babylon, and even far-off India.

Poletes was most interested in the marketplace. He was strong enough to walk now, and he had tied a scarf of white silk across his useless eyes. He carried a walking stick, and was learning to tap out the ground ahead of him so that he could walk by himself.

"Storytellers!" he yelped, as we passed small knots of people gathered around old men who squatted on the ground, weaving spells of words for a few coins.

"Not here," I whispered to him.

"Let me stay and listen," he begged. "I promise not to speak a word."

Reluctantly I allowed it. I knew I could trust Poletes's word. It with his heart that I worried about. He was a storyteller, it was in his blood. How long could he remain silent when he had the grandest story of all time to tell the crowd?

I decided to give him an hour to himself, while Helen and I browsed through the shops and stalls of the marketplace. She seemed deliriously happy to be fingering fine cloth and examining decorated pottery, bargaining with the shopkeepers and then walking on, buying nothing. I shrugged and accompanied her, brooding in the back of my mind over the Golden One's threat of the predawn hour.

He would destroy me if he could, I told myself. The fact that he hasn't shows either that the other Creators are restraining him, or that he needs me for some further tasks.

Or, I dared to think, that I am becoming powerful enough to protect myself.

The ground rumbled. A great gasping cry went up from the crowd in the marketplace. A few pots tottered off their shelves and smashed on the ground. The world seemed to sway giddily, sickeningly. Then the rumbling ceased and all returned to normal. For a moment the people were absolutely silent. Then a bird chirped and everyone began talking at once, with the kind of light fast banter that comes with a surge of relief from terror.

An earth tremor. Natural enough in these parts, I supposed. Unless it was a warning, a deliberate sign from those far-advanced creatures whom the peoples of this time regarded as gods.

The hour was nearly over. I could see Poletes, across the great square of the marketplace, standing at the edge of the crowd gathered around one of the storytellers, his gnarled legs almost as skinny as the stick he leaned on.

"Orion."

I looked down at Helen. She was smiling at me like an understanding mother smiles at a naughty son. "You haven't heard a word I've said."

"I'm sorry. My mind was elsewhere."

She repeated, "I said that we could live here in Ephesus very nicely. This is a civilized city, Orion. With the wealth we have brought, we could buy a comfortable villa and live splendidly."

"And Egypt?"

She sighed. "It's
so
far away. And traveling has been much more difficult than I thought it would be."

"Perhaps we could get a boat and sail to Egypt," I suggested. "It would be much swifter and easier than overland."

Her eyes brightened. "Of course! There are hundreds of boats in the harbor."

But when we went to the dock, all thoughts of boats fled from our minds. We saw six galleys stroking into the harbor, all of them bearing a picture of a lion's head on their sails. "Menalaos!" Helen gasped.

"Or Agamemnon," I said. "Either way, we can't stay here. They're searching for you."

Chapter 26

We fled Ephesus that night, leaving a very disappointed innkeeper who had looked forward to us staying much longer.

As we rode up into the hills and took the southward trail, I wondered if we could not have appealed to the city's council for protection. But the fear of the armed might of the Achaians who had just destroyed Troy would have paralyzed the Ephesians, I realized. Their city had no protective walls and no real army, merely a city guard for keeping order in the bawdier districts; it depended on the good will of all for its safety. They would not allow Helen to stay in their city when Menalaos and his brother Agamemnon demanded her surrender.

So we pushed on, through the rains and cold of winter, bearing our booty from Troy. A strange group we were: the fugitive Queen of Sparta, a blind storyteller, a band of professional soldiers from an empire that no longer existed, and an outcast from a different time.

We came to the city of Miletus. Here there were walls, strong ones, and a bustling commercial city.

"I was here once," Lukka told me, "when the great High King Hattusilis was angry with the city and brought his army to its gates. They were so frightened that they opened their gates and offered no resistance. They threw themselves upon the High King's mercy. He was magnificent! He slew only the city's leaders, the men who had displeased him, and would not allow us to touch even an egg."

We bought fresh provisions and mounts. Miletus would be the last major city on our route for some time. We planned to move inland, through the Mountains of the Bull and across the plain of Cilicia, then along the edge of the Mittani lands and down the Syrian coastline.

But the sounds and smells of another Aegean city were too much for Poletes. He came to me as we started to break our camp, just outside the city walls, and announced that he would not go on with us. He preferred to remain in Miletus.

"It is a city where I can tell my tales and earn my own bread," he said to me. "I will not burden you further, my lord Orion. Let me spend my final days singing of Troy and the mighty deeds that were done there."

"You can't stay by yourself," I insisted. "You have no house, no shelter of any kind. How will you find food?"

He reached up for my shoulder as unerringly as if he could see. "Let me sit in a corner of the marketplace and tell the tale of Troy," he said. "I will have food and wine and a soft bed before the sun goes down."

"Is that what you truly want?" I asked him.

"I have burdened you long enough, my lord. Now I can take care of myself."

He stood there before me in the pale light of a gray morning, a clean white scarf over his eyes, a fresh tunic hanging over his skinny frame. I learned then that even blinded eyes can cry. And so could I.

We embraced like brothers, and he turned without another word and walked slowly toward the city gate, tapping his stick before him.

I sent the others off on the inland road, telling them I would catch up later. I waited half the day, then entered the city and made my way to the marketplace. Poletes sat there cross-legged in the middle of a large and rapidly growing throng, his arms gesturing, his wheezing voice speaking slowly, majestically: "Then mighty Achilles prayed to his mother, Thetis the Silver-Footed, 'Mother, my lifetime is destined to be so brief that ever-living Zeus, sky-thunderer, owes me a worthier prize of glory . . ."

I watched for only a few minutes. That was enough. Men and women, boys and little girls, were rushing up to join the crowd, their eyes fastened on Poletes like the eyes of a bird hypnotized by a snake. Rich merchants, soldiers in chain mail, women of fashion in their colorful robes, city magistrates carrying their wands of office—they all pressed close to hear Poletes's words. Even the other storytellers, left alone once Poletes had started singing of Troy, got up from their accustomed stones and ambled grudgingly across the marketplace to listen to the newcomer.

Poletes was right, I reluctantly admitted. He had found his place. He would be fed and sheltered here, even honored. And as long as we were far away, he could sing of Troy and Helen all he wanted to.

I went back to the city gate, where I had left my horse with the guards there. I handed their corporal a few coppers, and nosed my chestnut mount up the inland trail. I would never see Poletes again, and that made me feel the sadness of loss.

But time and distance softened my sadness, blurred it into a bittersweet memory of the cranky old storyteller.

Lukka led us across a steep and snowy mountain pass and down into the warm and fruitful Cilician plain, where wine grapes, wheat, and barley grew and olive trees dotted the countryside.

The Cilician cities were tightly shut against all strangers. The collapse of the Hatti empire was felt here; instead of depending on imperial law and the protection of the Hatti army, each city had to look to its own safety. We bartered for what we needed with farmers and suspicious villagers, then headed eastward across the plain and finally turned south, keeping the sea always at our right.

I noticed that Helen looked over her shoulder often, searching as I did for signs of pursuit. We scanned the sea, as well, whenever we could see it. None of the sails we spotted bore a lion's head.

On the road we slept apart. It was better discipline for the men, I thought. I did not take her to bed unless we were in a town or city where the men could find women for themselves. I realized that my passion for Helen was controllable, and therefore not the kind of love that I had for my dead goddess.

Gradually, she began to tell me of her earlier life. She had been abducted when barely twelve, whisked away from the farm of an uncle on the saddle of a local chieftain who had taken a fancy to her newly budding beauty. Her father had bribed the grizzled old bandit and he surrendered her unharmed, but the incident convinced her father that he would have to marry off his daughter quickly, while she was still a virgin.

"Every princeling in Achaia sought my hand," she told me one night when we were camped in a little village ringed by a palisade of sharpened stakes. The village chief had decided to be hospitable to our band of armed men. Lukka and his men were being entertained by some of the local women. Helen and I had been offered a small hut of mud bricks. It was the first time we had been under a roof in weeks.

She spoke wistfully, almost sadly, almost as if all that had happened to her had somehow been her own fault. "With so many suitors, my father had to be very careful in his choice. Finally he picked Menalaos, brother of the High King. It was a good match for him; it tied our house to the most powerful house in Argos."

"You had no say in the matter?"

She smiled at such an absurd idea. "I didn't see Menalaos until our wedding day. My father kept me well protected."

"And then Aleksandros," I said.

"And then Aleksandros. He was handsome, and witty, and charming. He treated me as if I were a
person
, a human being."

"You went with him willingly, then?"

Again her smile. "He never asked. He never took the risk that I might refuse him. In the end, despite his wit and charm, he still behaved like an Achaian: he took what he wanted."

I looked deep into her bright blue eyes, so innocent, so knowing. "But in Troy you told me . . ."

"Orion," she said softly, "in this world a woman must accept what she cannot change. Troy was better for me than Sparta. Aleksandros was more civilized than Menalaos. But neither of them asked me for my hand: I was given to Menalaos by my father; I was taken from him by Aleksandros."

Then she added, almost shyly, "You are the only man I've had to pursue. You are the only one I've given myself to willingly."

I took her in my arms and there was no more talking for that night. But still I wondered how much of her tale I could believe. How true was her passion for me, and how much of it was her way to make certain that I would protect her all the way to distant Egypt?

The turmoil of our earlier travels eased after Cilicia. Robber bands and wandering contingents of masterless soldiery became rare. We no longer had to fight our way across the land. Yet each night Lukka had his men tend to their weapons and equipment as if he expected a pitched battle in the morning.

"Now we head toward Ugarit," Lukka told me as we turned south once again. "We sacked the city many years ago, when I was just a youngling squire clinging to my father's chariot as we charged into battle."

Past Ugarit we went. The once-mighty city was still little more than a burned-out shell, with shacks and shanties clinging to the blackened stumps of its walls where once mighty houses and fortified towers had stood. I saw the visible evidence of the power of the Hatti empire, strong enough to reach across mountains and plains to crush a city that defied its High King. And yet that power was gone now, blown away in the wind like the sands of a melting dune.

For the first time since I had been up in the hills above Troy, I saw a forest, tall stately cedar trees that spread their leafy branches high overhead, so that walking through them was like walking down the aisle of a living cathedral that went on for miles and miles.

And then, abruptly, we were in the rugged scorched hills of the desert. Bare stones heated by the pitiless sun until they were too hot to touch. Hardly any vegetation at all, merely little clumps of bushes here and there. Snakes and scorpions scuttled on the burning ground; overhead carrion birds circled waiting, waiting.

We cut far inland over the broken hilly terrain, avoiding the coast and the port cities. Now and again a band of marauders accosted us, always to their sorrow. We left many bodies for those patient birds to feast on, although we lost four men of our own.

The territory was a natural habitat for robbers: raw, lawless, a succession of broken barren hills and narrow valleys and defiles where ambush could be expected at every turn. The heat was like an oven, making the land dance in shimmering waves that sapped the strength from my men and their mounts.

Helen rode in the cart, shaded by tenting made of the finest silks of Troy. The heat took the energy from her, too, and her lovely face became wan and drawn; like the rest of us, she was caked with grimy dust. But not once did she complain or ask us to slow our southward pace.

"Meggido is not far from here," said Lukka one hot bright day, as the sweat poured down his leathery face and into his beard. "The Hatti and the Egyptians fought a great battle there."

We were skirting the shores of a sizable lake. Villages lay scattered around it, and we had been able to barter some of our goods for provisions. The lake water was bitter-tasting, but better than thirst. We filled our canteens and barrels with it.

"Who won?" I asked.

Lukka considered the question with his usual grave silence, then replied, "Our High King Muwatallis claimed a great victory for us. But we never returned to that place, and the army came back to our own lands much smaller than it was when it went out."

Around the lake we traveled, and then down the river that flowed southward out of it. Villages were sparse here. Farming, even along the river, was difficult in the dry powdery soil. Most of the villages lived on herds of goats and sheep that nibbled the sparse grass wherever they could find it. These people also spoke of Meggido, and told of the enormous battles that had been fought for it from time immemorial. But they gave the city a slightly different name: Armaggeddon.

The weather was getting so hot that we took to moving only in the very early morning and again late in the day, when the sun had gone down. We slept during the coldest hours of the night, shivering in our blankets, and tried to sleep during the hottest hours of midday.

One morning I walked on ahead, taking my turn as advance scout. The day before we had beaten off an attack by a determined party of raiders. They did not have the look of bandits about them. Like us, they seemed to be members of an organized troop, well armed and disciplined enough to back away from us in good order once they realized we were professional soldiers.

I climbed a little rise in the rugged, barren ground and, with one hand shading my eyes, surveyed the shimmering, wavering, hellish landscape.

Rocks and scrub, parched grass turning brown under the sun, except for the thin line of green along the banks of the river.

Up on the top of a rocky hill I saw a column of grayish-white smoke rising. It looked strange to me. Not like the smoke of a fire that curls and drifts on the wind, this was almost like a pillar, densely packed, swirling in on itself, and rising straight up into the bright, blinding sky. The smoke itself seemed to glow, as if lighted from within.

I scrambled across the rocky desert toward the column of smoke. As I trudged up the slope of the hill, I felt a strange tingling in my feet. It grew stronger, almost painful, as I neared the top.

The hilltop was bare rock, except for a couple of tiny outcroppings of bare brown dead-looking bushes. The column of smoke streamed directly from the rock toward the sky, with no apparent source. My legs were jangling as if someone were sticking thousands of pins into them.

"Better to take off your boots, Orion," came a familiar voice. "The nails in them conduct electrostatic forces. I have no desire to cause you undue pain."

Sullen anger flooded through me as I grudgingly tugged off the boots and tossed them aside. The tingling sensation did not disappear entirely, but subsided to the point where I could ignore it.

The Golden One stepped out of the base of the smoke column. He seemed somehow older than I had ever seen him before, his face more solemn, his eyes burning with inner fires. Instead of the robes I had seen him wearing when I had been on the plain of Ilios, he had draped himself in a plain white garment that seemed to be made of rough wool. It glowed softly against the swirling pillar of grayish smoke behind him.

"For your disobedience, I should destroy you." He spoke in a quiet, level, controlled tone.

My hands itched to reach his throat, but I could not move them. I knew that he controlled me, that he could stop my heart's beating with the flick of an eyebrow, could force me to kneel and grovel at his feet merely by thinking it. The fury within me rose hotter than the sun-baked stone on which I stood barefoot, hotter than the blazing cloudless sky that shone like hammered brass above us.