Black Ships (31 page)

I walked through to the entrance in the back.

A long corridor not quite tall enough for me to walk upright was before me, cutting straight ahead into the earth.

I took off my shoes and laid them at the door. Yes, above were the hooks laboriously drilled into the stone to hang the veil. “A womb, a gate, a tomb,” I whispered. I understood it better now than when Pythia had explained it. Birth and death, death and birth. It was a cave, a tomb, a birth canal. I walked into the darkness, trailing my hand along the wall and counting my steps.

Sixty steps without turns or side corridors. Behind me the light had shrunk to a lozenge of white. The cave opened into a great chamber, as tall as a temple, as wide as a hall. Five passages led from it. I sighed. I was going to have to learn this cave step by step. And that would take some time. A week or more, if I were going to make certain that nothing went amiss in the rites. I should have to artificially block off some of the passages so that no one went wandering during the rites since I did not know all of the turns underground. Given the honeycomb consistency of the stone, there might be hundreds of turns and crosspassages, some of them with dangerous drops. It would take time. I must do the work alone. No one except me and my acolyte could come in here. And my acolyte was a toddling child who still nursed.

“Great Lady,” I said aloud to the echoing ceiling. “Great Lady, when the moon wanes I will bring Aeneas son of Anchises to Your halls. Thank You.”

I turned and went out into the sun. This would require preparation, and my son would be hungry.

T
HE WORK
took every bit of two weeks to complete. The People camped on the beach near the town of Cumai, the village nearest the Shrine. Each day I went and prepared, a few hours at a time, while Markai stayed with Tia. He could go half the morning without nursing, but still ate at least seven times in a day. He seemed as big as Kianna had been at twice his age.

On the day of the dark moon, Markai laughed for the first time. Then when it seemed to delight me, he did it again, his round dark eyes fixed on my face. I held him close and kissed his plump little belly, smelling the sweet baby scent of him, laughing in return.

Neas cleared his throat. He stood nearby, washed and bathed, his hair clean and shining, wearing a clean tunic. “Lady,” he said, “I’ve chosen my two companions for the road. Xandros and Maris have pride of place, and neither will surrender it.”

I nodded. “Very well, then. I will come and speak to them.”

I stood in the sun and spoke to the captains, while the People assembled around them. “Aeneas son of Anchises,” I said, “are you determined to take this road?”

Neas nodded. “I am,” he said. “I will walk to the very Underworld itself, that I may seek counsel of the Shades and the blessings of the kings of Wilusa That Was. Does the door lie open?”

“It is easy to descend to the Underworld,” I said, “to pass Night’s Door. It’s returning that’s the hard part. Many heroes and sons of heroes have tried, and many have failed.”

“I will try Night’s Door,” Neas said. He looked to Xandros on his right, Maris on his left. “My companions and I will try, for I would hold conversation with Anchises and the other fathers of my line.”

I looked at the three of them. “You will eat no food this day, and will drink nothing besides water. When the sun has set, you will come to the Shrine following the path I have marked.” I met Xandros’ eyes, knowing as I did how he did not like the unknown. “Know that there is no shame if you choose not to come, for the Underworld is not a place for living men.”

Neas nodded. “We will come, Lady.”

T
HEY CAME
. The sky was dark, for no moon shone tonight, and a bank of clouds was rolling in from over the sea. I waited within the first cave, a fire before me in the restored fire pit, my face painted and my hair pinned with ancient copper pins, brought from the islands who knew how many years ago. I heard their feet on the path before they were close, Maris stumbling and swearing in the dark, Neas rebuking him not to go near the edge.

I was waiting for them.

“Prince Aeneas,” I said, and I saw them jump, though they had been expecting me. “Why have you sought Sybil, you and your companions?”

They came through the door and stood before me, armed and dressed as fighting men, each in their best.

“Because I would be king,” Neas said. “If I am to lead the People, I must be king.”

“If you are worthy,” I said, turning my head away and cutting one outlined eye at him. “Sit.”

They came and crouched around the fire together.

I reached back and brought forth incense for the fire, myrrh and frankincense from Egypt, bay and star of the sea from the cliffs above the Shrine. The leaves crackled in the flame. The myrrh gave off heady smoke.

From beside me I lifted a stone bowl, one of the things I had found in the dark corners of the Shrine, old beyond measure. “Drink,” I said.

It looked like blood.

It was red wine steeped with the berries from the golden bough, steeped since we left Scylla and I knew that I would need this.

Neas drank first, then passed the bowl to Xandros, then to Maris. Last, I took one swallow. My head should be clearer than theirs, and I would have to nurse the child tomorrow.

I poured the dregs into the fire in libation and they steamed. And I began the songs. How Theseus went into the labyrinth and in the coils of the earth met the Minotaur, how he slew him there and returned, following Ariadne’s thread. How beneath the earth he became king, and knew it in fact when journeying home he forgot to raise the white sail. Seeing black sails raised for mourning still, his father cast himself from the heights, and Theseus became king.

I saw their eyes fix, wide and dark. The floor seemed far away beneath my feet. I stood.

“Take off your swords,” I said. “Take off your armor. They will avail you nothing against the beasts of the Underworld. Take off those symbols of pride, your bracelets and your linen worked with embroidery. You must go into Death as you came from it, naked as a child.”

They disrobed awkwardly, and I knew it was working. Maris shivered in the cold.

“Come,” I said, “if you are resolved on this.” I lifted the veil and stepped into the dark. “Come.”

Neas was behind me. “I am coming,” he said.

Sixty steps in pitch blackness. I counted them. It was an eternity to them. I heard them breathing behind me. I walked faster, so that when I stepped out into the center of the great hollow they would not touch me when they stumbled out confused into the wide-open space.

“Son of Anchises,” I whispered, and the whisper ran round and round the room. “Son of Anchises, what brings you to the River?”

And I saw it. I saw the barge poling toward us in the darkness, the ferryman with his skeletal hands.

Neas stepped forward. “I am come seeking my father, who passed this way before me.”

“You are not dead,” the ferryman said.

“I have come with the golden bough,” Neas said, and it seemed to me that he held it in his hand again, as he had in the wood.

“Then you may cross,” the ferryman said. “You and your companions.”

We poled out onto the dark water and it lapped around the boat with many voices.

“Twice we cross the River,” I said. “When we die, we cross this River, which is the Styx. And when we are born we cross the other River, which is Lethe.”

“Memory,” Neas said.

“For memory is sweet and full of delight, and if we do not leave it we cannot live,” I said.

“Memory is bitter,” Xandros said. “And if we carried it we would be mad.”

“That too,” I said.

“And still I would rather remember,” Neas said. “I would take the bitter with the sweet.”

“Ah,” Xandros said, “But you are the son of a goddess.”

“Here is the shore,” I said, and it seemed we stepped off onto parched soil. The ferry melted into mist behind us. “We are in Death’s land. We have passed Night’s Door.”

DEATH’S KINGDOM

W
e walked through a dark wood. Overhead the stars were shining. The tall cypress trees muttered together in the wind.

“What is this place?” Neas said.

“This is the place that never was,” I said. “The land where the sun has never shone, where the moon has never risen. Here we live in starlight.”

“It’s beautiful,” Xandros said, and there was wonder in his voice. “It reminds me of the mountains behind Byblos, where the great cedars are.” He stumbled a little against me.

Far off in the woods we heard a dove call, and then a voice. “Xandros?”

I turned.

Ashterah was standing at the edge of the wood, her long skirts made of silver, her face lit with longing and surprise, as radiant as I had seen her in the Great Temple of Byblos.

Xandros started.

Her eyes were dark and lined with kohl, and she smiled. “Come,” she said, and with a look back over her shoulder ran into the wood.

“Wait!” Xandros ran after her. “Ashterah, wait!”

Neas leaped forward after him, but I caught his arm. Xandros vanished into the shadows of the trees, into the wood as though he had never been.

“Why do you stop me?” Neas said. “We have to find him.”

“No,” I said, though there was a pain in my breast. “He has found what he seeks.” I drew him by the arm and we walked on.

The sky lightened. The sun rose over the Egyptian desert, over the Red Lands of the west. Far overhead a desert falcon hunted in the still skies. The first rays of the sun turned the sands orange beneath our feet.

Maris sank to the ground, covering his eyes. “No,” he whispered.

Neas knelt beside him. “Get up, my brother,” he said. “Come now.”

“No...” Maris moaned, and sank to the ground insensible.

“We must carry him,” Neas said, getting his arm about Maris and trying to lift him.

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “He has found what he seeks. I do not know what pain he met in Egypt, but it is here.”

Neas stood and his face was pale. “Then I know what is to come,” he said.

Before us were the banks of the Nile, the green fields and the walls of Memphis. We walked toward the city.

The walls were empty. The streets were empty. Trees swayed in the river breeze, awnings were spread against the heat of the day, but there were no people, no beasts. The markets were silent, wares displayed on tables. The wells were uncapped and filled with water, but there were no women drawing water, no animals drinking. Everything was still. The sun beat down on white streets, on palaces shining like burnished bronze.

Silently, Neas took my hand.

“This is a hazardous place,” I said. “The sleeping city.”

“For us both,” he said.

I looked, and there was the temple. The doors stood open. I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye, and went to the doors.

Neas grabbed my hand and drew me back. “Take care!” he said.

There was an asp curled on the floor in the shadow of the door.

“Snakes are not death in dreams,” I said.

“Are you sure of that?” Neas said.

I did not answer him, only went to the door. Inside, vast columns rose up into dim ceiling, dust making whirls of gold in the light that came in from somewhere far above. “Is this the future?” I asked. “Or the past?”

The snake spoke. “The gods do not see the future, for mortals write it. We can see only the past.” It slithered nearer. “Come within,” it said, and its voice seemed like my mother’s. “And choose your own long destiny. This man is not your charge.”

“He is my friend,” I said.

“He is a flawed man,” it said. “He does not love you. And he will bind you to his own destiny regardless of yours. Let go now. It is not easy, but you will be glad of it. Otherwise you will be tied with blood and iron for many years.”

Behind was the room of scrolls, shelves and shelves of them, stretching up into the light at the ceiling. Neas was silent. I looked at him and saw that he was frozen too, a look of sadness on his face.

“Look at him truly,” the snake said, and it seemed that I saw an Achaian there, helmed and armed, a terrible wound disfiguring his face. “Patroclus of Achaia,” it said. “And many more besides. He is born to arms, to kill and go down in blood.” The snake’s voice was sad. “He was your enemy, and now he is your prince, born to live in the ruins he created.” I looked at him, and he was fair and strange to me at the same time, a man I had never seen and did not know.

“You tell me he is one of them, a man of blood. But you are telling me nothing I do not know.” I had seen the love of battle in his face, the pleasure he took in the most daring plan, reckoning the cost and finding it worthwhile.

The snake’s voice was filled with regret, and it seemed to me that it was the voice of She Who Had Been Pythia. “And you, daughter, might understand. You might be so much more. The world will grow old while you play men’s games of blood and death, of wars and kingdoms and princes, and you sorrow for what might have been yours.”

“Great Lady,” I said carefully. “I know that You speak the truth. And perhaps I will regret; I do not know. But I am what I was born, and this is what I choose.” My voice was stronger now, and my eyes were full of tears. “I am not wise or deep. I am not the river with its currents or the mountain with its secrets. I am not the worthiest or the best. I am not night, but fire. I love the dawn and the skies, the beat of drums around the fire and the passion of birth. I am not suited for the deep places, for Your Underworld. I am a lioness, and I must have the sun.”

The snake changed. She stood before me lion headed, golden Sekhmet of Egypt, Her woman’s body wrapped in scarlet linen. “There is nothing wrong with being a lioness,” She said.

I bent my head. “No, Lady,” I said.

She came closer and I felt Her breath, like a great cat pacing nearer. One hand lifted my chin, and I looked into Her eyes, as dark as the spaces between the stars. And I thought that She purred.

“All people see Me according to their nature,” She said. “Do you understand?”

“I believe so,” I said. “But, Lady...”

“If you are a lioness, then that is what you are. The bright fire of day is no less holy than the night.” She looked up, Her eyes over my shoulder. “I commend you to My friend. May you have both Our blessings, Death’s handmaiden.”

I looked where She pointed. Behind Neas in the doorway stood a young man of surpassing beauty. His head was shaved in the Egyptian fashion, and His dark skin was shining with oil. He wore a linen skirt pleated and drawn, and a spear was in His hand. Behind Him rose the faint shadow of wings.

He looked at Sekhmet and shrugged. Then He smiled at me, a lopsided smile I had seen before. “Hello, Gull,” He said.

“Mikel?”

“I think we’d get along well,” He said. “I’ve got some ideas.”

“How can I serve You and Her too?” I asked. “Mikel, I am already dedicated. And You belong to life, and to the world above.”

“Have you not learned by now that they are the same?” She said. “Did Hry not teach you that as it is above, so it is below? Death without life is hollow and cruel, and life without death an empty mockery. All things must be in their time, in their course. For an old man to die when his time has come is not evil. You know that.”

“I do,” I said, and my voice throbbed. “But when a baby in arms is slaughtered, that is evil.” I bent my head. “I have seen the world falling, Lady. Cities crumble one by one. More people than there are stars in the sky are starving. Men are desperate. And there is nothing I can do.”

“You’re already doing,” Mikel said. “What do you think you’ve been doing, trying to preserve Egypt, getting your people across the sea when they might otherwise be dead? You can’t do everything at once all by yourself, you know.”

“But I would,” I said, desperate still with the longing. “Tell me how! How shall I raise dead men up to plow fields that are fallow? How shall I plant young olive trees?”

Mikel smiled, and it was a beautiful smile. “One tree at a time,” He said.

I bit my lip, and the tears overflowed my eyes.

“Come,” He said gently. “If you are resolved, come. There is a city to found.”

I nodded and took His hand.

A
ND THEN
I stood beside Neas in a field of grain. He was crying. He knelt on the ground, hugging his knees.

I bent and put my arms around him. “What has happened, my prince?” I saw neither Mikel nor Her, nor any sign of the temple.

“Did you not see her?” Neas said.

“Who?” I said.

“Basetamon. She is dead. She burned herself alive.”

I felt a chill run through me, remembering the fire we had seen as we left Sais, my invented prophecy.

“When she knew I had gone with the ships, she built a pyre and burned herself. If we should not lie together in eternity she would lose it too, life and life after life.” Neas shook in my arms. “She burned herself alive. Ah, gods! She burned herself alive!”

I took his face between my hands. “Neas! Neas! This is not your fault!”

“I knew that she might do something. I didn’t think it, but I knew she might.” He looked past me, to the edge of the fields where the woods met the river, as though looking after her. “I saw it. I saw her face blackening and her flesh sizzle, while her brother who had been called to the place stood there in horror and sadness. She killed herself because of me.”

“Neas!” I grabbed both his hands. “What else should you have done? Stayed there as her concubine? You are not the one who changed her.”

“I might have helped.”

“And she might have killed you. Or killed Wilos or me or anyone else you loved. Madness is bad enough, but madness with power is terrible.”

“She was not mad, only strange and sad. Only damaged. So terribly damaged.”

“Neas.” I had his attention now, and he was quieter. “Her healing is in the hands of the Lady of the Dead. You do not have that power. You never have. You cannot walk in the deep places with her, and you could not heal her. You are not a person who ever could. Should we blame the lion that it doesn’t fly? Blame the ox that it doesn’t swim?”

“I’m not an ox,” he said.

“No, my prince. You are not,” I said. “You are a man who tries to do what is best. And no more can be asked of you than that. No more can be asked of you than you ask of yourself, for already you expect more than any man.”

“It isn’t enough,” he said. “I knew I could not be king. I have known since boyhood when men first began to sound me out about putting myself before the council in Wilusa that I could not do it.”

“My prince,” I said, “that is the Mystery.” And as I said it I knew it to be true. “Any man who thinks he knows what is best, that he can mend all ends, should not be king. But to put yourself forward when there is no better man to the task and it must be done is not insubordinate. It is what must be done. You must do this. There is no one else.”

“There’s Maris and Xandros,” Neas said.

“And do you believe either of them would make a better king?” I asked.

“No.” He shook his head. “They are good men, and my friends. But no. They would not be better kings.”

I took his hand and drew him to his feet. “Then stand, and walk with me there. I see Anchises coming for you.”

In the rich meadowland along the river Anchises was walking, and it seemed to me he was different than I had seen before. His hair was gray, but he moved with the vigor of youth. Neas ran to him and they embraced.

“My son,” Anchises said. “Know that I am proud you have come so far.”

“I will not be the king you wished,” Neas said abruptly. “Wilusa is no more, and I cannot bring her back. I cannot restore the past for you, or emulate my heroic uncles.”

Anchises bowed his head. “I know. And I have burdened you too long with my hopes. I feared for you. And I was wrong to think that you would ever be less than honor requires.”

“My honor or yours?” Neas asked.

“Mine,” Anchises said, and his eyes were far away. “It is I who should have died for Wilusa, I who should have been there when they burned our temples and killed our kin, when Agamemnon ripped my Lysisippa’s sister from her altar and raped her. But I was not there. I had gone to beg aid of the Hittite emperor. I did no deeds of arms on the field, and I did not even have the decency to die!”

Neas clasped his father in his arms, and at last I knew what had burned so, what had consumed Anchises with bitterness, this same guilt that burned too readily in Neas’ breast. “My father,” he said, “your service to the People has been hard indeed, but you have preserved us and come with us to a new home. If all the men were dead, who should preserve the memory of Wilusa That Was? Who should have saved Wilos? Who should have brought him from the fire, for he will be our next king?”

Anchises nodded. “He will be. That is assured.” He took Neas by the hand and led him along the river. I followed. “Come. There is something I want you to see.”

Beside a willow that trailed in the water a young man was practicing with a bow. He was lithe and dark, with a heart-shaped face and brown eyes, long quick limbs.