Dark of the Moon

THESEUS

chapter 40

WHEN I FEEL the cold metal, I'm sure that Ariadne has decided not to wait for the ceremony but to kill me right here. Then I realize that the blade is not slitting the veins on my wrists but slicing the knot that holds them together.

"What are you—" I start to ask, but once again she orders me to hush, and somewhat to my own surprise, I do.

I sit up and rub my wrists.

"Can you walk?" Ariadne grabs my heel and waggles my foot.

I yelp as the blood burns back into my feet. "Stop! Stop!" I hiss.

She shakes her head. "No time. I don't know when the guards are to be relieved, but it can't be long." She grabs my arm, and with surprising strength, she hauls me to my feet.

Too late. Footsteps are padding down the hall. They're light but moving fast. I take my sword from Ariadne and swing it up as the door flies open, then lower it at the sight of Prokris. She cowers, her arm over her head.

"The old lady, that one who looks like a turtle, she sent me," Prokris says between gulps of air. She drops onto a stool, and her shoulders shake with the effort of catching her breath.

Ariadne isn't listening to her. "I'll get my brother," she says, "while you two go to the ship and make it ready. Then I'll bring him to you and you can leave. I'll—"

"Slow down. Wait a minute," I say. "Get your brother? What are you talking about?"

"Don't you understand?" She turns wild eyes on me. "They'll kill him so that no one will object to Simo being Minos, and they won't be kind about it. He has to go with you. Once you're gone, I'll declare that Simo is My son, and he can do whatever he wants. But you must take Asterion."

"But what about you?" I ask. For the first time, she hesitates, and I take advantage of her indecision. "You can't stay here either. I don't know what the old woman meant about the goddess ball, but it seems to me that she doesn't think you're truly their goddess. Am I right?" Ariadne has gone even paler than usual. "What happens to someone who says she's the goddess when she isn't?"

Even her lips are white now as she falters, "I ... I don't know. It's never happened—at least, I never heard of—"

"Come with us!" She hesitates, and I press my advantage. "I'll help you get your brother to the ship. He likes me; I can make him come. There's little enough to make ready. We'll go to Athens—I have a score to settle with my father—and we can stop at some island on the way and get provisions. I can easily find men at the dock to help me sail her."

"Wait!" I'm afraid Ariadne is going to argue, but instead she throws open the lid of a wooden chest at the foot of the bed. She tosses out one moth-eaten ball of yarn after another until they litter the floor like blue and green and yellow and white rocks.

"What are you doing?"

She pulls out a ball that's as black as squid ink and lumpy with knots. For an instant, she clasps it to her chest, her eyes closed. Her lips move, and just as I'm about to shout that there's no time for prayer, she thrusts it at me. "You'll need this to get him out. Unravel it, or he'll never be able to leave the chamber. I'll find honey or preserves or something to tempt him away."

"And will you come with us?"

"I can't." She stands upright, and despite her small size, she looks strong. "I'm a priestess of Goddess, and I always will be."

"All right." I give up. I don't know what she means, but I don't care, as long as she hurries. "Let's go." We slip out the door and down the corridor. Prokris pries a torch out of its holder as we run past it.

It's quiet, but distant, agitated voices and weeping echo so strangely that I flinch every time we turn a corner, expecting to encounter a guard or at least a servant who will raise the alarm. But we see no one. "They're frightened," Ariadne whispers. "If Perialla has told them about the goddess ball, they will be terrified, and they know that they don't have a Minos." She looks frightened too, and I reach for her hand. I hold it as we approach the stairs. She stops, bringing me up short. "Tell my brother where I've gone, and why. He remembers—I think he remembers about the kitchen. Hurry! And don't forget to unravel the ball as soon as you get there."

I grip the clump of wool and wonder what the boy's reaction will be. Prokris hands me her torch, and the two girls run in the other direction.

Even with the flame, the dark is heavy. The stench and a soft sound coming from Asterion's den make my stomach clench. He's eating something, and the sucking and slobbering make the hair on my arms prickle. He must hear me or see or smell the torch, because I hear his "Ah!" and blessedly, the chewing stops. Another "Ah!" and I round the corner and see him.

He stands with the leg of a lamb or a kid dangling from one hand, while with the other, he points at me, a grin showing his yellow, crooked teeth. Someone must have brought him a portion of the festival food, a kindness even if he's been left alone while everyone else celebrates in company with their families, with music and dancing.

He catches sight of the ball of black wool. He shrieks and flings himself backwards, slipping in the filth and falling, then fleeing from me on his hands and feet, scrabbling like a gigantic crab. "Oooooh!" he wails. "Ama! Ama!"

"It's all right!" I tear at the yarn with my fingernails, then with my teeth. I dig my thumbs into it and grasp an end and yank at it, but the mass knots itself together even tighter. "It's all right, Asterion." I approach him. He whimpers, looking up at me through the curls that fall on his forehead. I reach out a hand, and he flinches.

"Come with me." I raise my voice over his moans. "Your sister—Ariadne is waiting for you up in the kitchen. She has some honey. You like honey, don't you?"

His sobs slow, and he tentatively rises to his knees and then to his feet. I tug his hand, but I might as well be pulling at the rock that had lain on top of my sword and sandals. For an instant, my mind's eye sees the bull with spears projecting from his hump, his eyes glazing as he's brushed by death's wing.

I slice the ball of yarn open with my sword, untwisting the center, and throw it to the ground. I trample it into the urine and feces from the overturned bucket. "See? The magic is broken. It can't hold you here anymore!" The boy gasps and leans toward the door, twisting his body to distance himself from the matted wool, but he doesn't step out of the ring of white paving stones.

"Ama!" he calls. "Ama-a-a-a!" For the first time, I see his resemblance not to a bull but to a calf that has been separated from its mother. His huge eyes, as he glances at me, blaze with confusion and fear.

"Ama!" He stretches his big hand to the door. Then he screams and shrinks back, shuddering, his arms crossed protectively over his naked chest. An instant later, I hear it too: the tramp of feet. Then there's the hot, greasy smell of torches, and three men are suddenly in the doorway. Enops, leaning on a companion, with bandages wrapping his chest, is in the lead. Behind him is Gnipho, the guard who threatened Artemis's life when she bit Ariadne. He is heavily armed, and at his side stands Prokris. She throws me a defiant look. I'm too amazed to wonder what that means or what she is doing with them.

The men do not bear decent swords and spears. Instead they carry an assortment of hooks, branding irons, and barbed implements with narrow points that look like they are intended to enter a body and then be pulled out along with some of what should never be seen. Enops's expression is grim, and as I watch, he sticks the tip of his vicious-looking weapon into the flame until it glows red.

The two men with him look frightened but determined. Behind them, Ariadne and Artemis have appeared. Asterion is weeping. I imagine what will happen if these men work their will on him—his bewilderment, his terror, his prolonged suffering—and I make up my mind. I grip his shoulder, and he turns and wraps his arms around me, burying his face, slimy with tears and snot, in my neck.

Ariadne squirms between the men, who appear frozen. She stops short and claps her hand over her mouth. Then she fixes me with a stare and raises her right hand, the first finger and thumb curled into a semicircle. She holds it above her head as tears spill out of her eyes in an unending stream. Then she nods at me. I hesitate, not sure I understand, and she nods more firmly.

Asterion's large body is between me and the soldiers, and I doubt they can see me pull the sword out of my belt. With my free hand, I stroke Asterion's hair, remembering how Ariadne soothed him that day, his head on her lap while she sang to him. I keep my gaze on Enops, who has narrowed his eyes, wondering what I'm up to. Prokris grabs his arm and leans in to say something in his ear, but he shakes her off.

"Hush, now." I grip the hilt tighter, and Asterion's sobs slow a bit. "Hush, now."

And then it is done.