Bring Down the Sun (11 page)

Whatever she had done, the answer was not here. “The temple needs me,” Timarete said with careful coolness, “and if she wants to be found, the men will find her. Send word to me when she comes back.”

“You know where she is,” Troas said.

“No,” said Timarete, “but the Mother does.”

That was a truth so profound that it needed solitude and careful study. Timarete left too abruptly for courtesy, but Troas of all people would forgive her.

*   *   *

Priestesses of the grove were not forbidden to practice lesser arts than that of the oracle, but it had long been the custom that they did not stoop to such things. It was also the custom that they should learn those arts, even if they never put them to use.

Timarete had seen to it that Myrtale lived in ignorance of that whole facet of what she was. The less the girl knew, the better for them all—or so Timarete had believed.

The elder priestesses had not offered their approval, but they had not refused it, either. If they had spoken, Timarete would have schooled herself to obey.

So she told herself in the quiet of her own cell—still the same room she had lived in when she was Nikandra. The new Promeneia would need her very soon, but she could spare an hour for this.

As she walked down from the king's house, the sense of unease had grown. When she turned her mind toward Myrtale, she had found a sense of imminence, of something deep and powerful rising toward the light. What she had felt at Myrtale's birth had grown stronger—immensely so. She was not ashamed to admit that she was afraid.

Among her few belongings was a bowl carved out of alabaster, very old and very plain; it had come with the first priestesses of the grove, it was said, all the way from Egypt. The outside was rounded to fit into cupped hands. Inside, it was polished smooth.

She folded back the linen wrappings, then filled the bowl almost to the brim with water from the Mother's stream. She lit the lamp and hung it above, where it cast light but no glare on the water.

She drew a deep breath and closed her eyes. All her power was given to the oracle. When she diverted it, she had to quell the surety that if she let it go, it would run wild.

She could control it. She opened her eyes and looked down into the pale shimmer of the scrying bowl.

It was slow, but she had expected that. Magic blurred the sight. The stronger the magic, the harder it was to force it into focus.

Myrtale's magic was very strong. For a long while there was only a dazzle of light. Then, little by little, a vision took shape.

It looked like a goat pasture, high and stony, with patches of grass and scrub and thorny bushes. A stream ran through it. Myrtale knelt by the water, washing what must be her only garment: she was naked and her hair was loose.

Timarete did not recognize the little dark woman who splashed in the stream, but there was no mistaking the aura that radiated from her. It was crimson and black and royal purple, and spoke of a multitude of dark things.

“Thessaly,” Timarete hissed. She caught herself before she spat in the water and broke the vision.

That much she had allowed Myrtale to learn: that the witches of Thessaly were dangerous. They followed a dark path, sacred to the deep powers and the gods below. Their worship was of the Mother, that was true, but it lived on Her left hand, in blood and endless night.

Timarete cursed herself now for a thrice and ten times fool. In all her years of guarding the girl, protecting her against any power that might rouse the dangers Timarete had foreseen, she had detected no sign of this particular threat.

She had looked for it. She had cast her spells toward Thessaly, as toward many other places of power in this world. She had searched out every cranny, and found only emptiness. The one enemy she had to fear, or so she had thought, was Myrtale herself.

The witches were great diviners and even greater deceivers. They would know what Myrtale was—and of course they would have come looking for her, now that she had escaped her aunt's vigilance. She had power they would lust after, and she would know no better than to trust them.

It was like their wickedness to slither in when Timarete was most direly distracted. For all she knew, they had tempted Myrtale into releasing her power, and so brought about Promeneia's death.

Timarete called herself to order. Maybe it had not gone too far yet. The witch with Myrtale was young; she must be the bait to draw the quarry in.

No doubt she would be teaching Myrtale simple arts to amaze her untaught mind. The other arts, greater and more perilous, would wait until the snare was set.

Timarete let the vision open before her. The two young women could be anywhere in the mountains, but she did not think they had gone very far—not on foot. Myrtale had been living in the palace; her body had softened into an image of this new world's womanhood. Even the hardened soles of her feet had been rubbed and scraped and oiled until they were judged fit to walk on polished pavements.

The shape of the hillside above them struck a chord of familiarity. Timarete peered closer. Just as she began to think she knew the place, Myrtale looked up, full into her eyes, and bared her teeth in a she-wolf's grin.

The vision winked out. Timarete stared down into blank and faintly shimmering water.

Through the anger and frustration she allowed a flicker of respect. It took more than strength to play that game. However she had gained it, Myrtale had a little skill.

But Timarete was older and wiser, and now she was forewarned. She held in memory the long bare hill with its jagged crown, and the angle of the sun down its slope.

She could write it and draw it and send the message to the king and his hunters. That would be the wise thing. But it well might send the quarry to ground; then no one would find her.

Timarete had not gone hunting in time out of mind, but she had not forgotten the way of it. She found the tunic in her chest of belongings, the high-laced sandals and the woolen cloak that could be a blanket at need. She hesitated over the bow and quiver, but in the end she took them, first making sure the string was fresh and the arrows well-fletched and straight.

With a bag of cheese and bread and a skin of wine, she reckoned herself ready. The new Promeneia was still serving the oracle; Attalos went about his morning duties, which kept him well away from Timarete.

She paused. This might be madness. She had power, but Myrtale had more than that. If she had awakened, with as little art as she could possibly have, she was deadly dangerous.

Timarete was strong enough. She had to trust in that.

Thirteen

The hunt was up. Both bait and diversion had succeeded; Timarete was running straight toward the trap.

Myrtale indulged in a moment of guilt and superstitious fear. Timarete was, after all, her aunt; it was ill luck in Thessaly as in Epiros to shed kindred blood.

Myrtale hardened her heart. Timarete deserved this comeuppance for what she had done to Myrtale in the name of gods knew what. If the Mother took umbrage, then so be it. Because of Timarete, Myrtale was barely creeping toward knowledge; her destiny was perilously far away.

She had to seize it soon, before it was too late. She had to claim the magic she was born for. Timarete would stop her if she could—and that must not happen.

The Mother would forgive. Myrtale laid the last snare, surrounding that high and distant goat pasture with a web of subtle spells.

To the eye it was an oddity of colored and colorless threads, tangled together on a scrap of woven wool. It looked like the remnants of a clumsy child's embroidery. Each strand alone was a tiny thing, but all together they could trap and hold a god—and that, for all her pretensions, Timarete was not.

Erynna was already gone, making her way into the high places. There against the sky, Myrtale could claim a fuller power—and if she wished, draw down the moon.

But first they must be rid of Timarete. She came on with gratifying if slightly alarming speed. Myrtale hastened to weave the last of the spells.

She bound the last knot and bit it off with her teeth. A slight shock ran through her; she started and nearly dropped the weaving. Hastily she thrust it into the purse she wore at her belt.

It buzzed there like a swarm of bees. It could sting, too, if she let it go. She shuddered in her skin.

Magic was no easy thing to master. Even this little working, so simple any hedge-witch could do it, made her dizzy and sapped her strength. She staggered as she turned in the direction that Erynna had gone.

By an effort of will she made herself walk steadily, firm and not too fast, up the track toward the summit. She fought the urge to run—if she had, she would have fallen. Timarete was almost within sight.

The spell was reaching already to tangle the priestess' feet. It tugged at Myrtale's own, but she pulled herself free.

Erynna waited just below the summit, where a hollow hid her from sight but let her see what passed below. She had made herself a cradle of thread and trapped a ray of sunlight in it.

The thread was smoldering. Myrtale spoke a word that brought a drop of rain to quench the fire.

Erynna's glance was unreadable. She was not jealous, surely. Her arts were far superior to Myrtale's and might always be.

Without warning the witch left the hollow, slipping away down the slope. A fold of ridge there concealed her from the trap.

Myrtale wanted very much to see Timarete stumble into the snare, but she had to admit that Erynna was wise. Grudgingly but quickly, she followed where Erynna led.

*   *   *

Timarete was hot and breathless with climbing. Her skin prickled as she came up the last ascent and looked down into the pasture.

It was empty. She could not have said she was surprised. She paused to breathe, leaning on a stone.

The girl could not have gone far. Witches in Thessaly could fly, but there was no sign or smell of the ointment. For whatever reason, Myrtale's new teacher elected to travel as mortals did.

Timarete began the descent into the pasture. It was much longer and steeper than it had looked. So long and steep in fact that she began to suspect a trap.

It was clever, she thought when she tried to pause and found she could not. The path went on and on, winding like a tangle of thread. No matter how far she walked, she advanced neither forward nor back.

She set her teeth and pushed against the spell. It was well made. It did not yield.

She was not afraid, not yet. A body could die in such a trap. But she had arts of her own. She would work free of the spell; she would win her way home.

Eventually. Somewhat before her feet had worn raw with walking forever without advancing, and her flesh had melted from her bones with hunger and exhaustion.

*   *   *

Not only Myrtale could lay a trap. She followed Erynna innocently round a bend in the path and walked straight into a camp of armed men.

As soon as she realized what she had done, she spun on her heel and bolted. A man who seemed as tall and wide as the Mother's temple barred her way. He grunted as she collided with him, but he barely swayed.

She knew no spell swift enough to free her before he held her fast. He was adept at restraining small, snapping, clawing beasts. In half a dozen breaths he held her motionless, breathing hard, glaring through tangled hair at the king's envoy of Macedon.

Lagos' face was carefully expressionless. “Lady,” he said. “We're most glad to have found you.”

Myrtale was anything but glad to have found him. This time when she twisted in her captor's grip, he let her go except for a light but firm clasp on one wrist. She chose to ignore that, glaring past him at Erynna.

The witch looked back at her without guilt. “Why?” Myrtale asked her.

“It's time,” she answered.

Myrtale tossed her head in fierce denial. “We were not finished!”

“For now we are,” said Erynna.

Myrtale bit her lips hard. Maybe this was not a betrayal. Maybe it was a gift.

She wanted Philip still, his kingdom and the power that came with them both. She wanted magic, too, as much as her hands could grasp. Erynna had as much as promised her that she could have it all.

She would trust the witch, for the moment. She turned back toward Lagos. “You were hunting me?”

“We had thought you missing, lady,” he said.

“That I was not,” said Myrtale, “but I thank you for your diligence.”

“Epiros will owe Macedon a debt,” he said. “Perhaps, lady, you can suggest a way in which his majesty may repay us.”

Myrtale had not heard that the lords of Macedon were skilled in the intrigues of courts, but this was as subtle as anything in the queen's house of Epiros. Lagos had just offered her what she had professed to want. Arybbas would not refuse Philip's suit, not if Philip's envoy brought back the wayward bride.

Her belly clenched. It was one thing to want and fret and dream. It was another to take what was offered, that was everything she had wanted, and yet—

She nodded crisply. “I can think of a payment for the debt. Take me to my uncle.”

She held her breath. A queen learned to be imperious, but men did not always do as they were told.

It seemed Lagos had been raised properly. He bowed to her will.

Fourteen

Myrtale returned to Dodona on the back of a Macedonian warhorse, with the king's envoy beside her. Rumor had it that she had run off to marry the king in spite of her kin.

Neither Lagos nor Myrtale did anything to quell the rumor. She was amused to see how furious her uncle was, but how powerless he was to speak of it.

Completely without intending it, she had won the battle. Arybbas had no choice but to give her what she asked.

She spared little thought for Timarete. Her aunt would escape the spell—but not, by the Mother, easily or quickly. By the time she roared off the mountain in a fiery trail of outrage, Myrtale would be long gone.