The Broken Kings: Book Three of The Merlin Codex (29 page)

“Far too easy,” Jason said dismissively. “I could do that in a day. Something else.”

Exasperated, Medea took his face in her hands and kissed him. “Very well, then. Bring me a cup of ice-cold water from a lake where you have watched the reflection of the full moon as you drank. That will do for me. I will drink it and think of all the moons we will watch together in the years to come.”

“Far too easy,” Jason insisted. “I have watched the moon in a hundred lakes. The nearest is only a half day’s walk into the hills. There must be
something
you want that will test me in getting it.” He was becoming angry.

So was she.

“Very well, then,” she said sharply. “Sail to the long island in the south, the land of mazes and honey. There is a man there who is treated as a god, a ‘shaping’ god. He creates mechanisms, and labyrinths with mechanisms, and works with fire in ways the Greeklanders have not discovered. I heard that Zeus himself returns to the land to ask this man for advice. His fame had even reached Colchis, but time and distance had warped the truth of his skills. All but the fact that he’s dangerous. I have a map of where he hides. I’ve always been intrigued by him, but never sure about him. But if he exists, I know
where
he exists, three days’ sail to the south. I’ll have him for my own purposes, to keep here, someone to unravel and learn from while you are away plundering. Does
that
suit you as a wedding gift to me?” she leaned forward and kissed him, almost mocking him.

Jason’s eyes were alive with excitement at the prospect. “I’ll fetch this man, this
shaper.
”

Medea laughed, shaking her head. She put a finger to his lips. “You’ll never find him, Jason. I’m teasing you! I wouldn’t have you put your life at risk, just for a wedding present.”

“Tease me all you will. I’ll bring him to you, and you can create your own maze to contain him.”

Suddenly Medea was startled. She grasped his face in her hands, tried to engage his restless look. The blood-hunt was on him. The sea-hunt. “No! I was teasing! I meant what I said. Just bring me sand and moonlit water. I don’t need more than that.”

The man eased her fingers away from his cheeks, stood, and smiled. “I’ll bring that, too.”

*   *   *

When Medea had fled from Colchis, she had had time enough to take a few of her treasures.

With two of her servants she ransacked her private sanctuary, gathering a handful here, a handful there of the trinkets and amulets, the prizes and secrets of her long life. All these shards of her profession had been stuffed into three sacks and carried to Argo. One of the sacks had been caught in the rocks as the three women scampered towards the ship and the sweating, naked men who were pushing the vessel back into the sea.

The servants were all shot down by arrows as men gathered on the cliff top, required by Medea’s adoptive father to stop the departure at all costs. He had no idea who she truly was, or where she had come from. But he had come to depend on her prophecies.

Another sack was lost.

The third sack was flung aboard by an Argonaut, just as Argo was taken by the tide, swinging free of the shore.

Even then, halfway across the ocean, as Medea went about the brutal killing and dismembering of her “brother,” casting his pieces into the water to delay the pursuing ships—the boy’s father—as he gathered the carcase for its proper burial, so the third sack had slipped overboard. Only Tisaminas, with his quick wit and powerful lungs, had thought to rescue it, and though most of its contents had been spilled into the black depths, he brought back a small child’s weight of figures, shapes, and shards, in gold and bronze and stone, and Medea had grasped them gratefully.

Not knowing what small treasure she had rescued, she guarded it fiercely. It would be a long journey later before she could install them in her new sanctuary, her temple, her Ram’s Chamber in Iolkos.

And the small gold map of Crete was among those twenty-seven surviving dreams.

Now she showed it to Jason. He strained to see the detail. The carving was minute, intricate. “It’s all there. All you need to know. Don’t ask me how I came upon this map. I dreamed of it, I summoned it, and it was brought to me. I was told that there are only three in the world. One is owned by the ‘shaping man’ himself. And one was owned by each of his sons. His sons died. The story goes that Icarus fell from the sky when his false wings failed him. He struck the land near Cyzicus, close to the Symplegades, the ‘clashing rocks.’ His brother, Raptor, ascended so high that he disappeared beyond the moon itself.”

“This man’s sons had wings?”

“Their father shaped them. He sent them to search for a realm beyond the earth. They were to be his eyes and ears to the life beyond the canopy of stars. So the story goes. And this map is that of the fallen son. And it shows where the entrances to the labyrinth can be found. And where the Cave of the Discs can be found. And when you find the Cave of the Discs, you are sure to find the ‘shaping man.’ He will have chambers there, workshops. So there you are.”

Medea took Jason’s chin in her fingers and twisted his head this way and that, staring at him hard. “But Jason—I will still settle for sand and water,” she said softly. “A touch of your heart, a touch of an older life you’ve known.” She kissed him. The kiss was passionate. She drew back suddenly. Jason’s kiss had been cold. “Don’t leave so soon,” she begged. “Wait a while. There’s no hurry.” But she knew at once that her words were lost.

Jason stroked the small plate of gold with his thumbs. His eyes shone. He was eager now. He could smell adventure.

“I’ll have this copied onto a skin, a large skin,” he said. “The hide of an ox, so that I can read it without my head aching. You shall have your shaping man. With Argo, and my crew—even without reckless Herakles—I can bring this monster to your sanctuary. You shall have your wedding gift. I promise you.”

Medea’s smile (I thought as I watched, a ghost-presence in this chamber) was enigmatic.

*   *   *

Athena drew a discreet veil over the bedchamber then, and with a flourish of her hand and a mischievous laugh said good-bye to me. She led the way at a scamper down the corridor. I followed the flowing green cloak. She turned the corner to the tall narrow doors that separated the marble palace from the scorching heat of the courtyard, but when I burst out into the light, she had gone. The shadow had gone.

Just a shadow whisper remained.

“You are still in Argo’s heart, Merlin. Now see how it was after the wedding promise was made. You don’t need me anymore. But Argo will guide you through the next few weeks.…”

*   *   *

Storm-lashed, but with her sail billowing before the following wind, Argo surged towards the dark mountains of Crete. Zeus himself seemed to be waiting to greet her, the sky black and rolling, rain sleeting, the jagged shape of the land visible only because of a golden glow, a break in the clouds.

Jason and Tisaminas scoured the cliffs for a haven, and finally saw it.

Down sail, down mast, and the oars were run out to slow the perilous approach as the ship heaved through the furious waves towards the cove, where the vaguest hint of colour suggested a strand against which they might beach.

All eyes attentive to what lay below the spume-shrouded sea, Argo struck by rock and reef, the guardian goddess guided her nevertheless to the safety of the shore, and she was flung like sea-wrack against the strand, listing and throwing several of the Argonauts onto the shingle. By now the oars had been run in, and with a second surging wave the vessel was set more firmly on the land.

Ropes were slung about the hull and the memory of lost, ever-adventuring Herakles invoked as twenty men hauled Argo above the tide line, then pinned her down, a leviathan cast from the depths, made sound and stable against the wind. Lashings were stretched from her mast, canvas slung over them to make a shelter against the storm. Jason gathered four large stones to make an altar, filled it with fire. Youthful Meleager, still burning for adventure, had forced his way inland against the gale and found a flock of goats, bringing down a kid with a weighted rope. Jason sacrificed the animal in thanks to Poseidon for the safe crossing. The meat was then stripped and spitted over a wood fire.

Poseidon accepted the offering. By dawn the storm had abated. The clouds hurried to the east, and the sun warmed the beach and dried the sodden and ragged crew.

With Argo propped up on banks of sand, Jason went back on board. Keen-eyed Lynceus had taken possession of the maps of Crete, drawn from the star-bronze, and unfurled one now. He scanned the hide as if he were a hawk, soaring over the hills and valleys.

“Where have we beached?” Jason asked.

“Somewhere here,” said Lynceus, indicating a long length of the northern coast.

“Could you be more precise?”

Lynceaus drew out a thin slate marker, scored off in units. He laid it this way and that upon the map and counted off numbers in his head. He did this for a long time.

“Somewhere here,” he repeated, stabbing the map, indicating exactly the same long stretch of coast.

Acastus chipped in. “There are three valleys leading to the interior, and they all meet at the same place, a city crushed between hills, with caves all around. One of them must be the Cave of Discs.”

Jason nodded. “The Dyctean cave is close as well, and we should avoid that. It will be well-guarded, even if Old Man Thunder isn’t in residence.” He smiled to himself.

Meleager said, stabbing at the hide, “Look … if those marks mean what I think they mean, there are shaping caves in every valley. There are shaping caves
everywhere
on this blighted island. He could be hiding in any one of them. Which one should we look for?”

“He will be somewhere close to that city,” Jason stated bluntly. “Unless Medea’s auguries are wrong, we will find him there. She told me he’s old now, and rarely uses the caverns. And if he
does
flee into the hills, we can easily find the route by which he has escaped.”

“How do you know this?” Idas asked irritably.

“Medea told me.”

“Medea told you. Medea told you.” Idas was in sneering mood. “How in the name of Thunder does
she
know?”

“I trust her. She knows more than I know, and I don’t argue with dangerous women. I suggest you don’t argue with dangerous men.”

Meleager piped up again, “The caves are all linked. According to Aeoleron, this shaping man can move from one end of the island to the other in a single step. Are you that fleet of foot, Jason?”

Jason slammed his fist against the map, irritated and frustrated with this argument. He took a deep breath. “We’re here for piracy,” he said quietly. “Let’s get on with piracy. That’s what we’re here for. Let us do it. Don’t listen to the gossip of magicians, not even a good one like Aeoleron. And take no notice of how this island has spun its tales. Old Man Thunder—Zeus—was born here?” He looked mockingly wide-eyed at Meleager. “Truly? Do you believe that? When we sailed into the estuary of the Daan, with the Fleece, after our escape from Colchis, after we had rowed like fury across that great sea, we met the Istragians. Remember? They claimed that Zeus was born from black rock that had fallen from the heavens and had been kept in a copper vessel for twenty generations. It burst open and released the young god only after a peasant woman had been stretched across its rounded surface and raped by her brothers. How likely is that? How likely is anything when it comes to Old Man Thunder?” Jason was enjoying this mortal challenge to the god, staring at the new dawn, eyes gleaming, waiting for the gathering of dark clouds, for the moment of the angry strike.

The clouds stayed away. Jason mocked the skies, then turned back to his crew. “No. This man, this Daidalos, likes his bronze and is proud of his discs. We’ll find him where the mystery is most profound.”

“What exactly
are
the discs?” Meleager asked. “Are they dangerous?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care.” Jason peered hard at Meleager. “Dangerous? Since when did danger make you tremble?” He ignored Meleager’s protests, continuing, “The discs might be the cogs that spin the stars, for all that it matters to me. They can contain the knowledge of twenty thousand generations! For all that it matters to me. They can hold the details of our future lives, and the time and manner of our deaths … for all that it matters to me.” He patted the youth on the cheek. “I don’t understand discs. I leave it to others to understand
discs.
But Medea wants the mind that conceived them, and she needs the flesh that holds that mind. To play with in her own way. To cut up that mind like a child cuts up a bird to see the creature’s beating heart. In her own way! And that’s what she’ll get. As a wedding gift. A disc-maker. A beating heart. And beyond that, apart from spoil and salvage…”

There was a low cheer at the offer of spoil and salvage.

Jason grinned. “That’s all that matters to me.”

*   *   *

Leaving five of his crew to guard Argo and the beach, Jason led the way inland, following a watercourse, looking for features in the surrounding hills that might indicate which part of the map they were following.

They soon found it: a blood-drenched grove, the dismembered parts of animals scattered around, crow-scavenged but still raw enough to suggest a recent ceremonial.

The tall stone effigy of Snake Lady rose from the central tangle of olive trunks. Her eyes were empty but all-seeing. Living snakes were coiled on her exposed granite breasts, lazy in the sun. The stone snakes in her hands were painted a vivid red and green and could have almost as easily been alive.

This shrine was marked on Medea’s dream-wrought map. The Argonauts could now see the valley approaches that would lead them to the Cave of Discs.

A day later they were standing on the ridge of a low hill, staring across the sprawl of a city, through which a bright river flowed. Hills rose beyond. The whole urban area was crowded and confusing. Tall, stepped buildings, faced in black stone, suggested temples. Otherwise, the city was a blaze of colour. There was a labyrinthine feel to the place, and below their feet, the earth grumbled in a rhythmic way that suggested the movement of mechanisms beyond their comprehension. If the Argonauts were unnerved by this, they didn’t show it. Hard eyes surveyed the scene.