The Broken Kings: Book Three of The Merlin Codex (25 page)

“You would,” Urtha growled.

“I have an idea about it,” Tairon confirmed.

Again, Urtha muttered, “You would.”

Tairon had listened carefully, and with a rare half smile on his face, dark eyes absorbing me as he absorbed my words. Close behind him, Talienze had listened with equal intrigue.

The youthful
kryptoii
were playing beach games in the unnatural light of the unnatural dawn, some sort of touch game, with much precocious somersaulting and leaping. It reminded me of the bull-leaping for which Greek Land and Crete were famous. And I had seen such leaping in the Hostel of the Overwhelming Gift, though the bull in that case was being roasted.

We were missing two of the Greeklanders and Caiwan the Exile, left at the harbour with Argo.

“I’m sorry, Merlin. Please continue.”

Urtha’s outburst had relieved his growing frustration. My words had been as alien to him as this island itself. He looked abashed, but interested again, resuming his stabbing of the beach, though when I stared pointedly at him for a moment he stopped and sheathed the small knife.

Cloak around his body, he was crouching on one knee, as was Bollullos. The rest were either crouched on haunches, or sprawled back on elbows, as if basking in a sun that—though present on the far horizon—was giving off no heat at all.

There are parts of the world—they exist in great numbers—where the land has echoes. These might be valleys, small islands, plains, forests, or mountains. These echo lands—I had used an expression, Echonian, which I had heard from a storyteller by the name of Homer—existed below the earth as it could be perceived. Importantly, they were not Otherworlds, or Ghostlands, or any sort of place where the Dead might journey to seek rest or rebirth.

They were simply echoes. And they had not all been formed when the world was formed, though it was believed there were ten that had. Most of them had been brought into creation by anguish, or dreams, and the intervention of creatures such as me.

They were, to put it bluntly, the leftovers of play, the fragmented remains of exercises in charm, enchantment, magic, and manipulation. Once formed, they were very hard to discard. They lived on—as Echo, fading slowly but never completely, as persistent as memory.

And we were inside such an echo.

During my own extended childhood, these discarded echo realms had been guarded by “oolering men,” who maintained a lifetime’s vigil at the entrances to the false lands, preventing the inadvertent straying into nonexistence. Later, these entrances had become places of pilgrimage, and the guardianship of what were now called “hollowings”—as often enough the source of oracles—had passed into a more powerful form of government: that of priests, priestesses, and those who could benefit from the attractive power of such situations.

Poor Delphi itself, that poverty-stricken hole in the rocks, its temples purloined of all richness by various nations, exploited by profiteers disguised as prophets, had almost certainly been the remnants of such a hollowing.

I liked to call them “ways under.” I was afraid of them. They were unpredictable because they were substantially the product of unpredictable minds. Young minds, usually, but sometimes mad ones. One day, some time in ages to come, there would be secrets to be discovered in the “mining” of them. But such endeavours had never particularly interested me.

I was interested now, however, because not only were Jason and his companions sitting silently in the centre of such a “way under,” but everything about it stank of deliberate construction.

Tairon had referred to Shaping Chambers. The island was covered with the Shaper’s Shaping Chambers. Could these have been the entrances to the largest Echonian land that I could imagine—an echo of the whole island of Crete itself? Were we now crouched on a beach that was one of those entrances, and a large one at that: the labyrinthine Ak’Gnossian palace? It was an intriguing thought.

If my feeling was right, then who exactly had made this place? Who had turned this long, thin island into a maze of echoes? And if this was all echo—where was the real island?

Honey had visited Niiv and me in the night. The honey smell, the honey spell, the elemental presence of something that was most certainly not of Shaper’s invention. Was
she
the anguished dreamer who had created the devouring dream?

I rambled on, thoughts tumbling, oblivious of the dark frowns of the ignorant, aware of Tairon’s gleam, Talienze’s smile.

“At some point,” I concluded, “at some moment along our journey from Alba to the harbour at Akirotira, we passed from the familiar world to the echo world that now surrounds us.”

“At Korsa!” Tairon exclaimed. “I knew there was something wrong there. It was there; I’m certain of it now. Remember that strange tide? The way the sea surged, the way Argo threw herself against the wall of the quay? That was the moment! And it was not you or I, Merlin, who was spinning the thread of that change.”

“Argo herself,” I concluded for him. This Cretan was clever.

“Argo herself,” Tairon agreed.

“Talking of whom … here she comes,” Jason murmured, rising to his feet and pointing into the rising sun. “
Is
it her?”

There was a look in his eyes, I noticed, an expression that was not so much joyous as apprehensive. He watched what he thought was his ship, a small shape in the gleam of sea, but he was anxious now.

Niiv whispered, “Look at your brutal bastard friend. Well, well, well.”

“What do you see?” I asked her. “With your eyes and intuition, I mean. Nothing else.”

“The same as you. He’s frightened. And he doesn’t know why. This is the moment!” She grasped my arm. Her voice was soft, malign: “Soon we’ll hear the sound of chickens flapping home to roost. This should be good.”

I pushed her away from me. She was outraged, wide-eyed, her hands on her hips in that most obvious of poses; a moment later, devious, pretending she was not upset.

I ignored her. All I could see was Jason. I have seen elementals in many forms, but those that clouded his head now were like the marsh insects that swarm around men and cattle alike at dusk. Fury and memory, fear and fire were shaped in that ethereal miasma, a past being drawn from a man who had long believed it buried.

Approaching the beach was not a ship but a wave. It loomed larger, a bow-wave, cascading in silver foam from a prow that slowly rose above the water.

Argo surfaced like Leviathan, surging from the sea-wrack, painted eyes watching us as her keel found the land and her prow ploughed onto the pebbled shore as we scattered from her sudden, shocking arrival.

Rage and regret dripped from her hull, as potent and tangible as the water that drained from her deck. Jason stepped forward. He pushed me roughly aside. He was being summoned. I risked a moment of eavesdropping and heard the harsh, hoarse voice of the ship, mournfully bidding him aboard. The rest of us were discouraged from approaching, and Jason alone entered Argo, passing into the Spirit of the Ship.

He appeared a while later, ashen and haunted, in a very bad mood. He called out, “The others are here. Wet, but alive. Time to sail. Push this rank old barge off from the beach.”

We did as we were told, using brute strength and what ropes we could find, to drag the ship back into the ocean. Once we were all aboard, Argo turned her bow to the middle of nowhere and caught a current that only she could sense. She crossed the sea and eventually entered the channel of a river.

Now oars were pushed through, backs put into action, and we struck the ship out of the underworld and into the centre of the island.

Chapter Nineteen

Ephemera

Later, we emerged from the gloom as if from a dream, finding ourselves suddenly surrounded by mountains. The sun was bright. A colourful city sprawled away from us on each side of the river. There was not just fragrance in the air, and the passing sour whiff of tanning leather, but sound. The sound of life. The noise of bustling activity and the sharp cries of curiosity as a small crowd gathered to stare in amused confusion at our vessel, our Argo, as she banged and butted against the quay, while Rubobostes and the Greekland mariners struggled to find mooring ropes and hold the old ship still.

“Much more like it,” Urtha approved, looking round. “A civilised town at last! A place I can understand.”

This was indeed a wonderful place. High-decked barges drifted past us, their crews watching us cautiously; smaller boats were rowed not to the beat of drums but to the rhythmic blast of small bronze horns. Narrow-necked pithoi were stacked on the quays. Crates of fruit were being hauled on carts pulled by oxen. Dark-coated goats bleated as they were herded into pens; away from the harbour and somewhere behind the purple-and-rose-coloured houses a festival was taking place. The jangle of tambourines punctuated the severe thump of a drumbeat with accompanying wailing horns. Occasionally there were cheers. Occasionally groans. Sometimes a scream.

Light sparkled on the hills around, and by looking carefully we could make out processions of children, all dressed in white tunics, all carrying small reflective shields. They wove their way along the paths, higher and higher towards the sky.

“Where
is
this shit-hole?” Jason suddenly shouted. He was in a foul mood. “Where have we come? Does anybody know?”

Tairon turned to him and called, “Yes. Home.”

“Whose home?”

“
My
home!” bellowed the Cretan, but he grinned as Jason frowned.

“You were born here? In this beautiful city?” Urtha asked. Compared with the muddy, forge-ringing, fire-burning chaos of Taurovinda, I could see why he was impressed.

“Right there,” said Tairon, pointing into the press of buildings. “In the Street of the Bee.”

The name, once they understood it, had Urtha’s
uthiin
roaring with laughter. They discussed briefly possible names for some of the streets of their own city; nothing was quite so delicate.

Tairon ignored them. He stared into the distance for a few moments, absorbing the colour and confusion, then cast me a glance. “It hasn’t changed much. I wonder how long I’ve been gone.”

“Easy enough to find out.”

While Jason negotiated mooring fees with the bureaucratic entourage who had appeared almost as soon as we’d reached the quays, Tairon and I walked into the town. The noise of the festival grew louder, the sense of gaiety more intense. I asked Tairon what the festival might have been, and he looked uncomfortable.

“I’m not sure. But if it’s what I think it is, best not to go there.”

In fact, he left me for a while to go to the area of the celebration. When he came back, he immediately beckoned me back towards the Street of the Bee, continuing our exploration.

“Well? The festival?”

“Do you have a strong stomach?”

“Yes. Usually.”

He told me what was happening in the ring. It wasn’t particularly festive. As the crowd groaned, then broke into a magnificent roar of pleasure, I thought of the cruelty of populations, but also of the kindness of a man like Tairon who wished to spare me outrages.

He was a quiet and deep man; he was, of course, a lost man. But here he was, home again, and he exuded anxiety and nerves like a child awaiting punishment. The city was so familiar to him that it must have felt as if he’d traversed the ages, coming back to the place at the true time of his childhood.

And that indeed is almost what had happened.

A familiar voice shouted my name from behind us. I sighed and turned, and Niiv came gasping up to us, but smiling. She had somehow found a loose dress, coloured green and decorated with leaping dolphins. I suspected she had stolen it from the market.

“Isn’t this a wonderful place?” she enthused. “Just breathe that air!”

She was right.

We had passed into the honey quarter—the scent was intense, the different flowers and herbs with which the liquid honey was being aromatised caused a heady sensation. There was much incense in the brew, I suspected.

We walked on and came to a small square. Here, Tairon pointed with astonishment to an old man sitting quietly in the shade of a chestnut tree. The man was blind, and one arm was cut off at the elbow. He held a strange stringed instrument in the surviving hand, and his thumb occasionally stroked the strings, making a meaningful and melancholy tune.

“By the Bull! I know that man. Thalofonus. A freed slave. He was once a fine musician. The king did that to him, took away his playing hand, because he once sang an inappropriate song. It was shortly after the trial when I was tested in the labyrinth for the first time, before I became lost in the maze. I was here, in this place, this street, just a few years ago, then.”

What are you up to, Argo? I thought to myself.

Tairon went over to Thalofonus and took the man’s hand, whispering something in his ear. Thalofonus seemed to hesitate for a moment, then brighten and reach up to touch Tairon’s cheek. He whispered something back. Tairon kissed the old man’s hand, strummed the strings playfully, then came back to me. He was puzzled, but bright-eyed with anticipation.

“My mother is still alive, it seems. Still alive!” Then he frowned. “This will be difficult. You should wait here, the two of you.”

“If that’s what you want, then of course I’ll wait here. But I’d rather come with you. I shan’t interfere.”

“Nor will I,” Niiv promised.

Tairon thought for a moment, then nodded. “Come on, then.”

But as we walked away from the small square, a youth, naked but for the stubs of bull’s horn tied about his head, his belly and back blackened with dye, came racing past us, breathless and terrified, truly terrified. He flung himself against the wall of a house as he saw us, eyes wild and gleaming, lips slack as he gasped for breath. He edged past us cautiously, then broke into a run again. Sweat sprayed from him as he moved; the stink of his bowels lingered long after he had disappeared.

Somewhere, a few streets away, several tambourines were shaken for a few moments, then fell silent, to be replaced by the whispering of human voices.