The Gorgon's Blood Solution (11 page)

They passed a small building about one hundred yards down the hillside, but there were no other structures near the crest of the island’s mountain.

“I was in the Lion City,” Marco began, and he gave an abbreviated version of his story while they walked, leaving out only the fact that Kreewhite was a merboy, not sure why he felt it was important to keep his friend’s identity secret, but convinced that no one should be told.  He finished the story before they were halfway down the trail.

“Why did you volunteer to be my hostage?” Marco asked Porenn moments after he was done talking.

“You looked like you needed a friend, and the priestess looked like she needed a solution, so it was good for you and it was good for her,” Porenn said.   “And I haven’t gotten to talk to a boy in four years, so it was good for me too!” she said brightly with a laugh.

They reached another switchback on the trail, one that looked down over the village below once again.  Marco stopped and stared.  “What is this place?” he asked.  Something about the girl, her attentive listening, the look in her eyes, ever her very posture, as well as the feeling of her hand pressed against his, made him feel that he could trust her.  And he knew he badly needed to trust someone at that moment, isolated as he was.

“This is the heart of our world, the family of the temples of Asclepius.  We have temples in all the great cities of the world, temples in which women treat and heal women.  On this island we have our leaders and our holiest sites and relicts for miraculous cures,” Porenn answered.

“How did you decide to come here?  Where are you from?” Marco asked as they stood and watched the shadows of the clouds race across the sea and the island.

“I was a girl, living with my family, growing up in Naples, when my little brother became very sick.  My mother was desperate, and she took him to the temple and begged them to treat him.  They did, and he survived the illness, so my mother gave me to them in thanks.  I was sent here to the island, and I’ve been here for four years now, serving the temple,” she answered in a distant tone, her eyes looking off at the horizon.

Marco stared at her in fascination.  It was an incredible story, but when he thought about how his own family had sent him away to be an apprentice in the city, it didn’t seem so different in some ways.

“I miss my family, but the women here are my family now, and I love them all, well, almost all,” Porenn turned to smile at him.  “Let’s be on our way.  It’s not a good idea to keep Lady Iasco waiting.”

“Is that the name of the lady in charge, the one I talked to up on top of the mountain?” Marco asked.

“Yes, it is, and you caused quite a stir to make the lady herself go racing up from the hilltop facilities as fast as she did when she heard the report that there was a man in the Apex Temple!” Porenn giggled.  “Her bodyguards could hardly keep up with her.  She was spending the night up there in the prayer house with several of us keeping a prayer vigil, so she was close by to start with.”

“What is she going to do with me?” Marco asked Porenn.

She looked up at him.  “I don’t know Marco.  There’s never been a man on the island before.  It’s just not allowed.  I don’t know if she’ll put you on the first boat that leaves the island, or if,” the girl stopped talking.

“Or if what?” Marco prompted.

“I don’t know.  I was going to say she might make you stay here on the island, but I doubt that she wants to have you around stirring up all that attention from the girls here,” Porenn grinned again.  “I know there are a dozen girls wishing they had been quick enough to think to offer to be your hostage!”

“I just want to find Kreewhite, and then we can leave together,” Marco told her.

“And that might be a whole other problem, if there’s been this other boy who’s been on the island too,”  Porenn told him as they reached the beginning of the village settlement.  They passed between small fields and pastures carved out of the mountainside, causing the workers to stop and stare at the sight of a man walking among them.

“Kreewhite hasn’t been on the island; he’s been in the water the whole time,” Marco made a point of the distinction.

“Do you really expect us to believe that the two of you swam in the ocean for more than a day to get here after your ship sank?”  Porenn asked.  “You must have had a lifeboat or something, and your friend must have landed on the island.  I’ve never heard of this underwater or underground temple you claimed you found.”

“And I never heard of an island without a single man on it,” Marco retorted.  “How does an island not have ships of men landing on it all the time?”

“There’s an enchantment that hides us from the eyes of everyone except our own.  I can’t figure out how you saw us at all,” Porenn replied promptly.   They were entering the village proper, and the sides of the road were lined with women who stood in front of their homes and buildings, staring intently at Marco as he passed by them.

Although they were already holding hands together on the sword, Marco unconsciously drew closer to Porenn as he passed under the hostile scrutiny, and the two reached the door to Lady Iasco’s pink building with their hips often bumping together as they walked.

“We said you could have the girl as a hostage, not a bride,” one of the bodyguards said sourly as the pair came through the doorway into the entry hall.  “Has he treated you well, Porenn?” the woman asked.

“He has been a gentleman,” the girl replied, as she moved slightly apart from Marco.

Then, to his surprise, she leaned back towards him, and rose up on her toes as she used their hands on the sword to pull him down to his level; her face had a slightly reddish blush.  “I have to go to the bathroom, Marco.  Will you let me go?  I promise I’ll come right back,” she whispered.

“Is it right here in this building?” he asked.

“Just around the corner.  I’ll show you the door,” she whispered back, and tugged him down a short side hall, where she stopped in front of a door as the guards followed them.  “I’ll be right back, I promise,” she told Marco as she squeezed his hand.

He gave a tight smile to try to show her that he trusted her, then he gently transferred the sword handle to his other hand, releasing her as he backed up against the wall next to the door, separated from Porenn for the first time since they had gripped each other’s hands.

She looked at him with a smile, then entered the doorway.

Marco stood watching the guards who were watching him.

Five seconds later he heard a shout from the door way.  “Let me go!” he heard Porenn shout.

There was rattling from the room beyond the door.

“Porenn?” he called loudly.

“We have her – she’s free!” came a voice from the next door down the hallway as it flew open and another guard came out.  “Get him!” the woman ordered.

And with that, a frenetic battle erupted in the temple hallway.  Three guards came at Marco at once, two with swords and one with a mace, as he stood backed against the wall.  He froze in horror at both the betrayal by Porenn and by the certainty of defeat that he face
d.

He held the sword out in front of him with both hands gripping the hilt with a death grip, and as soon as the first attacker swung her weapon at him, he moved the sword to block the slice.  Or rather, the sword seemed to move itself.  There was no effort on his part, but his hands gripped the sword as it rose swiftly and parried the attack, blocking the guard’s sword upward and away.  His weapon followed that by suddenly reversing direction and stabbing viciously at the woman who had the mace.  His unexpected attack forced her to swerve her own body, and her swinging ball of spiked metal flew harmlessly above Marco and crashed into the wall, embedding the weapon there.

Marco felt his sword pull itself back closer to him, and he blocked a stabbing attack by the third guard, driving her sword down to the floor.  He instinctively lifted a foot and stamped down hard on the attacker’s weapon.   He realized he was barefoot as his toes landed atop the flat of the blade and knocked it free from the hand of the surprised attacker.

The first guard recovered from her blocked attack in the time that Marco fought off the other two guards, and she swung her blade again.  Marco felt his sword raise itself up higher to block her powerful slice at him, and then the momentum of his arms caused his whole body to twirl in a motion that astonished him as well as his assailants, and he found himself free from the attack, facing the guards from a new location.  The sword has fought off the attack superbly, and then had maneuvered him to a position of freedom.  It was an extraordinary weapon!

“Where is she?  Where’s Porenn?  Why did she lie to me?” he shouted.

“She didn’t lie,” a voice spoke to him from overhead.

He looked up, and realized that the hallway he was standing in was an atrium that rose up to a ceiling three floors above him, with a balcony that covered each wall overhead.

Behind him he saw Lady Iasco, standing with Porenn and a guard.

“Put your weapons down ladies,” Iasco ordered in a steely voice.

Marco turned and saw the guards staring up at the balcony, their eyes growing large with astonishment at the order.  All three of them simultaneously lowered their gaze to look back at him again, and then with contemptuous expressions they lowered their weapons.

“Marco, please forgive my assistants.  They were overzealous in their duties.  This will not happen again,” she spoke past him to the guards.

“But the prophecy, my lady!” one of the guards protested.

“I didn’t know, Marco!” Porenn called out suddenly, wanting him to know of her innocence in the affair.

“If you would like to take the stairs behind you, please come up here and meet me, so that we can go to the balcony and talk,” the lady told him.

“The interpretation of the prophecy is not your concern.  Go back to your stations,” she instructed the guards, who grumbled as they disbanded.

Minutes later Marco was seated in a chair on a balcony on the pink building, looking out over the village harbor, where a small fishing boat was sailing out to sea.  It looked peaceful, but Marco knew that there was little hope for peace in the village for him.

“Would you like some fruit?” Iasco came out onto the balcony after Marco had waited, carrying a tray with her own hands; Porenn had apparently been dismissed, for the two of them sat alone.   She placed the tray on a small table between their two chairs, then gracefully sat down beside him.

“What am I going to do with you?” she asked rhetorically, as he picked up a bunch of grapes and began to eat them ravenously.

“I can’t keep you here, that’s obvious.  I can’t just ship you out.  I don’t want to imprison you.  But you must be here for some purpose.  From what Porenn told me of your story – and I think I believe most of it – the spirit of the great healer has brought you here for some purpose, I believe,” she told him.

“I think my friend Kreewhite is out there at sea waiting for me,” Marco said eagerly.  “If you’ll just give me leave to walk the shoreline, I’m sure I can find him, or he’ll find me, and we can be on our way.  I didn’t mean to come here to break any rules – I didn’t mean to come here at all.  We just happened to see the island without knowing what it was.”

“For both our sakes, I don’t believe it’s a good idea to let you just wander around the island,” Iasco answered.  “I’m going to assign a guard to you to keep an eye on you and to keep an eye out for you for the next couple of days while I pray at the temple for some guidance from the spirit of Asclepius, or from the Lord,” she said.

“I’d rather just stay with Porenn,” Marco replied.

“No,” Iasco said drily, “I don’t think that will happen.  She has been reassigned to a duty on the far side of the island, far from you.  She was just a little too quick in manipulating the situation this morning to spend time with you.  I don’t need the two of you spending any more time together.

“She’s  clever girl,” Iasco chuckled.  “You stay here and eat, while I go fetch someone,” the priestess ordered as she rose.  She gracefully walked away without waiting for any reply, and Marco turned to devouring the contents of the tray for several minutes. 

He had no idea what was going to happen.  If Porenn had been available, he would have perhaps enjoyed the idea of staying on the island with the companionable girl for a little while, provided he was in her company.  Iasco seemed determined to prevent that from happening however, he realized glumly.

“Here Marco,” the voice of the priestess spoke from the doorway behind him.  He turned quickly from the empty tray to see her coming back out onto the balcony, in the company of another woman, a woman dressed in the leather military togs of the guards.

“This is Albany.  She will be your companion and protector for the next few days while I consider your circumstances,” Iasco introduced the woman as Marco rose from his seat.

He examined the woman coolly.  She was of medium height, with close cropped hair that was sprinkled with gray throughout.  She looked at him with eyes that told him she had seen many things in life, and she brooked no nonsense.  But there was no hostility in her stare, only a hard appraisal of him.

“I’m not sure the young man will really need a protector, if what I heard about his little entanglement down below is true,” Albany spoke for the first time.