She’d never seen a mountain like this. It was white and smooth and hollow, and it reeked of men. Around it were many lairs of men, all empty, but still with that terrifying reek. She couldn’t go in there, not even for the boy.
The Dark came and the cub smelled prey making their way to drink. A doe trotted past without sensing her, and a badger shambled out of its hole within an easy pounce. The lion cub ignored them. The falcon swept past with a scornful glance, and the lion cub ignored her too. The boy might be in trouble. He might never come out.
Leaving the reeds, she prowled closer, and gazed up at the horned mountain. She still couldn’t face its gaping jaws, but maybe she could find a less frightening way in.
The mountain’s flanks were hard, and so smooth that her claws didn’t make a scratch—she just slid off, leaving a smear of dusty paw prints.
She spotted a pine growing near it. One branch reached even closer. The branch was quite high up, but from there it would be an easy leap inside . . .
Pines have good rough bark, and the lion cub managed her best climb ever and scrambled into a fork and considered what to do next.
The branch she was aiming for was on the other side of the trunk. Awkwardly, she stretched one forepaw around and caught it with her claws. She made a swipe with the other forepaw—missed, hung by one paw, scrabbling frantically—then swung up a hind leg and hoisted herself clumsily onto the branch, where she crouched, clinging with every claw and even her tail.
The falcon lit onto the same branch and stared at her.
The cub hissed at her to get off, and the falcon flew away and perched on one of the mountain’s horns, to watch.
The branch was higher than the lion cub had thought, and much farther from the mountain than it had looked from the ground. She could never leap that far.
The falcon lifted off and lazily circled the pine, then glided between the mountain’s tall white horns and disappeared inside. See? It’s easy for me.
Oh, go away. The cub tried to turn around, but the branch was too narrow. To reach the fork and get down again, she’d have to go backward—but she’d never done that before, not this high up.
Now that the falcon was gone, the cub wished she’d return. The bird was haughty and infuriating, but she was better than being on your own.
A gust of wind ruffled the cub’s fur, and the pine tree whispered: What are you going to do now?
24
Just for tonight, Pirra told herself stubbornly, I’m going to forget about the Mystery. I’m fed up with being dirty and scared.
Making Hylas wait in her chamber, she ran next door to the water room and took a swift cold bath, then dragged a comb through her hair and threw on the clean tunic she’d brought from her clothes chest. After that she hurriedly showed Hylas the split seat in the corner for relieving oneself, with the bucket to wash it away, and then explained about refilling the bath from the water jars and pulling out the wooden plug when he’d finished.
He eyed the bath with suspicion. “That’s a coffin.”
“No it’s not.”
“Yes it is. Last time I saw one of them was in a tomb.”
“It’s a bath,” said Pirra, “and you could do with one. I’ll be back soon, I’m off to get supplies.”
She found the cloth stores locked, and cracked the clay sealings with her knife, half expecting an angry steward to come running. Her rushlight revealed piles of linen and wool that exhaled a dusty tang of rosemary. Stifling a sense of wrong-doing, she found a short-sleeved jerkin of fine blue wool that looked about Hylas’ size, a man’s kilt of supple deerskin with a fringed hem, a wide red calf-hide belt, sandals, and a knife-sheath of braided leather. Bundling them up in a cloak of rare dark green, she made for the food stores.
Someone had broken in before her: someone who hated stealing, and had left a neat record of what they’d taken on a waxed wooden tablet propped against the door—four flatbreads, a wineskin, and a bag of salted ducks’ legs.
In the wax, Pirra saw the tiny imprint of a scarab beetle. The reluctant thief had been Userref. “Userref?” she whispered.
No answer.
Her hand went to the wedjat amulet at her throat. She longed for Userref to emerge from the shadows and scold her. “Pirra, look at you! Hair loose—and your feet! Rougher than a crocodile’s hide!”
“Userref, where are you?” she said in a hoarse whisper. But all she heard was the thrum of sparrows’ wings, and mice scurrying along the roof beams.
She knew the priests wouldn’t have left Kunisu unprotected. There would be guardians—although maybe not in human form. Suddenly she was sharply aware of the dark spaces around her. The glimmering rushlight made familiar things frightening. A painted octopus glared from a grain jar as tall as a man.
Her thoughts flew to Echo. Did the falcon know where she was? Would she dare follow her into Kunisu?
“Food,” she told herself firmly. “Get on with it, Pirra.”
Hurrying down the rows, she grabbed as much as she could carry, then struggled back to her quarters as laden as a donkey on market day.
Hylas was still in the water room, splashing in the bath. She flung in his new clothes, then started setting out the supplies on her clothes chest.
“Did you find him?” he called.
“No. But he was here.” Standing back, she surveyed the feast. There were snails in oil and octopus in brine; smoked venison, dried swordfish, and blood sausage with onions and chestnuts; pickled vine leaves stuffed with fennel and chickpeas; pressed figs, fat black mulberries in rose-petal syrup; and her favorite, crunchy almond honey cakes. To drink, she’d brought a skin of best raisin wine, with barley meal and ewe’s-milk cheese for mixing, and two silver drinking cups, because they were lighter than pottery and wouldn’t break.
While she was away, Hylas had found some pressed olive kernels and woken a fire in the brazier, so as she waited for him she made an offering, flicking wine on the flames and begging the Goddess to keep away the Crows.
Please, she added silently, tell me if I should do the Mystery. Send me a sign. Is this why You’re keeping me here? Or is it just chance?
She must have spoken the last bit out loud, because behind her Hylas said, “Is what just chance?”
He stood in the doorway wearing his new jerkin and kilt, and for a moment he didn’t look like Hylas, but the long-legged god in the Hall of Whispers: the same broad shoulders and narrow waist; the same knife-cut features and startling rock-crystal eyes.
“Is what just chance?” he repeated.
“Nothing,” she croaked. “I was making an offering.”
He nodded. “Did the gods send you a sign?”
“Not yet.”
He glanced at the food on the chest, then back to her. “You look better.”
She touched her cheek. She’d never felt so ugly, or hated her scar more. “I’m just clean, that’s all,” she muttered.
He tucked his lion-claw amulet in the neck of his jerkin and raised his eyebrows. “Do I look Keftian?”
She flushed. “No. But you look all right.”
Pirra lit more lamps and fetched some sheepskins, then they sat on the floor and fell on the food. She gulped two goblets of wine very fast, and felt her worries slip away in a golden glow. She forgot about the Mystery. She even forgot about her scar. It was wonderful to be warm again, and clean.
Hazily, she watched Hylas feeding the fire. The light caught a dusting of fine gold hairs along his jaw. No Keftian man wore a beard, and Pirra had always thought them uncouth, but she reflected that if Hylas grew one, she wouldn’t mind.
He’d resumed his place on the floor and sat turning his drinking cup in his fingers and staring at the paintings on the wall. He hadn’t drunk as much as her, and to her surprise, he seemed ill at ease in his new clothes. He’d ignored the sandals, and kept his battere
d old knife-sheath. She wondered why.
“Why do they do that?” he said abruptly.
“What?”
“Keftian children, like the one in that painting. Shave their heads, with one lock hanging down.”
“To keep cool. And it’s cleaner. But you always leave the sidelock because that’s where your soul lives.”
He stared at her. “You did it too?”
“Till I was eleven.” She smiled. He didn’t smile back.
It occurred to her that maybe he felt intimidated by Kunisu, so to put him at his ease, she asked what he thought of the dolphins on the other wall, and if they reminded him of Spirit, the dolphin they’d made friends with two summers ago.
“They got the noses wrong,” he said. “They look like ducks.”
“I think so too,” she agreed. “And the fins are wrong. Spirit wouldn’t think much of them, would he?”
He gave her a brief smile, but it soon clouded over.
“Hylas, what’s wrong?” she said.
“Nothing.”
“That’s not true.”
He hesitated. “I just . . . I never thought it would be this grand. I mean, your own little coffin, just to wash!”
“It’s a bath,” she said, biting back a smile.
“And all the colored clothes and jewels and silver cups—silver! ”
“And no earth, no trees, and no freedom,” she said bitterly.
He glowered at her, unconvinced.
“The first time I ever saw a live fish,” she said, “I was astonished because it moved so fast. I’d only seen them in paintings or a dish.” She paused. “There was an old woman, a slave who’d never been outside, she’d worked in the weaving room her whole life. One day she found her way to the Great Court and saw the sky. She was terrified it would fall on her; it sent her mad. I’ve always dreaded ending up like her. Gibbering in some windowless room with only lizards for company.”
Hylas gave her a considering look. “That’s not going to happen. If we don’t find Userref first thing tomorrow, we’re getting out.”
She nodded. She wanted to believe it. She really did.
“Pirra, what’s wrong?” said Hylas. “Are you still worrying about the Mystery? Is it—dangerous?”
Springing to her feet, Pirra grabbed the oil jar and fed the lamps. Sometimes, Hylas noticed too much.
“Whatever it involves,” he said quietly, “I’ll help you.”
“You can’t. You can’t help and I can’t tell you about it.”
“Why?”
“Because . . . it’s secret. That’s why it’s a Mystery. All I can tell you is it’s about calling on the Goddess to make Herself visible—to make Herself flesh—then maybe, She’ll bring back the Sun.” She gulped more wine, but it no longer gave her a warm glow, only a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She felt the weight of expectation tightening around her. Her mother . . . Deukaryo . . . that child in the cavern with her grubby toy donkey, and all the others like her . . .
She couldn’t tell Hylas any of this. He would only try to stop her. And if she did find the courage to perform the Mystery, it would mean never seeing him again.
It would mean sacrificing her life to bring back the Sun.
25
The falcon was worried that she might never find the girl. She missed her. And she could feel that the girl was in trouble.
The mountain was a strange echoing place with many narrow tunnels and lines of weirdly straight tree trunks with neither branches nor leaves. The falcon liked all the colors, and as she searched for the girl, she had fun practicing her flying by racing in and out between the tree trunks.
Now she was speeding through an echoey cave full of the musky smell of earthbound beasts. She glimpsed something huge moving in the dark. Then she was out again and there was another line of tree trunks, so she did some more in-and-out flying.
She nearly crashed into a giant shimmery cobweb—swerved, and bashed her wingtip against something hard that rattled alarmingly.
Frightened, the falcon perched on a ledge. She didn’t like this place anymore. There was no earth and no Wind, and that giant cobweb had nearly gotten her.
To her surprise, she found herself missing the lion cub. The cub was grumpy and had an irritating habit of sneaking up when you were trying to roost, but you always knew what she was feeling. The falcon found that oddly comforting.
Bobbing her head to sharpen her sight, she set off again. More narrow tunnels, more leafless tree trunks; but this time, she did no in-and-out flying. Sparrows scattered before her and lizards darted into cracks. Although she was hungry, the falcon ignored them all.
Where was the girl?
It was getting late.
Pirra sat on her bed, gazing at the fire. Hylas thought she must be thinking about the Mystery, and all the other things that daughters of High Priestesses think about, which Lykonian goatherds can’t possibly understand.
She was flushed from the wine, and looked handsomer than he’d ever seen her. Her hair was a shadowy river down her back, and her dark eyes reminded him of the painted women in the Great Court: just as highborn and just as inaccessible.
It was a long time since he’d thought about the difference between them, but now it became a chasm.
She’d dressed in a rush, which made it worse, because she was so used to it all. Her tunic was fine scarlet wool patterned with blue lilies made of tiny glittering stones that she called beads. At her waist, with casual grace, she’d knotted a belt of gold lizard skin with two silver tassels hanging down. When she moved, he caught a heady scent of jasmine.
What an idiot he’d been. He’d actually imagined that she could live with him and Issi and Havoc on Mount Lykas. Idiot. You can’t take a girl like this to live on a mountain.
“D’you want more wine?” she said suddenly.
“No,” he replied.
She gave him a look that he didn’t understand. Then she rose and spread the red rug carefully over her bed, and looked at him again.
She’s trying to put me at my ease, he thought savagely. Because I’m an ex-slave with scars on my knees from crawling down mines, and part of my earlobe cut off to remove the mark of the Outsider.
He got to his feet, overturning his cup with a clatter. “We should get some sleep,” he growled.
“Right,” said Pirra.
“I’ll sleep in the passage.”
She touched her scar. “Right,” she said again. “But you don’t need to. I mean”—her flush deepened—“there’s a bed in the next room.”
He snorted. “I’ve never slept in a bed in my life and I’m not going to now.”
She drew a breath. “I’ll fetch you more sheepskins.”
He’d never slept in those either, but he wasn’t going to tell her, so he watched her bring an armful of the cleanest fleeces he’d ever seen, along with a small soft pad. “What’s that?” he said.
“It’s a pillow. It’s—for your head.”
“Oh.” Yet another thing he’d never heard of.
“Sleep well,” she mumbled. Her eyes were glittering, as if she was going to cry, and suddenly he wondered if he’d got it all wrong. He made to speak, but she let down the door-hanging between them.
“You too,” he muttered.
Silence on the other side. He pictured her standing there. Then he heard the whisper of her bare feet crossing the floor and the creak of her bed.
Still with the nagging sense that he’d made a mistake, he kicked the sheepskins along the passage. They were incredibly soft and smelled faintly of jasmine; curling up in them was like having his own little cloud. He’d scarcely closed his eyes when sleep reached up and dragged him under.
He dreamed he was standing beneath the Mountain of the Earthshaker, craning his neck at the peak.
It turned into a huge bull and came thundering after him. Now he was in the House of the Goddess, running down endless passages, trying to find Pirra. He ran out into the Great Court and there she was, but to his horror, she’d become one of the painted women on the walls, and she was laughing at him. What are you doing here, Outsider?
He woke with a start. He was hot and tangled in sheepskins. He could still hear Pirra’s mocking laughter from the dream.
He hated Kunisu. He hated feeling these unnaturally smooth stones beneath him instead of earth, and these painted walls that shut him off from wind and sky.
He sat up. It was no good, he was never going to sleep.
Pirra lay curled in her scarlet rug, her face buried in her pillow in a storm of dark hair. She didn’t stir when he lit a rushlight from the brazier. He would climb to that place where you could see out—the East Balcony?—and make sure there were still no Crows. At least that was something he could do.
By night, the House of the Goddess was alive with the secret rustlings of wild creatures. He found the stairs easily enough, and left his rushlight in an empty brazier before stepping onto the balcony. If anyone was out there, he didn’t want them seeing his light.
To his relief, the woods along the river were dark: no red sparks of torches or campfires. He caught the tang of pine, and made out a tree not far from where he stood. He wished he was out in the forest.
The stairs seemed longer on the way back, and he heard a mysterious rhythmic clicking, some way off. At the bottom, he blundered into a silk hanging. That hadn’t been there on the way out, he must’ve taken a wrong turn. In the mountains, he hardly ever got lost, but in here, everything looked the same.
That clicking was louder. He came to a shadowy hall where a massive loom leaned against the wall. Along its lower edge hung a row of clay weights, clicking against each other.
His scalp tightened. There was no draft that could’ve set them moving. Who—or what—had passed this way?
He swung his rushlight to and fro—and a painted face glared at him from the wall.