As the ship drew closer and the mist started to clear, Xander got his first glimpse of the great golden walls, higher than he had ever dreamed and stretching far into the distance. They sat atop a high plateau, and he found himself craning his neck to see the gleaming towers. He could count three along the wall that faced the sea, all dwarfed by a single one to the south. The battlemented walls shone like copper, and Xander could believe the entire city was made of metal, shining like freshly burnished armor.
“There must be many great warriors living there,” he said.
“Aye,” said Odysseus. “This is horse country and the home of horse tamers. The Trojan Horse—the city’s cavalry—is legendary, and its leader is the king’s eldest son, Hektor. He is a great warrior.”
“Do you know him?” Xander wondered if he would meet the king’s warrior son.
“I know everybody, boy. Hektor…” He hesitated, and Xander saw that Andromache had moved up the deck to stand quietly beside him. “Hektor is a fine rider and charioteer, the best you will ever see.”
“It is so beautiful,” the boy said suddenly.
Odysseus took another deep drink from his water skin and wiped his mouth, absently brushing drops from his tunic. “Do you know what an illusion is, boy?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Xander said uncertainly.
“Well, an illusion is a story, a tall tale, if you like. It’s a bright shining story that masks a hidden darkness. Troy is a city of illusion. Nothing is what it seems.”
Xander could see the land stretching out around the high plateau. It was green and lush, and he could make out the moving dots of horses and sheep on the low hills. Between the plateau and the sea, in front of the city walls, lay a massive town. Xander could make out individual buildings of many colors and even people walking in the streets. A wide road wound down from the great south tower of Troy, eventually reaching the beach, where many hundreds of ships were pulled up and there was a riot of activity as they were loaded and unloaded.
Seeing the crowd of boats, Odysseus growled to Bias, “This cursed mist has made us too late to get a good berth. By Apollo’s golden balls, I’ve never seen the bay so full. We’ll be halfway up the Scamander before we can get some sand under her keel.”
But at that moment a large ship started to pull away from the beach, and Bias gave a quick command to the helmsman. The Penelope turned and headed for the strand, passing close to the departing ship, a wide low cargo vessel with purple eye markings and a patchwork sail.
“Ho, Penelope!” A powerful dark-haired man dressed in black waved from the other ship.
“Ho, Phaestus! You’re setting sail late in the day!” called Odysseus.
“Kretan ships sail the seas when men of Ithaka are tucked up safe in their beds!” shouted the man in black. “Sleep well, Odysseus!”
“Good sailing, Meriones!”
The sun was passing down through the sky by the time Xander had his feet safely on the sand of Troy. He was struggling with several heavy bags. There was his own small sack of belongings, an embroidered linen bag Andromache had entrusted to him, and two large leather satchels crammed to the brim, their drawstrings straining, which Odysseus had told him to carry. He looked up at the city looming above him and wondered how he would ever carry everything up to its heights. His legs felt unsteady, his head was aching, and dizziness ebbed and flowed over him. Dropping the bags to the sand, he sat down heavily.
The beach was bustling with activity and noise. Cargoes were being unloaded and piled onto carts and donkeys. Xander saw bales of bright cloth, piles of pottery packed with straw, amphorae great and small, livestock in wooden crates. Odysseus he could see farther up the beach, arguing with a thin man in a gray loincloth. Both men were shouting and gesticulating, and Xander wondered nervously if there would be more deaths. But Andromache stood quietly by the two and seemed unconcerned. She was garbed in a long white robe, a white shawl around her shoulders and a thin veil covering her head and face.
Finally Odysseus slapped the man on the back and turned to Xander, gesturing to him to join them. He struggled over, the leather satchels banging awkwardly against his legs. Odysseus pointed to a battered two-donkey carriage standing nearby.
“Is that a chariot?” asked Xander.
“Of a sort, lad.”
The wooden carriage was two-wheeled, and there were four seats, two on either side of its U-shaped structure. The thin man stepped onto the driving platform and took up the reins.
“In there, lad. Quickly,” Odysseus ordered.
Xander climbed in, dragging the bags and satchels after him and piling them at his feet. Odysseus handed Andromache into the cart, and she sat beside the boy. He had never been so close to her before, and he could smell the fragrance of her hair. He awkwardly shifted away, trying not to touch her. She turned, and he could see her smile at him under the veil. The small silver sea horses weighting the ends tinkled together as her head moved, and he could feel the gauzy softness of the cloth against his shoulder.
“Whose chariot is this?” he asked. “Does it belong to Odysseus? Has he bought it?”
“No,” she said. “The cart is for travelers. It will carry us up to the city.”
Xander’s head was spinning with the strangeness of it all. The sickness seemed to be passing, but he felt terribly hot and wished he could feel a sea breeze on his face. Sweat dripped into his eyes, and he brushed it away with the sleeve of his tunic.
The donkeys plodded up the winding street through the lower town, moving ever upward toward the city walls. The boy craned his neck to see the brightly painted houses, some awash with flowers and others decorated with carved wood. There were potters’ homes with their goods piled high on wooden racks outside; metalworkers plying their trade out in the open, protected from the heat of their furnaces by leather aprons; textile workshops with dyed cloth drying on racks outside. He could smell hot metal, baking bread and flowers, the rich scents of animal dung and perfumes, and a hundred smells he could not name. The noise all around was of laughter and complaint, the braying of donkeys, the creak of the cart’s wheels and the leather traces, women’s shrill voices, and the calls of peddlers.
Xander could see the walls up close now. They rose from the rocky ground at an angle so gradual that it seemed possible to climb them but then straightened up suddenly and soared toward the sky.
The huge gate they were approaching slowly lay in the shadow of the tallest tower, almost twice as high as the walls, and as Xander craned his neck to see the top, he felt as if the weight of it were falling toward him and quickly looked away. In front of the tower was a line of stone pedestals on which stood six fearsome statues of ferocious warriors wearing crested helmets and holding spears. Xander noticed the thin cartman cease shouting at his donkeys and bow his head in brief silence as the cart passed by the statues.
“This is the Scaean Gate, the first great gate of Troy,” said Odysseus. “It is the main entrance to the city from the sea.”
“It is very big,” said Xander. “I can see why it is called a great gate.”
“Troy has many gates and towers now. The city is growing continually. But the four great gates guard the upper city, where the rich and the mighty dwell.”
As the donkey cart reached the gate it was swallowed in sudden darkness. There was silence around them, and the gateway felt cold out of the late-day sunshine. Now the boy could only hear the steady clop-clop of hooves and his own breathing.
Then they burst out into the sunshine again, and he shaded his eyes, dazzled by the light and the glitter of gold and bronze. The road continued to stretch away from them, but inside the city gates it became a roadway of stone made of the same great golden blocks that formed the walls. It was so wide that Xander doubted he could throw a stone across it. The road wound ever upward between huge buildings, the smallest of which was bigger even than Kygones’ citadel at Blue Owl Bay. Xander felt the size of an ant beneath their walls, some of which were carv
ed with mighty creatures of legend. The wide windows and the edges of roofs were decorated with shining metal and polished wood. High gates stood open, and the boy saw glimpses of green courtyards and marble fountains.
He looked around, open-mouthed. He glanced at Andromache, who had pulled up her veil and was wide-eyed, too.
“Is this what all cities are like?” he asked at last.
“No, lad,” said Odysseus with amusement. “Only Troy.”
The street was thronged with men and women, walking or riding chariots or horses. Their clothing was rich and colorful, and the glitter of jewelry shone at every neck and arm.
“They are all dressed like kings and queens,” the boy whispered to Andromache.
She did not answer him but asked Odysseus, “Do all these buildings belong to the king?”
“Everything in Troy belongs to Priam,” he told her. “This poxy cart belongs to him, the road it travels on, that pile of apples over there—they are all Priam’s. These buildings are the palaces of Troy’s nobles.”
“Which one is the home of Hektor?” Andromache asked, looking around.
Odysseus pointed up the roadway. “Up there. It is beyond the crest of the hill and overlooks the plain to the north. But we are going to Priam’s palace. After that Hektor’s home will seem but a peasant’s hovel.”
The cart trundled on, and soon the palace came in sight. To Xander’s eyes its walls were as high as those of the city itself, and he could see the golden roof gleam as the westering sun caught its edge. In front of the palace, once they had passed through the bronze-reinforced double gates, was a red-pillared portico where the cart stopped and they descended. The portico was flanked by lines of tall soldiers garbed in bronze breastplates and high helmets with cheek guards inlaid with silver and white plumes that waved in the wind. Each had one hand on his sword hilt, the other grasping a spear, and each stared sternly over the boy’s head, as still and silent as the statues at the Scaean Gate.
“Those are Priam’s Eagles, boy,” said Odysseus, pointing at the soldiers. “Finest fighting men you’ll ever see. Look, Xander. Is that not a sight to lift the spirits?”
Xander turned to look back the way they had come, across the shining roofs of the palaces and the golden walls and down over the lower town to the sea. The sky had turned rose-pink and copper in the light of the dying sun, and the sea below it was a lake of molten gold. In the far distance Xander saw a glowing island of coral and gold on the horizon.
“What isle is that?” he asked, thinking it must be a magical place.
“Not one but two islands,” said Odysseus. “The first you can see is Imbros, but the great peak beyond is Samothraki.”
Xander stood entranced. The sky darkened, blood-red streaks and clouds of gold and black forming before his eyes. “And there?” he asked, pointing to the north and the dark hills overlooking a crimson sea.
“That is the Hellespont, lad, and the land beyond is Thraki.”
Andromache laid her hand on the boy’s shoulder, gently turning him toward the south. Far away, across a shimmering river and a wide plain, Xander saw a mighty mountain. “That is the holy mount of Ida,” whispered Andromache, “where Zeus has his watchtower. And beyond it is little Thebe, where I was born.”
It was now so hot that Xander could hardly catch his breath. He looked up at Andromache, but her face seemed to shimmer before his eyes. Then the ground shifted beneath his feet, and he fell. Embarrassed, he tried to rise, but his arms had no strength and he slumped down again, his face resting on the cold stone. Gentle hands turned him onto his back.
“He has a fever,” he heard Andromache say. “We must get him inside.”
Then blissful darkness took away the heat, and he tumbled down and down into it.
XVI
THE GATES OF HORN AND IVORY
I
The mist was growing thicker, and Xander could see no buildings or trees, merely tendrils of white that floated before his eyes, obscuring his vision. He could not recall why he was walking through the mist, but he could hear voices close by. He tried to move toward the sound but could not make out the direction.
“He is fading,” he heard a man say.
Then the voice of Odysseus cut in. “Xander! Can you hear me?”
“Yes!” shouted the boy. “Yes! Where are you?”
And then there was silence.
Xander was frightened now, and in his panic he began to run, his arms held out before him in case he crashed into a wall or a tree.
“Do you have rings for the ferryman?” he heard someone ask. Xander looked around, but the mist was thick and he could see no one.
“Do not speak of death just yet,” he heard Odysseus say. “The boy has heart. He is still fighting.”
Xander struggled to his feet. “Odysseus!” he called out. “Where are you? I am frightened.”
Then he heard voices, and the mist cleared. It was night, and he was standing on a wide beach, the Xanthos drawn up on the sand. He could see Helikaon and the crew standing around a large fire. The men were chanting: “Hear our words, Hades, Lord of the Deepest Dark.” Xander had heard that chant before. It was a funeral oration. He moved toward the men, desperately needing to be no longer alone.
He saw Oniacus at the outer edge of the circle and could hear Helikaon speaking about the greatness of Zidantas. Then he remembered the awful sight of the head being drawn from the sack. Reaching the circle, he called out to Oniacus. “I don’t know how I got here,” he said. The man ignored him. Xander crouched down in front of the seated man, but Oniacus’ eyes did not register his presence. “Oniacus! Please talk to me!” Stretching out his hand, he tried to touch Oniacus on the arm. Strangely, he could not feel anything under his fingers, and Oniacus did not notice his questing hand. So Xander sat quietly as Helikaon spoke on. Then Oniacus rose and began to tell stories about Zidantas and Epeus. Xander looked around.
Four men were standing outside the circle, quietly watching the orations.
One of them was Zidantas. Xander ran over to him. “Please talk to me!” he said.
“Be calm, boy,” said Zidantas. “Of course I will talk to you.” He dropped to one knee and put his arms around Xander.
“Oniacus wouldn’t speak to me. Have I done something wrong?”
“You have done nothing wrong, son of Akamas. He cannot see you.”
“Why? You can see me.”
“Aye, I can.”
“I thought you were dead, Zidantas. We all thought you were dead.”
“What are you doing here, boy? Were you hurt in the fight?”
“No. I went to Troy with Odysseus. That’s all I remember. I was sick. I am better now.”
“His heart is failing,” said a voice.
“Did you hear that?” Xander asked Zidantas.
“Yes. You must go back to Troy. And swiftly.”
“Can’t I stay with you? I don’t want to be alone.”
“We are walking a dark road. It is not for you. Not yet. Listen to me. I want you to close your eyes and think of Troy and where you were. You understand? You are in a bed somewhere or lying on a beach. There are people with you.”
“I keep hearing the voice of Odysseus,” said Xander.
“Then close your eyes and think of him. Think of Odysseus, Xander. Do it now! Think of life! Think of a blue sky and a fresh wind off the sea.”
Xander closed his eyes. He could still feel Zidantas’ arms around him, and a great warmth settled over him. Then Zidantas spoke again. “If you see my little Thea, tell her she brought great joy to my heart. Tell her that, boy.”
“I will, Zidantas. I promise.”
“Can you hear my voice, lad?” he heard Odysseus ask. “Listen to my voice and come back to us.”
Xander groaned and felt a weight upon his chest. His limbs were leaden and his mouth dry. He opened his eyes and saw the ugly face of Odysseus leaning over him.
“Ha!” shouted the Ithakan king. “Did I not tell you? Th
e boy has heart.” He looked down at Xander and ruffled his hair. “You had us all fearful for a while.”
Odysseus helped him sit and then lifted a cup of water to his lips. Xander drank gratefully. He looked around and saw sunlight streaming through a window, down onto the bed in which he lay. Beyond Odysseus was a tall, thin man in an ankle-length chiton of white. His hair was dark and thinning at the temples, and he looked very tired.
He approached Xander and laid a cool hand on the boy’s brow. “The fever is breaking,” he said. “He needs to eat and rest. I shall have one of the helpers bring him a little food.”
“How soon can he travel?” Odysseus asked the man.
“Not for a week at least. The fever could return, and he is very weak.”
After the man had gone, Xander looked around the small room. “Where is this place?” he asked.
“It is a House of Serpents—a healing house,” Odysseus explained. “You have been here five days. Do you remember any of it?”
“No. All I remember is seeing grandfather and Zidantas. He told me to come back to Troy. It seemed so real, but it was just a dream.”
“Did you see any gates?” asked Odysseus.
“Gates?”
“My Penelope tells me there are two kinds of dreams. Some come through a gate of ivory, and their meanings are deceitful. Others come through a gate of horn, and these are heavy with fate.”
“I saw no gates,” said Xander.
“Then perhaps it was just a dream,” said Odysseus. “I am going to have to leave you here, Xander. The season is almost gone, and I need to get back to my Penelope before winter.”
“No!” Xander said fearfully. “I don’t want to be alone again. Please don’t go!”
“You won’t be alone, lad. The Xanthos is in the bay, and Helikaon is here. I shall get word to him about you. For now, though, you must rest and do everything the healer tells you. Your strength needs to return.”