Chapter 27
Cave of the Fathers
The passage seemed to go on forever. Danae shivered. It reminded her of being in the catacomb prison beneath Delphi.
After a while, she noticed markings on the stone wall.
Lifting her torch, she realized that what she’d first taken for cracks were figures drawn onto the rock.
They were simply sketched, but she could tell they were mortals.
The artist had used the striped gradient in the rock as margins, and each strip contained a different scene.
There were groups of hunters chasing deer and boar, clusters of farmers gathering crops and a collection of people with their arms raised above their heads.
They might be singing, dancing or worshipping—she couldn’t tell.
The stick-like bodies were all pointing in the same direction, with their heads tilted upward.
She carried on along the corridor, her pace quickening.
Suddenly, the rows of people fell away and drawn on the ceiling, spanning across the ribbons of rock, were twelve figures much larger than the rest. They too had their hands outstretched. She lifted the torch higher.
The light spilled across twisted branches. There was no color to the apples that hung from the tree’s boughs, but Danae knew its inspiration had been laden with golden fruit.
The torch slipped from her fingers. It hit the ground with a sizzle and died. For a moment she was alone in the darkness, her heart threatening to break through her newly mended ribs. Then her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, and she realized the passageway ahead was more gray than black.
She ran forward, arms stretched out in front of her, desperate to reach the daylight. But when she came to the end of the tunnel, she found herself not outside, but in a vast cavern.
A bank of smooth rock stretched out before her, leading down to a mirror-flat pool.
There was something unsettling about its stillness.
Not a single leaf or fish rippled its surface.
It seemed completely devoid of life. Even the air was stifling and stagnant.
The light she’d seen filtered down from an opening far above in the rock ceiling.
It illuminated the water with a sickly yellow glow and shone onto a mound of earth that rose from the center of the pool.
For a moment she thought she was hallucinating.
Rising up from the little island was a tree.
At first she thought it was the one sketched on the roof of the passage behind her.
The one she’d seen grow from Alea’s chest. The one burning in the oracle’s vision.
But then she realized it could not be. Its branches were not twisted or bowed low with golden apples, but were smooth, like silvery arms reaching toward the light.
It was dead.
Large white stones were clustered around its trunk, and, instead of fruit, bodies hung from its skeletal branches.
Fighting her revulsion, she drew her knife and waded into the pool, shattering the reflection.
She could smell them now, the stench of putrid flesh melting from the corpses.
They had been there long enough to rot, but not enough to completely dry out.
She fought down the bile that rose in her throat and climbed, dripping, onto the mound of earth.
With another sickening jolt, she realized that what she’d mistaken for stones was a pile of human skulls.
It was hard to tell the age of the corpses.
Some were almost completely skeletal, the remnants of flesh still clung to others, and a few still had short strands of hair attached to their scalps.
Their clothing was varied too. Many were wrapped in leather kilts, similar to the tunics the Lemnian women wore. Others were draped in colorful robes.
Then she noticed a dart pipe belted to the kilt of one of the bodies. She staggered away from the tree.
The men of Lemnos.
She recalled Hypsipyle’s glistening eyes when the queen spoke of their men being struck down by Artemis. But this was no burial chamber. These men had been killed at different times and, given the discrepancies in their clothing, she guessed not all were from the island.
The Argonauts were in grave danger.
She was about to turn back when she saw a hand protruding from behind the mound of skulls. An unusually large hand.
Skulls toppled into the pool as she raced around to the other side of the tree. When she saw who lay there, she fell to her knees on the cold earth.
The strength had been leached from Heracles’s body. He was curled up like a child against the trunk, his cheeks hollow, his eyes sunken, and more white-tipped darts peppered his bruised, wasted limbs. How long had he been like this?
As she looked at the hero, Alea’s sea-bloated face rose from his waxy pallor. Tears blurred her vision. She couldn’t go through this again, it would break her.
Then Heracles’s right eyelid twitched. Feverishly rubbing the moisture from her eyes, she leaned over his face.
“Heracles?”
A whisper of breath passed between his lips, but he didn’t move.
She said his name again and shook him. Still, he did not stir.
Biting her lip so hard she drew blood, she tried splashing water on him, slapping him, but nothing would rouse him.
Frustration forced its way out through her throat into something between a scream and a moan.
There had to be something she could do.
She placed her hands on his chest. If she could heal herself, perhaps she could heal others.
She drew a deep breath, called for the life-threads rushing around her body and gathered the strands into her hands.
Her fingers throbbed as the power built to a climax.
Then she pushed, an intense tugging sensation dragging down her arms as the life-threads left her body.
She was hit by a wave of tiredness and thought it had worked; then a rush of energy surged back up her arms as her life-threads returned to her.
She cursed and sat back, pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes. What good were her healing powers if she could only save herself? She was nothing but a parasite.
She lowered her hands and looked down at Heracles. Self-loathing was not going to save him. She set about removing the darts from his body and stowed them away in her bag. They might come in useful.
“I’m going to get Dolos.” She squeezed his hand. “I’ll get you out of this, I promise.”
The last thing she wanted to do was leave him, but the healer would know what to do.
The sky was inked with twilight by the time Danae returned to the clearing. As she stepped through the trees, she saw a small crowd had gathered outside the Hunters Hall.
“Daeira!”
Sofia slipped through the tangle of bodies and ran toward her. Danae stopped as the girl flung her arms around her.
“I was so worried.”
Anger bubbled in her stomach, but she forced herself to remain calm. She knew it was imperative she play the part of drugged, dutiful islander to gain access to Dolos.
“I’m fine,” she said, smiling.
Over Sofia’s shoulder, Danae saw Hypsipyle striding toward her, Polyxo hobbling in the queen’s wake.
“Where have you been?” asked Hypsipyle.
“I was doing my task. But I slipped and fell in the river. I must have hit my head because I woke up on the bank and the sky was darkening, so I came home.”
Sofia raised a hand to Danae’s cheek. “I’m glad you’re safe.”
Despite herself, Danae flinched. Hurt flickered over Sofia’s pretty features.
“We thought you were lost to the jungle.” Hypsipyle’s voice was honeyed with concern.
She was good, she was very good.
“I’m sorry to have caused trouble. I hope all these people aren’t here for me.”
Hypsipyle smiled. “No. There is to be an announcement, but that will come later.” She placed a hand on the small of Danae’s back. “Go with Polyxo, she will check you over.”
“I’m fine, really.”
She saw Dolos in the crowd and tried to catch his eye, but the healer didn’t look her way. She cursed inwardly. She had to take him to Heracles before it was too late.
Then Polyxo grabbed her arm with a claw-like hand and steered her toward her hut.
You could destroy her in a heartbeat, said the voice.
Danae swallowed. It scared her because she knew it was true.
Polyxo pushed her through the doorway of the hut with surprising strength.
Danae ducked to avoid colliding with the preserved animals dangling from the ceiling.
As she straightened up, she noticed a row of amber bottles stacked on a shelf on the right-hand wall, identical to the ones the hunters used to revive the Argonauts on the beach.
“Sit,” said Polyxo.
Danae pulled up a stool. Immediately, Polyxo’s prying hands were running through her hair, feeling her scalp for bumps.
“You hit your head?”
“No, yes... I’m fine.” She chewed the inside of her lip. She didn’t have time for this, she had to get Dolos.
“Somewhere you’d rather be?”
Danae shook her head, forcing a dreamy smile across her face.
Finished with her head, Polyxo moved on to her left arm and lifted the limb into the air. “Not a scratch,” the old woman muttered.
This was taking too long.
Looking around the hut, Danae spotted a jug of water on the workbench. Polyxo bent down to inspect Danae’s legs and she seized the opportunity.
She didn’t know if this would work. She’d only used her life-threads to heal herself or manipulate the earth, and that was the result of an emotional outburst, not a conscious choice. But she had to try.
Danae summoned a stream of shimmering life-threads from their flow around her body, concentrated on holding them in her mouth, then blew.
A gust of air, with the strength of a sea wind, tore from her lungs across the hut. The jug fell, cracking as it hit the workbench, liquid contents spilling over the wood.
Polyxo cried out and scurried over to salvage her stock. Danae took her chance, reached up, grabbed a couple of bottles of the reviving potion and ran from the hut.