Kassandra made to follow them, when a voice stopped her.
“Wait,” the Oracle whispered.
For a moment Kassandra did not recognize her voice—weak, frightened, shorn of the affected and theatrical tones of a moment ago.
“They hunt the child who fell from the mountain…” the Oracle whispered.
Kassandra’s flesh crept. She stepped back toward the Oracle. “What did you say?”
“The Cult hunt the she-child who fell.”
Kassandra’s mind reeled. She grabbed the Oracle by the shoulders and shook her. “Who, where are they?” She saw the tears in the girl’s eyes now, and realized all was very much not well here. She let go of the girl’s shoulders. “I can help you if you help me.”
“I cannot be helped,” the Oracle croaked. Her eyes grew moon-wide as the clatter of footsteps sounded behind Kassandra. “They’re coming back. You must go.”
“You, get back,” one of the guards snarled.
“The Cult plan to meet tonight, in the Cave of Gaia,” the Oracle started as Kassandra backed away a half step. “There, you may find the answers you seek.”
“I said get back!” One guard grabbed Kassandra’s shoulders and hauled her away toward the entrance. She did not struggle. Another seized the Oracle and dragged her into the shadows at the rear of the temple.
Kassandra winced as the stark light of day fell upon her again. “The Oracle is finished for today,” the guard boomed over her head as he shoved her outside. A great groan arose from the queue. As the noise settled, Kassandra heard a rhythmic yelp, and spotted the tall, horn-voiced man who had mocked Barnabas in the queue. He was now pinned to the ground by one temple guard while a second tirelessly volleyed him in the groin over and over. The poor fellow’s eyes and tongue were bulging from his face.
“Burst the other one and then we’re done.” The guard pinning the man chuckled evilly.
“Seems the clumsy oaf smashed a votive amphora,” Herodotos said, sidling up next to Kassandra and guiding her away. “Tsk!” he added with a mischievous glint in his eye.
She looked from Herodotos to the pinned man to the smashed amphora and back to Herodotos again. “He… no, you—”
“Yes, yes, keep your voice down. I am allowed the occasional lie—I am no Persian, after all. I smashed that vase because I thought it might give you a chance to talk plainly with the Oracle.”
She noticed how he glanced at her spear again, and once again she covered it up with her cloak.
“The priests and protectors in there have a reputation for interfering and chanting and generally getting in the way,” Herodotos continued.
Kassandra’s brow furrowed. “Priests, protectors? There were none. Just those beetle-black temple guards.”
Herodotos’s face drained of color. “Go on.”
“The Oracle spoke mindless, trite platitudes and vague possibilities until the guards left to deal with the commotion, and then she began to tell me things that seemed significant.”
“Began?”
“Before she was finished, the guards came back in and hauled her from her stool, dragged her like a slave into the temple’s recesses.”
Herodotos’s face sagged until he looked more like a man of seventy summers. “Then the rumors are true. They do have the Oracle under their control.”
“They?” she asked.
“I told you I came here in search of truth,” he said. “Well, I have found it, and it is a black truth. Do you not understand? All Hellas pivots around the word of the Oracle. Sparta and its hundreds of allies in the Peloponnesian League. Athens and its many supporters in the Delian League. Every single neutral city-state. All do as the Oracle advises. War might rage between the two great powers, but if they are in control of the Oracle, then they will be the victors. Imagine what power they will have if they control the words that come from her mouth.”
“Herodotos, for the favor of all the Gods, please tell me who they are?”
His eyes darted to check nobody was too close. “The Cult of Kosmos,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper.
A shiver shot up her spine as if stroked by cold, dead hands. “The Cult.”
“They are like shadows. Nobody knows who the members are, for they meet in secret and wear masks to protect their identities. I have only seen a Cultist once, and on a dark night. In his mask he looked like a fiend and—” His face fell agape when he saw Kassandra pulling from her leather bag Elpenor’s wicked-looking wooden theater mask, the nose hooked and sharp, the eyebrows bent in a scowl, the mouth locked in a sinister grin. “Apollo walks!” he hissed, shoving the mask back into her bag and glancing around once again. “Where did you get that?”
“I think I have already met a Cultist,” Kassandra said. “And I need to meet the others. The Oracle told me only fragments of information.” Her mind spun, then she clicked her fingers. “She said the Cult are to meet tonight, in the Cave of Gaia. Where in all Hellas is that?”
Herodotos looped an arm through hers and steered her away from the temple, down the steps and along the long, winding path leading from the plateau. “The Cave of Gaia lies somewhere underneath this very temple mount—which is riddled with a honeycomb of natural caverns, vast and mazelike.”
“Then I will come back here tonight,” Kassandra said, seeing the dozen or more small, dark openings in the mountainside. “All I ask is that you keep watch for me while I’m in there.”
Herodotos sighed deeply. “Very well. But you must promise me one thing: that you will come out of there alive. I like you, Child of Nowhere. Do not make me regret this.”
SIX
Crickets sang in the cool night air. Somewhere in the wooded parts of the high valley, bears grumbled and boars foraged. The valley floor was nearly deserted. The many thousands of pilgrims had dispersed and just a few remained, camped and singing gently around fires. Up on the temple mount, slaves and attendants shuffled around quietly, cleaning, sweeping and tidying in the torchlight. Dozens of black-armored guards strode to and fro watchfully.
Kassandra levered herself up onto a small shelf of rock, and then threw a rope down to Herodotos. The man belied earlier complaints about having a bad back to pick his way up onto the shelf beside her. They turned to the low cave opening in the rock face. Inside was just pure blackness. “This has to be a way in,” she mused, then twisted to Herodotos. “Don’t you think?”
The historian shrugged. “It is a honeycomb in there, Misthios, that is all I know.”
She weighed the leather bag holding robe and mask. If this tunnel did lead to the Cave of Gaia then she would have to wear them in there if she was to remain anonymous. Her bow, spear and bracers would be too conspicuous, she realized. Grudgingly, she peeled off her bracers and belt and slid her bow and quiver from her back, feeling naked without the equipment. Herodotos took her bow without fuss, but when she gave him her spear, he gulped, refused to touch it—holding out a leather bag of his own instead and having her drop it in.
She said nothing of it. “If I’m not back by dawn, you leave, yes? And tell Barnabas to leave too, and to forget about me.”
Herodotos nodded and Kassandra ducked to scuttle inside the tunnel. It was a cramped space and so she bent double, but even then, hanging stalactites scraped her back. It became warren-like after a while, forcing her to worm along on her belly. No way of turning back. Very little air. For a moment, she imagined Herodotos gaily strolling back down to Kirrha to sell her spear while she wriggled into a dark grave. Then, without warning, the floor fell away and she slid down a pile of scree. She found herself at the edges of a bubble of orange light, and heard the guttural echoes of many strong and confident voices. Shadows moved, somewhere beyond a natural column of stone. She hurriedly threw Elpenor’s embroidered cloak around her shoulders and slid the mask on, just as a pair of figures walked past. It looked as if they were floating, thanks to their trailing robes.