“Do not tarry over there,” said one, his mask—exactly like Elpenor’s—staring foully at her. “The artifact has been brought out. Hurry, or you will miss your chance to hold it.”
“I would not miss this chance for anything,” she replied, her voice muffled behind the identical mask’s mouth slit.
The pair glided on past her, chattering about hiring regiments and placing mercenaries for the work that lay ahead. She let them walk on for a while, before following them through a stony corridor. Torches crackled and spat and every so often she passed chambers that had been hewn from the bedrock. Some bore beds or furniture, but all were empty. Until, from the doorway of one just ahead, a puff of steam spat out, along with a scream that twisted her stomach into a tight knot. She slowed, certain she did not want to see what had caused the scream, but as she edged past she could not help but look. A brute of a Cultist was in there, his breathing heavy behind his mask, his shoulders bulging from his sleeveless robe and his arms thick with black, curly hairs. In one meaty hand, he held a poker over a crackling brazier until it glowed white at the tip. Before him was a withered, broken wretch tied to a vertical frame, head hanging forward, a patter of fluid dripping from his hidden face. “We hired you to kill Phidias of Athens,” drawled the masked brute. “We paid you well. You botched your work and nearly ended up in the stinking Athenian jail for it. Well you would have been better off in there, you fool,” he said, grabbing the tied man’s hair and yanking his head back to reveal a face half-ruined: the right side a mess of bloody runnels, the eye socket a gaping black hole. The brute lifted the poker and moved the white tip toward the man’s remaining eye. The man’s eye bulged and darted as if trying to escape his head, but there was no escape. With a sizzle and a stink of charring flesh and then a pop, the eye burst in a splash of white liquid and blood that sprayed across the room and showered Kassandra in the doorway. It took everything she had not to flinch or retch. The masked brute turned to see her and shouted over the tortured man’s screams: “Apologies. I will saw off this bastard’s head and then I will have one of my slaves clean your robes.”
“Very good,” she said, “but be quick—the artifact is on show.”
Pleased with her composure, she shuffled on down the rocky corridor until it opened up into a wide chamber, the stone floor polished and etched with symbols. A few Cultists stood here, all with those identical and wicked-looking theater masks, deep in discussion. She dared not break up a group of them. But there, kneeling alone before a stone altar at one end of the room, was one with long black hair and a distinctive white streak.
Approaching and watching, she nearly leapt from her skin when a voice spoke behind her shoulder. “Do not be shy: pray with Chrysis,” said the beanpole masked man. “She does not mind company.”
Kassandra nodded her thanks then mimicked the gestures of the one called Chrysis, kneeling and bowing at the altar beside her, hands clasped across her chest.
“Ah, yes, you feel it too?” the female Cultist said huskily from behind the mask. “All we have achieved pleases the Gods. We have won so much control. Prayer is tradition. Tradition is control. The masses bow their heads in prayer to a higher power… and we are that higher power. Does it not make you feel proud?”
As Chrysis spoke, the rasping of a saw and a final wet scream sounded from the brute’s torture chamber, some way behind, followed by the dull thud of an object landing on the ground.
“My pride flows over,” Kassandra purred, finding that the only way she could hope to be believed was to act as they did, to pretend the horrors going on in the torture chamber were not real.
“The Oracle is our key to greatness,” Chrysis continued. “For generations now, her voice has been ours.”
The words pealed through Kassandra’s mind like the song of a bell struck with a hammer. The order to throw my baby brother from the mountain came not from the seeress… but from these bastards.
“Through her we have gained so much,” Chrysis continued. “Soon, we will control all Hellas. Let the two sides have their war, while we rule them both. Yet the Oracle is nothing compared to”—she paused, shuddering as if touched by the hand of an invisible lover—“the artifact.”
“The sacred artifact,” said three masked passersby who had overheard.
“The sacred artifact,” chanted Kassandra dutifully.
“And our champion will be here soon,” said another, “the one who can unlock its power—to see past, present, future.”
“It will be a fine moment,” Kassandra said, then rose and walked slowly across the room, trying to discern some sense from the seven or eight chattering voices. Two were bickering passionately, a man and a woman. She picked up their names quickly: Silanos and Diona.
“Forget the mother,” Diona said, swiping a hand through the air. “She is old and useless now.”
“But I almost have the mother in my grasp,” scoffed Silanos. “It must be her we focus on.”
Silanos’s mask swung to pin Kassandra. “You. What do you think? Should we hunt for our champion’s mother or his sister?”
Kassandra’s throat turned as dry as sand. “I…” she croaked.
“Pah, the answer is neither,” said a third, somewhere behind her. “Both are elusive. Perikles of Athens is not—he wanders around wearing his plumed helm like an archer’s target. Let us cut out his heart and cripple the Athenians and their chaotic and orderless ways. Or perhaps install a leader in his place who more suits our aims.”
These three now began arguing among themselves, and Kassandra slipped away.
On she went, passing through a doorway that led into an antechamber. The rock of the far wall had been hewn into a glorious and terrifying form of a hooded horned snake, rising from the ground, mouth open and fangs bared, its niche-eyes picked out by two glowing candles. A masked man stood before it. Kassandra edged closer to see what he was doing, then trapped a gasp as she saw him lifting his wrists to the fangs and running the skin across the tips. Blood coated his skin and dribbled into a stone trough under the snake’s mouth and the man tilted his head back and gasped in pleasure. His euphoria slid away and his head rolled around toward Kassandra. His eyes—one dark and the other misted—darted behind the mask’s eyeholes, searching her. “Do not let the fangs grow dry, go on, give offering,” he said stepping back, bandaging the two jagged cuts on his wrists.
“Not today,” she said firmly.
“Go on, and give thanks that it is only blood we must offer. Deimos will be demanding we cut off our hands next. The sooner we capture the rest of his bloodline, the sooner we can dispense with our champion and his chaotic, crude ways.”
Kassandra’s silence seemed to evoke suspicion.
“You had best not be thinking of telling Deimos,” he said, stepping closer. “If he knew, he would turn completely to his animal side. He is a living weapon. A fiery steed that cannot be tamed. Power and chaos in one body. He is everything the Cult needs and everything it stands against. If he knew we were about to capture his mother…” He trailed off with a dark chuckle. “Well, let’s just say I do not wish for my nightmares to come to life.”