I burned his body on a pyre as he insisted I must, and watched the smoke carry his shade away. After that I chiseled at the stone around the hidden gateway, causing the cliff to slip and bury the entrance forever. Again, Father had insisted on this, and I knew why. For those few days inside that place had shown me that all in this world was truly not as it seemed—just as Sokrates had insisted. Yet there were still so many secrets, so many questions unanswered. With his dying breaths he had told me that we would speak again. And that was why I knew I had to come back to the Cave of Gaia.
My footsteps echoed like the flapping wings of disturbed doves as I entered the great cave, and set eyes upon the circle of polished stone, and the red-veined plinth in the center. No Cultists, no Deimos… no Alexios. My throat thickened, achingly sad for all that I had lost. Then I set my eyes on the dust-coated pyramid atop the plinth and felt my heart begin to soar.
I stepped forward, sucked in a lungful of air and blew the dust from the pyramid. Its golden luster returned, and I felt that low hum strike through the cave, saw the strange glow from within the piece.
And then it spoke to me.
“Come closer,” it whispered.
My heart froze. The voice… it was Mother’s voice. That was one secret Father had explained to me: “The artifacts of the ones who came before are enchanting… but devious. They search within you, they know what you are, what you love, what you fear. They twist your heart, shape your soul, fog your mind. Be careful, Kassandra.”
I reached up, my hand hovering over the pyramid, feeling the heat emanating from it.
“Touch me,” it begged.
I wet my lips, spread my feet as if about to go into battle, then placed my palm upon the smooth surface. It was as if I had been struck on the head with a boulder. White lights, golden flashes, an aria of shrill song. Something seized me, shook me, wrung me. It was like great hands pinning me, then hammering at my spirit as a smith might try to shape a blade. This unseen force was trying to steal from me my very essence… or to slay me. I felt a scream rise in my chest.
Then a force like a stiff gale hit me, and the wicked energy was gone. I felt safe now, in this strange netherworld of soft light, where I had neither weight nor form. Now I heard another voice.
“You have witnessed in full what this artifact and the others like it can do to men,” Pythagoras said.
“Father?” I croaked.
“The voice you heard beckoning you was not your mother. But this is me, of that you can be sure. I told you we would speak again.”
“How, how can it be? I set your body on the pyre.”
“Charon the Ferryman is waiting for me to cross the Styx. My bond with the artifact is the only thing holding my soul on the banks of the living, but that bond is coming to an end. And so I must tell you the truth about the pyramid, before it is too late. It was created by the ones who came before in order to see through the webs of time. Past, present and things yet to come…”
“That is why the Cult revered the pyramid so much,” I said, suddenly realizing. “It is a key to control and order.”
“They never understood.” Pythagoras sighed. “Many decades ago, a group of people gathered together to uphold a theory which they believed could bring stability to the world. That everything functioned in equal parts, order and disorder. Discipline and freedom. Control and liberty. Like a set of scales in perfect harmony.”
The soft light around me warped to form a hazy image of a gathering. Among them, she saw a younger Pythagoras, guiding, teaching. Many heads nodded and some debated. Then she saw some, to the rear, whispering among themselves.
“But some of this group could not resist the temptations of boundless power. They fell into the arms of chaos… and the Cult of Kosmos was born.”
Images flashed across the soft light: of the masked villains gathering, chanting, of the tendrils of their wicked schemes—armies dying needlessly, citizens butchered, innocent men executed… and a child being tossed from a mountain.
“They abused their power, casting the Greek world into eternal war.” The images ceased abruptly. “A war you were destined to stop.”
I felt my heart thud. “Me? And… Alexios?”
“Aye, but the Cult took your brother and made him one of their own. Mortal blood runs in your veins, Kassandra, but so too does the crimson elixir of the ancient ones. Leonidas was of their line. So was I, and so too your mother. That was why she and I came together. In doing so she might have betrayed the Spartan, Nikolaos, but…”
“But better that than betraying the world to the Cult,” I finished for him.
“Aye. They hunted you, me, your mother and your brother because we were the keys to truly harnessing these artifacts. The pyramid only speaks to those who carry the blood of its creators. That’s why the Cult needed Deimos, even when they realized they could not control his chaotic nature.”
“But now the Cult is gone. I destroyed them. I succeeded,” I said.
His face sagged. “I wish I could tell you it was so, Kassandra. But in destroying the Cult, you have swung the scales too far. The world can only know harmony if there is balance. Don’t you see? It is the one lesson I should have imparted before I passed: by obliterating the Cult, you have merely cleared the earth for a darker, stronger weed to rise. Balance must be restored.”
A chill struck through me. “How can I restore balance? Where… where do I begin?”
“The staff is the key. It will grant you the gift of time. Time is everything. With it you can…” He fell silent.
“Father?”
“No… it is too late,” he said, his voice tight. “The dark weed has taken root already.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You must go, Kassandra, now!”
“Father?” I cried.
But with a whoosh, the visions were gone. I found myself in the quiet, deserted Cave of Gaia once more. The pyramid was cold and silent now. I heard my rapid breaths slow and felt my heart fall into a steady rhythm again.
“You saw it too?” a voice echoed through the cavern. “It was beautiful, wasn’t it?”
I now saw the pale hand resting on the other side of the pyramid, the arm reaching out from a well of shadow. Dead fingers crept over my skin. “Who’s there?”
She stepped forward from the shadows like a creature crawling from a dream. “Aspasia?”
“You’re surprised to see me?” she said.
I did not reply—my demeanor surely was answer enough. I beheld her: beautiful, elegant, draped in a white stola. And then my eyes came to a rest upon the shape underneath the garment. A hideous, hook-nosed, wickedly grinning theater mask. Aspasia took a step toward me and lifted the mask out. I stared at her. “How? Why?” I stammered.