Just a few steps lower, however, they found the original stairs that led to the wine cellar. The stink of fermenting grapes rose from below, powerful enough that the small hairs on the back of her neck rose and she was forced to breathe through her mouth. Drunken laughter rippled up from below.
Before she had even seen them, she knew the wine gods would not join them in their campaign against the invaders.
At the bottom of the stairs she found a heavy wooden door, but it hung open. She glanced back at Coyote. In the gloom, his eyes gleamed with a hint of red and gold. He nodded, urging her onward. Beyond him, Lycaon hesitated. Kitsune wondered if he would betray them, but the beast would not have bothered to rouse himself from his kitchen just to lead them into trouble. No, that was the trickster’s nature, not the monster’s.
Pushing the black velvet curtain of her hair away from her eyes, she knocked loudly, but there was no reply.
“Just go in,” Coyote said.
His impatience seemed to free something inside of her, so Kitsune pushed open the heavy door and stepped through.
A dozen steps took them down into a cavernous underground chamber whose walls were lined with racks and old wooden casks. Many of them had shattered or rotted away, and the dirt floor of the cellar was muddy with old wine.
Fresh grapes grew in huge quantities in the dark, far corner of the cellar, as though they could survive in that sunless hole. They did survive, of course; the wine gods made sure of that. Blocks of stone that had once been a part of the palazzo upstairs had been brought down to construct a dais in the center of the chamber. Upon the dais, on filthy velvet tapestries that might once have been art, the two gods sprawled. Each must easily have been seven or eight feet tall when standing, but they looked as though they had not bothered to climb to their feet in some time. Bacchus and Dionysus, of the Roman and Greek pantheons, respectively, looked very little like gods of any age or culture.
They were naked and dirty, their beards overgrown tangles of gray. One of the stinking gods sniffed the air, taking in the new scents that had entered the cellar, and then sat up. When he saw their visitors, he grinned.
“What have we here, brother Bacchus?” he said, slurring his words. “A pretty thing come to the party. Strip off your garments, girl, and make your offering.”
Kitsune blinked. Then, unable to help herself, she laughed. At the sound, Dionysus gazed at her blearily. He seemed more confused than insulted. But Bacchus struggled to raise his bulk. He had a jug of wine in one hand and accidentally spilled it across his chest.
“Do you mock, girl?” Bacchus demanded. He sneered, but his head swayed with the muzzy numbness of the besotted.
Neither of the gods had even acknowledged the presence of Coyote or Lycaon. They were discarded deities, living in filth, and yet their arrogance remained. Perhaps it was all that had kept them alive.
“No, Lord Bacchus. I wouldn’t dare. I have come on an issue of dire importance, with news that threatens all of Euphrasia, an insidious evil that will find its way even here, in this haven you have made.”
Bacchus gazed doubtfully at her.
“We are gods, little fox, not merely legends. What might frighten the Lost or the legendary means nothing to us.”
Kitsune hesitated. She would have loved to correct him, to tell him that most of the beings that had once been gods were no more powerful, and sometimes far less so, than many of the legends she had met.
“Lord Bacchus,” Coyote interjected, perhaps sensing her pique, “Kitsune speaks the truth. Atlantis has betrayed the Two Kingdoms. They’ve coerced and deceived Yucatazca and murdered its king. War has begun. Invaders swarm into Euphrasia. If the races of Euphrasia don’t come together now, it will be too late.”
The Roman god belched loudly. Burgundy spittle ran down his chin.
“Get out,” Bacchus sighed.
“You’re not listening,” Kitsune growled. “You can’t just wait here to die.”
Dionysus laughed. The Greek god had apparently not forgotten they were there after all. He glanced at Kitsune.
“Little one, we’ve been waiting to die for a thousand years. Until then, we pass the time. But perhaps some of our brothers and sisters will take a greater interest in survival. They’ve lived this long, after all. So many have scattered throughout the Two Kingdoms and beyond-far beyond-and twice their number have died. But there are still a few who might listen.”
He glanced at Bacchus, as though for approval, but the other god ignored them.
“Lycaon,” Dionysus said.
The monster flinched. Strange to see the beast, the cannibal, so cowed. “Yes, Lord Dionysus?”
“You brought them?”
Lycaon lowered his head. “Yes, lord.”
“Good,” Dionysus said. “Each morning, go to Lycaon’s Kitchen and wait. If any from our pantheons wish to hear what you have to say, they will find you there.”
“Wait?” Coyote asked, taking a step toward the dais. “For how long?”
Dionysus laughed. “Until the gods deign to see you.”
CHAPTER 6
C ollette Bascombe lay on the thin mattress that was all she and Julianna had by way of comfort in their cell. It stank and there were stains on it that she did not wish to consider, but still she was grateful. When she thought of a dungeon, she imagined sleeping on cold stone. That would have been far worse. Yet even that would not have been as terrible as her captivity in the Sandman’s castle, with the roasting sun above during the day and the creeping chill after dark.
Had they taken the mat away, she would have survived. But Collette was glad to have it, both for her own sake and for Julianna’s. Her friend-and her brother’s fiancee-had never been much afraid of anything in her life. But during the nights that had passed since their attempt to reach Frost, Julianna shivered with the cold and, perhaps, with fear that they would never leave those stone cells again. They’d had their chance at escape, and failed.
There had been periods of silence and some of tears. Conversations had been whispered, particularly those held across the corridor with Oliver. They were wary of being overheard. Not that they had developed any real plan, but the guards were cautious, now. What else could they do but wither here and wait to die?
Collette did not share these thoughts with her brother or with Julianna, but she knew her friend could see the doubt in her eyes.
The thought made her shiver. Julianna huddled close to her on the mat, sharing warmth. Collette wondered if she was awake or if the gesture was instinctive. She did not turn to find out. Sleep was a precious commodity recently, and if Julianna had managed it, Collette did not want to wake her.
Instead she lay there, trying to breathe through her mouth to avoid the stink. The bruises she had received from the guards were healing, but there was still an ache in her side where she feared their kicks had cracked her ribs. They would heal as well, but more slowly. The swelling on her face had gone down, but the flesh was still tender and Julianna had confirmed that her jaw still had a greenish-yellow hue. Her blood had stained the mat, but it had long since dried.
Curled on her side, she let her right hand trail off the edge of the mat. Her ragged fingernails traced the lines of grout between the stones in the floor. In the dark, she could not see them, but she could feel the difference in texture between the smoothness of the stone and the rough mortar.
Then her fingernail scraped something up off of the mortar groove between two stones.
In the dark, Collette frowned. She ran the ball of her finger over the same spot and felt the loose grit again. With her nail, she dug between the stones and the grout came away, not in chunks but in a soft powder, as though whatever adhesive quality it had once had no longer existed.