She noticed Giorgos’ reaction to her. She took his hand and gently blew on it, barely tracing it with her lips. Her breath was wonderfully spiced and scented and visible, the colours of the rainbow.
He wanted to bring his hand to his nose but refrained from doing so as to avoid showing his subjugation to her. As if it wasn’t obvious enough. Who was she? What was she?
‘Now, go.’ She urged, only a slight hint of panic in her voice, which they detected, but chose not to pry.
They wanted to spend more time with her. Why was she sending them away so soon? Did she sense something would happen?
As far as they were concerned they hadn’t done anything to offend her. Or had they? They knew they would not get an answer to a perilous question that might itself offend. They kept their own counsel and stayed silent.
‘Goodbye.’ She sang for one last time.
‘Thank you.’ The three men said almost in unison.
And they were off. The door closed softly behind them.
Moments after they exited the apartment block, a dark figure, steeped and veiled in anonymity, entered and climbed the stairs to her floor. She opened the door resigned to her fate.
CHAPTER 58
Present day
Vasilis, Giorgos and John arrived at Ingam in Queensland, Australia at dusk. After a sumptuous, but simple and delicious meal at the local inn, an inn steeped in history and legend, and a restful sleep, the following morning, after an early breakfast, they set off for the Wallaman Falls, a trip involving a short drive from Ingam and then a short trek.
An Aborigine was waiting for them at the foot of the falling water that splashed next to them and sprayed them with a refreshing foam that tickled their senses.
‘You have travelled far. Now your reward awaits you. Just walk through the water, with me.’
There was nobody around, so nobody saw them disappearing, swallowed by the mountain, and entering a tunnel that led to an arch that appeared manmade. Beyond it there was darkness to choke one’s pupils to submission and despair.
Their guide uttered something incomprehensible that sounded like an instruction. Giorgos, Vasilis and John assumed that the instruction was addressed to a person. But however hard they searched they could see no-one.
They remained silent and waited. Nothing happened for a few seconds, but then the arch suddenly became the door to an unbelievable sight that had them rubbing their eyes to bleeding point in disbelief.
Vasilis, Giorgos and John were standing on the edge of a steep cliff. Below them the ground fell to a sheer drop to the bottom of the ravine, a bottom they could not see. They saw no way to go forward, only back. But spreading in front of them only a short distance away, was a gleaming city of towers and palaces and magnificent buildings, a magical place. In the centre stood a temple, an ancient Greek look-alike. Now, there was a conundrum, if ever there was one.
A walkway appeared out of nowhere. They followed their guide into the city where they enjoyed a constant bombardment of surprises and marvellous spectacles. The residents appeared to be Aborigines and Greeks speaking both Greek and the Aborigine language and living in perfect harmony.
Giorgos was the first to voice what they were all thinking. ‘This is just bizarre. The cans of worms filled instead with questions never cease. This mixed community is one-of-a-kind. How on earth has it come to be, I wonder?’
John’s eyes were drawn as if by a leash and they fixed on some point in the distance. ‘Giorgos, look. Over there. At the central structure.’
Vasilis and Giorgos tried to focus, fighting the glare from the blinding sun.
Giorgos was first to put their surprise into words. ‘The statue. Oh, my God, but how…?’
Giorgos quickly recovered from his pleasant shock. ‘Exactly… the Minoan bull, the frescoes on the structure, the columns… It’s like a copycat of the palace in Knossos.’
Inside the structure, they were led to the inner sanctum and stopped at the altar where they were asked to take the glass and wooden box set atop it. Inside were two feet decked in sandals bearing the Imperial crest next to two kidneys and a liver.
Vasilis could not resist a joke. ‘I feel like a macabre trader in transplant organs.’
They looked at each other. They knew their next destination.
Suddenly the opening regurgitated them back into the tunnel in Limassol. They found the Knossos door, which was the next opening on the right and entered.
Giorgos, Vasilis and John arrived in Knossos in Crete in pitch darkness. The site was closed to tourists and all visitors. The place was a heaven of all sorts of shadows and ghosts from the past. You could sense the odd disruptions in the air or were they imagining it? Where to now? Then they saw it, the glowing trail leading away from them, and they followed.
They waded through the ancient ruins heading for their destination and, hopefully, their next prize. They reached the remnants of the surviving central staircase and descended deeper and deeper into the innards of the palace’s storehouses.
They stopped at the bottomless main well that served the palace. The trail went straight down the well. Somehow they knew what they had to do. There was no other way. They had no equipment, but they knew that they had to jump. They put their faith in whatever god or gods were out there and took the plunge, literally.
The landing was surprisingly smooth and they found themselves lying on the most comfortable bed they had ever had the pleasure to lie on. Without being given the luxury of time to recover there was a soft, barely audible, knock on the door.
An old man with the gentlest face entered the room carrying a huge tray laden with food and fruit and drink. They were handed a set of warm dry clothes to change into. They obeyed, relieved and grateful for their heaven-sent visitor.
They impatiently got up and almost broke into a run to the other side of the room to their saviour with one aim in mind, to assault his gifts and devour their prey. They suddenly realised they had not eaten anything for some time and were famished.
While they were eating they felt a presence and turned. An ethereal being in female form stood there like an apparition. The apparition had a voice. It was a language they felt they should not understand, but somehow they did and they surprised themselves when they replied in kind.
‘Welcome, friends. We have been expecting you.’ A soft crystal voice reached their ears. They knew it had to have come out of the apparition, but it felt as if it had come from the space and the walls surrounding them. The voice kept echoing for a short time after the apparition spoke.
Giorgos spoke for them all. ‘Thank you. With respect, who are you?’
‘My name is Ordania. I will be your host for today. There is someone who can’t wait to meet you. I’m here to take you to him.’
Vasilis, Giorgos and John followed. Their guide walked as if she was on the run for a crime she had committed, as if she was being chased by the Furies to torment her for that crime.
They were brought to a chamber that seemed as if lashed by hurricane-strength winds that stopped at its edges, their power dissipated, then withdrew and attacked over and over again. A man standing in the middle of the chamber turned and came to Vasilis’ side and gently took his right hand.
‘I knew your mother.’
Vasilis’ thoughts briefly turned to his mother. You found people who knew her in the most unlikely of places. Feed him the stories they could tell and he would never go hungry again. But this was not the time to ask how this man knew his mother.