A tray of roast lamb, still steaming on the spit, lay on a bench by the door the priestess had used to exit. That he had heard nothing didn’t surprise Pavlos at all.
The meat was tasty, if somewhat unevenly cooked. He chewed slowly as his mind fell deeper into a paradoxical state of numb, bemused excitement.
Somewhere on that shelf of scrolls might be the missing portions of the work of the moralistic, unhappy Aeschylus… or of the compassionate, upbeat Sophocles… or why not ask for the long-lost Achaean scribblings of Homer himself?
So many secrets on a shelf of ancient cedar! Could there be a fragment that some Cretan scribe left here, one that might tell of the founding of Knossos or its fall?
Might there be a tablet that would shed light on who it was, who did whatever deed it was, that caused men to build a legend that became Prometheus?
There were things here for which a hundred men he knew would gladly kill.
The bronze helm alone was worth a fortune.
All right.
This is not a millionaire’s retreat in the hills. It is not an ancient ruin refurbished by a few modern fanatics, recreating an ancient cult.
Everything in this room was left here. And time has touched each of these things hardly at all since each hero left his contribution to the collection.
Heroes.
Just like me.
Iron slid along granite. The oaken door swung back, scraping noisily on the stone floor. Pavlos stood. The woman, Moira, regarded him.
“Beginning to adjust at last, I see. But you are a strange one, hero. No souvenirs? Or have you stuffed all our gems in your backpack, hoping to fool us?”
Pavlos was beginning to understand the condescension and amusement in her voice. It hurt, a little, that she thought him so stupid as to choose the poorest treasures, or to attempt a simple theft. He was tempted to protest, but managed to refrain. She looked at him much as his teacher had when he was five and in nursery school. The analogy was probably not unrealistic.
He tried, and found it easier than he had expected, to meet her gaze. There were lines around her ice blue eyes that he imagined to come from long, sad laughter. They did not detract from the handsomeness of her high forehead and fine nose. Her carriage was erect and slender, yet there was something in the careless braiding of her hair, or the curve of her ironic smile, that spoke of a burden of waiting that had long passed tedium.
“Are you ready to see more?” she asked.
Pavlos waved his hand in what he hoped was an idly grand gesture. “What else could you have that would astonish me more than this room has?”
She stepped back to hold the door for him.
“Everything else that has ever mattered, hero,” she answered softly, but with a vatic tone. “Everything else that has ever been.”
3
Racks filled the rest of the temple as far as Pavlos could see. Only a few narrow aisles between the columns were not blocked by tier upon horizontal tier of wooden doweling. There were thirty-three tiers between the stone floor and the dusty, cobwebbed ceiling; and upon every shelf there lay bolts of shimmering, silky, multicolored cloth.
The arrangement was intricate. As Pavlos walked, peering in the dim light cast by his lamp, he was puzzled at the way the cloth snaked back and forth over the dowels. Only a few folds lay upon one another on each shelf. Yet the fabric on one shelf connected to those on tiers above and below it.
The long, continuous bolt on his left leapt the aisle high over his head to join the one on his right just under the ceiling. The colors in the portion overhead were bright and vivid, though the lamp was too dim to bring out features. Still, something in what little he could see made Pavlos break out in goose bumps.
It was one gigantic tapestry. Only two meters wide, its length must have been kilometers.
The sense of defensive detachment that had never totally left Pavlos now returned in strength. The hand that reached out to stroke the smooth, cool fabric felt like the hand of another man. Glass had never been smoother. Mercury could not have felt more elusively alive under his touch.
He lifted the top fold and held up the lamp, then bent forward to look into the narrow opening.
The threads were too fine to make out individually, yet he felt sure that, holding his head at the right angle, he could easily pick them out one by one. It was an odd sensation.
The pattern of the threads was unlike any he had ever come upon. The weft twisted with incredible complexity, not only in and out of the warp, but with itself, as well.
The design was intricately abstract at first sight. But there was something in the pattern—the colors and highlights shifted like phosphorous diatoms as he changed position slightly—that seemed hypnotically three-dimensional. Pavlos was reminded of the holograms Frank had shown him once. He held the light to one side and squinted at an angle; then his eyes adjusted to a virtual image. L’Shona the war chief, whose true name was hidden, feared the Powers no more nor less than any normal man. He would die of witchcraft, he knew, as did everyone; and however he died, yes even in battle, his brothers would avenge him by burning a witch. He gave this little thought. It was the way of the world. But now came word that the great king of the Bantu had had a dream, and wanted L’Shona, whose true name was hidden, to come and help divine its meaning. L’Shona was afraid. For the Fire Demon had come to him in sleep, as well, and told him that the Bantu must sweep east, into the land of the small wise ghosts. And he had afterward called in a slave, who he had disemboweled to read the entrails in the sand. And now L’Shona, whose true name was hidden, avoided thinking of his second dream, that the king would do this same thing to him… and thought instead of the east, and war.
Pavlos stepped back and rubbed his eyes.
The image had come and gone in a flash of color and emotion. He had not so much seen as felt the emotions of a tribal warrior. He had touched the bright mind, the quick, sad resignation, and the complacent cruelty with which he had dispatched the slave.
Moreover, Pavlos had felt undertones from the dying slave, whose life ended in ignorant terror at L’Shona’s hand. Pavlos sensed the presence of others—L’Shona’s parents and ancestors; his wives, slaves, comrades, and enemies; and his immediate heirs—nearby in either space or time.
He felt a weird certainty that, had he shifted his gaze one iota during that holographic second, he would have seen… felt… another instant in the warrior’s life, or in the life of a neighbor.
He moved along the aisle until another image flashed at him unbeckoned. Xoatuitl hid under a bale of amaranth stalks until the cries of the hunters and the screams of the pursued diminished in the distance. Then, with as little sound as he could manage, he crawled out. There was a chance some followers of the Teacher might be rallying by the lake, where the tools of power were stored. Although he was only twelve, he knew something of their use, and might be able to help them drive back the followers of the Bloodgod. He turned just in time to see the (axe, sword, weapon) …
Pavlos blinked. Suddenly the viewpoint shifted. He was looking through still another pair of eyes, dimmer, less acute. Old Tuitaczpec leaned against the wall of the marketplace, breathing hoarsely through toothless gums. He had not been able to keep up with the mob, and had been left to use his (axe, club, indeterminate weapon) upon the prone bodies of wounded followers of the feathered serpent. It was not enough. He wanted vengeance on them, for seducing his grandson away from the old ways of the Bloodgod. When he saw a head emerge from under a bale of amaranth, he gleefully took the opportunity…