Cybele's Secret - Juliet Marillier - Cybeles Secret

“Salem made an error; he attracted the Mufti’s notice. I do not make errors.” Her voice was chill. “Have you more to say, Paula?”

“In one breath you tell us Cybele’s statue belongs to you, and in the next you express scorn for what she represents: the ancient wisdom of earth. You dismiss people’s faith just because they are poor and isolated. But these old gods are powerful. Perhaps they are sleeping now, waiting out a long time of change in the world, but that doesn’t mean they are only the imaginings of simple folk. You sicken me, Irene. I can’t believe I ever trusted you.”

“Well, well,” she said, eyes slitted, “there is indeed some passion in that scholarly breast. I’m disappointed, Paula. I had believed we might make something of you. You realize, of course, what an enormous difference your decision will make to your future?” She turned to Duarte. “Senhor, now that you have seen me here, it will unfortunately be necessary for me to ensure that you and your companions do not return to Istanbul to tell the tale. The Sheikh-ul-Islam and his cronies don’t care for the revival of pagan practices in their Muslim city. As for the possibility that such a group might be headed by a woman, I imagine that terrifies them. For the sake of my husband’s career, if not for myself, I must continue to keep this particular interest secret….”

Around us the light was rapidly fading. Murat was drawing a knife from his belt. Beside me, Stoyan reached for the hilt of his dagger. The old woman had stood quietly in the shadows during this interchange; it did not seem she was planning to intervene.

In my mind, I saw how it might be, how, in seeking to do the right thing, the three of us would be slaughtered here beneath the ground, our corpses slowly turning to bone and dust in Cybele’s treasure chamber while the Greek scholar and her protector made their way to the surface and home to Istanbul with the prize. The guardian of Cybele’s cave was going to let this false priestess walk away with the statue, and Mustafa’s people, who had kept the faith all these years, would never see it again. How could this be? Back in Transylvania, I had seen the folk who ruled the Other Kingdom make some strange choices—choices that, on occasion, had seemed quite cruel. But everything they had done had been for the greater good.

“Take it, then,” the crone said to Irene, and smiled. Irene was looking at the statue and did not see the old woman’s expression, but I did. It was inimical, so full of danger it made my stomach clench tight. “Take it and go on your way. Move swiftly; Cybele’s doors will not remain open much longer. Not even for a priestess.”

With that, the old woman vanished into nothing. Before our eyes the pile of treasure disappeared, leaving the five of us in the dimly lit cavern. I felt under my sash; the folded embroidery was still there where I had tucked it. As my fingers touched its soft form, a solution presented itself to me, a possible solution at least. For although Irene had the artifact, there was one bargaining piece still in our possession.

“Irene,” I said as calmly as I could, my eyes on the knife in Murat’s capable hand. “Did you wonder how we knew the way to this chamber through the underground passages? It’s a kind of code, a map—I found it in your library. Each of us knows part of it; it was too complex for one person to remember. If you kill any one of us, you won’t be able to get out.”

Murat had taken a step forward. She halted him with a hand. “Each of you?” she queried. “When had the pirate an opportunity to learn this secret map? I don’t recall seeing him in my library. And your big dog there?” Her eyes were contemptuous as they raked over Stoyan. “A man like that couldn’t memorize his own mother’s name.”

Stoyan hissed, surging forward.

“No!” I shouted, and a moment later I found myself seized in a powerful grip and spun around as Murat took advantage of the moment. Duarte had grabbed Stoyan, halting his charge. And now I was pinned in front of the eunuch, with the sharp blade of his knife laid cold as ice across my throat.

My companions were suddenly still.

“Drop your weapons, both of you.” Murat’s tone was cool. “All of them.” He waited while knives and daggers clattered to the ground.

“Very well,” Irene said when it was done. “We go forward. Let us test whether Paula’s faith in the two of you is justified. I see three ways from this cavern. Who will choose for us?”

Stoyan moved, heading for the left-hand opening. We followed, Murat dragging me with him, the others behind us. I thought I could feel the knife breaking the skin, blood trickling down my neck. Wrong, all wrong. This could not be intended to finish so miserably. Why had we been rewarded if we were to fail in the quest?

I was crying. I sniffed back the tears, unable to wipe my eyes with that powerful arm holding me, that cold metal kissing my throat. Where had I gone wrong? What had I failed to learn? What pieces of the puzzle had I forgotten?

“This way,” said Stoyan, making another choice of paths. The ground was rising; we were getting closer to the surface. I fought down terror and made myself focus. Think, Paula.

What have you learned?

Murat jerked me around a corner. The knife dug in.

Concentrate. I had learned the difference between knowledge and wisdom. I had experienced a lesson in trust. At least, I’d started to understand these things. A whole lifetime was probably not enough to learn them completely. Especially if that life was cut short before one reached one’s eighteenth birthday. Think. And I’d learned other things that I hadn’t mentioned. How to escape from the grip of someone much stronger, who grabbed me from behind…Of course, the lesson had not included dealing with the complication of a knife. But Stoyan had taught me to look for the right moment, the kind of moment Murat had just used to his advantage. And if Stoyan, walking in front of us, also knew the right moment…

All along, I had tried to keep my own image of the tree map clear in my mind. I had not retained it as well as Stoyan had; without him, we would indeed have been lost. Now I made myself concentrate on this section. There could have been several possible ways from the treasure chamber up to the top. Stoyan was taking the most central route, past a place where the tree image had been thick with fruit of many shapes. We moved forward along a winding way—a particularly wayward branch—passing small caverns to either side, each with its own peculiar form. I saw them as they had appeared on the tiles—pear, apple, plum, bunch of cherries.

We came to a fork: two ways, left and right. Stoyan paused, glancing back.

“Move, Bulgar!” Murat said. “Which is it? Make up your mind!”

For a brief moment, Stoyan’s eyes met mine. I tried to convey something to him, intent, purpose, and I thought he gave the smallest of nods. “We go right,” he said.

I knew it should be left. I moved forward, still clasped in Murat’s menacing embrace. Behind, I heard the soft footsteps of the others.

Something creaked above us, jolting my heart. The rocks were shifting. Murat tensed; his knife fell momentarily away from my neck. I sagged in his arms, making my body abruptly limp. Stoyan leaped toward us, eyes blazing, ready to tackle the well-armed eunuch with his bare hands. Murat dropped me, bracing to defend himself. Suddenly he had a knife in each hand. I rolled to the side and came up on one knee as I’d been taught during those practice sessions on the Esperança. Stoyan stuck out a hand in my direction; I drew the little knife he had given me out of my sash and tossed it to him. Nobody had thought to ask me to throw down my weapons.

The struggle was brief but intense. Duarte could do no more than crouch by me, shielding me, for the combatants moved so fast there was no getting between them. Murat fought like a dancer, with elegant economy of movement and a sequence of practiced swings and turns and kicks. Someone had trained him to perfection. Stoyan’s style was brutal and efficient. They grappled and wrestled and fell, rose and came together once more, muscles bulging, eyes glaring, feet slipping on the rock floor. Above them, the earth trembled and groaned; showers of little stones fell from the tunnel’s roof. Irene stood watching, mute, with Cybele’s Gift clutched to her breast. Huddled by the wall, I felt the rocks shuddering under my hand.

Murat had Stoyan pinned against the opposite wall, his right forearm pressed across his adversary’s chest. It wasn’t looking good. With his left hand, he held Stoyan’s wrist in a painful grip clearly designed to make him drop the little knife that was his only weapon. As soon as the knife fell, the eunuch would use his own head to smash Stoyan’s skull back against the rock wall or employ a dagger to stab my friend in the heart.

Stoyan drew a deep, shuddering breath.

Then, with an odd sort of twist that suggested getting himself pinned against the wall had been a planned combat move, he hooked a leg around Murat’s and toppled him. There was a hideous crunching sound as the eunuch’s head went down on the rocks. Stoyan knelt and, with deliberation, drew the little knife across Murat’s throat.

“Quick, Paula!” Duarte was helping me up, pulling me back along the passageway. The place was alive with the sounds of warning, rock grumbling, creaking, moaning as it shifted. More stones fell, bigger ones this time. Cybele’s doors will not remain open much longer.

“Stoyan,” I whispered, and he was there beside me, wiping his knife on his tunic and sticking it in his sash.

“Run,” he said.

Irene was blocking our way. She stood stock-still in the middle of the passage, staring at the prone form of her steward. She had set the artifact down on the stone floor.

“The place is coming down,” Duarte said to her. “If you value your life, follow us out.” As we pushed past Irene and ran, he scooped up Cybele’s Gift.

Over the sound of the shifting rocks, I could not hear if Irene was coming or not. When we reached the place where Stoyan had deliberately led us down the wrong branch, I snatched one backward glance. Irene was kneeling on the ground. She had gathered Murat’s body close, his head resting on her knees; her hands, cradling him, were dyed crimson. On her features was a look of such grief and pain it hit me like a blow. She turned her face upward and wailed, a wordless, primal sound of sorrow that rang all through the subterranean passageway, making the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

A moment later, her cry was drowned by a roaring like the voice of a huge wild creature, a monstrous rumbling above, beneath, on either side of us.

“Paula!” shouted Stoyan. “Come on!” Not waiting for me to obey, he picked me up and slung me over his shoulder as he sprinted down the left-hand passageway. A jerking, bobbing vista of rock and earth and shadow passed before my eyes. We ran around corners, dashed through caverns, ducked into openings not much bigger than the portholes on the Esperança.

“Lights,” panted Duarte. “Ahead, see there….”

Stoyan halted. He put me down, and when I sagged against his chest, too dizzy to hold myself upright, he gripped my arms to steady me. His touch left smears of blood on my shirt. The rhythm of my heart was like the galloping of a warhorse.

“We’re out,” Duarte gasped. “Look, stars, the moon….”

“And lanterns,” I said, gazing along the tunnel to the place where a view of the outside world could be seen.