“An order?”
“Dedicated to uncovering these deeper truths you question at. The Circle of Goetic Mysteries they call themselves, and mayhap they have the answers you seek.”
Artemis’s skin tingled at the thought of it. She had sworn to go first to the Axeinos Sea and seek out her grandfather, though she dare not reveal the task to Phoebe who would surely forbid it. Still, she could not deny a temptation to seek whatever arcana lay out there. Because her grandmother was right: Artemis could feel a puissance saturating the World on nights like this.
“I’m curious to seek them out,” she admitted.
Phoebe nodded. “Do so with care, then. Knowledge is valuable, but sometimes we learn things we might rather not know. The price of it can be steep.”
Her words left Artemis shivering.
If Koios had passed into Kimmeria, he might have either crossed the western strait into Phlegra or skirted the southern shore of the Axeinos Sea through Phrygia. Artemis could not say which way for certain, but Menoetius held some sway in Phrygia, and her grandfather had once considered the Titan a friend. As such, she broke east.
Passing alone through the woodlands was easy enough for one trained in such arts, and only a hint of Perspicacity meant no beasts could sneak up on her. Oh, besides animals, she had heard chimerae haunted the lands around the Arad Mountains. She trusted her ears and nose to catch the spoor of such creatures and avoid them.
Once she scented something acrid and foul, and this she gave a berth of miles, having no desire to witness aught that might have spawned the tales mortals used to frighten their young.
She hunted for her food, swam in the rivers, ran along the banks for the sheer thrill of it, and gave over any attempt to track time. Such was the better life, that those huddled behind city walls so oft forgot. Simple moments that made immortality worth having, and during the seven years of war, such moments had proved far too elusive.
Eventually, though, she had to break away from the sylvan paradise and follow the edge of the sea. Along its shore she walked for miles. Much as she wanted to savor the wonder here, too, winter was closing in. Daylight began to grow scarcer, the nights colder, and her progress slower.
It was thus, in the waning of autumn, that she came upon the camp. A lake of tents, it seemed, dotting around the banks of a river running down from the mountains and joining the sea. From the foundations already laid upon a hill, it seemed these people—whoever they were—had begun construction of a fortress, or perhaps even a whole new polis.
As she approached, some waved at her, apparently little concerned with a lone traveler come into their midst in broad daylight.
“I am looking for Koios,” she said, addressing an aging man who came to greet her. He was bundled in warmer clothes than her, black furs, dressed for the weather.
“Koios,” the man said, bowing. Then he mumbled something in a language she could only guess at. Either way, when it became clear the only thing they shared in common was her grandfather’s name, the man beckoned her to follow.
He led her inside the largest of the tents, where her grandfather sat on a bearskin rug, tossing pebbles out before him. Divining the future … Koios spoke to her guide in that foreign tongue, and the man answered before ducking back out from the tent.
“I was expecting you,” Koios said.
“You foresaw my coming?”
He motioned for her to sit, and when she had settled down before him, he fixed her with a heavy gaze. “We do not see everything we might wish.”
“Oracles?”
“Mmm.” He glanced down at the pebbles once more. “Sometimes we see hints we cannot unravel until it is too late. Sometimes we see events unfold clearly, but without context. Other times, we behold metaphors, perhaps constructed from our minds to parse information beyond our ken. It can be difficult to know the difference, in fact.”
Artemis saw naught save differently shaped stones strewn about at random. It seemed to her that any attempt to ascribe meaning to their distribution was self-indulgent … but then all knew Oracles did see things that proved true, after a fashion. “Sounds frustrating.”
“You’ve no idea, child.”
“And what do you see today?” she asked.
Koios frowned, sweeping up the pebbles in a single motion. “That’s not what you came here to ask me.”
“No, I came to ask you to return to your wife.”
“I know.” He glowered at her. “Trying to make up for your own actions, yes?” That hit too close, and she couldn’t stop from squirming. “Well, I’ve seen I do return, albeit only after completing this new city. Kolchis, they call it, after me. I owe it to them to finish it.”
So he wanted to return to his wife but wouldn’t yet because he’d seen himself not doing so at this moment? That sounded worse than self-indulgent. That sounded actively self-defeating.
Perhaps he read it upon her face, for his grimace only deepened. “You asked what I saw today, granddaughter.” He paused. “Shall I tell you?”
She spread her hands. What was the harm?
Koios leaned in and seized her jaw in an iron-like grip. “I saw that someday one of us, my dear, shall cause the death of the other.”
27
Kirke
1585 Silver Age
Nine years ago, Athene had granted Kirke a wing of the palace, and Kirke had forbidden slaves or servants from entering, going so far as to draw a tapestry over the entrance. Oh, there were only two rooms back here. Kirke’s personal chambers, where she slept, read, and planned, and a windowless storeroom she had converted into an alchemy lab.
This, she always locked for fear of anyone save Athene gaining the least idea of what she worked on behind closed doors. As now, hunched over
