Sean Dalton - Time trap

“Here,” she said at last and ducked beneath a low overhang.

Following, Noel straightened on the other side and found himself in a small, natural-looking cavern filled with a storehouse of riches.

Iron-bound chests displayed mounds of gold coins. Small caskets of jewels stood stacked everywhere. Bronze or marble statues from antiquity lined the walls. Cups and plates of gold, jewelry set with precious stones, gold death masks, lifesize hounds carved from silver… Noel stood and stared, unable to believe his eyes. It was a jumble of precious relics spanning several centuries. It was a priceless treasure trove. It was an archaeologist’s dream.

He picked his way over to a marble Kourus statue of a young man, long hair rippling down his back, with an owl carved upon one shoulder and a serpent coiled upon the other. The statue’s vacant eyes stared into eternity. His faint, mysterious smile seemed to say that he knew all the answers man could ever seek. The colors painted upon him looked as fresh as though the sculptor had just finished.

In wonder Noel ran his fingers over the cold, smooth surface, feeling the depth of the carving, experiencing the skill. He had never seen a statue representing this symbolism. He hoped the recorder on his LOC was getting everything.

“Sir Magnin would take this wealth and spend it,” said Sophia. She dipped her hand into a chest of coins, each stamped with the head of Caesar, and let them spill from her fingers. “Just spend it. He would never count the beauty. He would never consider the wonder of how such things were made. The little lady would be melted down.”

Sophia glanced at Noel and smiled for the first time. The expression transfigured her face, made her seem younger and even more beautiful. “Come and see,” she said.

They made their way to the rear of the cavern. There, resting upon a squared stone about waist-high, stood a small statue of a nymph fashioned of solid gold. Poised on her toes, she stood with her back arched, one hand lifted to the heavens, her head tilted up as though in ecstasy.

“She is a pagan thing,” said Sophia quietly. “Very improper, but I love her so much. She is dancing, you see? She looks happy as though all the sunshine in the world has poured itself into her heart.”

Surprised to hear Sophia say such a thing, Noel looked up. “She is exquisite,” he said quietly. “I have never seen her equal.”

“So many statues of the old times are broken up now,” said Sophia. “The priests say we must destroy all things pagan. I understand why, but still it is sad to ride through the ruins of their temples and their houses, sad to see floor mosaics where perhaps a baby or a little girl played happily long ago. They were just people, as we are people. Surely they were not as evil as we are told.”

“They weren’t evil at all,” said Noel. “They weren’t any different from you or me. They lived, and loved, and went to war. They got married and had children and lost their teeth in old age. They tried to worship as best they understood. And some of them made art like this.”

He traced his fingertip along the side of the little nymph, wishing he could take her home with him. But she’d only be incarcerated in a museum, a glass case erected around her, security beams scanning constantly. He liked to think of her here, at home in the mountains where she belonged.

“Thank you for showing me this, my lady,” he said with a smile.

Sophia’s gaze softened. For the first time she looked at him with warmth and possibly liking. “Thank you for understanding what kind of treasury this really is.”

“I do.”

“Come. We have farther to go.”

The tunnel meandered on beyond the little cavern. Once they had to crawl several feet on their hands and knees to pass through. The torch burned lower and lower; its light grew steadily more feeble despite Noel’s efforts to nurse it. He should have brought two, but he hadn’t known it at the time.

“It’s going out,” he said grimly, worried about becoming lost in these caves forever.

“I see the stars,” she said and hurried ahead of him.

He stumbled after her, anxious not to be left behind. The torch failed with a final pop, and for a moment he couldn’t see anything. He blundered forward, then he too could see stars and the moon going down into a bank of clouds on the horizon.

They emerged through a narrow cave entrance and stood on the side of Mt. Taygetus, overlooking the ravine that divided it from Mistra.

The ravine, thought Noel, where he had nearly ended his life yesterday.

He braced himself against a rock and gazed out into the night. Wolves howled in the distance, whether in triumph or hunger he could not tell. Below them, torches flared upon the ramparts of Mistra. He smiled, feeling good despite his tiredness. Across the broad valley the stars shone down, their constellations so clear he felt as though he could reach up and scoop them into his hand.

Sophia unfastened the jesses and drew off the hood of her falcon. She threw the bird up, and with a cry it unfolded its wings and caught the wind currents, sailing out into the night.

“My lovely Sian,” said Sophia with a sigh. “She will follow us. Do you remember the way to the Milengi camp? We must find Theodore without delay.”

Noel stared up at the black, forbidding shape of the mountain. “Let’s rest first.”

“Rest?” she exclaimed, starting up the slope with her long skirts gathered in her hands. “Why? There is no time to lose. We have a battle to plan, and we cannot do that without Theodore. Come.”

The next day they found the Milengi camp by virtue of the vultures circling overhead. Weary and footsore, they stood in the small protected canyon and stared at the scene of carnage. Men and women alike lay sprawled where they had fallen. Most had been hacked up by swords. A few were brought down by crossbow shafts.

Stunned, Noel could not avert his gaze from the mutilated corpses, the sightless eyes staring into eternity. The tent shelters had been torn down, their belongings strewn. The horses, goats, and chickens were all gone.

In the soft, early morning light when the rising sun cast a rosy hue upon the ground, and the clouds concealing the peak of the mountain gleamed pearl-white, something seemed unreal about so much death. Other than the circling buzzards, there was not a sound of life. No insects, no birdsong. Even the breeze lay still. Only the stream splashing over its bed of stones kept touch with reality. He heard himself swallow. Beside him Sophia whimpered.

He glanced at her, and saw that she was staring with her hands pressed against her mouth.

“Theodore,” she whispered.

With a meager amount of sleep and a long night of hiking through rough country, maintaining a constant alert to avoid the search parties riding over the trails, her beauty had worn badly. She might be eager to find her fiance, but she hadn’t stamina. It had taken all her strength to keep going; by willpower alone she had managed the last leg of their climb. Now she stood aghast, all hope drained from her dirt-stained face.

Noel’s heart filled with pity. “Stay by the stream,” he said. “I’ll search.”

Wordlessly she nodded and seated herself upon a rock. She worked to arrange her torn skirts in proper folds over her feet. Noel knew the activity was a mindless one, a subconscious reaching for what was conventional and safe in a world that had turned upside down.

He did not want to walk through the camp, but he forced himself to do it. The sun overhead was growing hot. The still air within the canyon was too heavy, too oppressive. Then the smell hit his nostrils: a thick, wet, salty-copper odor that made him think irrationally of the ocean.