She set off at a run around the edge of the lagoon and when she reached the base of the shallow cliff next to where the water tumbled into the pool, she began to climb. The moss-padded rocks would have floored an inexperienced climber. But she had been clambering over the sea-slicked crags of Naxos since she could walk.
She’d almost reached the upper bank when she saw something she had not noticed before.
It looked like there was a cave behind the waterfall. She stretched out an arm and thrust her hand behind the torrent. Rather than brushing stone, her fingers met air. She almost fell as she leaned forward, her arm pinwheeling through the rush of water into nothing.
Bracing herself, she inched across the rocks and stuck her head through the cascade. Behind the waterfall was a passageway. She squinted through the gloom. What looked like a burnt-out torch was lying on the stone floor below.
Go inside,said the voice inside her mind. It was louder than before, as though it had been fed by the panther’s life force.
She paused for a heartbeat, then clambered back down to the ground and leaped through the stream of water.
She skidded on the stone floor, before tumbling to the ground with a wet slap. Pushing herself to her feet, she looked around for the torch. Picking it up carefully, so as not to dampen the end, she held it against a dry section of wall. Then she took out her knife and struck it against the rock. Eventually, she was rewarded with a spark. She blew, hoping there was still some flammable liquid left on the hessian-wrapped tip.
The spark stuttered, then a tiny flame licked across the end of the torch.
She lifted it high, illuminating a rough passageway hewn from striped layers of rock. Accompanied by the crash of the waterfall and the dripping of her clothes, she took a step toward the darkness.
27
Cave of the Fathers
The passage seemed to go on forever. Danae shivered. It reminded her of being in the catacomb prison beneath Delphi.
After a while, she noticed markings on the stone wall. Lifting her torch, she realized that what she’d first taken for cracks were figures drawn onto the rock. They were simply sketched, but she could tell they were mortals. The artist had used the striped gradient in the rock as margins, and each strip contained a different scene. There were groups of hunters chasing deer and boar, clusters of farmers gathering crops and a collection of people with their arms raised above their heads. They might be singing, dancing or worshipping—she couldn’t tell. The stick-like bodies were all pointing in the same direction, with their heads tilted upward. She carried on along the corridor, her pace quickening.
Suddenly, the rows of people fell away and drawn on the ceiling, spanning across the ribbons of rock, were twelve figures much larger than the rest. They too had their hands outstretched. She lifted the torch higher.
The light spilled across twisted branches. There was no color to the apples that hung from the tree’s boughs, but Danae knew its inspiration had been laden with golden fruit.
The torch slipped from her fingers. It hit the ground with a sizzle and died. For a moment she was alone in the darkness, her heart threatening to break through her newly mended ribs. Then her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, and she realized the passageway ahead was more gray than black.
She ran forward, arms stretched out in front of her, desperate to reach the daylight. But when she came to the end of the tunnel, she found herself not outside, but in a vast cavern.
A bank of smooth rock stretched out before her, leading down to a mirror-flat pool. There was something unsettling about its stillness. Not a single leaf or fish rippled its surface. It seemed completely devoid of life. Even the air was stifling and stagnant. The light she’d seen filtered down from an opening far above in the rock ceiling. It illuminated the water with a sickly yellow glow and shone onto a mound of earth that rose from the center of the pool.
For a moment she thought she was hallucinating.
Rising up from the little island was a tree. At first she thought it was the one sketched on the roof of the passage behind her. The one she’d seen grow from Alea’s chest. The one burning in the oracle’s vision. But then she realized it could not be. Its branches were not twisted or bowed low with golden apples, but were smooth, like silvery arms reaching toward the light.
It was dead.
Large white stones were clustered around its trunk, and, instead of fruit, bodies hung from its skeletal branches. Fighting her revulsion, she drew her knife and waded into the pool, shattering the reflection. She could smell them now, the stench of putrid flesh melting from the corpses. They had been there long enough to rot, but not enough to completely dry out.
She fought down the bile that rose in her throat and climbed, dripping, onto the mound of earth. With another sickening jolt, she realized that what she’d mistaken for stones was a pile of human skulls. It was hard to tell the age of the corpses. Some were almost completely skeletal, the remnants of flesh still clung to others, and a few still had short strands of hair attached to their scalps. Their clothing was varied too. Many were wrapped in leather kilts, similar to the tunics the Lemnian women wore. Others were draped in colorful robes.
Then she noticed a dart pipe belted to the kilt of one of the bodies. She staggered away from the tree.
The men of Lemnos.
She recalled Hypsipyle’s glistening eyes when the queen spoke of their men being struck down by Artemis. But this was no burial chamber. These men had been killed at different times and, given the discrepancies in their clothing, she guessed not all were from the island.
The Argonauts were in grave danger.
She was about to turn back when she saw a hand protruding from behind the mound of skulls. An unusually large hand.
Skulls toppled into the pool as she raced around to the other side of the tree. When she saw who lay there, she fell to her knees on the cold earth.
The strength had been leached from Heracles’s body. He was curled up like a child against the trunk, his cheeks hollow, his eyes sunken, and more white-tipped darts peppered his bruised, wasted limbs. How long had he been like this?
