Mystic Isle Read online

  MYSTIC ISLE

  A Mystic Isle Novella

  Patricia Rice

  www.bookviewcafe.com

  Book View Café Publishing Cooperative

  March 11, 2014

  ISBN: 978-1-61138-358-4

  Copyright © 2014 Patricia Rice

  Chapter One

  Kneeling at the altar, Tasia Olympus lifted the sacred chalice above her head and trembled at the terrible power she held in her hands. At the inconceivable age of twenty-five, she was responsible for every person on this island.

  Still shaken by the unexpected death of their beloved priestess and grieving, she did not feel capable of caring for a kitten without Alexandra’s wisdom to guide her. Her teacher had wrapped herself in confidence as if it were a golden robe. Tasia felt as if she stood naked in her ignorance.

  Facing the altar, with her back to the kneeling acolytes, Tasia hid her terror from their sight and concentrated on the familiar ceremony. Behind her, Sirene the Musician’s high clear voice echoed against the temple’s tall marble columns in celebration of the moment—Tasia’s installation as the new priestess. Sunshine poured through the open portico. Dust motes filtered through the rays, dancing past the beautifully carved frieze of the goddess and her servants.

  In the security of this ordinary routine, she trustingly opened her mind’s eye, hoping for Aelynn’s blessing. Instead, she was instantly blinded to all but her inner vision. Thunderous, raging waves crashed down upon her, impossibly sweeping through the temple, tumbling the walls and friezes. High upon the protected mountain, the temple buildings drowned in a sea of water that swept away their home and all the beloved relics they held.

  Gasping in horror, stunned and shaking, Tasia fled the holy vision. Clinging to the sacred chalice to steady herself, she shut her mind down before she collapsed in front of the assembly. She wanted to leap up screaming at the horrifying images in her head—even as the maidens in the temple repeated their peaceful prayers of worship, unaware of the danger ahead.

  Tasia stood and silently begged Aelynn the Goddess for answers.

  The altar rattled and plaster dust drifted from the frieze.

  The goddess usually came to her in visions, but terrified that the earth’s rumble was Aelynn’s means of implying urgency, Tasia swallowed hard and prayed for guidance. The rattling stopped, and she swallowed her fear. Not yet, dear Aelynn, please, give her time to think . . .

  The earth occasionally rumbled without causing more harm than a few cracked walls. Would anyone believe her if she said they must all abandon the only home they’d ever known with no more warning than that?

  Her knees quaked as much as the chalice. And the marble altar.

  And not just from her lack of courage.

  More tremors. Was this how the gods meant to wreak their havoc? The time was now? She hadn’t even finished her first ceremony.

  A stone pillar crashed at the corner of the temple. The floor beneath her knees swayed, rippling like ocean waves, throwing her off balance. She lowered the chalice to cradle it protectively in her arms like a baby and turned to view the frightened faces gazing up at her for answers. Had the floor not shivered beneath her, she would be shuddering anyway at such responsibility.

  Sirene’s voice wavered but neither she nor the lute players halted until Tasia gestured. As if her break from routine was more frightening than the quaking earth, a babble of panic rose with the plaster dust filling the air.

  Myra the frightened newcomer, only six years of age, turned trusting eyes to her Priestess. The student beside Myra had been here for most of the twelve years of her life and waited obediently for orders, serene in the belief that the priestess would provide answers. Even the women who had taught Tasia all she knew clasped hands and waited for her to assure them that all would be well—because she was the only one among them to whom the goddess spoke.

  If Tasia had interpreted her vision correctly—all would not be well. Change and upheaval and terrible danger were their future. An impossible future. The temple sat high upon an enormous hill. No wave could conceivably reach it—but she must trust Aelynn. This must be a test of her obedience.

  Her stomach clenched in dread. She loved her safe, stable home. How could she abandon all she knew with only these images in her head telling her to go?

  The shaking pillars answered for her.

  Tasia clung to the altar to steady herself against the rocking of the once-solid ground. In her fear, she could scarcely speak. Her first task as priestess would destroy the very foundations of Aelynn’s believers and demand unimaginable loyalty.

  “We must all take the boats to the shore,” she instructed the nearest teacher, trying to sound calm and assured, like Alexandra ordering a new scroll. Bringing down the authority of Aelynn would add to the panic, so she needed to sound confident in her commands. “Please have your students fetch those who are not present and tell them to follow us to the galleys. I have Seen the future.”

  Her older vestals were watching her with alarm, but pronouncements of visions and unruffled orders reassured the youngest girls of her omnipotence. Tasia remembered a time when the whole world was a mystery in which she must trust the adults who governed her life. She had thought she’d gain confidence with maturity. Instead, she had only added more doubts.

  For the sake of her acolytes, she humbly thanked Aelynn for choosing to send the vision during this particular ceremony.

  For Tasia’s first appearance as priestess, the vestals in this initial audience had brought symbols of their various trades for blessing. Teachers clung to precious scrolls. Cook clung to her ladle. Gaia held her hoe. For the second blessing, the Healer would be gathering her herb seeds, and others, with their students, would be choosing their most precious tools.

  The second ceremony wouldn’t happen today. At Tasia’s announcement, messengers scurried into the spring sunlight, fleeing the temple, racing down the many stairs to the various outbuildings.

  The older vestals watched Tasia with uncertainty. She was young and inexperienced. Her visions had always been filtered through Alexandra’s interpretations. Those were reasons enough to question Tasia’s leadership. Still, her vestals had to obey or forsake the goddess they worshipped.

  Daskala, one of her best teachers, opened her mouth to question, an unthinkable disobedience under Alexandra’s tenure. Tasia pointed at the door, refusing argument.

  The ground rumbled, groaned, and cracked. The reluctant remainder of her small congregation fled.

  Outside, through the terraced gardens, her messengers raced from kitchen to sickroom to classroom, warning the workers who had waited for the second blessing. Tasia hurried down the steep steps in the wake of her flock, counting heads as women poured from the outbuildings carrying whatever they had at hand when called.

  All told, the goddess had barely three dozen virgins worshipping her in these heathen times, and many of them were too young for understanding. Once, the temple had housed dozens of adults and few children. War and famine had changed life on the mainland, along with their belief in a peace-loving goddess.

  The ground continued to tremble as if they walked a terrible battleground of the gods. Women and children raced down the marble stairs to the top of the cliff path—a path they had not traversed since their first arrival. Tasia hurried after them, still counting heads.

  A long crack opened in the steps down the slope. Children screamed. The acolytes only used this stairway to leave their requests with the sailors below, or to pick up the supplies the men hauled up for their use. Her maidens had not talked to men since they’d been brought to the temple.

  As Tasia watched, loose rocks fell loose from the bluff’s edge and tumbled to the sea below. They would all be flung to their deaths if th
ey did not hurry.

  “Where is Khaos?” Tasia asked urgently when her count came up one head short.

  “She ran back to the schoolroom. I do not know why,” called Daskala, shepherding the youngest to the last set of stairs to the bluff. “She is old enough to find her own way.”

  Not if a pediment fell on her. Torn between carrying the precious chalice to safety and leading a single—very mischievous—child behind, Tasia wished for the more experienced Alexandra to tell her what to do.

  The rumbling abruptly ceased, but Tasia knew it would return—bringing worse destruction if her vision was to be believed. Lacking any other knowledge of their fates, Tasia had to trust her interpretation.

  The chalice must be saved at all costs, but she could not leave a child behind. And she could not send one of the women in her care into danger. Although as leader, she should be the first to share words with the men to whom they never spoke, Tasia still could not give up the child.

  In desperation, she handed the sacred vessel to Charis, the small woman who acted as caretaker for the priestess.

  “Please, if they ask, you must tell the soldiers to man both boats and fill them with supplies. I will be right back.”

  Short, dark, and cross-eyed, humble Charis looked stunned and awed to be given such responsibility, but Tasia had grown up with her. Charis had never let her down.

  Another pillar in the temple above crashed as Tasia lifted her best tunic and ran back up the cracking stairs. For her inaugural ceremony, she had been wearing her newest sandals, the leather still stiff and difficult to tie. Grabbing stone walls to keep from sliding, she prayed to Aelynn that the ties wouldn’t come undone.

  Below, she heard masculine shouts as the soldiers saw the vestals pouring down the bluff from the temple high ground. The women never descended to the shore. There were strict rules keeping the sexes apart. She needed to be there to keep order. By all that was holy, why had Aelynn taken Alexandra and left the burden in her inexperienced hands?

  Tasia kept running uphill against the recurring tremors. She gasped at the stitch in her side, and then in relief. Seemingly unharmed, Khaos rushed toward her, carrying heavy burlap sacks over each shoulder.

  Not wasting time asking questions, Tasia took one of the sacks from the thirteen-year-old. “The boats cannot hold much,” she warned.

  The ground began to shake again, harder this time.

  “The roof fell. I could not leave the scrolls unprotected,” Khaos called over her shoulder, leaping down the steps with the sureness of a mountain goat.

  The stairs over the bluff and down the cliff had never been even. Now, the stones had cracked and parted with the earth’s tremors.

  They did not speak again as the ground did its best to heave them airborne or bury them in boulders and dust. Women were screaming and men shouting by the time Tasia slid the last meter or two to the sand.

  She twisted her ankle and stumbled trying to right herself from her undignified fall. A tall soldier with fair hair darker than her own caught her. His big, callused hand was foreign to her, and she jerked away as quickly as she could.

  He wore a short jeweled sword and dagger in his belt, and she shivered at his masculine touch. She had not seen a man since her father had left her with the priestess years ago, when she was scarcely old enough to remember. She had not spoken to a man since. Her tongue was tied.

  Not suffering the same impediment, he steadied her elbow. “Let me take that.” He heaved the heavy bag over his shoulder. “You are the priestess?” he asked, apparently identifying the purple and gold belt girdling her midsection. “I am Nautilus, captain of your soldiers, at your command.”

  The soldiers guarded the island, providing the island’s only contact with the rest of the world. They prevented worshippers from climbing the stairs and bothering the vestals. They accepted the offerings to Aelynn—and often the unwanted children. They tended the flocks of sheep and goats and fished from the sea to provide food the acolytes could not grow for themselves.

  They also sailed the channel to bring back other goods the island could not produce on its own. But the men never spoke with Aelynn’s vestals. This one did not seem bothered by that detail.

  The captain was large, so much larger than she had imagined. He smelled . . . male, not scented as her maidens were. His bronzed bare biceps glistened with the sweat of some exertion—he must have the strength of a god. They would need his strength, so she must not show her fear to one who could break her in two with his bare hands.

  As priestess, she was in charge of the women. As representative of the state on the mainland, the captain was in charge of his men. Their commands had never crossed before. She had to assert her leadership now, for the sake of Aelynn. She pictured Alexandra speaking with authority and used the same tone, so as to hide her uncertainty.

  “Great waves are coming,” she warned, limping toward the women huddled on the beach, each still carrying what she’d held last. “We must abandon the island and seek safety on the mainland, far into the hills. All the villages on the coast will be destroyed.”

  His expression neutral, he nodded acknowledgment of her order. “The sea is restless when the earth trembles. We’ll take your galley.”

  “We need both boats,” she insisted, seeing them sitting on the beach. “We must take everyone and everything.”

  “We haven’t enough crew to man two heavy boats. Leave your possessions here,” he ordered. He dropped the scrolls and turned away to shout orders.

  Tasia picked up the scrolls again. “We take both boats and everything they can carry,” she countermanded. She might doubt her ability to lead, but she did not doubt Aelynn’s order to take all they could carry.

  “There is no time,” he argued. “Things can be replaced, not people.”

  Tasia had seldom argued with anyone, and most certainly not a soldier who knew a great deal more of the world than she. She could not even imagine how those frail galleys could float on the pounding surf.

  But the goddess had spoken and must be obeyed. She’d watched Alexandra for decades and knew how a priestess must conduct herself. This time, rather than acknowledge that she was arguing with a terrifying male stranger, she used the tone Alexandra would have used with a cross neophyte.

  “To save people, we will need our things,” she said sharply. “Food, supplies, everything we can fit into both galleys. The goddess commands us.”

  “I’ve heard of the great waves following the earth’s quaking,” the captain argued, undeterred. “The sea gods are stronger than your goddess. If they are angry, leaving now is more important.”

  Even as Alexandra’s assistant, she’d never been brushed aside so rudely. He rattled her confidence, but she could not let him undermine Aelynn’s orders.

  Already, the men were dragging a lone galley to the water. Boys herded goats and chickens to the shore. Avoiding the unfamiliar men, her women filled vessels at the well. So many people dependent on them, looking frail in comparison to the endless surf churning ever higher up the shore.

  “The worst quake is far from here. We are only feeling a small part of it,” she told the captain, as if he were a slow student. “The danger is tremendous. Surviving once we reach solid land is as important as escaping the island. Villages will be destroyed. We cannot know how long we will be gone. We need both galleys and all they can hold. The goddess commands,” she repeated with stern emphasis.

  He glared, as if he meant to question her visions or the goddess. But duty bound to protect her, he had to accept her insistence on security. Obviously struggling with impatience, he shouted instructions to his sailors, and they raced to haul out the second galley.

  Relieved that she did not need to waste more time arguing with a giant of a man whose authority and worldliness intimidated her, Tasia limped up and down the sand, dividing the women and children between the boats. She reassured the youngest and issued quiet commands to the older ones. She lifted a questioning eyebrow to C
haris, who nodded at the long boat adorned with the royal purple and gold of the goddess. The chalice was safely inside.

  The sunny day gradually disappeared behind thunderous clouds on the horizon. Increasingly large waves splashed against the rocky beach. An earthquake and now a storm . . .

  “We have loaded two days of provisions,” Captain Nautilus said tightly. “Will that satisfy the goddess?”

  She shivered in fear as she noticed that the usual noisy seabirds had disappeared from the shore. “Can we load all the food stores?”

  “The ships are carrying grain as ballast. We have olives, crates of lemons. Our root vegetables are almost gone this time of year. We have the cargo of pigs and goats we were about to trade.”

  “Take anything we can. There will be nothing left . . .” Her words fell away on a whisper of grief.

  Glancing toward the gleaming white temple and buildings on the crest of the high hill that had been her home, Tasia fought back tears. This was the end of the world as she knew it. She tried to memorize each tall palm, every olive bush, the color of the lemons against the leaves . . .

  “It’s a strong temple,” the captain said reassuringly. “It will be here when you return.”

  “No, it will not,” she said sadly.

  * * *

  Nautilus brushed off the priestess’s dire prediction. Women cultivated pessimism at the best of times. Priestesses needed to uphold their grandiose reputations by offering grim warnings. Then when the predictions didn’t materialize, they could crow that the goddess had saved them.

  The highest waves of an ocean wouldn’t reach that hill, and this was a mere sea. But with the earth shaking beneath their feet and a storm moving in, it was not the best time to argue over the impossible with an unworldly, terrified woman accustomed to having her every wish fulfilled.

  He’d never met any of the priestesses, but he’d heard the last one was elderly. This one most definitely was not. Her hair was a rare white-blond, and her form was all graceful curves. She barely looked old enough to teach a schoolroom.