We pushed on up to the top of Mount Parnassus as our kernitians air-galloped along. I dared not relax for fear of falling asleep and letting go. The trees would be a hard landing in this twilight zone where the light never changed. It was dim and colorless, like the time of day back home after the sun sets, when the stars pop out. The sky’s purple deepened as night claimed us again. My second one on Nostos.
Every few seconds, the fog below would clear and reveal the ground far beneath us. Cottages popped up here and there, and a dirt road snaked through the woods up and over the mountain on our left. It curved along a creek and dark things moved along it. Things with tails. The cadmean beast patrol.
Sam and Charlie rested on their kernitians, but not Leandro. He leaned forward as if urging his ride to go faster, and then a dark cloud swelled in the distance. A swarm of black wings moved up and down. Korax—heading right for us.
“Leandro!” I called to warn him. He saw, too, and turned his kernitian down toward the treetops. Our stags followed, and I gripped the rough fur of mine as we fell through the mist that veiled my skin with a chilled glaze.
“The sky is no longer safe,” Leandro said.
Neither is the ground.
Words came to me on the wind in a cackle. Oracle. Oracle. It echoed over across the treetops and into the purple sky, growing louder as the mass drew closer. Leandro looked at me with an expression I hadn’t seen before, as if I knew what these monster birds meant by their chanting. Sam also gave me a questioning look, but there was no time to wonder.
We ducked beneath the canopy and the treetops blocked the swarm from view. We dove down fast between tree trunks, and branches stung my legs and arms as we blew past them. Leandro brought his mount to rest on the ground. We landed beside him and I eased myself off my kernitian, stiff from the long ride. We stood before Leandro, awaiting his instruction. Even Sam and Charlie were silent. We were just too tired to make a decision anymore, or rescue anyone.
“Thank you, my golden friends,” Leandro said. My kernitian stamped its foot and whinnied, pushing into me with warm bristles. Then the animals departed, rising and gliding through the woods, moving their strong legs in unison as they rode the air. They soon disappeared in the unending mist.
Sam, Charlie, and I yawned at the same time. Leandro looked sharply at us. “We must go underground. And we need rest.”
There was no argument with that. He swung around and strode off. None of us spoke, just followed Leandro in fuzzy obedience, hoping he would lead us to a safe, dark place to crash.
“Where are we?” I peered around in the gloom, making sure no fire-red eyes glowed back or Takers poised to jump us.
“We are just over the top of Mount Parnassus. Going down will be easier on foot. Just one Acheron creek remains between us and the bakehouse.”
“What about the korax? Do you think they saw us?”
Leandro shook his head. “We only saw them because of their number.” The woods grew thick and he started bushwhacking to forge a new trail. I grabbed the bushes to help, my arms aching with exhaustion, and branches pricked me awake.
“What were those birds saying?” I said.
“Oracle,” Sam said.
“What’s that?”
“Not what, a who,” Leandro said, using his knife to chop our way to safety. “The Ancient Ones prophesied that one would be born that was mixed mortal. Part Earth, part Nostos, and part Olympian.”
“Another god?” Charlie said.
“Not exactly,” Sam said with a tired sigh. “This being would possess the ancient powers of all the original Olympians combined. And he would know how to re-instate the powers of the twelve gods to their heirs, and immortality would be theirs again.”
“A myth some hope to be true,” Leandro said between breaths. Sweat shone on his forehead and I wiped my own away, leaving behind goose bumps.
“Your myths seem awful real here,” I said, tired of the history of this place where fiction came alive.
“As this one could be,” Sam said, forcing a branch away, but it snapped back across his face, leaving a red welt. He rubbed his cheek, then went on. “If the Oracle brings powers to the Olympian heirs then they are called to use them for good or lose them, and the Lightning Road to Earth will be shut down forever.”
“Bonne! A good myth to be real,” Charlie said, parting leaves above his head. Leandro didn’t answer and, just as I wondered where the heck he was leading us, the reason for his effort became clear. When the bush branches were parted, they revealed a tall entrance cut into rock. A cave. Leandro pulled a glass tube from his satchel and shook it. It glowed neon green like the glow sticks we got back home for trick-or-treating, only brighter. Tiny bugs ran around inside its walls.
“Cadmean beasts.” Sam sniffed the air. “If we get below ground they can’t track our scent as easy.”
I sniffed too, but just got a whiff of wet rock and moss–no monster fox. Leandro quickly moved down into the cool blackness. Sam followed, and then Charlie, muttering about how he would not be dinner for a bunch of stupide les renards.
Down we went into the chilly hideaway. Leandro strode ahead, his height casting shadows from the glow stick. A musty draft wafted over me as we entered a large cavern. The walls gleamed with light in a starry dance, and soon my eyes adjusted, and the room became brighter. Pictures colored one wall in red and black with strange figures and events. My tired vision gave up trying to decipher them. Slabs stuck out from the wall, a couple of feet above the floor. I dropped down on one and its cold seeped into my bones. Water dripped in a steady beat.
“Sit down, my weary travelers,” Leandro said. “It’s been a while since I holed up here.”
It would be nice to know when and why exactly that was, but I was too tired to ask. Charlie and Sam plopped down on slabs, too.
Charlie put his head in his hands and his shoulders shook. No words could make him feel better. Then, from under his hands, he said in a muffled voice, “How long since we left the auction pit?”
“Umm, yesterday,” I guessed.
“I hope my brother was okay alone.”
“I’m sure he was,” I said. “He could have asked a neighbor for help or called your mom, if he knew how.”
He wiped his blotchy face. “You’d be a good brother, Joshua.”
“Thanks.” His words made me wish harder to find Finn. As the days added up, it seemed less and less likely that we would.
Leandro pulled something from his satchel and handed us each a square bar. “This will fill you up like a meal.”
I ate the granola-tasting bar greedily, sick of bong bongs and slug dogs, and gulped from the leather bag he handed me. The water tasted of honey, like the Spring of Galene.
He peered down his sharp nose at me, then pulled the bag away. “Not so fast, young Joshua. You don’t want to make yourself sick.” He gave me back the water and I drank slower this time.
Sam was already asleep and Charlie curled up on his side away from me, his shoulders shaking again. Then, with a final sob, he was quiet. Both he and Sam soon snored away on their slabs. Leandro plucked a thin blanket from his bag and placed it over me. He tucked it around my legs and chest, driving some of the cold away. Weariness enveloped me and my eyes closed. The last thing I felt was a rough hand on my head. It stroked my hair, and then was gone.