Discord's Apple

11

Dad?” Evie tapped on his bedroom door. She’d wanted to check on him last night, but had hesitated at the late hour. If he was resting, she didn’t want to disturb him. And if he wasn’t okay . . . surely he’d have said something. He had a telephone. He could call 911.

“Dad?” She knocked louder. “I made coffee, you want some? Dad?” Her heart thudded. How long should she wait before she burst in? What if he was hurt? Unconscious? She closed her eyes and rested her forehead on the wall. “Dad?”

“Huh? Evie? What’s wrong?” His voice came muffled, slurred, as if struggling to wakefulness.

She exhaled a relieved breath. “Nothing, I just wanted to see”—if you’re all right—“if I could get you some coffee or something.”

“Come in so I can hear you.”

Carefully, she pushed open the door.

Her father was propped on a mound of pillows. His half-lidded gaze shifted slowly to track her progress. She found a chair in the corner and brought it near his bed.

“Can I bring you breakfast?” she said, whispering, as if her voice would rattle him. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him eat anything.

“Not hungry. Appetite’s shot to hell.” He shook his head and shifted against the pillows. He wore a T-shirt and held the bed’s comforter flat across his waist. He looked as sick as Evie could have imagined him looking: pale to a shade of grayness, his voice muffled, his manner vacant. For a moment, she wished she’d stayed in L.A. Then he took a deep breath, gathering the energy to focus on her and speak clearly. “Is that Alex character gone?”

“Yeah.”

He frowned, an expression she remembered from her high school days.

“Don’t look at me like that, he didn’t stay the night or anything. He’s totally not my type.”

He chuckled, tipping his head back and closing his eyes. “Whatever you say.”

“I’ve been trying to find out who he is. He never has a straight answer. When I asked last night, he gave me a copy of the Aeneid and walked out.”

“The Aeneid? If he’s in there, do you know how old that would make him?”

He spoke as if there were nothing strange about it. She could tell him about Hera and he wouldn’t be surprised.

She did some quick math, back to when the Trojan War was thought to have taken place. “Thirty-two hundred years or so.”

“Hm. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone that old.”

So—whom had he met that made a character from the Aeneid showing up seem not out of the ordinary?

She managed to convince herself that he wasn’t going to die in the next few moments. Sitting back in her chair, she looked around. The room was an amalgam: the furniture—the four-poster bed, oak dresser, beat-up vanity table—had been here in her grandparents’ time. The faded floral comforter had been her parents’ as long as she could remember, and his wallet and watch were sitting on the dresser, where he always kept them.

On the nightstand by the bed was a lamp with a half-dozen orange pill bottles clustered around its base. She wondered how many of them were painkillers. His breathing was slow, deep, like he was on the verge of falling asleep. Like he’d been drugged. She should go away and let him sleep.

She was about to stand when he spoke.

He took a long time, saying the words slowly and methodically; she waited motionless and patient. “When I was growing up here, I think my father went into the Storeroom once, to get something for someone who came to the door. Twelve-league boots. The guy was on a quest. I don’t remember what for anymore. In the last month, I’ve had a dozen people come asking for what belongs to them, and that doesn’t count the ones who’ve come who don’t have a right to anything. It’s like—the Storeroom is dispersing. Magic’s going back into the world.”

It was hard to believe in magic in a world where things like the Seattle bombing happened. Then again, maybe magic was the only way to stop things like Seattle happening.

“Dad—why did you put Mom’s papers in the Storeroom?”

“Wanted to save them,” he said. His eyes opened to slits, and a different self seemed to look out of them. “Do you know who that was, asking for the sword?”

She nodded, and he nodded back.

“Do you know what it means, if Merlin and Arthur have come back?”

She shook her head, but the movement changed. Again, she nodded, because somehow she knew. “The stories,” she said.

He winced, stiffening, clutching the edge of the comforter. “Joints,” he muttered. “Hip. Back. Everything.”

She almost reached for him. Her muscles flinched to do so. But there was nothing she could do. In another heartbeat, his face relaxed, and the spell went away.

“When Britain needs its King again,” he said. “He’ll come. Something’s going to happen, Evie.”

“I know,” she said, thinking of Hera, of the apple that started a war that changed the world. What would happen if the apple went back into the world?

A calm smile softened his face. “I know you do.”

She knew, the same way she knew to find the glass slippers and that nothing in the basement would kill Alex. The same way she knew she couldn’t let Hera into the house.

For each thing she knew, for every new insight she learned about the Storeroom and everything inside it, her father slid a little closer to death.

Evie waited for someone to knock at the door. Someone would. She’d done nothing but answer the door since she got here. Well, that wasn’t true. It only seemed like it. But if she worried about the door and who’d be at it next, she wasn’t worrying about her father. He’d fallen asleep in the middle of a sentence, speculating about what Arthur would be like and when he would return, speaking with an awe-inspiring certainty that it would happen, that it wasn’t just a story.

She left him alone, went to the living room to lie on the sofa, and sobbed into a pillow so she wouldn’t wake him up. Mab came and put her chin on Evie’s leg, gazing at her with sad brown eyes. Evie wondered where she’d come from, if she was another piece of the magic that protected the house and bound her and her father to it. Another magical artifact, emerging when she was needed.

She wondered if Alex would come back. She still couldn’t guess who he was, but she kept returning to the descriptions of the fall of Troy in the Aeneid. He might have been part of Aeneas’s crew, which sailed to Italy and founded Rome. But he’d said the language on the apple was Greek. She’d even found a book on the shelves, a coffee table book with lots of photos and illustrations, and a chart showing the script from the apple: Linear B, the language of Mycenae from around the time of the Trojan War.

Virgil provided a solution to what Evie had always thought was a supreme failure of logic in the story: Why had the Trojans been so eager to bring such a bizarre and suspicious object as the horse into the city? The answer: The Greeks must have left behind a spy to convince the Trojans that the horse would bring them luck. Odysseus, master of the plan of the horse, chose his friend Sinon, a persuasive and credible speaker.

Evie could see them: they must have known that if Sinon failed to tell his story convincingly, the Trojans would kill him along with all those within the horse. It was not just his own life he was offering to sacrifice. He must have known that the lives of all his friends and comrades rested on his words. He would have been honored and flattered that Odysseus had asked him. He would have been afraid. But Odysseus’s hand on his shoulder, his intense gaze, would have made him confident. Odysseus would have given Sinon the bruises and chafed wrists that lent proof to his tale. It was hard, beating his friend, but he would not have given the task to another. For his part, Sinon would have thrown himself into the role. So much depended on it.

At least that was how Evie would write it, if she were telling the story.

While many tales traced the fates of the heroes of the Trojan War, she couldn’t find out what happened to Sinon. Not in any of the stories, not so much as a line from a poem that said he was among the company that traveled home with Odysseus and was caught up in those adventures. She would have expected to find him there, if he had survived the sacking of the city. His name faded from the record. He might even have been a pure invention of Virgil’s, an ultimate example of Greek treachery, a well-wrought piece of propaganda. He could have been killed—but surely the story would have said so.

Or he could have dropped out of history. The gods who backed Troy must have been furious with him. Any one of them could have laid a curse on him. If they were anything like Hera . . . Evie’s skin prickled, thinking of what they could do to him.

Sinon, then. The Liar. Why didn’t that make her feel any better about Alex?

She thought about going to look for him. Hopes Fort wasn’t that big. He might even have been hanging around the house still, watching, as he’d been doing all week. She could go into the yard and yell Sinon and see if he answered. But she didn’t leave the house, because she wanted to stay near in case her father needed her.

She didn’t have to stay and do nothing. She had work. She’d left Tracker in a fix. She pulled her laptop to her and returned to the story.

Tracker, alone on the tundra, hoped she would be able to keep her bearings. She felt right on the edge of losing herself. And if something happened out here, the chances of the others rescuing her were slim.

Now how was she going to get out of this fix? Talon could sweep in and rescue her. It wouldn’t be any more unlikely than a dozen other storylines she’d done. It would return the characters back to the main plot. But this was supposed to be Tracker’s story. This was Tracker’s chance to shine.

She couldn’t spend the whole time wallowing in self-doubt, either. So all Evie had to do was get her to the bunker at the gulag, then see what happened next. Her hands paused over the keys. She looked over the back of the sofa to the kitchen door, waiting for someone to knock.

Her father emerged around suppertime, moving slowly but appearing alert. Evie rushed to help him, and of all the wonders, he let her. She heated up soup for him. He ate half a bowl and a few crackers, and seemed pleased with the accomplishment. They spoke little, commenting on the weather, passing on the gossip from town.

“Did anyone stop by?” he said.

“No.”

He limped back to bed, stopping on the way to scratch Mab’s back. Evie was proud of herself for not asking, yet again, if he needed help, if he was all right. She just had to hope she could get to him in time if he stumbled.

She returned to the sofa in the living room and tried to write. How long could she keep Tracker wandering on the tundra? Because when she reached her destination, Evie would have to figure out how she was going to beat up the bad guys and rescue the prisoner. All by herself.

Both she and her laptop fell asleep after midnight.

In the morning, her mobile phone and the house’s landline rang at the same time. Evie started awake, remembered where she was, and sat frozen while she decided which one to answer first. In the end she answered her mobile, which was closer and didn’t require a mad dash to the kitchen. Then the house phone stopped ringing.

“They’ve done it,” Bruce said as greeting. “They’ve fucking done it.”

Bruce kept harping on about the world, the news, everything, when her own world had shrunk to this house and her father. She ought to care—the world situation was going to hell. Even without watching the news, she could sense the tension in Bruce’s voice. She ought to care. But she only felt tired.

“Who’s done what?”

“Congress voted to back China. Who’d have guessed? Ten years ago, China was the fucking ninth level of hell, and now we’re allies? It’s unreal.”

She winced. “Wasn’t China backing terrorists? The Mongolians? We’re not supposed to be backing a country that backs terrorists.”

“An economic market of a billion and a half consumers can’t be wrong, I guess.”

“You know my mom died in the Seattle bombing.”

“Yeah, I know, Evie.” Background static on the connection filled the pause. “You’re not the only one who feels that way. Protests are going on in Seattle and New York. They’re about to turn them into riots. The National Guard’s being called up.”

“Shit.” The architects of history, the generals and game-players, were at it again.

Another pause. Then, “How are we going to spin this in the book?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know who the bad guys are anymore, Bruce. We could miss the deadline. Delay the publication, see how this is going to play out. Or we could zap the team to another planet and pretend like none of this is happening.”

“I think I’d like to get zapped along with them. Paula isn’t going to be happy.” Paula was their editor, the one responsible for harnessing their creative energy and packaging it into the final product.

Evie gave a huff. “What good is being the creators of the country’s bestselling comic title if we don’t get any clout? Paula can deal with it.”

“Roger, Captain. You sound like crap, by the way.”

“I fell asleep on the sofa.”

“Right. What was the last thing you wrote before you fell asleep?”

The file was still on-screen, autosaved and everything. She read him back the last few lines. The last few interesting ones, anyway. What she’d produced last night looked abysmal by the light of day.

“Shit,” he said. “Tracker goes rogue. I like it. This could work.”

“It wasn’t really what I intended.”

“Hey, don’t argue. Just run with it.”

“Right.”

“Go take a shower. Get some coffee. Take care of yourself, okay?”

“You, too, Bruce. Hey, Bruce?”

“Yeah?”

“Does it even matter anymore?”

“What do you mean?”

“The comic. Why are we even talking about it? The world’s going to hell, my father’s dying—why am I still sitting down at my laptop?”

She could hear his breathing over the connection. He was tired; he’d been making himself sound cheerfully irate to hide it.

Then he said, “What choice do we have? It’s what we do. Otherwise we’d have to curl up in a ball and go crazy.”

She chuckled. Keep on going. It was all they could do.

“Thanks for calling.”

“I’m just worried about you.”

As she clicked off, her father came into the room, freshly showered, hair still damp, tucking his shirt into his jeans. He grabbed his coat off the chair he’d put it on, like he was actually planning on going somewhere.

“Dad?” She rose and followed him to the kitchen. Mab trotted along with them.

“That was Johnny on the phone. They’ve called up the whole Citizens’ Watch. He’s going to come pick me up.” His car was still out from when he’d collapsed on patrol.

“You can’t go out!” And how dare Johnny give him a ride in his condition.

“Why not?”

“You—you’re sick.” Did she really have to remind him that he’d spent yesterday in bed, doped up on drugs?

“Homeland Security’s instituted a lockdown and curfew. Johnny doesn’t have enough people to patrol. He needs me.”

A security curfew in Hopes Fort was ridiculous—no one ever stayed out late anyway. “Dad—nothing’s going to happen here. Those rules are for places like L.A. and—and Seattle.”

His lips thinned, like he was holding back words, or his temper. She should have said New York, or Chicago, or Atlanta. Anywhere but Seattle. The word was like saying failure.

Then he said, “It’s the principle of the matter, Evie. I have to do my part. I can’t go to L.A. or Seattle to help. So I do what I can here. Even if it isn’t much. Even if it doesn’t mean anything.”

He’d joined the Watch five years ago, right after Emma died. It was how he coped. Evie had the comic; he had this.

She couldn’t say anything to stop him. She’d cornered herself by bringing up Seattle, and gave up her right to continue arguing.

“Dad—I think you should go to the hospital. After yesterday—I could drive you, just to get checked out—”

“What’s the point? They’ll tell me it’s hopeless. That there’s nothing they can do to save me, but they can give me something for the pain, and they’ll pump me full of morphine and leave me in a bed to fade away. I can die on my own, I don’t need their help.” His hand on the doorknob, Mab sitting nearby and looking earnestly up at him, he said, “Watch over the Storeroom.”

Stifled tears tightened her voice. “I don’t care about that.”

“You will.” He scratched Mab’s ears. “Help Evie watch the Storeroom, girl.”

He closed the door behind him. Through the kitchen window, Evie watched him walk to the end of the driveway just as Johnny drove up in his police sedan. She thought her father was still limping. With his hands shoved in his coat pockets, his shoulders stiff against the chill air, it was hard to tell.

Robin Goodfellow crouched in the scrub by a fence post and watched the artist at work. The Curandera stood on the side of the highway running east out of town. The wind tangled her graying black hair; she wore a turquoise-and-silver pendant, which she gripped in her hand.

A person could go east from here, and keep going east for a thousand miles without the scenery changing much: flat winter fields covered in dry, bent stalks; a few fence posts strung with barbed wire; and sky, so much wide-open sky, a person could lose himself, wander in circles, and feel so small, he’d disappear from the universe.

The earth in this part of the world only slept. Long ago, when the mountains that made the spine of the continent were built, fires and earthquakes ravaged the land. People forgot what violence was necessary to create the beauty that decorated the postcards. That had happened so long ago, people had no need to remember. They did not care that the land was not still; it only slept.

The Curandera knelt, rubbed her hands together, then pressed them flat to the dirt. She beat the earth, making a slapping noise that carried. Again, and the slap became a thud. Then a groan that vibrated through the ground. Robin stood nervously, feeling the movement of the earth.

What Hera had said of the woman: for generations, the women of her family had been granted the power to speak to the sky, the sun, and the earth. They could feel its moods, sense waters building in the heavens, bring rain with a prayer, heal the sick, kill with a thought, speak to creatures who were not human. She could feel the veins and muscles of the earth, and the joints that moved it.

The ground lurched.

The earthquake started in earnest, and Robin clung to the fence post like it was a plywood raft put to sea. The Curandera remained on her knees, unwavering. Each time she touched the earth, another tremor racked the land, as if her slight arms were epic jackhammers.

A grumbling crack appeared across the highway. Farther along, another split broke through the asphalt. Grinding, tearing, the road came apart, one section rising while another fell, crevices growing between shattered slabs of pavement.

She raised her arms high, and the earthquake stopped.

Dust settled. Dislodged pebbles clattered and came to rest. A thick silence soon covered the world.

The Curandera knelt in a miniature canyon of her own making. For at least a mile, the road was devastated, pieces lying on top of each other, separated by gaps, like a strip of tile that some madman had taken a hammer to.

Robin leaned gasping against the fence post. “Bravo,” he said at last.

She gazed across the wasted land as calmly as she had before the earthquake. “The highway west of town is the same.”

“So the town’s cut off?”

“Mostly. Some people do still remember how to travel on foot.”

“But no one will be driving for quite some time.”

He approached the Curandera and offered her his arm to escort her back to town. She turned her shoulder to him and walked alone.

Nothing ever happened in Hopes Fort. At least nothing interesting. Evie had ardently believed that her entire childhood. She clung to that belief now. Her father would be fine. Johnny would keep an eye on him and bring him home—or better, to a hospital—the minute he looked ill. Okay, the minute he acted ill. He looked plenty ill already.

She slumped back on the sofa. Her laptop stared at her. All she could do was write. Didn’t seem very useful or heroic. The comic’s production schedule seemed less relevant than ever. But what would she do if she didn’t write? When she was starting out, when she wasn’t sure she was ever going to be able to make a living at it, she used to play that game with herself: What would she do if she failed? Go into advertising? Open a bookstore? She’d thought up a dozen half-assed plans, including marrying a millionaire. Plenty of those hanging around L.A. Dogged persistence won out in the end. But she imagined a dozen alternate time lines, where she led lives that didn’t involve writing.

If she didn’t write, she’d sit here staring at the walls until she went crazy. She couldn’t leave town. And Dad said to watch the Storeroom.

Exhaustion never entered into Tracker’s consideration of her current situation. It simply wasn’t an option. When the bunker of the gulag finally appeared—a mound in the distance on the flat, frozen waste—she dropped to her knees and crawled, offering as low a profile as she could. She kept her gun in her hand. It was just like Basic all over again. Hell, it was almost fun. If only she knew that Jeeves and Matchlock were all right, and Sarge and Talon. She shouldn’t have had to do this alone.

Their information said the agent would be in the first bunker. The rest of the complex was underground, and had caved in years ago, when the last of the political dissidents were released and turned their frustrations on the structure itself.

She lay flat on the ground for two hours watching the concrete hut. No doors opened; no shapes appeared at any windows. She flexed the muscles of her limbs to keep them from cramping. Annoyed, she thought there should have been someone around: guards, a change in duty shifts, something.

She wasn’t well camouflaged—her dark fatigues were meant for nighttime operations, and the land here was bright, the overcast sky stinging with light, the ground textured with pools of crusted snow and lichen-covered rock. But there didn’t seem to be anyone around for miles. The bunker was still, silent. Quietly, she approached: a few steps and pause, a few more steps, looking in every direction, over her shoulders, up at the sky. She was used to having someone watch her back.

Soon, she crouched under the window of the bunker. Her gun felt clumsy in her gloved hand. Maybe she wouldn’t need it. Slowly, she rose until she could peer over the sill, into the room.

The room was empty.

But a trapdoor in the floor was open.

She closed her eyes and breathed a curse. Either the spy wasn’t here at all—or their information about the complex was wrong, and she wouldn’t be able to just run in and run back out again.

The door was unlocked. She opened it just enough to slip inside, then swept the room, sighting down her gun.

The place was dusty, decrepit. A broken chair slumped in a corner; scraps and trash littered the floor. A table stood against a far wall. On it was a shortwave radio set. Tracker’s hopes rose for a second, until she saw that it was smashed.

Footprints in the dusty floor led to the stairs under the trapdoor.

If she went down there, she’d be stuck. Only one exit, no light—something wasn’t right here. But if she could learn something to take back to the others and figure out what was really going on, the risk might be worth it.

She started down the stairs.

This tunnel, at least, hadn’t collapsed. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, a light became visible ahead, coming from a room. Shadows flickered, as if someone moved in front of a lamp.

Tracker pressed herself to the wall and continued forward. She heard subdued voices speaking English.

“Comrade, thank you. I look forward to a long and profitable relationship.”

“Absolutely.” That voice was American. “You’ll have those weapons shipments, and I trust you’ll use them only on targets designated by our colleague here?”

A third voice, with a clipped accent: “It would be tragic if this war were to fall out of our control.”

Tracker came close enough to the door to lean around and look.

She saw the man in fatigues first. He was facing her, and her eyes widened. It was him, the agent she was supposed to rescue. She recognized him from his dossier photo.

He was shaking hands with a man in a Russian military uniform. The third man wore Chinese insignia on his uniform.

“I can guarantee we’ll have American troops in place by the end of the year. With our peacekeeping efforts, we should be able to keep this thing going for years.”

“And our governments will continue to leave us in control,” said the Chinese officer.

They were making a deal. They wanted a world war. Whatever negotiation was being settled here would keep these men, the old military elite, in power indefinitely. Gods moving their pawns across the world.

Tracker thought of a dozen melodramatic options: stand and challenge them, demand explanation, face them down like she was in some Hollywood spy thriller. Get them to reveal their nefarious plan. Unlikely.

She should just shoot them all before they even knew she was here. But she wondered if there wasn’t some logical explanation for this meeting: the Russians and the Chinese were on the edge of war, the Americans had already picked sides—and the American agent hadn’t said anything about peace.

Then the choice was out of her hands.

“Tracker? You can come out of the dark now.”

The American had spotted her. She didn’t move from her shelter behind the doorframe. The military officers touched their guns, resting in belt holsters. The agent was smiling, though, regarding her as he would a wayward child.

“Where are your friends?” he said. “What good is my trap if I don’t catch you all?”

Goddamn it, she’d walked right into it. She exhaled a silent breath. The unholy trio probably had a back entrance staked out and a way to collapse the tunnel on top of her. She revealed herself, leaning partway around the doorframe.

“Gentlemen,” said the agent to his colleagues. “Meet Tracker, the intelligence expert for the Eagle Eye Commandos.”

The two officers flinched, their eyes widening. Was her reputation really that scary? Probably not hers personally.

The agent turned back to her. “So. Where are they?”

“I don’t know.”

“They wouldn’t have sent you here by yourself.”

She kept her mouth shut on that one. Instead she asked, “When did you turn traitor?”

“I haven’t,” he said, his smile unwavering.

She winced, her brow furrowing with confusion. He chuckled, just like the villain in a spy film. “I’m here with the full authority of the U.S. government.”

“Planning a war?”

“You don’t think wars just happen, do you?”

“And what do you want with us?” she said, her voice hushed.

“We’ve decided that you’ve become a liability. You and your team are out of control. And what the U.S. can’t control—it destroys.”

She shot him.

A knock came at the door, and Evie almost fell off the sofa. She muttered and took a deep breath to still her racing heart, then gathered herself to answer the call. She almost hoped it was Alex, wanting to know if she’d guessed yet. But it was probably seven dwarves looking for a glass coffin.

Mab was in the kitchen, trembling like she wanted to bark. Wagging her tail, she looked up at Evie. So it wasn’t the bad guys. She opened the door a crack. Two men stood on the porch. One was the brusque old man from the other day. Merlin.

The other man was in his thirties, fresh and rugged looking, like he spent a lot of time outdoors. Sandy blond hair swept back from his square-jawed face to touch the collar of his brown leather jacket. Jeans, a gray T-shirt, and work boots completed his outfit. He wore a trimmed beard, and laugh lines marked the corners of his eyes. He stood straight and tall, and smiled at her. He had blue eyes.

He looked like he should have been in a country music video, or starring in soaps, or modeling Harley-Davidsons. He couldn’t be—he just couldn’t be.

Mab sat nearby, her tail brushing the floor. Evie opened the door wider. “Hello?”

The younger man said, “Hello. I’ve come to see about a sword. Merlin here says it’s stuck in a rock round back.” He had an accent like a mild version of a Celtic brogue. “I thought we should ask before we went tromping round your property.”

Evie leaned against the doorframe, her knees weak. She wondered if she should bow. She wondered what sort of vacuous expression she was giving him. He was looking back expectantly, like he was used to dealing with bewildered women.

Mab took the opportunity to push around Evie and throw herself at the stranger, tail-wagging, bouncing in place. Arthur caught her before she could rear up and topple him over, as she seemed intent on doing. He kept her gently but firmly grounded.

“Well—hello, there! Aren’t you a fine beast?” He scratched her ears with both hands, sliding down her back to thump her sides, and Mab whined ecstatically.

“She likes you,” Evie said, her voice gone vague. Arthur beamed in reply.

“Um, Miss Walker, if you don’t mind?” Merlin jerked his head to gesture around to the back of the house.

“Yeah. Um. This way.” Shaking her head to dispel her foggy wonderment, she stepped off the porch. She was aware of the two men following her, Merlin trodding almost on her heels, and Arthur still playing with Mab, who bounded alongside like she’d found her soul mate.

Arthur. If she’d seen him hanging around a construction site or a biker bar, she wouldn’t have given him a second glance. Until he smiled and looked at her with those eyes.

They rounded the far corner of the house, and she stepped aside. “Here it is.”

Merlin had seen it before, but still he stopped to gape.

Arthur stepped past him, his face drawn with a sad, heartbroken look, like he was approaching the dead body of a long-lost friend. History shone through his eyes, memories, intense and desolate. He looked to be in his thirties, but he was older, much older, as if he had been reborn a hundred times and retained the memories of each of those lives.

Evie wished her father were here to see this.

He reached the stone and took hold of the sword’s grip. Squeezing, he took a deep breath and pulled. The sword came out as smoothly as if from a scabbard, with the barest slipping noise.

The blade gleamed when he held it aloft; he turned it, studying it with a haunted gaze. Evie resisted an impulse to drop to her knees—Arthur, the true king, the rightful bearer of Excalibur stood before her.

Arthur turned the sword so it pointed to the ground. He knelt with the point resting on earth, his hands laced together over the grip and cross guard. He bowed his head low and his lips moved, undoubtedly in prayer.

Evie’s heartbeat rattled, anxious that she was watching something private, that she had no business intruding. She and Merlin stood side by side.

“How did you know to come here?” she said, her voice hoarse. “How did you find us?” Hopes Fort was halfway around the world from Britain.

He nodded at the praying Arthur and said, “Faith.”

“And why—why now?”

“Because there is need.”

“What need?”

“At the end of one age, the shattering of the old era, someone has to stand by to pick up the pieces and build the new one.” He said this with the same straightforward tone, no matter how Evie gaped at him.

The ground began to tremble. Mab whined and turned circles, then stopped to look across the prairie at nothing. The trembling increased in violence, shaking Evie to her bones. She swore she could hear the house’s foundations rattling.

After living in Southern California, she knew what an earthquake felt like. She sat down before she fell, grabbed Mab, and hugged her. Already off balance, the dog toppled into her lap. Merlin stuck out his arms for balance. Arthur, still kneeling, held his sword ready and looked for an enemy.

Then it ended.

A temblor like this wasn’t particularly frightening—it might even have been as high as a 6 on the Richter scale. Except this was Colorado. Colorado had baby earthquakes, imperceptible, every decade or so. What was a magnitude-6 earthquake doing in Hopes Fort?

She ran to the house, Mab loping alongside her. Merlin and Arthur followed. She dashed into the kitchen, vaguely aware that there could be aftershocks and she should stay outside. But she had to find out if her father was okay.

The house phone was dead. The lines must have been down. She tried the light switch, and the electricity was gone as well. Hopes Fort was probably going to be a disaster area. No one around here knew what to do with a quake like that.

In a moment of irrational panic, she remembered her laptop and the thousand words or so she’d produced that morning. Her heart sinking, she checked the living room next, dreading what she’d find on the screen.

The battery had saved her. Her work was intact, and knowing full well she was luckier than she had any right to be, she saved the file and shut down the machine. Now to check on her father.

Merlin and Arthur stood in the kitchen. The sword seemed to fill the room.

She retrieved her mobile phone and dialed Johnny Brewster’s number.

“We’re sorry, your call cannot be completed—”

She clicked off the phone with a huff and started pacing.

“What’s happening?” Arthur said.

“Phone lines are down. Electricity’s out. I’m worried about my dad.” She wondered if she’d have to explain telephones and electricity to the ancient warrior, but he didn’t seem confused.

“My lady, if my sword may be of any use to you, command me.”

She felt dizzy, lurching with a moment of displacement. Despite the leather coat and blue jeans, he was a knight. He held his sword like he knew how to use it, his stance was ready. He had said “my lady” like he meant it. The late nights reading Tolkien and dreaming of kings, her thirteen-year-old’s daydreams, came rushing back.

“Thank you,” she said. “I think what I really need to do is find my dad, to make sure he’s all right. I’m sure you all have . . . better things to do. Than hang around here, I mean.”

Merlin crossed his arms. “Do you think it coincidence that such a tremor shook the earth at the very moment he—” He gestured significantly at Arthur. “—claimed his birthright? I believe our destiny lies here.”

Evie considered, and for some reason thought of Hera on her doorstep. If she had to blame the earthquake on anyone, it would be her. “Yeah, actually, I think it is a coincidence. Sorry.” Merlin scowled. Evie found her car keys and headed for the door.

Mab bounced in place beside her, bumping her nose against Evie’s hip, whining, and shoving all the way to the door. With her bulk, the wolfhound significantly impeded her progress. “Mab, get out of my way! Back off!”

Mab dashed ahead and planted herself in front of the kitchen door. She wasn’t so impolite as to growl, but Evie thought she looked like she wanted to. Her ears were flat, her gaze threatening. Mab didn’t want her to leave.

Gently, Arthur said, “Wouldn’t he come home, if something were wrong? Wouldn’t someone contact you? Perhaps you should wait.”

What a sane and reasonable suggestion. She rubbed her face and slumped against the wall. Mab wagged her tail apologetically.

“We could look for him, if you like.”

“No, we can’t,” Merlin said. “Mr. Walker can take care of himself, I’m sure.”

His face alight and eager, Arthur was almost bouncing. “It’s a scouting mission, Merlin. I won’t have a chance to do anything like this once the troubles start.”

“We don’t know this town, we don’t know what’s out there—there may be more earthquakes. Besides, you have a destiny.”

“And what am I supposed to do—camp out here until that destiny sneaks up on me and pounces? I’d rather be doing something.”

Merlin glared at the warrior for all the world like a parent with a hyperactive child. He straightened, and said with utmost patience, “What does Miss Walker say?”

Arthur turned that brilliant, boyish expression on her. She couldn’t help but smile back. She was beginning to understand what it meant to have a destiny sneak up on you and pounce.

“I’d really appreciate it if you could find out if he’s okay.”

Arthur lifted a brow and grinned at Merlin, as if saying, You see?

Merlin grumbled under his breath for a moment. “A scouting mission, eh?”

“A short one.”

Exhaling a long-suffering breath, the old man said, “All right.”

Evie swore Arthur did a little celebratory arm-jerk, like a teenager who’d gotten the car for the night.

She found the belt and scabbard for Excalibur in the Storeroom. Arthur wouldn’t be parted from the sword, no matter how strange he’d look striding down Main Street with the weapon slung on his person. “I’ll tell them I’m in a play,” he said, as if he’d had to deal with the problem before.

She saw them off from the front porch.

“We’ll return as soon as we have news,” Arthur said. He bowed, a gracious gesture that made Evie’s heart flutter. Where was this guy when I was in high school and giddy?

The earthquake was the signal to move.

It quickly put the town in an uproar. People weren’t used to this sort of thing here. Once the phones cut out and the power lines went down, chaos took over. The Curandera had promised only that the main roads leading into town would be impassable. The rest worked nicely, however. No one could reach the town by any other method, either.

Robin watched the park in front of Town Hall from an unobtrusive doorway.

The police officer with Frank Walker dropped the old man off at the police station, to assist with the Red Cross. Frank complained, argued, and harangued the younger man, who had thought he was being sly about putting Frank in the least-strenuous job possible. Frank, it seemed, was doing his best to deny his illness. The officer—his name was Johnny—kept trying to tell Frank how much he was needed at the station. It turned out, when people started gathering at the station because the power was out and their phones were dead, Frank really was needed to help settle them down, while the uniformed officers patrolled the town to assess the damage.

A line had formed in front of Frank, who stood on the dried-up lawn in front of the police station directing people to the Red Cross shelter, which had already been set up in a tent in the town park; they were distributing coffee and fielding calls on a satellite phone. He held a clipboard, where he wrote down specific problems: buildings that had collapsed or looked like they were going to, gas or water lines that might have ruptured. Mostly he assured people, in a steady, confident voice, that everything was under control. Didn’t matter if they really were; he only had to tell people they were. The usual government statement.

Robin cut to the front of the line.

“I really need someone to help me,” Robin said, gripping Frank’s elbow.

Frank tried to gently brush him away. “Sir, if you’ll just get in line with the others—”

“I think my wife is in labor.” It was the most persuasive thing Robin could think to say.

It worked. Frank’s eyes got wide. He gave the clipboard to the next person in line and put his hand on Robin’s back, urging him forward.

Robin led him around the corner, down a side lane, to the back of the building, where the Wanderer’s rented sedan was waiting. The Wanderer stood at the open back door.

“This way, right here!” Robin said when the old man seemed to lag. He pointed at the car. He didn’t keep up the act; he couldn’t help but grin. Frank suspected. Brow furrowed, he looked at Robin, the Wanderer, the car, and back to Robin, as if he knew who they were.

Before he could bolt, the Wanderer said, “Mr. Walker, we really need you to get in.”

His voice sent a chill down even Robin’s spine. Frank turned pale. Robin couldn’t exactly say what the Wanderer was or what power he wielded. Mostly it was his attitude, the implications behind his stonelike gaze, his unflappable manner. It was like the man had looked into hell and would be more than happy to tell you what he had seen there. And he would do so in that flat, emotionless tone of voice.

He didn’t need to carry a weapon or make threats to get people to do what he wanted. Robin took Frank’s arm and guided him into the car, closing the door behind him.

Robin got in on the other side. The Wanderer climbed into the driver’s seat and moved the car into the street.

Evie tried calling Bruce on the cell phone and couldn’t get a signal. Hardly surprising and just as well. What could she say to him?

Hey, Bruce, you won’t believe who just showed up on my doorstep.

He’d only chew her out for not getting any pictures of the sword.

There weren’t any aftershocks.

Arthur said he’d rather being doing something, and Evie understood the urge. All she could do right now was write.

She’d left Tracker totally in the air. The laptop battery was charged up. She’d write as long as she had the juice. So where was she?

She shot him.

She didn’t wait for him to draw first. She’d been watching his hands at the edges of her vision; she knew he was holding a gun. Before the words had left his mouth, she leveled and fired.

Twice more she fired, and the Russian and Chinese officers lay on the floor, writhing on top of the American agent’s body. The whole sequence took only a couple of seconds, because she’d been planning it since she first heard their voices.

The agent had studied her dossier, she assumed. Her dossier said that she never shot first.

Three more times she fired, three shots to three heads, killing them.

She leaned back against the wall and loaded a fresh magazine, waiting for guards to come barreling down the hallway at her. On the verge of hyperventilating, she swallowed back gasps. The room remained silent.

This was probably exactly what the agent was talking about, when he said the Eagle Eyes were out of control. She searched the bodies, not believing for a minute that they’d have any hard record of their multinational negotiations and war-brokering. But the U.S. agent had a data stick in his breast pocket. She took it. What the hell.

Apparently, they hadn’t brought any guards with them. No witnesses that way. A pickup was probably scheduled for them later. She wondered what the agent had expected he was going to do with the Eagle Eyes when they showed up. Was he arrogant enough to think he could have killed them all? He might have been able to—they expected him to be on their side.

She found that the first room in the bunker was rigged to collapse, low-level explosives planted on key support beams. That was how he’d planned on getting rid of them.

Back outside, staring at the expanse of tundra, the hopelessness of her situation hit her. She had no way to call for help. She had no place to go. Her own government had betrayed her. And her friends.

She had to find them. She had to give Talon the flash drive. He’d know what to do. He was the only one she trusted now.

She had to be out of sight when the pickup for the others came. She turned west and started walking.

The trick to writing suspense was to fling the characters into increasingly impossible situations and then find plausible ways to get them out. And hope the situation you created wasn’t too impossible.

She ate the last bit of rations—a smashed-up energy bar—she had stashed in her fatigues. Washed it down with a swig of vodka, which wasn’t the smartest thing she’d done all day, but it was all she had. If she found a snow patch, she’d melt as much of it as she could to rehydrate. She didn’t like the way her vision was blurring.

The rhythmic, air-pounding whump of a low-flying helicopter sounded at the edges of her hearing. She reacted slowly. She wanted help; her hindbrain cried out that this was someone come to rescue her.

Or it could be the pickup for the meeting. Her paranoia won, and she dodged for cover.

Forests spotted the area, and she’d been heading for one of these. She ran now as the helicopter came into view to her left, a black spot growing larger and taking on form. She hesitated, looking for markings, until she realized that even if she saw an American flag on its tail, she couldn’t trust it. So she kept running, into the trees, past the trees, in case they’d seen her. Just reaching cover wouldn’t be enough.

The ground dropped away and she screamed.

She fell and kept falling. She hadn’t simply tripped and hit the ground. A ravine had opened in the middle of the forest, a sinkhole or fault or something that meant she was now hurtling twenty feet down to another part of the forest. She curled up and tried to go limp.

Her leg caught under her, twisted wrong, and she knew what it meant. She heard the crack before she felt the pain. When she finally stopped, she lay there for a long time, flat on her back, staring up at the sky. As soon as she tried to move, she would hurt.

But she had to move. She had to find Talon.

When she sat up, pain squealed through her right leg. Tracker clamped her mouth shut and swallowed back nausea. She was dehydrated; she couldn’t afford to throw up. A few deep breaths. A self-indulgent moan. Time to keep working.

Training had taught her, drilling into her over and over again what to do in a situation like this, how to survive, how to splint bones, how to keep warm. But training was nothing like reality. She couldn’t tie a splint tight enough. She couldn’t inflict that much pain on herself.

She gave up trying to climb out of the ravine—it hurt too much even to stand. She could rest here until morning, then make her way along the bottom. She would still be traveling west.

At least she hadn’t cried yet. Every muscle ached, from clenching against the pain.

Night was falling. She was about to get even colder. She managed to find a sheltered place, where the wind howled above her, instead of at her.

She was going to die alone in this place.

The memory stick was intact in her vest pocket. One misstep, and all her work and training came to nothing.

Captain Talon wouldn’t reprimand her. He wouldn’t even be angry. If she managed to get out of this and find him, he’d smile, tell her she did a good job, that she was a good soldier. His voice would be steady, kind. And all the more cruel because she didn’t deserve his kindness.

One more time, because as long as she kept trying, she was moving and wouldn’t freeze, she hoisted herself to her feet.

Hera, sitting in the passenger side of the front seat of the car, pulled off her sunglasses and considered Frank in the back. He stared straight ahead. Beside him, Robin was grinning, lounged back with his legs straight, seeming to enjoy himself.

“Mr. Walker, so good to meet you,” Hera said.

“What’s this about?” Not even pretending to be friendly. What was it about these Walkers?

“I only wondered if I could persuade you to part with a little something in your Storeroom.”

“You should have come to the house.”

“I did. Your daughter wasn’t very helpful.”

His look turned even colder, settling into the game of cloak and dagger he probably thought they were playing. The girl evidently hadn’t told him about her.

“Then there’s nothing there for you,” Frank said.

“I don’t care if you think I should have it or not. I’ll take it, one way or the other.” She turned to the Wanderer. “Take us to the cemetery.”

They pulled onto the state highway. Two turns later brought them to an isolated part of the town, a windswept corner of dried-up yellow prairie. Weathered headstones and monuments lined up in rows. A few larger mausoleums stood guard around the far edge. The place was peaceful and unnoticed. They could be a family out to visit a dearly departed loved one, to lay a few flowers on a grave.

The Wanderer turned the car around a miniature cul-de-sac, then pulled over on the straightaway and shut off the engine. No one moved. They had only to wait now, entertaining each other as best they could.

The Wanderer looked at Frank in the rearview mirror. “You hide it pretty well, but you’re scared, aren’t you?”

Frank glanced up, meeting his gaze in the mirror, revealing nothing. “I’m not scared of you.”

“Not of me. Of dying. You’re terrified of dying.”

“You can’t threaten me.”

Hera watched the exchange with interest, smiling a little at the Wanderer’s insight, and at Frank’s show of bravado. She said, “But I can threaten your daughter. I have someone at the house now. Evie Walker will learn that we have you. She’s a very devoted daughter, isn’t she?”

Frank settled back into the seat, glowering.

It was only a matter of time before Evie Walker arrived, more than willing to hand over the apple in exchange for her father’s safe return.

Her laptop battery had some life to it yet, and at some point, the wireless network had been restored. She had Web access again.

She checked the major news sites for information about the earthquake and had trouble finding anything—the story rated only a sidebar blurb, far down on the list of headlines. Russia had suffered another wave of terrorist attacks: train lines, government buildings, shipyards. The Middle East had flared up again, with every separatist ethnic group taking a stand. India was massing its army, and Pakistan had responded in kind.

The difference between American and foreign news Web sites was astonishing. The foreign sites showed graphic photos, featured angry interviews, and talked about the failure of the world powers to act. The U.S. sites mentioned only that an emergency meeting of the U.N. General Assembly was in session.

She wrote.

Some time later—a minute, an hour—Tracker heard another helicopter. Or the same one, circling in a search pattern. Using a broken tree limb as a crutch, she hobbled about ten feet from where she’d landed after her fall.

She had decided that she would signal the next aircraft that came by. She needed help, and if it had to be from someone who was going to take her prisoner, so be it. Even U.S. agents sent to kill her would need her alive for a time, if they thought she could help them find the rest of her team. She couldn’t drag a broken leg across Siberia.

Or maybe, just maybe, Talon and Sarge had found Jeeves and Matchlock and they were out looking for her.

She tore a strip of cloth from her shirt, soaked it in vodka from the dead mercenary’s canteen, and stuffed the alcoholic cloth into the mouth of the canteen, leaving a tail hanging out. She had a lighter in her kit and lit the end of the cloth, let it flare into a good blaze, then heaved it over the edge of the ravine. She sighed with relief when it cleared the edge and didn’t come bouncing back at her.

The vodka lit with a roar. Fire spilled out and caught on the surrounding trees. All in all, a nice little signal fire. She hobbled far enough away that she wouldn’t be engulfed by the blaze in the next few minutes.

The thumping beat of the helicopter motor became louder as it approached to investigate. Tracker had only to wait to see who found her.

It didn’t take long. Not as long as she would have liked. She wanted to scuttle to some high ground, some vantage where she could hide if she didn’t like the look of whoever found her. But in seconds, the tops of the trees were swaying with the wind of the descending helicopter. She couldn’t see it; it must have found a clearing nearby. The troops inside must have hit the ground before the craft had even landed, because she heard voices calling. What language . . . what language . . . she strained to understand.

The first one came over the rise, circling around the flaming patch where her fireball had ignited. She was on her feet—her foot—leaning on a tree, waiting, dizzy, unable to catch her breath. Another figure followed the first. Both were dressed in olive fatigues, wore knit masks and sunglasses.

She should have recognized them, she so wanted to recognize them.

They saw her then, aimed their rifles at her, and shouted something. The words were muffled.

When she saw the American flag on one uniform, she fainted.

Someone knocked at the door just then, of course. Evie saved the file before racing to the kitchen, Mab loping at her heels. Maybe Johnny, realizing how sick Frank was, had finally brought him home. Though with the quake, the police probably needed all the help they could get from the Citizens’ Watch. Why did Dad always have to be helpful? Or maybe Arthur had come back to tell her that he’d seen her father and everything was fine. Of course everything was fine. What could happen? Besides earthquakes, goddesses, and the prophesied return of mythical monarchs.

She opened the kitchen door, standing in the way to keep Mab from rushing out.

Alex looked back at her. “Are you all right?” he said, gasping like he’d been running. “The earthquake—I ran over—I was worried.”

She wasn’t sure what to say. His question seemed so odd—his concern seemed odd. Why was he worried about her? What did he want from her?

“You’re Sinon,” she said.

A smile broke, pleasantly softening his face. “I knew you’d figure it out. Can I come in?”

She stayed fast in the doorway. Beside her, Mab wasn’t wagging her tail.

“I don’t think I can trust you.”

While Alex’s—Sinon’s—smile didn’t fade, it took on an edge, a different gleam to his eye. “Because I lied my way past the walls of Troy?”

She flushed, a wave of dizziness burning along her skin. She hadn’t wanted to believe. How much easier it was to think he was just a clever, witty man.

“You were terrorists. The Trojan Horse—it was the Bronze Age version of a car bomb—”

“That’s only because you read Virgil’s side of it. We waged honest war for ten years. Then we became desperate. No one can blame us for what we did. We paid for our victory.”

He seemed so calm. But then he’d had to deal with it for three thousand years. How could he not be calm? “You were a spy. What would you do to get into the Storeroom?”

“Nothing,” he said gently. “I’ll stay away, if you want me to.”

“Will you tell me something?”

“Anything.” His earnestness made her nervous.

“Are you working for Hera?”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because I don’t know anything about you, because you were following me. You’re spying on the house, you know more about what’s happening here than I do, you could read the writing on the apple. You act like you know her—what are you doing here? Why aren’t you dead?” She ran out of breath before she could ask him what the Trojan War had been like.

Standing there, slouched in his jacket, he didn’t look like a Greek warrior. She tried to imagine him in one of those crested helms from the pottery glazes.

Then she blurted, “Was Helen really the most beautiful woman in the world?”

He looked away, bit his lip, then said, “Yes. I saw her once, standing on the wall of Troy. It wasn’t just her looks, but the way she moved. Every turn of her head was grace itself. Nothing wasted. Remember, though, she was a demigoddess. Zeus’s daughter. Comparing apples and oranges, putting her up against mortal women.”

Evie shook her head, amazed, awed, befuddled. She didn’t believe it, looking at him, his creased expression like he was getting ready to laugh at a joke at her expense. He seemed—normal. Pleasant. Not mythological at all, not like Hera, who’d shaken Evie to her bones.

Yet that haunted voice that kept drawing her to the Storeroom murmured, He’s old, this one. Very old.

She sighed. “All the things you’ve seen. All the things you must have forgotten—how can you stand it?”

“I don’t have a choice. I—I have this vision, that a billion years from now the world ends, swallowed up at last by a bloated sun or crumbled to ash. And I’m still here. I live through it, floating in space with nothing to do and no place to go. The lone repository of human history, and a mediocre one at that. Maybe some god out there will have pity on me and take me in—but I think they’ve all gone away. I can’t blame them. But I don’t have their power, so I’m stuck here with whatever fate hands me.”

“Have you thought about going insane?” It would seem like a reasonable thing to do, given his circumstances.

“Did once. Got boring, so I snapped out of it.”

She looked hard at him, wanting to be kind. “I can’t think of anything in the Storeroom that will help you. I’m sorry.”

“Listen,” he said, running his hand through his hair. “Hera’s planning something. She’s a bitter old bitch. But I can get close to her, find out what she’s planning—”

“Can I trust you?”

“Yes.”

“Did you say the same thing to her?”

He closed his mouth on whatever obvious answer he’d been ready to give.

Someone was walking up the driveway. Evie stared at the figure over Alex’s shoulder. He caught her gaze and turned to look.

She wondered who it would be this time: Jack come to fetch some golden eggs, a Persian merchant searching for a rolled-up piece of flying carpet, a Viking unfrozen from the permafrost wanting Thor’s hammer. Her gut sank, and she waited for the instinct that would drag her unerringly to the basement.

Mab pricked her ears forward and growled.

The figure, a woman of average height, in early middle age, slim, and with thick black hair hanging loose down her back, walked up the driveway.

“Shit,” Alex muttered, turning up the collar of his coat and slumping against the wall as if he were an unconcerned vagrant.

The woman was cinnamon-skinned, with Latina features. Mab’s growling doubled in ferocity, lips pulled back from her teeth. The strange woman stared at her, made a motion with her hand—and Mab fell quiet, frozen in her place.

“Evie Walker?” she said.

Evie nodded.

“I’ve come to deliver a message. Hera has your father. She’ll trade him for the apple. Will you trade?”

Evie’s muscles flinched in panic. Yes, yes! The words were on her tongue, but she couldn’t say them. Instead, she said weakly, “Gave up trying to bust in?”

The woman’s expression was cold and superior. “She found a better way. What’s your answer?”

“I—I need—” Yes, anything, don’t hurt him! “I need to think about it.”

“Come to the cemetery this afternoon. Bring the apple. Come alone.” She bestowed a fleeting glance at Alex as she turned to walk down the driveway.

Mab collapsed with a heartbreaking whine; Evie knelt beside her and helped her to her feet. The dog didn’t seem hurt physically. But her eyes showed fear, and her tail was locked between her legs. Evie hugged her close.

Evie’s voice cracked when she said, “Who was that?”

“She’s working for Hera.”

“What will Hera do to my father?”

“I don’t know.”

“I have to give it to her. I don’t care, I have to—”

“Evie, think for a moment.” Alex took hold of her shoulders; Evie gasped, surprised, trembling. “Think what it is—the apple of Discord. Hera will use it to start wars. She could destroy the world with it.”

“The world’s already at war. And I don’t care, it doesn’t matter—”

“Would your father want you to give it to her?”

“I don’t care!” He was in her face, urging her, and she didn’t want to listen. There had to be another way, had to be something she could do. “Arthur—I have to find Arthur, he can help. If we can get him back without giving her the apple, Arthur and Merlin will know how—”

“Arthur’s been here? King Arthur? Did he take the sword?”

Evie nodded, and Alex breathed, “Excalibur.” Then he said, “He’s still here in Hopes Fort? We’ll find him. You’re right. He’ll help.”

Nodding absently, Evie agreed, and wondered which part of Hera’s plan she was falling into.

A group of six army helicopters flew by, passing over the house and heading south. They pounded the air with their rotors.

Marcus screamed and dropped the axe he’d been using to chop firewood. Terrible visions struck his mind all at once, like lightning. The sky was clear, the sun warm. No storms raged; no lightning flashed. All was peaceful, except for the throbbing in his mind. Stories. Hundreds of tales, voices telling them all at once, in languages he didn’t recognize, cadences that were foreign. Gods, beasts, golden fleece, enchanted swords, all stored inside a well-worn leather bag—

All stored in the cellar under the villa. He’d never gone down there, but somehow he knew. He could picture shelves of artifacts, racks of swords, golden apples and winged slippers, icons of the gods—all under his family’s small house?

He ran to the house, then to the stone steps that led down to the roughly carved-out cellar. His father didn’t permit any of the family to enter here. Even at their most mischievous, his children obeyed him. Somehow, the place repelled curiosity. Not anymore. He pushed back the sheepskin that hung from the lintel at the bottom of the stairs, marking the cellar entrance. Even in the dim light, he could see it was just as he had imagined, the wondrous objects of a thousand tales spread before him.

His heart and lungs raced, unwilling to accept the magnitude of what he saw. This was larger than him, and he wasn’t ready for what his being here meant. What is this?

This is the Storeroom, the vision that had struck him from within said. You are its heir.

“But my father—”

You are its heir.

Marcus’s knees gave way. He sat on the dirt floor and tried to catch his breath. He was sixteen. Only sixteen. Nearly a man, yes, but—he wasn’t ready. He’d inherited the knowledge all in a terrible flash, a burst like death. Even at the first, he’d understood what it meant. That was why he’d screamed.

He wanted to give it all back.

Part of him believed it was a mistake. The gods had visited a fit upon him, a false vision. He climbed the stairs slowly. He had to know. He’d see his father striding through the door, and Marcus would demand from him some explanation for what was happening to him, and what the cellar Storeroom really meant.

Pale, shaking, he reached the house’s main room just as someone rushed through the archway. Not his father, but his younger brother Tonius.

The boy was flushed and shouting. “Marcus, please, hurry. Father’s fallen, out in the field. He isn’t breathing, he won’t wake up, you must come help him—”

Marcus closed his eyes and wept. Bitterly, he wished his father had died slowly, of creeping old age, as fathers were supposed to. If Marcus had to carry this burden at all, he’d rather have taken it on in small parcels, so that he might not notice the growing weight of it.