Behind the Ivory Veil
26 The Northern Steps
Monday, 22 August 1955, Kastraki, Greece
DREAMS. There were always dreams. He had just awakened to find Rebecca draped across him, having not stirred from where they ended their lovemaking the night before. His dream had been so real and so familiar in the afterglow. He was married. His wife and, in her womb, their daughter were the world to him and he would guard and protect them for eternity. But the dream had revealed something. Eternity might be a very long time.
He looks out at his dream world through watery eyes. An empty world—light, but with no light source—warm, but without heat. Everything around him is bare and barren. In this plain flatness, he cannot determine his own size. Is he large or small? There is nothing to compare himself to. The ground is hard and flat as far as he can see. The sky is invisible above him.
In despair, he sits and sings softly to himself, rocking back and forth with arms clenched around his knees.
A figure appears. It emerges from a horizon he had not seen before. He flattens himself on his stomach and crawls backward, away from the figure, yet it continues to grow larger—approaching. Perhaps it is a giant. He dares not hope for another human being. He is naked. Yet, he is alone and his aloneness reverberates in him and emerges as song. Even naked, he cannot stay forever alone. He slows and allows the figure to approach, circling him as he stays flat against the ground.
The woman—it is a woman!—is naked as well. With a wave of her hand, she beckons him to stand. Bile clogs his throat as he rises, and with him his shame. She is tall and graceful—taller than any woman he has known. Her body, proportioned with her height, is a tower of strength and beauty. He cannot make it past his knees as this goddess nearly passes by him, head held high. She turns over her shoulder to speak to him.
“Why do you kneel?” Her words are abrupt, shaking him. He would like to say he was kneeling to royalty and could not rise in her presence, for surely this is as close to royalty as he has ever come. But truth flushes like heat within him.
“I am naked.”
“Does not the air clothe you?”
“The air?”
“You have much to learn. Come with me.” She continues her stately walk and he hesitates only a moment before he follows. When fully erect in body and spirit, he sees that he is as tall as she. Yet following her shapely back keeps him hesitant in his stride. After a few steps, she turns to him.
“I did not ask to be followed.”
“You said to come with you,” he chokes. He is like a child and she is all of womanhood before him.
“With me is not behind me. With me is beside me. You have much to learn.”
He quickly catches up and walks beside her, not daring to look left or right or to speak. Her path is straight, but there is no sign of any change in their surroundings. They walk on through nothing, yet he is somehow comforted that he is not alone.
He glances at her and sees her from every angle, causing him to stumble and then regain his footing. Her auburn hair falls to her shoulders. Her eyes are deep set and sparkle so that he cannot grasp their color—sometimes blue, sometimes green, sometimes brown. They catch and break down whatever light strikes them. Her jaw is firm but relaxed. She glides in her walk like a cat, all her muscles working together so that none seem to work at all. In spite of the tremendous power in her limbs, she has the ability to expend no energy in using them. She breathes deeply, regularly, slowly. He watches her bosom rise and fall, taut nipples proudly displayed at the crescent of full breasts. He sees that her pulse is slower than his own and rebukes his rising passion. Unable to remain silent any longer, he speaks.
“Where are we going?”
“Going? We are not going anywhere.”
“But we are walking.”
“Yet we are still here.”
“Who are you?”
“I am who I appear to be.”
“What are you?”
“I will be what I will be.”
Her answers to his many questions only confuse him more. He phrases his next question carefully, afraid he is merely playing a game in his mind.
“If you can offer more information than simply the word ‘here,’ I would like to know where I am.” He adds, “Please,” as an afterthought. She stops to turn to him.
“Where in all the cosmos would you like most to be?”
“Home.”
“Then why did you leave?”
“I’m dreaming. This isn’t real.”
“What is real?” She walks again and he hastens to catch up with her. Distance seems only to be relative to their positions and he does not like to be separated from her. “You are still confused. You wish to protect your loved ones, but do not know how. Where in all the cosmos, in all your dreams, are the answers you seek?”
He puzzles over the question as they walk. She directed him to his own dreams. Where would he find all the answers? He envisions the City of the Gods, but it was at night in that City that he found his answer. The palace toward which he endlessly climbed.
“The palace of light. All questions are answered there. Perfect safety and peace are there. I go to the palace of light.”
“Be in the palace of light. It is your longing. It is here.”
He trips over the step in front of him—a step so perfectly the same noncolor as the long plain that he had not seen it. A few feet farther, he finds another step. His companion continues to glide next to him. He mimics her walk and breathes in time with her breaths. They rise, step after step, though seeming to get no higher.
“These are the steps of my dreams? The Northern Steps? Where are we?”
“We are still here, where you have always been.”
“I’ve had this dream before.”
“This dream?”
“You were never there before. I don’t know you.”
He looks ahead as the steps draw closer together, steeper. A brilliant flaring of light at the top sets the sky aflame, blinding him. He shuts his eyes and hides his head in his hands. “No!” he moans. The flame dies. There are no more steps.
She reaches for him and strokes his hair. He is more acutely aware of the nature of the touch and his own undeniable response to it. She draws his head to her breasts and he suckles greedily as she moans her pleasure. They are soft and warm and solid beneath his lips and hands—unlike any dream he has had before. He loses himself utterly in the unbridled sensuality of her caress. He feels her breath on his cheek, the close warm scent of her arousal. His passion explodes past his sensibilities and he find her lips pressed against his, muffling his roar of pleasure.
Wesley’s orgasm and the pressing reality of Rebecca’s lips against his own brought him instantly across the threshold between sleep and wakefulness. He opened his eyes to stare into Rebecca’s. He pushed up, but she bore him back down under the weight of her own desires. He responded to her demands with new vigor. Both rose to the heights of another climax, collapsing into their embrace.
“I thought I was asleep and dreaming,” Wesley whispered.
“You must have some terrific dreams,” Rebecca giggled. “What are you like when you are awake?”
“Wasn’t I awake last night?”
“Oh, you certainly were.”
“Rebecca Hart Allen, you are the love of my life.”
Tuesday, 23 August 1955, Kastraki, Greece
It seemed he had hardly slept when Wesley awoke. Dawn was graying the sky and he knew the family would be up and about soon. They planned to leave for Athens today and Marcos would make a trip shuttling the Americans to the train station and then returning for his wife and son.
He looked at his wife, still sleeping in his arms. They had made love most of the night and he still reveled in the fact that they were married and so in love. His life had changed over the summer—not only his love life, but his entire faith. He could honestly say he was still a Christian, but there was another dimension to his faith that ran parallel to his old beliefs. And here next to him lay a woman who could work magic, not only on him, but within a circle of witches. And it didn’t bother him. In fact, he found great joy in his wife’s fulfillment.
He wanted to immerse himself again in her warmth and she stirred as he reached for her.
“Wesley! Rebecca!” Marcos called from outside the door. “It is time to rise so we can leave. Is Pol with you?”
Wesley arrested his caress and went to the door. Rebecca sat up behind him.
“He’s not here,” Wesley said. “Is he missing?”
“I thought he was with Sophia’s children, but none of them have seen him,” Marcos said. “It’s unlike him to simply wander off in the night.”
“Let us dress and we’ll be right out to help look.”
Rebecca was already out of bed and pulling her expedition clothes on. Even in the sturdy slacks and safari shirt she looked wonderful in his eyes. He hastened into his boots, kissed his wife, and left the cottage. Family was gathering in the courtyard and Doc and Margaret emerged from the cottage shared with the widow, Thea. Off in the distance, Wesley heard the yelp of a dog, suddenly silenced. He headed out of the courtyard and toward the sound, Rebecca following with her sturdy staff clicking on the cobbles. When they reached the town square, Wesley stopped and looked in all directions.
“Which way?” he asked Rebecca as Margaret and Doc caught up. Rebecca looked first to Doc and then to her husband. She dug into her pocket for the star stone and gazed into its depths as the other three shielded her from view of any curious early risers. She looked up in a trance and turned downhill. At the bridge, she left the road and followed the running water upstream, pushing brush aside with her staff. Just above the falls, she stopped and the four looked in horror at the site of what had been a ritual sacrifice.
“McGuire,” Doc whispered. “This is a demon appeasement. He had to feed.”
“It’s worse,” Wesley said. He knelt just outside the carefully laid out circle containing the dog’s carcass. He rose with a playing card in his hand.
“What is that?” Rebecca asked.
“One of Pol’s magic tricks,” Margaret said. “Phillip brought him a new deck of playing cards when we arrived.”
Turning their backs on the gruesome sight, they hurried back to the road in time to hear the grinding of gears as Marcos pulled to a stop at the bridge. Doc hurriedly explained what they had found, leaving out some of the more gruesome aspects.
“I think Pol’s been kidnapped,” Doc concluded. “Ryan McGuire will do anything to get his hands on the goddess.”
“You think he’ll hold Pol for ransom?” Rebecca asked.
“No,” Wesley said. “Marcos, you need to take me to the base camp. I’ll go alone from there.”
“Wesley? What are you talking about?” Rebecca demanded.
“He’ll try to use Pol to open the gates to the City of the Gods.”
In the courtyard, they held a hurried counsel with Marcos’s wife and sister. The clouds in the northern sky erupted in a lightning display and soon the low rumblings of thunder in the distance reached their ears. All stood silently for a moment so that the air was still when a piercing scream of unhuman quality shattered the stillness. Every eye was startled upward to the height of a great dead tree a hundred yards to the north. In its uppermost branches, an eagle danced with wings spread to a magnificent breadth, trying to find a secure spot on the limb to rest. Behind the incredible creature, the entire northern sky lit up in a sheet of lightning. The group braced themselves against the crack of thunder that followed seconds later. The eagle, the lightning, and the thunder were all much bigger than life. They stood wondering where the beautiful life and the bright day they woke to had gone.
The eagle sat perched on the treetop for some moments as the gathering of tiny people watched in silence. It rose to its full height again with wings spread wide and repeated the ghastly shriek that had drawn their attention. Then it plunged toward the earth, disappearing for seconds behind the hedgerow before rising again to wheel overhead and turn to the north. It turned so close overhead that everyone could see that it clutched in one great claw a field mouse, and in the other a young rabbit. Then it climbed into the sky and continued toward the storm in the north. Rebecca became suddenly aware of the pounding of her heart against her chest and the tears streaming hotly down her cheeks.
They stood facing each other, so shaken by the events of the past hour that they could not speak. Thea was nearly to them, bustling across the courtyard, when they heard her frenzied shouting.
“Go! Go! You must follow! You are summoned!”
She hurried them to the Jeep. Wesley piled in the front next to Marcos with Rebecca, Doc, and Margaret in the back. Thea stood defiantly between the vehicle and her daughter-in-law. Marcos did not hesitate to start out.
“I only know the long way,” Marcos said. “There are no maps to the City.”
“I don’t think we’ll need one,” said Rebecca pointing up. The great eagle had swooped back around as if to gather them up to follow. Then it headed north into the coming storm.
Rebecca leaned her head back as the vehicle carried its cargo higher into the mountains. She knew that geographically whatever mountain they were headed to was not within the quick drive Marcos was making to it.
The gods. If they want you someplace, they make it so you get there. But what do they want with me here? Or with Wesley or Pol?
It’s all so seductive. They awaken power in you and then they throw you into one absurd mission after another. They sweep up all you love and throw it just out of your reach. Like Odysseus, we’ll be shipwrecked on one island after another until we’ve appeased whatever angry spirit it is that pursues us. Why did I think of him? He was gone for twenty years! Why didn’t the Greek heroes just quit and go home? One choice. You get one choice in your life and the rest of your course is set and established.
She fingered the star stone in her pocket and wondered why she ever got involved in this. The landscape was dark and golden under the lightning. It had not begun to rain, but a fog was rising, faint at the moment, but climbing to meet the lowering clouds. She had a stab of pain in her stomach that made her want to run away from this place forever. She had been captive here for too long.
Marcos forced the old car past the previous drop-off point. She felt every jolt in the path and heard the grinding gears and whine of the overworked engine. The mountain above them was aflame with lightning, and still they climbed, following the eagle. Cresting a rise that the Jeep scarcely made it over, they saw the stream that would guide them to the base camp. Only it was a stream no longer. The banks barely contained the torrent of the rushing river.
“It’s flooding!” shouted Marcos as the vehicle ground to a halt and they all jumped out. “Stick to the ridge and stay as close together as possible.” Rebecca grasped Wesley’s hand and felt him squeeze hers as the fog closed in. She released his hand to find her star stone. Perhaps it will cut through the fog and guide us like it did from the mountain.
When she reached again for Wesley’s hand, she could not find it.
Tuesday, 23 August 1955, The Mountain
Wesley was no tracker, but the urgency of the situation drove him on. Rebecca released his hand and he panicked, calling out to her. Flailing, he could feel the ground giving out beneath him as he fell toward the sound of the rushing current.
And then he was out of the fog.
He looked at the ridge above and saw no sign of Rebecca or Marcos. He was torn between climbing back to the ridge and just waiting for help to arrive. But he could see the path ahead clearly now and pressed onward.
Thunder brought his head up to look at the gathering storm above him. Incongruously, the sun struck him fully in the back from where there was no cloud cover. It was obvious that Ryan McGuire thought Pol could open the gates to the City of the Gods and was attempting to force him. But he would find nothing there. The goddess was already gone.
Marcos had growled in unison with the engine on their way.
“He has my son! I will find him and make him pay!”
“We will work together, my friend. I can find him.”
“How?”
“You are his father, Marcos. But I am a believer.” Marcos snapped his head toward Wesley and nearly ran over a large boulder. Wesley nodded. “I can open the gates of the City.”
Wesley scrambled over rocks and boulders now with his heart pounding in his throat and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Thunder cracked much closer. He wanted to wait for Marcos and Rebecca but as he eyed the greensward stretched out before him, what he saw filled him with so much anger he forgot his weariness.
At the base of the old tree, Ryan had thrown Pol down. The boy was tied hand and foot, stretched out much as the dog had been by the river. McGuire knelt in front of the boy with knife drawn and threatening him. Pol tried to cover his eyes, but Ryan angrily jerked the boy’s head back by the hair with one hand as he brought the knife to point at his throat with the other.
The scene was brutal, sacrificial, satanic. A hundred expletives were on Wesley’s lips, but he bore down on the two at full tilt before one finally broke the air accompanied by another burst of thunder. Ryan looked up to see Wesley only a few feet away and dropped Pol to defend himself before the musician’s onslaught. The impact of the two men meeting shook the ground with the thunder as rain began to pelt out of the sky.
Had it not been for the element of surprise, Wesley would have stood no chance. As it was, Ryan was a skilled and brutal fighter, especially with a knife. Wesley saw the flashing point, ignored it and swung high. He felt the double impact of his fist closing on Ryan’s face and the knife biting into his side. He fell to the ground clutching his wound with the knife still protruding and saw the dazed shock on Ryan’s face as he hit the ground.
Wesley had the knife in hand, hoping he had not done more damage pulling it out of his side. Its razor-sharp blade made short work of the ropes binding Pol.
“Look out!” Pol shouted as a strong arm wrapped tightly around Wesley’s neck, dragging him to his feet.
“Give me the Athamé!” growled McGuire in Wesley’s ear. He swung Wesley around and gave Pol a swift kick as he did so. “The knife! Drop it!” Wesley held the knife out in front of him as Ryan’s arm tightened, his free hand reaching for the withheld weapon. With a flick of his wrist, Wesley sent the knife sailing into the waters of the raging river. He drove an elbow back into Ryan, a move that would have meant nothing had Pol not attacked from behind. Ryan suddenly released Wesley and screamed at the disappearing knife.
Wesley turned in Ryan’s loosened grip to swing again at his midsection. Pol beat on his back attempting to rescue Wesley. Ryan’s rage and new direction completely baffled Wesley’s momentary advantage. He uttered a phrase Wesley could not understand and bellowed denial. The force that he threw at Wesley sent him sprawling against the tree. Ryan charged toward the torrent to retrieve the sacred tool. Wesley dragged himself to his feet clutching his bleeding side. Pol struck Ryan as he bent over the bank to search for the knife and both went headlong into the rushing torrent.
“Pol! Don’t!” he screamed as he raced to the bank. Wesley kicked off his shoes and shirt as he paced along the bank searching for a sign of either the boy or his nemesis.
Pol’s head came up in midstream with Ryan struggling a few feet away. Without another thought, Wesley dove into the water.
The current, swifter than he remembered, caught him at once. He struggled to touch bottom and drive himself back to the surface. He felt a hand clutch at him as he rose, reached for it and went down again, thrashing and struggling to keep his own life and balance in the water. Silence surrounded him as he sank deeper. The water got blacker, but as black as the depth became, he could see through it like an owl in the night. He could see Pol, still plunging a few feet ahead of him while the hand that gripped him continued to drag him down. His lungs ached as he struggled after the boy.
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