Disclaimers: I don't own Relic Hunter, or any of the characters that were originally part of that series. I make no money out of my fiction writing, but please do not reproduce any of this story without my permission. While elements of this story are based on the findings of historical research, severe liberties have been taken in the name of fiction and fantasy!
Writer's note: this is my contribution to the Relic Hunter Alternative Universe Fantasy Challenge. I hope you enjoy it! It will be rather more open 'epic' and explore darker themes - I know I always put on a 'T' rating, but this time I really mean it. Nevertheless, if you enjoyed my story 'Warrior Princess' you might well like this one.
If you're not into historical adventures and angst, I will be interspersing my posts of this story with some shorter, cuter canon stories and missing scenes! So please stick with me, and there will be something for everyone. Now on with the show...
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T H E - E L Y S I A N - F I E L D S
By Katy
Book 1: Messenger of the Winter Goddess
Camae, an island off the Apennine peninsular, 171 BC.
In their struggle for dominion over the ancient world, the power struggle between the Greeks and the Romans hangs in the balance. The Third Macedonian War rages in the east, and Sydney, Sybil of Camae, prophetess, earthly representative of the goddess Gaia - and secret Relic Hunter! - strives to protect her temple and the people of the Grecian island colony from the tyranny of Rome. She knows the prevailing winds fan the flames of Roman dominance and could bring about the destruction of all she holds dear. Can she do anything to save them?
CHAPTER ONE
At the sight of the slaves, anger surged in her breast. Sydney wished she could cast aside her golden mask and demonstrate the true power of the goddess by hurling a flaming spear straight at Kafka's black heart.
As ever, she swallowed her fury. Yet she clenched so hard on the laurel branches, which she folded graciously across her chest, that it was a wonder that their plush, green leaves did not instantly wither and die.
'I, the Sybil, accept your offer to the temple, Kafka,' announced Sydney coldly, as she surveyed the shabby line of wretched human beings that the Roman was currently parading at the foot of the temple steps on which she stood. Each one was limping, thin, burnt by the pitiless sun, and aged beyond their years. 'But Gaia, Goddess of the Earth, disapproves of your treatment of these people. Cruelty, even to slaves, will bring down her wrath upon you, and on your house!'
The massive, battle-scared warrior, who towered monstrously over his 'offerings', barely contained a smirk. He raised his mutilated right arm - where a hideous, metal hook replaced a severed hand – up towards her in a mocking gesture of respect.
'I am sure I fear the goddess greatly and will adhere to her word,' he leered without a smudge of sincerity. 'But I would respect her even more if she would entrust this temple and her people to the protection of Rome. Less scrupulous men than I have gained knowledge of Gaia's riches and covet them much more. Moreover, in my protection, her Sybil would not need to conceal her beauty under that soulless mask, and her exquisite little assistant need not cower and hide her loveliness.'
Sydney smiled, secretly and joylessly, beneath her gilded disguise. What a shock it would be, she mused, if this demon of a man found out that the shapely, raven-haired priestess he apparently desired was also an adventuress and relic hunter. Yes, the same relic hunter who had swiped an Etruscan statue of the prophetess, Caśntra, from destruction at his hands, after a death-defying chase into the caves of Etruria; the same adventuress who, on this very island, had severed his hand as she protected her people against his marauding slave-raiders.
Her blood boiled, however, as she saw this hated creature - his hooked-hand resting on the thick, metal-studded belt of a dark, leather tunic - predatorily surveying the delicate beauty and pale, exposed legs of the 'exquisite little assistant' in question. Claudia, youngest daughter of the governor of the Camaen colony was, indeed, 'cowering' half-behind the lustrously embroidered curtains that hung over the entrance to the temple atrium under the soaring, pillars of its facade. He grinned and his good hand fondled the hilt of his short-bladed sword.
'We ask neither for the protection of Rome, or of you!' she spat, motioning surreptitiously with an elbow that Claudia should hide herself completely. 'The goddess knows that you come to this island as a friend by day, yet rape her shores by night. She wishes you to go now, and never to return!'
A hum of wary voices drew Sydney's attention to the group of soldiers who had accompanied the Roman into the temple grounds, and who stood a little behind him amongst the temple's, neatly kept gardens that undulated benignly down to steep cliffs at the island's edge. The men's rusting, stained armour and weapons formed a stark juxtaposition against the vibrant blooms of the flower beds, the flawless blue sky and the shimmering, azure sea beyond. So did the shabby forms of two or three further slaves, who had not been 'offered' to the goddess, and whom they guarded.
Kafka's scornful expression darkened, aggravated by his men's nervousness. 'You speak ill of me,' he growled. 'I'm a politician, not a pirate – and no longer even a soldier! Surely the goddess knows fact from idle rumour? Nevertheless, my love of her, and my respect for her priestess, is too great for me to take offence. I will go now, but I will return in less than seven tide's time with another token of my devotion - and an offer of protection you will find it harder to refuse!'
'Gaia will never need your protection, and neither will I!'
Sydney turned, the tails of her cascading, light-blue robes swishing defiantly behind her. She stomped up the top few steps, under the colonnades and portico, and through the curtains into the cool, dimly-lit sanctity of the temple.
'Well done, Syd,' whispered Claudia, fear in her pretty, guileless expression diluting her usual vivaciousness. 'You showed that evil man that the goddess is not to be messed with!'
'I don't know,' sighed Sydney, unfastening the bejewelled clasps that pinned up her hair and slipping off the clammy, golden mask; it had felt particularly heavy that day. 'The goddess has needed a lot of help in recent years – although, you're right that she'll never need him...but, Claudia, I think I must receive Kafka alone next time he comes. I know you're supposed to attend me, but I hated the way he looked at your ankles - well, your whole legs really! That little, white robe is very brief for a temple intern…'
'But it's so pretty,' whined Claudia. 'I just love the pearl-encrusted shoulder clasps - they match my necklace and sandals! And you said you didn't mind what I wore!'
'I don't usually,' said Sydney, who eschewed all ceremony and ritual that was not absolutely essential to her role. 'But with that man… well, never mind. Next time he won't see you.'
'I hated the way he looked at you too,' admitted Claudia, tripping off across the atrium towards the homely comforts of their living quarters, which lay to one side. 'He's so ugly, with that horrible hooked hand. Not like this young man I saw tended the goats at the marketplace this morning. Talk about divine! His torso was as finely sculpted as a statue of Apollo! I wonder what his name was? Maybe I'll go down tomorrow and see if I can talk to him… '
'Claudia!' Sydney gently caught her young assistant by her upper arm and swivelled her back to face her. 'You know you can't! You're a trainee priestess now. You can look but, in public at least, you can't talk to him and you must never touch!'
'But you've been with many men,' pouted Claudia, dropping her voice to an undertone. 'You've told me about your adventures.'
'Yes, but I've learned to be subtle, and travel incognito. If you want to live a little, it's something you'll have to learn. But I can never let myself love a man - that I know. Like you, I would have to give him up, sacrifice him for the sake of the goddess. I would rather never love than be destroyed myself in such a way.'
Although she had told this to her assistant many times, Sydney still felt a pang as moisture welled up in Claudia's eyes. She slipped her hand down her friends arm until it caressed her petite fingers. 'At least we'll always have friendship,' she husked, suddenly choking back tears herself. She felt the younger woman's pain, her desire, her disappointment; Sydney knew them all as old companions.
'Come, we must be strong,' she smiled, squeezing and releasing Claudia's palm. 'Now, you go down to the sanatorium and make sure there are comfortable beds ready. Those poor slaves will need the kindest care after their treatment at the hands of Kafka. I only wish we could take all those poor wretched of his hands and grind that lowlife to the dust - he gives to us only those so ill and worn they are worthless to him. But I just don't have the manpower to fight him and his soldiers…'
Sydney broke off as loud scuffles and shouts filtered in from the temple steps.
Above the clamour, an anxious voice rang out: its accent was unfamiliar, but she understood the words loud and clear.
'I beg an audience with the Sybil! I have travelled from the north with a message for Gaia's priestess…'
The two women turned, startled, as a slightly-built, dark-haired young man burst through the curtains of the temple. His thigh-length cream tunic was dirty and torn. Crude metal shackles hung from one of his arms, the empty cuffs on the far-end apparently picked open.
The newcomer froze when he saw the two women on the other side of the chamber. As his gaze met Sydney's for the first time, alarm washed across her striking countenance and they both gasped silently – the Sybil was without her sacred mask! Instinct compelled her to slip it back on, although the desperate fear on his soft, handsome features touched the tenderest part of her soul.
Before a word could be spoken, however, the curtain was violated again. The mountainous figure of Kafka emerged and, revelling in a form of ecstatic anger, he viciously struck the other man - who was as a child to him in stature - across the side of his face. The victim crumpled instantly to the floor. Even as Claudia screamed in horror, Kafka followed up his initial blow with a kick to the stomach, a casual gesture on the big man's behalf, but delivered with some force.
Seeing the young man gasping for breath and his face reddening with pain, Kafka laughed maliciously. He was about to repeat the act when a large, bronze, ornately decorated vase impacted on his own middle, sending him staggering backward.
'Violence within the realms of the temple is a crime punishable by death,' seethed Sydney. Having swung the vessel - the only thing she had to hand - with all her might, she was now all but ready to cast off the mask and sever her enemy's other hand. If only she had a sword!
Kafka, although surprised at the Sybil's physical exertion, merely snorted. 'If violence is forbidden, what are you doing with that vase? Besides, I was doing you a favour, oh great prophetess. This slave of mine - who is not part of my 'offering' to you - was trying to escape, probably with the intent to robbing your temple.' His focus wandered covetously over Sydney's curves and then over the porcelain limbs of Claudia, who trembled behind a pillar. 'And there are many treasures to be plucked!'
'Get out!' spat Sydney, casting aside the vase and crouching down. She placing a hand on the boy's shoulder as he lay on his side – it was some comfort, she hoped, as he struggled to regain his puff.
'I'm going, dear Sybil,' growled Kafka. 'And I'll take my property with me!'
In an alarmingly swift movement, he seized the young man's un-tethered arm, hauled him up effortlessly and, while the boy still floundered for a foothold, began dragging him back through the curtain.
'No!'
Through lack of a better plan, Sydney seized the chain which dangled from the slave's other wrist and yanked him back towards her so she was stretched between them like the rope in a tug-of-war. She winced apologetically as the shackles bit into already wounded, raw skin but the gaze that met hers was far from resentful. Her intervention gave the boy a chance to regain both his standing and wits. Before anybody else could speak, he shouted again: 'I beg the protection of the Earth Goddess, Gaia! I'm not a slave, my name is Nigel, and I have a message from my aunt, high priestess to Moreana, Goddess of Winter, that I beseech you to interpret…'
'One more word out of you, slave,' said Kafka matter-of-factly, tugging Nigel towards him and piercing the cruel, metal hook through the back of his collar, 'and I will personally administer such a punishment that you'll wish that you'd never been born.'
'I'm not a slave!' yelled Nigel again, wriggling with such suddenness that he ripped his clothing free, but not his arm. He glared up into Kafka's face, his chin set firm even though he shook with anger and trepidation. 'I'm a princeling of the house of Hedenwulf, and I demand the protection of Gaia!'
'You've got it!' interjected Sydney, keeping a firm grip on her end of the chain. 'Kafka, this man is now a supplicant, under the Goddess's protection.'
A muscle twitched with irritation in Kafka's long, angular jaw: 'I thought the temple only fulfilled the requests of applicants of status, who frame their questions rightly and approach the temple with ceremony and offering. This boy tore through the curtain like a stray puppy! I picked him up from the gutter of Neopolis and it is obvious he is from nothing but a tribe of savages.'
'I decide who is a proper supplicant,' stated Sydney plainly. 'If he is taken from the temple, or one hair on his head is harmed, Gaia will destroy you!'
'Through what means?' demanded Kafka.
'Me!'
As she delivered this word, a passion jolted through Sydney's body of such magnitude that even Kafka discerned it, although he could not see her livid face under the anonymous, placid mask.
The opposing parties thought as one: 'It must be the Goddess. She really is angered…' Nigel, wondering if feeling would ever return to his numb arm once Kafka released his iron hold on his wrist, looked anxiously between the two.
But the battle was won. Kafka shoved Nigel violently in the direction of the Sybil, and he found himself stumbling forward onto his hands and knees.
'I will go,' muttered Kafka, his tone is dripping with threat. 'But I will be back within seven tides and I will have my property, Goddess or no - and anything else that I please to take!'
He stalked off through the curtains, and trampled through the radiant, sun-drenched gardens, noting as he went that a distinctive, long-legged statue of the prophetess Caśntra was among the many decorous treasures on display.
……………………
The three occupants of the temple atrium were left staring between each other, shaken and momentarily wordless.
Nigel, on his knees, broke the silence: 'I beg the protection of the Goddess,' he mumbled. 'I'm a princeling from the kingdom of Hedenwulf…'
But his voice faded to nothing as the adrenalin that had fuelled his previous exertions dwindled. He slumped, unconscious towards the floor.
Sydney, who had already started towards him, cast down the chain and caught him in her arms before his head struck the stone floor.
Claudia hurried over, pink cheeks streaked with tears. 'Oh, Sydney - the poor thing! He's not… he's not dead?'
'No,' she replied quickly. Cradling Nigel against her breast, she could feel the gentle rise and fall of his breathing, the steadying beat of his heart. 'He's alive, but who knows what he has been through at the hands of that monster.'
It was clearer than ever why Kafka had been so unwilling to let Nigel go: a slave this beautiful would be desirable to men and women, and fetch a fine price - or be a fine prize to be kept. As Sydney peered down into his face, however, she became increasingly anxious for him. Nigel looked pale now, apart from the scarlet bruise that swelled on the side of his cheek where Kafka had struck him; his delicately moulded features appeared almost angelic, although his lips moved restlessly as he continued to mutter something about Sybil's, northern kingdom's and prophecies.
A little moan escaped from the back of his throat as she ran her fingers over his forehead: it was warm and clammy - a little too warm she felt. She feared it was the early signs of a fever.
'He's very handsome,' whispered Claudia. Sydney silently agreed, but hushed: 'We must not think of that. Pick up his legs. You will help me carry him to our quarters.'
Claudia's jaw dropped. 'Our quarters?' she squeaked, unable to conceal her excitement. 'But… but he's a man! A gorgeous man - and what was all that stuff you were telling me earlier about 'look but don't touch?''
'He's a supplicant,' retaliated Sydney, trying to sound authoritative. 'He is, uh, under my protection.'
'Yes, but those under your protection usually go to the sanatorium…'
'Don't argue, Claudia. Just do it!'
Claudia nodded and silently obeyed, straining to lift Nigel's legs and letting Sydney take most of the weight of his body.
As they staggered towards their quarters, Sydney felt compelled to answer her assistant's questioning gape: 'He mentioned the Goddess of Winter,' she explained abruptly. 'She is not well among our known God's but there is a prophecy that tells of a messenger from a Goddess of Winter, and its an important one. However, I don't have everything I need to interpret it. I'll have to go on a relic hunt…'
She broke off to carefully lay Nigel on the soft, feather mattress and pillow of her own lushly draped, pure-white bed. Perching herself beside him, she brushed back his hair, anxiously scrutinising her patient for any change. She spoke very softly.
'If what I remember is right he must get well. I need to know the exact words of his priestess and the messenger himself is part of the prophecy.' Tearing her focus away from him only for a second, she darted a look at her friend. 'Please can you fetch me some lavender water and a sponge? He is so essential that I will care for him myself.'
Claudia scuttled off, leaving Sydney alone with her charge for the first time. He had stopped raving now, and seemed more relaxed - rendering his features, if anything, even more appealing. But he was still warm - too warm. His breath seemed shallow and little droplets of sweat had gathered on his forehead.
'Please live,' she pleaded. Her voice cracking in a dry, thickening throat as the strangest of feelings swept over her again. She suddenly realised that her desire that this stranger should survive flamed more ardently than any other passion she had know - even her love for the Goddess.
Yet, what was he to her - other than a help on her forthcoming relic hunt? In terms of looks, he was far from the vain, muscled Adonis's she usually passed time with on her anonymous travels. Indeed, he looked so boyish and fragile right now that she scolded herself that she could never desire him in that way. She conjectured that he was several years younger than her - probably only a little older than Claudia, who had seen less than twenty summers. It all seemed ridiculous.
Her own words to her assistant resonated around her mind: 'I can never let myself love a man - I would have to give him up, sacrifice him for the sake of the goddess. I would rather never love than be destroyed myself in such a way.'
She cast aside her mask and laid her head down next to his so their cheeks almost touched; her tumbling, silken locks mingled with Nigel's shorter, chestnut hair on the pristine pillow. Sydney sighed deeply, gathering in her senses, and she wondered what it all meant. Could this sleeping man hold the key to the greatest prophecy she would ever interpret?
Or could this be the start of her path to oblivion?
Thanks for reading. If you want to know what happens next, please review and I'll try and update soon.
