Thank you grammaguy for the comments! I changed the elipses thing. It must be Californian education... it's awful. Not to mention I got stuck in a regular history class instead of AP US history because of conflicts in my schedule and the school's. Everybody's classes are chaos since my school switched schedules this year, and the new structure isn't worth it at all. It's just cheaper. :P Blech.
Anyway, about the triere: that was something I researched, and that was another name for the trireme. Denae is simply saying the names she's studied.
The pain was less intense and the man came three times a day into her room with meals. She wondered why he was the only one who ever did show himself, but she could hear far too many footsteps, voices, and oars from above her for it to be a one-man crew. The second day she woke up absolutely starving and with the man already sitting on her right with another tray of the same food next to the other. He pointed at the uneaten bread and noted to her, "It's easier to eat when you soak it in the wine."
"Oh... um, sorry."
He shook his head lightly. "It's all right, I got you an extra cup of water."
Indeed, the tray he'd brought had two bowls, one of wine and one of water. She didn't want him to watch her eat, but he was obviously not inclined to move, so she took the first slab of bread and the wide cup of water and dipped the former into the latter. She let it soak for a bit then pulled it out and took a bite. The bread was soft now, but sloppy, making it even worse for him to sit there staring. The bread was grainy but still alright. The process, soaking and eating while trying not to drip, presented a long task that she had to repeat for the second chunk, though she was grateful afterward for the meal, however plain.
When she finished, he smiled as ever and introduced himself. "I'm Arkantos—"
"I am in Ancient Greece!"
"What is so ancient about Greece?"
It was as though her entire brain was absent one minute before and had suddenly come running in like a child late for school. "I'm a professor of mythology, why didn't I see this before? Arkantos... you're the guy from the campaign of that wonderful computer game one of my students recommended... and now I'm on a triere, or maybe a bireme or pentekonter, going to—" she gasped and Arkantos was startled by this sudden onrush. "You said we're headed to Troy. We're going to the Trojan War?! My God, if my head didn't hurt I'd think this was a dream!"
"Are you all right?"
"No! Wait... the Trojan War's been going on pretty long, right?"
"Almost ten years, but what—"
"Right, right! I knew that! It's all in that game. At least it won't take too long to... but that still means we have to... and what about the... and someone has to... and people are going to... I don't do this much field work! I'm not an archeologist, I'm a historian! I'm gonna die!" She crashed back upon her pillow in exasperation. Arkantos was speechless. She was almost shouting, and because she didn't finish half of her ideas, he hadn't a clue what she was shouting about.
After a moment he asked, "Should I go now?"
She sat up abruptly and insisted, "No! I need to... no, you need to ask questions. I know a lot more about you than you do about me."
"The crew thinks you are a message from Helios, a star. They call you Ourania."
"No, my name's Denae. Ah... why would they think that?"
"You fell from the sky at midday." It seemed that proved it for the credulous man.
"Do I look like I have godly powers to you?"
"You came out of the water dry and recovered in only three days."
She stood up. Denae had to get out of the confining little room and see for herself if there really was a bigger picture, and that this wasn't just a hoax. And if people saw her in strange, futuristic clothes (jeans and a t-shirt, precisely), then so be it.
Arkantos backed away from her bed and let her pass through the door. She stepped into a skinny passage and turned right to go up some stairs. Another door at the top opened to the scrubbed smell of ocean spray and pinewood. A long line of benches with one man rowing at each extended to the end of the ship where a staircase led to the upper deck. Every man's scarred face turned toward her when she appeared and looked surprised in unison. Denae felt only thrill and wonder and proceeded down the row, up the steps, and into the open. The sky was big and clear, the transparent clouds tripping lightly across it. A vague impression of a palace could be seen beneath the dark water full of strange plants and creatures. Everything around seemed to bear an imprint of spirit and divinity on it, as though the gods had settled their marks on anything that took their interest.
The passing gale snatched her breath away at the sight of water all around except for the occasional rocky island amidst the great deep blue. Denae had been to Greece once, before she started teaching, and none of it brought her as much awe. A life presence filled the air and sea and body, making every breath an intake of all the senses. Such a feeling did not exist where she came from.
"Are you alright?" came a feeble voice from behind her.
Denae realized she was on her knees and turned around to see an old man with a staff. "Yes... I-I'm fine."
Arkantos came up the stairs after her and glanced between the two. "Are you alright?" he asked, repeating the old man without knowing it.
She stood up and leaned against the mast. "Don't you ever get dizzy with all this around you?"
"With what all around? The sea?" Arkantos guessed.
"Not just the sea... this... this..." She could not find the word. There were no words to describe the feeling of existing in a time far from her own.
"Do you see anything?" the white-haired, half-balding man questioned, tilting his head to one side curiously.
"I—" she paused and realized what his question meant, "There's a palace under the water, and symbols... in the sky... I can't really explain it. It all isn't just what it is... I'm not making sense."
"No, you make fine sense. The gods are showing you omens but you do not know how to read them. And the sea is Poseidon's realm, so naturally you see a palace there." He stood up a little straighter on his knobby staff and stated with authority, "Arkantos, she may be a sign from the gods and a possible connection with them."
"Perhaps." Arkantos sat leaning his back against the mizzen mast and started thinking, showing no signs of leaving that spot for a while.
The old man looked at her as though to say, 'this better be good,' then slowly, carefully, and tediously climbed down the stairs to lower deck, leaning heavily on his staff all the while. Denae took the steps up to the stern and looked out at the receding landscape behind them. Waves drifted by while the ship carried silently on, toward a long and hard war of which she already knew the fate. How funny it was that she had fallen from the sky into the midst of this ancient culture to be thought of as a godsend. Funny that she was headed to the Trojan War at the brink of its end, into an adventure she would never have dreamed of. And if her guess was right, Arkantos and his men still thought they were only chasing bandits. It's amazing what pirates can do, and one should never underestimate them. They are pirates for a reason... the same reason they stay pirates.
Denae awoke to the sound of a soldier shouting, "Black sails! Port side!" She hadn't even noticed she fell asleep.
Arkantos replied, "And he leads us to Kamos, too," then shouted the orders, "Archers, ready your bows! Prepare to come about! They're going to pay for insulting Poseidon – and Atlantis!" The ship turned left toward an island and some ships that she hadn't noticed at first, and Arkantos ran up to her. "Go below deck with Theocrat and wait until this is finished. This shouldn't take long."
She'd already played through the whole campaign once (with cheats, of course), and was going through it a second time without cheats just to test herself. So she already knew the plot. And she did NOT want to be a part of it.
And, despite what Arkantos thought, this would take a while. But orders were orders, so she went below deck, retracing her footsteps to the tiny room she slept in, then went past it to a much larger cabin at the stern of the ship. It was furnished with a desk, two chairs, some cabinets, a straw mattress with some sheets bundled on top, and lots of maps. She found this so-called Theocrat there, sitting heavily on one of the chairs, leaning on his overlarge staff. He was bald on top of his head, but there was still a halo of wiry white hair around the sides and back of his skull, making him look somewhat eccentric. The unsurpassably knobby and crooked staff which was also a foot taller than him only added to the look. His fully-sleeved, full-skirted, white robe hung on his body like a curtain, his body like the skinny curtain rod. Even more so in this light than outside, he looked incredibly frail.
He looked up when she entered and waved a hand absently. "Yes, I am an old man," he said. "And I do not think I will be going home."
Denae stared. She didn't know what to say, mainly because she didn't know what he was going to say.
"I am a priest, of Poseidon, and I have told Arkantos many times that the god has been ignoring our prayers and seems to be caught up in something. The man does not believe me." At this point he started coughing and Denae had to interpret his strangled instructions and find him a cup of water. When he was breathing properly again he continued, "I must believe that you can show him what I cannot, and make him understand that something is happening."
She nodded hastily, remembering every word but not yet understanding it.
But then the boat did a nasty jolt, throwing the old man off his chair and sideways on the mattress, and Denae careening over it and into a big wooden armoire, giving her a nasty bruise on the hip. Crunching, splitting noises came from somewhere mid-ship on the port side where, she assumed, an enemy ship was plowing into theirs. The boat was turning away from it now, though, and she felt the boat starting to right itself.
She had a strong urge to disobey orders and go back to the upper decks, but then remembered that there were probably lots of arrows, plus the occasional monster or two.
Shouting and thwacking noises came down from the deck and then only shouting was left. Theocrat nodded and Denae instantly ran back up the hall and the steps to see the enemy sails departing with one ship instead of the original two, and all the soldiers crowded on the deck waving their swords and cheering. She shook her head. It wasn't over yet.
On the deck not far away was a gap in the railing and a five-foot-square mess of broken wood planks where the enemy ship had made a little contact. She was thankful it hadn't made more. Theocrat appeared at her side, wheezing and puffing for breath. Arkantos weaved his way through the packed-in Atlanteans who kept saluting him and grinning, and when he neared the little old man he asked, "What does Poseidon tell you?"
"He does not answer my prayers, sire," he answered calmly, "He may be angry."
"We wait in hope, my friend." Arkantos did look rather anxious. Denae could tell he trusted Theocrat's word, but couldn't quite grasp the real meaning. She did, but that's because she knew exactly what Poseidon was concerned with, and that it wouldn't make much sense to them at this point.
And how would she tell them that they would not all survive?
This was going to be difficult.