Old Mythologies

Chapter Two: Exploration

I was on fire with the city. The smoke curled around me, around Mikhail and Anna and Elizabeta. My foster-sisters and I held hands to make sure we weren't separated. There were too many people here, on foot and on horseback.

David was in front of us, David with his wand and his near-seven years of training at Scholomance. He cast water charms to clear the way in front of us. We stumbled forward, even as the ground still felt like it was aflame under our feet. I had to nearly jump every time to keep up with the rest, take big, leaping steps. Elizabeta and Anna were older and taller and fear made us all move quickly.

We had already lost our parents and Nikolai when the first wave came. It wasn't only Muggles on horseback with their swords and arrows, cutting down everything in their path. The Byzantine empire employed wizards with deadly skills in their armies, and they were here, under the orders of Johannes Tzimiskes.

Mikhail brought up the rear because he was the next oldest and because he was the other boy. He held Muggle farming tools: a grain scythe tucked in his belt and a larger one in his hands, tall on its pole.

Even with David's water charms, the fires were closing in. We could hear hoofbeats and raised voices. Screams. I couldn't tell if the tears running down my face were from the smoke and heat or from terror.

I tried to grip Elizabeta's hand tighter, but it was slippery with sweat and grime. My fingers closed on nothing as something nearby exploded.

I fell, screaming. It echoed off of the walls.

I sat up, on the bench in my mother's office, hundreds of leagues away from Preslav, soaked in sweat. My throat was sore. I had been screaming aloud, not just in the dream. My breath was harsh and quick, and so were the sobs that punctuated it.

I wiped at my face with more force than necessary, knuckles hard against the soft skin there. I tried desperately to calm my breathing, to make it sound less like an infant squalling. I hated when I cried. It was always messy.

There was no one else around. The blankets I had so carefully curled up under last night were strewn on the floor where I had kicked them off, lost in my nightmares. I tried to control my breathing, wrapping my arms around myself. My nightgown was clammy and stuck to my skin, a direct contrast to the heat that I could have sworn was all around me.

Even the fire in the room wasn't that large. It must have been magic, to heat a room with stone walls and floors while burning low. I didn't want to go near it at all.

I wanted to keep crying, to continue to let the tears run down my face and dissolve into sniffles. It was a perfectly normal reaction for a nine-year-old. I hiccuped when I swallowed my sobs and looked around the room.

On the other, shorter bench, there was a small pile of folded clothing. It wasn't my dress that I had worn yesterday. And, when I looked at the hooks by the portrait door, my cloak wasn't there either. They had probably been torn down for rags. Even with magic, human or stopaninye, there was only so much you could do to get the smell of smoke out of fabric. If my clothes had been hanging there, I wouldn't have worn them. They were bound up in Preslav.

I shivered. My wet nightgown was deeply uncomfortable. I picked at it, holding it away from my body. Tears kept leaking from my eyes, but they were coming fewer and slower now. The sobs had at least stopped. My shoulders were no longer heaving, so I didn't have to worry about collapsing in on myself like a crumpled dress when I stood up.

The floor was cold beneath my feet. Clearly, the fire-magic didn't extend to it. I hurried around to the curtain, to see if my mother was there.

Her bed was made and empty. From the windows, the sun was already high in the sky. It had to have been nearing noon. Why had I been allowed to sleep for so long? Why hadn't anyone woken me up for morning prayers? I had long-missed lauds. At home, we usually did morning and evening prayers, leaving the rest of the liturgy of the hours unsaid. There was just too much to do for praying to a God whose followers believed we were going to hell simply for being magic.

I was about to turn back around to go get dressed when I saw that the door beside my mother's bed was open.

Curious, I headed to it. On the other side, the decor was completely different. The stones were polished white, like limestone, and there was a deep impression in the ground, like someone had enlarged a basin and set it in the floor. A toilet was set into the corner. While Muggles had lost that technology through the ages, we wizards thankfully never had. There was a mirror hanging on the opposite wall. I could only see the top of my head in it, and my face if I stood on my tip toes.

There was still dirt on my face. I reached the basin and looked into it. It was empty.

"Voda?"

Nothing. I closed my eyes. At home, the basin would have already been filled and bespelled to keep anything out of it.

I concentrated on the basin, reaching up to grip the basin's edge. "Voda."

This time the water appeared, splashing slightly against the sides of the basin. I washed up quickly, cleaning my face and hands and headed back into the main room to get dressed.

Above, I could hear footsteps. My mother had said this was a school. Were those her students up there? What were they like? Were they all from Alba, as well?

In the neatly folded pile of clothing on the shorter bench was a pale linen shift decorated around the neck and wrist with embroidery. I slipped it on. Over it went a simple shift. It was bright blue, a colour I had never seen on everyday clothing before. It was something that should have been reserved for special occasions. I pinned the shoulders closed so it didn't fall down.

The pins were made of bronze, both in the rough shape of a bird. I fingered one, tracing the engraved lines that stood for feathers. I wondered if my mother had worn these clothes when she was my age. They were clean and serviceable, but didn't smell like they had been in storage. If they weren't my mother's, then where had she got them from?

The shoes were the strangest. My boots were gone, and in their space was a pair of flat, pointed shoes that looked like they were made out of barely treated leather. They didn't look like they would hold up well for anything. I experimentally scuffed my foot against the floor while I tied a sash around my waist to hold the clothing close to me.

There hadn't been any stockings in the pile of clothing. Maybe there weren't any small enough. I would be all right if I stayed inside, though.

Again, came the sound of footsteps. This time, they sounded closer. I hurried to the portrait door and pulled at the small latch on the back. It opened wide enough that I could see through it.

A group of what had to be students passed by, showing me their backs. A few talked excitedly among themselves as they headed down the staircase my mother and I had come up the previous night. I slipped from the room, my steps soft in the thin leather shoes nearly soundless on the floor.

They seemed as good a group to follow as anyone. I headed down the staircases, grateful that they were staying in place for the time being. Maybe it took a large enough group to control them as well. I tucked this information away.

The group split three floors down. Some of them went left and others went right. I tried to make sense of it, to see if the boys went one way and the girls went the other, but they remained mixed-sex. When they noticed me, they didn't say anything about it. I thought that they might have guessed that I was one of the younger students there.

I followed the group that went left. They forked left again, heading toward the hallway that I knew led down to the main level and the front doors. I paused at the corridor that they had passed. I headed along it, light shining through the windows. There was a nice breeze coming in through the spaces, and it made my hair fly back as I passed a pair of classrooms. Peeking inside the first one, I saw individual desk and chair set-ups, set in the direction of the front of the room, away from the hallway.

I paused, and looked at the open windows. I crossed to them and peered outside, and up at the sun. The front of the classroom was to the north-east. I slipped through the door and made my way between the desks to the other windows. These ones were covered, their shutters closed. I grabbed onto one and pulled it open.

I looked down on a courtyard. Several people hurried across it, evidently going somewhere. Classes, probably. Maybe it was mealtime? I had reckoned that it was close to noon. I watched the people for a minute, and then leaned further out the window, balancing on the sill on my stomach, feet leaving the floor. I looked at the outside of the castle. There was a doorway of some sort leading out to the courtyard below and to the left of me.

It took only a few minutes before I ended up in the courtyard, and in that time, it had nearly emptied out. There was a small group of people around one corner of it, sitting on a bench. One of them had a large, silver bird at the end of their wand. I ignored them and crossed the courtyard like I did it every day, like I wasn't nine years old and this was completely unknown territory.

The hallway I ended up in finished quickly, turning into a walled walkway. I paused midway and looked behind me. There was a smaller tower in my view, but I could see where my mother's rooms were. It looked like there were still more floors above them in the largest tower of the castle.

I continued on my way, wandering in the hallways. When I saw a woman with long, dark hair heading toward me, I pressed back against the wall, back hitting a tapestry. As she drew closer, I saw that she wasn't my mother and breathed a bit easier. She didn't even have the same facial structure. I relaxed against the tapestry and it moved.

I whirled around and looked at it. It showed a forest grove, the kind you might expect to see a unicorn and a maiden in. I prodded it. It moved backward, like there was no wall behind it.

I pushed it aside. There was a staircase beyond it, heading down.

I left the tapestry hanging askew and followed the stairs down. There were a few candles lighting the way. At least one person used this way frequently enough to require lighting. I followed the stair case down and around its turns. It flattened out in an area of the castle that I doubted most people came down to.

The furniture that I saw in the rooms I passed was old and some of it was broken. Storage?

I followed the subterranean hallways until I reached another set of stairs. Just how deep did the basement levels of this castle go? I headed further down and further in. As I set down this staircase, I increased the sound of my steps.

I was practically stomping around the hallways as I took the turns with a quicker pace, taking longer and longer steps until I was practically jumping from foot to foot. Eventually, I came to a dead end. The hallway turned to the left and to the right, but didn't continue straight. I could see the ends of the other halls, as well. I turned around and paused.

While thinking about the way I had come, I heard a noise behind me. I whirled around and there was a man standing in the hallway, like he had appeared suddenly.

He was tall and thin, with dark hair and eyes. Eyes that were currently narrowed at me. He said something.

"I think I'm lost," I said.

"You're Rowena's girl," he said, speaking this time in Russian. Close enough to Bulgarian for me to understand, close enough for communication.

"Yes."

My expression of relief must have brightened my face nearly as much as the sun brightened the sky in the morning because he let out a little laugh at it, smiling. It didn't quite reach his eyes.

"You should not be down here," he said. He hissed in the direction of his hand.

I watched, wide-eyed, as a snake slithered out from under his sleeve. It was white against his skin as it wound around his wrist. He crouched down and the snake slithered down to the ground and toward me.

"It will guide you back up to the main level," he said, nodding toward the snake. It was halfway between us. When it neared my feet, I crouched down to pick it up.

The snake slithered onto my palms, tongue flickering and tasting the air. It looked at me with bright eyes, and then back at its master. It hissed at him, a response. The dark-haired man nodded, before turning and walking away.

"Thank you," I called after him, rising back up to my feet. The snake rose up in my hands, and jabbed its head toward me. I turned around and it jabbed its head away from me. Well. That would do it.

I used the snake as a compass, checking it at every bend I came to. It jabbed its head in the direction that I was supposed to walk in. It was a very clever snake.

I walked past dozens of closed rooms and some open ones. Some had furniture and some didn't. After a long series of tunnels, I followed the snake up one flight of stairs. I was beginning to think that there was no way that I could have come this way. It was just too far.

The next floor went quickly. We were still in the dungeons, but there was much less time between the first staircase and this next one.

Relief flooded through me once I had finished climbing the second set of stairs. We were in the entrance hall of the castle, where I had come in. I could see the giant front doors, and the main staircase that led up to the other floors. The snake jabbed its head to the left.

"But I know where I am, now," I said, even though there was no way it could understand me. I didn't speak the language of snakes.

The snake looked at me, and at my feet, and then jabbed its head toward the left once more. I looked over at the hallway leading to the Great Hall. Whatever instructions the snake had been given, they were to see me safe in there. Impatient, the snake hissed at me. I suspected that whatever it was saying in snake language wasn't very nice. It opened its mouth, showing me needle sharp fangs.

"I'll go, then," I said. When I started walking toward the Great Hall, the snake relaxed in my palms, lowering its head and mouth closing. Its tongue flickered out against my skin, tickling slightly.

I entered the Great Hall and paused. There were tables set up: long ones, mostly empty. A few knots of students sat here and there. The snake, satisfied with its job, slithered across my hand. It fell to the ground and moved off, probably going back to where it had come from.

Nearby, a girl nudged the one beside her. They stopped talking and looked over at me.

"Hello," said the nearest one. She had red hair that fought to be free of its tie. The curls spilled forward onto her shoulders.

"Hello," I said, hanging back. She continued on, in English. When I didn't reply, her smile faltered. She turned to her companion, a boy with similar hair and spoke to him. After she was finished, he nodded and got up from the table. I watched him walk away.

There were two other girls there, and the blonde one shifted to the side and patted the now-empty part of the bench next to her. I climbed up on it, and the red-haired girl smiled at me once more. She reached out to my hair and picked up a strand. She said something and pointed to the blonde's hair, which was arranged in a plait.

They babbled happily with each other in English while the redhead braided my hair in a strange, intricate fashion. The plait stretched down my back, and the fair-skinned blonde conjured a small flower out of the air. She laughed and tucked it behind my ear, smiling.

"Helena?" I turned in the direction of the voice and saw a blonde woman. My hair slipped through the hands of the girl braiding it.

The blonde woman hurried forward, and held out her hand to me. She had something wrapped around her fingers, something shining. She smiled at me, and held it out.

I turned it over in my hands. It was a pendant, hanging on a leather strap. The pendant had something carved into it, words so tiny that I couldn't read them. The blonde woman took the strap and slung it over my head. She picked up my hand and turned it over.

Then, so quickly that I had no time to react, she pricked my finger with a needle drawn from her sash. I yelled and tried to yank my hand back, but she held it fast. She pressed the pendant against my bloodied finger and it flashed, once, like the sun on the ocean.

Satisfied, she let my hand go.

"I'm sorry about the blood, but it's really the only way it's going to work," she said.

I gaped at her, open-mouthed. I grasped the pendant with my wounded hand.

"I did the charms on it, so it should hold for a good while," she said. "I'm Helga, your mother's friend."

"Thank you," I said. My words came out in Bulgarian. I stared quizzically at Helga.

"That part I couldn't do, not on such short notice, but by itself, the pendant is going to be very good for you, Helena. It's going to make learning English that much better." Helga's smile broadened, and it was catching.

I might not have been able to thank her properly in a language she could understand, but I could make do with gestures. I stood up and hugged her, tightly. The pendant she had made was probably the best thing that I could have ever received.