Page 41 of The Ruin of Eros

It’s barely light when I hear a noise in the room outside.Him?

But when I peer through the crack, it’s not him, but Aletheia.And she’s carrying something.

A key.

My heart beats faster.A key. Keys are rare things in Sikyon, but I am sure that’s what that metal object is. And I think I know what this key is for: there is only one place in this palace that I have found locked, and I know that gate leads to the outside world.

I watch the door fall closed behind Aletheia, then take a breath, and slip from my room.

Chapter Sixteen

I dart to the door, leaving my slippers behind—these corridors echo, and the slightest tap or scuff would be amplified. Every moment I think she will turn around, but she does not. Instead she moves, surefooted, through the corridors, and it’s clear that she knows this path as well as a person can, that she travels it often. As we walk I’m more and more certain that I was right: these are the turns I could not find before. And finally we round another corner and there it is: the door that leads to the stable-yard. Aletheia disappears through it.

I wait a moment, then proceed on tiptoe and crack open the door. The yard bakes under the sun. Aletheia is in the stables, I can see her shadow in the doorway and hear the horses snorting. Eventually she comes out leading two horses—her thin old frame looks odd next to these tremendous beasts, which seem almost twice her height. She leaves them in the center of the yard, flicking their tails and pricking their ears in anticipation, while she goes back for the other two. Then, finally, she takes out the key and goes to the gate. I hear the great clank of a bolt sliding, the sigh of the gates as they open. I crane my head, but the angle is wrong and the gates open inward: I still can’t see what lands await outside them.

Aletheia comes back into the center of the yard, and leans up to one of the horses, seeming to whisper something in its ear.

“Go!” She smacks it on the rump then, and it shoots through the gate into whatever lies beyond. I stare as it bolts, riderless, into the unknown.

She repeats it for the other horses, and finally for the blackstallion with the golden eyes. When they have gone, the yard is strangely quiet. Are they coming back? I suppose she must expect it. I wait for Aletheia to do something, but she just sits down on the rim of a stone trough and pulls a pipe from her pocket. She lights it and begins to smoke, blowing a soft blue ring into the air. After a while—I don’t know how long we sit there, Aletheia watching the gate, and me watching her—there is a pounding of hooves and the horses return, one by one, galloping through the gate and slowing just enough to canter round the yard, then ease at last to a shivering, snorting halt.

Aletheia pats each one, then leads it back into its stable.

This is one of her duties, I suppose—to exercise these great beasts. Does she do it every day? I’ll have to rise early to find out. Once I know the rhythm, I can make use of it. All I need is to get through that gate, and it will be easier to slip past Aletheia’s watch, at any rate, than the demon’s.

For now, I don’t let myself think too hard about what lies outside those gates—what strange land I’ll be in, or how long it may take me to reach anywhere close enough to get a message to Sikyon. I just have to do it.

When Aletheia rises from her sitting-place I start backwards. Hopefully she doesn’t notice the door’s ajar, I have no time to close it. I race back along the corridors, praying I make each turn fast enough before she rounds the bend and sees me.

Back in my room, I breathe fast, pacing up and down in front of the illusion-window, which today shows a mountain ridge covered in thick olive trees. If I get through those gates, it will not be a return to my old life. That life, and the life I thought I was meant to have, are gone forever. But all I know is that I can’t grow old in a gilded cage.

As to Aphrodite…if I let myself think it, the thought of her chills my blood, but how do I know the demon isn’t lying to me? A god’s anger may find a new victim from one day to the next.Perhaps it’s just arrogance to believe she’s still looking for me.

I suppose there’s only one way to find out.

*

Later in the day I practice for myself, to see if I can find the door to the stables again. This time I close my eyes once in the corridor—there is something to be said, after all, for depriving oneself of sight. I have spent a good amount of time without it, these last days, and I believe it has begun to sharpen some other skills. Memory, for one. Now with my eyes closed I can see Aletheia’s bony frame hurrying down these halls, and I follow in my mind’s eye, taking the turns exactly as I remember them, opening my eyes only when I must. And to my surprise it takes no more than five minutes.

I’ve made it.I’m smiling widely as I step outside. The yard is quiet, and I go to the great gate and study it again. Now that I study it more closely, I can see it, disguised almost perfectly by the filigree design: the slot where the key must fit. I reach out, half-expecting it to burn me, but nothing happens.

All well and good—but how to get the key?

I must be patient. Inspiration will come, I tell myself. I sigh and turn, leaning my back against the door to my prison. Over in the stables, the black horse puts its face over the half-door and studies me, unperturbed. Truly, he is a noble creature.

I walk over, but don’t quite dare to stroke his muzzle. Instead, I open the door and peek inside the stable. Four stalls, one for each horse, and here by the door, hanging from a hook on the wall, a quiver of arrows. The poisoned arrows, no doubt. I shiver, and the black horse watches me closely. He stamps a foot and scuffs it backwards, tossing some hay from the floor, and his horse-shoes flash gold.

“Do you hunt with him, then?” I murmur. “Do you see all hisdark deeds? It is not right: you are too noble a creature to serve one such as him.”

Then I hear movement from outside. The gates are moving, their great black mass swinging inward. He has returned already!

I want so badly to see what lies beyond those gates, but my fear of being seen is greater. I shrink further back into the stall, the stallion’s black tail flicking softly beside me. I hear the demon’s treat in the yard and know he’s approaching the stables. The horses whinny in anticipation, and he greets them, one by one:

“Good evening, Ajax.” That’s the black horse. Then he moves along the row, further away from me. “Good evening, Velos; Tharros; Anemos.”

I hold my breath. I hear him move toward the palace door, and through the stable’s doorway I glance out, confirming that his back is to me. I wonder if I will see him remove his cloak now: he says he does not like to wear it in his home, and he will think me upstairs, safe from view. But then, with one foot on the step, he pauses.

“Psyche,” he says.

---