BooksBarbecue
Back The Arrow of Apollo Save as PDF
Chapters (52)
  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. About the Author
  4. Dedication
  5. By the Same Author
  6. Author’s Note
  7. Map
  8. Domus Libris
  9. House of the Wolf
  10. The House of the Wolf
  11. One
  12. Two
  13. Three
  14. Four
  15. Five
  16. Six
  17. Seven
  18. Eight
  19. Nine
  20. Ten
  21. Eleven
  22. Twelve
  23. Thirteen
  24. Fourteen
  25. Fifteen
  26. Sixteen
  27. Seventeen
  28. Eighteen
  29. Nineteen
  30. Twenty
  31. Twenty-One
  32. Twenty-Two
  33. Twenty-Three
  34. Twenty-Four
  35. Twenty-Five
  36. Twenty-Six
  37. Twenty-Seven
  38. Twenty-Eight
  39. Twenty-Nine
  40. Thirty
  41. Thirty-One
  42. Thirty-Two
  43. Thirty-Three
  44. Thirty-Four
  45. Thirty-Five
  46. Thirty-Six
  47. Thirty-Seven
  48. Thirty-Eight
  49. Timeline of the Trojan Cycle
  50. Further Reading
  51. Acknowledgements
  52. Supporters

He saw that something was coming out of the hollow where the others had slept, something shadowy and huge.

It crawled out into the light and unfurled, pulling itself into an upright position so that it looked like a very tall man wrapped in a billowing black cloak. It seemed to flicker in and out of existence like a candle, and had a long white face, with black glowing spheres for eyes.

Something else came with it too. A sense of terrible loneliness, of an echoing, empty space.

The creature took a step towards them.

Tisamenos, trembling in every part of his body, unwrapped the head of the Last Gorgon, but the long white face merely laughed darkly, and came further towards them.

There was no escape from this being. It seemed to stretch until it was bigger than the hill, whilst at the same time remaining what it was, a giant moving forwards.

Silvius called, ‘What about the Arrow?’

‘I don’t know what will happen!’ Elissa stepped forwards, her hand behind her back, ready to pull it out.

The creature sniffed the air, and halted a few hands’ breadth away from them. The solitude radiating from it was almost overwhelming, and Tisamenos was all but ready to give in.

Then, to his astonishment, it bowed, its great forehead brushing the ground.

‘Stones told about you,’ it hissed, raising its head, black eyes glinting. ‘What you carry. Where you must travel.’ It wrapped its black cloak around itself. ‘Sun rising. Come with me. I take you to Troy.’

Across the plain there was a cloud of dust, and armour glinting in the sunlight. An army from Argos, marching on Mykenai, about to attack his city when it was at its most vulnerable. Feeling a pressure in his mind as if he were about to split in two, Tisamenos resolved to treat this being with the utmost courtesy.

‘Who are you, lord?’ asked Tisamenos.

‘I live in darkness,’ the creature answered. ‘And I take you through darkness.’

Tisamenos felt the hairs rise all over his body. Something strange was happening to him. The Nine Rivers. The Darkness. ‘Is that – is that the Underworld?’

‘You have no choice.’ As if he were nothing more than thistledown on the wind, it lifted Tisamenos onto its shoulder. He saw the horror-struck eyes of Silvius and Elissa as it bundled the other two under its arms.

Its touch was like snow. A sadness consumed Tisamenos. He did not want to even look at the others, and all he could think about was the blackness of the creature’s robe, and then the cave’s entrance, and he was falling down a long tunnel.

They were leaving the dawn light behind, and the breeze, and now there was nothing but shadow.

Thirty-One

images

Into Darkness