The Conqueror by Louis Shalako

knee deep. She leaned forwards,
not wanting to lose her balance, and released the snakes. She had a
quick glimpse of the one on the left darting off in a series of
S-shaped wriggles, but where the other one got off to she had no
idea. They were headed away from her and that was all that she
cared. She heaved a quick breath of relief.
    “ Ye, Gods. I thank you for
that.” It was a whisper, albeit a sincere one…
    She walked forwards a little more
boldly, now that she knew what it was. There was sand crunching
beneath her rapidly loosening, soaking wet leather sandals. She
went waist deep, into the surprisingly warm water, feeling it wash
off the tacky white goop covering her body and leaving her whole,
complete, and very clear on what she was doing.
    “… sigh…ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”
    No wonder people were spooked the first
time they came in here, she thought. The hard-packed sand beneath
sloped gently downwards and she took a few more cautious
steps.
    The water rose around her.
    She turned, neck deep, enjoying the
sting of hot water and suddenly realizing what the place actually
looked like from the other side, properly lit and with the flat
plane of the water rising and falling before her. It reflected the
blood-red torch and Theo, all white and nude, almost posed there up
on her rock. Shrouds of mist hung and swirled back into position
after Eleanora’s passage. Ducking her face, she gave it a quick
wash, feeling slightly foolish for a moment.
    But this was sublime.
    “ Theo!”
    The figure of her cousin, thirty yards
away, flinched at the sudden shock of noise in this most intimate
of places.
    “ Oh, my, gods, Eleanora.
You scared the shit out of me!”
    “ Theo.” She spoke more
carefully now. “Stand up straight. And do you hear it?”
    Theo lifted the torch, suddenly
becoming a vision of something very goddess-like, nodding in a kind
of elation. Eleanora wished she could see her cousin’s face a
little more clearly.
    Lifting her feet, she treaded water,
gently bobbing for a moment.
    She would remember this for a long
time.
    There were voices muttering in the
background. They never seemed to let up in this chamber, and from
the sounds of little waves hitting flat stone walls, and some very
black shadows, Eleanora concluded that there was more than one
passage leading off somewhere behind her. The waves she was making
tinkled and gurgled, coming up against hard surfaces.
    “ Yes—yes, I hear
it.”
    Eleanora stood there in the water for a
good long while, thinking and seeing and listening to the cave
breathe all around them as the water rose and fell about every half
minute, going up and down her neck like the stroking hands of a
lover.
    Words came to her unbidden, perhaps the
first real inspiration she’d had in this affair, and so she spoke
them aloud.
    “ Oh, Gaia, Mother of all of
the world, and Neptune, Father of all the seas, guide me in my
thoughts, and in my heart, and in my actions. Guide my words and
deeds just as surely as you guide the arrow of Lowren, when it
flies from the bow and strikes down the common foe.”
    “ Who said that?”
Theodelinida wracked her brains, but the quote was an unfamiliar
one.
    “ I did.” Eleanora waded
firmly up out the water and took the torch from Theo’s unresisting
hand as the echoes slowly subsided and the pair turned to
go.
     
     

Chapter Seven
     
     
    Lowren strode into the great hall with
a few of the boys clumping along behind, still laden with personal
weapons and assorted baggage.
    “ Mother.” The place
appeared empty at first glance. “Mother?”
    A man looked up and
shrugged.
    There were one or two loungers, local
men, sitting at a table in the furthest corner. They were probably
wondering when lunch was served. He nodded pleasantly in their
direction. Their business couldn’t be too pressing, and perhaps
they were content enough with an ale or two.
    Otherwise they would have been right on
him.
    He looked around. There was a lass
right