The man leaned forward, stretching the index and middle fingers of his right hand out toward her. Her reaction was to flinch, but she forced herself to hold still. If he was my enemy, he'd have left me to drift forever as the gryphon warned would happen…
Alphena couldn't guess how old the man was. Older than her father, certainly; but he gave her the feeling that she was sitting beside an ancient oak. His fingers were like lengths of tree root.
He touched her left ear, her right ear, and finally her lips. "I am Uktena," he said, smiling again. "I have seen you before, little one, but I do not know who you are."
She licked her lips. "I'm Alphena," she said. "Ah, daughter of Gaius Saxa. But I came here-that is, I was going to Poseidonis to save my mother from the Atlanteans. Do you know who the Atlanteans are?"
Stated baldly like that, Alphena realized how foolish her plan had been. It hadn't been a plan at all; but she'd had to do something!
"I know one Atlantean," Uktena said. His smile suddenly had something terrifying in it. "But I would venture that in any case no enemy of yours would be a friend of mine. Come, I will show you our village… and perhaps we also will see the Atlantean."
Uktena knocked the dottle from the pipe into his palm, then scattered it on the bare ground at the edge of his sunken chamber; some of the embers were still glowing. He slipped the reed stem under his waist band and rose smoothly without using his hands. Alphena knew the effort it required to do that when seated cross-legged, but she didn't have the impression that her host was showing off: he was just extremely fit for a man of any age.
"Master Uktena?" she said. "Are you a magician?"
He weighed her with a glance. "Say rather that I remember some things that the spirits have taught me," he said after a moment. "As they will teach any man, who asks them in the right way. My fellows call me a shaman, but-"
His smile was very slight, and there was again the hint of a tiger beyond the calm expression.
"-I would prefer you call me Uktena, little one."
A pine sapling leaned against the opening in the chamber's roof. The bark had been stripped and the thickset branches trimmed, but stubs projected alternately to right and left. Uktena climbed it, using the stubs as rungs for his big toes. At the top he tossed aside the mat covering the opening and looked back to Alphena.
"Do you need help?" he asked.
Alphena couldn't decide whether he was mocking her or being polite. "No, but the ladder won't hold us both," she said, thought it probbably would have. She rose to her feet rather less gracefully than her host.
Uktena swung out of the opening. Alphena followed, moving briskly but thankful that she wore hob-nailed military sandals whose thick soles gave her solid purchase. Her big toes weren't up to supporting her full weight on such short stubs.
The field nearest the chamber had been planted with some kind of big-leafed grass. Two women had been cultivating it with clam-shell hoes, but their voices had stilled when Uktena came out of the ground.
They remained upright with respectful expressions for a brief instant when Alphena appeared also. The women cried out; one dropped to her knees, the other turned to run. What looked like a cloak of bark cloth over her shoulders turned out to be a sling holding a sleeping infant.
"Sanga, why do you run from my friend?" Uktena said. "Fear me if you like, but Alphena will not harm you."
Sanga took two strides more, but she slowed and turned to face them. The kneeling woman opened her eyes and said, "But master-she did not go into the kiva with you. Is she a demon, or did you form her from clay by your power?"
"Uktena caught me when I was falling from a far place," Alphena said, stepping forward. "I am in his debt for my life. I will not harm anyone whom he regards as a friend."
The words formed in her mind as she spoke, replacing those she already had on the tip of her tongue. She wouldn't lie; but there might be advantages for both her and her host if these peasants chose to believe she was a demon held in check only by Uktena's benevolence toward them.
He laughed, but he didn't amplify her statement. "Come, little one," he said. "I'm sure my colleagues will want to meet you."
Women and children were appearing from the fields and the semi-circle of huts; a few men carrying bows came out of the woods. Three older men-the trio which had come to dinner with Sempronius Tardus the night Hedia disappeared-stood before the dwellings. They watched Uktena the way jackals eye a lion.
A dune separated the grain field from sight of the shore until Alphena and her host were near the village proper. She looked past the edge of the sand and almost shouted in surprise.
"Mas-" she said, then touched her lips to mime silencing herself. She resumed, "My friend Uktena? What is that?"
Rather than pointing, she nodded in the direction of what looked like a spire of black glass, well out from the shoreline. The mild surf curled around the base of it, outlining it in foam.
"That is the house of Procron, little one," Uktena said. "He came here from Atlantis flying in that tower. He is our enemy, and I think the enemy of all men in all times; an enemy even to his own people."
"You have meditated all day, Uktena," said the man with a stuffed bird pinned to the roll of his hair. "Have you found the wisdom to send our enemy from us?"
His tone was outwardly respectful, but Alphena could hear the undercurrent of anger in it. She eyed him narrowly.
"Who knows what the spirits intend, Wontosa?" Uktena said, stroking the murrhine bowl of his pipe with his fingertips. His voice was as gentle as his touch on the stone, but Alphena wouldn't have wanted the words directed at her. "But soon, I think, I will try my knowledge against that of Procron."
"He may be gaining strength while you wait, you know," said the sage with a gold ring in his ear. He wore a tunic of familiar pattern rather than a breechclout or an off-the-shoulder robe, and his features were broader than those of the other men Alphena could see.
"I don't know that, Hanno," Uktena said. "Do you know it? You're welcome to try your wisdom against Procron, you know. Or make trial with me, if you wish that."
Hanno-a North African name, which explained his face and dress, but what was he doing in this place?-backed a step. "You know I don't mean that, Master! We have no hope except in you. It's just that-"
He fell silent. Glancing sideways toward the sea and the spire standing in it, he backed another step.
Not before time, Alphena thought.
"Do you have something to add, Dasemunco?" Uktena said to the third sage, who had been eyeing Alphena with a guarded expression. His head was shaved except for a fringe above his forehead.
"I wondered who the woman is, Master," he said, lowering his eyes as if in humility. "Have you created her to aid you in your battle with Procron?"
"It may be that the spirits have sent Alphena to help me, Dasemunco," Uktena said, smiling without affection at the sage. "Until we know their will better, I will continue to take pleasure in the company of a brave friend who does not fear me."
Turning to her, he said, "Come, Alphena. I will show you Cascotan, where I live and where my colleagues are visting since Procron's arrival."
He stepped forward as though the sages were not there; they hopped quickly out of the way. He and Alphena walked side by side between a pair of huts and stopped in the bowl of the semi-circle. Villagers watched with the air of deer poised to flee at the first sign of a threat; none of them spoke. The sages had not followed.
"Why did you say I'm not afraid of you?" Alphena said, as quietly as she could and still be heard. "I know I haven't seen all you can do, but I've seen enough."