[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

"Everyone raved last year about the victory party he gave for Nico, and Nico wasn't even his
protagonist."
"Hippo, you'reso naive."
* * *
I may be naive, but I couldn't believe Lycus was behind Nico's disappearance. For one thing, he really
was a sweetheart. A lousy poet, but a nice guy. You'd think verse that cutting would come from a
venomous tongue, but oddly enough you'd be wrong. He's just got an overdose of humor in him; give him
any subject and he'll find the funny side. Give him apolitician , and . . . well. He may not be much of a
poet, but he knows how to hit the funny bone. Timaeus's political career would sink faster than a leaky
trireme if Nico wasn't there to offset the effect of Lycus's new play.
But even if Lycus were as nasty as his most cutting jokes, he couldn't be behind Nico's disappearance. If
it were that obvious, why the private visitation from a deity, even a minor one? He was already the chief
suspect; Glycera was as reliable as a lodestone in reading public opinion.
Thallia pointed to some footprints leading through the bloodiest part of the room. A small table was
overturned beside them, but not one crimson drop marred its smooth surface. It felt staged, like a
tragedy, if theater ever dealt with common people rather than gods and heroes. The footprints glowed
with a ruddy light of their own. Thallia pointed to them again, demanding, then faded from sight.
The luminous footprints remained. No one but me noticed them, just as no one else had noticed Thallia.
And it seemed like no one in the room, not even my own sergeant, could see me. I'd gone as invisible as
the Muse herself. Glycera didn't look up even when I spoke to her. I'm certain she couldn't hear me.
The Muses aren't Olympians, but they swing a lot more weight than a mortal. The Muse of Comedy
wanted me to find her comedian, that was obvious, so I followed the footprints out the door. No one
took any notice. To this day I wonder when Glycera realized I was gone. Sometimes I miss the old
battle-ax.
The tracks led away from the door, away from the agora. I had only had the basic course in tracking,
but even a six-year-old male-child could have followed these. Here the tracks halted, there they went to
tiptoes, a bit further they widened into a lope. Whoever had left them had taken care not to be seen. I
didn't have to worry about that; I wasn't on the run. Besides, Thallia's magic still shrouded me. At least I
thought it did.
At one point, I looked back. Behind me, the footprints had vanished. I retraced my own steps,
searching, and they reappeared, ahead of me. Only ahead of me. I went back and forth a few times,
confirming my deduction: the tracks lead forward but not back. Thallia, it seemed,really wanted me to
follow the guy who'd left them. I had a hunch about who it was, but my hunch didn't make any sense.
The spoor led to the edge of town and past it, away from Athens. At first the trail followed the road to
Corinth, then it turned down a series of country lanes, each less traveled than the one before. When
darkness overtook me, I made a rough bivouac for the night. The footprints glowed, in one direction
only, all night long. At dawn I resumed my deity-inspired quest, down another country lane. By this point,
I didn't need the glow. There were no tracks on the rough path other than the ones I followed.
It ended at a small tumbled-down farmstead. The war god has plowed this section of the Attic plain time
and again; there are dozens of such places to be found, abandoned to chance comers and wild animals.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
The traveler I sought was here, sitting under an olive tree, plunking idly on a lyre. The lyre was badly in
need of new strings. In the end, finding him was rather anticlimactic.
* * *
"Nicomachus." He looked up when I spoke.
"Yes? I . . . oh, I remember you! The Amazon girl from the agora, the one who appreciates comedy."
He grinned, the grin that had charmed me years before, the unmasked grin that invites the observer to
share his delight in his own clever performance. I just stared back at him, hand on the hilt of my weapon.
A few minutes of this made him nervous.
"Well? I assume Timaeus hired you. All right, you've found the runaway. What now, march me back at
sword's-point to Athens? I warn you, I'll just run again. Timaeus is wasting his money; I won't go on."
By this point all I wanted was answers. "Why, Nico? You're the greatest comic actor alive. You've
taken the crown repeatedly at the Dionysia, at Corinth, even at Delphi. Sponsors beg you to be in their
productions. So what's to run away from?"
"Have you heard this year's play?" I shook my head. "It stinks. Anaxis has always pandered to whoever
pays his bar tab, but this goes way beyond that. It's digusting. Pure hubris. I couldn't be part of it."
"So why not just go to a different playwright? Lycus would have been delighted to get you, I'm sure."
Nico banged his hand against the strings of the lyre, a frustrated sound with no music in it. "I had a
contract. I agreed to it before I read the new play, but you don't break contracts with Timaeus. Besides,
I doubt if Lycus's play is any better. His sponsor this year is Castor of Piraeus."
"But he's not even a politician!"
"I know. He's a boat builder, a shipper. Timaeus'sreal rival, not for power but for the gold that buys
power." Nicomachus dropped his gaze to the lyre in his lap and he started to play a beginner's exercise, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

zanotowane.pl

doc.pisz.pl

pdf.pisz.pl

burdelmama.opx.pl