1 ch. 1 . Wood scraped

Wood scraped against Theseus's leg.  He caught the wreckage as a wave pushed it into his face.  His legs shook as he stood.  The sun stung his eyes.

The shipwreck lay two thousand paces east, its smashed hull washed onto the beach where the tide would gnaw it.  A palm forest rose from the sand.  Beyond, steep crags covered in brush jutted above the thick canopy.  All was silent save for the rushing of the waves.

The sea stretched into the northern horizon.

Theseus pulled one of his legs up and stepped towards the beach.  The splash resounded over the bay.  Theseus curled like a startled cat.  He scanned the forest.  Every shadow, every shift of a leaf could be a savage denizen.  The canopy stirred.  Theseus yearned for a weapon.  A red parrot flew away and the silence returned.  He let his breathing slow, focused on the rush of the waves.  He walked in rhythm, his ankles pushed and pulled by the tide until his feet touched hot sand.

All the islands in the Mediterranean looked alike to him.  This one could be small and deserted, like the islands in Homer's tales, or there could be cannibals awaiting him under the canopy.  At least the ship's carcass was in sight so he wasn't totally lost.  He might find a weapon there.  He might even find another survivor, but he doubted it.

Poseidon had seethed the previous night.  Theseus remembered leaping from the ship when the storm toppled her.  The sea had been liquid ice.  The waves had risen around him like black giants.  That was his last memory.

Theseus crept to the forest.  He pulled some ferns aside and glared into the shade, fist ready to fly.  There was nothing.  The forest was as still as the beach.  He stepped into the shade.

He slipped around palm trunks with bark like armor, over ferns that tickled his legs.  As he neared the ship, he could see where the reef had torn her belly like a blunt sword.  It should have been a simple job, just looking tough for some merchant, who'd kept saying that cow's leather could be traded for saffron and varicolored silks that would make an Athenian throw his purse.  Theseus thought bitterly of the second half of his fee.  Without his wife there was nothing to live for but food and wine, and that meant money.

Beyond the forest's edge, a trail wound south through the crags.  He crouched low.  Humanity was here.  He needed a weapon.  He braced himself to sprint for the ship.

People crested the hill and Theseus sank behind a thick fern, pulse drumming in his neck.  He watched through the leaves.  There were twelve.  He had never seen people dressed in such rich colors:  kilts blue like the sky, women in robes red as rose, men wearing jerkins orange like sunset.  He supposed the ship's corpse had finished the merchant's journey.  Only now could he understand the merchant's praise for the varicolored silks of Crete.

They were beautiful, but still his enemies.  The men dismantled the craft while the women inspected the cargo.  They were tawny-skinned, flat faced with dark hair, smaller than most Greeks.  For a moment he considered attacking them.  If he died, he would meet his wife again in Elysia.  Malaria would not exist for her there.  Theseus pushed the thought from his mind.  Hades would never let him past the gate if he died like an idiot.  He couldn't risk revealing himself.  It was enough to know where the village lay