23 AD

To his surprise, the two guards stepped aside. Helix wasted no time. Keeping his expression stony he strode through the arch and down the narrow steps. Following the sounds of the alternating soft and loud cries, Helix found himself in a small square chamber. The walls were the same solid stone as the upstairs, the floor the same marble. An oak table against one wall was laid out with a variety of objects the young man could not mistake as anything but devices of torture and pain. There sat an ornate fireplace directly across from the door, its mantle laden with bundles of dried herbs. It's fire heated the small chamber to a sweltering temperature. Nauseating waves of hot, strong smelling air wafted into Helix's nostrils.

The cry sounded again, weeping and plaintive. It was loud, so loud it seemed to come from just in front of him. But the room looked empty?

It sounded again, a shriek that tore at Helix's mind and soul. It was coming from the walls! Crossing the room he began to run his hands along the stone. "Can you hear me?" His tone was frantic, worried as sweat began running down his face and trickling down his back.

An unintelligible string of words, scared words sounded. Following the sound, he found a crevice in the stone. Shoving against it he felt for any way to move the block. Nothing budged. "Hold on!"

Wrong. This was so wrong! Killing her would have been kinder then whatever they were doing to her in this chamber.

That Ynyr would do such a thing made Helix sick to his stomach. Darting back to the table he looked for anything to pry the stone free. Halfway across the small room, he spotted a line of brass levers next to the yawning fireplace. He began yanking each one. Two stone panels slid open revealing empty, cramped holes in the wall. The space was barely big enough for an average size person to sit in. Not deep enough to stretch out their legs or lay down, and not tall enough to actually sit up all the way. Two small brass vents led into or out of each hole.

Flipping the rest of the brass nobs in quick succession he finally opened then correct chamber. She slid out head first, her short black mop of hair sticking in sweaty patches to her head. Her hands were bound with thin metal shackles. Unable to catch herself she thudded the three feet to the marble floor. Her ocean blue, tear-filled eyes lifted to Helix's face as he rushed to her side. She gasped for air, body trembling like a leaf.

Not sure what he was going to do, but absolutely certain he would not leave her in this situation. Helix put an arm under her knees and another under her back. "Please don't make this difficult." He muttered quietly.

She didn't. Her body still trembling, she buried her face in his chest as he lifted her and strode toward the stairs out. Halfway up the stairs, Ynyr appeared on the top stair. Helix froze, cataloging his options.

Run? Nowhere to go and not fast enough.
Fight? Certainly going to lose.
Make-ups some explanation? Impossible and pointless.

Grinding his teeth Helix continued up to his commander. The woman in his arms, seeing who waited for them trembled harder.

"Commander." Helix inclined his head slightly.

Black obsidian eyes devoured every detail. There was no expression to read. No tells to explain what the man might be thinking. "You are going to piss her off with this. Hurry."

Ynyr turned, both hands flicked out and the servants who had been guarding the stair entrance slumped to the floor. Unconscious or dead, Helix didn't know. He lingered a moment, suspicious.

The commander seemed to understand his hesitation. Looking back over he a shoulder he hissed, "I will explain everything Helix. But not here. Not now. If you want to save her we need to go. Now!"

*~*~*~*~*~*

They slipped from the house out a back servants entrance. Holding the woman close, Helix followed Ynyr through the darkened streets. A dizzying amount of turns and winding streets later a wide river came into view.

Ynyr strode down a short flight of wooden steps to a doc. Crossing the wooden platform the commander pulled back a canvas cloth covering a rowboat. "Get in."

"How do you have a boat?" Helix asked as he carefully stepped in the boat and sat the woman on one of the benches.

"I don't. We are stealing it."

Helix raised an eyebrow but helped untie the moorings as Ynyr stepped aboard. Both men pushed the boat away from the doc. The wood groaned slightly as it slid through the flowing water.

As the young man's hand reached for an oar Ynyr stopped him with a quiet growl. "No."

For a moment there was only silence, then a thick pressure filled the air. The woman sucked in a tense breath. Helix forced his breath to remain shallow and slow as the pressure built. On a phantom current the boat lurched forward. It moved steadily downstream until the torchlights of Rome vanished. Starlight glinted across the water. But around Ynyr, blackness shivered. It was as if the light could not reach where he sat.

Helix felt a someone grab him and glanced down to find the woman clinging to his hand. Looking forward he found his commander studying him. 

"You promised me an explanation sir."

"Indeed I did." Ynyr stretched his legs out in front of him as the boat glided on. "Many years ago I made a bargain. My pregnant wife was dying of an incurable illness. Dacuma, the woman you call Sal, was traveling through my town and found me drowning my woes in liquor. She listened to my tale. Then she made me an offer. My wife's life for my help to kill an enemy of hers. I accepted. She made me what everyone now calls a witch. She's made a variety of different kinds of witches since then. And they have mingled with each other, and humans to make even more. Like that one." He waved a hand toward the woman huddled at Helix's side. "But I was the first."

"That doesn't explain why you locked her in that, that torture chamber. Or why you're helping now? And why did you have me spare her at all? Why did we go to Sal?" The words flew out in a snarl more vicious then Helix intended.

"If you are finished interrupting I'll continue."

Helix ground his teeth but nodded.

"Decuma healed my wife and gave me abilities to kill, among other things. After I completed our bargain I went home. My wife," he paused. Sadness, raw and clear crept into his voice and posture. "My wife was terrified of me. She was scared of what I had become. One night, before the child was born she slipped away. I cursed Decuma's name. Cursed her by the gods, the living, the dead. Any and every curse I could think of flew from my mouth."

Each word floated out as a hiss. "She heard me and appeared. Materialized in my living room. She told me that if I was going to curse her name in such vial ways, she would curse mine." Ynyr sighed and the boat picked up speed.

"For a while, I became nothing more than a weapon. I did not remember my name, my family. Nothing."

"Eventually details started returning to me, but Decuma does not know that."

When Ynyr fell silent Helix cleared his throat. "So you are pretending to still be her weapon? That's why you acted so, so different around her? But why take another witch to her in the first place?"

The commander gave a low, unpleasant chuckle. "I am still her weapon. Still bound to her." His shadowed face turned toward the woman. "Until I can find a way out of her clutches, I need her to still believe I serve her loyally. This fool female interfered in one of her long-standing plans. A plan I had to oversee. I knew Decuma would want answers. So I brought her some answers."

"But what now? She will know you helped me. Helped her."

Ynyr's eyes were grave. "She will. But she also desperately wants what you owe her. Wants it enough to overlook my unyielding behavior if it means keeping you appeased so that you uphold your end of the bargain."

"So she's just going to let us go? Just like that?" Helix's voice was laced with disbelief.

"No. She will catch up with us. Hopefully not sooner than necessary."

Helix's head ached. Still so many questions, still not enough damn answers. Taking a breath he fell silent and stared into the night caressed world around him.

Ynyr was a witch. Alright, he could accept that, had suspected that. He had been made by Sal and was somehow still bound to her. The thought struck him then, what was Sal? Who was she if she could make witches and had the god of war for her ex-lover? And why could she not just appear wherever Ares was like Ynyr had said she could do when he was cursing her name?

Giving voice to the questions he asked, "What is she? And why, with all the power you say she has, does she need me?"

The pressure in the air strained harder for a moment, causing both him and the woman, still holding Helix's hand, to suck in a breath.

"She is one of the three Seers, or Fates as they are sometimes mislabeled. Morta and Nona, the seers of Past and Present, are her sisters. She is the Seer of Future." The air relaxed, albeit only a small bit. "They are immortals each with their own complicated jobs and abilities. But Decuma, she tends to do as she pleases."

Helix remembered Poseidon calling her the third Seer.

"As for your other question, she needs your help, mortal help, because she has meddled too many times with certain gods and their dealings. I do not know the full story, but I do know they bound some of her power, making it inaccessible to her. Although of late she has been regaining bits of that power and the favor of some gods."

A black ball of despair, questions and realization swirled in Helix's clenched stomach. She had told him of her sisters once. How they held her back from what she wanted. How she was sailing away from her past. The thought of her having even more power then she did now? It made him terrified. And all of these thoughts, everyone, left one large question unanswered, what was Sal's end game?

Ynyr's voice, dangerously quiet broke into his thoughts, "Sal is hunting Ares. You are the bait Helix."

*~*~*~*~*~*