The Mask of Circe

by Henry Kuttner

  “Go, Jason—go to the doom I could have saved you from. Go to the one thing you love and wait for its blow to slay you! Go, take your kingdom and die.”

  I ran on. Hecate may have spoken again, but I did not hear any more, for there was laughter on the hilltop now, ringing golden above the thunder of the battle. And the sound of it made my heart shrink and my body recoil from its beauty and dreadfulness. Apollo was laughing as I ran…

  Veil by veil the memories slipped from my mind. The shining light bathed me. But there was a troubling whisper floating through that golden silence. A voice I knew—urgent, summoning.

  I dismissed it. I let the veils slip away. Apollo’s light was not the burning blaze of the sun; it was clear and cool, pellucid as crystal water and calm as Lethe.

  A veil caught, ripping into tatters. Through it I saw the curve of goat-horns and anxious yellow eyes.

  “Jason—Jason!”

  But the peace of forgetfulness was yawning for me now and I would not answer. I sank into the shining emptiness that was the Eye of Apollo. Infinite peace washed over me…

  “Jason—Jason!” It was Panyr calling, but I would not answer. What had I to say to Panyr, who was so nearly on the verge of Lethe myself? Let him keep to his troubled world and leave me to my peace…

  “Jason! Waken or die!”

  The words meant nothing. Or—no, they had meaning, but not to me. They threatened someone unknown, someone named Jay Seward, who was—

  Myself!

  Jay Seward—not Jason. Not superstitious Jason who betrayed vow after vow. Jay Seward, who had betrayed only Cyane.

  From far away I heard my own voice calling, “Panyr—Panyr! Help me!”

  “I can’t!” the flat faun-voice cried from far away. “You must come to me.”

  I was blinded by the golden light. But I could move—I had to move. Stiffly, out of a nightmare, I forced my muscles to life. I felt myself stir—I was walking!

  My hands touched a surface so smooth I could not be sure it was really there. They slipped, touched again—

  “Push the door,” Panyr s voice called out of the blinded dream. “Push hard! Jason, you’re at the door! Open it! Quick!”

  The surface sank away beneath my thrust. And then hairy hands seized mine and dragged me forward. Sight returned to me. We stood in the starshaped antechamber where I had left Ophion and Phrontis. There was a strange odor in the air—acrid, choking. The smell of blood.

  I had no time for that now. I was looking into Panyr’s eyes, and seeing relief and anxiety there. The sweat of effort was still on his half-human face and he was grinning wryly. I wanted to ask him questions, but my breath still came too unevenly for that. So I stood there motionless, facing the closed wall through which I had just come, waiting for speech to return to me.

  By that time my thoughts had coalesced into something like a definite pattern. “Well,” I said at last, “let’s have it. What happened?”

  “Simple enough,” he told me with a great sigh, lifting one hand to push the sweat-soaked black curls from his forehead. “I knew the danger of Apollo’s Eye. I couldn’t get in while the two priests were watching, but a few minutes ago, as soon as they left, I was able to come in.”

  “But why?”

  Instead of answering, he bent forward to peer deeply into my eyes. “You’ve changed,” he said slowly. “Something happened—what? Are you—Jason?”

  “I’ve seen Jason clearly,” I said. “Clear enough to know I’m not he. I am someone else. Just as three thousand years ago the Jason you knew had a double mind.”

  He nodded soberly. “I remember that. Well, are you Jason enough to break your pledges still? Do you know now which side you fight on?”

  Apollo’s beautiful, hideous face swam before my eyes. I controlled a violent shudder of sheer revulsion.

  I heard myself saying:

  “On Hecate’s—if I can rid the world of Apollo!”

  Panyr nodded again. “This time you’ll mend the broken oath, then? Well, you returned to us none too soon! I wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing when I saved you just now, but perhaps it was fortunate.” He shrugged. “When we first met on Aeaea, the Circe knew you must come to Helios, so I kept you waiting until the men from Helios could capture you. That was strategy. And the Circe knew you had to meet Cyane here in the temple.

  “But after that, I acted on my own initiative. Being half a god is sometimes an advantage. Humans laugh at me, but not even the priests of Apollo dare harm a faun. So I can walk freely where I will. Does that suggest anything helpful to you? Call on me if you will, Son of Jason, and this time you can trust a faun!”

  “You’re up to your old tricks again, evading the question,” I said. “As for your offer—thanks. I’ll remember it. But first, tell me what’s happened!”

  “Phrontis tricked you, of course. You must have expected that. The Eye of Apollo is not a thing to tamper with lightly. Your memories were being stripped from you, layer by layer. In the end—nothing! You would have lost your very soul. When a man looks into Apollo’s Eye, his own eyes are darkened forever.”

  “So Phrontis still feared and distrusted me that much!” I said grimly. “Well, now he has reason to fear me! Thanks to you, Panyr. I thought—though—” I glanced around uncertainly. “I thought Phrontis and Ophion were to be here for a ceremony of some sort while I—”

  Panyr’s short laugh interrupted me. “You heard me say I waited until it was safe to enter. Safe! I’m still sweating! By Bacchus, I—”

  “The priests!” I reminded him impatiently. “Where are they?”

  ”One of them’s right behind you,” he said strangely.

  Startled, I whirled. It speaks eloquently for the physical and mental state I was still in that I had not until that moment looked farther around the room, or wondered about the all-pervading smell of blood.

  A man in golden robes lay sprawled upon the floor by the entrance, face down upon a lake of bright crimson that was still wet and looked to be spreading at little as I watched.

  “Ophion,” Panyr murmured. “No, it’s no good now. You can’t help.”

  “Phrontis?” I asked. The faun nodded.

  “Or, in a way, yourself,” he added. “You killed him as surely as Phrontis drove the blade, when you betrayed Cyane back into their hands.”

  “Ophion was the priest who saved her from sacrifice!” I said.

  “Surely you might have guessed. Phrontis guessed. But Ophion was still master and he had to act deviously. He used you for that. Perhaps you knew, or sensed it, and in your own turn used him. I’m not sure yet about you. But once Cyane was betrayed, Ophion had to act again.”

  The faun looked down at the motionless body, his face expressionless. “I thank the gods we fauns are proof against weaknesses like love,” he said. “It can lead to dreadful things. It can lead a man like Ophion to—this, for instance.”

  “He loved her?”

  Panyr shrugged. “He did—or thought he did. Ophion was a doomed man from the moment of his crippling. Apollo accepts no imperfect priests. He couldn’t hope to live beyond the Hour of the Eclipse which comes very soon now. Then Apollo would reject him and Phrontis would be master in Helios. So it didn’t much matter what he did—a week early, a week late. You see? I think, at such a time, a man reaches out blindly for human love. Perhaps it was his instinct to save Cyane in propitiation to the Fates, that he himself might in turn be saved. Who knows? Death and love play odd games with mankind. I’m glad we fauns never know either.”

  “Why did Phrontis kill him just here and now?” I asked, breaking in upon his rambling.

  “To stop him from saving you,” was Panyr’s surprising answer. “I think Ophion reasoned that if anyone alive could help Cyane now, it must be the Son of Jason. It’s true you had betrayed her, but he must have hoped you did it only to save her in the end. You came from Hecate. He counted on that. And without you there was n
o hope at all. So he tried to halt the progress of your madness before it was too late.”

  “And failed?”

  “And died,” Panyr corrected me. “Phrontis laughed and came away then, to leave you to your madness. And I got in at last, barely in time. So now you know.”

  “Where’s Cyane now?”

  “Imprisoned. Safe for the moment. Phrontis will use her for the sacrifice when the Hour of the Eclipse strikes. Very soon now.”

  “How soon?”

  “To know that you’ll have to ask Phrontis. He keeps the sacred hours and minutes.”

  “I’ll ask him.” I said. “Can you lead me to him now?”

  Panyr’s bearded jaw dropped. “What!” he demanded. “You must be mad! Phrontis will—”

  “He’ll tell me what I want to know, I think. You asked me if I had changed, Panyr. The answer is—yes.” I grinned at him, conscious of a surge of assurance such as I had never known before. That strange, alien light which had bathed my brain had left an aftermath of clarity, as though I had just now awakened from a long, dim dream. I knew now many of the answers that were veiled before. I no longer walked blind in shadows.

  “You lived on Aeaea in the time of the first Jason,” I said, “but I wonder if you know the reason the Golden Fleece is so powerful.”

  I saw his momentary hesitation. “The Fleece? It’s powerful, yes. No doubt there are many reasons why.”

  “I know them,” I said. “The Fleece is something like a machine. The first Jason thought it sheer magic, but in my world, in my time, I’ve studied the sciences you call enchantments. I’ll tell you this, Panyr—the Mask must be brought to Helios.”

  “It’s never left Aeaea.”

  “But the soul of the first Circe lives in it. Circe, like Jason, must come again before the cycle is completed, if this deadlock between your gods is ever to be broken.”

  Panyr looked at me with a dubiety that gradually faded. Suddenly he grinned.

  “You speak like a hero,” he said ironically. “In the Hour of the Eclipse your remarkable courage may go out with the sun, but I promised my aid and you shall have it. Come, I’ll take you to Phrontis. And may Hecate help you!”

  Chapter X

  High Priest’s Bargain

  Just an hour later Phrontis was pouring me out another cup of wine. He pushed it across the table, watching me. He thought I was a good deal more intoxicated than I was. This wine was weak stuff compared with the fiery baptisms I remembered from my own world.

  “I know. You needn’t repeat it,” I said. “No one ever looked into the Eye of Apollo before and came out sane. Well, I’m from another world. I don’t bear you any grudge for the attempt. You’d have killed me if you could, because you were safer with me dead. But I’m not dead. And the balance has shifted now.”

  He nodded. “Perhaps.”

  “You don’t want this war between Apollo and Hecate to come to a climax, do you?”

  “No. It might be disastrous. If things remain as they are, I look forward to a long and pleasant life.” He was quite frank about it.

  “And you don’t believe in the gods. Well, I don’t either. And I’m in a position to know. Still, your long, pleasant life may be very short and disagreeable if Apollo and Hecate meet.”

  He poured himself more wine. “Well?”

  “They can’t meet as we do. Only under certain conditions can they fight at all, and with certain weapons.” I paused, sipping. Phrontis leaned forward, his face eager. I had hooked him but he wasn’t landed yet! I reminded myself—Careful, carefull He’s no fool, this logical priest of Apollo!

  “If those tools could be smashed,” I said, and sipped again.

  “That was my plan,” he told me flatly. “To smash you and Cyane, make you useless to Hecate.”

  I laughed and turned my cup so the golden wine cascaded to the floor.

  “The lives of men! Do you think Hecate can’t find other tools? Lives are easily replaced, but there are weapons that can’t be. The gods are somewhat more than human—they do have great powers. But not without their tools.”

  “They could fashion new tools.”

  “No. The Mask was made by Hephaestus, whom Apollo killed. This world would be safer for us both without it.”

  “Yes,” he said, studying the spilled wine. “Yes, perhaps.”

  “Not for me, you’re thinking. Oh yes, my life can be destroyed too. That thought’s in your mind. But what would you have to gain? Look now, Phrontis.” I leaned forward, laying my hand on his shoulder. “We’re men, not half-gods or gods. But we’re clever men. Let these so-called gods fight their battles in their own way, so long as they refrain from dragging us into their squabbles. In my world there is a vast store of knowledge that I could make very useful to you.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. He was not yet convinced.

  “You won’t kill me,” I said with a confidence I was far from feeling. “And later—I’ll be too useful for you to think of it.” I must make him think me pliable as the old Jason. Already he believed me a little drunk. I waited patiently.

  After a time he said, “What is the Mask?”

  “I believe it’s an artificial brain, in effect. I have no language to describe it to you in your tongue. In mine, we’d call it something like a radioatomic colloid, perhaps, that once was imprinted with the thought-pattems and the character-matrices of the original Circe.” I picked up an image from a nearby table, a figure of a centaur, molded from clay that had been glazed and fire-kilned. I showed Phrontis a fingerprint on it.

  “The mark of the artisan’s finger. Perhaps the sculptor died long ago, but this part of him lives on. Do you understand?”

  “Fingerprints, yes,” he said. “But thoughts! Are thoughts real things?”

  “They are real,” I told him. “They are patterns of energy that can be recorded, as we’ve done in my world. The mind of the first Circe lives in the Mask, which is as I say, a machine. The Circes who worship Hecate are ordinary women. The goddess comes to them only when they wear the Mask.”

  I paused, watching him. Then, “The Fleece,” I said slowly, “is a machine too—no more. If that could be destroyed as well—”

  Phrontis looked up sharply. His eyes were piercing on mine.

  “What do you know about the Fleece?”

  I shrugged. “A little. Enough.”

  His laugh was fainly ironic. “Much or little, it doesn’t matter now. Do you think we haven’t tried to destroy the Fleece?”

  I watched and waited. After a moment he went on. “We know the Fleece is a danger to Apollo. How? Well, only the gods know how. But many high priests for many generations have sought the secret of destroying it. All of them failed. Which is why it hangs in an inaccessible place, guarded to keep meddlers away! What we can’t destroy, we can at least keep safe.”

  “Perhaps I know how to get rid of it,” I said carelessly. “We’ll discuss that another time. As for the Mask, now—”

  “Oh, the Mask. I read your mind, my friend. You want to be sent to Aeaea to fetch it.”

  I looked as confused as I could. It wasn’t difficult. “No one else could be sure of bringing it back,” I said. He laughed, and I stood up suddenly. “Get it yourself, then! Go to Aeaea, if you dare, and ask Hecate to surrender the Mask to you! Remember this, Phrontis—I’ll work with you, but I’m no tool. I’ve told you one way to get the Mask. Now think of a way yourself, or admit you can’t. And don’t keep me waiting too long!”

  I stared at him long enough to make my point then sat down and drank more wine.

  Presently he nodded. “Very well, go to Aeaea,” he said. “I’ll put a ship at your disposal. Meanwhile, you are my friend and guest. I’d rather be friend than enemy to you, Son of Jason.”

  “You’ll find it more profitable,” I warned him.

  He smiled. “I’d thought of that, of course. Yes, we shall be good friends.”

  He lied ver
y gracefully.

  Panyr was right. I had changed in Apollo’s sanctum. The memories of Jason no longer troubled me. But I had not lost the memories—no, I had found them now. I could draw on them at will. And no longer was I shaken by Jason’s unstable emotions.

  As for the Eye of Apollo—it was indeed a clever gadget!

  Mnemonic probing is nothing new. The being called Apollo, or his priest-scientists, had developed a device highly specialized for psychic probing. Carried too far, it could strip away a man’s memories, leaving him helpless as a child. But I had been stopped in time.

  I had gained from the experience all the value of a complete mental catharsis, the basic principle of psychiatric treatment. It was the narcosynthetic treatment that had started this trouble for me, and it was the equivalent of narcosynthesis, in a totally alien world, that had cured me, but leaving me definitely on the spot in that alien world.

  Many points were not yet clear. By no stretch of the imagination could I logically explain the method by which I had come here. The Argo was dust long ago—or was it, after all? The people of Helios knew it, but as a ghost-ship with a ghostly crew.

  I could not answer that question, so I put it aside for awhile. There were other questions more immediately urgent, and those I could answer. My double mind, the fact that Jason had sometimes held away in the mind of Jay Seward was not inexplicable now, though it involved space-time concepts that were revolutionary enough.

  In effect, I think, it was schizophrenia, though by no means as simple as that. Perhaps the real answer lay in the first Jason’s split personality, whose secondary quality had been—myself, or my counterpart, three thousand years ago. One half of Jason was shifty and facile—the half history remembers. The other was troubled with conscience and the dominant Jason thrust it down out of sight. But there was a clear and definite pattern to that hidden half of his mind, a pattern that recurred three thousand years later in myself.