*
"What did I see then," she asked, on the way to the fountain.
"It is said, 'I sing of the Divine Glorious Child and great light of mortals, Asklepios.' I can't say with certainty, but that would seem the gist of it."
"I'd thought it was Dionysus," she said, "as it was a child."
"That's only natural for one versed in the Mysteries. The rites of Asklepios and Demeter are closely linked. In the end, all deities merge to one. All within mortals' perception is ultimately Zeus. What surprises me is that you saw the divine and lived to tell about it. To gaze upon an immortal is fatal."
"I always see them just before a seizure. Remember?"
"Most would say you're blessed. I say what a shame."
It was almost as dark outside as in the Tholos. The stars had come out. The slaves had already delivered the piglets, with which Melaina and Myrrhine were to bathe and then sacrifice. The mother and daughter stood in torchlight at the sacred spring just north of the Abaton.
"Asklepios sends up this water so we might purify ourselves before incubation," said Theognotus. Again, the Hierophant was excluded but had to pay the healing fee demanded by the sanctuary. His disposition clouded further. "Intolerable!" he said.
They sacrificed both pigs and sheep in the temple before Asklepios, then burned the swine whole upon the blazing pyre, as sparks trailed skyward into the deep night. Each fleece was stripped from the sheep for the women to sleep on.
After the sacrifices, Theognotus took them to the Abaton. "We'll separate you and your mother, she to the east end of the building, you to the west. During incubation, you must withdraw from mankind and surrender to the force within, meet the god halfway for naked, immediate healing."
The open-air dormitory was one long room, the open front formed of columns, the floor separated into individual stalls for each patient. Melaina felt a breeze blowing through the building. Heretofore, they'd been separated from the other patients because of their lofty, priestess positions, but now they were included among the masses. Melaina's fresh fleece had been wiped clean of blood, but it was still slick and slippery on the straw bedding. She placed it, bloody skin down, in the straw within her walled stall and lay upon the soft fur.
Theognotus put Melaina down to sleep himself. "I've done all I can for you," he said. "Now it's up to you and the god."
"Don't be disappointed if I can't sleep. I thank you for helping."
The priest left her alone, and she lay back on the fleece listening to the muffled voices of those who couldn't keep their mouths shut despite the injunction against talking. She heard a baby cry. She watched the moon set and the Pleiads. It was the middle of the night and still she lay awake. I've come to the darkness of suffering to see the sun-like healer, she thought, and still can't get beyond myself.
The Mysteries, A Novel of Ancient Eleusis Page 50