Thrice Born

by Jon Jacks

  A flame, even in this deeply incessant darkness, would only draw attention to her and the child. Besides which, she could tell from the way the basket was swiftly gaining weight that the boy was maturing incredibly swiftly.

  Taking the basket and the child from her back, she opened it, letting what was now a young boy free.

  Bromios: he could be called Bromios, she thought, after the roar of the flames that engendered him.

  But no, she corrected herself; for the moment, to keep us hidden, he must be called Eriphios.

  And so saying, she changed this Child of Heavenly Fire into a happily bleating kid.

  *

  Chapter 10

  With its skin of speckled fawn, the kid excitedly trotting alongside Cyebla sometimes blended seamlessly into the dappling of light and shade created by the overhanging branches.

  He ran off the track every now and again, eagerly exploring this brand new world.

  To ensure their concealment from the eyes of the ever-watchful heavens, Cybela had retained the form of a dark ass, appreciating the steadiness and strength this new existence granted her. They were heading up into the cooler, more densely forested mountains, and the going was hard, even treacherous in parts.

  What passed for paths here were little more than trails of smaller stones, all loose and constantly, painfully moving underfoot (or hoof). Many such paths curled around the sides of precipitous cliffs, some so narrow they could have been more rightfully called ledges for birds to perch upon.

  The forests themselves hardly seemed much safer, being the home of numerous wild animals that, moving stealthy, silently through the undergrowth, drew close to Cybela and Eriphios on many occasions; only to thankfully instinctively sense that this supposedly easy prey was not all it seemed to be.

  The lions would slink off, briefly confused, before rushing off in search of more regular beasts to hunt. The packs of wild boar would sniff the air sadly, wondering if they had unwittingly passed up on a tasty meal, then bury their snouts in the earth once more, seeking out other fare.

  Cybela had become so used to the gentle cracking of fallen twigs heralding the approach of potentially dangerous animals that she had become attuned to the slight differences between the rustling of their stalking and the more innocent gliding of the breeze through the surrounding bushes. And so one day, when the previously ever-present trackers failed to make an appearance, the rustling being that of only the most gentle of breezes, she wasn’t relived but alarmed.

  She found it hard to believe that the forest’s inhabitants had simply decided to completely ignore their passage through their domain. More worryingly still, this ‘breeze’ came closer than any animal had so far dared, even the leaves directly above her head at times stirring as if disturbed by unseen sprits.

  And on a night, this sense of a ghostly presence was even stronger, the whispering of the bushes unnerving in its unwitting veiling of these overly attentive wraiths now following Cybela and Eriphios’ every move.

  *

  The darkness shifted, shadows coming to life.

  Stepping forward. Emerging from the encircling bushes.

  As if appearing from the air itself.

  And as silent, too, as the passing of the slightest breeze.

  They could have been gliding across the ground, they were so graceful, so muted in their approach.

  Spirits indeed, Cybela thought: the ghosts of departed women.

  Beautiful women, despite an athletic build more suited to men.

  With the rapid breathing of a charm, Cybela became herself once more.

  None of the approaching women seemed in the least surprised by this.

  ‘We sensed there was more to you than a beast of burden,’ one of the women said blankly, unstringing her bow as she drew closer, reassuring Cybela that she meant no harm.

  ‘Otherwise, we might have shot you,’ another chuckled lightly, although with no hint of a threat. She, too, had unstrung her bow, while all her arrows remained within the quiver slung across her back.

  ‘And you are…?’ Cybela asked.

  ‘Daughters of Rhea; may I ask who you are?’

  ‘You may ask; I may not answer.’

  Every one of the women nodded sagely, as if accepting Cybela’s refusal to give her name as a perfectly reasonable stance.

  ‘Still…I am Rhodopis,’ the first woman to speak said with a welcoming smile.

  ‘Then…you aren’t spirits of the forest?’

  Cybela’s uneasy admission that she had confused them with apparitions of the dead was rewarded with good-humoured chuckles.

  Rhodopis shook her head in answer.

  ‘Many take us for such,’ she added, ‘due to our talents for blending in amongst the trees as we track down our prey.’

  ‘Your child?’ another of the huntresses asked, looking down at the curiously staring Eriphios.

  Cybela still feared that it might be too early to reveal the boy’s real form.

  ‘No; my brother – my twin.’

  They each accepted this declaration as readily as they had accepted her refusal to reveal her name.

  Rhodopis appraised Cybela’s delicate form with a look that could be either appreciative or touched with a hint of disgust.

  ‘Then, despite your beauty…you’re still a maiden?’ Rhodopis asked uncertainly.

  ‘Still…untouched?’ another added, as if worried that Cybela might not fully understand her friend’s question.

  ‘Of course!’ Cybela stated proudly.

  ‘One so beautiful? I find that hard to believe,’ one of the women murmured with traces of a teasing laugh.

  Like her sisters, this woman’s body had been hardened by an accumulation of wiry muscles.

  ‘We don't subscribe to the beliefs of Aphrodite here,’ one of the other huntresses bravely explained.

  ‘Or her falsely supposed son, Eros,’ another added without the slightest gloss of fear.

  ‘A distraction…’

  ‘There are far more important things in life than finding love.’

  ‘Yes, I agree,’ Cybela replied resolutely, all thoughts of him having disappeared long ago since she had started seeking out her sister.

  ‘Then if, like us, you have no real interest in such foolish things,’ a woman said, looking Cybela up and down in the same curious way that Rhodopis had observed her, ‘you should beware our local shepherd, Hymnos.’

  The woman’s sternly delivered warning raised good-natured laughs amongst her friends.

  ‘There’s no more avid worshipper of Eros,’ Rhodopis explained to a mystified Cybela.

  ‘He sings his praises to us at every opportunity…’

  ‘His tender words…’

  ‘His posturing…’

  ‘His declarations of love…’

  ‘A distraction…’

  ‘Who obviously thinks of us as being as docile as his sheep.’

  ‘You can join us in our hunts, if you wish,’ Rhodopis declared abruptly to Cybela, stilling the mockery of Hymnos with a severe frown at her friends.

  ‘The boy…’ Cybela answered uneasily, glancing Eriphios’ way as he still curiously moved amongst the women, taking in their resplendent forms as one would adore a gathering of goddesses.

  ‘There’s a woman who lives nearby,’ Rhodopis said, ‘with her husband and herbown two children; she is of the type who would be glad of another child to mother.’

  ‘I can’t just leave him with anyone,’ Cybela protested doubtfully, wondering how much she could safely revel to these huntresses. ‘His mother was Zemele…’

  ‘Then it can only be that you were fated to come here,’ Rhodopis said merrily. ‘For Ino is Zemele’s sister.’

  *

  ‘We can raise her on honey: honey from the bees that Aristaeus himself brought into life within a slaughtered bull’s carcass, as Hyrieus also gave life to Orion.’

  Ino caressed the little girl in her lap as if she were as adorable to her as her ow
n child, Melicertes.

  She had another child, another boy but older called Learchus, and he stood proudly by his father, Athamas. Makris and Actaeon, children of Ino’s sister Autonoë, were also there, having provided the nourishing honey their father’s bees had made.

  ‘Just as the soul of the sacrificed bull became that of the young hunter Orion,’ Makris explained, ‘the life of a single bull passed though into a thousand bees.’

  Everyone gathered there appeared flattered that Ino had been asked to nurse this mysterious child that the huntress Rhodopis had brought to them. Whom the child was, Rhodopis refused to say, explaining instead that Ino should accept her as an unexpected yet welcome gift of Eileithyia, the Birth Goddess.

  ‘Then that would make me the Child Nurturing Kourotrophos,’ Ino answered with a knowing smile.

  As Rhodopis had predicted, Ino instantly took to this new child as if she were her own babe.

  Of course, Cybela hadn’t accompanied the huntress, as she feared that revealing herself to these people might also unwittingly reveal the real identity of this young girl; Eriphios transformed yet again, to continue his concealment.

  Cybela had decided that she would still stay close by the burgeoning child, however, at least until he had matured enough to protect himself from any malicious actions of the gods. But, realising that motherhood was an aspect of herself she wasn’t quite ready to fully embrace just yet, the young maiden had followed the band of huntresses as they had ascended higher into the mountains’ thick layering of dark forests.

  Borrowing a crooked bow and a quiver of arrows, slipping it over her back alongside the basket now containing nothing but the serpentine scroll and hair shed from her ass’s back, she gladly took to this new role as a huntress, where stakes supporting nets became her loom, and winged arrows her long threads.

  When night came, far from sleeping she saw this as an opportunity for an even more successful hunt, seeking out her prey in a darkness she effortlessly glided through, as if a part of it, as if aided by Aeolus, Master of Winds.

  The more innocent creatures like the fawn, the gazelle, or the hare, she left to more inefficient hunters. For her it was the stag, the bear, the lion. Yet even cubs were deemed by her to be untouchable, such that she was even given to sitting by them and their new mother, laughing as they all excitedly licked her clean.

  Hymnos would watch her with growing admiration.

  Seeing the way the way the lions bowed before her, he thought of her as a new Artemis.

  Noting the way she hunted nightly, he murmured in awe that she was like the Moon, a younger Phoebe.

  And hadn’t the Moon, of course, fallen in love with the shepherd Endymion?

  He envied her bow for the way her soft hands so lovingly caressed its form.

  He would have gladly swapped places with the feathered arrows she brought up to her tenderly supple cheek as she prepared to fire them.

  Indeed, his one-sided love for her became so painful to him that he wished only that she would fire one of those arrows towards his heart, as he increasingly saw it as the only way to escape the agony he was suffering.

  His herd went unwatched and uncared for. His other duties, his daily tasks, were similarly ignored.

  Now naturally, Eros had a hand in the poor shepherd’s increasingly wretched state.

  As Cybela had hunted, and Hymnos had watched from close by, Eros had ensured that a breeze would lift her garments just so, revealing more than the poor, unsuspecting girl realised. As she had washed her kill in the river, or even as she bathed, believing herself to be all alone, Eros had ensured that Hymnos would be passing close by.

  It was not that Eros was in any way angered by Hymnos, or his declarations of love for Cybela. No, it was just the opposite; it was the action of the huntresses who stirred his fury, in their refusal to bow to the divine order imposed by Eros, by Aphrodite, upon the world.

  Now it is a well-known saying that, when it comes to punishing man, madness is the weapon of choice for the gods. And this is a saying that the huntresses of the mountain forests should have borne in mind as they sought to live their lives by their own rules rather than those of the gods.

  It was a saying, too, that Ino would have done well to recall.

  For as she raised the child placed in her care, she knew enough of motherhood to recognise that he – for, of course, she was soon well aware that this ‘girl’ was indeed a ‘boy’ – was no ordinary mortal.

  And so she called him Lyaeus, who frees men from care and anxiety.

  And foolishly, she began to proudly boast of the godlike nature of her child.

  *

  Chapter 11

  The lioness and her young cub believed they were safe.

  Even if they had actually heard the hunter’s approach, they thought nothing of it; for hadn’t they lain peacefully with this hunter on many occasions?

  But today, the hunter had already slain a young fawn, the kill strapped callously about his back.

  And now he wanted further kills to add to his trophies.

  He threw his net about the unsuspecting lioness. He cast aside his spear so that he might snatch up the squealing cub.

  ‘Athamas!’ his wife Ino screamed in terror, seeing too late the madness in his eyes.

  Seeing, too, her dead Learchus so carelessly strapped about his back.

  But Athamas didn’t hear his wife’s cry. He heard only the lioness’s roar.

  He glorified in her pained growls of distress as he cast the struggling cub into a nearby cauldron conveniently boiling away within the lion’s cave.

  The lioness roared in anguish, ripping the net apart with the claws that shone like the blade of a fallen spear. The hunter prepared to defend himself against her vengeful attack; but instead of leaping at him, she threw herself towards the cauldron – for when she saw what was happening to her child Melicertes, she could think of nothing but that she must save him, regardless of any danger to herself.

  She reached deep inside the broiling waters, fearfully dragging out an already half boiled, half-consumed cub.

  Now almost as wild as the hunter, she rushed outside the hall, heading out across the White Plain.

  But the maddened hunter followed, unwilling to give up his sorely injured prey. He pursued her until she had no choice but to stop, because she had come to the very edge of what we call Leucophryne. She stood, wailing hopelessly, on the White Brow of the White Cliff.

  The palpating heart of her child was rapidly fading. She stroked him three times tenderly. She wished she weren’t this mortal husk, prayed that she had the charms and spells of the gods to aid her.

  She called out to the gods for help. To the gods who must be the real parents of Lyaeus.

  ‘Is this the reward you’ve given me?’ she distraughtly wept, the tears misting her eyes such that she could hardly see the ferocious seas breaking on the rocks far below. ‘My boy, who could be Lyaeus’ twin, half burnt to death?’

  But all she received in answer to her pleas was the thunder of rolling waves.

  And Athamas was drawing closer, so close now that he would soon kill them both.

  At least Ino would deny him that maddened pleasure.

  She leapt out over the White Brow.

  She plummeted, still clinging hold of her poor babe, down the White Cliff.

  *

  Lyaeus was no longer anything like his supposed twin, Melicertes.

  He had matured rapidly, an unmistakable sign to his foster mother that he could only be of a divine linage.

  Indeed, he was now more of an age where Cybela could truly be called his rightful twin. For unlike all the other huntresses, her new, arduous life drawing a livelihood from the forest had had little effect on her form. She still remained girlish and lithe: to the extent that she was mocked by one huntress, who doubted that someone retaining Cybela’s feminine beauty could hardly be fully committed to a life without love.

  Naturally, Lyaeus knew n
othing of Cybela, even though he knew of the huntresses who moved as stealthily as breezes through the forest, who nightly took to the woods to hunt down their prey.

  He had made friends, too, with Hymnos, and knew that he suffered a love that could never be returned by these huntresses who daily mocked both Eros and Aphrodite with their stern refusal to take on the role of bride.

  Lyaeus had inherited an innate knowledge of how to make the fullest use of the earth’s dark soils, of how to constantly raise from its dark embrace new life in the form of grain and the vine, the latter burgeoning with grapes that he made into wine. He spread this knowledge amongst men, travelling about the earth in a chariot pulled by two winged serpents provided for him by a friendly goddess.

  And in this way he was well named Lyaeus, for he truly did free men from care and anxiety.

  (Whereas his earlier name of Eriphios would unfortunately give rise to the myth that he had been born ‘sewn in’ – eiraphiotes – to a god’s thigh.)

  One who could not be cured in this way, of course, was his friend Hymnos. If anything, Lyaeus’s remarkable discovery merely gave his friend temporary relief from his woes, only to make his madness increasingly worse afterwards.

  So as poor, lovelorn Hymnos wandered through the forest, praying for even the briefest vision of the goddess he worshiped, Eros saw an opportunity to make mischief for these huntresses who profanely violated his rule.

  Cybela was asleep, by a trickling fountain: a breeze, conjured up at Eros’ instructions, casting her garments aside.

  Hymnos drew closer. In the unfortunate state he was in, he couldn’t help but wish to see more of his love, to pray that the band virgins keep fastened about them would somehow become untied.

  Eros helped the pained imaginings of Hymnos become reality, the breezes acting at his bidding, slipping the band free, pushing the girl’s tunic aside.

  Hymnos wailed in agony.

  He reached out.

  He took up one of the arrows the huntress had left by her side.

  He pressed it hard towards his breast.