Counting Up, Counting Down
Page 33
Phye waited in the temple for someone to bring her a woman’s long mantle. She wanted to go forth, not to revel but back to her quiet home in Paiania, and could hardly do that in the panoply of the goddess. Peisistratos had promised one of his men would take care of her needs. She waited and waited, but the man, whoever he was, did not come. Maybe he’d already found wine and music and good cheer, and forgotten all about her.
The akropolis grew quiet, still—deserted. Down below, in the agora, in the wineshops, people did indeed celebrate the return of Peisistratos: no tyrannos had ever given a command easier to obey. The noise of the festivity came up to Phye as the smoke of a sacrifice rose to the gods. Like the gods, she got the immaterial essence, but not the meat itself.
She muttered under her breath. Tomorrow, surely, they’d remember her here. If she spoke to Peisistratos, she could bring trouble down on the head of whichever henchman had failed her. She sighed. She didn’t care about that. All she wanted was to go home.
Her head came up. Someone up here on the akropolis was playing a double flute—and coming closer to the temple where she sheltered. Maybe she hadn’t been forgotten after all. Maybe Peisistratos’ man had just paused for a quick taste of revelry before he took care of her. She wondered whether she should thank him for coming at all or bawl him out for being late.
He played the flutes very well. Listening to the sweet notes flood forth, Phye marveled that she didn’t hear a whole band of men—and loose women, too—following, singing to his tune and stomping out the rhythms of the kordax or some other lascivious dance.
As far as her ears could tell, the fluteplayer was alone. Cautiously, she stepped forward and peered out through the entryway to the temple, past the sacred olive and the boulder on which she and then Peisistratos had spoken. She remained deep in shadow. Whoever was out there would not be able to spy her, while she—
She gasped, gaped, rubbed at her eyes, and at last believed. Daintily picking his way toward her, his hooves kicking up tiny spurts of dust that glowed white in the moonlight before settling, was a satyr.
No wonder he plays the flutes so well, Phye thought dizzily. He looked very much as her brother had described the satyr he saw, as the vase-painters showed the creatures on their pots: horse’s hind legs and tail; snub-nosed, pointed-eared, not quite human features; phallos so large and rampantly erect, she wanted to giggle. But neither her brother’s words nor the vase-painters’ images had come close to showing her his grace, his strange beauty. Seen in the flesh, he wasn’t simply something made up of parts of people and animals. He was himself, and perfect of his kind.
He lowered the double flute from his mouth. His eyes glowed in the moonlight, as a wolf’s might have. “Gray-eyed Athena?” he called, his voice a slow music. Phye took a step back. Could he see her in here after all? He could. He did. He laughed. “I know you are in your house, gray-eyed Athena. Do you not remember Marsyas? You gave me the gift of your flutes.” He brought them to his lips once more and blew sweetness into the night air.
“Go away,” Phye whispered.
No man could have heard that tiny trickle of sound. Marsyas did, and laughed again. “You gave me a gift,” he repeated. “Now I shall give you one in return.” Altogether without shame, he stroked himself. He had been large. He got larger, and larger still.
Phye groped for the spear and shield she had set aside. The shield she found at once, but the spear—where was the spear? She had leaned it against the wall, and—
She had no time to search now. Past the boulder Marsyas came, past the sacred olive tree, up to the very threshold of the shrine. There he paused for a moment, to set down the flutes. Phye dared hope the power of the goddess would hold him away. Athena was a maiden, after all, as Phye was herself. Surely Athena’s home on earth would be proof against—
Marsyas stepped over the threshold. “Goddess, goddess,” he crooned, as easily befooled as any Athenian, “loose yourself from that cold hard bronze and lie with me. What I have is hard, too, but never cold.” He touched himself again and, incredibly, swelled still more.
“Go away,” Phye said, louder this time. “I do not want you.” Would Athena let a woman, a virgin, be raped on the floor of her temple? Why not? a cold voice inside Phye asked. What better punishment for a woman who dared assume the person of the goddess?
And the satyr Marsyas said, “But I want you, gray-eyed Athena,” and strode toward her.
Almost, Phye cried out that she was not the goddess. She would have cried out, had she thought it would do any good. But, to a satyr, female flesh would be female flesh. Even in the deep darkness inside the temple, his eyes glowed now. He reached out to clasp her in his arms.
She shouted and interposed the shield between them. If he wanted her maidenhead, he would have to take it from her. She would not tamely give it to him. All right: for Peisistratos’ sake, she had pretended to be Athena. Now she would do it for herself. She’d have to do it for herself. Plainly, the goddess was not about to do it for her.
Marsyas shoved aside the shield. Phye’s shoulder groaned; the satyr was stronger than a man. Marsyas laughed. “What have you got under that armor?” he said. “I know. Oh yes, I know.” Like an outthrust spear, his phallos tapped at the front of her corselet.
“I do not want you!” Phye cried again, and brought up her leg, as hard as she could.
In her grandfather’s time, greaves had covered only a hoplite’s calves. These days, smiths made them so bronze protected the knee as well. She was a big woman—Peisistratos would never have chosen her had she been small—she was frightened, and, if not so strong as a satyr, she was far from weak.
Her armored kneecap caught Marsyas square in the crotch.
Just for an instant, his eyes flamed bright as a grass fire seen by night. Then, all at once, the fire was quenched. He screamed and wailed and doubled over, clutching at his wounded parts. His phallos deflated like a pricked pig’s bladder.
“Go!” Phye said. “Never think to profane Athena’s temple again.” When the satyr, still in anguish, turned to obey, she kicked him, right at the root of his horse’s tail. He wailed again, and fled out into the night.
That was well done.
Phye’s head swiveled round. Had the thought been her own, or had it quietly come from outside her? How could it have? She was all alone, here in Athena’s temple. But if you were alone in the house of the goddess, were you truly alone?
Peisistratos would think so.
“Thank you,” Phye whispered. She got no response, real or imagined. She hadn’t expected one.
A little while later, a man bearing a torch in one hand and carrying a bundle under his other arm came up onto the akropolis. He lurched as he walked, as a man with a good deal of wine in him might do. Almost like a windblown leaf, he made his erratic way toward the temple where Phye waited.
“Lady?” he called—he could not be bothered remembering Phye’s name. “I’ve got your proper clothes here.” He jerked the bundle up and down to show what he meant. “I’m sorry I’m late but—hic!” To him, that seemed to say everything that needed saying. “Here, what’s this?” Just outside the temple, he bent and picked up the double flutes Marsyas had forgotten in his flight. “Are these yours, lady?”
“They are Athena’s,” Phye answered. “Close enough.”
After the Last Elf Is Dead
From Tolkien on, many, many fantasies have dealt with the struggle between Good and Evil (capital letters are deliberate there), and with Good’s eventual triumph. But, as we see after living in the world for a while, Good doesn’t always win, however much we wish it would. What would the triumph of Evil look like in a high-fantasy world? Something like this, maybe?
* * *
The city of Lerellim burned. Valsak reckoned a good omen the scarlet flames and black smoke mounting to the sky: black and scarlet were the colors of the Dark Brother the high captain served.
An ogre came up to Valsak, bent savage head in salute
while it waited for him to notice it. “Lord, the quarter by the river is taken,” it reported.
The man nodded. “Good. Only the citadel left, then.” His eyes narrowed as he studied the great stone pile ahead. Atop the tallest tower, the Green Star still flew, the proud banner snapping defiance in the breeze. Men and elves shot from the battlements at the Dark Brother’s ring of troops as it tightened around them.
Valsak rubbed his chin. The citadel would be expensive to take. The high captain’s mouth widened in a tight-lipped smile. He knew the difference between expensive and impossible.
Thunderbolts lashed out from the fortress, spears of green light. Valsak swore, and had to wait for his vision to clear to see what damage the enemy’s magic had done. He smiled again: almost none. The Dark Brother put forth all his might now, to end once and for all the pretensions of these bandits who had for so long presumed to style themselves High Kings in his despite.
Valsak turned to his lieutenant. “Gather a storming party, Gersner. We will go in through the main gate, once our wizards have thrown it down.”
“It shall be done, High Captain.” Gersner was small, thin, and quiet; anyone who did not know him would have had trouble imagining him as any kind of soldier. Valsak knew him, and knew his worth. Within minutes, men and ogres began gathering before the main gate. A proper murderous crew, Valsak thought, almost fondly. The warriors brandished swords, spears, maces. Whatever the butcher’s bill they would have to pay, they knew they stood on the edge of victory.
Two black-robed wizards, one with a bandage on his head, made their way through the storming party. Soldiers stepped back fearfully, letting them pass. They, in turn, bowed before Valsak. To wield their magic, they had to stand high in the Dark Brother’s favor. He stood higher, and they knew it.
He pointed. “Take out the gates.”
They bowed again, and stayed bowed, gathering their strength. Then they straightened. Crimson rays shot from their fingertips; crimson fire smote the metal at the top of the gates and ran dripping down them, as if it were some thick liquid. Where the fire stuck and clung, the metal was no more.
Then the clingfire slowed, nearly stopped. The bandaged wizard staggered, groaned, gave back a pace.
“Counterspell!” his comrade gasped hoarsely. He cried out a Word of power so terrible even Valsak frowned. That Word was plenty to occupy the men or elvish wizards trapped in the citadel. With them distracted thus, the other black-robe recovered himself, stepped up to stand by his colleague again. The fire began to advance once more, faster and faster.
Soon the gates were burned away. The harsh smoke from them made Valsak cough. He drew his sword, picked up his shield. “Forward!” he shouted. He charged with his warriors. No officer could make troops dare anything they thought him unwilling to risk himself.
Archers appeared in the blasted doorway. Elf-shot shafts flew far, fast, and straight. Men and ogres behind Valsak fell. An arrow thudded against his buckler. The shield was thin and looked flimsy, but the magic in it gave better protection than any weight of wood or metal. Not even elf-arrows would pierce it, not today.
The archers saw they were too few to break up Valsak’s attack. Those his own bowmen had not slain darted aside, to be replaced by heavily armored men and elves.
“If their gates can’t hold us out, their damned soldiers won’t!” Valsak yelled. His storming column’s cheers rose to the skies, along with the smoke from falling Lerellim.
Recognizing the high captain as his foes’ commander, an elflord sprang out to meet him in single combat. The elf was tall and fair, after the fashion of his kind, with gold hair streaming from beneath his shining silvered helm. Not a hint of fear sullied his noble features; more than anything else, he seemed sorrowful as he swung up his long straight blade. Even in mail, he moved gracefully as a hunting cat.
Valsak killed him.
Cunning alone had not raised the high captain to his rank. As happened often in the Dark Brother’s armies, he had climbed over the bodies of rivals, many of them slain by his own hand. And in the wars against the High Kings and their elvish allies, he fought always at the fore.
He would never be so fluid a warrior as the elflord he faced, nor quite as quick. But he was strong and clever, clever enough to turn his awkwardness to advantage. What seemed a stumble was not. His shield turned the elf’s blow; his own sword leaped out to punch through gorget and throat alike.
The elflord’s fine mouth twisted in pain. His eyes, blue as the sky had been before the fires started, misted over. As his foe crumpled, Valsak felt something sigh past him: the elf’s soul, bound for the Isle of Forever in the Utmost West. Flee while you can, the high captain thought—one day the Dark Brother may hunt you even there.
The fall of their leader threw the gateway’s defenders into deeper despair than had been theirs before. With some, that increased their fury, so they fought without regard to their own safety and were sooner killed than might otherwise have been true. Others, unmanned, thought of flight, weakening the stand still more. Soon Valsak and his warriors were loose in the citadel.
He knew where he wanted to take them. “The throneroom!” he cried. “Those who cast down the last of this rebel line surely will earn great rewards from our master!” The cheers of men and ogres echoed down the corridors ahead of them as they stormed after Valsak. Some might have dreamed of lordships under the Dark Brother; some of loot beyond counting; some of women there for the taking; the ogres, perhaps, just of hot manflesh to eat. All their dreams might turn real now, and they knew it.
There was plenty more fighting on the way. Desperate parties of men and elves flung themselves at Valsak’s band. The high captain got a slash on his cheek, and never remembered when or how. But the defenders were too few, with too many threats to meet: not only was the gate riven, but by this time the Dark Brother’s armies had to have flung ladders and towers against the citadel’s walls. Like the city outside, it was falling.
“Ha! We are the first!” Gersner called when the invaders burst past the silver doors of the throneroom and saw none of the Dark Brother’s other minions had come so far so fast.
In front of the guards around the High King’s throne, a white-robed, white-bearded wizard still incanted, calling on the Light. “Fool! The Light has failed!” Valsak shouted. The wizard paid no heed. Valsak turned to Gersner. “Slay him.”
“Aye.” The smaller man sprang forward. The wizard tried to fling lightning at him, but the levinbolt shriveled before it was well begun. Laughing, Gersner sworded the old man down.
Valsak’s warriors flung themselves on the guards. The high captain saw they had the numbers and fury to prevail. That left only the High King. His sword was drawn, but he still sat on the throne, as if while his fundament rested there he remained ruler of the Western Realm.
Maybe that sort of mystic tie had existed once, but the Dark Brother’s rise broke all such asunder. Watching his guards, men and elves die for him, the High King must have realized that. He sprang to his feet, crying to Valsak, “I’ll not live, for your filthy master to make sport of!”
To Valsak’s disappointment, the High King did fight so fiercely he made his foes kill him. “Miserable bastard,” Gersner muttered, a hand to his ribs; one of the High King’s slashes had almost pierced his mailshirt and the leather beneath it, and must have left a tremendous bruise. By then, though, the last guards were down, with men and ogres taking turns shoving steel into the corpse as it lay sprawled on the steps before the throne.
Above the royal seat, the air began to shimmer and twist, as if being kneaded by unseen hands. Then the Dark Brother, in all his dreadful majesty, assumed the throne he had coveted through the five ages since the First Beginning. His warriors bent the knee before him as, smiling, he surveyed the carnage in the throneroom.
He spoke then, and Valsak knew his words echoed from the Frozen Waste in the north to the deserts and steaming jungles of the Hotlands. “The world is mine!” he said.
Gersner frowned. “Our job is to teach them,” he said, a touch of reproof in his voice.
“Aye,” Valsak said. “Teach them we are.” His eyes went to the fields to one side of the road. Bands of marauders wearing the Dark Brother’s black surcoats were plundering the farms there. Some farmers must have been resisting from one stout building, for several raiders were working toward it with torches.
Valsak swung up a mailed hand. “Column left!” he called, and trotted toward the farm building. Riders followed. “Nock arrows,” he added, and fit his own action to word.
The Dark Brother’s irregulars cheered to see reinforcements riding to their aid. But Valsak led his troopers to cordon the farm building away from the raiders, and his men faced out, not in.
The marauders’ leader, a man with features so dark and heavy he might have been a quarter ogre, angrily rushed up to Valsak. “Who do you think you are, and what in the name of the Dark Brother’s dungeons are you playing at?” he shouted.
“I am the high captain Valsak, and if you invoke the Dark Brother’s dungeons in my hearing again, you will earn the chance to see what you have called upon,” Valsak said. He sat quiet upon his horse, coldly staring down as the fellow in front of him wilted. Then he went on, “I will give you back the second part of your question: what are you playing at here?”
“Just having a bit of sport,” the other said. “We won, after all; why not take the chance to enjoy it?”
“Because if you go about burning farms, we will all be hungry by and by. I have fought for the Dark Brother more years than you have lived”—a guess, but a good one, and one calculated to put the marauder in fear, for Valsak looked no older than he—“and I have never known his soldiers to be exempt from the need to eat. The war we fought took out enough farms on its own. I do not think the Dark Brother would thank you for wantonly destroying more of what is his.”