Athenian Steel (Book I of the The Hellennium)

by P. K. Lentz

  The Pythia stared at him with deep hatred written in her sneer. Demosthenes whispered blankly, "What must I do to save us?"

  "Moron!" Apollo's prophet roared in frustration. "How thick does Athens make men? Kill her!"

  "But how? I cannot plot against her, for she will know—"

  "Find a way, goat-scrotum, or watch Athens burn!" the Pythia hissed. Sending him a final look of utter contempt, the raped virgin oracle laid back down in her fetal ball and resumed her soaring, eternal moan just in time for the mists to reclaim her.

  A warm wind blew. The mist faded, and Demosthenes stood alone on a silent, corpse-strewn battlefield. No, not merely that, for not even in the days of Xerxes' invasion could a field of corpses ever have stretched from horizon to horizon in all directions. Worse still, among the bronze-clad warriors and their broken shields were women of all ages, their rent garments of linen and silk clinging to crimson, shredded hips and breasts. There were slaughtered children, too, some dressed in armor and with swords in their small, lifeless hands. The sky above was uniformly gray and heavy with clouds, whilst underfoot the space between corpses, what little of it there was, ran so deep with standing gore that it sloshed cold between sandal and sole. A shock of coppery curls bobbed in that vile sea: Eurydike, her green eyes unseeing. Not far from her was the mangled form of lame Phormion. Elsewhere lay Kleon, Nikias, Alkibiades.

  Demosthenes did not mourn them, for he knew he had no right. Looking down he saw that he wore a blood spattered breastplate of bronze embossed with the image of a twisting snake. No... a worm. A short sword hung at his waist, its handle gummed with blood, and where the blade protruded from the scabbard, there was visible the start of some inscription.

  He slowly drew the bloody blade out, wiping it as he went, and revealed the letters one by one. M-A-Γ-Δ-A-Λ-

  He dropped it back into place and looked up. He was not alone. In the middle distance, a figure walked toward him. It bore a spear and wore a hoplite's helmet of the Corinthian style which covered all but the eyes and a sliver of mouth drowned in shadows. Below the face was a breastplate so coated with blood that its emblem, if it had one, was lost. The warrior's shins and forearms were covered by greaves. The only flesh left uncovered on the body of this metal beast was that of its upper arms and the legs between knee and the breastplate's leather skirts. The limbs were slender and caked in black blood.

  Spear-butt thunking and splashing, the hoplite approached him, sandaled feet churning gore. It stopped. Released, the spear toppled sideward, and two bloodied hands went to the helm, gripped the cheek pieces and raised it. A thick, black braid spilled out over the hoplite's left shoulder. The helmet crested a cocked head and tumbled off into the human morass, and Thalassia stood unmasked.

  Thunder crashed. The pregnant gray sky let loose a gentle, misting rain. Droplets tapped the bronze on both of their bodies and sent tiny red rivulets coursing down Thalassia's shell of gore, which could not be so easily washed away. She put out a hand palm-up as if to playfully catch a few drops, then she smiled and slowly laughed. It was a laugh of triumph where no triumph had been expected, and far from making Demosthenes the laughter's target, her pale, warm eyes invited him to join her.

  He did not laugh, but he did take a step toward her. He wanted to draw his sword on her but only got as far as flexing the fingers of his right hand. Thalassia moved closer too, stepping on the tattooed arm of slaughtered Eurydike. She laid a hand on his neck and pulled him toward her. He wished to resist, but could not. Instead, he brought both hands up and planted them one on either side of her encrusted armor to draw her body against his. Bronze first met bronze, then flesh met flesh in a tender kiss of affection.

  "I love you," he said. He said it sadly, and the helplessly watching soul within him screamed in revulsion.

  "I know," the star-born Wormwhore said sweetly to her slave, and she kissed him again.

  II. ATHENS 10. Aichmolotos

  Every night for twelve nights after the war council in Alkibiades' garden, Demosthenes awoke in tears, and more often than not fully erect, from gore-soaked nightmares of Thalassia. He was glad on those mornings when he could not remember his visions, for the ones that he did recall went on to haunt his days as well as his nights.

  He tried his best not to let his demeanor towards Thalassia change, but that grew ever more difficult the longer the dreams continued unabated. Even were she just a mortal woman with mortal senses, Thalassia could not but have noticed. But evidently she knew mercy: apart from a look now and then, and the increase in frequency and duration of her stays with Alkibiades (which came rather as a relief) she did not force the issue. Eurydike meanwhile came and went between Athens and Thria. Demosthenes was pleased to have her back when she came, for her presence in the house acted as a buffer and a distraction. When he was alone, his mind turned over and over in endless cycles reviewing his few options. Should he put his reservations aside, hope that the baleful visions relented and simply continue to trust Thalassia? Or should he cast her out of his home and hope he survived the wrath which was all but certain to follow?

  He even once let himself ponder the unthinkable: taking her by surprise with a sword or heavy ax, doing to her what she had done to Eden, only finishing the job. If there was some way to kill her kind, she had not shared it with him, and he could scarcely ask... but burning her mangled remains seemed a good start. Surely that would be the end of her? If not, of course, the consequences would be terrible. And practically speaking, murdering a slave was not without its legal consequences if the act were to be discovered. This was not Sparta, where slaves lived at their masters' whims.

  No. Both practically and morally, killing her was out of the question. He barred his mind permanently from travel along that course.

  Once or twice he saw Eden, too, in his dreams. However little he understood of Thalassia, he knew less of the other. Who was to say Eden was not in the right and Thalassia the villain? In fact, on nothing more than the evidence at hand, that seemed more likely than not to be the case. Thalassia was the outcast, the traitor, the self-obsessed fugitive, and if, as his visions warned, she truly was more monster than woman, then Eden might one day prove a valuable ally against her. A counterbalance, at least. As such, he resolved not to remind Thalassia of her pledge to hunt down and eliminate Eden in the coming year.

  At some point during those twelve vision-plagued days, it occurred to Demosthenes that there was yet one other Greek in Athens besides himself and Alkibiades who was aware of Thalassia's otherworldly nature. And so on the thirteenth morning, Demosthenes rose to an empty house (Eurydike being in the country, Thalassia with her playmate) and set off to gain audience with him.

  The sprawling jailhouse of Athens was not a single structure but actually a complex of six buildings, each added by a new generation to accommodate the growing legions of the accused and convicted. The wall which enclosed it all was likewise a patchwork project that had changed its course a number of times over the years, but it had only one gate, with a stout guardhouse beside it, and that was where Demosthenes went. He had made no prior arrangements, but rather counted on his face to win him the access he desired, and the plan worked. The jailer, half-asleep at his post, shook himself to alertness, then appeared gratified to have as a visitor the very man who had helped to fill his cells to bursting with prisoners of war. He summoned a guard to bring out the requested prisoner, and scant minutes later Demosthenes sat in a cupboard-sized room staring across a tabletop of knotted planks at the Spartan Equal whose unprecedented surrender he had accepted at Sphakteria.

  Styphon sat rigid in his chair. Gone was his armor, of course, for that had been among the spoils. In its place he wore a plain chiton of undyed wool, on the front of which had been painted, in deliberate mockery of Lakedaemon's crimson lambda, a red alpha, which stood for aichmolotos, prisoner. Shackles of black iron were bolted about his wrists and ankles and connected to one another by heavy chains which gently clinked. His long black
hair was combed and tied back, and he had been allowed to shape and trim his unruly facial growth. The only similarity this man bore to the ash-encrusted warrior of Sphakteria was the pair of gleaming, flinty eyes that bespoke a lifetime of discipline and which were, in fact, considerably more alert than those of his jailers.

  Demosthenes spoke first, not bothering with the pleasantries and prefaces for which he knew Spartans had no use.

  “Tell me all you know of Thalassia,” he demanded.

  At first, Styphon's heavy, clenched jaw did not budge as he engaged his interrogator in a round of staring. But at length his thick scowl twisted, and grated words emerged: “Why should I?”

  “I have influence in this city,” Demosthenes said. “More now than ever. I could hasten your release, or stand in its way.” It was an empty promise, of course, for nothing said here would bear on his votes in the Assembly.

  The Equal snorted. “You think I will scramble to save our lives? If our city sees fit to let us rot here, or to be executed, then so be it. Whatever our fate, we will suffer it gladly.”

  “Did Thalassia speak to you of your fate?” Demosthenes asked.

  Again there was a long delay. Finally Styphon said, “You took her offer.”

  “Offer?” Demosthenes echoed.

  The twitch that moved Styphon's lips was the closest Demosthenes had ever seen to a Spartan smile. “You know of what I speak,” Styphon said confidently. “She told you the outcome of this war and made you believe you could change it.”

  He paused, and Demosthenes waited in silence, trying his best not to let on that the Spartan was right.

  “She tried to change things on the island,” Styphon finally resumed. His smugness had faded. “She failed, and here I sit, in chains”—he rattled them—“as she told me was my fate. But I am a man and an Equal. I know my place, and I accept it.” A sudden sneer turned his lip. “That sea-bitch meddles in affairs that rightfully belong to men and should be settled by men. If you let her, she will be the ruin of both our cities. And more besides. That she would fight for whichever side would have her shows her to be no more than a mercenary.”

  This last word was a curse in the Doric tongue, for Spartans held in great contempt all who would take up arms for so base a cause as personal gain.

  “Be rid of her,” Styphon urged. “Carve her up and throw the pieces back into the sea, as we should have done. Maybe she has already changed our cities' fates, but maybe not. Either way, let us not see our war decided by some woman and outsider. Let us fight it out as men and as Greeks.”

  “If she is so vile a creature,” Demosthenes reasoned, “why did you try to win her passage to Sparta?”

  The question did not throw the Equal, who scoffed. “She is a weapon, Athenian.” This last word was almost a curse in Doric, too. “If she cannot be sheathed or unmade, at least she can be kept out of enemy hands.” His broad shoulders jerked in a chain-clattering shrug. “I need not tell you she has charms.” He leaned forward intensely over the table. “I bet she has you stuffed right up inside her woman parts, seeing what she wishes you to see, thinking what she wishes you to think.” He leaned back again, shook his head and stared with his flint-hard eyes at his vanquisher. “But you came to me,” he said, “and that is a good sign. You have doubts. Your instincts are yet your own. Trust them, Athenian, before they vanish. Before she comes down upon you, and everything you hold dear, like the hammer of the gods.”

  With that the chained beast arose from his chair, signaling the end of the interview. Demosthenes knew it should be he who had the last word, but none came to him. Even if they did, his lips were painfully dry and jaw so tightly clenched that it seemed his head would crumble if he opened it. And so he rapped on the wall behind him to summon a guard, who took the Spartiate away.

  It was a rare day when a Spartan's words lingered past his leaving, but so they did today.

  II. ATHENS 11. Soft Things

  Boedromion in the archonship of Stratokles (September 425 BCE)

  For many days after Demosthenes' visit to Styphon, he hid his suspicions from Thalassia, trying to behave around her as though nothing had changed. He knew he was failing. She could not be lied to. Yet, for reasons apparently her own, she went along with the charade as they began building the cover which would help them introduce her changes to Athens.

  Demosthenes financed jointly with Alkibiades a trading vessel assigned with bringing to Athens, along with the more typical trade goods, whatever it could in the way of scrolls, wax tablets and papyrii in any language. The sailors would not know or care what was written on them in various foreign tongues, if they were even literate—and it did not matter, since upon translation they would become whatever Thalassia wished them to be: 'long lost' secrets of agriculture, weaponcraft, metallurgy, medicine, and more, which then might be 'reintroduced' to Athens.

  Thalassia herself split her time between the homes of her two co-conspirators, as Eurydike did between city and country. She furnished Demosthenes' empty women's quarters perhaps more lavishly than he would have himself. Demosthenes bore the expense without complaint, largely out of a desire to avoid any confrontation which might give her cause to raise other matters between them. But this strategy of avoidance could only last so long.

  At last, a month after his victory at Pylos, Demosthenes returned home one afternoon to find Thalassia lying in wait for him. She stood alone in the megaron, dressed in the long chiton the color of sea-foam which was her favorite, her hair bisected by a straight part, on either side of which hung a tightly braided pigtail. The hairstyle gave her an absurdly childlike appearance quite at odds with the jewel-like hardness of her wintry eyes as she pushed the door shut behind him and set her back against it—her trap sprung.

  “I've waited patiently for whatever is bothering you to go away. Clearly it won't,” she said. “So out with it.”

  Demosthenes laughed feebly. “Nothing... nothing is wrong.”

  Thalassia declined even to respond, just stood against the door freezing Demosthenes' feet to the floor tiles with a gaze that he managed to meet for a short while before deflating.

  He felt relief, in a way, to have the charade at an end. He walked slowly to the low dining table of ebony and stood by its edge. Thalassia followed and faced him across its polished, gilt-edged surface, which cast up a mirror image of the stargirl's hard look and those wildly inappropriate twin braids which framed it. It was this dark reflection at which he stared, rather than the real thing, while he searched for words.

  He found them rather easily. What took slightly longer was digging up the courage to speak them. “I have changed my mind.”

  “About what?” Thalassia's stony expression, devoid of sympathy, did not change.

  He spoke still to the image in ebony, in a voice just above a whisper. “Everything.”

  The lower half of the reflection's face tightened. “Continue.”

  “Fate should not be tampered with,” he said. “I was wrong to start.”

  “Hmm,” she said. The sound was heavy with judgment. “So your new plan is to watch Amphipolis fall, let your supplies be choked off and watch Athens wither until it's time for you to fuck off and die in Sicily.” Abruptly, she commanded, “Look at me.”

  Demosthenes did so. Her pale eyes bored through him.

  “Is that what you want?” she insisted on knowing.

  “I have no other plan,” he admitted, and let his gaze fall again.

  Thalassia forced his chin up with the tip of a finger. “I said look at me.” He complied, and channeled into his eyes a rising anger at being spoken to like some errant youth. “If you were having doubts, you should have come to me about them,” she said sharply. “Tell me now.”

  Far from cowing him, her belligerence and lecturing tone only helped him find his voice. “You care nothing for this city or anyone in it,” he said. “And I would sooner go down in defeat alongside men who love Athens than win victory by means of some … mercenary.”
He barely remembered to pronounce the word in Attic, rather than mimicking Styphon's Doric dialect.

  “Go on.”

  Thalassia's calm made him wonder: was she manipulating him even now? Had her intention in trapping him thus been to push him into open rage?

  So what if it was? He could not turn back. The temptation of release after a month spent pretending was simply was too great. His nightmare visions, his visit with Styphon, the fears and doubts festering in his thoughts, all of these had caused him to... if not hate Thalassia, then something closely resembling it.

  “You care for none but yourself,” he said. “You respect the laws of neither gods nor men. Every one of us is but a marker in some great, cosmic game you play with unseen opponents. And if that weren't bad enough—”

  His next words he knew to be foolish even as he spoke them, but such momentum had he built that he could scarcely stop them spilling out.

  “—you put your cunt to work like a shameless street whore, manipulating men into becoming your playthings. I will be no plaything.”

  Having, for the moment, run out of harsh words with which to follow these, he stopped speaking. Anger seethed behind Thalassia's calm features, and he tensed, half-expecting another sudden attack like the one she had launched on him in Pylos.

  “It hurts that you would go to Styphon instead of talking to me,” she said, relieving him somewhat... or perhaps giving him fresh cause for concern, since it meant she knew of his prison visit. He had even fewer secrets from her than he had thought.

  She smiled frostily and raised the fingers of one hand to the delicate choker of braided silver around her neck.

  “What is this, Demosthenes?” she asked. When he did not immediately give reply to a question he took to be rhetorical, she prompted more forcefully, “What is it?”