Athenian Steel (Book I of the The Hellennium)

by P. K. Lentz

  First revealed was a slick sheet of flaxen hair; below that, a slim torso and rounded backside clad in nothing but white linen rendered translucent by the sea. Then came bare legs which flew, first one and then the other, into the hull, and finally the killer stood fully revealed. Standing at the prow, she gazed upon the victims who cowered at the boat's far end hurling useless prayers at Olympus.

  Rowing on in spite of the near certitude that there could be no escape, Demosthenes watched Eden run the two men through with a sword she stooped to pick up from the boards. They had accepted death, it seemed, and chosen to go this way rather than beneath the waves. This way, they could hope for eventual burial, that their shades might not drift eternally.

  The white daimon of the bay turned in the empty hull to face the final craft, Demosthenes' boat, which had never stopped moving and which now plied the waves some twenty yards from her. With scarcely a pause, she cast her sword aside and dove into the water. The four men around Demosthenes wailed in despair, knowing they were next.

  Demosthenes stopped rowing, dropped his oar and drew the sword on his back. He had seen Eden heavily mutilated, seen her lose an arm, even if she showed no trace of missing it now. Granted, another of her kind had inflicted those wounds, but the fact remained, she could be hurt.

  "I say we kill the bitch," he said, rising from the bench and adopting a low, stable crouch in the rocking vessel. "If we fail, at least we can die well."

  The response was not what it might have been. The other rower shipped his oar, and one by one, eyeing the ominously quiet surface of the bay, the four muttered reluctant assent. They carefully stood and arranged themselves in a tight ring at the craft's center, all eyes facing out. Every man's sword rose; every set of shoulders tensed. The man to Demosthenes' left drew a shuddering breath and resumed a rambling prayer.

  Something slapped the hull. It was no wave, no bit of flotsam: eight white fingers appeared on the prow. The boat rocked, and in one swift motion the daimon came aboard. Golden hair longer than a Spartiate's streamed water onto the benches and along the contours of a body clad so thinly that every detail was visible. The ring of Athenians broke, and its members turned swords shaking in unsteady hands to oppose her.

  She had the face of Leda, this glistening goddess of death, and it showed first interest and then amusement. She smiled wickedly, and without warning she lunged, forming raised hands into claws while hissing loudly through teeth bared in a snarl.

  The move was a feint, but four screams split the air, four swords clattered onto the boards, and four of Athens' bravest men, men who had volunteered to ambush a Spartan army of thousands, jumped into the Bay of Eleusis and swam for their lives.

  Their commander stood alone, pointing a feeble short sword at a being he knew could, with the barest of effort, rend him in two.

  The eyes of Eden were a richer, deeper blue than Thalassia's and harder by far, and the stare they leveled across the rocking boat at him was a measuring one. She came forward and sat facing Demosthenes on the forward bench with her legs parted, putting all she had on display without any thought for modesty.

  She had this in common with Thalassia then.

  "Like what you see, Athenian?" she taunted. She overenunciated as Thalassia once had, and her words were a mix of Attic and Doric. "Or do you prefer darker meat, like Geneva's? Or Seaweed, or whatever it is you're calling her."

  Demosthenes stood frozen. His sword's point was still aimed at her, for what little it was worth.

  The deadly nymph scoffed. "I know you, Demosthenes. I remember you from Pylos. I will not go so far as to say that I owe you my life, but..." She smiled. "Your intervention was timely. A shame that the decision to put a sword in Geneva was the last good one you made. You have become her pet, no? Are you a good dog, Athenian? Do you bend over when she tells you, and yelp when she–"

  "Enough," Demosthenes said, lowering his blade. "I care nothing of your feud with Geneva. My one concern is the safety of my city." In the long seconds which Eden had spent taunting him, Demosthenes' mind had not been idle, nor was it now. His words had purpose. "A mere human cannot deceive your kind, so you must know I speak truly. Perhaps I am possessed of other truths which might be of interest to you?"

  "You think you can play games with me, Athenian?" Eden asked with a malevolent smile. Then, "Very well... until it grows dull. Tell me a truth."

  "I know Geneva's purpose, the one which has stranded you here in a... I believe you would call it a Severed Layer?"

  "Go on," Eden said. Interest was apparent in her sharp, pale features.

  "According to her, this layer, this world, are those which shall give birth to the being you call the Worm. I can guess from your face that this comes as news to you. Geneva knows not the precise time or place, but she hopes that if the course of history is thrown far enough from the path which leads to him, the Worm might be... uncreated."

  Demosthenes paused, and Eden glared, tight of lip and narrow of eye. "No," she concluded at length. "If that is possible, why did Magdalen not order it so? Unless Geneva acts under Her command?"

  "She does not," Demosthenes was pleased to inform her. "As to your other point, I can hardly say. Geneva was the Worm's lover. Perhaps that gave her insight which your Magdalen lacks. I only know that Geneva came here by her own design with the aim of uncreating the Worm–an aim which," Demosthenes added calculatedly, "she believes that you, in lending your knowledge and assistance to Sparta, are presently helping her to achieve."

  He watched Eden absorb this in silence, betraying no outward reaction for some seconds. When she did react, it was to smile. Demosthenes had come to hate that thin, cold smile. He still had not forgotten it from Pylos.

  "Astonishing," Eden remarked. "The Wormwhore's mouth is good for but two things. Lying is one of them. Yet I believe in the truth of what she has told you. Just as I see why you wish for me to know it." Her smile became a sneer. "You hope it will save your city. It will not. No more than will the damage you have done today to a few machines. More of them follow... and they are not our only surprises."

  Star-born, nearly naked Eden stood, a graceful movement that interrupted the rhythm of the hull's gentle rolling not one iota.

  "You have given me much to think on, Athenian," she said. "For the future. For now, our little contest must have resolution. There is pride at stake. Which will triumph, her city... or mine?

  "Go back to your mistress now, pet," she commanded. "Tell the Wormwhore I will see her on the day of battle. Hope for the sake of Athens that she chooses to stand and fight. Should she run, I will have little choice but to see my frustration taken out on your people." A sick gleam tainted Eden's eye. " In exchange for your having helped me once, I grant you your life today, along with those others I spared. Make them last, if you can, and use them well."

  Sleek Eden turned to face the cliffs. Setting one bare foot on the boat's topstrake, she dove and slipped beneath the waves, leaving cold corpses bobbing in her wake.

  END OF PART IV

  V. ELEUSIS 1. A River of Flesh and Bronze

  Beaching their two boats at Eleusis, Demosthenes and the eight survivors of Eden's attack loaded onto a cart the five bodies they had managed to fish from the bay and by twilight completed the grim overland return to Athens. A rider carried word ahead of their return, delivering it straight to Nikias that he might meet them alone at the Sacred Gate. Though Nikias had withheld his support for the ambush on Skiron's Road, Demosthenes had informed him of his intention to undertake it. Such defiance had not displeased Nikias, who was content to wait and see the raid's outcome before deciding whether to bestow his approval retroactively and perhaps claim a share of the credit with no risk of blame.

  As the slain volunteers were carted away, the survivors swore to make no mention to anyone of Eden, the she-daimon whose name they still did not know. Eden would remain a state secret, as were the siege engines which had been the raid's target. Better that the populace not be thrown in
to a senseless panic. Rumor eventually would take to her wings and flit over the city sowing seeds of fear, but for now, only those Athenians who had just escaped Eden's wrath, and Nikas, would know of her existence.

  Nikias's weathered skin turned the color of bone when he heard that as many as eleven men (three were last seen living, but remained unaccounted for) had died this day at the hands of a lone female.

  "Some god has finally seen fit to join our war directly," old Nikias reflected, his gray eyes misting. He was never one to take lightly the gods' favor; in years past, he had spared no public expense in attempting to gain it for his city. "Will another come down on our side, I wonder?"

  Demosthenes laid a hand on the pious old man's shoulder. "She is no goddess," he assured. "Trust me to deal with her." Not a fraction of the confidence that he projected was genuine.

  As survivors eager to return to their families dispersed around them, Nikias's gaze fell upon a spot in the middle distance behind Demosthenes. Turning, Demosthenes saw what the old man did. Thalassia stood with her back against an expanse of city wall between the ornate, closed Sacred Gate, opened only for processions to Eleusis, and the larger, plainer Dipylon Gate which stood open. Dressed in sea-foam green (the black witch of Dekelea evidently having declined to make an appearance in Athens) she stood watching intently, gravely. She was out of human earshot, which meant little where she was concerned.

  "Your slave," Nikias reflected. "You told me that she was an oracle. Or was it a sorceress?"

  Surprise and fatigue kept Demosthenes from producing any reply, much less the whole truth.

  "The belly-bows, the fire-pots, the riding gear," Nikias listed. "And all the rest that you have supposedly acquired through trade. They came from her?"

  Demosthenes' silence amounted to an admission.

  Nikias continued, "I would hide it, too, if I had something so valuable under my roof."

  Demosthenes finally set his tired mind to work on a denial, but it was too late. Nothing said now would be plausible. Perhaps it was for the best; the senior general was receptive and might prove useful.

  "Can I count on your discretion?" Demosthenes asked.

  "Indeed. Particularly if she has one or two more tricks that might be of use." The strategos sighed, a melancholy look descending upon his lined features. "Witches are always bringers of evil. In time of peace, I might be inclined to burn one. But in such a storm as now looms," he nodded toward the west, "help from any quarter is welcome." He frowned in thought. "You have done well burning Brasidas's wall-breakers, even if it is true what the she-daimon told you, that others are yet on the way. As of today, please consider yourself the first holder of a new title. Since I have just devised it now, it may have to remain unofficial. Chief of Special Weapons. Its mandate is simple: deploy ours and destroy theirs."

  Nikias's gray eyes returned to Thalassia, who yet waited, less than patiently, near the wall, eavesdropping. Looking at her, Nikias sighed, and there was weariness and nostalgia in the sound, as though he longed for simpler times. He said to Demosthenes, "While we are at it, you may as well be Archon of Witches, too."

  Leaving Nikias perhaps to ponder new ways in which one or another of the gods might be persuaded to act on his city's behalf, Demosthenes passed through the Dipylon Gate into Athens. Thalassia came silently up and walked beside him.

  "I should have come with you," she said penitently.

  "I would not have had you. And I would have been right. Eden might have hurt or killed you, and now Athens would stand at her mercy. Nikias did not need to know this, but you should: she said that if you do not face her, there will be consequences for Athens."

  "You say that as if you fear I might do otherwise."

  Demosthenes avoided answering. "You beat her once," he said. "Can you again?"

  Thalassia permitted the evasion. Knowing truth from lies might at times be a curse. Perhaps she did not wish to know the truth, which was that he did harbor some doubt, however small, that she would not now–as she had at at least two vital junctures in her past–choose to serve herself.

  "In strength and speed and by all other physical measures, we are equal," Thalassia said, somewhat bleakly. "I could win, or she might."

  "Even though you are only a pilot and she... something else?"

  "Hey." Thalassia grabbed his arm, halting him and prompting him to face her. "Athenians are only fishermen and bakers and carpenters, but you hold your own against Spartiates who do almost nothing year-round but train for war. I beat her once, I can again."

  Demosthenes touched the hand that was gripping his arm rather too tightly, and he smiled for as long as the weight of the horror looming over Athens allowed, which was not long.

  "I was rather hoping to hear 'I'll fucking destroy her,'" he said, "but your answer will suffice."

  Thalassia released his arm with a quiet laugh. "I fucking will," she said.

  Demosthenes needed no truth-sense to tell him she was confident of no such thing.

  He took her just-lowered hand in his and said, holding her pale-eyed gaze, "I do not understand what death means to you. But it is not lost on me that you are willing to risk it, not to bring us victory or alter the course of Fate... but only to keep my city safe."

  Thalassia regarded him silently, strangely, for a moment. Then her lips twisted in a good-natured sneer. "Idiot," she said softly. "It's my city now, too."

  She patted Demosthenes' shoulder in mock condescension and turned to resume the walk into town.

  "I'm not needed at Dekelea," she called back. "Is there somewhere else I might spend the night?"

  Demosthenes caught her up and took to walking side-by-side in the streets of Athens with his spoil of war. "Always," he answered, and managed to add in jest on this day of doom, "even were it not required of me by law."

  ***

  Two dawns passed from the burning of the katapeltai, and a third saw the Spartan invasion force of thousands massing on the western frontier, while the defenders of Athens, as many or more in number, arrayed themselves on the plain of Eleusis to meet the threat. The defenders might have enjoyed some advantage had the proposed defenses of liquid stone not been delayed by squabbling in the Assembly over what to build and where. With the fortifications incomplete, the rival cities would meet on more even terms, army against army, shield against shield... machine against machine, star-born witch against star-born witch.

  Today was surely the day of battle. Laonome's eyes were dry now, but her cheek was still cold to the touch where the night's tears had cooled and dried. In his megaron, Demosthenes held her close, forehead to forehead, nose to nose, palm cupping her jaw and thumb rubbing the tiny white scar on her upper lip.

  "For luck," he said, and kissed the scar, prompting the mouth which bore it to form a sad smile.

  He embraced Laonome again and again, wishing that a layer of iron-scale armor did not separate their bodies so he might carry her off up the stairs and curl unclothed with her in the marriage bed as they had done each morning for the four months of his arrest. But such days belonged to the past for now, and, he dared hope, to the future. And so he contented himself to lay a hand on the belly that had begun to swell with his seed and kiss the smooth expanse of white skin between Laonome's silver fillet and hairline.

  "I shall return, my love," he promised, as they separated.

  His wife's eyes slammed shut to bar fresh tears. Eurydike, more used to such partings, laid a tattooed arm about her mistress and drew her in until their temples touched. Demosthenes parted a curtain of fiery curls to touch the cheek of his slave, who said nothing, only smiled. He smiled back. They had done this enough times that words were not needed, not even a late reminder that in the event that no one was left to defend them, she was not to employ the blunt Spartan dagger, his gift to her, which hung at her waist, but instead throw herself and Laonome on the questionable mercy of Athens' conquerors.

  The sound of the door opening made Demosthenes look that way. As he di
d, a figure stepped into his megaron out of forgotten verse.

  The mansion of Alkibiades contained many odd things. Among them was a corselet of stiff leather, studded with discs of highly polished bronze and trimmed in gold brocade, which was, according to its owner, the armor of Penthesilea, the last great Amazon, beloved of Achilles, he who had slain her with tears of regret on the plains of Troy. While Alkibiades claimed to have stripped the armor from a woman warrior in Scythia (where he surely had never traveled), it was far likelier that he had bought it, along with the story, from some less-than-honest dealer in antiquities.

  Whatever the truth of the armor's origin, it was worn now by Thalassia, who stepped into the megaron geared for war like a man-killing Amazon. Two short swords hung down her bare thighs, the bronze tips of their scabbards scraping the rims of ivory-inlaid leg-greaves. Her forearms were wrapped in leather, her lustrous black hair woven into a thick braid that began at the center of her forehead and followed her hairline to the right, falling over her right shoulder, one of the more pragmatic of the styles she favored. She lacked shield and helm; either they were outside with the horses she had brought or she saw no use for them.

  The three other members of the oikos to which she belonged spent some seconds staring in awestruck silence. Demosthenes was first to recover, and he looked over to find his wife and Eurydike agape. Both had been told a day ago, by necessity, what perhaps they already suspected: that Thalassia once had been a warrior among her people. Indeed, neither had quite been surprised, yet neither could have been prepared for a sight such as this.

  Slowly Eurydike cracked a smile, a reluctant shadow of which Thalassia returned.

  "You look better in it than I did," Eurydike said.

  Blinking out of her own stupor, Laonome flicked her gaze to her husband and declared softly, confidently, "A goddess fights with you."