Enchanted Fire

by Roberta Gellis

  “Because I never had one before. Oh, sometimes I would feel that a thing was right or wrong, good or bad…” Her voice faltered. She had felt that about Baltaseros, that he was wrong and bad, no matter how kind his talk, and now she had absorbed his Gift—and perhaps his evil with it. But she could not admit to drinking Baltaseros’ Power, not to any man. Shivering, she said, “But I never Saw so clearly, knew I was Seeing the future.”

  “Something must have set off the vision.”

  “Yes, that I know. It was when Kyzikos pressed Jason to stay and Jason smiled and said he might, but I knew that he had decided to go as soon as he could. I Saw that was wrong; that we should stay; that we would not, and because of it fight a battle that was wrong.” Suddenly her eyes filled with tears. “I did not say that clearly last night. I was…”

  “Yes, I know. But you still have no sense of time? That we could escape the battle if we stayed a day? a week?”

  She shook her head.

  “It does not matter then. Jason would not have waited in any case. Orpheus is too valuable.”

  “Valuable?” Eurydice repeated. “Valuable, not dear?”

  Idmon only smiled without answering the question and then began to talk about Seeing, about how to tell true vision from false, about how to make a vision clearer by blocking out all the senses. Eurydice wondered whether, if she had retreated into a light trance that would block external distraction, she could have clarified what she Saw in Kyzikos’ palace. She listened intensely to everything Idmon said, repeating over to herself some key points when he left her, saying that was enough and he would teach her more on the morrow.

  His kindness and lessons had soothed away much of the terror that Seeing would drive her mad. She realized that it had never been a danger. She was not an innocent from a backward village upon whom visions fell without warning; she was accustomed to Power and to dealing with her Gift. However, that did not answer the question of whether Baltaseros’ evil had come with what she had taken from him. That worry and the warning of danger she carried grew heavier and heavier to bear, until she gave in and sank back against the bulkhead.

  She was shivering and huddled around her not only was her cloak but a blanket. Most horrible was that she could see with her eyes that the sun was shining, but she also Saw a sky all grey and around the edges a roiling blackness that climbed higher and higher threatening all light. But like her vision in Kyzikos’ court, she had no sense of time. A storm was coming, but it might be tomorrow or a month from tomorrow. She looked toward the prow, but the men were at ease; plainly neither Lynkeus nor Ankaios sensed anything unusual. To shut out the terrible dichotomy, she closed her eyes, and then she slept, which she had not done all night.

  Eurydice was wakened by a howl out of the bowels of hell—and knew she had chosen wrong. She should have given warning! That howl came from no human throat; the storm was upon them. She leapt to her feet and seized the rail as the ship heaved under her, and she screamed herself because her eyes saw now what had been inside her earlier, a grey sky with a terrible blackness boiling up and up from the horizon to swallow all.

  Her cry was lost in the wind, in Orpheus’ sudden bellow “Pull!” and again “Pull!” to give timing to rowers who had no breath for song, in the sudden dreadful rasp of tearing cloth as the sail split, in the voices of Jason and Tiphys shouting at each other, Jason’s hand waving toward the shore and Tiphys’ pointing to the open sea. But though the rowers were pulling desperately, as fast as the oars could be lifted and plunged again into the water, the ship was making no forward movement. The wind was so strong that it drove them back despite the torn and half furled sail. They could not bring the Argo to the shore, and if they could—Eurydice stared out toward the land and saw the heaving whiteness that bespoke huge breakers. Not even Lynkeus could see his way to a clear beach.

  So Tiphys won. The ship was turned away from shore and turned again to run before the wind as the sky grew blacker and blacker. And then the rain came and the waves, which had been high but not terrible at first, grew and grew into mountains. The oars were useless; the Argo pitched and rolled so that half the time the blades would beat the air instead of digging into the water and Jason shrieked at Orpheus to stop his chant, at the men to draw in the oars before they were broken by some frantic motion of the ship.

  Rowing could not help them. The wind was so violent that the shreds of the sail and the mast and yard caught enough to give Tiphys steerage—if he could hold the oar. No need to fear that; Heracles had left his bench and was adding his strength to manage the tiller. But there was nowhere to steer, except away from the land, where the Argo would be crushed to splinters in moments, and head on into the mountainous waves where the ship would not be capsized in a broadside.

  Oddly, Eurydice was not afraid. No matter that the Argo was climbing so steeply one moment that she had to cling to a rope or rail so as not to fall over and sliding down as steeply in the next moment, she never feared that the ship would fail and they would all drown. Not that the oppression of her spirits had lifted. She still was aware, actually even more sharply aware, that something terrible was going to happen—but that thing was not drowning. And when Jason struggled to reach her and shrieked in her ear, “Is this our fate?” she told him as calmly as it was possible to speak when screaming at the top of one’s lungs to be heard, “No. I saw blood, not water.”

  He sent Orpheus to pass that word among the men, not so much because he believed her, as because it would raise their spirits. They were strong and steady. He did not fear they would panic in the face of terrible battle odds, but he was less sure of their steadiness in the face of drowning. He saw the results of his device at once. A few men smiled at Eurydice, who stood like an idiot, grasping the rail and watching the waves. More important, most loosened the death grip they had had on their oars, which would keep them afloat—as long as they had strength to hold on—if the ship failed. They would be ready to bail if necessary and alert for any emergency, and better able to carry out orders…if there came a time when he had orders to give.

  Eurydice was so sure her feeling of dread had nothing to do with drowning that she forgot no Seer ever Sees his own fate. Thus, she stood with one hand lightly on the rail, gaping up with no more than incredulous interest at a wave that she knew the Argo could not climb. It towered over the ship, already folding inward but still suspended. Then, like a great bell inside her head, words boomed: Hold tight! And in that moment the wave fell on the ship.

  Her hand had gripped convulsively when Orpheus’ voice invaded her mind. That grip prevented her from being washed away from the ship when the force of the water lifted her, as a swirl of air will lift a feather, and flung her over the rail. Terror tightened her grip, her free arm flailed wildly seeking anything solid to grab hold. The water roared in her ears and stung her eyes, leaving her blind and deaf, and almost as suddenly as it had fallen, drained away. But Eurydice was over the side, hanging by only one hand whose grip was inexorably failing. She could not even call out for help, although her mind shrieked in terror, because her mouth and throat were full of water.

  Her flailing hand was seized, her other wrist also taken in a grip stronger than a vise. She was pulled, not gently, up over the rail, and slammed down on the deck.

  “Idiot! Madwoman!” Orpheus roared. “Did I not tell you to go under the stern decking in time of danger?”

  “For fighting, you said.”

  Her voice was thin as a thread and broken with coughing and she had spoken in instinctive, defensive response, without thinking. How Orpheus heard her and understood her she could not guess, and she wished he had not. His eyes bulged with rage, and he picked her up and threw her under the deck. She landed soft enough; when the rain started she had thrust the blankets she used as a seat under the deck to protect them.

  “And if you come out,” Orpheus’ voice followed her, “I will throw you overboard myself and be done with you.”

  She did not suppose
he meant it, no matter how angry he was, but she remembered why he had told her to be out of the way. He had said he would be distracted from his own defense if he needed to worry about her. How he had known she was not holding tight, how he had reached her when the wave lifted her she did not know. Others had been closer, but none except Orpheus had let go his own safehold to pull her back in time.

  She stayed where she was, although it was worse in the shelter because the excitement and wonder that had sustained her while she stood on deck and watched the fury of the elements was gone. She was too aware of her aching arm and other bruises and that she was wet and shivering with cold. The ship plunged and rocked. Periodically, another huge wave would sweep her and flood the storage space. Oddments, first small then larger, broke loose from their fastenings and slid about, occasionally striking Eurydice. She tried at first to find a way to fix them into place, but her efforts were useless and twice she was flung down, once narrowly missing hitting her head on the sharp corner of a chest. She gave over then and crouched in the corner where the upper deck touched the bulkhead, barricading herself with the sodden blankets.

  There seemed no end to the horror, but then Eurydice realized she could see some men scooping water from the lower deck and throwing it overboard while others bent to the oars. The blackness outside the deck, which had matched that under it, was growing lighter. And, as if that dawning had freed her other senses, she sensed that the motion of the ship was not as violent as it had been; Orpheus was calling to the rowers and just above her Tiphys and Jason were arguing again—and she could hear them instead of only the wailing and roaring of the wind and the sea.

  There was land ahead, and this time it was Tiphys who wished to try to bring the ship up on the shore. They had this one chance, he said, this lull in the storm. And they had no choice either, Tiphys pointed out. The land curved north as far as Lynkeus could see, and with the wind from the west, no matter how he held the tiller they would be driven into it against their will as soon as the full fury of the storm struck again. Again Jason yielded to the experience of his helmsman. They spoke of the strength and height of the seas and the danger of a sudden gust sending the Argo off the narrow course of safety Ankaios felt in the passage into the cove Lynkeus had spotted. But, Eurydice’s new, unwelcome Gift screeched, it was death to land! Not by drowning but by battle.

  Eurydice set her teeth, closed her eyes, and stuffed her fingers in her ears. She should have warned them against the storm! That decision had been wrong, but no one would listen to her babble of fighting the wrong battle. Now the men would welcome any battle against any odds compared with trying to fight the sea. She dared not speak, but she could not bear to listen to Orpheus’ voice, soaring still but shaking with strain, urging the oarsmen to efforts that twisted and tore even their hard muscles, all to bring them to a safety that would mean disaster.

  But no attack came all through the danger of that landing, even after the ship was lifted high on a wave and smashed down on the beach so that half the crew were stunned and the other half seized ropes and plunged into the receding water to keep the Argo ashore. It was light enough to see and the wind was down to a rough breeze. Any enemy could have rushed upon them and cut them to ribbons.

  Eurydice began to doubt her vision even though the warning, the mourning, within her grew stronger. She thrust down the impulse to beg Jason to set out to sea again and came out of hiding to help as she could—fetching rope from storage, finding axes for the men to cut branches to support the ship. And she Saw blood on the ground, which was carpeted with still bodies—while the crew frantically drew the Argo higher out of the water, lashed her to trees, piled rocks before her prow, struggling, exhausted as they were, to make her safe against the renewed storm.

  They succeeded in that. The last rope was tied, the last branch propped against the ship’s side to keep her from tipping was pounded into the beach, and the ship was as immovable as they could make her before the lull in the storm was over. The sky was darkening again, but relief sent new strength to the crew, who spread out into the forest to gather dry sticks from under windfalls for fires. They laughed and called out to each other when a find was made, buoyed up by their narrow escape, but Eurydice crouched behind a leafy pole against the hull, and bit her lip until it bled.

  She knew it would soon be dark as night again, the wind howling so that one could barely hear a man standing at one’s shoulder shout—no one would hear the attackers coming—and it would soon begin to rain. Now Eurydice knew the rain would be the signal. Soon after it began to fall the battle would begin—and it was wrong, the wrong battle! They must run away, run into the forest.

  She shuddered and trembled fighting the nearly overwhelming impulse to cry her knowledge aloud. But telling her Seeing now was useless. Nothing would make the crew leave the ship. Each and every one of them would prefer death to yielding the Argo to an enemy. She watched, barely seeing, while the men started small fires at which they hoped to dry more wood. A few spatters of rain fell. She clapped both hands over her mouth. She heard the most beautiful voice in the world, ultimately human as it spewed foul words—Orpheus blaspheming fluently. Her eyes drawn by his voice saw him with his back to the land beyond the ship trying, with the help of Castor and Polydeuces, to contrive a shelter to keep the fire alive. She gasped, choked. But the fire should go out. It would draw those who would attack! Orpheus would die.

  No! The pang of terror that thought sent through her broke the dazed confusion engendered by resisting the need to cry her Seeing aloud. Orpheus’ death was no part of the vision, nor was the death of any man of the crew. She only Saw blood—too much blood and felt a terrible weight of sorrow.

  The rising wind whipped the fires, setting them flaring. Clear headed now, Eurydice pushed herself free of her shelter. She had erred once in holding back a warning; she would not do that again. She did not need to tell the men to flee. They would laugh at her for that, but she could do something. She could warn them that a battle was coming so they would be armed and ready.

  Fighting against the rising wind and intermittent lashes of rain, Eurydice began to seek Idmon, who would be listened to more readily than she. She found Jason instead. He caught her aim, peered into her face in the uncertain light of the erratic flames.

  “What now?” he roared, half in ill temper, half to be heard.

  “Put out the fires!” Eurydice shrieked. “Those who come will see them. They will think you are enemies and attack.”

  For a long moment Jason stared at her, trying to make out her expression in the varying light. Eurydice knew he would see eyes so wide the whites showed all the way round the iris. She feared he would think she had gone mad with fear and would discount her words. She wanted to sound calm, to explain clearly, but panic seized her.

  “This is my vision,” she screamed. “Now is the time. Here is the place.” Sobs broke her voice. “Blood, too much blood.”

  At last he turned his head and bellowed for his men to douse the fires and arm for battle. The words were nearly drowned, for at that moment the skies opened and water poured down from them as from an infinitely large bucket. The fires went out by themselves, and the men nearest him heard at least the word “battle.” Some ran to spread the order to those who could not hear above the wind. Others leapt up the ladder to snatch shields and javelins from storage places and throw them down to the men below.

  “No,” Eurydice wailed. “It is wrong to fight.”

  Jason had not let go of her arm, and now he looked at her and shook her hard. “You shut your mouth!” His voice, low and ugly, somehow carried to her; it was redolent with threat.

  “If we are attacked, we must fight. It cannot be wrong, Seeing or no Seeing. Go up on the ship and keep quiet.”

  The terrible compulsion to tell her vision was broken by Jason’s rough handling and the menace in him. Wordless now, Eurydice nodded. The truth was that her own nature and training agreed with Jason. If you were attacked, you fought
back. If you did not, you had a good chance of ending dead before you could explain anything—and right or wrong she did not wish to be among the dead. She had had no intention of crying out that it was wrong to fight. The words had spilled out of her without volition, some need caused by the vision. The words were part of the warning, the mourning.

  A man rushed over and thrust a shield at Jason, nearly striking Eurydice with the edge. She shied back and Jason pushed her away, but before she could turn toward the ship she was caught by another male arm. The hand was also holding a shield, but the arm was extended to receive her. The arm closed, and she was brought hard against a man’s chest. She did not struggle. Orpheus had come for her. She lifted her face. His mouth covered hers in a hard kiss.

  And in that moment, it was gone! The weight of dread was gone! The mourning, the warning, were in her memory, but her heart was not bound to them. Her spirit was freed just as, above the wind and mingled with it, came bellows of rage, of challenge. Orpheus broke the kiss.

  “Take my cithara,” he shouted.

  She nodded, lifting the strap over his head and holding it open so he could pull his right arm through. There was a sword in his right hand.

  “And remember,” he bellowed, pushing her back toward the ship, “if you do not stay aboard and remain hidden, I will beat you witless.”

  “So long as you come back unhurt and strong enough to beat me, I will be content,” she yelled back. “Be careful.”

  She thought she heard him laugh, but he was already a little distance away, surrounded by other men all moving forward, all shouting challenges in return to those they had heard. If the attackers were replying, she could not hear them. She dodged and ducked between the advancing men for another moment or two, and then she was free. Unable to resist, she turned to look but she could see nothing through the lashing rain. From higher up, from the deck she might be able to watch for Orpheus—even cast a protection if he needed it…even kill, if he needed it.