Shimmering Splendor

by Roberta Gellis

  SHIMMERING SPLENDOR

  Roberta Gellis

  Chapter 1

  Aphrodite was frowning. The expression was so unusual that Eros stopped and stared at her. The cessation of movement drew her attention, and her eyes came into focus on the man with whom she had shared her home, but never her bed, for many years. She looked at him with a kind of affectionate indifference, despite the fact that his face and figure were of a beauty to stop a woman’s—or a man’s—heart.

  Something in the arrested pose, the inquisitive cock of his head, made Aphrodite reassess her longtime companion and confidant. His hair was the color of honey, his brows and lashes a glossy chestnut. His mouth was soft and perfectly formed, the nose above it also perfect, the chin below strong enough to look firm without marring the lovely oval of the face. His walk was a pure, lithe grace as he came more directly toward her, the shoulders broad and muscular, the arms corded with muscle, too—as was natural for a master bowman—but subtly, smoothly, as if no sharp ridge could be allowed to mar the polished perfection of the whole.

  His eyes should have been the best part of him. Large and almond shaped, with long, curling dark-chestnut lashes, they were a clear green, the kind that darkens almost to black with thought or sorrow and can become incandescent with joy and laughter. But Eros’s eyes had shown no such changes for many years; they were flat as a painting, dull and empty. The spark that should have lit them from within had been quenched.

  Even the dead eyes could not spoil the perfection of his face; they only managed to withdraw all life from it, leaving it a strangely animated marble mask—a marble mask that grew more and more quizzical, the brows rising, the lips parting to ask, “What is troubling you, Aphrodite?”

  The voice almost made up for the dead eyes; it was rich and warm, soft now, but with a timbre that promised it could sound like a brazen horn across a battlefield. Involuntarily Aphrodite’s frown deepened. No battlefields for Eros; even after these many years since Zeus had overthrown Kronos, the denizens of Olympus did not trust Eros. He was simply too beautiful—no, not only beautiful; she, too, was beautiful, but she did not affect others as Eros did. Some other quality, perhaps a Gift, coupled with the beauty so that one look and most—even the great mages—forgot their own purpose and desired only to please Eros.

  Zeus had forced her to set a spell of revulsion on him, but Eros had his own strange power and over the years he had learned to tune that spell to his own desire and need. Aphrodite’s own perfect lips tightened. She had made her contribution to the wary distaste Olympians felt for Eros. She had urged certain acts of mischief on him, and whether out of gratitude to her for giving him a home or delight—no, not delight; Eros seemed to delight in nothing—perhaps out of bitter satisfaction in generating trouble for those who would not accept him, he had performed that mischief.

  The idea of doing mischief connected with Eros’s question. “What troubles me?” Aphrodite repeated. “My temple has been desecrated, my priestess defiled.”

  One corner of Eros’s mouth twitched. Considering the acts of worship performed in some of Aphrodite’s temples—albeit she was called by other names in those temples—he found that statement amusing. Dear Aphrodite, she was again trying to drag him up out of the pit into which he had been sliding, he thought. But then he recalled that he had entered the inner courtyard because she had been frowning, and that was before she had seen him. So she had not assumed the expression to engage him in conversation, although she often pretended worry when he was feeling particularly…indifferent to life. The thought warmed him, reopened the little crack in the casing of ice that had been slowly thickening around him until all sensation was lost. Aphrodite had been kindness itself to him all these years.

  “In what way defiled?” he asked, frowning in sympathy.

  “Beaten! My high priestess has been beaten and the people forbidden to make sacrifice at my temple!”

  “What! Why?” Eros’s frown grew darker.

  “Because Hyppodamia—you remember, do you not, that she is the high priestess in Iolkas?—would not accept into the temple the youngest daughter of the king.”

  “Was the girl that ugly?” Eros asked, amused again.

  “Not at all. She is said to be the most beautiful woman in the world.”

  “You are the most beautiful woman in the world,” Eros said, his voice flat and angry.

  “Oh, don’t be a fool, Eros,” Aphrodite snapped. “I am what I am and I don’t care a pin what the stupid slut looks like. You know Hyppodamia is a seer, truly Gifted, and she Saw that the girl was totally antithetical to the worship of love and beauty.”

  Eros blinked. “That is strange for a person of great beauty. Usually all they worship is beauty, often only their own faces—or do you mean she did not wish to be confined in the temple, bereft of her normal due of adulation?”

  Aphrodite burst out laughing. “Eros! There is no rule of celibacy in my temple, and a rich gift will readily bring permission to enjoy the company of a chosen priestess. In any case, I doubt Hyppodamia would have held firm against the king’s order out of sympathy with a girl’s unwillingness. And why should she be unwilling? She might have as many or more admirers and lovers as a temple priestess.” Aphrodite frowned. “In fact, the daughter must have been willing. Hyppodamia said the girl was angry and disappointed also, but she could not accept her; she…she hated me.”

  “No one can hate you, Aphrodite,” Eros soothed. “There are many who curse you for the pain they suffer—when it is not your fault at all—but they do not hate you.”

  “Perhaps, but that is not the point. If I do not do something about this stupid king Anerios, no one will think me powerful enough to worship. And that will mean no more offerings—no more bushels of grain, no more sweet legs of lamb, no more succulent ox rumps, no more tender doves, no more gold and jewels… I must go and punish him.”

  Eros nodded immediately but said, “I, not you. This Anerios sounds crazy enough to toss a spear at you.” He smiled and shook a finger at her. “You remember what happened the last time you confronted someone of that type. You were so shocked that anyone could say no to you that you forgot to activate Hermes’s spell and were wounded. If his aim had been better, that oaf could have killed you. And this one sounds another of the same kind. I will go.”

  Aphrodite sighed with relief. “Oh, thank you, Eros.

  I am ashamed to ask you to run my errands all the time, as if you were a servant. You are not a servant. You are my friend.” She looked up at him. “I think my only friend.”

  She put out a hand and Eros took it and kissed it. It was true enough. She was as cursed as he. Every man, and not a few women, who looked at Aphrodite desired her madly, too madly to have the balance necessary for friendship. Not that Aphrodite felt as he did about that. She enjoyed the passionate longing, sometimes satisfying it and sometimes laughing at it. There was a light-hearted, light-minded quality in her that could amount to cruelty—but not to him, never to him.

  “You want this Anerios dead? And the girl also?”

  “Oh, no!” Aphrodite exclaimed. “He must suffer! He must repent aloud and in public! He must kneel to Hyppodamia and beg her pardon and urge his people to pray and sacrifice to me. And he himself must perform some great and shocking sacrifice.”

  Eros smiled. Aphrodite might look as if she were barely nubile; her big, blue eyes might seem wide with innocence; her delicate features and body might imply gentleness—but none of this was true. She was as old as any of the other great mages of Olympus, about as innocent as a long-lived harlots’ madam, and not at all gentle when she was angered.

  “I agree,” he said. “How did you wish to bring about this reformation?”

 
Aphrodite bit her lip gently. “About that I am less certain, but it must be owing to some reversal of love.”

  “Hatred? You want his people to hate him and deprive him of his kingdom?”

  “No…” Aphrodite drew out the word. “I want to see him hop every time my priestess says ‘toad’. And I want the people of Iolkas to know their king is subservient to the goddess Aphrodite.” She dropped her head, looked at Eros under her long lashes, and smiled wickedly. “If he loses his kingdom, I will lose half the fun of his repentance.”

  Eros did not sigh, but he did feel a prick of envy. Why could he not be more like Aphrodite? She was as isolated as he, but she had no trouble laughing, and the light in her eyes testified to her true enjoyment of life. He could be amused, but the laughter was only in his head; it did not lighten his spirit.

  “Love gone wrong, then,” he said. “The desire of an unsuitable object, one that will make him ridiculous and disgusting in his own eyes as well as everyone else’s.”

  “Perfect!” Aphrodite clapped her delicate white hands, then put the rose-tipped fingers together and propped her chin while she thought for a moment. “The daughter too,” she said. “The most beautiful woman in the world, eh? Let her become enamored of the dog boy or the swineherd. You will have to find someone really repulsive, not someone who can be improved by better clothes and education.”

  “But how could I know that in one godlike visit? If we were truly gods, Aphrodite, I might be omniscient like the Mother, but I am not. I would have to stay at Anerios’s court to discover—”

  “Would you mind?” Aphrodite asked. “If you do not wish to be bothered, I can just smite them both with some loathsome disease or the whole kingdom with a plague. Artemis will sell me a spell.”

  “No. They might not connect that punishment with the crime. All that might happen is they will erect a temple to Apollo or Artemis and neglect yours—and I am not so sure of my ability to best Artemis or Apollo in any conflict, not to mention what would happen to me if Zeus heard I had tried. I do not mind going among the natives. One place is as good as another to me, but I cannot stay at court as Eros and I am afraid to ask any of the mages for a disguise. Any mage trading a spell to me would be in trouble with Zeus.”

  “Oh, Eros,” Aphrodite cried, rising and taking his hand. “I did not know you wished for a disguise. Why did you never speak before?” She laughed aloud and squeezed his fingers. “I will get the illusion from Zeus himself, so he cannot blame anyone else. His illusions are best, too, and I will make sure it is not a one-time spell so you can reinvoke it, like the spell of revulsion, any time you wish.”

  He looked at her, smiled, thanked her, marveling that she could not understand that he had not the smallest inclination to live a worse lie than he lived now, able to live at all only because he carried a spell that made those who felt desire for him feel loathing instead when he invoked it. What satisfaction could it give him to walk among the native people with a false face? Everything about him was false already, like the lovely phosphorescent sheen that plays over the surface of something long dead and very putrid.

  He said nothing, however. From the glint in her eyes, and the way the corners of Aphrodite’s mouth had curved upward, he knew she was looking forward to obtaining the spell for him. Partly that was pleasure in giving him something she thought he wanted—poor Aphrodite, she seldom had that pleasure because he could no longer find joy, yet he could please her so easily; she took such delight in a trinket or even flowers. But even more, he knew, she was looking forward to wheedling the spell out of Zeus without telling him for what she wanted it. Zeus would enjoy that, too, so everyone would be happy—except Hera? No, Hera would not care, not about a brief tumble with Aphrodite.

  She had already turned toward the house, bright-eyed and smiling with anticipation. He accompanied her through the large reception room that led to the antechamber and the outer portico and then, not knowing why but somehow eased by her lightness of heart, across the outer courtyard to the gate. He went no farther, watching her walk lightly up the path to the wide road paved with smooth slabs of stone fitted together so well that no mud ever seeped up through the cracks to soil a mage’s elegant shoes.

  Now a border of trees and grass lined the road, broken by small paths like the one where he stood that led to Aphrodite’s gate. Eros remembered the road when it had been raw, when Kronos had forced slaves, captured natives and nonhumans, to drag and fit the stones. He shuddered and turned away, not from the memory of the brutalized slaves so much as from his memory of his own past.

  Once inside the house, however, he could not remember what he had intended to do when he had left his apartment. After looking about the antechamber, hoping vainly for memory of some purpose, he returned to his bedchamber and lay down on the bed, staring blindly at the exquisitely painted ceiling. Slowly the tightness in his chest eased. He had no idea who had painted the ceilings and walls of Aphrodite’s house, but the gay, lightly amorous scenes had not the faintest taint of suffering about them. Eros smiled as his eyes closed. Aphrodite had no doubt paid the painter well, and doubtless every payment had inspired him to greater efforts.

  * * *

  Eros woke from the light doze in which he had been lying to an insistent scratching on his door. “Come,” he called, sitting up and gesturing at the wall, where a lamp immediately glowed into life.

  One of the young children who served as Aphrodite’s pages, a little boy not more than six or seven, hop-skipped in. They were a merry lot, coddled and kissed, with few and light duties. Still, Eros had heard Aphrodite blamed for stealing children or demanding them as sacrifice. Perhaps those who criticized her believed she had their own perverted tastes, but the children came to no harm—they would have better lives as well-trained servants to the mages of Olympus than their parents had had—and to him and Aphrodite they were a dire necessity.

  Too young to be affected by either Aphrodite’s or his own appearance, the children served as an effective buffer between them and the adult servants who did the real work of the household. The little ones carried verbal messages when the orders were simple, message spells when they were more complicated, and stood guard at doors to warn adult servants away from chambers occupied by those whose appearance could wring their hearts or drive them to foolish actions. By the age of ten, the children were dismissed from their duties and taught the arts of real service. Then they were placed with a mage Aphrodite trusted and approved, who paid Aphrodite handsomely for such perfect, polished help, and treasured them as they deserved.

  “Lady Aphrodite is home,” the child piped. “She says for you to come to her—if you wish, of course.”

  Eros smiled and rose. “Run ahead and tell her I am coming, that I only want to wash the sleep from my face.”

  In all the years, from the first day she had given him living space in her home, stinking as he did of the revulsion spell, angry and bitter, she had never given an order or made a demand. Everything was “if you wish,” and, incredible as it had been to him at first, when he said “no,” she had accepted it. Now, of course, he never said “no,” even when he knew he should. He did not really mind if the other mages disliked and distrusted him, and even he was brought to laughter at some of their antics when he had hit them with one of her love spells.

  Those memories were so amusing that he arrived smiling, and Aphrodite jumped to her feet, crying, “You are pleased! Dear Eros, I have the most complete disguise. It is a man in his mid-twenties, black hair, brown eyes, a short beard—oh, how silly I am. Let me give you the spell and you can invoke it and see for yourself.”

  On the words, she put her hands to her mouth. Between her lips a silvery globe began to form. Fed from some source deeper in her body, the globe brightened and condensed, until a blindingly brilliant ball dropped from her mouth to her hands.

  “I see how you received the spell.”

  Eros chuckled as he held out his hands to take the glowing object. Aphrodite and
Zeus must have been playing very naughty games. She did not reply, but her eyes had a slight glaze and her perfect lips were just a trifle rosier, a trifle fuller, than usual. In fact, she had the sated look of a cat that had gorged on sweetened cream and was just ready to curl up and sleep.

  “Must I absorb it the same way?” he asked, still smiling.

  “No, of course not,” Aphrodite replied with a slight frown.

  She found any implication of sexuality connected with Eros, even at second hand, somewhat distasteful. An anxious glance convinced her that he had only been teasing, knowing her reaction. She smiled as she watched him close his hands around the ball of light, close them tighter, tighter, until the palms were clasped flat against each other. He rubbed the palms together, once, twice, raised his hands to his eyes to peer into the darkened area between the palms. When he opened his hands, the light was gone.

  “To invoke it,” Aphrodite said eagerly, “you must choose a name and simply say, ‘Epikaloumai whoever’. Each time you say the name while you are in the disguise, you will reinvoke and reinforce the illusion. However, when you are out of the illusion, you must use ‘Epikaloumai’ to reinvoke it.”

  “Thank you.”

  Eros tried to put pleasure and gratitude into the words and thought he had succeeded this time because Aphrodite’s smile did not dim. He was, in fact, grateful that the spell was so easy to invoke. Some required such elaborate voicings that they were hardly worth the trouble. Some mages, Eros suspected, did it for pure spite; others because the spell was dangerous, and recalling the voicings—because if one didn’t get them right the spell was likely to backlash—gave the user time to think. In addition, the idea of doing something, even visiting an unpleasant fate on someone, had its charms, particularly when the someone so eminently deserved that fate.

  “I got a translocation spell from Hermes too,” Aphrodite added.

  “My, you had a busy day,” Eros said, grinning.