The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards SF

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “You’ll be beautiful one day, too,” she said patronizingly.

  “Not as beautiful as you,” I demurred.

  “No one is as beautiful as I.” Her voice was flat, but full of pride.

  The night smelled of burning oil and women’s bodies. A dandelion hung high in the sky, casting its light down on us. Helen’s motives were obscured behind blankness, like soldiers’ bodies disappearing into fog.

  Helen distorts the world around her. Never look at her too closely. You’ll go blind.

  “I saw you holding your father’s hand today,” said Helen. “Do you feel safe with your father?”

  I made a moue. I couldn’t speak to my beautiful aunt without my mother beside me.

  “What was that?”

  “Yes,” I mumbled.

  Helen shifted. The folds of her garment rearranged themselves into new shimmers and shadows.

  “There’s something I think I should tell you, Iphigenia. About your father. Did your mother ever tell you that she was married before?”

  I shook my head. Around and around, the ribbon wove through my fingers.

  “She had a husband named Tantalus who was the king of Mycenae before your father came. They had a child together. A son.”

  Helen paused, scrutinizing my reaction. I didn’t know what to do. I looked to the right and to the left. There was no one nearby.

  “I know this is hard to hear, Iphigenia,” said Helen, “but your father came to Mycenae and murdered Tantalus and then he—” She raised her sleeve over her mouth, and looked away. “He took the baby from your mother’s arms and he dashed it to the stones and smashed it to pieces. My nephew.”

  With a quick glance over my shoulder, I saw that the servants were clearing out the benches and the canopy. Iamas helped a young girl douse the lamps. Behind me, there was safety, there was familiarity. I stepped back. Helen caught my hand.

  “He was a round, happy baby. I only saw him once before—” She broke off. “After your father killed Tantalus, he forced Clytemnestra to marry him, and became king of Mycenae. I see him holding your hand and I worry. My sister doesn’t want you to know, but you need to be warned. Your father isn’t what he seems. He’s the kind of man who would kill a baby.”

  I broke away and fled toward the bustling servants. My feet pounded past Hermione who glared at me, and then turned toward Helen, her expression aching with desire for her mother’s attention.

  Jealous woman. Vain woman. Boastful woman. I never believed her. I never believed you would kill a child.

  After mother fell asleep, I took Orestes in my arms and crept out of the tent. We made our way to the shore where the night sea looked like obsidian, reflecting the glow of the dandelion overhead.

  I broke off a piece of branch the length of Orestes’s arm and gave it to him, but I couldn’t remember why. He stared at me with puzzled eyes until I took it away again and threw it toward the boats.

  “Why don’t you speak?” I asked him. “You’re old enough.”

  Orestes stretched out his chubby hands. He snuggled his face against my chin and throat, warm as a cat. He liked to snuggle when I was distressed. It made him feel powerful that he, too, could give comfort.

  “I am dissolving into pieces,” I told him. “I need you to remember me for me. Will you do that? Please?”

  He stared up at me with sincere, sober eyes.

  “I am your sister,” I said. “My name is Iphigenia. I love our father very much. I am going to be murdered by our father, but you must not be angry with him for that. To be angry with our father is to be angry with everything. It’s to be angry with wind and war and gods. Don’t be angry with him.

  “I was born on an autumn day when the rain fell, scented with the crisp aroma of falling leaves. I was born with the sound of thunder, but I was terrified of it anyway. When the palace rattled with strike and clash, I would run to hide behind mother’s loom. She would glare at me and tell me to find something useful to do, but when I lay down beside her and stuck my thumb in my mouth, she would lean down to stroke my hair.

  “I love music, but I can’t sing. Our mother forever tells me to hush. I sang to you often anyway. When I sang, you laughed and clapped your hands. I taught you songs, but I don’t remember them anymore. I want you to remember the things I taught you, whatever they were.

  “Our grandmother was raped by Zeus when he turned into a swan, and our mother’s sister was born out of an egg. Gods are our aunts and cousins, but we are only mortal. I am particularly mortal. I am weak and not very brave and I will die quickly, like those things they put in my hair for my wedding that never happened.

  “I am afraid to die. I am afraid of losing simple things. Things like . . .” My memory cast a net through dark waters, coming up empty. I drew from what I saw. “Things like the smell of salt near a dark sea, and how warm your hand is, and how much you make me feel without ever speaking.

  “I’ve lost so much already. I don’t want to lose any more.

  “Should I be glad that I’ll never see the sun again so that Helen can be led like an errant child back to the marriage bed she desecrated? Should I rejoice that my death will enable my father to slaughter Trojans over a vixen that ran into the hills when she went into heat? Should my life dower the frigid air that passes between my uncle and his whore?

  “I used to learn things, but now I forget them. I think I liked learning things. I need you to learn things for me now. Learn how to love someone, and how to survive a tragedy. Learn how to swing a sword, and how to convince an opponent when you have no argument but justice. Learn how to polish your armor until you become a glowing golden man, and then learn to be a flame that fuels itself. Learn to be your own wind. Will you? Will you please?”

  I felt my tears falling into Orestes’s hair. He hugged me tighter. I breathed in his smell.

  “When warm air rises, seeking the sun, cool air rushes in to replace it. That’s the way of the world. Joy and youth and love flow ever upward. What they leave behind is the cold consolation of the wind.”

  Orestes pulled away from me. I studied his solemn face. His mouth opened. For a long second, I thought he would speak, but no words came. For once, I found him inscrutable.

  I feel the sea beneath me. I inhale and it waits. I exhale and it tumbles. Can you feel the pressure of my anger as it blows fiercely across your skin? I am the sand in your eyes, and the reek of the camp’s midden heap blowing toward the sea. I am the force that rocks you back on your heels so that you flail and stagger. My hatred whistles through the cliffs. It screeches across the rough timber of your boats.

  I grow stronger with every moment. I will be wild. I will be brutal. I will encircle you and conquer you. I will be more powerful than your boats and your swords and your blood lust. I will be inevitable.

  I brought Orestes back to the tent, and we laid down beside Clytemnestra. I stared, sleeplessly, into the dark.

  Possible paths stretched before me. I could go to Achilles’s tent and plead my case as a whore instead of a virgin. I imagined what Helen would have done in my place, how she would color her cheeks and set her hair. She would arrange herself to look like a dandelion, easily crushed, and easily conquered. Unlike my mother, she would not have halted her fingers at the laces of Achilles’s breastplate. Unlike my mother, she would have let her lips do more than hover hotly by his ear. Unlike my mother, she would have convinced him.

  I could plead my case to Menelaus as his niece and an innocent. Or if he did not care for virtue, I could venture a suit to replace his lost Helen. Such methods might work on Odysseus, too. Only I was not a practiced seductress. My clumsy attempts might only succeed in doing as my mother said they would, and make the monsters feel justified when they gave me to Calchas’s knife.

  I could have sought you out, in the hope that the eye of night would grant you mercy. But I already knew what you would do if you found me wandering alone through a camp of soldiers.

  One path seemed best: I wou
ld run out into the cold and wake the first soldier I found. “Take me to Calchas,” I would tell him, and march resolutely to my fate. It would give me a fast, honorable end. And there might be a chance, just a small one, that I could be killed without seeing your face and knowing how it changed after you betrayed me.

  But Orestes whimpered and tossed beneath his little blanket. Sweat damped his brow. I’d kept him up too late, overwhelmed him with disturbing confidences. I stayed to soothe him until dawn neared and I was too tired to chase my death.

  I was not brave. I was only a girl.

  You came to fetch me. You didn’t know we knew. You pretended to be overjoyed at the prospect of the wedding that would never happen. You took my hand and whirled me in a circle. “Oh, Iphigenia! You look so beautiful!”

  I looked up into your eyes and saw that you were crying. Your smile felt as false as mother’s. Your tears washed over the place where I’d once kept the day when Orestes was born.

  “Stop this,” said mother. She pulled me away from you and pushed me toward the other end of the tent. Orestes sat on the cushions beside me, a wooden toy in his hand, watching.

  Mother turned to confront you. “I have heard a terrible thing. Tell me if it’s true. Are you planning to kill our daughter?”

  Your eyes went blank. “How can you accuse me of such a thing?”

  “I’ll ask again. Answer me plainly this time. Are you planning to kill our daughter?”

  You had no answer. You gripped the hilt of your branch, and set your jaw. Tears remained immobile on your cheeks.

  “Don’t do this.” Mother grasped at your shoulder. You wrenched away. “I’ve been a model wife. I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me. I ran your home and raised your children. I’ve been chaste and loyal and honorable. How can you repay me by killing my daughter?”

  She snatched Orestes from the cushions and held him toward you. He began to cry and kick.

  “Look at your son. How do you think he’ll react when you murder Iphigenia? He’ll shy away from you. He’ll fear you.” She turned the baby toward her. “Orestes, do you hear me? Do you want your father to take your sister away?”

  You tried to grab my brother. Mother held him tight. Orestes screamed in pain and fear.

  “He’ll hate you or he’ll imitate you,” mother shouted over his wails. “You’ll teach your son to be a murderer! Is that what you want?”

  You pushed Orestes into his mother’s arms and stormed away from her. You stopped a short distance from me and reached for my arm. I flinched away.

  “Are you happy, Clytemnestra?” you asked. “You’ve scared the girl. She could have gone thinking that she was going to be married. Now she’s going to be terrified.”

  You leaned close to touch my hair. (Tugging my ponytail: “It’s a good thing you were born a girl.”) You dropped a kiss on my brow. (“I know this is hard to hear,” said Helen, “but your father is the kind of man who would kill a baby.”) I wrenched backward.

  “What do you want?” I asked. “Do you want me to take your hand, blithe and trusting as any goat that follows its master back to the camp to see men fighting in the fog? I’m not a little girl anymore.”

  I looked into your angry, sneering face.

  “Or do I have it wrong?” I asked. “Do you want me to kick and scream? Do you want me to have a tantrum like Orestes so that later you can think back on my wailing and berate yourself about the terrible things you’ve done?”

  You tossed your head like a disquieted horse. “You’re acting mad.”

  I laughed. “So I’m right, am I? You’re already beginning to make me into an idea. A difficult decision rendered by a great man. Well, stop now. This is only difficult because you make it so. All you have to do is break your vow and spare my life.”

  “Menelaus and Odysseus would take the armies and bring them to march against Mycenae. Don’t you see? I have no choice.”

  “Don’t you see? It should never have been your choice at all. My life isn’t yours to barter. The choice should have been mine.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “I understand that you want me to pity you for my death.”

  Wind whistled through my brain. The edges of the tent rustled. Sand stirred. Strands of mother’s hair blew out from her braids.

  “You know, I never believed what Helen told me. Did he look like Orestes, father? Did my elder half-brother look like Orestes when you dashed him to the rocks?”

  You glowered at my defiance. “This is how you beg me to save your life?”

  “Is it sufficient?” I asked, but I already knew the answer. I inhaled deeply. “Don’t kill me.”

  I had forgotten how to beg.

  With almost nothing of myself remaining, I found myself reconsidering my conversation with Helen. Without my ego to distract me, I concentrated on different details, imagined different motivations behind her words. Did I think Helen was arrogant because that was what everyone said about her? Was she boastful or simply honest?

  As Helen sat beneath the olive tree, watching me admire her face, she sighed. I’d always believed it was a sigh of pride. Perhaps it was weariness instead. Perhaps she was exhausted from always having to negotiate jealousy and desire when she wanted to do something as simple as hold her niece’s hand.

  “You’ll be beautiful one day, too.” Was she trying to reassure me?

  “Not as beautiful as you,” I demurred.

  “No one is as beautiful as I.”

  Her voice was flat. How must it have felt, always being reduced to that single superlative?

  After she told me the terrible things about my father, I fled into the crowd to search for my mother. I found her holding a stern conversation with one of Helen’s women. She wouldn’t budge when I tried to drag her away. She dabbed my tears and told me to find Iamas so he could calm me down.

  It wasn’t until I crumpled at her feet, distraught and wailing, that she realized I was suffering from more than a scrape.

  She slipped her arms around me and helped me to stand, her embrace warm and comforting. She brought me to her rooms and asked what was wrong.

  I repeated Helen’s words. “It isn’t true!” I cried. “She’s mean and vain. Why would she lie about something like that? Tell me she’s lying.”

  “Of course she is,” said mother, patting me vaguely on the head. “No one would be monstrous enough to do that.”

  She pulled the blanket to my chin and sat beside me and stroked my hair (oh, mother, did you never learn another way to comfort a child?). I fell asleep, head tilted toward her touch.

  Later, I woke to the sound of voices in the corridor. They drifted in, too quiet to hear. I tiptoed to the door and listened.

  “I’m sorry,” said Helen, her voice raw as if she’d been crying. “I didn’t mean to scare her.”

  “Well, you did. She’s inconsolable. She thinks her father kills babies.”

  “But Clytemnestra . . .”

  “Stories like that have no place in this house. I don’t understand what was going on in your head!”

  “He’s a killer. How can you stand to see him with that sweet little girl? I think of my nephew every time I look at her. He’s a monster. He’d kill her in a moment if it suited him. How can you let him near her?”

  “He won’t hurt her. He’s her father.”

  “Clytemnestra, she had to know.”

  “It wasn’t your decision.”

  “It had to be someone’s! You can’t protect her from a little sadness now, and let him lead her into danger later. Someone had to keep your daughter safe.”

  Mother’s voice dipped so low that it was barely more than a whisper. “Or maybe you couldn’t stand to see that I can actually make my daughter happy.”

  Helen made a small, pained noise. I heard the rustling of her garment, her footsteps echoing down the painted clay corridor. I fled back to mother’s blanket and tried to sleep, but I kept imagining your hands as you threw a baby down to h
is death on the stones. I imagined your fingers covered in blood, your palms blue from the cold in your heart. It couldn’t be true.

  You called two men to escort me to Calchas. One wore his nightclothes, the other a breastplate and nothing else. Patchy adolescent beards covered their chins.

  Mother wept.

  You stood beside me. “I have to do this.”

  “Do you?” I asked.

  The soldiers approached. In a low voice, you asked them to be gentle.

  My emotions lifted from me, one by one, like steam evaporating from a campfire.

  Fear disappeared.

  “Don’t worry, mother,” I said. “I will go with them willingly. It is only death.”

  Sadness departed.

  “Don’t grieve for me. Don’t cut your hair. Don’t let the women of the house cut their hair either. Try not to mourn for me at all. Crush dandelions. Run by the river. Wind ribbons around your fingers.”

  Empathy bled away.

  “Father, I want you to think of all the suffering I’ve felt, and magnify it a thousand times. When you reach the shores of Troy, unleash it all on their women. Let my blood be the harbinger of their pain. Spear them. Savage them. Let their mothers’ throats be raw with screaming. Let their elder brothers be dashed like infants on the rocks.”

  Love vanished. I turned on my mother.

  “Why did you bring me here? You saw him kill your son, and still you let me hold his hand! Why didn’t you remember what he is?”

  I pushed my mother to the ground. Orestes tumbled from her arms. Bloody fingers on blue hands flashed past my vision in the instant before mother twisted herself to cushion his fall.

  I forgot resignation.

  “Why did you write that letter? Am I worth less to you than the hunk of wood they used to make your staff of office? Would it have been so bad to be the man who stayed home instead of fighting? Let Menelaus lead. Let him appease Artemis with Hermione’s blood. If a girl must die to dower Helen, why shouldn’t it be her own daughter?