Thrice Born

by Jon Jacks



  Thrice Born

  Jon Jacks

  Other New Adult and Children’s books by Jon Jacks

  The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly

  The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale

  A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things (Now includes The Last Train)

  The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator

  Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll’s Maid – The 500-Year Circus – The Desire: Class of 666

  P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers – Gorgesque

  Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)

  Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – The Last Angel – Eve of the Serpent

  Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess – Freaking Freak

  Died Blondes – Queen of all the Knowing World – The Truth About Fairies – Lowlife

  Elm of False Dreams – God of the 4th Sun – A Guide for Young Wytches – Lady of the Wasteland

  The Wendygo House – Americarnie Trash – An Incomparable Pearl – We Three Queens – Cygnet Czarinas

  Memesis – April Queen, May Fool – Sick Teen

  Text copyright© 2016 Jon Jacks

  All rights reserved

  Thank you for downloading this ebook. It remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

  Thank you for your support.

  Akrourobore Kodêre popular (derisive): Abracadabra – Magical invocation, summoning the Great Serpent of The Underworld, Akrourobore

  Chapter 1

  Deep within the sphere, worlds flowed, stars spun; and what must be was revealed.

  Must be?

  Not when it concerns the Great Mother Goddess, surely?

  Astraios, God of Prophecy, frowned as he tried to place the sphere back in its box, only for Dione to stay his hand.

  It was a frown that spoke for him; it must surely be, when it also concerns the great Polynomos – He Who has Many Names.

  Of course Dione, All Dominant Triple Goddess, wouldn’t accept this.

  I can’t allow this to happen; not to the daughter I nurtured, said Demeter-Deio, who had herself been torn apart when a serpentine Polynomos had ravaged her mother Rhea.

  (Thankfully, we are talking of the actions of gods and goddesses, not regular men and women: it is a plane of existence in which mothers quite readily become their own daughters and sisters, even if needs be brothers or sons.)

  She must be protected, insisted Meter Oreia, Mother Mountain, who listens to the prayers of all.

  Yet she cannot know of what might prevail, pointed out Daeria daô, Knowing Goddess of Moisture.

  I shall send her down to the other world, Demeter-Deio assured them all, and have the dragons of my chariot guard her.

  *

  Chapter 2

  Whirled around in the air, the golden spheres roared like bulls.

  Cybela ignored the noise, even though she knew the procession was drawing ever closer.

  He had ignored her for eleven days; and so Cybela had decided to draw down the Moon herself to ensure he would visit on the twelfth day.

  She twirled the three-spoked wheel around in her hands, entwining the three purple threads supporting it. She stopped only when the entwined threads appeared to be rising up from the opened beak of the iynx, bird of madness, rising up in the wheel’s centre: such that the threads could be its serpentine tongue, carrying messages to the gods.

  On releasing the wheel, it twirled as it descended, the nine birds on its rim singing as air rushed through the carefully positioned holes in their beaks.

  Cybela knelt before the whirling wheel, letting her mind think only of the wheeling, singing birds; the ten that became twelve, when the venomous Serpent of Scorpio split to birth both Virgin and Dike of the Judgement Scales, of the Vengeful Sword of Aesa.

  The incantation she must recite came naturally to Cybela.

  ‘Iynx, iynx, draw him hither….’

  *

  Cybela pleaded for the help of each bird, ten incantations in all; though, of course, the firebird in the centre was the Three That Are One, making twelve.

  The puppet of wax, with its burning lock of hair, melted before her, just as she prayed that he would melt with love, that he would come whirling around her door like one suffering the ‘madness of horses’.

  As she sensed the blushing Moon being drawn down ever closer to her, Cybela changed her incantation.

  ‘List, good Moon, where I learnt my loving. For in the very first hour of night, with some of Dionysus’ own apples in my pocket–’

  The thunderous booming of the procession’s bull roarers had become too loud to ignore. Cybela’s absorption in her spell had been broken.

  The twisted cords of her wheel still caused it to fall then rise again, fall and rise, but its power was waning.

  Irritated by the interruption, angrily snatching up the smaller jewelled disc he had given her as a token of love, Cybela drew away from the altar and strode towards the open doorway. She briefly caught a glimpse of her reflection in the bronze mirror set into the wall, a mirror deliberately warped, showing the viewer only dimly against the backdrop of the more clearly defined altar, the resplendently portrayed goddesses.

  And yet Cybela saw herself there; or rather, of course, a false Cybela, not the true one.

  She stepped out from the dark coolness of the small shrine into the blinding glare of the sun. Shading her eyes, she at last made out that the returning supplicants had, as she had expected, sacrificed the pigs they had rushed down to the sea with, cleansing themselves of their bodily lusts. The priestesses, on the other hand, were still entwined with the serpents of Bona Dea, the Good Goddess.

  The glittering spheres they whirled around their heads roared loudly, but nowhere near as noisily as the booming roars that had interrupted Cybela’s incantations.

  She tipped her head back a little, risking staring a little more directly into the sun’s harsh glare.

  She briefly wondered if the spell had gone wrong: if she had been the one sent mad.

  But no, she wasn’t imagining what she was seeing there.

  Two dragons were soaring just above the procession, their roars more frightening than anything Cybela had ever heard.

  *

  Chapter 3

  Neither the priestesses nor the supplicants appeared to be aware of, let alone disturbed by, the presence of the winged serpents.

  They all seemed to be in a trance-like state, their own incantations repeated as if in a complete daze.

  ‘Andricepaedothyrus, Andricepaedothyrus, Brimo, Brimo’

  They were calling on Dionysus and the Nursing Mother goddess, Night-Wanderer of the Underworld, to allow the supplicants entry into the sacred meadow. The Child Nurturing Kourotrophos would be there too, as would the untouched maiden Artemis, as the Birth Goddess Eileithyia.

  For once again, along with Brimo, these three are all one, the All Nurturing Nychie, Daughter of Rhea.

  The enchantingly singing daughters of Okeanos were already in the meadow, gathering flowers; for the meadow was alive with soft crocuses and violets, mingling with irises, hyacinths, roses and lilies. Poppies, seeded where Prometheus’s tormenting eagle had spilt his blood, grew resplendent amongst them, revitalising the soil despite the lazy, dreamy way they swayed in the slightest of breezes.

  And yet amongst it all there was a flower that Cybela had never seen before, one that numbed her in its beauty and unusua
lness. For although it was a narcissus, it was seemingly sprouting endlessly from its bulb, growing bush-like in its intensity, with a hundred of the most glorious, sweetly scented blooms.

  To Cybela, this marvel was in every way as enticing as the Tree of Golden Apples; and yet this tree had no hundred-headed serpentine Ladon to guard it.

  The heavily garlanded boughs reached out to her.

  And she reached out with both hands to pick a bloom.

  *

  The earth beneath Cybela’s feet trembled as, behind her, she heard the deep rumble of the temple’s stones and statues crashing to the ground. Whirling around, she was just in time to see the towering sculpture of the Good Goddess Fatua topple, tumble, and tear herself apart as she shattered on striking the stone paving.

  Ropes that had tightly bound her like coiling snakes (like her father Faunas, who had himself become a serpent to force himself upon her) now sprang free, writhing across the concourse amongst the shattered pieces. They were quickly taken up again by the riotous men who had brought them, already being formed into new nooses, new loops that could be used to lasso other goddesses and bring them toppling down to earth.

  But these men, and even the few women amongst them, could not be satisfied with merely destroying the temple. They had come armed, with swords and daggers, even helmets and shields, and now they rushed across the paved area, towards the meadow of already blood-red poppies.

  *

  The dragons spiralling above the chaotically disintegrating procession twisted sharply in the air.

  Ignoring the pitiless butchering of the priestesses and the supplicants, they sprang forward instead towards an horrified Cybela, their abrupt launching towards her causing her to urgently step even farther back into the sheltering shadows of the shrine.

  She threw herself back against the rear wall, praying that the serpents were too wide to force their way in through the small doorway, that the stone was too strong to give way under any fierce battering.

  Like fierce winds stirring up dried soil, the thwarted dragons swirled around just outside the entrance. It could have been the darkness of night waiting to devour her, their coils endlessly black, and seemingly forever winding back upon themselves.

  Beyond that impenetrable darkness, Cybela could hear the shrieks of people being cut down like squealing pigs, of men and women taking delight in their slaughter.

  A serpent, far smaller than she had imagined them to be, appeared at the doorway.

  With a gleeful hiss, it slipped in as easily as if it were already a part of the room’s darkness.

  A darkness that crept over her, its coils effortlessly knotting about her recoiling body.

  *

  Chapter 4

  When Cybela finally awoke from her daze, the darkness still lay thickly about her.

  But it was a pure darkness, not one tainted with serpentine coils.

  The doorway was equally dark, the sun having hidden away from what it had been forced to see long ago.

  Fortunately Cybela knew the small shrine well enough to know where everything stood, where everything was neatly placed.

  Besides, there was still the very faintest of glows emanating from the melted remains of the wax doll, its dimly flickering wick close to complete extinction but yet still clinging on to life.

  Taking down the torch she knew was set against the left wall, she brought its oiled and tapered tip towards the spluttering flame, breathing softly, carefully, upon the barely glimmering flare until it was sufficiently revived to spark the brand into life.

  It was a jaundiced, oily light that the torch cast out around her, and one that lit up only the edges of anything beyond thrice an arm’s length; but it was enough to give her the courage to step outside the womb-like shrine.

  As if at last completely awakening from her daze, Cybela abruptly realised that she had seen her sister enter the meadow.

  ‘Persephone!’ she cried out anxiously, striding out deeper into the darkness of the meadow. ‘Persephone! Where are you? Please answer me!’

  The brand’s waxy glow illuminated the ground lying before her, its flickering granting a false sense of movement and ever-changing expressions to the contorted faces of the dead lying strewn everywhere about the meadow. The once glorious flowers had been squashed into a rainbow coloured pulp. The spreading narcissus was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Persephone! Please let me know that you’re there!’

  She twisted sharply upon what had become unsteady feet, turning and urgently springing back towards the temple and its concourse. The flaming light jumped and flared as she ran, such that the toppled titans quivered as if alive, their perpetually gracious smiles displaying no fear of death. Here was a head, as if carelessly severed at the neck; here a jumble of broken limbs; here unrecognisable pieces of marble, of cracked stone.

  From farther across the concourse, even deeper within the darkness, Cybela caught the mumbling strains of what could be an agonised, stumbling cry for help.

  ‘Save me…’

  Persephone!

  It had to be!

  Surely her sister couldn’t be killed, couldn’t be dead?

  She forced what still felt like unfamiliar feet into a swift sprint across the paved concourse, the light from the flames more chaotic than ever, and everywhere casting huge, angular shadows.

  ‘Save me great Brimo and Demeter Rhea.’

  The pleading for help was already more muted and faltering than only a moment before. It was loud enough, however, to accurately draw Cybela towards the darkened mound lying by a fallen and now unrecognisable figurine.

  Although in every other way motionless, the prone figure appeared more alive than any Cybela had yet come across, the blazing light that struck the fallen woman swiftly rippling over her as brightly as any melting wax effigy.

  Serpents; a vast number of them.

  Cybela drew to a hurried, horrified halt; many of the serpents would still be venomous, deadly to anyone but the priestesses who had gradually and painstakingly become immune to their bites.

  The fallen woman wore the elongated dark gown of a priestess. Scattered about her were scrolls, no doubt ones she had tried to rescue and flee with as the invaders had descended upon the temple and its lands.

  The scrolls had been crushed, even hacked into pieces, the parchment deliberately unrolled and shredded or burnt.

  Yet they were only histories, nothing at all religious; the works of Soterichus, Nichomachus, Moeragenes and Tascius Victorianus, their names clearly etched upon the brass cases.

  Sensing Cybela’s presence – perhaps hearing her, or maybe seeing the glimmering of firelight playing across the ground – the woman steadily raised her head, despite it being an obviously agonising struggle for her. Her bloodied, mangled face could have easily been that of a Gorgon, with its framing of hissing snakes.

  ‘Young maiden, who…are you?’ Her voice was gutturally harsh. ‘Are you here to lead me…to gracefully lead me beneath the lap of my Lady?’

  Cybela shook her head nervously.

  ‘I’m...I’m looking for my sister; my sister, Persephone. Have you seen her?’

  ‘No,’ the dying priestess laughed bitterly. ‘But, surely, I will be seeing her soon now!’

  ‘Then…she’s dead?’

  ‘I don't have enough time left to play your cruel games, child. Of course she isn’t dead!’

  She was struggling more than ever to speak, particularly as she was straining to raise herself up from the ground a little more. Reaching underneath herself, she pulled out a scroll from within her gown.

  ‘Can I entrust this to you?’ she growled, holding out the scroll so that Cybela might take it.

  Cybela was still reluctant to approach, the snakes surrounding the priestess hissing out their warnings that they were angry, irritable, unpredictable.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘What men fear most,’ the priestess guffawed bitterly. ‘A scourge for t
hem and their religion; something that can destroy their gods.’

  Gingerly stepping only a little closer, Cybela bent down and reached out for the scroll.

  She snatched the scroll from the dying woman’s hand; and the disturbed serpents immediately helped the priestess on her way, striking again and again at the poor woman’s body.

  The priestess writhed in agony one last time as she succumbed to an injection of venom far greater than even she had been trained to deal with.

  *

  Chapter 5

  Cybela realised that she was in danger.

  Anyone in the city below glancing up at the temple would see the flame glittering like the morning star in the thick darkness.

  Those who attacked earlier might come to see if they had failed to kill everyone here.

  And if they saw her with this scroll they strangely feared so much, then she would undoubtedly be hunted down and killed. Just like they had slain the priestess. And so many others who had been in the meadow.

  But, thankfully, it seemed they had not killed her sister, Persephone.

  She needed to find her, to search for her.

  But first, she herself needed to find somewhere safe where these vengeful people wouldn’t find her.

  Underground.

  She would have to go underground; to hide away beneath the earth in the catacombs, the abode of the dead.

  *

  The maze of tunnels had been carved out of the earth long ago, a means of burying the dead.

  Even in the constantly moving light of her torch, Cybela could make out inscriptions carved into the walls. The Good Shepherd, Hermes, carrying a lamb around his neck. The animals gathering around an innocent Orpheus.

  Had Persephone also hidden away down here?

  If she had, had she made any attempt to come searching for her?

  Yes, yes: Cybela was sure that if Persephone had escaped, she would have come looking for her. Persephone would surely have wanted to make sure that her younger sister was also safe.