Arcadia Falls

by Kai Meyer

  “The gods made one condition in giving their aid and goodwill: A child was never to be born of the union of a Lamia and a Panthera. The families were to rule side by side, but never merge into a single dynasty. So much power could have led them to question the authority of the gods themselves—not such an outlandish notion if you look at the history of Rome or ancient Egypt.

  “To seal this pact, a great festival was announced, with a ceremony to prove that the enemies were now united. It was performed at the mausoleum of Lycaon that had just been built, the cornerstone of the new Arcadia.

  “Those were cruel times, when life meant little, and treaties were written in blood. It was decided that only human sacrifice would carry enough weight to go down in history as a symbol of the pact between the dynasties. A highborn daughter of the Lamias and a son of the Panthera were married on the steps of the mausoleum—only to be sacrificed directly after the wedding, to show everyone what such a union would lead to. The Lamia was forced to kill first her bridegroom and then herself. In that way, both clans demonstrated their unconditional will to serve the rise of Arcadia.”

  Thanassis stopped, drew in air with a labored rattle, and for a while hardly seemed able to go on. But after a pause, he began again. “Well, the people of that time liked to watch high drama. On the other hand, if they had all simply signed a treaty, who knows whether anyone would remember it today? A spectacle involving bloodshed has always been the most impressive way to ensure that your reputation survives the passing ages. Otherwise, who would still remember Herod? Or Nero and Caligula?”

  Rosa’s eyes met Alessandro’s. “She had to kill him first, then herself?”

  “The story isn’t over yet,” said Thanassis, after Danai had held a glass of water to his lips while he slowly drank it down. “The ceremony was performed, and the Arcadians who had survived the civil war were witnesses to the conclusion of a historic pact between the Panthera and the Lamias—the concordat. The last victims of the struggle for the throne, the unfortunate couple, were buried with due solemnity, and the work of reconstruction began.

  “In the following decades the kingdom recovered: the Arcadians got their old self-confidence back and began making plans for expansion. They were not yet strong enough for open war against the naval powers of the Mediterranean of that time—above all Greece—so they decided on another approach. Spies were sent out, merchants, diplomats, even soldiers who joined the Greek army. The Arcadians set about undermining the state. They held high positions and diverted wealth for their own purposes and for their people at home.

  “Increasingly, the Arcadians were becoming the puppet-masters of Greek politics. Outwardly, there might be nothing to see, but secretly they pulled the strings by means of advice, bribery, and intimidation. Arcadia grew richer, and its cities flourished again, even more magnificent than in the time of Lycaon. The concordat, the pact between the two dynasties, brought prosperity to the ruling class and a certain amount of security to the common people, who no longer needed to fear either poverty or war.

  “We don’t know exactly how long this happy state of affairs continued. Much of what I’m telling you is based on myth and legend. There is no official history—or if there was, it has remained undiscovered to this day. Actual dates are also unknown, but we can assume that the double rule of the Lamias and the Panthera lasted for at least one to two hundred years. Only then was there a development of the kind that has ruined so many nations.

  “The Arcadians became arrogant. Triumph followed triumph, wealth flowed from the Greek colonies to the island, everything they touched seemed to succeed. Then the dynasties decided that it was time to erect a memorial to the fame and progress of Arcadia. The mausoleum of Lycaon had shown that Arcadian architects were capable of great things, and the Arcadian people were ready to carry out such a task. But now there was to be a work of architecture the likes of which had never been seen before. Not a tomb, not a Tower of Babel, certainly not a temple to the gods—but a bridge that would join Arcadia to the mainland. A bridge over which Arcadian genius would flow out of the island, and the gold of other nations into it.”

  All this time Rosa had hardly moved, only shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Now, however, she could not refrain from taking a few restless steps around the room.

  “This bridge,” she said, “the island and the mainland . . . Arcadia was never Atlantis, or any other island that sank into the sea. Arcadia was Sicily.”

  “Sicily is a part of it,” agreed Thanassis. “What’s left of Arcadia.”

  Alessandro linked his hands behind his head. “And that bridge was to cross the Strait of Messina? By the same route that the Dallamanos surveyed a few years ago in order to build a new bridge there? The bridge the government in Rome decided on?”

  “Exactly.”

  Rosa was chewing a strand of her hair, while it all finally clicked in her mind. “But the statues in the sea, the ruins around them . . . does that mean that the Arcadians really did build their bridge? And the statues are the remains of it?”

  “The bridge was built,” said Thanassis. “It stretched for I don’t know how many kilometers across the open sea. The coastline was different then, and the island was larger, but all the same it had to cross a vast length. They had chosen not the shortest route but the one where the waters were shallowest. Gigantic piles were set up thirty or forty meters below the surface, and whole generations lived and died while the building work approached completion, very slowly but steadily.

  “If the Arcadians had contented themselves with that, who knows, maybe they would not have brought such disaster on their kingdom. But they felt secure, almighty, and they had had statues of panthers and snakes set up all along the bridge, countless numbers of them, as well as temples where travelers were expected to make sacrifices before images of the two ruling dynasties.”

  In her mind’s eye, Rosa saw the underwater stone statues. “And when they did that, they offended the gods.”

  “Well, naturally there were still no official links between Lamias and Panthera, no marriages, certainly no children. They stuck to that, and came down heavily on anyone who threatened to change the laws. However, the dynasties forgot the real reason for that one, which was originally meant to prevent the Lamias and Panthera from elevating themselves to the status of gods.”

  “But those are all just legends,” said Alessandro. “I mean, gods who come down from Olympus and force their laws on human beings don’t really—”

  “And how about your own shape-shifting ability?” Thanassis interrupted him. “Do you have any explanation for it that excludes the influence of the gods?”

  “What happened then?” asked Rosa.

  “The gods were angry with the Arcadians—at least, that’s what the legend says,” said Thanassis, glancing sideways at Alessandro. “The bridge was completed, and the people celebrated on the shores of the island and the bridge itself. The Lamias and Panthera saw themselves at the height of their power.”

  “And the gods put an end to it,” whispered Rosa.

  “There was an earthquake,” Alessandro contradicted her. “The Strait of Messina is one of the most notorious parts of the world for seismic activity. The seabed is never at rest, it’s always shifting somewhere. Gods have nothing to do with it.”

  “Who knows, maybe it really was just an earthquake,” said Thanassis. “The few traditional accounts that have come down to us say that the gods moved invisibly among the rejoicing people, watching the spectacle with resentment. Finally, when the festivities reached their climax, they let loose the forces of the sea. The seabed rose and broke apart, the incoming tide flooded the shore, as well as whole stretches of the coastline and some of the island’s largest cities. That was when Sicily got its present shape. The bridge disappeared into crevices and ravines at the bottom of the sea, and with every earthquake that has plagued the area ever since, another part of the truth was lost. With a few exceptions. One of those earthquakes, perh
aps the great quake of 1908, made something emerge, literally washed it up from the abyss.”

  “Our statues,” said Rosa. “Or yours.”

  “They must have been enclosed in a space in the rock down there, or it’s hardly likely that so many would have been found. It’s as if a few of the old Arcadians themselves had risen from the dead.”

  “But there must have been survivors,” said Alessandro, “or we wouldn’t be here.”

  “Naturally. Arcadian merchants, diplomats, and scholars were traveling in all parts of the known world at the time. A great many of them would surely have come home to join in the triumph of the bridge-builders, but by no means all. And even the catastrophe itself did not affect the entire population. Some inhabitants of inland areas surely remained alive. Many may have mingled with the other Mediterranean nations in the coming years, while others could have gone farther afield, to Asia, Africa, to the north. Most of them must have found a new home in Greece and its colonies and slowly began to reach new positions of influence there. That is why the Arcadian dynasties exist to this day, but in secret, behind masks.”

  “I’d like to see the statues,” said Rosa. “They’re here on board, aren’t they?”

  Thanassis turned his head on the pillow toward his daughter, and grimaced when one of the tubes came under strain. At once the nurse was beside him. “Danai,” he said, “be good enough to show our guests the finds.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I think they deserve it.”

  The hybrid rocked uncomfortably in the middle of her hooped skirt, as if on a black cushion, and then nodded.

  “My voice needs a chance to recover.” He looked at Rosa again. “But we haven’t reached the end of the story yet. There’s more that you ought to know.”

  “You still haven’t told us what you expect from us,” said Alessandro.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not about to run away from you.”

  Danai glided past the two of them to the door. She gave Alessandro a smile, but ignored Rosa.

  “Follow me.”

  SNAKE AND PANTHER

  “THIS DECK USED TO be for the cars,” said Danai, as they entered the gigantic hold of the Stabat Mater.

  Yellow markings could still be seen in many places on the floor: parking places laid out like anatomical sketches of backbones and ribs. Dozens of neon tubes illuminated the deck; there were no portholes to the outside world, and if Rosa’s sense of direction did not deceive her, they were below the surface of the sea.

  It smelled like a building site, like earth, damp rock, and mortar. A large part of the floor of the hold was covered with broken stones. The sight would have brought tears to the eyes of any archaeologist. Chunks of stone of every size and in every condition were piled up together like refuse, in spite of the damage it did them.

  Rosa counted ten mountains of rubble as high as houses, five on each side of the deck, and among them many smaller piles, as well as countless single pieces, the remains of arches and reliefs, and again and again columns, many broken into segments, other intact like fossilized mammoth trees.

  Bulldozers with encrusted scoops stood alone near the main bulwark at the end of the hall, along with vans and a forklift. Wheelbarrows and tools for an army of workers were fixed to the walls. There was not a soul in sight.

  Danai had dismissed Mirella and the others, and had brought Rosa and Alessandro here on her own, down steel stairways and along abandoned corridors, where the noises from the upper decks—shrill voices, roaring—could be heard now and then.

  Rosa looked around her critically. “Doesn’t look like there was much expertise at work here.”

  Alessandro went over to a fragment of masonry on which the remains of a relief could be seen, showing a scene with humans and animals. He ran his fingers around the outline of a stylized lion. “Is all this Arcadian?”

  “Every stone of it.”

  “But this isn’t a storehouse,” said Rosa, glancing at the heaps of rubble.

  Danai smiled. “No.”

  “Why are you collecting all this stuff?”

  “To sink it far out to sea. The Stabat Mater travels between Europe and North America several times a year, and throws all this overboard in the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean. It disappears a couple of kilometers down there, never to be seen again.”

  “You retrieve it from the sea only to throw it back again?”

  Danai laughed, a peal of laughter clear as a bell. “Very little of it comes out of the sea, except maybe in the coastal areas. A great deal had been taken inland. We buy it from the farmers on whose land it was discovered. We often get there before the museums and universities move in.”

  “But why?” asked Alessandro.

  “We’re erasing Arcadia from human memory. Covering all the tracks, including many pieces that are generally considered Greek. We have our own experts and contacts; the Thanassis Foundation is one of the most generously funded archaeological institutes anywhere in Europe. And before anyone can draw the correct conclusions, we get rid of the evidence. You might say that we’re retroactively destroying Arcadia. Robbing it of its history. The descendants of the old Arcadians aren’t the problem. They are mortal and will disappear of their own accord some time or other—but those stones can tell their story thousands of years later. And that’s what we’re preventing.”

  Rosa looked around her. “Show us the statues.”

  The delicate lace at the hem of Danai’s skirt rustled as it passed through gray stone dust, as she led them between the heaps of rubble to the far side of the hold. And there they lay, most of them on their sides, carelessly thrown down on top of one another and broken. There had been twelve statues, seven of them almost intact. Now they were all badly damaged.

  Each statue showed the snake and the panther in the same pose. The big cat stood on his hind legs, and the reptile was coiled around his body. They were looking into each other’s eyes. What at first glance appeared to be a fight was in reality an embrace. Judging by all that Thanassis had told them, that position must have been a provocation, the greatest imaginable challenge to the gods.

  “Oh, fuck,” whispered Rosa.

  Alessandro looked at her inquiringly.

  “I just thought of the Greek gods as living beings. That’s totally crazy.”

  “Is it?” asked Danai. “Would we go to such trouble and expense if it were all just fantasy?”

  “Why ask me?” Rosa snapped. “You’re Daddy’s little princess, not me.” Alessandro shot her a warning glance, but she was not to be stopped in her tracks. “You drag us into this floating freak show, you come up with a few tales about the old days, and you’re trying to tell us that it would be a good idea for all Arcadians to be dead—including the two of us, right?” She faced Danai and tried not to think of the part of the young woman that was hidden under the black velvet skirt. “There’s more than that behind it. And if you want us to trust you, it would be a good idea if you finally told us the whole truth.”

  Danai looked past Rosa and smiled at Alessandro. “We’re glad to have you as our guests. In fact, very glad.”

  To her annoyance, Rosa had to stand on tiptoe in order to break the eye contact between them. “By the way, he hates spiders.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I’m not one.”

  “Arachnida can be all kinds of creatures,” said Alessandro. “Including crayfish and crabs.”

  “And scorpions.” Behind Danai’s back, something pushed out from under the wide skirt, a huge, drop-shaped spike made of horn and bony plates. It reared up in a wide arc around the hem of the skirt, its fist-size tip swaying back and forth.

  Rosa wrinkled her nose scornfully, and Danai’s features slipped. She bared her teeth, and her eyes went black, as if ink were spraying out of her pupils. A rattling sound came through her lips, one that no human larynx could produce. But the metamorphosis went no farther. Danai remained a grotesque cross between woman and animal.

  Rosa showe
d her own snake’s fangs, and hissed menacingly. She did not shift shape entirely; only her face was covered with scaly skin for a few seconds.

  Then she said softly, “Oh, forget it,” took a step back, and turned toward the statues without taking any more notice of Danai. It made her sad to see this wanton destruction of the embrace that had united snake and panther in the darkness for thousands of years.

  “It’s not right to just throw all this away,” she said quietly.

  She sensed Danai coming up behind her. The lace at the hem of the skirt touched her calves, but she didn’t turn around. Instead, she crouched down. Her fingers gently stroked a panther’s stony face.

  “What’s the alternative?” asked Danai calmly. “Telling the world the truth? Is everyone to know what you are? What Alessandro is? Do you think you can count on tolerance if it all becomes common knowledge?”

  Rosa shook her head. Alessandro crouched down beside her, putting an arm around her. “This is only stone,” he said. “It doesn’t mean anything. Only a few old chunks of rock on which someone or other carved faces.”

  “Our faces.”

  Then he kissed her, a long and tender kiss, and it didn’t matter that Danai was standing there, watching them without a word. Rosa stroked Alessandro’s unruly hair from his eyes, couldn’t suppress a grin, and pulled him up with her from their crouching position.

  Almost reluctantly, she turned back to Danai. “Why did your father give up everything to rescue a few hundred hybrids?” At last she put what she had been wondering all this time into words. “There’s something that won’t let him rest.”

  Alessandro, too, looked at the hybrid. “Is it TABULA?”

  Danai slowly sank to the ground in front of the piles of rubble from the broken statues. It seemed as if her upper body was suddenly too heavy for the black masses of velvet. “It probably doesn’t matter whether you hear this from him or me,” she said. “He and TABULA . . . yes, there is indeed a connection.”