Athenian Steel (Book I of the The Hellennium)

by P. K. Lentz

  “She is no goddess,” Demosthenes swiftly assured him. He had hoped Alkibiades would keep his head for longer than this, but the youth's imagination was running wild already. “Are you so quick to believe?” he asked. “Do you not still have doubts?”

  “Why? She has clearly convinced you, someone whose judgment I trust. Add to that the demonstration of strength just witnessed, the markings on her face, and—”

  “Yes,” Demosthenes said, “those markings.” He tried to keep from his voice the mild annoyance which he had felt on first seeing them and knowing that Thalassia had hidden something from him. “What were they?”

  “Magdalen's Mark,” she answered. “All in the Veta Caliate bear one. No two are exactly alike. Of course, it can be hidden at will so we can blend in.”

  Alkibiades fell to one knee before Thalassia, now seated on the bench, and set one hand on her linen draped knee. He gazed up, wide-eyed, as one might at the towering cryselephantine Athena in her temple.

  “Golden astraneanis,” he said in awe, “I am your willing servant!”

  Demosthenes scoffed. Star-girl. The name given to Thalassia by Eurydike. Surely she was the least secretive spy in all of Hellas.

  “Oh, stand up!” Demosthenes enjoined the youth.

  But there was no sign he was listening. Even his mentor, circumspect Socrates, had little influence over the youth when it came to interpreting signs that Alkibiades enjoyed favor in the heavens. The visions likely playing behind his eyes at this moment were ones of his own image set in friezes, battling shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Heracles.

  “Listen to me,” Demosthenes said sternly. “None but the three of us in this garden knows her secret, and it must stay that way. If you tell another soul, she will rip your cock off and throw it to the crows.”

  Yet on one knee, Alkibiades rubbed his cheek over the back of Thalassia's hand, seemingly as unbothered by the threat against his manhood as he was by the fact that his goddess thus far had shown no sign of readiness to indulge him in his worship, but only offered forbearance.

  Demosthenes took a seat on a second, identical stone bench across the path. “Whenever you are finished,” he said testily, “we thought we might lay out our plans. It is after all an accomplice we seek, not a puppy.”

  On the other bench, Thalassia's right hand went from her lap to Alkibiades' perfect chin. She lifted it with two fingers, gave him an affectionate look, then withdrew the hand and used it to deliver a sharp slap across his cheek.

  Face turned by the force of the blow, Alkibiades took reluctant notice of his fellow Athenian. His brows ticked up. “Not the last time I shall feel that particular sting from her, I hope.” He rose and brushed dust from his knees and finely embroidered chiton. “So what are we planning? A coup? I would make such a lovely tyrant.”

  “Nothing like that,” Demosthenes admonished. “We shall use our influence to work within the democracy.”

  “Work to do what?”

  “According to Thalassia,” Demosthenes explained, “Fate would see Athens ground down for twenty more years of war, ending in our submission.”

  Alkibiades laughed. “Twenty years! That's a bit excessive, isn't it?”

  Ignoring him, Demosthenes went on. “Thalassia claims we can change that outcome. If you manage to stop drooling on her for a moment, she might tell us how.”

  Alkibiades' brow furrowed, and he grew intense. Here now was the pupil of Socrates, the co-conspirator they needed, a man who knew when to put lust and levity aside and focus his copious energy. Both men looked to Thalassia, who assumed the mantle of leadership over her secret war council.

  “My own preference,” she began, “is for a swift, decisive stroke to bring the war to an immediate end. No more lives wasted winning far-off victories that mean nothing. I believe we should attack Sparta itself. But Demosthenes does not believe that the Board of Ten would ever agree to such a thing, and he... objects to my ideas on dealing with the Board.”

  “Ideas which include assassination and the rigging of elections!” Demosthenes interjected. “Ideas which you said you would not raise again. I fight to preserve an Athens which actually deserves to be saved, a place of wisdom and learning and justice, a city which respects the rule of law instead of trampling it when it suits.”

  “A fine speech, Demosthenes,” Alkibiades applauded. “Almost good enough to overcome your opponent's considerable advantage in beauty.”

  “Let it be clear,” Demosthenes said gravely, ignoring the other. “Whatever actions we may take to change the fated outcome of this war must be taken within the bounds of the democracy. Now, Thalassia, would you care to speak on the plan we discussed, or shall I?”

  From her bench, Thalassia flicked an opaque glance at Demosthenes. “Apologies,” she said, less than penitently. “One other thing which should be clear, in case I implied otherwise, is that the final decision in all matters pertaining to our efforts shall rest with Demosthenes.”

  “Naturally,” Alkibiades agreed, although surely he felt that if anyone was 'naturally' suited for leadership in anything, it was the subject of the sculpture beside which they sat: Alkibiades.

  Thalassia resumed: “Next year, the Spartan general Brasidas will march through Thessaly and Macedon gathering up an army of allies. He will bring that army to the gates of the Athenian colony of Amphipolis, which will surrender to him without a fight before help can arrive.”

  Alkibiades laughed. “So? What will we lose? Some colonists and their sheep.”

  “And a large portion of Athens' grain supply,” Thalassia corrected, “which passes through Amphipolis on its way down the Strymon from Thrace to reach port.”

  “Not to mention gold and ship timbers,” Demosthenes added.

  “The loss will be a seeping wound from which the Athenian war effort never recovers.” Thalassia said. “Or it would be, if no one stopped Brasidas.”

  “Which, I take it, falls to us,” Alkibiades said with hunger in his eyes.

  “If we can convince the Board to send a force there,” Demosthenes said.

  Alkibiades scoffed. “You'll be back on the Board with the next election. You will reap all the votes you need from the victory at Pylos.” He made a sour expression. “Alas, so will Kleon.”

  “It need not be a large force,” Thalassia said, “for it will be equipped with weapons of my design. Men need only be trained in their use.”

  Alkibiades clapped. “It is settled, then! I love it. But next, to matters just as vital.” He set a hand on Thalassia's thigh and leveled an intense look at her. “If you know what Brasidas will do next year, then you know, too, the future of Alkibiades. So... tell me. What is to become of me?”

  Demosthenes held his breath momentarily, for he knew the truth, or least as much of it as Thalassia had chosen to tell him. In the world which might have been, and perhaps still could, an older Alkibiades would be behind the disastrous Sicilian expedition which would ruin Athens and cause Demosthenes, a reluctant participant, to be captured and executed. Alkibiades himself, accused by his enemies of blasphemy and recalled to Athens for trial, would turn traitor and gave aid to the Spartans before eventually returning to an Athens desperately in need of an able general, even a treacherous one.

  Part of Demosthenes' rewritten destiny, it seemed, was to surround himself with traitors.

  In spite of such behavior, as was his fondest wish, that Alkibiades was destined to be admired long after his death. If Fate had her way, he would be better remembered than any general presently serving on the Board of Ten, better than any among the would-be-victorious Spartans.

  Far better than Demosthenes.

  Thalassia gently cupped the youth's smooth jaw and answered with a pitying smile, “I know only that which men who live after you will choose to record, and it would seem...” She trailed off, her expression becoming one of pity.

  Alkibiades grabbed Thalassia's hand by the wrist and ripped it from his face, shooting to his feet. “No!
That cannot be true!”

  “Alkibiades, do not—” Demosthenes tried to interject.

  “Such obvious nonsense throws into question all else she claims to know! What did she tell you of your fate, Demosthenes?”

  “That I will die on my knees in a ditch and fade into obscurity, my name eclipsed by others such as Nikias, Thucydides... Kleon.” Alkibiades, he did not add.

  “Kleon!” Alkibiades echoed in disbelief. His hand covered a downturned face concealed behind a mane of chestnut curls.

  “You have the opportunity to change that,” Thalassia said mildly. “Win this war with us, and you will be the savior of Athens.”

  Alkibiades sighed heavily, tugging at his hair. “I suppose so... It's just quite a blow you have given me. And not the kind I would like from you. To think... all I have done and would do in my life was to be in vain. But...”—he suddenly threw his arms wide and smiled—“I am wholly with you. Let us crush Sparta, starting with Brasidas. But first, we ought to consummate this union, the three of us. What say you, Demosthenes? Star-girl?”

  Rising, Demosthenes scoffed. “I shall stay out of your bed.”

  “Out here on the grass, then!” Alkibiades countered. As Thalassia stood, he moved in close beside her, grabbed her hips and examined her form with eyes lit by desire. “We should dress you as a goddess,” he concluded. “None of the virgins, though, and Aphrodite doesn't suit you. No, you are an Isis, I think! Your complexion is right, and I have a whole trunk of Egyptian gold.”

  “Later,” Thalassia said unapologetically and brushed past him, following the path which led away from the benches and the statue of Alkibiades.

  Demosthenes fell in behind her, and they returned to their host's house, from which, reluctantly, after making one last argument in favor of naked celebration, Alkibiades allowed his guests to depart. Almost unconsciously, Demosthenes chose a back route, away from the crowds of the marketplace and law-courts where men were ever stopping him these days to offer congratulations on his victory.

  Was this to be his future? Skulking in shadows?

  Suddenly he wished to be alone, or at least away from her. Something about Thalassia's very presence seemed as poison to rational thought. It was as though she exuded droplets of madness like sweat through her flawless skin. And he had consigned himself to her keeping, a prisoner of her madness. She would never let him go, he knew. Not ever.

  II. ATHENS 9. Rain

  Demosthenes drifted gently from sleep. At first, he was only vaguely aware of the bed underneath him. Then his awareness expanded.

  By the quality of light filtering in through the window, it was early morning. The air felt strangely chill for the days which he now recalled should be the tail end of summer. But there was some warmth present in the bed with him, other than that provided by the thin blanket of wool. His policy had always been to bar Eurydike from sleeping in his bed, lest it become a habit too hard to break when the day came that he took a wife. But his enforcement was lax, and sometimes she ended up there instead of in her place by the hearth.

  Demosthenes looked toward the heat source, but found no pile of red curls, no freckled tangle of Thracian limbs. There was just Thalassia, with a wavy cascade of long, dark hair half concealing the hand with which she propped up her flawless face, its skin the color of honey. Her pale eyes were wide open and staring at him, and a sweet smile was upon her thin lips. She was naked, of course, and lying on top of the covers rather than under, as though she had been up already and returned to watch him wake.

  On seeing her, Demosthenes knew he had spent the night with her doing things which had left his body spent. That did not strike him as strange. (But it should, should it not?)

  The star-girl set one hand on his cheek and slithered forward until her lips reached his. She kissed him, and he returned it, at first with innocent affection and then sensually. Raw as it was, his cock stirred.

  "Let's stay here all day," Thalassia said when they detached.

  "We do that every day," he said (why would he say that?) and swung his legs off the bed.

  Thalassia clutched at him and whined, "Don't go!" But he brushed her off and planted bare feet on the cold floor. "There's nothing out there for you," she said dejectedly. "All you need is right here."

  He walked to the single window of a bedchamber which was not his, yet at the same time was, and threw back the silken drape. His lover came up behind him, set her cheek and one hand on his shoulder, and together they looked out over Athens, spread far below.

  It was not the view from his home in Tyrmeidai.

  He could see Tyrmeidai, or what remained of it. The ruins of those buildings which were not flattened utterly swam in a sea of ash. In what once had been the streets, now indistinguishable from what lay around, not a soul stirred, even at this, the market hour. The markets were rubble.

  "Come back to bed," Thalassia urged.

  "No," Demosthenes answered glumly. "I love you. But I do not love the chains that bind our fates together. One day I shall be free of them. And you."

  Thalassia stroked his hair. "Not soon, my exairetos. Not soon."

  He turned, and Thalassia was gone. When he turned back, the window had gone, too, and with it the bedchamber and the ruins of Athens. In their place was a columned sanctuary on a sunlit mountainside.

  Demosthenes' knees buckled. He sank into tall, untended grass and cried out, for only now did his heart explode with the pain and horror of the sight just seen, of Athens laid waste and he its heartless lord, Thalassia his star-born queen.

  On knees and forearms, he wept into the weeds until some other sound, a woman's plaintive moan, began to fill the spaces between his sobs. He picked himself up and moved toward the sound's source, the sanctuary.

  He had been to Delphi once before in his life, in his youth. He had walked the winding trek up the base of Parnassos, now behind and below him, but of course he had not been privileged to approach the Pythia within her sacred walls. In his memory, the holy place was packed as far he could see with pilgrims, but now it stood empty. Two of the four columns of the once-great façade had fallen, and all four were festooned with green spirals of clinging ivy. Solemn rituals were meant to precede passage through that portico into the sacred space beyond, but no priests had been here for some time, it appeared, and so no one stopped him following the sad, beckoning moan inside.

  The sanctum was shrouded in a thick mist which glowed with a light all its own, and the low moan echoed now off walls invisible beyond the swirling clouds.

  "Who is there?" Demosthenes said in a whisper which echoed in his ears far more sharply and with greater clarity than mere stone walls should have produced. Cowed, he said nothing further, but just followed his ears until he found the sound's source.

  She was young, perhaps just out of adolescence, and she lay curled naked on the tile floor clutching a blood-soaked cloth between white thighs that trembled. He knew without benefit of evidence that this was the Oracle herself, the Pythia. She should have been ancient and withered, or at least all men said she was.

  She moaned on. Demosthenes crouched by her side. "Can I help?" he said, fearful of a harsh echo which never came.

  The moaning ceased. The Pythia's head, trailing long tendrils of oily brown hair twisted in the remnants of what might once have been an elaborate style, rose slowly from the floor. Tears had stained her cheeks with streams of kohl from blue eyes that looked up at Demosthenes first in confusion and then, suddenly, abject hatred.

  "You!" she shrieked. More swiftly than he would have thought possible, she launched a hand at him, its thin fingers bent in a claw.

  The attack grazed Demosthenes' face, stinging his cheek and throwing him off balance so that he fell back from his haunches. Twisting, he got hands beneath him. His palms slapped on the mist-shrouded tile, and he scuttled backward on the skirt of his chiton.

  He soon stopped, for the naked, violated virgin Pythia had collapsed prostrate on the tile, no breath for ch
ase left in her young frame. With obvious effort, she pushed herself up and folded a leg under her thin body. Questing in the thick mist, she found her bloody rag and restored it to its place.

  Demosthenes made himself more comfortable but went no closer. "You know me?" he asked.

  She leveled an acid stare. "I'm the fucking Oracle! Of course I know who you are, you fucking cunt. Everyone knows the Destroyer of All, the Arch-Coward, the Whore-Slave, the sack of maggot-ridden pig shit called Demosthenes." She spat into the fog and lifted her stained cloth, shaking it at him. "This is your fault!"

  He opened his mouth to protest, but it fell shut. The same way he had known her to be the Pythia, he knew she spoke the truth.

  "How could I have known?" he countered feebly.

  The young Pythia sneered in disbelief. "How could you have known?" she mocked. "How could you have known that she would rip this world in two and piss down the crack?"

  She crawled forward a few inches, maybe meaning to attack again but failing to find the strength.

  "Hmm..." she resumed, "I'm a goddamn oracle, so let me see if I can't advise you a bit on telling the future, brainless one. That bitch had the strength of Herakles, the speed of Atalanta, the learning of a thousand philosophers, and if you cut off her limbs she'd grow new ones like a fucking Hydra. There were two others of her kind out there who hated her, just like everyone who's ever known her does. The being she wished to destroy, and the leader she betrayed—twice!—are presumably even more powerful than she is. Yet you foresaw no danger in forming a pact with her? Need I go on, idiot?"

  Demosthenes declined to answer, only swallowed hard.

  "Kronos' ass, but you are dumb!" the Pythia raged. "She even helped your enemy at Pylos before she helped you. She told you she didn't give a shit about your city or your war! She only cares about her vengeance, and knowing even a fraction of her history, you thought she would suddenly start playing nice because—why? She likes you? Gods, you kept your groin in check, so if you weren't thinking with that, what exactly were you thinking with? What's your excuse for not seeing her for the lying, chaos-craving, world-devouring Wormwhore that she is? Can you not see, you sucker of diseased cock, that this enemy of hers that she aims to wipe from existence is not the Worm? It is not one man at all. Her enemy is humanity!"