The Three Sisters
Book II
The Progeny of Daedalus
By Jeffrey MacLeod
The object of education is to teach us to love what is beautiful.
- Plato, The Republic
When parents separate, the greatest fear of the father is to lose the love of his children. To my darling daughters, thank you for your forgiveness.
These pages are my sleeve, these words are my heart; this is my thanks, my confession, my apology and my dedication.
To my darling daughters, the Three Sisters, from you loving Dad. I hope that this preserves eternally some of the magical moments we have spent together.
Remember: drink life to the lees and never rest from travel.
Index
Chapter ITreading Water
Chapter IIThe House of Minos
Chapter IIIThe Last Good Days
Chapter IVThe Shades of Death
Chapter VA Temporal Sortie
Chapter VIColliding Worlds
Chapter VIIThe House of Asterion
Chapter VIIIThe Centre
Chapter IXRedemption
Chapter XThe Quest Begins
Ilia
Danae
Leda
The Three Sisters
Chapter I
Treading Water
When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love...
– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
A great writer once reported that things which are terrible to endure usually make a good story; conversely, events during which there is nothing more exciting than enjoying sunshine and eating well, these do not make an interesting read, no matter how content the experience. Now it would be misleading to suggest that the previous summer holiday which the Three Sisters – Ilia, Danae and Leda – had spent adventuring with their Dad between Rome and the Amalfi Coast had been disagreeable, but it is a fact that a certain number of unpleasant truths had been uncovered. On the other hand, not all the news had been bad.
To learn that you are indeed the reincarnated souls of legendary beauties that were once beloved by the Greek Gods would, to most teenage girls, be regarded as conveying bragging rights. The bummer to this news, of course, was that by attracting the lewd favour of Zeus and other licentious Olympians, their souls had been cursed by Mrs Zeus, i.e. Hera, and as a result they had spent several millennia being reincarnated into one miserable life after another. But, with a little help from Zeus and his son, Apollo – with whom they felt they had developed a special bond – the girls had now been reborn into one family, as three sisters, bearing the same names which they had when they had been cursed all those ages ago, and they had now been given the opportunity to break their ancient curse. For those of you who have not read the first instalment of this history, you might be forgiven for thinking that this opportunity sounds rather fortunate for the girls, but that is because you would be unaware of the flip side of this blessing: failure to break the curse would have a number of repercussions that would be universally regarded as negative, such as a second Trojan War waged on a worldwide scale that would almost certainly destroy the planet. So, as Leda had said of their Quest to lift the Curse of Hera, “no pressure then!”
Fortunately, they did not have to attempt this alone; Dad would be there to help (and his input will only be limited by the author’s whimsical discretion.) Dad was aware of the gravity of the situation as Apollo had brought him to a family council to inform him, and he was determined to do all that he could to help his three precious princesses. Additionally, apart from their divine beauty, the girls had been blessed by a number of other gifts to assist them.
All three of them had been given the fairly random ability to experience the memories preserved by art and architecture, simply by touching them. The experience usually felt like being transported in time, although the destination could be unpredictable. Also, Apollo had blessed them each with talents tailored each to their own personality. Ilia, who was turning seventeen after the upcoming summer, had been blessed with the gift of divine wisdom, although this was strangely uncoupled from the ability to endure her sisters’ teasing with dignity. Danae, whose personality even at the age of 15 tended to be a little less …subtle, shall we say, had been granted the complimentary gift of divine strength, with which she fully intended to humiliate as many boys at school in the upcoming year as possible. Leda, who at 12 years of age was still inherently adorable but had now developed the wit to fully exploit this talent, had had this characteristic divinely enhanced; Apollo had blessed her with the charm of persuasion, something which her sisters had said she really did not need any more of.
It was Hera who had set them their task, and She had seemed fully convinced that it was an impossibility: She wanted nothing less than the Golden Apple that had been gifted to that frivolous daughter of hers, Aphrodite, during the Judgement of Paris, i.e. the same Golden Apple that had resulted in the Trojan War. After a few discreet pointers from Apollo, the girls had hatched a plan that involved first retrieving the Wings of Daedalus from the Labyrinth of King Minos’ palace at Knossos in Crete; then locating the Garden of the Hesperides and using the wings to fly over the unbroken walls to steal a replica golden apple from the same tree that had produced the first one; and finally locating the Golden Apple of Aphrodite and performing a light-fingered switch that they hoped would go unnoticed by the Goddess of Love. Of course, if they messed it up the goddesses of Olympus would be at each other’s throats again and things would not be looking too bright for humanity. But despite that minor concern the girls were, as they professed, quietly confident.
Dad, however, was less so.
Anyway, back to the present. As I was saying, the year following their first summer adventures was quite pleasant however, as little happened to progress the breaking of the Curse and averting the End of the World as we know it, there is not much of relevance to report here – at least not much that would catch your attention. Therefore, I will not dwell on it here, for I would not have you put down this history at this critical moment, as a story unread does not exist, and in doing so it would leave both the Three Sisters – and indeed the fate of the human species – in an inescapable limbo. So, in an attempt to fuel resolution with attention, I shall push on towards the unknown outcome of all of our destinies and ask you – for the sake of self-preservation if for no other reason – to resume and endure this narrative with a determination that is proportional to the peril.
It was a busy year for the girls at home in Stirling. Schools tend to be as demanding upon pupils as they are fiscally taxing upon parents so, Sterling Academy, in its picturesque setting at the feet of the Ochils, was relentlessly demanding of the girls. Their many extra-curricular pursuits consumed any additional time not already occupied by classes and school bus journeys and homework and the general activities of being teenagers. That is not quite true of Leda, of course, who turned 12 during the year, but with two older sisters to set the example she, at an early stage, entered the world of lip gloss and contour kits and eye shadow, although as yet more in the spirit of dressing up than growing up. Mum was busy also and often away, so the girls had additional responsibilities associated with greater independence – mainly cooking and keeping the common areas of the house clear enough to minimise the risk of tripping and breaking a limb, as well as clean enough to reduce the risk of becoming the source of the next global pandemic. Actually, that is perhaps unfair, as the girls were generally very tidy but, like champagne at sunset, tidy does not make for an entertaining story.
Dad visited every four to six weeks as a rule, fitting this around the natural rhythm of term and half term school holidays. He r
ented apartments within a few miles of Stirling and tended to disrupt the girls’ busy schedules as little as possible, assuming the duty of taxi-driver for the weekend that was usually the privilege of their mum, interspersing this with meals and cards and board games and movies. The weekends were always far too short, however, and the Monday morning drop-off at school came about much too fast.
There was one notable adventure they had during a walk on a Sunday afternoon when, in front of Castle Campbell on the steep slopes high above Sterling Academy grounds, they came upon a Fairy sitting outside the open stone door of a Fairy mound. It is not immediately relevant to this chronicle so I will expand on it no further, but I did not want to leave you, the reader, with the impression that the intervening year was entirely uneventful.
Most school holidays the girls came to Germany but, although this was for a week at a time, that time passed as swiftly and busily as the weekends in Stirling. There were a number of Dad dishes that the girls missed greatly and loved to eat which, despite their assertions at being vegetarian, were in the main based upon large quantities of dead animal flesh, so this eco-friendly and compassionate distinction was somewhat unconvincing. Dad would try to get through all of these dishes in any week that they were with him. The girls would also take the opportunity to pursue activities they were not able to at home – laziness being the main one – and lie around the house in their pyjamas all day watching endless television. They would also play cards and board games and go clothes shopping, but none of this was contributing to the liberation of their souls or the preservation of civilisation as we know it.
They did of course remain aware of the fact that they had a great Quest to pursue and, should they get it wrong, a second – and a far more destructive – Trojan War might engulf the planet. But it is difficult to sustain the urgency such a task deserves amidst biology homework, modern dance classes and tidying one’s room. Also, they were aware that they could do little more until they obtained the Wings of Daedalus, and that this next step was delayed until the following summer holiday. So, they allowed their focus to naturally drift to the more mundane tasks of everyday life and away from the fact that the Divine consort of Zeus had it in for them.
Their gifts they continued to both develop and enjoy. With regards to the experience when touching art and architecture, after discussions with Dad they began to refer to this as The Sight – even though what they experienced differed significantly from this Celtic tradition. Dad researched further into the phenomenon and read just about everything that was ever written about it. It is an old Gaelic tradition that held that some individuals in the community might have the ability to see the unseen. This sometimes meant the spirit world but, at other times, it might be the future – although he said that he had never encountered a case where The Sight allowed people to see into the past.
In earlier times the spirit world included the Celtic Faerie folk. Now, these had nothing in common with the 19th century romantic notion of winged fairies at the bottom of the garden, but were instead beings that were in all senses larger, more beautiful and more powerful than any human. The greatness of a hero in Celtic legend was sometimes recognised by the fact that a Faerie might, in exceptional circumstances, concede to marrying a mortal. In fact, Dad had told them that, within the Clan MacLeod legend, it is held that one of the early Chiefs of the MacLeods of Dunvegan had taken a Faerie wife, and that she had lived with that Chief for 20 years and bore him an heir, before returning to her own people after a painful farewell at the Fairy Bridge in Skye. In later times, with the infiltration of Christianity, traditions of the spirit world became ever more linked to evil, as people struggled to reconcile these well-established beliefs with their new world framework of polarised Good and Evil. As a result, rather than Faeries, the later Gaelic stories of the Second Sight might involve ghosts or witches that, as they were regarded as being evil, were also considered something fearful to behold. As such the Second Sight in the late medieval Highlands and Islands was regarded as a curse, rather than a gift, and this continued right through into the 20th century when the last widespread vestiges of these beliefs died out.
The girls definitely did not regard their abilities as a curse. On weekends in Scotland with Dad – and sometimes alone – they explored all sorts of old relics and structures. The girls found they could control The Sight to a degree, and shut out the experiences if they did not want them. They developed a conscious awareness of things about them and the potential for triggering The Sight and, like a driver who is ever aware of the aspect in the rear view mirror whilst still focussing on the road ahead, they were able to go about their daily lives and incorporate Sight experiences only when they were wanted – well, for the most part.
Despite having been summoned by Apollo, Dad had not been given the gift and, unfortunately for him, there was probably nothing that he had ever wanted more. On the morning that they had flown back from Italy Dad had made time to dash around Praiano and try to touch anything he thought might work – the old Chiesa, a few old houses, he even drove down to one of the nearby medieval Saracen towers to give that a try – but to no avail. Finally, he had even risked touching the brick from the Temple of Apollo, but there was nothing. So, disappointed as he was, he had to content himself with living vicariously through the girls’ experiences, asking them all sorts of details, suggesting things they might touch and test – it actually became a little tedious, such was his obsession.
When he visited he would take them to castles and rocks and statues and buildings and encourage the girls to touch them all and tell him what they had seen. He particularly liked cemeteries – the one on Stirling rock behind the Church of the Holy Rood was an especially rich playground in this regard. But the girls found that a bit spooky and soon learned they had to dictate to Dad what they would touch, not the other way around. He was especially persistent in trying to find something that would allow the girls to view some of the famous battles that had occurred in the area – Bannockburn in 1314, Stirling Bridge in 1297, Falkirk in 1298 and Sherrifmuir in 1715. He also took them along the Roman Antonine wall but, as it had been a wood and earth structure, there was nothing there to touch – although this did not stop Dad from trying. He dragged them all over the place – up hillsides and through brambles and over walls and under gates.
On one occasion, determined to find something to link to the Battle of Stirling Bridge, he nearly drowned himself in the Forth River trying to get down to where the old pylons of the original bridge had been – the Bridge had collapsed during the battle. Hanging out as far over the water as he could, suspended by his grip on what he assured the girls was a perfectly adequate oak branch, it of course gave way and he fell in. The current at that point is particularly strong so Dad had been forced to go with the river until he reached the new Stirling Bridge. Here the water shallows out and he was able to grab hold of a supermarket shopping trolley that was wedged firmly in the silt of the riverbed, and from there launch himself to one of the arch foundations and so on to the bank. The girls had laughed, gasped, run, sighed with relief and then laughed again as Dad had dragged himself out of the river like a bedraggled rat.
These efforts were not always completely pointless. They had been able to witness an amazing sight in the cemetery at Falkirk. In the town centre is the Old Parish Church – the Faw Kirk – just behind the High Street with its Pound Shops and Specsavers and WH Smith’s. In the churchyard there is a largely unknown grave – but one that should be world famous. He had brought them all there, super excited, and taken them directly to what was obviously a large tomb. It is surrounded by elaborate iron work on all sides and the corner spikes rise up and over the tomb, merging into an iron crown with a rampant lion at the apex, forming a canopy. Within the ironwork enclosure lies a large stone slab, which is around waist height and covered with a Latin inscription. It is supported at each end by heavy stone blocks; the sides, however, are open. Thus it is possible to see, under the upper slab, visib
le only from the sides, are three further stone slabs, one under the other, layered in chronological order, the lowest being the original; presumably as each stone weathered over the centuries they simply added a new slab above.
The girls looked dubious. It was not certain that they could get their arms through the iron rails and reach the lowest slab and, if they could not, it meant they would need to climb in. And with Dad in his current mood it was unlikely he would let them go without trying. How were they meant to get inside the enclosure and then how were they meant to get out? It was possible, as the iron lacework formed a rectangular enclosure of spear-like rails that could with care be scaled, but the crown-like structure above complicated access further and, in as broad as Scottish daylight could be, this was not going to be done without being seen.
“Who was he Dad?” Danae asked, sounding less than enthusiastic, clearly needing convincing that this was going to be worth their while.
“He was a hero,” Dad answered, “a great and nearly forgotten hero of the Wars of Independence. His name was Sir John de Graeme and he was a fellow leader of the Scottish army during those wars against England. He was the right-hand man of none other than the Guardian of Scotland, Sir William Wallace himself, and probably in the early days of the rebellion he and Wallace were equals in the leadership. Graeme was killed on 22 July, 1298, at the battle of Falkirk.” Dad paused, staring at the tomb, momentarily melancholy.
“Falkirk…remind us Dad?” asked Ilia. Her tone implied that the story was something she was aware of but could not quite recall, as opposed the truth, i.e. that she had no idea what he was on about.
“Well, it was a bit of a disaster. It was a year after the great victory at Stirling Bridge over de Warrenne and Cressingham, and King Edward the First – “The Hammer of the Scots” – raised a huge army to make Scotland pay. He invaded Scotland and Wallace and the Scottish army avoided getting caught in a battle they couldn’t win. They waited until the English army was starving and about to go back to England, then Wallace led the Scots here to Falkirk, probably to chase and harass the English as they retreated. Unfortunately, Edward heard of it and got here fast enough that Wallace and the army couldn’t get away and were forced to fight. It was about two miles that way.” Dad pointed East to the other side of Falkirk.
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