by P. K. Lentz
“Oh, Dee...” it breathed, opening bright eyes that shone in this dark place. They gave a look of pity. “I'm so sorry.”
“Do not be. I made my own choices. I bear their consequences. I would not look back, only forward.”
Thalassia, who read mortals well, knew better than to question him, even if it knew, as its eyes bespoke, that it did bear much responsibility for the disastrous outcome of their joint machinations. Surely it could tell that Demosthenes thought so, too, no matter what he might say aloud.
“Eurydike?” Thalassia asked of her friend and Demosthenes' devoted concubine before Athens' fall.
“I don't know,” he answered blankly. “Alkibiades said she was taken away. Alive, last he saw her, outside the walls of Dekelea. Alkibiades is there now, with the remnants of our army, under siege, unless the place has already fallen.”
“How did they take the city?” Thalassia asked.
Demosthenes told of what had transpired after Thalassia's death. He spoke of the ships which Eden had helped Sparta to build, ones greatly resembling drawings Thalassia had made almost two years prior, ships which could tack against the wind and outrace a trireme. But Athens was a democracy and proud of her navy; her shipwrights could never have been convinced to embrace such change. But in Sparta, it would only have taken an edict of the ephors.
He told of how such ships had easily evaded the Athenian navy to land a Spartan force at Piraeus, the harbor of Athens, and how that force had made its way inside the Long Walls to the gates of the city, broken them open and set fire to the Pnyx and other sites. He told Thalassia how, seeing the city ablaze on the horizon, the Athenian forces arrayed at Eleusis to meet Brasidas had broken ranks in fear as men raced home to defend hearth and family.
He told how he and Alkibiades, during the Athenian rout, had rallied the citizen cavalry and such other fighters as they could and led them to Dekelea, the mountain town north of Athens which a season earlier Thalassia had helped to fortify.
“A Spartan army came there,” he finished. “Styphon brought us Brasidas's demand for surrender. Your Spartlet, Andrea, was with us. We sent her to safety with her father. That is when...”
He had no wish to speak of the incident, but Thalassia had to be told, as preface to his coming demand.
“To compel us to surrender,” he resumed, “Brasidas executed Laonome before my eyes, though I begged to take her place.”
On his lap, Thalassia's eyes had fallen shut, and it seemed for a moment that it slept—until a tear welled at the edge of its lashes and carved a wet path down its temple.
Demosthenes swallowed anger. How convincing was this creature's mimicry of humanity.
“You advised me to kill Brasidas when he was at my mercy in Amphipolis,” Demosthenes said. “I refused. That is my failure. Had I only heeded you...”
She might be alive, and I might be human still, instead of like you, he did not finish.
“Never again will I err on the side of mercy. Neither honor, nor compassion. Even—”
“Dee...” it interrupted him softly, opening eyes filled with pity. “No, not like this. You will have your revenge, but—”
“Yes,” he in turn cut the creature off. “I will. A thousandfold. You will help me see to that.”
“Of course,” Thalassia agreed without hesitation. “But first I need—”
“Your people ply the cosmos in metal ships,” Demosthenes pressed on undeterred. “Yet what have you given us since coming here? Stick-launchers. Grain grinders. Farming implements. I think you play with us, handing us toys as though we were children. Your missions on behalf of Magdalen, by your own admission, included extermination. Such missions were not undertaken with sword and spear. No, you know of terrible weapons, ones more than capable of destroying a city. I would know of them. I would use them. To make of Sparta but a bitter memory. A city of ghosts, with not even a woman or child left alive to shed tears on the grave of the last man to fall.”
As he spoke, his untrimmed nails bit deeply into his palm. He finished, “We will annihilate Sparta utterly, you and I. And before he dies, slowly, by my hand, Brasidas will witness it. So tell me, Sword of Magdalen, how may we achieve this?”
“It's... not that easy,” answered Demosthenes' naked, exquisitely crafted blade. “If you were stranded in the wilderness, even if you had years, could you make an iron sword? A trireme? A temple? Yes, the Caliate has weapons that could turn a city to ash, but...” It sighed. “Dee, even if I could make them—”
“A plague, then?” Demosthenes asked, having anticipated such an answer to his prior question. “In Athens, you used chickens and their eggs to make me and others resistant to the plague which decimated our city. Is the reverse possible? Could you induce a plague at Sparta?”
The Sword shifted in his lap, raising itself onto two supple arms, then settling back to converse face-to-face in the faint, bluish light that filtered into the cave.
“Dee...”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Don't call me 'Sword of Magdalen.' Demosthenes, have you given any thought to—”
“Answer!” he said. “Can Sparta be afflicted with a plague? It must be deadlier than that which we suffered!”
“The plague killed so many in Athens because you were crowded behind walls and under siege for years. Sparta has no walls. It's hardly even a city compared to Athens. A plague would not have the same effect. And... I have seen plagues used as weapons before. When they are effective, there is no controlling whom they kill, no stopping them even after the job is done. You don't want to be the one who does that... I won't let you be that.”
“Poison,” Demosthenes suggested next. He had spent long days and longer nights considering the instruments of his vengeance. “You know of substances which heal. You must also know those which kill. Could Sparta's water sources be poisoned? Their food?”
The look of pity, gradually fading from Thalassia's face until now, at last became purely a look of impatience. “Sparta's water comes from springs, not wells, so no, it could not easily be contaminated. Their food...” The Sword frowned in thought. “Possibly. A fungus could kill many without the source being discovered until it was too late, and then could be stopped when its job was done.”
“You could do this?” Demosthenes asked eagerly. “You would?”
The Sword sighed. It looked tired. “It will take time to cultivate the right fungus. Months, maybe. If, by then, you wish to use it... then yes.”
His Sword's eyes met his in the dim glow, and in its gaze he perceived that it spoke truly.
“In the meantime,” it went on, “clearly you have not been bathing, but I would like to. We'll need a better place than this to live. A city, preferably. From there, we can locate Eurydike, rescue her, and plot to liberate Athens.”
“When every Spartan is dead, Athens will be liberated,” Demosthenes said.
“And Eurydike?”
“She is likely dead already. If not, then she too will be free when Sparta is destroyed.”
“What if she's in Sparta? Will we poison her, too? And Andrea?”
“When the time comes, we will try to spare them,” he said irritably, then pressed, “You will do it? Cultivate a fungus?”
Thalassia set fingertips on his unruly facial growth. “From this moment, no matter what else occurs, Sparta is doomed. By fire, sword, fungus, or whatever else it takes. Now...” The hand fell away, and Thalassia sank against him. “I'm so fucking hungry, I'll eat a horse if you have one.”
* * *
7. Meat & Philosophy
The skin on the underside of the roasting lamb had formed a blackened crust, the cracks in which showed bright pink. Drops of rendered fat fell and crackled in the flames underneath. Kneeling at the fire's side, Thalassia rotated the spit. It had freshly come from bathing itself in the stream nearby and dressing in the woman's chiton of white linen Demosthenes had thought to bring in his flight from Dekelea.
She hardly lo
oked to be one of the three deadliest beings on earth. But she was. In many ways, and to all who encountered her, not only her enemies.
It, he reminded himself. It was deadly. A thing, not a person.
From by the fire, it smiled at him, warmly.
“Thank you for this,” it said, meaning the lamb. “And the dress.”
“I remember you saying once you that you are only ever hungry after you... die.”
“Mmh-hmh.” Its mouth was full with a chunk freshly torn with fingertips from the cooked side. Grease dripped from its chin. It looked down upon the breast of the white chiton it wore and, frowning, untied the garment's belt and shrugged it off so that it fell into a heap on the leaves around the wearer's ankles. It rose briefly to step out of the chiton entirely, then resumed squatting by the fire, close enough by it, by Demosthenes' reckoning, to have burned off its body hair, had there been so much as a strand of it anywhere on Thalassia's body.
Its body was so very, very human.
“No sense getting it dirty,” it explained.
Demosthenes knew well enough that modesty was not a feature of the otherworldly culture which had spawned Thalassia. Sitting on a large, flat sun-dappled rock, he shifted his gaze to the snatches of Attic countryside that were visible between the trunks and low hanging branches of the forested mountainside. Normally he built fires, when he needed them, far from the little cave in which he slept, in case the smoke drew unwanted visitors. Today, however, it no longer mattered; they would spend no more nights here now that Thalassia was mobile.
“I thought we might travel to Naupaktos,” he said blankly. “It is the nearest staunch ally of Athens, and unlikely to capitulate easily. It will fall to Sparta... just not immediately.”
“Sensible.” Leaving the spitted lamb, naked, light-footed Thalassia made its way in near-silence across the leaf-strewn forest floor and mounted the flat rock to sit at Demosthenes' side. Its bare arm brushed his, and he moved it, muscles tensing.
“I know that I wrecked your world,” Thalassia said. “All your pain comes from me. I deserve your anger. You should show it. Say what's in your heart. It's better than the way you've been looking at me. Or not looking at me.”
Demosthenes took his eyes briefly from the distant hills to cast a sidelong glance at Thalassia, reconsidered, and looked away again. “I do not hate you. No more than I do myself. We deserve each other.”
She set her hand on his.
Its hand. It. A thing to which death is a temporary impediment to spreading death and madness had no right to be called human. A machine, perhaps.
Demosthenes withdrew his hand from under hers and set it on his thigh.
Thalassia exhaled a little sigh. “I died for you,” the machine said. “For Laonome. For Eurydike. For Athens. I could have left. I still could. But I won't. I'm with you until you're dead, a moment I will do all I can to postpone. Even when you're an asshole, like now.” It scoffed. “Really—chains? Did you think could force me to agree to your plans? Why would you think you'd need to? I should be offended. You know, I'm glad I vomited in your face. I'd do it again.”
Perhaps the machine hoped to make him smile. But he felt only contempt: Thalassia was as petulant as ever.
“Had I wished to force you,” he observed, “I might have carved the remaining Seeds out of your flesh and hidden them somewhere.”
He felt rather than saw Thalassia's flash of anger. “That would have been... very stupid.”
“Or I could have butchered you a bit more and given you to Eden in exchange for Brasidas. I think it likely she would have taken that trade.”
Thalassia's second flash of anger was yet more palpable. “That would have been...”
“But I did not consider it,” Demosthenes said. “Not for more than an instant. You see? I accept that we are together until death. My death, anyway. Yours... perhaps a few of them, at this rate.”
“Look,” it said, “Dee... and I'm going to call you that until you learn to like it... I know where your head is. I understand. And believe me, I see the irony in my advising against rash action, but what you're doing, what you want to do... it's not the way. When I wanted revenge... no, needed it... I left the Caliate with a stupid plan. And now here I am. No turning back. But you know what the difference is between us?”
“There are fewer now, but still many, I hope,” Demosthenes answered, though there had been no pause for reply.
“The difference is,” Thalassia went on, “I had no one I trusted—no one who had proved to me over and over again that I could and should trust them. Never mind if they kicked the shit out of me now and then. I had no one to tell me I was wrong.”
“You regret coming here?”
“I didn't say that. What I mean is that the road to revenge is rarely a straight one. You'll need your wits about you, and an open mind. It's not passion but calc—” Thalassia looked through the trees, frowning, and said, “Shit. Someone's coming. Four someones, in what they think is stealth.” The unhuman watched and listened intently for another moment before adding, “Two... no, three of them... are Equals.” Keen, pale eyes fell on Demosthenes. “Should we do this together, or would you rather I take care of it myself?”
“You are strong enough?” Demosthenes asked.
“For four? Always.”
Scanning the trees, Demosthenes saw no trace of any presence, but that meant nothing. Thalassia's eyes and ears were not to be doubted. He answered her question by taking up his sheathed short sword from beside the rock and drawing it.
“There are two blades for you in—” he whispered.
“I saw.” Still naked and unworried, Thalassia slipped down from the rock and moved in silence to the cave mouth, retrieving two short swords. That they were of bronze gave them away as Spartan in manufacture.
“You killed the owners?” Thalassia asked.
“Eventually.”
A sword in either hand, Thalassia leaped onto the rock, having made no stop to retrieve her discarded garment from the ground. Demosthenes knew better than to suggest to the living weapon that it dress. After all, why let the enemy bleed all over a good chiton?
Soon Demosthenes, too, heard the crack of twigs and caught sight of movement through the trees. He stood by Thalassia in silence, awaiting the arrival of four men who probably had followed the smoke of the cooking fire. Just as probably, they knew of the Equals who had vanished in these woods and thus expected trouble.
Less probably did they expect the degree of trouble they were about to encounter.
Two red-cloaked Equals crept into sight, saw that they were being watched, drew their swords, and broke into a run toward the camp. Both Demosthenes and Thalassia stood fast and at ease as a third Equal appeared alongside a fourth man dressed in brown and green and carrying a strung bow. This was an Arkadian, more accustomed to creeping about in forests than Equals were, doubtless brought along as a guide or a tracker.
The party of four halted a short way off, standing apart at even intervals. The Arkadian nocked and arrow and drew back the string of his bow.
“Throw down your arms!” one of the Equals demanded.
“I am but a simple hermit,” Demosthenes called back, without complying. “My companion and I were discussing some tenets of natural philosophy while we dined. You are most welcome to join us. For the meal, at any rate. I hear you Equals are not much for philosophy.”
“It is you who'll be joining us, filthy one,” the eldest Equal returned. “Equals have disappeared in these woods, and your bare-assed companion”—he flicked his sword at Thalassia—“carries two Spartan swords, if I am not mistaken. Surrender, and you need not die just yet.”
Sighing, Thalassia said, “They decline to share our meal, my goat-looking friend. Shall we instead give them a taste of our philosophy?”
“I doubt it will be to their liking.”
“Sir...” a younger Spartiate attempted to interject. “That woman... I wonder if she might not be—”
“Enough prattle!” the lead Equal barked, heedless of the youth's wisdom. He took a few more steps forward, brandishing his sword at his quarry, which stood upon the rock looking down on him “Come down from there!”
“Shall I?” Thalassia asked.
“Sir...” the youth said again, beginning to backpedal.
Dropping to a crouch, the Sword of Magdalen leaped up and forward from its perch in the direction of the Spartan leader. Seeing, he moved his sword in a small arc to aim it at his airborne foe, but it was scarcely enough; Thalassia parried his blade with one of hers even as the second came straight down into the crown of his skull, splitting it in two.
Demosthenes did not stand idle and watch, but leaped down, if less acrobatically, and charged the younger Equal, who planted his feet to challenge the certain doom which he alone had foreseen.
He forestalled Fate for but a moment, as his unwashed attacker dropped under his brazen stroke and cleaved his thigh with well-honed Athenian steel. Then, while the young man stumbled, bleeding and crying out, Demosthenes slashed his neck wide open, leaving his fleeing shade to lament that his grandfathers had traded the encompassing bronze helms of yore, which might have saved him, for those of stiffened leather, as he wore.
An arrow flew past Demosthenes' head, and he flinched, but turned to see that he was not the target; it was Thalassia, who at present advanced on the Arkadian woodsman in long, swift strides.
Turning, at the ready, Demosthenes sought with his eyes the fourth assailant, the last of the three Equals, but he spied no movement. What he found instead was a crimson cloak spread out on the forest floor, its wearer already made a corpse by the machine which Magdalen had built to that very purpose. So quickly on the heels of Thalassia's first kill had this one been slain that Demosthenes had not even been aware.
The Arkadian whirled and broke into a frantic run, but behind him was the blur of honey-colored flesh which in no time caught him up. Instead of a fountain of blood erupting from him, however, Demosthenes was surprised to see him but tumble to the ground, and further surprised that no death blow swiftly followed. He ran to where naked Thalassia, her skin lightly speckled with blood, stood over the groaning Arkadian.
