by Gene Wolfe
"I said that the Rope Makers hate me; but there is someone else, a man who is not truly one of them, who hates me far more. Tisamenus of Elis is his name, and this Tisamenus is the mantis of Prince Pausanias, the Regent of Rope."
Io's expression when Hegesistratus pronounced these names was such that I asked her if we had encountered these people. She nodded without speaking.
Hegesistratus said, "Io has already told me that you have met them, although you do not remember it. She has told me, in fact, that Pausanias calls you his slave."
I think I looked angry at that, because he added hastily, "Without any right to do so. Io also told me that she believed you had written a good deal about your interview with Tisamenus in your other book— more, or so she thought, than you had told her. Would you be willing to read it to me?"
"Of course," I said. "But you called him Tisamenus of Elis and said that he was this prince's mantis. Is he a relative of yours?"
Hegesistratus sighed and nodded. "He is—a rather remote one, but of our blood nonetheless. I told you that there were family quarrels. Do you remember that?"
"Yes," I told him. "Certainly."
"The most ancient of all is that between the Telliadae and the Clytiadae—the sons of Tellias and the sons of Clytias, who betrayed him. I am of the Telliadae, as you know; Tisamenus is of the Clytiadae. He is of about my own age. Should I recount a little of his background?"
Io said, "I wish you would. I'd like to know more about him."
"Very well then. Although the Clytiadae are descended from the first Iamus just as we Telliadae are, they lack something of our reputation, and I have heard that the young Tisamenus showed few of the early signs that mark an authentic mantis. Instead, his chief ambition was to gain honor as a victor in the games—for he possesses extraordinary swiftness of both body and mind, and great strength for a man of no great size.
"Though he had married sooner than most, his wife bore him no children; and with that as an excuse, he borrowed sufficient funds from his wife's family to take him to Dolphins to consult the Destroyer. Once there, however, he took the opportunity to question the god about his whole future, and was assured that he should win five glorious victories."
Io asked, "You mean running races and so on?"
Hegesistratus shook his head. "No, though that is what he believed. As you perhaps know, the great games in honor of the Destroyer take place at Olympia, which is near Elis, every four years. Tisamenus enrolled himself as a contestant in no fewer than five events.
"It was the talk of Elis, as you may imagine, and word of it reached us on Zakunthios very quickly. An uncle of mine, my mother's brother Polycletos, asked that I look into the matter. I consulted the gods by half a dozen methods; the results were uniformly negative, and I reported that Tisamenus would win none of the events he had entered, which proved correct.
"But enough of this—I know I am taxing your patience. Let me say briefly that after the games Tisamenus soon discerned his true vocation and was taken into Pausanias's service, and that he has never forgiven me. Presumably the battles of Peace and Clay were two of the victories the god promised him, for Eurybiades, who commanded the combined fleets at Peace, is a subordinate of Pausanias's, while the regent himself directed the allied armies at Clay."
Hegesistratus fell silent for moment, his piercing eyes fixed on mine. "Here you must accept my word for what I tell you. It is possible for a mantis—if he is both skilled and powerful—to cast a spell that will force another to work his will. Are you aware of that?"
We both nodded.
"The magi, as the sorcerers of Parsa are called, are adept at it. I learned it from one of them while I was in Mardonius's service. Where Tisamenus has learned it, I cannot say; perhaps from a magus taken prisoner at Peace, though that is conjecture. But I feel sure that he has learned it; and if you, Latro, will read the applicable passage from your book aloud, I may discover something of interest."
Accordingly I untied the cords of my other scroll, searched it for the name of Tisamenus, and read aloud everything I found, beginning with the words, "In the regent's tent there was no one to meet me." One section Hegesistratus asked me to read twice. I give here precisely as it is in the older scroll:
"There is one more thing to tell, though I hesitate to write of it. A moment ago, as I was about to enter this tent Io and I share with Drakaina and Pasicrates, I heard the strange, sly voice of Tisamenus at my ear: 'Kill the man with the wooden foot!' When I looked around for him, there was no one in sight."
Hegesistratus nodded as if to himself. "There it is. When I mentioned these spells, I ought to have told you also that the caster can— and often does—steal the memory of the event. I do not mean it is lost after a single day, as you ordinarily forget everything; rather it is forgotten at once, as soon as the event itself is past. In this case it appears that my cousin was not quite so skillful as he perhaps thought himself, for in you, who forget everything, some fragment of memory remained for you to record, though it seemed to you nothing more than a voice in the wind. Perhaps knowledge of your condition made him careless, or perhaps the very flaw that makes you forget everything permitted you to remember this."
Io said, "Tisamenus was really there, even if Latro didn't remember him being there as soon as he left—is that what you're telling us? Like you can't touch a ghost?" She shivered.
Hegesistratus said, "Latro's memory of him was killed, if you will allow it; its ghost vanished, as ghosts frequently do. When Latro, with Prince Pausanias and a shieldman of Pausanias's bodyguard, returned from the cliff after viewing the ship that would take you both to Sestos, my cousin must have called Latro aside. I would guess that he took him to his own tent, though it is barely possible that the whole thing was done elsewhere, in some other place where he could feel certain he would not be interrupted. There he cast the spell, and as it happens we can be fairly sure of the very words he used: 'Kill the man with the wooden foot.' But there was a second spell as well; one to make Latro forget the first. It was intended, at least, to make him forget that he had spoken to Tisamenus without Pausanias present. I doubt that the regent would have appreciated having the man he was sending to the Chersonese employed for a private purpose by my crafty cousin, so the second spell—the spell of oblivion—would have been absolutely necessary."
Io had been chewing a lock of her hair; she spat it out to speak. "But I remember when Latro and the black man found us at that place outside the city. He didn't try to kill you then."
"Yes, he did," Hegesistratus told her. "Although you must understand that he himself did not realize what he was doing; he did not plan these acts. He brought me to the house Hypereides had commandeered, where his sword was. He saw to it that I was seated and relaxed, and he got his sword."
"But you hit it with your crutch! I remember. Latro, you looked like somebody who'd been woken up with a kick."
Hegesistratus told her, "That is a very good way to think about it. Under such a spell the charmed person moves as though in a dream, and scarcely seems to know that he walks and strikes in the waking world.
"There were a couple of oddities involved, by the way—one that helped my cousin, one that opposed him. It is difficult to force any man to act against his essential nature, you see. For example, if I were to cast such a spell on you, ordering you to pat your horse's nose, there would be no difficulty—it would be something you would have no rooted objection to doing, and you would do it. But if I were to tell you to kill someone instead, that might be another matter. I doubt that you have ever done such a thing."
Io shook her head. "I haven't."
"Latro, however, has been a soldier, and indeed from what you and the black man have told me, he was in the Great King's army when it marched down from Horseland. It is probable that he has killed a good many sons of Hellen; I was only one more."
I asked him, "What was it that worked against the spell? I'd rather hear about that."
"Lingua tua," Hegesis
tratus said, using the very words that I write here. "Your tongue. Tisamenus did not know it, and so he had to cast his spell in one not your own, which is extremely difficult; I was surprised to find that he had succeeded as well as he clearly had.
"After I had reviewed everything I knew of the subject, and consulted with a certain friend who was hiding in Sestos—do not speak about this man to others, please—I returned, intending to remove the spell if I could. I found Latro writing; he had put his sword away again, but he had that little bone-handled knife he uses to sharpen his stylus, and when I attempted to take off Tisamenus's spell, he stabbed me with it." Hegesistratus touched his side. "The wound is still not quite healed, and perhaps it will always give me a twinge at times. But to continue, seeing how hazardous that was, I cast several spells of my own—one to make him overlook my wooden foot, for instance. Of course you know what happened to that."
"No," Io said. "I don't. What was it?"
"Then you were not listening when Latro spoke to all of us a short while ago. He recounted his conversation with Cleton, the merchant from Hundred-Eyed he discovered in Cobrys. He had mentioned my name to him, and Cleton, suspecting nothing, called me 'the man with the wooden foot.' "
I nodded. "And that made me want to return here and kill you. I practically forgot about Oeobazus."
"Exactly. But there are powers in the four worlds that are far greater than my wicked cousin, and one chose to protect me. Or perhaps chose to protect us both, for if you had killed me as you tried to, it is more than probable that either the Amazons or the black man would have killed you—people generally do not take kindly to someone, even another friend, who kills a friend while he is asleep. But as I started to say, I am protected by certain spells and charms, and it is most probable that one of the gods they invoke stepped in to save me."
Io said, "Then maybe they'll save us tomorrow."
I saw how frightened she was and hugged her, telling her that only those of us who fight are liable to be killed, and the worst thing that can happen to her is having to sweep the floors of some Thracian house.
FOURTEEN
In the Cave of the Mother of the Gods
THIS IS WRITTEN BY THE light of our fire. Cedar is stored here for the sacred fire, and the embers were still smouldering from a sacrifice. Io found the wood and puffed the embers while the rest of us fought at the mouth. Three Amazons are missing, and two more are wounded badly. The black man's cheek was laid open by a thrust; Hegesistratus sews it shut. No one knows what has happened to Elata.
It is raining outside.
I have just read what I wrote before sunset, and there is much more I must write down. Cleton returned. Hegesistratus, Queen Hippephode, the black man, Io, and I spoke with him, and he told us about the prophecy.
"I went to the palace," he said. "I've done some trading for King Kotys—very profitable for him—and I like to believe I've got some influence. I had to wait quite awhile, but they brought me in to see him at last.
"He was sitting at table with three noblemen, with his best gold rhyton in front of him. Those drinking horns they have are symbols of power, did you know that? If you've got one, you'd better be ready to back it up. Well, I could see that he was a little drunk, which is unusual for him. All the barbarians are pretty hard drinkers, but Kotys usually carries it better than most of them. The way you reason with a king (this is what I've found myself) is you tell him he's got a problem and offer to take care of it for him—so that's what I did. I said I knew he had all of you outside his city, some of you barbarians from the east (because you always tell barbarians it's the other fellows) and who knows what the tribe might do if there was real trouble? And some of you my own countrymen that had just beat the Great King and all his Medes, and were liable to have an army on his doorstep any day.
"I said right away that I'd gone out here to talk to you, because it's always better to tell them yourself before somebody else does. I said what I'd heard was that you were traders, so I'd got my wagon and my best mules and come out here hoping to do a little business. I told him, too, that Egbeo's doing a fine job. Egbeo's in charge of your guards, see? I bribed him—not much—so I didn't want him to get into trouble.
"Then I said I'd found out you weren't really traders, but pilgrims and ambassadors from Thought, because Kotys knows all about Thought, it and Hundred-Eyed being just about the biggest trading cities up this way. I told him it looked to me like the whole thing could be wrapped up without hard feelings, so if he'd just have his key people cooperate with me, I'd try to take care of everything for him.
"Then he grinned and said, 'When the moon's high,' and all the nobles went haw, haw! I knew right then there was something up, so I said, no, I'd really been planning to go out here again and see about it this afternoon.
"He shook his head. 'Cleton, my friend, don't you trouble yourself about them anymore today. Go tomorrow. Then you'll have my permission to act in whatever way you think best.'
"I bowed three times and backed out, saying how happy I was to be of service, got the wagon again, drove up to the temple of Pleistorus, and asked to see Oeobazus. Kotys is high priest, but there's always somebody there, and they're priests, too. I knew a couple of them, and when I said I'd just come from the palace and was supposed to set some things up for tomorrow, they let me talk to him. Have any of you seen the place?"
None of us had, and we told him so.
"Well, don't expect a nice marble building like one of our big temples back home. It's pretty big, all right, but built out of this local stone—limestone, I guess—and it's pretty narrow, because the boys up here don't trust themselves with long spans. You have to go in at the front where there's a hall so that the most important ones can get out of the weather. Then the altar and so forth, and a great big wooden statue. In back of it is a nice curtain I got them from Sidon. Some of the nobles' wives have embroidered it with the god riding his horse.
His lion's running alongside, and he's got his lance in one hand and his wine horn in the other. They wanted to do Zalmoxis as a boar down in one corner, but there wasn't room enough for that, and besides, it would be mostly in back of the statue down there. So I told them just to do his front, his forequarters, if you follow me. His head—"
Hegesistratus held up one hand. "Were you able to speak to Oeobazus?"
Cleton nodded. "They've got him in a room in back. It's got a window, but it's way too small for anybody to get through, and there's a couple of bars in it. Kotys is going to sacrifice him."
I do not believe Hegesistratus is often surprised, but he was surprised by that; I saw him blink. Hippephode touched his shoulder and he translated for her, using a tenth as many words as Cleton had. I told Cleton I had not known that these people practiced human sacrifice.
"Only the kings do it." Looking important, Cleton clasped his hands behind his back and threw out his chest. "The king's sacrifice can't be like an ordinary man's, so the difference is that commoners and even nobles sacrifice animals like we do, but the kings sacrifice people. Usually they're captives from their raids. You've got to take into account that the king isn't just a regular man." He winked. "The king's descended from Tereus—lots of them are named for him—and be was the son of Pleistorus himself. Pleistorus is the son of Kotytto—that's our Rhea—and sometimes he's her lover, too. So when the king stands up there at the altar with his sacred regalia on and chops the head off a human being, you know he's something more. It's one of the ways he proves it, see?"
"When?" Hegesistratus asked.
"Tomorrow," Cleton told him. Hippephode knew that word; I saw the shock on her face even as I felt it on my own. No one said anything until Cleton added, "He moved it up—they weren't supposed to do it until next month."
There was another silence, and at last Io asked, "Does he know about it?"
Cleton nodded. "He was the one that told me, then I talked to the priests, told them I wanted to see it and so on. There's no secret about it, and in fact the priest
s have been trying to get the news out—sending out heralds and so forth—ever since Kotys ordered it. If you ask me, he's got this spring's oracle on his mind."
Hegesistratus grunted. "Then perhaps you had better tell us about that in some detail."
"Well, every year whoever's king up here sends an embassy to Lesbos, where they keep Orpheus's head in a vault underneath the temple of Bromios. You know about that? The head's still alive, or anyhow it's supposed to be. And in the way of thanks for the gifts the ambassadors brought it, it gives the king some good advice for the year that's starting. Generally it doesn't amount to much, stuff that boils down to beware of strangers but trust your friends and so forth. Only sometimes it'll make your hair dance across your head, and then pretty often the king will cut the throats of a few of his dear relations because of it."
Hegesistratus said, "I assume that this was one of those years. What was the oracle?"
"The exact words?" Cleton asked.
"That would be best, if you remember them."
"I couldn't forget them if I wanted to," Cleton told him. "It's announced every year at the festival, and this year half Cobrys reeled it off to you until you were sick to death of it." He recited something in singsong Thracian.
Hegesistratus pulled at his beard, his eyes half-shut, and addressed Hippephode in the speech of the Amazons. She stared at him, I noticed, before touching herself just below the neck. He shrugged and turned to us. "I am not sure I can render it in acceptable verse, but I will try.
"Ill fare the strong when god, god smites,
Then howl the hounds and wheel the kites.
Doves stoop like hawks, and oxen gore,
The child rides armed, and maids to war.
Then Bendis seeks to halt the sun,
