The Dark Evolution Chronicles

by Cassandra Di Rossi

  “No, no,” she said with a wry expression. “I thought the robbers were crazy, but then you said you found the glass lightning three hundred years ago. And then there is that cut on your neck. Anyone else would have bled to death in minutes, but you barely flinched. You cannot deny it. You were telling them the truth. You are a goddess.” She clapped her hands together. “And you envisioned the boatman at the dock! Oh my lord, Zeus, you are that Cassandra! You are The Seer of Troy.”

  I sighed. I had thought that title and reputation had died some time ago. She did not give me a chance to deny or acknowledge.

  “Tell me, tell me what happened. Troy is a great mystery; the city that vanished and all its people disappeared?”

  I sighed again. I had heard such stories myself over the recent years. As much as I did not want my friends and family to be forgotten, I also did not wish to rake through such old wounds. I considered what I could tell her that might make her believe that she was mistaken.

  “Please, Cassandra.” She grabbed my hands and looked eagerly at me. "Tell me the real story, and I promise that I will write it down in a great epic poem so that no one will ever forget again.” She looked so enthused that I was beginning to feel guilty for not wishing to oblige. I was about to explain that the title was unfounded and that I had merely been a bystander when a bat screeched down from the ceiling. It dived over our heads and sailed towards the locked door with an irritated flutter. Helen began to screech too.

  “Urgh, urgh! I hate bats. Urgh! Get rid of it!” She was flailing her arms as though it had landed upon her head.

  “I cannot get rid of it, it is trapped in here, just as we are," I reasoned. "Stop screaming and it will probably return to its perch and go back to sleep.”

  She seemed to calm down, one hand wafting her face like a fan, and the other pressed to her heart.

  “Please tell me your story and distract me,” she begged. I could see there was nothing else for it.

  “Oh, very well,” I acquiesced. Helen beamed with delight, all sense of panic over the bat vanished. I rolled my eyes, quite sure her fear was a rouse to get me to pity her and do as she asked. But perhaps it would not be such a bad thing to tell someone what really happened. Perhaps it would be a relief after all those years. She leaned forward, her hands pressed together in anticipation and her face all bright-eyed and as eager as a child awaiting a bedtime story.

  I drew a long breath and began, not at the very beginning for that would have involved spaceships and crash landings. That would have been too much information. Instead, I picked up the story when Paris had been sent to Sparta and was forced to attend that fateful meeting with the 'fabulous' Queen Helen.

  “Troy was a beautiful city a short walk from the Aegean Sea,” I told her wistfully. The image was as vivid in my memory as it was the day I had first laid eyes upon it. “The double-rampart walls towered up around the city like protective arms and torches burned brightly on every street corner. An earthquake had damaged it some years before, and so the lower city was cramped and the homes clustered tightly together. But the palace was as magnificent as any you have ever seen. The gardens were vast and brimming with flowers and there was a reflecting pool in the courtyard that shone silver in the moonlight. The King, Priam was a good kind man and a strong leader. The people loved and worshipped him. But Troy had been fighting a trade war with their neighbours for almost ten years when my cousin Artemis and I arrived."

  Helen was staring at me in wonder.

  "'Tis a pity I have nothing to write with," she said when I paused. "I should have liked to have taken notes and kept them until my return to Greece and then I would have no trouble remembering your story when I come to make my poem. You know I have developed a sort of a quick form of writing where all the words are abbreviated, but I know what they all mean and... Oh, Zeus. Forgive me. I do talk far too much. Please continue." She sat back and pressed a finger to her lips to shush herself.

  "Indeed," I replied, amused. I could not help but wonder if she would ever really make a poem of my story, or if hers were the only ears that would hear it. When I was certain she was not going to say anything else I continued,

  "Prince Paris was young and had not yet found his way in life." I did not elaborate that he had been a terrible flirt and had bedded half the general's daughters. Nor that he had seemed to his family to be a rather useless artistic boy that preferred music to the army. But he had grown up during the war and become a brave and compassionate man who I would challenge anyone not to admire, and so that is the only image I gave her. I carried on,

  "Priam thought Paris would do well to go to Sparta as an ambassador for his land. But when he arrived he was not taken care of. It was many months before he was invited to the Spartan palace and there he was teased and looked down upon. When three goddesses, Athena, Aphrodite and Hera decided to play a game with the court, it was Paris that was forced to take part..."

  *

  I had half expected her to keep stopping me with questions, but after that first interruption, she was a very courteous and interested listener. When I had done she sat back shaking her head,

  “My goodness what a wonderful, terrifying and sad story. My dear, you had such a difficult time. The city and her people destroyed so completely.” She reached for my hand and I let her take it. Her only question was this,

  “And you love Paris still, after all these years?”

  I was about to confess it and was considering telling her about the Dorian as well when there was a scuff and a groan from outside.

  “Hello, hello!” she cried. ‘We are here, please come save us.”

  For a moment footsteps drew closer outside but then seemed to move away again. We both began hammering on the door, calling out to be saved.

  “Cassandra, is that you?” The boatman had brought Djoser with him and at least two others from what we could gather.

  Then began a discussion as to how to move the fallen statue of Hathor that now lay across the door. I sat down again and suggested to Helen to do the same since it could be a long wait. Despite her clear impatience, not once did her happy mood lessen. I had to admire her for it.

  "So, you have told me your story. It seems only fair that I should tell you mine,” she grinned. “You recall I mentioned my father and that scandal with the two whores from Babylon and the serving boy..."

  I did not stop her. I nodded with curiosity.

  "So, he was due to meet with a merchant that morning and had clean forgot. When the merchant and my mother walked in, well I can tell you, the site of that girl hanging upside down from the..."

  The tales were very amusing.

  "And then when I went to Memphis..."

  I cringed at the Greek name for my old home.

  "I met this woman with the most gigantic breasts, and she wore the lowest cut gowns so that her nipples..."

  I tried not to grin as I pictured my old friend.

  "And she ran this whore house at the edge of town. She could do the most amazing tricks with a chicken egg that she would insert...."

  *

  It was early afternoon when the statue was finally dragged back and the door creaked open. Helen ran out into the surprised arms of Djoser and the boatman. I hesitated for the sun was blazing and my gown was not sufficient to protect me on the walk back to the river.

  “Here,” one of the priests offered me a parasol. I took it gratefully.

  “Thank you,” I smiled.

  Helen was practically skipping through the courtyard. She was remarkably athletic and childlike for a woman of around forty. She stopped by the statue of Horus and waited for me. As she threaded her arm through mine she leaned in close and said,

  “Do not fear. I shall not use your name, or even mine for my poem. I shall make up a name so that no one shall ever know I am even a woman, and I shall call it,” she took a dramatic breath and held out an arm as though spreading the title through the air, “The Iliad.”

  “That is nice
,” I said, patting her hand. I did not believe she would write it at all, for I had envisioned her as an old woman with the story still incomplete. Of course, my dreams are not always complete either. Perhaps, though, it would have been better had she done as she promised when she was still young enough to remember all I had said.

  The poem was finished eventually when she was so old her memory had lost much of the truth, and what was left was so far embellished I could barely recognise it, save for that night Ajax came to my room. But not even I could have foreseen that her poem would become one of the most enduring stories in history. I have several copies in various languages. The first is in ancient Greek, written on a papyrus scroll and now locked away in a museum vault. The most recent is in German, rescued from a bonfire in 1933. But that is a story for another time.

  Empires

  Dreams will come, and dreams will go.

  Too many wars will bring an empire to its low.

  Book of Darkness C1000 BCE

  Chapter 14 paragraph 2

  The city was surrounded. In every direction soldiers stood, watching, and waiting. High on a hill, the fortifications were strong and secure, and yet hearts were pounding with fear. Men and woman stood side-by-side, staring down at the enemy line. Tyre was fallen, and they were next.

  A small group of children were huddled together in a stable close to the market square. They had not been outside for days. Faces were smudged with dirt and clothes stank of straw and chickens. A boy, younger than the rest, sat by the door, peering out through a thin crack in the wood. He blinked out at the sunlight longingly. His belly rumbled from lack of food. A man strode toward them. The boy scurried back and pressed himself to the wall. The door creaked open and clunked against the mud-brick making the wood shake.

  “It’s alright, I come with food.” The man’s voice was familiar, but the sound was muffled and distorted through the vision. I could not see his face, for I was watching through the eyes of the little boy and he would not look at the man, no matter how much I asked. I heard the man kneel at his side and felt a cold hand upon the child’s shoulder.

  “Here lad, take some bread and milk.” The boy snatched at it hungrily, stuffing a chunk of bread into his mouth so that it was too full to chew. “I wish we could let you out,” the man said, getting to his feet. “But it is for your own safety. Once this is over then you can return to the house, and everything will go back to the way it was,” he promised.

  There was something so very calm and cool in that voice, something tender and gentle. I could have sworn… but it could not be. The boy looked down at his own small hands holding what was left of his bread. He gulped down a sob.

  “Where are your parents,” I asked him. But he shook his head and continued to stare at his hands. I knew then that they were dead. “Who is that man?” I asked, not hopeful for an answer. I did not get one. Despite his reactions, it was not the man that he feared. It was the soldiers out on the planes, beyond the city walls that sent a chill to his bones.

  I could hear the man speaking with other children in the distance. Then he was gone, and so was my vision.

  I opened my eyes and looked up at the starry sky. It was a cool evening and the air was so still that the leaves on the orange tree hung limp around the fruit. I breathed in the scent of jasmine flowers and listened to the sound of my serving girl as she snored softly in the room directly behind me.

  I had been dreaming of a little boy of late, all alone and frightened. I was determined to find out who he was and why he was in my dreams. Egypt was under Persian rule then and had almost none of its former glory. The people were poor, tired and ready for a change to come. I was back in Mn-Nefer.

  A dozen or so years earlier I had received word that the last of the great family there was old and dying and in need of care. She was the descendant of my former ward. Sekhemet had born a healthy son at just fifteen years old, and then no more children had come until a second took her life a decade later.

  The boy had gone on to rule in her place and had done a good job of it too. But almost four centuries on, the last of the family line lay in her sickbed. I had been compelled to go to her aid, for she had no one else. I had not gone there with any intention of staying after her death, but as I nursed her through her final days she begged me to tell her the truth of my life. I saw no reason to hide it from her. She would be gone soon and had no one to tell. What I did not intend, nor expect, was that she would insist upon giving me the villa and business upon her death.

  Though it had been remodelled several times over the years the villa was, at that time, as old and tired as she. Yet it had been my home once, and it became so again. Indeed I was to remain there until Cleopatra’s guards took it from me. But I shall come back to that later. For now, let us stay with my vision. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the boy again.

  Empty tents flapping in the breeze. Feet thundering over great ramps. Men charging, yelling. Swords and axes aloft. Great siege-machines grinding. Roaring faces, teeth bared. Armour glinting beneath the rising sun. I was looking through the little boy's eyes again.

  He was crouched behind a grain silo, breathing fast and body shaking. From his position, he could see through a narrow slot in the fortified wall. Where was the archer that should have been firing through it? The boy crawled forward on his hands and knees. They were scraped and bloodied. I wondered why he was no longer in the stable. I tried to ask him, but he was too frightened to answer.

  “Where are the other children?” I tried. He just shook his head and chewed at the side of his thumb. Perhaps he was too young to comprehend. I wished I could do something to protect him. I knew not exactly where he was, but I could feel the distance, rivers, fields, cities and deserts that lay between us.

  “And the kind man who brought you bread?” I asked.

  This time the boy raised an arm and pointed along the city rampart. It was then that I saw the devastation. The silo he was sitting behind was reduced to a single wall. The rampart was a pyramid of rubble. Grey limbs stuck out beneath the dust and stone. Someone to the boy's left was groaning in pain. The sickening sound of clashing metal rang through the streets amidst the din of people running and screaming. I tried to see where the boy had pointed to, but all I could make out was a mess of men, swords, and arrows raining over them. Yet I could see that these people were not going to be beaten down easily.

  Women fought alongside the men, some ducked and dived, jabbing with daggers. Others held bows and arrows, firing back as fast as they could draw and reload. In the distance, I caught a glimpse of blond hair and I thought of my lost prince Paris, as he had once fought for his city.

  “How long have they been fighting?” I asked. The boy bit his bottom lip, almost drawing blood. There was an almighty crack. He looked up in time to see the wall as it came crashing down on top of him. Then everything was black.

  I fought back a scream. I knew not how to help this child if I could help at all. I stretched out my legs and ran my hands over my face. After a few moments, I drew a breath and plunged back into the vision. I needed to know if the boy was alive.

  Pounding head and fuzzy dreams. I could not see what was going on, but I could still feel the beat of the boy’s heart and the blood pumping through his veins. I gasped in relief as I felt someone lift the child into their arms.

  The man was strong and his body muscular. He must have been tall too, for I felt as though I had been raised to the sky. The boy tried to open his eyes to see where he was going, but his eyelids only fluttered for a moment, and then he sank back into a wild and frightening dream. I rolled my shoulders and waited for him to awaken again.

  After some time I felt the prickle of straw beneath the boy's back and the smell of burned wood. Flames licked at a boiling pot and something meaty was dripping grease into the fire, making it sizzle and spit. Outside there was the dull sound of crying.

  The boy opened his eyes. I almost stopped breathing. There, sitting at a table at th
e far side of the small broken down hovel was my cousin, Artemis. I had not seen in her in my visions for several years. She looked exactly the same. Long silver hair trailing down her back, her pale eyes watching the child intensely. But the moment she saw that he was awake her features softened.

  “Thank Zeus, child! I should not have been at all pleased if you had died. Indeed I should have been in a vast deal of trouble.” Her demeanour seemed changed, gentler somehow. Perhaps time had worn down the sharp edges. Silver is a hard metal, but not so tough as it cannot be reshaped with a little warmth. The child tried to sit up but I could feel how his head still thumped and his body ached. He tried to move his legs and I realized that they were both broken and raw with cuts. He murmured in pain. I asked him to speak to Artemis for me, but he was not yet able. He turned his head toward the door as though trying to look out at the city beyond. Artemis shook her head.

  “We tried,” she said, sadly. “The people of Gaza have fought with every ounce of strength and more valiantly than I have ever seen, but there is little left to save now. I am afraid Alexander will take this city by nightfall, and as soon as you are able, we must leave.”

  For a moment my heart leapt. Alexander Paris was alive! But then I realized that she had meant the Macedon. Alexander was the greatest general Greece had ever known. He had taken many lands and had Persia upon its knees. If Gaza had fallen, then it was only a matter of time before he reached Egypt.

  I was not certain how much the boy understood, but it was enough to know he was going to leave his home forever. He curled into a ball and wept into the straw beneath him. Artemis, to my surprise, came to sit at his side, cradling him as a mother would. She stroked the back of the boy’s head, then stopped. I felt her shift uncomfortably,