Sacred Bride Read online

  Who are they? Priestesses of Hera, walled up in here to die and feed their energy into the oracular prophecies of the shrine. Who did it? Zeus’s priests. Am I disgusted? Absolutely, even though I already knew what I’d find.

  Bria wriggles through, with both of our belt pouches in his-her hands, slithering to the ground in a cascade of dust. She straightens and looks round, conjuring pale light within her fingertips, like small suns. ‘Poor wretches,’ she says in vengeful tones. ‘Hades, grant them rest.’

  Knowing Hades, God of Death, I’m not counting on it. He’s a vindictive deity, and other gods’ acolytes are among his favoured victims.

  ‘They’d have died from lack of water before they starved,’ I note grimly. ‘It’s faster.’

  ‘It’s torture. And to think that Hera and Zeus are so happily wed,’ Bria says sarcastically.

  Despite the tales, gods and goddesses don’t marry. They’re disembodied spirits, and mostly they loathe each other. Some collude, so that their priests and priestesses declare ‘marriage’ but they can still hate each other even then. Half the gods of Achaea, led by our ‘Holy Father’ Zeus himself, have been siding with Troy ever since the oracles began prophesising their victory over Achaea, spreading their worship eastwards as a means of surviving the cataclysm – because gods die when their worshippers are all gone.

  But some deities, like Hera, Hermes, and my patron Athena, are too tied to Achaea to do this: they’re faced with extinction and will sacrifice anything and anyone, even their champions – like Bria and me – to avoid this fate. No, not fate; because I’ve learnt a crucial fact: that prophecies aren’t cast in stone. They’re a best guess, by the oracular spirits. A calculation of probabilities based on a profound knowledge of our world that no mortal can possess. But their gaze isn’t infinite. Troy’s ascent might feel inevitable, but maybe it’s just really, really highly likely…

  Everyone loves an underdog, I tell myself, gathering my thoughts. But the underdog needs the occasional bone, to survive. That’s why we’re here, why it’s so important that we succeed this time.

  I pull out a clay jar, bound in cloth to protect it, and unseal the wax and then, going to the middle of the room, trickle a stream of red dust into a large circle, careful to ensure it is complete and doesn’t run across any of the cracks on the floor. Then I daub a wet paste along the tongue of my sword, and dust that paste with the same powder, as a precaution, before setting it down beside me, unsheathed. Meanwhile Bria performs the unpleasant task of breaking off a finger-bone from each corpse, then placing them inside my circle in a grisly pile.

  As we work, the air seems to grow still and watchful, and I fancy I can discern whisperings, sibilant and hostile, at the very edge of hearing. These grow as Bria removes a living thing from her pouch, a drugged bird that stirs when she whispers to it: a cuckoo, the sacred bird of Hera.

  ‘How appropriate, when Zeus lays his eggs everywhere but in the nest,’ she sniffs. She places the cuckoo in the circle, where it perches on the pile of finger bones, looking up at her with a gleaming, mesmerised eye. ‘Whenever you’re ready, Ithaca.’

  I close my eyes, and open my inner vision to the world of the gods. Winds rise in my skull, licked by flames, and I catch a glimpse of a tormented man, howling in agony as an immense eagle clings to his body, raking his abdomen with its beak. But even in the midst of such agony, his eyes open and flash to mine. Prometheus, my forebear. There’s recognition, and even warmth, until the agony takes him again and our gaze and our minds spin apart. But I carry his sacred fire with me as I pour my awareness back into the chamber, and the finger-bones ignite.

  The cuckoo shrieks, streaking upwards like a comet as it immolates. I regret the death, but the spells we wield give us no choice. As the flames roar, it seems that smoke is flowing into the fire – from the corpses of the priestesses.

  And there in the centre of the circle, within the leaping flames, clinging together, are the gauzy forms of twelve women. Fury at this desecration fills them and they snarl, drawing back grey lips over broken teeth, raising hands with long, taloned fingernails.

  ‘Priestesses of Hera,’ I greet them. The sorcery is draining, but I keep my voice steady and purposeful. ‘I come in peace, to hear your words, and to set you free.’

  The ghosts greet my words with a menacing hiss. One tests my powdered circle, shrieking as though stung and recoiling when she touches it. Then one of the women steps to the fore, her shadowy robes a little more ostentatious, her manner more queenly.

  ‘Who are you, intruder?’ she breathes, in a voice like an icy wind through dead trees. Behind me, Bria is prowling about, alert for hidden dangers.

  ‘Who I am makes no difference,’ I respond, because Prometheus and Athena aren’t good names to bandy around hereabouts. ‘Grant me the boon of prophecy, and I will release you, to go forth to Hades’s Elysian Fields and drink the waters of blessed forgetfulness.’

  The ghosts respond with quivering intensity, their eyes lighting up like distant stars, and I sense an internal dialogue. Then the spokeswoman turns to me again. I’ve never met her, but I know her name from Bria’s briefings: Charea, who was once head priestess here.

  ‘What gives you the power to grant such a gift?’ she asks, while her sisters begin to hurl words at me:

  ‘Do you come from Pytho?’

  ‘Are you sent from Mycenae?’

  ‘What gods do you serve?’

  ‘Release us.’

  ‘Don’t make us do this, I beg you…’

  This last sentence catches my ears. ‘Why not?’ I question the speaker, a wispy girl, younger than the rest.

  ‘The spirits are hungry,’ she whispers. ‘They devour a little of us, each time.’

  I shudder at that, but harden my heart. Athena needs whatever information they can give us and, by extension, so does Achaea.

  ‘I bind you, by the powers of Moon and Sun, Fire and Ice, Earth and Air,’ I recite. ‘Give me your knowledge and I promise you release.’ As I speak, the powdered circle ignites, burning a deep peacock­blue which spreads to the finger-bones and the flames cloaking the priestesses. They scream, and suddenly the earth quivers and the air moans.

  Then Charea steps forth again, and stamps her foot. With a sudden, horrifying crack, the very floor convulses. Bria and I are hurled to the ground, crying out in alarm, even as a line snakes across the floor, a new fissure that cuts my circle in half, tilting the stone on each side to send the burning powder down into the bowels of the earth and overwhelm my magic.

  ‘Kopros!’ Bria shrieks, scrambling back like a fleeing crab, in a wild attempt to get to the tunnel. ‘Get out, get—’

  Then a flash of pale mist streams out of the crack and envelops her. Damastor’s body goes limp and falls to the ground, his face suddenly empty. I step in front of him, aghast at this sudden reversal.

  Bria’s bailed out on me… She’s fucking gone!

  The ghosts of the priestesses reform in a ragged line, cutting me off from the tunnel. I snatch up my xiphos – our only hope now – and stand over Damastor, blade raised as he stirs. He looks up at me, frowning. ‘Who are you?’ he stutters. ‘Where…? What’s happening…?’

  Then he sees the spectral shapes in front of us and he goes rigid in terror.

  I don’t respond – all of my attention is on Charea, whose decayed face is hungry as a thousand wolves. ‘Now,’ she rasps, ‘let’s see who’s going to dance, and who is going to pipe the tune.’

  2 – Wraiths of the Oracle

  ‘It is a sweet thing, too, to divine which signs are clear and sure, from all the possibilities – both fearful and good – which the immortal gods have doled out to mortals.’

  —Hesiod, Melampodia

  Dodona, Epirus

  I have one remaining chance: lifting my xiphos, I conjure a tongue of flame and touch it to the powder I’d earlier pasted to the blade. Foxfire crackles along it as I hold it in front of me. As the wraiths close in, I flash the fi
ery blade across their paths and they recoil, snarling furiously.

  I have won a brief reprieve… to get out or turn this around. One good thing has happened – their retreat has left our escape route open.

  Just.

  At my feet, Damastor clings to my leg – he’s probably a brave enough lad, but Bria had obviously shut down his awareness while she was inside him, and he’s woken into a living nightmare.

  ‘Get up,’ I tell him. ‘Climb out that hole.’

  He looks up, sees the crude opening in the wall and lunges for it – then to his immense credit, throws me a look over his shoulder and asks, ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I lie. ‘Just go!’

  Mercifully he does, scrabbling in head first and plunging into the dark, his feet disappearing as dust and stones rattle down. I’m thankful, but he’s cost me precious seconds, and the ghostly priestesses are closing in again, nothing but hate in their pale eyes.

  Charea bares her teeth. ‘We’re going to devour you, mortal,’ she rasps. ‘This is the sacred shrine of Hera-Dione and no man may enter.’

  I extend the blade at her face. ‘But they have already, haven’t they – those accursed men. Zeus’s priests thrust you in here to die, and every day now, they walk above you.’ As if in answer, a horn blows somewhere above us, the sound muffled by the rock. The Trojans must have arrived: I’m running out of time. ‘What are you, but their slaves?’

  The women vent a kind of keening, whining fury at my words, but they’re flinching as well, because the words are true. Two years ago, I heard Zeus himself boast of walling these women up, to make Dodona’s prophecies more powerful.

  ‘At this very moment, the new seer of Dodona is preparing to receive a new party of supplicants,’ I tell them. ‘They’re from Troy, the enemies of both Achaea and your goddess. They’re going to make you prophesy for them, to further the conquest of Achaea.’

  ‘Nooo,’ some of the dead priestesses moan, as their misery and hate is redirected to the men above – their murderers.

  Even Charea is doubtful now, as she narrows her eyes, considering. Then, ‘Whom do you serve, Man?’ she demands, in an imperious voice,

  I glance at my xiphos; the powders are burning low, but I sense I may still have a chance of turning this situation around. Calmly, I pull out my flask and add some of the remaining powder to the blade. It re-ignites, filling the chamber in a blaze of light. ‘I serve Athena,’ I proclaim, ‘whose worship is centred here in Achaea, and who will fight the Trojans to the end, alone if she must.’

  My words echo round the chamber. Hopefully they’re too busy up in the shrine welcoming their new visitors for any of the Zeus priests to their ears pressed to the stone, listening.

  ‘What will it be?’ I demand. ‘Will you prophesise for me, and then allow me to free you forever? Or will you bite the hand that offers you succour, and continue your slavery?’

  They’re hearkening, even Charea. Though their despair remains, all the hunger has gone from their voices as they murmur amongst themselves. ‘If you can release us, release us now,’ one moans. ‘Why must you also use us?’

  ‘Because Achaea needs one last vision from you, to see if there is a way to resist the oncoming storm of war.’ I focus on Charea. ‘You channel these prophesies, surely you can put them into words? Please, grant me that, a final gift to the enemies of Troy – and of Zeus.’

  She stares hard at me, while her fellow priestesses mutter sullenly. Then she gives a deathly sigh. ‘Give me your true name, and we will grant you what you wish.’ She holds out her hand. ‘Let me touch you, while you speak.’

  I understand: this will give her insight enough to know if I lie. And if I play them false, they will destroy me. Even if, by some miracle, I escape the cave, they will curse me in their next oracular vision to Zeus’s priests, and I will stand condemned forever.

  I hold out my left arm, feeling the brush of her hand on my wrist like the touch of a spider-web. ‘I am Odysseus Sisyphiades, Prince of Ithaca.’

  ‘The Man of Fire,’ she groans, as if in pain.

  Her followers hiss in consternation at the epithet. Charea has understood my secret identity instantly – Laertes is known as my father, in the eyes of the world, but in fact I am the bastard son of Sisyphus and the last scion of Prometheus, who gifted fire to mankind. And the ‘Man of Fire’ has been showing up more and more in the prophesies as an enemy both of Troy, and of Zeus and his cabal of Olympians.

  ‘I am he,’ I confirm, watching Charea carefully. The flames licking my blade are burning low again. ‘I give you my word that I’ll release you, once we’re done.’

  She considers, as orange light flickers through their bodies and my blade dims. I’m in their hands now, my chance to flee gone; but I don’t flinch. I need them to see my determination.

  She releases my wrist. ‘What do you wish to know?’ she asks.

  I let out my breath as gently as I dare. She has consented, and I will get the information Athena so badly needs before I silence their prophetic voices forever.

  The ghostly priestesses form a circle, facing inwards with joined hands. Charea calls out, in a high wailing voice and the fumes that had drifted from the cracks at their feet thicken, filling the chamber with a dense, pungent aroma. Then she turns her head to me enquiringly.

  I recite my first question. ‘Since the fall of Thebes, who in Achaea still aligns themselves with Troy?’

  The wraiths raise their linked hands, and whisper invocations in a language I know a little of – the speech of the spirits, an ancient tongue now all but lost. I’ve been studying it under Bria’s tutelage, but this is the first time I’ve heard someone other than the daemon speak it. I try to follow but I’m quickly lost. What I’m witnessing, though, is the working of this shrine. Here in Dodona, the ghosts now intermediate between the priestly seer above and the spirits below – an extra link in the chain, and therefore a further margin for misinterpretation and error.

  The chamber falls silent, and then harsh voices rattle and click in the air around us, like the rustle of dried oak leaves in the autumn wind, uttering sounds that are even more a mystery to me.

  The priestesses stir, then Charea raises her voice and they all follow, so that the prophecy they utter, thankfully in Achaean this time, is spoken in unison: ‘The Lion lurks in his den, waiting for the Third Fruit. The Wolf crouches in his lair, slavering over his mate. When the Stallion rears, both shall bare teeth.’

  The hairs on my arms prickle. I’m longing to interpret the references, but I don’t dare: I need to concentrate on committing it all to memory before I frame my next question: ‘What do the divine allies of Troy purpose next?’

  I wait again, reciting their previous answer over and over until it’s imprinted, then hearken to the next response.

  ‘The Sky caresses the Earth with light, planting dreams. The stones listen, the soil awakens, gazing at the blood-red dawn with new hope.’

  That one’s obvious, and I file it away uneasily. ‘What hope is there for Achaea?’

  ‘Swift comes the storm, striking the forest. Branches break, lightning sunders the trunks and they fall. Withered the vines that bound them, gone the leaves that caught the wind, scattered the branches, broken the Crown.’

  That one’s even worse. My next question is a direct reaction to it, not one Athena had scripted. ‘How may the crown be made whole?’

  There’s a long wait for the next response.

  ‘Golden eggs of the cuckold, caged birds born to sing together. Possess the twain and rule. But beware the tongue of flame that consumes, burning all that it touches.’

  I grimace, because I can see exactly what people are going to make of any flame references – me. I go to speak again, but I suddenly realise that the priestesses have almost burned themselves out. The smallest gives a hideous moan and her pale ghost flows like a wisp of smoke back to her bones. One by one the rest do likewise, until only Charea remains, turning to face m
e with a grim face, as the chirping, crackling rasp of the spirits fades.

  ‘The storm comes,’ she intones, though her voice is weakening. ‘Caught in its path, the animals twist and turn, dart hither and thither, but the wind will find them, Man of Fire. There is no hiding from the Sky! Fast comes the temptress; far is the island of solace. Flame for passion, cloth for comfort… Be the vine, forge the crown…’

  Then she’s gone too, with one final, whispered imprecation: ‘Honour your word.’

  I catch my breath. That last part of the prophecy wasn’t in response to any of my questions. It was a spontaneous prophecy, the most potent kind. I repeat it, making sure I’ve remembered all the others as well. The last flames on my sword gutter and die and I’m left in the dark.

  I do keep my word.

  It’s not enough just to have opened an escape route out of this prison – the priestesses’ corpses and the energy released in death bind them here. So I drag the desiccated remains of the women into a single pile, scatter the last of my powder over them, then reach deep into the sorcery I’ve been gifted by my Promethean father. Combining it with the magical powers of this liminal place, I summon a new and even more powerful flame. In moments the fire has caught, propelled by my incantations, and as it begins to blaze, I hear women’s voices, like distant echoes, crying out in both agony and relief. The chamber is choked with smoke, some of it disappearing into the cracks in the rock ceiling but most of it pouring out through the hole in the wall.

  I sheath my xiphos and follow it, coughing and retching as the fumes bite at my throat and sear my lungs. Bria had jammed the torch into a rock crevice beside the wall and I grab it, blundering along the tunnel towards the exit, utterly exhausted by the sorcery I’ve summoned, as though the magic has devoured my life’s blood.