Chapter 1
Not a Good Place forHumans
Sometimes I thought the Forest was the world and humans merely settled in the empty spaces it forgot. I looked at the immensity of it, a deep green blanket of primordial cedar trees mixed with tamarisk, ilex, myrtle, olive and cypress, spreading darkly to the horizon from my vantage point at the gates of the city of Konoso. It filled the island to the south and west, a blank spot on mortal maps. The darkness of it stood in stark contrast to the city’s dazzle of color and light, its brightly painted buildings and its people with their lively attire and light-hearted music.
My heart was hammering in my chest. I, who had never been outside the manicured confines of a palace or temple, was to go out into the world an exile. I murmured a plaintive prayer to Britomartis.
At the west gate, I made a melancholy goodbye to the gatekeepers, simple country boys from Vathypetro, long-legged and low-waisted like all Kaftoran men with close-cropped soldiers’ hair.
Kasato had tears in his eyes. “Excellence, who’s going to take care of the animals? Oba and Hoop? And what about Dwo? Couldn’t you bring her with you?”
“Maybe we could help out the new priest as he settles in,” Ijero said. With typical Kaftoran indifference to military discipline, Ijero and Kasato would leave their posts at a moment’s notice to witness the rituals in my temple; although Konoso had gates, it had no walls, so their presence was hardly crucial to the security of the nation.
“I suggest you stay away from the temple for the next few weeks,” I said. “It could get a little messy.”
There was an awkward silence.
“Everyone knows you didn’t steal the sacred ax, Lord Ekoto.”
“Everyone does not seem to have leaped to my defense, Ijero.” I turned my back on the city and on them. Behind me, the noise of the marketplace was joyful, full of life. Merchandise from the reaches of the eight winds changed hands: ceramic pottery, bronze figurines, gorgeous jewelry, ornate Kaftoran daggers and axes, patterned wool and linen and silk, fish and fowl, viands and vegetables, the handiwork of the gods from earth and ocean, the handiwork of men and women from all the countries of the world.
“Oh, wait!” Kasato said. “Wait, Lord Ekoto!” He rummaged frantically in a leather sack that he extracted from under the folding chair he kept next to him. “I was going to have this for lunch, but I would be honored if you would take it, Excellence.” He produced a pomegranate. Sheepishly, he stood before me, hands extended.
My eyes smarted, a foreshadowing of tears. What had I ever done in my whole useless life to win me the adoration of these two beautiful boys? Sturdy country folk like them were the real backbone of the country, not us silly idiots from the Palace flouncing about in our finery. Why did they think they owed me anything?
“I…I thank you for your gracious gift, Kasato.” I accepted the fruit from him, the most precious thing he had on hand to offer me, and tucked it in my traveling bag. Without another word, I turned again away from Konoso.
My bag contained cheese, bread and a flagon of resinous Canaanite wine. I had a wallet full of jewelry and silver trinkets for barter. My traveling clothes were in the usual Kaftoran style: shirtless in a white kilt, my scrawny torso a beacon to highwaymen. Ho, weary brigand! Here is your next stroke of luck! I wore knee-high Kaftoran boots specially designed to disguise my hooves; I didn’t want to have to explain them to every passerby, great clopping things. My long hair was tied with a silver ligature; the tail of it stroked my back like a comforting hand. A flat hat with a wide brim protected my eyes from the sun. I walked next to a goat cart piled with my belongings.
Before me was the Road.
I had a destination. I was going to find my paternal uncle-of-Many-Sons, an Egyptian grain merchant who operated out of the island of Alaysia. He was very rich, and would certainly assist me in…well, whatever I was going to do. My sister’s sporadic prophetic raptures and my own singular talent had secured us comfortable sinecures in the Kaftoran priesthood, but I couldn’t imagine much demand for my services in the larger economy.
Alaysia had a Kaftoran colony. I might be forced to give up the luxuries of Konoso, but I could not bring myself to leave the Kaftoran culture altogether. Besides, what would I do back in Egypt? The Egyptian side of my family regarded my sister and me as Kaftoran half-breeds, tolerable but not particularly welcome. The arduous trip would hardly be worth such a humorless reception. No, it would be a simple matter to walk to Kytaiton and catch a ship to the outer islands. Kikeru, in his wisdom, suggested I not try to leave from the port below Konoso; Syra might not have been able to execute me in public, but who could blame her if I got a knife in the ribs down by the docks?
The Road was full of traffic at that hour. I came across an Egyptian timber merchant and we stopped and chatted in our native language for a while. He complained bitterly of the catastrophic cedar shortage; but I knew nothing about that, so he told me horror stories instead: “A callicant, they said it was.” He was at the end of a particularly grisly tale about a recent murder that had occurred farther up the Road. “Sucked the life clean out of him! Nothing left of him but a shell, like a milkweed husk!”
“I shall be alert,” I said. He moved on toward Konoso, bidding me walk with Hathor, goddess of peace, though this seemed unlikely with all the gruesome images he’d put in my head. I patted my goat’s rump and she lurched into motion again. I peered at the dark trees. They don’t come out during the day, of course.
It had always been known only as the Forest, a word tinged with dread when spoken by a Kaftoran. For a person traveling to or from the Kaftoran capital, a break in the trees could reveal alarming sights: a gryphon heading home with its prey in its beak, animal-headed daimons playing indefinable games in the tall grass, blue monkeys peering from the undergrowth as if the woods were the inside and Konoso the outside. The Forest was rife with blue monkeys. And, of course, the Dire Dwellers. Also lurking in its darkness were ferocious predators not native to the island, descendants of beasts who escaped from temple menageries of centuries past; no previous priest of Britomartis had had my peculiar talent. It was not a good place for humans. Mortal travelers were not permitted to stray from the Road, the long, unpaved thoroughfare that connected Konoso with its sister towns and neatly separated the magic-laden woodland from the city. Those that did wander regretted it. Or, at least, it was assumed they regretted it.
The Road was extremely wide and there was room for all of us and our wagons; not just Kaftorans, but gloomy Etruscans and fierce Mycenaeans, proud Hittites and Babylonians and Mitanni, black Ethiopians and golden Phoenicians. Voices rang out blessings in a multitude of tongues. The air smelled pleasantly of oleander and manure and human sweat. Cows grazed lazily in the fields to my right. The bay and its port fell away behind me and I entered the thick of the countryside. I was alone, but I was surrounded by humanity and so not alone. The golden light of Poteidon’s sun bathed the scene in warm softness. I was happy enough.
But the day wore on. It was high summer, just before harvest, so the night did not close in too quickly. But as I walked the mountains began to rear up higher and higher on either side of me, making an early dusk. As darkness approached, the number of other travelers dwindled until I seemed to be the only person left on the Road, trudging along with my little goat cart and my bag of snacks. The Forest, which was merely a pleasant decoration during the day, began to manifest an ominous presence as night fell. Occasionally I would pass a solitary farmhouse made of dried mud brick with its attendant shade trees and courtyard; through the distant windows I could make out the red plaster walls and the yellow cooking fires. For the first time in my pampered life I envied people who had snug little houses to live in, four walls to keep out the encroaching world.
It wasn’t until then that I began to think in practical terms. I had no knowledge of how to survive on the road. I’d had a vague expectation of charming rustic inns with jolly barmaids wiping their hands on their aprons, but no such establishment appeared.
Finally it was night, and I was in darkness. There was no one else on the Road.
“Qerana,” I said to my goat, “I think everybody knows something we don’t.”
As the moon rose and cast a silver light over the landscape, I found myself staring more and more into the depths of the Forest, terrified that I would see movement there. I removed my boots so as to give my hooves free reign. If I had to run, better not to be stumbling along in my camouflage footgear.
We came upon a small spring by the side of the road with a weathered statue of some water goddess or other. I stopped there to rest myself and give Qerana a drink and some grass to graze in. I sat on my cart, cautiously faced the Forest, and broke out my cache of food.
I ate sparingly, something I had not had to do before. I felt weak, useless, unworthy of my dinner. In the immensity of the night I was hopelessly tiny. As the savory cheese dissolved on my tongue, I began to cry. I wept piteously, like a child separated from his mother on a dark street. My tears touched my lips and their salt taste mixed with my food.
As if by reflex, I resorted to the one practice that could dispel such a black mood. It was one I had used since my childhood, huddling in the guttering lamplight in the communal sleeping room at the Amunic school in Abydos, longing for my distant father.
I sang.
An odd choice, you will think, since I was trying so hard to be inconspicuous, but in my despair I truly believed things could not get worse. And a Kaftoran priest with no singing voice was a sad and solitary creature indeed. I sang a triumphant song, a piece of an epic poem by the Kaftoran poet Dipteraporo about the death of Velchanos, the Divine Boy, at the hands of his beloved goddess.
I rise! I rise!
On silver beams of light
From the dark unto the skies
Into warrens bright!
I come! I come!
To my lover’s arms…
It was one of my favorites, and I became quite lost in the beauty of the melody. Enfolded by the gentle tones of my own voice, I began to feel more myself. At the end of it, I let the last note linger a while, and then I released it.
“Much better,” I said to myself.
Something in the Forest moved, a rustle of leaves. Instantly terrified, I leaped up onto my cart as if I was prepared to engage in fisticuffs with whatever ghastly, hirsute horror was about to confront me. Suddenly, there were a dozen things moving in the Forest, the dead leaves and the branches of bushes revealing their presence.
And, as quickly, they were all gone.
I had attracted an audience. I sat back down, breathing heavily. I had not had a good day; an encounter with the Dwellers was definitely not on my list of things to do.
In the distance, I heard the pounding of many horses’ hooves. A large contingent of riders approached. Perhaps this is what frightened off my listeners, who would have heard the hoofbeats sooner than I with their beasty ears. I hopped down and began to lead Qerana to the side of the road. As I maneuvered the cart onto the greensward, the sound became much louder and suddenly they appeared out of the darkness. They were not Kaftoran soldiers as I had anticipated. They were not any kind of soldiers. It was a gang of rough, unshaven men, perhaps fifty in all, who roared down the broad avenue of the Road as if it belonged to them. They bristled with Mycenaean weaponry and armament that glinted in the moon’s glow. They radiated violence. I wondered what business these Greeks could have in the capitol of gentle Kaftor, and why they traveled at night when no one else (except a silly ex-priest) was willing to.
“Move, girl, move!” I said to Querana. But the dim beast wouldn’t budge, absorbed in her grazing. I had the ill fortune to be on the side of the cart facing the road when they appeared, and I had not quite managed to bring it entirely on the grass. As I struggled to push it out of their path, one of the riders, veering out a little from the pack, clipped me hard. I shouted as the weight of the horse threw me into the air, and I landed very roughly on a limestone outcropping. Harsh laughter clattered out of the crowd. Whichever of these verminous fellows had struck me, none of them stopped to offer assistance. They rode on, until they had all passed by me and rumbled off into the distance.
I sat up painfully. If I had any broken bones, I would be in a terrifying situation until morning. My leg was hurting badly, but it seemed to be intact when I checked it. My fingers came back with blood on them. Of course, I hadn’t packed any healing supplies.
“Did they harm you?” a sultry voice asked me.
I gasped and looked up. Standing at the edge of the Forest was a woman, tall and slender with chiseled features. She wore a long gray robe. She was beautiful in a hard sort of way. My heart leapt to have found another human being in this empty place. But then, as she drew near, I saw in the bright moonlight that her hair, which was tucked into the back of her garment, was dark green.
Dire Dweller, I said to myself.
“Did they harm you?” she said again. Her voice was like the silk from the island of Cos, cool and sinuous. Now that she was close I could see that the pupils of her eyes were elongated like a snake’s.
“Well, yes, I’m afraid they did, a little.”
She came forward and bent over my leg. “Oh, dear, dear. You must let me dress that for you.”
“Could you?” I said pathetically, relieved to have someone handling my problems for me once again.
“My cottage is a few steps away. Come with me. “ She gestured towards the towering trees.
“Uh, go in there?”
“Of course, go in there. Come now.” She put her hands under my arms and hoisted me up. She was very strong, and her fingers felt like copper pipes as they pressed against me. She helped me hobble forward.
And so, leaning on the arm of a green haired woman, I entered the Forest. It wrapped itself around us like the wings of a bat. The thickness of the canopy was so great that the moonlight didn’t penetrate. She led me along like a blind man. My rescuer’s habits of personal hygiene seemed not to be as advanced as I was used to and her pungent body odor, like the green dross that formed on a pond, assailed me. In a few moments, we emerged into a clearing and I could see again.
Her cottage was a cave.
“There we are,” she said gently. “Now, I see that my sisters are home, so it would be best if we stayed out here. They are both a little…nervous around strangers.”
“Well, all right,” I said. “Do you think you could dress my leg, now?”
She smiled sweetly at me, “Oh, my dear, I shall dress it beautifully. With coriander and garden cress and a side dish of new figs.”
“Uh, I beg your pardon?” I said ridiculously.
“And I shall wash it all down with the rest of that excellent Kaftoran wine you have brought me.”
“I don’t understand.”
She threw her head back and laughed, a laugh that chilled the hearer, a laugh without mirth. When she looked back at me, her eyes blazed and her finely detailed features had drawn back into a death’s head.
“Dinner time, little morsel! Didn’t anyone tell you to stay off the Road at night!” Her hair suddenly began to move of its own accord. The ends pulled themselves out of the back of her robe. A thick strand of it rose into the air and curved towards me. Its tip opened into a soft, pink mouth armed with two fangs like Babylonian daggers. Each of the other writhing appendages faced me likewise.
It wasn’t hair. It was snakes. Snakes that grew out of the crest of her head, the scales connected obscenely to the pale scalp.
They reared and struck. I screamed in horror, but I could not, no human could, move fast enough. Their fangs sank into my flesh once, twice, a dozen times while she laughed savagely. And I knew what kind of creature I had encountered.
I turned to run, but it was already too late. My head seemed filled with straw. “No!” I shrieked. And “No!” and “No!” again.
My legs buckled and gave way. I fell into the grass face down and discovered that I could not get up. “No, no, no,” I sobbed.
I felt her cold breath on my neck. “The cycle of life, my dumpling. Creatures eat each other. It is the way the gods would have it.”
A heavy pounding reverberated through the earth beneath me. Perhaps I heard it before she did because my ear was to the ground. Could it be… footsteps? The footsteps of what? An elephant?
Above and behind me, she let out a ratcheting roar, the cry of a defiant predator. Something huge swung down out of the dark and smashed into her with such force that she flew backwards with a yelp and disappeared into the night. That same something grasped me around the waist and lifted me off the soft grass.
Poisoned by her venom, I was unable to move. But my emancipator held me in such a way that I could see him. It was an utterly gigantic human, bigger than any human ever was. And not human. For over the bridge of its flat nose it sported three round eyes blue like winter sky.
Not eaten by a gorgon, I thought. Eaten by a three-eyed giant instead. What a day.
And I fainted.
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