Athenian Steel (Book I of the The Hellennium) (3 page)

The she-thing's head whipped round to face
him.  Hardly a spear-length away, Styphon looked straight into
eyes that were the pale blue of a winter sky and deeply frightened.
 Her bare female form seemed a delicate thing, with slender
limbs and nary a dimple of excess fat, but when she moved, muscles
rippled under skin the color of summer barley.  The features
of her oval face were finely wrought, from pointed chin to wide,
dark lips to thin brows arching over those pale eyes.  Many
men, in vastly different circumstances, and if their tastes ran to
the exotic (which Styphon's, like those of most Spartans, did not)
would have counted her as attractive.

Her lips made an omicron shape in Styphon's
direction, but if she had been about to speak nothing came of the
effort, for before any sound could emerge, her well-formed legs
buckled, sending her once more to the rocky ground.  She
raised a bare arm with palm open and fingers spread wide in a
warding sign.  Styphon saw her limbs subtly tense like those
of a runner on a starting line, saw that the fear in her eyes had
faded and become calculation.  He gleaned her intent and cried
to his men, "Back!  Back!"  

Too late.  The animated corpse whirled
and lunged like an animal at a man standing opposite Styphon in the
cordon.  Her chosen target backpedaled, but the undead
assailant was too swift and succeeded in her aim of snatching his
shield.

None of the men in camp had been armed at
the time the woman appeared, yet during the chase some had managed
to grab a short sword or hoplon, and because of that, now their
quarry had a shield, too.  She crouched behind the stolen,
bowl-shaped barrier in the center of the cordon, turning every few
seconds to present the hoplon's crimson lambda blazon in a new
direction.  The icy eyes that peered over its rim issued
silent challenge which none were inclined to accept.

Styphon stepped forward, unarmed, open palms
upraised.  The she-thing faced him.   Stopping well out
of her reach, he met her gaze steadily, endeavoring to betray no
trace of the unease which the gods knew he felt.

"Who are you?" he demanded.  He held
his breath for a moment to listen intently, and in doing so he
noticed that the woman's own breath was inaudible, even after the
considerable exertion of her flight.

"What do you want?" Styphon tried next, but
again there came no reply.  Perhaps she could not speak, or
spoke only the tongue of some far-off homeland.  "We do not
mean to harm you," he offered anyway. 

That reassurance, spoken in slow, clear
syllables, won him a reaction of sorts.  Her blue eyes flicked
away from him to left and right, scanning the audience of soldiers
and Helots that watched in rapt silence.  Styphon squatted to
bring his face level with hers.  Her knuckles remained white
on either side of the shield rim, but her eyes had calmed.

"I command these men," Styphon said, "and I
swear you will come to no harm by them."

Until Epitadas orders it
, he thought
but opted not to add.

The woman's gaze sank groundward and for a
moment appeared empty, like that of some old man whose body was
sound but whose mind had gone to pasture.  She maintained that
attitude for a few beats, looked up again, and spoke at last.
 Her voice was not the cackling of a harpy or the moan of a
restless shade.  In fact it was barely a voice at all, more
like the croaking of a tiny frog or the last rush of air from the
lips of the dying.

"Lak—" the woman said, and choked.
 "Lak...e...dai...mon?"

No doubt she had recognized the crimson
lambda emblazoned on their shields.  That didn't mean much,
for one could scour the land between Babylon and the Pillars of
Herakles and hardly find a place where that symbol was not known
and feared.

"Yes," Styphon confirmed.  "We are men
of Lakedaimon.  Spartans.  I am Styphon.  Where is
your home?"  She stared.  "What is your name and who is
your lord?"

No hint of understanding lit her pale eyes.
 Styphon's hope for a reply was waning when the woman
surprised him.

"In the name of... Zeus Hikesios..." she
said in her raking voice, proving that she knew at least a little
Greek.

"I have no power to accept you as a
suppliant," Styphon answered.  "The pledge already given will
have to suffice.  What say you lay down the shield?"

Very slowly, with much hesitation on her
part and patience on Styphon's, she lowered the hoplon.  Only
then did Styphon remember that behind it she was stark naked.
 

"Bring a cloak!" he called to any Helot.
 Shortly a tattered red garment was placed in his waiting
hand.  He held it open and advanced cautiously on the
corpse-woman, whose wary eyes held fast to him the whole way.
 Reaching her, he draped it over her bare, golden shoulders
before stepping back and addressing the dumbstruck wall of flesh
surrounding them.

"She is not a shade or a 
daimon
!
 Any man who does her wrong will answer to me!"

At length the soldiers muttered their
assent, if reluctantly.  If there had been any doubt as to
whether the sudden appearance of a woman's corpse on the island was
an ill omen, now that said corpse walked and talked, all doubt was
erased.

"Disperse," Styphon commanded.  Picking
up the stolen hoplon (on most days, he would punish the man who had
lost it, but not today), he faced the she-thing.  "The gods
and I must know who it is I am bound to protect," he said.

She croaked three strange, harsh syllables
which Styphon presumed must comprise her name.  "Geneva."

A curtain of rags was hung in the rear of
Nestor's fort to afford the risen corpse, a lone female in the
company of men, a modicum of privacy.  Behind it she had sat
all morning, muttering rapidly in what seemed to be Greek, even if
the words were too swift and her voice too soft to allow for proper
eavesdropping.  From her tone, she seemed to be conversing
idly with herself, or else with spirits.

It had been a year at least since the
softness of a woman's voice had last filled Styphon's ear.
 His wife Alkmena had died long enough ago that even though he
had loved her in his youth, the sting of her absence had dulled to
vanishing.  Strangely, this female made him think of Alkmena
for the first time in an age, even though the two were as different
as day was from night.  His present company was the prettier
by far, in spite of her foreign complexion, but Styphon would
never choose her, even had he not seen her rise from the dead.
 There was some repellent aspect to this creature's
perfection.

The woman was mumbling softly as Styphon
pushed the veil aside and entered her feeble sanctuary.  On
seeing him, she fell silent and looked up from the bed of leaves on
which she sat, legs hugged to bare breasts inside the encompassing
cloak.  Her delicate foreign features were relaxed,
sky-colored eyes devoid of fright.  She had raked fingers
through the black, salt-stiffened hair that fell barely past the
nape of her flawless neck.  A Spartan woman's hair would only
be so short after she had cut in mourning, or after her wedding
night, of course, when she symbolically mourned the loss of her
maidenhead.

The look she gave Styphon as he knelt to
come level with her was, like his own, a measuring one.  Pale,
cold eyes made him all but forget why he had come.  Summoning
his will, he shook himself free of their enchantment and found
voice with which to deliver his message. 

"Our commander has ordered you thrown from
the cliffs."

The heights in question dominated the
northern sky.  The woman's head half-turned to direct a casual
glance in their direction, and then her eyes were again an
unwelcome burden on Styphon.  The unearthly creature asked, in
a feminine voice very different from the dry rasp it had been
earlier, "You are... to agreeing with he?"

"It is not my place to agree," Styphon said,
understanding in spite of her broken Greek.  He hardened his
black eyes.  "Only to obey."

Shockingly, her thin lips pressed together
in a tight smile.  "You come now for taking me to cliff?"

The Greek which the creature spoke (if only
just) was Attic in dialect.  That was not unusual for
foreigners who had not known the language from birth but rather
been compelled to adopt it, usually through slavery.  Even if
her grammar was imperfect, sounds dripped from the tip of her
tongue like the very honey which lent its color to her flesh.

"No," Styphon said.  "Only to inform
you, so that you might—"  He cut himself short, unable to
finish for embarrassment.

"Might what?" It seemed more idle curiosity
than real concern.

With a scowl Styphon admitted the thinking
that had driven him here.  "Our commander was not witness to
your... 
rising
.  He assumes we are mistaken and
that you are a mortal woman.  But an Equal is familiar with
death before he can walk, and you were 
dead
.  I am
no superstitious fool, but I thought that if you knew his
intention, you might... return of your own accord to..."
 Styphon grit his teeth in displeasure at being forced to
speak such nonsense.  He forced himself to finish, "...to
wherever it is you came from."

The men had reached consensus on where that
was, but Styphon had little regard for their baseless conjecture.
 The name for her that had stuck around camp
 was 
Sea-thing
.

Her thin brows arched in... amusement?
 "That is many kindness of you."  She glanced around her.
 "This place am Sphakteria."

It was not quite a question, but Styphon
answered it anyway.  "Yes."

"How much days you have been here?"

"Seventy, give or take."

Sea-thing's lips pursed as if in thought,
and she asked next, "You have seen Athenian
refin... 
reinforcements
 come?"

"This morning."  He shook his head.
 "Why should any of this concern you?"

She chewed her lip briefly before answering,
"I only wish to be knowing how long before falls the hammer."

"Hammer?" Styphon echoed.  "What do you
mean by that?"

"Sorry, maybe you are not having that
expression."  She lapsed into a pensive silence, during which
one hand rose slowly up from inside her cloak and toyed with a
tendril of her tangled hair.

"
What do you mean?
" Styphon
repeated.

Sea-thing's gaze rose and met his.
 "Styphon," she said heavily, "how do you wish for your name
to be remembered?"

It seemed a strange thing to say, but then
she had said nothing thus far which was not strange.  Anyway,
the answer was simple enough.  "I would have said of me what
any Equal would. 
 He died in battle
."

Sea-thing leveled a grave look.  "I do
not knowing how you die, but I do know one thing about you,
Styphon, son of Pharax.  In two days' time, when the Athenians
invade this island, you will surrender to them and make every Equal
here an apricot."

Seeing Styphon's heavy brow furrow, she
chuckled humorlessly.

"I'm sorry," she amended.  "Wrong word.
 After what I've been through, I am very hungry.  I
meant 
prisoner
."

Styphon stared at her, stunned.  When
his wits returned a moment later, he said, "Not only would that
action be an affront to all I believe, I lack the power to make
such a choice."

"At present," she said.  "But you would
have it if Epitadas and Hippagretas were to falling.  Which
they will."

With this, her latest in a string of
impudent remarks, the frustration welling in Styphon's breast
suddenly exploded into his sword arm, which lashed out at the
speaker's flawless mouth.

The blow never landed.  Instead,
Styphon's fist stopped inches from Sea-thing's cheek, held there
fast in a set of swift-moving golden fingers which might as well
have been iron rods.  Thus did a Spartan Equal, peerless among
the fighters of Hellas for strength of limb, find himself at the
mercy of a barbarian female.  He struggled in vain, while from
behind the binding hand, pale blue eyes watched with no sign of
strain.  Only when Styphon let the tensed muscles of his arm
go slack did the grip holding it ease.  

To block his attack, Sea-thing's right hand
had shot out from inside the tattered red cloak in which she
huddled.  Now, adder-like, it slithered back into hiding.

Pride was a possession of limitless value to
a Spartan, and those who would wound it did so at grave risk, for
once he was locked in battle, a Spartan's pride would not permit
him to yield.  But Spartans also had minds and were capable of
knowing when to pause and contemplate before leaping over certain
thresholds.

Seated before him, Styphon saw just such a
threshold.

Still, pride did not let him rub the hand
that she had squeezed or meet her pale eyes.  Staring at a
patch of moss blooming between the ancient wall-stones of Nestor's
fort, Styphon asked in a humbled whisper, "What are you?"

She asked as softly, "What do you think I
am?"

Styphon sneered.  Spartans had little
taste for such verbal games as philosophers and Athenians liked to
play.  "I know not," he muttered.

"What do the others think I am?"

He informed her of the consensus reached by
the men of the camp.  "A Nereid."

"They are right," she said.  "That is
what I am."

Styphon stared at the stones.  At
length, he dragged his gaze back up to the self-proclaimed sea
nymph.

She smiled and said, "You don't believe
me."

"You are no more a daughter of Nereus than I
am."

"Tsk," the thing's pink tongue chided him.
 "You wouldn't want to anger my Father so soon before a
battle.  Speaking of which," she said with sudden gravity, "I
have given you priceless information.  I possess much more.
 What you choose to do with it could have lasting
consequences."