Last Chants (16 page)

“Syrinx strained to hold her lamenting muscles motionless. She was downwind from her prey; he would not take warning unless the faint rumble of her movement sent him scurrying back through his earthen sanctum. She could feel a drop of perspiration trace the cleavage between her breasts. It mortified her to kill this way, with the prey trapped before her, but she must have three rabbits for the Gods. If her sacrifice were scant, the Gods might shame her before the Huntress at the afternoon hunt.

“She imagined the cold blue eyes of the Goddess narrowing with disdain. She had seen that look before, when other dryads had let their prey escape through jinx or incompetence. The Goddess would turn those withering eyes on a frightened huntress, nostrils flared and thin mouth set in arrogant displeasure, and she would snap her fingers for the others to close around her. Then she would turn swiftly on her long, marble-hard limbs and disappear up a slope or into a copse, the others following quickly, casting fleeting looks of sympathy on the ostracized huntress. And it would be many hunts before the offending dryad would be allowed her place beside the others. And in the meantime there would be no meat for her because every creature would outrun her arrow and outfox her slingshot.”

Pan's voice conveyed sympathy. And something more, a presage of danger?

“Suddenly the dryad leaped to her feet, golden hair tumbling free of the loose twist she had secured with a twig of myrtle. She had hunted too long to miss the signs: Something or someone was stalking her. She scanned the meadow quickly. It had been a hunter's feeling, a sixth sense, a sudden empathy with her prey. She began to back slowly toward the glade, where some naiad might help her.

“And then she saw him, up where the meadow crested and was crowned by a shaggy circlet of fluttering oak and olive.”

His voice was remarkably expressive, almost enthralling. I found myself leaning closer, determined not to miss a word. And his next word was practically a shout:

“Pan! Broad and powerful and sexual, even in silhouette, arms akimbo and feet spread wide.

“Pan! Her sharp hunter's eyes squinted him into focus, and she caught the glint of large misaligned teeth gleaming in his rough face. For a moment she stood frozen with dread, as she had seen deer and rabbits freeze, eyes large and desperate.

“Pan. Trouble and dishonor and carnality. Melea the naiad had nearly died bearing his child, a hideous creature with the hindquarters of a goat.

“Not she! Not Syrinx, one of Diana's own huntresses! No God would profane her!” he boomed.

He put up his hand, wriggling his fingers. “Her fingers worked free the knot that held her girdle, and she felt the rabbits drop, then she turned and fled down the grassy slope toward the glade, hair streaming and breasts rising, frightened body glistening in the bright sun, legs stretched as long as an antelope's. But glancing over her shoulder, she saw the God closing the distance between them, saw his face turned comfortably sunward, like a man enjoying a race, and she knew she would only just reach the glade. If there was no one there to help her, the God would take her cruelly without a thought for her suffering or her future.

“‘Diana!' she screamed, nearly there now, nearly at the bank of the moss-green brook, ‘Patroness, pity me!'” There was a throb in his voice. “And Syrinx felt a rough hand chafe the tender skin of her waist. Her toes began to falter in the damp, marshy earth of the brookside as the God caught her. She could smell the musk of his body as she choked in desperate supplication, ‘Please help me, Goddess!'”

He let the plea hang in the night air.

“And in the next moment,” his voice was grim, “her motion was arrested. She surged forward to escape, but her limbs would not carry her: She was rooted. She sensed that the God's formidable arms encircled her, but she felt nothing. She swayed in the breeze, blindly drinking earth-fragrant water through thirsty roots. She did not hear the raging bellow of the savage God.

“‘You, Virgin!' the God screamed,” and indeed “Pan” screamed it. “He watched the Goddess come through a curtain of weeping willow that she parted with a deceptively delicate hand. ‘What have you done to her?' He stared in horror at the stand of reeds he had been embracing.

“‘I've spared her your bestial embraces,' Diana said coldly, lids half-lowered over eyes that smoldered with contempt. ‘As she begged me to do.'”

His voice trembled with the injustice of it.

“Pan took a step backward, away from the reeds. It was a moment before he could pull his astonished eyes away from them and say, ‘So you'd do this to her?'

“The Goddess smiled slightly, her haughty face relaxing. 'I must teach you not to take my dryads.'”

Again, he gave us a moment to absorb the horror.

“Pan stared at the tall, long-limbed beauty, her body as white and strong as alabaster, her pale hair glinting silver in the sun, the thick cloak of weeping willow behind her. She was as beautiful as any Goddess, but she was the only one for whom he felt no sexual stirring. She reeked of celibacy and austerity, she brought death to woodland animals.

“He swaggered toward her. ‘I've a mind to take you in her place.'

“The Goddess slid disdainful eyes over his short, hale body. ‘You'll regret your impropriety,' she hissed. ‘You forget who I am.'” He mimicked her voice as if it were a snake's.

“Pan lowered his face to glower at her.” His voice became a resounding, angry thing: “‘And you forget who I am. You can't touch me, Virgin!'”

He waited so long, I almost prompted him to continue.

“Diana smiled her chilly smile,” he said, finally, “and glanced at the stand of reeds that had once been a nubile dryad. ‘No? Perhaps not previously. But I have a new ally.'

“Pan's eyes narrowed and flickered dangerous green-gold as he followed her gaze. Syrinx had been on his mind for months. He had tracked her relentlessly, hoping to catch her away from Diana and her frigid huntresses.

“The Goddess watched him and laughed.”

His voice again rose to a feral boom: “This the God could not tolerate! He closed the space between them with an angry leap and noticed with some admiration that the Goddess stood her ground. She stood like statuary as he clamped her gossamered breasts to his damp body and reached a hand behind her head to press her face to his. She remained still and cold as his infuriated hands ravaged her, twisting her flesh between his callused fingers, parting the folds of her robe and forcing her legs apart with an upthrust knee. Then he knocked her off balance by wrapping one leg around hers and falling against her. As they fell, he found the soft dampness that was like a mortal woman's and entered it with the suddenness of a blow.”

He was sitting forward, squinting as if lost in remembrance. I could see the muscles of his jaw working.

His voice hinted at feelings barely suppressed. I'd never heard such a fine storyteller's voice.

“Pan was buried alive then,” he continued. “The earth sucked him in; he felt it clotting his mouth and ears, scraping his sightless eyes. He felt himself pulled deeper, felt the earth become colder, harder, crushing him on all sides, finally felt it throb with its own molten life until it seared him, twisting him and racking him and pushing him deeper and deeper until he lost consciousness.”

His face was anguished. Tears ran down his cheeks. But he continued calmly.

“He awakened in this place, paralyzed with pain, when it and all the land around it still stank with floundering sea creatures. He raised his battered head to see a mountaintop just spewn from the ocean bottom, saltwater surging in thin sheets over its bloated clay.”

“Magnificent!” Arthur commented.

Pan's voice was melancholic. “The man,” he said slowly, “scowling in this other meadow, found that the memory still rankled. Of a union with Syrinx might have sprung perfection; her delicacy and solemnity complemented his own character.

“As always, this reflection disturbed him. He sat cross-legged on the hillside, knees drawn up to accommodate his elbows. And in his hands,” excitement reinfused his voice, “there shimmered
into being a pipe made of several lengths of reeds, bound together side by side with tough threads stripped from another reed. The pipe he had fashioned himself, in frustrated homage, from reeds he'd found in his hand when earth and ocean spat him here, reeds he'd torn from the stand that had once been Syrinx.” His voice was a sad hush.

“He played her obsequy on the pipes, finally laying moist lips to the huntress. And the union was perfection. From the instrument there floated a music both innocent and erotic, virginal and ardent. Naiads, so infinitely far away, lapsed from the brook to lay irises where Syrinx once stood, and in the sky, a cloud obscured the sun and cooled the afternoon, as the musician Apollo listened in grudging envy and chastened Diana with a nettled glance.

“And so through the millennia, as conifers began to share the land with chaparral, and chaparral gave way to meadowland, from the wildest peaks and the loneliest glades, the windsong of the reed pipe consummated an ancient longing.

“One hundred and fifty thousand years of husbandry turned ocean floor to meadow, but he never saw another to match the diligent Syrinx, with her air of vulnerable resolve. And he never forgot the Goddess who placed her out of his reach and caused his exile.”

Arthur suddenly chimed in, “No, I should think not!”

But Pan held up his hand for silence. Head bowed, he continued.

“And one mild day, when the air was fresh with stirring grasses, the wind carried the piping through mountain thickets.

“In one of these, downhill from the man, a woman listened to the unearthly music. Her knife was poised above the rabbit hole. And she turned to hear his music. She looked upward, straining to see him.”

His head snapped up out of its bow. “And it was Syrinx: Syrinx was here! The circle”—he made a circle of his thumb and index finger—“would close at last. And Diana . . . ” His features twisted into a grimace. “Would writhe beneath them in their consummation.”

Having earlier offered a premature bravo, Arthur sat quietly. We were like schoolchildren waiting for more story.

Instead, Pan raised the pipe to his lips and played the smoothest, breathiest piece of music I'd ever heard.

I watched him, trying not to be overwhelmed by pity. He was clearly an educated man, a brilliant tale-teller with a classically trained voice. He was also an exceptional musician.

And yet he lived naked in the woods, convinced this myth was biographical.

Arthur clicked off the penlight—something he should have done earlier, no doubt; we still had to find our way back to Edward's cabin. But I assumed his motive was to give the piping center stage.

We listened for five minutes, perhaps.

Then we heard Edward calling for us.

By the time Arthur fumbled the light back on, Pan was diving through the brush, moving as swiftly as any demigod I'd ever seen.

A
rthur was on his feet, mouth open, arm stretched toward the spot where Pan had just been, when Edward came crashing toward us, flooding the area with lantern light. I jumped up.

Edward was panting; he'd clearly been running. “God!” He stopped to catch his breath, bending so his hand was on his knee. “Heard it! Heard the piping. See what you mean about it being spooky!” He panted some more. “What was going on? You're not hurt?” He straightened. “No, you don't look hurt. Hi, Arthur.”

Arthur turned to him uncomprehendingly, as if he'd never seen a clothed man before.

“Was he here? Did he try anything?” Edward held the lantern closer to my face. “I thought you might be in trouble. I didn't know what I was going to find.”

I had to shake my head to clear it. “Pan” had completely pulled me into his story.

“He was here. But we're fine. I . . . I don't know what to say about him.” I glanced at Arthur, hoping he was feeling more articulate than I was. But he had yet to close his gaping mouth.

“Don't know what to say about him?” Edward repeated. “What does that mean? He didn't threaten you, right? You're both okay, right?”

“Yes. You don't have to keep asking.”

“Could have fooled me. You're both acting drugged or something. What the hell happened?”

“He just sort of appeared out of the woods. He talked to us awhile—”

“No goat legs, right?”

“No goat legs. He talked about Pan, though. He obviously thinks he's Pan.”

“Tell me you don't.” Edward scrutinized my face as if searching for dilated pupils.

“He has a British accent.”

“Welsh,” Arthur corrected. “And then Oxford, if I'm not mistaken.”

Edward's brows shot up. “What is he, some crazy Greek myth scholar?”

“I should think so,” Arthur said. “In a sense, though, he is Pan. Didn't you feel it, Willa?”

“Yes.” I wasn't totally sure I knew what he meant by that. But I'd certainly been lulled by Pan's tale, half-believing it, in a way. “He's got that Shakespearean actor voice that goes from quiet to thundering. He put a lot of feeling into it, that's for sure.”

“More than feeling, Willa.” Arthur clamped a hand on my shoulder. “It was possession. The myth took him over and became who he was.”

“Maybe.” I didn't pretend to understand delusions. Neuroses were more up my alley.

“One could almost say that type of quote-unquote madness is other-dimensional,” Arthur mused. “Shamans were thought mad by the Europeans who first encountered them.”

“So this guy talked at you? Told Pan stories?” Edward seemed confused.

“Yes,” I reiterated. “And played the pipes for us.”

“It was so perfect, every detail,” Arthur stared at the stump Pan had occupied.