Antiquities: Five Stories Set in Ancient Worlds Read online

Breeze brushed through her short hair, cool, the breath of a cave. "Tell me," whispered the one above her.

  "I want a new road," she told the dust. "Please, Glorious One, show me a path the leads another direction. I don't want to walk the one I'm on."

  "If I set your feet on a new path, will you follow wherever it leads?"

  Cold swept down her spine, prickled the hairs on her arms and neck. Someone said once never to trouble the gods, because they would offer trouble back.

  Aristides had set a price for her, and he was a loathsome man. A path that led her away from him had to be better.

  "I will."

  "You will welcome change?"

  "I will," she whispered to the dirt.

  "Look up."

  She leaned back and lifted her head, stared up at his silhouette. He lifted his wand, the one embraced by snakes, and struck her on the forehead with it. The force of his blow knocked her back into the road. Her forehead burned, and snakes squirmed inside her skull.

  When next she opened her eyes, the sky was light with morning, and Eudokia, a handled cup dangling from her hand, squatted beside Nysa at the foot of the Herm. Nysa's face, neck, and hair were wet and cold. Kyprios and Megakles stood above her. She turned her head. The small firepot had overturned, spilling its contents: Lyris's incense had burned to feathers of gray ash; Nysa's blood and the libation of watered wine she had given the god had been swallowed by the thirsty earth. She wondered if her encounter in the darkness was only a dream.

  "Are you all right?" Eudokia asked.

  Heat closed Nysa's throat. A shadow flickered across her vision; something shifted in her thoughts. She opened her mouth. "The sky berates the roof, jealous of its solid span."

  "What?" asked Megakles.

  "Seek the road's center," she said, and sat up. She scooted backward on her butt toward the center of the road.

  "Nysa, have you gone mad?" asked Eudokia.

  A red tile slid off the roof and crashed to the roadway, fragments flying. A chip struck Kyprios in the cheek. Blood welled up.

  Eudokia gasped. Megakles stepped back and stared up at the roof. Kyprios pressed fingers to his wounded cheek and knelt beside Nysa, his pale eyes kindling. "You knew it," he said. "You knew that would happen. What is the mark on your forehead?"

  She touched her temple, felt raised skin under her fingertips, swollen and warm. She felt along the edges of the mark, wondering what it looked like. She opened her mouth to say, "The god gave it to me," but her vision darkened again, and what came out instead was: "A space inside a blow where time stretches and pleats."

  "She's lost her senses," Eudokia said. "Let's take her inside. Maybe more water will bring her back to herself."

  Kyprios helped Nysa to her feet, put his arm around her, and led her through the gate into the courtyard.

  The master stood beside the household altar, feeding kindling to the morning fire and muttering a hymn. He paused when they entered, then scattered grain in the flames and raised his hands to heaven with a last cry. The morning invocation was complete. He came to them. "What's this? What's this? What's happened?"

  "We found her senseless in the street, Master," said Kyprios. "Neither speech nor a slap could wake her. Eudokia had to pour water on her."

  "Well, missy, what have you been up to, out of doors before dawn? What's that smut on your face?"

  "What was omitted will be supplied reversed," Nysa said.

  "What?" The master's face flushed with anger.

  "Master, she has lost her mind," Eudokia said.

  "Perhaps a beating will restore it to her," said the master. "Five lashes. See to it, Megakles."

  "What was omitted will be supplied reversed, and what is given will be returned manyfold." The words spilled out of Nysa against her will.

  "Ten lashes," said the master. "Mind you mark her neatly, and leave her looks intact; I've a use for her tonight."

  "Master," said Kyprios.

  Rage made the master shake, formed his hands into fists. "What is it?" he said in a quiet, menacing voice.

  "Forgive me for speaking," Kyprios said. "We found Nysa at the base of the Herm. I think perhaps she is godstruck."

  "What do you mean?"

  "She spoke a prophecy, and it came true."

  "Oh?" The master turned his angry gaze to her. "Prophesy for me now. Will a beating cure what ails you?"

  "Neglect were wiser and would yield a better crop." Inside her head, Nysa struggled. Better she were silent than saying things like this to the master. None of the words that came out of her mouth were her own, and she couldn't stop herself from speaking. "Sow blows and reap catastrophe."

  "Megakles," said the master. "Fetch the lash."

  Megakles, his feet dragging, took three steps toward the storage room where the lash hung.

  "Husband," said the mistress from the shadowed balcony above.

  "Wife?" His word was like a blow.

  "You've forgotten the wine offering."

  "What?" He looked at the altar, where the fire still burned, parching the grain he had given to the gods. He glanced beside him, where the jug of the libation should have stood beside the basket with the ritual grain in it, "Kyprios!" he yelled.

  "Sorry, master," said Kyprios. "I was going to bring the jug to you when Eudokia summoned me outside."

  "Get the jug now, and five lashes to you for ruining the morning offering and offending the god."

  Kyprios bowed his head and ran to the kitchen, leaving Nysa swaying behind him. She edged over so she could lean on a wall.

  The master began the morning hymn over. Kyprios, rushing back from the kitchen with the wine, stumbled on his return, and at the very moment the master should have offered the libation, the wine rose up out of the jug and rained down over altar, fire, and master. The master purpled with rage but didn't interrupt himself. By the time he finished the hymn, his voice had lowered to normal, and his color was clear. The new wine stains on his chiton spotted him like a leopard. He lowered his arms after the final shout. His face was at rest again.

  Nysa had relaxed as she listened to the morning ritual. None of her words had been her own. They must come from somewhere else. From the god. This was the new path he put her on? She had said she would follow where it led. What if it led to the lash, and on, right to Aristides's couch, where her other path had been leading? The god had answered her prayer. Fate had shifted, as she had asked. She would go where she was fated.

  Everyone stood silent in the courtyard. The master glanced at them, Megakles halfway to the storage room that held the lash, stopped by his respect for the morning prayer, Eudokia a hunched figure at the gate, Nysa, who straightened away from the wall, Kyprios, who had fallen to his knees when he tripped, then stayed there, head bowed. Somehow the jug was still intact.

  The master roared with laughter. "Forget the lash," he said. "'What was omitted....' Ha! The gods' wings have brushed the dust here today. Give me another prophecy, Nysa. What am I to do with you?"

  "Cut out the tongue, and give it to the gods," she said. She clapped her hands over her mouth. No, she thought, no; is this the answer to my prayer? I lose my tongue? Now I shall learn to suffer without being able to speak another prayer. Why did you say that, whoever gives me words?

  The master sighed. "And what I give will be returned manyfold? I wonder in what form? I hope the gods will be generous in return for my sacrifice of a good slave. Pack whatever things you'll need at Apollo's temple, Nysa. If you're going to tell the future, he's the god for you."

  The mistress helped her pack her other robe in a basket, added her spindle, double flute, and a cup with handles, and gave her a small perfume pot painted with an image of one of the wind gods. The mistress's favorite scent was inside, a spicy scent too strong for a slave to use. "I shall miss you, Nysa," whispered the mistress.

  And I you, Nysa thought, but the words wouldn't come. She touched her throat. She would have said the mistress had been kind to her and she appreciated
it, but she had no words.

  The mistress took Nysa's hand and pressed it to her belly. "Can you tell me if I'll give my husband another son?"

  Nysa's hand grew hot, and so did her throat. Darkness veiled her vision. "Two sons grow together, and will kill their mother," she whispered, then gasped and snatched her hand away. She rubbed her eyes, trying to erase the vision of her mistress's future.

  The mistress stood silent. She handed the basket to Nysa without a word, and turned her back.

  Nysa went down to the gate with her shoulders bowed, her gaze on the ground. Strangers' questions would be easier. At least, she hoped they would.

  At Apollo Delphinios's temple, the master spoke to three priests. "A god struck her. She speaks in prophecies now. She said I was to give her to the gods."

  "A slave?" said the youngest priest. "A child? Our oracles are older woman, beyond the age of child-bearing, the distinguished wives of citizens. Are you sure?"

  "What can I do but honor the request of the god?" said the master.

  "Are you certain she isn't playing a trick on you?"

  The master cocked his head and studied Nysa, who tightened her grip on the basket of her belongings and dropped her gaze to the bright mosaic on the temple floor. She had never visited this temple before. Apollo, god of healing, music, plague, justice, and foretelling; the god who punished the guilty, god of light. Nysa had spent most of her life in the dark of the women's quarters. She could not remember praying to Apollo for anything. Hermes was the one who had answered her prayer. Why was she here, in Apollo's temple?

  "She foretold two things that came true. Nysa, is this where you belong?" the master asked.

  Shadows cloaked her vision; she felt her mouth work. Words spilled out. "The unwelcome gift turns from a stone to a knife in the sheath."

  "I don't understand that," the master said. "But now I don't have to. I leave her to you." The master touched her shoulder. "May the fates be kind to you." He bowed to the priests and left.

  "Speak your future," said the oldest priest.

  "I walk my words," Nysa's mouth said.

  They asked her other questions, but no more answers came out of her, until the youngest said, "Can you grind grain? Can you bake bread? Can you mend clothing?"

  She nodded, smiling, even though her mouth said: "Fire does not rain, and water does not burn."

  "Fire has no hands, but you do," said the oldest priest. "We'll find your right work."

  The youngest priest led her next door to the residence where the sibyls lived when they weren't prophesying. Three very old women shared an upstairs room there, guarded by a Persian slave. There were downstairs rooms for the priests to use if they were busy at the temple and didn't care to go to their homes at night. Two domestic slaves tended to the household's needs. The priest introduced Nysa to the cook and the maid. "This is Nysa, late a slave in a larger household, and now a gift to the temple," he said. "She will live here."

  The slaves greeted her and smiled until her silence stretched too long. "Is something wrong with you?" asked Melantha, the cook.

  A shadow flickered before Nysa's eyes. "A river of grain runs down into darkness."

  The cook looked to the priest. "Master?"

  "She may be godstruck, or simple, or both," said the priest. "I leave her to you." He left.

  "Fine," muttered the cook. She led Nysa to a slab table and gave her a grinding stone. Then she opened a large lidded jar and reached in with a pottery scoop, pulled it out. "Strange," she said, staring at the half-empty scoop before spilling grain onto the slab in front of Nysa. She peered down into the jar, lifted it. A trickle of grain ran out the bottom, some sliding down into a mouse hole under the wall. "Of all the — ”

  Nysa lowered her gaze and ground the grain.

  By day's end, Melantha had decided that Nysa should sleep with the sibyls, rather than in the room next to the kitchen Melantha shared with the maid. She and Tessa, the maid, introduced Nysa to the three old sibyls and put a pallet on the floor of their room for her.

  Questions crowded through Nysa's head, but they wouldn't come out of her mouth. Weary, she lay on the floor and pulled her spare robe over her.

  She woke in darkness in a room that felt too large and smelled of incense. People breathed around her, but these were not the sounds of Eudokia, who breathed with a sigh and a flutter as she slept, or the other slaves, or the mistress or her daughter.

  Someone brushed her forehead with a warm hand. The mark there throbbed. "Hey," he said. "How do you like it here?"

  She struggled for a second before she recognized the voice of the god. "I don't know." She touched her throat: for the first time since he had struck her, she spoke her own mind. "Why am I in Apollo's temple?"

  "He has a place for women who speak the future; my priests wouldn't know what to do with you. Besides, I like to give him fine presents. It makes him gentle toward me. But remember: even though you're in my brother's temple, you can still make offerings to me."

  "Thank you," she said, and almost laughed. Then she remembered where she had been headed that night, and how now she was somewhere else. "Thank you." The new road lay before her, leading to an unknown country, away from all the destinations she had always been afraid of, away from everything she had ever known.

  =End=

  About the Author

  Over the past thirty years, Nina Kiriki Hoffman has sold adult and YA novels and more than 250 short stories. Her works have been finalists for the World Fantasy, Mythopoeic, Sturgeon, Philip K. Dick, and Endeavour awards. Her fiction has won a Stoker and a Nebula Award.

  A collection of her short stories, Permeable Borders, was published in 2012 by Fairwood Press.

  Nina does production work for the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. She teaches through Lane Community College. She lives in Eugene, Oregon.

  For a list of Nina's publications, go to: http://ofearna.us/books/hoffman.html.

  Connect with the Author

  You can connect directly with the Nina Kiriki Hoffman through Facebook.

  Other Nina Kiriki Hoffman Titles

  You can find the following titles online. The links below will allow you to purchase directly from Amazon or read free fiction online.

  Short Fiction:

  "Trophy Wives," by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

  "Family Tree" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

  "Escapes" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

  "The Ghosts of Strangers" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

  "Ghost Hedgehog" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

  "How I Came to Marry a Herpetologist" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

  "The Weight of Wishes" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

  "Key Signatures" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

  "Haunted Humans" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

  "Zombies for Jesus" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

  "Fast Wedded to the Ground" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

  "A Wolf in Holy Places" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

  "The Dangers of Touch" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

  "Airborn" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

  "Surreal Estate" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

  "Faint Heart, Foul Lady" & "Night Life" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman