Ithaca
I walk into the empty room. Good. I'm the first here. We meet in the attic. I walk over to the plans on the wall in chalk. Time to make some adjustments.
"How are things going?" she is at my side in a sliver of shadow. She doesn't appear as herself, instead as a man, they'll all think her one of the soldiers. But it is none the less her piercing eyes upon me.
"Better than they were, yet not as well as they could be," I say.
She says nothing.
"A girl is missing from the village. I spent the night searching, we'll find her soon," I say.
"Just a girl?"
"The best singer in the town, the daughter of one of their priests," i say.
"You don't know where she is?"
"I know where she is not. And that is a beginning," I say, as the door opens.
"Why do we do these things this early?" Captain Peleus saunters in, hair full of sand from the beach, blouse unbuttoned, followed closely by his boy, who is smiling.
"Why does he smile? What have you done?" I ask.
"Is mirth outlawed as well now, Ithaca? Because you can't have any none of us shall?" Menoetius asks. He'll be the death of us all that man.
"Yes, you're awfully accusatory. It isn't as though the two of us often or ever do things," Captain Peleus simpers, in a manner I'm sure is effective only with his father, casting pathetic big blue eyes on me as though I'll give him a sweet and tell him he's been good.
"So there's no reason you're both smiling?" I ask, folding my arms.
"He pushed me down the stairs!" Aias bursts in fully prepared to strangle Menoetius, "And he watched!"
"There it is," I say as Peleus protects the other one.
"Our three greatest warriors," the goddess watches without amusement.
"You're done," I slap my hands together to get their attention, "We have more pressing matters at hand. I have spoken with the gods."
"I told you we needed to start getting him to sleep more," Peleus whispers, not at all quietly, to the other two.
"—and the plague that afflicts our men is not natural," I finish, ignoring them.
"Okay, somebody told you that? Can you describe them to us?" Menoetius asks. He almost definitely believes me, having been in the courts of gods himself, but enjoys needling me in front of the others.
"One of the village girls is missing, Briseis and I searched half the night. I believe if we find her we can end the plague," I say.
"I think Briseis is outside," Aias says.
"Not her, the village girl who is missing," I sigh, heavily.
"Okay fine, if she's missing," Captain Peleus says, "It doesn't hurt to look. Is that what the war meeting is about? Can I go now? "
"You're helping look, not sneaking off to your tent--- didn't you get enough pleasure last night?" I growl.
He shrugs innocently.
"We are all looking. Aias, go and ask the other men if they've seen this girl," I say, handing him a photograph that I procured from her mother's house.
"They probably won't know, she looks the same as all the others," he says.
"I know. You're doing it anyway---you two, come with me," I say, taking the other two's arms.
"Why--?"
"What if we had other plans---?"
I tow them outside. We're early enough none of the others have arrived yet.
"Oh, good, you found them both," Briseis says, not sounding overly pleased.
"Yes. We are going to Mycenae's," I say, tugging them so that they don't get distracted.
"Why?"
"We don't want to talk to him."
"We didn't even want to come to the meeting—"
"There are two old barns on that property he took," Briseis says.
"Yes, and the two of you are going to search them," I tell them.
"For what?" Menoetius sighs.
"The girl," I groan.
"What does she look like?" Peleus asks, "You didn't show me the picture---,"
"Son of Peleus, if you find a girl tied up under floorboards you will get her out is that perfectly clear?" I hiss.
"Yes, very, all right."
"Come on then, Briseis, you and I will go up to the house."
"Why?" she asks, following me suspiciously as the other two wander in the general direction of the barns.
"Because while Mycenae is out of there I am getting my bow back, damn it."
"Everything really has completely become about you, hasn't it?"
"It always was."
We approach the old brick farm house.
"Do you have a key?" she asks, folding her arms.
"No," I scoff, going to the backdoor and listening, "I don't hear anything, they should all be at camp. Come."
"Does your army teach you that?" she asks, as I pick the lock.
"Gods no. A time-honored family tradition," I say, "Useful, as you see."
She shakes her head.
"Here," I say, opening the door to the creaky old house. There's stains on the stone floor, blood of previous occupants. I shudder. Animals. All of them.
I cross to a writing desk where he had papers. More intelligence is always useful. And he doesn't share his thoughts with me despite keeping me for my intelligence.
"Here," Briseis says, she's on the other side of the room, with the little dog. The dog is whimpering and pawing at the door. "I can't get it open."
I cross as well, frowning. "They wouldn't keep the weapons that locked up."
"I'm not looking for weapons," she says, kneeling and trying to prize the door open. "Can you get the locks?"
"Potentially," they're thick bolts, and new.
"Shh."
"You just bade me open them---" then I hear what she must have. A faint wheezing from the other side. Labored breathing.
"Krista? We're coming," she tugs on the chains, angrily.
"Go find a key then," I sigh, trying to work the one lock, but it's much sturdier than the door and I don't exactly have quiet.
"I'll fetch Captain Peleus," she says.
"Better idea, tell him his boyfriend's down there he'll rip the chains—we're coming girl," I say. And that's when something strikes the back of my head. There is a terrible pain in my temples then I am quite out.
I open my eyes to a forest. I know fully well it is a vision. It has that dreamy, too real sense to it. Yet my head still aches even through the vision.
I sit up, a mossy, soft forest floor beneath my hands. I can smell sweet rain and the deep scent of the earth. It's home. My woods, my father's woods, my grandfather's woods. Our hunting grounds. So often, in dream at least, I long to be here.
I turn my head. Next to me stands a boy. For a moment, my heart skips a beat as I imagine it is my own son. But I have not set eyes upon since he was a babe. And still I know he takes after his mother, gods bless him, not me. It's my younger self, hunting alone as I often did through these woods. The dark curls tugged well out of my eyes, bow in hand, barefoot, the scar on my leg fresh and deep and red. My father railed at me for that. Asked me why I would sustain an injury like that, then walk back on it as though it were nothing, when I could have been killed. Stubborn, I said I'd rather be killed than lose. He holds out little hope for me returning from war, needless to say.
My younger self looks at me and points through the trees. I frown. Of course it is not in fact my younger self. It is merely my vision of the person I would most trust to guide myself. Which is of course myself. My subconscious is accurate.
I follow my lead, stepping through the trees. My younger self and bow stay behind. I hold my hand out for the bow, but I shake my head. No. I must go alone.
I walk on. Pigs rush past me. not wild boars, domesticated, farm pigs. I nearly trip.
I'm standing in a castle, of some sort. And I realize I'm not alone.
My fellow warriors line the walls. All dead, and bloodied, bodies going purple from age, and lips and eyes swollen. I step back. All, dead? I recognize Aias, Peleus, even small Auto is there. Dead. And so many others, some I do not know by name. But if this is a prophecy why is a god not delivering it? No, don't let this be true.
I spin around. I can't escape. The corpses surround me. The pigs are feasting upon them. I try to move, push past, but they only move closer, trailing blood and all else upon me as I try to move past them. they crowd in, hands on my arms, faces pressing against mine. I hear rumblings of trapped souls within them, but nothing more.
"Goddess Athena! I call upon you! Free me from this vision," I cry, lifting a hand up as I desperately try to pull away from the bodies of the dead.
"You know it's no vision," she easily parts the sea of dead, her robes trailing in the blood on the floor but getting no stain. Her crystal grey eyes are upon me.
"Then why am I here?" I ask, panting, for she said it as though it was not true.
"These are the men who you've considered may die in your schemes," she says, nodding around as the corpses stare at us, dead boated faces rife with the pain of their deaths. At my hands.
"Yes," I nod, "And?"
"And I needed you to see them. After seeing them, like this. Are you still willing to sacrifice them?" she asks.
"If it meant winning? In a heartbeat, in less if it meant going home," I say, immediately.
"I knew you were perfect," she laughs, touching my cheek. "Perfect."
"You're saying---my plans could work?" I ask.
"It's only a dream. I'm not saying anything," she says, shrugging, "Who knows? I could be part of your dream too. If you have a vision, Eulises, you'll know it."
"Can I wake up?"
"Not just yet. I'm not in charge of dreams you'll remember."
"You probably got a contract for mine," I mutter, staring at the corpses.
"What was that?"
"Nothing, goddess."
She is gone again.
"Well men, good, battle um—sorry about your deaths I'm sure you're celebrated in Elysium? Right, they can't hear you," I say, nodding. There are hundreds of them. And no way out. I like to think fewer people die in my more successful plans. They do if they follow directions and aren't idiots, at least.