Bring Down the Sun (7 page)

Already among the crowd, people were moving in time with the chant. Polyxena's feet had found the rhythm; her body swayed of its own accord. The scent of the myrtle wrapped her about, drowning the smell of mingled humanity.

As she danced, faces whirled past her, crowned with garlands: male and female, old and young, beautiful and ugly and everywhere between. Dancers came together in circles and skeins, although a few went on dancing alone as Polyxena did.

Troas and her women spun in a circle, linked hand to hand. Polyxena's demure sister had let her hair fall out of its tight braids; it streamed behind her. Polyxena had not known she had such wildness in her.

A line of men danced and stamped beyond the queen and her maids. They were big men, liberally ornamented with scars; their hands looked oddly empty, as if they should be carrying weapons or shields.

Polyxena's eyes found the man in their center, stopped and stayed. He was not the tallest of them, but he was one of the broadest. His hair was thick and black; his beard was cut close. It was vigorous, though not quite as black as his hair: in the fitful sunlight it had a reddish cast.

His face behind the beard was blunt but well-cut, solid and strong. It matched the shape of him, his wide shoulders and muscled thighs. She would not have called him handsome, but he was all of a piece, with a compact, powerful grace.

Now that, she thought, was a man. Her first thought was of a bull, but
lion
fit him better. A young one, a little short of his prime, with his black mane still growing in and his body showing the last faint hint of youngling awkwardness.

He paused in his dance. His eyes lifted to hers. She had expected them to be dark; it was a shock to see that they were blue—as blue as the sky overhead, bright with a fierce intelligence.

They widened as he took in the sight of her. She had heard from the queen's women that a man's regard could make a woman feel beautiful. Under that hot blue stare, she understood how deeply true it was.

She was too wise to smile and too proud to look away. She held her head high under its crown of myrtle and deliberately, slowly, danced for him.

Eight

Even in her dance, Polyxena held to awareness of the world around her. It was a useful skill. Priestesses cultivated it.

She saw how the priests left the altar with the dance still whirling, and how a company of white-robed acolytes moved among the dancers. Those nearest the far side of the circle were led or herded one by one into a low stone temple.

She, near the midpoint of the crowd, had a while to wait, but her feet were light and her body tireless. The Mother was in her, filling her with strength.

The dark man had stopped his own dance to watch her. When the crowd moved, emptying toward the temple, he stayed level with her.

She let the dance slip into stillness, but kept the memory of it as she followed the flow of pilgrims. That was enough to keep his eyes on her. She was careful not to stare at him, though she was aware in her skin of his every move.

So intent was she on the dark man that the door of the Mystery took her by surprise. Troas and her maids had already vanished inside. The narrowing of the stream of pilgrims had shifted the dark man some distance behind her, but she could feel his eyes on her back.

She drew a steadying breath and stepped forward into darkness.

*   *   *

Slowly her sight came back. The space she stood in was old—as old as Dodona, and as holy. The walls around her had not stood so long, but they were built on ancient foundations.

Hands reached out of the dimness. She could just see the bodies beyond, dressed in white. They tugged at her clothes. She willed herself to stand at ease.

They stripped her with deft dispatch, poured gaspingly cold water over her and sealed her brow with blood from a much-stained bowl. While she stood with chattering teeth, the unseen servants covered her with a thin white robe that clung to her damp skin.

Polyxena was glad then that she had yielded to impulse and left the hatchling in the pilgrims' lodging, safe and warm in its pouch. When it was grown it would be a sacred snake, the Mother's beloved, but it was too young and fragile for this.

The hands led her across the ill-lit space. Shapes loomed in it, standing in ranks along the wall. They were carved of stone, squat and overwhelmingly old.

Half of them were female, each with pendulous breasts and pregnant belly and deep slit of the vulva. The rest were male, thick and bandy-legged, flaunting the rampant phallus. They were ugly and crude and irresistibly powerful.

“Here is the Mystery,” said a veiled priestess, taking shape beside her.

“Here is the truth,” said a priest who had not been there a moment before.

“Female and male, woman and man. The Mother made them both.” Their voices mingled, echoing in Polyxena's skull. “One cannot be without the other. They are all one.”

The priest slid something cold and strange onto Polyxena's finger. It was a ring, and it made her skin prickle. She stiffened against the urge to fling it off.

It was a thing of power. Once she had accepted that, it was easier to bear.

The priestess knelt and bound a long belt of linen about her waist. Its color was too dark to discern, but in sunlight she thought it might be crimson.

“Ring and girdle will guard you,” the priestess said as she rose. “Keep them close and tend them well.”

“Now you are initiate,” said the priest. “Praise to the Mother and the Son, the Great Gods and the Sacred Brothers.”

“Praise be,” the priestess said, half-chanting.

While they spoke, they led Polyxena through the temple. Just before they thrust her through the door, she dug in her heels. “I'm not done. There's a second rite, isn't there? I want that—I want more. Tell me how to get it.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” the priestess said.

And the priest said, “Do you know what you ask?”

“I know what I must do,” said Polyxena.

The priestess stood perfectly still. “You would pass the gates of death and face what lies beyond?”

“Whatever it is,” Polyxena said steadily, “I am meant for it.”

It was impossible to tell behind the veils, but she suspected that her guides exchanged glances. If so, there was no telling what those glances meant.

“Come with us,” the priestess said after a pause.

Polyxena's hands were icy, but the chill of fear only made her the more determined. She had come here for the Mysteries. She would stay for all of them.

Her guides turned aside from the door that must lead back to the terrace. Instead they sought one lower, smaller, and darker, that led down by rough-carved steps into the darkness.

The air that wafted up had a cold smell, like damp earth and old graves. Past the first handful of steps there was no light at all. Polyxena could not stop or turn: the priestess ahead and the priest behind kept her moving down into the darkness.

After what seemed a long while, the steps ended. She stood on what felt like packed earth, in a space that might have been as wide as a cavern or as narrow as a grave. When she stretched out her hands, they found only air.

Her guides had vanished. So, when she stepped back, then searched frantically with groping hands, had the stair. She was alone in the dark.

With a strong effort of will she slowed her breathing and quieted her heart's pounding. Maybe she should have explored her prison, but she judged it best to stay where she was and wait. She sank down on the hard earth, drew up her knees and clasped them and rested her forehead on them.

Time stretched until there was nothing left of it at all. The Mystery she had been shown ran through her mind again and again. It was the truth she had been looking for—though in accepting it, she had set herself against everything she had been raised to be.

She had already done that when she left the temple in Dodona. She sighed and closed her eyes—as little difference as that made in this place.

She let memory take her, as vivid as a dream. It gave her bright sunlight and fierce blue eyes and a strong-boned, broad-cheeked face.

Warmth flooded through her; her breath caught. Then darkness did not matter at all, nor was she lonely or afraid. He was with her as surely as if he had been there in the flesh.

*   *   *

She was almost sorry when a hand fell on her shoulder and a voice said, “Rise; follow.” Polyxena raised her head and opened her eyes, blinking in blinding light.

It was a lamp, flickering in a woman's hand. The priestess was veiled in white, faceless and all but formless. Polyxena rose stiffly, stumbling until she had her feet under her.

She had no sense of where she was or where she went. The light illuminated nothing beyond the priestess' body. The path on which she guided Polyxena went straight ahead and then sloped sharply upward.

Then at last Polyxena had the sense of walls: they closed in all around her, so that she had to stoop and crouch, then crawl on hands and knees. The taste of earth was in her mouth. Roots brushed her cheeks.

The priestess' light led her onward, but she could no longer see the woman who carried it. The tunnel narrowed until she wriggled on her belly like one of the Mother's snakes.

She began to wonder if she would be trapped here; if the Mystery was slow and suffocating death in the deeps of the earth. She was not afraid of death, though the pain of it might give her pause.

She pressed on as she did everything in this life, with all the strength she had. She clawed through roots and burrowed in earth.

She burst into light: moonlight, firelight, and the low hum of voices chanting. The mountain's shadow rose above her. The sea glimmered below. Robed figures surrounded her.

They all wore the dark belt that bound her own waist; on the finger of each left hand, the dark circle of a ring stood out, distinct in the firelight. Part of her recognized the lower terrace of the Mystery. The rest laid no single name on this place. It was all holy places in one, a long shallow curve of stony ground set apart from the world by the swift torrent of a river.

A figure loomed by the fire. Her heart stopped and then began to beat hard. He was tall, taller than a mortal man, and his horns spread wide beneath the moon.

The Bull of Minos waited for her, that mingled monster with his man's body and his bull's head. His shoulders were massive, gleaming as if with oil; his breast and belly were thick with curling hair. The phallus that rose at the sight of her was as great as a bull's.

She walked through a shower of fragrant petals. The garland of myrtle was still about her brows; its scent rose again around her, as strong as if the garland had been made new again. As she walked, her garments unraveled, falling away from her body.

She made no move to cover herself. Her skin was as hot as if she had stood in the fire. Her hair escaped the last of its knot and slithered down her back.

A shrouded priestess appeared in front of her, rising as if out of the earth. In her hands was a mask. It was old beyond age, carved of alabaster, featureless but for the slash of nose and the long slits of eyes.

It fit to her face as if it had been made of skin and not of stone. The age of it, the power that was in it, froze her briefly where she stood. If she brought down the mountains here, where would she go? What shrine or nation would take her?

The earth held its place. The power that filled her was pleased to stay within the bounds of her body. The Mother's arms embraced her. Whatever strength she had, this place was strong enough to contain it.

The Bull's horned head rose above her. The smell of him was pungent yet pleasant, compounded of sweat and musk and surprising sweetness: honey and thyme, sharpened with smoke.

Her hands ran down his arms. They were massive, but the skin was unexpectedly smooth. The heat of his blood matched hers.

He trembled under her touch. He was afraid: he, the great bull. She smiled behind the mask.

She was dimly aware of the circle in which they stood, the priests and pilgrims beginning a slow chant. The words did not matter. The sound was the spell, the slow rise and fall like the breathing of a great beast.

She had seen this in dreams. The oracle had given it to her, this vision, this truth that shaped everything she would be.

She laid her hands on the Bull's breast. His heart beat hard. So did hers, but she was not afraid. She was dizzy with exaltation.

This was the great rite,
Hieros Gamos,
the sacred union of the Mother and Her chosen. The Bull looked down at her with fierce blue eyes. She laughed aloud and mounted him there, locked her legs around his middle and took him deep inside her.

There was pain, but it was nothing. For every great victory there was a price. That was the world's way.

He bore her weight easily, held her in his strong arms and lowered her to the ground. It was softer than she had expected: grass grew in a circle there. Its sweetness mingled with his heavy musk and the sharp green scent of myrtle.

He wanted to take her as a bull the cow, but she would not suffer that. Face to face and breast to breast, like equals, they worshiped the Mother in all Her glory.

Nine

Polyxena sat enthroned in the Mother's stead, clothed in flowers. Priests and pilgrims brought her offerings of flowers and fruit, sweet cakes and strong wine.

The Bull and his companions danced for her. They put on armor and filled themselves with wine and danced the wild, clashing dance that was sacred to the Great Gods and the Divine Brothers.

It was a vauntingly male thing. Polyxena, raised in a staider observance, was mildly shocked. Yet her body loved the ferocity of it, the leaping and stamping and the clangor of bronze. When they raised their war-cry, she gasped; then she laughed.

It was a splendid noise before the Mother. But they danced it for her—for Polyxena, the living woman behind the Mother's mask.