Pawns of Eris

A strange prickling sensation roused Arion.  Nine full days had passed since last he cuddled with Dordei in the night.  That solitude, combined with his dread of his coming appointment with Eris, kept him from the blissful depths of sleep.  Now a forbidding feeling disturbed him, yanking him out of his endless thoughts.  

     He could not tell for certain how far advanced the night was, but he thought he perceived a faint lightening in the sky to the east.  Squinting, he tried to determine if he was, in fact, seeing the first light of dawn when two hands came down on his shoulders, gently shaking him.  Startled, he whipped his head around, then sighed in relief. "Lysandra," he whispered.

     "Arion, it is time," she said, a strain in her voice.  "Mother has come."

     The formless goddess of chaos had arrived.  Arion thought he could feel his heart plunge into the pit of his stomach.  "Now?"  

     "We will be going into my cave."  

     Arion opened the sack containing the golden girdle and brought it into his hands.  Then he knelt down to pick up his scabbard. "No," Lysandra said. "You can take no weapon with you."

     "What for?  Surely Eris could not feel my humble blade!"

     "Call it a courtesy, Arion."  

     Lysandra lead him to her cave in the side of the mountain and stopped just outside the mouth.  "I cannot go with you. You must enter alone."

     Arion controlled his trembling and choked back his panic.  This was not the time for him to lose courage. "What must I do within?"

     "As much submissiveness as you are capable of showing," she replied.  "Pay my mother homage, Arion. Kneel, prostrate yourself. Do anything to indicate your humility in her presence."

     "I am so afraid, I do not think I could stand," he said.

     Lysandra stepped forward and took the king of Iphisia in a tender embrace.  "Your heart is strong and your spirit is noble, Arion. Be guided by your heart and your spirit.  May you be blessed." She nudged him into the cave.

     Arion had not moved far before total darkness consumed him.  Clenching his fists, he pushed deeper into the cave. Remembering Lysandra's advice to be deferential, he dropped to his knees and crossed his arms over his chest.  "Great goddess of discord, grant your humble servant but a moment!" He held up the golden girdle in his quaking hands. "I return to you your golden girdle as a token gesture of my submission and my respect for you, great lady of chaos!"  Breathing heavily, he lay the girdle on the ground and waited.

     "At the request of my beloved daughter Lysandra, I have come." Eris spoke in a hard voice.

     Arion prostrated himself.  "I thank you, lady."

     "You will not thank me for long."  Arion could sense her annoyance and her desire to be merciless.  "Why do you bother me?"

     "I come in the name of the nation of Iphisia and the Iphisiad people.  Goddess, as the king of Iphisia, I alone am responsible for the welfare of my realm and my people." Arion raised his head as his body lay on the ground.  "I am Iphisia, I am the Iphisiads. Do what you will with me, take your wrath out upon my own person. I ask that you lift your demand for human sacrifice from Iphisiaia, and cease the destruction of my country."

     "So you are the king of Iphisia?  You are far different from your predecessors.  None had an ounce of courage to their name."

     Hesitantly, Arion tilted his head.  "Whether it is courage or simply compassion, I do not know," he ventured.

     "I see you have brought me the golden girdle.  I am inclined to listen to a petitioner with such consideration for me.  It was stolen from me by Ares, and taken from him by the mortal wench queen Hippolyta.  But it is not meant to be worn or used by mortals. It is a divine object, for the use of the divine alone.  I might ask how the girdle came into your hands, Arion of Iphisia."

     Arion gathered his courage.  "I was fortunate to fall into the company of people willing to help me steal it for you from Hippolyta, Goddess."

     "Such as the Amazon princess?" 

     Drawing back at this surprising mention of Dordei, Arion agreed.

     "She is your wife?" 

     "She will be.  We are already wedded in the Delphic rite."

     "A fine couple, indeed.  You have pleased me well, Arion, but I am not satisfied.  My demands of you are greater." 

     And then, he found himself lying in the Pythian temple at Delphi.  Arion believed his mind was fairy well lost at this point, and he quaked as he anticipated how Eris would torture him in this setting.  As he looked up, he recognized the sacrificial altar where he had slaughtered the goat for the oracle ritual. None of the Delphic priests or priestesses were present.  Except for Arion, the chamber was wholly vacant.

     A strange knife appeared on the altar.  Arion saw that the handle was crystal and the sharp blade fashioned from some flashing, silvery metal.  "You say you will do anything to save Iphisia. I wonder just how true that is. Shall we find out?"

     Another figure appeared, stepping out from the darkness of an alcove, and Arion choked on his emotions.  "Dordei!"

     It was the Amazon princess, clad in a simple white gown that bared her arms and exposed much of her voluptuous bosom.  Tear stains marred her beautiful face, and she looked upon Arion with hopeless eyes, those shining emeralds faded to a solemn dullness.  Arion made to rush to her. "I am afraid not," the goddess informed him. "The only thing you will ever stick in Dordei again is this knife."

     "Speak to me!" he begged Dordei, but she remained silent.  "Let her go!" he insisted. "She is not a player in this game!"

     "I am not keeping her.  The Amazon princess is here of her own free will.”

     "The goddess speaks the truth," Dordei affirmed in a broken voice.

     "What are you doing here?" he demanded, his eyes brimming with his desperation.

     "Dordei and I have struck a bargain," Eris spoke as Dordei gracefully approached the  marble altar, her white-clad form ethereal as she moved across the ancient stones of the temple floor.  "She has agreed to her role in this act."

     Arion watched in growing horror as Dordei raised herself onto the altar and lay herself flat against the cold marble.  So overwhelmed was he that he actually dared to glower at Eris. "You will not touch her," he hissed.

     Eris' tormenting laughter resounded in the chamber.  "No, Arion, I will not touch her." The goddess paused, her pose intimidating.  "You will."

     Suddenly he felt the icy touch of Eris on him as she forced the knife into his hands.  This knife felt cold and forbidding, not strong and familiar like his sword, and it shook in Arion's trembling hands.  The goddess brusquely pushed him towards the altar, shoving him until he stood over Dordei. Despite his ardent entreaties, Dordei remained silent, keeping her eyes tightly shut.  Arion turned to Eris. "What will you demand of me?" he asked in a ragged whisper.

     "A choice," she replied easily.  "What is truly most important to you?  I burn to know, king of Iphisiaia. You must decide between your love and saving your nation.  Dordei or Iphisiaia will die this day."

     "No!" Arion roared, feeling his courage mounting.  

     "It is not in your power," Eris reminded him.  "Dordei has offered her own life to save your nation--quite admirable, I believe."

     Arion looked at Dordei, his eyes glistening.  "You have done this?"

     "I have," she said quietly, opening her eyes to gaze upon him.  "It is a small sacrifice to make for the good of so many."

     The Iphisiad clutched at his head, wracked with grief.  He buried his face in his hands, and dry sobs consumed his body.  How could he make this decision? How could he choose between Dordei and Iphisia?  He knew Eris was a cruel goddess, but he had not expected her to fall into such depths of cruelty.

     "Your time is short, Arion," Eris declared sternly.  "If it is your choice that I should spare Iphisia, you must slit the Amazon's throat with the knife I have given you.  If you choose your love over your nation, all that you have witnessed, all that I have shown you, shall befall Iphisia.  It will not exist beyond this day."

     Shaking, breathing with difficulty, Arion leaned over Dordei, tenderly caressing her face.  She had cried her tears already, and now she lay in resignation to whatever fate awaited her.  His eyes wandered to her lovely neck and he was again conquered by sobs. That neck--ah, Aphrodite, how many times had he kissed that neck, his kisses of love and homage and devotion?  Now the goddess of chaos demanded he take a knife to that very neck and allow the blood of the woman he loved to flow forth, freeing her immortal essence and murdering her earthly body.  Dordei's blood would deliver Iphisiaia.

    "Dordei," he whispered, brushing his fingertips against her cheek in the softest of touches.  "My Dordei, my beloved, what can I do? What can I do? Help me, help me decide. I will not act without your wisdom to guide me."

     Dordei regarded her consort tenderly, reaching up to touch his wet face, determined to console him.  "Arion, you know what you must do," she rasped. "I am but one person, and your nation is many good, innocent people.  Do not worry for Amazonia, for I know I have friends enough to keep my plans alive and family enough to find a suitable queen."  Her eyes watered. "Save Iphisiaia, Arion, and know I will always love you."

     He shook his head in panicked quandary.  "I can't! I can't kill you!" Arion could not slay Dordei, he knew he could not, not even for the sake of Iphisia.  The reasons against such a brutal act were more numerous than stars in the night sky. Iphisia was but a nation of mortals, while Dordei embodied the touch and the blessing of the gods themselves.  He suffered a new, acute twinge of agony as he remembered the Sibylla's news, that Dordei carried their daughter in her womb. How could he, a husband and father and lover and protector, murder his wife and child, even for the good of his nation?  And Dordei--no, she was goodness and innocence and selflessness. She was holy, she bore the kiss of a goddess. Such excellence as she could not die while such depravity as himself continued to live.  

     "You must," Dordei implored him.  "You cannot let so many die just for our love!"     Dordei's expression filled with tenderness. "Do you really think that death could break our bond?  We will never be free of our love, so long as the cosmos exist."

     "There is more reason than our love that stills me, my beloved lady." His tears wet her gown as he rested his head upon her rising bosom, arguing violently within himself.  Dordei insisted that he kill her and save Iphisia, and he never wanted to act against her wishes. But on this count, he could not comply. The world stood to lose too much in her death, he realized.

     "Do it," Eris encouraged.  "Slay her, Arion. You have her blessing.  Run the blade across her throat and witness the salvation of Iphisia."  

     "I will not!" he exclaimed, seizing upon a desperate plan of action.  He turned the knife on himself, grunting as he plunged it into his own heart.

     In the darkness that followed, Arion felt no pain, no death creeping upon him.  He could still see, he still had vision, and he knew he had come into the Void, the realm of Eris herself.  Had she taken his immortal being when he died? He clasped his hands to his chest and he felt no wound, no blood.  No knife had cut through his flesh. 

     "For Iphisia, the knife would be too easy," spoke Eris' voice from around him.