Modthryth frowned. "Do not blaspheme. You may anger the G.o.ddess. Do you want everyone in our village to die? Better one should die than all perish."
"Some people are saying that rain is caused from moisture in the clouds," Talaith said, startled at the boldness of her own reply.
Anger flashed in the priestess"s eyes. "How dare you speak so in the very temple of the G.o.ddess?" she said. "You may bring a curse on us all."
Talaith fell silent. She had been taught to fear the G.o.ddess, but she could not entirely push away the anger that smoldered in a corner of her heart. Younger people had other explanations about rain, but the elders would never listen. Which was real and which was not? Who was right? Her very life depended upon who was right.
"We want the curse to lift," Modthryth said, her face barely concealing the gloating cruelty she seemed to feel about having the power of death over someone she made defenseless. "That is why you will be given as an offering. The rain will come when you are given over."
Talaith was desperate to reason with the priestess. "My brother Pythius says rain comes when the vapor from the sun draws up from the sea and becomes too heavy for the sky, and so it falls back to the earth."
"Pythius sat at the feet of a philosopher who corrupted his mind. It is not wise to share these beliefs. You may offend the G.o.ddess and she may destroy your soul in Tartarus. Artemis is a stern and merciless immortal."
Talaith knew the legends about Artemis. The G.o.ddess could be cruel and vengeful. The priestess was correct, though, about where her brother got his new ideas. After Pythius studied a year with Herac.l.i.tus of Ionia, he ceased to believe in the G.o.ds-at least as they were presented in traditional myths and stories. During winter, when he did not have to work in the fields, he would tell her what his teacher had said. She listened as she carded wool or churned milk. His words struck fear in her, but at the same time she felt fascination and longed to hear more. A frightening thought occurred to her that moment: what he had whispered about the cruelty and capriciousness of the villagers had its ultimate proof in this sacrifice of her life.
The priestess"s subaltern came in the door and nodded. This meant the full moon was at its zenith. Modthryth turned to Talaith. "It is time. Do you have anything to say before you are delivered to the G.o.ddess?"
She considered blaspheming, cursing Artemis, or spitting on the priestess; and then she considered begging, falling on the floor and pleading for her life. She decided it would be pointless to do either thing. So instead she decided her last words would be brave ones. "If truly she is a G.o.ddess," Talaith said, her voice clear, "Artemis will spare my life. If she is kind and good, as she requires us to be, she will have no other choice."
Modthryth stared at her in astonishment. After a moment, she recovered. "Your words will be the destruction of your soul."
She chanted a prayer, anointed Talaith"s head with perfumed oil, and opened the door to the chamber.
The room was about four feet square. In the center sat a throne that looked to be carved out of solid stone. The ceiling was tall.
The priestess told Talaith to sit. She obeyed, taking her place on the roughly hewn throne. Above the lintel stood a bas-relief image of Artemis: ceramic, pale in its coloration, its design ancient. It looked down on her with the coldness of stone-like the coldness in the priestess"s gaze. Modthryth positioned herself in the doorway as if to block any attempt Talaith might make to escape.
"Blessings on you, Talaith, daughter of Polybius," she intoned. "Soon you will be in the presence of the G.o.ddess. Keep your eyes on her image. It is said that just before you depart your body and your spirit goes to join Artemis the Chaste, the face of her image will glow with light."
She stood a moment, face blank but full of determined maliciousness, and then stepped back. The door creaked shut. Darkness closed over Talaith, though she fancied she saw a faint glow on the face of the icon.
She looked around. She could see nothing in the darkened chamber. She tried to sit still to use as little air as possible. Then she thought how it did not matter. She heard noises and realized they were sealing the s.p.a.ces around the door with wax. However little air she breathed, soon it would be gone and she would die-no way around it and no getting out.
A tremor of fear ran through her. Artemis, she had been taught, saw and heard all. Though often kind and gentle, she also had a cruel side. She had killed Orion and turned Acteon into a stag so his own hunting dogs tore him to pieces. Would the G.o.ddess really be offended at Talaith"s lack of submission and condemn her soul to the tortures of Tartarus, as the priestess had said? Should she repent and plead for mercy?
Now unsure and afraid, Talaith considered asking forgiveness, but the thoughts her brother had put into her head would not leave. Pythius had said the stories about Aretmis weren"t true. Higher beings would be higher in their sentiments and ethics, he had told her, not just in their experience of time and physicality. She looked up at the image of Artemis. The glow on its face seemed stronger. Or did she only imagine this? Would the G.o.ddess send wrath to her or mercy? Which was it to be?
In the silence, she could hear her stomach growling from two days of fasting. Was there any way out? No, she knew that the room was secure because no one had even bothered to tie her up. She waited and tried to remember more of what Pythius had said, but it was hard to think. She was afraid, hungry, and exhausted. She concentrated, trying to pull his words from the store of her memory. His words mingled with the prayers she had memorized and praise and doubt became a confused muddle in her mind.
Soon she became aware of pressure on her chest. She wondered for a moment what was happening, but then she realized that her lungs were laboring to get her breath. Do not panic, she told herself, that will only make my body gasp harder for the air that is so precious and so limited. Despite herself, she began panting like an animal. The air in the room was diminishing.
She looked around desperately. The icon"s face...was it glowing? By the G.o.ds, was it true what the priestess had said about Artemis? Was her brother the one who was wrong? The visage slightly illuminated the interior of the chamber. Talaith could see the bricks and arms of the chair. She felt faint. Her legs throbbed and she gasped desperately, panic seizing her.
She stood up and staggered toward the door. She doubled up her fists to pound on it, but then, with a ma.s.sive effort of her will, restrained herself. No. She would not beg. What good would it do? Whether this was a murder for the sake of religion or a holy sacrifice, she wanted to die with dignity; it was all she had left.
She staggered back to the chair. Her ears buzzed and her arms convulsed. Feeling dull, stupid, heavy, she gasped and wheezed, trying to breathe. The icon"s face glowed brighter. A miracle, just as the priestess had said. The colors of the image blurred as she gazed up at it. The pain in her chest grew excruciating.
But then she realized something.
The moon was shining behind the icon of Artemis. No, that was not quite right; the moon was shining through Artemis!
Was that why the G.o.ddess glowed? Of course! They only held sacrifices on nights of a full moon.
When this thought crossed her weakening consciousness, she realized, in a flash, what caused the phenomenon. The G.o.ddess did not appear at the moment of death to claim the spirit leaving the body. The icon reflected moonlight that shone down on the temple. And to reflect it, it had to be open to the moon on the other side.
That was why the ceiling in here was higher than the rest of the temple.
And if the icon could be illumined by moonlight, it could not be very thick.
She felt herself fading. Breathing in tortured gasps, she desperately looked around for something to throw-a loose stone, a part of the chair. She could see nothing. There was nothing to throw. There was nothing!
She had figured out the truth, and she had figured out how to save herself, but she was going to die anyway. It was too late to find something to throw at the icon; she was out of air and so she was out of options.
She heard gla.s.s break. How had that happened? How had the icon shattered, when she had not been able to find anything to break it with? As those final questions entered her mind, Talaith lost consciousness.
She opened her eyes. The room glowed brightly with moonlight. Cool air flowed over her. She sat up. Was she in heaven, on Mount Olympus, in the dwelling place of Artemis? No. She was still in the sacrificial chamber!
And that meant she was still alive.
She felt a hand lift her up, but she was still too groggy to comprehend her new situation clearly. She gasped for air, and the freshness of a cool night breeze entered her lungs, reviving her. Rising to her feet, steadying herself against the stone chair, Talaith saw the shattered image of the G.o.ddess. The stars and the full moon gleamed through the opening of the broken face of Artemis.
Finally able to think, Talaith turned to see who was standing beside her in the chamber. Who had risked the wrath of the entire village to help a mere woman, a lowly member of society?
"We need to get out of this chamber," Pythius told her. "In fact, we have to leave the village entirely."
Talaith understood the implications of her brother"s words. She may have escaped death from the chamber, but now the villagers would want to kill them both as revenge for such a drastic breach of protocol. Neither of them could go home. "Where can we go?"
She felt something hit her back. Cold and heavy, it made her jump. Something hit her again; it was wet. She realized it was a rain drop. Huge and cold, the rain drops began falling all around her. Her arms went to gooseflesh as the rain began to soak the garment she wore. Raising her eyes, she did not see the moon, but silvery grey clouds. Sprays of rain poured through the broken image of Artemis.
She heard sc.r.a.ping sounds. They were pulling the wax out of the opening. The door would swing open in a few minutes. "They"re coming!" she cried. "The priestess thinks I am dead, so she is opening the chamber! She can"t see you here! Pythius, save yourself. Hide! I"ll take responsibility. I"ll tell them that I alone broke the G.o.ddess!"
"I don"t want to leave you," Pythius said.
"You must!" Talaith insisted. "You must, so that you can let the truth of science be told to future generations. We must end the useless slaughter of young women in this village. Tell them, Pythius, tell them! Tell the villagers that it rained without the G.o.ddess, for the G.o.ddess is broken. She is dead."
She pushed her brother through the broken opening at Artemis"s head from which he had come. Within seconds Pythius was gone.
Suddenly she chose a course of action. It might not work; the people of her village might think it an even greater cause to kill her, but she saw no other hope. Talaith bent down, picked up a sharp fragment from the broken icon, and slashed at her dress. She could hear them more clearly now. The door opened a crack. She finished tr.i.m.m.i.n.g her dress. She wished she was not barefoot, but had her boots. Thunder rolled and the ferocity of the rain increased. Reaching back, she untied her hair and let it fall over her shoulders. She put the tiara back on her head and stood up, trying to look fearless.
The door to the chamber swung open.
Talaith looked out at the crowd, which had expected to see her lifeless, suffocated body. Instead they saw her alive, standing tall. She had trimmed her dress so it was above her knees and revealed the curves of thighs. She had untied her hair so it hung on her shoulders. Talaith had made herself look the way Artemis was depicted in statues and images.
She waited, wondering what their reaction would be. They might think this a blasphemy, rush on her and tear her to pieces. She remembered how cruel and unbending the priestess could be. She waited, trembling inwardly, trying to look serene and unafraid.
The people of the village gasped, screamed, and shouted. Several women fainted. The priestess gaped. Talaith stepped forward, and a number of the villagers fell prostrate or bowed their faces to the ground. She saw her mother, standing toward the back, mouth open in astonishment and joy.
She looked at the priestess and then at the crowd of villagers.
"The G.o.ddess," she said, making her voice loud and clear, "came through the image on the wall. Breaking through it, she gave me air to breathe. She spoke to me. She took me into her service, yes. But I am to serve her on earth."
She looked out at the crowd of people she had known all her life. Talaith spoke the priestess"s name. "Modthryth!" People had always addressed Modthryth as "Lady Priestess," and never by her given name. They did this out of respect to her rank, but Talaith knew she had to play her advantage to the fullest. If anyone challenged her, it would be the priestess.
"Give me your cloak," Talaith continued, ordering the priestess. "I speak for Artemis now."
Without hesitation, the priestess unbuckled her cloak and handed it to Talaith, who wrapped it around herself.
"The G.o.ddess has confirmed that I am her chosen servant by sending us rain. I have much to tell, but for now I wish to return to the house of my mother and father. I will rest and then speak out what Artemis wishes me to say."
Rain beat loudly on the temple roof and ran in thick, silvery waterfalls from the eaves. The priestess knelt. All the people imitated her, kneeling in submission.
"Great is the G.o.ddess Artemis," the priestess said.
"Great is the G.o.ddess Artemis," the crowd echoed.
"And great is Talaith, her voice upon the earth."
"And great is Talaith, her voice upon the earth."
Talaith breathed an inward sigh of relief. It had worked. They would not kill her.
Her first action as leader would be to appoint her brother Pythius as a teacher to the young.
Stepping away from the chamber that had been instrumental for so many previous sacrifices, Talaith crossed to where her parents stood. The people parted for her to pa.s.s. Some bowed. Others touched her worshipfully. She kissed her mother and took her hand. The two of them walked into the rain, her father, the priestesses, and the villagers following her, away from the temple.
About David Landrum.
David W. Landrum teaches Literature at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. His horror/supernatural fiction has appeared in Sinister Tales, Macabre Cadaver, Ensorcelled, The Monsters Next Door, The Cynic OnLine, and many other magazines. He edits the on-line poetry journal, Lucid Rhythms.
David explains about The Chamber:.
The story takes place in ancient times. Pythius studied with the philosopher Herac.l.i.tus, who lived about 535 to 475 BC. The application of human sacrifice had started to wane by that time, but in rural areas it was still practiced. It would not be in Greece proper, but in one of their colonies in Asia minor.
Scott Nicholson.
The sky gave birth to night without a single moan, but Kelly Stamey knew her time wouldn"t be so easy.
She wrapped her arms around her swollen belly. How could you love something so much, something that you"d never even seen? How could you treasure this thing that carried the genes of one of the world"s all-time biggest losers? How could you go through all of this alone?
But she wasn"t entirely alone. She brushed back the curtains and looked across the cold, dark field. The strange shape bobbed among the sharp shadows of the October trees. The shape looked as if it had been carved out of moonlight with a dull knife. It was as tall as the fence that circled part of the farm"s property and half as wide as the potato barrel huddled by the barn door.
The baby squirmed, and the shape outside wiggled in harmony with the strange rhythm of the life inside her. Kelly shuddered and went away from the window. Bad things didn"t exist if you didn"t see them. Just like Chet. Out of sight, out of mind.
Except he wasn"t out of mind. And not entirely out of sight, either, if you counted the photograph on the TV set. It was one of those stiff, formal portraits that the Rescue Squad gave to volunteers at the annual fundraising potluck. Kelly, in what she called her "twenty-dollar redneck hair," looming behind Chet, her lipstick a little too bright, her hands folded over his checkered flannel shoulder.
Chet, grinning, a dark gap where he"d lost a tooth in a fist fight. Chet, chin up. Chet with the square and dull face that, if you didn"t know better, made him look like the kind of man you"d want working the Jaws of Life if you were pinned in a car. Solid and reliable. If you didn"t know better.
She turned the picture face down. She only saved it so that one day she could show the baby. "There"s your father," she would say when the child was old enough to wonder why he didn"t have two parents. "He." She was thinking of it as a "he" even though she didn"t know the gender, and certainly couldn"t afford a sonogram to find out.
And when the child asked what his father was like, well, she"d deal with that part when the time came.
The tangible reminders of Chet were mostly gone. He"d taken his fishing rods, his sweat-stunk sleeping bag, the neon beer light, his thick fireman"s coat. But still Chet lingered, insubstantial but stubborn, like that white shape out in the meadow. She expected him to walk into the room at any moment, cigarette dangling from his lips, eyes squinting against the smoke.
But he hadn"t walked these floors in months. The only walking he"d done lately was the away kind. Wasn"t no woman going to strap him down with a baby, no way in h.e.l.l. If it was even his, more likely a "Daddy"s maybe."
Chet didn"t believe in fidelity. He didn"t think humans could love, and sleep with, the same person for an entire week, much less a lifetime. So of course he would accuse her of straddling his fishing buddies. Every time he emerged from a drunken blackout to find her side of the bed empty, he immediately a.s.sumed she was working the springs of somebody"s Chevy. h.e.l.l, she was so low in his mind, she"d probably do it in a Ford.
Kelly turned off the lights and went up the creaking stairs. Her groin throbbed with ligament pain, and the baby elbowed her intestines to punctuate the other aches. She was breathless by the time she reached the top of the stairs. A draft blew across her face, like cool, soft flowers brushing her cheeks.
The house was over a hundred years old. The Stamey Place was crumbling and musty, but at least it was rent free. Other family members had worn out these floors, scuffed the stairs, chipped the door jambs. But they were all gone now. She was the last Stamey, not counting the one that twitched inside her.
The baby kicked again, harder, sending a sharp pain through Kelly"s bladder. Kelly didn"t want to go to the bathroom so soon after the last trip. The toilet seat was frigid. The heating oil had run out, and she didn"t have the money to refill the rusty tank out back.
From the bedroom window, she could see most of the farm. The moon spilled silver over the dark skin of the earth. A stand of brush marked the boundary of the creek, and the old Cherokee ceremonial mound was stubbled with cornstalks. The barn stood black and empty beside it. The Stamey graveyard was on beyond that, on a little rise near the forest.
The white shape hovered along the fence line, immune to the breeze. Kelly knew the thing didn"t belong here. Not on the farm, not on this earth. But she wasn"t afraid. In a strange way, the shape was comforting. They both haunted this same stretch of ground, both were bound to the Stamey place by the same invisible chains.
She"d first started seeing the shape around the time the morning sickness. .h.i.t. Only then it had been a thin smudge, transparent and nearly invisible. The shape had grown thicker, brighter, and more substantial as her belly expanded and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s swelled and Chet turned sullen.
She"d even tried to point out the shape to Chet. She"d almost called it a "ghost," but knew Chet would have nearly laughed himself sober. He made fun of her for going up to the family cemetery and paying visits to the dearly departed. Even a prayer drew a cuss and a laugh. He had no use for spiritual matters. To him, if you couldn"t smoke it, drink it, or stick part of yourself in it, then it didn"t add a d.a.m.ned bit to the day.
As Kelly watched from the window, the thing bobbed closer. Eight months old. But that wasn"t right. Ghosts couldn"t age, could they?
Her belly buddy squirmed. She began singing. "Hush, little baby, don"t say a-"
She left the melody suspended, the creaking house adding useless percussion. Because the next line started with "Daddy." Chet. He wouldn"t buy anybody a mockingbird, even if their lives depended on it.
She could always change the gender, make it "Momma"s gonna" do thus and such. But she"d lost the mood, and the baby had settled. Outside, the ghost also settled, a sodden sack of spirit.
Kelly climbed into the cold bed. She rolled into the cup of mattress where she and Chet had once cuddled, played, and made a baby. She wondered if she would dream of her baby"s gender. Some women did that.
The quilts were nearly warm by the time she fell asleep.
Kelly walked the frosted morning on her way to feed the chickens. She tugged up her oversize sweat pants as she went. Her breath hung in front of her, a silver miracle that died away to make room for the next. Breath like a ghost.
The chickens gathered around her feet, pecking the kernels she thumbed from hardened corn cobs. There might be a couple of eggs. The baby would like that. He always gave a kick of joy when that food energy flowed through the cord.
Kelly wondered if the ghost kicked each time she ate. Or did it feed from somewhere else? An umbilical cord for the dead, with energy flowing to them from the living. Invisible, with soul juice pumping into the amniotic sac of the afterlife to keep them from fading into nonexistence. Were they connected to one another?
The cemetery was only a couple of hundred feet farther. If she were careful, she could manage the frozen-dirt trail without slipping. Being pregnant helped her keep her balance, for some strange reason. Hard on the feet, though.