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2001 HistoryWalker Ghost Story Contest runner up |
Epistate's Ghost Story in Four Parts by Epistate
Long before the time of Perikles, when the city of Athene was still poised on the brink of the greatness that it would one day achieve, Artemis's best-beloved worshipper was an Athenian youth by the name of Lykos. Well-born, wealthy, and beautiful, Lykos radiated such shining perfection that all his friends (and many of the young women of the city) playfully nicknamed him "Lyknos," which means "a light" or "a lamp." But one should never forget that he was a "lykos," a wolf, underneath. Part Two: Chrysippe At the funeral, which was indeed a splendid one, the dead man's daughter Chrysippe joined her mother in carrying the libations at the head of the procession. Mindful of Solon's injunction against ostentatious mourning at funerals, even for a beloved father, she bravely blinked back her tears and tried to distract herself by surveying the other mourners. When her eyes fell upon Lyknos, Artemis's radiant young wolf, she found that she could not look away. It was the first time she had ever seen her handsome cousin in the light of day, and his beauty struck her in the heart. She was in love before she even felt the sting of Eros' dart, but being a modest young woman--and one who had just lost her father, at that--as soon as she realized her feeling she was deeply ashamed. Part Three: Athene As Chrysippe's health declined and Lyknos returned to his morbid lifestyle, the gods on Mount Olympus took notice. The next night, as Lyknos went to meet his friends at the Kerameikos, he suddenly found his way barred by a blaze of light. He shielded his eyes, weakened by lack of exposure to daylight, but even with his eyelids closed he could clearly see the shape of the fully-armored Athene in the light's center. She was within his mind as well as in his sight. Part Four: Panainos Years went by. Then centuries. Chrysippe died of old age, and the man with no family was forgotten. The bronze statue, incredibly lovely, incredibly lifelike, was sold to a rich man to decorate his house. The rich man's house fell to rubble, and the statue passed into the hands of other rich men.
Part One: Lyknos
His parents died when he was very young, leaving him to the care of an indulgent uncle who permitted him to do almost entirely as he pleased.
When he was in his early teens, this young wolf cub of Athens used to slip out of his guardian's house before dawn and head for the Kerameikos, the cemetery outside the city walls. He would run past the funerary monuments, hurry down the sacred way, and ford the river Eridanos in his eagerness to get out of the city and spend the day hunting in the wilderness. The first fruits of his hunting expeditions were always sacrificed to Artemis. The goddess smiled on the boy, and he grew up straight and strong.
As the years passed, however, and he left the shelter of his genial uncle's home to live on his own, rumors began to circulate that Lyknos's trips to the Kerameikos were no longer so innocent. He had fallen into the habit of morbidly contemplating the graves there, and he was drawn more and more to Artemis's sinister side, which manifests itself as the goddess Hekate. He felt Hekate's presence in the dark of the moon. He haunted the crossroads, where her power is said to be strongest. No longer did he rise at dawn to greet the morning. Instead, he rose in the middle of the night and took a torch with him on his trips to the cemetery, arriving hours before dawn to engage in what mysterious rites nobody knew.
Eventually he fell in with unsavory companions, a group of devotees to the dark goddess who--it was widely supposed--were attempting direct communication with the supernatural. As in everything he did, Lyknos quickly rose to the top and assumed the leadership position in this macabre conclave. Clad in a dark, muffling cloak, he would leave his house at sunset and head for the Kerameikos, worshipping Hekate with his companions and hunting the nocturnal animals that lurked among the looming monuments. A few hours after sunrise he would return to his home, where he would fall into an exhausted sleep.
One day, a messenger came to the door and informed Lyknos that his uncle was dead. As the youth had grown increasingly secretive and less active in community life, the two men had grown apart. But they had once loved each other, so Lyknos honestly mourned and prepared to take his place as the head of the family. He sent gifts to his bereaved aunt and cousin and made plans for a splendid funeralÖand, of course, a splendid stele to commemorate his uncle's life.
At the same time, he felt a sense of release, as if with the death of his uncle his own tenuous ties to the world of the living had been abruptly loosened.
In the days after Chrysippe's father's death, Lyknos often visited his aunt's house with small gifts and dutiful inquiries about the family's well-being before he headed off for his nightly trips to the Kerameikos. He frequently seemed distracted, longing to be gone, but his distant, mysterious air only increased the lovesick maiden's obsession.
As she was thrown continually into his glamorous presence, Chrysippe began to waste away with longing. At last her mother upbraided her for her excessive mourning. "It's right to be sad, but you cannot entirely give up on life," she chided the girl. "Perhaps it's time we found you a husband. If you had your mind set on marriage it might distract you."
At the mention of marriage, Chrysippe started to wail. "Oh, no, mother! Please don't make me leave my family! I wouldn't be able to bear it!"
"It's your duty to marry, my daughter," the mother said gently. "I will speak with your cousin Lykos and ask him to arrange a marriage for you."
Chrysippe grew pale at the mention of her cousin's name, and her sharp-eyed mother watched her expression, suddenly realizing that the girl had been behaving very strangely in his presence. "Here, what's this? My dearest, don't tell me you've set your mind on Lykos! He's a wolf through and throughÖhe wanders the graves at night and indulges in unspeakable rites! They say he's pledged his soul to Hekate, that he consorts with the spirits of the dead!"
But Chrysippe, whose innocence could only see her cousin's matchless beauty, dissolved into tears and would not be comforted. At last the unfortunate widow, fearful that she might lose her daughter as well as her husband, agreed to approach Lyknos about the subject of marriage with Chrysippe.
"It's your duty to marry," she said to him upon his next visit, mindful of the fact that she had used much the same words to her daughter with disastrous results. "You are the head of the family. And Chrysippe is your uncle's heiress. It's necessary to keep the family's wealth in the family."
Lyknos shook his head disdainfully. "I shall never marry," he informed her. "I follow the virgin goddess Artemis. What have I to do with women?"
"Don't scorn women and marriage, nephew. Remember Theseus's son, Hippolytus. He too was a follower of Artemis, and his neglect of golden Aphrodite led to his downfall."
"That's a myth!" retorted Lyknos.
"Don't be so sure," his aunt said darkly.
And there the matter rested.
"It's horrid," Aphrodite remarked. "We can't permit this young man to destroy his entire family. If he doesn't reproduce, and his cousin dies, they will all have died out."
Athene nodded grimly. "Young people must marry. The continuation of civilization depends upon it."
"But he's protected by Artemis. How can we interfere with him?"
"I'll deal with Artemis."
"Beware, Lykos of Athens," she thundered. "You must marry."
"I cannot!" he cried out. "I've made a pledge."
"Your pledge is a fool's bargain. You seek power, you seek communion with spirits because you fear your mortality, but self-abnegation is not the way to power or immortality. The only immortality for man is in his children or his fame. If you continue to follow the dark path down which you are proceeding, you will have neither."
"I've made a pledge," Lyknos repeated in a low voice.
"Marry Chrysippe within three days' time," ordered Athene, "or you'll be struck dead where you stand."
The young man's jaw set defiantly, and he lowered his hands from his eyes to gaze full upon the goddess. "I'll marry her," he agreed, "but I will never touch her. She'll have no joy from me!"
As Athene swelled with wrath, Artemis, watching from Olympus' height, turned her head away in grief. She stroked her beautiful new bow and arrows, Athene's gift, and dropped a single tear. It was terrible. But what could she do? Before the combined forces of both Athene and Aphrodite, she was powerless.
The wedding was a hurried affair, forced to fit the requirements of Athene's three-day limit. It lacked the splendor of the funeral that had taken place so recently, and beneath her enshrouding veil the bride's blushes were an admixture of her joy and her shame at the ceremony's shabbiness and haste.
Lyknos's disreputable friends accompanied the procession through the dark streets of the city, the torchlight flickering on their pale, wild-eyed faces that had not seen the sunlight in many months, playing music on their lutes in a strange minor key that set the spectators' teeth on edge.
At last the procession was over, the chariot axle was burned--the bride was now a part of the household, never to return to her mother. At the nuptial feast, the groom refused to touch her, or even to look at her. As the flute girls drew near, ready to play the traditional hymns to Hymen, he frowned darkly. "Play a hymn in honor of Artemis, instead," he ordered. The wedding guests gasped.
Suddenly the room lit up, and Athene appeared, visible to everyone as she had appeared to Lyknos three nights before. In the small, interior space she burned with a dazzling brightness that reflected off the walls and the very beams of the ceiling until the guests felt dizzy. "Beware, Lykos of Athens," she warned once again. "This must be a true marriage, not the fruitless mockery you are planning."
Lyknos's friends turned to him with anxious faces, horrified at the thought that their leader might break his vow. Their expressions gave him strength, and he was emboldened to speak out in defiance.
"Never," he said quietly.
"Then hear this, Lykos of Athens. Since you are so fascinated by supernatural horrors, you shall become a supernatural horror yourself. Since you long to be hollow and barren, you shall become hollow and barren. You will become a bronze statue from this day forward. Eternally tortured by the pangs of love, you will find yourself unable to fulfill your desires. Since you eschew the healthful light of day, it is only by the light of day that you will be able to feel alive. Lyknos indeed! There's no light in you. There never was."
As the goddess spoke, the young man's warm, pale flesh hardened into dark, cold bronze, the wedding fillet still fused to his head. The bride cried out and ran to him, but it was too late--she found herself clutching a lifeless sculpture in the shape of her beautiful cousin.
They laid Lyknos out as if for a funeral, with the wedding flowers heaped up on his makeshift bier and the wedding cups tipped to make improvised libations. Chrysippe sat up with him all night, clinging to the cold bronze hand that never reached for her in life. When the first rays of sunlight penetrated the atrium where he had been laid, a sudden animation seemed to enliven his countenance--a trick of the light, perhaps? But no?he eyes suddenly opened and the accursed husband, unable to move any other part of his frozen body, gazed upon his bride. In those eyes she beheld the soft, loving expression she had despaired of ever seeing there.
"My beloved!" she wept. "I'll be faithful to you to the end of my days!"
And she was. And the family line of Lyknos and Chrysippe ended with them.
A strange phenomenon occurred every time the bronze image changed hands. Whenever the statue was moved too near a window or outside door, the current owners felt a nameless horror every time a beam of sunlight glinted off its perfect planes. Was the sculpture too realistic? Too intense in its expression? Whatever the case, the horror dogged them until they moved the beautiful bronze to a more protected area lit only by the softness of artificial light, where it quietly slept until the next time.
During the city's defense against Rome, the statue was called into service by the Athenian army, who coveted its valuable alloy to melt into weapons. The owner was a patriot, and he had far too much to lose if the Romans were successful; he gave up his magnificent possession without hesitation.
"A pity to spoil such a lovely head," remarked the general, admiring the exquisitely modeled face. So the head was sawn off to make a bust, and the graceful body was melted down. Lyknos didn't feel any pain; he was beyond pain.
When the Romans were triumphant and plundered the city, the occupying general took over the home of his Athenian counterpart and moved the bust to a niche beneath a window. Perhaps his Roman blood was less sensitized to the aura that surrounded the statue, or perhaps he was merely hardened by battle, but the horror did not affect him.
His timid new bride was frightened of the bust. She claimed its eyes were alive. She swore they followed her everywhere, gazing upon her with lustful intent as she moved around the room. Eventually this evidence of a superstitious nature on her part created a division between her and her fond husband. When the husband died some years later, she vengefully wedged the head into a block of stone and poured concrete around it.
"Lie there!" she cried, as she buried the block in the back garden. "And good riddance to you!"
More centuries went by. A thousand years. Two thousand. Then, when the Athenians wanted to build a railway, they sent a group of archaeologists to excavate the potential site before it was lost to construction. Many fascinating antiquities were dug up, but one of the most puzzling was a bronze face set into a block of stone. Why had this lovely visage been so savagely mutilated? What would possess anyone to embed it into a rock like that?
The antiquities were sent to a museum and the railway was built. Then one day, not so long ago, Panainos visited the museum and gazed with a puzzled expression at the face in the stone. Under the gentle, glare-free museum light, it gazed back at him with a timeless serenity, its trouble long past and emotions long purged.
Panainos took a photograph.
His camera flashed, for a fraction of a second lighting the gallery as bright as day.
And Lyknos opened his eyes.
2001 © Epistate, HistoryWalker, Ankohouse and Pallas Design. All rights reserved.