The Mask of Circe Read online

  For undoubtedly, I thought, I was a lineal descendant of Jason of Iolcus. It had been almost infinitely diluted by the intervening blood-lines, but the matrix was there and the matrix did recur. Stranger things have happened in the mysterious ways of inheritance. The same face, the same traits, the same mental make-up can duplicate themselves identically in a man’s great-great-great descendants. As mine had duplicated Jason’s submerged half.

  The genes and chromosomes, after the thousands of years, recreated the other half of Jason’s double mind: a mental matrix through which I slipped back to the unforgotten, the unforgettable memories that science hints lie buried in us all.

  I think Phrontis’ analysis of these two worlds was accurate enough. This one was negative as our familiar one was positive. Our world trends toward a norm; this one trended away from it. Perhaps the old Greek maps of their known world were more accurate than we think today, though they showed it flat and malformed, surrounded by an Ocean-Stream that poured constantly over the brink into infinity. Perhaps Argo sails an Ocean-Stream like that, inexplicable to human minds. Argo, Argo!

  I put that thought out of my brain firmly. Jason’s emotions no longer swayed me. I had Apollo to deal with. He and Hecate and the fauns and their kind were normal enough on this world, though their counterparts had not survived on ours when the time-stream parted.

  I did not know why Apollo and Hecate warred or why no other gods seemed to matter any longer. Where had they gone and why? And why did only these two remain behind? Whatever the answers, I felt quite sure this was no idle Olympian squabble such as legends record. They would have perfectly understandable, logical motives, once I discovered what they were.

  Super-powerful, yes—by our standards, but vulnerable to the right weapons. Still, I thought with grim amusement, not even gods like these could survive an atomic bomb!

  I didn’t even have a revolver. I didn’t need one. With the Mask and the Fleece, I’d be ready…

  Panyr’s hoofs clicked softly behind me in the corridor as I stood thinking outside Phrontis’ door. I smelled the musky fragrance of him and heard his breathing at my ear. I looked up. He was grinning.

  “Now what?” he asked.

  I squared my shoulders instinctively. The wine was buzzing faintly in my head, but I knew what I had to do. “The Fleece,” I said.

  Panyr’s gaze was dubious. “Do you know what a dangerous thing that is? Have you seen the Fleece?”

  “I want to. Now.”

  The old faun shrugged. “All right. Come along.”

  Busy priests looked at us curiously as I followed Panyr’s twitching goat-tail and clicking hoofs through the temple. But word must have gone out from Phrontis that I was to be indulged—within limits at least—for no one tried to stop us.

  A great many preparations seemed to be in progress. We left the private quarters and entered again the thronging public rooms, wide and busy as city streets, and I saw worry and strain on every face, dread, perhaps, as the Hour of the Eclipse drew nearer. I had almost forgotten that. Certainly it would have to enter into my plans.

  Twice we saw herds of noisy sheep and cattle being driven into enclosures where attendants with paint-pots gilded their hoofs and horns and hung their necks with wreaths for the sacrifices. The temple was full of the smell of incense being hurried in burning pots through the halls, slaves with armloads of spotless robes, with baskets spilling fresh flowers, with great pots of fragrant oil, all of them jostling one another on their errands and all a little pale and tending to start at sudden noises. Anxious eyes watched the sky from every window as they passed.

  The Hour of the Eclipse was approaching, and no one in Helios seemed very happy about it.

  After a devious journey Panyr led me up a winding stair and paused at last before a shutter in the high blank wall of a corridor far away from the noises of the more frequented chambers. He laid a hand on the shutter and looked at me doubtfully, hesitating.

  “You still don’t trust me,” I said. “Is that it?”

  He met my eyes steadily, and his voice was very serious when he said, “Trust and faith aren’t words to be bandied lightly. I’m old, Jason—very old. I know a trust that fails in one lifetime may, in the end, be well kept. When the acorn falls, it thinks the oak has broken faith. But when an oak forest covers the land—”

  His voice deepened, and I thought I heard in its timbre a primal strength, a vast vitality drawn from the earth itself.

  “Also, I who am half a god can wait to watch the acorn grow into the forest. I see more than you think. It may be that my plans have nothing to do with yours or it may be otherwise. You die in a few dozen years, but what you do now may change a world five thousand years from now. And I shall see that world, Jason—twin-souled Jason! It may be that I am using you and others as well, to shape a world you will never know.”

  “That may be,” I said. “Until I look on the Fleece—how can I help anyone?”

  He grinned. “All right, you think me garrulous. Perhaps I am. I have all the time in the loom of Clotho so I can afford to spin out my thoughts. But look on the Fleece if you must. And be careful how you stare!” He shrugged and pulled the shutter back.

  Daggers of golden light gushed through the opening, splashed upon the farther wall, filled the hallway with blinding brilliance. Panyr stepped back, shielding his eyes.

  “You look if you like,” he said. “It’s not for me.”

  I couldn’t, at first. My eyes had to adapt to that dazzling light and even then it was only by squinting and shading my face with both hands that I got a painful glimpse of what lay beyond the shutter.

  There is a garden in the Temple of Helios where the flowers of Apollo burn the eyes that behold them. There is a garden where roses of white fire blaze among leaves of flame, dripping droplets of molten sunlight upon a floor of fire. In the center of that garden stands a tree.

  Legend records that the Golden Fleece hangs on a tree guarded by an unsleeping dragon. How much less than truth was in the legend I could see as my eyes adjusted to that aching glare. It was an allegory, indeed, but the truth was far stranger than the legend.

  I saw the Fleece. It was hard to focus on in all that blaze of shimmering fire, but I could make out the shape of it vaguely, pure gold, burning like the flowers with an unconsuming flame. I could see the ringlets of its pelt, white-hot, delicately curling wires that stirred slightly when the tree stirred.

  There was no python in the garden, no scaled guardian. The tree itself was the dragon.

  I saw the sluggish writhing of its boughs, gold-scaled, flexible, sliding over one another in an endless, sleepless stirring. There were no leaves, but every limb was tipped with a flat triangular head that watched unwinkingly in the glare of the burning garden.

  I fell back into the comparative dimness of the passage, hands to my eyes. Panyr laughed. “Go in and take it if you like,” he said ironically. “But don’t ask me to gather up your ashes for Circe. Not even a half-god could walk in that garden now. Do you still want the Fleece?”

  “Later,” I said, wiping the moisture that welled to my smarting eyes. “Later, not yet.” Panyr laughed, and to stop the derision I said, “I mean it. I know how to get the Fleece when I need it, and when the right time comes I’ll take it. Meanwhile the Mask of Circe will have to come to Helios. Phrontis is sending a ship for me to get it. Will you go, or shall I?”

  Panyr reached out and slid the shutter closed. In the dimness it seemed to me his yellow eyes were faintly luminous as they searched mine. A vague uncertainty sounded in his voice when he answered me.

  “Perhaps you know your own plans. Perhaps you don’t. Only a fool would go to Aeaea to rob Hecate of Circe’s Mask. Do you think you won’t be torn apart by Circe’s beasts and half-beasts before you’ve passed the beach?”

  “I wasn’t last time.”

  “True, he said, studying me. “Well, no weapons must be carried onto the sacred soil
of Aeaea. If you go armed, you won’t have a chance. And a sword wouldn’t help you against the beasts anyway. It’s not my game. Play it yourself and pray for success.”

  I nodded. “Before the eclipse,” I told him, “you’ll see the Mask in Helios.” Privately I could only hope that was the truth.

  Chapter XI

  Aid From Hecate

  Gently the golden boat grated its keel on Aeaea’s sand. Oarsmen in golden garments leaped out to drag it up the beach and I stepped for the second time down upon the pale, cool strand of Circe’s isle.

  Fog hung here, as always, veiling the cypresses. I could hear the dripping of moisture among the trees. I thought eyes were watching me there, but I saw no sign of motion. My heart beat a little unevenly as I plowed my way up through the loose sand. Behind me the men from Helios watched in silence. I could expect no help from them. Aeaea was forbidden territory to Apollo’s devotees, and they had a healthy respect for the arts of the Enchantress.

  I entered the cypress woods alone.

  A voice shouted from far away as my foot touched the edge of the mossy grass where the beach ended. It was a hollow, echoing voice, as if the trees themselves were speaking.

  “He comes—he co-o-o-mes,” the voice cried distantly. And a shivering stirred the trees around me and ran outward until the cypresses moved as if in a strong wind. But there was no wind, and the mist still hung heavy around me, hiding whatever lay beyond.

  The crying of the hollow voice went on, but there were other voices in answer before I had gone a dozen steps. Wordless shouts, in voices that sounded half bestial and half human. And I was aware of the deep drumming, more felt than heard, that means hoofs approaching at a gallop. I went grimly on toward the center of the island where I knew the temple stood.

  The hoofbeats thundered nearer and nearer. In the fog the sound was confusing, disoriented. I could not tell if it came from one side, or from all sides. There were rustlings in the underbrush beneath the higher soughing of the trees in that wind I could not feel. Then I stopped short and my flesh crawled with sudden horror at the sound of a high, flat, laughing scream almost at my side. It might have been cat or human, or both. It might have been sobbing or laughter, or both. It set my teeth on edge as I stared around in the dimness.

  And then thundering hoofbeats were upon me and the world turned upside down. I gasped and floundered suddenly in midair, catching my breath against the rush of air as I was swept sidewise through space, strong arms spinning me effortlessly aloft, strong hoofbeats pounding rhythmically beneath me as the forest rushed past.

  Laughter, cold and inhuman, sounded in my ear. With a violent wrench I got my head around to see what it was that held me. I was looking into a man’s face, into flat-pupiled yellow-brown eyes with that same indefinable touch of the beast in them that dwelt in Panyr’s. The man spun me away from him again, laughing his cold, whinnying laughter, and I knew incredulously that this was no human. From the waist up he was man; from the waist down he was horse. With a shudder I remembered the wild savagery of the centaur tribes.

  The shrieking, catlike cry came again, and the centaur’s laughter rose in crescendo to meet it. I was whirled higher in the air and pitched suddenly free. The hoofbeats swept away into the fog as I hurtled head over heels toward the screaming that was cat and human at once.

  Mossy ground received me. Bruised and breathless, I rolled over twice and was somehow on my feet again, panting, wishing ardently for weapons. A little shape, darkly mottled, rose up in my very face, great arms outstretched and gleaming with claws like sabers.

  I looked into a wild, demented face that was neither human nor feline, but much of both. Then the figure lurched upon me in an embrace like a bear or a man; I felt the cold brush of the daws past my cheek and the velvety power that poured along that slick, hard body as we grappled.

  Hoofs clicked on rock and beyond the mottled shoulder I saw homed faun-heads flash jeering past, saw a flung rock hurtling by my head. The wind in the cypresses had risen to a roar—except that there was no wind. I knew it was the dryads of the trees, ready to defend their isle with falling boughs if need be. There was a hiss of seething water from somewhere nearby, where the oreads of the fountains lashed themselves into a mounting frenzy as the whole sacred isle of the goddess rose in its anger to repel me.

  Locked in each others arms, the tiger-thing and I crashed struggling to the moss. I knew I must not let go of it long enough for those terrible claws to double beneath me for the disemboweling stroke, and I strained the writhing, velvety thing to me in a desperate embrace. It screamed in my very ear, a deafening, terrifying sound that ripped my nerves as the claws were striving to rip my flesh. I shivered with an involuntary spasm, felt my hold slip upon that muscular, snakelike body, felt it writhe away from me—heard the gasp of snarling, triumphant laughter in my ear.

  “Jason—Jason beloved—do you hear me? Jason—come!”

  The sweet, distant crying was as clear as if there were no roar of trees or shrieking of wild voices here in the forest. Effortlessly it rose above them. “Jason—Jason, come to me!”

  With a sobbing breath the tiger body relinquished mine, rolled away. I got to my feet unsteadily, stared gasping around the clearing. There was a soundless flash of motion, and the mottled body of that which had been both beast and human vanished into the fog and the trees. The fauns’ brown shaggy limbs pranced and were gone with a click of hoofs and a chatter of angry voices. The trees soughed and were silent.

  “Jason—beloved—come!”

  Through a silence that echoed and rang in my dazed ears I stumbled inland toward that sweet, calling voice.

  There was no one in the clearing where the temple stood. No robed figures moved among the pale pillars in the fog as I went slowly up the marble steps and into the dimness within.

  No priestess stood before the altar. Hecate’s triformed image rose shadowy in its alcove above the unlighted altar. But light there was. No fire burned where the green flames had crawled before, but a green glow still hovered at Hecate’s feet—for the Mask of Circe stood empty on the altar.

  I paused involuntarily. And the Mask spoke again.

  “Jason, beloved—come forward.”

  The eyes were closed. The hair lay in coils and serpentine tendrils spread out upon the altar, hiding the white neck. The face was as lovely and inhuman as before, its smooth planes pale as alabaster, and glowing faintly with a greenish inward flame. Beneath the closed lids a thin line of fire glinted, as of banked embers within the Mask.

  “Jason,” the red lips murmured, and when they parted, green light glowed from within where that which had been Circe still dwelt waiting for Hecate’s promise to be kept over three thousand years.

  The eyes were closed, and yet in some indefinable way I knew she could see me, and perhaps see my mind and thoughts as well. I drew a long breath and said in a voice that sounded startlingly loud in this eerie silence:

  “Jason’s memories no longer rule me. I’m here again because I rule them now. I’m here to offer my help to Hecate if she hopes to conquer Apollo in the hour of the eclipse.”

  Stillness, ringing in my ears for a long moment. The Mask’s lips parted at last on a line of green fire, and the sweet, distant voice said, “What do you ask of me, Jason?”

  “The Mask,” I said.

  The green glow mounted and veiled the triformed goddess. The Mask faded and was gone, hidden by that eerie light. After a time a voice came again, not quite Circe’s, and not quite a voice, but ringing unmistakably in my mind.

  It said, “The Mask is useless without the priestess, son of Jason. You know that.”

  I nodded. “Yes, I do know that. But if I asked for the priestess too—to mend a vow I broke long ago-”

  “You were frightened of me then,” the voice whispered. “Your face was white whenever you stood before Hecate’s altar. Now you have found courage somewhere.”

  “Or knowledg
e,” I said. “Jason believed in gods. I

  There was a pause. Then, very strangely, something like laughter.

  “Son of Jason who betrayed me—I do not believe in gods either. But I do believe in certain other things, such as vengeance!” Now the soundless voice hardened.

  “So. I can speak to you without words because you have been close to Hecate, in your memories. But I can do no more than that. Without a priestess to give me vital energy, I cannot leave my own place and help you. The Circe is old—too old to give me that strength. If I drew upon her, she would die.

  “Nevertheless there may be a way. If you can force or trick Apollo into going to the secret place where I dwell, I can war with him. Matters do not stand as they did three thousand years ago, son of Jason. But since you will keep your vow this time—you say—then you may have the Mask. For I am tired of strife. If this ends in my own destruction, I do not care much. But it should end now.”

  The glow brightened.

  “Phrontis tricked you. When will the eclipse begin?”

  “Not for two days,” I said, but my throat dried as I said it. Two days!

  “Phrontis lied to you. The eclipse begins—now. Phrontis holds Cyane, who is unprotected; he holds her for a supreme sacrifice, if need be, to make Apollo turn his dark face away from Helios. As for you—three biremes wait half a league away from Aeaea, to seize you and take the Mask—and destroy it. The crew of the ship that brought you here has similar orders.”

  I said, “If I could dodge them, get to Helios somehow—”

  “There is only one road that will get you there in time. That way lies through my world, a world beyond this one as this is beyond your own. Now—”

  The green flames washed out from the alcove. They touched me—rippled beyond me. I was caught in the emerald glow.

  I saw a shadow—shadow of Circe—shadow of the Mask.

  The old priestess stood beside me, wearing the Mask.

  And then the light tightened about us like a net, lifted us, bore us away…