Becoming: Dancing with the Lion, Book 1, page 29
Some of the boys were in danger of getting lost, floundering about in the dark. “Don’t run off,” Alexandros called, and they returned to where he waited.
“What d’we do?” one asked. It was too dim to see faces clearly but their skin glowed pale like shades, or the white of bone. For an instant, Alexandros smelled death.
He shook it off. “There’s obviously a point to all this. They expect us to run around like chickens with the heads cut off. So we don’t do what they expect.”
“What do we do, then?” It was Marsyas. Having been at Mieza, he was used to looking to Alexandros for direction.
“We go back in an orderly fashion.” He didn’t like manipulation, even for initiation into the god’s Mystery, and the forest tonight was just too creepy.
Behind him, something jumped howling from the bushes.
Spinning, Alexandros leveled his spear at the threat, but half the boys bolted. “Blast it! Stay together!” Yet even as he said it, more figures screeched out of the underbrush all around, and terror-stricken, the remaining initiates ran.
He was no less afraid, but he bit it back behind clenched teeth, facing down the shadow that hunkered in the lee of a thicket. He brandished his spear. “Back.” The shadow was bulky for a man, with great, bearlike shoulders. It growled and swung a spear. He blocked. The crack of connection should have been loud, but the misty damp swallowed sound, giving it back in muffled echoes. There was little light now, the sun having disappeared behind the mountain range, bringing swift darkness. Yet violet phosphorescence lit the fog, etching each leaf and branch in a wine hue.
For just an instant, Alexandros thought he glimpsed another figure behind his attacker. Long black hair curled around two blunt horns above goat-slit eyes: black rectangles in moss-green irises. Those uncanny eyes were the clearest feature; they met his with cold curiosity, at once devoid of anything resembling human sympathy but also ineffably sad. That remote melancholy scared Alexandros far more than any man with a spear dressed up in a padded cloak. To control his fear, he did what he always did. He attacked. “Ailailailai!”
“Oa!” said the bulky shadow, even as a second figure rammed into Alexandros from the side, knocking him down in prickly forest loam. Rocks scratched his bare knees, but he managed to keep a grip on his spear as he surged back up, point leveled at his attacker.
“Hold!” the second figure ordered, tearing the spear from his grip and striking him on the arse with it. “Stop fighting and go where you’re told!” Angry, Alexandros held his ground. The voice sounded familiar.
The shadow shoved at him. “Move it!” Alexandros didn’t move. “Herakleis, Alexandros, march! This is an initiation, not a forest fight.” He placed the voice then: Parmenion. Feeling sulky, he went where herded. At least the horned figure had disappeared.
Finally they came to a clearing. The other boys had been rounded up there like sheep in a fold, divested of their spears and hemmed in. Some were clearly frightened out of their wits; a few sat huddled on the ground, others were angry, like Alexandros. It pleased him to see that Marsyas was one of these.
Torches had been set on poles at the clearing edge, casting eerie shadows on the figures who guarded the boys, spears propped upright. Or—Alexandros could see now—they weren’t spears at all, but thyrsoi, the pine-cone-topped staff of Dionysian celebrants, and the men were dressed in long cloaks and satyr costumes. That was why they’d seemed too large for men.
Using his mind to analyze everything allowed him to keep anxiety at bay.
Apparently, he was the last to arrive. They pushed him, none too gently, into the circle center. “Take heart, boys,” he said to the rest. “None of this is for real.”
“Be still.”
Their captors stepped forward in pairs, grabbing one initiate per pair and binding his hands behind his back. Alexandros submitted to the indignity, even held out his arms a little to make it easier for them. It cheated them of the chance to rough him up. The binding was done in a silence that was meant to be menacing, but Alexandros’s words had put courage back into his fellows. The frightened ones had quit crying and the angry ones followed his example. After their arms were secured, they were blindfolded as well, and a cup was pushed under Alexandros’s nose. “Drink.”
It smelled musky-sharp with a mix of wine and some plant. “What’s in it?”
“Drink,” the man said again.
“Not till you tell me what’s in it.”
Alexandros’s head was grabbed and craned back, then someone held his nose shut and forced the wine down his throat. He gagged. Half went down his chin, but they just gave him two cups’ worth. When they let him go, he sputtered and cursed, but they grabbed him again and spun him around rapidly several times, then shoved him forward. Someone hit him on the back with something, and he heard a whip crack. Then another, and another. The thong of one caught his calf, stinging worse than a bee. “Ai! Ai!” men shouted. “Step out!”
The boys stumbled forward.
Alexandros’s hearing strained in surrogate for deprived vision. The night was full of noise: the buzz and trill of insects, the hoot of an owl, the rustle of feet in the underbrush, men’s voices, and the crack of whips. Now and then, one bit Alexandros again whilst branches pulled at his clothing and thorns scratched his skin.
As he walked, he began to feel turned inside-out, like a khiton donned carelessly in the dark, and he wondered again what had been in that wine. Sound grew louder, smell sharper, and light danced in colored motes behind closed lids; it all bled richly into a riot of the senses. By contrast, his thoughts fuzzed and his mind made mental serpentines. Stone replaced dirt beneath his feet and some sixth sense told him there were walls about him now. The path began to slope down and he could smell mildew and rot. They’d entered a cave.
Tripping on a rock, he staggered. Around him, he could hear others suffering similar effects. Gravel grated beneath their heels and breath came heavy. Another boy, whimpering, collided with him, and they leapt apart like startled hares.
He could tell when the walls opened out and light seeped under the blindfold edge. Running water gurgled. He stumbled to a halt and no one pushed him on. After a moment, his blindfold was yanked off, but his hands were left tied. He blinked and squinted in the bright fire of torches. They occupied a small cavern where an underground stream ran to one side, a rope bridge suspended above. Darkly glittering stalagmites and stalactites circled the open center where they stood, corralling them. Bat guano dotted the ground.
The satyrs were gone; in their place stood tall, chalk-white Titans. It was they who’d wielded the whips and rods. Alexandros tried to count them but couldn’t remember what followed eleven. One came forward to take hold of his khiton front and rip it. He jumped in spite of himself. Another cut his belt from his waist whilst the first continued tearing until the cloth hung in tatters. Each of the initiates was being subjected to the same as, from across the bridge, a new figure approached, dressed in white with a skull-head mask. Torchlight made caverns of the eyeholes and on one shoulder sat a raven. Stopping before the boys, he said, “I am Kharon. I’ve come to prepare you for death.”
Alexandros bolted. That sudden movement brought an explosion from above as night descended in a horror of black flapping wings. Boys shrieked and Alexandros threw himself to the floor. Unable to break his fall with his hands, he struck his face and shoulder on stone. Time fractured like shattered pottery.
After a while it grew silent again except for a low chuckling. Alexandros glanced up. Kharon was laughing.
Two Titans jerked Alexandros to his feet, and his world narrowed to the approaching figure of Kharon as his mind struggled against itself like a pheasant caught in a net. The smell of wet mildew was overpowering, and torchlight off stone merged into a silver-gray-black spectrum at the edges of his vision. He could feel blood drip down his cheek, and all his will bled out with it, pooling onto the cavern floor and miring him there.
Kharon stopped in front of him; the raven cawed once. “No man escapes death,” he said, then methodically smeared Alexandros’s face and body with clay chaff from a pail. His touch was as gentle and dispassionate as the eyes of the goat-man in the forest, and Alexandros shuddered beneath it. When Kharon was done, he cut the cords binding Alexandros’s wrists, then moved on to the next initiate as the whole line watched like hares hypnotized by a serpent.
When Kharon had finished, he pointed towards the bridge. “Now, you cross the Styx.” Half the Titans had formed a corridor of bodies along the bridge, a gauntlet, leading up to a tunnel on the other side. Hidden by a cleft, Alexandros hadn’t noticed it before. The remaining Titans moved in behind to cut off escape as Kharon waited at the foot of the bridge. Behind the boys, a whip snapped, and Alexandros realized he could go gracefully, or be forced like an animal. He walked forward; Kharon stopped him. “What will you pay?”
Pay? Alexandros blinked. He had no coin for the ferryman, had nothing at all besides the clothing on his back, and barely that now. Then he noticed Kharon staring at the initiate’s necklace he wore: the painted terra-cotta ivy leaf on a leather thong. Understanding, he reached up to remove it, handing it over. Behind him, one of the Titans grabbed his torn tunic and ripped it all the way off so that he stood naked at the foot of the bridge. He didn’t look back, eyes fixed on the waiting corridor of men as the stream rushed by beneath, as loud as the heartbeat in his ears.
Exploding forward in a mad dash, he caught the Titans by surprise and was past the first few before he felt the fall of a rod. Yet the drug had muddled his mind, slowing his responses and confusing his balance. The rope bridge swayed, and each time a rod came down across his back, he staggered. The pain, however, felt distant, as if it happened to another’s body. He focused on the tunnel beyond, a black maw of relief.
Then he was inside, and cool darkness enveloped his naked body. His entire back burned and stung, and his own blood smelled sharp in the closed space. He wondered if the strikes would scar. He’d look like a beaten slave.
He felt his way along the damp wall towards a red light at the other end. Behind him, the screams and shouts of the other initiates echoed off stone as each made his run through the gauntlet.
“Aleko?”
Marsyas’s voice. He must have gone second. Turning, Alexandros extended a hand to his friend, who took it. They went on together. “Are you badly hurt?” Marsyas asked. “It looked like they hit you hard.”
Alexandros shrugged, then, realizing Marsyas couldn’t see, said, “How often do they get to beat a prince?”
Marsyas snorted.
They’d reached the tunnel end. It opened on yet another cavern, larger but dull and dim. Alexandros felt as if he really had stepped into the gray realm of the shades. He paused just outside as, behind him, other boys arrived by ones and twos.
Red light came from a large hearth off to one side. Above it, suspended on a tripod, hung an enormous cast-iron pot. Steam rose from the contents; it smelt like scorched milk, and smoke escaped through a crevice in the ceiling. Firelight barely illumined the walls, which seemed to be pockmarked here and there by small recesses decorated with huge, ithyphallic figures having the bodies of men but the heads of beasts: goat, leopard, stag . . .
Shoved forward abruptly, Alexandros fell to his knees on hard stone and several boys fell atop of him.
“Move!” said a voice from behind. The Titans had followed them up the tunnel and now pushed them into the cavern. A torch flared across the room, bathing one of the recesses in yellow light. Alexandros glanced up through his straggling hair.
On a rock throne sat a figure dressed in black: black hair, black beard, black cloak, black eyepatch. The face was painted the color of blood. Rising, he called out, “Welcome to Hades’s hall!” and brandished a spear. Titans hauled up the boys, pushing them towards the Lord of the Dead, who, without warning, charged them all.
Alexandros ran for a second time, but the tunnel behind was blocked by Titans who shoved and struck at fleeing boys. Turning on his heel, Alexandros raced in another direction, headed for the safety of a shadowed recess.
Hades stepped out of it, laughing like a mad thing.
Alexandros didn’t scream. Drug-induced terror had closed his throat. Instead, he fled again whilst Hades veered off to threaten a second boy. This one did scream—a high ululation that shivered down Alexandros’s spine—then collapsed onto stone . . . apparently in his own piss, given the smell.
“Don’t kill me,” he whimpered.
Alexandros halted in his frantic flight to stare. Standing over the huddled boy, Hades very deliberately raised the long spear.
A body interposed itself between—a satyr. Where had he come from? “Who interferes?” Hades bellowed.
“Dionysos,” the satyr said in a loud voice. “Dionysos speaks for this one.” Standing behind the satyr, Alexandros saw again the horned figure from the forest. He was too large for a man and indistinct at the edges, like a reflection seen in deep water. A stone would shatter it. He held up a restraining hand, but there was nothing kind in those pale-green capric eyes.
Abruptly, the horned god swung his head to look at Alexandros. Blinking once, he smiled, and fear pierced Alexandros’s breast. This was what it meant to come face-to-face with an immortal: better never to be noticed at all.
The Hades figure had lowered his spear and now he, too, looked towards Alexandros charging him a second time. Alexandros fled to the concealment of a shadowed nook, plowing into a body already hidden there. The other boy grunted.
Hades charged after, grabbing Alexandros by the hair and hauling him out, casting him onto the cavern floor. Once again, stone scraped his bruised knees, and he stuck an elbow so hard the pain edged his vision with white, but he rolled onto his back as quick as a cat, feet drawn up to kick. The Hades figure stood above, spear poised for the finishing stroke. The whole world spun crazily, light fracturing and dancing around the towering figure. Squinting, Alexandros looked up directly into the red face.
It was his father.
Philippos grinned, showing teeth. “Hello, boy.”
Inside Alexandros, something snapped and blinding fear became blinding rage. “Are you enjoying this?” he screamed, surging up, heedless of the spearpoint leveled at his chest.
Philippos moved back quickly to avoid skewering him, and someone else grabbed him from behind. He spun. A satyr held him back. “Who interferes?” Philippos asked, recovering himself.
“Dionysos,” said the satyr; it was Ptolemaios’s voice. “Dionysos speaks for this one.” Dazed and dizzy, Alexandros stared at the ugly, snub-nosed mask that hid his brother’s ugly, blunt-nosed face. Just behind Ptolemaios stood the horned god once more, and Alexandros knew him now. This was Dionysos Zagreus mystes. Dionysos Enthroned among the dead. Dionysos lord of madness and mystery. One hand was raised in a warding gesture; the other carried a mirror. Once again, his eyes met Alexandros’s and he smiled for a second time. His teeth were unexpectedly sharp, like a cat’s, and he was beautiful, more beautiful even than Hephaistion.
Philippos touched Alexandros on the shoulder and their eyes met. He nodded slightly and, in a dramatic swirl of black cape, moved on.
Alexandros wobbled with relief as Ptolemaios steadied him. Removing the mask, Ptolemaios led Alexandros away to some benches along one wall. He hadn’t seen them when he’d first entered. There was a lot he hadn’t seen. Emotions unhinged utterly, he began to shake. “This is mad.”
“Madness belongs to the god,” Ptolemaios said, sitting down to put an arm around him. Alexandros still shivered.
The first boy, the one who’d soiled himself, was already seated with his satyr. They were also kin. Turning back, the prince watched the drama unfold on the floor. Under the influence of the drug, it seemed surreal, shifting in and out of focus. Torchlight was as thick as paint, spilling over walls and floor as initiates streaked through it. Hades-Philippos moved like a shadow, chasing down each initiate in turn whilst Titans acted as herders, using rods to drive the boys out of corners or cut off escape. Some screamed, some wept, some cursed. Hades laughed and brandished his spear.
He does enjoy it.
Amidst it all, dressed only in a fawn’s skin, the mist-wrapped figure of Dionysos towered, overseeing.
When the last boy was caught and spoken for, the king stood alone in the cavern center. Ptolemaios rose, drawing up Alexandros beside him. In a voice strangely altered, Philippos asked, “If ivy-loving Bakkheios guards each of you, who then will be my sacrifice?”
Silence fell. Something squealed, and one of the Titans led a dappled fawn out into the center of the cavern. “Dionysos, son of Semele, gave himself,” said the watching men, masked and unmasked. “And Dionysos, dark god, provides still.”
“Ivy-Apollon Bakkheios! Welcome, he who has suffered such suffering as was never suffered before!” The king raised his arms above his head. “In each of us lurks the gods’ enemy, for we are fashioned from the ashes of the Titans. But something divine resides in us as well, for the Titans ate of holy flesh before they burned.” Philippos lowered his hands and made an all-encompassing gesture. “Tell me then, who are you?”
“Pure, we come from the pure,” the men responded. “We are of your blessed race. Gods we shall be instead of mortals.”
“Dance, then, like gods,” Philippos told them.
A drum began to pound and pipes swirled a Phrygian wail. The sound reached inside Alexandros to seize his heart, transforming his anxiety into trembling joy. Ptolemaios pushed him forward with the other initiates, ringing the fawn in fuzzy torchlight. “You remember the dances the priests taught you?” Nodding, Alexandros surrendered to the rhythm, feeling it course through his veins and wrap seductive fingers around him, stealing him from himself. Closing his eyes, he threw his arms wide as if he would embrace the earth. Exstasis.
