The Prophecy

The Prophecy


She had never been submerged in water. She would not have known the simple
joy of bathing in a steaming tub, nor that of swimming fast in bubbling
creeks or merely splashing in sedate ponds; the sybil had warned her parents
soundly and their only daughter knew no other way to cleanse herself than to
scrub her skin slick with scented water from a basin. She often wondered
what life might have been had her family not moved inland, far from their
island home when she was but a babe. No matter, Athens was the land she
knew and it was here that she would live and die and never would the prophecy
be fulfilled.

Nysa smiled absently as she wove her hair and groomed her clothing, dusting
off the clinging pollen that rose from her skirt like dandelion fuzz. Her
neck seemed to incline naturally, evidence of her graciousness; and her hair
was thick and shiny-black, a perfect complement to her creamy skin and
darkly ancient-seeming eyes that resembled the hearts of pansies. Her face
was sweet but beauty found itself there only in the eyes of those who knew
her…her intensity was startling and her voice, replete with dignity and
a trace of haughtiness, completed the picture of a young woman who could
grow to command legions with her strength or who might, if neglected, become
the quintessence of viciousness. Her opinions of her world were still
relatively unformed given the extreme protectiveness of her parents.

The horses were resting, their coats gleaming brightly from their long and
arduous ride. Petros, Nysa’s brother, watched them lazily as he dipped
into their baskets for his lunch. He grinned when he saw his sister walk
toward him and he waved their companion, Agios, to join them for their
repast.

“Agios, see anything exciting?” Petros called to his friend who seemed
reluctant to leave his vantage point near the small cliff overlooking
the road ahead of and below them.

“There’s nothing yet. I’m expecting to meet another group of travelers
soon…it’s much too quiet today for such a busy area.” Agios shook
his head and chuckled, then headed back toward the clearing.

Nysa thought the world of her brother, and he of her, though neither
would have acknowledged that fact to anyone else. They were the two
younger children of five, the others being away from their parents’ house
and raising families of their own; Nysa was her brother’s junior by
barely a year and she was a good child, though spoiled, while they grew
up. Their playful disdain of one another had lessened considerably in
the last year or so, and both felt keenly the growing weight of maturity.
They had gone out together with Agios, the son of their neighbor and a
close friend since childhood, to look for medicinal herbs for the
family’s store; the road was well-known to the three and they were
considered old enough to travel the quarter-day’s journey alone. Still,
it was strangely liberating to be so far from the gentle influence of
home. The trio ate their bread and fruits and rested for awhile in the
shade.

When she woke an hour later Nysa was surprised to find that both Agios
and Petros had fallen asleep as well; she remembered only vaguely feeling
drowsy and hadn’t realized she was nodding off. She thought it best to
wake the pair only after she had combed and repaired her mussed hair
and had shaken the dust out of her skirts again; she wandered several
yards away and hid herself behind a cluster of rocks to disrobe and
effect her grooming. Her dress was full and typical of the ancient
Greek style, held in place at shoulders by a series of ornate pins and
ties and covering an underslip that was much simpler and cooler. Nysa
shook out the folds of cloth and draped her garment over a portion of
the stone after dusting it off. She unwound her heavy coils of hair
and was beginning to rebraid it when she heard a noise that startled her.
The sound was brief, and sharp; as though some creature had drawn near
and sensed her, then had stopped so as not to betray its presence. The
sound came again, and nearer, and Nysa ran swiftly to the far side of the
rock formation, away from her brother and companion.

She flew quickly toward a small, natural path and ran as fast as she
could toward the wood, hoping to call for help when she caught her breath;
Nysa’s heart pounded and, when she looked back, she stumbled and fell.
She lay still a moment, her arms bracing her up, and glanced back in the
direction whence she had come. She gasped, then laughed aloud when she
saw a pair of kids frisking, and chided herself with relief for being so
frightened and skittish. She shook her head ruefully, her hair even
more scattered now than before, and began to stand. She slipped again,
however, and landed with a small splash in the shallow creek that ran at
the foot of the damp and slippery incline which was the culmination of
the path she had taken. Her exasperation and growing disgust at her
predicament were driven from her mind by a bolt of foreboding as Nysa
looked down slowly at the water in which she was now standing.

“She will be a noble child, and grow into an even nobler woman,” the
sybil had intoned; “but her fate will be sealed when she gazes from her
pool into the eyes of a foul monster, a misbegotten spawn of the gods
and of the beasts. He will take her for his own and she will be chained
to him for eternity.”

The words echoed, roard through Nysa’s mind and her voice rose in a
wail of terror. She looked up to see him watching her with something
skin to amusement in his eyes.

At the sight of him Nysa’s voice stilled: he was hugely powerful, with
shoulders broader and more muscular than those of any man she had ever
seen; and his face was oddly angular, his nostrils widely flared and
the bridge of his nose as sharp as a knife’s edge. His gaze was languid
and his eyes were an even more penetrating darkness than her own, hooded
by brows that were thick and stern and frighteningly intelligent. He
smiled at her, kindly, and his grin revealed his obscenely white incisors;
it was then she noticed that his hair was coarse and covered tiny horns,
and that his lower body was quite similar to a goat’s. No, not quite —
his tail was long and thick and scaled rather than furred; and his
genitals were presented full rather than sheathed as one might have
expected.

“The water is cool…you’ll catch your death.” His voice was oddly
velvet, and hypnotic, like the embers crying from the ash. His words
were chilling in their simplicity.

Nysa was afraid to move. Her nightmare, a boring burden thrust upon her
by her parents, was all too real here in the daylight. She remembered
her brother and Agios with a start and noticed, bleakly, that this
creature was armed.

“I won’t harm your companions, though they should have been protecting you
instead of sleeping with their bellies full.” His grin broadened and his
eyes became appraising. “I wonder what price you are worth, petted one?
Can you cook, and keep a house well, and preserve fruits for the winter?
Or are you a mere trinket, a luxury for a wealthy man whose slaves can do
the work one leaves for his wife if his means are humble?” He smiled
again with genuine humor evident in his pose. His questions were either
mocking or showed his limited knowledge of what women were supposed to do
in the human world, and Nysa was unsure if she should risk crying out to
Petros and Agios or if she should try to cross the pond; never having
been in water before the cloying moisture surrounding her legs made her
feel on the verge of panic and coming face to face with this devilish
creature only lessened her ability to think clearly — her views on
superstitious nonsense, as she had believed it to be, were clearly deva-
stated because *here he was* and he was grinning at her and…

Nysa’s thoughts spun and she wavered wildly in her indecision. The
longer she stood in the water the more upset she became but she seemed
trapped gazing into this monster’s eyes. The girl who had led a
carefree existence was gone forever…Nysa would have sneered at her
own melodrama if her situation hadn’t been so terrifically absurd and
horrifying.