RCG-I Seasonal Salon
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When Destiny Walked the LabrynthChapter 1: A Witness to DestinyTen turns later… Somewhere off the Northern coast of Kriti, deep beneath the surface of the wine dark sea, the Great Bull stamped His mighty hoof. In response, She-who-birthed-us-all, shuddered violently. A new wave was born from the womb of the ocean. Her breath ragged, Ansel slogged up the last few stone steps. At the top, she bent over, hands on knees and panted aloud, glad to leave the steep the rocky cliffs behind her. Straightening, she whirled around quickly shielding her eyes from a brilliant mid-morning sun and gazed down upon her uncle’s village by the shore, Amnisos. A smile touched her face and she inhaled deeply; this was her very favorite view. The ocean is the exact shade of serpentine this morning, she thought. Serpentine was her favorite type of stone, soft green with shiny white chips embedded in it sometimes. From this height, Amnisos looked like a child’s play village tucked snug and secure against the cliff face. The beach was golden and the people bustling about on the sand below looked almost like the tiny images carved into the seal-stones her GranMeter pressed into warm, soft beeswax to mark important scrolls. The sea gently lapped at the sides of the cypress wood pier; jumbles of colorfully painted boats bobbed like spindles, moored at the dockside. The long dock jutted out into the bay and visually pointed to even more tiny vessels dotting the peaceful water. Most were small rowboats of the fisherfolk from Amnisos, though one larger one, a merchant ship, unfurled its sail, setting out for the open sea. Ansel squinted into the sun, trying to pick out the little red boat that held Uncle Psidoras and her cousins. They’d gone out fishing early this morning. The whipping winds were warm, but not yet the stifling winds of Metertide they would soon become. Ansel tossed her head allowing her long dark curls to blow into tangles, enjoying the air as it bathed her face, drying beads of sweat. Just then, a tiny snake slithered over her open sandal. She jerked her foot back, nearly losing her balance. The snake disappeared into the greening meadow brush so swiftly Ansel briefly wondered if it had been truly there. She looked around by her feet. A slithery sound next to a stone, a jewel green head, an impulsive red tongue confirmed her reflexes. Snake omen, she thought, a warning to the wise. Meter will want to know. I better get home. She turned to head away from the ocean view, then quickly turned back again, her attention suddenly riveted. Something was wrong with the boats. The water appeared to have lost all sense of rhythm; the docked boats swayed in choppy syncopation, now slamming against the pier, now straining at their end of their tethers. Next, the earth began to bellow and shake like some great enraged animal. Ansel’s legs wobbled then lost control as the earth bucked and snorted and rumbled. Thrown hard to the rocky ground, she twisted her ankle sharply and her breath expelled from her lungs in an “oof”. Around her, soil and stones were shaken with such fury she threw her arms to her face in defense. The Bull stamps again, she thought. Goddess, Meter, please make Him stop! Ansel heard, then felt, the ground near her rip open with a hollow roar. Another shower of stones flung themselves at her prostrate body. She heard rocks, large ones, crash and thud down the cliff face. Fearful the entire cliff side would collapse, she crawled further from the edge on bleeding knees. When she could not crawl any further, she wrapped her arms around her legs in a fetal position and rocked on the naked ground, humming a prayer through clenched teeth. Though it seemed an eternity passed, gradually, the tremors eased to shudders, then ceased. After a few moments of blissful quiet, Ansel released her knees from her cramped position and sat up slowly, murmuring a prayer of thanks. Blood ran from her scraped palm where she had crawled over jagged rock. Dazedly, she sucked at the wound, a sharp metallic taste filling her mouth. Shaking the dirt from her hair and skirts and with a rueful brush at her scraped knees, Ansel pushed herself up and stood tentatively, testing her ankle. It held, but felt oddly loose. It is sprained, she thought. Perhaps even broken. Should I try to make it all the way home or should I go back down to Uncle Psidoras’s house to have my ankle tended? She limped back to the cliff edge. A portion of it had indeed given way and the steps closest to the top were shattered or even missing; they must have shaken loose and gotten thrown down the side. In the water below, Ansel watched as overturned boats, still anchored at the pier, began to sink. People gathered on the beach. It was best to be outside in a shake. But something was still very wrong with the people. Even at this distance, Ansel felt their fear; their jerky motions, the abruptness of the gestures bespoke of panic. A woman cupped her hands and called out loudly over the ocean, apparently to the folks in the fishing boats, though Ansel couldn’t distinguish her words. They are well in the boats. A shake is worse for those on land. Why are they so concerned? A clump of men suddenly broke for the cliff path. Ansel watched from above as they shouted something back to the people on the beach, then ran for the steps as if the Bull himself were after them. Perhaps someone has been injured. Thinking to meet them halfway, she hobbled to the cliff edge and put a foot over, then stopped, wincing. Without the top steps, the climb down would be treacherous. Many of the rocks would be loose and the earth was already uneven. Besides, her ankle was already growing stiff. She flexed it tentatively then rubbed as a jolt of pain made her catch her breath. Ei, I’m going to have to let them come to me. I hope they will help me walk home. A rolling sound – soft -- then increasingly loud filled her ears. She looked up again. A wave moved into the bay with tremendous speed. As she watched, it swelled to enormous heights as it got closer and closer to the shore. Horrified, Ansel could do no more than scream an incoherent warning, but even this was drowned by the roar of the approaching wave wall. The people on the beach turned as one to face the onslaught of water. At the shoreline, water rushed out to greet the wave, rapidly exposing a long stretch of naked bay bottom as the wall of ocean drew itself to its full height, many times that of the tallest man. At the pier, the moored boats were lifted straight up. Their tether ropes snapped like dry twigs in a gale as the water engulfed them. Then Ansel witnessed a nightmare almost beyond her comprehension; the fishing boats with fisherfolk still clinging to the hulls, lined across the wave’s crest as if gathered together by an unseen hand. Perilously they balanced in readiness to crash upon the beach with the breaking of the wave. The wave broke just as it reached the beach. Some people, as if waking from a long sleep, began to run before the wave; others stood as if they’d grown roots into the beach sand itself. It mattered not. Together they bore the full wrath of the sea. Slapping the ground as a hand might smack an offending insect, the roiling sandy water hurled towards the little houses of the village, smashing them to splinters. The swell continued to rise. The people climbing up the cliff were about one fourth of the way up. They had stopped to watch the wave and seemed affixed to the steps, dazed. “Climb! Climb!” Ansel shrieked. By some miracle, they heard her and looked up. “Climb! The wave!” The lead man bounded up the steps two and three at a time; the others followed. In moments, the wave crashed against the rock face, shooting spray so high it soaked Ansel’s skin. When it receded, the steps were empty. My lungs don’t seem to be working right, she thought dully. Each tattered breath came and left in little sharp painful gasps. Paralyzed, she stood far above the destruction, clinging to the wild hope that Amnisos really had been a toy village; that she did not see real people swept away in a violence of water. But her keen mind would not allow that phantasm to grow wings. Her legs jerkily gave way beneath her and she sat down hard, the still bleeding hand held over her mouth for a long moment. She felt afraid to make an utterance, dared not draw attention to herself. The wind died and finally in the stillness, Ansel heard a moan and knew it to be her own. From her throat ripped a keen akin to that a small animal makes when caught by the predator, a shrill of living anguish. She expected to see bodies and litter thrown upon the beach when she forced herself to look down again, but eerily, the sand was wiped clean as if the people and the boats had never existed there at all. Numb, she looked outward to the sea, then passed her hand in front of her eyes in disbelief. An unbelievably huge woman, naked, her pendulous breasts swaying almost rhythmically as she waded knee-deep through the waters of the harbor, cast out a luminescent net. In the glowing net, Ansel thought she could see people, the fisherfolk. But the bodies were odd. They floated shimmering out of the water and into her great net. There was no struggle, no commotion, no sense of distress. Peace prevailed at the hands of the woman. She paused and looked up the hill towards Ansel. Terrified, Ansel threw her arm up across her face, but the woman only smiled. “You see me, little one, but I cast not my net for your spirit. Instead I cast to you my thoughts.” The woman’s lips never moved, yet Ansel understood her perfectly, as if she had whispered an intimacy into Ansel’s ear. Ansel found she could not move nor break her gaze with the giantess. She swallowed her wet tears in her parched throat. “Kriti is challenged, child, and the Meter weeps. The bull, Her son, grows in strength and less so in wisdom. In these times of fate, the future is in the hands of the unexpected and the unexplainable. Tell the Sisters to scrutinize the signs as if the destiny of all Kriti depended upon them. For indeed, it does.” The woman drew up her net of souls and disappeared as suddenly as a snake in the meadow grass. Ansel found herself released. Like a frightened hare, she jumped to her feet and, heedless of the distress of her ankle, ran the many lengths back to her home at Knossos. Copyright by the Kassandra Sojourner ~ All rights reserved |
Copyright © 2004; Re-formed Congregation of the Goddess,
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