The Last Ships
A farewell to an old priestess of the Hunting Goddess
As the breeze picks up, I make my way up the mountainside in the late afternoon, passing the shepherds’ huts, abandoned but one, and neglected olive groves. The path enters a small forest of holm oak, and I stop to catch my breath in the fragrant coolness.
After leaving the copse, the trail becomes steeper, meandering upwards between the bush of oregano, lavender and the yellow-and-purple wildflowers. The track splits, and I proceed down the right fork for several minutes until it disappears in a long rock-cut passageway that beckons me deeper into the mountain’s belly. When I reach the sunken façade of my family’s tomb, the shaft above me is four men high, revealing a narrow view of the darkening blue sky above.
At the ravaged port, I had met Dideru, the main workshops’ Scribe. The unfamiliar lines in his face were harsh and his patched tunic miserly but it was his demeanour that truly distressed me. A once proud, even arrogant official held his head low, furtively glancing at me as if waiting, against all hope, I would tell him he could leave with us. But of course, we need swords, not pens.
Listlessly he recounted how two seasons of harvest were devoured by the parched earth, to be followed by Their surge from the Sea in a dozen galleys and the torching of the Palace, and how the surviving males hid with the women and slaves for weeks in the holy caves.
The upper third of the doorway’s sealing stones are scattered on the floor, but it does not matter. Dideru had told me of the partial collapse of the chamber roof in Spring immediately preceding the attack. My wife and grandmother are now safe from looters; their bones protected from barbarians forever, corporeal moorings from which their spirits can freely journey to the Eternal Islands.
Nevertheless, I step into the gloomy and musty orifice and rest my hands on its apron of dusty rubble.
“Gerota Matere!” I speak out, feeling slightly foolish.
I am as pious as the next man but am a warrior first, and I have never gone in for the women’s lore of conversing with the departed.
Still, she had raised me almost singlehandedly after her daughter had slipped into the Priestess’ sickness of overindulging in poppy while father was mainly away, raiding the coast of Aswiya with vigour.
After an age, I sigh and turn.
“So you visit me a final time, Little Dagger,” she says, smiling.
My heart flutters, and a cold zephyr descends from above, enveloping my trembling form.
“Is it really you?” I whisper.
“Well, with luck it’s not a goat’s shade.”
She always had a sense of humour.
“What have you come to divulge to me, my dear boy?”
I know what she wants — the recognition of her wisdom, never granted to an old Servant of the Hunting Goddess, Atemia, considered to be eccentric by us, the male Fellowship of the Megaron.
I breathe shallowly and too rapidly; I am five again, standing before her stern visage after throwing the cat into the well.
“I .. you were right. We should have stayed home and defended our land, not besieged a city too far for gold and riches tainted with blood, taken from us by the Sea God.”
She sighs, and I can feel her cool, wrinkled hand on my feverish brow.
“It is the essence of Kingdoms that they always want more and go against nature and common sense, seeking power only the gods may wield.”
“What should I do now?”
“The Gods have destroyed us; our cities are to be overgrown, language forgotten, graves plundered, swords remelted, one-time masters skulking in the hills among the sheep.
The remains of your kin are safe after that earthquake I started. So go as far as possible from this place, live proudlessly and strive to die in peace.”
With a sudden draft, she is gone.
I hurry out of the mountain into the landscape of a dying sun outlining the wave crests in the wine-dark bay below. As I descend towards the pair of awaiting longships, I can just make out my few remaining companions who await.
I wish all of my dear readers a Merry Christmas and a kinder New Year!
This text was first published on X (Twitter) and is © 2023 by David Pahor. No part of my stories should be used to train AI technology to generate text, imitating my writing style.
Please subscribe to me with your e-mail, so we can stay connected when I start serialising my novel, amidst the fall of the platforms. You can always unsubscribe. If you like my stories, consider recommending them to others. Medium’s algorithm is not kind to speculative flash fiction.
In my Twitter list, you will always be able to find all of my new flash fiction, recounting Kekuros’ tales of Iaanda, Garnaaq and Sorkaii — and assorted wizards, umbras and lethal females — https://t.co/Y3YrWpfkm7 .
(The rest of David’s tales on Medium)
