Shimmering Splendor Read online

  “Neither did I,” he replied, “until it moved. It had a lair in a hollow up at the other end where the branches divide.” He smiled up at her then stood up. “Now we will have boar steak for dinner if you will make a fire while I butcher it.”

  Psyche nodded, but for a moment stood still, watching Atomos move to the boar. Any number of emotions pulled her this way and that. She needed to burst into tears of relief and exhaustion; she wanted to laugh with joy at having so sturdy and practical a companion; she thought her shaking knees would pitch her face down on the ground if she tried to walk a single step, and she felt it impossible to force her trembling arms to lift an ax; but most of all, her stomach clenched and gurgled at the thought of a sizzling boar steak. Although she knew she had eaten an excellent meal in Aphrodite’s house, she had not the faintest memory of it and it seemed to her that she had not really eaten since she had cast the counterspell and nearly killed Teras…Eros. Eros.

  During her brief delay, Atomos had climbed over the fallen tree and drawn his knife. Psyche saw him pull the boar’s foreleg aside and push the knife through the thinner hide at the neck. She remembered suddenly a time when Teras had been interrupted and the darkness had withdrawn from a kill he had begun to skin, that the cuts were made the same way. Psyche shook herself and walked around the cat toward the branches. Naturally they were the same; doubtless all hunters made the same kind of cuts to begin skinning. Yet it seemed that she had seen Damianos start his skinning differently. She shrugged and pulled her ax from her belt. Maybe the styles were local, Damianos’s that of Iolkas, and Ter—Eros’s and Atomos’s that of Olympus.

  She made quick work of cutting several medium-sized branches from the trunk, finding her strength had returned as fear and shock diminished. Still she dragged them to the place where she had been sitting so she could rest against the largest part of the trunk. There she broke off all the twigs. Using the trunk as a base, she hacked the side branches into usable lengths. By the time she had torn away a circle of grass and started the fire in the center, Atomos had brought over a dozen neat strips of meat. Psyche laid thicker branches on the flames and went to the edge of the woods to cut green branches for skewers. When she returned with the pointed sticks, Atomos stood up from his butchering.

  “I have enough for tonight and to eat cold for tomorrow afternoon. I will also trim a haunch to be partly roasted. That will keep for one more day, I think. We could smoke more if we remained here for another day or two—”

  “No,” Psyche said. “I mean, you may remain as long as you like, of course, but I must go on. I must get back to Teras—Eros—as soon as I can. I know Aphrodite loves Ter—Eros, but she is a great lady and has business of her own. Perhaps she cannot watch over him closely enough. I am sure if I could nurse him he would recover more quickly.”

  “I assure you no one and no business is as dear to Aphrodite as Eros,” Atomos said, lips twisted wryly. “She will be as attentive as even you could wish.” He shrugged. “Eros is an Olympian, as is Aphrodite. They understand each other. Are you sure you understand them?”

  “I understand Teras,” Psyche said. “If Eros and Teras are the same person, and I know they are because I myself broke the spell of darkness—and Eros was the being inside—then Eros and I think alike, whether that is Olympian thinking or native thinking.” She shook her head. “Perhaps it would be better for you to remain here and let me go on alone.”

  “You know I will not do that.” Atomos smiled. “I am not that fond of smoked boar, and though it may well be that the mountain cat would have died before it reached you, you still could have been hurt by the beast. I tell you, I was sent to protect you.”

  “I do not trust Aphrodite,” Psyche said flatly. “Nonetheless, it is plainly too late for me to worry about whether she will use your protection to try to keep me from my love.” She sighed. “Love. That is another problem. You say you love me. If that is true, I am very sorry for it, but I cannot return that love. I am bound to Ter—Eros—”

  “Bound to him?” Atomos repeated, an odd tone in his voice.

  “I love Teras,” Psyche cried, her eyes filling with tears. “I do not know Eros. The only time I saw him, he was as cruel as he was beautiful. Teras was never cruel. I love Teras—” She sobbed softly, wrapping her arms around herself as if she were suddenly cold.

  Atomos watched her, his head cocked to the side, then smiled slowly. “You do not fear that Aphrodite will turn you away. You fear that Eros will not forgive you.” Suddenly he closed his mouth hard, his lips thinned; then he added quickly, “So much the better for me. If Eros cast off his kindness and understanding with the spell that hid his beauty, you will turn to me in the end and I will have you, Psyche.”

  “So you might!” she snapped. “But the more fool you would be to take the leavings of a heart already given. You are a good man, a fine man. Seek out a woman who will give you all her love. I love the being in the black cloud, man or monster, whatever his name is. If he casts me off, I might accept second best to assuage my loneliness, my need for sharing. But it would only be second best to me. Why should you accept second best?”

  “Because half of your loaf, your second best, is ten times the worth of what any other woman has to offer to me.”

  Psyche blinked with surprise as he laughed lightly and turned back to carve out the haunch they would sear for the day after tomorrow. His answer to her was so strange for a man whose love had been rejected, so lighthearted, and with a trace of smugness in the voice and in the half-smile with which the words had been uttered. Why, it was as if he were glad she’d said she would always love Teras, even if she were forced to give up hope of living with him.

  Then, as she knelt down to add more branches to the fire, to spit the slices of meat and set them so they would cook without burning through the spit too quickly, she shook her head at herself. How stupid she was. Of course Atomos was glad. He was a good, kind person—and he loved Aphrodite and served her. He did not really want Psyche to love him for the same reasons she did not want him to love her.

  Chapter 21

  In the days that followed, after they crossed the river in a small, round boat that Atomos unearthed from a cache of leaves and branches and as they worked their way upstream, Psyche grew more and more puzzled by her companion’s behavior. His concern for her clearly went far beyond Aphrodite’s order to protect her from harm. Not only did he do his very best to ease her journey and provide all the comfort that could be obtained in the wilderness, but his manner was…loving. When he took her hand to help her over an obstacle, his fingers would linger, as would his arm around her when he drew a blanket over her shoulders or pulled her cloak close to ward off the evening chill.

  That seemed to Psyche an expression of desire, yet when she pulled her hand out of his or slipped from his embrace and reminded him that she loved another, she could swear he was not hurt or displeased. Usually he turned his face away, but there was something in his gait if they were walking, in the set of his shoulders, in the tilt of his head that bespoke satisfaction rather than discouragement.

  Psyche kept telling herself that Aphrodite must have told him to woo her, to wean her from loving Eros, and that Atomos was trying to obey but was still glad not to be successful. She found that answer unsatisfying, however, for she remained certain the looks, the little gestures that hinted of desire, were genuine.

  At first she argued that if his desire was pretense, she would have detected some false note, that as the days passed, he would have been driven to some more overt display to satisfy Aphrodite’s command. Then she began to fear that she was willfully missing signs of falsity because she wanted those lingering touches, the occasional looks of longing, to be real. She was afraid that she was finding as much pleasure in Atomos’s company as she would have found in Teras’s.

  Most frightening of all, she realized she was beginning to confuse the two. Their hunting styles, the quickness with which they could pick a path through the brush,
recognize a bird call, the manner in which they went about making camp, gathering brush, choosing firewood, were very similar. Well, of course they were, Psyche reasoned. An experienced hunter is an experienced hunter. It was only natural that both Teras and Atomos should behave in similar ways.

  Soon she had to admit it was more than that; their senses of humor were very much alike, too. And when she was looking away and Atomos laughed, her breath caught in her throat and her head snapped around so fast her neck hurt—because she had thought it was Teras laughing. There was no simple explanation for that—except coincidence. Coincidences did happen, but Psyche wished this one had not happened. She was beginning to see Atomos’s face inside the blackness that came to her mind when she thought of Teras. Never Eros. She never saw Eros.

  For several days after the attack of the mountain cat, Psyche had allowed Atomos to set the pace, almost forgetting in the pleasure of easy companionship that her journey had a purpose. Once she became aware of her growing confusion between Teras and Atomos, she began to insist on traveling farther and farther each day, eager to complete her mission and be free of Atomos’s company so she might concentrate on learning to know Eros. She did not need to explain herself; at first the longer days of travel were a natural result of her waking earlier and earlier.

  Atomos asked concerned questions about her inability to sleep, and she put him off with merry answers. Could she admit that in her dreams she embraced her beloved Teras in the beloved dark—only to find Atomos in her arms? Could she admit that her guilt over the pleasure it gave her made her afraid to sleep again?

  At last, too aware of Atomos’s presence, too unwilling to share again the intimacy of a campsite, a meal, his amusing conversation, she refused to stop when Atomos pointed out a perfect campsite; and when he remarked sharply that he was tired and it would soon be too dark to see, she shrugged.

  “I do not care,” Psyche said, surreptitiously resting her pack against a tree and tightening her knees against the trembling of fatigue. “I am not tired. I will go on.”

  “Why?” Atomos asked, exasperated. And when she did not answer, but just turned and started off again, he called after her, “Go on, then, but you will go alone. I am tired, and here I stay.”

  Choking back hysterical laughter at finally having rid herself of him when she wanted only to be with him, Psyche managed to keep up a brisk pace in a relatively straight line until she thought she was beyond his detection. Then she stumbled on, indifferent to where she was going, thinking only that she had been wrong. Atomos did not love her, but he had very nearly succeeded in the task Aphrodite had laid upon him and weaned her from Eros. Later, half blind with fatigue, she had fallen and just lay there, content to be at rest. In the blackness of the night, the blackness in her heart, a hand touched her face, a strong arm lifted her.

  “Teras!” she cried.

  “No, it is Atomos,” a male voice, soft and beautiful, replied.

  Psyche began to weep uncontrollably because she was so sure it was Teras’s hand she felt in hers. And Atomos held her tight against him and stroked her gently—but it was Teras who had always done that. You stupid slut, she told herself, pulling away. You are just giving the name most familiar to you to a body and gestures that have become familiar. Likely you will find Teras strange when you are reunited with him because you have been long apart. And then she wiped away a new rush of tears and sighed. She would never be reunited with Teras, and Eros was a stranger.

  The natural punishment for such stubborn stupidity was cold, dry food, no comforting brush-filled bed, and a terrified refusal even to lean against Atomos for warmth. In the morning, however, Psyche had reason to be glad of her foolishness. Not more than half a stadium farther, the bank of the river along which they had been traveling flattened into a marshy area where it met another smaller stream. Turning northward along the marsh to find a place to cross, they found Psyche’s goal, the sheep of the flaming fleece.

  On the other side of the tributary stream, a hillside rose out of the marshy land, not forested, but grassy. Psyche almost laughed over a flicker of doubt, which had assailed her from time to time, over not being able to recognize the animals Aphrodite meant. It was immediately apparent there could be no mistake! The “sheep” stood out on the green hillside like beacons. Their fleece, even at this distance, was glowingly brilliant in flickering shades of red and orange and yellow.

  Psyche was reluctant to turn her back on her goal, but an attempt to cross against Atomos’s advice—watched from a safe distance by a sardonically grinning Atomos with arms folded over his chest—soon convinced her she would accomplish nothing but miring herself if she persisted. Not much farther north, just as Atomos had promised, the banks of the stream were dry. Psyche could see that the water was not very deep, perhaps no more than ankle-high, although it was as much as an arrow’s flight wide.

  Another short walk brought them to an excellent crossing spot. Here the banks were higher but not so high as to make descending them difficult, and although the stream was deeper, it was narrower, less than a stone’s throw wide. Psyche began to make her way down the bank, but Atomos caught her arm.

  “Let us find a campsite,” he said. “Then—”

  “Why bother with a campsite?” Psyche asked impatiently. “I would like to cross, see if I can catch one of those sheep and get enough wool—”

  “Catch one of those sheep?” Atomos echoed, his face and voice displaying horror. “We must look for a campsite on this side of the stream because it is the only way I know to keep those ‘sheep’ from catching us. They hate water and will not cross the stream.”

  “But I must catch one if I am to get enough fleece to fill my bag,” Psyche said, frowning.

  “You cannot catch one. Those creatures make the mountain cat you killed seem like a house cat. Psyche—” he caught her shoulders and shook her gently “—I am not jesting. I am not trying to prevent you from completing the task Aphrodite set you. I am merely trying to keep my skin—and yours—whole. This time I will not let you go your own way. I swear I will tie you up if you will not promise not to try to catch one of those creatures.”

  She saw how serious he was, that he looked truly frightened and worried. In addition, she was quite sure that Aphrodite would not have set her too simple a task. She had thought at first that the journey was to be the test of her courage and cleverness—after all, how difficult could it be to catch a sheep and cut or comb out enough fleece to fill a relatively small bag? But Atomos had come to make the journey easy—or to seduce her into unfaithfulness; no, she would not think about that—so the difficulty must be something other than the journey.

  Having seen the open countryside, Psyche now realized it would not be so easy to catch one of the sheep, but it might well be true that, in addition, the creatures were dangerous. Still…

  “But I saw them grazing on the hillside,” Psyche protested.

  “You’ve seen pigs grazing on acorns, too,” Atomos pointed out. “Would you walk uninvited into a herd of pigs?”

  “Could I be invited?” Psyche asked eagerly. “Is there a shepherd I could approach?”

  “And what would you offer this shepherd?” Atomos snapped.

  “Whatever I offered would be none of your affair,” she retorted sharply, “but I can assure you it would be nothing I would be ashamed to tell Ter—Eros.”

  “You think Eros would not be jealous?”

  “He will have no reason,” Psyche replied shortly, but her eyes dropped and she repeated, “Is there a shepherd?”

  Atomos sighed. “Do not be ridiculous. They are monsters, I tell you. No one can approach them.”

  “Then why did you ask what I would offer the shepherd?” Psyche snapped, her eyes hard with suspicion.

  “Because I am jealous,” Atomos snapped back.

  Psyche opened her mouth to remind him that she had repeatedly warned him she loved another man and had begged him to go away. Instead she sighed again and said, “I
must approach one, at least. I must get some of the fleece.”

  Atomos unclenched his teeth and smiled. “You will have to find another way to do that. No, it is useless to discuss it. I will not let you go near those sheep alone. For now, let us make camp and rid ourselves of our packs so that we will have more freedom of movement. Then we can walk downstream again and look for the beasts and work out some plan.”

  Psyche hesitated, then shrugged. Atomos was right about being rid of the packs. Chasing an agile creature like a wild sheep while burdened with a heavy pack was a sure way to fail to catch it. She also realized that this time he would not yield to her and let her cross the stream. Since she suspected he might know more about the creatures than she did, she felt it would be foolish to ignore his advice—until she was sure the advice was designed to make her fail. One day’s delay was not serious, and that should be long enough for her to discover whether he was telling the truth or trying, what he had specifically denied, to hinder her from completing her task.

  It was not difficult to find a campsite. Not far from where they had stopped to talk, a huge tree cast sufficient shade to have discouraged the growth of saplings and heavy brush. After extracting a promise from her that she would not try to approach the sheep, Atomos went back deeper into the woods to hunt and collect firewood. Psyche took a javelin in hand and went down to the stream to rinse and refill the water bottles. That done, she intended to search for edible plants, but the sheep and the problem of collecting their wool filled her mind.

  When she stood she was frowning, recalling that Atomos had said they would go together and try to devise a plan to get the fleece. But she could not allow Atomos to help her. She might be able to make a case for his accompanying her and protecting her; he had said that Aphrodite had sent him for that purpose. However, she could not pretend that she had not understood that gathering the fleece was her task. That much she must do alone, and without the help of magic, either.