Chapter 2
Medea
I often cried out for my mother. But for some reason that night she answered.
In sleep, I drifted in the primal void of unconsciousness. Then a torch flared, and the three-faced idol from the crossroads
shrine appeared. As I watched, the rough wood took on the softness of living skin and the gouges of the eyes blinked open.
The statue’s central face became an old woman’s, her hair white and her skin like worn leather. As I watched, the face became
young, a reflection of my own. Then it ripened to middle age, expanding into handsome richness before slackening once again
into wrinkles. And there it stayed in the cycle of time she wore like a mantle.
“I am Hekate,” she said. “To me was given a share of the heavens and the seas and all the earth. I am the goddess of the crossroads.
The Soteira, the Savior. Among the people of the northern forests I am known as the Baba Yaga; among the Mesopotamians I am
called Nintinugga; the Egyptians call me Hekau. But you shall know me by my true name, Hekate. And,” she added, “I am your
mother.”
My mother. The words exploded into my consciousness, filling me with astonishment. My mother! She’d heard me after all. I wanted to run and embrace her, restored to me at last after so long, but found I could not move or speak, frozen in the world of the dream.
“If you doubt,” she continued, “I will show you surety. If you feel powerless, I will show you power. In other words, I will
reveal to you the way of witchcraft.”
Hekate raised a hand to my forehead, and light exploded inside my skull. The stream of knowledge came in flashes and sense
impressions: the secret names of plants and animals, and the powers of the planets. Hekate revealed to me that the elements
of the natural world had a grammar and syntax, and if it pleased me, I might rearrange the letters to spell out the future
I desired.
Inside me, a spark flared into life.
“It will take work,” Hekate was saying. “Raw talent must be given form. But this is where it begins.”
I was afraid that this new influx of knowledge might split my mind like an overfilled wineskin, but I gritted my teeth and
held firm. When at last the tide receded, I heard a whine at my elbow and felt a cold nose on my arm. The wide black eyes
of a dog looked up at me. A hunting hound, like the ones who trailed after my mother’s heels when she was alive, companions
still in her godhood.
“But how can it be,” I asked, forcing my numb lips to form words, “that you are my mother? You are a goddess, and she was
only a mortal woman. You have the white hair of a crone, and she . . .”
She never lived to grow old, I tried to say, but my grief choked me.
The apparition’s rheumy eyes filled with compassion.
“Oh, my dear girl, do you not know that the immortal gods choose the shapes they wear? We can take the form of an old woman as easily as an eagle or a shower of gold. And why would I not choose the appearance I never had the chance to wear in life?” she added with a rueful smile.
“I was born a mortal girl like you, but in time I came to command great magic and learned how to brew the potion of apotheosis, which transforms a human being into a god.
The souls of gods are much like the souls of humans, you see, once our mortality is set aside.
“Or perhaps I simply joined with something else,” Hekate added thoughtfully. “Something that had been there forever, as long
as the earth existed. From the perspective of a fish, the river flows cleanly; for a bird flitting over the waters, however,
things are not so simple. So it is for the gods and time. Some say Hekate was Night’s daughter, or that of Zeus. But if you
doubt me, Medea, remember this: Your mother has no tomb because there was no body to bury.”
This astonished me. “Father said he threw your body into the sea,” I whispered, “for the crime of dying and leaving him alone.”
“Ah, Aeetes,” Hekate said, her face twisting with rank hatred. “A monster of a man. He cast me out of Qulha after my apotheosis,
and his blood draws a circle around you that I cannot breach except in the very rarest of circumstances. But no matter. I
have given you witchcraft, the power to make the world into the sort of place you wish to live. And in the moments before
your death, I’ll come to you. If you have lived a life worth immortalizing, I will give you apotheosis, and you will become
a goddess.”
“Are you leaving?” Panic filled me, and suddenly I was as frantic as a drowning woman. Breaking out of the numbness that gripped
me, I fell at Hekate’s feet, clutching her skirts. “Let me stay with you,” I begged. “Please, give me apotheosis now, that
I might stay by your side forever.”
Hekate cupped my face in her wizened hands, stroking my cheek tenderly. “My dear girl, you do not know what you ask. A full human lifetime is the greatest of gifts, one I never had the chance to enjoy. There is nothing like it in all eternity, and I will not take it from you.”
A strangled cry tore from my throat. Next to me, the dog whined.
“I will be worthy,” I pleaded, grasping frantically at Hekate’s hem as the dream blurred at the edges. “I’ll be a good daughter,
I’ll give you heirs and descendants. And a temple, and worshippers too. Just don’t forget me, please.”
The dream dissolved, and I opened my eyes.
My cry echoed off the stone walls, but I did not weep. There were no tears left in me. Instead, I was angry, burning with
fury that I had finally come so close to my mother only to lose her. Hekate had found a way to keep her hunting dogs with
her, but not her daughter. And I was angry too at the loss of Chalciope, who enjoyed the double blessing of returning to her
husband and leaving our awful father behind.
But my mother had not left me empty-handed.
I stepped out of my bed onto the death-cold tiles of the palace floor. While the rest of the world slept, I walked out into
the moonlight-drenched courtyard and looked up at the sky.
The moon was full. It seemed that something very ancient and female rode with her through the trees, and mysteries lurked
in the shadows cast by her light. The familiar world was rendered strange under the cover of moonlight and shadow, and anything
might be possible.
Lifting my hand, I considered the blood running within my veins. My mother’s blood, Hekate’s. My mind was heavy with the knowledge
she had given me, like an autumn tree laden with fruit. The power within me crackled like lightning, seeking its release.
Certainly I would need to refine it with practice and study, but the raw potential was there. Waiting.
I looked at the plants around me and saw all their component parts: the living creatures that decayed to make the earth fertile, and the new life nurtured by death. The power that dwelled within the green growing plants, rained down by the stars.
Around me the four rivers flowed. Water mingled with the dark earth and the clear night air. In my heart, a fire burned.
Water and fire. Earth and air. Dark and light. A crossroads, in other words. These were the forces behind the Chaos that had
given rise to the speaking gods at the beginning of the world, and these forces belonged to Hekate.
My breath billowed out in the cold air. I could not have what I wanted most—my mother and my sister, whom I was powerless
to keep by my side. But I wasn’t helpless anymore. If I had not been given the love of a family at birth, then I’d force the
hand of fate to grant it to me.
I set in motion gathering ingredients, moving soundlessly through the darkened gardens. I wrenched some mugwort from the moon-soaked
ground and rosemary too, mixing these together with the sweet Qulhan earth and a little of my own blood.
There was little craft or finesse to it, though there was a great deal of passion. I found a tablet of lead and rubbed it
with the herbs and earth before running it through the incense smoke. Then I began to carve the words in Qulhan and Greek
and Egyptian, so that the gods of every people might know my will. Repeating the words again and again, using a hairpin to
drive my wish into the soft lead, over and over.
Give me love unconditional.
Gradually I became aware of my own voice turning the command into a chant, inscribing it into the air as surely as my hand
carved it into the lead. I felt the edges of my mind brush up against the shape of the world, like one hand touching another
in the dark. With all the strength I could muster, I pushed.
When the chant abruptly ended, the exultation of power left me reeling. Like a sleeper waking from a dream, I gradually became aware of the cold flagstones beneath my knees and the sharp scent of the dwindling incense, not to mention the dirt ground under my fingernails.
The courtyard remained empty. No one stood there, no loving mother or gentle sister or handsome bridegroom come to take me
away from all of this.
Embarrassment warmed my cheeks. Well, it seemed that my magic was not able to summon any whim or desire. No matter. The seeds
were planted, I insisted to myself, and someday love would enter my life. Until then, I would work on mastering the intricacies
of my witchcraft, learning its strengths and demands.
Feeling rather foolish and very, very cold, I buried the lead tablet in the shadow of the palace before creeping back into
bed.
The next morning, I resolved to keep my promise to Hekate.
I surveyed the crossroads shrine, then summoned representatives from the guild of stonemasons. I used my own royal jewelry
to pay for the construction, which would no doubt have incensed my father if he found out. But Aeetes never managed to tear
his eyes away from the Golden Fleece, the only treasure that mattered to him anymore.
In time, the crude wooden idol was replaced by a statue formed of bronze, and a proper temple grew up from the roadside shrine.
Priestesses came from a dozen nations to serve—they were Qulhan, Heniochi, Scythian, and Greek. They bowed before me, the
chosen of Hekate and their royal benefactress.
On the day that construction was completed, a great crowd gathered below.
I placed two braziers filled with burning herbs on the temple steps, sending up great clouds of smoke.
Next to them, I was a lone figure clad in royal purple.
Among the milling crowd I noticed Aeetes, his golden eyes blazing.
Fear filled me at the sight of my father, but I swallowed it down.
Never again would I be that girl weeping alone in the garden, I swore. Never again would I be so powerless.
“Behold the power of Hekate!” I cried out, and threw more incense on the fire.
Out of the smoke, a shape emerged: the full moon, luminous despite the daytime brightness. The crowd gasped. I chanted under
my breath, sweat pouring from my brow as I maintained the illusion. The shape of the moon waned to a crescent and then grew
back again, wheeling through all her phases in the noonday sky.
Below me, the crowd howled with delight. I looked for the face of Aeetes but could not find him.
When it came time to consecrate the temple, I was the one who held the sacrificial knife to the throat of the black ewe. With
a swipe of the blade, I silenced her bleating cries and offered up the sacrifice to Hekate. Young as I was, I already knew
that everything worth having was paid for in blood.
Look, I said silently to Hekate as I presented the offering. I promised you worshippers, a temple. I kept my promise.
Will you keep yours?