19. The Temple on the Hill
The Temple on the Hill
You kept your promise, as did the acolytes.
By the next evening, we had a new place to meet—an abandoned temple. Essemteu’s fingers traced the old walls, faded from time and disuse. He outlined the words, scrawled in a language I did not know, as though he were writing them himself.
Then we covered them.
Once again, I was in a temple—but I was no longer a rat. I was a priestess, the oracle, the chosen. I was the closest line to you. No longer was I a silent observer of the debates, now I was included in them.
Zahra and Menodotus fell into line as though they’d witnessed your display of power. Whatever Ardashir and Dione told them about that evening was enough, they demanded no further proof. They simply appeared in the temple and began to work to pull it from its decay.
First it was fortified, for no human was to touch the sacred ground unless they were a sacrifice. There was also concern for retaliation from the other faction over Theon. He remained with us, chained in a room for me to practice the gift of silence on.
It took me years to master compulsion, how long until I learned to permanently silence our kind?
Perhaps it was fear that kept the acolytes at bay, or perhaps it was the promise of power. At first they did not ask, they just followed you. They made the temple over in your image, and once more I was reminded of Delphi.
They drained a human on the altar, each positioned under a major vessel, lapping at the flowing blood until he died. I remember a different altar, covered in blood, the songs of the temple turning to screams in my ears.
No, not screams.
It was so long ago, my memory misplaces it.
Theon must be strong enough to survive my practice, so I flick little bits of human blood at him and laugh when he tries to catch them. He yells and screams and curses me, but I don’t care.
“A question for a question,” I offer.
“Fuck you,” he spits, but his mouth is dry from starvation.
“Do you long for death?” I ask.
“When I get free, I will make you beg for death,” he promises.
“Hmm, that does not answer my question,” I say, and I take the remaining blood away. He curses me, then screams, then sobs. I press my ear to the door of his cell and giggle at his agony.
Who is useless now?
Who is ordinary and simpering?
I am not the one sobbing for droplets of blood. I am the priestess of the Temple of You. The Rule of Five is no longer a meeting of intellectuals, it is a living being.
And it wants to grow.
“Recruitment,” Essemteu suggests, opening his arms wide.
“Limited,” Zahra agrees. “We cannot have just anyone join the ranks.”
There are no ranks—there is you, there is me, and there is everyone else. Even Essemteu is not elevated, though he claims to have your ear almost as much as I.
This is a lie. He doesn’t even know where we live.
Moving from our home was a necessity. The fight drew too many eyes, and we’d been there too long as it was.
The neighbors grew suspicious as we did not age, did not work, did not contribute to society as far as they could see.
Their children were born and grew and moved on to create families, and we remained, young and free.
If Essemteu or Dione wanted to reach us, they had to wait for us to appear at the temple.
“We will leave to Memphis first,” Essemteu suggests. “Along the way, we will spread the Rule of Five. The doctrine is sound, it should bind all lamia together. You are right, without these rules our kind is forever threatened.”
You’ve never said what killed the Elders, though we all suspect we know the answer. Humans—finding us in our weakest state. They need not lift a weapon, simply open a window and we are dead.
“Travel will be easier as a group,” Zahra agrees. “I think we should coerce a human to take us. Perhaps two, so they may rest on occasion. They can ensure we travel by day and night and keep us safe.”
“Four, I think,” Ardashir says. “Guards to protect us.”
“Is it taxing to hold the sway of more than one?” Dione asks.
She fell to her knees in that courtyard, but her devotion is always at arm’s length.
Her questions dig into the deeper layers, unearthing the truths hidden beneath.
Her silence during debate is not because she has nothing to say, it’s because she knows how valuable it is to listen.
“Why Memphis?” Menodotus asks. “Why not Rome? It is the center of civilization.”
“Until it isn’t,” Zahra says with a shrug. “The emperors rise and fall, the wars cannot go on forever. At some point the empire will fall, just as every other has.”
“Perhaps, but not for many, many years.” Menodotus laughs. “We will see the cracks and leave before the collapse. Memphis is nothing to Rome.”
“Memphis is where the devout go,” Essemteu reasons.
“Yes—the devout to Ptah. Do you wish to wrest their god from their hands?” Dione asks.
“We need not wrest, we need only show our power. On the street we hunt with compulsion, show the others what we know. We position ourselves as the learned elders, of a sort,” Essemteu says.
“Where do you suggest we go?” Zahra asks, turning her gaze to you. You are quiet during this, your fingers tracing the ornate design carved into the side of your throne. I found and carved the throne; it was unacceptable that you had sat in a simple dining chair. You deserved the grandiose.
“For what end?” you ask. “We establish a temple here, just to abandon it?”
“Dione will stay behind to tend to it and lead new lamia to us,” Zahra says.
Dione will stay behind, and we will leave. She would be separated from Zahra so easily? I glance to you, but you will not meet my eye.
“We could divide,” Ardashir suggests. “Some to Rome, some to Memphis. Once we all know compulsion, it will be easy to sway others.”
“Once we start lessons, we can plan a departure,” Essemteu says reasonably.
Start lessons? You’d spent months teaching me the gift of silence. In that time, you hadn’t even begun to teach compulsion? I assumed you coached them individually. They couldn’t very well all practice at once, on the same human.
But you hadn’t started, and already they want to leave Alexandria.
My chest fills with sympathy for you. I was just like that when we left Delphi, stuck in the seaside village. I wanted to go, to run, to leave—I did not realize the gift I had at my side. My hubris and impatience nearly cost us both our lives.
“It is not a gift to be learned in a fortnight,” I say. I am still unsettled by the weight of their gaze as they train it on me. There is no judgment or disgust, simply curiosity. I am, after all, the only other one to use it. “It took me decades to perfect.”
“It does not need to be perfect, just passable,” Ardashir says. “We have been subduing humans for years. If it doesn’t work, we can try again.”
“That will not instill confidence in the other lamia,” I scoff. “And what will you do if your compulsion wears off mid-travel? If you do not trust your strength, you risk a human turning on you and killing you, then telling everyone about the creature that bent their mind.”
“Yes, it’s not as though you can stay awake to ensure its power,” Essemteu reasons. “We are all tied to the sun—we must wake and sleep by his movements.”
I want to ask again how long they can stay awake once the sun rises, but you place your hand on mine and squeeze.
“Lessons will begin soon. The temple is nearly complete, perhaps we celebrate?” you offer.
The celebration is small but raucous. With no one nearby to hear us, we are free to bring many humans inside the temple and chase them through the rooms. The fear in their blood is an elixir, much like when I drank the wine at the temple as a child.
I paint symbols on the wall in their blood. I laugh and dance and sing.
Dione grabs my arm, stopping me shortly after I sing a line from the old temple.
“Your voice,” she marvels. “It is beautiful.”
“It is what drew me to her,” you say, painting the side of my face with blood. “Her singing in the garden one night. I was drawn to it, inexplicably.” There is a fondness in your voice I am unaccustomed to. I am thankful the blood hides my blush.
We carry on through the night, until there are no humans left and the sun threatens to rise. The acolytes lie on the floor of the temple, their bodies slick with blood, their bellies full and eyes heavy.
“Tomorrow,” Essemteu slurs.
“Tomorrow,” you promise, and lead me into the street.
The sun blisters the back of my hand as I close the door to our home. We peel off our clothes and fall into each other, licking the blood clean from our skin.
My eyelids grow heavy as I slide into our grave.
I am content and sated, and I am in your favor wholly.
I do not like the idea of the others learning compulsion, but I suppose it is only fair.
You are their leader, their goddess—and bestowing gifts is what you are wont to do with your devotees.
I can dislike it all I want, but I will not question you on it.
At last, I feel that I have righted the wrongs from Patras. At last, I am worthy of your love once more, and you are restored as an Elder and a goddess amongst humans and our kind. I do not think of us as lamia, the name falls short of what you are capable of.
My fingers curl into the dirt of my homeland, and I fall asleep to the scent of the temple in my nose.