The Ten Thousand

CHAPTER TWO

THE PRESENCE OF evil in the air was like a stench or a cloud, as I slipped over to Asteria's hut the next evening in an attempt to clear the poisoned atmosphere that had intruded between us. It was not like the constant tension of an army in retreat, an army besieged, which is something different, a background irritation like the distant roaring of a river, or the faint smell of a dead animal that one has not been able to find and bury, but to which one eventually becomes accustomed. The feeling that evening was distinct, a sharp wrenching of the gut, a bristling on the back of the neck, the sense that something was terribly wrong or dangerous in the world, the feeling that one is being watched by an evil deity, or worse, that the evil is in oneself.

Approaching the low doorway of the stone beehive structure, I gave my customary whistle to let Asteria know I was there, and was mildly surprised that she did not answer. Still, this was nothing-she might have been sleeping, or away, and so I stooped low at the waist and entered.

The phosphorescent white drifts reflecting through the door illuminated a sight for which I was not prepared, the consummation of the evil portent I had been sensing. Even before my eyes registered the sight, my ears were assaulted by the muffled, heavy breathing, the barely stifled grunts. Asteria was lying flat on her belly in the dirt, her legs spread out straight behind her, while a large, muscular figure kneeled above her buttocks, his knees digging painfully into the backs of her thighs. His left arm was stretched out toward her neck, and in the faint light I could see in that hand the evil gleam of metal, Asteria's own dagger, while his right hand fumbled clumsily at his groin as he worked at untying and loosening the loin straps under his tunic. He was facing away from me and had not even heard me enter for all his caprine snorting, and all I could see was his smoothly arched back and legs, the dolphinlike dorsal ridge of his spine straining at the skin of his back. What transfixed me, however, leaving me momentarily frozen in astonishment, was the sight of the enormous, pink, puckered burn scar on the brute's right shoulder, as cracked and ugly as the last time I had seen it twelve years before. Asteria had craned her head back over her shoulder to peer at me, her eyes pleading with mine in silent desperation.

Fifty years later I can still recall the snapping of my nerves, the feeling that whether he were man or god he had only minutes left to live. Despite his skills at hand-to-hand combat, Antinous did not stand a chance. Having burst into the hut at his most vulnerable moment, I reacted almost instantly, seizing him by the hair with a roar, lifting him bodily into the air and slamming him back against the wall with all my strength, in one motion. I noticed that if anything he was bigger than I had remembered, but I too had grown, and was now more than a match for his bulk. His face registered a series of emotions: first shock and surprise, followed by pain at being hurled so brutally against the wall, then a glint of recognition and a narrow, evil smile, as he made my face out in the darkness. His loosened clothing had fallen off, exposing his obscene and tumescent nakedness, and in my rage I forced my knee up between his thighs and rammed it three times into his crotch with all my strength. He screamed and rolled his eyes back in his head in pain. When I let go his hair, he collapsed in agony to his knees, then onto his side, gasping for breath, where I left him retching and glaring at me with watery, hate-filled eyes, as he mourned the ten seconds of my rage that had resulted in the permanent loss of his manhood.

I turned back to Asteria without a second glance at Antinous. She had pushed herself up onto her knees and crawled over to the far wall where she now huddled, her arms wrapped around herself, looking at me with eyes as horrified as those of the writhing creature across the floor. As I crouched and reached my hand out to her, she reflexively flinched, as if afraid of me as well, then immediately came to herself, and burying her face in her hands began sobbing frantically.

"He… he was waiting for me when I entered the hut… caught me by surprise, he said he would kill me if I didn't do it…"

I let her sobs run their course for a moment, while the bleeding Antinous rolled and grimaced, all the while staring at us with his face contorted in fury.

Suddenly Asteria's shuddered convulsions stopped, and she was silent for a second, before slowly turning her face to look straight at the man who only moments before had held her life in his hands. She stared silently, as if considering his fate, before whispering to me, in a low, constricted voice, "He will survive."

I must have muttered some comforting platitude to her, about his having learned a hard lesson, but she stopped me with a finger on my lips. I then understood her meaning, and my blood ran cold. Asteria continued to stare at me, and I realized from the silence that Antinous, too, was now lying still, quivering like a freshly caught hare, watching me intently through the penumbra.

My heart sank as I realized what had to be done, and Asteria slowly stood, keeping her eyes fixed on me the whole while as if willing her strength into my backbone. Antinous began muttering at me as I approached him.

"You killed my brother," he grunted, "and now you've destroyed my offspring as well. Have you not taken enough from me?"

I paused for a moment and stared at him, searching his face, but his eyes glared back at me in hate, without a glimmer of remorse. Without further hesitation, I stuffed his filthy loincloth into his mouth and lifted him roughly by the hair. Shoving his dead weight through the low door into the snow outside, I followed immediately behind and then half dragged, half carried him to the dark copse several hundred feet behind the low outbuilding, where I dropped him onto the frozen crust of snow. Antinous lay on his belly, motionless and panting, a dark stain radiating out from his pelvis. As I stepped over his back with one foot to straddle him from behind, my mind flooded with memories, and I wondered that this pathetic creature was the same man who had forced Aedon into such a position years ago in his sadistic training regimen. "You'll live," he had said then, though I would not offer him now this same meager assurance. As I grasped his hair to jerk his head back and expose his pulsing throat, he gave a deep, wrenching shudder. I saw a reflection in his eyes, the disembodied head and shoulders of a man I did not recognize, and I paused for a moment to consider whether this truly was part of the gods' plan.

Antinous held his breath, waiting in agony, as I stared down at him; and then almost against my will, I released my grip on his hair. His head flopped back down onto the crusted snow and I heard him heave a great, convulsive breath. I did not wait to see what he would do next; I felt drained and empty, incapable of even wondering whether he would live or die. I trudged slowly to the hut, without looking back.

The agony of hate, the agony of love. This time there was no separation of the elements.