Hippolyta and the Curse of the Amazons (13 page)

When they saw Themiscyra in the distance, there was no one working in the fields.

“It shouldn’t be
this
quiet,” Hippolyta murmured. She could feel the hairs standing up on the back of her neck, a sure sign of danger in the road ahead. Her fingers stroked the edge of the ax at her side. She wondered:
Could some enemy have swept across our land while I’ve been gone?
Then she looked again at the countryside but this time carefully.

Unlikely,
she thought. There was no sign of a battle. There was no sign of any destruction.

“Maybe there’s a festival going on and everybody’s stopped working for the day,” Tithonus suggested.

“Maybe you’re right,” said Hippolyta. Strange how she suddenly, desperately wanted Tithonus to be right. “A festival.”

But it was not First Planting nor was it Harvesttime. It was not the solstice, either, when the days grew shorter or longer. It could not be a celebration of a new daughter, for when she’d left, no one who was carrying a child had been near term. The Festival of Founding, in which they celebrated Themiscyra’s beginnings, was not for many passages of the moon yet.

What other festivals are there?
she wondered.

“That would be fun, arriving during a festival,” Tithonus enthused.

“Be quiet!” Hippolyta suddenly told him. “Listen.”

She thought at first she was hearing the wind keening through the trees. But the trees were still, and there was no wind.

“That’s a funny noise,” said Tithonus. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Hippolyta replied.

But she did. It was the sound of weeping voices. And they were coming from Themiscyra.

“Well,” the boy said, “what do you
think
it is?”

She was afraid to think. She could only act. She urged the horse forward with her heels.

They followed the dirt road until they came to the wall around the city. Surprisingly, there were no sentries at the gate, no one patrolling the palisade.

It’s as if the gods had reached down and plucked every Amazon but me from the earth,
she thought.

The keening noise from inside the city was louder now and even more unsettling. It was like a wild mourning cry after battle.

The horse began to grow nervous, whinnying and stamping and trying to veer away from the town.

“We’d better get off before he throws us,” said Hippolyta, skinning one foot over the horse’s back and dropping down. She turned to help Tithonus dismount. Then she tethered the animal to a post and patted it gently to calm it.

Tithonus shivered. “I don’t think it’s a festival,” he muttered.

Hippolyta didn’t respond.

They passed through the gateway and onto the empty, narrow streets. All at once a woman came stumbling out of one of the houses and ran up the street toward them. Her cheeks were streaked with tear tracks; her face was pale and haggard. She was pulling at her hair in a frenzy of anguish as she ran. She’d actually torn out hunks of it, for there were clumps in her hand.

Tithonus darted behind Hippolyta and hid there.

Hippolyta was hardly less afraid than he, but she stood her ground. She thought the woman looked familiar, though she couldn’t put a name to her. Perhaps a servant in the palace or some woodworker who’d fashioned a new table for the temple recently.

“Dead, oh, all of them dead!” the disheveled woman wailed, and seized Hippolyta by the shoulders. “What will become of us now?” The woman stared into her face with wide, bloodshot eyes. Her voice shriveled to a husky sob. “Dead. Dead. All of them dead.”

Releasing her hold, the woman sank to her knees and buried her face in her hands.

Hippolyta was torn between the impulse to comfort this madwoman and the impulse to run away before the madness took a dangerous turn.

“Who’s dead?” she asked. “Is Queen Otrere safe?”

The woman gave no answer but wept into her hands.

“What’s wrong?” Tithonus asked in a small voice.

“I don’t know,” Hippolyta replied. “Stay close to me, and we’ll find out.”

“I think we should go back,” Tithonus said. “While we still can. Listen, Hippolyta.”

They both listened. The great keening filled the city and threatened to overwhelm them.

“This is a place full of ghosts,” Tithonus cried.

“This is Themiscyra, not Tartarus,” Hippolyta said, turning to face him. “Not the land of the dead. Come on, boy. Don’t you want to be a brave warrior like your father?”

Tithonus looked down at the ground. “No,” he said in a near whisper.

“Then be a brave warrior like your sister,” she said, taking his hand. “Like me.”

She led him down the street toward the center of Themiscyra. As soon as they entered the main avenue, she felt his fingers tighten convulsively around hers.

Here was where the sound was coming from. Along the road, slumping in doorways, leaning against walls, draped over the fountain unheeding the water in their faces, were scores of Amazons. Like the deranged woman by the gate, these Amazons were wailing, hair unbound, garments disordered and torn.

Again and again the same words recurred like a dirge: “They are dead, all of them dead. What is to become of us now?”

Hippolyta recognized most of the faces, and that only made things worse. Women she had seen dressed for battle or riding boldly off on the hunt were now weak and helpless, their spirits broken by some dreadful calamity.

Was this the promised curse,
she wondered,
the result of her mother’s refusal to kill her infant son?

“Let’s get out of here,” Tithonus pleaded. “This is an awful place.”

“No,” Hippolyta insisted. “Not until we understand what’s going on. These are my people, but at the same time, they aren’t. True Amazons would never act like this. We have to find the queen. My mother. Your mother. She’ll tell us what’s happening here.”

T
HE NEARER THEY DREW
to the center of Themiscyra, the more crowded the avenue became. They were jostled on every side by grieving Amazons, who were too distracted to notice them. The din of the women’s lamentations was overwhelming.

“What are they all crying about?” Tithonus asked. “I don’t see anybody dead.” He was pressed up against Hippolyta’s side, and without thinking, she placed a protective arm around him.

“I don’t know,” Hippolyta said, almost shouting to be heard above the loud sobs. “Maybe they’re under some kind of spell.”

A sudden dizziness swept over her, and she leaned on Tithonus’ shoulder.

“Oof,”
she exhaled. It was as if the unnamed grief engulfing the others had begun washing over her as well.

“What is it, Hippolyta?” the boy asked, looking up at her.

“Must think,” she said. “Must remember my purpose.” She was speaking to herself as much as to him. But the grief was coming in waves now, a great tide of it. She felt as if she were drowning.

At that very moment a girl her own age slouched down the street, shoulders bowed down with misery.

“Phoebe!” Hippolyta whispered.

“What’s a Phoebe?” Tithonus asked.

It was all Hippolyta could do to nod her head in Phoebe’s direction. “Her. Barracks mate,” she managed to say.

Phoebe was sobbing aloud. The front of her robe was soaked through with tears; her eyes were rimmed with red. She looked as though she’d been crying for days. Perhaps she had.

The thought made Hippolyta shudder, and she clung to Tithonus.

As if the touch lent him strength, Tithonus cried out to the weeping girl, “Phoebe! Phoebe!” His voice cracked as it sang out over the chorus of weeping women.

Hearing her name, Phoebe looked up for a moment and then, still crying, came closer.

Hippolyta reached out and touched her sleeve. “Phoebe,” she croaked, “it’s me, Hippolyta. What’s happened here? Where’s my mother? Where are my sisters?”

The girl’s chest heaved with grief, and she had to fight to catch her breath. “They came,” she gasped. “They killed everyone.”

“But—but—no one is dead,” Hippolyta insisted, though there seemed to be a stone in her own heart weighing so heavily it hurt to speak. “Who came? Whom did they kill?”

“
They
came. Everyone is dead.” Phoebe howled. “All of them. What are we to do now?”

She buried her face in Hippolyta’s shoulder and sobbed.

Hippolyta pulled herself away and, still leaning heavily on Tithonus, continued on down the street. It felt as if they’d fallen into a river and he were holding her head above the water. She was grateful to him and angry in equal measure. He seemed unaffected by the grief. The anger kept her from drowning in the grief.

As they neared the center of the settlement, the mournful chorus grew louder still. At last they reached the great square. Here the madness seemed at its worst, for the square was packed from one end to the other with women rending their garments, groaning aloud, and tearing out their own hair.

“They sound,” Tithonus said, “like screeching cranes.”

Hippolyta had to clench her hands into fists till the nails drew blood. Otherwise she, too, would have been ripping at her clothes and grabbing handfuls of hair from her own head.

On the far side of the square stood the temple of Artemis atop a set of graceful stairs. The temple was a simple stone structure with a domed roof and fluted pillars. Carved into the lintel over the doorway were the symbols of the goddess: bow, moon, bear. A solitary figure, her back to them, waited on the topmost step, eyes turned toward the heavens. The purple border of her royal robe was visible even at this distance.

“Mother!” Hippolyta cried out, astonished to find Otrere out of prison. “Mother, I’ve returned!”

Her voice was drowned out by the shrill lamentations of the Amazons in the square. Otrere showed no sign of having heard her.

“Is that her?” Tithonus cried. “Is that my mother?” For a moment his excitement overcame his fear. He loosened his grip on Hippolyta and strained for a better view of the queen.

“If anyone here still has her wits, it will be Mother. The guards must have let her out in their confusion,” said Hippolyta. “Come, Tithonus.”

He grabbed on to her hand again, and she could feel both his eagerness and fear in the sweaty palm. Jostling their way through the mob, they climbed the temple steps till they stood right below the queen.

“Mother!” Hippolyta cried again.

Otrere didn’t look around. But this close it was clear that the queen too was affected, for she was praying wildly to the sky.

“Mother,” Hippolyta choked out the single word, and then was struck dumb.

At last Otrere turned and looked directly at Hippolyta. Her eyes were reddened, weary; her full lower lip quivered. “Weep, my daughter, weep for us all,” she said. “There is nothing left but sorrow now. They are all dead. All. All dead.”

Pale and frightened, Tithonus stepped out from behind Hippolyta and went up the steps till he stood next to the queen. He reached out a tentative hand and lightly touched her disheveled hair. She didn’t seem to notice the touch or to recognize that there was a boy on the steps of the temple, so lost was she in misery.

Hippolyta started to sink down onto the step when she felt a small hand tugging on her arm. “Hippolyta, Hippolyta, look at me,” cried Tithonus. He sounded very far away. “Remember that you’re a warrior.”

Hippolyta drew a forearm across her eyes, wiping away the tears.

“You saved me from the monster. Remember?”

She took a deep breath to steady herself.

“You took me from the well. Remember?”

She stood on trembling legs.

“You beat the old man at quarterstaffs. Remember?”

She looked at him, though tears still trembled in her eyes. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, Tithonus, I do remember.”

“Then
get us out of here
!”

She looked at Tithonus and saw the expectation in his face. He was trying
his
best to be brave. She would have to try
hers.

“Yes,” she said. “There has to be something I can do.”

“There is,” said a strange voice.

Hippolyta turned quickly and saw old Demonassa standing in the portico of the temple. There was no trace of grief or distress in her face. Hippolyta was surprised she hadn’t recognized the old woman’s voice.

“Who’s that?” whispered Tithonus.

“The priestess of Artemis,” Hippolyta replied. “The one who helped me get your brother to Troy.” She was about to address Demonassa when the old woman raised a hand to silence her.

“Always we return to the beginning,” the old woman said, gesturing about. “So many lessons must be learned over and over. What was then is now. The past repeats. Arimaspa comes to Themiscyra.” Her voice rose easily above the lamentations of the distraught women.

Confused, Hippolyta shook her head. “What do you mean, Demonassa—the past repeats? And what has Arimaspa to do with what is happening here? Is this Artemis’ curse? I thought that the curse was supposed to mean death, but no one here has actually died.”

The old woman turned away and pushed open the heavy door of the temple with one wrinkled hand. She waved Hippolyta to follow her into the dimly lit interior.

Hippolyta started forward, and Tithonus was right beside her.

Demonassa looked back and raised a finger in warning. “The boy stays outside.”

Tithonus gasped. “Don’t leave me alone, Hippolyta,” he pleaded.

“Wait here,” she said reassuringly. “I’ll come back for you very soon. I swear it. Nothing will happen to you here.”

Tithonus sank down against the temple wall and pulled his knees up to his chin, as if he were trying to shrink out of sight.

Then Hippolyta followed Demonassa inside, and the door slammed shut behind her. The wind from the closing door made the flames in the little oil lamps dance about. Strange and awful shadows like monstrous winged beings pranced around the room.

Hippolyta began to shake, her hands and shoulders trembling.

“You see what has happened to your sisters?” Demonassa said suddenly, her voice hard. “They brought their queen into my temple to put her on trial for her life. But Queen Otrere’s followers came after them, and for the first time Amazons drew their weapons against each other. In here.
In my temple!
And you, child, were the cause of it all.”