The Donovan Stone series by Nelson Bridell » »

The Visit

Contributed by Rivka Jacobs on 16/06/10

Kirke stood near the edge of the cliff overlooking the sparkling aquamarine water and glistening white beach of her harbor. The rays of the sun gleamed off her yellow-orange hair bound into several braids that hung down her back. She stood statue-like, unmoved by the vigorous sea breeze. Her amber eyes glittered as she watched the sleek and elegant yacht in the distance glide towards the foaming, splashing waves on the shore.

Something rose into the air and soared towards her from the sailing ship. Kirke smirked in contempt as it approached and she recognized her niece’s favorite messenger, the hawk-sized bird-man Perseus. The creature flew straight on, until it hovered some ten feet over her head. It began circling and squawking.

She ignored the display, and continued observing the vessel below as it anchored, and dispatched a small boat. She turned around and started to walk away, her bare feet just inches above the bleached and bramble-choked ground. Her saffron-colored Doric chiton moved fluidly with every step she took as she headed back to her palace.

Above her, wings flapped and Perseus plopped himself down claw-toes first directly in her path. “Madame Kirke, my mistress wishes you to know, she’s arriving for a short visit. She honors you with her presence….”

Kirke maneuvered around him. “I am her aunt, I am her elder. I honor her by allowing her to find this island at all,” she said without looking at Perseus.

He hopped a few paces along, his wings flexing and his feathers extending. He continued to bounce sideways keeping pace with the tall, fair-skinned woman as she approached the dense forest surrounding the clearing where she had built her acropolis thousands of years before. “She wants you to–” he started to announce but Kirke waved her right hand and his beak-mouth became stuck.

“I am not interested in what she wants me to do,” she said. She wove herself like a shuttle between her ancient trees.

Perseus hesitated, still uttering guttural noises, but then leaped up and disappeared behind her, making a flub-flub sound with his thrashing wings.

She passed out of the woods and into an area of dulcet streams, lush gardens, and rich, aromatic meadowlands that extended around a low hill on top of which sprawled her home. Beasts of all kinds — some animal, some part-human — grazed and nuzzled the dirt and lolled in peace here. Some of them roared, or howled, or lowed, or bobbed their heads and lifted paws as she moved by them.

She reached the base of a staircase cut in the volcanic rock upon which her palace was constructed. She began her ascent. Her attendants, the Naiades and Dryades who lingered on earth out of loyalty to her, appeared on the landing at the top. They flittered down the stairs towards her, their gem-like diaphanous chitons fluttering behind them.

Kirke tried to suppress her escalating annoyance as she climbed. Her niece was one of the last survivors, and welcome. But unlike the others who remained, unlike herself, Medea relished the changing times. She wallowed in the latest fashions and jargon and material detritus of human civilization.

Kirke’s nymph servants reached her and extended their hands in supplication. They changed their direction and joined her, forming a cloud around her as she continued upward. Kirke waited a moment, then announced in a melodious voice, “Medea is here for a visit.” The expressions on her servants’ faces almost made her laugh.

A short time later, all the airy and spacious chambers of her palace were cleaned and fragrant. Benches were laid with crimson cloth, and intricately-designed woven rugs covered the lustrous marble floors. In the hearth room, a special pair of polished ivory chairs were drawn up to the large, central, circular well of fire. Silver sideboards stood nearby, draped in silk and loaded with baskets of fresh bread, pastries, and seafood treats. On a low table between the ivory chairs, sat two hammered-gold cups. Between the cups rested an ancient pottery wine flagon decorated with geometric patterns and archaic images of gods and goddesses.

Kirke entered the room, attired in a classic and colorful embroidered peplos fastened at the shoulders by jeweled pins, and gathered at the waist by a gold filigree girdle. She wore her diadem, and several necklaces and bracelets made of precious metals, beads, and obsidian glass. She stood behind one of the ivory chairs, her arms dangling at her sides. Four of her nymph attendants stood two on either side of her. Several more servants — the human-porcine kind — hovered around the perimeter in the shadows, snorting and trying to remain perfectly still. Each stood on two hooves, draped in his short, purple chlamys cloak buttoned at one meaty shoulder.

They heard a commotion approaching them — squawking and a flurry of scuffling noises, and voices. The speech of men, and the unmistakable and loud sound of a woman intoning a blunt and vulgar language.

Kirke watched as her niece swept in, her entourage following her. She was stalking on yellow sandal-like shoes with heels perched on high spikes. Her trim body was packed into bright yellow tight pants that ended in cuffs just below here knees. Her breasts were barely contained in a clingy white, short-sleeved top that was tucked into her belt. Her coppery hair was puffed and swirled into a sculpted mass with a diamond clip inserted just above her right ear. The upper part of her face, her eyes, were hidden by some kind of gray-green lenses held together by a shiny frame that grasped her ears and the top of her nose. She smelled like rotten flowers and tincture of alcohol.

“Darling!” she said, striding in Kirke’s direction. “My dear, darling Auntie!”

“Greetings, Medea,” Kirke answered, attempting to keep calm as her niece lunged for her. “Are you trying to embrace me?” she asked, holding up a hand, stopping Medea instantly in mid-motion. Bangles and bracelets tinkled.

“Oh, Kirke, you are so decrepit,” Medea answered, wrenching herself free of the spell with little effort and removing her eyewear. She huffed in air, straightened her shoulders. “Enough,” she said to her followers as she noticed them bristle. She did a double take and smiled at two of the topless young men behind her. “This beautiful boy is Javier,” she said, winking in his direction. “I found him in South America. And that sweetheart next to him is Eddie. I discovered him in Scotland. Guys, this is my Aunt Kirke. She’s the sister of my father, Aeetes of Kholkhis.”

Kirke studied the youths; they were both grinning and staring at the walls. Their eyes were black and glossy holes under unblinking lashes. She shook her head slightly and sighed. “And my sister was Pasiphae and she made love to a bull, did my niece tell you that? Did she explain that my father was the sun god and Titan Helios?” she asked, speaking one of the ancestral dialects of Greek.

“Sure, I told them everything,” Medea said happily, waving one hand in Perseus’ direction. “Sweetie, take the crew to the dining hall and get them some food. I need to talk things over with my auntie,” she said to the bird man. She clip-clopped over to one of the ivory chairs. “Same furniture, after thirty-five hundred years,” she said and sat herself down with a flounce. “But it’s comfy here, too. Brings back memories.”

Kirke nodded at her attendants, dismissing them. She slowly glided around to the front of her chair, and lowered herself to sit, her back straight and her chin raised. “Would you like some wine, Medea?” she asked, reaching for the handle of the painted jug.

Medea reached into one of her pockets, rocking slightly in her chair, and drew out some sprigs of a black-rooted plant and a packet of powder. She dangled the herb and lowered her head in a cute kind of way, and sang in English, “Seee, look what I have, your poisons can’t hurt me.”

Kirke pursed her lips, trying to remain calm. “Medea, you know perfectly well I can’t hurt you. And you can’t hurt me. From the time I purified you and that idiot Iason for your sin of fratricide, in this very place so many ages ago, I offered you my protection and you in turn made an oath never to betray me.” She poured the wine into both golden cups, set the flagon down. Flames shimmied and wavered in front of them.

Medea shrugged, cradled her cup in both hands and raised it to her lips. She sipped. “Your wine is still the best in the world,” she said after a few moments, finishing the last drop.

Kirke noted Medea’s incandescent irises shining like sunbeams in the twilight of her great hall. This was a trait they shared, and the sure sign of descent from Helios. She could almost feel pity for her niece. Almost. They both had lived a long time, survived many tragedies, committed many crimes. Kirke was content to retreat from the world, abide on her beloved island of Aeaea, hidden by magic from the sight of man. Sometimes she still had the urge to draw people to her, to bring them into her harbor. Her involuntary visitors were usually frightened, but she rarely sported with them or harmed them in any way these days. She only wanted to see, to ask questions, to understand the nature of the history that was being created outside of this cloaked and protected place.

Medea seemed to slouch a bit. She lowered her head, still hugging her empty cup. “Daughter of the sun-Titan, sister of my father, I call on you and beg your hospitality,” she uttered in the old language, finally using the proper form of address. She paused, raised her eyes and looked directly into Kirke’s own. “I think we’re the last ones left. I get so lonely sometimes. I feel like I’m going insane sometimes.” She lowered her gaze once again, watched the pointed toe of her shoe as she moved it tracing one of the arcane patterns in the rug. “I’m glad you’re still here,” she muttered.

Kirke set her own wine down without drinking. She’d lost almost all feelings of tenderness or sentiment centuries before, maintaining a daily routine of simple kindness to those who served her out of a sense of noblisse oblige. The children of Epimetheus and Prometheus who she occasionally landed on Aeaea where no threat to her, and she felt no rancor towards them. She wished she could empathize with Medea, her own kind, her own kin. “I draw comfort from my home, from Aeaea,” she finally said. She wished she could offer more. “I’ll always be here.”

Medea looked almost close to tears. Her beautiful oval face with the fine straight nose and high cheekbones puckered just the slightest bit. “I can’t stay in one place,” she said. “I need to keep moving. I need to feel life and humanity around me.”

Both women — goddesses some would call them, children or grandchildren of Titans, cousins of the gods of Mount Olympus — reposed in silence. The round hearth flickered with a bluish glow. It was almost too easy for the dead to rise, for the memories of the dead to overcome.

Kirke reached out a hand and placed it on one of Medea’s wrists. “Thank you,” she said, “for honoring me with your presence.”

They could hear some snuffling and scraping off in the shadows. Several of the nymphs were peeking in through the doorway. Medea brightened and rose to her feet. “Are they expecting us to fight?” she asked, laughing, feeling the relief of laughter.

Kirke also stood. She threw back her burnished braids and fingered the long ringlets that dangled loose in front of her ears. “Well, if that creature of yours Perseus ever addresses me again in such a rude and ungracious manner, I may have to do something about it,” she said. She glanced at her attendants, who scurried back into the room. “Shall we join the rest of your party at dinner?” Kirke raised both arms and swept them in a circle, creating a globe of illumination around them.

Medea’s eyes sparked. She picked up her dark-glasses and was about to slip them back on, then stopped. “Tell me, Auntie,” she said in a sing-song tone as she began walking at Kirke’s side, towards the vast dining area at the south end of the palace complex. “Aren’t you the least bit tempted by Eddie? I know it must be hard to let any other man into your bed after sharing it for a year with the son of Laertes, but Aunt Kirke, that was three-thousand years ago. That’s a long time to get over a man.”

Kirke managed a slight smile as they strolled together, both women stately and curvaceous, moving with measured steps. “At least I didn’t run from husband to lover to husband, killing my children and his children and any children that stood in my way….”

“That is low, Kirke. That is low. Where are the laws of hopsitality?…”

The bevy of nymphs and animal men that followed the pair trembled.