Prologue
The King's Omen
She said:
"I know what it's like to be dead,
I know what it is to be sad"
And she's making me feel like I've never been born.
John Lennon/Paul McCartney: "She said, she said"
She sleeps.
Bathed in nothingness, drowned in oblivion. Senses, consciousness, memory, all severed to a near-death state. Only vague, dim sparks of what once was a soul and a spirit remain.
Her deep slumber is kept in the safe custody of a small box. An ebony casket sealed by a simple, fragile piece of linen. So easy to destroy.
But the name inscribed makes it indestructible.
Painted, more than written. Carefully drawn with ichor - the very blood of its owner.
Zeus.
* * *
She dreams.
Ghosts of unseen faces and battle never fought. Of cries never heard and unknown souls. Imploring eyes, laughter laced with spite. Caressing hands, deadly blades. Ice and fire. Clamors of hate, tender whispers. Victory, defeat. All an incomprehensible pattern. Yet she knows. Or has known. Or will know.
Things that will be.
The thread of a life yet to be lived.
Fate. Birth, Life, Death. Moirai.
Rise!
* * *
She stirs.
Slowly, gradually, her consciousness emerges. No feeling, no sensations, no memories. But it is back. That priceless energy. That divine essence coming to and from her.
Cosmo.
Cautiously, almost shyly, ebon tendrils emanate from her, probing, searching, seeking for them.
Sisters.
Instinctively, desperately, she hungrily grasps for their cosmos.
It's been so long. She feels so...
(Feel?)
Lonely.
Excrutiating seconds stretch like unending centuries, until she finally contacts the welcoming warmth of the youngest. Black meets white. Their cosmos entwine, phrasing their mutual love when thoughts or words cannot be spoken.
Sister, sweet sister, everloving... Clotho.
I am reborn.
'I'? Who is 'I'?
Who am I?
And only then she realizes. She understands - with dreadful certainty. The time has come.
The seal is broken.
* * *
She awakes.
In a remote place a couple lies, asleep.
So far yet so close. She can see them, their beautiful bodies
entangled in soft linen sheets and warm fur blankets. The man's
right arm protectively wrapped around the woman's waist, his left
hand resting on a milky, white breast. Facing each other, lips
touching lightly, hair mingled. Blonde on black, black on blonde.
Who am I?
She can smell them. The sweet, intoxicating scent of passion. Sweat mixed with sandalwood, semen with musk. He smells of the forests, of the arctic storms, of the frozen sea, of the hunt.. She smells of incense, of milk, of prayer, of child.
WHO AM I?
("...Your night-eyed Deathness...")
("...you stone hearted, cold blooded bitch!")
She can feel them. Their mutual love flaring like an immortal flame, a blazing light she fears to approach, lest she fails. Lest she is...
Aeide, adelphi... Sing for me, Clotho. Sing of the things that were and uncover memories. Tell me, Ō Spinner, of my self, and make me whole again.
"You were the eldest... the best... the fairest."
Clotho's cosmo smiles and blossoms with sparkling laughter and knowing joy...
"You were also the shortest."
Soon tainted by deep sadness.
"You were the Last Weaver. The Cutter. Fate's chosen Assassin. The One who did not judge. The One who did not fail. The One who could not be..."
...turned.
* * *
She shudders.
Atropos.
With her own name, memories rush. She knows why she's here. Disembodied cosmo, spirit and soul spying on a slumbering couple. Helpless goddess waiting to endure the revenge of an unfair god. Condemned because she hasn't failed.
"Atropos?"
Despite her fears, her pain and revolted anger, she can't help welcoming the bright, vivid cosmo that's now addressing hers. Deep red, as blood should be. Pulsating with life and power.
"Lachesis..."
"Punishment must be faced, debts have to be paid. These are the things that are."
She feels her two sisters leading her gently towards the lovers. The woman slightly stirs, as though vaguely aware of her approaching dark presence.
"Valküre..." the woman mutters, still asleep, "Komm zu mir..."
For an instant, a blink, an heartbeat, she stops. Resists.
"Aesir? I don't belong to..."
("Debts have to be paid.")
Not her sister's voice. But the memories of the sarcastic words of a laughing god.
"The time has come..." Lachesis' words are heavy with sorrow. Clotho's cosmo weeps. "Here and now."
Time collapses. She's snatched from her sisters' tender embrace, feeling them brutally sent away. Her cosmo, her essence, her color, is changed. Defiled. Soothing blackness turned to icy pale blue. Her divinity almost totally wiped out. Knowledge, awareness, senses. All vanish, replaced by the ghost of a possibility.
And the memory of His words. Hard as steel, hammered with rage, laced with infinite pain.
("May you be punished, Atropos, for your coldness, your self-righteous lack of pity. For your pride and your inflexibility. For your closed heart and your merciless blindness...")
She's hurled to the woman, sucked into her at the very moment when the first, miraculous spark of life blossom into her womb.
("In times of need, I shall call upon you, Daughter of Necessity. You will be used, and you will learn...")
Trapped into a single cell. Her consciousness gradually fades, merged with - no eaten by a brand new being.
("Mercy, love, passion and compassion. You will learn to bend, to lie, to betray. You will know treason and loss and grief. You will walk an endless road of dead hopes and twisted happiness... Alone. With no one but your sorry self to comfort you. From the moment when you will breath again ...")
She screams. Silently.
("There will be for you no peace and no mercy.")
Because silence is now all what is left to her.