Tangled threads of fate

The Goddess had visited him since childhood, her silver eyes gazing down with stern sadness. From the age of nine, Telemachus learned to fall asleep clothed, clutching his lyre and his wooden sword – and to awaken in her enchanted forest. The Goddess taught him to fight, to play the lyre, and to sing. To sing so that spellbound beasts would draw near, does allowed themselves to be stroked, and wolves drowsed at the astonished Telemachus’s feet. Then, a faint smile would flicker in the Goddess’s solemn eyes: "Impressed? Don’t imagine only my pompous brother is capable of such things. He is far too shallow for the delicate work of nurturing huntresses." "Huntresses? But, Arte..." "Shh," – the Goddess’s cool finger pressed against his lips, sealing the question. "Call me Selene. And yes, huntresses are usually girls. But you were born when something tangled the threads of fate. And you were never meant to be alone." "Tell me about them again. Please..." Telemachus would shyly entreat the figure towering above him, clad in a chiton too short for a lady but practical for the hunt. He pleaded as if for a bedtime story. A story of that better destiny he would never have. The Goddess sighed, but smiled again: "Your father’s friend was meant to have a daughter. She would have been a little clumsy and quite naive, but kind-hearted, always ready to battle evil or embrace the world with open arms. And your aunt Ktimene was meant to have a daughter too. She would have been somewhat somber and distrustful, but utterly reliable, in battle and in life." Telemachus would close his eyes and see a small, curly-haired girl with a red headband – cheerful and kind, ever ready to support or aid in a fight. And he saw a tall, brooding girl with dusky skin, bearing a sword nearly her own height, fearsome in combat but awkward with the lyre, blushing when she sang. He saw them as if they lived, and tears would well in his eyes. And the Goddess continued: "Together, your songs would have strengthened the Veil between our world and the realm of the dead so powerfully that the restless shades, beyond even Lord Hades’s control, could no longer slip through to feed on the fears and sorrows of the living. But fear not, you can do this alone. Orpheus managed it, having lost both his brother and his beloved partner Eurydice. You can become just as legendary." Each morning, Telemachus awoke in tears, with calluses from the sword and fingers bloodied by the lyre’s strings. But stubbornly he repeated: "I will be legendary!" At home, cold stone palace walls greeted him each dawn: his father’s old dog asleep by the bed, his perpetually sorrowful mother, the prohibition against going out without servants, and the absence of choice. Ever since his father failed to return from the war, a creeping evil had infested Ithaca. Evil not only in the form of coarse men who tried – some with flattery and gifts, others with near threats – to persuade his mother to remarry. But also in the form of strange, translucent shadows that only Telemachus seemed to see. Their whispers drove men mad, their touch burned with an icy, spectral cold. Telemachus increasingly noticed them haunting the townsfolk, even people within his own household. A maidservant, trailed by one such blurred shade, hanged herself. One of his mother’s suitors, pursued by a shadow, threw himself into the sea. Selene said the Veil over Ithaca was fraying and thinning. Too much evil gathered in the palace. Too many men engaged in nothing but trying to charm another man’s wife, slandering rivals, quarreling, and drinking. Telemachus trained from dawn till dusk. In the evenings, he sang in the inner garden, softly and shyly, yet maids and guards gathered to listen. His songs seemed to repel the shades and cast a fragile veil of calm over the troubled palace; even the drunken curses of the suitors at their nightly feasts seemed to quieten slightly. Selene smiled sadly and told him he must hurry. Alone, he must strive three times harder to prevent the shades from tearing through the Veil. Telemachus was twelve. Soon after, he noticed with horror that some shades had gained flesh, becoming almost indistinguishable from men. Only upon close inspection could one see the strange marks upon their skin, like tattoos shaped in tongues of flame. Criminals, blasphemers, or runaway slaves were branded with tattoos, so men hid these shameful marks beneath clothing. The shades, however, concealed their sigils by some unknown magic. Telemachus was twelve when Selene first gave him a gleaming sword and said, "Kill." And he... could not. Even staring into inhuman, fathomless black eyes, even seeing the cursed sigils on the skin. Even when the shade bared unnaturally sharp fangs – he could not turn his heart to stone and simply snuff out a life. Seeing the oceans of tears in his eyes, Selene was disappointed. People began disappearing on Ithaca. And Telemachus himself began to hear a faint whisper deep within his own soul, telling him he was useless – a pathetic prince not taken seriously even in his own palace, a hunter unable to kill his prey... Selene always said huntresses must hide their weaknesses, so he told even her nothing. It all ended on one of the darkest, moonless nights, when Telemachus felt the thin Veil tremble almost physically. He understood he must change, or Ithaca would fall. That night, the whisper vanished. And over his heart, a small petal of black flame appeared. Telemachus killed his first shade with particular brutality, cleaving it in two. Then he tracked down and similarly dispatched several of its companions. He proved to Selene he had changed. He proved it to himself. His songs grew more confident and fierce, promising death to enemies. They no longer offered comfort, but seemed to unite the small community of palace servants against the intruders. The suitors began glancing warily at the strange child with the far-too-serious gaze. Soon, where there had been a single petal, a flower of black patterns bloomed. Selene shouldn't have noticed, but she did. And she was horrified. "A huntress cannot become a monster herself! Unless..." – her silver eyes darkened, "...unless your own blood betrayed you. Your father crossed that line too." "You mean he's... dead?" – Almost three years had passed since the end of the Trojan War, and Telemachus thought of it more and more. What if his father was dead? What if he too had become a restless ghost, a wandering shade? What if that was the monster he would one day face? Selene remained silent. And she never answered questions about his father again. She only demanded he conceal the patterns and intensified his singing training. By sixteen, Telemachus had mastered the art of pretending to be naive and childish, singing gentle songs and trying to unite people's souls to sustain the Veil. And each night, he slipped from his second-floor room, descending the thick ivy entwining a marble column. Old Argos had grown accustomed to sleeping in his bed, tucked under the blanket, even answering the maids' calls through the locked door with an indistinct whine in the morning. Then he would lick the blood from his master's hands and tend his wounds upon his return. All went well. Fortunately, the shades crumbled into sorrowful sparks upon death, and no one knew how many perished in the night. And no one suspected that the cloaked bard singing in the taverns after sunset, hailed as a second Orpheus, was in truth the Prince of Ithaca. The Veil slowly began to gleam with gold. Telemachus had indeed managed alone. And he thought less and less of those two girls who might have fought and sung beside him, shoulder to shoulder, saving Ithaca, perhaps all of Greece. He was alone, and it suited him. Until Antinous appeared. Only a mere six years older, but at sixteen, such an age gap felt like an eternity. Bedecked in the rich garb of an Ithacan noble's son and adorned with a couple of battle scars from some minor campaign. Utterly convinced he deserved to be king. Seeing him for the first time, Telemachus regretted his shining sword worked only on shades. And Antinous smiled and asked: "Why are you always alone, hmm, little prince?" And strange glints flickered in his dark eyes.