The October Second Selected Story is by David Landrum
Please feel free to email David at davelandrum@yahoo.com
THE CHAMBER
by David Landrum
Talaith felt hunger pull at her stomach as she kneaded bread. The grain bin was low; it was three months to harvest, and the wheat had hardly grown past a man’s knee for lack of rain. She puffed, sweating with the effort, knowing that the loaf taking shape under her hands would be made to last all week—and she would not get much of it. Her brothers and father would get the most. She and her mother would get what was left, and usually that was hardly anything at all.
Of course, she thought, her father and brothers had to work the fields and that meant they needed to be strong. The women, on the other hand, could be allowed to suffer.
Talaith had lost weight. Her last menstrual cycle came a week late, and when it did come she only bled for one day. If this continued, she thought, grunting and sweating as she pushed the dough down, gathered it, and pushed it down again, she might not be able to have children. She frowned at the unfairness of it. Only women were starved. Only women did without while the men had enough. And only women, she reflected, a shudder passing over her, were sacrificed.
People had been talking about it. It had not rained for two months, and many whispered that Artemis, the goddess to whom the village was dedicated, was angry. The priestess sacrificed; the people brought gifts as well. Twice the entire village gathered to pray for mercy. Silence from heaven answered. No rain came, and the people feared the worst.
A small room stood to the left side of the image of Artemis in the temple. No one spoke of it out loud, but everyone knew what it was. When women did speak of it, it was always in whispers, and they called it “the chamber.” It had not been used for forty-five years. Now, some people said, it would have to be used again.
The elderly women remembered the famine back when and how the priestess cast lots and chose a girl named Kora. The young girl Kora was dressed in white, dedicated to the goddess, and placed in the tiny, airtight room. The villagers sealed the seams of the door with wax, all the time weeping and praying that the goddess would accept their offering and spare their village. Women who served as acolytes that night said that though Kora initially went bravely and willingly, later they heard her scream, plead, and pound on the door when the air in the room was gone and she began to suffocate. In the morning, they said, her body was as blue as the sea on a sunny day. The rains had come that afternoon.
Talaith finished kneading, covered the bread with a cloth, and put it on a windowsill in the sun. She stood by, guarding it. People stole. She had heard reports of rising dough taken from doorsteps and out of kitchens. These were desperate times.
Her stomach ached. She thought of pinching off some raw dough and eating it, but knew she could not do such a thing. Besides, her older brother Pythius always brought her something. He said anger shook him every time their father cut her a portion only a third the size of what everyone else got. Once when the boys speared a fish and her father said she would get none of it, Pythius gave his entire portion to her in front of the whole family. She offered to split it with him. He took one bite and told her to eat the rest. Her father had beaten them both for that offense.
She waited, keeping an eye on the bread. She heard footsteps and saw her mother come through the door. She smiled to welcome the visit, but then Talaith she saw the look on her mother's face and felt a chill wrack her body. Talaith realized that the Chief Priestess and the Head Man of the Village Council were both standing beside her mother.
Talaith froze. She suddenly understood what this meant, and as she tried to stand, her legs failed to support her weight and she collapsed to the floor in a swoon.
*****
The full moon blazed in the sky. The priestess had dressed her in a garment made of lamb’s wool that no one else had worn and only virgins had touched. The midwife had examined to confirm she was a virgin and qualified to be an attendant of the chaste Artemis. Talaith stood as the priestess Modthryth anointed her forehead and put a heavy gold tiara on her head. She smiled a grim smile.
“Talaith, it is an honor to be given to the goddess,” Modthryth said.
But Talaith did not feel gratitude. “Why do I have to die?”
“You were chosen after much prayer and the casting of lots.”
“The rain falls from clouds, not from idols,” Taliath cried.
Modthryth frowned. “Do not blaspheme. You may anger her. Do you want everyone in our village to die? Better one should die than all perish.”
“Some people are saying that rain is caused from moisture in the clouds,” Talaith said, startled at the boldness of her own reply.
Anger flashed in the priestess’s eyes. “How dare you speak so in the very temple of the goddess?” she said. “You may bring a curse on us all.”
Talaith fell silent. She had been taught to fear the goddess but she could not entirely push away the anger that smoldered in a corner of her heart. Younger people had other explanations about rain, but the elders would never listen. Which was real and which was not? Who was right? Her very life depended upon who was right.
“We want the curse to lift,” Modthryth said, her face barely concealing the gloating cruelty she seemed to feel about having the power of death over someone she made defenseless. “That is why you will be given as an offering. The rain will come when you are given over.”
Talaith was desperate to reason with the priestess. “My brother Pythius says rain comes when the vapor from the sun draws up from the sea and becomes too heavy for the sky, and so it falls back to the earth.”
“Pythius sat at the feet of a philosopher who corrupted his mind. It is not wise to share these beliefs. You may offend the goddess and she may destroy your soul in Tartarus. Artemis is a stern and merciless immortal.”
Talaith knew the legends about Artemis. The goddess could be cruel and vengeful. The priestess was correct, though, about where her brother got his new ideas. After Pythius studied a year with Heraclitus of Ionia, he ceased to believe in the gods—at least as they were presented in traditional myths and stories. During winter, when he did not have to work in the fields, he would tell her what his teacher had said. She listened as she carded wool or churned milk. His words struck fear in her, but at the same time she felt fascination and longed to hear more. A frightening thought occurred to her that moment: what he had whispered about the cruelty and capriciousness of the villagers had its ultimate proof in this sacrifice of her life.
The priestess’s subaltern came in the door and nodded. This meant the full moon was at its zenith. Modthryth turned to Talaith. “It is time. Do you have anything to say before you are sealed in so you may be delivered to the goddess?”
She considered blaspheming, cursing Artemis, or spitting on the priestess; and then she considered begging, falling on the floor and pleading for her life. She decided it would be pointless to do either thing. So instead she decided her last words would be brave ones. “If truly she is a goddess,” Talaith said, her voice clear, “Artemis will spare my life. If she is kind and good, as she requires us to be, she will have no other choice.”
Modthryth, stared at her in astonishment. After a moment, she recovered. “Your words will be the destruction of your soul.”
She chanted a prayer, anointed Talaith’s head with perfumed oil, and opened the door to the chamber.
The room was about four feet square. In the center sat a throne that looked to be carved out of solid stone. The ceiling was tall.
The priestess told Talaith to sit. She obeyed, taking her place on the roughly hewn throne. Above the lintel stood a bas-relief image of Artemis: ceramic, pale in its coloration, its design ancient, it looked down on her with the coldness of stone—like the coldness in the priestess’s gaze. Modthryth positioned herself in the doorway as if to block any attempt Talaith might make to escape.
“Blessings on you, Talaith, daughter of Polybius,” she intoned. “Soon you will be in the presence of the goddess. Keep your eyes on her image. It is said that just before you depart your body and your spirit goes to join Artemis the Chaste, the face of her image will glow with light.”
She stood a moment face blank but full of determined maliciousness, and then stepped back. The door creaked shut. Darkness closed over Talaith, though she fancied she saw a faint glow on the face of the icon.
She looked around. She could see nothing in the darkened chamber. She tried to sit still to use as little air as possible. Then she thought how it did not matter. She heard noises and realized they were sealing the spaces around the door with wax. However little air she breathed, soon it would be gone and she would die—no way around it and no getting out.
A tremor of fear ran through her. Artemis, she had been taught, saw and heard all. Though often kind and gentle, she also had a cruel side. She had killed Orion and turned Acteon into a stag so his own hunting dogs tore him to pieces. Would the goddess really be offended at Talaith's lack of submission and condemn her soul to the tortures of Tartarus, as the priestess had said? Should she repent and plead for mercy?
Now unsure and afraid, Talaith considered asking forgiveness, but the thoughts her brother had put into her head would not leave. Pythius had said the stories about Aretmis weren't true. Higher beings would be higher in their sentiments and ethics, he had told her, not just in their experience of time and physicality. She looked up at the image of Artemis. The glow on its face seemed stronger. Or did she only imagine this? Would the goddess send wrath to her or mercy? Which was it to be?
In the silence, she could hear her stomach growling from two days of fasting. Was there any way out? No, she knew that the room was secure because no one had even bothered to tie her up. She waited and tried to remember more of what Pythius had said, but it was hard to think. She was afraid, hungry, and exhausted. She concentrated, trying to pull his words from the store of her memory. His words mingled with the prayers she had memorized and praise and doubt became a confused muddle in her mind.
Soon she became aware of pressure on her chest. She wondered for a moment what was happening, but then she realized that her lungs were laboring to get her breath. Don't panic, she told herself, that will only make my body gasp harder for the air that is so precious and so limited. Despite herself, she began panting like an animal. The air in the room was diminishing.
She looked around desperately. The icon’s face....was it glowing? By the gods, was it true what the priestess had said about Artemis? Was her brother the one who was wrong? The stature slightly illuminated the interior of the chamber. Talaith could see the bricks and arms of the chair. She felt faint. Her legs throbbed and she gasped desperately, panic seizing her.
She stood up and staggered toward the door. She doubled up her fists to pound on it, but then, with a massive effort of her will, restrained herself. No. She would not beg. What good would it do? Whether this was a murder for the sake of religion and a holy sacrifice, she wanted to die with dignity; it was all she had left.
She staggered back to the chair. Her ears buzzed and her arms convulsed. Feeling dull, stupid, heavy, she gasped and wheezed, trying to breathe. The icon’s face glowed brighter. A miracle, just as the priestess had said. The colors of image blurred as she gazed up at it. The pain in her chest grew excruciating.
But then she realized something.
The moon was shining behind the icon of Artemis. No, that was not quite right; the moon was shining through Artemis!
Was that why the goddess glowed? Of course! They only held sacrifices on nights of a full moon.
When this thought crossed her weakening consciousness, she realized, in a flash, what caused the phenomenon. The goddess did not appear at the moment of death to claim the spirit leaving the body. The icon reflected moonlight that shone down on the temple. And to reflect it, it had to be open to the moon on the other side.
That was why the ceiling in here was higher than the rest of the temple.
And if the icon could be illumined by moonlight, it could not be very thick.
She felt herself fading. Breathing in tortured gasps, she desperately looked around for something to throw—a loose stone, a part of the chair. She could see nothing. There was nothing to throw. There was nothing!
She had figured out the truth, and she had figured out how to save herself, but she was going to die anyway. It was too late to find something to throw at the icon; she was out of air and so she was out of options.
Suddenly she heard glass break. How had that happened? How had the icon shattered, when she had not been able to find anything to break it with? As those final questions entered her mind, Talaith lost consciousness.
*****
She opened her eyes. The room glowed brightly with moonshine. Cool air flowed over her. She sat up. Was she in heaven, on Mount Olympus, in the dwelling place of Artemis? No. She was still in the sacrificial chamber!
And that meant she was still alive.
She felt a hand lift her up, but she was still too groggy to comprehend her new situation clearly. She gasped for air, and the freshness of a cool night breeze entered her lungs, reviving her. Rising to her feet, steadying herself against the stone chair, Talaith saw the shattered image of the goddess. The stars and the full moon gleamed through the opening of the broken face of Artemis.
Finally able to think, Talaith turned to see who was standing beside her in the chamber. Who had risked the wrath of the entire village to help a mere woman, a lowly member of society?
“We need to get out of this chamber,” Pythius told her. “In fact, we have to leave the village entirely.”
Talaith understood the implications of her brother's words. She may have escaped death from the chamber, but now the villagers would want to kill them both as revenge for such a drastic breach of protocol. Neither of them could go home. “Where can we go?”
She felt something hit her back. Cold and heavy, it made her jump. Something hit her again, it was wet. She realized it was a rain drop. Huge and cold, the rain drops began falling all around her. Her arms went to gooseflesh as the rain began to soak the garment she wore. Raising her eyes, she did not see the moon but silvery grey clouds. Sprays of rain poured through the broken image of Artemis.
She heard scraping sounds. They were pulling the wax out of the opening. The door would swung open in a few minutes. “They're coming!” she cried. “Modthryth thinks I am dead, so she is opening the chamber! She can't see you here! Pythius, save yourself. Hide! I'll take responsibility. I'll tell them that I alone broke the goddess!”
“I don't want to leave you,” Pythius said.
“You must!” Talaith insisted. “You must, so that you can let the truth of science be told to future generations. We must end the useless slaughter of young women in this village. Tell them, Pythius, tell them! Tell the villagers that it rained without the goddess, for the goddess is broken. She is dead.”
She pushed her brother out the broken opening at Artemis's head from which he had come. Within seconds Pythius was gone.
Suddenly she chose a course of action. It might not work; the people of her village might think it an even greater cause to kill her, but she saw no other hope. Talaith bent down, picked up a sharp fragment from the broken icon, and slashed at her dress. She could hear them more clearly now. The door opened a crack. She finished trimming her dress. She wished she was not barefoot but had on boots. Thunder rolled and the ferocity of the rain increased. Reaching back, she untied her hair and let it fall over her shoulders. She put the tiara back on her head and stood up, trying to look fearless.
The door to the chamber swung open.
Talaith looked out at the crowd, which had expected to see her lifeless, suffocated body. Instead they saw her alive, standing tall. She had trimmed her dress so it was above her knees and revealed the curves of thighs. She had untied her hair so it hung on her shoulders. Talaith had made herself look the way Artemis was depicted in statues and images.
She waited, wondering what their reaction would be. They might think this a blasphemy, rush on her and tear her to pieces. She remembered how cruel and unbending Modthryth could be. She waited, trembling inwardly, trying to look serene and unafraid.
They people of the village gasped, screamed, and shouted. Several women fainted. The priestess gaped. Talaith stepped forward, and a number of the villagers fell prostrate or bowed their faces to the ground. She saw her mother, standing toward the back, mouth open in astonishment and joy.
She looked at the priestess and then at the crowd of villagers.
“The goddess,” she said, making her voice loud and clear, “came through the image on the wall. Breaking through it, she gave me air to breathe. She spoke to me. She took me into her service, yes. But I am to serve her on earth.”
She looked out at the crowd of people she had known all her life. “Modthryth!” Talaith spoke the priestess’s name. People had always addressed Modthryth as “Lady Priestess,” never by her given name. They did this out of respect to her rank, but Talaith knew she had to play her advantage to the fullest. If anyone challenged her, it would be the priestess. “Give me your cloak,” she ordered. “I speak for Artemis now.”
Without hesitation, the priestess unbuckled her cloak and handed it to Talaith, who wrapped it around herself.
“The goddess has confirmed that I am her chosen servant by sending us rain. I have much to tell, but for now I wish to return to the house of my mother and father. I will rest and then speak out what Artemis wishes me to say.”
Rain beat loudly on the temple roof and ran in thick, silvery waterfalls from the eaves. The priestess knelt. All the people imitated her, kneeling in submission.
“Great is the goddess Artemis,” the priestess said.
“Great is the goddess Artemis,” the crowd echoed.
“And great is Talaith, her voice upon the earth.”
“And great is Talaith, her voice upon the earth.”
Talaith breathed an inward sigh of relief. It had worked. They would not kill her.
Her first action as leader would be to appoint her brother Pythius as a teacher to the young.
Stepping away from the chamber that had been instrumental for so many previous sacrifices, Talaith crossed to where her parents stood. The people parted for her to pass. Some bowed. Others touched her worshipfully. She kissed her mother and took her hand. The two of them walked into the rain, her father, the priestesses, and the villagers following her, away from the temple.
David W. Landrum teaches Literature at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. His horror/supernatural fiction has appeared in Sinister Tales, Macabre Cadaver, Ensorcelled, The Monsters Next Door, The Cynic OnLine, and many other magazines. He edits the on-line poetry journal, Lucid Rhythms HERE.
David explains about "The Chamber":
The story takes place in ancient times. Pythius studied with the philospher Heraclitus, who lived about 535 to 475 BC. Human sacrifice had started to cease by that time, but in rural areas it was still practiced. It would not be in Greece proper but in one of their colonies in Asia minor.