Hippolyta and the Curse of the Amazons

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

WINGED VENGEANCE

“THIS IS HOW IT WAS back then,” said Artemis, gazing around the square at the creatures and frowning at them. “The gryphons came while Eos, goddess of the dawn, was spreading her rosy mantle across the eastern sky. The air was filled with their warlike screeches and the beating of their awful wings.”

Tithonus shuddered, and as if catching the movement from him, Hippolyta shuddered too.

The goddess smiled grimly. “They were sent by my brother, Apollo, sent to mete out his vengeance.”

“Vengeance?” Hippolyta asked, glancing over her shoulder at one particularly large gryphon, whose sharp lion ears on the eagle head were twitching back and forth, like a cat when it was ready to pounce. She drew Tithonus closer to her.

Artemis replied, “For the theft of his gold. The gold he uses to fashion his arrows.”

“Who—who stole the gold?” Tithonus asked in a voice suddenly made small by fear.

Hippolyta knew that part of the story. “The princes of Arimaspa,” she said.

“Amazons stole the sun-god’s gold?” Tithonus whispered.

The goddess shook her head. “They weren’t Amazons then, but the followers of exiled Scythian princes. The same avarice exists in the heart of every man.”

“I don’t want anybody’s gold,” Tithonus said more loudly.

It was a simple statement, but the goddess turned and glared at him.

Smoothly Hippolyta stepped between them. “How did they steal the gold?”

“The gryphons guarded my brother’s mines,” Artemis said. At her words the creatures around the square clapped their wings, and the sound was like a hundred swords in battle. “But an oracle informed the Arimaspans that one night in the year the gryphons abandoned their usual vigilance, the night the females laid eggs. So on that very night the princes led their men up the narrow, treacherous paths to Apollo’s treasury.”

“Ah,” Tithonus said. It was such a little sound. Hardly more than a breath. But it made the gryphons in the square clack their beaks. This sound was like the cracking of bones.

Artemis ignored them, continuing with her tale. “They made off with as much gold as they could carry and returned home to a great celebration. But when dawn rose, the gryphons came down from their mountain aerie, filling the sky like a dark storm.”

The gryphons in the square moved restlessly on their perches now, making a sound like far-off thunder.

Neither Hippolyta nor Tithonus dared move as Artemis continued. “The men of Arimaspa gathered the women and children into this very temple.” She gestured behind her. “The princes ordered them to bolt the door. Then the men drew their swords and prepared to fight. Inside, the women fell to their knees before my altar, praying for mercy and protection.”

One of the gryphons in the square cried out then, the sound of lightning after it strikes the ground and sizzles. Hippolyta felt a cold sweat break out on her back.

“The women in the temple could hear the battle raging outside,” Artemis said. “The din terrified them. But when silence finally came, it was even more ominous.”

Hippolyta nodded. The silence would have frightened her, too.

“At last Lysippe, wife of one of the princes, had the courage to unbolt the door. What a sight greeted their eyes! Everywhere lay the bodies of their men, stabbed and torn by the beaks and talons of the gryphons. The women of Arimaspa wept uncontrollably, tearing their hair and rending their garments. I watched until I could take no more of their weakness.”

“Weakness?” Hippolyta was appalled. “When is it weakness to cry for the heroic dead?”

“It’s weakness if a woman can do nothing but weep,” Artemis said dismissively. “So I found Lysippe and pulled her to her feet. I picked up her husband’s fallen sword and placed it in her hand. ‘Enough of this grief,’ I told her. ‘Enough of weakness and mourning. Rise up, woman, and take your terrible revenge.’”

“Yes,” whispered Hippolyta, her left fist clenching tight.

“Lysippe stared at the sword,” Artemis said. “There was blood on it from a gryphon her husband had killed. Green blood. I kindled in her heart the anger and the thirst for vengeance she would need.”

Artemis watched Hippolyta’s face change, grow excited, harden. She smiled, finishing the tale. “One by one, the women each took up a fallen weapon. Sending their children back into the temple, they marched behind their queen into the mountains to the cavern where the gryphons made their nests.” Artemis seemed to grow brighter as she spoke, and taller. Her hair rayed out like a great dark sun. “The women took the gryphons by surprise, stabbing and slashing with a ferocity that possessed them like madness.”

Hippolyta’s hand gripped the haft of her ax. “And did they kill all the beasts?” she cried.

Artemis smiled more broadly still. “Those who could not escape into the sky were slaughtered on their nests. When there were no more adults left to kill, the women turned to smashing the eggs.”

“Yes!” Hippolyta cried, and lifted her ax high in the air.

But Artemis’ voice was suddenly tempered, as if the fever of the story had left her and all that were needed was the story’s moral. “The women abandoned the city, of course. Lysippe promised her followers that they would never again allow themselves to suffer because of man’s folly. They sent their male children back to Scythia, then set off for the south to make a new nation of women. They would be all things: farmers, lawmakers, bakers, hunters, but—”

“But above all, warriors.” Hippolyta finished for her. This part of the story she knew well.

“Good girl,” the goddess said.

“I have heard only some of that tale,” Hippolyta said.

“Most of my Amazons have forgotten what happened here,” Artemis told her. “But my priestesses remember. Or at least they remember Apollo’s decree: If ever an Amazon queen bears a second male child and keeps it, that boy will become ruler of the Amazons and return them to the subjection of men. It may seem a harsh punishment, but my brother wanted vengeance for the slaughter of his gryphons, and I couldn’t deny him.”

Tithonus stared at the goddess and then at Hippolyta, the truth suddenly dawning on him. “Why did you bring me here, Hippolyta?” he asked.

Artemis answered for her. “To die, of course. To be the sacrifice that keeps the Amazons free.”

“But I’m not the second son,” he whispered.

“You are one of two sons, and that is enough,” Artemis told him. There was something close to pleasure in her eyes.

At that moment one of the gryphons leaped from its rooftop perch and glided down to the ground. It landed right in front of Tithonus, who fell back from it.

“Come, girl,” said Artemis, turning to the temple. “There’s sanctuary at my altar.” She gestured Hippolyta to follow her. “We’ll leave the boy to his fate.”

Hippolyta wrenched her eyes from the goddess with great difficulty and watched as the gryphon backed Tithonus toward a far wall with lazy confidence. Its sharp claws clicked on the cracked paving stones, its beak snapped playfully. There was a fluttering and a harsh murmur from above as the other gryphons anticipated the kill.

“Come into the temple,” Artemis insisted, mounting the first few steps. “You don’t have to watch this.”

“Don’t believe her,” Tithonus yelled, his voice loud enough to make the gryphon on the ground mantle its wings for a moment. “Don’t believe that story of hers. Who do you think told the people of Arimaspa they could steal from Apollo and get away with it?”

His words hit Hippolyta like darts.

He’s right, she thought suddenly. There’s some wrongness at the heart of Artemis’ story. But she couldn’t think what it could be.

Artemis lifted an arm, and as if that were some signal, the gryphon trailing the boy swept out one of its great wings and knocked him flat on his back. Then it pinned him to the ground with one massive paw.

The goddess smiled a serpent smile, all teeth and no lips, as she watched the creature prepare for the kill.

For an instant Hippolyta saw her again as the old woman, her eyes hardened with years of selfish cruelty.

“Tithonus is right,” Hippolyta gasped. “You—you said an oracle told them how to get past the gryphons. But an oracle only speaks for a god—or a goddess. It was you, wasn’t it, Artemis? It was you who sent the Scythians to rob your brother.”

“What of it?” snapped the goddess, coming back down the steps and seizing Hippolyta by the arm. “Hadn’t Apollo’s followers just dishonored one of my shrines in Arcadia? He started the war, and it was time for his pride to suffer.”

Hippolyta pulled away from the goddess’s icy grip. Raising her ax, she ran toward Tithonus.

The gryphon spotted her and reared up, baring its vicious claws. It screamed at her with its lightning-strike voice, and Tithonus used that moment to scramble away.

Then Hippolyta swung her double-headed ax and sliced clean through the beast’s feathered throat. It fell to the ground, green blood puddling beneath its body.

At once an earsplitting cry went up from the other gryphons, and they rose into the air as one. The beating of their wings sent a huge wind whipping around the square. Tithonus grabbed hold of Hippolyta’s tunic to keep from being blown over.

“I knew you wouldn’t leave me, Hippolyta,” he gasped.

She didn’t answer.

“Come, Hippolyta,” Artemis said sternly. “It’s not too late. I can still grant you sanctuary. Without my help, you’ll be torn to bits, just like the boy.” She beckoned toward the temple.

“Not unless Tithonus goes in there as well,” Hippolyta answered defiantly.

“Impossible!” The goddess’s voice was hard as stone. “Men are not allowed—”

“We live together or die together,” said Hippolyta.

“Why?” the goddess demanded.

“Because—because he’s my brother. Because there’s no reason he should die just for your hurt pride or Apollo’s. Either one of you could lift the curse on the Amazons without any such a sacrifice if you wanted to.”

A gryphon dived out of the sky at her, and she lashed out with her ax. She felt its beak crack under the impact before it wheeled away, shrieking in pain.

Tithonus squared his shoulders and called to the goddess, “If you’re so keen on sacrifices, why don’t you lie down under the dagger yourself?” It was the ultimate challenge. “Then you might not be so ready to watch humans die for your sake.”

“I will watch you die,” said Artemis grimly. “Both of you. And enjoy every last bloody moment.”

The beating of gryphon wings grew louder as the creatures massed above them for a full-scale attack.

“Together,” whispered Tithonus to Hippolyta.

She looked at him and smiled lopsidedly. “Yes, together.”