A Plot of Earth & Other Tales by Chrysostomos Tsaprailis

Author:Chrysostomos Tsaprailis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mount Abraxas
Published: 2023-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

1180 BC, the mycenaean palace:

She gazed on her reflection in the silver mirror that graced the north wall of her apartments. Even after ten years of hardships, her figure was exquisite, a genuine princess of Ilium. If her mindset was anything like her brother's, she would revel at the thought of her royal line. But no Hector was she. No beloved Hector, now forever lost in the cold halls of Hades, traduced by his killer. She was Cassandra, the accursed oracle, damned by a capricious god; a god luminous for all humanity but her, for in Cassandra he had bred darkness impenetrable.

The mirror turned blurry, murky. She acknowledged the signs of the impending vision. In a rare moment of defiance, she lashed out with the copper cup she was holding, trying, with desperate force, to destroy the polished metal. The trivial scratch she achieved on the mirror's surface started oozing blood; the viscous liquid quickly spread all over the surface, living unstained only a vague area in the middle. It was there that an image of the palace baths appeared, the place where the conqueror of Troy had been raping her for the past three nights.

The scene in the mirror pulsated, as if a dark curtain passed through its surface. She now saw the hated king approaching, taking her by violence, leaving bloody marks on her body. She watched Aegisthus, Clytemnestra’s puppet, rushing fully armed upon them, flanked by his personal guard. She watched as he stabbed them passionately, as he ravaged and scattered the flesh of Agamemnon, as he copulated with her own naked, dead body.

She had no hope that this was a deceptive, false vision. Every time she had dared to think so, the tragic confirmation of her oracular powers had come rushing, ripping apart her few vestiges of hope. She let her mind settle on a fatalistic void, and awaited passively the end of her damned, short life. She, Cassandra, princess of Troy, daughter of Priam and Hecuba, lover of Apollo, the god who had cursed her, would be quenched; she would descend to the mournful halls of Persephone, there to be one of the countless shades that wail endlessly for what they have lost, awaiting the living to join their ranks.

∗ ∗ ∗

The musician beheld the blustering slaughter from the bath window. He was waiting for no voice, scream, or curse to trap within the ancient instrument of his. He had already claimed Cassandra’s outcries long ago, back in Troy, when god-begotten Achilles hauled Hector’s body around the city walls. No, this time he had a melody for her, a meaningless, hopeless tune, as tortured as her life. He played the flute awhile, then returned it in his belt and disappeared.

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