The Sullen Face of a Forgotten God

CHAPTER ONE

Miriam stared at her reflection in the pool. A brown haired, brown-eyed girl stared back. Which was exactly how it should not have been.She sighed and threw a pebble into the pool in frustration. Why couldn't she see the vision from the other day? She'd tried scrying countless of times since then and to no avail. Maybe it had been nothing more than a fluke.She gazed at the rolling green hills that surrounded the tiny temple – a dedication to the goddess Athena – nestled on the outskirts of the great city of Athens. The early summer sun warmed her back, which was still damp despite the fact that she had carefully dried herself after her pre-dawn bath and she shivered. Her simple white tunic didn't seem to warm her, though the day promised to grow hotter with each passing hour. Her thick long hair was tied in the simple Greek fashion of a single strand of hair, fastened at the top of her head, allowing it to hang down her back except for two loose tendrils to escape and hang near her ears. Her hair was her one great beauty, as the priestesses told her countless of times. Still, beauty wasn't what was supposed to occupy her thoughts. It was supposed to be her powers of observation and visions, if she wanted to serve the goddess as a fully-fledged priestess herself.Many of the women in the temple loved her and she loved them as well. They were the only people she had and for the last ten years of her life, this had been her home. She could barely remember her childhood home and what she could remember had ended in a day of blood and terror.She'd been born in a small town – she could not even recall the name – in a hot dusty country where the people lived simply. Food was shared between strangers and it was not unusual to share one's worldly possessions as well, though they wouldn't consist of much. In that part of the world, the people worshipped just one god – and a nameless one at that. She didn't really picture her parents, either except sometimes, when she couldn't sleep at night; she'd close her eyes and hear her mother's sweet voice sing her to sleep with a forgotten lullaby.Soldiers came and changed everything in the course of a day. She was able to remember the thunder of horses' hooves and the guttural voice of a masked man in a tongue she didn't understand. Soon screams filled the air as well as the clash of swords, the groans of those masked men and cries of angry horses. Miriam had hidden in a hole in the ground which had a trap door pulled tightly shut over it. When those men had dared to enter the sanctuary of the house she loved, her mother had pushed her into that hole and ordered her to be quiet. And that was all. Her parents had stayed to confront those men and died for it. Miriam also remembered that. She remembered the dying screams of her parents and then the silence. She remembered the sounds of those men, as they talked amongst themselves in that alien tongue of theirs before leaving and moving on. Miriam didn't know how long she had been there. Maybe hours, maybe days. She had fallen asleep from pure exhaustion, too terrified to venture outside in case those men were still there. But when she had finally woken up, it was in the arms of a man she had never seen before. He wore brightly colored clothes and was dark haired and dark skinned, with eyes so green they resembled those pretty colored stones she had loved to play with so much. She looked at him in astonishment before she began to beat his face in a futile manner. He held her arms and spoke to her in another tongue she didn't understand; though it was different from the one of the masked soldiers. She had sobbed in his arms, finally and he had carried her to his people, who camped in brightly decorated caravans. They had traveled for many days and nights first on horseback and then finally on a boat before landing on the shore of a great country, with beautiful cities nestled between rolling hills. Olive trees seemed to greet each traveler as they passed by on the roads. The people all looked kind and she wasn't sure of what the other word was – clean, perhaps? – But that was what they were. As if they were pure and untouched somehow, like the surface of a vast ocean. The kind man with the bright eyes and colorful clothes took her to the Temple of Athena during this journey.  It was there that she was left, in the care of Deianera, the High Priestess, who became her mother. It seemed so long ago when she had been brought there, a small scrawny five-year-old without a home or people. The only thing she had left was her name; Miriam. The priestesses allowed her to keep the name of her birth to honor the memory of her people. And so she had stayed.Her gift had been discovered soon after. Sometimes it came to her in dreams, sometimes when she was awake, always unbidden. Her first vision had shown her that a young couple  - they had come to the Temple for a blessing - who had been recently married would have a child. But that was not all. She had also managed to predict that the child would be a girl....and that the woman's husband was not the father. The woman had employed one of the oldest schemes known to womanhood in order to snare a husband. When the man found out he had sent his faithless wife far away, but not before the lady in question had sent a rain of curses on Miriam's head."Curse that vulgar foreign brat," she had spat viciously, as she was led out of the city to make her destiny elsewhere. "She should have been killed along with her peasant parents!"An unpleasant memory, to be sure. Miriam shrugged her shoulders. You could not please everyone.  "What are you sitting here thinking about?" a kind voice interrupted pleasantly. "Have you managed to get all your chores done?"Miriam looked up to see Deianera standing before her and gave a reluctant smile. "I've made sure to do them all," she laughed. She stood up to embrace her."Something seems to be troubling you," Deianera stated the obvious. "Would you like to talk about it?"  Miriam feigned a smile and then sighed in frustration. "I can't make the vision come back!" she exclaimed."You know it's not something you can force," Deianera said gently. "If it's meant to come, it will.""But it was so horrible," Miriam said sadly. "It's not like I could exactly ignore it. The screams, the smell of blood...."Deianera looked uncomfortable. "Are you sure," she began gently, "that it wasn't a memory?"Miriam looked at her. "I'm fifteen years old, I'm not a child," she said, angrily. "I can tell the difference between a vision and a nightmare from the past. This is something that is going to happen....I can feel it.""I didn't mean to upset you. I'm sorry," Deianera apologized in such a way that Miriam felt her cheeks burn with shame. She threw her arms around her."I'm the one who should be sorry. I shouldn't have spoken to you that way. You've been so kind to me for so long."Deianera held her gently and then pulled away. "I understand your feelings, child. You have the impatience of youth. That can't be helped. Pray to the goddess for guidance. Perhaps she can help you more than I can." After Deianera left, Miriam walked in to the Temple and made her offerings of incense and sweetmeats to Athena. She knelt and gazed up at the statue and lowered her head."O goddess of justice and wisdom," she said, softly. "Help me do what is right. Help me with this vision. I feel it is very important and I'm not saying it for the sake of vanity. I feel...." She realized she was rambling and not properly praying at all. With a sigh, she got up and left the Temple, hoping nobody had watched her futile attempt at humility.