Denise wrote that early posts would be appreciated so I decided to oblige!
Besides, I have missed the world of the Caretaker whom we last saw in the HERO LOST anthology.
So without further ado,
let us re-enter the House Eternal
{1100 words}
The
House Eternal.
The
truth of its birth whispers from the dark unknown. I am its Caretaker. My beginnings burn under
the starlight of dim memories. My end is
unknown yet certain in its ugliness. I
hasten it by meddling where saner souls would wisely pass.
Above
the oak front door, the spider web, spun from the sobs of children, trembled in
anticipation. Arachne studied me from
its glistening center. Human/not human,
she smiled with green lips still wet from adorning her silken snare with venom.
“Athena
wronged you, but taking it out on innocents is misplaced vengeance.”
Arachne’s
words were flutters of papyrus, “Dry and dead is the wind that last tasted
innocence.”
Mouse,
riding in my chest pocket, wrinkled his whiskers like angry broom straws. “All
things truly wicked started out innocent.”
Mouse. He owed his freedom to Napoleon’s
soldiers. The gust of bacterial air
which breathed from the First Dynasty tomb they ransacked gave them the freedom
of death.
Was
Mouse a ghost rodent or had the bacteria-infested air of the tomb changed him
somehow?
Arachne’s
laughter was more sleet than sound. “The
world must have been born innocent indeed.”
I
said. “It takes a very long time to become young.”
The
front door, Artemis’s gift to me, throbbed with tears of dawn. I snorted.
Athena was much too Olympian to merely knock.
I
smiled. Artemis’ tongue might be as
sharp as her arrows, but her word was as sure as her aim. Artemis usually beat me at chess. But last night, I could not allow her to win,
for I fought for another. And so, she had brought Athena to me.
A
man-shaped shadow appeared. Once he had
been a solid man … before he doubted. He
flowed to my side.
“I
thought I had a death wish, Einherjar.”
“Thomas,”
I said. “all in the House Eternal are my
charges. I will see to them or die.”
Mouse
chirped, “I vote for a greater margin of error.”
I
patted his head. “I give you leave to
flee to the shadows, little friend.”
Mouse’s
eyes deepened. “You may not remember the
time you first fed me. Or the time you first scooped me up into the safety of
your shirt pocket. Or the time you waited at the crossroads for me to catch up.
But I do, and the end of your skein of days shall be mine.”
Thomas
rumbled, “So say I.”
I
frowned, and Thomas shrugged, “I said I had a death wish, did I not?”
Arachne
murmured, “I am not worth the fate Athena will grant thee.”
I
could almost see the beautiful woman she once had been in her many-eyed face.
“I am your friend.”
“And
if I do not wish thy friendship?”
“I
will try to be discreet.”
This
time her laughter was more summer rain than sleet but still it was chill. The
door was hot sunset now. I must time
this just right. As Caretaker, I was
pledged to greet visitors for Grande Dame.
Was
She Avatar of the House Eternal or merely its first resident? Most of the House was complete, She tells me, when the first
stars began to coalesce into the Light that caressed the awakening planet.
It
could be. I was not there. I am old, just not that old.
She
was not alive as one thinks of life. Nor
was She eternally dead. Life, Death –
they were but trifles to Her as She insisted on having Her way with each
new-born day.
Grande
Dame also
insisted upon respect from those who came calling. Athena refusing to knock
would not be appreciated.
I had a moment more that I could safely wait to respond.
Tragic
Athena. She could have easily forgiven Arachne’s pride, if it had not also mortified
her own. Olympians find it easier to
forgive mortals when they are wrong than when they are right.
Another
heartbeat more, and I would have to answer.
And my gambit would die still-born.
After
centuries of dealing with those who wander eternity, I should have remembered that
they are long on hate but short on patience.
The oak door simply vanished. No flash
of lightning, no thunder. True power is
like that.
The
dying twilight revealed eyes filled with razors. Athena. Imagining her museum statues and
carvings? They are not even in the same dimension
with the terrible majesty looming in the doorway. Artemis stood bored beside her. No hunt that
did not smear her arrows with the blood of prey interested her.
I
wondered if she would mourn me.
“I
have to ….” I started.
“Die,”
Athena murmured, suddenly right before me.
I
shook my head. “You entered unbidden and
thus must abide by the House Rules. I
was going to warn you.”
Athena
spun to Artemis. “You tricked me!”
Moonlight
caressed the Huntress’s long hair in glints of cold fire. “Nay.
I but mentioned Arachne’s fine weaving of old. It was you who wondered where she might be
these long centuries later.”
Shoulders
the white of mountain peaks shrugged. “You
asked. I answered. It was your idea to come, laughing about a
fine reunion of enemies.”
Athena
turned to me. “These House Rules?”
“Are
many … one is that those who enter unbidden must leave behind them whatever the
Caretaker chooses.”
I
smiled like an Einherjar. “I chose your
hate. See it yonder on the marble porch?”
Incanting
dark spells, Athena turned to see the floating green cloak of thorns, most of which
turned inwards. Wet Olympian blood still
gleamed on their points.
“Hate
always hurts the one who wears it.”
Arachne
gasped as once more she stood in human form, though her gown now was clinging
spider-silk. Her beauty breathed of
sunshine and honey. I suspect that long
ago, Athena envied more than her weaving skills.
Athena’s
inhuman face lengthened. “And should I
step back onto the porch?”
Mouse
chirped, “You cannot, Great One. Those who enter unbidden must stay the night.”
Athena
breathed icily. “But come morn, should I
embrace it?”
“You
would find it gone,” I said. “Hate left
untended dissipates.”
Teeth
like flint daggers flashed. “You think
yourself clever, Caretaker? You are
nothing. Nothing!”
“I
am loyal. I have done my duty to one
guest. Now, I must put Grande Dame to bed.”
Thomas
rumbled, “One night, you will not return.”
From
the attic whose walls were not walls, Grande
Dame’s yawn stirred the ancient air.
“I
am beckoned. Honor would have me go.”.
Athena’s
laughter swirled behind me like graveyard blossoms.
I
turned, climbing the steps with Mouse shivering in my shirt pocket. I gently tapped his head. In the end, it is our hearts that prove our
undoing.
Posts
