Ilion
Author: Katharine Kapodistria
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anthology about love and art as resistance.
This is the first work in the anthology.
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There are many types of darkness: the dark of a starless sky, the depths of the ocean, and the hearts of men. Some kinds of darkness are so absolute, your eyes never adjust.
How long had Elpis been in the dark? After the screaming stopped, after the city fell silent, after dehydration began to beat a tattoo against her temples and hunger drained the strength from her already malnourished body, still she stayed. Against the horrors awaiting her above ground, rats and starvation and endless night almost seemed preferable. Her children were quiet, bone-deep terror disciplining them far more thoroughly than her words and warnings ever could.
They were siege-children, all three of them. They had never been beyond the walls. Perhaps, now, they never would. If Elpis waited much longer to move, she wouldnât be able to, and this underground place of shelter would become a catacomb: an unmarked grave for her and her children. There was no one left to find them, no one left to perform the rites and mark where they lay. In the end, only thatâthe thought of her daughtersâ ghosts wandering the ruined city for all eternityâforced her to rouse herself, and them. Like the rats they heard chittering in the dark, they crawled and climbed from their hiding place beneath the streets and into the light.
With gasps of pain, the girls flung up their arms to cover their faces. Elpis shaded her eyes, squinting into the searing brightness. The sky was a relentless blue, the air still and heavy with the reek of smoke, the stench of death. It was a nightmare world, an open-air slaughterhouse bathed in sunlight.
âKeep your eyes on your feet,â she instructed her daughters sharply, and they did, but Elpis herself did not. She saw it all: the corpses, the flies, the blood already dried black in the streets. They were not soldiers, those dead. They were women like she was, children like her children.
Her youngest was in her arms, and the other two trailed behind, fists bunched in their motherâs skirts. They stumbled through the dusty streets to the well, lips cracked, dry tongues in dry mouths.
Elpis lowered the bucket, then braced herself to bring it up.
The first turn was hard, the second harder. The third seemed impossible, but her will was stronger than her tired arms, stronger than the weakness in her shaking legs. She would have pulled a bucket up from the depths of Hades so that her children could drink.
Mercifully, the well was uncontaminated, the water cool and clear. After they drank, they went to the storerooms. They had been raided, of course, but greedy men always overlook what they see no value in. Only the hungry know how to make a feast of a handful of dried fruit and nuts, the olives and oil left in the bottom of a clay jar.
The girls ate slowly, until their shrunken stomachs were full. Then, they lounged exhausted in the debris of the plundered storehouse.
The dead quiet rang in their ears. They had never known the city like this: no distant voices, no rumbling cartwheels, no animal sounds or birdsong. It was more than silence. It was a voidâthe vacuum left behind now that everyone and everything was gone.
But they were still there.
Elpisâs middle daughter, Kyrilla, stroked her younger sisterâs hair and began to hum quietly, a lullaby all the children of the city knew. Eyes half-closed, Myrto sang the words in her sweet baby voice.
The time is past to sit and weep,
Close your eyes and fall asleep.
Tomorrow is another day
And you must walk a different way.The eldest girl, Ariadne, who had barely spoken since her father died, joined in, her voice rasping and cracked at first from disuse.
Hidden is the path youâll tread;
In dreams youâll see the way ahead.Elpisâs eyes darted to her oldest child and she, too, took up the tune.
In the morning, set your feet,
Accept the loss, but not defeat.
Men will take, but life can give.
Why survive if not to live?As they began the song a second time, their voices rose, finding new strength. The words they sang were not sacred, but they were their wordsâtheir own prayer, an incantation. Together, Elpis and her daughters wove a spell of pain and longing and love. The invisible stitches of shared memory were pulled tight, gathering them around Myrto and Kyrilla.
They sang the song again and again, until their cheeks were wet and they couldnât go on. Huddled together, they held each other and wept for their dead, their ruined city, their broken lives. But the song wasnât only about loss. It was about endurance, resilience, tenacityâall those lessons Elpis and her children should not have had to learn.
âWe can do it,â said Ariadne. âWe can do what the song says.â
âYes,â Elpis replied, not to offer comfort, but because she believed it. She had not survived ten years under siege, three childbirths and near starvation to become a ghost in the ruins of her broken city.
âYes,â she said again, louder, defiant. âRest, girls, and eat some more, because tomorrow we will take all we can carry and leave this place.â
âWhere will we go?â
âItâs like the song says, my little Myrto: you will see the way ahead in your dreams.â
âMe?â
âAll of you: you and Kyrilla and Ariadne, and me too. Tonight we will see our future as we sleep: green fields, fresh water, and a home of our own. We will see our animals, and all the friends we havenât met yet.â
Her daughters smiled at her through their tears, and Elpis smiled back. She had thought that smile was lost, along with her future and desires, but fire burned inside her still.
The Greeks had slaughtered her people and plundered her city. When they departed, they imagined they had left nothing alive within the walls of Ilion, but they were wrong.
They had left Elpis and her children.
They had left hope.
A Few Words By Katharine
Iâm a human being who understands that suffering is a postcode lottery.
Bio and Works
Katharine lives and works on the edge of Athens, Greece. She writes stories inspired by myth and magic, folklore and Faerie. You can read her work at:
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