Ivan Yefremov - Thais of Athens

“Now Your Majesty must drink this,” the priest said, handing Thais half a cup of a drink that looked like transparent, slightly glowing water. “Otherwise the shock you had sustained today may cost you dearly. Wounds of the heart must be treated immediately, for the consequences are distant and uncertain.”

Thais took the cup, remembered something and set it aside.

“I thank you. I have one more thing to take care of. Call the interpreter. What can you tell me?” she asked the pale Finikian waiting for her at the gallery.

“Very little, Queen. The son of hyena only uttered a few words in Frakian. From them, we understood that four assassins were dispatched, which means we got them all. He spoke a name. I wrote it down for fear of a fateful mistake. Here,” the interpreter handed a writing slate to Thais.

“It is a male name, sounds Ionian,” the Athenian said after a pause.

“Your Majesty is correct,” the interpreter said, then bowed.

“Where is the assassin?”

“The son of hyena went mad with pain. We killed him to stop the torture, unsuitable for a living being.”

“You did well. I thank you.”

Returning to the room, Thais listened to Eris’ weak, even breath and addressed the old priest. “Now give me the medicine, my friend. I shall visit you soon, once Eris is out of danger, to ask important advice.”

“I shall expect Your Majesty.” The old man bowed. “And I shall be sad to part with you.”

Thais shuddered, took the cup and downed it at once. One of the Egyptian healers, the Helenian physician, Roykos and his first wife stood watch at Eris’ bed. Assured that Eris would be watched, Thais settled nearby on an additional bed that was brought in for her. Glittering spots flowed before her eyes as the Egyptian potion swiftly acted.

Three days later, Eris was able to sit up in bed. Smiling weakly, she said she had never been that close to the threshold of Hades. Strangely, she said death from loss of blood could be pleasant.

“You simply lose your strength and dissolve in the nothing. Had it not been for you, I would not have wanted to come back,” Eris said, sighing.

“Are you unhappy with me?” the Athenian reproached her gently.

“Do not think that. It is just that the older you become, the more sadness you know from the understanding of life and its unstoppable flow. Once you take the step toward the Great Mother, you do not wish to return. Had it not been for you, I would not have.”

Thais kissed her friend tenderly and her eyes filled with tears again. Eris wiped them off and told Thais she was sleepy.

The next day Thais wanted to go to the Neit temple on foot, but yielded to the black priestess and rode properly in a carriage under fans, accompanied by thirty horsemen. Six huge Nubians accompanied her up the stairs, keeping their hands on their swords and fighting sticks and peering around. Thais smiled inwardly. After eliminating the four assassins, there was no immediate danger, although she had ordered strong guards to remain around Eris’ room.

Everything inside her was singing with joy. Eris was alive, fully able and recovering swiftly. Compared to her own mood, the high priest of Neit appeared thin, aged and sad to her.

“What is wrong, my friend?” Thais asked. “Perhaps you needs a healer’s assistance? Or my brown medicine?”

“Hold on to the medicine. It has the great healing power of Gaea’s sap, flowing from her stone breast. No. I am well. But I am sad because you decided to leave us.”

“You will not judge me for this decision, will you? I made it final after Eris’ wound. She and I are connected in both life and death. I cannot risk a friend who is always ready to offer her body to an assassin’s strike in place of mine. I lost two beloved people here in Memphis and I would have died had I lost this one.”

The old priest told the Athenian of an ancient prophecy about the last Queen of Memphis. The prophecy overlapped incredibly with her own sensibilities. He added the people’s legends about Queen Thais. They said she came from another country, became an Egyptian and was able to absorb the spirit of the Black Land to a degree that the priests of Sais, who kept count of true kings of Egypt, decided to include her in their list by giving her an Egyptian name.

“What is it?”

“That is a secret. Ask them. You can stop by Sais on your way to Alexandria.”

“I do not deserve this,” Thais objected sadly. “Couldn’t the Egyptians see that I only played a role someone handed down to me?”

“If an actress plays a role and awakens in people the memory of their past, noble feelings of the present and thoughts of the future, is she not a messenger of gods and a hand of destiny?”

“Then she is obligated to continue, even at the price of her life.”

“No. All things predetermined end. The role ends when the forces of the dark western deserts threaten the theater itself. The spectacle will end tragically, causing fear and putting out the newly-born aspirations.”

The Queen of Memphis suddenly knelt at the feet of the old Egyptian. “Thank you, my friend,” she said. “Allow me to call you Father, for who else but a father could be a spiritual teacher of ignorant people? I am fortunate. Here, in your temple Memphis, I studied with the wise man from Delos, then with Lysippus and now, in my loneliness, I have found you here. Allow me to make a large sacrifice to Neit. I can also give a hundred bulls to Artemis for saving my friend.”

“Only at the lowest level do people require bloody sacrifices to pacify the gods and destiny. That is because they place their gods at the same level as themselves or even with beasts of prey. It is a heritage of dark ages, a custom of barbarian hunters. Do not do this. It is better to give the money to some worthy cause. I shall accept a bloodless sacrifice so I may continue teaching true ways to young seekers of truth.”

“What about Neit? Would a few people educated in true knowledge be more dear to the goddess than senseless animals roaring under the knife and drowning in blood?”

“Then why do we carry on with these rituals and sacrifices?”

The old man smiled weakly, glanced around and, once assured of the absence of strangers, said, “Stupid and self-centered philosophers of other faiths had often asked questions they considered blasphemous. If your god is so powerful, then why does he allow people to be stupid? If he is all-knowing, then why does he need temples, priests and rituals?”

“And the answer is?” Thais asked anxiously.

“A god occupied by people’s affairs and acting like a human only exists in the imagination of people whose imagination runs shallow. He is needed at their level of faith, as one needs a place for concentration and prayer, as one needs the intermediaries, the priests. Millions of people still demand religion. Otherwise they lose all faith and, therefore their moral rules, without which states and cities cannot exist. That is why, while people are still ignorant, we protect ancient faiths, even after having rid ourselves of superstition and fallacy. Very few, even among wise rulers, know that people’s morality, their upbringing in dignity and respect of their elders, labor and beauty are more important for the fate of people and countries. They are more important than siege machines, elephants, armored soldiers and multi-oar ships. All this falls when people’s morality and upbringing diminishes. People great and small plunge themselves into drinking and savage revelry. Faith, honor and dignity drown in wine, the love of one’s homeland and traditions of the forefathers fade away. Many kingdoms of Mesopotamia and Persia perished that way. The doom of Egypt approaches, as well as that of Hellas, Carthage, and the still-young Rome, menacing with its legions. The most important things upon which a man stands are not weapons or war, but morality and laws of behavior among one’s own people and others.”