Ivan Yefremov - Thais of Athens

Thais was surprised. “What for?”

“To make you a present. The most expensive and beautiful one I could find.”

“You have long since done that,” Thais said, chuckling, “having given yourself to me.”

“Not at all. You bought me, or rather exchanged me when I was sentence.”

“Do you not understand, priestess of the Highest Goddess, the Queen of Earth and Fertility? How I found and kept you is an accident. Any slave girl could have been obtained that way. But you did not become a slave girl. Instead you become someone completely different, unique and unlike any other. And that was when I found you again, and you found me.”

“I am happy that you understand that, Thais,” Eris said, addressing her by name for the first time in all the years of their life together.

There were days when Cleophrades was simply a man. On those days he was a true Athenian: gregarious, merry, hungry for news. He was definitely that way on the day in which he met a guest from the distant East, a yellow-skinned man with eyes that were even more narrow and slanted than those of the dwellers of Central Asia. The features of his face were delicate, and looked somewhat like a mask carved out of pear wood. His clothing, threadbare and faded, was made of especially thick and heavy material. It was most likely silk, which was both rare and expensive on the shores of Asia Minor and Finikia. A loose blouse hung limply over his thin body and his wide pants. The pants were cut in a similar way to barbaric fashion, much different from the tight Scythian leggings. Deep wrinkles betrayed both the traveler’s age and his fatigue from the innumerable hardships of his journey. Dark eyes observed everything carefully and with obvious intelligence. He was so attentive it almost made the speaker uncomfortable.

Thais could not remember his complex name with its unusual intonations. The guest spoke the old-fashioned Persian fairly well, though he raised his voice in a funny way and swallowed the “rho” sound. A scholarly Persian friend of Lysippus easily managed the duties of an interpreter. Fortunately, both Lysippus and Thais knew some Persian as well.

The traveler assured them that it had been eight years since he’d left his native country. He had crossed monstrous expanses of mountains, valleys, deserts and forests, all inhabited by different people. According to his calculations, he had walked, ridden and sailed a distance three times greater than that covered by Alexander when he voyaged from Ecbatana to Alexandria Eskhata.

Thais and Lysippus exchanged glances.

“If I understand the honored traveler correctly, he states that the inhabited land, Ecumene, stretches much further beyond Alexandria Eskhata than it is marked on the map by Hecateus. On that map there are only twenty thousand uninhabited stadiums to Cape Tamar, where the enormous wall of snowy mountains reaches the shore of the Eastern ocean.”

The guest’s face betrayed a hidden smile. “My Heavenly Empire, or Middle Empire, as we call it, lies twenty thousand stadiums to the east of the River of Sands, using your measure.”

“What do you know of the Eastern ocean?”

“Our empire reaches its shores and my compatriots fish in its waters. We do not know how large the ocean is or what lies beyond it. But there are sixty thousand stadiums from here to its shores.”

Lysippus opened his mouth, not even attempting to hide his surprise, and Thais felt a cold shiver run down her spine. Only yesterday Lysippus had told her about the vast expanses of Libya spread to the south, and today the strange, yellow-faced man spoke of unimaginably huge and inhabited lands, Ecumene, with unquestionable sincerity. Ever since her childhood, the journey Dionysus had taken to India had always been a deed Thais viewed as that of a mighty god. Now it appeared small compared to what had been accomplished by this frail man of average height, with wrinkle-covered yellow face, who came from lands far beyond the imaginary dwelling of gods.

Thais’ heart filled with deep pity for Alexander. He was fighting through scores of enemies with superhuman heroism and was still separated from his goal by a distance twice greater than that which he had covered so far. The student of a great philosopher had no idea he was being led by an ignorant blind man. Lysippus’ ovomanthy filled Thais with certainty that even if he followed the Indian route, the limits of Ecumene would turn out to be much farther away than those shown on Helenian maps.

The world was turning out to be much more complex and vast than Alexander’s companions and philosophers had ever thought. How could she communicate that to Alexander? He no longer wished to listen even to his own cryptii, who had discovered a great desert and long mountain ranges to the east of the Roof of the World. Had it not been for the savagely warlike Scythians he would have gone further to the east, beyond Alexandria Eskhata, which was the city nicknamed ‘Bride of Death’ where Leontiscus had fallen. Thais knew it was not possible to take away Alexander’s dream to be the first mortal to reach the edges of the world. But where were those edges? Judging by the traveler with unpronounceable name, millions of yellow-faced dwellers of the Heavenly Empire along the Eastern ocean already possessed far greater knowledge and art than what they termed common barbarians.

Such were the Athenian’s thoughts as she watched the guest. She watched him fold his delicate hands and settle comfortably in a deep Persian armchair as if to rest. He gladly accepted an invitation to stay at Lysippus’ house before continuing on to Babylon, where he hoped to get to know the capital of wise men and mages of western Asia. After then he hoped to meet Alexander.

During the few days during which the traveler stayed with Lysippus, Thais discovered many things she would have considered a fairy tale in her home country. The yellow-faced traveler taught her that the Heavenly Empire was born during times as ancient as those of the origins of Egypt, Crete and Mesopotamia. He spoke of a precise calendar created two thousand years before the construction of the Parthenon. According to him, the state had been founded two thousand years prior to the establishment of that calendar. He spoke of skilled craftsmen and artists, of astronomers who made maps of the sky, and of mechanics who created complex water powered devices. He told her of unusually tall bridges, temple towers of iron, china and bronze, of palaces erected atop manmade hills, and artificial lakes dug by thousands of slaves.

The wise men of the Heavenly Empire had even created a device which could predict earthquakes and where they were to take place. The traveler described in detail places where nature had been made more beautiful by human hands, like the mountains crowned by temples whose wide staircases of thousands of steps were surrounded by ancient trees. He spoke of roads made of blue-glazed bricks which led to sacred places, and alleys of tall, white-barked pines, every tree the identical height and age, stretching for hundreds of stadiums.

The son of the Heavenly Empire spoke of skilled doctors who healed patients by sticking tiny gold needles into affected areas. He amazed the Helenians with his story of two glass and metal mirrors at the emperor’s palace which could help a doctor see through a person and find places impacted by illness inside the body. Thais, who earned the traveler’s respect with her insatiable curiosity and intelligent questions, received from him a gift of a small china cup. It was decorated with a wonderful blue pattern of reeds and birds in flight, wrapped in a length of dazzling gold silk.

The Athenian hurried to thank the slant-eyed scholar by presenting him with a saucer made of black china. He had never seen anything like it, despite the many countries through which he had traveled. With the perceptiveness of a caring woman, Thais pressed the traveler to take a cedar box filled with gold staters which had been recently minted with Alexander’s profile, based on the model by Lysippus. The scholar was clearly limited in his means, and possibly even hopeful of asking for Alexander’s help, and he was deeply touched by the gift. Following Thais’ example, Lysippus also gave him a substantial sum with which to complete his journey. Now the yellow-faced traveler could afford to go to Babylon and wait for Alexander even if it took two or three years.