Jane Yolen - Hippolyta and the Curse of the Amazons

Hearing her name, Phoebe looked up for a moment and then, still crying, came closer.

Hippolyta reached out and touched her sleeve. “Phoebe,” she croaked, “it’s me, Hippolyta. What’s happened here? Where’s my mother? Where are my sisters?”

The girl’s chest heaved with grief, and she had to fight to catch her breath. “They came,” she gasped. “They killed everyone.”

“But—but—no one is dead,” Hippolyta insisted, though there seemed to be a stone in her own heart weighing so heavily it hurt to speak. “Who came? Whom did they kill?”

“ They came. Everyone is dead.” Phoebe howled. “All of them. What are we to do now?”

She buried her face in Hippolyta’s shoulder and sobbed.

Hippolyta pulled herself away and, still leaning heavily on Tithonus, continued on down the street. It felt as if they’d fallen into a river and he were holding her head above the water. She was grateful to him and angry in equal measure. He seemed unaffected by the grief. The anger kept her from drowning in the grief.

As they neared the center of the settlement, the mournful chorus grew louder still. At last they reached the great square. Here the madness seemed at its worst, for the square was packed from one end to the other with women rending their garments, groaning aloud, and tearing out their own hair.

“They sound,” Tithonus said, “like screeching cranes.”

Hippolyta had to clench her hands into fists till the nails drew blood. Otherwise she, too, would have been ripping at her clothes and grabbing handfuls of hair from her own head.

On the far side of the square stood the temple of Artemis atop a set of graceful stairs. The temple was a simple stone structure with a domed roof and fluted pillars. Carved into the lintel over the doorway were the symbols of the goddess: bow, moon, bear. A solitary figure, her back to them, waited on the topmost step, eyes turned toward the heavens. The purple border of her royal robe was visible even at this distance.

“Mother!” Hippolyta cried out, astonished to find Otrere out of prison. “Mother, I’ve returned!”

Her voice was drowned out by the shrill lamentations of the Amazons in the square. Otrere showed no sign of having heard her.

“Is that her?” Tithonus cried. “Is that my mother?” For a moment his excitement overcame his fear. He loosened his grip on Hippolyta and strained for a better view of the queen.

“If anyone here still has her wits, it will be Mother. The guards must have let her out in their confusion,” said Hippolyta. “Come, Tithonus.”

He grabbed on to her hand again, and she could feel both his eagerness and fear in the sweaty palm. Jostling their way through the mob, they climbed the temple steps till they stood right below the queen.

“Mother!” Hippolyta cried again.

Otrere didn’t look around. But this close it was clear that the queen too was affected, for she was praying wildly to the sky.

“Mother,” Hippolyta choked out the single word, and then was struck dumb.

At last Otrere turned and looked directly at Hippolyta. Her eyes were reddened, weary; her full lower lip quivered. “Weep, my daughter, weep for us all,” she said. “There is nothing left but sorrow now. They are all dead. All. All dead.”

Pale and frightened, Tithonus stepped out from behind Hippolyta and went up the steps till he stood next to the queen. He reached out a tentative hand and lightly touched her disheveled hair. She didn’t seem to notice the touch or to recognize that there was a boy on the steps of the temple, so lost was she in misery.

Hippolyta started to sink down onto the step when she felt a small hand tugging on her arm. “Hippolyta, Hippolyta, look at me,” cried Tithonus. He sounded very far away. “Remember that you’re a warrior.”

Hippolyta drew a forearm across her eyes, wiping away the tears.

“You saved me from the monster. Remember?”

She took a deep breath to steady herself.

“You took me from the well. Remember?”

She stood on trembling legs.

“You beat the old man at quarterstaffs. Remember?”

She looked at him, though tears still trembled in her eyes. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, Tithonus, I do remember.”

“Then get us out of here !”

She looked at Tithonus and saw the expectation in his face. He was trying his best to be brave. She would have to try hers.

“Yes,” she said. “There has to be something I can do.”

“There is,” said a strange voice.

Hippolyta turned quickly and saw old Demonassa standing in the portico of the temple. There was no trace of grief or distress in her face. Hippolyta was surprised she hadn’t recognized the old woman’s voice.

“Who’s that?” whispered Tithonus.

“The priestess of Artemis,” Hippolyta replied. “The one who helped me get your brother to Troy.” She was about to address Demonassa when the old woman raised a hand to silence her.

“Always we return to the beginning,” the old woman said, gesturing about. “So many lessons must be learned over and over. What was then is now. The past repeats. Arimaspa comes to Themiscyra.” Her voice rose easily above the lamentations of the distraught women.

Confused, Hippolyta shook her head. “What do you mean, Demonassa—the past repeats? And what has Arimaspa to do with what is happening here? Is this Artemis’ curse? I thought that the curse was supposed to mean death, but no one here has actually died.”

The old woman turned away and pushed open the heavy door of the temple with one wrinkled hand. She waved Hippolyta to follow her into the dimly lit interior.

Hippolyta started forward, and Tithonus was right beside her.

Demonassa looked back and raised a finger in warning. “The boy stays outside.”

Tithonus gasped. “Don’t leave me alone, Hippolyta,” he pleaded.

“Wait here,” she said reassuringly. “I’ll come back for you very soon. I swear it. Nothing will happen to you here.”

Tithonus sank down against the temple wall and pulled his knees up to his chin, as if he were trying to shrink out of sight.

Then Hippolyta followed Demonassa inside, and the door slammed shut behind her. The wind from the closing door made the flames in the little oil lamps dance about. Strange and awful shadows like monstrous winged beings pranced around the room.

Hippolyta began to shake, her hands and shoulders trembling.

“You see what has happened to your sisters?” Demonassa said suddenly, her voice hard. “They brought their queen into my temple to put her on trial for her life. But Queen Otrere’s followers came after them, and for the first time Amazons drew their weapons against each other. In here. In my temple! And you, child, were the cause of it all.”

The old priestess pointed an accusing finger at Hippolyta, and her voice echoed eerily off the temple walls.

“I—I did only what my mother asked me to,” Hippolyta responded, “what you asked me to do. To bring the child to his father. How could that be the cause of this ?” The excuse sounded weak in her own ears. Better to accept the responsibility for her own act than to put it upon someone else’s shoulders. She was about to say so when Demonassa stopped her with a wave of her hand.

“Because you thought more of your mother than of me, valued her more than the welfare of the Amazon race, set her word above the laws of the gods, all that you see here in Themiscyra has happened,” Demonassa’s voice boomed out, and suddenly, as she spoke, she began to change, her features melting and running like candle wax in a hot flame.

Astonished, Hippolyta watched as Demonassa grew younger—younger and taller. In seconds the aged priestess was gone, and in her place stood a young woman whose face shone with a savage beauty. A bearskin cloak covered one shoulder, and pelts and claws decorated her belt. Over her back was slung a bow; a long knife hung at her side. She stared hard at Hippolyta, and her eyes were like the half-moon, filled with darkness and light all at once.