Convulsed with rage, he leaped to his feet. “You don’t know what you are saying! You may die sooner than you think.”
“Don’t waste your declining strength,” I laughed. “Examine me instead, so that you may realize that I am in earnest.”
He raised his hand in a gesture of conjuration and his eyes widened to the size of drinking cups. I would have feared them had not my power remained in me. I withstood his stare smilingly, until he suddenly pointed to the floor and exclaimed, “Behold the serpent!”
I looked down and involuntarily retreated, for a gigantic snake took shape before my eyes. It was the length of many men and the thickness of a thigh, and as it wriggled its skin glistened in a checkered design. It shaped itself into supple coils and raised its flat head toward me.
“Aye,” I said, “you are more powerful than I thought, old man. I have heard that such a serpent once lived in the gorge at Delphi and guarded the Omphalos.”
“Beware!” cried the priest threateningly.
Like lightning the snake rose upright and wound itself around my limbs until I was completely enveloped in its coils and its head swayed menacingly before my face. I felt its cold skin. Its weight was unbearable. Panic swept over me.
Then I laughed. “I will gladly play with you if you wish, priest. But I am not afraid. Not of subterranean, not of earthly, not even of celestial things. Least of all do I fear what is not even real. But I am willing to play these childish games with you through the night, if you are amused. Perhaps I myself could show you something amusing if I were to try.”
“Don’t,” he said, breathing heavily. He passed a hand before his eyes and the snake disappeared, although I still felt its heavy coils on my skin. I shook myself, rubbed my limbs and smiled.
“You are a powerful old man,” I admitted. “But don’t tire yourself because of me. Sit down while I show you something that you perhaps would not want to see.”
“Don’t,” he repeated. Trembling, he sank onto the seat. Again he was but an old man with sharp eyes and a furrow between his brows. After many deep breaths he asked in a completely changed voice, “Who are you, stranger?”
“If you don’t want to recognize me, I will gladly remain unknown,” I said.
“But you must realize that you are asking the impossible. Your very request blasphemes the goddess. Surely you don’t want to enrage her even though you dare provoke me, a powerless man.”
“I don’t want to enrage or provoke anyone,” I said amiably. “I am certainly not blaspheming the goddess. On the contrary. Don’t you realize, old man, that I am honoring the goddess by requesting her priestess for myself?”
Suddenly he began to weep. Covering his face with his hand he swayed back and forth. “The goddess has abandoned me,” he moaned. Wiping the tears from his beard he continued in a shrill voice, “You cannot be a human, although you are in a human guise! A human could not have resisted the spell of the snake. That gigantic serpent is the symbol of the earth, its weight and power. Whomever it fails to subdue cannot be a mortal.”
I took advantage of the situation and said, “To return to my request, it was a friendly request and certainly not a demand. I likewise try to avoid quarrels and because of it hope that this matter may be resolved through mutual understanding. But I am also ready to make demands. Then I, in turn, will be compelled to resort to strength.”
Again his voice became shrill. “Even if you are not mortal your request is unprecedented. How do you know whether that woman even wants to follow you?”
“She doesn’t,” I admitted cheerfully. “But this is a question of my will, not hers or yours.”
I raised my hand to rub my tired eyes but he misunderstood the gesture and retreated with upraised hands.
“Don’t,” he pleaded once again. “Permit me to think.” Then he said in despair, “She is an exceptional woman. There are not many like her and she is worth more than her weight in gold.”
“I know that.” The memory of Arsinoe sent tremors through my body. “After all, I have embraced her.”
“Her body answers the requirements of the goddess and that is not unusual. She has been trained in the skills of the goddess and they can be learned. But the mobility of her face is a wonder. She is whatever I want and however I want it for any purpose whatsoever. Nor is she a stupid woman. That is the greatest wonder of all.”
“I care little about her intelligence,” I said, not realizing what I was saying. “But everything else is true enough. She is the equal of her goddess.”
The priest extended his veined hands pleadingly to me. “In the temple of Eryx she serves the entire western sea, Carthage, Sicily, the Tyrrhenians, the Greeks. Through her body peace is built upon conflicting interests. There is not a councilor or tyrant whom she cannot persuade to believe the goddess.”
I gritted my teeth in thinking of the men who had believed themselves to be meeting the goddess while in Arsinoe’s arms.
“Enough,” I said. “I don’t intend to remember her past but will accept her as she is. I have even given her a new name.”
The old man began tearing at his beard, then opened his mouth to cry out.
“Stop!” I ordered him. “What do you think the guard could do to me? And don’t anger me.”
His mouth remained open, his tongue twitched but not a sound came nor could he close his mouth. I stared at him in bewilderment until I realized that my power had affected him just as his disciplined power had enslaved me earlier. I laughed once more.
“You may close your mouth,” I said, “and let your power of speech return.”
He closed his jaws with a snap and wet his lips. “If I permit you to take her with you, I myself will suffer,” he declared stubbornly. “No matter what tale I devise, it will not be believed. After all, we are living in civilized times and among priests the goddess no longer manifests her will but rather it is manifested in her behalf by the priests.”
He deliberated for a time and then a sly expression came over his face. “The only way is for you to abduct her and take her with you as naked as when she was born into this world. She must not have with her a single object belonging to the goddess. I will close my eyes while you seize her and only after several days have elapsed will I reveal her disappearance. No one need even know who has abducted her, although naturally all strangers will be suspected. When she returns she may defend herself by saying that you stole her by force.”
“She will not return,” I said firmly.
“When she returns,” he continued with equal firmness, “she may once again don the goddess’s jewels, and with greater wisdom than before. Perhaps that was precisely the goddess’s purpose. Why else would you have come here?”
A look of malicious delight came over his face. “But you,” he said, “you will not have a peaceful day the rest of your life. I don’t mean merely that you will be pursued by Carthage and all the native cities of Sicily. No, I mean that she herself will be a thorn in your flesh. Even if vou are not a mortal, you still have a body and she will be its greatest affliction.” He stroked his beard and Uttered maliciously. “Truly, you don’t know what you are asking. The goddess has bound you in her skein and the threads will scorch your flesh unto your heart until you wish that you were dead.”
But his words only excited me and once again I felt the glorious sting of the goddess’s threads and was filled with impatience.
“Arsinoe,” I whispered. “Arsinoe.”
“Her name is Istafra,” said the old man petulantly. “Why shouldn’t you know that also? I must die either now or later and I would rather do so later. That is really the only problem. But some day I must die anyway, and compared to that, what happens to her or you is unimportant. I wasted my powers in vain, and in vain rose from my soft bed. Do what you will, it does not concern me.”
We quarreled no more. He took the lamp and led me behind the empty pedestal of the goddess, opened a narrow door and descended before me down stone steps into the earth. The passage was so narrow that I had to turn my shoulders sideways. He led me past the treasure chamber of the goddess into Arsinoe’s room and awakened her.