I carry the memory of Axichis. There is no one else who can share this responsibility, so it is mine. This world is full of gods, of demons, of immortals of all stripes, but I am one that I can say for certain saw Axichis before her fall. It is upon me to remember her. Her beauty, her tragedy, her heights, and her ultimate failure.
This would irk the elders of the islands to no end. A
man
advocating their legacy, collecting what few treasures escaped the conquest, preserving what he could of their art and literature. And yes, I do this partly for my son Xeilyphon and his descendants, but I do it also for myself. It reminds me of the wonder this world can contain and the cruelty that can rob us of it.
The most common question asked of me is, of course, how did a civilization of women reproduce? There has always been a puerile obsession with the amazons, and great deal of leering speculation over how they maintained their population. The answer is at once simpler and more complex than the interlocutor suspects.
The first answer is that they reproduce in the standard fashion. While every amazon has some Eupheric experience, not all of them confine their romantic attentions to women. Xeiliope, for example, took far more men into her bed than little Alia ever did. Many amazons will fall pregnant, and the children might join the culture. Others will even marry men and take them to live upon the archipelago. These few do not have the same legal rights that an Amazon would, but it is my understanding that they live safe and happy existences.
The second answer requires the understanding of a fact that is often forgotten. Amazons look human, but they are as dissimilar from us as we are to orcs and elves. Outwardly, there are but few hints. Their golden eyes are the most obvious difference, but I find that their relative lack of body hair is equally indicative. Although, I suppose I have more experience with nude amazons than do most outlanders.
The legend goes that Kleomenope, after her husband and sons had been slain by raiders, fled into the sea where a storm took her. Her ship came aground on the island of Axichis. She made her way to the peaks over the bay and cried out in anguish. The moon goddess took pity upon her and taught her to create a new family from the stones of the island itself. In her grief, Kleomenope could not bear to make a man to replace her husband nor boys to replace her sons, and so created daughters.
The secret of creation is known only to the amazons. It was perhaps the one thing the Heacharids hated them for above all others. Since the fall of Axichis, it has been irrevocably lost.
In the months after I first took the seas upon
Naeri's Revenge
, I had grown close to my crew of sailors. My captain was a grizzled salt by the name of Kucyone, as skilled a sailor as any who had ever plied the Turquoise Sea. We had learned much from each other. For me, it was the art of the mariner, how to use the weather, what could and couldn't be done. For her, it was how best to make use of her storm mage, how close she had to get me to the enemy, and how to support my attacks and keep me alive.
I still recall her laugh on the winds of my storm the first time she watched as freshly-slain Heacharids rose as stormwights. "Hard to sail in a storm," she told me after, tapping the tobacco from her pipe, "harder still when half the crew's tryin' to slay the other half!"
She in rough Rhandic that reminded me of the way the fishermen of Burley Shoal talked, albeit in a strong Axichan accent with just a bit of Castellandrian drizzled over the vowels.
As summer turned to autumn, we became perhaps the single most important vessel in the Axichan navy. Kucyone took no end of amusement over this, as the assignment of ferrying around the outlander was intended to be a demotion.
Our journey to Paiari was a refreshing diversion because we weren't on the hunt. We arrived at the port at Elekidora, the island's largest settlement, at sunset. Kucyone stared out the Heacharid ships patrolling the horizon. "Seems a shame, wizard," she said, her words coming out on a halo of pipe smoke.
"A night of peace?"
She nodded out into the dying light. "Look at yonder ships. Sailing without fear. We should sink a couple. Remind them these waters hunger for Heacharid sailors."
I had to laugh. "Soon, Captain. Enjoy tonight."
"Oh, aye. I will find my fill of wine and women, you can be assured of that."
Elekidora's bay was narrow at the entrance but deep. The city lined either side, and thanks to its proximity to the front, was heavily fortified. Catapults stood silent sentry on either side of the bay, ready to sink any Heacharid ships that came near. A few torches fought the darkness that covered the city. On the hill above, a great fire burned.
We docked and, along with Einoë and Kallea, I made my way from the dock up the hill. They walked with heads held high and shoulders squared, proud of their assignment. The change in their demeanor was incredible, beginning with the victory at Naeri and only growing more pronounced with our success upon the waves.
The Symposium was at the crest of the hill, a great gathering of important personages. Military leaders wore their armor, carrying shortswords on their belts. The civilian leaders were clad in their chitons, the simple gowns of the Axichans. They had gathered around a massive fire blazing in a great bronze dish, speaking in groups of four and five. Tiers of seats rose about the flames on three sides. The fourth looked out over Elekidora and the sea beyond. I thought of the Heacharid ships out there in the dark, sailing without fear. Kucyone was right.
"This gathering should be safe enough, tent brother," Einoë murmured in my ear.
"We will be at the edge of the fire," Kallea whispered in the other.
My hetairoi left me, joining the other bodyguards right as the light gave way to shadow. The feeling of loneliness that enveloped me was strange. I had grown so accustomed to them that their absence was wrong in a way I found hard to accept.
That feeling was banished as my eyes fell on my companions Alia and Velena. The two Mythseekers spoke together by the fire, their eyes glittering in the light. I went to them, feeling the smile on my face. Alia spotted me first and her stormy expression vanished beneath a beaming grin. She ran to me, leaping into my arms. I held the tiny rogue tightly, unaware of how much I missed her until I smelled her sweat, the old leather of her costume, and the faint odor of the oil she used to loosen up stubborn locks.
"Bel," she said happily, hopping down from me, her green eyes bright. "I missed you."
"I missed you too."
Velena took me in her soft embrace. What disturbed me was that her scent had changed. Beneath that herbal smell that permeated her was the unmistakable odor of blood. She was as soft as she always was, but when I looked into her pale eyes, they were tired.
"You look well," said the witch.
"I've heard what you've been up to," Alia said. "Our wizard has turned pirate."
"I am glad you're safe," Velena said.
"For the moment," I said. "Seeing the two of you...it's like tending to a wound I didn't know I had."
"Trying to get Velena to check you for hurts?" Alia said.
"That's not what I meant."
"Too bad," Velena said with a smile that held some of her old spark.
"We have the night," I said, musing at the possibility.
"Xeiliope!" Alia exclaimed. By the time Velena and I turned, Alia was hugging the amazon. Xeiliope looked wearier than she had even when I saw her. Our embrace was soft, lingering in the memory of our last time together.
"Are you well?" Velena asked.
Xeiliope's expression was stony. "Come, let us find a place to sit. The Symposium should begin soon." We followed Xeiliope to seats halfway up the risers. As I gained a better look at the gathering, my attention was grabbed by two individuals who took my breath away.
They were wizards.
I had heard that Axichis had two others of my kind, but I had not encountered them. These two women, each with a creature upon their shoulders, could be nothing else.
The first I saw was of middling height and lithe build. Her head was shaved, her scalp decorated with turquoise tattoos running down her temples to disappear into her collar. Her costume was a motley assortment of a half-dozen styles, each one of a different color. Her familiar, a sea bat, perched on her shoulder.
The other was tall, dressed in a traditional Axichan chiton. She was long-limbed, with full breasts and hips. Her wavy golden brown hair was pinned up in a style I saw only on statues. A sky eel coiled about her swanlike neck, bathing her in golden light. As though she sensed my attention, she turned, and our eyes met. She gave me a slight nod of acknowledgement, which I returned. A shiver worked its way down my spine. She looked like nothing more than a goddess made flesh.
The Symposium began shortly thereafter. Please, bear in mind that I am, at heart, a Rhandonian. A Rhandonian who grew up near, not even in, a small fishing town. I am provincial, something that Zhahllaia and Sarakiel still occasionally tease me over. So when I say that my way of understanding an amazon Symposium is as something of a town meeting, do not judge me too harshly. I think the description is fundamentally apt. There is business, perhaps a vote or two, often a birth announcement, and then a party wherein community is reaffirmed. That is a town meeting, albeit one of grander scale and cultural weight.
This particular Symposium was a meeting of the ruling class of Axichis. The fact that the Mythseekers were there should have been a clue to me that the war was not going well. We should not have been so important to a war effort.
The archonae of each island spoke on what their domains needed. Melisis needed metal for her forges, Thessandreia was beset and needed another phalanx, Paiari was hungry. Only my island, Axichis herself, was without a strong need for any one thing. All of them wanted the Heacharid blockade broken.
The generals spoke of victories, and I was singled out for mine upon the waves. Our side's successes were few and tempered. No matter how many ships full of Heacharids I consigned to the deep, there were three more ready to land on our shores.
The birth rituals brought light after the darkness. Three amazons approached the fire, two of them in chitons and one a military woman in her armor. All three carried babies carved from the white stone of the archipelago. They knelt at equidistant points about the fire and threw their hands to the heavens. Above, a full moon shone down upon them.
They spoke in the Akleona, the Axichan tongue, and my fluency was growing with it every day. I spoke only the basics when I arrived, courtesy of Xeiliope. Einoë and Kallea had taken over my tutelage, and I had improved vastly when communicating with the crew of my ship. Still, my vocabulary was primarily nautical and martial, and this was obviously a prayer. If one of them ordered a boarding action, I would follow effortlessly.
They cried out to the moon goddess to grant their children birth. I caught that much, though I at the time I missed some of the nuance. A complete transcription of the prayer exists in
The Glory of the Amazons
, although that text is somewhat old and filtered through its author's Kharsoomian sensibility. Suffice to say that the invocation no longer works. It was a gift from Xenethestra the Goddess of the Moon to Kleomenope and her daughters. As with so much of their culture, it is gone from the world.
Akleona is still spoken, albeit in an altered form. The diaspora that came from the fall of Axichis took the amazons to different places in the world where they were forced to join other communities or fall extinct. One such group settled in Rhandonia, not far south of Burley Shoal. Their language merged with Rhandic, taking words and accent, and now is not the music I heard upon Axichis.
I watched in wonder as the light from the moon brightened, but only upon the three babes, each before the mother. The silvery light caressed the stone, and where it passed, the white stone turned to a fleshy bronze, and the children awoke to squalling life. The mothers took their newly birthed children in their arms, kissing and cuddling, while the Symposium cheered this happy day.
We concluded with a prayer of thanks to the moon and a prayer of victory to her daughter, goddess of the hunt. Now the Symposium turned to festivities. In this time, the issues that were raised were discussed. Archonae coordinated to deliver what the other islands needed. Generals debated their next move. The rest of us socialized, or else volunteered for actions military and civil.
