Elementary Read online

  “There,” Mother said brightly. “I think they ought to notice that.”

  Octli shivered. All of the villagers were gaping and pointing at his image on the hillside, and Octli’s instincts began to whisper urgently in his ear. “Should I hide, Earth Mother?” he said shakily.

  “Hide?” She laughed. “Don’t be silly, little one. You would miss all of the fun.”

  It did not take long before two glowering figures appeared, stalking in the same direction but quite far apart, each refusing to acknowledge even the breath of the other. The fat one boiled with rage while smoke rose from the skinny one’s ears.

  “What is this?” the fat one shouted, jabbing his finger at Mother. “What do you think you’re doing here, you old goat?”

  Mother smiled and began drawing some little pictures in the dirt with the end of her stick. “I only came to watch,” she said sweetly.

  “Be on your way!” the skinny one growled. “Your trick has interrupted a very important duel. I was just about to defeat this tub of fat—”

  “Shut up, Stick Man!” the fat one barked back. He raised his hand, and water bubbled from the ground at his feet, only to be rendered to steam by a blast of flame from the skinny man’s fingers.

  “Now, now, boys,” Mother said. “Pay no attention to me. Just go about what you were doing.”

  The Water Mage clenched his fists and squinted, but his piggy eyes flew open wide when he realized who was perched on the old lady’s shoulder. “You!” he bellowed. “Where have you been? What is all this?”

  The bird cowered, but the old lady said, “This one? He came to tell me that his Master was the most powerful man in all the world. I simply had to come and see for myself.”

  The Water Mage was taken aback, and drew himself up. “Well, then,” he grunted.

  “And this one,” Mother continued, nodding down to Octli, “he told me that there was a Fire Mage here who was of such might that he was one with the gods.”

  “What?” the skinny man said, his mouth falling open. “I mean, yes, naturally. Er, who is he again?”

  “Insolent little pest!” the Water Mage roared toward Octli. “You will drown!”

  “No!” the Fire Mage shouted. “Leave the little one alone! I like him.”

  Mother held up her hands. “Now, boys, settle down, both of you. I can see that there is only one way to prove who here is the greater Master.”

  “How?” they both asked at once, then squinted ruefully.

  Mother stood up and adjusted her shawl. “A duel!” she said.

  “But that’s what we—”

  “To the death!” She raised her stick high. “The greater power will destroy the weaker!”

  Octli gasped. “Earth Mother?” he whispered uncertainly, but the old lady did not look down.

  The two mages also gasped, but after glancing at each other, their furious expressions returned. “Yes! Agreed!” the Water Mage said.

  “To the death!” the Fire Mage added.

  “Good.” Mother swung her stick up over her head, then brought it down to the earth with a crack! Right away the soil erupted, spitting forth a dense field of stubby green leaves all bristling with angry spikes. “Neither will touch the other, as these branches will ensure.”

  “Ouch!” the Fire Mage yelped, having put it to the test. He thrust his finger into his mouth and grumbled while the Water Mage barked with laughter.

  “Let us begin,” Mother said, settling down on her heels. She scooped up a very startled Octli and settled him into her lap, and her gentle hand on his ears kept him from darting to safety. “May the greater power forever destroy the other!”

  The Fire Mage struck first, a surge of molten rock rising from the soil and rolling toward his opponent. The Water Mage countered with a wave of his own that met the glowing tide head-on and exploded into a hissing, sizzling chaos that boiled among the spiky leaves, making them quake and twitch as though in agony.

  Octli looked up toward the bird. “This is your fault,” he whispered. “They are going to kill each other!”

  “Me?” the bird hissed. “I wanted to stop it. You are the one who started this!”

  Both of them, though, fell silent when they realized that Mother was looking at them. “You do not trust me?” she whispered, sounding hurt.

  Octli winced. “I am sorry, Earth Mother.”

  “Forgive me, Lady,” the bird said.

  Mother nodded. “Just watch,” she said, “and relax. We are going to be here for some time, I think.”

  Indeed they were. Then sun made its patient way across the sky, shortening the shadows and lengthening them again, while the two men, roaring like bulls, hurled their energies at each other over and over again. Each time the two forces met, they fell, hissing, onto the spiky branches below, soaking into the leaves and turning them gradually from green to blue.

  At long last, the Water Mage choked and fell to his knees, his chin sinking to his chest. His tunic was soaked with the sweat that fell like rain from his forehead.

  “I win!” the Fire Mage panted, but when he thrust forth his arm for the killing blow, only a little candle flame trickled from his fingertips, and then he, too, fell to his knees and gasped for breath.

  Only then did Mother stand, stretching her arms behind her. “My, what a ferocious battle,” she yawned. “Are you boys all finished now?”

  Both of them clearly wanted to answer, but neither had enough wind for words. Mother stepped to the edge of the spiky branches and tilted her head. “Well, now, we still need to find out which of the powers was greater. But I do not see them. Where do you suppose they went?”

  The men, still winded, climbed to their feet. The Fire Mage pointed accusingly at the leaves before him. “You tricked us. You stole our powers!”

  “Stole? Me? Why, I did no such thing. I am merely keeping them safe for you.”

  “Where?” the men demanded.

  Mother pointed to the quivering blue leaves. “In there, of course. I must say, too, that they are getting along together far better than you two.”

  Snarling at each other, each man seized a leaf and, yelping at the prickly spikes, broke them open. Neither was quite certain what to expect, but certainly neither expected to find something that looked very much like milk. The Water Mage would have bellowed in anger if he could have stopped panting, and the Fire Mage looked as though he were about to cry. “You destroyed them,” he whimpered.

  “Nonsense!” Mother laughed. “I simply mingled them.”

  “Mingled? You crazy old witch! Fire is the enemy of Water!”

  “So you keep saying.” Mother pointed to the liquid that was dripping from the skinny man’s fingers. “You are letting it get away. If you want your power back, you are going to have to take it inside of you quickly.”

  The Water Mage just stared dumbly at her for a moment, and then with a flicker of understanding, he held the leaf over his mouth and gulped its contents down. Right away his eyes bulged from his head, and he began to gag. “Oh! Ow! It burns like fire!”

  “What are you talking about, you idiot?” the fat man wheezed, and he, too, took a drink. Immediately he fell onto his bottom. “It does burn like fire, but it’s wet like water!”

  “I told you. I mingled them,” Mother said as she drew some more pictures in the sand with her stick. “And you had better hurry and take them back into you before the land swallows them first and you lose them forever.”

  Both men gasped and, ignoring the painful spikes, began frantically snatching up leaves. Eagerly they broke the leaves open and guzzled down what they found within. They swallowed, coughed, swallowed, gagged, swallowed, wheezed, and swallowed. Soon both began to sway on their feet. Their faces were bright red, and they sweated heavily. The fat man rubbed at his eyes, blinking them blearily, and turned to speak to his rival, but
all that came out was a thunderous belch that echoed clear down to the village below. The two men gawked at each other, then burst out laughing.

  Mother smiled and lifted Octli from her lap, then used her stick to help herself to her feet. “I think that they have learned their lesson,” she said.

  The bird, who had been watching this strange scene in puzzled silence, hopped to the ground in front of Mother. He looked worriedly over his shoulder to where the two mages were hugging and professing their mutual admiration and affection in words that were not at all clear to anyone else. “How long will this magic last, my Lady?” he asked.

  “Not long. They may not feel very friendly when they first wake up, but as long as you remind them of how much more powerful their energies were when combined with a tiny bit of the Earth, I think that we can make their friendship last a long time. I will leave you with that task.”

  The bird dipped his head low and spread his wings in a regal bow. “Thank you, my Lady. I will make sure that they do not forget.” With that he leaped into the air and rejoined his Master, who was now leaning heavily on the Fire Mage as the two wobbled their way noisily back down to the village.

  Mother turned to go, but paused when she saw Octli sniffing curiously at one of the leaves. He started guiltily and backed away, but she smiled and said, “You may try some if you would like.”

  “It is kind of you to offer, Mother,” he said, and nibbled carefully, and with the leaf came the water and the fire at the same time. “Oh!” he croaked, hopping backward and shaking his head. “This is . . . very different.” After a moment his head began to feel strange. He looked down the hill to where the two mages were stumbling along, singing merrily and clapping each other on the back. He took another bite, and then another, and by the third, he was beginning to understand why the men were behaving so. “I think I like this. May I share the magic with some of my brothers?”

  “Of course, little one. Invite them all. There is plenty for everyone.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that, Mother,” Octli said, his voice becoming less steady. “I have quite a lot of brothers.”

  • • •

  Author’s note: To the Aztecs, the Centzon Totochtin were a group of four hundred rabbit-deities who would gather together to enjoy the intoxicating beverage originally known as octli, and later called pulque, which was the great-uncle of what we now know as tequila. While originally prepared by the mingling of Fire and Water magics, the arrival of the Spanish brought about new methods of preparing pulque through a tedious fermentation process that made the drink available to all humankind. Most pulque today is created by this method, but those of us “in the know” still prefer the original recipe.

  Fire Song

  Diana L. Paxson

  “To you, Hestia, the first and the last . . .”

  Kyria smiled as her mother tipped her wine cup over the hearth. It always amused her that Eudocia, otherwise so unworldly, should be so dedicated to the rituals of household piety. “When I see you do that, I know I am home.”

  Flames leaped, and the coals sizzled as the drops hit them. For a moment Kyria glimpsed the bright shapes of salamanders dancing there. She did not see them well—her Element was Water—but after she had learned to see the nymphs, she found that she could tell when the spirits of other Elements were near. Did the salamanders appreciate the drink? Did the goddess mind sharing the offering?

  The firelight struck sparks from the curls of the child, dark like her own, who slept in her arms. Empedocles was not a fretful child, but he was never still except when he was sleeping. Bright eyes—gray like his father’s—darted ceaselessly about, taking everything in. When he closed them, both of them could rest.

  Firelight flickered on the whitewashed walls, illuminating the hangings that Eudocia had woven when the family first came to Kumae and the ancestor figures in their niche by the door. Their quarters were small, but a Pythagorean philosopher needed little. Most of Archilaus’ time was spent in the long room and courtyard that the tyrant Aristodemus had given him for his school.

  “Do they not honor the goddess at Akragas?” her mother asked.

  “Oh, of course,” Kyria replied. In some lands there might be barbarians who did not offer to the lady of the hearth, but no one who spoke Greek would dare deny Hestia her due. “But my husband’s mother is hearth-priestess there.”

  Shifting the limp weight of the child, she winced at the prickle of returning circulation in her arm. Empedocles was only three, but he was growing fast.

  “Would you like me to take him?”

  “I’m all right. Sit down, Mother—you’ve been on your feet all day!”

  This was the first visit Kyria had made to Cumae since her marriage. She had wanted to show her son to his grandparents, but she was beginning to wonder if this had been a good time to come. Her mother had looked anxious ever since they arrived.

  But maybe she had reason to worry. There had only been a few ships in the harbor. In the marketplace, people spoke in low voices and hurried off as soon as their business was done. Work on the moat that the tyrant had set the people to dig around the town had been abandoned. According to their cook, it was because one of the women carrying earth had said that she only veiled her face when Aristodemus passed by. After all, she said, Aristodemus was the only real man there.

  That was enough to shame the men into striking, but a rebellion needed a leader. The tyrant had survived challenges in the past. Surely, thought Kyria, he will weather this one. But suddenly it was not only because she missed her husband that Kyria wished Meto had come with her.

  For a moment her mother stood still, rubbing her hands. Then she was in motion once more, stacking the wine cups, straightening a cloth.

  “Something is wrong! You jump every time you hear a sound. Why has Father gone out with the older students when he meant to celebrate with us here at home?”

  Eudocia looked at her daughter for a moment, then picked up one of the plates and began to scrape the remains of the barley and greens into a bowl.

  “There have been . . . rumors . . . that the sons of the nobles the tyrant drove out are plotting against him. Aristodemus has been very generous, supporting the school all these years. When he asks for counsel, of course Archilaus must come.”

  “But will the tyrant listen?” Kyria asked. “I always thought he viewed Father as an ornament, as if supporting a philosopher would persuade people that he was a gentleman. That’s not the reputation he has elsewhere, you know. In Sikelia they say he’s no more than a thug who used his success as a soldier to raise the mob against the nobles and has employed foreign mercenaries to keep himself in power.”

  Kyria flinched as her mother, glancing around in fear, clapped a hand over her mouth. But they had dismissed the cook when it became clear that Archilaus was not going to be home for dinner. The only other person in the house was Lysander, the philosopher’s youngest pupil, and he had been sent to bed some time ago.

  “Foolish girl, you never did know when to keep silent!” Eudocia let go when it was clear that they were alone. “And now the gods have punished you with a son who cannot speak at all!”

  Empedocles jerked awake as Kyria clutched him. Shock kept her speechless as her mother went on.

  “Do you think I haven’t noticed that he never cries? I thought at first it was because you do everything for him before he can ask. At that age, you babbled like a brook. I told your father, but he only laughed and said the boy is a born philosopher, but I know!”

  “Everyone says that boys speak later than girls. Every child is different. There is nothing wrong with my son!” Kyria cried. Surely she did not delude herself when she recognized intelligence in that flickering gaze. What need did Empedocles have for words? Everyone loved him. Kyria was not the only one who always knew when he was hungry or wet—his nursemaids felt the same.

  She di
dn’t even try to fight her tide of anger. “I thought you would be pleased to see him, but you are a foolish old woman. As soon as I can find a ship to carry us, we’ll be gone!”

  Empedocles squirmed in her arms, and she set him carefully in the chair. “Stay there. Mama has things to do!” For a moment he glared back, but then some falling coal sent a spurt of flame from the hearth, and he laughed.

  She began to gather the child’s gear into a basket, once more amazed at how much was needed for the comfort of one so small. Her own gowns rolled swiftly into a bundle. She was tightening the last knot when the curtain to the back room stirred, and Lysander, still rubbing his eyes, walked into the room.

  “Someone is shouting outside,” he said. At eight, his features were still child-soft, but there was a good brain beneath that tousled brown hair.

  Kyria opened the front door. The wind that swirled down from the acropolis carried faint cries. There was a hint of smoke as well.

  “Lysander, get your cloak. Mother, perhaps you had better make up a bundle for yourself and one for Father, too. Pythagoras himself fled when there was a revolution in Crotona. Do you think Archilaus will be any safer if Aristodemus falls?”

  “I have a bundle . . .” Eudocia said in a defeated voice. “Archilaus forbade me to pack, but I have been ready for the past two days.”

  Kyria took a deep breath. Any possible response to that went so far beyond what she could properly say to her mother that she had no words. And anyway, there was no time. The shouting was louder now. She had heard shouts like that from the arena when they were holding the Games. Empedocles slid down from the chair and took a step toward the door.

  As Kyria plopped him back down on the seat, she heard the sound of running feet on stone. One of the philosopher’s students burst around the corner, his red hair blazing in the light from the open door. White wisps of hair standing on end and tunic awry, Archilaus followed, supported by Polycritos and Nicolaus, the oldest of his students.