The Lamia

1-15

The Lamia, strong-willed and confident of her standing among the people, scorned this newcomer and paid little heed to his machinations. When he offered to perform a powerful southern ritual at the shrine, and persuaded the people to desire this spectacle, she scoffed at the idea, but reluctantly allowed it. Wise as she was, she was naïve to his ways, and failed to anticipate his true intentions.

In her scorn and reluctance, the Lamia made no effort to set in motion out of season the actions that, at the proper time, would have produced a joyous festival. The false priest, ignorant of the true communal purpose of the rites performed at the shrine and their place in the annual cycle of life, enamored only of himself, was focused on his own glorification. Presuming that the spectacle he was to perform would be sufficient reward, he had forgone the customary celebration of the natural bounty of the land, in which the people themselves enjoyed that bounty. Instead he prepared a mere token portion, not as the seeds of renewal, but as a propitiative offering to show appreciation of the grand miracle of existence, in expectation of the enhancement of their place in it that he had promised.

This would-be priest, in his elaborate ritual, then further evoked an attitude of appeasement, and invoked the need for blood sacrifice. First he lulled the people, and the Lamia, with minor bloodletting from a few animals. These, she now understands, he had secretly drugged, making them docile and less reactive to the pain of the cut. With each one he opened a neck vein using a crude stone dagger, drew a modicum of blood into a "sacred" cup, then kissed the wound and released the creature to the wild, licking the blood from his lips with what his onlookers took to be a form of reverence.

With much ceremony he poured the collected sacrificial blood into the well of the cavern. Then, in his inflated language, making his acts so far seem highly beneficial but perhaps still insufficient, he called for a human blood volunteer.

It was here that the true horror began. Her own sister, the Lamia's elder daughter, had become caught up in the magic of the moment. She knows now that the stranger had planned this, because her sister had been going on for days about the stranger's tales. She had been innocently pleased and charmed to be getting his special attention. She now pleaded with her mother to allow her to submit to the sacred blood-letting, the first to offer this special new gift to the earth mother.

It was clear to her younger daughter that the Lamia strongly disapproved of this whole rite. But the older one insisted that the priest had already assured her the bloodletting would be harmless, just as it had been with the wild creatures, so she finally relented and reluctantly agreed.

The Lamia had looked on in mounting horror as the southerner first drugged her daughter, then led her to the brink of the well, dagger in hand. Finally, in the midst of elaborate ceremonial arm-waving and chanting about how much greater was the gift of human blood, working himself and many of the spectators into a mystical frenzy, the would-be priest stabbed her through the heart with the stone blade and threw her bodily into the abyss.

At this the Lamia rushed forward, too late to save her daughter but intent on ending this abomination. She was at a disadvantage, however, as she could not allow herself to further defile the well by pushing this evil man into it, nor could she kill or injure him by other means on this sacred ground. So instead she attempted to rally the people to her support and have him restrained.

But in this she had nearly lost before she began, because by his smooth words he had already won many of them to his elaborate vision, and, seemingly still in his rapture, he went on contending that the daughter had sacrificed herself willingly. Had he not asked, amidst his ritualistic chanting, Are you prepared to give your all to the earth mother that the people may prosper, and had she not replied, Oh yes! He thus continued to sway them in his favor.

Then, as the Lamia in consternation continued to confront him, with an unexpected sudden stroke he stabbed her too through the heart with his crude ceremonial blade and pushed her into the well after her daughter.

Having thus won his true objective, the would-be priest turned to the people and began to mollify them with words of the magnificence of the sacrifice he had wrought with this further act. He elaborated the idea that the doubting mother had been standing in the way of the benefits he would soon bring, and that she was even now being received back into the womb of the earth, to her own benefit as well as that of the people.

But he had reckoned without the younger daughter, and she now recalled how she rushed forward and attacked him bodily. She nearly took him with her into the cavern, but he eluded her grasp and plunged the ceremonial blade deep into her side, then pushed her over the edge as she spun away from the thrust.

Now she remembers how she awoke in the depths of the cavern, her body broken and rapidly losing blood, the crude blade still embedded in her side. There were many snakes, but she had dragged herself unheeding through their midst to the bodies of her sister and mother. Her sister was already gone, but her mother, through sheer force of will, had clung to life long enough to pass to her daughter the mantle of Lamia. With a gesture she brought one of the snakes to rest its head in her hand. She told her daughter to remember her lessons about the healing power of the serpent, reminding her that these creatures could assist her, and encouraged her to draw upon those shaman skills she already possessed so that she might use their help to survive.

Her body now aches with the remembrance of her injury and, outraged as she is by what she has just seen and the horrors of the memory it evoked, she knows she is not yet ready to confront her enemy. Slowly, but with her spirit on fire, she makes her way back to the safety of the cavern, to rest and plan her retribution.