The Penumbra Vol. 3: Speak: The Penumbra, #3

By Ben Wari

What Is The Penumbra?

 

The Penumbra is:

 

Literally, the very edge of the border between light and shadow.

 

A series of connected, interrelated fictions spanning the supernatural, horror, and science fiction genres, along with their cousins.

 

An homage to anthologies of speculative fiction in TV, comic book, and prose form.

 

In this volume:

 

A festival in ancient Greece includes a theatre competition and grisly murders. A local group's strange play might be the link between them and a darker secret.

 

On a remote frozen planetoid, an ages-old colony with unique language and customs has grown. Two local hunters receive a message of incoming ships from beyond the stars and need to decipher if the senders are friend or foe.

 

On the isle of Papua, a storyteller gathers an audience around a fire to tell them of a mythic  hero, his legendary deeds, and his terrible curse.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ben Wari
• Release date: Oct 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201108199

Book preview

-Dedication-

For Ms. Vincze, Mrs. Nedeljak, and Ms. Wilson,

who encouraged this from the beginning. 

Contents

Title

7 –  Lykoi Di Korinth

8 – Across A Full Dark Sea

9 –

Author Bio And Links

-7-

Lykoi di Korinth

(Wolves of Corinth)

Nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse.

-Sophocles

*

Dramatis Personae:

Andromachus – A Playwright and former Explorer

Polyastra – An Aging Sailor

Philomele – A Hetaera, or Consort

Euismos – A Cook and Lout

Valanthe – An Old Soldier and Ex-Spy

Oryx – A Servant of Andromachus, barely a Boy

Ibex – His Sister, also a Servant, barely a Woman

Antiope – Lead Actor of Andromachus and Company

Tymon – Second Actor of same Company

Melissa – Actor Assistant and Lover of Antiope

Nox – Watch Captain of Korinth, Nervous

Herakles – A Fool

*

No one knew there had been a murder in the city yet. It had happened the night before in the shrouded streets of the corrupt and bustling port city as people celebrated the opening of the Festival of Apollo. Grisly and terrible, but not unheard of, not unthinkable in those days.

The body wouldn't be found until  after the play that many were gathered to see, part of the festival's drama competition from Andromachus and company.

The Ravenous Wolves of the Misty Isle! the presenter cried out from the raised stage in front of the granite colonnade skene. People ambled here and there, shuffled and gossiped between the stone benches, fanning themselves against the early spring heat. The actors were silent as they took the stage, though the audience was anything but. Some ate dried snacks or looked over crude carvings of animals and small masks of famous figures for sale.

In one of the upper wings a man with sharp, hawklike features, sweating under a hooded and oiled cloak, sat behind a hairy, fat man, who looked like his every pore dripped oil. "Chaire, you old hog," he said.

Same to you, you weaselly bastard, replied the other. Heard you were in town. Here to check in on old friends?

Indeed. I see our former lady is at front with whoever she's servicing tonight.

I can't tell who I pity more, her or our dear wordsmith, for living in this den of crooks and liars all this time.

You know, I overheard her as she was deep in her wine last night that this is another polemic that the city patrons insisted on to appease old Philippos and the rest of the newly-minted league. Not sure how our old friend would have taken that, but it sounds like he slipped a few clever messages in. Beside all the blood and viscera he could get past the local priests.

How would she know? replied the very round one, stuffing himself with figs. She seems too high-brow now for the more... common fare?

I'd bet that all the patronage being tossed around for this festival, including from her clients, means she has to attend and take an interest.

A few youths ran between the aisles, interrupting them and the gathering crowd, looking for spots for their masters or offering cups of water and wine for coin. The fat, oily man paid for two pours of dry red and said, Well, either way, I hope this is entertaining. 'No politics' used to be the golden rule! Andromachus is talented enough to make it work, I think. He can slum it a while and write a good spectacle, avoid all the dry, tired pedantic teachings they do elsewhere. This isn't Athene. Or Sparta, thank fucking Zeus.

You seem to know quite a bit as well, Euismos, even though we swore to stay out of each other's lives.

Yes, said the man. But it's the title he's given this that drew me. Curious, don't you agree, Valanthe? The hooded man did.

Meanwhile, the playwright himself stood in the stage wings, worrying at his beard, sweating not just due to the heat, but because the boy was late. The young man, he thought, mentally checking himself. Far past needing an erastes, no longer smooth-faced. Even still, they were missing the new masks he had ordered days ago to replace the crude rehearsal ones. It was bad enough that they had used the old, warped antiques for opening night. The first real day of the festival competition demanded new costuming, as shown by all the oligarchs, priests, hetaerae, and freemen in the audience.

From somewhere behind, someone hissed at him. Well now, Andromachus, still not ready? The state paid the way for more than a few civilians tonight, can't keep them waiting! The voice was barely above a stage whisper, in a range just beneath the announcer's droning.

"Oh, it's you. Everything's fine, nothing to fret over, Polyastra. My helper, Oryx, is a tad late. Why don't you go join our former friends in the theatron seats, straight back of stage right?"

A bulky man dressed in sailor's garb climbed up to the skene landing to join the playwright. He was starting to grey, his skin lined deeply by sun and salt.

Ah, the lad you took on when last we met in Athene? Maybe he's off drinking already or getting his end wet? Youth and festivals, eh?

I doubt it. He's proven himself very useful, reliable, which is more than I can say for the Hades-cursed artisans of this town.

The big sailor clapped the other man on the back, laughing. Careful now. Their masters out their might hear and extort you a second time.

If he runs late, we can use Herakles for a short while, mused Andromachus, ignoring his uninvited guest.

Ah, the fool? Big as a horse, the mule-kicked one? He's still about? Gods, I've been away from Korinth and it's... unique colour for far too long. Oh now, but what's this? A vision of Helen herself, but I thought women were still forbidden from the stage? Polyastra pointed down along the sweep of stone walkway by the theatron entrance.

A young woman, hair rough and curled and pile high, much too slender, nearly ran to them. In her arms was a cloth bundle.

Usually not. Even in these more progressive times, said Andromachus. This is the boy's sister. Or so they claim. Insists on being called Ibex. Better than being nameless orphans. He clucked his tongue.

The old sailor grunted, not sure what to make of the break from tradition, but watched as the girl approached and lifted the bundle in offering. She was panting, managing to only say, Masks.

The playwright scooped them up, tenderly. Get Antiope to his place and Tymon to the rest of the chorus. These masks will show glory to Apollo himself, and to patrons too, gods willing.

And with that, actors, chorus, and stagehand set about their trade as the sun sank past the notorious little city, working as torches and braziers were lit.

Andromachus watched, making mental notes of reactions and staging, enunciation. He had been tinkering with the monologues and refrains almost every night for a year. It was a cautionary tale, but less didactic and preachy than some of the classic tragodia. A young man wishing to appease Artemis and Apollo voyages to a misty island full of game to hunt, but stumbles upon a stream that gives immortality and he has to decide if to become like a god or remain a servant. And as a tragodia, he chooses wrongly, with Apollo coming to the protagonistes at the end in his wolf-god form to pass judgment.

The playwright wanted to push