Friday night was humid and still. It was already one-thirty in the morning, and Jason was still unable to sleep. He lay on top of his bed, his mind a jumble of seething emotions. Thoughts of the past day’s events nagged at his brain. Huma D’Este, the one fly in his ointment. A single tall girl with odd-looking eyes. She was responsible for making him look foolish, forcing him to lose face in front of the whole school. A sudden thought occurred to him. Huma D’Este was still tormenting him. Supposing he lay awake, unable to think of anything but her? He would lose sleep, and turn up at the Inter Schools Trophy tomorrow tired and listless, unable to run properly or concentrate on the race. Everybody would be there, all eyes would be on him.
Jason rose. He sat on the side of his bed, staring out the open window at the hot, still night. Something must be done if he were to regain his former glory. That was it! He would drive all thoughts of her from his mind and think only of the task ahead. Hurrying off to the bathroom, Jason set the shower until it gushed forth tepid water. A good, long shower, followed by a peaceful night’s sleep. He took a long, luxurious shower, then towelled himself slowly. Wrapping the towel about his waist, he stood in front of the mirror, running his hands through his thick blond locks, admiring his physique and good looks. Telling himself he was a natural winner, Jason went back to bed. Ignoring the duvet, he lay down and composed his mind until sleep overcame him. Deep, dark, comforting sleep.
Yet the eyes of Huma D’Este came to haunt Jason’s dreams. Distant at first, but advancing slowly through misty vales of slumber. Growing larger and more luminescent until his whole being was immersed in their spell.
“Come to me, Jason, come to me.”
The husky voice was insistent, a promise, a command, a plea and a challenge. “I know you, Jason, you must come to me.” It was unlike any dream he had ever experienced.
With the towel knotted about his waist, Jason was running barefoot across his own garden. Taking the low hedge in an easy leap, running, running. Along the nightdark avenues and crescents, pools of light coming and going as he passed beneath streetlamps. Grass verges felt soft beneath his feet, asphalt paths smooth and still warm from the day’s heat. Running, running.
“Come to me, Jason, hurry, I am waiting, Jason, waiting!” He increased his pace through the hushed neighbourhood, his muscular legs performing like a well-oiled machine. The eyes floated before him, unblinking, mysterious, twin beacons guiding him to his destination.
Now he was leaping a low fence, weaving through flower beds, skirting a miniature fountain. Jason’s dreamlike stride took him past a patch of white rhododendrons, across an area of ornamental ferns, beyond a final screen of high-trimmed privets, to a large, old-fashioned house, silent and gloomy in the moonless night. Without any conscious knowledge of whither his feet were taking him, he loped up the broad stone steps.
Jason passed through a black lacquered front door, which stood ajar. Making his way across a vestibule with windowpanes of lilac and pale blue glass, he padded heedlessly along a high-ceilinged entrance hall. On the weaving patterns of its terrazo floor stood several tables of skeletal delicacy, each one graced with urns containing verbena, aspidistra and miniature parlour palms. The huge grey eyes guided him onward to a rich curtain of Tyrrhenian velvet, then into a vast circular room.
She occupied a white stone throne, which stood on a dais in the centre of the chamber. Clad from neck to ankle in a gown of carmine silk, her feet encased in dainty golden sandals, and her brow circled by a slim coronet of burnished silver. The tall girl resembled some priestess out of ancient legend. Her eyes stared down at him, framed by alabaster skin and raven hair. Not knowing why he did it, Jason knelt down on one knee and spoke her name in hushed tones. “Huma D’Este!”
The regal gaze never wavered. “That is a name I permit those who do not know me to use. I will reveal my real name to you in a while, should you wish to hear it, but beware, Jason Hunter. Look around you, is my temple not beautiful?”
The chamber was ringed with alcoves. In each was a stone plinth, like a small Grecian column. A lifesize marble statue had been mounted on every one. They were of young men wearing little save loincloths. Every figure was superbly sculptured, looking either heroic or sporting in turn. Classical Greek titles were graven on the plinth of each statue. Huma D’Este named them.
“Here is the mighty Hercules, there, Orpheus, the poet. Next to him stands Paris, son of King Priam. See, Achilles the warrior, Odysseus the wanderer, Narcissus the beautiful and Arion the musician.”
She reeled off one name after another as Jason gazed, awestruck, at the beautiful lifelike details of the works. “Theseus, son of the god Poseidon, Ganymede, the handsome cupbearer, Bellerophon, rider of the winged Pegasus, and Leander, who swam the Hellespont to woo the maid Hero. These are my wonderful collection, the males of legend, whose names the ages have not dimmed!”
Jason scanned the statues, eleven of them in all. The only one he had ever heard of was Hercules, and that was via movies and television. However, being no student of classical mythology was not a bar to his admiration of the amazing sculptures.
“They look great, but I counted eleven. That’s an odd number . . . is there one missing?”
Huma closed her eyes, the ghost of a smile creasing her lips. “Ah, you’ve noticed. The empty plinth is right behind you. One of the curtain folds is obscuring it. Go and see.”
Jason turned to the curtain, then folded it aside, revealing the empty plinth. Peering at it, he tried to decipher the name carved there in Greek characters. “I can’t make out this funny writing . . . suppose you can, though.”
Huma sat back and sighed blissfully. “Ah, yes, I know who will stand there for eternity. He will be the son of Aeson, rightful king of Iolcus, the one who was reared by the centaur Chiron. Do you know of him?”
Jason shrugged. “I don’t know any of those foreign names.”
Huma spoke teasingly. “No, I didn’t suppose you would. Some of the most beautiful bodies are seldom endowed with the keenest of minds. Let me give you a clue. This young man was captain of a ship named the Argo, he stole the fabulous Golden Fleece of Colchis. Now do you know him?”
Jason was awake now, the dreamlike trance seeming to have left him. He felt silly, standing here in the dead of night, clad only in a towel and his briefs. And there was the girl whom he had known for only a day, sitting on a throne, all dressed up and surrounded by statues. Now she was starting to mock him again. The fact that her eyes were closed made him bold. He spoke insolently. “No, I don’t know him, and I couldn’t care less. I’m getting out of this stupid old place!”
He was about to run off when the eyes of Huma D’Este sprang open, riveting him with their piercing stare. Her voice was harsh and commanding. “Fool, you should know the one I speak of. His name is the same as yours. Jason! When I saw you yesterday, I knew that you were the final piece of my collection!”
The towel was wet and clammy about his waist. Jason felt frightened and helpless in her presence. He could not tear his gaze from the girl’s eyes. They were growing larger, more overpowering, ugly red veins threading out from their corners.
He could hear his own voice, a fearful whisper. “How would you know what this Jason looked like? He must have died hundreds of years ago.”
Huma’s face was changing, the skin taking on a purplish hue. Cracks began pitting it, things were moving beneath her eyebrows, down the sides of her nostrils and along her jawline. The luxurious black hair weaved itself together into a nest of writhing snakes. Jason watched in horrified fascination, as if his eyelids had been frozen—he could not shut them. Now her mouth opened, a thin forked tongue sliding out.