Costas Komborozos

Artemisia I Costas Komborozos

After killing the Ephesian king and becoming the new Amazon queen, Artemisia realizes that she has not yet fulfilled her destiny. A ship arrives in Ephesus and reveals that a larger time span has elapsed since the Battle of Salamis than Artemisia previously believed. The ship carries her son Pisindelis, who is eager to meet the queen. Artemisia realizes that twenty years have passed since Salamis, and that the last time she saw her son was when he was an infant. A series of events forces her to come to terms with the past as well as the future that awaits her. "Destiny is a blade, a streak of silver unbending in the unyielding dark. The warrior-queen treads in the snowy sand dunes of time, the ghost of her every movement following her close behind. She moves as the intangible blade moves, piercing a benumbing white horizon. The blade penetrates the dark of the unknown while she drifts along with the ghost of her previous steps. Her footprints instantly dissolve upon every succeeding step forward. Artemisia peers into the cold oblivion before her eyes. She marches on undaunted, untrammeled by the aimless white sea of euphoria. Then she hears her name being uttered slowly, the sweet enunciation of it scraping the bare bones of half-remembrance. Her father Lygdamis appears before her, but she drifts forward as before. A daughterly yet disobedient look crosses her eyes, and a part of her becomes stationary. She becomes as fixed as the spark of a flame that floods her mind with memories. Lygdamis raises a crown before her. Once he places the crown on her head, her monochrome surroundings fade. "You are now queen, my beloved daughter. You are Queen Artemisia I of Caria." At that moment, she feels that she is Athena freshly sprung from the brow of Zeus as she prepares to bestride mortal horizons. Lygdamis gaze remains loving, as loving as she has always remembered him. Then the streak persists along the same spotless desert, allowing her to once again become immune to the perverse migrations of memory. She no longer feels her crown on her head. She feels another crown.