Well do I remember the festival that brought the new god into the pantheon. 

It was a ritual we cherished. Victory over some faraway tribe would mean a fresh deity for us to worship, another holiday to drink and hedonise. And so we cheered when the ship brought him to the harbour in all his glory, with his narrow hips and cinched waist, and taut muscles of painted marble; and in his eyes were two emeralds the shade of a dragonfly’s wings. 

Summer was horrid hot that year – a scorcher of a season – and all the herbs had turned to yellow dust, and the night air stood as still as in the height of midday. But when he came, a fresh wind from the sea cooled our faces, spitting salt into our eyes, and the lanterns of the harbour flickered in the breeze. 

By then, wine and incense had done their part, and we were all chanting and dancing sinuously, our minds mellow and unguarded, open wide for him to plant his roots. 

Did I know, then, what calamities would befall our city after we unleashed this vengeful intruder in our midst? Did my heart quake when I looked into the accursed jewels of his eyes, even as he prepared to smite us for the slaughter of the gentle people entrusted to his care, the small-minded herdsmen he sheltered in sunlit meadows and lush riverbanks of some forgotten backwater? What did we care! Our warriors had split them open, and fed their blood to the fertile soil, and gifted their women with the seed of our heroes. And in return, as a token of obeisance, we had only asked for this god. He would be in good company, we thought. An entire pantheon of deities for him to play with. A whole city of worshippers to pray to him, and slaves to sacrifice, and virgin priestesses to cater to his divine virility. 

And what did he do to us in exchange for our welcome? 

Why, he invaded our minds and bled them dry, and turned our sleep to torment! Every night, the gargantuan shadow of him would loom over the city, and his dragonfly eyes would pierce the darkness of our chambers, bathing them in shades of ghostly emerald, drowning us in depths upon depths of layered dreams, until all we could hear was the screeching of iron on bronze, and dying screams, and the gurgling of blood. He trapped us inside those dreams, and we began to fear the dark, and nighttime rest, and the treacherous safety of our beds, until the Queen declared that the city would sleep no more.

On the last night of our vigil, incense burned, and we took to the streets, and our drums birthed sounds that the vengeful god both feared and hated, used as he was to rustling reeds and shepherds’ flutes, and whispers of sedge in quiet rivers. Our music was loud and passionate and rhythmic, the chanting of priestesses and crackling of braziers by the harbour, and the battle-cries of swords, and moans of pain and pleasure. 

We knew he would outlast us, the patient invader of our nights, but this final one we took back: it was ours alone. We toppled him and threw him into the sea, and someone ripped out the green dragonflies of his eyes, and only for a moment, a shrill sound could be heard carrying over the water: the ghost of a scream hurtling away. 

Then one by one, we began to fall onto the harbour stones, overcome by sleep. The drums ceased, the chanting stopped. I wished I did not have to be the last one standing, and when my knees gave way, and darkness seeped into my mind, it was a welcome relief. Until an irresistible force prized my eyelids back apart. 

And I knew that in the end, he had taken us for his own. Slowly and obediently, all of our fallen opened their eyes, piercing green and dazzling in the night: the last revenge of the sunken god. Even now, I can hear the sea groaning as his cursed corpse floats upward from the depths, breaking the surface like a bloated medusa, ever groping for his eyes. 

Soon, blind and drowned, and full of hate, he will rule this silent city.

[Läilä Örken works in the field of international relations. In the evenings, she writes fiction and is working on a novel. Her stories appear in the Eunoia Review, Hobart, Bright Flash Literary Review, BULL, Grim & Gilded, and elsewhere.]