Costas Komborozos

Leonidas, the Lion at the Hot Gates Costas Komborozos

When the boy rose to face the darkness, he glimpsed phobos, intangible fear, peering back at him. The fear looked at him teasingly, infuriatingly, on the verge of withdrawing itself into its own silent rage. The boy gazed fiercely into it. He saw the ghost of a wave in the sea of murk. He felt that it was the silhouette of his own disembodied dread making its untimely departure. Deep inside, the boy had already become a man. He felt the fear wither away, and then waited for the silence to end. His eyes remained rigidly still on a sight devoid of sound. All was blackness before him. Then he saw the frightened eyes of a girl. He saw her fully materialize before him in mere seconds. His hand instantly reached for hers, as if by doing so it would destroy the factory of fear, the place in which all fears exist. This place was woven into every element of bodily displeasure abiding beneath a layer of skin, ever desirous of encroaching upon the intangible realm of spiritual courage. The boy and the girl knew that they had to walk through the dark to cross the dreaded doorway of adolescence. But they knew that they had already done so, for they recognized what the darkness was. Phobos. Fear of death. War. These were as familiar to them as the faces that fed the earliest of their life's memories. Leonidas glanced at Gorgo, who held on to his now-deepening gaze. With their hands entwined, they walked through the darkness. Then Gorgo saw a sea of scarlet spreading under a darkening sky. She saw an army of silver visages rushing through the blackness. Gorgo saw Leonidas fighting valiantly as his scarred limbs persisted. Time passed. She saw her husband's scarlet cloak waver in the breeze as he prepared to face death. The time for timeless self-sacrifice had arrived. The sea of scarlet was slowly devoured by the dark shapes of the Immortals. Gorgo was queen of Sparta, letting her gaze wander across vast stretches of land to glimpse Leonidas' bravery. Leonidas looked at the dark shapes of the Persian royal guards and remembered the darkness he faced as a boy. He remembered the fear that stood before him. He felt that Gorgo was there beside him as he felt fear crumble and die inside him. Leonidas looked up and saw a cosmic radiance. For a brief moment, he wondered if it was intangible freedom itself becoming manifest to him in the bloodying dark sword storm. Gorgo could see it too. The Spartan king watches spears raining down again, spears deflected by an ethereal bow-wielding arm, which is the fleeting mirage of life spared before instant death. Apollo, the Far Darter, dispenses with the thick rain of arrows. The god of light is nowhere to be seen. Leonidas peers through the murky distance and imagines seeing Xerxes seated beneath a truncated mass of burnished gold. He imagines seeing his empire-sized gaze through the dark, rendering motes of dust agleam under a brutal mortal sun. Some of the Spartans raise their shields while others are impaled. The spears break through bodies hardened with hearts unwavering. Blood-dimmed bodies consumed by a blackness entire now waver in an indefatigable mortal breeze. Death comes sweetly upon the fallen, its soothing breath lifting memories that span their lives entire, memories glowing with Greece. The memories rise swiftly above the bloodshed and then move in rapid succession. The king sees the glowing memories take flight before his eyes, hovering above him and the scene of decay. He raises his hand and reaches through a space filled with an otherworldly light, a light searing through the cloak of defeat. His hand reaches toward the horizon and traces the Greek letter lambda. The letter shines through the all-conquering gloom, and then it burns fiercely in the horizon. The king watches the letter for a moment. Then he feels death's advance. Leonidas closes his eyes.