"Why do you look so glum, Lysander?" his sister asked as he sat in his usual place in a tree at the entrance of the woods.

"Because you're going to temple," he said. "You know I'll miss you."

"It's only for a few days," his sister Arianna replied.

"One of these days, it won't be for a few days," Lysander replied as he climbed down the tree and helped Arianna finish packing the offering for the goddess Artemis.

"I know," she said. "Once my priestess training is completed, I'll be living there."

The two had almost been inseparable most of their lives. Their mother had been childless. She prayed to Artemis for a child and promised the child to the temple if the child was born a girl.

Her mother, Helena, conceived shortly after the prayer that day at the temple. She fulfilled that pledge when Arianna was born. She was dedicated at the temple.

Their father, Phillip, was disappointed. He wanted a boy to help him with the crops, and with the hunting, not to mention companionship. In their part of Greece, it was almost shameful for a man not to have a son.

A few months after Arianna's birth, Helena found a basket along the side of the road on the way back from the temple.

Inside was a boy. No one knew where he came from. He appeared to be the same age as Arianna.

Helena and her husband asked the village leaders for permission to raise the child as their own. Since no one came forward to claim the child as their own, their wish was granted, with final permission coming from Phoebe, the high priestess of the Temple of Artemis.

Artemis was the patron goddess of the village.

Arianna and Lysender were raised as twins.

Both proved to be special children. Arianna seemed smarter beyond her years. She was gifted in the arts, could sing and play any instrument. She was also athletic and could keep up with any boy in the village except one.

That would be Lysander. He was as intelligent as his sister. He also had amazing strength for his age. He displayed amazing skills as an archer from the first time he picked up a bow as a toddler. By the age of 10, he was the best archer in the village.

In his 13th year, he was known as the best archer in the region, having never lost a competition to anyone at any age.

Because of his gifts, there were rumors that he was a demi-god.

"Maybe Zeus spent some time with Helena," a villager once told another villager at the market within hearing range of Phillip, who at once dismissed it as foolishness.

Helena inquired the priestesses about the possibility.

"We have been told that he is the not the son of a god," she was told.

That was good enough for her, and for Phillip.

The group of villages in their region was at war with tribes from the north. The captain of the army from their region tried to recruit Lysander to fight.

"He is better than any archer I have," the captain said. "And he is as strong as any man in my army."

Phillip was about to give his permission for his son to go off and fight when Helena protested.

"He is only a boy!" she said. "He is too young to go off and fight."

There was no mistaking Lysander's youth. Most boys his age looked manlier.

"He has tremendous beauty for a boy," the aging priestess Arsana once told Arianna when Arianna came to do temple duties. "He is almost as beautiful as you. No one would know of his strength and skill as an archer by his looks. He does not have the muscles of Hercules."

Lysander was somewhat of a loner. His only companions were Arianna, and a couple of her friends from the temple,
including one with whom he was quite smitten named Samarah. But like Arianna, she would soon be living at the temple, dedicated to Artemis, and would not know a man.

"The rules of the temple are very strict," Samarah told Arianna with a smile. She was fond of him, but not in the way he would have probably had preferred.

"I just want to know what the goddess has against men," Lysander said in reply.

Indeed, the goddess put a curse on the temple. Any man coming into the temple fell dead. And men tried nearly every month.

"It's quite tragic," Arianna said. "I don't know what it is about the temple that drives them mad enough to want to try to come in it."

"I would never be tempted," Lysander said.

Lysander's only other companion was his faithful hound Argos. They would spend hours walking in the woods "hunting," although Arianna would call it thinking. Lysander had his favorite stump near a lake where he could see the moon.

He didn't know why he was drawn there. But he told Arianna of a mysterious woman who appeared often in his dreams weeping at the very spot.

"Some dreams are left un-interpreted," High Priestess Phoebe once told Arianna when she told the priestesses at the temple about the dreams.

*****

Feast Day for Artemis was approaching. With their father busy in the field, Lysander was talked into accompanying his mother and sister into the village. They needed him to help carry offerings for the goddess. He would hand them the offerings from their farm at the steps of the temple.

Argos followed them despite commands for him to stay on the farm.

"Please make sure your dog doesn't get into any trouble," his mother said.

"I'll keep an eye on him, don't worry," he said as they journeyed into the town.

They spent sometime at the market before his mother and sister felt it was time to head to the temple.

Suddenly, a fox appeared out of nowhere. Argos gave chase. Lysander followed as the dog knockd over villagers in his pursuit of the fox.

Lysander wasn't keeping up with where he was going as he followed the two animals racing right into the temple.

Lysander slipped on the marble floor. The fox darted out of the temple. Argos turned back and walked up to his fallen master.

Lysander froze, looking up at a huge marble statue plated with gold of the Goddess Artemis.

"Explain to me why you did not die!" yelled a shocked High Priestess Phoebe.

Lysander looked around and saw himself encircled by priestesses, apprentices like his sister, and a few other women, including his mother.

"I do not know," Lysander said, frightened of the crowd that surrounded him.

"No man or boy has ever entered this temple and lived," an older priestess said.

No seemed to have a logical explanation.

Some wondered if the curse had been lifted.

"I believe him to be a special case," the priestess Arsana said. "I do not believe the curse has been lifted."

Phoebe ordered the women and Lysander to secrecy.

"If word gets out he has been in here, more men may try to come in," she said. "The last thing we need is more tragedy."

She also didn't seem to pleased to have Lysander in their presence.

"She hates men more than the goddess does," Samara said.

Lysander was given a priestess robe to hide his identity. He went out the back way with his mother, sister and Argos.

"I cannot believe you went in there and lived," Helena said.

"I believe Arsana knows more than she's saying," Arianna whispered to her brother.

"That statue," Lysander whispered to Arianna, "looked a lot like the woman in my dreams."

"That's no woman, that's the goddess herself," Arianna whispered in reply.