2023
The Legend of the Dark Priestess, Siena Amati
A novel by Joseph Rocca
“Retreating thunder rumbled beyond the rain-crusted beach, remnants of storm-clouds rushed out to sea. The sun had not appeared but the air was warming. Shopkeepers on the promenade moved their goods and displays outside, including folding chairs and shaded tables where the merchants could chat with tourists and ring up their sales.
"Siena Amati stood at her window, taking in the scene from her third floor apartment across Ocean Boulevard from the beach. With dark skin and black hair that dispersed in waves across the middle of her back, she had been told she looked like a South Asian princess--a compliment that pleased her--but her heritage was Mediterranean, Sicilian in fact, and though Asian and Middle Eastern blood ran in her, the subtle slant of her amber eyes whispered of North Africa, her smooth musculature of classical Greece, her sinouous movements of Italy. The features of her angular face—narrow nose, high cheekbones and small, full mouth--seemed fragile. Crowning her lean physique, the delicacy of her visage lent an aura of royalty.
“In Siena’s bed lay a surfer named Moss, her opposite in important ways. A blonde of northern European heritage, his white skin acquired a milk-chocolate tan under the summer sun; Siena’s natural shade was deeper, dark enough to inspire her parents’ disregard of Italian custom when they named her.
“The young couple’s personalities differed too. Moss felt at home at a party; Siena came alive in intimate settings. Moss projected an aggressive hedonism. She searched for a lasting and stable pleasure. Moss imagined himself a rationalist despite a penchant for altered states of awareness. Siena shared that predilection but from it derived a sense of clairvoyance. The insight, though intriguing, brought disquiet.
“The intelligent young woman felt reluctant to explore her talent, sure that her friends would find her strange, step away and mock her behind her back. More deeply, she feared her power might not be controllable, and worse, that a stronger mind could turn it against her. She disclosed this conflict to no one. When asked about her future all Siena would admit was that the prospect of a career bored her.
“Turning from the window the dark beauty got a whiff of Moss’s hangover. She hadn’t gone with him last night. She rarely did anymore. They saw each other in the morning before he started texting friends to locate the day’s best break. She did not love him and began to believe she never had, that they had come together because it was expected, because both of them were beautiful.
“Moss stirred, beckoned, and Siena went to him. She closed her eyes to avoid the sight of crust on his lashes but couldn’t dodge his rancid kiss. She worked the only magic she had learned so far, bringing Moss to sufficient life to indulge her instincts; when his classical body stopped jerking it melted to a mass of clammy rubber. Siena wondered if her hungover surfer passed out before he hit the mattress.
“The dissatisfying sex left the dark beauty defiant. She showered and shaved, lifted a swimsuit from a drawer and went to the window to size-up the ocean. The brief storm hadn’t riled the water too much. I’ll be able to keep this on, she thought, and donned the black string-bikini that made men react which she covered with drastically cut-off jeans and a sheer linen blouse.
“The sun had come out and it was hot. Crossing the beach she dropped her towel and shed her coverups at water’s edge; up close the sea looked wilder than her window-side estimate. The waves broke raggedly, creating deep and turbulent whitewater. But the heavy air was stifling; her defiance prevailed.
“Fuck it: if the ocean strips me I’ll walk home naked . . .
“The sea cooperated; after a long swim Siena caught a roller that dissipated slowly, not fully dissolving until she crouched in the shallows where non-swimmers waded. Rising she strode against the backwash toward a striking woman who stood with arms crossed at water’s edge. Siena recognized the boardwalk fortune teller, an alleged gypsy known as Vadoma, the owner of a curio shop on the promenade who read tarot cards in the little store’s back room. The older woman wore an athlete’s one-piece swimsuit. Tall and lean, her hair as long as Siena’s and almost as dark, the blue-eyed Vadoma let her gaze, and her smile, linger on the young woman approaching.
“How’s the water?
“Beautiful.
“There is much beauty here, today.
“Siena fielded the compliment with a blush and stood beside the gypsy facing the water, slinging her hair back and letting ocean-drops run on her to neutralize the hot light. Introductions and small-talk ensued and the younger woman said, I’ve thought about coming to see you.
“So come, Vadoma said and turned to lead Siena to her blanket where the mutually interested women reclined, Siena leaning back on her elbows with legs outstretched, Vadoma propped on one arm facing her new friend.
“I’ve noticed you, said the gypsy, then corrected herself with a laugh. Everyone notices you. I have seen you.
“Squinting Siena looked at Vadoma and lifted her chin, a gesture that said, Tell me what you think you have you seen.
“You carry a weight heavier than it should be yet hard to put down.
“Trying to summon her defiance Siena found it wanting.
“What’s his name?
“Moss. A funereal pronouncement.
“Vadoma touched Siena’s knee. Open minded, the dark beauty did not pull back.
“She noticed people arriving: a mother casting her family’s blanket, a pale man plunging an umbrella shaft into the sand. Siena felt a few stares but didn’t mind: garnering attention was the reason she had picked the black bikini and Vadoma’s lingering touch accomplished a similar purpose. The younger woman gave her audience a sultry smile; like lying nearly naked in the sun, the gypsy’s fingers felt good. With peaceful eyes half-open the older woman said, Moss has the wrong idea of pleasure. Hedonism means death. You sense this.
“I don’t want to be empty-headed about what matters most.
“Vadoma nodded. The pursuit of a permanent pleasure means serious business. Success needs commitment, deeper than most people can imagine. You have sensed this as well.
“Still leaning back on her elbows Siena shrugged, a graceful shift of her shoulders that lifted and lowered her prominent breasts in a sensuous movement that would have pulled Moss onto her but Vadoma focused on Siena’s eyes and the hope that glistened there.
“With Moss you have tasted a hint of your power. His body is a fine instrument and you have learned to tune it, maybe play a simple tune. To achieve mastery you need a teacher, of course, but also an organizing principal, a guiding mentality to follow. The Tarot, perhaps. Or Yi Jing.
“Siena sensed a craving, distant yet deep, and she inhaled when her new friend’s fingers moved slightly above her knee.
“Never forget, pleasure needs reverence. Dark skin, black hair, strong body; eyes that gleam like a wildcat’s: a woman of power, you can bend the strongest man to your will. Offered to spirit your power will save you and more minds than you can imagine. But if you take the power as your own and waste it on empty sex because your partner looks like a god; or manipulate your lovers to shower you with objects; or make men fall for you, suck the love from their hearts and cast aside husks; you will leave yourself a legacy of dust.
“The gypsy’s words rang true. Though barely twenty-two, Siena had wounded enough men to discover all of these crimes in her past. A surge of guilt made her blush. Vadoma sweetened her tone.
“You recognize my truth because you’ve searched a long time for your guiding power. Up to now the quest has mostly been unconscious. From now on your journey will be foremost in your mind.
“Siena gazed at the rolling ocean and felt its movement inside, a surge of sensuality so deep she almost cried out. Vadoma smiled at her young friend and lightly tousled her wild hair. The guide you seek is a humble one. She will not come to your rescue on her own. You must ask, but when you do she will not let you down.
“Siena leaned forward and kissed her magus once on each cheek. The gifted women sat face to face and when Vadoma stood and offered her hand her new protege accepted it with a grin. Picking up her clothes and towel, moving through the crowded beach Siena drew a familiar array of stares: yearning from men, jealousy from women and awe from both. For the first time she felt these projections as an attack and the pressure almost made her wilt. But in the gypsy’s presence the dark beauty understood that aggressive fantasies of incomplete people had nothing to do with her. She held her head high as she took Vadoma’s hand and walked on, hungry for the pleasures awaiting her in the fortune teller’s arms . . . ”
“Vadoma helped Siena break off her relationship with Moss without causing undue harm. And the fortune teller introduced her lover to the Yi Jing. The ancient oracle aroused Siena’s intuition and she immersed in a mental realm not of the world which described the world infallibly. She felt herself responding to a neglected need. On the advice of her mysterious guide the novice read for no one, not even Vadoma, and she searched for unusual versions of the book until she came upon an out of print translation nestled in the back of a used-bookstore, a terse rendition by a doctor of Chinese medicine. Unlike most English versions of The Book of Change, this poetic--and accurate--translation presented the ancient book’s fluid infinities free of the usual Confucian austerity. Reading by reading, the dark beauty became a diviner.
Siena also learned from Vadoma the right way to take a love potion: a ritual that maximized the length and power of each encounter without danger of overdose. The first Sunday night of each month became their time for spirit-mingling. The ardent women fasted during the day and convened after dark. Their ceremony began with a lamplit procession followed by the offering of rice-paper-wrapped eucharists which, kneeling, they placed on each other’s tongues and sat in exquisite anticipation, meditating by a fire amid dramatic music that either had no lyrics or whose words were sung in a language neither of them knew. Always, they each wrote a secret question of the heart, later to take down strange dictation that never failed to come. After ninety minutes aloft came a booster dose, two-thirds the amount of the original. Then the slender women stripped away what few clothes they might be wearing, changed the music and danced, letting themselves be led to a tender expression of feminine sexuality that sometimes lasted the night . . . ”
After a year together, Vadoma senses the end approaching and as a parting gift introduces Siena to a spirit-lover named Coelo, whom . . .
“On hands and knees the dark beauty approached, arrived tentatively touching and mentally measuring as she came into the space where what one gives becomes what one feels. The power of her intellect vanished. Siena gave her mind to the ritual and welcomed the passion that took charge.
“She felt Vadoma behind her, lifting her arms and securing them, and she saw her mentor move to the young man and free him. He crept to Siena as she had to him. With Vadoma behind her Siena became a sacrificial maiden worshipped on an altar of fire, offering herself up to Coelo as she swayed beneath fingertips that ran on her skin amid tiny currents of warm oil. Heat opened every pore until she felt her molten skin might slide away. Her taut body, fully exposed, glowed in the rays of an unseen sun whose beams of ecstasy stripped away her flesh until, incorporeal, Siena knew herself as light. A masculine mind stood before her; he offered himself and Siena felt him secured to her by Vadoma until the couple were entwined, unable to move except as lovers do.
“An hour in heaven led to the need for water. Vadoma released the heaving pair and offered a pitcher. Siena drank greedily; the water ran on her throat and chest. She and her new lover, grinning, showed each other the answers they’d received.
“May I go with Siena across the border, he had asked. You will find her waiting.
“What can I learn from Coelo, Siena had wondered. All the guidance you need . . .”
When her relationship with Vadoma comes to an end, Siena leaves California in a battered Apache pickup, drives a thousand miles east into the desert until she finds her destination in a half-empty town called Hot Springs, New Mexico where she becomes a denizen of a hot and dry world; living in a trailer on a low hill beside an arroyo she puts to use skills learned in her year with Vadoma as a diviner of the Yi Jing in Mina Aragon’s used bookstore. At her fireside next to the trailer a shocking vision comes that connects her to an ancient family legend of witchcraft and murderous sex.
“Two days later, Siena’s grandmother’s jewelry came to the bookstore. The dark beauty marveled at the bands of silver that had just emerged from her secret past. The three rings fit her forearms while a fourth—a coiled, climbing snake itself comprised of three rings--pressed comfortably into the flesh of her upper arm. She wore the rings on the left and the snake on the right.
“These were made for you, murmured Mina, and she touched the serpent’s smooth head. This is very old. Its eyes and mouth are worn away.
“Siena, awash in a power subtly expressed in the silver’s shine, stood silently. She sensed the desire in Mina’s awe, a suspicion confirmed by the business woman’s sultry eyes. Siena acknowledged Mina’s feelings with a smile but avoided her with a whispered, I have to leave.
“Her smoldering boss followed the dark diviner through the back door and from the parking lot listlessly waved as the younger woman drove off in her pickup. Mina’s breath caught in her throat when Siena waved back . . .”
The women commence a deep relationship. But with Coelo Siena finds pleasures that arise from sex but reach beyond and she senses a need for wilderness where, after a grueling hike to a remote canyon she dances beside a fire
“Let now be the time, she prayed, and slowed her dance to a stop. The aura of the ripening moon penetrated Siena with a pleasure that bent her spine and brought forth a shout. A shadow crept from the river as shapeless as a cloud until it reached the fireside across from her and, through the shimmering air above the flames, Siena discerned the emerging shape of a supremely tall dark-skinned woman with long, raven hair and eyes shining black as a night-time sea. Above the narrow symmetry of her face, the mystic female wore a crown of golden feathers atop which the risen moon seemed to fit as a headpiece. The power in the massive presence put Siena on her knees. The dark diviner knew her vision was not of a spirit or ghost; she knelt before a goddess.
The fabulous woman wore only a golden robe embroidered with silver stars and tied loosely at the waist. With a shrug, the goddess let the regal garment fall from her shoulders to rest in the crooks of her arms, laying bare her coffee brown chest, upper arms and shoulders. A fan-shaped necklace of flat turquoise stones inlaid with golden glyphs and linked by delicate chains filled the space between above her breasts to her shoulders where two living snakes, having coiled her arms, crossed behind her neck, one bronze and one silvery with eyes of clear fire studying the young diviner.
“The goddess shook a rattle once and the air filled with frankincense.
“Intoxicated Siena wanted to grovel but her goddess’s power pulled her servant to her feet. Limp within, the young diviner circled the fire, her skin a flickering mirror, unable to meet the perfect woman’s eyes when she stood in her mistress’s overwhelming aura as sweet as it was strong. She felt her heart engulfed in flame when soundlessly the goddess spoke.
“Siena Amati, know that I adore you. The sincerity of your divination warms me in the closeness of my heart. Your struggle to reach this place makes me proud of your wish to serve me. Your courage to face me fills my heart with devotion. And so you have your wish: hand in hand, you and I shall walk the Way of Pleasure, all my ecstasy in your touch, all my power your own.
“May I know your name?
“I have had many. Every culture uses a different one. Your roots are Mediterranean where I was first known as Isis, and later, in the Book of Proverbs, Sophia. Some Christians think of me as the Holy Ghost, the feminine member of the trinity. To a level-headed American all of these names bring distracting connotations, so call me what you wish. But never forget that you serve me in a world that mocks me and condemns me and all my pleasures--to darkness.
“Then shall I call you the Dark Goddess?
“An influx of sweetness filled Siena. Yes, and hereafter you are my Dark Priestess.”
The ordained priestess fiinds that her service means traveling through time, and the underworld.
“Under an evening sky soaked in sunset colors Siena stood outside her trailer, scanning the contours of the distant Black Range trying to pinpoint Siena Canyon. She maintained her gaze as night fell, until a persistent breeze chilled her with breathy gusts and she built a fire. Shadows danced in the flames. The diviner perceived a need for her robe. She retrieved it and let it hang loosely on her shoulders.
“On an inner signal the Dark Priestess closed her eyes and offered her heart to her goddess. An interval--a descent--and Siena opened her eyes to an expanse of rocky hills beside a body of water black, slimy and still. The only light came from a fragment of moon and two yellow orbs low in the distance. Walking, she came to a hill at whose base a crowd had gathered. The figures drifted and she recognized them as shades, an ancient name for the disembodied spirits of the dead. The young priestess fastened her cloak and began to climb the hill. The shades examined her but were afraid and did not follow.
“From the hilltop Siena looked down on an ancient graveyard where mourners had gathered to chant and perform rites over a comatose young king who lay in the arms of his queen atop the fresh dirt of his father’s grave. The young priestess knew that something in the energy of this strange gathering had caused the Dark Goddess to summon her. Siena did not think she was dreaming or that she had entered someone else’s dream. She was Siena Amati and this place was real. Behind her, in the distance outlined against the yellow orbs she saw the spirit of the young king facing away from the graveyard.
“The young priestess felt herself directed to the gravesite. Invisible, her presence undetected she moved past temple virgins performing a serpentine dance while, led by a decorous priest a chorus chanted prayers for the young king’s safety. Examining the queen’s anxious eyes Siena learned that the young king’s spirit had journeyed into the underworld but had failed to return at the appointed time.
‘‘The unseen priestess sat beside the queen and touched the great woman’s mind with a gift of compassion. Communing with the queen Siena understood the mystified woman’s helplessness, her inability to do anything to help her husband except express her devotion. But the woman of power was unaccustomed to abstract applications. She found it hard to set aside the practicalities of her terror and focus on an intent to aid her husband’s fading image wandering a place she could not picture.
“Siena bolstered the queen’s resolve with a touch, her goddess’s support. Telepathically showing her benefits her courage would bestow on her nation, the Dark Priestess fortified the distraught woman. Then she climbed toward the borderland, backtracking as accurately as she could. Atop the hill with the graveyard still in view she scanned the hilltop again. In the far distance she noted the yellow orbs and before them the profile of the king.
“Before approaching him she marked her position with a hiker’s cairn fashioned from a pile of rocks and bones. Then she moved forward into the land of the dead where she found the young king dressed in gray, wearing no cloak or sign of authority except a magnificent sword. He did not look at Siena. She moved toward the wan king and saw his mind shrouded by opaque pessimism. Feeling her presence the bewildered man turned and with sagging eyes examined her; noting her dark skin, the flowing hair covering her breast and her black robe embroidered with silver stars he wondered if Siena was the Dark Goddess herself.
“I am her priestess. Tell me your predicament . . .”
She helps the great man find his father to heal a horrible injury inflicted by the ruthless man when he was king. She makes many journeys on missions of varying complexity and with each success grows stronger, and each journey develops to its conclusion a story line that weaves through the novel. Her commitment to the Dark Goddess deepens; her business as a diviner of the Yi Jing flourishes. But as Siena’s mystic duties intensify her relationship with Mina suffers. A sorcerer named Martin Maugre intervenes with evil intent to split the powerful couple, and he woos Mina as part of his plan to conquer the Dark Priestess. Jealousy exposes Siena to Maugre’s will. An opportunity arises and the sorcerer inflicts a mortal wound.
“Adrift, Siena didn’t know if her detachment was permanent and she didn’t care. She didn’t want to hear Mina taunting, or see what happened next. The strong and beautiful body that had served her so well lay in the hands of her enemies and she knew of no way to save it. All she could do was leave it to die . . .
“What will become of me? she wondered.
“Forlorn, ashamed, the ghost of a shredded priestess hobbled to the end of the street, crossed the Rio Grande on a rickety footbridge and faded into the desert. She did not move smoothly, her wound exacted a thrusting pain that slowed her miserably. With punishing labor Siena climbed the west side of Tortoise Mountain, and the sun was setting when she reached the ridge beneath the round peak. The sinking sun dyed blood-red the chain of peaks that sprouted from the same ridge as it escorted the Rio Grande south toward Las Cruces. When night fell Siena panted in the cold . . .
“The next day she made five more miles. She estimated the ascending ridge had lifted her three thousand feet above the river when she found herself below Sierra Fuerte, the highest peak on the ridge. The debilitated priestess sat atop a cliff. Sunset cast crimson light on the isolated mountain. She felt unworthy to invoke the Dark Goddess yet something in Sierra Fuerte felt comfortable. She managed to build a fire and in the dark beyond the flames perceived a presence. The spirit felt big, male and kind, the spirit of the mountain, perhaps. She felt a need for dignity. Though diaphanous she wasn’t quite naked. Her outer layer, a sort of finely wrought gossamer, was almost like clothing and she was pleased to have a sense of her amulet and silver armlets, especially the coiled snake. But when she realized she had lost her robe her composure collapsed. The dark beauty dropped her head and cried.
“Siena wanted to weep for years, expunge her stubborn possessiveness and the bitter taste of the hatred it had earned. She cried for days in the shade beside a boulder and in hot light when the sun came over her. But even all that weeping left her short of redemption. Tiring of it she stopped. She wanted to cry over this failure too, and rue the days she had wasted on tears, when she heard masculine laughter. Wiping her eyes Siena saw a huge male standing across from her, seven feet tall, a brown and muscular presence in the same translucent state as she.
“You’re young! he cried. Your strength is so great, your presence so intense I thought you were older than I am! But you’re just a kid!
“He laughed and laughed and his mirth was contagious; Siena almost laughed, too. She chose a bemused half-smile, instead.
“I’m a fucking wreck.
“The big man laughed again, quietly this time, and the fondness in his deep tones endeared him to her. She knew he was the mountain spirit she had sensed in the darkness beyond her fire.
“The spirit-people introduced themselves. His name was Sapo and he pointed to a cave that was the entrance to his home. He began walking and when Siena didn’t follow he turned and gestured. She obeyed.”
With strength and tenderness Sapo helps Siena through an arduous recovery and when she is well assists her preparation for the final phase of her healing, a journey into the underworld—her unconscious—a trip she must take on her own.
Before Siena leaves him Sapo confesses.
“I came to this mountain a thousand years ago. After hundreds of lives I had earned my ultimate life, one of sacred labor shaping this ridge to make it hospitable and nourishing to my perfect mate. I built this home and dug its springs and constructed its safe connection to the underworld. I knew nothing except that I had reached my masculinity’s great challenge, to serve the feminine side of the universal power. I was not given a reason for the structures I built and I never asked. But as time passed I learned that a magnificent woman would come to me but she would not stay unless I purified my heart just as I had beautified my home. And that purification has been the work of centuries in which I learned that my equality to the plants, animals and rocks of Sierra Fuerte is no different than my equality to the gods. All of us are one.
“Dark Priestess, Siena Amati, you are the woman I’ve prepared for. I am proud to offer everything I have and everything I know. Your presence has brought me a tender exhilaration. I need nothing else. My purpose is fulfilled. . .
“The dark beauty went to Sapo. He embraced her without speaking then led her to the mouth of the underworld. I don’t think I’ll want a body she said and Sapo helped Siena return to the state of translucence in which he had found her.
“Looking toward the cave she asked, Will it be like Dante’s? Or Virgil’s?
“Sapo had never heard of Dante or Virgil but he knew the answer to her question. Dante and Virgil had theirs, I suppose. You will have yours.
“They kissed without otherwise touching and Sapo stepped away. Sprit once more the Dark Priestess entered the fateful tunnel knowing her mountain-god would wait for her even if her journey lasted a thousand years. ”
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