Bird of Chaos: Book One of the Harpy's Curse

by Susie Mander

  On one occasion I am walking through the palace when a hoplite calls out to me. They know, I think and ignore them, walking faster and faster towards the apartments. My fear comes at me from every side.

  “Highness!” the hoplite calls and I increase my pace. I glance back. The hoplite has her hand outstretched. She is a monster dripping with blood. She has no face. She is the very darkness that children are afraid of. She is going to get me and then…and then everything will be over.

  I break into a run.

  The hoplite does the same. I can hear her footsteps getting closer and closer. A hand closes around my wrist and I wheel on my enemy, ready to claw her eyes out.

  “Highness, you dropped this,” the hoplite says, breathing heavily. She holds out my scarf.

  Face burning, I take it and squeak my thanks before running to the safety of the apartments. I tear up the double staircase, reach my solar and collapse in the corner of my room. Only then do I appreciate the irrationality of my fear and begin to laugh.

  Towards mid-afternoon a fortnight or so after my night at the temple I am heading towards the apartments when I see a score of Petra’s soldiers escorting a bedraggled woman towards the Throne Room. Behind them come members of the Queen’s Guard, who are distinguishable from the army by their close-fitting gold tunic. The familiar foreboding hammers in my head and gets louder the closer they get.

  The prisoner claws at the shackles around her wrists. Her tattered clothes catch in the chains between her legs, and her dark curly hair, which is encrusted with salt, falls in front of her face. Though I know it is not me they are after I feel sick with dread. I imagine it is me they have arrested, that it is me they drag towards the Throne Room.

  I follow the soldiers at a distance and diverge from them to enter the Throne Room through the public entrance, where I will be hidden by the general rabble. Bolt waits by the door.

  My mother sits on a throne of pure gold. On her head is a simple gold crown. She runs her hands over a magnificent silk peplos that falls to the ground in black waves. Diamonds decorate the bodice and the Tibutan snake is embroidered in gold along the hem. Heavy black serendibite gems hang from her earlobes. Such ornamentation and silken idleness is a recent phenomenon. The mother I knew as a child said a queen should not spend the nation’s spoils on ornament, but rather put them to use for the common good.

  The prisoner sprawls on the mirror-like marble floor beneath my mother’s feet, her head resting on its cool surface. Her skin, I notice, is the colour of burnt toast and there are vicious red marks down her calves. She weeps gently, muttering to herself as if possessed.

  Petra stands beside my mother, smiling to reveal perfect teeth. Our eyes meet and I squirm with discomfort. Her expression gives no hint of her intentions.

  I keep my head down as I push past some of the younger women who have babies on their hips and little ones running around their skirts to join the crowd that has gathered to watch the Queen’s Justice. I am sure they can read the guilt on my face.

  Drayk has removed his helmet so he can discuss the prisoner with the strategos. The smallest of wrinkles surround his eyes, indicate that he is quick to smile. Flecks of salt speckle golden hair that falls around his shoulders in perfect ringlets. His face is covered in white stubble and hides a seething erudition which can make him appear, to people of low confidence, arrogant or cold.

  Drayk’s eyes scan the room and come to rest on me. I do not look away. Instead, I offer him the slightest smile, an accomplice’s smile. I want him to see that I am confident. That I am no longer the silly girl he once knew. Eventually he looks away, heat rising to his cheeks.

  “I bet she executes her,” a loud voice says over the general din and for a moment I think they mean me. I look around expecting to see soldiers pushing through the crowd to reach me. Blood pumps to my extremities, preparing me for flight.

  Then I remember the prisoner.

  “She deserves it,” Odell continues with his sinister expression and cruel features. He is always on display, that boy. Or man. I suppose one must call him a man since he is in his nineteenth year. To me he seems like a child. It comes from being a boy who, despite his impressive gift, will never get to rule but will be married off to a district leader or local dignitary.

  Odell grins then points one long, slender finger at Hero. He sends a stream of ice shooting from his finger straight towards his brother’s face. Hero curses and swats the ice away. He sees me and waves. I move to stand beside him, hiding from my mother. Odell sneers.

  “Who is she?” I whisper to Hero, gesturing towards the prisoner. I hope he does not hear the quaver in my voice.

  “She was pulled out of the water off the Seawall. She is from Taveni Island,” Hero says, straightening his stiff peplos. He is renowned for wearing the most impractical, formal attire. “The volcano island, where they speak of the legend of the snake god and his hawk-friend who laid two eggs to give birth to humanity. A truly bizarre people. She came all this way on a raft,” Hero says in awe.

  I glance up and see my cousin Berenice who makes the sign of the ungifted. Like most of my cousins she sees Hero and me as some sort of abomination.

  Towards most of my cousins I feel indifferent. For Berenice, on the other hand, I feel contempt. She is painfully pale, sickly with bulging body parts and weeping eyes. Worse than that—because what does form matter over function?—she has an extraordinary gift, the ability to move water, and yet she does not have the energy or impetus to use it. She never acts of her own initiative, is uninterested in developing her potential and is trapped in a pattern of anti-conformity, as if determined to prove that women ought not to be in power and their only real use is as bed cushions. She has a preoccupation with boys that I find unnatural and for the most part she is slovenly of attitude as well as appearance.

  Thera Brunt, polemarch of Bidwell Heights, a hard woman known for her ruthlessness, stands off to one side. It is said that Thera can read if a man means her harm long before he knows it himself, though many suspect this is an excuse for the high execution rate in Bidwell Heights. She has hated men since each of her daroons failed to give her an heir. Her real gift is her ability to see into people’s atrama. She senses their lust and reflects it back at them, blinding them with her eyes.

  There is sign of neither the fair Chase nor of his mother Gelesia. They survived the attack on their home in Minesend and have been cowering in the visitors’ apartments ever since.

  The captive begins to rock back and forth and the crowd does what crowds do and leans forwards to get a better look.

  “What is she doing?” I whisper.

  Hero shrugs. “I think she is crazed.”

  The woman stands. Petra’s women take a step in. She turns to the crowd, her eyes glistening like a wild beast. She licks at the sores in the corner of her mouth. “Doomed!” she cries. At least I think that is what she says. The crowd falls silent. “Doomed,” the woman says again then pours forth a torrent of unintelligible words.

  “Who here speaks this language?” my mother calls.

  There is some disorder and a little muttering but no one steps forward. For some, to be born anywhere outside Tibuta is tantamount to being a barbarian.

  “Xeno can translate,” Odell calls.

  “Xeno? Come forward!” my mother says.

  The girl pushes her way through the crowd, giving Odell a deadly look as she passes. “Your majesty, how may I serve you?” she says, gripping the edge of her apron and curtsying. She is a petite little creature, a laundress whose hands are always red and swollen, who, like all outsiders, has been relegated to a position not much higher than slave. Her face is marked with the pox.

  “You speak this language?”

  “Well enough. My grandmother was—”

  “Then translate for me. She seems upset. Ask her why,” my mother says. She reminds me of an electrum mirror: hard and shiny.

  Xeno curtsies and crouches beside the woman, who has thrown he
rself on the floor again. The woman grasps at Xeno’s hands like a desperate beggar and babbles hurriedly in her own tongue.

  Xeno addresses my mother, tucking her dusty blond hair behind her ears, “She saw her countrymen murdered,” she says.

  The crowd inhales.

  “Ask her what happened.”

  The woman’s response is frantic. Xeno talks over the top of her so everyone can hear, “They were runnin’ and screamin’, so much screamin’, and we tried to get away but the water came. It was higher than the highest tree and it crashed down on the land and enveloped it. They died. All of them people. Drowned. So many people. Dead. My family, dead.” The woman weeps. The crowd is enraptured. The only sound is the slight shuffling of feet as people crane to get closer.

  “Tell her to calm down. She must start at the beginning. None of that makes any sense,” my mother says.

  “I will try.” Xeno takes the woman’s hands in her own and speaks to her in comforting tones. Though I do not understand the words they exchange, I can tell Xeno is pleading with the woman to remain calm, to speak for her own sake. I imagine she is warning her of my mother’s wrath. Whatever she says, it convinces the woman to stop weeping. She nods at Xeno, wipes her eyes with the back of her wrinkled hand and addresses my mother.

  Xeno translates: “My hut was so close to the water’s edge I could lie on my straw mat and watch the sea lappin’ at my feet. The sound was—” Xeno thinks of the word “—it was hypnotic. It kept the rhythm of our lives in Taveni Island.” The woman’s breath mimics the ocean: in and out, pause, in and out. “Our…our tribe lived in a glade where the grass was short and green and the coconut trees reached their…necks over the sand and dropped fruit for us. But…I…” The islander struggles to form the words. She looks around, grasping for a distraction, something to keep her mind from reliving the trauma. “The volcano beyond the trees was always smokin’. At night you could see sparks burstin’ from the top. The mountainous forest was full of banana trees.”

  “Will you tell her to get to the point?” my mother snaps.

  Xeno nods and continues to speak. “I…I was talkin’ to my uncle, the chief, when the earth beneath us trembled. It was only the slightest of movements. ‘Taveni is wakin’,’ my uncle said. The earth shook more violently. Coconuts fell from the sky and into the sand: plop, plop, plop.” With each sound the woman punches her fist into her thigh in a violent gesture that is both entertaining and disturbing.

  Xeno says, “The tremors lasted much longer the second time. A tree fell, its roots breakin’ through the surface. Branches and debris came down. Birds screeched and flew into the sky. Then it stopped.” The woman looks up. Her big brown eyes are glistening. “Someone screamed: ‘Look!’” Her sudden outburst makes us jump. “The sea was recedin’ like the gods had pulled out the stopper in the navel of the ocean what keeps the water in. We were drawn to it. All of us, we ran. We couldn’t help ourselves. Like children. We were curious. I wish…I cannot explain how…or why…but we…we ran down to the beach.” She looks disoriented, frantic.

  “The coral was revealed, shiny and blinkin’. Crabs tried to escape. Pipis burrowed out of sight. There were bubbles along the sand like baby’s spit. In the distance there was a line of white. It grew into a wall.” She gestures with her hands. Xeno does the same, her eyes fixed on the woman. “Waves ten metres high were coming at us. And in front of the wall marched an army and above it all flew the bird.”

  “What bird?” my mother says.

  “A sea bird with grey and white wings.”

  I stiffen.

  My mother nods for her to continue. “She must mean an emblem. Flying on a flag. Continue.” My mother waves her hand.

  Not an emblem, I think.

  “We realised the danger too late. Or not late enough. Destruction is better unseen, I think. Yes better. For those who perish. It was…too terrible…I…I ran from the army, for higher ground. We all did. But they reached the shore and crashed over the huts, sweepin’ them up in its embrace. Their kiss was death. They killed without spears, without any weapons.

  “Then came the water. Everythin’ what I knew and loved was swallowed up. It exploded over the hills, wipin’ everythin’ out, topplin’ the trees, unstoppable, inky black, a beast alive and growin’ like a snake slitherin’ through the valleys. A fire broke out and flames rode the water belching smoke into the sky—magic, I am sure of it, the work a’some terrible demon.” People gasped. “It was terrible, in…indiscriminate in its destruction.” The islander buried her head in her hands and sobbed. The remainder of her story was muffled. Xeno had to lean close to catch it.

  “I climbed a tall and sturdy coconut tree. I…I was so afraid. I couldn’t see my uncle or brothers. I watched the black snake pick up people and trees and drag them along as if they weighed nothin’.”

  People looked at each other with raised eyebrows. The snake was the symbol of Tibuta after all.

  “The beast grew and grew. It consumed everything. And the screamin’. There was so much screamin’. I saw a hand waving for help from the water, a face peering out.” A sob echoed around the room. The woman raked her hand through her long crimped hair. Xeno stood staring at the woman as if she was possessed. We all did.

  She finally addressed the crowd again, “The tree groaned beneath me. The earth shifted. I sank a few inches. I scrambled higher and higher into the topmost branches. It was no use. Bit by bit I fell.

  “Suddenly my head was under and a great force pulled me down. Lights glowed in front of my eyes. A dark heaviness descended over me and I could no longer fight. I was too tired. I had to close my eyes. And in that moment I was at peace. There was no pain.” The woman pauses.

  “What happened next?” My mother is leaning forwards in her throne.

  The woman’s eyes scan the crowd as if she is looking for someone. Her eyes find me. I cannot look away. When she speaks it is as if she is speaking directly to me: “It was as if some mighty creature, some heavenly being, had plucked me out of the water and saved me. When I woke I was lying on my back on the flooring of one of the huts what was floating in the middle of the ocean.”

  A woman nearby whispers to her friend, “It has to be Typhon’s fifth storm.”

  “And this army, what were these beings?” my mother says.

  Xeno asked the islander. The woman whispered, “anemoi.”

  Everyone turns to my mother and waits for her to speak. She is their leader, though in that instant she is more like a cornered satryx. The burden of making sense of this mess falls on her. It frees them from responsibility so they must neither suffer the discomfort of being the one to choose nor risk the shame of having made the wrong decision. A leader must speak whether her words are welcome or not. She must feign control when she has none. She looks around, searching for a way out. Time drags on and with it our distress grows. People begin to murmur to one another behind their hands.

  “You are to disregard everything you have heard today. It is utter nonsense,” the queen says, standing to address the audience.

  “But the Tempest—”

  “Don’t be absurd,” my mother snaps. The crowd sighs with relief. They will not have to think for themselves after all. “There is absolutely nothing to fear. Tibuta is an impenetrable island. This woman, this…this xenolith has mistaken a…a deluge for something far worse, something so unlikely, so unfathomable. No wave can breach Tibuta’s Seawall. We are perfectly safe.”

  There is absolute silence.

  “If anything, this only serves to demonstrate that Tibuta’s power is growing,” my mother says, her voice rising as her confidence grows. She stands and points at the woman cowering at her feet. “This woman speaks of a black snake destroying her people. Surely this is a sign. It is proof that we will crush our enemies and prosper where other civilisations have floundered.”

  A few people cheer but not many.

  “Take this woman to the dungeon. Everyone else is dismissed.”
r />   No one moves. They glance at one another. This cannot be it, they think. Surely there is more?

  “Go now!”

  People reluctantly disperse, exchanging worried expressions and muted words. They move around me like a slow stream ambling around a rock and cascade down the Throne Room steps into the open where they can speak more openly. “Has she lost her mind? Surely it is Typhon’s storm.”

  “It is the Tempest, you can be sure about that,” Odell says loud enough for those around him to hear. Hero gives me a sympathetic look and I smile sadly.

  I remain in the vast Throne Room with the prisoner, my mother and her attendants. The queen removes her crown, places it on the throne and massages her temples. Her thick makeup gives no hint at her truth.

  Three soldiers descend on the woman from Taveni Island. They take her by the fleshy part of her arm and lift her off the ground. Her eyes are wide and she calls out in that strange tongue. The soldiers kick her. Why, I do not know. She certainly does not struggle. Perhaps it is to demonstrate their power, their dominance over her now that she has fallen. More likely it is a show for my mother, an act. The scoundrels drag the prisoner down the stairs to the dungeon. I add the woman from Taveni Island to the list of people for whom I fight.

  My mother sees me but waves her hand dismissively. “Verne, I don’t have time,” she says and exits stage left with a line of supporting actors waddling after her. Petra and I are alone. I cannot look at the woman. She simply stands in her whalebone armour, waiting. Far away I hear the low hum of bane beetles. The ocean crashing against the Seawall. I hear the clanging of metal in the forge. Still, I can find no words. The strategos clears her throat and turns to leave.

  “Have you thought about what I said?” I finally say.

  The stern woman faces me and nods. “I have.”

  “And?”

  “And you have made a good point. However, you have not been clear about your intentions.”

  “Walk with me,” I say, thinking that Piebald is probably lurking in the wings.

  It is a relief to finally confront my demons; my paranoia is a distant memory. We exit the Throne Room through the public entrance into the blinding light of day and walk across the courtyard. When we reach the bonsai garden I stop. “First I must know where your loyalty lies.”