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

by Susie Mander

  “Th…thank you,” he mutters, following each of my movements with the attentiveness of a child. Then, when I have finished, “Who…who are you? Where am I?”

  Panic flickers in my belly. I try to keep my voice level because, like a child, he is searching my face for an indication of how to respond. “I am Verne Golding the Third. You are in my bedroom in the Sanctuary of the First Mother in Tibuta. You are Drayk the immortal and you just regenerated. You are in your thirty-fourth year of this life and will live to forty before being reborn a child. This is your twenty-fifth life and you have been living for some thousand years. You are the wisest and—” my voice catches “—humanity’s most loyal advocate and my…my friend.” I say “friend” because I do not want to startle this stranger by admitting we are lovers. “I have never seen you regenerate before so I don’t know what to do. You told me you would remember me.”

  Frowning, he searches my face for a clue, something to indicate that we have met before, then he looks around, focusing his grey-blue eyes on the rough stone walls, my simple cot, my weapons piled in the corner where Ried left them after reclaiming them from Demostrate.

  “Verne?” he says, trying out the sound.

  “Yes,” I say, biting my lip to keep back the pitiful ointment of my eyes. I hold out my hands and pull him to his feet. His skin is hot to touch and yet he shivers. He stands a foot taller than me but, nude, he is hardly intimidating. His manhood is not manly when it is shrivelled and shy. His thighs and bottom are stark white in contrast with the rest of him and, hunched the way he is, he looks as if a breath of wind would topple him. I could laugh but I hold my tongue. Instead, I enclose his narrow waist in my arm and walk him to the edge of the bed, encouraging him to sit.

  He shakes his head. “I am sorry. I do not know you.”

  If Drayk does not know me then do I cease to exist?

  This line of thought gets me thinking: if I could rewrite our history what would I change? The answer is nothing. I would change none of my memories of Drayk. Love, then, is the absence of regret. It is the knowledge that you have not compromised so much of yourself that you have become the ‘other’. It is the simultaneous sacrifice and preservation of self. It is a balance. Love is encouraging the other to fulfil himself. It is being allowed, nay demanding that you be allowed to fulfil yourself. It is a collective flourishing. Love is not a warm fuzzy feeling, not lustful desire—though this is important too—not gifts or armies delivered at your door, but contentment, a complete lack of resentment. I am on the brink of an epiphany, the realisation that—it comes to me slowly, painfully—there is a higher love. I feel a higher love for Drayk. I can love only Drayk. But Drayk has forgotten me and I fear he may never remember.

  My epiphany has distracted me from my responsibilities to care for my lover and he sits on the edge of my bed choking. He coughs once, twice, then on the third time he breaks into uncontrollable spluttering and gasping. He gropes at his neck. “Help…I cannot…breathe.”

  Yanked from a place of calm reflection, I crawl across the bed, kneel beside him and pound his back. Alarmed, my body rings out like a bell: Help! Help! Help! My actions are frantic. I thump him with a closed fist. Again. Again. Again. There is a higher love.

  His eyes water. His face turns red.

  Again I am the mother. I pry open his mouth and try to see what is blocking his airway. Into his gullet I grope, feeling his warm and wet tongue, his tonsils and his teeth. He pushes me aside, doubles over and heaves. He heaves again, his big, rough hands squeezing his knees, his face straining, revealing veins running up and down his neck.

  His final effort sends a projectile across the room. We watch it clatter over the stone then come to rest. I get to it first, bend over and pick it up. Drayk’s serpent stone is covered in saliva. It gently hums and at its centre a small universe unwittingly spins.

  “Thank the tides that’s over,” Drayk croaks, coming to peer over my shoulder. He turns me around and in his eyes I see our shared stories.

  “Drayk,” I whisper.

  He takes my hand. “Verne,” he sighs. “I am so sorry I forgot you. I was killed and the stone…I was stuck between this world and the next. It happens sometimes when my death has been particularly violent.”

  I exhale with relief and throw my arms around his neck, filled with an exhilarating need to give him everything: my heart, my obedience, even my atrama.

  He lifts me in his arms and holds me. Whether he is aware of the change in me I cannot be sure but I hug him tight, hoping my gesture conveys me true feelings: I have found a higher love.

  There is desperation in the way he clings to me. After placing me gently on the ground he presses his lips against mine and I am glad to be reacquainted with his tongue, his warmth and the smell of him. He wraps his arms around my head and holds me to him. “The gods forgive me,” he mumbles.

  “It seems so unfair,” I say.

  Neither of us dares speak of the agony we face: mine when he reaches his fortieth year and is reborn—I will live for twenty years waiting for him to grow up and find me again—and his when he must face eternity without me. To speak of the future will destroy what little time we have.

  He takes my hand in devotion and guides me back to the bed. We are two pilgrims walking down this holy path, our lips longing to come together in prayer.

  “What happened?” I say. Then, more quietly, “How did you die?”

  He runs his hands over his face. “When we were on the Seawall I lost sight of you after you left the cage. All around was the clanging of swords.” He looks at me with meaning. “They were armed, Verne. They were far more skilled than any slave, trained by the high priestess, I believe. They matched us blow for blow.”

  “They have been receiving weapons from Whyte.”

  “That explains it.” He pulls back the covers and I crawl into bed. “Like cattle they came, one after the other, and all we could hear was the sinister slicing of swords through youthful flesh, rattling bones, chattering teeth, then later the rapid retreat as Icelos descended upon us.”

  I envisage Icelos, goddess of death, her arms outstretched and her black cloak like wings. She hovers above the battle, a vulture ready to pick at their bones.

  “I was certain we would all die, every last one of us: Tibutan soldiers, incensed citizens, Shark’s Teeth, everyone.”

  A shrill voice reverberates around my skull, Icelos’s demented scream, and cracking bones and splintering shields as clubs connect with Tibutan hearts. I hear Chase. I see the man I have killed. I try to push both from my mind.

  “I fought a Shark’s Tooth, a boy of eight, a woman in rags, another man and another.” He grips my hand. His eyes are wide as he remembers. “In their eyes I saw the gleam of hope, a love of Tibuta so strong it was intoxicating. I did not want to kill them. No, I wanted to lay down my weapons and join them, commiserate in the tragedy of human nature. It destroys me, killing so many innocent people.” He turns away to hide his damp cheeks. “I wanted to weep for humanity as we knelt by Tibuta’s deathbed, but they made me fight, attacking when I would have retreated, forcing me to defend myself, to bore down on them when I wanted to run. I was possessed with lust for survival and I chopped through them like a deranged demon. The last boy, I drew a line from his groin to his chin.” He shudders, staring at his hands as if they still clasped his sword, the far wall, anywhere but my judging eyes.

  “A shofar sounded above us and for a moment we paused, looking towards the source of that glorious sound, hoping beyond all hope that the battle was over. But it was the Whyte soldiers. They descended in the cages or rappelled from the top of the Seawall.” Drayk pauses and holds his head in his hands. “They were merciless. They had no reason to hold back. They slashed and carved their way through the mob, thirsting for blood, for another notch in their belt to brag about, a number to compare with their comrades. And the five orca, they were hungry.”

  I picture a field of poppies. Orca sniff and paw the earth. The
y use their bare hands to rip the plants out by the roots, to snap the flower’s stems, to grind the red petals into the ground.

  “Some of the Whyte hoplites carried clubs.”

  I imagined the grey, moist knowledge leaking from the soldiers’ broken skulls. What a waste, I think, and I too want to weep.

  Drayk looks away. “I suddenly found myself surrounded by the orca. They could not distinguish friend from foe and wanted nothing but to satiate their bloodlust.” He falls quiet, eyes glazed over as he remembers.

  “And you were killed?”

  “Yes, they killed me,” he says, running his hand over the spot on his neck where their fangs pierced the skin. “I was exhausted. Though I knew I would regenerate, I fought. It is part of being human. We are afraid of dying so we fight regardless of whether it will help or not. I sliced them down, one after the other, but my blade did nothing. It was like hitting leather.”

  I say nothing.

  “One latched onto my back with his claws. Another took my arm. The third and fourth my legs. The fifth dragged me to my knees. I fought as best I could but the beasts were there to kill.” Drayk shudders and I recognise real fear in his eyes. “One bit my shoulder then ripped out half my neck while the other one started on my face. The pain was…Pain is an interesting thing.” His tone changes as he addresses his fate with the detachment of a surgeon. “The body has a way of blocking it out. It shuts down the senses so, as you die, you see only ghostly forms and hear things as if from a distance. As I died I heard the snarling of orca feasting on my flesh. I was thankful when it was over.”

  I hold my hands to my mouth. “Drayk, that is terrible.”

  “I have little recollection of my time regenerating, only the sensation of falling, of clouds whizzing past my head, of warm liquid on my skin, red light like when you look directly at the sun with your eyes shut. And then I woke up here.”

  “You did what you had to do,” I say, stroking his hair, his cheeks, his shoulders.

  “Sometimes I think it would be better to forget.”

  “Shhh…don’t say that. It’s over now,” I say, inspecting every part of him for signs of hurt. His skin is perfectly smooth. There isn’t a scar or a knick. I take his hands and kiss them, cleansing them with salt water. “How much you must suffer, my immortal, my wonderful, wonderful man,” I whisper.

  “It might be better to die than have to relive each death. The flesh recovers but seeing and experiencing such violence again and again, it hurts the mind.”

  The flesh, I think, aware of the tingling of my own flesh, the throbbing in my mind.

  He pulls me to him and nuzzles into my breasts. I cradle his face and kiss his tears, which he will not acknowledge.

  “Get in,” I say, holding the covers up for him to crawl in beside me. For a while we lie beside one another, lost in our lust and our grief.

  He moves first, crawling on top of me. His reassuring weight pushes against me and he devours me, starting from my thighs and working his way up to my mouth, which he covers with his lips, obliviously biting and sucking. He is consumed by greed, a ferocious need, which makes him rip my clothing to get at my body. He pushes me back onto the bed. I consider fighting; I consider saying no, but his need is greater than mine. It is a small sacrifice to keep my creation happy, so I consent to this demolishing.

  His love is angry and detached. Drayk keeps his eyes shut and punishes me as though I am the orca and he the solider. Or as though I am death and he is life. He forces me into the bed, pounding again and again. The fight flickers across his eyelids; the blood and the screaming bounce off the walls. We are there, with each other, on the battlefield. I can smell the blood. I can hear the screaming.

  His resentment is directed inwards, I know, because to him each death is a failure, a sign that he has fallen short of the perfection he so desires. And yet such odium scares me.

  Afterwards he lies on his back with one arm draped over me, panting slightly with beads of perspiration on his brow. “I am sorry,” he whispers.

  “Don’t apologise. I want to share all of you.”

  He does not respond and his silence is like an insult hanging in the air, criticising me for my own weakness.

  Later, when he falls into a fitful sleep, I lie wondering whether I can repair this broken man or whether I want to. After all, it is his imperfections that make him perfect. It gives me great comfort to know that he kills reluctantly, that he weeps for his victims, wishing to throw down his weapon as he wields it. He must not kill haphazardly. Drayk is a soldier, my soldier, and I will need him to kill for me. He must do so with a conscience.

  I am woken by a light tapping on my door. I can hear the caterwauling from outside as more rebels return from the battlefield. Change is in the air, I think. I can smell it. Tibuta is waking.

  There is another gentle tap. “Who is it?”

  A familiar voice reaches me from behind the door, “Highness, I am sorry for the late hour. I really am but…I must speak to you.”

  I creep out from beneath the covers without waking Drayk, wrap myself in my peplos and open the door. Petra is a lone soldier parading up and down the hallway. She has removed her helmet and her face is smeared with blood. She stops her pacing and fixes me with eyes wild with murder. “Please excuse me but—”

  “Follow me,” I say, gesturing towards the sanctuary. She follows me through the quiet hallways and past the statue which looks far less impressive in the minimal light. I climb into the pit and sit on the cold step in front of Shea’s Fire. The blue flame swims on the black water’s surface. The strategos wrings her hands and mumbles, “You were right.” Her agitation is evidence of the upheaval of her atrama, the internal transformation as her inexorable dedication to my mother transfers to me.

  I encourage her to sit and without prompting she spews forth all that is bothering her. “I witnessed Theodora’s miracles. She vomited seawater and killed a man with the ocean in her belly. You were right. The Tempest is coming and the queen—” her voice trembles “—the queen is on the opposite side of truth. Styla knew it but I was blind. My daughter’s conscience told her the law was unjust and she willingly accepted the penalty in order to open our eyes to the injustice.” She buries her face in her hands. “I wish I had seen it earlier. Her death was not cowardice but bravery of the highest degree. She was more devoted than I could ever hope to be, putting Tibuta before all else.”

  “Styla did not die in vain if her death aroused your support.”

  Petra digs her nails into her knees. “I have so much rage and resentment.”

  “Which you have suppressed for a long time.”

  “Years,” she says. “I was never willing to speak out against her because I believed in the rules. I was afraid of confrontation. She…she had no right to dismantle the gerousia. She has set us back a thousand years. And to invite Whyte soldiers here, to Tibuta?” She shakes her head.

  “She is an apostate,” I say and listened to the older woman weep at the injustice, at the tragedy of her daughter’s execution, and the loss of Tibuta’s honour, at her humiliation.

  “I am ashamed to call myself Tibutan,” she says. “This is not the Tibuta I know and love. I cannot support our queen if she betrays us this way. She says the incident at the Seawall was my fault and threatens to strip me of my title. This when I have been nothing but loyal to her. I have dedicated my life to her.”

  When she finishes I say, “The gods have a plan for us. They built the foundations for our civilisation, only she has bastardised their grand vision. We must return to the righteous path, find a semblance of peace, a way to conquer the final Tempest and live without the constant threat of annihilation.” I feel irreverent.

  “Is such a thing possible?” Petra says, pleading with her eyes.

  I don’t know. “Without a doubt.”

  “Then I will join you.”

  We sit up long into the early hours deciding how it will be done. The plan unfolds like a dusty carpet
, shimmering different colours depending on the direction of the weave, the uneven knots rough to the touch, the wool creating friction. I will take the throne and declare myself queen. The high priestess will anoint and crown me. We will expel Whyte’s army. Tibuta will be free from tyranny. Then, reunited, we will face Typhon’s creation.

  It all seems so simple.

  Drayk traipses across the vast room with a sheet wrapped around his narrow waist to find us drawing on the floor with coal from Shea’s Fire. “Petra,” he says, barely acknowledging her sudden change of allegiance.

  “They must aim for her head,” I say. I am possessed by our plan. “The queen wears a bronze cuirass beneath her dress. She has done so ever since I was a little girl.” Then to Drayk I say, “You must return to the palace. Convince my mother of your enduring support. Your absence in easily explained after the battle on the Seawall. Tell the Queen’s Guard to ensure the gate is open when we attack.” I explain our plan.

  A quiet resolve fills our hearts. “Once a decision is made it seems the world and all its resources pull you towards it like a lodestone. Our lives are no longer our own,” I say.

  “Our only hope is that the gods are not insidious but rather swift and straightforward. We must have courage,” Petra says.

  “We cannot fail. There is no forgiveness for what we are about to do,” Drayk says.

  His departure is a small tragedy, something that has to be pushed aside and quickly forgotten. For a moment I fear we will be eternally apart and that our delicate and illusory love will not have a chance to grow into something more robust. I push this insecurity aside. His stone, which I have replaced around my neck, presses into the wound where it burnt me. It is a reminder of his commitment to me and the fact that our fates are now irrevocably intertwined. If I fall then all who love me will fall with me.

  Chapter eighteen

  Petra’s signal is almost imperceptible. It is a nod so slight it could be mistaken for a tick or a twitch but I understand it to mean, “My soldiers are in position.” All I have to do is give the word and…Can I do it? Now that the moment is upon me I am not so sure. I can rely only on my ability to give the sign. Then it will be too late for me to change my mind. Events will take on a momentum of their own.