“See the difference?” She laughed. “We rise from the land of Darkness into Calesienda’s orchard. The world of Light. Can you feel it?”
Tingling energy flowed into his extremities, diminishing the earlier pain. His thirst lessened and he felt, for the first time since beginning this journey, closer to life than death.
Even as she spoke, the violet glow turned rosy pink. The gryphons turned their heads up and made a sound similar to the cry of hunting hawks.
Far above, the ceiling of the underground cavern became visible. It was covered with enormous hanging blooms, drifting from side to side in a breeze he felt against his face. The water below lightened to the tender blush of the summer flower his people called ‘mother’s tears’ for their drooping, tear-shaped petals. Waves billowed in soothing sound and rhythm.
The beasts they rode sped toward a gigantic cliff. Just as it seemed they would slam into it, they tilted and skimmed into a narrow crevasse then dove through a sheer wall of foaming blue-green seawater.
Chrysaleon peered at his companion. She smiled, her red hair flowing in currents made by the swimming gryphons.
Light and shadow, filtering through the water, transformed the aspect of this new world, making everything more vivid.
I can breathe. Chrysaleon realized it even as he understood he didn’t feel cold or wet.
The light shining through the water brightened as the cliffs fell behind. Again the gryphons turned and followed the edge of an underwater bluff into a valley; as suddenly as they had been submerged into water, they broke through the other side and were again on solid ground. The beasts landed lightly, like cats. Themiste’s shook its back as if to say, I have carried you long enough.
Chrysaleon slid off, careful of his creature’s wings, and helped Themiste dismount.
“Are you surprised, my lord?” The ends of her hair still drifted like seaweed in shallow currents, though, as far as he could tell, they were no longer underwater.
He shook his head. He had no words for what he felt. To all appearances everything was the same as at home, though the air was different. It carried an invisible sensation, like a living thing. It seemed to move, soft as kisses against his skin.
“Am I dead or dreaming?” he asked.
“That is for the Goddess to decide,” Themiste said. “This is Hesperia, Athene’s paradise.”
“Already? That wasn’t such a long journey. You exaggerated, Themiste.”
“I was not speaking of this journey,” she said, “but of learning all you must learn, suffering all you must suffer, in the name of she you claim to love.”
Her gaze was level, unsmiling, but she allowed him no time to ask more questions. “I have brought you, as I was instructed.” She plucked the serpent from around her neck. “Now you must forge your own way. There are many paths for you to choose, Prince. Or you might construct a new one.” Placing her companion upon the grass, she watched as it zipped away to a tumble of rocks.
He began to feel uneasy. What were these choices? What would happen if he made the wrong one?
The gryphons shook their heads and padded down to the stream.
To a man raised among the Argolid’s dusty rock-strewn mountains and plains, this landscape proved almost beyond comprehension. He and Themiste stood on the summit of a gentle knoll. Forest surrounded them on three sides. The evergreens and spruces made all greens he had known in the land of men gray by comparison. Beeches swayed and rustled. Glossy dark leaves and bunches of acorns weighted mighty oak branches. Moist, springy grass covered the ground, spotted with poppies and other wildflowers. To the south of the knoll, a stream spewed from the forest, bubbling over stones that glittered like stars. Movement caught his attention. He stared, squinting in the bright sunlight, finally discerning young women, dressed in what appeared to be leaves, their hair unbound. Some sat upon branches, half-hidden in the foliage like birds or lazing cats, while others peered at him from behind the trunks of oaks.
Themiste laughed, returning his attention to her. Her eyes had changed from the deep brown he remembered to the predominant color of this strange land—green, flashed through with gold. Sunlight brightened her hair from auburn to copper, and caressed her face, illuminating her cheekbones and forehead in a translucent blush. He blinked, awed by such beauty, struck speechless by the way she was looking at him.
Delight trembled through his spine and fingers. He knew the change he saw in Themiste had affected him as well, that he was more vivid, more alive. The haze of the mortal world had been washed away. He could taste as well as feel the air here. It was sweet as honey.
“Come,” she cried, touching his hand. Lifting the hem of her gown in both fists, she ran down the hill. He followed.
These surroundings, so different from the ash-choked land they’d left, enthralled his mind. His eyes drank it in greedily. Blue-purple hills swept away to the south; bright color spotted the ground where every manner of flower thrived. Fleecy clouds scudded on breezes, high above in cobalt heavens. Sunlight shimmered through the cascading torrents of water that had served as a gateway into this paradise. He wasn’t quite certain if what he felt against his face was air or water.
The grass was soft and pliable beneath his feet. Birds covered in jewel-like plumage flashed among the branches in the forest. A full-antlered stag observed him, while nearby, a fox licked its bushy russet tail.
Themiste had left him behind. Speeding up, feeling as though he could run forever, he caught her and grabbed her waist. They lost their balance and fell, rolling in a tangle down a short slope, coming to rest at the edge of the stream. Themiste, landing on top, immediately kissed him, demanding he return a passion he’d assumed she couldn’t feel. He submitted willingly, laughing. Seizing her arms, he pushed her tunic off her shoulders, threw her over so she lay on her back in the grass, and proceeded to cover her with kisses as he plunged inside her with his fingers and found her ready.
Her hands slipped beneath his tunic. They were soon naked and coupling with unreserved lust.
When it was finished he lay upon her, one cheek against her breast, sunlight warm upon the other, listening to her heart slow into steady beats.
He’d nearly fallen asleep when she pushed him. Unprepared for this abrupt eviction, he tumbled inelegantly into the stream, gasping at its icy bite. The cold shock evaporated whatever anger ran through him at her unexpected dismissal. He gulped the pristine liquid and let it wash over his face before stumbling out and falling onto the grass, panting, laughing.
Themiste, shrugging into her tunic, laughed too. “You snore.” She made a face.
“Only when I am uncommonly content,” he replied, pulling his tunic over his head.
A flock of geese, high above, drew his attention with their honking.
“By the black thundering waves of Poseidon,” he said, shading his eyes with one hand against the glitter of the sun. “This is a wondrous place.”
She instantly sobered. “Do not insult Athene. Not here.”
“I cannot speak the name of Poseidon, the god of my father’s father?”
“Athene’s roused temper is not a thing to test. Don’t you know that by now? And we no longer stand in the world of mortals, where thick air and noise protects the irreverent.”
“Where is she?”
“She is everywhere. This land, the air and light. Listen, Prince. Who gave birth to your dream of Poseidon? Gaia, who gave birth also to the queen of the wild things, our Lady Athene. This is the unsullied land of Gaia, and here you must show utter fealty. She was the beginning and will be the end. Can you not feel her inside your mind? Did you not just quench your thirst upon her breast?”
Chrysaleon leaped to his feet, fighting a rush of anger. “I feel nothing but pleasure and awe as I look upon a beautiful landscape. How can this help Crete or Aridela? Answer me, Themiste. Am I dead?”
“The bull-king of Kaphtor….”
It wasn’t Themiste who spoke. The voice was male. Chrysaleon
pivoted, habit tensing his hands into fists.
A man stepped out from the edge of the forest. Rather, a youth, with curly black hair, a fine, firm mouth, and slender body robed in a sleeveless white tunic woven of some delicate, glossy material. Braids of fine, thin silver circled his head, half-hidden by his black locks. A partridge scurried about his feet and two of the girls Chrysaleon had seen earlier giggled behind him.
There was such a likeness in his face to Aridela that it left Chrysaleon blinking.
“Welcome,” said the youth. Tingles raced up Chrysaleon’s spine and lifted the hair on his forearms.
Glancing at Themiste, Chrysaleon asked, “Is this—”
“I am Damasen,” the lad said. He gazed beyond Chrysaleon. “Welcome, Themiste.” He held out his arms.
She knelt, covering her face with her hands.
“Rise, child,” he said.
Child? Damasen didn’t look as if he’d lived seventeen years.
Chrysaleon remembered the evening Aridela made the bull leap. Before she’d slipped away, she showed him her necklace, two crescent moons cupping a bead of blue lapis. She said her long-dead father, Damasen, had given it to her mother. Now here he stood, not a spear’s throw distant.
Themiste rose and Damasen clasped her hands. “Thou art well,” he said. “The barbarian could not harm thee nor even hold thee in his prison.”
“I used the secret corridor, my lord. But Kaphtor suffers. I was unable to save Queen Helice, and Aridela is captive to Harpalycus.”
His smile faded. He rested his forehead against hers. “Why have you brought the prince of Mycenae to my orchard?”
“He made the holy vow to lay down his life in sacrifice. He protected Aridela the night of the Destruction, and he has been tortured near to death by his own countrymen. Vision revealed to me that he must reunite the queen with her land if we are ever to recover. Did I see truly?”
Damasen contemplated Chrysaleon, his expression giving nothing away.
“Leave us, Themiste,” he said at last.
No outside sound penetrated the dim, airless chamber in which Aridela was kept. From time to time she feared the entire island of Kaphtor had been sucked into her nightmares and no longer existed except in her memory.
At first, with both ankles and wrists bound, she could do nothing but lie upon the moldy, insect-ridden bedding thrown upon the stone floor. But after a few days, the nameless eunuch who attended her cut the binding around her ankles and left it off. There was no danger of her escaping, as the leather strap around her wrists was secured to the bottom of a pillar, making it impossible to take more than one step away from the bedding, and that could only be managed doubled over. Testing the leather tightened it and strangled the flow of blood to her hands. This annoyed the eunuch, who, as he rearranged the bonds, muttered mainland curses and cuffed her on the head, where her hair would hide the bruises. Beyond that miserly kindness, he did nothing but toss down a bowl of thin broth twice a day, letting her struggle on her own to reach, lift, and drink, and, not nearly often enough, he carried the chamber pot away to be emptied.
At first she worried about the passing of time. There was nothing to do as she languished except fret, grieve, and rage. She tried to mark the days but couldn’t keep up. For a miserable blurry interlude she lay on the filthy bed, scratching those fleabites she could reach, and wondering if Harpalycus had forgotten her, for he never came and the eunuch shared no information.
The nightmares worsened to the point where she dreaded falling asleep. She was so hungry she dreamed of eating the straw beneath her. She dreamed repeatedly of Harpalycus’s rape, of his heaviness, his hot, suffocating breath, his painful invasion. She dreamed of swelling, bloating with child, not knowing if it was Chrysaleon’s or his. The larger she grew the louder and more echoing grew Harpalycus’s laughter.
Her dreams of Chrysaleon’s death were perhaps the most agonizing. She saw herself struggling free of her captors and approaching her fallen husband. Walking across the bedchamber seemed to take all night. Sometimes she never reached him. When she did and turned him over, maggots swarmed from his eyes.
Sometimes, weaving beneath horror and anguish, she dreamed the promise of the god: For longer than you can imagine, I will be with you, in you, of you. Together we bring forth a new world. Nothing can ever part us.
Kaphtor would have slipped out of the Moon of Corn Poppies and into the Moon of Winemaking by now. No sound of the traditional grape festival seeped through the walls, nor any hint of the rich call of conch shells to the four winds. Aridela felt in her tendons, belly and bones the cry of abandoned grapes as they rotted on the vines. She experienced through every layer of her soul the sundering of the ancient bond between her people and the sanctified crops.
Every now and then she caught a whiff of fresh air clinging to the eunuch’s robes or sneaking beneath the door, and this helped her pinpoint where they were in the wheel of the year. The faint scent of grapes melted into a sweet hint of apples. One of Kaphtor’s most vibrant months, the cool nights and warm days of the Moon of Winemaking brought apples as well as grapes to ripe fruition. She couldn’t help inhaling with desperate desire and a plummeting sense of helplessness and fury. Before the rain of fire and ash, this month kept everyone busy crushing grapes and beginning the fermentation process, bringing out last year’s wine, planting new grains, and picking the ripe apples. Cider was made through the laborious process of grinding apples with stones then pressing the mush. There were sweet apple cakes and delicate crusts oozing apple juices. Suppliants left baskets of red fruit piled high in Eleuthia’s Cave, for it was well known how much she loved them. The Moon of Winemaking gave way each year to brisk winds and the excitement of the olive harvest, but who would knock down the fruit this year? Who would care for the surviving olive trees? Who would press the rich dark oil and contain it in clay jars, ready for export to the many countries that craved it?
She wept for all Kaphtor had lost and wondered how long she could continue living in this silent gloom as the forgotten prisoner of Harpalycus.
Athene, am I still your daughter? Do you listen anymore?
Then Harpalycus finally came. Awakened by some sound, she peered up groggily and there was his face, staring down at her with an expression of triumph and satisfaction.
Without a word, he shoved her onto her back with his foot and fell upon her, slaking his monstrous urge almost immediately. Aridela pressed her legs together as he rose, feeling sticky wetness on her thighs that might either be his semen or blood. She screamed until she was hoarse and kicked at him, inadvertently twisting the thongs around her wrists, causing them to squeeze without mercy. He stepped back, laughing at her attempts to harm him then raped her again, more slowly. When she struggled and spat and called to the Erinyes for vengeance, he raped her a third time, smiling, never closing his eyes but observing her furious helplessness with obvious pleasure. He only lost interest and stopped when she bit her lip, turned her head away, and lay without movement, in silence.
After that day, Harpalycus sent a messenger regularly to the storeroom in which she was kept. Upon receiving the summons, the eunuch would sponge her from her hair to her toes. He cuffed her so hard when she struggled or kicked that she would often lose consciousness, only waking to find herself either being carried to the bedchamber she’d once shared with Chrysaleon and which now housed Harpalycus, or already in the bed, bound to the bedposts. Sometimes Harpalycus would be sitting in a chair, drunkenly watching her, or he would enter the room at some point after she woke, giving her time to dread his arrival.
He loved to brag about his campaign. Everything, according to him, was proceeding smoothly, without resistance. He told her how much he enjoyed it when she fought him, and encouraged her to struggle, sometimes slapping her in an attempt to spark her anger. Lycus, who had apparently fallen in his own fortunes from accomplice to prisoner, was sometimes brought in and forced to watch, such was the usurper’s perversion. On those o
ccasions Harpalycus delighted in doing whatever it took to elicit cries of agony from the queen of Kaphtor.
When his needs were exhausted, he had her carried back to her cramped bare cell, where the air and stones grew steadily colder.
“It’s a fine, sunny day, my queen.” Harpalycus flung open the bedchamber door and strode in, bringing with him streams of cold, fresh air. He motioned to the eunuch. The man knelt to remove the prince’s greaves then lifted the gold crown from his master’s forehead and placed it on a table. It was a crown worn on ceremonial occasions by Kaphtor’s bull-kings, and was heavy with priceless stones and carvings.
Aridela, bound as usual to the ornate bed, made no reply.
“Bring Lycus,” Harpalycus said. The slave bowed and backed out, closing the door behind him. Soon Lycus was dragged in, his wrists and ankles shackled. A leather strap covered his mouth. He was bruised and filthy.
Aridela barely glanced at him.
She encouraged random images to form in her mind then dissipate, ethereal as steam. It was her method of blocking out Harpalycus’s attacks and helping her remain still and silent, which discouraged him. She relived the day Selene stepped off the ship from Phrygia. Aridela and Iphiboë had clutched each other, speechless with awe at this tall, flaxen-haired girl who had come so far to instruct them. Selene, stern in the beginning, was a hard teacher who left many a bruise with her wooden sword, especially if she thought they weren’t paying attention or not trying their best. Aridela pictured Helice on her high-backed stone throne, surrounded by her council and judges, preparing to hear suppliants from the various provinces. Motioning to a younger Aridela, she pointed to a spot where her daughter could listen and learn about justice. The scene melted into a summer day, saturated with the hum of bees and thick scents of hyacinths and rosemary. Aridela hitched up her tunic and nimbly climbed the branches of a gnarled oak, dismissive of the long white scratches the rough bark left on her legs, equally dismissive of the swarming bees. Using a smoker, she lulled them and stole their dripping honeycombs, only ever suffering one or two stings. Neoma, Aridela’s partner in most of her wayward adventures, stayed on the ground, keeping an eye out for the nurses. “Come down,” she would hiss. “It’s not fair. Save some for me.”
The Thinara King Page 16
