He continued to roll, coming up on his good leg while snatching Lycus’s sword in his left hand. The grip was so hot from lying in burning oil that his skin seared. Lycus was right behind him, both hands clamped around his sword hilt, aiming for Chrysaleon’s left forearm. Experience prompted Chrysaleon to drop his arm to his side at the last moment, changing Lycus’s aim. The strike, meant to cleave bone, instead only shaved away several layers of flesh and muscle.
Biting down on a groan as blood gushed from yet another wound, Chrysaleon switched the sword to his right hand as he fell onto his back. Lycus stumbled past him. Chrysaleon smashed the flat of his blade against Lycus’s hand, knocking the weapon free. Rotating his wrist, hanging onto consciousness with gritted, desperate will, he sank the point of his sword into the soft flesh below his opponent’s ribcage.
It wasn’t the killing blow he wanted, but it put Lycus on the ground and out of the fight. Lycus stiffened and gasped. His eyes opened wide. Chrysaleon held onto his sword hilt as he rose. He would twist the blade as he pulled it out. The internal rupture would bring certain death, but Chrysaleon meant to pierce the stomach too. Only then would he declare himself the victor. He would take nothing more for granted, after scarcely surviving this defiant youth’s tactical surprises.
“You should have forced the issue,” he said, “when you had the chance. As I did.”
Lycus drew in one shallow gasp after another. He stared, unblinking, at Chrysaleon.
Just as Chrysaleon started to turn the blade, he heard weeping and a soft, insistent drumbeat.
He looked up. For the first time he noticed another door.
Instantly forgetting his fallen enemy, he staggered to it and threw it open.
Thick, irritating smoke blurred Chrysaleon’s sight. His eyes filled with water. He coughed even as he tensed for the next attack.
Frightening as a child’s nightmare, creatures crept in and out of the smoke, their long white arms extended like twisting tree-roots.
The drumbeat pounded against Chrysaleon’s already throbbing skull.
Hanging on a trellis in the center of the room was the axe, the sacred king killer with stone blades. Next to that hung a black ram’s fleece, complete with a gold clasp to fasten at the neck. He limped to the trellis and threw the fleece over his shoulders. He seized the axe. The handle was rock smooth, dark, slick from the hands of men who wielded it upon their predecessors for time beyond measure. The blades, indescribably sharp, seemed to suck in the faint light coming from the perimeter of the room.
“Gorgopis,” the beasts whispered, and lifted their arms in unison.
Doors opened on the far side of the chamber. More beasts emerged, walking on two legs like men, but with the heads of bulls, lions, monkeys and ibex. Chrysaleon faced monstrous creatures with snakes undulating around their necks, glowing eyes, bloody mouths. They appeared and disappeared in the ever-thickening smoke, leaving behind soft serpent hisses.
The smoke itself seemed to whisper. “Agraule Athene.”
He staggered one direction then another, intending to slay as many as he could before they overpowered him.
But they melted away, leaving behind one desolate figure robed in white.
He seemed taller than Chrysaleon remembered.
The Zagreus hid his face behind his arms.
Chrysaleon saw something gleam in the king’s hand. He had a weapon of some sort, though it broke Crete’s own laws. Chrysaleon pushed off the ground on his good leg. His muscles trembled. If he didn’t finish Xanthus swiftly, he himself would die. His eyesight was fading, his heart fluttering. It was becoming harder and harder to remain on his feet.
Zagreus didn’t rush forward to meet his challenge. He turned and tried to flee, but the creatures converged and pushed him back.
Chrysaleon could barely see anything through the stinging smoke. It seemed as though Helice’s consort was weeping, but he couldn’t be sure.
Shaking his head, Chrysaleon fought to clear the death-fog from his mind. The chamber walls danced; the air exploded with color as he gasped and stumbled.
The queen had damaged his mind with some concoction, and armed her lover. In truth, Helice didn’t want a barbarian to win these Games. She was willing to break every law and risk angering the Goddess to achieve her desire.
Zagreus ran another direction, again, away from Chrysaleon, but the wall of creatures stood fast. He clawed at them to no avail.
The labrys-axe hung like a boulder from Chrysaleon’s arm. Gasping, he brought the weapon up then down again against the back of the king’s neck.
Blood spurted. Xanthus fell, pulling Chrysaleon down on top of him.
Gasping, Chrysaleon staggered to his feet, slipping in a rapidly expanding pool of blood. He drew the axe from the king’s flesh and held onto it, blinking, trying to peer through the smoke and intermittent light to his other enemies.
The drumbeat stopped. For one long moment there was utter silence.
A woman wearing the face of a white cow stepped from the circle. Her hands, crossed over her breasts, held small ceremonial labrys-axes.
She walked to the dead king and knelt. She gently turned him over.
The boy’s face was pale, unlined, almost childlike. His brown eyes stared. What Chrysaleon thought was a weapon in the king’s hand he now saw was an apple, fashioned of pure gold. As he watched, it rolled free of the limp fingers.
Chrysaleon dropped the axe. It struck the earth with a dull thud.
Figures, unrecognizable behind their masks, converged on the body.
Zagreus’s blank eyes met Chrysaleon’s before they were hidden under the swarm.
Many others tore their robes. They turned up their faces and scratched at their throats. Some cried the bull-king’s real name, “Xanthus.” Others cried, “Zagreus.” Several ripped off their masks, weeping, screaming.
A hand clasped his unwounded forearm. He jerked, but he couldn’t have lifted the axe anymore, even to save his own life.
A priestess stood beside him, peering into his face.
He no longer felt his legs. The roar in his ears and thick spackled glaze dulling his sight warned him. Much of his lifeblood had seeped away. He was dying.
“Come,” the priestess said. “You must emerge, triumphant and reborn.” Her voice echoed.
“It’s finished?”
The woman nodded. “You are victorious.”
No more strength or will remained. Chrysaleon’s knees buckled.
The king is dead.
I am king.
Chrysaleon woke with a start. Perspiration stung his eyes.
Yet no dead man stood at the foot of the bed, blood dribbling from his neck, a gaping hole where his genitals used to be.
Rubbing his eyes with clenched fists, Chrysaleon stared into the thick unbroken blackness of his chamber. For one sickening moment, he thought he was again in the labyrinth.
Ripping through the fine netting draped around the bed, he forced himself to his feet, staggered to the balcony, and leaned, gasping, on the railing. Beyond the terraces stood rich mansions, olive groves, vineyards, and the famed city of Knossos. All could be called his, until one year from this night, when he would die. Women in masks would tear him to pieces. They would parade his severed genitals in a basket and throw them into the sea. Another bull-king would accept the crown, the glory, and the fate.
It was his choice, as it is mine.
Darkness and silence reigned. No fires burned. They’d been extinguished to mourn the death of their king. Soon, when the gongs and triton shells sounded to announce the rising of the great star and the beginning of their new year, the people would rouse from slumber. They would kindle fresh fires to honor the new consort. All grief would be forgotten, except by those closest to the dead king. Sorrow would be replaced with worship, adoration and gratitude.
As Chrysaleon stood there, the railing holding him up, his heartbeat slowed and his breathing calmed. He took stock. Someone had tended his
wounds; they must have used something to dull the pain, for he hardly felt any.
At some point the rain had stopped. The air was fresh, cool, the soil reborn as he was.
He heard the faint chant of priestesses. More distantly still, he heard women weeping and the distant haunting drone of triton shells, calling up the star, Iakchos.
Dizziness descended, making the whole world sway. The Erinyes soared and circled, hissing promises of coming torment. He’d grown up hearing tales of men who, driven insane by the three avenging goddesses and their horde of shrieking followers, would run screaming over a cliff or drive daggers into their own hearts. He leaned against the railing, his muscles knotting. The tic beneath his left eye pulsed wildly.
The crones spoke. Did one of those masks cover Aridela’s face? Did your lover flay her stepfather’s flesh from his bones and consume it?
“Tisiphone, Megaera, Alecto.” Too late he remembered it was bad luck to speak their names and draw their attention. “Venerable Ones,” he amended, hoping to disarm their easily roused anger.
Will she do it to you when your time comes?
Anger reasserted itself. It was his choice, as it is mine.
He pounded the rail with his unhurt right fist.
Hair lifted on the back of his neck. He swiveled, staring into the yawning black hole leading into his bedchamber. The dead watched, waiting to welcome him into their ranks. He trembled as the restless stink of cold graves filled his senses.
He forced himself to turn around and gaze upward, to the infinite layers, offshoots and clusters of stars in the sky. They blazed in full glory, for there was no moon to outshine them. Then he saw it—Iakchos, burning blue-white, rising above the mountain summits.
The hollow resonance of triton shells gave way to gongs. Torches flared. Bonfires ignited on the hilltops, on the summit of Juktas and across the seaside cliffs.
Tendrils of fire surrounded the star, making it flicker. This was a bad sign, heralding pestilence. As the gongs sent haunting reverberations across the city, he stared at Iakchos, gritting his teeth and growling his rage until his throat burned and no more sound could pass.
“My lord?”
Chrysaleon recognized Menoetius only by his voice. His brother stood in the doorway, an indistinct shadow.
“What have I done?” Speaking hoarsely through a throat made raw, Chrysaleon’s eyes watered.
“You killed the Zagreus,” Menoetius said. “You defied your father’s commands and won the Cretan Games. Unless Helice has you murdered in your sleep, you are now the royal consort and bull-king of this place. You are Zagreus.”
The way he said it made it sound like a curse; Chrysaleon fancied he heard a note of satisfaction. “The stories are true,” he said. “They tore his flesh like a pride of lions bringing down their prey, with their teeth and hands.”
“They eat his body, drink his blood, and become part of him. It’s their way of making him, and this land, live forever. The queen called it communion.”
Menoetius’s calm explanation kindled Chrysaleon’s rage. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew Aridela? Why did you keep it a secret?”
Menoetius’s head reared back a little, but he quickly recovered. “I was masquerading as a poor commoner. Alexiare believed it could become dangerous to the king. He advised me never to speak of it. Anyway, I don’t know her; I met her briefly, by accident.”
It felt good, switching helpless fury over his fate onto his brother. “One of the priestesses told me how Carmanor saved her life. Don’t lie to me.”
“I happened to be in the shrine when she came in and fainted,” Menoetius said with an impatient shrug. “I carried her out. That’s all. And,” he added, “I don’t answer to you, my brother.”
There was a long moment of silence, broken by the deep, slow peals of the gongs and awe-struck chanting.
Chrysaleon managed to cover the space between them, dragging his wounded leg. He grasped the neck of Menoetius’s tunic. “I curse the Lady. I won’t rest until I’ve ended the king-sacrifice and made these people our slaves.”
“Then, my lord, you will achieve the recognition you have always sought, and you may allay the king’s anger at your disobedience.”
Chrysaleon stepped back. The foreboding he’d refused to acknowledge increased as he met Menoetius’s emotionless stare. Feeling something wet, he looked down. A dark spot expanded across his thigh. He’d broken the wound open. His limbs quivered; he was overwhelmed by a sense that nothing he’d experienced was real. Reaching out, he clasped his brother’s shoulder, fearing he would drop to the ground if he didn’t.
“My lord Zagreus.”
A pale-faced priestess stood there, ghost-like in the dark. Chrysaleon froze. She must have overheard them. She would now go to the queen, and he would be summarily executed.
But—“I have come to lead you to the celebration in the city,” was all she said. “The people want to honor you as their hero and king.”
Watery shafts of sunlight, creeping in from the open terrace, threw a vivid field of lilies, butterflies and a single cobalt blue monkey into relief.
Menoetius found no comfort in the peaceful images on Selene’s chamber wall, any more than he had in the city, watching a pale, weak Chrysaleon showered with honors. Hoping to find his lover, he’d slipped away as soon as the crowd monopolized Chrysaleon’s attention.
What would happen when Idómeneus found out his son and heir defied his orders and entered the Cretan Games? He might lay siege to this island. He might kill his own son as well as many others, only to regret it later.
Menoetius acknowledged a gnawing sense of guilt. He’d promised Idómeneus he wouldn’t let Chrysaleon do anything rash. Yet he hadn’t tried that hard to stop the prince from competing.
Why? Simple, tired resentment? A desire to drive a wedge between Chrysaleon and Idómeneus? Or because some part of him wanted Chrysaleon to die?
Chrysaleon competed on a whim born from lust. Now he woke in the night tormented by nightmares of the man he’d killed. He’d angered the Erinyes and drawn their cold embrace. Fool. He deserved to be driven mad.
Yesterday, after the Cretans locked his brother in the labyrinth, Menoetius returned to the chamber he shared with Selene, but the night passed in solitude. Throughout the slow passage of time, his longing for her increased to a mental and physical ache. He needed her unique comfort. When Selene looked into his face, he saw no hint of mirrored ugliness. She was a gift to be cherished, and he did; she was the only woman he could ever remember loving without fear. If it weren’t for the persistent need to protect Aridela, he could give himself to Selene and uncomplicated happiness.
At last, he’d abandoned the lonely chamber, intending to see if Chrysaleon had died from his wounds. Discovering his brother out of bed and standing on a balcony, bleeding, hoarse, weakened, but still able to vent his outrage at all the wrongs perpetrated on him forced Menoetius to face his secret, unacknowledged hopes.
Selene’s chamber remained empty, its silence somehow chilling. He couldn’t help but wonder if she lay somewhere glutted on the blood of the bull-king.
What of Aridela? Had she also torn the Zagreus’s flesh from his bones?
Spewing curses, Menoetius left the chamber. He wandered the palace corridors, making his way toward the gardens outside the queen’s breakfast hall. Perhaps there, he would find a measure of relief.
He came to a large, open chamber. From behind a fat pillar, he watched three young women, dressed in sleeveless white gowns with purple-dyed edges, sitting on a parapet wall, laughing as they watched the antics of a white cat and a monkey. The monkey, sporting a gem-crusted collar, chattered as it seized a handful of walnuts from a bowl and threw them at the hissing cat.
He recognized one of the women. She was Neoma, Aridela’s cousin, the spoiled brat who thought him deaf as well as ugly.
“I must join the family,” she said to her companions. “Will you watch over my little friend?” They assur
ed her they would as she rose, patted the cat on its head, and hurried away.
Once she’d gone, he entered. The remaining women inclined their heads courteously, which almost, but not quite, disguised their delicate expressions of revulsion. One, who could be no more than twelve or thirteen, stared at him with naked fear.
He was so accustomed to these reactions that he hardly noticed. But he did wonder, as he returned their formal greetings, if these demure females had last night ripped their king’s flesh with teeth and nails.
“I seek the lady Selene,” he said.
“She and the royal family have gone to the grotto to be purified,” one of the women told him. Her long gold earrings clinked as she again bowed her head.
“Where is that?”
She gestured to the south. “Near the summit of the holy mountain, my lord.”
He thanked them and climbed steps to the spacious west terrace, passing fragrant pots of jasmine without a second glance. He peered over the wall. Far in the distance on the road leading to Mount Juktas, he saw a line of litters draped with bright cloth.
He resolved to follow and observe their rite. He’d spent years learning how to track silently, unseen. He would use those talents to avoid being spotted by the guards. Not giving himself a chance to reconsider, he leaped down the stairs and sprinted from the palace, glad for any task to distract his mind.
Aridela stepped out of her litter, breathing the scent of fragrant oleander and feeling the softness of ivy leaves strewn beneath her bare feet. She ascended the path to a shady bower, where maids opened pots of unguents and laid out linens. At the far end of the pool, a waterfall splashed through ferns and, catching at sunlight, glittered like handfuls of stars thrown down by a god. Themiste had already entered. She lay submerged to her neck. Her eyes were closed; her head rested on a reed pillow placed on the bank, near the statue of the Lady holding a doeling. Assisted by handmaids, Helice was just stepping in, followed by Selene.
After the ritual cleansing, they would set their gifts upon the altar. Then they could rest, cloistered beneath green myrtle boughs, listening to the doves, before returning to the palace.
The Year-god's Daughter (The Child of the Erinyes) Page 33
