by Diana Tyler
“I said hold on tight!” Lycus calls out.
The Gryphon screeches and tilts right until she is nearly perpendicular to the ground, her flight frustrated by the full weight of my body hanging onto her feathers. Knowing better than to look down, I pull and kick and claw my way back up, settling myself in between her shoulders.
The Gryphon rights herself and continues climbing, climbing, climbing, higher and higher like Icarus speeding toward the sun. And when I think of how Icarus met his end, dead in the sea with melted wings, I shut my eyes.
After a few seconds, I am calm enough to open my eyes. I look down and see the desert shrinking below me, the fortress shriveling to the size of a sandcastle as a pure blue curtain of sky envelops me. The shouts of the Soukinoi quickly evanesce within the voiceless bliss high above the world, a region reserved solely for the freest of creatures, the ones whose messages to each other and the rest of creation are transmitted through song. I hear only the wind singing to me now, whooshing over my head and shoulders, pulling my skin tight against my face as it intones the rhythm of the Gryphon’s dipping and rising.
I release the reins, close my eyes again, and stretch out my arms, imagining them to be mighty Gryphon wings, imagining myself to be free of my allegiance to anyone or anything…save for the unbreakable oath to avenge my brother.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
KILLER
We reach the Oasis of Éleos far before the other psiloi who travel behind on foot. The Gryphon takes us to a secluded aerie she knows high upon a rose-colored mountain. I slide off her wing and move carefully to the edge of the cliff for a better view of the misty waterfall and lush green haven below, all of it atwitter with the lively pips of sandpipers and wood warblers. The Gryphon lies down in her nest, shuts her eyes, and bows her head. Eat, sleep, fly, and kill. That is the life she knows.
It isn’t until I hear the harmonious sound of singing voices climbing toward us that I realize that I, too, have been sleeping.
The Gryphon’s wings clap open as she jumps to her feet and alerts me with a deep, guttural growl, softened by the muzzle enwrapping her jaws. I raise my hand at the Gryphon, signaling her to be quiet, and creep slowly across the crunching nest until I reach a boulder to hide behind, letting my heartbeat slow to match the soothing cadence of the chorus below.
Phos, son of Duna, creator of light, giver of love,
You dove into Petros’ sea of plight, stepped out of the streams of life above.
Phos, son of Duna, defeater of Python, sender of hope,
You set the Moonbow in our skies; your grace transcends our finite scope.
Phos, son of Duna, you were obedient unto death,
We will praise and serve you until our final mortal breath.
Obedient unto death.
The line rolls over me like a wave as I think of Jasper singing the same song the last time we were together, just days before his arrest. We’d spent the afternoon visiting the graves of our parents, graves that were marked modestly by the violet bouquets of irises we carried there week after week throughout the spring and summer months.
Obedient unto death.
Even then, before my brother’s execution and my own enslavement, I had trouble making sense of those words. I couldn’t fathom how a divine being so powerful could be slain…or how his infallible father Duna could allow it.
“Phos gave his life willingly, entered into the abyss of the Great Sea so that you and I never have to,” Jasper had tried to explain to me after I’d asked him where he thought our parents’ spirits had gone…if anywhere. “Mother and father rejoiced at the Moonbow’s appearing. They knew Phos was who he claimed to be. I feel I’ve been called to share the good news with all of Petros, Iris. Wherever Duna leads me. Beginning with you.”
I can see his face so clearly. The way his tranquil gray eyes smiled as he spoke. The soft blue circles beneath them formed by sleepless nights spent on his knees in prayer alongside others like him.
“I always pray for you, my sister. I always will,” he’d said.
I know little of Ireneus, but his shared beliefs with my brother are enough for me to know that I cannot have a hand in his death.
The singing stops on the path below. A man yells, then yells again:
“Gryphon! The Gryphon!”
I turn to see the Gryphon facing the noise with wings pulled high and rearward, forming a black feathered wall that blocks the sun and draws all eyes to hers, which now glow luminously with an infernal spark that sends my hand straight to my dagger. But what can I do to her?
Don’t do this, Gryphon!
“Ready your weapons! Ireneus, your sword!” I hear the voice command.
The Gryphon’s head lowers, her burning yellow eyes boring into my skull. With just one look, I can read her thoughts, and I don’t doubt she can read mine…
I want to be rid of this monster and hand her reins to another psiloi, one who is desensitized to this barbarism, to the ruthless judgments of non-existent gods come to life.
Sensing my trepidation, the Gryphon hops toward me, wild eyes pleading with me to remove the muzzle, to get on with this mission and make a meal of this traitorous priest, Ireneus.
The footsteps grow closer. They will see me soon, and what then?
Let the Gryphon do her work, I think. Prolong this anymore and you will both be dead before nightfall.
“Who are you?” I hear a voice ask me.
I turn to see the long slender face of an old man looking down at me, eyes filled with concern. He steps around the boulder, holding up his sword with both hands toward the Gryphon. I can see by his flowing white robes and multicolored turban that this is none other than the priest.
The Gryphon furiously flaps her wings and half flies, half jumps from one side of her nest to the other.
“You’re safe now,” says the priest, lending me a hand and helping me to my feet.
Three of the priest’s disciples arrive and catch their breaths. They too raise their swords to the Gryphon and eye me with suspicion.
“Who is she?” one of them asks.
“That’s the Gryphon of Diokles! We must kill it, master!” shouts another. “The girl is from Ēlektōr!”
Ireneus looks at me questioningly for a moment, then places his hand on my shoulder and whispers for only me to hear, “Daughter, would you like to come with us? It isn’t too late.”
“Do you swear to follow the orders you are given without deviation?” Diokles’s words materialize in my mind like a sudden patch of fog. I know that to harm the Gryphon, or impede her, will surely mean my own traitor’s death.
“Please,” I whisper. “Run now. As fast as you can!” I start walking backwards toward the Gryphon, waving the priest away with hands that grow hotter by the second.
The animal rushes to me and throws her neck down at my feet, begging me to free her. I place my fingers over the bronze muzzle and let them hover there, watching the back of the animal quickly rise and fall with each turbulent breath, and waiting for I don’t know what. I look up at Ireneus, who slowly begins to back away.
“Do it, Iris!” It’s Alexa’s voice. But I don’t know where it’s coming from. “Release her!”
Knowing Lycus and the others must be close by, I unfasten the muzzle and am thrust back into the nest as the Gryphon bolts past me and charges the priest, her curved talons reaching toward him, then knocking him into the boulder with a bone-breaking thud.
“No!” With my scream flies a single fireball from my right hand. It zooms like a flash of white lightning toward the beast, missing her head by inches, then slams into the boulder, forming a foot-long fissure and filling it with smoke. The Gryphon turns to me, her yellow eyes ablaze, and pipes her displeasure with me in loud, scraping squawks. I press my wrists to my ears and feel the intense heat of my hands encircling my head, chastising me for missing my mark.
Shuddering, I watch as Ireneus’s body goes limp like a ragdoll, white robes crumpling as he slouches
and falls to his side, sword slipping out of his right hand into the dust.
Ireneus’s three followers run at the Gryphon and wave their swords like mad men, then make threatening jabs toward the bird’s tree-like legs.
“Alexa?!” I yell. The Gryphon cocks her head at me. The men stop and look at me, bemused, then quickly glance around them and resume their fighting stances.
Where are the others?! I think.
I stand up and begin to walk around the nest’s perimeter to see if I can spot the other psiloi somewhere down the mountain. But after only a few steps, the Gryphon’s wings pop open again, this time forming a warning, a barrier, to keep me locked inside her lair.
She lets out a high, victorious shriek and ducks her head toward the ground. I watch in horror as Ireneus’s unconscious body is dragged away by the bloodthirsty scavenger. Shutting my eyes and covering my ears, I try to ignore the outcry of the three left standing, but after a minute or less, their shouting stops.
I open my eyes, but there is nothing to see, only Ireneus’s sword half-hidden in the boulder’s shadow. I go to it and pick it up, then cautiously step around the rock and gaze down the mountain until the weight of what I see takes the air out of my lungs and steals the ground under my feet.
There, in the midst of the sun-bathed path, lie the four blood-soaked bodies of Ireneus and his disciples being pecked and prodded by the Gryphon’s crimson beak.
I hear myself scream as I will myself off the ground and dash back up the path toward the aerie. If I try to run elsewhere, I fear the Gryphon will warn me no more, and then it will be my entrails she’s feasting on.
“Iris! Girl, where are you going?” I turn to see Lycus shouting at me from below, just a few feet from the Gryphon who pays him no mind as she continues to gorge herself. “You can come down now!”
I make haste down the path, carefully gripping Ireneus’s sword and averting my eyes from the carnage of the Gryphon’s kill. Waiting for me are all ten of my fellow psiloi who synchronously lower their heads in respect, even Alexa.
“What have you got there?” asks Lycus, looking at the sword.
“It belonged to Ireneus,” I say.
Lycus looks pleased and begins to say something when Alexa interjects.
“I didn’t think you had it in you!” she says. Then she turns to the others, pumps her petite fist in the air and leads the group as they cry out:
“Victory rewards the brave! Victory rewards the brave!”
I smile, but it is by no means a proud smile or a thankful smile, but a troubled one, a primal reaction formed by agitated nerves and twitching muscles. I hurry toward Lycus whose greedy arms and triumphant eyes reach out for the martyr’s sword.
“Well done,” he commends me, taking the sword. “We looked for the priest down at the oasis and feared he might have migrated back west toward civilization.”
“He asked me if I wanted to go with him,” I confess, my voice devoid of emotion, though my soul feels thick with it.
“You made the right choice,” he says.
Alexa skips over to join us and takes me by the hand, her blond hair and pretty, nymph-like smile the perfect façade to mask her nefarious nature.
“Now I know,” she chirps, “you truly are a sister.”
“Where were you earlier?” I ask. “When I called for you.”
“What do you mean? I’ve been with Lycus and the others taking care of the rest of Ireneus’s men,” she says.
“But I heard you up on the mountain. You yelled at me to let the Gryphon go. I heard you...”
Alexa looks at me as though I’ve become the Hydra and sprouted eight heads.
“Sister, I assure you it wasn’t me.” She puts her hands to my cheeks. “You feel a little warm. Perhaps you’re becoming ill... You have a weak stomach, perhaps?” she grins.
“Alexa has been with us, Iris,” Lycus attests. “I would wager the voice you heard was your own conscience speaking to you. And you did right to listen to it.”
I feel my stomach tighten, my lip and brow become dotted with sweat as I hear another voice, an inner voice, whispering clearly:
You are listening to fools!
A gray tunnel quickly encloses my vision, growing darker and darker until all light and every sound are sucked out, and all I can feel is the profound sensation of dread paralyzing my body and tormenting my mind.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
INTERVENTION
I wake up inside a sandstone cave, one of dozens that honeycomb the mountains surrounding the Soukinoi camp. Alexa and five other women are curled up close together like cats against the walls, their weapons heaped one on top of the other in the middle of the space. I feel a damp cloth pressed against my forehead and notice a half-empty cup near the wall on my right. I pick it up and detect the spicy scent of ginger root, and I wonder if it was Alexa, my new “sister,” who tended to me after my world went black atop the mountain.
My stomach is no longer in knots, my face no longer perspires, but the ache in my soul still persists, and I fear it will linger until the fresh images of the Gryphon’s slaughter dim in the remotest recesses of my mind. Or, perhaps, until I become callous toward the sight of such brutality and learn not to question the means by which we obtain victory.
“We make war that we may live in peace,” I whisper to myself, hoping these words of a long-dead Petrodian sage will restore mettle to my mind, and zeal to my soul so the doma will operate as it should.
I crawl to the cave’s edge and lean against the wall, watching the purple cloak of night tear into pieces, breaking apart beneath the fiery touch of sunrise.
Water has never felt so wonderful. Not even in the desert when my throat was parched and my light skin burned. As I wade in the hot pool inside the bathhouse, I shut my eyes and try to imagine the filth and guilt and blood of yesterday being washed away from my body. The temperature of this pool is too scalding for most of the Soukinoi, but to me, it feels perfect. I feel purged…cleansed. The inner aching ceases.
I lie on my back on top of the water and let the feeling of weightlessness lull me to the verge of sleep. I hear the muffled conversation and splashing of horseplay of the Soukinoi in the pools adjacent to mine, but I am content not to fraternize or talk of last night’s killing. All I want to do is let my memories of the mission slough off from my skin like a layer of grime and sink to the bottom of this pool.
“Soukina!”
As soon as I finally feel at ease, I am jolted out of my daze by a man’s resounding shout and the sound of his sandals slapping across the stone floor.
“Iris, care to join us?”
Above me stands Diokles with an amused look on his face as he waves at the three men accompanying him to pass by, one of whom wears a sackcloth bag over his head…and a Pythonian tattoo on his right forearm…
“Uh, yes – yes, sir!” I say, standing to my feet and nervously twisting the water out of my heavy hair.
“You did well yesterday. I pray the ordeal wasn’t too much for you to endure.” He says, his sardonic tone indicating that he knows I was ill.
“I’ve endured worse,” I reply, fighting the urge to cast a glance at the tattooed man. “I think the Gryphon and I could become great friends,” I lie. In truth, I would rather meet Acheron’s whip seven straight nights than consort with that loathsome beast again.
“Very good. You have surpassed my sister’s expectations. And that is no small feat,” he grins. “Here, let me help you out of there.”
Diokles moves to the pool’s steps, bends forward and extends his hand.
“Thank you,” I say, letting him pull me out. “I hope I have surpassed your expectations as well.”
“You will find that my expectations are never exceeded, sister. No Soukinos I have ever trained has proven as passionate, as unflinching as I,” he says, still gripping my hand, his head close to mine as he stares into my eyes as if waiting for me to recoil.
But I don’t. I stare back stubbo
rnly with as much fervor as I can muster, feeling the solacing droplets of water covering my skin evaporate one by one into the sultry air of the bathhouse.
“You can consider that a challenge,” he smiles again as he releases my tingling hand, then strides off toward the others bathing and merrymaking nearby.
I follow after him and sit on the nearest corner of the crowded colder pool, letting my legs dangle casually in the water, hoping that the tattooed prisoner presently being escorted to Diokles’s side is nobody I know.
“Soukinoi!” shouts our leader.
Stillness ripples through the bathhouse. The carefree chatter fades to curious whispers, and then to steady breath upon the waves. Diokles waits until every last echo has died to proceed with his announcement.
“Many of you know the man standing here before you. Although, to call him a man is to elevate him high above his rightful rank among Duna’s hierarchy of creatures, for he is no more than a maggot, a traitor to Python, a traitor to us… A true man would have made up his mind whose side he was on by now, wouldn’t you agree, soldiers?!”
The bathhouse erupts in a discordant blend of booing, laughing, hissing, applauding until Diokles raises his hand and presses a finger to his lips. Without saying another word, he inches closer to the covered man and swiftly pulls the bag off of his head with such force that the prisoner loses his balance and falls headlong into the pool.
I hear Alexa’s shrill, girlish laughter ringing out over the crowd, and then a collective gasp as the man emerges from the water, pushing his black hair back from his eyes.
Tycho!
My first impulse is to slide into the pool and conceal myself among the small sea of soldiers. My warm body stings as it’s plunged to the throat in ice-cold water. I wait for myself to adjust to it, but I never do; the stinging subsides, but I’m still left shaking. I’m completely scared stiff. I can almost sense the temperature in the bathhouse rising ten degrees as blood runs hot and muscles tense.
