The Thinara King (The Child of the Erinyes)

by Lochlann, Rebecca

  Death from starvation was painful. But at least the leaking pipe provided a little water, though never enough to truly slake his thirst.

  At some point, as his stomach chewed at his bones, he thought he heard voices. He hoisted onto his elbows, unable to tell if the sound was real or another dream. Gradually the voices grew clearer. He discerned words. Women were speaking somewhere above him. Their conversation floated through a clay pipe that entered his cell at the ceiling and ran down one of the walls, ending at the floor. Somehow it concentrated the sound at its source and sent it to Chrysaleon quite clearly, almost as if the women were standing in the same room. He inched closer, his nose wrinkling at the sour smell of rat droppings.

  “Our spies say he’s become a drunkard,” one said. “How does he manage to keep us enslaved? Potnia must want him to succeed.”

  “Just be grateful you aren’t the queen,” said another.

  “Can you hear me?” Chrysaleon cupped his hands around the ragged opening. “Are you there?”

  No answer. The hole’s occupant squeaked and shuffled.

  He still heard the voices, but they grew fainter. Soon there was only silence.

  The next day he heard the same two, speaking their disgruntlement. And the next. And the next. Sometimes the voices came and went swiftly, as though the women walked past without pausing. At others, they stopped to gossip. But no matter how loudly he shouted into the hole, they never heard him.

  Then, at last, they said something so strange he didn’t even try to get their attention.

  “Harpalycus has learned of the thinara king,” said the one with the raspy voice.

  “Who would have told him?” This one sounded younger, and had a tendency to giggle or weep with equal frequency. “He is male and uninitiated. And our enemy.”

  There was a pause. The first woman said, “He probably tortured Minos Themiste.”

  The voices faded then returned.

  “—the entire prophecy?”

  “Everyone will believe him Goddess-blessed. The king-sacrifice will be defeated.”

  “Isn’t it already?”

  The voices faded again, making Chrysaleon grit his teeth in frustration.

  “—make the council believe that a god placed him here, gave him his triumph.”

  “If he convinces them he is the great-year-king….”

  “No one but Minos would hold more power.”

  “How can he do it, though? He murders our people, rapes the priestesses.”

  “No one ever said the council had any brains.”

  “But—”

  “His commands will be accepted, no matter how outrageous. And you know what his first decree will be.”

  “Hsst—someone is coming.”

  He heard faint sounds. Scuffling. A male voice.

  “What are you doing here? Lazy whore.”

  A scream. Then the unmistakable keening women always made when someone died. It cut off abruptly, and there was only the same empty silence that usually filled his days and nights.

  Great-year-king. What else had she called it? Thinara king. He’d never heard either of these titles.

  Everyone will believe him Goddess-blessed.

  The king-sacrifice will be defeated.

  He pondered until awareness ebbed into sleep.

  His belly crept past hunger. Thirst made his throat swell. He sucked the ends of his hair and licked water off the wall. Day by day, it grew colder and he constantly shivered.

  A girl stood beside him, looking at him with an expression of serene curiosity. How long had she been there? Her black hair fell long and straight over naked shoulders. Around her forehead ran a crown of blood-red anemones.

  Her voice flowed over him like soft, soothing cricket-song and cool misty air. “You are the fountainhead.”

  She ruptured into a scatter of ivory light as another form walked through her.

  A dark hood disguised the features but she lifted her hands and pushed it back, revealing herself.

  “Selene?” he whispered.

  For some time she just stood there, looking at him. Then she bent, grasped his left hand, and wrapped something around his wrist. He was too weak to protest or struggle.

  She straightened. “I could save you,” she said. “But it would be better, I think, if you died.”

  He bit the inside of his lip in an effort to remain conscious. How he hated this bitch. If only whatever was being done to Aridela could instead be done to Selene.

  “Aridela loves you,” she said, backing away. “I’ve brought you her token. Die in peace.”

  “No—help me.” He was sure he said the words, but she melted into the shadows and vanished.

  Dying made his dreams exquisitely vivid. No doubt this was another. Selene couldn’t enter his cell and leave again. Hadn’t he inspected every crack, every flaw for a means to escape?

  He was so thirsty. Yet now when he tried to lick moisture off the cell wall, he tasted only stone dust. The leaking water pipe, his only salvation, must have dried up or frozen. Death would come quickly now.

  The king-sacrifice will be defeated.

  He couldn’t move his arms or legs.

  Aridela reclined on a bed of soft grass and pine needles. Menoetius knelt before her. He clasped her hand, and she made no protest. He kissed her. She put her arm around his neck and pulled him closer. Golden light infused them. I will be with you… in you… of you. She didn’t seem to mind the scars. The colors surrounding them were bright and fluid, like water formed of rainbows.

  Menoetius. Was he alive? What of Aridela? Harpalycus wouldn’t kill her or give her to another man. He would keep her for torture and rape, for his sadistic pleasure. He would force her to bear his unholy offspring.

  Gasping, his heart fluttering and skipping, Chrysaleon inched, digging his fingertips in the cold dirt, to the wall of his cell. He pounded with his fist. He fell back, drifting from vision to vision.

  He and Menoetius dropped off the ledge in the cave of Velchanos. There was Aridela on the sheepskin, seductive and willing.

  But Menoetius was in his way. He grabbed his brother’s arm. Menoetius turned toward him, too slowly to be real. His mask disintegrated then reformed into the head of a real bull. His body elongated; he dropped on all fours. One heavy, dangerous hoof scraped the dirt.

  Before Chrysaleon could react the bull charged. The horn splintered his ribs and pierced his heart.

  He felt his life ebb in a hot flow, not unlike the unstoppable fall of water over a cliff. The bull stood over him, snorting.

  Aridela came forward, resting her hand on the bull’s neck, and looked down at him dispassionately.

  “No,” he whispered. “I won’t let Menoetius defeat me.”

  The air felt thick, silent and black. It must be night. He thought he heard breathing. He listened, no longer caring if the death maidens came.

  “Chrysaleon?”

  He opened his mouth, but his voice caught against the back of his throat like old, corroded bronze, and he gave up the effort.

  Cool fingers caressed his forearm then slipped around his neck, lifting his head. The rim of a cup touched his lips.

  Water. Wondrous, delicious, life-giving water flowed over his tongue. He choked. The cup waited, ready to give him another chance when he recovered.

  Just enough moonlight pierced the holes in the wall to chase away shadows from the center of the floor.

  A figure knelt beside him. He felt the swell of a woman’s breast against his arm. Gradually, as he caught a hint of the crescent moon on her forehead and the perfect symmetry of her bone structure, he realized she was Themiste, Crete’s famed oracle. A warm smell, like dusty sunlight and blooming mountain wildflowers, surrounded him. He tried again to speak but couldn’t.

  She helped him to his feet. He was surprised at how nimbly he rose. She guided him toward a wall. Glancing back, he started violently when he saw his own body, still lying, thin and filthy, on the dirt floor.

/>   He held up his hands. Gauzy as a spider web or a veil of cloud, they merely softened his view of Themiste’s form as he peered through them.

  Yet every muscle and sinew, even his skin, throbbed with pain. He couldn’t straighten. Every step hurt. Even shifting his gaze from his dream-like hand to Themiste hurt.

  She waited. Of course there was no hurry. Just the journey to the land of shadows. No doubt she, too, had been killed by Harpalycus, and now served as one of Goddess Athene’s handmaids. She would lead him to the House of the Dead, make him ready for crossing the Acheron, for surely, since he hadn’t given his blood to the holy axe, he wouldn’t be allowed to enter that happy place the Cretans called Hesperia.

  She made a sweeping gesture as though outlining an arch on the wall. The rocks melted into a cavernous black hole. “Come,” she said, lighting a small clay lamp, and stepped through the opening.

  Her long loose hair moved as though it had life of its own. What he’d thought a necklace was really a snake coiled around her neck like an ornament.

  She sealed the stones behind him. Chrysaleon couldn’t tell where the doorway had been.

  Glowing lamps, set at intervals into the walls, lifted the rock corridor from blackness. As they walked, slowly, because every step sent arrows of pain shooting through Chrysaleon’s legs, he began to notice painted images. Some were faded, crumbled, while others seemed newly composed. He paused to examine the nearest. Two stylistic men stood on either side of a crowned, bare-breasted woman, who held in one hand a staff topped with the labrys axe. One of the men saluted her; the other reached out in supplication. The artist had added a crouched lion, a bull with lowered head, and a gnarled tree with spiraling, serpentine roots.

  “What are these?” he asked.

  “The paintings tell Kaphtor’s story, from its beginning and beyond, to its end,” she said.

  The wall displayed illustrations of flowers, sheaves of barley, women weaving baskets and boys using sticks to knock olives from trees. Doves and swallows swooped around pillars resembling those at Labyrinthos. Men and women turned somersaults over the backs of bulls. Time and again he saw crescent moons, similar to the one tattooed in blue on Themiste’s forehead. Next to every moon representation stood a youth in a loincloth, sword in hand.

  The path wound downward, causing Chrysaleon’s gossamer shins to burn. He stopped to rest many times. He didn’t understand how he could suffer physical pain when he was dead. Themiste waited whenever he stopped, watching him from tranquil, long-lashed eyes. She’d been one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen in life. In death, she left him breathless. He tried not to stare at her.

  “Where are you taking me?” he asked.

  “To Velchanos.”

  Shock bolted through his body. At last he managed, “The god lives here?”

  “We travel his pathway. This is the true labyrinth. It exists in secret, beneath the layers of cities that have come and gone with the life and demise of civilizations. Our Lady created it when her people fled the wars and crossed the sea to Kaphtor. Now it is the way to Velchanos, the Keeper of the River of Light, he who gave his blood for the sake of mortals.” Her voice was soothing, melodious, a trickle of water. It held no hurry or strain.

  “What wars?”

  “They happened long before any record-keeping, in another land. Many of my ancestors died, for the greed of our enemies was strong.”

  “Who were they?”

  She tucked his arm through hers and they walked again, ever downward. “No one knew them, or from where they came, but they were well armed and ruthless. At the end, in the desperation brought by loss of hope, my people’s leaders used holy, ancient rites to bring Athene’s son. By that time only a few remained. If they had called him sooner, perhaps the ruin wouldn’t have been so complete. But fear held them back. It was believed that to summon the Velchanos would bring unforeseen consequences that might never be reversed.” Themiste glanced at him, her liquid doe eyes full of indecipherable messages, of entreaty. For what, he could not comprehend, but a powerful urge rose within to fulfill it, whatever it was.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Velchanos destroyed the invaders,” she said simply. “He scattered the survivors to each corner of the world. In these underground corridors, he placed the beasts of old, the basilisk, the sphinx, the dragon and gryphon. He gave the Above World to mortals: to women and men. That entire time is now lost, as is the thread of kinship. The dispersed tribes developed their own customs and beliefs. They composed languages others don’t understand. Some fight their neighbors and some seek peace. Some have pale skin, like the face of the moon, and some are obsidian, like moonless night. But all were once one. One kin, one people.”

  “Your tale is like nothing I have ever heard. Is it true? Did it really happen?”

  Themiste’s shrug and the tilt of her head suggested she had considered that question. “No one knows. It has come down through time. It is legend, or perhaps an enchantment.”

  “An enchantment?” Chrysaleon wanted to scoff. But he was dead, and walking arm in arm with a ghost. Everything he had ever believed was upended.

  Themiste nodded. “The Moerae weave enchantments through the skeins of our fate, my lord; they can turn our course when we think of other things, change our destinies and we won’t ever know. Magic runs alongside every action we take. Best to remember, and tread carefully.”

  The walkway emerged into a cavern. She held her lamp high as they felt their way, but the light made only the faintest pool of illumination at their feet.

  There were no paintings here. Their footsteps echoed into unfathomable space. Water dripped from unseen stalactites. Yet, surprisingly, the air was warm, and carried the faint scent of spices.

  “We’ll continue to an underground sea,” Themiste said. “You can rest there.”

  Chrysaleon tensed when he heard a rumbling growl ooze from the darkness.

  “Many creatures live here,” Themiste said. “We must be quiet.”

  They walked on, pausing once as a lizard, big as a man, crossed their path. It was red, scaled, with slitted eyes and a crest of bone around its neck. It hissed at them, revealing rows of wicked teeth.

  Chrysaleon itched for his sword, or at least a knife. Themiste gripped his forearm and put her finger to her lips. They waited, and soon the lizard passed by.

  They walked on. The encounter had sparked a memory of his younger brother, Gelanor, who had given him a dagger on his last birthday. Gelanor… the babe who slipped from his mother’s womb making a sound she’d insisted was a giggle, though the king maintained it was more likely distress. She’d waved away his cynical comments and demanded the child be named accordingly.

  Gelanor. ‘Laughter.’

  If Gelanor still lived, he would be sixteen, the same age as Aridela. Grief and remorse weighted Chrysaleon’s limbs as he trudged the path. The last he’d seen of his brother had been on the pier as he and Menoetius were setting sail for Crete. Chrysaleon had been dismissive and cool, impatient to be away. He’d brushed off the youth’s requests for trinkets, and his complaints that he never got to do anything exciting. Now Chrysaleon would give much for an afternoon of hunting, a fistfight or a wrestling match. Time was what he wished for now. Time, with his brother. Guilt and worry proving too much to bear, he stopped again, panting. His heart pounded.

  Themiste studied him, missing nothing, he was sure. “Yours is a long journey, and a heavy responsibility,” she said, her expression unfathomable. “You have more power than you know, Zagreus, and choices to make which will determine the future of generations. I wonder what you will do—will you reunite the queen with her throne? Or will you choose another path?”

  “Aridela?” Chrysaleon gasped, fighting to catch his breath. He felt old and tired, but Themiste’s words ignited dazzling hope. “She is alive?”

  “For now.” A frown formed between her brows. “Our kings are the blood of Kaphtor, and our queens the earth t
hat drinks it. If death claims the queen, our civilization will vanish from history, from all human knowledge, as Callisti has done.” Gently gripping his elbow, she began walking again, and he followed.

  “The marrow of Callisti fell from the skies upon Kaphtor,” Themiste said quietly. “By the time the Lady’s anger burned out, nothing remained. Athene, when angered, is swift in exacting vengeance.”

  Chrysaleon’s joy at hearing of Aridela’s survival faded into the horror of the night when fire, ash and wind nearly destroyed Crete. If Themiste spoke the truth, Athene was a goddess so powerful, so merciless, no mortal could dare cross her; from such a deity no mere man could keep secrets. Yet if that were so, why would she seek to help him, knowing as she must his true designs? And why had Harpalycus, the instrument of Callisti’s obliteration, escaped without injury while so many innocents perished?

  Surely none of this mattered. He was dead and could no longer make any difference. Why did the oracle imply that he could reunite Aridela with her throne? Perhaps there was a way to do it from beyond the grave.

  Greenish spears of light, like the sun shining through ferns, pierced the darkness ahead. Themiste said, “We are through the cave.”

  The light seemed to have no source, but surrounded them softly, gently. It swayed and shimmered as though diffused through water. As they rounded a bend in the path, the view before them opened up. The smell of saltwater filled the air and Chrysaleon looked upon a vast underground sea, stretching away into blackness.

  Two creatures stood on the shore. They had the bodies of lions, but with feathered, birdlike wings tucked into their shoulders, and the heads and faces of eagles. He recognized them immediately from many children’s tales.

  Gryphons.

  “Yes, my lord.” Themiste nodded, though he’d said nothing. “They will carry us the rest of the way.”

  Chrysaleon lifted her onto the back of one and mounted the other, moving slowly and avoiding the enormous hooked beaks. The feathers unfurled into huge, diaphanous wings that carried them into the air, soundlessly and gracefully.

  Now he knew beyond doubt he was dead.