by Diana Tyler
“You’ll have your sea legs soon enough,” Tycho laughs.
Thanks to yours, I’ve lived to see another morning, I think, and I try to discern whether I feel grateful to him, or resentful. I suppose I will have to wait and see what Limén holds for me before I can be sure…
“I don’t intend to board another boat again if I can help it,” I say. I untie my sandals and carry my wobbly legs as fast I can toward the white, glowing shore, then plunge each foot into the sparkling sand and drop onto it like a child introducing herself to snow. I remove the jasper stone from my girdle and hold it up to the iris-colored sky. It fits there perfectly, a radiant red queen for the glorious gold sun.
I admire these regal spheres until a wind pushes a cloud across the sun. I lower my stone, reminded of Carya’s last words to me:
“Remember hope will follow you into bright orange desert sun.”
Has hope followed me here to Limén, this Eusebian land on the eastern edge of the desert wilderness?
Before I can begin to wonder what that meddlesome nymph might have meant with her riddle, Tycho drops my sandals at my side.
“What do you suppose you’ll do now?” he asks.
I slip the stone back into its pouch and put on my sandals as I try to conceive a response that will relieve him of the curious pity he has for me.
“If you must know, I’m going to find work,” I say, rising to my feet. Tycho searches my eyes, unsure of the confidence I’m trying hard to project with unblinking eyes, a slight upward tilt of my chin, and easy, even breaths. “As a tanner, like my father.” Tycho looks down at his right arm, then back at me with eyes darkened by the unknown memories that lurk behind them.
“Your papa taught you well. Never trust Pythonians…no matter what they do,” he says. He takes my left hand in his and leans over it with a kiss. “You’ll be in my prayers, Iris.”
I nod just once, and off he walks without another word.
As I watch him disappear into the crowd, I tremble and gaze at the dome of the desert sun. What if this Pythonian, my mysterious protector, was the “hope” of which Carya sang? If Duna does exist, and his messenger-nymph had indeed delivered a message to me, I have judged it wrongly, rejected it willfully, and cast it away without even saying thank you.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MESSENGER
I float aimlessly through Limén’s streets like a disembodied spirit journeying along the Styx, but without the underworld ferryman to guide me to my destination, I don’t know when or where to stop, and feel as though I might haunt this place forever. The streets are crowded with shouting merchants, braying donkeys being prodded and laden with goods, and busy slaves, some buying fine frocks of every shade, others honey-drizzled pastries, ceramic jugs of wine, and silk slippers.
The sight of shoes reminds me that I haven’t been floating. On the contrary, I have walked more than twenty miles in a matter of days. I look down at my own dust-covered feet, my toenails caked with mud, and the deteriorating sandals that have rubbed raw my heels and ankles. I promise myself that the first thing I will do when I earn my first drachma is buy a sturdy pair of boots, the kind the actors wear in tragic plays to increase their stature.
The edge of town isn’t far, I tell myself. Just make it to a tannery. It won’t be far…
I continue on, one tiresome, sore step at a time until the sunlight’s departure and the emergence of shadows awaken my consciousness; a few seconds later, the strong, familiar whiff of a dead animal gets my attention.
I turn to see an old man, a tanner no doubt, trudging slowly toward the street’s lonely end, a mound of dried animal skins stacked on either shoulder. His hair is gray and nearly gone, his frame wiry, but not weak. As if sensing my furtive examination of him, the tanner turns slightly to the right, and I see a slight, twinkling eye that reminds me of my father’s. Half-driven by my desperate need for food and work, half-driven to meet a man so much like my father, I hurry after him.
“Sir! Sir!” I call out, then join him at his side. He seems unsurprised by my sudden appearance and continues on at a steady pace, as if passing the time with an old friend.
“Hello, girl. Welcome to the city.”
“Hello,” I say slowly, mimicking the mellowness of his voice. “How did you know I’m not from Limén?”
“I’ve lived here all my sixty-eight years and walked up and down this street more times than I know how to count. Yours is the only strange face I know,” he says, pausing to skim my face a few seconds to make certain it’s foreign to him.
“Well it won’t be strange to you any longer. My name is Iris. I’m a tanner’s daughter from Eirene.”
“A tanner, you say? Well, you’re no stranger indeed,” he says, eyebrows forming a pleasant arch around his sky-blue eyes. “I’m Gennadius, a tanner also. But I’m sure you knew that.” He shrugs his shoulders and tilts his head back toward the load of work he carries.
“May I help you, Gennadius?” I ask, holding open my arms to receive half of the skins. He stops walking and takes a good look at me, this time to discern not my identity, but my intentions.
“Are you trying to get work from me, girl?” he asks.
“Yes, sir. I know tanning is not a woman’s trade, but it’s the only one I know. I can show you.”
“Well…the smell of urine and animal brains hasn’t turned you back yet…” he says, looking to the solitary house ahead, half a mile removed from the last home lining the broad road behind us. “In fact,” he adds with a sniff. “I think I smell a bit of the trade on you!”
I decide not to explain his shrewd observation lest that lead to demands for more information than necessary, so I take the skins from his right shoulder to prove my stomach for them. The tanner smiles in amusement, and at his silent gesture of acceptance, I am surprised to find that I am, in fact, tremendously grateful for it.
Gennadius leads us around his tiny home to an even smaller tannery, which isn’t nearly far enough from the household to keep their noses safe from the fetid fumes. I suppose they, like my family and me, have grown accustomed to the indecent aroma of animal excrement and decaying flesh. The human body has wondrous ways of adapting to cruel conditions; staying upright without vomiting in the midst of this repugnant hovel is no exception.
Inside the tannery sits sleeping a diminutive woman of full, raven hair interwoven with subtle strands of white. The largest pieces of colorless hair frame a face so brown and worn that it resembles the leather her trade produces. Before her feet are two large circular vats, one filled with water and new skins to be softened, the other waiting for our latest delivery.
Gennadius nods toward the empty vat and proceeds to submerge his skins into them. I do the same, as quietly as I can as not to disturb the mistress who looks as though she could sleep until summer.
“Aspasia, wake up, my sweet!” Gennadius shouts. “We have a guest!” His wife slowly opens one eye, not at all startled by our intrusion. My family and I always slept like babies; surrounded by the stench of death, the thought of thieves never crossed our minds.
Gennadius walks over to his wife, takes her by the hand, and helps her to her feet.
“Aspasia, this young lady is a tanner’s daughter. Her name is – ”
“I know who this girl is. I told you she would be coming, Gennadius,” the woman interrupts with a honey-smooth voice that seems to sing. Then she turns to me. “Carya told me you were coming.” She begins walking toward me with the glad smile of a grandmother who has known me all of my life.
“Carya?” The question leaps out of me like a lamb from a thicket. Why is that nymph chasing me?
“That is, of course, if you’re the girl with the jasper stone…” she says, her voice sliding down along with her gaze, which fixes itself on my girdle.
Unsure if the old woman is a prophetess, a witch, or truly the friend of my childhood comforter, I decide it’s best to say nothing and leave before she reads my thoughts…learns about my power. I
meet Gennadius’s eyes, and with a simple nod try to convey the overwhelming thankfulness I feel for the unearned trust and the warmth of home, however brief, that he gave to me.
As I turn for the door, I feel a gentle hand on my back and am reminded of Acheron’s whip.
“The maiden told me your wounds may still need tending to,” Aspasia says.
“I have to go,” is my stern reply. “My parents taught me better than to keep company with a sorceress. I must say, it’s very clever of you to concoct your potions and cast your spells out here. I’m sure the stench turns everyone else away.”
“Gennadius, bring some ginger, cinnamon, and calendula.” The words hardly escape Aspasia’s mouth before her husband leaves us for the healing herbs. “Iris. Look at me, child.” I turn around and look into her large jade eyes, surrounded by deep lines of inviting laughter. An enchantress’s eyes would be empty of joy and without color; hers are full of both. “You mustn’t go. The reward is great for a fugitive’s captor,” she says.
“And how am I to be sure you aren’t out for that reward?” I ask with heightening suspicion. I will not be bewitched by this Siren’s song. “How can I know that you aren’t a Pythonian witch who has learned of me from some plume of smoke or pool of water under a full moon?” Aspasia’s smile fades.
“I am no witch. May no one ever think me so, Duna,” she implores, looking up through the ceiling toward her god. She lowers her eyes back to mine and takes my hand. “You have good reason to believe that I am untrustworthy, I know. But you must believe…not everyone is your enemy.”
I hear the door open behind us followed by the slow footsteps of Gennadius. As if sensing the tension in the room, he lightly kisses his wife’s temple and places in her free hand a leather pouch that smells wonderfully of spices. Then he slips a golden calendula flower behind her ear and whispers, “Perhaps you should tell the young lady the message.” Aspasia nods, taking the flower from her ear. She twirls it carefully in her fingers before drawing it to her nose, breathing in its vibrancy.
“My husband and I are followers of Duna, child. By his providence, he found it right to send his servant Carya to us with a message. A message for you.”
“Carya has given me messages herself!” I exclaim. “Why doesn’t she deliver this one?” I too look to the ceiling, opening my arms in invitation to my timid nymph.
“Shhhh…Iris…” With merely two words, my blood is cooled and my pulse slowed by Gennadius’s dove-like voice. “When I was a boy I knew the adventures of Odysseus and the labors of Jason and Herakles by heart. I knew them so well that my imagination would often lead me through the woods where it created Cyclopses, Calypso’s island, the Cretan Bull…” he chuckles as the boyhood scenes parade past his mind’s eye. “I was the bravest warrior, the most renowned hero in all of Limén,” he grins, playfully placing his right hand over his breast in solemn salute to his youthful fantasized feats.
Aspasia wraps a bare brown arm around his waist and finishes his thoughts. “Carya is not a figment of your imagination, child. You never dreamed her up, never followed her into a forest planted and watered by Alpha myths and legends. She is as real as we are. And Duna wants you to know it!” She points at me with the calendula’s rich green stem and waits for my response.
I pull the jasper stone out of my pouch and cup it in my hands. Closing my eyes, my thoughts travel back to the darkness of last night and the swirling chaos of my dreams; then, bleeding out from those, the nauseous, unfading images of Jasper’s body burning on the pyre and Niobe’s glassy eyes staring back at me from Acheron’s mosaic river.
Do I want truly want vengeance? The question arises not from my brain, but from somewhere deep inside me, calling out like a lost voice echoing against the cold black walls of an unexplored cave. Despite my upbringing, and my inherent regard for life’s sanctity and Eusebian honor, I know my answer.
Yes, yes, I want to kill Acheron! I answer back to that unidentifiable echo ascending from my soul. And that is all I must know. That is the first step I must take toward avenging my brother, Niobe, and all the others Acheron has slain.
“I will listen to the nymph’s message,” I say, opening my eyes to the modest gleam of a sun ray blessing the tannery with ironic sweetness. Aspasia smiles, takes Gennadius’s hand, then softly pushes the flower behind my ear and cups my chin in her wrinkled palm.
“Jasper red as blood, healing flower orange as fire,
Your desert journey shall be paved with stones of black desire.
The one you left on the Limén shore was sent to spare you from the knife;
Near the amber scrolls it shall be your turn to speak up for his life.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
AMBER
The calendula flower, cheerful as a springtime blossom can be, falls from my ear and drops to the floor. I follow after it, sinking to my knees as the thump-thump! thump-thump! of my heart intensifies. I think back to the beautiful blue barn swallow whose wing I fractured as a senseless girl, how I led Jasper to the bridge so he could bandage her and scooped her out of the nest; I felt her fragile heart pound at so furious a pace, I thought she would die from panic. “Shhhhh….shhhhh…I’m only trying to help you,” I cooed.
But she never settled down. Not until the bandage was removed, the cage unlatched, and she was free to fly again. Now here I sit, a frightened bird who, even in benevolent hands, cannot quiet itself to be succored.
I smell the cinnamon and ginger as Aspasia makes her way to my side. She sets the leather pouch on the floor and pulls it apart with her bony, branch-like fingers.
“I will put supper on the table,” Gennadius says, then respectfully exits so that my back may be exposed to absorb Aspasia’s medicine.
“I – I don’t think I have much of an appetite,” I say, my head aching with a flood of fears, of frustration, certainly, but more than that, of awe. I quake at the indisputable evidence of an all-knowing god, reigning high above the Moonbow, who, for reasons confounding and unknowable, has chosen to speak to me, an orphan, a runaway, a huntress tolerating this world just long enough so that one last kill can be made.
My lacerations freshly covered with Aspasia’s salve, I sit comfortably at the tanner’s table before a meager bowl of porridge and a disproportionate mound of almonds and walnuts.
I stir the piping hot porridge with a seashell spoon as Aspasia pushes into my elbow a miniature jar of cinnamon. “Thank you…” I say, unsure of its use.
“You put that on your porridge, Iris. It’s better that way,” Gennadius says, happily sprinkling the spice into his own steaming bowl.
“It’s good for your wounds,” chimes Aspasia. “And eat the nuts, Iris. They will help you sleep.”
“She’s right,” says Gennadius. “I nibble on a handful every night and scarcely ever hear the noise outside.”
“What noise?” I ask, munching on an almond. “There’s nothing around. I bet I could hear a pin drop out here.”
“The Soukinoi,” says Aspasia. “You haven’t heard of them?” I shake my head as the alluring scent of cinnamon begins to arouse my appetite. “Oh…well, you may not have heard their name, but you know who they are.”
“I’ve been a slave for three years, my lady. Kept behind walls, only released long enough to fetch water and buy bread.”
“Carya revealed to me that you met them at the Okeanos River a few nights ago,” says Aspasia, pouring water into my cup.
“‘Met’ is hardly the right word,” I say. “I was captured by a Giant and nearly stabbed to death by a band of outlaws! I suppose Carya left that part out.” Gennadius snorts, trying to restrain his laughter. Aspasia calmly takes a sip of water.
“You’ve been through more than we could possibly comprehend,” she says. “I know that good and well. I don’t know why Duna has chosen us to take you in, give you his message, feed and shelter you for who knows how long. But he has.”
“Did Carya tell you anything else about me?” I ask, won
dering if she knows that I’m an Asher.
“Only what her message said. That you’re headed to Ēlektōr.” Aspasia draws a deep breath through her nostrils, and as she releases it, pulls something from her lap with a clasped hand. She reaches over the table and places in its center a golden, oval-shaped gemstone the size of a dried apricot.
“What is that?” I ask.
“Amber,” she replies. “It’s where the Soukinoi derived their name…from the Alpha legend. Ēlektōr is their fortress in the desert.”
The myth of Helios and his son Phaeton is a popular Alpha dirge. I often began to weep as I passed by the sound of it being played on the kithara at Alpha funerals; the lamenting melody accompanied by woeful – and yet harmonious – sobs made me mourn for a deceased soul I never knew. I have always marveled at the power music has over the human spirit, at its ability to turn time on its head and with one song send captivated minds back to hours of insufferable sorrow… and with the next, to evanescent moments of unbridled ecstasy in which all the world seems to glisten, basking in a mist of sublime satisfaction.
I hum the tune quietly and listen to my memories sing the words:
“Phaeton, boy born shining,
Child thirsting to climb the sky.
Phaeton, boy born pining,
Your ambition made you fly.
Upon the chariot of the sun you filled history with your name,
For you lost control of the fiery steeds and died in scorching flame.”
“Yes, you know ‘Helios’s Lament’ quite well, child,” Aspasia says, smiling softly as I murmur the last words aloud: “And died in scorching flame.” Tears rise quickly from the bottomless cistern of my soul as I think of Jasper, my innocent brother, who also died in scorching flame…