The Petros Chronicles Boxset

by Diana Tyler

  “Duna, if it is possible, spare us from dying here. And let me make it to Therismos. Let me kill Acheron.”

  I finally put the stone back into the pouch and welcome a light westerly wind greeting me from the mountaintop, hoping it will coax my eyes to close and my restless mind to dream. But I cannot sleep. How can I when all around me is the sight of spattered blood, the sound of Titus’s moaning, and the noxious smell of –

  “I had a feeling you’d be joining me.”

  The low voice rises out of its cell like a miasmic vapor. As it itches my ears, I see the speaker’s shadow, which comprises a man’s head and torso, but the body and hooves of a horse.

  “Centaur…?” I whisper.

  “What gave it away?” he snorts, pawing the floor and swishing his tail.

  “I had a feeling you’d be dead,” I said, wrapping my hands around the iron bars and looking to my left, then to my right where a guard sleeps against the wall, a bronze key hanging from his neck.

  “Diokles told them not to harm me,” he says.

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve been trying to figure that out since the day that yellow-haired urchin had me locked up in here,” he says, then steps into the moonlight, his chestnut coat just as filthy and his face just as hideous as I remember. “And I think I’ve come up with the answer,” he says.

  “Oh yes? And what answer is that?”

  “I’m simply far too beautiful to kill,” he answers with the ugliest crooked grin I’ve ever seen. “Centaurs are nearly an extinct species. Diokles rightly won’t stand for a creature as rare and exquisite as I to perish.”

  “I think you are absolutely correct, Centaur,” I laugh, stopping only when the sleeping guard rouses and in a sleepy stupor barks:

  “Quiet! Or I’ll cut off your ears!”

  The Centaur winks at me and tugs on his ears, and I return to my mat on the floor and pray once more for the impossible.

  I must be dreaming. My surroundings are the same, and Titus still groans, but the smell of the air is different. While it had once been polluted with the Centaur’s stench and the metallic scent of blood, it is now infused with the smells of lilac and citrus, sweet harbingers of spring. The moon is gone, sunken into the crepuscular sea of twilight, and yet I make out a faint blue halo of light just outside the cave walls that intensifies with every inch it draws nearer.

  “Prayer is the thread that never breaks,

  Blue is the form that your answer takes.

  It is time to leave this desert of schemes,

  And the man bewitched by vile dreams.

  Go into Eirene when these bars are broken;

  The command of Duna has been spoken.”

  I know without question it is Carya who sings and animates this brilliant blue orb; I can almost see her auburn hair and crown of pearls shining within it like waves transformed by the sunset.

  The tinging sound of a sword being pulled from its scabbard shakes Titus awake. He raises both fists as he stumbles to his feet and tries to look around the cell, but his eyes are blinded by welts and purple bruises.

  “Iris?!” he shouts. “Are you here?!”

  “I’m here!” I reply in a whisper. “Be quiet!”

  I rush to the bars and breathe a sigh of relief when I find the guard is somehow still asleep. Turning back around, I see the blue halo forming itself, from top to bottom, into the leaf-shaped blade of a sword. It floats slowly through the spring-smelling air and stops before the prison bars where it begins to pulsate with spectacular beams of light, the colors of which I’ve never seen before.

  Carya’s invisible hand positions the sword’s glowing tip on the center bar and drags it across the row of iron, sending silent sparks of blue and white into the air like a bouquet of exploding stardust.

  The Centaur approaches his bars just as the sword starts to fade into a hazy afterglow and mouths the words, “What was that?”

  He and Titus sit down, but I remain standing, keeping my eyes steady on the bars where I discern a clean, minuscule line bisecting each one.

  Now what, Carya? I think.

  And then something compels me to grab hold of two bars, just below the perfectly straight line sliced across them. The Centaur cocks his head at my peculiar conduct, which he probably thinks a rather feeble attempt at escape.

  “Shh! Shh!” I say.

  But it’s too late. The guard’s eyes flash open and the phantom sword vanishes before touching the final bar.

  I pull on the bars in my hand as hard as I can, but am thrown backwards by the force of my effort. My jaw drops at the sight of the two iron bars resting on the ground in front of me.

  “Well that was a neat trick, whatever that was!” the Centaur says. “Aren’t you the lucky one!”

  I close my eyes and pray for one more “trick.” Then, faster than I can think, I lift a flickering hand to the Centaur’s cell and watch as a spray of flames glitters its course across the bars, causing the beast to buck and whinny with fright.

  “Settle down, Centaur!” Then I make a pulling motion with both hands and watch as the wisps of smoke wafting out of them mingle with the blue, left-over light of Carya’s sword, forming a vaporous mural as it eddies upward into the cold, dank air.

  The Centaur obeys my mimed command and tugs on one bar, only slightly, sending it to the ground as though it were nothing more than flaxen thread unraveling from a spool.

  “What sorcery!” he exclaims, kicking up his heels. He then proceeds to break off every bar faster than I can stand up again.

  “Thank you. Thank you, Duna,” I whisper under my breath.

  I jump as Titus arrives at my side and begins pulling off our bars while the guard watches helplessly, his face awash with a dumbstruck impotence that I almost pity. He doesn’t even bother unsheathing his sword.

  “What’s the matter, soldier? Gryphon got your tongue?” taunts the Centaur.

  The guard doesn’t answer, but gapes at Titus in disbelief. The Centaur yanks the key from his neck.

  “Now a Centaur’s got your key, you old poltroon,” he says, waving it in the air before sliding it around his own neck.

  “General…your eyes,” the guard says, pointing at Titus’s face as the general flings the final bar to the ground.

  I look up to see the general’s copper eyes shining brightly as thought they’d never been beaten at all. In fact, he looks as though he’s just awoken from a rejuvenating nap.

  “Phulax, perhaps you are not as strong as you think,” replies Titus.

  I catch myself unwittingly imitating the sentry’s bewildered expression.

  “Come on then,” says Titus, stepping into the corridor separating our cell from the Centaur’s. “You too, Centaur,” he adds gruffly, then strides out of the prison.

  The Centaur furrows his brow. “It seems the general has traded his sanity in return for his eyesight,” he says to me.

  I laugh briefly and then wave at the Centaur to go ahead of me.

  “Wait,” I say.

  I go to the Centaur and lift the key from around his neck and toss it to the confounded sentry who is crouching over the broken bars, examining those still intact, and scratching his head as he mutters incoherently to himself.

  “We are leaving Ēlektōr, Phulax. I think you would be wise to do the same. Unless of course you can think of a good story that might persuade Diokles not to pummel you to death with those bars.”

  Phulax’s head half nods, half shakes in acknowledgement of my words as he rubs the useless key between his fingers.

  “Thank you,” he whispers.

  Then, without question or objection, the Centaur and I follow Titus out of the caves and into the wake of my answered prayers.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  REVELATION

  Though it was well into the morning hours, I never noticed the sun peek over the eastern mountains or lift one ray of light to salute the day; it was as if Duna had his hand on it while whispering to the dawn,
“Not yet, not yet…Stay asleep a while longer…”

  And although sinister storm clouds followed us and threatened to break loose with erratic rumbles, the only rain we endured was what was needed to fill our water jars and wash the dirt from our faces. I began to assure myself that the thunder was nothing to be afraid of; perhaps it was the voice of Duna, a lion in the heavens, roaring to remind us of his presence while warding off Diokles’s men.

  I don’t know when, but somewhere between the sands of Ēlektōr and the streams of Eirene, Titus set me on the Centaur’s back so I could rest. And in between the starlit mountains, beneath the bashful sun, and atop a beast who has become to me more friend than foe, I had the sweetest sleep – no nightmares, no flashbacks, no disquieting dreams...only ardent emanations of gratitude rising up with every slow, contented breath.

  I awaken to the trickling sound of water skipping over rocks and the Centaur’s hooves knocking against them. He begins pawing the floor of the stream, stirring up the silt as he cools his legs and underbelly and rids his body of the foaming sweat that covers it.

  I swing my right leg over the Centaur’s side and slide into the water, and then plop down into it, splashing the general next to me.

  “I didn’t dream it,” I say, looking up at him. “Your eyes really were healed. It was Carya, you know. She sang in our cell before you woke up.”

  Titus kneels down and cups a drink of water in his hands.

  “It felt like hot fingertips were touching my eyelids. But when I opened them, all I saw were the bars on the ground in front of you. It was all a miracle, wasn’t it?” he says. Clearly he isn’t fully convinced that our escape wasn’t a dream, or perhaps a hallucination induced by the incense filling the cella.

  “I can think of no other explanation,” I answer. Titus pats me on the shoulder.

  “It’s good to be out of there. Now just promise me you won’t do that again,” he says.

  “Do what again?”

  “Yeah. Do what again?” interrupts the Centaur as he snags a floating branch and begins to chew on its yellowish green leaves.

  “You know very well you weren’t yourself inside the temple. I could see it in your eyes…you were under his spell,” Titus says.

  “I – I don’t know,” I confess. “I felt like I was in the presence of a god, of someone – or something – that could tell me anything I wanted to know, and anything anyone wanted to know, for that matter. I was in a state of complete peace.” I stand from the water and begin walking toward the bank.

  “I’d be willing to wager that aunt of yours once felt the same way,” Titus mutters to himself, but I hear him just the same. I pray silently that Diokles was lying about Corinna, that the Gryphon has always been a Gryphon, not a wayfaring woman who let herself be welded into a weapon, a wanton pawn…

  How similar we are, my aunt and I. Orphans, both of us. Ashers alike. Carrying an untamed burden that could prove either a blessing or a curse. Drawn to Ēlektōr, to rebellion and anarchy, like wild bees are drawn to rhododendrons, unaware that the nectar they drink is lethal. The only difference between us is she had no one to warn her. No loved ones’ prayers to follow her. She drank the poison, and, it would appear to me, for the price of her soul.

  “Then how did you end up in prison if you think Diokles to be Apollo incarnate?” the Centaur asks, following me into the spotty shade of a strawberry tree.

  “What do know about Apollo?” Titus asks the Centaur.

  “The Pythonians worship him as their coming king – the long-awaited savior of the world,” the Centaur says in a sonorous, singsong voice as he lifts his arms and wiggles his fingers at his sides.

  “You say it as if you don’t believe it,” remarks Titus.

  “Of course I don’t believe it!” snaps the Centaur as he rears up onto his hind legs and combs the tree for berries. “The gods! The gods!” he says, dancing around like a comedic actor hungry for applause. Then he stops, his visage taking on a look of humorless intensity.

  “If you hear nothing else from a Centaurian brute, hear this,” he begins. “The gods do not exist. I have served Python all my life. Have I ever seen him, ever heard his voice? Not once. And no one has. He is made up. Just like your great Duna. All the gods compose a made-up mythos meant to make us think there is something out there. That life has meaning.”

  “I wouldn’t be so quick to mock what you do not understand,” advises Titus. “If it wasn’t for Duna empowering Iris, you would still be in that cell counting the hundreds of fleas jumping off your mangy hide like rats off a sinking ship.”

  The Centaur can’t help but laugh at the general’s joke. “I still haven’t figured out that trick…” he says to me, itching the serpent tattoo on the back of his sun-burned head.

  Titus rolls his eyes and hands me a half dozen berries from a low-hanging branch.

  “In answer to your question, Centaur,” I say in between bites of the sweet, succulent fruit, “I ended up in prison because I fled the temple after Diokles announced my death sentence.”

  The Centaur begins to caw wildly and flap his arms like wings. “The belly of the Gryphon too much to stomach, eh?” he jests. “The guards at the prison were looking forward to it!”

  “Why didn’t you lie, general?” I say, ignoring the Centaur’s imbecilic behavior, fresh nutrients and sleep now stimulating my thoughts. “Why did you tell Diokles the truth, that I was with Tycho after he killed Patroclus, and that he was able to escape? You knew the truth would mean my execution…” I throw the rest of my berries on the ground, my appetite disappearing as my suspicion grows.

  “Did you want me to die, Titus? Perhaps you would have gained special favor with the gods and a great reward from Diokles for offering me, ‘the girl who can make gem-bearing goddesses appear’ for sacrifice to Python…or Apollo…whomever!” I shout.

  “Have you so easily forgotten what Tycho told you?” Titus says calmly.

  Trust me… His comforting voice whispers in my mind. I shake my head at Titus.

  “I remember,” I reply.

  “I didn’t tell you all that Carya told me that night she appeared to me in the cella and gave me that emerald,” Titus says as the Centaur gathers my rejected berries and pops them into his mouth.

  “Go on,” I say. “There are no secrets now, general. We’ve come too far.”

  Titus nods and closes his eyes, concentrating to remember the rest of the messenger’s words.

  “‘All Petrodians are drawn to darkness; their pride shuts out the light,

  Iris must see the truth for herself, then make a choice to fight.

  If to prison you are taken, do not become downcast,

  For Duna shall be there in your midst; and no affliction long can last.’”

  Titus looks at me with a mixture of remorse and unrepentant resolve as he waits for my response. I turn from him and sit down against the tree. Staring off at the Centaur who smiles at a butterfly poised delicately on his forefinger, I marvel at the picture – the startling profundity – of pure, innocent beauty visiting the ugly, iniquitous, and outcast.

  “What faith you have in the riddles of a nymph,” I say softly.

  “No, Soukina. What faith I have in Duna,” he answers. “I didn’t know the future. I didn’t know for certain that we would be delivered alive from that prison, but I made a decision to believe what Carya said.”

  “And why didn’t you tell me all of this before, when we were coming down the path from the fortress?”

  “Would you have followed me to the temple had you known my plan was simply to let Diokles cast his judgment and feed you to the Gryphon?” Titus replies.

  You know you wouldn’t have, my mind tells me.

  “I suppose I would have fled,” I say.

  “Yes, and gotten yourself captured and killed within minutes.”

  “I didn’t have the faith you did,” I admit. “I suppose that’s why I was so easily entranced by Diokles. And why Corinna was…�
�

  “What I have learned, Soukina, is that each revelation we obtain in life, no matter how small, brings a burden along with it – the burden of a personal response. We can take the revelation and act upon it, gain wisdom from it, or we can walk away from it and trust that we are our own best counselors, our own gods.”

  “I believe I’ve had a revelation, general. And I know my response.”

  Titus smiles. “I would very much like to hear it.”

  I take a breath, and breathing out declare, “Killing innocent people should never be a means to an end. Even if Diokles dies, I will never return to Ēlektōr.”

  While Titus and the Centaur slept, I prayed with my eyes wide open and admired the sunlight shimmering like diamonds dancing along the stream, basked in the bath of its rays splashed on my neck and face, and listened to the jangling song of a nearby bunting interspersed with a warbler’s harmonizing bursts.

  I’d felt the sun, seen its light, and heard birds sing almost every day of my life, but today seemed like the first time I’d experienced any of it. Somehow the light shone a little brighter the moment I started to pray. The sun’s warmth felt more like the presence of a most loving entity. The birds’ duet sounded like a paean unto heaven. And somehow I felt that I too played a part, if only by virtue of my presence.

  Duna, only you can bring justice to my brother. All else has failed me. I place myself as an instrument – no, a weapon – in your hands.

  The hours seemed like minutes; if not for my mission still left undone, I would have been content to stay in that place forever. But as the birds stopped their singing and retired to their nests, the Centaur and general awoke, and together we strode toward the Eirenian gates, toward the festival where I will see Acheron again, and where he will be burned alive as Jasper was. And my hands will be the torch.