The Thinara King Page 4

  After some wearisome length of time, they discerned faint shouting and followed the sound. They cleared a rubble-choked entrance leading to the underground, and there discovered a cache of people who had escaped the poison clouds.

  Seventeen climbed from the hole. Each one stared aghast at the ruin and death.

  Then no more came. Aridela pictured beautiful flaxen-haired Selene, her cherished nurse, Halia, and Carmanor, the boy she had loved so much as a child. Sorrow and a terrible emptiness engulfed her, more painful in some ways than the burns, which were already swelling into massive blisters on her arms, neck and shoulders. She saw blank disbelief in Chrysaleon’s eyes, though he said nothing of his blood brother, the only link to his home and old life.

  Never again would she listen to Halia’s elaborate stories or hunt in the mountains with Selene. She could never mend things with Carmanor, who seemed so different, his heart as angry and sullen as the scars carved into his flesh.

  But Chrysaleon and three other men were descending again into the hiding place. She heard one say there were more survivors, too injured to climb out on their own.

  They carried up three more victims and laid them underneath an overhang that offered protection from drifting ash and falling stones.

  “Aridela,” Chrysaleon shouted, his voice holding a note of excitement, but when she started to climb down he said, “No, stay there. I’ll bring them.”

  He lifted a half-conscious Selene out of the hole into the arms of another man. Once she was safely removed, Menoetius followed. His face was bloody and his left hand frighteningly swollen, but he was able to walk.

  Racked by sobs, Aridela fell to her knees, but such was the moaning, coughing, and despair around her that she quickly stifled this luxury. Wiping away her tears, she tried to give comfort to the other survivors, keeping to herself the horrors she’d seen as she offered reassurances she didn’t believe.

  As the men returned to the underground one more time to carry out the last two living victims, Aridela knelt next to Selene.

  In a weak, slightly slurred voice, Selene said, “You’re alive,” and touched Aridela’s hand. “I’m so happy to see you.”

  Her hair was clotted with blood. Aridela feared a head injury, but didn’t know what to do. “And you, Selene,” she whispered. “I was sure you were dead.”

  “What happened? Do you know?” The soot and ash covering Selene’s face, along with a sheen of tears, made her eyes strikingly sea-green.

  Aridela stared at the ground, shivering. “Goddess Athene punished all for the sins I alone committed. Themiste commanded me to remain untouched. I ignored her. I brought this death, this suffering, when I lay with Chrysaleon—not once but twice, the second time tonight, just before the cloud of fire and wind killed so many, and nearly took you from me.”

  Selene remained silent. Aridela finally forced herself to meet her friend’s gaze.

  Selene opened her mouth but still said nothing, only bit her lower lip and frowned.

  “Rest,” Aridela said. “Forgive me for burdening you with my crimes and regrets.”

  “Aridela, your hair. Your skin. Your eyes.”

  Aridela had tried not to think about her burns since she and Chrysaleon entered the ruined palace. Her head felt oddly light. Yesterday her hair fell past the small of her back. Now, caked with gritty ash, smelling of smoke, the short, brittle ends broke off in her hands. She glanced at her arms. The only light came from a few torches, but the red blotches, blisters, and wave upon wave of shuddering betrayed profound injury. She felt dizzy as well, nauseated, and desperately thirsty. Every time she coughed, her lungs felt as though they would spew from her throat. Her eyes burned so relentlessly, she almost wanted to gouge them out.

  “Sleep, my sister,” she said softly. “I am in no pain.”

  Selene obeyed, though tears seeped from under her lashes. Aridela held her hand until Selene’s breathing evened and her fingers relaxed.

  Chrysaleon and others who were able fanned out through the destruction, searching for water.

  Aridela made another round among the injured. She blotted blood with strips of cloth, gave a smile or kiss where it seemed to help, then returned to Selene’s side, where she sat, hugging her knees, and tried to force herself to be calm.

  She felt Menoetius watching her for a long time before she finally looked up, catching a frown that left her stricken with a fresh stab of guilt.

  Ash coated his face. His eyes, too, were red and swollen. The dried blood streaking his cheeks and neck, coupled with the firelight, threw his scars into sharp relief. Aridela couldn’t help remembering Carmanor, the beautiful youth from the mainland, laughing, telling her she was “still little,” and that princesses in his country could never get into mischief the way she did.

  This ruin of a man, this ‘Menoetius,’ somehow mirrored everything she had seen tonight. The destruction of all she’d believed indestructible.

  “My lord?” She kept her voice low so she wouldn’t disturb Selene. The words escaped as if they had a will of their own, even though she shrank from his judgment. “You believe it as well. Athene is angry at what your prince and I did. This is her punishment.”

  His gaze faltered, betraying him. “I have never claimed to know the mind of the Goddess.”

  She turned her gaze toward the south, where the killing cloud had gone. “I love Chrysaleon,” she said, clenching her hands. “Surely others have committed worse crimes.”

  “If what you say is true, would you not now be dead instead of all these others?”

  “If I died,” she said, “I would be released from pain. The suffering of others would no longer touch me.”

  Leaning across Selene, Menoetius reached out as though to touch her cheek, but then he didn’t, and dropped his hand back to his side.

  Her throat blocked with tears.

  Those who had gone exploring returned with incredulous tales of how heat melted everything, even tin and bronze, in one chamber, while leaving feathers and wax tablets unharmed in adjoining rooms. They’d found a few jars of water. Aridela sprinkled a little over her burns, and drank sparingly. Never had she tasted anything so delicious as this tepid, stale water that carried a taste of smoke.

  Unable to rest, she watched fires lick across the fields and hills as time slowly passed. Throughout the night, she sensed Menoetius’s gaze upon her, but whenever she looked at him, his eyes were closed.

  Scarcely any change came with morning. Thunder rumbled. Crimson lightning sliced wounds in the sky. If there was still a sun, its light could not penetrate the murk.

  Some wanted to travel north to Labyrinthos, through ash that continued to fall in a silent, deadly storm. Others were willing to stay behind with the more severely wounded.

  Aridela was determined to reach Labyrinthos or die in the attempt. Chrysaleon wouldn’t be separated from her.

  They journeyed north, knowing not what to expect.

  The north and east wings of Labyrinthos collapsed, including the family bedchambers and baths. Gaping cracks split walls and pillars, yet more of that palace withstood the rage of Athene than at Phaistos in the southern provinces.

  Shortly after the initial firestorms, Queen Helice ordered a ceremony. Without knowing Aridela’s fate, grief-stricken over the deaths of those near to her, terrified of what might happen next, the queen stood before her surviving people, holding Iphiboë’s hand, speaking hollow reassurances. Why would the Lady spare so much of the great palace-temple dedicated to her unless she still felt love for it? Lamentations, prayers and the sacrifice of twenty precious oxen completed the pleas for forgiveness. All who lived turned hopeful, frightened eyes to the ash filled, blistered sky.

  Their reward came in a blanketing sulfur stench and another precipitous blast, nearly as deafening and startling as the first. Pottery shattered. Unstable walls crumbled. The ground wallowed and churned.

  Messengers from the harbor at Amnisos informed the queen that the sea had vanished,
sucked down the throat, perhaps, of the barbarian god Poseidon. Nothing remained but mud, shells, writhing sea creatures and beached ships. Helice wanted to inspect this phenomenon, but the counselors forbade her to take such reckless action.

  While they argued, the sea returned.

  A lone, broken boy reported before he died that it came in a wave so tall he could not see the summit. This mountain of water crushed every building, pier and ship at Amnisos and the west precincts at Tamara. Its murderous tentacles stretched halfway into the town of Knossos. Subsequent waves completed the destruction. Corpses of fish, sheep, fowl and human littered the coast and mingled in the sea among debris and vast suffocating mats of floating stones.

  The survivors of Phaistos limped into Knossos three days after surviving the death-clouds. They joined a desperate influx from every corner of the island.

  Aridela listened to horrific tales of monstrous waves and observed with heavy sorrow the ruin of so much of her home and the great city where she had spent her childhood.

  Rhené smoothed unguents into her skin and sheared the charred ends of her hair. “You resemble the soldiers of Argolis,” the healer said, attempting a smile.

  At one time, Aridela would have agonized over this loss, but now she hardly glanced in the mirror at a reflection she no longer recognized.

  Rhené’s touch, and her balms, caused such pain that Aridela had to clench her teeth and fists to keep from screaming. Because she kept her face pressed against her knees during the onslaught of fire-wind, it had escaped serious burns, but swollen, unspeakably painful blisters covered her arms, shoulders, and back.

  If only she could rest in her own bed… but her chamber lay buried in wreckage. Her dog, Taya, her cat and her little lovebirds—dead. All dead.

  Dead also were Halia, Aridela’s nurse, who served as her day-to-day mother, and Isandros, Aridela’s beloved half brother, who taught her how to dance with bulls. A prince in his own right, he and Aridela shared the same father, Damasen, and unassailable loyalty. Neoma, Aridela’s cousin, lay senseless after a rock, shooting out of the sky with the force of a driven spear, struck her in the forehead. Neoma’s sister, eleven-year-old Phanaë, succumbed to the ash and suffocated in her own blood. Aridela found some comfort in the company of her sister and mother, who had, through the grace of the Goddess, both survived.

  The blizzard of ash subsided, but fine clouds continued to drift over the palace roof, the courtyard and fields, clinging to hair, faces, and clothing. Brown haze lay between sun and earth so that each day dawned drearier than the last and the warmth of summer evaporated.

  Prince Kios, whose wife was killed when a wall collapsed upon her, spent much time in grieving solitude on the northern cliffs. “Beyond our sight, the earth burns,” he told Helice. “A fire the like of which we cannot imagine. I fear it’s the disaster we have long expected on Callisti.”

  This conjecture quickly spread. Refugees from that island leaned upon their comrades and wept.

  Helice sought out her daughters and confided in them. “Goddess Athene seeks a terrible vengeance.”

  “We must find a way to appease her,” Aridela said.

  “What did we do? How did we anger her?” Helice shook her head and wandered aimlessly away.

  The rumors began slowly, quietly, and when Aridela first heard them, icy threads of fear tightened her stomach. The people were eying the barbarian from Mycenae. Some said Chrysaleon, by winning the Games and killing the bull-king, ignited this ruin. Yet the conjectures remained soft. No one was brave enough to shout accusations; they were all too fearful of making a mistake and enraging the Goddess further.

  The permeating ash caused nosebleeds and inflamed eyes. Countless children and old ones died, blood seeping from their mouths and noses. Artisans claimed the ash was actually fine particles of obsidian.

  The people clamored day and night. Help us. Save us, Queen Helice. Avert the Lady’s anger.

  A messenger sent from the sacred caves reported that Kaphtor’s oracle still lived. Themiste was uninjured. But no more messages came. She did not journey to Labyrinthos, nor did she make any statements or predictions. Day after day, the silence continued until the people began to mutter.

  They demanded to know where she was. Why did she say nothing? It was the oracle’s duty to read the signs, to enter vision, to determine what should be done.

  “If she won’t come to us, we shall go to her,” Helice said. “Let us seek answers from Themiste at her shrine.”

  Gigantic waves of water crushed our harbors. Damerto and Phaistos have fallen. Hundreds are dead. News comes slowly; I don’t know the fate of other towns and harbors yet. Winds of fire and poison ripped down buildings, toppled trees and burned people alive. The queen and Iphiboë were nearly crushed by the partial collapse of Labyrinthos. Thankfully, loyal slaves pulled them into an underground corridor. All were later found and rescued.

  Powdery dust poured from the heavens, warm at times, as though it carried a memory of fire. It covers the ground and hangs like fine veils in the sky, blocking the sunlight. Some call it ash, but to me it seems more like fine sand. It scratches and burns. It makes us cough and cough. Many who breathe in too much of it drown in their own blood. Those of us who remain cover our faces with wet linen.

  As if fires, poison, and dust are not enough, we suffer downpours of rain like none can remember. Farmers tell of mud surging from gullies, down hillsides and out of mountain canyons. Day has forsaken us; we are left in endless twilight. Bitter, clammy cold creeps across the land. Thunder gives warning, all day, all night. Lightning—not white but crimson, sometimes blue, flickers in the clouds, always to the north, displaying the anger of Velchanos. Insects and birds drop from the sky, dead. Rats swarm the cities, killing cats, dogs. Some have even killed small children.

  When I was named Minos, the safety of the Oracle Logs became my sacred charge. Written upon these tablets is our history, our prophecies and traditions. Now they are buried beneath stone, ash, and debris. Perhaps they can be recovered, but what of the papyrus scrolls? Our library at Phaistos, filled with writings from the countries we have befriended, was destroyed as well.

  It sickens me to think how much is lost.

  It is time to plant corn and barley. Our nuts and figs should be harvested, and soon the grapes, but the crops that weren’t destroyed outright are withering. So many farmers are dead, and the land is flooded with mud or poisoned by dust. Hunks of stone fell out of the sky like weapons from an angry god’s hand, devastating both plants and livestock.

  What of the olive groves, nurtured since the time of Kaphtor’s first settlers? Have any survived, or is our whole island laid waste? I do not yet know.

  The razing of Kaphtor began three days before Iphiboë was to take the barbarian, the foreigner who is called ‘Gold Lion,’ by his guard, as her consort.

  I ponder the prophecy Aridela spoke six years ago.

  Lion of gold from over the sea.

  Destroy the black bull,

  shake the earth free.

  Curse the god,

  crush the fold,

  pull down the stars

  as your seers foretold.

  Isle of cloud,

  Moon’s stronghold,

  see your death come

  in spears of gold.

  This prophecy, coupled with Chrysaleon’s title, cannot be mere chance. The Gold Lion came to destroy Kaphtor. With the help of his barbarian gods, I fear he has succeeded.

  No one has ever killed a sacred king out of his time. The murder of the bull-king before his time would be a crime so outrageous that the murderer would be hunted, hounded, tortured without mercy. I would do it if I thought it would cool Goddess Athene’s rage.

  But I have seen that she requires more than a king’s death.

  Helice and her daughters journey to my shrine. The people are desperate and she doesn’t know what to do. I must provide answers. Can I? Am I strong enough?

  For I have seen w
hat is to be done.

  The time of payment, which was shown to me in vision so long ago, has arrived.

  Helice, Iphiboë, and Aridela set out for Themiste’s mountain shrine.

  Ash lifted in clouds around the litter-bearers’ feet. Fine and irritating, it invaded every crease and pore, defying all methods of holding it at bay, making everyone cough and rub their eyes.

  Aridela tried to shut out the continuous, irritating sound as she sank more deeply into a spiraling well of guilt. With one breath she believed she no longer deserved to live, then with the next demanded to know why her crime was so much worse than her mother’s. Damasen competed, won, and became Kaphtor’s bull-king. Nothing terrible happened. He and Helice were lovers long before he entered the Games.

  Why were the actions of Helice’s daughter so different?

  She didn’t really need the Goddess to appear before her and explain. The answer was simple. Chrysaleon was meant for Iphiboë. Queen Helice had not defied holy commands in order to be with Damasen. The two events could not be compared.

  Aridela had never feared Kaphtor’s high priestess, but now she did. Themiste had no doubt seen her blatant defiance in vision or by some other means. She might reveal it. If she did, the whole island would know the queen’s daughter had caused this devastation and death through selfish, petty lust and arrogance.

  Punish me alone, Mother, not these others. They did nothing. The prayer remained a never-ending, never-answered litany.

  Though they sent no messenger ahead, Themiste stood waiting for them outside the shrine. Her red hair fell unbound. Her white gown blended into drifts of ash at her feet. Shadows beneath her eyes suggested how long she’d gone without sleep, and her face was haggard. The gaze she leveled upon the approaching litters seemed darkened, perhaps from grief, or too much Sight.

  “You know why we’ve come,” Helice said as she stepped from the litter. “Is there hope? What can we do?”

  Themiste clasped Helice’s hands. “Rest,” she said. “Later, we will talk.”