Journey Into Nyx

W
hy do they bleed?” King Anax shouted to his servants, who milled around him helplessly. His fury echoed down the stark corridors of the Kolophon, the royal fortress of the king and queen of Akros. Cymede rushed into the banquet hall and to her husband’s side. The king, with his powerful shoulders and muscular build, quivered with rage. Cymede followed his gaze upward to where the severed head of a stag was skewered on an iron chandelier. It was a Nyxborn stag, and it dripped rivulets of blood and star field into a glowing crimson pool on the cold stone floor of the empty banquet hall.

“Another day, another beheading,” Cymede said drily. This was the seventh day in a row that a mysterious severed head had been found in a different room of the fortress.

“This is no time for humor, woman!” Anax snapped.

Cymede shot him a dangerous look. When they had first married, Anax had a habit of demeaning her through careless words. His view that women were lesser than men was so ingrained that he never questioned his own beliefs. But Cymede did. In those early days, she fought him on everything from his habit of executing prisoners by throwing them into the Deyda River to his refusal to make eye contact with a woman when she was speaking to him. Anax’s father was the same way—both men assumed
the woman wouldn’t be saying anything interesting, after all. Cymede had waged an emotional war with her king to be treated with the respect that she deserved. To his credit, Anax had seen her perspective and adapted. Many men wouldn’t have been capable of that.

“It’s always time for humor, my love,” Cymede said. “I find it amusing. You now have a stag to add to your trophy room. Between the boar and the sable, perhaps?”

Actually, Cymede didn’t find it amusing at all. But her husband was at the breaking point. If she showed her own distress, she was afraid he’d do something rash. It was best to downplay her concern in front of Anax and then do her own investigation into the situation. She still wasn’t sure what they were dealing with. Anax believed it was a divine curse, and it might be. But it could also be a prank born of a twisted—but mortal—mind. Seven days and seven severed heads, and the security forces could do nothing to stop it. Despite having the best minds in the city working on the problem, only Cymede discerned the pattern. She was not about to share her discovery with her husband or any of the dim-witted oracles who had been no help whatsoever.

Each severed head was a Nyxborn—a creature born of the gods. The first day, it had been the head of a brindle boar. On day two, it was a bull. The rest of the week, they were given the pleasure of a severed swordfish head, a lynx head, and a sable head. And today, the perpetrator had left them a mighty stag’s head. After the lynx, Cymede expected everyone to see what was happening as clearly as she did. But Iroas’s priests and oracles were so focused on
how
the perpetrator was doing it, they didn’t stop to think about the meaning behind it. Cymede saw that someone was killing animals that represented the gods. In this twisted vision, the gods had become the sacrificial lambs. Cymede suspected that the perpetrator was making a statement about the nature of the gods—and it was an insulting one, too. Iroas
had no animal, but his detractors often used a boar to insult the patron god of the city.

“Take the head to the oracles,” Cymede directed the servants. “And clean up this mess.”

“They have told us nothing!” Anax said. “Throw it in the trash heap!”

Cymede rested her hand on her husband’s shoulder. He was on the short side for a man of Akros. His stature made him defensive despite his renowned exploits on the battlefield. No one questioned his prowess as a man, but it was always in the back of his mind.

“The trash heap,” she echoed. “You’re quite right, Anax. This rubbish deserves no more of our attention.”

Then she led Anax out the door and up into the west wing, where their chambers were. She flung open the doors to the balcony that overlooked Akros. When they stood on the balcony, they appeared to be at eye level with the Stone Colossus that loomed over the city. Cymede walked her king to the railing so he could survey his remarkable city. His extensive realm extended far into the mountains. Only the gods had greater domains. She waited while he stared at his horizon, and his breathing began to calm. It was only here on the balcony that her husband didn’t feel small.

“You cannot let this … child’s prank get the better of you,” Cymede said. A cool breeze blew in from the north. It was a hot and miserable day, and she thanked the wind for the small blessing.

“This is no prank!” he said.

“Then what do you think it is?” Cymede asked.

“Even the oracles of Iroas can’t say. Why do you ask me?”

“Whoever is doing this knows you, Anax,” she said. “They’re trying to erode your sense of security, which is fundamental to you. I think this is someone close to you.”

“It’s probably just madman,” Anax replied.

“He is not so mad as to thwart our guards,” Cymede said.
“Think about your past. Maybe the answer is there.”

“It’s not my brother, if that’s what you’re implying,” Anax said. “Timoteus is away with the Alamon.”

Cymede considered her next words carefully. The Alamon were one of the wandering bands of warriors who made up the itinerant portion of the Akroan army. These warrior bands were entirely self-sufficient, relying on hunting to supply their numbers while in the field. The Alamon warriors were tasked with killing stray monsters that wandered too close to the city. They were also responsible for keeping the minotaurs at bay, which they were doing with less and less success. These warriors had been a vital part of the Akroan army for as long as anyone could remember. Whenever there was a threat to the city, the king would call them back, and they would flank and overwhelm the invaders.

Cymede believed there were benefits to this arrangement, but it also made governance difficult. The leaders of these wandering warriors did not think of themselves as under the rule of the king in the way they should. The younger brother of the king believed himself the rightful king of Akros, and although he kept his distance all these years, Cymede worried when he might make his claim.