The Immortal Fire

by Anne Ursu

  “Wait! Stop!” His voice came out so thick he did not even know if Zeus could understand him. He was either being very quiet or very loud; he could not tell. “You swore! You swore by the River Styx!”

  “I said you had to push her off the edge. You refused. Therefore—”

  “No,” Zee whispered. Zeus’s words rang in his head as if he were speaking them right then. “You said you swore by the River Styx that for the sacrifice of my cousin you would not destroy humanity. My cousin was sacrificed, wasn’t she? She sacrificed herself.”

  His own words cut into him. He could feel his stomach burning, setting his whole insides alight; he was going to vomit fire, he could feel the tears streaming down his cheeks. My cousin was sacrificed. It was not true. How could it be true?

  Because she was Charlotte, that was how.

  Zeus stopped, his thunderbolt poised. He looked at Zee, then the blue sky, then back at Zee. His brow furrowed even more, as if he was trying very hard to add two numbers together and was not entirely sure of how one went about doing that. Then he lowered his thunderbolt slowly.

  “Well,” he said. “Well.”

  Zeus stared at Zee, blinking rapidly, and through his haze of grief and shock and denial it took Zee several moments to define the look in the god’s eyes, because it was not what he was expecting; Zeus looked panicked and blank, an actor who has forgotten all his lines.

  He didn’t know what to do, Zee realized slowly. He was Lord of the Universe, and he had no clue what to do now. Zee had imagined Zeus as mighty, omnipotent, and terrifying; he had certainly acted that way at first. But it was all bluster. Zee hadn’t realized that the only thing worse than an all-powerful god is an all-powerful god who has no idea what he’s doing.

  He seemed to be waiting for someone to appear, Hera or another god, someone who would tell him what to do now. And Zee was waiting too, waiting for Charlotte to come back, and she would tell Zee about her secret plan, and then they would turn their backs on Olympus forever.

  Zee felt the beauty of the lie he was telling himself; he wanted to wrap himself up in it, live in it forever. And even as he knew it was a lie, he would not let go.

  He did not particularly care what happened to him now. Zeus seemed unsure himself. But he was not going to wave cheerio and let Zee wander back to Earth. He seemed the type who would probably kill Zee, for lack of anything better to do, to make some sort of point to himself if no one else—and there was really nothing for Zee to do but wait.

  There was no way out of this, here, now. And it didn’t matter, anyway. Their work was done. They had not known it, but their task all along had nothing to do with the Promethean Flame—no, no, it had fallen on Charlotte and Zee to secure the existence of humankind.

  And Charlotte Mielswetzski, in one act, had done just that.

  You have a lot of time to think as you tumble miles through the sky toward the very ragged, very hard mountains below, and one of the things you will think is, Boy, I hope I don’t feel that, and another thing you will think is, Mom and Dad, I love you, and another thing you will think is, I should be very, very afraid, but I had no choice and thus I am only a little afraid. And you might think about the Dead, and meeting them as one of their own, and finding ways to keep your very Charlotte-ness in all that bleakness, and if you do then perhaps you can help the others, too, and maybe after all you will have done something for the Dead.

  And you are, indeed, a little afraid.

  It should have been very loud. Charlotte could feel the wind whipping around her hair, could feel its bite on her skin, its whooshing in her ears, but she did not hear it. It was drowned out by the beautiful song of the goat-man that accompanied her as she fell. She was glad not to be alone.

  Her family was with her, though, her family who would now live. Her mother, father, Mew. Well, Mew was never in danger; Zeus was going to destroy all of humanity, but he couldn’t be so evil as to kill kitties, too.

  And Zee. Her cousin, who was always with her. Zee was still up there with Zeus; she could picture him staring in utter disbelief at the empty space where she used to be. She could do nothing for his grief; she could only tell herself that he understood. She hated the pain he would feel, but it was not as though her death was meaningless. He would know that, and he would be all right, eventually. It is a wonderful thing, to have a cousin.

  She did not know how Zee was going to get out of there, but he would. She had faith.

  And Zeus, Zeus was even worse than she had imagined him. She had misunderstood. She had no business being angry at the gods, for they did not deserve her notice. There was no hope they would be anything but petty and worthless. They were pathetic, cruel, horrible, and it was best to forget about them and let humanity try to struggle on for itself.

  After some time, she began to see a large shadow below, a shadow that was moving toward her at a rapid pace, and she realized with some trepidation that it was the ground, and she, in fact, was moving toward it. It is one thing to contemplate hitting the ground from miles up in the air—and, she guessed, another altogether to actually do so.

  She was more than a little afraid now, for she was only human. She closed her eyes and, as the goat’s song comforted her, she thought of Zee, and of Mew, of Maddy and her mother and father, of Mr. Metos, of Hector, and how she would see them again, how she would make a better Underworld for them, somehow. She would feel nothing, it would happen too fast, she would fall and fall and then find herself being carried by Hermes the Messenger to the banks of the Styx.

  She wondered if the bridge was still there. She wondered what Charon would say when he saw her.

  She did not want to lose herself.

  With her eyes closed, with the image of her loved ones burned on her brain, she could no longer see the earth coming toward her, so it was quite surprising when she realized she was no longer falling. Her heart turned a somersault—had she landed? Was this it?

  But—she realized, perhaps more slowly than she should have—had she landed, surely she would have noticed. Right?

  Charlotte carefully opened an eye and found she was moving through the air on a parallel line to the ground below. A slow burn of comprehension passed through her. It was over. She had died and was being carried by Hermes to the Underworld. She hadn’t felt a thing, hadn’t even noticed hitting the ground, but her life was over now, and the eternity just begun.

  It seemed odd to Charlotte, then, that she could still feel the pounding of her heart, that she had breath to catch, that her hands in front of her looked just as they had a minute ago. Perhaps this was what it was like, before the long fading, or perhaps it was all an illusion born of death and desire. It was a nice illusion.

  Charlotte craned her neck upward to her bearer, wanting to say something—though she did not know what. But any words stopped in her mouth, for she was not being carried by a god at all. She was in the claws of a very large, purple-bellied, bird-like creature with broad, powerful wings, soaring with the wind.

  Several thoughts occurred to Charlotte at once—one, that she was apparently not dead. This took some getting used to. Two, that she was being borne through the air by some genetic-engineering experiment gone horribly awry. Three, that as much as she found her body trembling with the relief of the reprieved, she had intended to sacrifice herself for humanity, and now she was going to have to kill herself all over again.

  “Let me go!” Charlotte shouted at the bird. But it did not waver, merely kept flying. Charlotte twisted, trying to free herself from the bird’s grasp.

  There was a mountain moving toward them (or, Charlotte supposed, vice versa), and the bird began to descend slowly toward it. Its wings beat against the air, and then Charlotte was being placed gently down, and the bird alighted next to her.

  The bird looked like a purple and green sparrow, but a hundred times the size, and it was regarding her intently, if sparrows could do such a thing. A wave of panic crashed over Charlotte.

  “Why did yo
u do that?” she screamed.

  The bird blinked twice, and then there was no more bird, but a goddess—black-haired, green-eyed, impossibly beautiful, impossibly sad. Something about her looked familiar to Charlotte, but she could not place it.

  A goddess, then, one who would bring her back to Zeus, one who wanted the world destroyed. Anger made Charlotte feel like she was choking.

  “You guys won’t even let me kill myself!” she yelled, tears blinding her eyes. She was going to have to jump off the stupid mountain now.

  “No,” said the goddess, raising her hand. Something about the gesture stilled Charlotte, and she could not seem to avert her eyes from the woman before her. “I have to take you back to Olympus.”

  Oh, how she had had it with these people. Charlotte folded her arms and set her jaw. “You can’t stop me,” she said.

  “I don’t understand,” said the goddess. “Don’t you want to be saved?”

  What? “No! Zeus will kill everyone, he said!”

  “But you already sacrificed yourself. It is done.”

  Charlotte stared dumbly at the woman.

  “Yes. I was there, I heard it.” Somewhere in Charlotte’s mind, the image appeared of a small sparrow flying into the throne room. “Zeus asked for your sacrifice, and you gave it.”

  Tears poured unbidden from Charlotte’s eyes, and she wiped them away roughly. It is quite something to think you are going to die and then find yourself very much alive.

  “Wh-why?” Charlotte asked finally. “Why did you save me?”

  The goddess appeared to think for a moment. “I made a mistake,” she said. “I have recently been made to see that in my own quest for vengeance I treated you as I was once treated.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  The goddess looked at the ground for a moment. “It was I who led you to the sacred fire. Your cousin will explain to you later. He has a way of explaining things….”

  And then the goddess gave Charlotte her name, and Charlotte could only stare. She could not be surprised anymore.

  “You two saved my people once. All I did in the face of the threat to them was send visions of the Footmen to their quarries—including you.”

  “Your people?” Okay, Charlotte was a little surprised. “You mean the Dead?”

  Persephone’s eyes grew sad. “They are condemned to that place, as I am. I cannot do much. Little things, here and there, for those who seek me out. But”—she turned her eyes toward Charlotte, and the gaze was so powerful Charlotte nearly took a step back—“I am not brave, like you. I have never risked myself for them, for anyone.” Suddenly her faced darkened. “Listen, there is no time. The half-breed is on Olympus.”

  “The—who?” Charlotte had the distinct feeling her brain might explode.

  “The usurper called Philonecron. The demon who would torment the Dead. I saw him go through the gates.”

  Charlotte gasped. Acid poured through her blood. She should have known. They would never be rid of Philonecron, never. Charlotte and Zee will be in a nursing home playing checkers and he’ll show up and overturn the board. That is, if he could be kept from taking over the universe.

  “But…it’s Zeus. Philonecron can’t defeat Zeus!”

  Persephone shook her head. “The demon has Poseidon’s trident. And, apparently, he has found a way to use it. He and Zeus will be closely matched. And if Zeus is separated from his thunderbolt…”

  Charlotte felt dazed. Philonecron had the trident? Wow, that couldn’t have worked out any worse. It would have been far better for humanity if Charlotte had just let Zeus destroy them than whatever Philonecron had in mind. And Zee, Zee was up there. Philonecron was heading toward Zee.

  “I have to go back up,” said Charlotte. Persephone nodded, and Charlotte got the odd feeling that she thought Charlotte and Zee had a better chance against Philonecron than her fellow gods.

  “There is something else,” Persephone said. “He is not alone. There is a mortal boy with him. Do you know who he is?”

  A what? Had Philonecron enchanted another little pet? Charlotte shook her head. A mortal boy was the least of her worries.

  “Come,” said Persephone. “There’s no time.” And just like that, the goddess was a bird again. There was a great fluttering of wings and billows of dust, and then talons wrapped around Charlotte’s shoulders and they were in the air again, soaring back up to Olympus.

  As Zeus looked around uncomfortably, and Zee waged his inner struggle between truth and lies, something very unusual happened. It began as some noises, far off in the distance, like thunder. The refracted light in the room around them flickered and went out like an old lightbulb, leaving only clear, colorless crystal. Zee assumed it was just another effect of Zeus’s anger, but the god was suddenly looking even more uncertain than before.

  From somewhere below came a scream, and the sound of shattering and crashing, like a great chandelier falling to the floor. And another scream.

  From above came an announcement: “Security to the main lobby, please, security.”

  Zeus turned on Zee. “Is this your doing?”

  “What? No, mate!” Zee couldn’t put his finger on why, but he began to feel very uncomfortable.

  “Security, where in Hades are you?”

  “Is it Cronus? Is he free? Tell me the truth, mortal!” Zeus raised his thunderbolt to Zee, his hand shaking slightly.

  “I don’t know!” Zee cried, as the walls around him rumbled.

  “Would the half-breed who destroyed the lobby please report to floor thirty? Thank you.”

  “Half-breed?” Zeus muttered, shifting a little. He turned on Zee, spitting, “Who did they send? Who?”

  Zee was growing weary of this. “I don’t know!” he repeated.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Zeus mumbled. “Cronus does not overthrow me. There is a prophecy….”

  “Half-breed to security, half-breed to security….”

  “I am beloved,” Zeus said firmly to Zee. “My family will rise up to protect me. That is the benefit of being a great leader.”

  Suddenly the elevator door opened with a dainty ping.

  “Ah, there they are now!” Zeus said, with a self-satisfied look at Zee. “You see? You mortals understand nothing about—”

  But whatever it was they did not understand, Zee would never know. For just then something went flying out of the elevator doors. Zee and Zeus followed the object with their heads as it sailed through the room. It was difficult to make out anything in the blur—but as it whooshed past them Zee saw a face, goat legs, and a guitar. In fact, the object—who was clearly not an object at all—seemed to be playing the guitar and singing, rather cheerfully. Indeed, as the guitar-playing, singing, goat-legged non-object soared through the room and out the opening from which Charlotte had jumped, Zee could make out some of the words:

  That’s the ballad of Phil-o-ne-cron

  and Steeeeeeeeeeeeeeeve. Wheeeeeee!

  But that made no sense, no sense at all, and it didn’t even register in Zee’s head, not until there was a blast of green light through the room, and out strode the very being Zee wanted to see the least in the whole wide universe.

  And…Steve?

  CHAPTER 32

  The Ballad of Philonecron and Steve

  UP THROUGH THE AIR CHARLOTTE AND PERSEPHONE went, soaring past the great marble staircase, through a strange mass of wispy white tendrils that had the appearance of shattered cloud, and through the giant pillars into the front lobby.

  Or what was left of it.

  Gone were the elegant crystal atrium, the desk, the receptionist, the arrow-butted centaur, the clusters of Immortals. All had been replaced by blown-out ruins. There were crystal shards everywhere, knocked-over columns, and great craters in the wall and floor of a deep, empty, endless black. A pall of smoke hung in the air. It looked as if a bomb had hit the lobby. Philonecron, for all his pretensions to decorum, had proven to have a serious appetite for destruction.

&n
bsp; The great bird’s wings flapped furiously to come to a halt, and it gently released Charlotte. In a blink of an eye, Persephone was before her, tight-lipped and pale.

  “I don’t know if Zeus can stop him,” she whispered.

  “The other gods—Apollo, Hera, Athena—they’re all in the same place,” Charlotte panted. “Some terrace. Or they were when I left. Maybe they’ve all gone to help, though.”

  “I doubt it,” Persephone murmured. “They don’t pay much attention to things around them.”

  “Well,” said Charlotte, “we could go get them!”

  Persephone shook her head slightly. “I don’t think that will help.”

  What did she mean, it wouldn’t help? Six gods were a lot better than one and two mortals. “Well, at least it’s something!”

  “Very well,” said the goddess, looking reluctant. “We will try. But we must hurry.” And she led Charlotte through the wreckage to the elevators.

  The elevator rose up slowly, creakingly. There was no goat-man in it, no sad song to keep Charlotte company now, just her and Persephone and this apocalyptic fear. Philonecron with the trident was too much. He would see her and turn her to ash. He would set the whole world aflame, then flood it, then set it aflame once more for good measure.

  When they arrived at the terrace, Charlotte expected to see the gods in a panic of some kind. But as the elevator door opened, the scene was almost the same as before. Only now there were flakes of ash falling from the sky, and Apollo was moving so quickly on his roller skates now that he was just a blur.

  Persephone stepped out of the elevator first, and Charlotte heard Aphrodite drawl, “Oh, you’re back?” She didn’t sound too happy about it.

  Charlotte followed, and as she emerged Aphrodite pointed and screamed. Hera narrowed her eyes and muttered something quite rude about her husband.

  “It’s all right,” said Persephone to Aphrodite. “We need her—”

  “Need a mortal?” Hera sniped. “Why, is the Minotaur hungry?” Charlotte narrowed her eyes. She did not like Hera.