by A P Mobley
Prometheus laughed and shook his foot. “Hey, that was halfway clever.”
The Caucasian Eagle glared down at Zoey, swaying side to side like a drunk in the street. He made a gurgling sound, then squawked, slowly flapping his wings to fly toward her. She reached for her dagger. Left hand this time, she thought, her pulse racing. Hopefully he hit his head hard enough that I can take him now.
“Hey, you ugly oversized dove,” said the familiar voice of a boy above her.
She looked up to find Andy standing on another boulder which hovered above Prometheus’s head. He swayed almost as badly as the Caucasian Eagle, the rock barely big enough to hold both his feet.
The eagle narrowed his eyes in Andy’s direction. “That’s right. I’m talking to you,” Andy said. “Don’t pay her any attention. I’m a far tastier snack.” As if in agreement, the eagle shrieked and flew drunkenly toward Andy, but just before the monster reached him, he leapt off the boulder.
The eagle slammed beak-first into the rock. It shattered into pebbles, and Andy crash-landed onto a rock close to Zoey.
“Andy!” Zoey cried as the rock teetered, her friend slipping over the edge.
Andy grasped the boulder’s ridges and pulled himself up, then chuckled nervously. “I’m okay, I think.”
Above, the eagle screeched and began haphazardly spiraling toward the canyon below. As he passed Zoey and Andy, his wings collided with the rocks holding them and pitched them through the air. They screamed, limbs flailing as they plunged downward.
Within moments someone seized Zoey’s forearm and she came to a halt midair, her shoulder feeling as if it were splitting in two. She cried out, then looked up to find it was Diana who’d grabbed her. Diana clenched her jaw and, with a massive tug, pulled Zoey onto Aladdin’s back.
Zoey trembled and clung to Diana. “Andy—did someone catch him?”
“Yes,” Diana said, and pointed to the left. Sure enough, Andy held tight to Kali on the back of Luna, while Darko and Ajax flew beside them. Zoey sighed in relief. Everyone’s safe.
Far beneath them, the Caucasian Eagle let out a final weak cry, then plummeted so far into the canyon he disappeared.
Andy grinned and pumped a fist in the air. “Whoo-hoo! We did it!”
“Yes, we did,” Diana said. “But in the process, you two almost got yourselves killed.”
Zoey tensed. “Hey, at least my idea worked.”
Diana looked over her shoulder and offered Zoey a mischievous grin. “Just try not to scare me so much next time, okay?”
Zoey relaxed. “I’ll do my best.”
Diana directed Aladdin toward Prometheus. The Titan’s arms were free, although shackles still hung on his wrists like they did his ankles. His muscles bulged as he tugged on the chain around his remaining bound leg. Finally, he snapped the chain hooked to his ankle out of the rock, although the shackle remained.
“The Caucasian Eagle is gone, and you’re set free,” Diana said. “Now will you please help us into Poseidon’s palace?”
Prometheus wiggled his hands and feet as if trying to shake the chains away. “Now, now, hold your pegasi. I said I’d help you if you freed me from these chains. Do I look freed of them to you?”
Zoey’s stomach dropped. “But we did free you. You’re not chained to those rocks anymore. You can go wherever you want now.”
“Yeah,” Andy added. “We did all we could. The least you could do is hold up your end of the deal.”
“Did I ask for your help?” Prometheus replied. “Maybe I liked being trapped here, getting my liver eaten by the beastie every day. All I said was if you proved yourselves worthy of my help—by getting me out of these chains—I’d assist you. But as far as I’m concerned, you haven’t done so.”
“Well, I think Zoey and Andy proved themselves more than worthy of your help,” Kali said. “You’re not being fair.”
“Nothing in life is fair,” Prometheus retorted. “That’s just how it is.”
“I don’t understand,” Darko said, shaking his head. “In the old days you did everything you could to help people, even if it meant being punished. And now it’s like you’re doing everything you can to avoid being a hero.”
Prometheus sneered. “I’ve been chained up as punishment twice already. Tartarus is bound to be my next stop, and I’d prefer not to be thrown in there for the rest of eternity. If I thought you kids were worthy of my help—if I thought you had a chance of winning this war—I’d take that chance, but unfortunately you aren’t worthy and you have no chance. So, sorry. It’s time I save my own skin for once.”
“What now, then?” Zoey said. “Are you gonna tell the gods what we’re doing, where we are? Get us captured and wash everything we’ve worked for down the drain?”
The Titan chuckled. “Calm down, kid. I won’t do that. If I turned you in to Zeus, he’d most likely assume I was working with you and put me in Tartarus anyway.”
“Okay,” Andy cut in. “You won’t help us because we couldn’t break you out of the shackles today. But what if we found something else, or someone else, to break them tomorrow? Or even in the next week, the next month? What if it was done later and on our behalf? Would you help us then?”
Prometheus scratched his chin as if in thought. Zoey held her breath.
“Tell you what,” the Titan began. “If you bust me outta these chains within the next three days, I’ll help you into ol’ Poseidon’s palace. But first I need to go to Aphrodite City, and I want you to escort me there on your pegasi. I would transport there, but my godly powers have been weakened because of these.” He wiggled the chains. “There’s some sorta enchantment on them, I think. Until I can get them off, I won’t be at my most powerful.”
Andy nodded. “That’s fine. We can take you to Aphrodite City, and then once you finish up whatever you need to do there, we can start our three-day journey in finding a way to break your chains.”
“No. The detour to Aphrodite City counts toward your three days.”
Diana rubbed her temples. “You’ve got to be kidding me. It’ll take us a whole day to reach that place, then we’ll have to spend however long you want to be there, and then that will leave us with hardly any time left to find a way to break you loose.”
“That’s the deal I’m offering you,” Prometheus said. “Take it, or you can find your own way into the palace.”
“We’ll do it,” Zoey said. “If those are your conditions, we accept.”
*~*~*~
Karter had lost track of the days.
He did nothing but slip in and out of a restless, infection-and-nausea-induced unconscious state while the demigod trio carted him to Olympus. Over and over in his “sleep” the same nightmare plagued him . . .
Karter fell through the black abyss. If it were any other black abyss he would have been scared, and he would have screamed, but he didn’t need to; there was no end in sight. The abyss went on forever. He could live like that, forever falling. But then his father materialized, green lightning bolt in hand, and suddenly he wasn’t falling anymore. He stood in the Olympian throne room on New Mount Olympus.
He knew what was coming. He fell to his knees, begging for mercy. But his father didn’t listen. Rather, he said, “The time has come.”
Then he launched the bolt straight for Karter’s face.
Each time Karter woke from the nightmare, his scar seared with familiar pain.
One night, as he slipped into unconsciousness again, he thought for sure he’d have the nightmare. After all, he’d had it dozens of times.
The dream played out the same as always, until— Suddenly Asteria, with her burgundy hair and silver eyes, materialized.
Karter furrowed his brow and reached for her. “Asteria? After I left Hades, I called to you, but you never came. What’s—”
Before he could finish his question, the Ti
tan goddess disintegrated into thousands of miniature stars. They floated toward him, and once they reached him, they grabbed onto his robes like a glittering phantom and flew up, up, up.
“What’s going on?” Karter asked.
“I could not come to you before,” Asteria said, her voice echoing all around him. “Zeus discovered Apollo helping Diana, and he suspected another deity had a hand in your choice to aid the Chosen Two of the Prophecy. He did not think you would have decided to on your own. I would have been caught if I came to you then, and if that were to happen, I would not have been able to help you any longer. But I have gathered my strength and bided enough time. Wake up, Karter. Wake up.”
With great effort, Karter opened his eyes, the edges of the lids crusted over with gunk. He lay on the forest floor. Pine trees loomed over him, stars twinkling in the night sky. Rope was still bound tight around his clammy, feverish body.
He glanced around. Violet and Layla slept on either side of a dying campfire, while Xander patrolled the surrounding area, their three pegasi tied to a tree.
Asteria popped her head into Karter’s line of sight. “Do not be alarmed,” she whispered. His stomach bubbled with nausea, his heart racing, his throat so parched he wasn’t sure he could speak. Even if he had been alarmed at her arrival, he didn’t think he was strong enough to react.
There were some snipping sounds, and the ropes loosened around Karter’s body, then came undone completely and fell apart at his sides. Asteria wrapped him in her arms, her skin cool against his.
Karter closed his eyes for a moment, focusing on not retching all over Asteria, and the next time he opened them thousands of miniature stars carried him high above the forest. The demigod trio was out of sight. They traveled fast as light, but to Karter it felt as if they hadn’t moved an inch from where they’d been before.
“Do not fall asleep until I say so,” Asteria said, and Karter realized she’d taken the form of stars to carry him. “If you fall asleep, you may not wake this time. Your condition is graver than those three could have ever known or cared.”
Where Asteria planned to take Karter, he had no idea, but until she said he could close his eyes, he’d use the last of his strength to keep them open.
*~*~*~
Andy couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
It had taken the group a whopping twenty-four hours, but the afternoon sun sat high in the sky, its golden rays shining on Aphrodite City far below them in the distance. Beyond the hills surrounding the location, acres of farmland and hundreds of thousands of stone-and-wood houses sat; they were spread for as far as he could see and appeared to make up the city’s outer rim. Beyond them, in the center of the city, glistening gold-and-ivory statues and buildings held up by pillars were erected atop a mountain-like structure that stood taller than the trees.
Andy squinted. Massive hordes of people bustled about the city, and from up here, they looked like ants scurrying along sidewalks.
Ahead, Diana gestured for the group to land in the forest and directed Aladdin to descend into the trees. Everyone else followed suit.
Once they’d landed, Diana began relaying information. “All right, I know we’re crunched for time, but no one can fly our pegasi or take any obvious weapons into the city. If the citizens or astynomia see anyone with pegasi or weapons, they’re arrested on the spot.” She glanced at the shackles still bound around Prometheus’s hands and ankles, then looked him up and down, as if examining his giant size. Andy couldn’t blame her; the Titan had to be over eight feet tall. “You’re going to look really suspicious, too. Why is it that you needed to come here again? Are you sure a couple of us can’t go in for you?”
“There’s someone I have to see,” Prometheus said. “That I have to speak with.”
“Can one of us go in for you and bring out whoever you need to talk to?” Andy asked, but Diana was already shaking her head.
“No,” Diana said. “Citizens can’t leave the city. If they’re caught, they’ll be executed on the spot. Unless the citizens have permission from the gods to leave, they can’t. It’ll be much easier to sneak in and out rather than sneak in, sneak someone else out, then sneak back in, and so on. Prometheus will just need to disguise himself and the chains. If he doesn’t, the citizens will be suspicious of him right away.”
“All right,” Prometheus said. “I should have enough power left in me to make a disguise at least.” He clenched his fists and flexed his muscles. Veins popped up in his arms and legs, beads of sweat rolling down his forehead. Soon he began to shrink—first down to seven feet, then to six—and the shackles and chains melted and morphed until they were no more than cuff-like bracelets circling his wrists and ankles.
Once Prometheus finished disguising himself, he was still super buff, but now he could pass as a regular person and didn’t look as if he’d just escaped prison or something.
Andy shot the Titan a glare. “If you could change the chains into those by yourself, why didn’t you just do that in the first place?”
“They’re not really changed,” Prometheus replied. “They just appear to be. Titans and gods can alter their appearance and the appearances of others easily—Zeus and Poseidon were especially famous for disguising themselves in the old days to lure in unsuspecting women. Besides, I still can’t get them off.” The Titan pulled on the bracelets, but they didn’t budge. “Anyway, the chains have drained most of my power, so this disguise is going to be difficult to maintain for long periods of time. You still have to find a way to free me of them, or you can kiss my help goodbye.”
Diana crossed her arms and turned to the rest of the group. “Whoever else goes into the city with him is going to have to steal some clothes for themselves. Especially Zoey, Andy, and Kali. You three will stick out even more than Prometheus would have without the disguise.”
“Are not all of us going in?” Darko asked, biting a fingernail.
“I’m a fugitive,” Diana replied, shaking her head. “By now everyone in the cities knows who I am and that the gods want me captured, so at the very least I have to stay hidden out here. The pegasi can’t go in either, and I’d like one person to stay with me to help defend them in case any monsters show up while the rest of you are in the city.”
“Why don’t all of us wait out here while Prometheus goes in?” Andy asked. “Wouldn’t that be safer?”
Diana smacked Andy’s arm. “Are you stupid? Some of us have to go with Prometheus and make sure he doesn’t try to escape before he helps us get into Poseidon’s palace.”
“Hey, I wouldn’t do that,” Prometheus said, then scratched his chin. “Well, actually, maybe I would.”
Kali raised a hand. “I’ll do the honors of staying in the forest with you, Princess.”
Diana blushed, wrinkling her nose. “The honors of staying with me?”
“Oh, I must have said that wrong,” Kali said, smiling. “What I meant to say is it’s always an honor spending time with my pegasi—protecting them from monsters and such. You didn’t think I’d trust you to watch them by yourself, did you?”
Diana crossed her arms and shook her head, chuckling slightly.
“Well, sounds like it’s settled then,” Prometheus said. “Diana and Kali can stay out here with the pegasi while the rest of us go in and take care of business.”
Darko creased his brow. “Should we grab some weapons, too? You know, since the Caucasian Eagle kind of destroyed some of what we had?”
“Didn’t Diana say it was illegal for anyone in the cities to have weapons?” Andy added. “How would we get any?”
“The astynomia always have weapons,” Darko said. “I could sneak into one of their quarters and take some. They probably wouldn’t ask any questions since I’m a satyr.”
“Good thinking,” Zoey replied, and the rest of the group nodded.
Prometheus started toward the city. “We
ll, I think we’ve covered everything. Let’s go.”
Andy and Zoey shared another look, and with that, the group followed Prometheus.
For a long time, they passed through forest. Once they’d arrived at the outer rim of Aphrodite City, acres of wheat farmland awaited them, people in loose brown clothes harvesting under the sun. The group crept along the field, careful to hide behind the tall grass and out of the people’s vision, and soon they reached a neighborhood of wood-and-stone houses. Here, children and adults alike hung laundry out to dry, tended to household gardens, or gathered water from nearby wells with clay pots.
Andy, Zoey, and Prometheus scurried along the paths, careful not to draw attention to themselves and startle the citizens, while Darko clopped along.
“No one’s seemed to notice us yet,” Andy whispered.
Zoey nodded. “Yeah, but we still need to find some disguises.”
Andy bit the tip of his thumb and eyed two nearby houses with ropes strung between them. Dozens of rust-colored cloaks, tunics, pants, and dresses were hung out to dry on the ropes. He didn’t want to steal from these people, especially since he was supposed to be helping them by saving the world, but what other choice did they have?
He and Zoey looked around, making sure no one was looking. “Stay here and watch Prometheus for a few minutes while we get some new outfits,” Zoey said to Darko, and the satyr nodded.
The two of them tiptoed toward the clothes. Andy grabbed a tunic, and Zoey grabbed a dress.
“No peeking,” Zoey whispered, slinking behind a wall of clothes, and Andy nodded, his cheeks growing hot. He wouldn’t do something like that; at least, not without Zoey telling him she wanted him to.
Andy concealed himself among the fabrics. After glancing around one last time to make sure no one could see, he tugged off his black T-shirt, tattered jeans, and filthy socks and sneakers, all of which he was sure smelled like a dumpster truck, although he’d grown accustomed to his own “natural” scent. He tossed his things into his bag and pulled the tunic over his head. To his surprise, it was comfortable: the texture that of lightweight cotton, the tip of its hem reaching his knees.