by A P Mobley
Darko raised the arrow to his neck. “Anything for you.”
“No!” Andy cried. “Don’t hurt him!”
Violet strode toward Andy. “My, my, this is a strange development: the pig-faced mortal boy seems to care for the incompetent satyr. Didn’t you know the gods would have you both killed for less?”
“Please,” Andy said. “Stop.”
The demigod laughed. “If you don’t want the satyr harmed, then I’d advise you to drop your weapons.” Andy threw his sword to the ground, while Kali tossed her spear aside. “Oh, get rid of the dagger too.”
Andy took the knife from his belt and pitched it into the dirt. “Okay. We’re unarmed. Now would you please let Darko go?”
“Tell me,” Violet started, eyeing the group’s supplies bags, “what do those packs carry?”
“Our stuff,” Andy said.
“Empty them, or the satyr dies.”
Kali put a hand on Andy’s shoulder. “Andy, I’m not sure we should do as she says,” she whispered. “The Helm.”
“I know what you mean,” he replied. “But we can’t just let her kill Darko. Besides, even if we did fight, she might have more of those dart things, knock us out, and get someone else to take the Helm anyway. At least this way we can fight later.”
After coming to the agreement that it was better to save Darko’s life instead of overpowering the demigod, Andy and Kali did as Violet instructed: they opened the bags and dumped out the contents inside. Their things came tumbling to the forest floor, including the Helm of Darkness.
Violet burst into a fit of cackling. “Oh my gods, you’re the two mortals from the Before Time, aren’t you?”
“I’m not,” Kali said.
“But he is, isn’t he?” Violet continued, pointing at Andy. “Does this mean the Daughter of Apollo is in Hephaestus City? It must. Tell me, did you really think you’d be able to get away with such heinous crimes?”
“It’s not like you can take the Helm from us, anyway,” Andy blurted out, desperation flooding his senses. “And I’m sure you know that. Diana does, and Spencer did. You can’t touch it. It’ll suck your life force away.”
“I may not be able to,” Violet replied, “but there are others who can. You, the girl, and the satyr.” She pointed at Darko. “Satyr! Grab the Helm of Darkness, conceal it inside one of the bags, and carry it for me. As for the two of you,” she continued, looking to Andy and Kali. “The Olympians will be pleased when I deliver you to them in chains.”
*~*~*~
“What should we do?” Zoey whispered to Diana and Prometheus, her heart racing, as Troy, Marina, and the rest of the workers in the break room of the Hephaestus City Forges cornered them. She’d brought her dagger into the city, sure, but was it smart for the group to battle these people?
Prometheus allowed his disguise to fade away. He grew taller and taller, his bracelets melting and morphing back into their true forms. “We should fight.”
Marina wiggled her fingers, orange flames curling from them and into the air. “I wouldn’t recommend it. You’re outnumbered. Now, would you like to cooperate and tell me who you are and what you’re doing here, or am I going to have to kill you?”
“We may be outnumbered,” Diana said, “but that hasn’t stopped us before.” She ripped off her cloak, threw it aside, and conjured a blazing sphere of sunlight in each hand.
One of the workers pointed her cutting-knife at Diana. “It’s the Daughter of Apollo!”
“Didn’t she aid the Chosen Two of the Prophecy in defeating King Hades and Queen Persephone and stealing the Helm of Darkness?” a man asked.
Marina locked eyes with Troy, and they gave each other a nod. She allowed her flames to disintegrate, and they raised their hands as if in surrender. “Stand down,” Troy said. “We can’t defeat the Daughter of Apollo in a fight.”
“What are you on about?” another man said. “She’s a traitor, and so are these other two just for associating themselves with her. We can’t let them get away. If we do, we’ll be killed.”
The man lunged for Diana, but before the demigod could attack him, Marina leapt into the air and kicked the man in the back of his head with such force he dropped face-first to the floor and fell unconscious. Zoey gasped. What was Marina doing? What in the hell was going on?
“Marina, what have you done?” a woman said, staring wide-eyed at the man on the floor. “You know the law. When the astynomia find out you defended the Daughter of Apollo, you’ll be executed.”
Troy stepped forward, cracking his knuckles. “Good thing none of them will be finding out what went on today then, right?”
The five remaining workers in the break room snarled. “Traitors,” one said. They raised their cutting-knives and thrusted themselves toward Troy and Marina, but within moments the black-haired twins slapped the utensils from the workers’ hands and knocked them unconscious.
The siblings dragged the workers, one by one, to a nearby closet and stuffed them inside. “We have to go,” Marina said. “Quickly.”
Diana held the spheres of light up as if to shield the group from the twins. “And why would we trust you?”
Troy grabbed a ring of keys from his robes and used one to lock the closet door. “Maybe because we just took out our own employees to protect you?”
“He has a point,” Zoey said. “They must be on our side—well, at least somewhat.”
“Just cover yourself, Daughter of Apollo,” Marina said. “And follow us. We can explain later. But it’s vital to your safety that we leave this area immediately.”
Diana retrieved her cloak and pulled it back on, and the group followed Troy and Marina out of the break room, onto the platform outside, and into another elevator. Once everyone had gathered inside, Troy punched in a few numbers. The wall behind them creeeaaaaaked as though another door was opening. When the sound ceased, the elevator shifted backward, farther inside the wall. Soon Zoey couldn’t see any of the forges below, the inside of the elevator growing dim.
“Where are you taking us?” Diana asked.
“To our workshop,” Troy replied. The elevator began traveling downward.
Marina turned to Diana, peering at the demigod through dim light. “What are you really doing here?”
Diana grabbed the links of Prometheus’s chains and held them out to Troy and Marina. “This is the Titan god Prometheus. We need to break his chains.”
“Why?”
Prometheus chuckled. “Because they want help getting into Poseidon’s palace, and I’m their only lead. But if I’m going to help them, I want something in return: to be completely free.”
“You plan to steal the Trident next, don’t you?” Marina asked. “Like how you stole the Helm?” Diana nodded.
Troy ran his fingers along the chains. “These were forged by our grandfather himself. I smell an enchantment on them, too.”
“Wait,” Zoey started. “Hephaestus is your grandfather?”
“Yes,” Marina replied. “That’s why Troy is such a talented blacksmith, and why I possess the gift of fire. We aren’t demigods, so we aren’t forced to live on New Mount Olympus, but some divine blood runs through our veins.”
“Then why are you helping us?”
Bright light flooded the elevator; it came to a jarring halt, and Zoey had to catch herself on the bars as the stop hurled her forward. She gathered her footing, and the door creaked open. Troy and Marina made their way out of the elevator and gestured for everyone to follow. “Come on then,” Troy said. “Don’t be shy.”
Zoey squinted into the place they’d come to, the light practically blinding her after standing for a few minutes with barely any. Once her vision adjusted, she stared wide-eyed at what lay before them. It was the most fascinating location she’d seen so far today.
The room was huge, probably even bigger than the en
tire third floor of Zoey’s high school from the Before Time, and smelled like a mechanic’s garage. Dozens of lightbulbs hung from the ceiling. The walls were made of turning gears and cogs, steaming pipes, ancient weaponry, and various tools. Contraptions littered the floor—what looked like car and clock parts, wires, batteries, cell phones, laptops, and other bits of technology from the Before Time, and many other inventions that appeared way more high-tech than anything Zoey had ever seen, and that she couldn’t identify. At the back of the room, a large hole in the wall looked as though it had been drilled, a forge constructed in the empty space.
Zoey, Diana, and Prometheus followed Troy and Marina into the workshop. “You never answered my question,” Zoey said as she glanced around at the items on the floor. “If Hephaestus is your grandfather, if you’re related to the gods, then why are you helping us?”
“The Daughter of Apollo is rumored to have led this whole expedition against the gods, alongside the late Daughter of Poseidon,” Troy said, laughing. “Why can’t we help out? We have our reasons.”
Marina hurried toward the forge. She conjured flames in her hands, then launched them into the coals. “That’s no kidding. Just because Hephaestus is our grandfather, and just because he is more merciful to his citizens than the other gods, doesn’t mean we support him and the rest of our twisted immortal family.”
Prometheus grimaced as if in wry amusement. “They’ve always caused more pain than joy, that’s for sure.”
“Our mother, Helen, was a Daughter of Hephaestus,” Troy said, making his way to Marina’s side. “She was incredibly useful to the gods, possessing both a talent in metalworking and the power of Hephaestus’s fire. But she made a grave mistake. She got pregnant by a regular mortal man, and she tried to trick the gods about her twin babies so they could live with her on Mount Olympus.”
“That was you guys, wasn’t it?” Zoey said.
“Yes,” Troy said with a sigh. “Our mother lied to Zeus. She said we were another demigod’s children and that we had enough divine blood to not be thrown off Olympus after our birth. But once we were born, she couldn’t lie anymore. Zeus knew right away we didn’t have enough divine blood for our parents to both be demigods.”
Marina stared hard at the flames in the forge. “Zeus executed her in front of hundreds, if not thousands. He would have killed us too, for her crimes I mean, even as infants, but Hephaestus pleaded with him to allow us to live. Not because he cared for us, I know, since we’ve only met him a handful of times, all incredibly impersonal. Not because he loved our mother, since he did nothing to stop her murder, even though she only lied because she knew we’d be taken from her if she didn’t. He just wanted to see what we would be capable of with only a quarter of his divine blood. At least, that’s what Father always said.” She smiled sadly. “If we can break Prometheus’s chains for you, Hephaestus may find out that begging to keep us around and charging us with running the forges of his city were some of his worst mistakes.”
Troy grabbed a double-sided tool off the wall—one side was a hammer, the other a chisel—and gestured for Prometheus to come to the forge. “Let’s begin. We’ll do the hands first, then the feet. Now, just know this will be painful. Marina’s fire is used to light the forges here; it’s one of the closest things in temperature to Hephaestus’s own flames, and she’ll be shooting more at the chains while they’re sitting in the coals. Not to mention when I bring the chisel down to break the metal, it’ll probably cut you open. But if combining our powers like this can’t break your chains, I don’t know if anything will.”
“Don’t worry about hurting me,” Prometheus said. “I had my liver ripped outta me by a beastie every day for centuries, then for another seventy-five years when I was imprisoned for the second time. Pain isn’t a problem for me.”
“Whatever you say, Titan. I’m just trying to prepare you,” Troy said. He pointed at the coals. “Put ’er there.”
Prometheus rested a hand in the fire so the chain around his wrist lay in the center of the burning coals. Marina conjured fire in her hands and blasted it at the metal, over and over. Less than a minute passed, and the metal began glowing red. Prometheus gritted his teeth, sweat seeping from his pores, the smell of burnt flesh filling the air.
Troy raised the chisel side of the tool above his head, then rammed it against the chain. Sparks whizzed into the air, but not even a dent was made in the metal. Troy raised the tool and brought it down again and again, but it was no use. The chain wouldn’t budge.
Troy dropped the tool and wiped his brow, his breaths labored, and Marina allowed her fire to disintegrate. “I’m sorry to say, but I don’t think anything will break these. Not unless Hephaestus himself does it.” Zoey’s heart sank. What else could they do?
Prometheus ripped his hand from the forge and clutched his arm, his skin blistered red and black with burns. “That can’t be. In the old days, when Heracles and I combined our strength . . .”
“Your old chains must have been forged differently,” Marina said, resting a hand on Prometheus’s back. “They must not have been enchanted. But these ones are. And, although we’re powerful, we can’t break an enchantment cast by an Olympian. Maybe if it were cast by someone else, but . . . I’m sorry. We’ve done all we can.”
Diana clasped her hands. “Prometheus, I know we were supposed to break your chains for you. I know that was the deal. But please, help us get into Poseidon’s palace. If you don’t, we’ll never be able to defeat the gods . . .” Prometheus said nothing to Diana; he only looked away.
Zoey bit her lip. What could she say to convince Prometheus to help them into Poseidon’s palace, even though they couldn’t break his chains in the time he’d given them?
She closed her eyes and thought of her conversation with Andy earlier that day. The way her throat had tingled, the way the right words to sway the conversation back in her favor had spilled from her mouth with no thought.
Finally, Prometheus spoke. “The deal was if you proved yourselves worthy of my help by breaking these chains, I would get you into Poseidon’s palace. But you didn’t.”
Zoey’s throat began tingling like earlier—again, as if her vocal cords were gently vibrating. She opened her eyes and looked up at the Titan. “What about Jasmine, Prometheus?” He hung his head. “I know we couldn’t follow through with the deal, but does that mean you’re just going to let your great-great-granddaughter suffer at the hands of the Aphrodite City aristocracy?”
“I could help her, assure her workload is lessened significantly,” Prometheus said. “I could work for her for free for the rest of her days, then for her children and her children’s children, until I’m discovered and re-imprisoned.”
“But would that really help her in the end?” Zoey continued. The tingling in her throat began to subside, the tone in her voice now brewing with the same panic coursing through her. “Would she ever truly be free of the gods’ tyranny? And—and what about Nylah? What would Nylah think if you turned your back on the world? What would she say to such a selfish decision? Wouldn’t that make you just as self-serving as the rest of the gods? Wouldn’t it make you no better than any of them?”
For a long time, no one said a word, the only sound that of Prometheus’s charred flesh cracking as it healed itself.
Finally, Prometheus held his head up and looked to Zoey. “I’ll help you into Poseidon’s palace. Not for you or your cause or because I believe in you, but for my son. For Nylah, and for my great-great-granddaughter.”
Diana let out a long sigh of relief. “Thank you so much. Even though we couldn’t get the chains off now, maybe someday we can. Should we head toward the Labyrinth, then?” Prometheus nodded.
Troy and Marina stepped forward. “We’re ecstatic you’ll be able to enter Poseidon’s palace, and we don’t want to keep you here much longer,” Troy started. “But there are a few things we wanted to give you bef
ore you go. You may or may not find them useful for your journey. I’m hoping you do.”
“We’ll take any and all help we can,” Zoey said. “What is it?”
The siblings shared a glance and a nod, and Marina turned back to Zoey and Diana, her eyes lighting with excitement. “The first thing is something we’ve been working on for a long time.” She scurried over to the workshop’s nearest wall and plucked two small objects from it. They looked like shiny, copper-colored wallets.
“These are highly experimental,” Marina said, walking back to the group and placing one in Diana’s hand, then the other in Zoey’s. Zoey rubbed her thumb over the contraption. It was made of cold, smooth metal. “In fact, we’ve never even been able to properly test them.”
Diana held hers up to the light, squinting at it. “And what are they, exactly?”
“I like to call them ‘Pocket-Sized Submarines,’” Troy said.
“Wait, what?” Zoey asked. “Did you say pocket-sized submarine?”
Troy chuckled. “That’s right. They’re built to be small enough for your robe pocket until you get them wet, in which case they unfold until they’re a submarine big enough to hold around five people.”
“Okay, a few questions,” Diana said. “First, what in the world would ever possess you to build something like this? Second, how did you figure out how to build it? And third, how do you even know it works?”
“We’re grandchildren-of-Hephaestus,” Marina answered. “He creates, so building things is in our blood, but more than anything we like to be challenged by our projects. Troy read about submarines in an old book we found when we were kids, and when he told me about them, we became fascinated with the idea of using our powers to build several. However, we didn’t have a good place to put them, so we decided we needed to make them small enough to fit in a robe pocket, and design them so they would only expand to full size when touched by liquid. We had to use a combination of enchantments we stole from others and our own powers to build them, and for the most part I think the endeavor was successful. We don’t know for sure if they work—that’s why I said they’re experimental.”