Zeus is Dead

by Michael G. Munz

  As the wraith gained the shore and began its dash back up the mountainside, Hades ruminated but a moment on his options before telling Hermes.

  “The wraith has found Apollo. Approaching Zeus’s temple in the Ionians.”

  “Ah, brilliant! It’s holding him there?”

  “Tracking only.” A more loquacious god would have expressed his hesitance to risk the wraith further in combat, perhaps even his regret of retasking the creature in the first place, but Hades had a reputation to consider, and left it at that. “We five will deal with Apollo ourselves and inform the Dodekatheon once he is caught. Tell the others.”

  Hades resolved that he himself would not be implicated in Zeus’s murder. Let Ares take that cup if he wished; it would choke him eventually. They would learn Apollo’s full intentions and secure his silence before they turned him over to Poseidon. Once Apollo knew what would befall him should he go before the Dodekatheon without the conspirators’ support, the sun god would cut a deal. If he did not, there were other methods of persuasion.

  “How close is he to the temple?” Hermes asked.

  “Close. Why?”

  “We’re bound from going in there, if you recall. The last remnant of Zeus’s edict hasn’t faded yet. Soon but not yet. I’d ask how he got in, but since we’re still trying to figure out how he’s avoided Poseidon, I’m guessing we don’t know that either. We’ll need to flush him out first.”

  Black death, the limey bastard’s right. “I’ll take care of that. You inform the others. Be ready.”

  Leif walked backward up the trail ahead of Tracy, likely the better to voice his interjections to Apollo’s story as the god brought up the rear. “So if I get what you’re saying, this wraith thing: it can’t be bargained with, it can’t be reasoned with, and it absolutely will not stop . . . until we are dead. Right?”

  “Or captured,” answered Apollo. “Depending. It may be tasked with either, and the—”

  “Whatever. My point is why didn’t they think to send this against us before?”

  “You’re complaining?” asked Tracy.

  “Well, yeah! Stuff like that bugs me.” Leif shrugged. “It has to be pointed out.”

  “You are not possessed of all the facts,” Apollo explained. “The Orthlaelapsian wraith normally guards something important to those of us on Olympus; it has done so for millennia. That the wraith would be given another task—”

  “How important are we talking, here?” Leif interrupted.

  Apollo frowned and shook his head.

  “The key to the Titans’ prison,” Thalia answered for him. “In a manner of speaking. What? Who’re they going to tell?”

  At once Jason’s warning launched itself back to the forefront of Tracy’s mind. “Out of curiosity, does that have anything at all to do with a place called Swin—”

  Tracy rammed into some sort of unseen force field that flung her into a fit of cursing. Already past the apparent force field, Leif turned immediately.

  “Geez, what happened? You okay?”

  The fact that Leif walked back through the invisible whatever-it-was didn’t help Tracy’s attitude. Muffled by a protective hand over her battered nose, Tracy’s cursing continued another few seconds before she managed a basic, “What the hell?”

  Amid the impact’s lingering sting, Tracy noticed they’d nearly reached the end of the path. They stood in a flat, open area festooned with grasses, rocks, and a single oak tree that grew in the shadow of the small peak above them. A carved stone overhang supported by two columns formed the mouth of a tunnel into the peak, and leading up to the tunnel were a few weatherworn stone steps. The steps continued inside such that their elevation prevented her from seeing too far beyond the entrance. Though the rock face immediately in front of them was steep, around the sides more gradual, crumbling paths wove their way up some eight feet to the top of the mountain.

  Thalia moved up beside Tracy, and ran an experimental hand over the barrier field. (That Thalia used the same experimental hand as Tracy—which is to say, Tracy’s right hand—was a small annoyance Tracy was too fatigued to bother with.) Whatever the barrier was, it appeared (insomuch as an invisible anything can appear) to cover the entrance to a cave. Despite Leif’s ability to step back and forth over the threshold with impunity, neither Tracy nor Thalia nor Apollo could breach it.

  “Some sort of force field,” Apollo surmised.

  “Then why doesn’t it affect me?” Leif asked.

  “You couldn’t warn me about it before I smashed my face?”

  “Quite obviously I didn’t know about it.” Apollo uncovered Tracy’s nose and ran his hand above it. “Stop complaining. There. Healed.”

  “Thanks.”

  Glancing upward, Tracy spotted signs of more carved stone columns that seemed embedded in the natural rock itself, as if the mountain had grown up around the temple in some geological attempt to consume it entirely.

  “How high up do you suppose it goes? Or maybe it doesn't go all the way around the peak? We might be able to go around the field, climb up, and come back down from above.”

  Thalia blew a strand of hair out of her face and shrugged. “Maybe. I’ll see what I can find. Watch for wraiths!” With that, she sprang into the air and vanished out of sight around the top of the stonework.

  “I thought only gods couldn’t go in?” Tracy asked, feeling around for gaps in the field.

  “Not within a quarter mile,” Apollo answered. “We’re already far within that radius.” After a worried glance back down the path, he ran a hand over the barrier himself to follow Tracy’s lead in the other direction. “This is something different. This is something . . . else.”

  “Profound,” quipped Leif.

  “Quiet, Mr. Karlson.” Apollo continued to study the barrier. “I would theorize it was designed to keep anything supernatural out, in order to reinforce the idea long ago that we gods did not exist. Thalia and I are obviously barred, and Tracy has an immortal parent. I seem to recall Zeus experimenting with force fields like this around all the temples, as a kind of failsafe built into the Withdrawal. It’s individually erected, rather than being an automatic byproduct of Zeus’s law, so it won’t completely dissolve the way the quarter-mile prohibition is about to. But nor will it be strong enough to keep out a full god once the prohibition dissolves. Even so, if we can find a way inside, it may buy us some time against the wraith or any others sent after us in the meantime. A blessing in disguise.”

  Tracy didn’t figure it was any kind of blessing at all, just another layer in the whole bothersome and complex task of hiking up a freaking hill and into a temple to get things over with. Just her luck they picked the temple with some overly secure force field prototype. Why did everything have to be so damn difficult?

  Leif walked over to the oak tree. “Maybe there’s a hole in the field up there where the branches can reach? It's a long shot, but we could climb the tree and check. Not that Thalia won’t be able—”

  “Guardian-tree am not for climbings!”

  The voice that interrupted Leif was swift, deep, and came right out of the tree. Tracy briefly considered the likelihood that the voice had come from a talking, baritone chipmunk or other such creature, before spotting the vague outline of a face in the bark. The face itself was as tall as she; she doubted she’d have noticed it at all were the lips not moving. The fact that it was talking helped too, of course.

  “You not needing climbings anyway,” it continued. “Guardian of temple can be lettings you in! I am being guardian of temple! Hello, things with legs!” Leaves waved to them gently.

  Overwhelmed by the urge to glance nervously behind them, the impatient impulse to continue, and the new stimulus of a talking tree, Tracy remained speechless. Leif was unencumbered by such a problem.

  “What are you, like an ent?” he asked, studying it.

  “No, am guardian-tree of temple!” answered the tree—or the guardian, Tracy supposed. Or both, even. “You not be hearin
gs before when I say so? What is ent?”

  “Er, it’s from a book,” Leif explained.

  “What is book?”

  “You don’t get out much, do you?”

  “No, I always just be standings here. Is book anythings like rock over there?” The guardian-tree pointed with a few branches.

  “No, it’s—”

  Tracy put a hand on Leif’s shoulder in hopes it would be enough stop him, just in case he was about to mention the material that books were generally made from. The unexpected physical contact distracted him enough for the tree to continue.

  “What about other rock over there?” the tree asked, perplexed. “Is book like that? Or like sky? Or like—what else is being in world? Other tree? Used to be other trees, but that long time ago.

  “Oh!” it suddenly boomed. “Is book like lizard? Lots of lizards being here all the times. Not now, but . . .” The tree’s leaves drooped slightly. “Missing the lizards. They is good to talk to. Not being saying much, but good at listenings. Is good skill for lizard to haves. Lizard also be having legs, can be goings other places, seeing other rocks. And other trees. And sky. Lizard never mention book, but lizard never mention much at alls, really, so is hard to being sure.”

  “Ah, we don’t mean to be rude,” Tracy tried, “but you mentioned something about letting us in the temple, yes?”

  Apollo, having resumed his watch down the path, nodded his approval.

  The tree didn’t nod so much as shimmy its trunk in an up-and-down motion, but the meaning remained apparent. “Did mention. You is being good listener too! Can let you in, is able! But is not being supposed to. I sorry.”

  “Says who?” Leif asked.

  The effect of her touch apparently having worn off, Tracy removed her hand.

  “Says Zeus! He is puttings me here many many many many many . . .” It trailed off in thought before nodding again with satisfaction. “Many years ago, giving or taking. Picks me up as acorn, holdings me in his palm, and then there is all this lightings and flashings and then I be having thoughts! . . . Not know why I am rememberings what happens before I be having thoughts. Is big mystery but is fun to thinking on too. You is good listeners!” it said. “Excepting for him. Why he is keeping looking down path? Is looking for more rocks? Plenty of rocks being here already. And grass. No lizards now, but we covers that before.”

  In fact, it wasn’t so much that they were good listeners as it was that the they had failed in their numerous attempts at interrupting the tree’s rapid yammering.

  “Trees are supposed to talk slowly,” Leif protested.

  “I not be knowings other trees talk at all. I be thinkings I am special. I am being oak tree! Zeus is being likings oak trees, you knows.”

  “Zeus liked oak trees, actually,” Tracy corrected, seeing a way to possibly get back on track. “Past tense.”

  “Ah, I is having troubles with tenses sometimes. Lizards is usually polite enough not to mind.”

  “No, she means Zeus is dead,” Leif added.

  The tree gasped and rocked back as incredulously as a tree can manage. “You is being speaking non-sense! Zeus is being a god, you knows! A god cannot die! Though that would being an explanation for why Zeus is not coming by to make visits in past thousand years or so. Guardian-tree just be thinkings he not liking me.”

  Tracy shook her head. “He was murdered nine months ago, which is actually why we—”

  “The wraith is back!” Apollo announced, pointing to what looked to Tracy like an empty patch of path fifty yards away. He pulled both bow and quiver from somewhere down the back of his shirt, which is a doubly neat trick if, again, you can do it. An arrow was nocked and sighted down in a flash, though he did not release it. “It waits and watches only, but we must hurry!”

  Save for a quick glance, the tree ignored this new development. “Zeus is only dying nine months ago? So I guessings that makes him jerk for avoidings me for so long before then. But I still have to be obeying what he is telling me to do: no one going into the temple until he say so otherwise. What is wraith? Is wraith anythings like rock over there?”

  Tracy moved closer, putting the tree between her and the wraith just to be safe (easier said than done when she couldn’t actually see the mostly-invisible creature at such a distance herself). “Tree,” she began, immediately disliking the moniker, “er—do you have a name?”

  “I am being called guardian-tree!” it declared. “I be thinking that is good enough.”

  Good, Tracy, nice waste of time there. “Guardian-tree, we’re here to resurrect Zeus. We can’t do that if we don’t get inside. Don’t you think he’d want you to do that for us?”

  “Resurrectings? Not be knowing you can do that—but then not be knowings Zeus can be killed too. You is being sure you can do that? Maybe you just is confuseled?”

  “We can!” Apollo called over his shoulder. “I am Apollo, god of healing, of music, of archery, poetry, and prophecy, and I swear that what she says is true.” His attention turned back forward before he muttered, “At least I was.”

  Tracy nodded quickly. “I’m sure once Zeus is back, he can tell you that it’s safe to let us in. In fact, I’m certain of it.” She wasn’t certain of it, but priorities are priorities.

  “And he regretted not visiting you more often!” Leif added. “He told us! It’s just that he was so busy with all the ruling and the lightning and—”

  “Oooh, lightenings!” the tree shouted. “I can be doing lightenings. To be helping with the guardianing Zeus is teaching me how—or giving me the how. I knot really be knowings. Knot be knowings. (That tree joke!)”

  Tracy balled her fists, fighting frustration. “We don’t really have time—”

  “You be watching now!”

  At once the tree’s leaves crackled and Tracy smelled ozone. Electricity flared across the tree's bark, and a bolt of lightning flashed out to a rocky outcropping a short distance down the path, blasting it to pieces. The shock alone (that lightning joke!) was enough to stand Tracy’s hair on end. Or maybe that was the static.

  “Seeings? Guardian-tree can shoot lightenings! Zeus is once telling me that quite the turnaround, though I not being knowing what he means. Just know lightenings good for guardianing.”

  Apollo backpedaled closer to the tree, bow still trained on the wraith in the distance. “Can you do that again?” he asked. “Can you see the wraith down there, hold it off with the lightning?”

  “Yes, I can beings doing that. Though I have to wait for charge-up again. It not taking long. You wait half a day?”

  “We don’t have half a day!” Leif protested.

  “Listen,” tried Apollo, “the wraith isn’t attacking. That means it’s likely notified Zeus’s enemies and been ordered to stand down. As soon as they figure out that they can’t get near yet, something else is going to show up here. Tell us how to get inside!”

  “I have to be turning off the shield for you to be gettings inside,” it told them. “But as I be tellings you, Zeus said not to do that for anyone until he say so. Oh, hello agains, pretty flying woman!”

  Thalia had returned just then, ceasing her quizzical look at the tree for only a moment to shake her head. Her search for holes in the force field had been fruitless.

  Tracy barely kept her exasperation hidden. Her hands pressed against the barrier before she could stop herself. It was a compulsion akin to what she felt when she first picked up the amulet, but being aware of the attraction made it no easier to resist.

  “Zeus created you,” she tried. “You have to let us in; you have to let us save him! He only told you not to let anyone in because he wanted the gods and everyone to withdraw, but they’re back now! They’re out there, working publicly, building new temples and speaking on TV!”

  “What is TV? Is TV anything like rock over—?”

  “Please, just help us!” Tracy cried. Her heart pounding, her knees weak, she was growing crankier by the moment, taunted by the fact that their o
bjective was so damned close and yet just out of reach. The urgency was building in her. The amulet itself felt like a beating heart on her chest. “I am Zeus’s daughter, and I demand you let us in!”

  “Oh! Why you is not being saying so? That allowed. Part of exception-clausings, I be thinking. Not know what ‘exception’ means, but is being o-kay.”

  Thalia’s hands were on her hips. “You know, I was going to mention that, but I thought, ‘No, Thalia, just this once, let them deal with it. Surely they already thought of that approach before you got back anyway, and it didn’t work! Just keep quiet. Don’t clutter the place with your beautiful voice!’ First instincts, I should always trust them. It just goes to show.”

  No one responded. The tree, meanwhile, stretched a branch into a hollow between two boughs and pulled out a square marble block the size of an orange (not to mention that rock over there). Miniscule geometric carvings adorned one side, like a key. With little ceremony, the tree pushed the block into an indentation carved in a boulder standing outside the barrier field, turned it once, and pulled it away. A hum Tracy hadn’t noticed before suddenly ceased. The feel of the barrier vanished beneath her hands.

  “There we is going! You can be using your legs to walkings in now, Zeus’s daughter!”

  Tracy dashed into the entrance, gasping out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She paused long enough to make sure the others were coming and, after yelling a thank-you to the tree, made for the heart of the temple. There was a light ahead.

  “Any others who may come are enemies of Zeus, no matter their relation,” she could hear Apollo telling the tree behind her. “Do not reopen the barrier for anyone but us.”

  “I am knowings this. Why is tellings guardian-tree how to be doing its job? You is god of bossings around now that Zeus is killed or somethings?”

  Tracy didn’t hear Apollo’s reply. On wavering legs, she continued toward the resurrection of a god, anxious for the final ritual, spurred forward by forces she didn’t understand and noting with some dismay that she’d still not gotten that sundae.