A distortion caught the corner of his eye as a still-invisible someone descended from the sky to land near the base of the pedestal. He glared at the unknown figure directly and repeated his demand with a matching roll of thunder. “Show yourselves!”
That did it. One by one, they appeared. Ares came first, revealed to be the figure near the pedestal base, clad in his finest battle gear. Hades, Demeter, and Hera comprised those three already spotted on the stone. More appeared in the sky. Some, such as Athena, circled warily, watching for trouble. Others simply hovered in wait. All were tense, with the exception of Dionysus, who relaxed in his sky-hammock. Zeus kept silent as they appeared, marking their positions and taking a mental roll call that—perhaps unsurprisingly—failed to include both Apollo and Hermes. Apollo remained missing in action, and showing himself in such a situation was simply not Hermes’s style.
Poseidon revealed himself last. On the other side of the shelf, a stationary crest of frothing surf lifted him from the waves up to a position exactly one head higher than Zeus’s own altitude. His brother had the nerve to form the top of the crest into a throne.
“Brave words, little brother!” Poseidon declared. “Brave and foolish! Present yourself for surrender, or face—”
Zeus shook the sky with lightning. “I will not hear the words of a usurper!” he shouted over his brother. “Nor any who delivered the blow to my backside you thought would kill me! Yet I say to the rest of you: you can still be redeemed! I know Poseidon and his pack of murderers bullied you into supporting them! Yet have I not returned, undaunted by their treachery? Join me! Join the side of your rightful king, the side of victory, or be forever cast down as the Titans were before you!” Zeus rose higher than his brother by a full ten yards. The gesture bought him just a moment of time to size up the gods’ reactions.
Scornful laughter sliced through the air, as mocking as it was familiar. He might have known Hera would open her mouth to that.
“You act as if you defeated the Titans singlehandedly, Brother Zeus!” she sniped. “Was it not all of us, working together, who did so? All of whom and more who are now aligned against you! You would claim that victory for yourself, taking the lion’s share, pushing us to the side, just as you did as king for so many millennia! I played no part in the plot to slay you, yet once widowed, I found little cause to grieve! There was a reason why no one cared to find those responsible for your death! The world was a better place without you in it!”
“I expected such bile from you, dear wife. For all your bluster about the sanctity of marriage, you cast your spousal duties aside at the earliest convenient moment!”
“I was widowed!” she shrieked. “You speak to me of marital duty when this mortal’s very existence gives evidence of your infidelity!”
“I always stood by you when it mattered, Hera! Am I to be blamed for thinking sex is fun?”
“If sex is fun, you’re not doing it right!” she spit back.
Hera, as expected, was a lost cause. It was time to go for the soft targets. “I will not be drawn into such ancient disputes, Hera!” Zeus returned. “You may hold no love for me, but I know there are those who still do! I say again that I understand the quandary in which you found yourselves when I was slain! No matter what others would have you believe, I bear you no ill will! When there existed a device that could seemingly kill the mightiest among you, what choice did you have? Fall into line with Poseidon’s new order, or be struck down yourselves?”
“A lie!” boomed Hades’s echoing whisper.
“A lie most definitely!” Poseidon echoed. “I wielded no such heinous weapon! I am king by legal Dodekatheon vote!”
“So you say, Poseidon! Votes coerced in back rooms under threat, perhaps!” The truth of it did not matter, Zeus knew, only the appearance that he believed it. The others would not rejoin him without an excuse for their previous behavior, so Zeus offered that excuse on a silver platter, along with assurances it would be accepted. “I knew of the god- killer, the UnMaking Nexus crafted by the Fates at the end of the Titan War! I myself commissioned it for the good of us all! And when it was done, when it was no longer needed, I did not use it to curry favor! I did not use it to threaten you with a final death! And why?”
“’Cause you’re a skirt-wearin’ coward!” Ares shouted, turning to the others. “Who in the name of my musty armpits wants to follow a coward, eh? Eh?”
Zeus roared and hurled a lightning bolt at the stone between Ares’s feet. It knocked the war god on his back as intended, with little damage to anything but his pride.
“And why?” Zeus repeated, speaking before any could take the lightning for a herald of a greater attack. “For your own good! Knowledge of such a weapon would surely have set us to civil war!” He stretched out a demonstrative hand toward Ares as the god scrambled to his feet. “Would you now take up with those who would wield such power for their own selfish uses? I work only for the good of us all! I am a uniter, not a divider, and I know that despite how it may appear, you did not truly rejoice in my death!” Another political lie, but after millennia of marriage to Hera and ruling an entire pantheon, Zeus was practiced at faking sincerity.
“Ha!” was Ares’s witty rejoinder.
“Hephaestus!” Zeus called, facing the god he entreated. “Peace- loving as you are strong! I know you do not wish this strife! Athena, bearer of my shield, my trusted bodyguard! Your failure to protect me from their cowardly assassination shall be forgotten if you only stand beside me now!”
Both seemed to consider his words. The others were, so far, letting him speak more than expected. Suspicious of his good fortune, he nonetheless went on.
“Aphrodite! Beautiful Aphrodite! You are goddess of love, not of strife! Surely you cannot stand to be estranged from the father who so doted upon you! Artemis, daughter of mine and sister of Apollo, who alone among you has aided me, at risk to his own immortal life! Would you not stand by your brother?”
“Artemis is sworn to me, Zeus!” Poseidon declared. “In all things, by the river Styx! You cannot turn her allegiance now!”
Artemis, sadly, nodded to this and faded, shamed into invisibility.
“In all things?” Zeus asked, incredulous. “Is this how you rule, Poseidon? Are you so unworthy of allegiance that you need oaths of blind faith to compensate for your lack of merit?”
Poseidon sneered at the implication. “She is the only one! It was the choice she made after Apollo betrayed us, lest his crimes drag her down with him!”
Zeus laughed, squeezing as much mockery into the act as he could manage without resorting to hand gestures. “So having enough conscience to act for justice is a crime under Poseidon’s rule, is it?”
“Ah, I do so fancy political speeches, Father! They’re always so rousing, so exuberant, so teeming with half-truths and prettied-up lies!”
It was Hermes at last, revealing himself atop the stone pedestal and wearing the grin that always roused Zeus’s suspicions. Zeus had long ago realized that half the time the grin itself was the only mischief, simply designed to worry him. Yet to suspect that was the case in such a vital confrontation was to suspect that slugs could play the tuba without lessons. “Apollo was as happy as the rest of us that you were gone! His ‘aid’ to you did not even begin until he saw a vision and decided he had no other choice.”
“And yet he gave that aid nevertheless!” answered Zeus. “It was not too late for him, just as it is not too late for the rest of you!”
Hermes laughed. “And they call me the trickster god!”
“This is no trick, boy,” Zeus growled.
Hermes’s grin grew only more infuriating. “Oh, no? Would you instead blame weak-minded forgetfulness for your ignorance of the oath you spoke within the hour? Listen well, all of you!”
Hermes held aloft his caduceus and touched a button at the center. Immediately a recording of Zeus’s own voice boomed with rage for all to hear: “I shall storm down among them, burn Poseidon’s skull wit
h a single bolt of lightning, and deliver unto them such wrath as they have never seen! I swear by the river Styx that no Olympian there shall go unpunished for this affront to my authority!”
The effect among the others was immediate. Some fled to invisibility again; still more simply recoiled in their own defense, drawing weapons or rattling those already drawn.
“An abominable trick, from the king of tricks himself!” Zeus roared.
“You swore it, Zeus! The only trick I have done is place a wiretap on the Styx itself! Quite the clever idea, if I do say so myself.” Hermes taunted.
“No oath sworn by the river Styx may be broken!” Poseidon reminded all. “Even should you aid Zeus—”
“In his weakened state!” Hermes added.
“—and somehow gain victory, you escape not his anger!”
“See how he comes here and lies to you!” Hera joined in. “Forgiveness in one hand, wrath in the other!”
Even the briefest glance at the others gave Zeus ample evidence that opinion was against him. To think they trusted Hermes more than him! It was reprehensible, regardless of the fact that Hermes was in the right. Yet Zeus had not become king by rolling over and taking abuse.
“Very well!” he boomed, no longer masking his contempt for their combined betrayals. “And why should I not be angry? Hermes is right! You do have cause to fear me! I have said this before; I shall say so again: I am the mightiest of all. Make trial that you may know. Fasten a rope of gold to heaven and lay hold, every god and goddess; you could not drag down Zeus! I have stated that if I wished to drag you down, I would! And now—”
Hermes made a yakking hand motion, rolled his eyes, and cut off Zeus with mocking recitation: “‘The rope I would bind to a pinnacle of Olympus and all would hang in the air, yes, the very earth and sea too.’” Hermes finished his quote of Zeus’s words from the Trojan War with all the reverence of a schoolyard taunt. “I always gave you points for a good bluff on that one, Father, but you’re hardly in a position to pull it off now, are you?”
Poseidon took up the pulpit. “You’re weaker now, Brother. You’ve lost your throne, and we all stand against you!”
Zeus glared at his brother. “And yet you only stand! You do not attack! If you are so confident, then make your moves and see how you fare against the mighty Zeus!”
Aside from Hades’s restraining grip at Ares’s shoulder, no one but Poseidon reacted. He sprang down from his wave crest to land on the opposing side of the hole from Zeus, so that the phlegmatic field lay between them. “Neither does the ‘mighty Zeus’ attack!” Poseidon spit. “If you have any strength left in you, combat me now!”
Lightning flared as Zeus growled and circled to one side. Poseidon matched every movement he made, keeping the field between them. “I see your trap, Brother! You cower behind it like—”
Aphrodite, bless her heart, thankfully interrupted Zeus before he had to come up with a suitably biting comparison. “Stop it!” she cried. “Stop it, all of you!”
She moved in radiant light that beguiled the growing darkness as she flew in front of Zeus to interpose herself between him and Poseidon. “You’re being stubborn like you always are,” she insisted. “This isn’t going to fix anything, either of you.”
“Exactly, dear!” came Demeter’s voice from somewhere above. “I still have the cake ready to cut. Hestia, did you think to bring napkins? Has anyone seen Hestia?”
“Not now, Auntie Demeter.” Aphrodite didn’t look up, remaining fixed on Zeus, her eyes shining in that loving, doting smile that always melted his heart. Was she coming over to his side publically now, revealing herself as Apollo’s helper? She would be little help in a direct confrontation, but perhaps her beauty might soften some of the other gods’ stances.
Zeus kept watch for attempts by the others to take advantage of the distraction. “Aphrodite,” he said quietly so none other could hear, “thank you. I have always favored you above all.”
Her smile grew greater. Joyous, loving. It gladdened his heart. “Thank you, Daddy.” She turned to the others, hands held out. “Stay your anger, if only for a moment! Please let me talk to my daddy!”
Poseidon seemed to relax. Hermes pulled back a bit. Even Ares lowered his weapon.
Aphrodite moved a little closer, creating a pocket of stopped time for them to speak. “I’ve missed you, Daddy. Did you really mean what you said when you swore that oath?” Her eyes were as large as seashells.
“I was angry, Daughter. But you were swept away in all of this, I’m sure. Your punishment will be light and postponed. You must help me now. Was it you who gave Tracy an ally in the blond mortal?”
She moved closer, arms open to him. “It was, Daddy. He helped your cause, didn’t he?”
“He did, Daughter. Thank you.”
“I love you, Daddy.” She embraced him.
He returned the embrace, thankful for the chance while the others waited frozen outside the pocket of stopped time.
“I want you to be happy.”
“As I love you, Aphrodite. I want you to be happy as well.”
She squeezed him tighter, whispering in his ear. “I knew you’d understand, Daddy. And you should know: the box with the god-killer inside was from me.”
Immediately the pocket of stopped time collapsed under the violence of a blade piercing Zeus’s back. He gasped in pain and betrayal as Aphrodite drew back, one of Ares’s wicked daggers in her hand.
Though the blow was far from mortal, it was sufficient to stun him long enough for the others to swarm him. Ares drove his fist into the side of Zeus’s head as Poseidon and Hades both tackled him to the stone shelf. Zeus roared, lightning flaring around him enough to throw off Poseidon, but Hades remained, his grip monstrous enough to hold him still so Ares could take Poseidon’s place. Down swooped Athena; she smashed into Zeus’s chest with his own shield as Hermes seized Zeus’s lightning bolts with gloves of divine rubber. Dionysus clobbered him with a hammer that sent his entire body reeling with a hangover. Others stood by, looking for an opening. Sad Artemis with her arrows trained on him; Hephaestus, Hestia and Hera holding the same golden rope he’d dared them with; even Demeter stood dejectedly by a cake, knife in hand, looking disappointed but ready to serve up some aid to the others if needed.
“Aphrodite!” Zeus screamed amid his struggles. It was a waste of breath when he needed every effort for fighting, but he couldn’t help himself.
Hades cut off the rest, seizing him by the neck. Zeus brought up a foot to his brother’s groin and kicked, sending the death god flying backward toward Aphrodite.
She sidestepped her uncle’s path and continued to speak to Zeus as he struggled and Hades rammed against the wall around the shelf.
“It’s really quite logical, if you think about it!” she explained. “I wanted the mortals to worship me again, and I know you’re happy when I get what I want. I’m happy when I can make you happy, so because I love you, I had to help kill you. And now that you’re all back and angry, it makes me happy to get away with it. I really hate to do this to you, Daddy, but it comes from love! So really this hurts me more than it hurts you!”
Festooned with the other gods, Zeus rolled across the shelf, wrestling them all toward the phlegmatic field in the hope of using it against them if he could. “You are no daughter of mine, Aphrodite!”
The goddess crossed her arms and glared. “Appreciate my sacrifice, Daddy!”
“Shut yer yammerin’ and help us, ya bleedin’ goddess!” Ares shouted. Hades rushed in beside him to lend his strength to the others, slowing their approach to the field. “And where’s that ruttin’ rope!”
It is difficult to say just what might have happened then, had things continued. As the others flew in with the rope . . . as Athena calculated the odds of everyone letting go at once to let Zeus roll himself alone into the field with his own momentum . . . as Aphrodite drew her dagger once again to demonstrate the force of her love on her father’s exposed kidneys . .
. and as Tracy watched it all in a daze from her swinging prison with its rapidly diminishing oxygen supply—the world sneezed.
It was a sneeze as violent as if it were issued from an enraged elephant, and it trumpeted throughout the world. From the barista who woke from his nap in the stock room of the Sacred Grounds Café to the investigating officer at Sidgwick’s Antique Shoppe in Swindon, no one who felt the sneeze knew what it was—no one save for the Olympians. So extreme was their horror that all struggling on the shelf ceased. Zeus and the others lay together, staring into the sky at the waves of blossoming energy that glowed far beyond the mortal spectrum and recoiling from the immediate realization of far greater problems.
For, hundreds of miles away in downtown Athens, Richard Kindgood and six other members of the NCMA had done something terrible, something unthinkable, something transcendently shortsighted: they had stopped at an American burger chain for lunch instead of trying some authentic Greek gyros.
Also, they released the Titans after dessert.
“Oh!” Demeter cooed. “They’re back from the farm!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
“A powerful ritual, once completed, will manifest results almost instantly. It’s the really powerful ones that make you wait. No one knows when annoying suspense got tangled up with quality, but it’s exactly the sort of jerk-ass thing most would blame on Hermes if it hadn’t started before his birth. Some suspect him regardless.”
—Olympian Priesthood in Thirty Days!
(Day 24: Rituals Best Avoided)
AT THE BASE OF MOUNT PARNITHA, Stout regarded Kindgood across a rock where the nine brass cans lay open. “That can’t be it, can it?”
Kindgood cast about for any change in the world. Beyond the deafening quiver of air that had whooshed out of nowhere when the last can was opened, all was silent. There were neither bright flashes of light from the heavens sent to purge the false gods from the Almighty’s creation, nor archangels wielding swords of blazing white. There was not even a single bush that might be considered mildly smoldering. He had the terrible suspicion that he’d fallen victim to the spiritual equivalent of the joy buzzer—that the cans were some great bit of mischief on the part of the false gods or their followers, intended to mock the efforts of the faithful, and that the NCMA would certainly refuse to reimburse him the cost of plane tickets and lunch for all seven of them.
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