Forge of the Gods 3

by Simon Archer

  There was a series of plops, some farther away than others. They sounded just as the gorgon head did when it collapsed against the ground. The clay monsters returned to their original forms, harmless lumps of wet dirt.

  Only then did I lower the weapon away from Kari’s throat. My former colleague blinked dramatically as though she were trying to clear her vision and coughed violently.

  “Oh gods,” she moaned as she put a hand to her chest. “There were so many of them around here. I’ve never… I’ve never been able to concentrate on that many before. Or ones that large.” She looked up at me, her hand still on her chest, pale and wearing a desperate expression. “What’s going on here, Cameron?”

  “I thought I knew, but now, I’m really not sure,” I answered honestly.

  I took a gamble just then and took my eyes off Kari. I had to trust that she wasn’t going to go anywhere and that, for some reason, she was no longer trying to kill me. I closed my eyes and searched the property for Phae’s radiant form and the figure that she was fighting. But they were nowhere to be found.

  “Come on,” I said as I offered Kari a hand up. “We need to find the others.”

  “Hailey and the cyclops?” Kari clarified as she took my hand. Once she was on her feet, she brushed her hands off on her clothes and then examined herself. Her mouth curved down into a disgusted frown. “What the hell am I wearing?”

  I didn’t have a response to that, so I didn’t say anything. Instead, I decided to continue my initial mission before I tripped over this brain-damaged version of Prometheus’s daughter. I ventured around the side of the villa, jogging as worried thoughts about Arges’s dead body and Hailey’s captured self came to mind.

  I heard Kari follow behind me, but I couldn’t concern myself with her at that moment. As long as she wasn’t planning to kill me, then she was no longer going to be my focus. I scoured the grounds for Arges and Hailey until I spotted a circle of clay piles out near the training grounds. The massive form of the cyclops spread out on the ground, unmoving.

  “Arges!” I shouted, breaking into a run. My feet slapped against the charred grass as I dashed across the grounds.

  Suddenly Hailey appeared from the other side of Arges, as though she had been using the cyclops’s body as a shield. She stood there for a moment, and then I could see her body break down into a crouch, intent on attack. I recognized that positioning, and at first, I didn’t understand why she had adopted it until I remembered who was behind me.

  “Cameron!” Hailey shouted. “Duck!”

  “No!” I called back, holding out my hand in warning, knowing what she was going to do before she did it. I sense the knife slide out of her boot and into her hand. The metal blazed with a familiar blue flame before Hailey released the weapon. It whizzed through the air with the briefest of warnings. My spine tingled as the blade tumbled over with practiced precision, aimed directly at Kari behind me.

  I snapped my hand into a fist and watched as the blade stopped midair, mere inches from Kari’s chest. I felt the handle of the blade as though it were in my own hand, and I motioned pulling it back. The knife responded by moving away from Kari, who had frozen in place, stunned by the weapon floating in front of her.

  My fist shook as I fought to maintain control over the steel. I felt Katlynn pulling against me, as her flame surrounded the blade, making it more deadly than before. It was the most intense game of tug of war that I had ever played. But my possession of the steel won out, and Katlynn eventually jumped ship, returning to her floating flame form.

  Once I got the knife a safe distance from Kari, I opened my fist, and the weapon fell to the ground. When the blade clattered against the dirt, both Kari and I released a collective sigh of relief. We glanced at each other, and she offered me a nod of thanks. I still wasn’t convinced of this new Kari, nor could I figure out what was going on, but I knew that we needed to keep her alive.

  Katlynn’s flame expanded until it formed her human shape. “What the hell, Cameron?” she shouted as her limbs exploded with fire.

  Kari stepped away from the exploding ghost, and I jumped in, placing my body between her and my half-sister. “I know this looks weird,” I tried to placate her, but Katlynn wouldn’t let me get any more words in.

  “She tried to kill Arges!” Katlynn shouted, her words slamming into my chest like bullets. “She tortured him for answers and kept us from getting to him with monster after monster. And you’re protecting her!”

  “Arges isn’t dead?” I said hopefully.

  “Nearly dead,” Katlynn answered, her voice never lowering. “He’s unconscious right now, and his back is ripped to shreds. Because of her!” Katlynn threw an accusing finger at Kari, who flinched at her words.

  I shot the female soldier a glance, and there was a pained expression across her face. For some reason, she seemed to have a visceral reaction to Katlynn's claims, as though she remembered those moments. But this was different because unlike the gloating tone she had when Phae and I faced her, this Kari was wracked with guilt.

  Hailey approached us, coming out from behind Arges’s body. She held a flame of sun fire in her hand, and it illuminated the anger in her eyes as she glared at Kari.

  “Cameron,” she said with gritted teeth. “You need to explain. Right now.”

  “Something happened,” I said as I held out my hands towards both Hailey and Katlynn, warding them away from Kari and myself. “I’m not sure what, but Phae exploded with her radiant form and started fighting someone who I thought was Kari, but then Phae and that person disappeared, and Kari was on the ground, supposedly not remembering everything.”

  Hailey looked over my shoulder at her former friend and classmate. Her jaw was full of tension as she examined her. In an act of bravery, Kari stepped out from behind my protection and addressed Hailey directly.

  “It’s coming back to me,” she said, her voice cracking from the weight of her honesty. “But it’s just in waves and flashes. I swear to you, Hailey, I have no idea what’s going on here. I just woke up with Cameron holding a sickle to my throat. When you mentioned the cyclops, I remembered the whip and the sound.” Kari’s eyelids flickered close for a moment, and she flinched as though she could hear it all over again. “And I felt the monsters like they were my own creations.”

  “Your eyes,” Hailey said suddenly, her voice falling softer. “They’re different.”

  Kari’s hand flew up to her face, right on her cheekbones. “They’re different?”

  “Yeah, no, I mean,” Hailey said, tumbling over her words. “They’re back to normal.”

  “I noticed that too,” I jumped in quickly, as I was aware of Hailey’s sudden inability to form coherent sentences.

  “Do you think…” Katlynn said as she looked Prometheus’s daughter up and down. “Does that mean you think she was possessed?”

  Before I could properly answer her, a groan rattled the earth beneath us. All four of us looked up in the direction of the cyclops’s body.

  “Arges!” Katlynn and I said at the same time. We were the first to dash over to the cyclops who remained on the ground, but his eye was now open. He squinted up at the darkened sky as Katlynn and I surrounded him.

  “Arges!” I said as I pushed myself into his line of sight. “You’re alive.”

  “I cannot die, child, you know this,” Arges chided.

  I coughed out a laugh, so relieved to hear his voice.

  “It’s okay, Arges,” I assured my friend. “Everything is alright now.”

  “No,” Arges coughed out his response, though even through his haziness, I could hear the urgency in his voice. “No, it is not alright.”

  Katlynn and I exchanged confused glances. “What do you mean, Arges?” Katlynn asked, trying to keep the worry out of her voice.

  “The land,” Arges wheezed. “Something is wrong with the land.”

  “The land?” I mouthed to Katlynn, completely baffled by this proclamation. I was going to ask Arges for m
ore information, but the cyclops slipped back into unconsciousness, his eyelid fluttering closed.

  “Oh gods,” Kari gasped as she put a hand over her mouth.

  “What? What is it?” I pressed her.

  We watched as her eyes blinked rapidly again, as though she were watching an old film flicker in her vision. It had to be another memory blossoming in her mind.

  “I think… no, I know he’s right,” Kari said, her hand quivering against her mouth. “I wanted this place to burn. I don’t know why, but I did. So I planted explosives. But I can’t remember where.”

  25

  “Are you serious?” I barked as I put my hands up to my forehead, completely exasperated. “You just happen to remember that quintessential and potentially dangerous fact right now?”

  “I told you,” Kari said, growing defensive. “It comes back in bits and pieces. At least I remembered it before we were all turned to barbecue.”

  I took a deep breath to clear my thoughts and stop my shouting at Kari. Regardless of what was happening with her and her memory, I needed to be grateful that she was apparently on our side now and not using this information against us.

  “Okay, so we need to get out of here before this place explodes,” Katlynn answered, calmly and rationally as though that were the simplest answer in the world. “So, let’s get on Hailey’s chariot and go.”

  “I’m not leaving without Arges and Phae,” I said, standing my ground.

  “Phae is a goddess, she can take care of herself, and no offense, but I don’t think Arges is going to fit on the chariot,” Katlynn said with a glance to the massive cyclops.

  “The chariot doesn’t have a weight limit,” Hailey informed us. “As long as we can fit him on there, it can lift him.”

  “Well, will it fit all of us?” I asked, gesturing around to the surrounding group. “Katlynn can ride in my locket, but we will still need to fit three of us with a cyclops.”

  “Katlynn can ride where?” Hailey asked curiously.

  “It’s a thing I can do, don’t worry about it,” Katlynn brushed off Hailey’s concern with a nonchalant wave of her hand. Then she turned to me, and her expression grew instantly serious. “Do you have a better plan for getting us out of here?”

  “I...” I started, but the words wouldn’t come. In all honesty, I didn’t have a better idea. But I didn’t like the idea of just abandoning the villa. So I countered with another problem. “Well, even if we can all get out of here safely, where are we going to go?”

  “Back to the Academy, of course,” Hailey said as if that were the most obvious answer.

  “I don’t think so,” I said as I gestured to Kari. “You think the Academy’s just going to let us stroll onto campus with their most wanted criminal in tow?”

  “If we take her as a prisoner, they might,” Katlynn considered as she cocked her head at Kari as though she were a puzzle she couldn’t solve.

  “Hang on,” Kari said, stopping us all with a sweeping gesture. “Most wanted? Criminal? Prisoner? What are you talking about?”

  “We don’t really have time to explain all of the shit you’ve pulled over the past two years, whether you remember it or not,” I said, slipping into the snark easily like a familiar pair of jeans.

  “Two years?” Kari balked. She took a step back as though a fierce wind blew against her. “I… It’s been two years?”

  “What is the last thing you remember, Kari?” Hailey said gently.

  I shot my girlfriend a glance that she didn’t catch. I didn’t like the way she was talking to her, so sweetly and kindly as though she hadn’t just whipped the cyclops into unconsciousness or burned down the villa or sent a bunch of clay monsters on us. Sure, she wasn’t doing that now, and I had convinced them she wasn’t dangerous, but her tone was unnecessarily kind. Wasn’t it?

  “That’s the thing. I don’t really know,” she said with a worried shrug and pinched eyebrows. “It’s all scattered and jumbled. But I… the last solid thing I remember was picking you up and bringing you to the Academy.” Kari pointed at me so that we all knew who she was talking about.

  I blinked incredulously at her. “That was two years ago. I’m a third-year now.”

  Kari’s breath quickened as the reality of this realization hit her. Her face paled, and her legs shook, struggling to hold her up like a newborn giraffe. Hailey quickly rushed to her side and took Kari’s shoulders in her hands. She spoke to her, too soft for me to hear.

  A frustrated groan escaped from my mouth, and Katlynn heard it while the other two seemed to be in their own little world.

  “You okay?” she asked, with a raised eyebrow.

  “I’m fine,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “Really?” Katlynn replied skeptically. “Because the tense muscles in your shoulders and clenched fists say otherwise.”

  I did my best to ease the tension in the spots that Katlynn pointed out, but it was no use. I was just going to be a walking ball of irritation until we got out of here. Hailey seemed to get Kari’s breathing back to normal and her heart rate down because the two of them detached from one another and stood up straight.

  “Is there anywhere else we might be able to go, other than the Academy?” Kari asked with a gulp. “Just so that I might hideout for a while. Until I figure things out.”

  I didn’t want to leave right away. I needed answers from Kari. A determination welled up inside me, and I let it drive my actions.

  “Before we go anywhere, I want some answers,” I demanded as I stomped up to Kari.

  “But I--” Kari protested, but I cut her off.

  “I know you say you don’t remember, but I need you to try,” I pressed. “I need you to tell me why you came here and why you wanted to destroy this place. Literally burn it to the ground.” I said as I acknowledged the remains of the villa which stood like a charred Stonehenge, the broken black walls standing where the proud house once stood. “Why did you feel the need to do this? And I swear to the gods, if you say I don’t remember, I will torture you until you do.”

  “Cameron!” Hailey said in protest, appalled at my threat.

  I didn’t really mean it. I didn’t want to hurt Kari, especially now that she was in this vulnerable state. But I kept my face hard and stern, as though I intended to follow through with every word.

  Kari’s breathing hitched, but she complied by closing her eyes and searching through her memories. She spoke with her eyes still closed, her head tilted towards the ground as if in mourning.

  “There was something I wanted,” she said, her words coming out in bursts and sounding as though she were lost in her own thoughts. “It was somewhere on this land, and I needed to destroy it. I wanted the cyclops to tell me, but I planted the explosives just in case. So I could cover all my bases.” Kari’s eyes snapped open. “I’m sorry, that’s all I know.”

  “It’s the forges,” Katlynn said suddenly.

  My eyes snapped to her, and I waved my hands, prompting her to continue. “What do you mean by that?”

  “These mountains in Sicily are where the original forges are,” Katlynn added, her voice rising in excitement. “You and Arges worked in one. If our theories about what Kari was doing are correct, then it would make sense that she would want to destroy them, right?”

  “That does make sense,” I agreed.

  “So she wanted to destroy the forges,” Hailey said with a shrug. “That doesn’t mean we know where the explosives are. We should still load up the chariot and find a safe refuge until we figure out what to do.”

  “I can’t let her destroy these forges,” I said, sentiment making my voice hitch in my throat.

  “You have a better forge at the Academy,” Hailey said, not understanding.

  “No,” I said, feeling tears prick at the corners of my eyes. “These are my father’s forges. He worked in them, and I can’t just… I can’t just let them be destroyed. Not without at least trying to save them.”

  Hailey looked at
me, and for the first time since I brought Kari over to this side of the property, I recognized the woman I loved. She saw me and my concerns. I saw the care and sympathy as she deciphered the meaning of my words. Hailey released a sigh and picked up her knife from where I had stopped it in the grass.

  “Kari,” Hailey asked, her voice returning to that gentle tone that annoyed me. “Do you have any idea when these explosives are supposed to go off?”

  Like a robot, Kari made her eyes do that flicker thing again. She stood stiff and still, unmoving as the pieces clicked together in her mind’s eye. Her eyes snapped open, the widest I’d seen them since she’s jumped ship over to our side.

  “When the moon sees its full reflection,” she said determinedly.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Katlynn asked, voicing the question running through all of our heads.

  Impulsively, I looked up at the night sky and searched for the moon. But it wasn’t there. There was a wide expanse of stars, glittering down at us as though they were laughing at our foolishness. But no moon.

  “Hang on,” I said as a thought occurred to me. I raced over to the edge of the property, where the trees thinned out, and the cliffs began. I heard the others follow behind me, and the four of us stood out over the ocean.

  The wind picked up, blowing back our clothes as we stood in an arrow formation with me at the top. There, across the way from us, the full moon rose over the ocean. It was about two-thirds of the way up, and very soon, it would hover over the crystal clear water.

  “When the moon sees its full reflection,” I repeated, though the wind swallowed my words. I turned back to my companions. “How long do you think we have?”

  “Twenty minutes max,” Hailey answered affirmatively.

  “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” I said, speaking as the plan formed in my mind. “Katlynn and Hailey are going to bring the chariot to Arges and get him loaded up while Kari and I spend the next fifteen minutes searching for the explosives and seeing if we can disarm them.”

  “Uh, I can’t touch him,” Katlynn said as she held out her hands. “How exactly am I supposed to help?”