Bull God

by Roberta Gellis

  Kronos sensed the magic. He demanded to know what Hades had done; Hades had only the choice of silence or losing his books. He chose silence and was beaten, not for the first time; fortunately, the feel of Hades' magic was mostly within the rock and Kronos thought his son's Gift was a minor thing. Kronos wasn't yet ready to risk killing the boy. So far fear had kept Rhea silent, but Kronos suspected the death of her son would drive her to cry aloud of his unnatural act, and she was fractious now, big with her fifth child.

  After Poseidon was born, matters grew worse, and when Rhea conceived a sixth time, she became desperate. She told Hades he must flee Olympus, that his father would kill him if he didn't. When he said he couldn't leave her to bear the brunt of Kronos' anger alone, she admitted that she too intended to escape. She offered to leave Hades' cell open, but he bade her lock the door so she wouldn't be blamed and he showed her his Gift, his power to walk right through the stone wall.

  When Hades was gone, Rhea waited for Kronos to discover he was missing and set out to search for him. Then she took Poseidon and fled herself, driving herself unmercifully so she could be out of the valley of Olympus before Kronos returned. Beyond Olympus she found succor from Themis, one of the few Titan women who had escaped.

  She was passed from one to another household, hidden, protected, but Kronos still searched and heavy with child as she now was, carrying with her a two-year-old boy, she was too easy a mark to find. On the island of Aegina, the childless king begged her to leave Poseidon, who already showed some mastery of water and its denizens. The island king promised to raise the boy as his own, to make Poseidon his heir. They would both be safer when they were separated, he pointed out to Rhea. Half mad with fear and only days from her delivery, Rhea left one son to go to Crete to deliver another.

  Since Ariadne knew that Zeus was now the King-Mage of Olympus, she could easily guess that he'd grown to maturity and overthrown Kronos. She put down the scroll and stared out of the deep-set window toward the palace of Knossos.

  In her society that a son should strike out against his father was almost unbelievable. How could such a son expect his sons to support him? Of course, Zeus had a bad example to start with. Even though Uranous was not blameless—hadn't he tried to imprison all his children in deep caves in the earth?—a family must hold its blood bond or be terribly vulnerable. Olympians seemed indifferent as if their own powers could protect them!

  Ariadne suddenly sat up straighter. No wonder Dionysus had been able to suggest that she stop Asterion's heart when he was newborn. He meant no insult to her. He simply didn't understand that once her father and mother decided not to be rid of him, her half brother, no matter how useless and horrible, would have the protection of his family. Still the tale was fascinating. She propped up the scroll holder so she could read right through the midday meal and discover whether her assumptions had been right.

  She discovered that the women were as bad as the men. Against their oaths and honor as wives, mothers encouraged and aided their children's rebellion. Not content with her escape—of which Ariadne heartily approved—Rhea implanted in her youngest son a hatred of his father, a need to be revenged against him, to bring him down to a powerless nothing. The lesson was indelibly imprinted when Kronos' tireless hounds began to close in and Rhea had to leave Zeus, who was nearly ten. The child was old enough to remember his mother well, old enough to resent violently the fear of Kronos that made her flee, and old enough to recognize in her passing him secretly to other guardians that Kronos was as great a threat to him as he was to her.

  Ariadne shook her head and rerolled the scroll. What a tangled skein. Rhea, of course, had a terrible conflict. Her father's terrible mistreatment at Kronos' hands naturally warred against loyalty to a husband who also seemed to intend to murder her children. In addition, Kronos did seem unwilling to leave his sons in peace even when they didn't threaten him. But Ariadne couldn't see any end to the cycle. No one seemed to understand the concept of duty and blood bond.

  In the afternoon she paid a brief visit to Asterion. He was, as usual, delighted to see her and she allowed him to show her how some toys worked. To her pleasure there were several new ones, given Asterion by two of the attendants and he called them to join him in his play, which they did. She praised them and Asterion and returned to the shrine thinking hard. Perhaps in the not-too-distant future, Asterion would no longer need her.

  The thought was cheering and stimulated her interest in the Olympians. In the back of her mind was the knowledge that she'd either need to give up Dionysus or be deeply involved with them. If a new disaster was brewing ... She returned with alacrity to The History of the Olympians, which, having described Zeus' new guardians and the devices they used to protect him, had now gone back to the doings of Kronos.

  Here she found the first mention of Eros in the description of Kronos' hunt for Rhea, Poseidon, and her unborn child. Eros had played a despicable role of seducer and spy. He betrayed many, all of whom suffered and some of whom died at Kronos' hands, but Rhea had feared Kronos' use of such tools. She had confided in no one in Olympus, asked no one for help. No person, no matter how sympathetic to her and her children held any information; Poseidon and Zeus escaped their father's hunt and grew to manhood.

  The revolt of the next generation seemed foreordained. The only surprise Ariadne felt was that it was the women who initiated it. Deprived of Rhea and suspicious of even his closest confederates, female as well as male, Kronos turned his eyes on the women of his household whom he believed to be helpless. Hestia was too meek and dull—Kronos liked a spirit to break—but there was Leto, his old enemy's daughter.

  Kronos had underestimated the women. Hestia, from years of watching him, could often read his intentions before he had made them clear to himself, and Hera had some forevision and an ability to manipulate events. Between them, they convinced Demeter that she must arrange a need for the three daughters to travel the valley to ensure its fertility. They took Leto with them, and none returned. Demeter gladly moved into the shrine that had been prepared for her, and Hera and Leto fled to Themis.

  That Leto and Hera sought out Zeus rather than Poseidon, who was the older and more bitter, puzzled Ariadne. To Cretans, Poseidon seemed the more dominant god because it was he who shook the earth and raised up mountainous seas to drown them. Lightnings that leapt from sky to mountain top or even to house or tree seemed much less awesome.

  Also Zeus was younger and rather frivolous; he intended some day to have his revenge, but he was in no hurry—until Leto seduced him and wakened both the hate and fear that Rhea had implanted in him. And once Leto was pregnant, Zeus knew there was no going back because Hera confessed that she had foreseen that Kronos wanted Leto in his bed. When Kronos heard that she had been taken by his son, the hunt for Zeus would start anew with greater ferocity.

  Ariadne enjoyed the adventures of Zeus as he sought out his brothers and bargained for their help in destroying his father. She'd just reached the point in the story where Zeus had enlisted the aid of Hades, who agreed to open the earth so that those who supported Zeus could enter Olympus undetected, when Dionysus reappeared. His body blocked the light from the window well near which Ariadne had set a chair. She looked up and jumped up with a cry of mingled guilt and gladness, spilling the scroll from her lap as she stretched her hands to him.

  Smiling, he took her hands in his, and when she babbled excuses for having continued to read the History, he kissed them, and let them go. For once he was not exhausted, physically or emotionally. His hair was combed, his tunic spotless, his eyes less overbright than usual. The mist of tendrils lifted toward him slowly, like an intimate caress rather than a protective barrier.

  “You have been very diligent, I see,” he remarked, bending to pick up the scroll and noting the thickness of rerolled parchment and the small amount still on its original spindle. “I should've known from the beginning that if I wanted you to read this, forbidding you would be more effective than urging you.�
�� He grinned at her. “If I forbid you to come to Olympus, will you begin to importune me to take you there?”

  Ariadne took the scroll from him with a small sound of protest. Ignoring his final question, she said, “That's unfair. Usually I'm very obedient to you. But you made me interested ... and you didn't forbid me, only said that maybe reading the book wasn't such a good idea. And you shouldn't be picking things up for me.”

  He touched her cheek. “Well, it's true that I didn't forbid you to read more.” Then he laughed. “But haven't you learned anything from all that reading? Do you still believe we're such exalted beings that we can't pick up articles that fall to the floor?”

  “I haven't got that far, if such matters are ever mentioned. All I've learned so far is that the Olympians don't understand what a family is. Father attacks son and son makes war on father. It's horrible! Even if they hate each other, my people know better than that. The family stands together against outsiders.”

  He looked at her soberly. “When you forswore your father and mother to become my priestess, that was a far greater sacrifice than I understood.” He went and sat down; Ariadne followed him, sinking onto the pillow beside his chair. “I came and offered to take the place of your family, and you accepted that—” he grinned “—such innocence. But what if I hadn't come?”

  She looked away. “My parents would still have considered me part of the family. In fact, they did even after you came. They expected me to continue to put the family first. My father was very shocked when I made plain that I would do your bidding rather than his ... and I was very much alone when I angered you and you abandoned me.” She shuddered and then, remembering what reunited them, asked, “How is Eros?”

  “Safe but in considerable pain and will be for some time to come. Poor thing. He's in considerable agony of mind too, because he has no idea why Psyche hurt him.”

  ”I wish I could tell you more,” Ariadne said, frowning slightly. “All I know is that Psyche wanted to remove the blackness, and she wanted to remove it because she loved what was within it, but your Vision didn't tell me more than that.” She cocked her head questioningly. “Is that Eros' Gift, to conceal himself?”

  “No, Eros' Gift, in the beginning, was that all who saw him loved him.”

  “And he used it to spy and pry information, knowing that Kronos would kill or maim those he betrayed?” Ariadne sighed. “And this is the being for whom you are so concerned that you exhausted yourself to illness?”

  “He's not like that now,” Dionysus said. “What you read happened eons ago. Poor Eros was horribly punished. Aphrodite was forced to bespell him so that the full power of love that he had exerted was changed to revulsion.”

  “Aphrodite?” Ariadne echoed. “Is that the same Aphrodite who would have killed Psyche for hurting Eros? Why did she do it?”

  “Because all the others demanded that she work the spell. She had no power to resist. And he had done ill. He deserved punishment.”

  “Yes, but why make Aphrodite, who was fond of him, pun ish him. Why didn't Zeus, or Hades, whom his actions might have destroyed, punish him?”

  Dionysus looked very puzzled. “Well, I suppose because Eros's Gift was still functioning and Zeus and Hades couldn't bear to kill him. After all, all Zeus could do was fry him with a lightning bolt and Hades could have sunk him into the earth and closed that over him, but then he would have died, and they didn't really wish to lose him entirely by death or by draining him and casting him out of Olympus.”

  Now Ariadne looked even more puzzled than Dionysus. “But if Aphrodite could cover his Gift so that it repelled instead of seducing, why couldn't Zeus or Hades do it?”

  “It's not their Gift to make or befoul love,” Dionysus said, cocking his head to the side. “Oh, either one could have got the spell from Aphrodite and used his power to set it on Eros, but for one thing that wouldn't have been as strong as having Aphrodite do it herself and—” Dionysus chuckled “—for another, I'm sure neither trusted himself to cast the spell at all with Eros' Gift in his control. Aphrodite, whose Gift is also Love, is quite immune to Eros.”

  “But she seems utterly devoted to him.”

  “Yes, but as a friend. They've been together for thousands of years. As his Gift didn't touch her, so did her turning of that Gift touch her less than any other. She gave him a home when no one could endure to be near him and he gave her service and devotion. She doesn't couple with him nor he with her nor does either desire that. They are a safe haven for each other.”

  Ariadne glanced quickly at Dionysus. That might satisfy Eros and Aphrodite, but being a safe haven for Dionysus wasn't what she wanted. She spoke hastily to divert him from an idea that she felt was dangerous to her.

  “I still don't understand,” she said. “If Zeus had power enough to protect himself against Kronos—”

  “But that was part of his Gift. Zeus can call lightning. Usually he uses that in the form of a thunderbolt, a strike to amaze, terrify, or destroy, but against Kronos he raised sheets of lightning and in trying to drain Zeus of heat, Kronos absorbed too much and was burnt. While he was weakened, Zeus drained him of power.”

  “Is that also Zeus' Gift?”

  “Draining is not Zeus' Gift. I don't think anyone has so terrible a Gift, except the Mother, perhaps. That was a special spell, and it's rumored Zeus got it from a native—not easily. It was a one-time spell ...”

  “You mean the native is dead.”

  Dionysus shrugged. “I don't know. Zeus isn't often murderous and one would think he would wish to preserve so valuable a source. And Zeus didn't kill Kronos. I wasn't in Olympus then, but I was told that Kronos killed himself.”

  Considering what she knew of rulers in Crete and other places, Ariadne wasn't much surprised or horrified. She was more interested in discovering how the powers of the Olympians worked. “Are you telling me that Zeus' power is limited to one Gift?”

  “Oh no. His great Gift is lightning and he has such enormous strength that he can use any spell bought, borrowed, or stolen. As a second Gift, he can create illusions.” He smiled. “He made me look like a Cretan so I could come and watch you dance for the Mother.”

  “You stood just below the dancers on the step when I came for the turn of the year ritual!”

  Dionysus smiled more broadly. “You knew me. I knew you did, but I was still being stupid so I closed myself away.” He touched her shoulder.

  Ariadne put her hand over his and held it against her flesh. It moved a little, as if Dionysus was uneasy, and she said quickly, “But I've heard that Zeus appears here and there, as you appear. Can all Olympians leap from place to place as you do?”

  “No. That's Hermes' Gift.” Dionysus squeezed her shoulder, slipped his hand free, and laughed aloud. “And if it weren't so precious, that mischievous meddler would've been skinned and hung by his toes again and again. Hermes can make a spell of that Gift and give that spell to anyone else, as I gave the spell for stasis to you and the spell for lighting fire.”

  She sat blinking at him for a moment, then said in a very small voice, “Do you mean to tell me that if the Mother granted me enough power, I could leap from place to place, call lightning, move water ...”

  He laughed again. “Yes and no. No one, no matter what his power—or hers—will call lightning because Zeus doesn't release that spell. Of course, if he was overthrown as Kronos was and forced to disgorge the spell ... But that's very unlikely. Although he has his faults, Zeus isn't a bad person and the other Olympians are satisfied with his management. He, in general, has treated his children well and they would support him. I would and Athena and Apollo and Artemis, even Hephaestus would.”

  Ariadne barely restrained a huge sigh of relief. It seemed as if the terrible cycle of son overthrowing father had somehow been broken. She looked forward now with considerable delight to reading the remainder of The History of the Olympians, but she didn't say anything and tried to catch up with what Dionysus was telling her.


  “Illusions,” he said, naming Zeus' second Gift, “he grants freely to whoever desires them—after proper payment, of course. Hermes will sell a spell to go from one particular place to another, but he has never—and I don't even know if it would be possible for him—transferred his whole Gift to another.”

  When the sense of what Dionysus had said penetrated past her original relief that no war among the gods was imminent, Ariadne shuddered and hid her face in her hands. “I couldn't bear it,” she whispered. “Oh, I see what you're trying to teach me. I understand that if I came to Olympus and the Mother granted me power, I could have a little piece of all the Gifts that we common folk worship in the beings we call gods. Don't ask it of me, Dionysus.”

  “Why, Chosen?” He lifted her face.

  Her eyes filled with tears and they hung in the lower lids for a moment before spilling over and running down her cheeks. “I know what I feel, but I don't know how to tell you so that you'll understand. In my own mind, I'm a small thing, my lord, my god—no matter what you say of yourself you are still my god. If I were suddenly made what to me is still godlike, I don't know how I could fit that into what I know I am. I think I would break apart inside myself and that my thoughts would become confused. I would be unable to recognize myself ...”

  Dionysus pulled her up and onto his lap, stroking her hair and holding her close. “It doesn't need to be today, Chosen. You're still very young. But you must promise me to think about this, to try to accustom yourself to the fact that you aren't a small thing. You're not only my Chosen but also Chosen of the Mother—and that's a very great thing.” His eyes grew distant, but not fixed or fearful; they still saw her, and he added slowly, “As you grow into your power, you won't fit here in Knossos any more. Think about that.”

  “I will, but ... but won't you help me, my lord? Won't you come often and stay long and talk to me of the people and doings of Olympus so that they become familiar to me and not a distant image one wishes for but can't really believe in, like the blessed lands?”