Atropos launched one of her fireballs. Never hesitating, Kratos deflected it with the Golden Fleece, but it did not soar back at Atropos. Rather it looped out in a wide arc and came back toward him.
He ran. The sphere chased him, gaining swiftly. The white burning star of energy that formed before releasing the Cronos Rage failed to grow. He had to rejuvenate, and only time would accomplish that. Instead, he felt the chill suffuse his entire body from the gift Atlas had given him. Kratos stumbled, fell onto his back, and lifted arms and legs. From hands and feet roared the Atlas Quake. The power of the magic met, meshed, and canceled out Atropos’ sphere of death.
Getting to his feet, Kratos unleashed a new attack on Atropos using Typhon’s Bane. The bowstring hummed as he loosed one gelid wind gust after another. Several more airy missiles struck Atropos, causing her to sink until she hovered only a few feet above the sword bridge.
Kratos lashed out with his swords and caught the Sister of Fate on each shoulder with the grapples. He jerked her downward to the bridge, kicked her in the head, then drew his sword and drove the point through her forehead. Orange fire enveloped Atropos’ body as he stepped away. Bit by bit the blackness that had encircled her lower extremities worked its way upward, as if devouring her.
The smoky blackness circled and enveloped Kratos, then he was spun about and exploded in size to match that of the advancing Ares. Kratos looked from the God of War to the immense sword bridging the great chasm. He reached down and ripped it free from its stone anchors to use against Ares.
As the blade pulled free, what remained of Atropos tumbled over and over into the chasm. Her screams faded into the distance. Kratos ignored her and turned to face Ares. A surge of knowing blasted through him. He had faced Ares like this before. He had fought Ares with his sword and won. The battle had been …
Kratos stood staring at the mirror in the Temple of the Fates, Atropos pounding against the far side. She had been trapped, and Kratos no longer held the blade that had spanned the chasm. Atropos clawed and smashed repeatedly against the other side of the mirror but could not get through.
Kratos half turned to Lahkesis, who said, “I am through playing games with you, Kratos. This power was never meant for a mortal like you.”
Lahkesis raised her staff. It had been eye searing before. Now it seared Kratos’ very soul.
He squared off to face Lahkesis.
Green lightning raced from Lahkesis’ staff to each of three mirrors in the room. Kratos rushed forward, swords swinging. He drove Lahkesis back and circled—and beyond her he saw Atropos halfway through a mirror. Her talons clawed the air, seeking his flesh. The upper portion of her body writhed as if she were in excruciating pain because of the half entry back into this world, this time.
Kratos pulled out his war hammer and rushed to the mirror where Atropos struggled. Mighty blows of that heavy maul cracked the looking glass and drove Atropos back to the far side. Barely had he succeeded in smashing this mirror when Lahkesis renewed her attacks. Kratos used his hammer on her, stunning her, but saw that Atropos tried to creep through another of the remaining mirrors.
Kratos used the Amulet of the Fates to slow time. He ran to the second mirror, where Atropos seemed stuck halfway through, and swung his hammer, smashing the glass to shards. Atropos vanished once more, leaving only one mirror passage.
Seeing the second mirror destroyed, Lahkesis redoubled her efforts to kill him. Her staff flared constantly now, forming marching columns of death that sought to encircle Kratos. He avoided them, backing toward the untouched mirror, thinking to smash it, too. Lahkesis rushed forward, oblivious to the way she left herself open to attack. Kratos wrested the staff from her, swung it around, and knocked the Sister of Fate skidding across the floor. He reared back to impale her with her own weapon.
When he focused on Lahkesis, Atropos came through the remaining mirror and grabbed him from behind, lifting him off the floor and shaking him like a hunting dog would its kill. He lost his grip on Lahkesis’ staff. It went spinning away from him, to be caught up by the Sister.
“I measure fate with these, and your fate is at an end!”
Kratos grunted in pain as Atropos’ talons cut into his body and left bloody tracks on his bone-white skin, across the red tattoos, deep to the muscles beneath. He twisted and jerked about in a vain attempt to break her grip. She was too powerful.
From across the room Lahkesis let out a cry of glee. She lowered her staff and shot through the air straight for Kratos. Held by Atropos, he could not avoid Lahkesis’ staff—and death.
At the last possible instant he used the Amulet of the Fates, drawing power from resolve and hatred deep within, froze time for a heartbeat, levered himself free of Atropos’ steely fingers, and released the spell. Lahkesis plunged onward, aiming her deadly staff for the spot where Kratos had been.
She skewered her own sister. Atropos let out a heartrending cry and fell backward into the mirror. In the instant that Lahkesis stood stunned at what she had done, Kratos struck. He grabbed her by the throat, then stabbed her in the forehead with his sword. She slumped in his grip as he shoved her through the mirror to join her sister.
When both of the Sisters of Fate flailed about on the far side of the plane of the mirror, he took his war hammer and began smashing the glass. Blow after mighty blow landed on the final mirror. Both Sisters rushed forward, but the mirror had cracked and they could not get through. Kratos continued to pummel the mirror until it shattered, revealing a corridor behind.
Panting with exertion, he lowered the war hammer to the floor and stared. Resolve hardened within his breast. He was close.
He climbed through the open frame, glass crunching under his sandals as he went to find the remaining Sister of Fate.
“YOU MUST NOT come to my loom, Kratos. You will destroy everything.”
The words rumbled in his head. Kratos roared in defiance, swung his hammer against a part of the stone wall in front of him, and smashed it with a single blow. He knew with complete certainty that this way led to Clotho, the final Sister of Fate.
The ramp spiraled down, empty of all impediment to passage, but Kratos advanced warily. He spun when he heard a hissing sound behind him. A curtain of energy sizzled and then a Gorgon’s head took form and sailed outward. He drew his swords, ready to fight, but the Gorgon’s head stretched to within a few feet and then returned to the plane of the energy curtain. He knew that, had the Gorgon touched him, he would have died.
“Retreat, Kratos, and I will let you live out your pathetic life.” Clotho’s words rumbled and roared in his ears.
“You know what I seek, Sister,” Kratos said. “There must be a change in the course of fate. I will kill Zeus!”
“Your way, then, will be forever blocked by all the others who think to change their own destiny. Fallen heroes, risen blackguards, all will bar your path, Kratos. Their reward for your death will be a reworking of their own fates!”
Kratos returned to his course and immediately found his way blocked by Cursed Legionnaires with their curved blades waving menacingly. He recognized them by their insignia and knew of their betrayal to Zeus, pledging their allegiance to the Persians’ false gods in return for their lives after defeat at the isle of Propontis. Those legionnaires who had bent a knee to the Persian god Zahhak had been defeated in a subsequent battle with the Greeks and had discovered that Zeus’ rage knew no bounds. The Cursed Legionnaires marched endlessly, fighting, dying, being resurrected to continue their eternal battle—and their eternal defeats.
He ignored Clotho’s threat and delivered his attack. Four quick slices brought down the legionnaire before him, and an adept thrust skewered another. The third legionnaire backed away, but it wasn’t from fear. Kratos saw the Juggernaut advancing in support of the Cursed Legionnaire. The creature towered three times Kratos’ own height and was heavily armored, its head encased in a black metal helm. A huge, hairy hand gripped the shaft of a morning star, the spiked ball at the end
of the chain ablaze. One touch of that formidable burning sphere would crush Kratos like a bug, then scorch his corpse to cinders.
He rushed the lumbering monster and used his war hammer to smash a leg. The Juggernaut canted to one side, off balance. As it shifted, it swung the spiked ball. The chain whistled, and Kratos barely avoided the touch of a spike dripping fire. Somersaulting away, Kratos regained his fighting stance, but so had the Juggernaut. The giant let out a bull-throated war cry and charged—too slow, too clumsy in a fight with the Ghost of Sparta. Kratos finished it with a second blow from the maul.
This gave the legionnaire the opening to attack. Kratos winced as the tip of the curved blade scored his belly. In return he beheaded the legionnaire.
As the head hit the ramp and rolled downward, the Gorgon’s head leaped out in a vain attempt to devour Kratos in its seething maw. He ignored it. Retreat was not possible.
A short distance ahead he heard the beguiling notes of a Siren singing. His legs turned weak as he advanced. The sinuous beast blocked his way. Seeing him, she sang louder, with even more promise. He need only stop and remain here with her forever. They would be happy together. More! Bliss such as he had never known would be his as they shared—
—death.
Kratos tapped into the hatred he felt for Zeus to momentarily thwart the effects of the Siren’s song. He dashed forward, caught the Siren in a powerful grip around her waist, and squeezed as hard as he could. Mingled with the rising pitch of the song came the snapping of a backbone. He jerked a little harder even after the Siren ceased her hypnotic song, then cast her aside.
The downward spiral grew steeper and took him to a Satyr and a Minotaur. The hoofed creatures looked at each other and laughed. The Satyr died instantly. The Minotaur’s reactions were a bit quicker. It lowered its head and tried to hook Kratos on a horn.
The Blades of Athena cut off that horn. The Minotaur bellowed at the loss, stumbled back, and grabbed a flaming spear with a haft as thick as Kratos’ body. It stabbed out with it, but Kratos felt the pressure of time weighing him down. The cuts he had received on his belly trickled small rivers of blood, but the true pain came in knowing he was so close to finding the path back in time to kill Zeus. He would not be denied.
Blades spinning a curtain of fire and steel in front of him, Kratos advanced on the one-horned Minotaur. The creature fell back, its flaming spear set in the middle of the ramp. Kratos saw his opportunity and took it instantly. Both blades flashed away and grappled on the Minotaur’s shoulders. Grunting, Kratos pulled the Minotaur toward him—and onto the creature’s own fiery spear. Impaled, the Minotaur struggled.
Kratos shoved the Minotaur back, jumped onto its chest, and used a double-handed stab to dispatch it to the lowest level of Hades’ domain.
Pushing ahead through cobwebs and enduring a musty smell that turned to a sickly sweet stench reminding him of decaying flesh, Kratos slowed and finally faced a huge door inset with a metallic leering face and claws reaching down to hold shut a locking bar. Kratos swung his hammer twice. Each blow knocked opened the claw latches. He grabbed the locking bar and jerked hard, sliding it away so he could grip the bottom of the door and fling it up and open. The fetid odor hit him like a physical blow.
He stopped when he heard Gaia’s voice in his ear.
“I am the earth, but Clotho is creation. She is the Loom of Life. To defeat her is to defeat the genesis of all.”
Kratos advanced slowly, coming to a bridge guarded by two swiftly swinging pendula with razor-sharp edges. He judged the speed of each pendulum, the length of the arc, and then walked without stopping, the blades cutting close to both chest and back. He stepped past the second pendulum.
“To disrupt the Loom of Life,” Gaia continued, “is to endow mankind with the ultimate freedom. No longer will humanity be bound by the chains of destiny.”
He rounded a large central column. Kratos’ eyes widened when he saw this column was flesh. He looked upward and saw flaccid teats and scrawny arms with skeletal fingers drooping down.
“First you must gain control of the loom and find your thread,” Gaia said. “Find your thread, Kratos, and determine your fate.”
He stepped back as a bony hand flopped down in front of him. Looking upward into the lofty chamber, he thought the cobwebs had taken over. Then he saw the different-colored strands, the way they quivered, the size growing or shrinking, and he knew he witnessed the fates of countless humans and gods.
And Titans.
Somewhere in the midst of all those threads stretched his own destiny. Finding it might be difficult, but taking control of it might be impossible. Kratos had no idea how to change his own destiny.
He hurried around the side of the immense mountain of putrid flesh and found a dangling chain. Hand over hand, Kratos made his way up to a higher level. He passed a level where more teats grotesquely flopped onto a walkway around her. Kratos jumped off at the highest level and ducked under the threads that spun from the very body of the Sister of Fate.
Faint, distant, he heard humming followed by the words, “Cut and mend. Cut and mend. Cut and mend. You live because we allow it.”
A bright green thread above Kratos’ head was severed, then spliced with a double strand extruded from Clotho’s flabby, gray-fleshed body, the strand swimming forth like a spider’s web from a spinneret. Kratos dropped from the chain and walked around the circular platform that served as a scaffolding for Clotho. One of the spindly arms flailed about and the long, bony fingers slapped down in front of him. Revolted, Kratos swung his war hammer and smashed two fingers.
“I am the Loom of Life. Eternal.”
Kratos sneered. He would see about that. He smashed the other fingers on the hand, forcing the arm to lift the damaged hand away. Clotho took no notice of this minor damage, so Kratos knew he would have to do better.
But he had to find his thread among the thousands of others crisscrossing the chamber above. Each strand traced back to a spinneret on Clotho’s body.
Kratos moved an apparatus on the edge of the circular platform and was rewarded with more furious beating from Clotho’s other arms.
“The thread of life runs until its end. You cannot change what the Fates have deemed.”
“I will find it!” Kratos shouted. “I have already changed what the Fates have deemed. I will find it!”
Clotho stirred, bringing her arms about. Kratos saw past the bulging body for the first time. Clotho’s head was tiny and pointed, set amid the folds of fat of her grotesquely sloping shoulders. Her piglike eyes fixed on Kratos. She turned in the confines of the scaffolding and swatted at him as if he were nothing more than a bug. He smashed at her fingers with his hammer, but inflicted no serious damage.
Which of the threads and cables and ropes and lines stretched across the chamber was his fate?
“Do you sense it?” Clotho taunted. “Do you sense your thread coming to an end?”
Kratos moved more of the equipment around the outer ring, not sure what it did other than irritate Clotho. Chains led upward into the distance, woven between the threads of fate, but serving no discernible purpose he could determine.
“If you disrupt the loom, the world will spin into chaos, and so the wisdom of the ages has made me impervious to any who dare try.” After Kratos had hammered a few more times, Clotho said, “You cannot change your fate; your skills as a warrior are useless here.”
Kratos smashed a groping hand. The arm flopped over, revealing proto-suckers along the underarm as if Clotho were partly a squid or octopus. Revolted at the sight of the mottled gray flesh, Kratos swung his hammer again, but the damage he did was minimal.
He scaled another chain, this time taking him above Clotho so he could see what the equipment did. He recognized it immediately as the pivot mechanism that suspended the pendula he had avoided entering the Loom Chamber. The huge piece of steel at the end of the chain gleamed like a razor, its edge exactly the weapon Kratos sought. Kratos jumped back down
to the platform in front of Clotho, who lashed out at him.
Using the Amulet of the Fates, Kratos slowed time. Clotho was not entirely frozen, but Kratos still moved faster as the spell turned the chamber into a green sea filled with viscous fluid, the fluid of time itself. He grabbed the windlass and cranked the pendulum up until it swung just above the platform in front of Clotho. Clotho cried out, “Your attempts are preposterous. From me all life flows.”
He shifted the steel pendulum about, positioned and drew it back, then aimed it directly for a spot between Clotho’s naked, drooping breasts.
“You must stop, Kratos. Creation itself is in the balance!”
He used the Amulet of the Fates once more to precisely position the deadly pendulum. As the green flow winked back to normal, Kratos let the steel weight swing free. Clotho’s spindly arm reached out and easily stopped the pendulum from striking her.
Kratos attacked. His swords flashed and left bloody trails in the gross gray flesh, but Clotho paid no heed to her wounds. Seeing this, Kratos tried a different tack. Seeing that he could not draw the pendulum back far enough where he was, he jumped and stood behind Clotho’s pin-sized head. He used his blades as grapples on the pendulum and drew it toward him—and Clotho—as hard as he could.
“No, no, you know not what you do!”
The muscles on his shoulders bunched as he yanked. Clotho caught the pendulum and held it away, but she was unable to move from the scaffolding supporting her ponderous bulk. As she weakened, Kratos’ purpose grew stronger. When the Sister of Fate could no longer hold the heavy pendulum away, Kratos used the last of his strength to pull even more. The sharpened steel edge drove into Clotho’s face. Blood spurted as the Sister of Fate collapsed forward.
“I will find the proper thread, Clotho.” He released the Blades of Athena from the pendulum, which remained embedded in Clotho’s head. “The reign of the Sisters is over.” Kratos kicked at the Sister’s tiny head. “Feel your thread coming to an end!”
Taking no time to reflect on the fact that he had done the impossible and killed the Sisters of Fate, beings so powerful that even the Titans and gods of Olympus were subject to them, he jumped down and looked at the huge spools all wound with threads of fate that circled the platform. Thousands—millions!—of threads were wound. Which was his?
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