God of War

by Matthew Woodring Stover

  He quickly found himself engaged with a Cyclops that materialized behind him. The fight was fierce, but Kratos dispatched the one-eyed horror with a feint to the leg that caused the Cyclops to bend low. The blade in Kratos’s left hand speared deep through the single orb, causing eye goo and brains to gush out.

  The stone in the door now glowed a bright ruby red.

  “So,” Kratos said, smiling grimly. “This is the key to your doorway, Architect. Blood!” He quickly touched the remaining two gems, producing two fighters. Knowing the secret of the portal allowed him to waste no effort sending the monsters to Hades where they belonged.

  The two remaining gems—one peridot, gleaming greenish-yellow, and the other a blazing sapphire blue—sent lightning arcing around the circular portal. Slowly, the doorway into the Temple of Pandora opened to him.

  Kratos entered a long, curving corridor lined with doors on both sides.

  Here, too, wall-mounted braziers burned with cheery flame. They could be magical—apparently everything here was, to some degree or other—but they certainly wouldn’t have been the work of the Architect; there was absolutely no reason to illuminate the interior if one wanted to keep intruders out. Everything would be doubly challenging in the kind of inky blackness the stone-shrouded interior would otherwise be—and anyone attempting to reach Pandora’s Box would have to do it before his lamp oil ran out.

  Then Kratos laughed harshly. The Architect undoubtedly thought the sight of the monsters awaiting anyone who had come into this maze would unnerve them, add to their fear, make their deaths all the more certain, as terror froze their arms and loosened their bowels. The Temple of Pandora was not only about keeping out those who sought the box. It would be designed to inspire gut-churning fear in those who dared come this far. More than once, Ares had told Kratos that the purpose of war was not to kill your enemy but to kill him after breaking his spirit.

  He looked to either side, calculating the curve. If this corridor formed a ring, it would be very large. His first order of business was to investigate the lay of the land, because apparently any part of this structure could, without warning, become a battlefield. He trotted around the circle … and when he returned to his starting point, he discovered that the great circular door through which he had entered had closed, sealed to his best effort to open it again.

  Kratos ignored this. Retreat was not in his fiber. Win or die. The way it always had been.

  He found an open archway as he continued around the ring—one that hadn’t been open a moment ago, when he’d first passed. The view along the hallway open before him looked promising—every few yards, giant spiked walls slammed against one another with enough force to shake the stone floor on which he stood. Reasoning that the Architect had gone to so much trouble to discourage intruders along this particular path made it a likely place to start his quest.

  Timing a succession of dashes took him through the corridor without so much as a scratch. Kratos stopped to look back. He had passed the first test within Pandora’s temple. How many more to come? Many.

  He stepped into a wide area, the walls carved with the mysterious symbols he had seen outside. Kratos ignored them, because he faced a chamber full of monsters. Reaching back, he drew the Blades of Chaos and, with a toss, sent them to the limits of their chains. A quick spin sent the fierce-edged weapons in a sweeping circle of destruction around him, catching two of the undead legionnaires unaware. He cut off their legs and toppled them to the floor so they could not continue the fight. The others rushing forward were not as easily vanquished.

  Kratos drew in his weapons and began the methodical destruction of his enemies. His skill, his experience, and the towering anger he felt toward Ares powered his thrusts, enhanced his slashes, and brought him to the far side of the chamber with only a few scrapes. He faced an archway that appeared harmless, but he approached warily, then stepped away, blades in hand, when a low-pitched humming filled the room.

  He looked around the room and noticed a circular portal that had begun to glow with pure white light. The archway at the side of the chamber was now filled with the image, traced in living fire, of the face of a goddess—not as voluptuous as Aphrodite nor so severe as Athena, this goddess had a curious innocence to her, a sort of eternal golden adolescence.

  This could be only one goddess. Kratos inclined his head out of true respect. “Lady Artemis.”

  “Kratos, the gods demand more of you!”

  Kratos just nodded. The gods always demanded more.

  “Much depends on your skill,” said the Huntress of Olympus. “You have learned to use the Blades of Chaos well, but they alone will not carry you to the end of your task. I offer you the very blade I used to slay a Titan. Take this gift and use it to complete your quest.”

  Kratos reached out and the sword appeared in his hands. It was a huge, unwieldy weapon, longer than Kratos was tall, and not shaped like any honest Spartan sword. Its broadly curved blade was wider than the span of his hand, jutting out beyond the haft, more like the khopesh favored by the heathen Egyptians.

  “Thank you, Lady Artemis.”

  “Go with the gods, Kratos,” the image of Artemis said. “Go forth in the name of Olympus!” With that, the huntress vanished, leaving only the open archway leading deeper into the temple.

  Artemis’s blade cool in his hand, he approached the archway. Some glyphs were letters he could read, but most were strange, alien, and beyond his ability to decipher. If only he could read them, he might get some hint as to the challenges he faced before reaching them! He peered into the room beyond the arch and saw no one. It was nothing more than a foyer, such as he had seen leading to many a king’s audience chamber. The trappings were richly appointed, but he had claimed more-elegant furniture, statues, and tapestries as the spoils of war for the glory of Sparta.

  A staircase provided the only way forward. As Kratos climbed, he noticed that the walls narrowed until, at the top of the stairs, his broad shoulders brushed the rough stone. The narrowing continued down a corridor until he came out on a platform, high above a room filled with rotating gears and distant screams of agony. The dim light afforded him a good look only at the gigantic creature blocking his way to a catwalk across the room.

  The giant roared its wordless challenge and charged. A heavy sledge that replaced its left hand smashed down hard, shaking the catwalk and threatening its structure. The Blades of Chaos came easily to Kratos’s hands, but he found that his opponent was as wily as it was strong. His usual attacks—weaken the creature, then ram his blade down its throat—were not going to work. The giant agilely avoided even his quickest thrust and slash and forced Kratos to dance back to avoid the heavy hammer blows. Any hit with that crashing hammer would mean death, but, worse, the creature seemed inclined to destroy the catwalk and prevent Kratos’s crossing.

  “By the gods, you are different,” Kratos said. He thought a spark of intelligence showed in the eyes buried under bony brows. Great intelligence. Then it attacked, using its right hand to strike at Kratos’s eyes as diversion for the sweeping attack from the hammer. A simple move to the side allowed the fist to pass by harmlessly, but this was not the creature’s intent—it delivered a more subtle attack. The haft of the hammer blocked Kratos’s weapons, allowing it to step closer still.

  It tried to grapple with Kratos but succeeded only in a potent head butt. A fraction of an inch closer and it would have caught his eye. Responding the only way he could, Kratos hammered at the monster’s powerful sloping shoulders with both pommels of his blades. The creature danced away more lightly than any spawn of Hades Kratos had ever faced.

  They circled, each studying the other for weaknesses and how best to attack. The blood trickled down Kratos’s cheek as a reminder that this monster considered its assault carefully and was a skilled opponent. But it had never faced the Ghost of Sparta before.

  Kratos roared and rushed forward, pressing the giant back a step, then changed the direction of his attack,
dropping flat to the platform and kicking out. One bronze greave smashed into the creature’s knee, unbalancing it. Kratos worked his other foot behind the leg and swept around hard, further staggering it. Not content with this, Kratos spun about so his feet tangled his foe’s legs—and then it was time to end the battle.

  Off-balance and facing away from Kratos, the creature tottered on the edge of the platform. Swinging a blade out on the end of its chain, Kratos felt the Hades-forged weapon crash into the exposed back and send the giant forward—into space. It roared all the way to the distant floor, where its cries ended suddenly with a huge crash.

  Kratos looked over the edge of the platform and felt no victory. The hammer-swinging giant had been a worthy opponent but nothing more. It had been only an impediment to finding Pandora’s Box. Kratos looked across the narrow catwalk and then began to walk on it. The walk was hardly wider than his sandals, and the drop to the floor where the monster’s body lay had to be a hundred feet, but he never faltered. Confident strides took him to an island in the middle of the room, where a lever had been locked into place. Studying the area, Kratos saw that his only hope for getting to another entryway in the chamber wall some fifty feet under him was to reach a cable strung from one side to the other. A jump might allow him to grab the cable as he fell, but if his hands slipped or he misjudged his trajectory off this isle of safety, his fate would be sealed. There was nothing below the cable for him to seize if he missed it.

  Another path suggested itself to him. He followed the mechanism controlled by the lever and saw how it dropped a huge weight to the floor below. That descent would unwind a chain and give him a safer way down to the cable, although it would be at the far end of that stretched line, requiring him to work his way hand over hand to the portal. He never hesitated. He took off the securing line on the lever and yanked hard, setting the massive gears and pulleys into motion. The huge weight lowered from above.

  As the weight passed, Kratos jumped and grabbed the chain holding it. For a moment he swayed, because his added mass disturbed the mechanism as it unwound the chain and lowered the iron block. But he found himself ready when the weight flashed past the cable. He gathered his legs under him and made a powerful leap, hands outstretched. Success! He gripped the heavy cable and caused only a slight sagging from his added weight.

  Kratos began working hand over hand toward the far side of the chamber. He kept his goal in sight to avoid looking downward at the gears clacking and clashing underneath. A slip and he would be ground up and sent to Hades in tiny pieces. Working swiftly, he’d reached the midpoint along the cable when he felt it sag more than it had only seconds before. Like some arboreal creature in its element, he reversed his direction and looked behind along the length of cable he had already traversed.

  One hand left the cable as he reached for the Blades of Chaos. Following him along the aerial pathway were two grasping, chittering monsters with saliva-dripping fangs and an ability to swing and move that he could never match. Kratos considered severing the cable, which would send the far half crashing into the distant wall while the half he clung to would swing forward so he could climb to the portal when he hit the wall.

  Such was not to be. The monsters swarmed forward, climbing over each other in their haste to kill him. Taloned fingers swiped at him, forcing him to recoil. Bringing up his feet to kick out held them at bay for only an instant. As he swung back down, they came at him. His grip on the cable firm, he dared to swing his blade. It struck at an awkward angle and did little damage to the first creature—long, deep scratches appeared on his sword arm as talons raked him. Worse than the pain that threatened to cause him to abandon the use of his sword was the second creature’s attack, swarming over the first along the cable.

  It went not for his sword arm but for the hand holding the cable. It snapped savage fangs and caught a finger, almost severing the digit from his hand. Kratos roared in anger and let the bloodlust he had known for ten full years rise to take control. He caught the second creature between his thighs, twisted, and pulled it away from its hold on the cable. He swung away and simply released his vise grip, sending the creature plunging to the distant floor. But it never struck. Its body was tossed high on a spinning gearwheel, then caught and minced in the ponderous mechanism that seemed to have no purpose other than to grind out death.

  The creature’s companion made the fatal mistake of watching the death below. With one hand on the cable, Kratos released his hold on his blade and grabbed. His fingers closed around an exposed neck. Tendons stood out on his forearms as he squeezed the life from the creature, but he did not stop when all movement ceased. His blood from the deep scratches ran down his hand and onto the flesh of the dead monster, tainting it. Only when Kratos was satisfied that he had marked the creature forever in Hades with his blood did he send it tumbling after the other to be dismembered in the gears below.

  Kratos swung back and gripped the cable, only to have his fingers slip and almost cause him to crash to his death. The blood from the cuts and scratches had turned his fingers slippery. His strength remained, but the cable might as well have been oiled for all the traction he now had on it. His right hand came free, leaving him dangling precariously. Even as he wiped off his hand, he knew this would not work; more blood oozed from his wounds to again slicken it.

  Kratos doubled up and swung his heels over the top of the cable, locking them to give more support. He had no way of stanching the blood leaking out of his bone-white flesh, but keeping his ankles locked above the cable prevented him from following his enemies to the floor beneath. Dangling upside down, he pulled himself along the cable as quickly as he could, finally reaching the end of the line. A quick twist allowed him to clutch an outcropping under the portal.

  He wiped his hands, one at a time, to clean them of blood, and then pulled himself up to the ledge. Standing, he faced a short corridor. Stride long, Kratos went to see if he had finally reached Pandora’s Box. In only a few minutes he realized that he hadn’t.

  EIGHTEEN

  “I KNOW THAT SWORD,” Zeus murmured as he looked into the scrying pool. “That blade is one of the most powerful weapons in all creation. How did you trick Artemis into giving it to Kratos?”

  “Trick her, Father? I?” Athena shook her head. “She and Ares have reached a kind of truce—but she has seen his vicious rampage of insanity firsthand. She did not relinquish the sword lightly. I believe that she wishes to show her support by helping Kratos through the temple.”

  “I’ve seen my son’s bloodlust as well,” Zeus muttered darkly. “He has burned most of Athens to the ground. Only a few buildings remain around the main square, and only the temples atop the Acropolis stand. Even your Parthenon has been blackened with soot from the fires and is falling into disrepair.”

  “Most of your shrines are gone. He kills your worshippers just as he singles out mine for his brutal murders.”

  “War is always messy,” Zeus said. “Ares has again refused to attend me and explain why he attacks my followers so aggressively, though. It is one thing to burn Athens to the ground, another to flaunt it in such a fashion that it offends me. Unless,” Zeus said, turning thoughtful, “his passion for war has turned into a cancer burning away at his brain.”

  “He wants it for his own.” With her usual focus and determination, Athena steered the conversation back onto her course. “And Kratos, Father? Will he receive your favor?”

  Zeus was uncharacteristically slow in responding. He did not look at her directly but studied her reflection in the scrying pool. “I am curious, beloved daughter. I have watched you go to considerable lengths to support and protect your pet Spartan.”

  “He is the last hope of Athens.”

  “Really? And yet, when you intercede with me—with the other gods as well—you never seek help for your worshippers. Or your city, only your priests. You say that Kratos is their hope—as you seem to be his—but wouldn’t your powers of persuasion and manipulation be better spen
t entreating direct aid? Hephaestus, for example, might have extinguished all those fires with a single wave of his hand. Apollo might have healed your wounded. I myself—”

  “Yes, Father, I know. You have the right of it. As always, you see more deeply than any other.”

  Athena took a deep breath and decided—in this extremity—that her cause would now, finally, be best served by the straight truth. “My Lord Father, Ares’s true target is not me, nor is it my city.”

  Zeus looked at her, his thoughts veiled behind an expressionless face.

  “Father, his target is your throne!”

  “So your goal all along—the final truth of your endgame—has been solely to protect me?”

  “Forgive my presumption,” Athena said. “I only feared that you might allow your well-known fondness for your children to cloud your judgment of Ares.”

  “Or, perhaps, that my well-known fondness for my children might also cloud my judgment of you.” Zeus still showed no emotion, but Athena had heard just a hint of concern at the way Ares destroyed the shrines to Zeus throughout Athens. “You seeks only to save me from myself? Because I have forgotten the lessons of my own life?”

  “All Olympus would welcome Ares’s death.”

  “Would they? Or do they huddle to one side, hoping to gather whatever scraps of power remain after an Olympian patricide?”

  “You condemned your own father to crawl on hands and knees through the Desert of Lost Souls for all time, rather than kill him, after you won the Titanomachy,” Athena said. “Because you know too well the consequences of family slaying family, you have decreed such will never come to pass between Olympians. But Ares may have in mind a fate similar to that of Cronos for you, Father. An eternity of torment, bound by unbreakable chains—and that is only if he can overcome his own madness enough to show self-restraint.”

  “And how long have you known Ares’s ambition? How long have you been planning your brother’s death using Kratos as your instrument of destruction?”