by James Welsh
It took Athena two days to reach Mount Olympus.
It did not take her so long because it was a difficult journey. It was a long and dangerous trip for the mortals, but for Athena, there was no difficulty. As an owl, she could easily fly to the mountaintop in less than an hour, something that would have taken even the most experienced of the mortal climbers hours or even days to achieve.
No, it took Athena that long to reach the palace atop Olympus because, even when the next morning came, she was still curled up in her grief. She had cried herself to sleep, and she awoke to find that her father’s body was missing. It had utterly vanished, something that Athena had thought to be impossible: not even the gods could simply vanish, especially dead gods. Athena searched wildly about, but there was no sign of Zeus reviving and crawling away, or of a creature sneaking in and snatching the body. There were no grooves in the pebbly riverbank, no bent grass, no broken twigs to show where the body went.
The mysterious disappearance of the body only sent Athena into another howl of sadness. What she had done was the most serious of offenses – the fact that she did not mean to slaughter Zeus could not excuse anything. How could Athena explain to the rest of the gods on Olympus that she was responsible for the murder of their King? And she even had no proof that it was merely an accident: there were no witnesses and now there was no body as evidence. The other gods would have to believe the word of a murderer and nothing else.
And so she spent most of that first day, alone on the riverbank, barely moving except for the occasional pacing about, trying to figure out what her next action would be. She tried desperately to think, but nothing came to her mind – she had robbed Zeus of his life, and in return he had robbed Athena of her words.
In the end, Athena had gained no ground in her mind, yet she decided to leave anyway. She had her duty to Olympus: she had to tell them of the tragedy, of her murdering her own father. That is, if they hadn’t suspected the truth by that point – after all, the death of a leader is a cut across the kingdom. Everyone who was loyal to the king would have to notice.
And so Athena transformed into her owl form and, even with a heart as heavy as hers, lifted off the ground and flew in the general direction of Olympus. Her wings did the flying for her; Athena simply crawled into the back of her mind, hiding from the new reality that she had created. If she had taken the time to emerge from her shelled mind, though, she would have noticed that the mortal world beneath her wings looked the same as it always did. Farmers still plowed their fields, merchants still sold goods in their shops, children still played. They may come to understand the significance of what Athena had done, but that wouldn’t be until much later though. For now, the mortals were blissfully ignorant that their kingdom was rotting and giving way beneath them, like an old wooden floor beneath the rug.
As Athena neared the palace, she knew that, while the mortals may have not noticed or cared even, the other Olympians certainly did. She heard their cries, and even though she couldn’t make out the individual words, the tone was evident. And she heard the cries before she saw the wreckage of the palace. Parts of the palace, built to be as heavy and sure as the mountain itself, had actually crumbled to the foundation. Even though the palace had an infinite number of rooms, the damage was still noticeable. It reminded Athena a bit of an earthquake she saw once before: most of the entire town had been leveled, and dazed survivors stumbled about, looking for their loved ones, so numb that some didn’t even know that their limbs were crushed, even missing.
As Athena floated over the palace, she noticed a large crowd in the main courtyard. There, the gods and goddesses were wandering about, confused, unsure of what was going on, let alone what to do next. Most of them were too preoccupied to notice, but the always-alert Apollo caught sight of the owl flying in a large circle. Recognizing the owl for what it really was, the god of the sun called out, “Athena, come and join your family.”
Reluctantly, Athena answered Apollo’s beckon and slowly settled down to the ground. As she transformed, her morphing mouth asked, slightly garbled, “What happened here?”
Apollo shrugged. “All I know is that the ground started shaking beneath us. I was able to get Artemis out before the palace started to cave in.”
“That is all you know?” Athena asked a little too quickly. “Have you heard no other news?”
“What I know is what everyone else here knows,” Apollo drawled. He added, “Unless there’s something that you know that we don’t.”
The sickness Athena had felt sometime before, when she stood over her father’s murdered body, was returning to her. Nauseous, Athena turned and walked away from the questioning Apollo and towards the center of the group. She breathed deeply a few times and, with more her father’s courage than her own, called out in an unnaturally loud voice, “Everyone! I have some terrible news to announce!”
Almost immediately, all of the gods quit their talking, and they all looked in Athena’s direction. The silence should have been unbearable, but for Athena, it made her feel as if she was the only person there. And it is always easier to admit the truth to yourself than it is to another.
“I believe that I am the reason why the palace shook.”
The crowd murmured. Someone – it sounded like Hermes – called out, “How could you have shaken the palace? You haven’t been welcomed here in years.”
The voice shook Athena out of her trance – it made her realize that there were other, actual people around her. Feeling very small now, Athena said with some hesitation, “The palace shook because Zeus is dead. Our father is dead.”
“What?” Hera shrieked.
The rest of the gods and goddesses, though, they immediately began to argue amongst themselves. But while they were used to arguing, they fought like cornered animals, bewildered. How could it be that a god amongst them had actually died? Were their centuries of drinking ambrosia for nothing? How could they be both immortal and mortal? It was a paradox too ridiculous for them to believe. They wanted to believe it was a paradox, but worse, it wasn’t. Something that was both immortal and mortal could only be mortal: a god that dies is no better than a mortal. And if the mighty Zeus could fall, who was to say that the rest of them were any better?
The gods didn’t want to believe the truth, and so they didn’t believe Athena. They didn’t trust her, although the signs all pointed to Zeus’ death: not only had the palace shook with its king downed, but the gods themselves had felt the disaster in their ichor. All of them had felt a shudder at the same time that the palace began to sway, but their tremble was deeper than anything else they had ever felt. And yet the immortals did not admit to this, because they were afraid of their weaknesses.
The gods did not believe, and so Artemis called out over the gods’ bickering, “How do you know this, Athena? How do you know that our father is dead?”
“Because…because I killed him.”
Once more, Athena silenced the entire crowd. Everyone looked at the goddess through shocked, muted eyes. And then came the roar.
“How could you kill our father?” Aphrodite snapped. The goddess lunged forward – never before had the goddess of beauty looked so ugly with hatred. Taking Aphrodite’s cue, several of the other gods rushed forward into the fray, determined to exact vengeance against the usurper.
Instinctively, Athena reached for the blade in her robes – the dagger was short and stunted, but she had already killed one god with it, so she knew it was sharp enough. And while she could never imagine herself killing Zeus, she could certainly imagine killing many in the crowd. As a matter of fact, some nights she had even dreamed of doing so – she especially wanted to jam her dagger down Aphrodite’s throat.
But before the immortals could reach Athena – before the accused goddess could even pull out her dagger – there was a sudden bulb of light, one that blanketed the entire courtyard and blinded those in it. All of the gods fell backwards from the light, shield
ing their eyes but it was no use. The intense bulb lasted for a few moments, and then there was nothing. The courtyard was back to what it always was. Almost all of the gods and goddesses were on the ground, groaning. Slowly, they stood up while rubbing their eyes.
The only one still standing was Apollo, who was also the one who called down the bulb of light from his sun. He stood tall over the fallen gods, his face showing no sign of triumph, his eyes like granite. He said sharply, “There will be no more violence! Zeus’ death was more than enough. And yet you want to honor his death with more misery? No! You all will back down, and you all will listen to our sister. You all will decide her fate after she has defended herself. This is the right thing to do, because it has always been the right thing to do. We will not abandon our justice because we are angered. Our kingdom has bled enough today!”
His fingers still crackling with light, Apollo motioned for all of the gods to sit down in the grass, and the gods obediently did as they were told. For once, those gods were all frightened together: it may have been because Athena had murdered their king and so was strong enough to kill any of them, or it may have been because they had never seen Apollo lose his composure and were reluctant to anger him further. Apollo went to sit down with the other immortals, but not before he gestured for Athena to begin her story.
And like the other gods, Athena did as Apollo commanded. She began her story of the past few days, first with hearing the prayer of her frightened priestesses in Arcadia. As Athena plunged headfirst into her story, some of the gods were paying attention to every word, wanting to understand what it was that frightened them so much. They wondered if that was why the mortals built their entire cultures around death, with doom showing in their poetry, their paintings, and their plays.
Athena, though, had long since lost the attention of some of the other gods. Ares scratched his scruffy beard as he thought of the implications of what Athena had admitted to. True, Zeus was his father, and he would mourn for his father later, as the tradition dictated. But at the moment, his mind was swirling with so many possibilities. He remembered back when he accidentally cut himself that one evening, and so realizing that he could bleed like any other mortal. He was once afraid of that fact, thinking that he may have been the weakest of the gods. He thought he was the only immortal who could bleed. But now that he knew his father not only bled but died as well, Ares saw interesting developments that would sooner or later take place. He especially looked at Apollo – he used to look at his brother god with envy and hatred, but now he looked at him murderously. It was an open secret on Olympus that there was a rivalry between the brothers. There were times when Ares waited impatiently for daybreak so that a battle could begin. When it would seem like the dawn never came, Ares grew annoyed then furious then desperate. It was only in his moment of weakness that he would call out to his brother, asking Apollo to pull the sun across the skies with his chariot. Each time he prayed, almost immediately the sun would rise. Ares knew that beneath the somber and duty-bound looks of Apollo, there was mischief like any other soul.
And Ares would respond in kind to his brother’s perceived taunts. When his favored army would win a battle, Ares would secretly urge the generals onward into the losing city. There, the victors would pillage and burn the entire city down. Ares would stand in front of the raging inferno and laugh viciously each time – he knew that the fire could be seen for miles – he knew that Apollo would hate someone else controlling a fire just as blazing as the sun. And while the brothers may have only fought skirmishes against each other, Ares knew – and he guessed that Apollo knew as well – that the war had yet to be fought. Ares was too tired at that moment – exhausted still by his recent campaign in Egypt, as well as the shock of Zeus’ death – but when he recovered and stood tall again, he would plan Apollo’s fall. Ares knew that much, but he hoped that Apollo didn’t know that as well.
Sitting far, but not too far, from Ares was Aphrodite. Aphrodite could see Ares’ venom, even through his worn eyes and scraggly beard. And she would have noticed the hate without even looking at her brother. After all, one night long before, when all of the gods were enjoying a feast, Ares had pulled Aphrodite to the side.
“What do you want?” Aphrodite asked, exasperated. She had noticed Ares’ eyes on her all that night during the dinner.
“I need your help with something,” Ares said, looking about, as if he was ashamed to be asking for a woman’s help.
“Oh?” Aphrodite asked, amused.
Ares took Aphrodite down an abandoned hallway, where there were no prying eyes, and explained. Ares went on and on, when all he said to say was that he needed Aphrodite to entice an enemy army into a night of drunkenness and scandal. The next morning, as the army would recover from the night, Ares’ chosen army would march to victory. Ares wanted to keep the plan secret, though – the enemy army had pledged their devotion to Apollo, and so Apollo loved them in return.
“But what if I don’t want to help you?” Aphrodite said dismissively.
Ares slapped her hard across the face, so harshly that the goddess actually stumbled. “You will help me, or I will make you fall – even if I have to push you myself.”
Aphrodite rubbed her stung cheek, the tears instinctively rolling from her eyes. She said meekly, “Okay. Just please don’t hurt me again.”
The things that Ares did not know but wished that he had. Of course Aphrodite helped Ares then, and she had helped him in many of his battles since. And Aphrodite would smile broader and broader as their alliance deepened and their victories together grew. It eventually reached the point where Aphrodite knew for certain that Ares could not win a battle without her help – Ares had simply grown rusty in strategy. It was at that moment that Aphrodite knew that she had Ares under his control, when all along Ares wrongly thought that he controlled her. And Aphrodite could do a lot with the god of war as her pawn. As she glared at Athena – Zeus’ favorite and now Queen of Everything – she was wondering how to put her Ares to use.
And then there was Hermes, his feet planted on the ground for a rare moment. He wrapped his chest with his thin arms, trying to stay warm. His teeth were still chattering from his last visit down to the Underworld. It was one of Hermes’ duties to help guide the new souls down to the Land of the Dead. He was there to comfort the shades, to teach them where to go through the winding passages of the world below. And as much as he loved helping travelers from all walks of life and death, he always felt miserable when he left the Underworld. There was something in the air, something cold, something damp, that chilled him through and left him feeling like he would never be joyful again. He figured that the last time he was in the Underworld, actually, would have been around the same time as his father’s death. If only he had a chance to see his father’s spirit before it dived into the depths of the Underworld. But even if Hermes did cross paths with his father’s shade, the winged god doubted that he would recognize even Zeus. It seemed as if all of the shades looked the same – he could never tell one from the other. Still, part of him felt that he would have recognized Zeus in the crowd of dust – he had to believe that at least.
And then there was Demeter, whose face was webbed with tears like it always seemed to be these days. She was upset for several reasons. Of course she grieved when she heard the news of her dear brother’s death. Zeus had done so much for her, and he had passed before she could do anything for him as thanks. And she cried all the harder as she thought of her daughter. When the earthquake was shaking the palace, Demeter and all of the other gods rushed to escape the collapse. In the confusion, Demeter for the first time forgot about her daughter. It wasn’t until well after the gods had gathered in the courtyard that Demeter realized that her daughter Persephone wasn’t with her. She searched and searched but her Persephone wasn’t anywhere to be found on the mountaintop. At first, Demeter feared that Persephone had been trapped beneath some fallen de
bris in the palace – of course there was the common knowledge that gods simply don’t die, but Demeter was scared of her daughter experiencing the slightest in pains. But now that she knew the truth – not only that gods could die, but Zeus had actually passed – Demeter understood why Persephone vanished. Hades must have sensed Zeus’ death somehow, and why wouldn’t he? Hades was the lord of the Land of the Dead, and if Zeus’ spirit passed through, then Hades would have certainly known. And, without Zeus to look after her, to protect her, Persephone was once more a prize for Hades. Yet Demeter was so distraught over Hades having kidnapped her daughter, she did not stop to think of what could be happening to Zeus at that very moment. To think, that Zeus was the denier of Hades’ happiness for so long – and creatures more noble than Hades have fallen into bloody vengeance.
When Athena finished telling her story to the crowd, there was a dim silence; Athena thought that she had heard some whispering, but that may have been her imagination once more, making her think that the crowds were going to mutiny against her. But then, Apollo stood up and said in his always-booming voice, “You have listened to Athena, haven’t you? You have listened to her story, how she did not mean to kill our father. And while we may disagree about her intent, it is very clear to us that she is his murderer, yes?”
The crowd nodded. Athena’s heart wrenched.
But then, Apollo looked at Athena in the eye and continued. “But although our sister has broken the tradition that has stood for thousands of years, we cannot break the rest of our standards in unity with her. There are rules that are meant to be followed, rules that you do remember, even if you don’t say you do. And one of those rules is this: if a god was to defeat one of his own kind in battle, then the victor must take on the responsibilities of the defeated.”
“So are you saying that Athena must become our Queen? Because she has killed Zeus?” Demeter demanded, her voice still choking with sobs.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” Apollo said swiftly. “This was the rule we wrote when Zeus banished his Titan parents from Olympus. It was Zeus who understood the responsibilities he had to take on, else the world his parents built would have fallen into ruin. And so, just as Zeus became King, so too must Athena become our Queen. If you don’t believe in this rule, then you do not believe in this mountain!”
The courtyard paused, as the gods sighed over what Apollo said. It was true, every word of it. They could not break their rules, although they had written them in the first place, although they never imagined someone taking the throne from Zeus. But running the entire kingdom was the greatest challenge of them all, and so someone had to take on the role, and none of those gods wanted to step forward and volunteer their services. If Athena did not become the Queen, then the skies could very well darken and collapse over their heads. Such a thing had never happened before, because there was always a ruler over the world, and the gods were afraid of witnessing the first break.
The stately Hera stood up and announced, perhaps emboldened by her son Apollo, “He is right! We must have someone to lead this world, and if it cannot be Zeus, then it must be his daughter Athena. They shared more of the same mind, the same voice, the same spirit than we ever could with our dear Zeus. Athena is Zeus’ reflection, and we cannot afford to break the mirror. So let us all stand aside, and may Athena step forward to the throne. May Athena rule over the world, as she was fated to do!”
Hera said all of this, believing in something else entirely. It was true that she wanted Athena to assume the throne as the Ruler of Everything. Hera wanted this to happen, as much as she distrusted and even hated Athena for all the scandal that goddess represented. As much as she grieved for her beloved husband’s death in spite of his scandals, he still had his scandals. The years had only begun to stitch their wounds, and a vein of suspicion still ran thickly through their Olympus. The suspicions had every right to be – the always lusting Zeus must have fathered countless children with mothers both mortal and immortal. Hera had never considered the thought of succession, because she had always thought that Zeus was infinite like any other immortal. But since the prophecy turned true, and Zeus was murdered by one of his own children, Hera was viciously glad that it was Athena with the bloody hands. Athena, the outsider; Athena, the one who would have to be taught the ways of Olympus after having been gone for so long. Hera may have been shuffled to the side, playing the ceremonial queen mother, but she knew that she would be called on for advice soon enough. And so, while Zeus had reigned so many years over a world divided by himself, there would finally be a unity, with Hera guiding Athena’s writing hand as the new queen wrote the new laws.
Artemis stood beside Hera, silent like usual. She had not spoken, because she wanted to wait until both her brother Apollo and her mother Athena had done so. And even then, with her mother and brother having given their opinion, Artemis was still mute – they had said all that she would have said. There was no use repeating. However, it was because of her silence that she was the first to hear the evolution. She heard crackling behind her and so she looked over her shoulder. Saying in a loud voice that surprised even herself, she exclaimed, “Look!”
Most of the gods paid no attention to the meek huntress, but others turned, and the looks on their faces made the others finally revolve. The palace – which was crumbled just moments before – was rebuilt, renewed. The walls looked as strong as they had ever been, as if the palace had never collapsed, as if Zeus had never fallen. The only things that looked strange were the columns, holding up the immensity of the palace with ease like cousin Atlas holds up the world. The columns used to be Zeus’ choice of wood: oak, the unchallenged strength of the woods. But now, instead of oak, new trees had sprouted up as the columns. As the gods neared the palace, cautious, they recognized the sort of wood. It was olive, Athena’s chosen. And so the gods muttered amongst themselves, asking if this was a sign, if the palace had recognized its new monarch. If that was true, then that meant they had no choice but to accept Athena as their queen. If they refused her reign, then their palace, their home, their life would fall once more upon their heads, this time for good.
Hera was the first to walk through the lumbering front doors of the palace. As she walked in, she spun around, making sure that the palace was structurally sound once more. Satisfied, she turned to the family of gods and goddesses, anxiously crowded just outside.
“Let us begin the ceremony. I can only hope that we have not forgotten how to crown a leader since the last time,” Hera said in her clipped tone. She was not entirely sure herself – it had been almost countless years since the ceremony where Zeus was made king.
As the gods slowly shuffled into the palace, as Hera ordered Hebe and the other servants to prepare the food and ambrosia for the ceremony, Athena stayed behind. The last to enter the palace, she did so with trembling steps, feeling pulled rather than pushed.
Book 8