Pale Eyes

by James Welsh

“Where are you?” Athena roared, her voice shaking the leaves loose from the trees. “Show yourself, or I’ll burn this whole forest down!”

  She had been walking through the dark forest for hours, calling out for the Fates to appear. She knew that the Fates only showed themselves when they wanted to, but she hoped that they would hear her cries for help and show some mercy. After awhile, their silence mocked Athena, and this angered her. As she passed through a particularly wooded spot, she found some low-lying branches in her way. In her fury, she kicked the heavy branches, shearing them off the tree.

  The forest was becoming darker here, the leaves overhead growing into a ceiling. Athena knew of ways around such inconveniences. She began her owl transformation, stopping when most of her face had turned avian. She ran her hand over her face, feeling the feathers, the pointed mouth where the beak would have been – but now she at least had an owl’s eyes. And so the dark woods opened up for her, the shadows pulsing with light.

  She made her way a bit deeper into the shadows when she heard it. At first, she thought it was a bird singing, but that was when she began hearing lyrics. And that was when she knew she found them. She spun around in a circle, trying to find the silhouettes of the witches somewhere in the forest around her. Finally, her wide owl eyes spotted them. Off to the left, under a tent of branches, Athena saw what looked like several women dancing. Or it could have been men – Athena wasn’t sure exactly, even with her perfect eyes. As the trio danced, their pace picked up, and so did their song. Athena couldn’t recognize the language, but something about it was unsettling, reminding her of a rabid dog growling.

  As Athena approached, her sword drawn, she called out, “Witches, show yourselves!”

  The dancing halted. The creatures looked up at Athena as one, their crimson eyes glowing in the darkness. Athena heard a crackling voice say, “We’re much more than witches, my child. You’re smart enough to know that.”

  “I have no time for arguments!” Athena snapped.

  The Fates all looked at her curiously. One with a particularly long and scraggly beard said, “We know why you’re here.”

  “Then why are you wasting my time?”

  The Fates didn’t answer, so Athena had to answer for them. “You’re wasting my time because you have to. What happened to Zeus is still going on, isn’t it? Answer me!”

  Athena grabbed the nearest Fate by the throat and pulled her closer until they were almost nose-to-nose. Athena had to fight back the sick – the Fate’s stench was horrendous, reminding her of a crumbling corpse. Immortals were not used to such a smell, because their bodies never rotted. The other Fates stepped forward to help their troubled sister, but the Fate motioned them to stop. The Fates did as their sister asked, but they still looked on, suspicious of what Athena might do.

  “Should we tell her, sisters?”

  “She will know eventually,” the other two chanted. “It is too late for her now, though. She cannot do anything to save them.”

  “Save whom?” Athena demanded, refusing to look away from the Fate she held. Her fingers tightened, and the Fate began to gasp hoarsely.

  “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “You two, quiet!” Athena snapped at the other Fates. She turned to the one she was still choking. “Why can’t I save them? Why is it too late?”

  “You have to save yourself first,” the Fate explained.

  “How can I save myself?” Athena asked, exasperated. “I’m still here, I’m still whole, I’m still intact.”

  “No, no you’re not. You’re only half of yourself. Zeus is the other half. Zeus was the other half.”

  Incredulous, Athena glanced at the other two Fates, who nodded silently. She said through gritted teeth, “I don’t understand.”

  “Zeus gave birth to you from his mind. Ever since that moment, you both have been two bodies joined by one head. Only when the two halves are joined can all become whole again.”

  “How do I do that? How do I resurrect Zeus?” Athena asked.

  “We can’t tell you.”

  “We can’t, we can’t.”

  “Foolish girl,” one of the other Fates said, scratching her beard, “we cannot tell you how to pull life out of death.”

  Athena could barely restrain her anger. “But you told my father how he would die! Why can’t you tell me how he can live?”

  “If we did, what would that mean?”

  The Fate let the question hang in the air as the sisters began to walk in a circle around Athena. The goddess’ grip loosened on the Fate she held, and that witch joined her sisters. Athena collapsed to the ground, her head in her hands, almost defeated. The Fates held the only key to her escape, and they wanted to hold the key just out of her reach.

  As the Fates swirled around her, one said, “If we tell you how to bring back Zeus, then we’ll have to tell every mortal in this world how to bring back their loved ones.”

  “Yes, we’ll have to.”

  “Why?” Athena breathed. “All I’m asking for is one soul. Zeus is the only hope this world has. If kingdom doesn’t have its true king, the lands will fall.”

  “That’s what you think,” another Fate chuckled.

  “Foolish girl, we know Zeus better than you ever did. We were the ones who cut his string. And his string was just as easy to cut as any mortal’s.”

  “Just as easy as any mortal’s.”

  “He may have been a king in life, but he stands with his subjects in death. Death is blind and sees no rank. Didn’t you know that?”

  “If you didn’t know that…”

  “…you do now.”

  “Enough!” Athena screamed. She leapt from the ground and tackled the Fate prancing past her, the witch that had something gleaming wrapped to her waist. Athena quickly yanked the scissors free and held the edge to the witch’s throat.

  The other Fates saw this happening and they screeched. They would have jumped on Athena and ripped her to shreds, but the Fate snarled, “Stay back, my sisters, stay back!”

  Athena’s voice almost seemed to foam as she leaned in and whispered, “I know your name – Atropos. That’s it, isn’t it? The legends all say you hold the scissors.”

  Atropos nodded, her face venomous.

  “You’ve held these scissors for so long, you must know how sharp they are. I imagine I can cut your throat as easily as you can cut a mortal’s string. Is that right?”

  Athena held the blade so close that it scraped the Fate’s throat. The Fate breathed heavily, never feeling pain before. Athena was breathing just as hard, having never felt this vicious before. Still, she refused to let go of the scissors.

  Trembling, Atropos hissed, “This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. You were supposed to follow your destiny. Why are you changing your destiny?”

  “I will change your destiny as well if you don’t tell me how to rescue my father.”

  Atropos was silent for a moment, then called out, “Sisters!”

  The sisters knew what Atropos was asking of them. They wheezed, “No, we mustn’t!”

  “Yes, yes, we will. Unless you want to lose me.”

  The other two Fates looked carefully at each other, reading the other’s thoughts. After a few moments of silent debate, they turned and said, “Let our sister go, and we will tell you what you want to know.”

  “No,” Athena growled. “You will tell me first, then I will let her go.”

  The Fates went silent at this. Finally, one of them – Athena wasn’t sure which one it was – simply said, “Okay. When Zeus heard the prophecy many years ago, he heard his entire destiny. But he only understood part of it.”

  “Only understood a part of it.”

  “Just a part.”

  “You see, girl, he realized that ever since he was born, he was marching towards his own death. That was why
he was no better than any mortal – as soon as one of those mortals is born into the world, they are already dying. The mortals understood that, but the immortals never did. Why? Because the immortals never had to learn that.”

  “They’re learning it now,” one of the Fates chuckled.

  “Be quiet, Clotho! If only Zeus remembered the final lines – he may have had a chance.”

  “What were the final lines?” Athena asked.

  Lachesis closed her eyes and rolled her neck, trying to remember what was said so long before. A few moments of thought, then Lachesis’ eyes lit with remembrance. She said:

  “Understand your fate, but never mourn,

  because your birth was always your end,

  and your end was always your birth.”

  Another moment’s silence, then Athena asked, “What does that mean? I don’t have time for riddles!”

  “It means, girl, exactly what it means. There is no riddle. Just like Zeus’ birth eventually led to his death, so too must his death lead to his birth.”

  “How?”

  “Well, how did he die?” Atropos asked, the scissors still held to her throat.

  “I impaled him, with my spear.”

  Atropos shook her head. “No, that was not how he died.”

  “What? What do you mean?” Athena asked, baffled. Out of frustration, she held the blade even closer to Atropos’ throat. The scissors dug into the Fate’s skin, and a shallow pool of black blood formed around the blade. The blood boiled and turned to steam before her eyes. Athena could tell by looking at Atropos’ expression that the Fate was just as surprised by her blood – matter of fact, none of the Fates had ever seen their blood before. They didn’t even know they had blood. In a bit of a panic now, Atropos said, “The night, the night you were born! When you were born, that was the moment your father began to die.”

  Athena felt no illumination. She tried to find the words to express her bewilderment, but no sound came out. Atropos continued.

  “When you were born, child, you shattered your father’s mind. He may have not shown it, but he’s been dying ever since that moment. He has had headaches ever since that fateful night, headaches so powerful that they could weaken even him, the king of the gods. Your father would have died whether you killed him on that riverbed or not. You may have thought you murdered him when you stabbed him with your spear. But you must understand, what you committed was an act of mercy, not murder.”

  “Mercy, mercy,” the other sisters chanted.

  “You don’t have to understand us, but you must believe us when we say it,” Atropos said. “Ask Zeus when you bring him back to life, and he will teach you.”

  “How do I bring him back to life?”

  “Why, the same way he brought you back to life. You both share the same mind, after all. He’s in your brain right now, even if you don’t feel it. He’s there, waiting to be broken free.”

  Athena didn’t experience revelation, but she was starting to learn. In a daze, she backed away from Atropos, dropping the scissors on the ground as she stepped back. Atropos quickly grabbed the scissors and shoved them back into the belt around her withered waist.

  “Thank you for your help,” Athena said. “You three have done a good thing today, even if you think it’s terrible. I must leave you now, though. I have to save my king to save my kingdom.”

  As Athena began her transformation into a full-fledged owl, Atropos thought of one more thing. She called out, smirking a little as she did, “Would you like to know your future? You’re brave enough to know.”

  Athena stopped her transformation long enough to look back at the Fates crowding her and calmly said, “I’m changing my destiny as we speak. How could you know what my future holds if I’m writing over it?”