Pale Eyes

by James Welsh

A few miles away from where Athena stood in the volcano, Apollo was in the fight not only for his life, but for all life too. The plan that Athena told him was a good one – dangerous, but good. Some would have hesitated, but Apollo felt that he did not have the right to hesitate. He was the arm of Athena – when Athena wanted him to lash out, he did just that.

  In his beautifully crafted chariot, Apollo yelled out commands to his prized flying horses as they pulled him in tight circles around the jumbled mass of shades. As the chariot banked and the vertical world turned horizontal, Apollo glanced to his passenger in the chariot with him. Artemis was clenching Apollo’s shoulder with her left hand, the front of the chariot with her right hand. She avoided flying with Apollo in the chariot whenever she could – but the day was too important for Artemis’ fears. Grey-faced, Artemis yelled out over the wind breaking like a surf around them, “Why are we circling them?”

  “You’ll see!”

  As the chariot swerved around the swirl of shades, the chariot’s golden frame caught what little sunlight found its way through the clouds. The gold reflected the sunshine so brilliantly that any mortal on the ground would have thought the chariot was the sun. The rays of golden light stabbed at the shades – the spirits howled and recoiled before the light, as darkness should.

  Far below Apollo and Artemis, the other Olympians were rising to the occasion as well. Each of them were hurdling over the boulders and trees that dotted the landscape, even jumping entire gorges, doing all that they could to follow the storm. They panted from their run, but it made them sweat even more wind than before. With the Olympians pushing at the shades with their bursts of wind, with Apollo corralling the shades with his light, the spirits had no choice but to let their enemies guide them. The shades hissed with frustration, but all they did was encourage the Olympians to keep pushing them further and further.

  It was not long before they saw the volcano rising over the seawaters. The Olympians on the ground could not go any further, and so they waved Apollo and Artemis onwards. As the cloud of shades slipped over the churned waters, the Olympians watched in silence. Without taking his eyes off the cloud, Hermes wondered out loud, “Do you think this will work?”

  Hera said grimly, “I can only hope so. If not…”

  She let the words hang in the air, because she was afraid to say what they were all thinking. But what she didn’t know was that the gods and goddesses were each thinking different things. Some especially were hoping for Athena’s safe return, while a few were not.

  Meanwhile, Apollo brought his chariot down to the water’s surface, the horses’ hooves just skimming the tide. They were moving so fast, the chariot kicked up a wall of water, spraying the shades in the bottom of the cloud. The shades altogether roared in protest and the cloud rose to escape the sprays of saltwater.

  “We need to get them in there!” Apollo explained to Artemis, pointing to the volcano just ahead.

  “What happens when we do that?”

  Apollo shrugged, helpless. “I’m not entirely sure!”

  When they reached the volcanic island, the shades sensed that they were on familiar ground once again. But with that memory came the thoughts of the Underworld, and the shade army suddenly halted – they refused to return to the dreariness of the Underworld. They wanted to stay in the world above, the home where they once belonged.

  Apollo anticipated this happening. He shouted once more to Artemis, “Close your eyes!”

  Artemis did as she was told. Apollo called on all of his strength, roaring so loudly that people across the sea in Egypt thought they were hearing thunder. Somehow, his battle-cry only grew louder – as his voice rose, his armor began to pulse brighter and brighter. It reached the point where he was even brighter than before, when he had blinded Sisyphus. He shimmered so much that his body could no longer be seen. Apollo was no longer a human form – he was nothing less than pure light.

  Apollo’s shine was so intense that rays of light broke through the cloud. The shades cried from pain they didn’t know they could feel. And like sailors jumping from a burning ship, the cloud of shades jumped over the volcano and into its cooling darkness.

  Apollo rode the chariot in a circle around the volcano, hoping his light could pierce the darkness of the volcano’s mouth, forcing the shades down even deeper. And it worked – the shades dove further and further into the volcano until they met the hole they had used earlier to escape the Underworld. They screamed and howled and clawed their way into the tight tunnel, never noticing the woman who stood at the hole’s edge.

  Athena watched, fascinated, as the whirlwind drained into the hole. She was mesmerized because, as the shades flew past her, she didn’t see what others saw in a shade. When the other Olympians looked at a shade, all they saw was a wispy silhouette of dust and ash. They didn’t see the shades’ arms and legs and faces and hair and eyes, because the shades didn’t have any of those. But, when Athena looked at the whirlwind, she could have sworn that she had seen faces rush by her, faces young and old, faces of sadness and anger, faces of confusion and acceptance. She knew she wouldn’t be able to explain what she saw to anyone else, but she still saw the people as if they were alive. They reminded her of travelers finished with their journey, exhausted and caked with dust, but completed, fulfilled.

  She was so breathless with the revelation that, when the last shade slipped into the hole, she almost forgot her duty. She gasped when she remembered, and Athena knelt down quickly beside the hole. She took out the seed and pushed it into one of the many cracks that formed from the hole.

  Before Athena could even stand up and step backwards, the seed had already cracked and begun to grow. Athena stumbled and fell backwards out of surprise – she yanked her bare foot away just as a raised root slapped against the stone. Athena shuffled away a safe distance and slowly stood up, in awe of the tree growing before her eyes. It grew feet by the second, until the tree covered up the hole entirely, until the tree was thirty, maybe even forty feet in height. It was only when the tree towered over her that it stopped growing.

  Athena walked up to the tree cautiously, gently reaching out with her hand. She ran her fingers across the bark, not understanding how a seed watered with her spit could grow into such a massive and sprawling olive tree. Ichor could do wonderful things.

  From beneath the tree, Athena could hear the faint hum of thousands of shades struggling to uproot the tree and break out into the world above once more. But the shades, no matter how many there were, no matter how hard they pushed, they could not bring down the tree. There were very few things that were impossible: one of those impossibilities was the force of death getting past an olive tree. All of the peace and generosity and potential for joy in the world were wrapped up in the bark of those olive trees, and so the dead were allergic to its bark. Any dead creature that dared touch an olive tree would immediately recoil, howling in their agony. The bark alone was enough to resurrect the pain of their past life. And so, as long as that olive tree stood guard over the sole entrance of the Underworld, no shade could enter or leave.

  Athena wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep for years – she had never known exhaustion like this before. But the thought of lying down in a dark pit reminded her too much of burials, and so she transformed into an owl, anxious to see sunlight again.

  As she fluttered up towards the mouth of the volcano, she could see a burning light far above her. At first, she thought that Apollo was still glistening from earlier. And so she was surprised when she reached the summit of the volcano and found Apollo waiting for her. Instead of shining like a star, Apollo’s glow had ceased, the god now as dull as any man. Apollo gave a little smile when he saw her.

  “I’m glad to see you made it.”

  “So am I,” Athena said tiredly, her eyes wandering around, looking for the source of the light. And that was when she saw it: for the first time in what felt like forever, the sun wa
s roaring across the landscape. Apollo’s trumpet of light from earlier had blasted the shades and every single cloud from the heavens. Now, there was nothing in the sky but blue and gold. No one probably ever saw the sky so clear before. Athena noted this to Apollo.

  “Perhaps,” Apollo said in his clipped tone, “perhaps the day looks so bright because we’ve been in the night for so long.”

  “Maybe.”

  Artemis appeared, having clambered off the chariot and climbed up to the ridge to join her siblings. Giddy with victory, she squealed, “Athena!”

  More by instinct than anything else, the two sisters embraced, something that mildly surprised both of the goddesses. Athena asked, “Is any of our family hurt?”

  “No, sister.”

  Athena sighed with relief. She was about to say something when Artemis suddenly said, “Look! Look at the mainland.”

  Both Athena and Apollo craned their heads and looked across the water. They had not realized it during their fierce battle, but when the shades invaded the world, they had left behind a march of snowy ash. Although the shades were gone now, the world had turned winter in the middle of summer, the hills grey like hairs. They couldn’t see from where they stood, but the trio of gods knew that somewhere, mortal survivors would be coming out of their hiding-places and surveying the ashy fields. It would take time for the fields to clear, but they would clear – it would take time for the streams to pump fresh water, but they would. The world around them may have felt as dead as parchment, but it was still parchment, and new stories could still be written on it, and that was all that mattered.

  While Apollo and Artemis took in the snowy world around them, though, Athena looked even further. Off in the distance, she could see the faint outline of Mount Olympus squeezed into the horizon. And, while the skies all around the gods were clear of clouds, Athena could just barely see a dark cloud hovering over Olympus still. And, while the cloud was looking like it was withering, it was still one last smudge to wipe away.

  Without saying a word to the others, Athena ran towards the edge of the volcano, turning into an owl as she sprinted. Apollo noticed the transformation, and he called out, “Athena! Where are you going?”

  The only response he got was an owl’s hoot, as the bird flapped madly towards Olympus.

  Book 20