The Haunting of Guaritori Diolco, Part 42
The Key
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“What is happening?” asked Zeus, looking down as if he expected Titans to leap out of the ground at any moment.
“I have kept Typhoeus restrained within me to give you time to resolve the current instability,” said Gaia as the tremor subsided. “But that same instability is making it difficult for me to keep holding him.”
“The Hecatoncheires will be back soon,” said Zeus.
“They will not be enough, for Typhoeus grows stronger by the minute, though I cannot explain why. Perhaps, he feeds on disorder.”
“Then what can we do?” asked Zeus. “We haven’t yet determined how to—”
“Garth is the key! He will know what to do—if he is allowed more time to think.”
Would I know what to do through some previously undiscovered magic? Because I certainly didn’t know what to do now.
Gaia might have said more, but another earthquake shook her—and us. It lessened in a few seconds, but it didn’t stop. It remained as a low-level vibration that felt as if it might escalate into another, even worse earthquake at any moment.
Zeus turned to Thanatos. “Is that enough to convince you that you cannot claim Garth right now?”
“I will release Hermes from his pledge and reevaluate the situation,” said Thanatos. That wasn’t exactly a yes—but from someone as inflexible as Death, it was probably as much as we could get.
“Now, we need a plan for healing Garth,” said Zeus before Thanatos could say anything else. “Where do our efforts stand now?”
“When Cronus and Atlas attacked, forcing us to defend ourselves, the interruption in the ritual tore apart Garth’s mind,” said Hecate.
“As a result, his soul was ejected from his body, and we can’t get it back in,” said Hermes through my mouth.
“Can we begin the ritual again?” asked Zeus.
“The same ritual will not completely heal him,” replied Hecate. “We designed it to gradually substitute my magic for the Hermetic magic that had become bound to Garth, freeing that magic to be reunited with Hermes. Not only is that process incomplete, but the disruption of Garth’s mind has made it more complicated. We must now also rebuild his mind, something none of us have ever done. Curing insanity is one thing. Pulling together a mind shattered into thousands of tiny fragments is quite another.
“Garth, do you still have all your memories? Do you still feel like yourself?” asked Hermes.
“More or less,” I replied.
“Though the mind and the soul are separate, it appears Garth’s soul retained elements like memory and personality when his mind shattered. That makes sense, given the kind of behaviors I’ve seen among the dead. Unless they reincarnate, they still know who they are, at least until they drink the waters of Lethe. They still remember their old lives. Garth is in a similar situation. Since that is the case, we don’t have to rebuild based solely on our own insights. We can use the echoes of his mind preserved in his soul to rebuild that mind, a much more rapid process.”
“Rapid enough to be done before Typhoeus breaks free?” asked Zeus. The vibrations coming up from the ground were becoming progressively stronger.
“There is no way to estimate,” said Hecate. “I suggest we start at once.”
That was more easily said than done. Though the ground continued to shake, Hermes and Hecate managed to focus themselves enough to try to put my mind back together. But knowing my soul contained what amounted to a blueprint for the rebuilding of my mind was one thing. Reading that blueprint was apparently harder.
“We’re used to reading what is in the human heart,” said Hermes. “But that’s more emotional than intellectual. Those among us with the gift of prophecy have sometimes known what a mortal was thinking. But reading a soul? It’s like trying to read a written text in which the ink is the same color as the parchment.”
“But you’re a psychopomp,” I said. “You deal with souls all the time.”
“Dead ones,” replied Hermes. “And I guide them. I don’t try to read what is within them.”
As a disembodied soul, I couldn’t see myself, so I could offer no help. I tried looking at my mind and was able to see it—but that vision left me with little hope. Hecate had said thousands of pieces, but it was really more like millions, some as small as grains of sand. God Himself could put it together, but I didn’t see how anyone else could do it, unless—”
“We need a former god who is more directly connected with the mind,” I said.
“Athena, perhaps,” said Hermes. “But she is with the mortals right now, and as you know, we have no easy way of retrieving her.”
I watched the fragments of my mind swirl around as if they could give me an answer in their changing patterns. Gaia had said I was the key, but metaphorically speaking, I had no idea what I was supposed to unlock or where it was. I felt almost as clueless as when I had first awakened from my coma.
As if agitated by my observation, my mental fragments started swirling faster and faster. Though I still couldn’t make myself reenter my body, I reached out and felt the swirling, now rapid as a sandstorm, though the collision between the grains of mind and my soul didn’t hurt.
“What about the magic concept, like calls to like?” I asked. “If part of my soul contains what amounts to a backup copy of my mind, might it be possible to draw the fragments of my mind to it? And once they have been pulled in, to draw each fragment to the related part of my soul?”
Hecate raised an eyebrow. “That just might work. But if your mind fragments don’t naturally do that on their own, I’m not sure how to encourage them to do it.”
“They respond to me. When I watch them, they move faster.”
“Perhaps the Philospher’s Stone might help,” said Mateo.
“If it were going to, I think it already would have. This is a problem it was not designed to solve.”
“Nonetheless, I will pray on it,” said Mateo.
“Faith may do what wit and magic alone cannot,” said Hermes. “But time is running out.”
A small but widening crack had formed in the nearby ground. I had no doubt more would follow as Typhoeus continued to fight with Gaia.
Mixed in with my memory fragments was some of the knowledge of Hermes, which he had bestowed on me at the same time he tried to graft some of his magic onto me with such catastrophic results. I tried to focus on those borrowed memories. Were they also imprinted upon my soul?
I tensed as a vision filled my consciousness. I saw a mighty figure in the north. Power radiated from him as he balanced the constellations themselves.
I had seen him before. He was Coeus, Titan of the axis upon which the constellations rotated, lord of the north. But just now, I saw him more clearly. I saw the insight in his eyes.
“Coeus means query, doesn’t it?”
Hermes looked in the general direction of my soul as if I had lost my mind—which technically, I had. “Yes, but how does that relate to our current predicament?”
“I got a flash from your memories. He is also the Titan of intellect, isn’t he?”
“Yes, a Titan of the mind,” said Hermes slowly. “A sort of early prototype of Athena. But he will never help us if that’s what you’re thinking. You’ve seen the Titans and fought against them. You know this to be true.”
“You must try!” Far from being a gentle rumble, this time Gaia’s voice was more like a scream. Everyone looked down. All of them had anguish in their eyes, but they still hesitated to act.
“Gaia has always wanted the Titans freed,” said Zeus, his eyes fixed on the ground that now writhed visibly beneath us.
“But they would have to swear an oath of loyalty to you—which they will never do,” said Poseidon, frowning.
“They would never have done it before,” said Zeus. “And they have expressed a preference for destruction over any kind of alliance with me. But…that could have been bravado. They had Tartarus on their side then. They had Typhoeus. Now they have neither and have no path to victory. It’s easy to say you are willing to see the whole world burn when you expect to be rescued before that happens.”
“Such speculation is pointless,” replied Poseidon. “We will never get down to Tartarus in time.”
“Luckily, you will not have to take the old way,” said Iskios. “The pit is under new management, remember? I have carved out a portal that connects Olympus directly to the prison.”
“A grave security risk,” said Zeus grimly. “But at this moment, it may just be our salvation. Lead the way, Iskios. Demeter, we will need to bring Atlas and Cronus with us. I think none of the Titans will take the oath unless they are all present to do so. And let us bring my body and that of Hermes as well, just in case we can be restored to them once Garth is healed.”
Iskios led us to a shadowy portal so close to us that I was surprised none of the Olympians had noticed it before. We stepped through it—or floated through it in my case—and were swept away in a fireworks display of bursting light and darkness. My son had a theatrical side to him. I wondered how much more I would learn about him as I got to know him.
Iskios, far more accommodating than his predecessor, took us directly to where the Hecatoncheires had so recently chained the other Titans. Poseidon quickly chained Atlas and Cronus in case the Titans continued to be stubborn.
Through some magic I hadn’t seen before, Iskios awakened the Titans, who remained defiant.
“We will never bow to you!” yelled Cronus. “We will die first!”
“Then you will die very soon,” replied Zeus. “Tartarus is stable for the moment—but I will allow you to reach beyond these walls with your senses. You can feel the suffering of our mother, Gaia, who will shortly endure unimaginable agony as Typhoeus rips his way free from her. This plane will collapse soon after, taking all of us with it.”
“That is of little concern to us, imprisoned as we are,” replied Hyperion.
“That is your own fault,” said Hera. “You broke your agreement when you struck at us while we were all supposed to be fighting together. You would even now be free if not for that betrayal.”
“Nonsense!” shouted Atlas. “You would have found some other excuse to lock us away.”
“Hear me out,” said Zeus. Though he wasn’t capable of projecting his usual authoritative presence is his borrowed body, all the Titan eyes focused on him. They remained hostile—but they were also curious. Or perhaps they had felt Gaia’s agony and were moved by it, at least enough to listen. But I couldn’t see behind the angry masks their faces had become, so I couldn’t be sure of anything.
“What I offer is a full pardon, contingent on your swearing an oath of loyalty to me. Henceforth, you will not disobey me or do any harm to any of your Olympian brethren.”
“This is not much different from what you already offered us, and we refused,” said Coeus.
“You didn’t let me finish,” said Zeus. “I in turn will swear an oath to treat you fairly. I will neither burden you more than any other Olympia or bestow less upon you. You will resume all the positions you held under Cronus, except that if an Olympian already holds a role, you will become second-in-command to that Olympian. For instance, Cronus will now be my second. Iapetus will be Hades’s, and so on. Oceanus, who didn’t rebel with you, has for thousands of years divided the waters with Poseidon in a mutually agreeable way, so we know that such a covenant can work.”
“You will have the final say?” asked Cronus, his tone still hostile—but not quite as hostile as it had been.
“I will—but just as I have been advised by a council representing my siblings and children, so now, you will have your own council and will also be able to give advice before any decisions are made, except in cases of emergency.”
I wondered if Zeus was improvising as he went along. Hera and Poseidon didn’t look happy at the notion that Zeus would receive the Titans’ advice in the same way that he would receive their own. I didn’t imagine Hades would be any happier about having a second forced upon him. But I doubted any agreement that offered much less than what Zeus was proposing would have had a ghost of a chance of being accepted.
“This is the best deal you will ever get,” said Hestia, her tone gentle but firm.
“We want full equality,” said Cronus. He wasn’t yelling, but his voice sounded harsh and jarring. “I might consider being a co-ruler. I won’t consider being second-in-command—ever.”
“I prefer to pardon all of you,” said Zeus. “But for the moment, I might be content with only some of you.” He eyed the other Titans one by one. “Does Cronus speak for all of you? Are you all willing to die instead of being welcomed back into Olympian society on reasonable terms? Because you will die—and your death may be only minutes away.”
Was Zeus hoping that Coeus, a more intellectual Titan, would take the deal and solve our immediate problem? That might be better than nothing—but I had a strong feeling that, in the long run, we would need them all.
“Look upon me,” said Iskios, his voice confident and surprisingly strong. “And now, look at Tartarus.”
He held up a cage made from the same material as the chains. Within it, we could see a much diminished Tartarus impotently clawing at the bars.
“That’s a lie,” said Pallas. “That couldn’t be Tartarus.”
“Yet it is,” replied Iskios smugly. “Look closely, and you will see. Look around you as well, and you will see that this new prison reflects my power, not his.” To underscore his words, he alternately flashed light and darkness at the Titans, and the walls around him echoed his display.
“Tartarus refused his place in the created order, and I took his power from him. You, too, can be replaced if you refuse Zeus’s offer. Perhaps you will live—much diminished—and we will keep you in one of these little cages and mock you constantly.”
It was a good thing I didn’t have a face because it would undoubtedly have given away my surprise. I couldn’t imagine any way that Iskios—or anyone else—would be able to replicate the circumstances that had led to the fall of Tartarus.
But the Titans didn’t know how Tartarus had fallen. And they could see from Iskios’s display that their prison was indeed under his control and that the original Tartarus had shriveled into almost complete powerlessness.
“I think we should accept Zeus’s offer,” said Coeus.
“Never!” replied Cronus.
But never in this particular case lasted about fifteen minutes. Dying to spite their enemies was one thing. Living as a shrunken relic of their former selves was a very different proposition. One by one, the other rebel Titans argued for accepting Zeus’s offer, until Cronus stood alone. His bitterness was palpable when he finally surrendered.
By that time, Iskios, no doubt using another shortcut, had an ample supply of water from the Styx on hand. Zeus handled the swearing of oaths quickly but with great attention to detail. After all, a single wrong word could lead to disaster. Not even the potential escape of Typhoeus would make Zeus forget the importance of precision.
I hoped that the king of the former gods had been fast enough. This far from Gaia, we could not sense her struggles, but based on what I had felt before, she couldn’t possibly hold out much longer.
“I desire to welcome you with fitting celebration,” said Zeus. “But first, we must prevent the collapse of this plane.” The Titans might have been reluctant to take his deal at first, but they listened attentively as he explained the challenges facing us. Even Cronus, though anger still glittered in his eyes, paid attention.
“Allow me to examine Garth’s mind,” said Coeus when Zeus was done. He stared into the eyes of my body, his face looking grimmer and grimmer.
“I alone do not have the ability to mend his mind,” he said. “I can manipulate the dust that used to be his mind in many ways, but I cannot read the model you say exists in his soul. I can create a mind, but I cannot recreate Garth’s.”
How could I have been so completely wrong about what was needed? Coeus was not the answer after all, and we must be nearly out of time.
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