The Haunting of Guaritori Diolco, Part 22
Old Grievances
Need an earlier part?
Iskios stared at me as if I had suddenly turned purple. If nothing else, I had caught him by surprise.
“Well?” said Zeus, staring into Iskios’s wide eyes. “Garth has offered to grant your request. Do you accept his offer and declare yourself ready to fulfill your part of the bargain?”
Iskios closed his eyes for a moment. “Why should I do that when the Titans will free me the moment they find me? My father whispered to me that part of the deal he made to release them was that they would free me when they got here.”
The prophecy of Nyx could never be fulfilled if Iskios remained this hostile. But I didn’t know what more than my life I could offer him.
“Very well,” said Zeus with surprising calmness. “But you are making a gamble. Tartarus didn’t require the Titans to agree to kill Garth, did he? If not, Garth is probably more valuable to them alive than dead. He has within him a considerable portion of Hermes’s magic, as well as the Philosopher’s Stone, which holds within it magic that even the Titans cannot replicate. If he agrees to serve them, I think they will spare his life.”
Iskios looked confused. I wondered if he’d ever had to make such a choice before. Probably not.
“On the other hand, we will shortly do battle with the Titans. Should we win, we have no reason to offer you your freedom or Garth’s life. Agree to join us now and receive both.”
Of course, Zeus needed Iskios’s support to fulfill one of Nyx’s prophecies—but Iskios didn’t know that.
“But if I side with you, and the Titans win, what then?” asked my grandson.
“They will not offend Tartarus by imprisoning or killing you after guaranteeing to set you free,” said Zeus, speaking with greater confidence than was warranted. The Titans’ agreement with Tartarus seemed unlikely to have covered the contingency of Iskios siding with the Olympians. Cronus and his gang might spare Iskios—or not.
“No,” replied Iskios. “I will take my chances on the victory of the Titans.”
“I can offer you one more thing,” said Zeus. “The pardon of Eriopis, your mother. You could be reunited with her. There’s no telling whether the Titans will care about bringing her back or not.”
Iskios hesitated for a moment. The thought of his mother made him look even more confused. “I will accept—on two conditions. First, I want to be able to kill Jason—Garth, as you call him—with my own hands. Second, I will become one of you, but I will not fight with you against the Titans. In that one instance, I will remain neutral.”
I wondered if that kind of half-hearted Olympian citizenship would satisfy the prophecy. Zeus, calm as a still lake until now, finally lost his temper.
“Being part of our society means fighting by our side if needed—always, not just when you feel like it!” replied the king of the former gods, shouting so loudly that even Iskios, who was brave, if nothing else, cringed and drew as far away from Zeus as his chains would allow.
Unfortunately, such a display of once-divine wrath didn’t go unnoticed. The building shook as we heard the footsteps of approaching gigantic feet.
The Olympians moved fast enough to indicate that they must have anticipated being detected by the Titans at some point.
Zeus was out the door first, barraging the advancing Titans with enough lightning to bring down the strongest castle. The others followed, ready to deploy their own special powers. But none of them struck, and Zeus’s blasting stopped abruptly.
I ran outside to see what had happened. There stood Zeus, surrounded by a nimbus of electricity—with no obvious target and nothing to show for his initial attacks except spots where lightning had charred the surface of Olympus. The gigantic footsteps had been a diversion of some kind. All of the Olympians started looking around worriedly. The existence of a diversion suggested a greater threat from which the Titans intended to distract us. Perhaps the fake attack might also have been intended to get us to reveal our location, which we had certainly done.
The Olympians didn’t have to wait long to find out exactly how bad our situation was.
The sound of wings flapping as loudly as a sonic boom drew our attention to the west. Our view of the western sky was blocked by a figure so massive and so bizarre in form that it should only have been able to exist in nightmares. My heart started beating like a drum, and my breath caught in my throat.
“Typhoeus,” said Zeus, his voice barely audible above the flapping sound. “He was the son of Gaia—and Tartarus. Of course, Tartarus would have freed him, too.”
The beast’s muscular torse looked roughly human, as did his arms, though he had many—Hermes’s memories told me two hundred—all ending in fifty serpents instead of hands and fingers. He had only two legs—if you could call them that. Really, they were enormous, coiled serpents.
From his neck sprouted a hundred heads. One was almost human, though with pointed ears and eyes of fire. The other ninety-nine were an unruly mix of different animal heads—bulls, boars, snakes, lions, and leopards. Each head spoke with its own terrible voice, and together, they made a sound that could render a mortal insane. I felt the Philosopher’s Stone laboring within to keep me from succumbing. Despite that, my body started to shudder like a leaf in the wind. I had seen and heard what no mortal should ever see or hear.
I screamed, but no one seemed to notice. Perhaps their own terror had deafened them.
“He is too powerful,” said Demeter. “We must retreat.”
“If we do that, we surrender Olympus to the Titans,” replied Zeus as he readied a lightning strike. “I have defeated Typhoeus before and will again.”
The wind created by the flapping of those sky-spanning wings had already reached nearly hurricane proportions. Even weather-resistant Olympus had begun to feel the strain, and we were pelted with rocks and tree branches. The situation would only get worse as the monster advanced.
Zeus began hurling thunderbolts at the approaching abomination. All that electricity made the air smell like ozone and my hair stand on end—but it had a surprisingly small impact on the monster. Though he wore no armor and carried no shield, he hurled streams of lava at the lightning, intercepting it in midair and creating explosions too far away from the creature to harm him. However, fiery debris rained down, quickly setting the vegetation in the foothills of Olympus ablaze.
“His skill is much improved,” said Hades. Emotionally restrained as the leader of the Underworld normally was, I could hear a slight shakiness in his voice.
Zeus redoubled his efforts, but only a few strikes got through to Typhoeus. I could hear some of his heads scream and smell burned flesh. But his injuries didn’t slow his advance.
“Help me!” yelled Zeus. In response, Poseidon conjured the equivalent of a tidal wave and flung it at Typhoeus. Such an attack could have leveled a city, but the wind of Typhoeus’s wings reduced the wave’s force, and the lava turned most of what was left to steam.
“You’ll never win that way, my son,” said Cronus from behind us. “Surrender now, and I will spare your lives.”
Cronus had creeped up close to us, with his four brothers and four nephews, now including a freed Atlas. He had the adamantine sickle he had used to castrate his father when Cronus overthrew him. His companions were similarly armed with adamantine weapons strong enough to injure former gods. I wasn’t as good a judge as Hermes, but I thought that as far as raw power was concerned, they were more than a match for us. With Typhoeus, there was no way they could lose.
“Father,” said Zeus through clenched teeth in a tone that made the familial term sound more like an expletive. “If you seek rule, you must know the scepter cannot pass to you. It only moves forward, never back. And it is prophesized that a son of mine will succeed me when the time comes, not one of your brothers or nephews.”
Zeus kept his eyes on Typhoeus and continued attacking him as if Cronus and the other Titans weren’t worth his attention.
“Ah, but we have a son of yours who will become king—in name, anyway.”
The Titans parted to reveal someone I thought was Heracles. He was so thoroughly cocooned in adamantine chains that it was hard to tell. But the very fact that so many chains were required indicated the captive had to be someone of great strength.
“You cannot make Heracles king involuntarily,” said Zeus, his eyes still focused on Typhoeus, who was getting closer by the second. Any time now, he’d be in range to incinerate us in lava.
I thought about banestones as a possible defense, but given what I’d seen about how banestones affected magical realms and how the proximity of heavy combat among powerful forces made the situation worse made me hesitate. I might inadvertently start Olympus unraveling in the same way I’d done with Tartarus. I shouldn’t risk that unless I had no choice.
“Those were the old rules,” said Cronus. “But who knows what is possible now? Gift the scepter to Heracles, and we will see whether the transfer works or not.”
“NO!” yelled all one hundred of Typhoeus’s heads in unison, a sound so deafening that I might have lost my hearing permanently if not for the Philosopher’s Stone within me.
Cronus tried to maintain a brave façade, but the slight widening of his eyes and hastening of his breath gave away the fact that Typhoeus had caught him by surprise.
“Why are you objecting, my friend? This is the plan we agreed to.”
“We agreed to overthrow Zeus, not to crown Heracles,” replied Typhoeus, his voice still loud enough to shatter glass. “The scepter should go the strongest among us. Would any of you dare say that is not me?”
“You are not a son of Zeus,” said Cronus. “Powerful you are—but even you are not powerful enough to defy the will of Ananke.”
Typhoeus, despite having to continue fending off Zeus’s attacks, made a show of looking around. “Ananke is not here. I’ll worry about her will when she chooses to show herself. But if that prophecy is truly an obstacle, I can reincarnate myself as a son of Zeus. I will enter into Zeus’s sperm and burst forth from Hera’s womb in record time.”
“I might do the same,” said Cronus, to whom the idea evidently hadn’t occurred before.
“Neither one of you will be bursting forth from my womb,” said Hera, looking back and forth defiantly at two beings, either one of whom could have destroyed her. I began to think maybe the myths hadn’t done her justice.
“If you would prefer, I can destroy you all and become king by right of conquest,” roared Typhoeus. “I will cover Olympus with lava, and all of you will drown even as you burn. Then I will rule.”
In a whisper somehow audible above Typhoeus’s constant racket, Zeus said, “Cronus, I offer full pardon for all Titans in exchange for accepting my rule and fighting with me against Typhoeus.”
Zeus’s shift in position was dramatic enough to give me whiplash, but it also offered a desperate hope. He was smart enough to see he was out of options.
“Counterproposal,” said Cronus. “Truce between us while we fight Typhoeus together. Once he is subdued, we will settle our conflict.”
“I can hear you,” said Typhoeus. “Any attempt to implement either of those agreements, and I will kill you all. Fail to accept my rule within the next five minutes, and I will kill you all.”
“This is what comes of dealing with monsters who have been imprisoned for thousands of years,” said Iapetus. Under other circumstances, the unintended irony might have made me laugh. As it was, I had to bite my lip hard enough to draw blood to keep from screaming again.
“Tartarus will not be happy,” Cronus said to Typhoeus. “He has an agreement with us. Gaia will not be happy, either. Do you really wish to anger both of your parents, two of the eldest powers on this plane?”
“They are not here any more than Ananke is,” said Typhoeus.
“Could they really stop Typhoeus?” I whispered to Persephone.
“There is no way to know,” she replied.
“I am here,” said a voice both powerful and gentle that seemed to rise up from the soil beneath our feet. “Typhoeus, cease your attack. Zeus will find a home for you where you may do as you wish, independent of his rule.”
Zeus didn’t look pleased by that prospect, but he didn’t object, either. The Titans having rejected his offer, Gaia might well be his only hope—and ours.
“Did not you birth me to overthrow Zeus in the first place?” asked Typhoeus. “Why now are you on his side?”
“Child, I was angry that he held the Titans prisoner. But I never wanted you to overthrow Zeus, merely to get him to realize the error of his ways.”
“Which I have,” said Zeus as loudly as he could.
“I grow weary of all this meaningless babble,” said Typhoeus as he brushed aside another volley of thunderbolts from Zeus. The moment he had done so, he sprayed out enough lava to cover all of Mount Olympus—and us with it.
Paid subscribers get a free copy of my previous new release (the preceding book in this series), as well as all subsequent new releases, including this book, once it’s completed and published.
To claim your copy of the first book in this series, visit this page to request your preferred format. If you’d rather buy the book, click the button below.
