The Haunting of Guaritori Diolco, Part 30

The Son Rises

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I couldn’t shake my fear that sex with Medea would lead to disaster. She remained disturbingly positive for someone whose major goal had been to kill me just a short time ago. Intellectually, I knew that she had accepted that I wasn’t the same person as my past-life self, Jason. Emotionally, though, I couldn’t help wondering whether a sexual encounter wouldn’t bring some of her feelings against Jason back.

“You have nothing to fear,” she said after I’d confessed I was still having doubts. “Have we not worked well together these last few months? If I were still nursing my grudge against Jason, would such a thing have been possible?”

“I suppose not,” I said.

“Would you prefer absolute darkness?” she asked. “Maybe that would help you pretend you were making love to someone else.”

I laughed despite my nervousness, and she smiled. “I don’t think I’m likely to forget who’s in bed with me based on the ambient lighting.”

“Trust me to make the experience a good one,” said Eros. The idea of an elder power finetuning what we were doing unsettled me, to say the least. But I had to admit that it appealed to my ego. I’d be mortified if Medea didn’t enjoy herself. More importantly, if we failed to create a new body for Iskios, the results could be catastrophic.

I turned down his help, anyway. I was afraid that having sex supercharged by Eros might increase the risk of one of us falling in love with the other. Surely, Medea and I could accomplish what needed to be done on our own.

In fact, we convinced all of the Olympians not to watch. It’s one thing to believe in an omniscient God who knows everything. Knowing that much more human former gods are observing everything that happens was a far less comfortable notion.

Counting the time I had spent in a coma, I hadn’t had sex in more than two decades. How long Medea had been without, I could only guess. But given her commitment to Aethalides, she had probably been celibate for at least twenty-five years. The fact that we were both out of practice led to a certain amount of almost adolescent fumbling after we first got out of our clothes. But I liked to think I was handsome—and there was no question Medea was beautiful. Surely, there should be some chemistry between us.

Her skin felt warm against mine. Her kisses felt soft upon my lips. Her embrace conveyed genuine affection, if not undying love. My confidence grew as my body responded. Everything was going to work out.

I managed to ignore the indications that we were still not alone. After all, Iskios was remained within me, silent but sullen. The sting of his conflicted presence was dulled somewhat by the comforting hum of the Philosopher’s Stone.

The leftover magic of Hermes vibrated a little. More disturbingly, the soul of Zeus twitched in its sleep, but mercifully, it didn’t awaken. As I coupled with Medea, the distractions faded. I felt as if reality itself contracted, until we were all that was left in the universe.

I would rather have been with Francesca. Medea would rather have been with Aethalides. But we forgot those attachments for a moment as genuine passion flamed within our hearts. In that instant, we became like Eros and Nyx as they created this plane. Cool light and warm darkness surged around us as we climaxed. We had created a single child rather than a plane of existence, but that would be enough.

I hoped she was as satisfied as I. She gave me a reassuring kiss before slipping out of bed and dressing hastily to go out and have Gaia verify her pregnancy.

As for me, I needed no such verification. Iskios was no longer within me. He could only be in Medea’s womb.

I dressed more slowly than she, taking a moment to enjoy the fact that we were actually making progress.

By the time I emerged from Olympus’s guest quarters and went outside, Medea, surrounded by Hera, Hestia, and Hecate, was already visibly pregnant.

“You weren’t kidding when you told me this would be fast,” I said.

“Indeed, she will give birth within a day,” said Hera. “After that, I must allow two days for Iskios to reach an age at which he can be bound by oaths.”

***

Medea, guarded by the Hecatoncheires and watched over by the same trio of former goddesses, quickly lay down to accommodate her light-speed pregnancy. She was in a room right next to the one in which Demeter and Persephone were keeping Zeus alive, allowing the goddesses and anyone else who might be around to shift back and forth between Zeus and Medea as needed.

Despite the abnormal speed at which Medea’s pregnancy was progressing, I still felt as if time was crawling rather than racing. I was used to being more active, but there wasn’t much for me to do on Olympus except wait for Medea to give birth.

I ended up hanging out with Poseidon, Hades, and Heracles. We sat in the courtyard, within earshot of Medea’s room. Heracles, at least, was a decent conversationalist. Poseidon mostly brooded, and Hades wasn’t interested in small talk. Neither one of them knew much more about our current situation than I did, which limited how much substantive conversation we could have.

It was an enormous relief in more ways than one when Medea went into labor—which was so short that I almost didn’t make it into the room in time. I held Medea’s hand for all of about two seconds before she gave birth.

The baby boy—my baby boy, at least in a sense—was healthy. I got to hold him for a short time, during which he felt as if he was growing in my arms. I looked into his eyes. He looked back at me with an awareness far beyond an infant’s. But his eyes didn’t look like Iskios’s. The son of Tartarus was in there. Of that, I had no doubt. But he was different, just as we had hoped.

I continued to hold him until Medea insisted it was time to feed him. I reluctantly handed him over to Hera, who in turn gave him to Medea to breast feed.

I knew rough times lay ahead, but I couldn’t help dwelling on the fact that I was now a father. Who knew what might come of that? The images of fatherhood that immediately popped into my mind—playing catch with my son, teaching him to drive, a hundred other experiences conjured up by my own childhood—would never happen, or at least, not happen in the same way. The post-Catastrophe world was so different from the one in which I’d been raised. Anyway, Iskios would grow fast enough that he wouldn’t be a child for more than a few hours.

I got a few glimpses of him during his racing childhood, but his growing pains were such that he mostly stayed sheltered in Medea’s arms in a room now darkened and quiet. I didn’t begrudge her the time, though. The speed of her pregnancy didn’t seem to diminish her maternal feelings, and she hadn’t had a child for about three thousand years. So I spent much of the time right outside the door, waiting to be called in—and wondering if I could at least teach Iskios how to shave.

On the morning of the second day, Iskios’s growth stabilized for the moment, leaving him a teenager after the onset of puberty. Medea brought him out to reintroduce him to me. I could have easily picked him out of a crowd.

Iskios 2.0 had brown hair the same shade as mine and my brown eyes—though with the golden glint in them characteristic of descendants of Helios. His face was pale, not tan like mine, His features were much like mine, though his nose and mouth were reminiscent of Medea’s.

His new body was far more muscular than his old one had been. In fact, it was more muscular than mine would have been at his age. Broad shouldered and strong armed, he looked as if he’d be quite at home on the battlefield, though he wasn’t dressed for war. In fact, someone had gone to the trouble of conjuring clothes exactly like mine.

Iskios nodded an acknowledgement to me as a teenage guy would to an acquaintance. Rather than follow suit, I hugged him, and he hugged back a little.

When the hug ended, I looked into his eyes. I was disappointed to see that he looked sullen. I had to remind myself that many teenagers would look that way. Going through puberty fast hadn’t shielded him from its side effects.

“I don’t hurt anymore,” he said, though without much emotion in his voice.

“That’s good,” I said. “Do you like your new body?”

Iskios gave me what might have been a grudging smile. “It is far better than the old one.”

“Now it is time for the oath,” said Hecate. In her hands, she held a vial of what must have been water from the Styx.

“Before I swear the oath, I need a private work with my father,” said Iskios, gripping my arm and pulling me away from the group.

Hecate’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, but all she said was, “Be quick about it, for we have much to do, and very little time in which to do.”

“We’ll only be a moment,” said Iskios, trying to give her a smile. He hadn’t had much practice with happy expressions, though, and what he managed was more like a scowl.

He pulled me far enough away to be out of the range of mortal hearing, though I wasn’t sure what the point of that was. He must have known that the Olympians could eavesdrop if they wanted—which, judging by their tense body language, they certainly did. Iskios had departed from the plan without giving a clear explanation.

“What’s up?” I asked when Iskios didn’t immediately start talking.

“I think we need a little more privacy,” he said. With the wave of a hand, he wrapped us in concealment as perfect as anything Hermes could have managed. I didn’t expect him to have that kind of power or to use it with such practiced ease.

I raised an eyebrow, and he shrugged. “I guess all that Hermetic magic inside you must have affected my conception.”

Fascinated as I was by that possibility, we couldn’t really afford a long conversation about it now.

“I’m sure the concealment is making your Olympian family nervous. What did you want to talk about?”

“Father.” He spoke the word without much emotion, but at least he didn’t say it sarcastically. “Father, do you trust me?”

I didn’t know how to respond. The old Iskios would cheerfully have killed me and felt not even a second’s worth of remorse. The new one, though he looked so much like me, I didn’t really know. But I realized I’d bonded with him the moment I held him in my arms.

“You’re my son.” I smiled, hoping that if he saw enough smiles, he might become better at smiling himself. “Of course, I trust you.”

He put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to put that trust to the test.”

He hugged me, but not as a show of affection. He just wanted to make sure he didn’t drop me as he conjured up a wind that grabbed us and hurled us away from Olympus so fast that the others couldn’t intervene.

Reflexively, I hit him with the lumen naturae, but he was no longer as dependent on shadows, and his own glow met mine, intertwined with it, merged with it. I couldn’t tell where the stone’s power ended and his began.

“Interesting,” he said. “Apparently, the Philosopher’s Stone recognizes me. That will make my plan so much easier.”

Even as he had been originally, Iskios had been able to grip my magic so hard that I couldn’t use it. Iskios 2.0, even stronger, had no difficulty doing the same thing. Nor could I break free physically, for he was stronger than I was.

“What…what is your plan?”

“You will see,” he replied. “Know that all is not what it appears.”

He shouldn’t have been able to neutralize the Philosopher’s Stone, but it no longer responded to me. Had it really been fooled into thinking Iskios and I were the same being? That hardly seemed likely. Yet it was now as inert as an ordinary stone.

I tugged at the Hermetic magic within me, but it wasn’t strong enough to break Iskios’s grip. I’d only gotten away before by using light to cancel his shadows, a tactic that would no longer work.

Once again, my idea had failed. We hadn’t convinced Iskios to join us. We’d just made him far more powerful, exactly what some of the Olympians feared would happen.

Having lost all track of where we were, I was shocked when we hit water—salt water, to judge by the smell. Iskios shielded me from the cold and kept an air bubble around us. If nothing else, that suggested that he didn’t want to kill me. Or perhaps he needed me alive—for the moment.

I shuddered, but not from the ocean’s cold.

We dived deeper and deeper, though I couldn’t see clearly what was happening. Finally, we reached a place where sunlight didn’t penetrate. However, my magic senses noticed a sickly, blue-green glow nearby.

Iskios was still holding me, but I was able to turn my head enough to see that three corpselike figures watched with eyes widened in surprise. Defensive magic hovered around them as if they expected an attack.

“I come in peace!” yelled Iskios. “I wish to bargain with you.”

“What do you have that would be of any interest to us?” asked one of them in that sea-storm voice I knew all too well from my previous encounter with the Telchines.

“The man I carry, from whom you previously harvested the soul of Hermes, now has within him the soul of Zeus. Surely, that is a prize worth bargaining for.”

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