The Haunting of Guaritori Diolco, Part 13
Mending What Is Broken
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“How would you guarantee such a capture?” asked Persephone. “There is still much we do not know about this strange magic. Is it not just as likely that the Brotherhood will seize Garth and escape before we can capture any of them?”
“We would have to plan very carefully,” said Hades. “We know that this anti-magic disguised as stone—banestone is the term, I think—can block all magic, even their own.”
“Except that they have the power to convert the banestone to something else if they stand outside its area of effect,” I said, hoping Hades might reconsider.
“As do you, from what we’ve seen,” the king of the Underworld replied. “If we were to put you in a place surrounded by banestones, members of the Brotherhood would arrive and try to convert the stones so that they might capture you. You can slow them down by switching the stones back. While they attempt to break through, we will have strong creatures, ones not dependent on magic, attack and subdue the brothers.”
Unfortunately for me, that plan made sense—but it didn’t make me any more eager to be the bait for the trap. My recent experiences suggested that any number of things could go wrong. I’d managed to escape from the brothers once, but they might have tightened their security in such a way that I wouldn’t be able to escape again.
Hermes picked that moment to borrow my mouth. “Uncle, we need to find another way. The Brotherhood wants the Philosopher’s Stone. It is apparently the last missing piece in their plans—which may, based on Garth’s observations, include the destruction of Earth and perhaps even the entire plane of which it is a part. The stone is currently within Garth. If they catch us by surprise with some other new trick and capture Garth, the consequences could be enormous, beyond even our most fearful imaginings.”
“What do you suggest, then?” asked Hades, who sounded less than enthusiastic about having to change plans.
“I may be able to find a way to attack the Brotherhood’s own realm. But to do that, I would need to be restored.”
“It would be much better for the health of this plane if you could be,” said Hecate. “The air itself whispers about the imbalance caused by your death. But how can we restore you?”
“While I am in Garth’s body, close to my lost magic, I gain strength. I don’t know what caused my death, but I believe it might be possible to transfer me back into my own body now. Once I am restored, Garth and I will work together to find a way to defeat the Brotherhood.”
“Can you not do that just as well from the same body?” asked Hades. “Though it began as mortal flesh, it seems to be able to contain you now. Is that not so?”
“Because of the power of the Philosopher’s Stone, the flesh regenerates constantly,” said Hermes. “So far, my presence has caused no ill effects. But even the power of the stone is far from infinite. Garth might learn how to do more with it if so much of its energy weren’t being consumed by accommodating me.”
As far as I could tell, I could do just as much with the stone now as I had been able to before Hermes returned to my body. But I wasn’t about to contradict him and risk being pulled back into Hades’s plan.
“I have seen much of Garth in recent days,” said Hecate. “You said that your condition is better in the presence of the magic you lent to him. But that magic has become part of him in a way that you didn’t anticipate. When you go back into your own body, will you not once again be deprived of its presence? And will that not cause you to die after a short period of time?”
“The original lending was done in haste, as was your attempt to alter the connection between my magic and Garth,” said Hermes. “Now, we have time to ponder different approaches. I am confident that I can reunite with my magic without harming Garth—with your help, of course.”
“I suppose it is worth a try,” said Hecate, though she sounded only a little more enthusiastic than Hades. “But since your body is on Olympus, we should go there to attempt your restoration. You and I might be able to work out what to do, but I would recommend that we involve as many others as possible, both for power and for skill. That would include Hades and Persephone, given the death and life connections of any ritual we might use.”
“There is much work to be done here,” said Hades, pointing to the ruined landscape.
“I will begin the work,” said Charon. “I can call upon the elder powers who reside here to help.”
Hades sighed, a sound like gas escaping from a corpse. “Well, I suppose a brief trip to Olympus couldn’t hurt. We should obtain Zeus’s permission before we proceed, but he is probably back from the mortal realm by now.”
“Then it is settled,” said Hecate.
“I shall provide our transportation,” said Hades, leading us back to his silver chariot and dark horses. I cleared out the remaining banestones, which calmed both the steeds and Cerberus. The infernal canine trotted away to growl at all the spots the brothers had damaged with their presence.
As before, the chariot expanded to fit all of us, and as the horses began to trot, Hades commanded them to fly. As we neared the rocky ceiling of the cavern, Hades struck it with his bident, which parted the stone and made an exit for us.
In the proverbial blink of an eye, we were out of the gloomy Underworld and soaring through the sunlit clouds. Hades looked as grim as always, unmoved by the change in scenery. In contrast, Persephone’s face showed almost childlike joy. Hecate was somewhere in between.
“Do you really think you can reunite your magic without hurting me?” I asked Hermes. I didn’t want to speak those words aloud and start a fight among the former gods.
“Absolutely!” said Hermes, though I got the unsettling feeling that he was holding something back. But the idea of pressing him further left me feeling cold inside. Anyway, I couldn’t very well refuse to help the effort to restore Hermes. That would turn every one of the former Greek gods against me. No, it was better to go along with the plan and hope it worked.
Before I could get any more nervous, we soared up the side of Mount Olympus, which was far taller and more imposing than the Mount Olympus on Earth. Hades landed the chariot in front of an even more imposing marble palace that must have been Zeus’s. It glowed with a radiance unlike regular marble, and I’d seen from the air that it stretched out across the entire mountain peak, but otherwise, it looked very much like classical Greek architecture.
Down the front steps came a massive guard who didn’t look at all happy to see me. One might have expected more formal armor than the lion skin he wore and a more sophisticated weapon than the enormous club he carried. The bow and the quiver of arrows strapped to his back looked more skillfully crafted than his club but still looked larger than I might have expected. However, given the guard’s bulging muscles, I had no trouble believing that he could wield his weapons effectively.
I’d forgotten that after Heracles’s transformation into a former god, Zeus had chosen him as the door keeper.
Heracles kept his eyes on me but addressed Hades. “Uncle, why have you brought a mortal to Olympus? You know that such a thing requires the permission of Zeus.”
“True,” replied Hades. “However, if you look closely, you will see that this is no ordinary mortal—and that he carries the lost soul of Hermes within him as well. We have come to restore that soul to his body.”
“Ah, that is different,” said Heracles. “My father has returned from Earth and is in the throne room, where the body still lies. I have no doubt that he will glad to see you.”
The enormous bronze doors swung open all by themselves, and Heracles led us up the steps and into the palace. Much like an ancient Greek home, the entrance led to a courtyard, surrounded on all sides by the palace building. Had this courtyard been bigger, it could almost have passed for the Garden of Eden. Plants and trees of various kinds grew in such profusion that their looks and scents nearly overwhelmed my senses. Some of the vegetation was familiar. Other specimens looked as if they had been transplanted from a dream. A botanist could spend a whole lifetime here and only scratch the surface.
Unfortunately, Heracles moved at such a fast pace that the courtyard passed by me too quickly. We entered the main building through another doorway and walked down a long hallway decorated on both sides by statues I would also have liked to study. But the relentless doorkeeper kept pulling us forward until we entered what could only have been the throne room.
Against the far wall was a two-tiered dais. At the very top tier were two golden thrones, I assumed for Zeus and Hera as king and queen of the former gods. On the lower level were an additional twelve thrones. Was I miscounting? I’d expected to see only twelve, one for each of the twelve great Olympians.
“Common misconception,” said Hermes when I asked him. “Mortals thought the number twelve made sense because of the twelve-month calendar. But in fact, Zeus himself doesn’t count. The body you’re thinking of was established as his council. He listens to its advice but makes the final decision. The distinction is similar to that between your president and his cabinet—as it used to be, anyway.”
“OK, but without counting Zeus, that’s still thirteen thrones,” I said. “If we’re not counting him, wouldn’t only eleven be needed?”
“The story about Hestia giving up her seat to Dionysus is false. They are both council members, which makes twelve. The thirteenth is Hades, who seldom comes but is technically a member. Thus, the council has thirteen members in theory and twelve in practice.”
I didn’t ask any more questions, not because I wasn’t curious, but because I realized that I was just trying to keep my mind off what was about to happen. There was no avoiding reality anymore, though. Lying on a marble slab just below the thrones was the body of Hermes, pale as the marble on which it lay but otherwise physically perfect. Staring down at the body, surprisingly teary-eyed, was Zeus himself. Though he looked more regal in his true form than in his golem body, his face was as grim as that of Hades, and his hair and beard, blown as if by a wind I couldn’t feel, seemed almost as wild and unkempt as Charon’s.
Zeus looked up at us, and lightning sparked from him when he first saw me.
“You! You dare to come here after what you’ve done?” His voice thundered even more when spoken from his own body. I started to pull away, but Hermes held me in place.
“Father, Garth has done no wrong. In fact, he has helped.”
I couldn’t imagine that Zeus looked surprised very often, but hearing Hermes’s voice come from me left him wide-eyed and open mouthed. Sparks flew around him like fireflies and looked less like a prologue to incinerating me.
“He discovered my soul in the clutches of the Brotherhood of the Rainbow and freed me,” continued Hermes. Now probably wouldn’t be the best time to announce that I’d actually been trying to save myself. Finding Hermes had been no more than a lucky accident.
It only took Zeus a second to transform himself from the grieving father thirsting for bloody vengeance into the lord of Olympus. A crown that looked like solid lightning appeared on his head, and he stood much taller as he looked me over with eyes blue as the sky. His hair and beard were now immaculately groomed.
“Now that we have your soul, we need to restore it to your body,” said Zeus. “We must make whole that which has been broken.” His voice was now decisive, reassuring. That didn’t keep me from feeling deep within my bones the chill of impending doom. I wouldn’t truly be able to relax until Hermes had actually been restored.
“That is the very reason we are here,” said Hecate. “But it will not be an easy task. Hermes is stronger now from his sojourn in Garth’s body, but if he returns to his own, I fear he will fade again.”
Worry lines appeared momentarily on Zeus’s immortal forehead. “The result of so much of his magic being in Garth? We must reattach it to Hermes.”
“Yes, that would be the simplest method,” said Hermes. “But my magic has become part of Garth. It cannot be removed without seriously injuring him, perhaps even killing him.”
Zeus started to spark again, and his face once more looked more like Hades’s than his own. The blood in my veins ran cold as I realized that he wouldn’t hesitate to kill me if that was what had to be done to save Hermes.
“We will find another way,” said Hermes. “But it will take some time.”
“Do we have that much time?” asked Zeus. “This entire plane is subtly out of balance as a result of the paradox of your death. That problem will only increase with time. Observe.”
Zeus raised his hand and projected what must have a representation of the entire Olympian plane. Even with Hermes’s ability to see magic, I couldn’t make much out of the image. It was too vast, too complex. But that the usually stoic Hecate gasped was enough to convince me that something was terribly wrong.
“This plane, like any other creation of God, is sustained by intricate balances and adjustments,” said Hermes, who must have guessed what I was thinking. “Each of us former gods are connected with those mechanisms—an arrangement predicated on the certainty that none of us would die. Yet now I have. The resulting paradox is pulling different parts of the plane out of alignment with each other. Though the results aren’t yet visible just by looking around, Zeus’s projection shows some parts that are seriously out of balance, their misalignment worsening by the second.”
“As you can see, we have little time left before the disintegration may become too great for us to correct,” said Zeus.
“This is far worse than the damage the intruders did to the Underworld,” said Hades. His tone was probably the closest he ever came to expressing fear.
“Yet murdering an innocent man might create a different kind of imbalance,” said Hermes. “If my life is purchased by the death of Garth, surely, I will be cursed—and so will anyone who participated in such a human sacrifice.”
Hermes was nothing if not eloquent. Zeus still didn’t look happy, but he didn’t immediately argue against Hermes’s position.
“His words ring true,” said Hecate. “We know that certain acts will taint even the noblest of endeavors. We must save Hermes—but we must preserve Garth as well.”
“Fine words,” said Zeus. “But how are we to do both?”
“I fear that is complicated,” said Hecate. “But not impossible. What we need is a magical process equivalent to what the mortals now call cloning.”
“I do not understand,” said Zeus.
He wasn’t the only one.
“Here is what I propose,” said Hecate. “We create a copy of Garth as he was before Hermes lent him magic—an identical duplicate, except that it will not have a soul. We then infuse the copy with Garth’s soul.”
“How does that help?” asked Zeus.
“The soul wasn’t altered by Hermes’s magical operation. Thus, it is not the soul that will be injured by the removal of Hermes’s magic. It is the mind and body that will suffer. Give Garth a new mind and a new body, and he will live a full life without needing the magic of Hermes.
“Once that is accomplished, it will be an easy matter to reunite Hermes with the bulk of his magic and return him to his body.”
Zeus frowned. “There is little that is beyond us—at least on this plane. But what you propose has never been done before. Humans created through the natural cycle of birth or rebirth are one thing. But two identical humans, different only because one has a soul and the other does not? That is unprecedented. Even identical twins are not truly identical. Must the bodies and minds really be so precisely the same?”
“If Garth’s soul is to flourish in the new flesh, then yes,” said Hermes. “The soul is drawn to its own body. It will never truly settle into a different one, unless it has been given one through reincarnation—and that means allowing Garth to die first.”
Zeus looked at me for a moment as if weighing the idea of letting me die. “It would be better if he does not have to go through death unnecessarily,” he said after a long pause.
“Indeed,” said Hermes. “Not only has he found and rescued my soul, but we still owe him for his help defeating Iskios. Allowing him to die would be the basest act of ingratitude.”
“What method will you use to accomplish this new act of creation?” asked Hades, sounding more curious than normal. Even he was intrigued.
“Of all of us, Prometheus has the strongest connection with the primal forces of creation,” said Hecate. “He has fashioned human beings before, after all. With Garth’s existing body and mind to use as models, he should be able to succeed.”
Hermes gasped, but I couldn’t tell why.
“You haven’t heard?” said Zeus, raising an eyebrow. “Prometheus is missing.”
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