The Haunting of Guaritori Diolco, Part 25
The Weight of Zeus's Soul
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The Titans moved closer, hoping to take advantage of Zeus’s incapacity and the exhaustion of Hera and Hecate. What had happened to Poseidon and Hades? I couldn’t see either one of them.
But perhaps that was partly because the presence of Zeus’s soul in my body was pulling more and more of my attention inward. Hermes’s soul had a much more subtle presence—gentle, even. In contrast, Zeus felt insistent, demanding, perhaps even all-consuming if he was in me for long enough. I could feel the stone shifting energy around in an effort to keep him from unbalancing me completely.
Though I was momentarily paralyzed by my new situation, Zeus wasn’t. He raised my hands and hurled lightning from them. I was relieved that he didn’t cook my flesh in the process, but his presence now felt even heavier. Despite that, the sensation of all that power within me, the feeling of electricity radiating from my hands, gave me an endorphin rush. The sensation was seductive, perhaps even addictive. I could easily get used to that part.
Those feelings were almost more frightening than the Titan attacks. I remembered Hermes’s warning about the danger of a mortal becoming too used to godlike power, but there was nothing I could do about that possible danger now.
Caught by surprise by a lightning attack from an unexpected source, Crius was struck by one of the bolts and stunned. He fell from the sky like a comet. Would his body be crushed when he crashed into the ground? Pallas hurtled down and saved him from that fate. But for a moment, at least, we were free from attack by Crius’s magic or by Pallas’s spears.
The other Titans hastily pulled away and threw up what protection they could. More lightning sizzled from my hands and flew toward them. They managed to deflect the first volley, but if Zeus could keep up the barrage, they would soon be forced to retreat.
“Progress on my body?” he asked using my mouth.
Demeter shook her head. “The wounds will not heal. We can keep your body alive, but it is doing little to help us.”
I felt Zeus cringe inside me, but no external sign betrayed him. He channeled whatever fear he might have felt into one electrical barrage after another. The Titans, entirely focused on him, were caught by surprise when Poseidon and Hades became visible behind them. Hermes’s leftover memories reminded me that Hades had an invisibility cap whose power not even a Titan could penetrate. Poseidon, like most Olympians, could make himself invisible, but a mighty enough adversary could see through such camouflage. In the chaos of the battlefield, though, it had been enough.
Hades jabbed Iapetus in the back with his bident, jolting the Titan with a strong dose of death magic and sending his blood spraying across the sky. Poseidon struck Coeus in the back with his trident, unleashing an earthquake within the Titan and adding his blood to Iapetus’s stream. At this rate, it would be raining blood before long.
Astraeus shouted a battle cry and escalated his meteor barrage—but this time aimed at Zeus’s brothers rather than at those of us below. Hades became invisible before the meteors struck and presumably dodged them. Poseidon used the bleeding Coeus as a shield, forcing Astraeus to turn the meteors away from them.
Poseidon advanced, continuing to hold Coeus in front of him. Astraeus tried to distract Poseidon by raining meteors down upon us. Zeus had to respond with multiple lightning bolts, smashing the rocky projectiles into a showers of fist-sized rocks that might nonetheless do quite a bit of damage.
Reluctantly, I reached for the magic of Hermes, creating a wind to slow the descent of the rock shower. I had to draw on power fast enough that I was once again afflicted with a migraine—but at least my skull didn’t get caved in by an errant rock.
Having done that, I shot another lightning storm at the remaining Titans. It took me a second to realize that it was not I but Zeus who had launched that attack. I wasn’t sure what would happen to me if Zeus continued to overshadow me, but I wasn’t about to find out.
“Zeus, you’re pressing on me too hard. I’m losing myself.”
Zeus didn’t respond, though I could feel thoughts passing through me that weren’t mine. He knew the problem existed, but he wanted to defeat the Titans before trying to correct it. I wasn’t sure I had that long.
“Zeus!” My thought seemed like a whisper, even to me. But what was I thinking? I was Zeus, no one else. How could it be otherwise? I was painfully conscious of obvious gaps in my memory. One of the Titans had gotten a spell through my defenses, but I could shake it off.
“Surrender!” I yelled in a voice loud enough to make the sky vibrate. “Surrender or I will destroy you all!”
I felt the attention of all the nearby goddesses on me, and I wondered why. Surely, their attention should be focused on our foes until we had achieved victory.
The last four Titans close enough to attack escalated their efforts forcing me to hurl thunderbolts almost constantly to deflect the more physical threats. Meteors shattered. Spears burned. Rock fragments rained down all around us as some kind of air magic defense gave way.
It was Hermes’s magic, but why didn’t he reenforce it? I realized that part of his power was within me and that I ought to remember why. That particular recollection eluded me, but it could wait until we had won the battle.
Hyperion started radiating light bright enough to blind even me. Forced to fight without proper sight lines, I fired bolts in a scattered pattern. Even attackers as skillful as Pallas and Astraeus would have a hard time anticipating a good pathway to reach us with their attacks.
“Zeus!”
That was Hecate’s voice, tired but still insistent. Why would she bother me at such a difficult time?
“Quiet!” I commanded her.
“This cannot wait!” she replied. Her words throbbed with urgency as if she were trying to weave a spell around me. But I felt almost no magic from her.
Keeping my eyes on the sky and my hand flinging thunderbolts, I turned to her what little attention I could spare.
“Your mind is overwhelming Garth’s. You need to get out of his body. Do it now!”
Her words made no sense to me. She had always given wise counsel, but I had no time for riddles.
“Later!” I said, motioning her away. Hyperion’s light had been too much for Hades to endure at close range, but he had switched his attention to Perses. Even from here, I could feel Hades’s heavy magic shielding as he fought the destructive—”
“It must be now,” said Hecate, grabbing my arm with hands that seemed feeble at the moment, though something within them hinted at her normal strength.
“We are in battle!” I yelled, my voice sounding like a thunderclap. But even that didn’t deter the witch goddess, who kept clinging to me.
“She speaks the truth,” said Hestia, who had appeared suddenly on my other side.
“Silence!” My command hit them with hurricane force, and they both fell back, momentarily unable to speak. I would deal with them when time allowed.
Hades had wounded Perses, whose destructive magic began to wane as his blood fell to Earth. Astraeus almost smashed us with a meteor that slipped through my storming power and headed straight for us. I detonated it when it was too close, forcing us to endure a shower of rocks and a cloud of dust. I managed enough of a storm wind to deflect the worst of the debris, and we remained standing to continue the fight.
Poseidon had unleashed what looked from a distance like the entire sea in a giant wave against Hyperion. The Titan turned much of the wave to steam, but enough hit him to dim his light for a moment. I took the opportunity to strike him with as much lightning as I could aim at a single target. He dodged, but enough of my attack hit him to burn him. I could hear his pained cry and see him twist in the air as he tried to fend off Poseidon’s next attack.
“Zeus!”
This time, it was Hera who distracted me. Like Hecate, she was weak, having exhausted herself in the early battle. But that didn’t make her any less determined.
I spared her a quick glance. “What is it? I must concentrate on the battle.”
“You were willingly given a body in which to continue the fight. But now, the power of your mind is submerging that of the body’s rightful owner. If you continue as you are, you may destroy his mind and earn the rebuke—or worse—of God Himself. We may have had our differences—but I would not see you damned.”
“You speak nonsense!” I replied as I fired another storm’s worth of lightning at our foes. Poseidon had struck Hyperion with the butt of the trident, rendering him unconscious. That left just Pallas and Astraeus, though we would have to fight Cronus and Atlas later.
Hera slapped me as hard as she could. I grabbed her hand before she could strike a second time and had to shoot thunderbolts in an awkward, one-handed way. I struck all the approaching meteors. Poseidon deflected Pallas’s spears from us with another midair tidal wave.
I felt something gripping my legs and looked down to see vines growing up with a speed only magic could have made possible. It was odd that I was wearing what looked like modern mortal attire. But I was more alarmed by the fact that Demeter seemed to be attacking me.
I looked in her direction and froze.
Demeter was looking back at me, but she and Persephone were bending over a badly wounded…me. I saw my own body, throat slashed open. But how could that be?
I looked at my hands, but they weren’t my hands. Hecate stood before me, holding up a mirror. In it, I saw the reflection of a stranger, yet the face looked oddly familiar.
As if a dam had broken, full memory flooded over me—and full realization of what I had done, though I hadn’t meant to.
“Zeus!” whispered a feeble voice inside of me. Garth’s voice. It was not too late for me to save him.
But distracted as I was, and as those around me were, none of us saw the latest barrage of spears descending upon us until it was too late.
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