The Haunting of Guaritori Diolco, Part 26
Guaritori's Death?
Need an earlier part?
One of the spears sank into my shoulder. Hecate, Hera, Hestia, Demeter, and Persephone all suffered lesser wounds, but we were now in a desperate situation. Only the fact that Hades and Poseidon remained in the fight somewhere above us offered hope.
I managed to pull the spear out of my shoulder, but healing magic wasn’t one of my talents. I held a hand over the wound to slow the flow of blood. Demeter and Persephone, either one of whom might have helped ordinarily, were trying to deal with their own wounds, while at the same time preserving Zeus’s body…my body.
The slowing of my blood flow and a feeling of inner warmth reminded me of whose body I was in at the moment. The power of the Philosopher’s Stone was healing me. But it seemed unable to heal Garth’s mind, which had fallen silent within me.
I looked up at the sky to make sure we weren’t the targets of another attack. At the moment, Hades was attacking Astraeus, and Poseidon was attacking Pallas. Both the Titans seemed fully occupied with that challenge.
I looked over to where Typhoeus had fallen. His badly wounded body was nowhere to be seen, and the three Hecatoncheires, exhausted as they were, stumbled toward me.
“What happened to the monster?” I asked them.
“I have him,” said Gaia, her voice rising gently from the ground. “I will hold him within me until we can determine his fate.”
I didn’t like the we in that statement, the assumption that anyone but me would determine his fate. But now was not the time to argue over protocol. Having determined that we were safe for the moment, I needed to save Garth—if such a thing were even possible.
“Hecate—” I started to call her, but she was already at my side, though she limped from a leg wound.
“I am here,” she said. “We must act quickly if we are to preserve Garth’s mind.”
“What is your plan?” I asked. “You always have one.”
“The easiest way to save Garth would be to remove you from his body. Unfortunately, your own body is still not able to contain your soul. We cannot risk letting you die. There is no way to calculate the consequences of such an event.”
I hadn’t been inclined to risk my own death, anyway, but I recalled Hera’s earlier statement. I didn’t want to risk the wrath of God by letting Garth perish.
“Well, what is, as the mortals would say, Plan B?”
Hecate took her own look at the sky, then back at me. “I believe the Philosopher’s Stone could heal his mind, but almost all its attention is devoted to preserving his body from the strain of Titan attacks and your presence. The remaining Titans are occupied at the moment, but your soul is still putting too much strain on Garth’s flesh. It did manage to stop your wound from bleeding, but as you can see, it is healing rather slowly.”
She was right. The wound had only just begun to close. I knew the stone could heal such a wound much more quickly under normal circumstances.
“But if I cannot leave—”
“You must, for lack of a better word, make yourself smaller. Pull your power into as tiny a bundle as you can manage. I will help you to fall into the deepest sleep imaginable. If you are not acting or thinking, it may be that the stone will need to strain less to maintain Garth’s body. It can then heal Garth’s mind—or so I hope.”
Having no choice, I did as Hecate advised, and I placed myself totally in her hands as I surrendered to sleep.
***
I awoke feeling somewhat hung over, though I couldn’t remember drinking.
A woman with piercing eyes was staring at me intensely. She gave me the creeps.
“Who are you?” I asked. My voice sounded a little hoarse. It also sounded not entirely like my voice. But what did my voice sound like?
I trembled when I realized that I had no idea.
“You do not remember me at all?” she asked. Her face was beautiful and vaguely familiar, but despite that, I couldn’t remember who she was or how we met. Reluctantly, I shook my head.
“This is…an unexpected complication,” she said, as if my amnesia—for that must be what it was—was a great inconvenience to her.
I looked at her more closely and realized that there must be something wrong with my eyes. There seemed to be a kind of silver aura around the woman—unless that was just a reflection from the silver gown she wore.
She didn’t seem inclined to say anything else, but something about her general grimness made me reluctant to ask questions. Instead, I looked around to see if anything or anyone else looked at all familiar.
I was lying on flat ground near a tall mountain. Around me, I could see a lot of random debris—broken spears, shattered rocks, burn-scarred ground. Was I lying in the middle of a battlefield? I didn’t seem to be wounded, but maybe a blow to the head explained my memory loss.
There were other people nearby—four other women and two men. I became uncomfortably aware of the fact that all six of them were staring at me as if waiting for some great revelation.
“We do not have time for this!” said one of the women. I looked at her and noticed that she was wearing a silver crown. Was she a queen? Her dress looked like…clouds woven together. My eyes must have been injured in…whatever happened. But they felt all right.
“His state is what it is,” said an older woman in white who gave me a grandmotherly smile but looked no more familiar than any of the others. “It is not his fault that he is thus. He suffered this injury because he was willing to risk himself for us—all of us.”
“Agreed!” said the queenly one, waving her hand dismissively. “But Cronus and Atlas are still at large, as are the Telchines. This plane is still deteriorating. Zeus’s body is still unhealed. And those are just the problems I can think of off the top of my head. We could have used a fully functional Garth. This one—” She paused to stare at me. “This one is no use at all.”
I wanted to respond, but something about her expression deterred me. Instead, I focused on the names. I felt as if I’d heard some of those names in school. Oh yeah, Greek mythology. They were names of gods and other mythical beings. Maybe this was a dream.
“He is still keeping Zeus’s soul for us,” said another one of the women, wearing what looked like a headdress made from barley and a vibrant green gown of some kind. “And it may be that he has fulfilled his part in the prophecy. He was to die, after all. Did not his heart stop for a moment as the stone struggled to revive his mind? And is not his mind now…generic in some ways, devoid of what made him Garth in the first place?”
“His soul is still intact,” said the grim one closest to me. “But a case could be made for technical death. There was a moment when his body died. More importantly, his mind really was gone for a while, whatever its current condition may be. In any case, it is an established rule among us that someone’s recovery from death does not erase the fact that he or she died.”
An equally grim man wearing a dull silver crown, black robes, and a stony gray aura nodded. “The mark of death is upon him. I didn’t notice at the time, but Thanatos must have crept up on him and tried to take him. Odd, though, that I did not feel his presence in the area.
“As for Garth’s current condition, it may not be irreparable. Don’t forget the Well of Mnemosyne in the Underworld. One sip from those waters can restore even memories erased by Lethe. Now that the battle is over, I can go fetch some.”
“An excellent idea. Implement it at once,” said the queenly one.
I didn’t understand what was going on, but the grim one vanished, again making me wonder about the state of my mind and eyes.
“This is good,” said the grim woman. It took me a moment to realize that she was talking to me.
“We might be able to restore your memory,” she added.
“Did I hit my head?” I asked.
“Much worse,” she said, but she didn’t seem to want to elaborate, and I was afraid to ask.
The grim man reappeared much more rapidly than I expected, offering me water in a silver cup. Still not sure what was happening, I took a sip.
My memories returned so fast that they made me gasp. I was myself again—and immediately refilled with all my old worries.
“Where’s Zeus?” I asked. In the distance, I could see Demeter and Persephone tending his body, which was obviously not healed yet.
“He is still within you,” said Hecate. “But he is asleep and will stay that way until I wake him.”
“And the Titans?”
“All defeated and chained except for Cronus and Atlas, still fleeing from Hera’s curse,” replied Poseidon.
I pulled myself up off the ground and dusted myself off. “All right, then what do we need to do next?”
Hades raised an eyebrow. “Are you assuming that because Zeus slumbers within you, you are now our king?”
I didn’t think the ruler of the Underworld usually joked, but that didn’t sound like a serious question. “I was asking, not ordering. I know all of you have tried to restore me, which I appreciate very much. But now, I want to help you make up for lost time.”
“Hades has, however, raised an important question that must quickly be resolved,” said Poseidon. “Who serves as regent until Zeus can be restored?”
That didn’t seem so important to me, but I supposed it would be useful to know who was in command, especially in combat.
“Dionysus,” said Persephone.
“He has never been officially designated as the heir,” said Poseidon. “And he is the youngest of Zeus’s divine children.”
“As Zeus was the youngest of Cronus’s children,” Persephone replied.
“Since Poseidon, Zeus, and I divided rule among ourselves, it seems only fitting that Poseidon and I act as coregents until Zeus is restored,” said Hades.
“On the contrary, it seems that I, as Zeus’s next of kin, should be regent in the absence of any prior declaration by Zeus himself,” said Hera.
“The council might choose among those three options,” said Hestia. “Except that most, if not all, of the other council members are currently doing service in the mortal realm. It might not be easy to call them back without putting human lives at risk. To resolve this impasse, I propose that Hecate, most powerful in magic and the eldest among us, be named regent.”
Poseidon’s frown reminded me of a raging sea. “Her parents are of our generation, which makes her less senior.”
“Yet she is elder in years, for she was born before any of the children of Cronus and Rhea. And it is said that Zeus honors her above all.”
“It is said by a mortal poet,” replied Poseidon.
“But in her case, he didn’t even draw lots to see who got what,” said Hestia. “He gave her jurisdiction, secondary though it may be, in his realm, in yours, and in Hades’s. No other member of our family was so honored.”
“I do not accept your analysis,” said Poseidon, his voice full of storms.
“Nor am I much persuaded by it,” said Hera, her voice as adamant as her earlier curse had been.
“Pardon me for interrupting,” I said, though not at all timidly. Perhaps having Zeus, even dormant, inside of me was giving me extra guts. “All of you would make fine rulers if given the opportunity. But as you each argue your claim, time creeps away from us. Who knows when the next disaster will come? Draw lots to see who the regent will be, just as Zeus and his brothers drew lots to divide the different realms.”
“Lots drawn on this plane always seem to work out well,” said Hecate, giving the other candidates a cold smile. “I will happily submit myself to their judgment.”
“As I think about it, Dionysus is one of those out helping mortals at present,” said Persephone. “Since he is not available, I too say we should bow to the lots, through which Ananke’s will may become known to us.”
“I agree,” said Demeter. “It is only by the obedience to necessity that we may prosper.”
“To these trustworthy opinions, I add my own,” said Hestia. “I believe that is a majority of those of us who are present, it is not?”
Hera and Poseidon both looked as if they would eagerly take their wrath out on someone, but both stiffly nodded. Hades, less openly hostile, nodded as well.
Demeter made three lots from the bark of nearby trees. Persephone carved into the back of each the name of one of the three options: Hera, Poseidon-Hades, and Hecate. Both immediately went back to tend Zeus’s body as soon as their task was done. Hestia used hot air from her hearth fire to float the three lots into the air.
“Garth, as Zeus’s vessel, pick one,” she said.
Nervously, I grabbed the one floating closest to me and read the back. “Hecate,” I announced.
The triple goddess managed to avoid looking too pleased with herself. I tried to conceal my relief. Though she was often as cold as Hades, Hecate had been willing to give me a chance to prove I wasn’t like my earlier incarnation, Jason. Also, she was the most magically powerful, and I had a feeling that this struggle might come down to who used magic more effectively.
“Since we cannot immediately heal Zeus, our first priority should be to recover the soul of Hermes,” said Hecate. “We will consult with Gaia to see if we can prophetically locate the Telchines.”
“Are we strong enough to face them?” asked Hestia. “Demeter and Persephone will have to stay with Zeus’s body.”
“Invite Medea in,” I suggested before I had time to think about all the implications. “She’s lived as a mortal, but I understand that her ancestry is entirely divine, and she has a great deal of magic.”
“That she does,” said Hecate. “I shall make the offer.”
Hera looked at Hecate with barely suppressed rage. The queen of the former gods must still be holding what happened to Jason against Medea. But most of the others seemed willing to at least tolerate her presence.
“We can go back briefly to Olympus and unchain Heracles,” said Hades. The Hecatoncheires have been scouting, but we can call them back. With such a force, I have no doubt that we can overcome the Telchines and regain the soul of Hermes.”
“While you are preparing to go after the Telchines, may I check in on Iskios?” I asked. “I think I might have a way to get him to join us.”
“Interesting,” said Hecate. “If you do not take too long, you can certainly make the attempt.”
I was happy to get her permission, but a sudden sense of dread filled me. For some reason I couldn’t quite put my finger on, I didn’t want to face him again right now. But I knew I would have to face him, sooner or later.
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