The Gifts of Pandora, page 21
The Long Wall enclosed the harbor, and Kirke followed it toward the city proper, ignoring the maze of side streets and alleys branching off from the breezeway. At a multitude of small stalls, merchants hawked ceramics and fruits and sandals, but most were stuffs for commoners. Cheap, yes, and thus suited for those who could afford no better, but not of sturdy enough make to last beyond a few seasons of hard use.
She paused only long enough to purchase a cup of wine for an obol and chugged it before handing the cup back. A little something to fortify her nerves would not go amiss. Yeah.
Her height combined with her Heliad eyes meant some recognized her as a Titan. Many genuflected, while others gave her a wide berth, clearing the path before her. Kirke tried to incline her head at each show of obeisance, though it slowed her progress to a crawl. Zeus had convinced these people that Titans were gods, and Kirke still, even after all this time, did not quite know how to react to their deference. Did she miss being a princess of great Helion? Yeah, of course, but that didn’t mean she expected worship.
She liked to imagine, if she succeeded in overthrowing the Olympians, these people would rise up and live better lives. Freer lives, where they need offer no sacrifices to Titans. Well, a few gestures of respect for a princess wouldn’t hurt.
The city had changed since last she saw it. She passed through the South Gate and headed through the Colonnade of Justice to the agora, allowing herself to gawk just a little at the expansion of public works. Even now, artisans carved a marble facade on what she could only assume would serve as another state building. A peristyle ringed the building and Kirke delayed long enough to make a half circuit around the construction.
“It will be a mint,” her mother said from behind her shoulder, causing Kirke to jump.
Slowly, she turned to take her mother in. Had Mother dreamed of Kirke’s arrival on this day or merely spotted her in the market? If she knew Mother, the woman wouldn’t answer even if asked. “Summoned, I arrive,” she said, offering a faux grand bow.
Her mother snorted, her fiery hair billowing about her face in the wind. “Your sister awaits in the acropolis.” Mother motioned her to follow and guided them through a wide stoa, then up to the stairs ascending the hill. “Do you know why I called you here?” her mother asked as they climbed.
Was that a challenge to Kirke’s own prescient abilities? They had never been so great as either she or her mother might have hoped. Like Mother, Kirke could sometimes catch glimpses of the future in her dreams, but only on rare occasions. The nightmares had abated after Prometheus had handed himself over to Zeus, at least until recently, so she had to believe Zeus had redirected Morpheus to something else for a time. Either way, after being dream-stalked, Kirke had found herself with very little desire to even try to access her dream Art. “No,” she answered. “Do tell.”
“Your sister plans to help her son become the first mortal king of Kronion.”
“She’s the goddess of the whole damn city,” Kirke said, squinting as she gazed up at how many more steps they had to climb. “Can’t she just declare whatever she wishes?”
“If she wanted Pandion to spend the first twenty years of his reign constantly striving against attempts to subvert his authority, perhaps. That, or perhaps they would think him merely her proxy, with no autonomy at all. No, she wants the people of the city to openly choose him as their king and representative to the Olympians.”
Politics. Hmm. Kirke had little patience for the subtleties of such. Not when she played a much larger game to free the soul of the Thalassa world from Olympian tyranny. Athene—whatever Kirke may have felt for her half-sister—was, in fact, a symptom of that corruption. They were all drunk on the power of the Ambrosia and mortal worship.
“Fine,” Kirke huffed, pausing in the climb for a moment. As Nymph, she’d mostly only ever received enough Ambrosia to sustain her youth, not to truly fortify her Pneuma and give her the level of stamina her mother enjoyed. The problem with Nymphs—and lesser male Titans, she supposed—was that they could never surpass the lowest magnitudes of Pneumatikoi and were thus considered a waste of Ambrosia. A somewhat circular situation, if anyone asked Kirke.
Kalypso had wanted to test Nectar on themselves, but if it affected their minds, how would they be in any position to judge that? “So she wants people to choose him as king without making it obvious she has forced him upon them.”
From the glower Mother leveled her way, she clearly did not appreciate the sentiment, but what did she expect? Athene wanted the people to choose a king, but only if they chose her king. It was an illusion that their wills meant aught. More than most Olympians offered, true, but the end result was that no Men actually allowed them ownership of their own lives.
While Kirke kept silent, slowly Mother’s face softened. Perhaps she grasped Kirke’s point or perhaps she merely passed over it. “I have to go away for a time, and I cannot say how long I’ll be away. That’s why I called you here, Kirke. Athene needs someone to help her in her ends. You yourself prompted her toward this slow vengeance she now strives for.”
Oh, was that what making her son king was about? Some move against Hephaistos? And she couldn’t miss the subtle barb in Mother’s tone, either. “She makes her son a pawn in her schemes.”
“Kirke,” Mother snapped. “Help your little sister and your nephew. Do you understand me?”
“Perfectly,” Kirke said, resuming her climb. Athene wanted help with her vengeance, and that posed no impediment to Kirke’s plans against the Olympians and might even help bring them to fruition. Besides, it gave her an excellent excuse to linger in Kronion and test the Nectar here. With the mandate her mother had just given her, she had every reason to move among the high and low of the polis, going wherever she needed. Which meant opportunity to peddle her drug and a willing populace who might one day rise to challenge Zeus.
Still, she’d need to move with extreme caution. Spread the Nectar too fast, Zeus and his cronies might start to ask what had changed in this polis of late. Wariness, yes, but it was still too good an opportunity to pass.
“I’ll help her with whatever she desires, Mother. She is my sister, after all.”
The man knelt in the shadow just beyond the brazier’s light, his face concealed by the gloom. With a sudden convulsion he pitched forward, catching himself on his hands. Aborted gasps escaped him, like he wanted to scream, but all he managed where pained wheezes. His flesh, what little the brazier illuminated of it, it rippled like waves, as if something monstrous flowed beneath the surface.
Nausea seized Kirke and she reached for him. The utter madness of what she saw flensed her, left her hugging herself in wordless horror.
The man fell forward, face smacking the ground, a moan building in his chest. Joints popped audibly within him. Then, the awful, gut-churning sound of muscle and tendons ripping apart.
“No …” Kirke breathed.
Her victim screamed, his cries so long and agonized tears glistened in Kirke’s eyes.
His hip snapped, breaking apart as something bulged within it. Desperately, he tugged away his clothes, casting the torn and ruined garments aside, even as the bulge in his hip ruptured. Flesh shred in a shower of gore as some new limb protruded, dragging its way free from his innards.
Stumbling backward, Kirke collapsed onto her arse, hand to her mouth.
The limb distended, until a hoof clacked upon the stone beside her.
Her dreams were haunted, and Kirke could not guess at the import of such vivid nightmares, unless Morpheus again tormented her. Such were her thoughts when she joined Athene just before noon.
Their mother had not specified where exactly she had intended to head for. Not to Kirke, at least, so when Athene let slip that the woman had intended to seek out her old friend Persephone, in the cursed Underworld, Kirke had sputtered on her wine. Her coughing fits sent crimson stains seeping down the front of her khiton, and the wracking convulsions had lasted long enough to leave her flushed and breathless.
“Truly?” she asked her half-sister, while the two of them reclined in Athene’s palace on the acropolis. Kirke couldn’t even imagine how Mother would manage to enter the Underworld—save the obvious and unappealing way—but if anyone could do so, she supposed it was the great witch Hekate.
Athene nodded sternly, offering Kirke a woolen napkin with which to dry herself.
Accepting it, Kirke made a perfunctory attempt to pat her ruined clothes dry. The drink had been to help her drown out the return of her nightmares, not dye her khiton. “Yeah, well, maybe she should have bid a longer farewell then. I mean, sure, she bid us farewell, but for all I knew she was planning to visit Neshia or something, not leave the whole Mortal Realm behind.”
“Maybe she did not wish to trouble you,” Athene said, earning herself a withering glare.
Kirke thought about reminding Athene she had a couple thousand more years life experience than her, but what good would it have done? Olympians talked down to Nymphs as a matter of course, probably unaware they even did so. She might also have mentioned that Mother had trained her in the Art, while Athene herself knew precious little of truths beyond this fragile mortal world. But pointing that out would have earned her naught.
Instead, she slipped from the divan and onto the floor, trying to ensure no stains spread to the furniture, then poured herself more wine from the amphora. “Anyway, it’s fine, I’m fine. She’ll be fine.” She hoped. “Pff. Hades probably isn’t even mad.” Sure. “So what is it you hope to accomplish, exactly? I mean, make Pandion king, yeah, fine, but he’s five years old, so maybe not quite ready for the reins of power. The public might be more inclined to elect a king who has his adult teeth in. Just a guess.” She sipped the wine, watching her sister.
Athene huffed at that. “Obviously. I’m setting the stage. But I also want to see about seizing control of the peninsula. Which means, among other things, we need to weaken the closest poleis.”
Kirke smiled around the bowl at her lips. “You mean Korinth.”
“It is ruled by the demigod Sisyphus.” Athene took a sip of her own wine. “So, tell me, sister, what exactly can you do about him?”
Kirke took another drink, as much to buy herself time as aught else. Unfortunately, plenty of Nectar combinations had produced rather extreme bouts of madness in numerous subjects, even while many of those batches had actually proved closest to actual Ambrosia in other effects. It would be easy enough to recreate such effects on purpose, though until this moment, she hadn’t imagined wanting to. “You don’t want anyone to see your hand in this, yeah? I … have a means of ensuring Sisyphus destroys himself.”
Athene leaned forward, eagerness glinting in her gray eyes. “What? How?”
How much to share? Kirke would not be enough a fool to think she could trust Athene to keep secrets from her father. Not about this.
“Mother taught me a great deal of alchemy back in the Golden days. I have methods.” She set the wine bowl down. “But I’d need to travel to Korinth to apply them. I could be back in a fortnight, I’m certain.”
Oh, Athene all but bounced up and down at her offer. “Do it.”
It had, in fact, taken Kirke a little over a fortnight to brew the right concoction of Nectar, reach Korinth, and ensure Sisyphus’s wine was spiked with it. It was amazing what disaffected and ill-treated slaves would help her do when prodded just right. But then, that was part of the problem with the Olympians. They suffered from such extreme hubris they could not even conceive of how much Men loathed them and their ilk.
And Sisyphus was a demigod—half Titan, half mortal—so, close enough.
She had not, however, lingered in Korinth long enough to see the results. Doing so might have aroused suspicion, which would have proved disastrous for Athene’s mission and even worse for Kirke. Hephaistos might have seized her with impunity, and she could not imagine her father doing aught save despairing in impotent fury. Perhaps he would have sent Phaethusa or one of Kirke’s other half-siblings to plead for her release, but those pleas would have fallen upon deaf ears, and Father would have let the issue lie.
Athene met her in her palace’s vestibule, arms folded over her chest.
“It is done,” Kirke said.
Word came, some two months later, that Sisyphus had slaughtered the entirety of his guests at a symposium over some trifle. Oh, the stories conflicted about what started it, some claiming it was an argument over Urania’s Analogy, while others argued it sparked someone claiming to be able to best Sisyphus in pankration. Either way, Kirke had never imagined her actions would lead to the deaths of a score of people, some no doubt innocent.
Almost, it was enough to make her wish she had never come to Kronion.
But Athene summoned her to her private chambers, and Kirke found her half-sister staring into a basin of water as though it might talk to her. The Olympian didn’t even seem to notice when Kirke entered, so for a moment, she waited, watching.
And Athene, she just kept gazing into the waters as if … Oh.
Oh! Kirke had spent enough time amid Oracles to recognize attempts at hydromancy when she saw them. Kirke herself relied upon oneiromancy, but hydromancy was more common. Their family had a gift for the Sight, and Athene was clearly trying to refine hers.
From the vexed look upon her sister’s face when she rose, it seemed she still lacked control over her abilities. Given their differences in their methods, Kirke couldn’t offer much advice, nor was her own Sight all that strong.
Athene beckoned her to sit, and Kirke joined her by the hearth. When she had settled, her sister settled her gaze upon Kirke. “I was trying to see if I could view just what happened in Korinth,” the woman admitted.
Ah, well shit. Trying to keep her expression blank proved a struggle. “And?”
“It appears Sisyphus has taken a draught of Nectar.”
Kirke’s palms began to sweat. “Oh, yeah, well I had heard about it spreading wildly in Korinth of late. One cannot be surprised, really. Men would do aught for the chance to improve their health and extend their lives, to say naught of the sexual benefits, and we cannot really blame them, now, can we? I mean they truly are very short lives, and so full of pain. If something can alleviate either issue, well then … we …”
Athene had fixed her with so stern a glare Kirke found it took the sum of her willpower to keep from fidgeting. Had her sister seen more in that bowl of water than Kirke had first imagined? Had the Sight revealed the nature of Kirke’s duplicity? “I asked you to bring about his downfall.”
“Yeah, well, he’s pretty far fallen now. If the kin of those he murdered haven’t burned down his estate yet, I imagine it’s only a matter of time, right? That’s how it goes with the powerful. People idolize them and worship them until they get a glimpse at their heroes, then they see the blemishes and suddenly, it’s all, ‘kill the wretches!’, right? Having kin murdered gets people all riled up like that.”
Now, Athene leaned forward. “How did you get the Nectar, Kirke?”
What if … what if Athene could actually be an ally against the other Olympians? If she already knew about Kirke’s actions, then Kirke’s only chance here might lie in swaying Athene to her side. In making her an accomplice. “Ah, hmm. Yeah, I can adjust the dosage so it might enhance your Sight. I mean, there would be risks, you know? There’s always risks with these things, but it may allow you to see more, and farther than you ever imagined.”
“Nyx …” Athene gasped. “You didn’t buy, you made it.” The gray-eyed Titan slumped backward. “My half-sister has been making Nectar.”
And far better for Kalypso if Athene thought it was all her. Maybe the other Nymph wouldn’t have to join her in Tartarus.
“It can give you your vengeance,” Kirke prompted, words rushing from her mouth. “Imagine if you could know the past and future. It’d be like … like how Oracles used to go to Delphi to learn from Themis. Only, they weren’t so much learning from her as drawing strength from Python, back before Apollon slew the drakon. Well now, now, you want to refine your Sight, you either have to go through him—and we both know you won’t like whatever price he charges—or through me, and I’ll give it freely, sister. And you’d see everything you needed to, and more.”
The thing about rage was, sometimes it blinded a person. Sometimes she couldn’t see aught else, no matter how close it was. Maybe that was why the sly grin spread over Athene’s face. Maybe she imagined herself feeding that rage with Oracular visions that would allow her to outmaneuver the Kreiads at every turn.
And maybe, just maybe, the Nectar would even do that.
It too must carry a price.
23
Pandora
201 Golden Age
* * *
Nestled in the boughs of an old oak tree, Pandora watched a young Zeus pass beneath her, almost choking on her own rage at this vile creature. This boy who would grow into a monster that spread suffering in his wake like a trail of snail slime. This arrogant, solipsistic abomination who thought the whole of the cosmos existed in service to his petty desires.
She could change all that with a knife in his throat.
Zeus trudged about the forest, hunting for her, no doubt imagining what torments he might visit upon her while not quite violating Kronos’s decree she be brought in alive. Yes, Pandora could fair see the whirring of his twisted mind as it envisaged her broken flesh, pliant beneath his grasp.
Maybe Prometheus was wrong. Maybe the chance to undo the totality of suffering wrought by such a blight upon history was worth whatever price she’d pay for changing the Fates’ designs. In fact, fuck the damn Moirai. That they would weave a fate that hinged upon the existence of such rank evil meant they were themselves, if not outright evil, so apathetic as to amount to much the same thing. Should she offer obeisance to goddesses of fate who worked their will by permitting such egregious breaches of all decency?
