The Gifts of Pandora, page 27
She saw too many things that made no sense, and too many things that did make sense.
But it all ran together in a muddled roil, until she could not make one time from the next, nor even be sure if all she saw was conjured up by her fevered mind.
She saw heroes striving against the chaos of the land, and her hand guiding them—or was it manipulation? She saw gods falling, and—though she told herself it was a dream—the fall of her brother Ares outside somewhere that looked like the walls of Ilium. She saw a thousand flickers like images cast upon Urania’s cave, and wondered at their source.
“Mother,” Pandion chided, his hand in front of her face. For a moment she wondered whether he’d actually had the audacity to snap his fingers in front of her, or whether she had just imagined that as well. They sat in her court room, but Pandion had apparently dismissed all the other members of the court, save for Athene’s steward.
“Mother, did you even hear me? They said he turned into a woodpecker and flew away. What explanation are we meant to send Mnemosynia for such a preposterous claim? They will think we mock them. They will claim we have abducted their heir!”
Pikus. She had sent Kirke to manage Pikus. And the witch had turned him into a bird? This sounded like a hallucination. Such things did not happen.
“Find your aunt and bring her to me,” she said, rubbing at her eyes and not looking forward to any confrontation with Kirke. Perhaps she ought to take another draught before the woman arrived.
No, wait. She had taken the last bit in the night, hadn’t she? She needed more, and Kirke would have to provide. Once, Athene had gone searching in her sister’s lab, but there were too many vials, all different, and none marked. Kirke had warned some batches were more dangerous than others, and not even Athene was so brazen as to imbibe one at random.
Or at least, she hoped she would not be.
The stench of opulence saturated the air of Babilim and nowhere more so than in the heart of this palace, with its great vaulted ceilings depicting strange conceptions of heavenly courts, and its gold-plated trim framing the frescoed walls.
Athene took it all in as the guards dragged her by the elbows, the tips of her sandals just brushing the mirror-polished tiles of the floor. No colonnade ran the length of this hall, giving the chamber a vast, cavernous aspect. Lines of braziers rimmed the path to Mithra’s throne upon the dais, their flickering light failing to banish the gloom that flitted about the hall.
A dozen Immortals stood in the wings behind the throne, hands on the hilts of their akinakai. Along with them, a hundred more of his guards rimmed the periphery, ready to surge up on her with the slightest motion of their king.
The King of Kings himself reclined at ease, his face concealed in shadow, while firelight reflected off the emeralds encrusted into his sandals.
Her captors carried her within a dozen feet of the dais then drove her to her knees before the Babilimian monarch with such force the impact sent lances of lightning surging through her legs. Instinctively, she reached for Tolerance, but the orichalcum fetters blocked any access to her Pneuma. Of course, if the chains hadn’t bound her wrists, she could have torn through these guards in a whirlwind. Maybe she could have even fought the Immortals, though perhaps not so many of them.
“The great goddess Athene,” Mithra said, face still concealed. “Come to us at last, even as Elládos falls around you.”
Athene stared defiance at the self-proclaimed king of the world. “My father will not ransom me.”
Now, Mithra leaned forward, offering her a hint of his features, from his trim black beard to his intense eyes. “But it is not your father I am interested in, goddess.” With ponderous import, the man rose, giving the sensation of a river changing its course. “No, I have had you brought here for something far more momentous than Zeus’s petty struggles. I have summoned you forth from the farthest reaches of this world in order to bestow upon you a gift. The greatest of all gifts, in fact, Athene. I am going to give to you … Truth.”
When Pandion returned with Kirke, Athene started awake, realizing she had dozed upon her throne. Had … had she just had a vision without even the use of water? Was that oneiromancy, or had she fallen into some drug-induced trance not unlike what the Oracle Mirror had induced in her beneath Olympus?
“Leave us,” she said, her mouth suddenly dry. “Andreas, wait,” she called to her steward an instant later. “Fetch us wine.”
With a bow, the man left to do so.
“So … You called for me,” Kirke said, standing with her hands behind her back. “And I’m basically here. You don’t look so good, truth be told. Are you sleeping enough? Yeah, it’s really important to get proper rest. An overtaxed mind cannot process what it sees in the Sight, you know. I’ve heard that—”
“Do be silent,” Athene moaned, and Kirke snapped her mouth shut.
A moment later, Andreas returned, small amphora under one arm, and a pair of bowls clutched between the fingers of his other hand.
“Kirke will not be having wine this morning,” Athene said, to which her steward inclined his head, leaving the amphora and a single bowl.
“Oh, ah, I could have actually gone for a sip or three …” Kirke began, then trailed off when Athene leveled a withering gaze at her.
“I need more.”
“Yeah, clearly you’ve not had nigh enough yet. If you like, I could probably find a cart to run over your face, too, in case you need further abuse.”
Athene poured herself some wine and decided to ignore both the barb and the Nymph’s temerity. When she had downed the whole bowl, she leaned back in her throne. “Did you turn the Prince of Rassenia into …” Athene couldn’t believe she was even going to say this. “Did you turn him into a bird?”
“Well, you don’t seem to think I did, so perhaps we should leave it at that and both remain the happier for it. I mean, really, ‘turn him into a bird’ is so ambiguous after all. It could mean all sorts of things, if you really think about it. Perhaps I, err … well, that is, what it means, as a kind of euphemism you see, that I made him crow or some such thing. And you wouldn’t really want to know about it—”
Athene flung the empty bowl at Kirke’s feet, shattering it and sloshing the dregs over the woman’s sandals. “Enough. You have no idea what you’ve done now. I was building a diplomatic relationship with Rassenia on Pandion’s behalf. For all we know, they may now think to make war over this, Kirke! The sheer unbelievability of the claim those sailors will bring back may be all—if aught—that stops them from launching a fleet of ships at us.”
“Yeah … Mnemosyne retreated to the farthest shores long ago. She doesn’t want war with any Elládosi polis. She doesn’t want any involvement at all, hardly … Can’t much blame her.” That last was mumbled, but Athene caught it.
“That’s not the point!” That Kirke was right had absolutely no bearing. “You have jeopardized the peace and my son’s future.”
Kirke snickered. “Yeah, true. But, you know, maybe having his mother spiral into depravity and addiction won’t be ideal for Pandion’s prospects either. I mean, I thought you had hit the bottom of that hole, but then you just set about with a shovel and decided to go deeper, even if you buried yourself with the dirt.”
Pneuma surged through Athene unbidden and before she knew what she was doing she had closed the distance between herself and her half-sister. Still, she restrained herself from striking the other woman. Her sudden rush forward with the speed of a gale ought to serve as enough reminder of the difference between a true Titan and a Nymph like her. “You must leave Kronion this very day, Kirke. You are no longer welcome here.”
Her sister frowned, falling back a step. “And where do you imagine you’ll get your next dose? Buy it on the street? Maybe hit up the local brothels and see if they keep some in the back for special customers?”
The woman would not stop, would she? “I have half a mind to turn you over to Father for brewing that filth! Look what it has done to me! Look what you have done to your sister!” She saw spittle from her outburst pelt Kirke’s face.
Grimacing, her sister ran her palm over her eyes and mouth to wipe it away. “What you’ve done to yourself. I offered you a drink, yeah, true, and you decided you needed to claim the whole cellar for yourself. But you’re right, you do have half a mind. Half, at best. You’ll turn me in to Olympus and say what, that you’ve been funding and harboring my work for the past decade? Think that will go over well with dear Papa?”
Athene stared at Kirke, aghast. Had that been part of her plan? Athene had caught Kirke with Nectar, and Kirke had drawn her in and made it so she could never use it against her. And Athene had leapt in with both feet. “Get out of my city, Kirke. I don’t want to see you here again.”
The chills that wracked Athene came and went. The worst of them had been two nights back, when her stomach had heaved and churned, trying to dislodge everything she had eaten in the past millennium. Pandion had sat beside her, in turns weeping or begging her to tell him what was wrong while he mopped her brow.
But how was she to tell her son she was addicted to Nectar? How was she to admit she not only used, but facilitated the spread of, a drug his grandfather had declared death to sample?
She was burning up and soaked in sweat and she was frozen solid, teeth chattering.
And, Nyx, those headaches! Like a Cyclops had smashed her temples with a club a few dozen times.
Once, she opened her mouth to beg Pandion to kill her. Only the fact he was her son had stopped her, for no child should have to suffer such a request. Even if it meant she was ripped apart in solitary agony.
Or maybe the worst of it was the question … was her mind even her mind?
And were the things she had beheld even real?
But even those ravages passed, and the cravings, while never quite gone, became less frequent. Pandion came into his own, and the mortal aristoi elected him their king, as Athene had foreseen. As she had arranged, in fact, with subtle prodding, bribes, blackmail, and a decade of driving away or dissuading potential rivals.
The visions had helped with that, and Kirke had planted no few seeds herself, despite her intimations that the whole election was a sham. Maybe it was, but her son had basked in radiance from it, and that meant everything, in the end.
So she’d ordered a new palace constructed for the mortal kings, one not far from her own, and while work began on it, they had planned his coronation. The aristoi came, even from Thebes and Argos, and, yes, Korinth too, to see the first king of Kronion.
All gathered in the agora, a throng of aristoi, with commoners far behind them. Athene marched through the Colonnade of Justice, a gilded laurel crown resting upon her palms and a trail of advisors following behind her. Them, and Demeter herself, come from Thebes, along with Kadmus and Harmonia.
At the far end knelt Pandion, admirably composed, face lit with understandable pride. Her son. Her boy, almost fifteen now, and cresting into manhood. And Athene had seen the long line of champions and heroes that would spring from him, governing this city for centuries to come.
It was something to be proud of. Maybe it was even enough … to let go of the past.
Athene pushed the thoughts down. She would not allow Hephaistos into this solemn moment, and the Titan had not been fool enough to attend. No, and she would not bring him here herself.
Reverently, she set the laurel crown upon Pandion’s head. “Rise, King of Kronion.”
Her son did so, then turned to take in the gathered throng and spread his arms wide, sparking cheers and applause that echoed through the agora. “Not Kronion, Mother,” he said, when the clamor had at last died down. “Kronion was named in honor of your grandfather Kronos, who betrayed the world, and we have long since surpassed him. From this day forth, this polis shall bear the name Athenai, in your honor, Mother.”
Despite herself, Athene felt blood flush her face. Olympians did not name poleis after themselves as the Ouranids had, and yet Pandion had declared this, in full hearing of the public. All she could do was let her hand alight atop her boy’s head and take the gesture as he meant it.
Then, among the faces of the crowd, she caught sight of her mother’s own golden eyes, smiling. When Mother saw her looking, she nodded at Athene.
This was it. A perfect moment, and all her striving had brought them here. Pandion was king, her mother had returned—and how could Athene not have feared when Mother had gone to the Underworld and lingered there?—and all was as it should be.
Only … what had her vision meant? In the months since, she had oft asked herself this question. Babilim was a city in Kumari Kandam, but hardly one worthy of note. That, she had to assume, would one day change in the future.
A grand festival was held in Pandion’s honor, and people of Kronion—of Athenai, she supposed—flocked to the streets and clogged the Colonnades. On a rock outcropping of the acropolis, Athene walked with her mother, looking down on the polis below. While the footing was precarious, she had little fear of losing her balance, even without relying upon Pneumatikoi.
“You saw Persephone?” Athene asked, not looking back at her mother, who seemed no more troubled by their vantage than Athene.
The silence dragged on long enough Athene finally glanced back. “I saw her,” Mother said, her voice far away and so heavy with burden Athene dare not ask further about her time in the Underworld.
Such a thing, passing among ghosts and wandering in the shadows, that was not for her in any event. Once, in her youth, she had asked her mother whether she ought to pursue sorcery, as Mother had taught Kirke.
“I think that is not your path, and now, knowing all I have learned, I would not send anyone down the road, least of all one I love as a child.” Her words had haunted Athene, especially for their implication that, while she would not condone Athene studying the Art, it was now too late for herself and Kirke. As if there was no way back from such depths and one could only ever delve deeper into the forbidden truths.
Truths like that which this Mithra had promised her.
Well, that was a problem for another time.
“You have made your son king, and now Sisyphus is dead and the Kreiad genos reeling.” Mother laid a hand upon Athene’s shoulder. “Tell me your vengeance is complete.”
Hmm. There was a part of her, now, that wanted to believe that, though her visions had also revealed her flaying Hephaistos’s father. Sometimes, in the dark of night, she latched onto that image to help keep the flame of her hate stoked.
And just as Hephaistos had bound her in orichalcum and left her powerless, so too would she find herself chained before Mithra. “He stole my strength, Mother.” It would happen again. “He stole my honor. Stripped my choices from me and made me his slave. How shall that ever pass? Would the great Hekate tolerate such indignities and wave them away? Would she relegate such things to the past?”
With a groan, her mother slumped down upon the rocks, drawing Athene to sit beside her. “Do you really believe I have suffered no indignities in nigh four millennia of life? Do you think I hold my position on Olympus, such as it is, without having to let lie old grievances?”
Her mother’s words burned in her. Almost … almost tempting. “He and his line must suffer.”
“You can be more than this,” her mother said, eyes hard. “You can be better than this vat of boiling vitriol, Athene. I have seen you as a champion of Man, a protector of heroes.” Heroes like Theseus, going after this Minotaur, whatever that was? There was truth to her mother’s words, and they spoke to her but …
“His line must suffer,” she repeated, wondering if she was trying to convince Mother or herself. She set her jaw. She would see it through, then attend to the future. “Hephaistos has a daughter, does he not?”
Her mother sighed, nodding. “Yes, he does, a young woman in Lydia. Her name is Medusa.”
30
Pandora
201 Golden Age
* * *
In the fish-shaped tub, Pyrrha cooed, murmuring nonsense while Pandora wiggled her fingers in the water, creating eddies to amuse the child. She and Prometheus sat on the floor of their room, lounging upon a whale mosaic. The better part of a month had passed since his return, and their conversations now, precious though they were, had begun to amount to the same as Pyrrha’s nascent attempts as speech.
Nonsense to entertain and placate one another. Emotions given voice, even without thought.
“You could stay a lifetime, really,” Prometheus said with the air of a man who knew better. “You could go back at any time.”
“I could,” Pandora said, her own words cutting her chest open. “I could, perhaps whelp a few more babes, maybe wait until silver threads through my hair. Then I ought to be in the best possible shape to scale the slopes of Olympus and confront almighty Zeus. I was thinking, once our grandchildren are born, I will perhaps challenge him to a bout of pankration on his throne room floor. If I can pin him, he must surely release you.”
“Wrestling him may not be the answer. Perhaps something more indirect.”
Every laugh that wrinkled Pyrrha’s face was the most wondrous, most agonizing instant of Pandora’s life. What mother could leave their child behind? How could she ever contemplate such a course? It was inhuman to be forced to this, and she could not forgive the Moirai for whatever part they played in placing her in such a situation.
Fate had twisted her in knots and sliced her to ribbons. And like a fool, she lingered here, somehow believing Ananke would suddenly turn benevolent and take mercy upon her.
But then, weren’t all people fools in the face of destiny?
From her window overlooking the sea, Pandora spied the ships closing in upon Thebes’s harbor, though she had no view of the harbor itself. From this distance, she could not say whether these were the same ones that had assaulted Ogygia just under two months ago, but she suspected so. The island of Kronion formed the Strait of Korinth, which meant the northernmost shore of Kronos’s homeland lay only a short sail away from Thebes.
