City of gods - Hellenica (12 page)

“Yes,” said Indra. “Striped hyaenas are quite intelligent, and we feel we can augment their abilities, perhaps moreso than dogs. We’re going to thicken his tongue and increase his brain size until he can talk. With your permission, of course.”

Saoirse looked at all the other dogs; they had unnaturally big heads but were otherwise beautiful.

“Granted,” she said.

“Good,” said Indra. “Among other things, you’ll learn the language of these creatures.”

The dog Kaiser came down from his cage and sat by Saoirse. He was large, perhaps weighing fifty kilograms. Saoirse came down and gave her hyaena a hug. She sensed a deep anxiety within him, as if he was worried that she might never come back.
He won’t hesitate to attack a god to defend me,
thought Saoirse,
but he’s not without fear. He fears abandonment and worries that I might die.

“I’ll return, but I must go,” said Saoirse. “I have a long day tomorrow.”

Saoirse got up to leave, but then knelt back down again and looked her hyaena in the eye.

“When I come back, you must have a name, so I’ll give you one now,” she said. “With your permission, I’d like to call you
Kross
.”

“
Kraa-suh,”
repeated Kaiser behind her. “
Kraa-suh.
”

THE BANSHEE

Kayana couldn’t sleep, which was rare. She had a nightmare that disturbed her deeply, which was rarer still; she dreamt the Spartan mercenary Cassander was meeting a brutal end at the hands of a demon. The dark spirit was doing vicious, unspeakable things to Cassander and there was nothing Kayana could do to stop it. She couldn’t move, and Cassander screamed endlessly while the demon had his fun.

The demon was cruel
, she thought upon waking,
so cruel that Cassander must have somehow felt it in his own dreams. That should not be.

She was trying to get back in the dream to free him from the demon, or at least avenge him. But she couldn’t fall asleep; she was too consumed with feeling. The emotion of
vengeance
was new to her, and she soon realized that she liked it quite a bit. It felt good; clean. She knew vengeance to be a pitiable, puerile emotion, but she found it simplified the world and brought it into focus.

I’ll fall asleep later
, she thought,
and I’ll find this demon. I’ll bring it such torment that it will never bother Cassander again, in my dreams or anywhere else.

She heard a quiet yell outside her window. It was faint but powerful, like an echo from a girl who died screaming a century ago. Kayana opened her window to the courtyard, but couldn’t see anything. She felt a strong breeze blowing in her face, and her black hair flew backwards, exposing the pale skin on the sides of her head. She sensed something was coming for her, and in the next moment the ghost of a woman wearing a flowing dress crashed through the window and came within inches of her face.

The spirit looked sickly and appeared to be in agony; her eyes were bleeding and her skin was a translucent white. The ghost threw Kayana to the top of the room. Kayana slammed into the ceiling, leaving a broken crack in the concrete. The wraith drove Kayana down to the ground and wrapped her hands around Kayana’s neck. Kayana felt this woman’s superhuman strength; she knew in the next few moments she could die.

But it’s not my time
, she thought,
not here and not now.

Kayana put her bare hands over the ghost’s face, and the ghost collapsed to the ground with a thud, motionless. Kayana straddled the spirit and stared into its eyes; she saw anguish and little else.

“Speak your intentions now, wraith,” said Kayana, “or I’ll take the life from you. Even if you have no more life to give, I’ll find a way to take more.”

“If only you could take my life,” said the ghostly woman, black blood pouring from her eyes, “I’d want nothing else.”

The spirit relaxed her grip and hinted that she was going to behave now. Kayana relaxed her grip too, and the specter flew up to the ceiling. The ghost turned around to talk; drops of blood were dripping from her eyes onto the ground, but she was no longer a threat.

“I apologize for the altercation,” said the ghostly woman. “I can’t help it. My anger comes out through my voice and I must stifle it, lest I kill someone. I am a Banshee.”

This is the Banshee that broke Rowan in half,
thought Kayana.
Her shriek can fell an army, so Rowan is lucky to be alive. Perhaps I’m even luckier to survive her throwing me against the ceiling.

“Why didn’t you kill the fool Rowan?” said Kayana. “The world would have been a better place.”

“Were it not for your guardian Bes, I would have,” said the Banshee.

“It would have been right for you to kill him,” said Kayana. “A youthful death for his kind
should be
.”

The Banshee flew at Kayana, picked her up and threw her at the ceiling once more, and then dropped her. The spirit then flew against the opposite wall herself and started to tear out her hair and gnash her teeth.
She’s trying to control her anger,
thought Kayana.
Don’t upset her anymore or she’ll scream and you’ll be destroyed.

The Banshee eventually calmed down and turned around to face Kayana. There was a pool of blood on the floor where her eyes had bled.

“Nothing here is as it
should be
, child,” said the Banshee. “Not in this school, not in this world. Everything is wrong. There are no rules, no meaning underlying our existence. So do not speak to me of how it
should be
.”

“I won’t,” said Kayana. “I assure you of that.”

The Banshee calmed down again and floated to the ground. She sat in the pool of blood until her dress was soaked.

“Come here, child,” said the Banshee.

Kayana came nearer, and the Banshee drew her in within a whisper’s distance.
It’s like peering into the barrel of a loaded gun,
thought Kayana. Kayana couldn’t help but smile; this was the first time in her life she had experienced the emotion
fear
.

“Have you any idea of what you can do?” asked the Banshee.

“My touch makes people die, and I disappear in shadows.”

The Banshee laughed, and it sounded like metal being torn in half.

“Those things are mere
powers
,” said the Banshee, “and mere
powers
are things that the gods have.”

“Am I not a god?” asked Kayana.

“You and your Horsemen are
deities
,” said the Banshee. “There’s a difference.”

“What is this difference?”

“Powers like incredible speed and superhuman strength are parlor tricks, nothing more,” said the Banshee. “The Horsemen don’t engage in parlor tricks. Your
powers
cannot be defined by a single sentence, nor are you bound by the number of worshippers you have.

“And of the Four Horsemen, it is you, Kayana, whose powers are the deepest and the most opaque. Gunnar can fight, Tommy can infect, and Saoirse can tell her animals to run through the forest. But your powers are deeper, so deep that even
I
don’t know their full extent.”

“I bring death,” said Kayana. “That seems quite simple to me.”

“It’s not; every culture has a death god, and none of them are simple. Hades: What exactly can he do? Is he strong? Can he fly? Can he disappear? No one knows, because no one
cares to know.
Each culture prefers not to think of the afterworld; they tuck death away into a dark temple hidden in the bowels of the city. No one prays to a death god, and no one curries favor from one; they just accept our kind and forget about us.”

“
Our
kind?” asked Kayana.

The Banshee rose upwards and Kayana feared she was about to yell, but the wraith stopped at the ceiling and spoke in an imperious voice.

“You really have no idea of
who you are
, do you, child?” asked the Banshee. “Myself, Hades, Hel, Shinigami; we’re merely caretakers of dead souls, nothing more. But you
are
Death.
Death!
Do you know what that means? You transcend our worlds and are the one link that binds us. We have
all
known you since the day you were born.”

“Then why did you let me grow up with human adoptive families, knowing that I’d bring them to their end?” said Kayana. “Why wasn’t I sent to Hades, or Hel, or raised by Shinigami?  Why did you place me where I was neither wanted nor needed?”

“We placed you with doomed families to hide you in plain sight,” said the Banshee. “Hades foretold that this was the only way to keep you from your enemies. When you imposed yourself to an institution, you put yourself at risk. I assure you if you’d stayed there, your enemies would have destroyed the whole place just to get at you.”

“My enemies?” asked Kayana. “I have neither friend nor enemy.”

“Rowan despises you, and he won’t be the first. Though you’ll travel through this world in the shadows, largely unseen, there will be those who want nothing more than your end. They’ll attempt to immolate you, tear out your heart and bury you alive. They’ll proclaim to the world their intent to kill you, or they’ll come in silence. They’ll bring an army, or they’ll send a single assassin. This is your lot; this is all of our kind’s lot.”

“Then what shall I do?” asked Kayana.

“Trust in your Horsemen. Do you care for them?”

“No,” said Kayana. “If they were to perish, I wouldn’t feel anything. But I recognize that they should—”

“That they should
be
. I’ve heard this before,” said the Banshee. “Learn to care for them. This is difficult for our kind, nigh impossible for you. But learn, for they’re the only ones that care
for you
. They’re your only protection against the Rowans of the world, and I assure you he is the least skilled of your enemies.

“And though this Academy is merely an artifice, this place will teach you to defend yourself. As of now, you can only exercise the simplest of your powers. If Lugh knew of your whereabouts, he’d send an army and you’d be defenseless.”

“I’ll keep that in mind next time I’m in Éire,” said Kayana.

The Banshee took Kayana and threw her up against the ceiling, causing more cracks. Kayana tried to escape her grasp but couldn’t; she was pinned.

“Do
not
take this lightly, child,” said the Banshee, hissing. “Learn your powers and you’ll be able to
take down
Lugh’s army. Your Horsemen have a destiny that transcends this Academy, and
your
destiny transcends
even the Horsemen
. If you fail to realize your potential out of indifference, it won’t be an army, an assassin, or even Lugh who brings you to your end. It will be me.”

The Banshee dropped Kayana and crashed through the window again. Kayana fell to the floor with a thud and heard a scream as the ghost faded into the distance. Kayana got up slowly, and then looked out the window. She could still hear the Banshee screaming as she flew away, but the wraith was gone.

THE FIRST CLASS

Gunnar got up in the morning well before dawn to do exercises and was surprised by Saoirse, who was sitting in a chair in the common room, strumming a lute. She was playing it quietly so she wouldn’t wake up her team, and Gunnar marveled at the deftness of her fingers as they flew over the strings, sweeping through scales and grabbing chord after chord.

“What are you doing up so early?” she asked.

“I was about to ask you the same thing,” he said.

“I’m up because I can’t sleep. My hyaena is having surgery and I’m worried. But you, I’ve known you for several days and haven’t seen you rest, not ever. How is that?”

Gunnar never revealed himself to anyone, but he felt different around Saoirse. Perhaps it was the way she spoke; perhaps it was part of her powers to be able to get others to trust her.
Perhaps you’re lonely
, thought Gunnar.
Perhaps you’ve been lonely all your life.

“It’s an old habit from the
Agoge,” said Gunnar. “I sleep, but no one sees me do it. Older Spartans would burst into our barracks early in the morning and steal our food, and sometimes torment us for hours afterwards.”

“What did you do about it?” asked Saoirse.

“I slept in hidden places,” said Gunnar, “but …”

Gunnar had no more words, but Saoirse helped him.

“But you can’t sleep in hidden places for an entire childhood,” said Saoirse. “They’ll find you.”

Her intuition is incisive, but she doesn’t use it to gain advantage over me,
thought Gunnar
. This isn’t a girl from the Agoge
.
For the first time in his life, Gunnar wanted to reveal his past and the bad things that were done to him. He even felt like he could tell Saoirse the dark parts of his history, the times where he did bad things to others.

“Yes,” he said, “they found me; they found all of us. I remember once some older Spartans uncovered our troop’s hiding place one evening and took our clothes, our food … everything. It was freezing, so we went over to their barracks and I begged for our clothes back on bended knee. I was eight years old.

“Their leader was a bully named Lysander and he returned a few blankets soaked in urine, nothing more. We took the blankets and survived that evening, but it was tough. Some of my troop began to cry and I yelled at them, ‘
Don’t shed a single tear; we’ll take everything back! Follow me and we’ll have our revenge.’
”

“Revenge,” asked Saoirse. “How do you feel about that?”

“It’s a weakness. Revenge is a base, useless emotion that enemies can use to defeat you,” said Gunnar. “But at the time I could think of nothing else. I had our group lay low for eight days, feigning defeat. On the last day I had us all drink water before bed, and the first to awake would wake us all.

“We woke three hours before dawn. We snuck into Lysander’s barracks, locked them in and barred all the exits. Then we doused their building with gasoline. I built a fire on the periphery and then wafted the smoke into the quarters. When the older Spartans awoke, I let them scream for a few minutes and figure out what a mess they were in. I wanted them to find out for themselves that we could kill them all if we so chose.

“‘Well played, Spartan!’
one of them yelled from within the garrison. ‘
We’ll give you back your clothes, your food and more.’

“‘Keep your clothes and food, we’ll steal all we need elsewhere,’
I said. ‘
Give Lysander to us and we’ll let you go unscathed.’”

Gunnar took a breath and frowned. He noticed Saoirse frowning too; like him, she took no joy in this tale of revenge.

“They brought Lysander to the roof,” said Gunnar. “That was the only way out, but it was three stories in height. They threw him off and he broke both his legs. We beat him savagely for another hour after that.”

“An hour is a long time to be beaten,” said Saoirse, “even for a Spartan.”

“Even from an eight-year-old,” said Gunnar. “He was never the same again. More importantly he had lost the respect of his troop, so who knows what happened to him.”

“But I’m sure your legend grew,” said Saoirse. “And I’m sure you were never quite comfortable with that.”

“Indeed,” said Gunnar, “I became troop leader and spent the next years excelling in just about everything. But I can’t forget how Lysander looked at me when he was taken away. He
smiled
, as if he was proud of my brutality. Perhaps he was just happy to leave, but nonetheless as he left he said,
‘Well played, Spartan. Soon you’ll do this to a Helot.’”

“I’ve heard of this practice,” said Saoirse. “To graduate the Agoge, the Spartan must murder a Helot in the middle of the night. Helots are—”

“Not like Lysander,” said Gunnar. “They’re innocent, often supporting a family, and bound and gagged when you see them.”

“Did you kill a Helot?” asked Saoirse.

Gunnar looked at her, ashamed.
I cannot reveal the truth too soon,
he thought,
but neither can I lie.

“It’s complicated,” he said.

Saoirse thought a minute and then looked into his eyes.

“Now you’re at the Academy, another school for warriors, filled with arcane rules,” she said.

“Indeed,” he said. “Perhaps this is my calling: to forever be trapped in a warrior’s school.”

“This isn’t the
Agoge,” said Saoirse. “I don’t know their goals here, and I know not if we can trust them. But the Academy is not cruel. They might ask us to do brutal things, but they value our trust in one another. Rowan will not urinate on your clothes, nor will they ask you to kill a Helot.”

“If they throw us into battle, the Helots of the world always find a way to die,” said Gunnar. “But yes; the Academy’s intent is noble, if not pure.”

Saoirse gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“My intent is pure,” she said, “and I don’t kill Helots, whether I’m a Horseman or not.”

Saoirse left Gunnar, and soon he began walking towards his first class, still an hour before anyone else awoke. It was going to be a lesson filled with intense physical training, and Gunnar wanted to get to the warriors’ field on the floor beneath them and warm up. He noticed that he was alone and decided to scout out the floor they were on, just in case he and his team would ever need to escape the Academy.

/***/

Gunnar walked outside his quarters and explored the area, first passing the courtyard and then walking by the teachers’ quarters.
These people aren’t your enemies,
thought Gunnar,
and
there is no need to set fire to their barracks.
He walked by the main elevator, the one that had brought them down to the Academy. It was currently up on the surface, and the hole was loosely guarded by a few structural bars; anyone could fall through it in the dead of night. The walls of the shaft were made of hollowed-out stone, but the bars that supported it were made of long steel rods, and when Gunnar peered in the tunnel he could see neither the top nor the bottom.
It seems to go on forever in both directions,
he thought,
but that cannot be. This hole is clean, structured and built. Perhaps it’s a millennium old, but it was built by men. And all things built by men end somewhere.

“Watch your back, someone might push you in,” said a voice coming from behind him. It was Heracles.

Gunnar turned around and saw the large god in front of him, pinning Gunnar in against the elevator shaft. Gunnar tried to walk away from the hole, but couldn’t; Heracles was just too wide. Gunnar stood his ground against the bearded god and showed no fear, because he had none. He was wedged against an endless drop, but Gunnar had faced both Heracles and death before, and he’d most likely face them again.

“Your Agoge training has served you well,” said Heracles. “I was hoping to surprise the Class of Warriors with an early-morning intrusion, but it appears that the Spartans never sleep.”

“I am no Spartan, and you’re wrong about the Agoge,” said Gunnar. “The Agoge teaches a Spartan to sleep
always
. We can sleep with hunger, under the rain, and surrounded by enemies. I woke because of curiosity, nothing more.”

“Then be aware, sleepy non-Spartan, that there will be hardships in your training here,” said Heracles. “Some easy in comparison to the Agoge, some much more difficult, some nigh impossible.”

“I welcome the challenge,” said Gunnar, “and if I fail, so be it.”

“I like the attitude, Redstone,” said Heracles, “but you must understand the role for which you’re being trained. There will be no ending line, no ranking against your comrades, no promotion to commander of your troop. There is no failure here, no success; there is only survival.”

“Then I still welcome the challenge,” said Gunnar, “and if I fail, so be it.”

Heracles smiled and bowed to Gunnar, bested in rhetoric, and Gunnar smiled in return. In a flash Heracles burst towards Gunnar, and quickly had Gunnar’s hands bound. Heracles pushed Gunnar over the edge of the tunnel, and soon Gunnar was leaning over, facing the endless drop. Gunnar’s arms were bent behind his back awkwardly and felt like they were about to come out of their sockets.
It hurts,
thought Gunnar,
but if I wriggle out, it will mean my death.

“
If you fail, so be it
?” asked Heracles. “Is this still your sentiment? Your code of ethos?”

Gunnar couldn’t get out of Heracles’s grasp; he considered his other options, and there were none.

“No,” said Gunnar, “this isn’t my code of ethos.”

“Survive, Gunnar,” said Heracles. “That’s all I ask of you.”

Gunnar laid still; Heracles held him facing the darkness, unmoving.

“I don’t want this, Heracles,” said Gunnar, his voice shaking slightly. “I beg of you, take me away from this tunnel.”

Heracles took Gunnar and shoved him away from the elevator shaft. Gunnar landed in a crouching position, and momentarily thought to run towards Heracles and have them both fall down to their deaths. But in another burst of speed Heracles had moved away, and was now behind Gunnar.             

“Watch for the elevator shafts, the bridges, the cliffs, and anywhere else you might be vulnerable,” said Heracles. “The strong often meet their end by the quiet and the shameless. And there are those on the surface who want nothing more than to push you down into the darkness, to destroy you before you raise your army. There are those who would kill you even if it means they die as well. One day, a shameless man will try to push you to your death. When that time comes, will your mantra still be ‘
if I fail, so be it’
?”

“I will not fail,” said Gunnar.

“You won’t,” said Heracles with a smile, “because I won’t let you.”

/***/

Gunnar’s Class of Warriors started the day with a run around the field. The Academy had many floors, and the floor below their quarters was a city unto itself. Technically, it was a city, a field, a weapons-testing range, a laboratory, and a gladiatorial arena. It was enormous.

The simulated city was for urban training, the gladiatorial arena was for one-on-one combat, and the seemingly endless grounds were for open-range fighting. They were running laps around the field under brutal conditions. Indra had turned up the heat and put two artificial suns in the sky so Gunnar was always blinded by the oncoming light.

“The enemy will always come from the sun to attack you!” yelled golden Indra. “They’ll come when you’re tired, grieving or sick. They’ll come when you’re sleeping. They’ll incinerate a hospital full of your loved ones in order to get a better shot at you.”

Gunnar was struggling with the run; the pit had taken away his long-term endurance. In the pit, victory depended on the quick strike, and most fighters had a thick layer of fat to absorb blows. Gunnar was not yet thick but had still lost most of his long-distance training he developed in the
Agoge. After the second hour of running, he started lagging behind, and soon he was last.

The three other members of the Warrior Class began to lap Gunnar, one by one. Alkippe the Amazon passed him, and her presence sent a small chill up Gunnar’s spine. She was tall and thick, and for this exercise she kept most of her brown hair in a braided bun, which was now soaked with sweat. Her appearance didn’t unnerve Gunnar so much, but he felt uncomfortable being this close to an Amazon and considered attacking her preemptively.
Amazons do bad things to Spartans
, thought Gunnar,
but I must admit that this Alkippe is impressive. She’d be in first place were it not for the fact that she refuses to remove her armor while she runs.

Horus, the falcon-faced Egyptian god of hunting, was doing pretty well too; he started out fast and then seemed to coast the rest of the way. His large eyes and beaked nose resembled that of a bird, but his body was that of a human, and his long, brown legs ran with effortless strides.
He runs as the falcon flies,
thought Gunnar.
He has a burst of speed, but he can also glide.