The Heir of Olympus and the Forest Realm (11 page)

“Why don’t you come here, dear?” the sweet voice addressed him again. “We have no intention of hurting you. We only wish to show you.” Her voice was pacifying and his horror defrosted into a lukewarm disquiet.
Show me what?
Gordie thought. He allowed his feet to begin the assent of the narrow rock bridge before him, but he remained alert, cautious. 

As Gordie crept towards her he took in her body. The gray skin stretched over her back was mottled with patches of pale spots like fresh mold cropping up across a brick of cheese. Each vertebra was visible through the thin epidermis, encased on each side by the outline of rib bones wrapping around her body. She looked as if she hadn’t eaten in centuries. Her hair was a coarse gray tangle of curls with strands fleeing for their lives in every direction. Her appearance nauseated him and he had to take long, controlled breaths to keep down his breakfast.

“Who are you?” Gordie whispered when he was within five feet of her, watching her weave at what he now recognized was a loom, with the litheness of a concert pianist. Her hands were working so deftly that he was surprised the mechanism didn’t produce music.

“We are the
Moirai.
The ‘Fates’ in your tongue,” the wise voice responded from the front of the decrepit seamstress before him. His brain began to whir into action as he searched his encyclopedia of the Greek mythos.

“Clotho?” Gordie was still whispering, though he was not sure why. He knew there were three Fates, but that was the only name he could remember.

“That is me, dear,” the sweet old woman responded.

“Don’t forget me, you little
koprophage,
” the gravelly voice said. Gordie ignored the insult (mostly because he didn’t understand it). “I am the most important of the three. Atropos is my name. I decide your death,” she cackled.

“And I am Lachesis,” the third voice rang with dignity. Something told Gordie that she commanded the authority, regardless of what Atropos claimed.

“I don’t understand. Where are the other voices coming from? Are two of you invisible?”

“Not at all,” the gravelly voice responded. And with that, the old woman spun around in her stool, sending a fresh wave of horror crashing over him.

Where her breasts should have been, there were two small heads, each with a set of arms protruding from where a neck would be. Gordie became extremely hot and lightheaded before he fell to all fours. He stared at the solid stone beneath him, trying to regain composure.

“What- what is this place? Is this a dream?” Gordie breathed, still studying the floor because he did not think he had the steel to look at the disfigured creature yet.

“Yes . . . and no,” Lachesis said. “You are both in this place and not. But you needn’t understand. That is not why we have brought you here. Rise.” Her commandment was unwavering. Her voice had a magical quality: it coursed through Gordie like dish soap through the pores of a sponge; it gave him the strength that he did not believe he had, and he obeyed without question. Planted firmly on his feet once again, he was able to face his elders with a shiny new resolve.

“What happened to you? Why are you like this?” Gordie asked the left chest-head, easily recognizable as Lachesis. Upon closer inspection, Atropos was as ugly as she was cruel. Her teeth ware disfigured and uneven, and her brow overhung, Cro-Magnon-like, shadowing her jet-black eyes. Lachesis was not beautiful, but power radiated from her despite her incomplete form. Her features were smooth, as if she had been carved out of marble. Her eyes were a billowy gray, like storm clouds trapped inside snow globes. The wisdom contained within those eyes was inescapable. Clotho, the host body, looked the same in this place as she did on the plane. Benevolent wrinkles were crocheted around her gentle features, almost as if they existed solely to frame her glowing eyes. Gordie now realized that her gaze contained none of the hostility that he had previously imagined, only concerned contemplation as she smiled at him—it almost felt as though she truly cared for him.

“How should we be?” Lachesis asked.

“Well . . . I dunno, ya know . . . like, three whole bodies.”

“How is it that we speak better English than this fool?” Atropos asked.

“Quiet, Atropos,” Lachesis commanded. “It is true we were once three separate entities,” she addressed Gordie. “We have power over all—you know this. We control fate, destiny,
moira.
We see all. We know all. Yet recently, our power was challenged.”

“I’m sorry, but what do you mean you have power over all? What if I don’t believe in destiny?” Gordie said, resentful of the notion that he did not have control over his own life.

“Oh, he does not believe! Shall I make him?” Atropos was now holding a large, jagged pair of scissors in her hands; where they had come from Gordie did not know. She was snipping the air with a crazed gleam in her eye.

“Enough.” Lachesis’s voice cut more definitely than those scissors. “It does not matter if you believe. It is so. You ask why we are in this state and I will answer, but I do not wish to be interrupted again.”

“Sorry,” he said, hanging his head.

“Until recently we held the power over all. We decided the fate of all, even the gods. But, as I say, that power has been challenged.” A flicker of understanding lanced through Gordie’s mind, but he remained silent.

“The King of the Gods attempted to destroy us,” she affirmed Gordie’s suspicions. “It was foretold that his reign was nearing its end. He did not take this news lightly. He sought us out in our place of solitude. He destroyed my body as well as that of my sister. With his bare hands he shattered our spines and left us dying on the ground.”

Gordie looked up at Clotho, trying to understand why she remained intact, and he was shocked to see silent tears streaming down her face. He was filled with a powerful sense of pity and a yearning to comfort her, but also, an incontrovertible sense of awe. The fluid escaping her tear ducts was not saline, but a viscous gold secretion:
Ichor
—the blood of the immortal beings of Olympus. Gordie’s concern deepened as he realized she was weeping her own life-source.

“Then he came to Clotho in his fury, bound her to the stool in which she now sits, and commanded her to weave him a new fate—one where he is not forgotten, one where he regains his rule of the world. He transformed into an eagle and flew back to Mount Olympus, leaving Clotho alone at her loom, flanked by the dying bodies of her sisters.

“But Clotho did not weave the tapestry of fate,” Lachesis continued. “Using Atropos’s shears she cut our heads and arms from our dying bodies and sewed us into her own. And now we live on—three become one, not unlike what lies ahead for you.” She fixed him with a calculating stare.

“What do you mean, ‘what lies ahead for me?’ What’s gonna happen?”

“That is difficult to say. Our powers of foresight have been greatly weakened with the destruction of our bodies, but it is clear that you are one of three entities, destined to become one.” Gordie could not comprehend the meaning of this. Was he going to end up with two heads sewn onto his chest?

“I don’t understand,” he said in frustration.

“Neither do we. As I have said, our powers are diminished. But in time, understanding will come to all.”

Gordie didn’t see this going anywhere productive, so he pressed on for other answers.

“Why didn’t Zeus come back to kill you? I mean, you didn’t change his fate, right?” he asked, suddenly frightened.

“We did not. We could not. The fates we weave now are incomplete. There could be countless manifestations of what the threads of destiny show us. We survive for the same reason as you. The messenger took pity upon us and told Zeus that we had woven his new fate—that his future is everlasting and he will become the ruler of this world.” Gordie thought there was something she was not telling him, but he could feel it building.

“All he must do to attain this power,” all three heads eyed him as she paused mid-sentence, “is destroy you.”

Comprehension spread across Gordie’s face, betraying the supernova of anger that had just erupted in his brain, as he glowered at this creature—at least in part—responsible for his father’s death.

“Kill me?” he screamed. “You told him to kill me?! Do you know what happened when he tried to kill me? He killed my DAD!” Without realizing it, Gordie had collapsed onto all fours again, pounding the rock beneath him, angry tears streaming down his face.

“We know, dear,” Clotho said in her soft voice. “We are very sorry for what happened to your father. You must understand, our powers had been compromised—we did not see what would happen to him. Hermes assured us he would keep you safe, and we thought with your strength, you could defeat Zeus.” There was a mournful, apologetic tone in her voice.

“But it doesn’t matter.” Atropos’s harsh growl cut through the sweetness. “You are alive and you will decide Zeus’s fate. Your father is dead and no one can change that. You must make Zeus pay for what he did to us!”

“
US?!
You did this! You’re just as responsible!”

“Our judgment will come.” Lachesis’s matter-of-fact statement hung in the dark. “Already we are fading from this world. But Zeus will not. Not unless you do what you were destined to do.”

“Screw destiny!” Gordie was back on his feet, raining spittle down upon this shriveled monster, jabbing his accusing finger at their collective chest, right at the heart of all three beings. “Why should I do anything you say?!”

“But you will fight Zeus.” Lachesis’s voice was composed. “He killed your father. It does not matter if you believe in your fate or not. You will make it so for your own vengeance.” And Gordie realized that she was right. He had no intention of turning back now, regardless of whether or not his father’s death was preordained. He felt used. Like a puppet. He was angry at them for making him angry at the oppressor that
they
had forced into his fate.

“You must understand,” Clotho said, now pleading with him. “It does not matter now. Zeus believes you to be dead and he will try to reclaim this world. He believes it to be
his
fate. He would have all humans die for forgetting him. This world has moved on, but he will not allow it. It is not about you and your father anymore. It is about mankind, and you must be its savior.”

Gordie could feel the weight of this heavy burden crash down upon him. Suddenly, he was not an angry man on a mission to kill the guy who murdered his father—he was a helpless child smothered in a cosmological collision, overwhelmed by an impossible task beyond any power. The endless expanse before him began to feel claustrophobic.

“How? I-I can’t. I’m not a . . . a hero. I can’t do this.” Gordie stared into the preeminent eyes of Lachesis, silently pleading for her to change his fate.

“You possess a great power . . . you know this,” she said. “You must harness that power. It is beyond our sight now to determine what will happen to you. We no longer control the fate of the world, but you very well may.”

“But I have no idea what to do!” he said. “Besides, I only have power once every twelve days! That doesn’t even make sense! How am I supposed to beat Zeus when I’m just a weak little kid the other eleven days?”

“You’re right. You’re a stringy little boy,” Atropos said.

“For now. I told you that you must harness that power,” Lachesis said. “Zeus did not attack us until after your fate was foretold—at least the beginning. Show him, Clotho.”

The seamstress swiveled in her stool and turned back to her loom. She began weaving a new tapestry. The strands of the thread looked like liquid silver as they flowed over and through her profound knuckles. In a matter of seconds the tapestry transformed into moving pictures. It was like Gordie was watching a movie as she was weaving it. And he was the star.

Gordie was walking through a dark field of flowers. The scene skipped forward as he was approaching some kind of enormous portal, a great black gate, leading out of an underground tunnel, with dazzling sunlight pouring in. Now he was in a cave with a horse, but he realized with a start that it was not a horse at all. It was a
centaur.
From the waist down the man had the body of a magnificent Thoroughbred, whose hair was so black that it reminded Gordie of the nothingness surrounding this place in which he stood. From the waist up, the man was as shredded as any body builder the world had ever seen. His full black beard was as absolute as his hide, and the features of his face told a tale older than time: patience, knowledge, strength, power.

Now the two of them were in a field and Gordie was dancing around the centaur’s spear attacks, knocking his weapon aside with his trusty bat. It didn’t appear to be a real fight, but some kind of training exercise.

“Is that Chiron?” Gordie asked with wonderment. In Greek mythology, Chiron was a centaur who trained all the greatest heroes, including none other than Hercules. He had been accidentally killed by Hercules, who shot him with an arrow dipped in the poisonous blood of the Hydra, while both were fending off an attacking centaur horde.

“Indeed,” Lachesis said. “You must bring him back to this world. He will guide you as he did your forefather.”

As Clotho continued to weave, the scenes became shorter and more disjointed. There was a brief image of Gordie swinging his club at a swarm of monstrous bats; an image of a heavily muscled, and gloriously bearded man climbing a mountain, wearing some type of shawl. He realized with a start that he was that man, and that shawl was the brilliant golden Nemean Lion Skin.