The Heir of Olympus and the Forest Realm (21 page)

“Do not harm anything in there,” Chiron warned. “That club should only be used for self-defense.”

Gordie gathered himself at this ominous proclamation and started down the trail towards the trees, grumbling the whole way. As he reached the point where the path dipped into the vegetation, he looked back at Chiron who smiled and gave him a cheery wave. Gordie fought the urge to return his salute with one that was decidedly less friendly. The centaur disappeared from view as Gordie stepped into the forest.

9

The Realm of Dasos

“This is so frickin’ stupid!” Gordie stomped through the forest. “Pickin’ frickin’ fruits. You gotta be frickin’ kiddin’ me!”

The path he was on was a winding, downhill, dusty trail. All kinds of trees marked the boundaries of the walkway: oaks, maples, chestnuts, beeches. Gordie wondered if the bat over his shoulder was kin to any of these. Barks from deep woody brown to egg-shell white (save for spots of green moss) welcomed him to the wood. A seemingly endless variety of bushes and ferns danced around the trunks of the trees, some sporting berries which he inspected greedily, hoping that he might find dates and figs.

“They grow on trees, stupid,” Gordie told himself. He had some notion that both fruits grew on different palm species and, as he traipsed deeper into the deciduous cradle, he began to wonder if he had been sent on a wild-goose chase. The decline of the slope was nearly imperceptible now, and he continued to follow the trail, hoping that he would eventually run into his sweet prey.

The forest was thick and cool, but occasional sun spots broke up the duskiness. From time to time a bird flitted across his path or a squirrel chided him from above. As these creatures and plants were no different than those he had already seen, he drove on. He heard an occasional rustle in the bushes along the path, making him snap his head around looking for stalkers, but there never appeared to be any threats.

Resigned to his fate to meander hopelessly, Gordie decided to make the best of the situation and drink in the forest. He tried to mimic the whistle of a tweeting bird, stopping it mid-song, apparently miffed at the interruption. He chattered back at the chiding tree hoppers in a show of solidarity that was not reciprocated. Seeing the face of a raccoon peek out of a bush, he greeted it with a, “Hi, little guy,” to which the furry bandit turned tail and skirted off.

The heat began to rise in the gloom as the sun climbed. His small breakfast was starting to wear off and he considered popping a couple of those berries he had seen around. He decided to hold off, not sure what was or was not poisonous, but he thought sooner than later he wouldn’t care anymore. The day dragged on like this.

Gordie’s forced good mood began to wane again after a few hours of aimless wandering. He was at least grateful that this one-track path would be easy to retrace, but he became increasingly frustrated by his lack of discovery. He considered heading off into the thicket around him, but afraid that he might lose his way, he resolved to strive on. He started to become envious of the happy creatures dancing around him, wondering where they got their sustenance—he was now running on fumes. Coincidentally, the humidity had risen so high in this claustrophobic corridor that he could almost see fumes dancing in the haze.

His feet were dragging, his head was pounding, his stomach was screaming, his tongue was dry as sandpaper.

Gordie was angry with himself for being so eager to sprint headfirst into training. It was excruciatingly apparent that he had not recovered from his mild coma, and he expected to be crawling again soon, like the last leg of his trudge out of Hades. Before he gave in altogether and lay down for a dirt nap, relief gurgled into his ears.

Ahead of him Gordie heard the gentle babble of some sort of stream or brook, which he could see just twenty feet off the path. He clambered over some bushes to grab a drink. Setting his bat down, he squatted to rinse his face in the creek. He took a tentative sip of the water and realized with delight that it was the most clean and crisp he had ever tasted.

After a few more handfuls of the fresh spring, the fogginess in his head melted away. Gordie felt energized and alert, no longer grumpy about the frivolous task set to him, and truly appreciative to be in the heart of this lively wood. He heard a little splash upstream and turned his head, but not in time to locate the source. He rinsed his face once more.

“Ahh!” Gordie fell back onto his butt in a tuft of moss, startled by a woman that was standing in the stream watching him. Calling her a woman would not be quite accurate, though. She was definitely
shaped
like a woman, but from head to toe, every inch of her was made of flowing water. Gordie eyed her up and down in amazement, trying to determine which way the water was flowing, but there did not appear to be any pattern to it—it just swirled around and through her in every direction. He didn’t know if he should look away or not because she was unclothed, making him feel a little feverish.

Gordie rose back to his feet, but kept his distance. Her features were difficult to make out since they were so fluid, but she looked friendly enough.

“Um, hey,” he said. “I’m sorry I tried to . . . drink you?”

She was nearly his height with hair that literally flowed over her shoulders. She was the pale blue of arctic water—translucent, reflective, yet discernible. He could see distorted flowers and rocks behind her, as well as his own reflection dancing in her dynamic features. At the same time, he could see the curvature of her face, her short, smooth nose, and even her eyelids, as they blinked like miniscule waves crashing on the shore. Her eyes were tiny maelstroms, swirling inward, but in opposite directions, with deep centers that looked almost like pupils.

“I’m Gordie.” He put his hand on his chest. “What’s your name?” He gestured towards her with an outstretched hand.

She continued to watch him and he felt like an idiot, knowing that she could not speak, and most likely couldn’t understand him. But then she waved her hand outward—like Gordie had when gesturing towards her—and a deluge of water splashed onto a nearby rock. The water originated from her hand, but her arm remained whole.

Gordie looked down at the rock she had flooded and wondered at the symbols left glistening on the smooth stone surface in three-dimensional bubble-letters:

πομπηία

He recognized the letters from the books his mom used to read to him, but he had no idea what it said. It was literally Greek to him.

Assuming that these symbols were her name, he said, “It’s nice to meet you,” carefully avoiding the use of a proper noun. But he did, at least, understand what she was. “You’re a naiad, right?”

She covered her mouth with her hand and emitted a gurgling sound that he thought must be a giggle and nodded.

Naiads were water nymphs who specifically hung out in rivers and streams, as opposed to Poseidon’s sea-faring entourage, the Oceanids and Nereids. Gordie had some recollection of the naiads being flirtatious in lore, and this gurgling coquette definitely fit that description. Her movements were very sensuous, exaggerated by her constant fluidity. Even her giggle made him blush, giving him confused feelings: he had never liked water so much before.

With her whirlpool eyes fixed on him, she gracefully outstretched her arm and beckoned him forward with two lively fingers. Mesmerized, he approached her, stumbling over pebbles as he went. When Gordie was within arms-reach of her, he just stared into her face, completely mystified, and he could see that she was smiling at him. The heat rose to his face again. In a moment of inspiration he raised his right hand, facing his palm outward towards her. She looked down at his offering and mimicked his gesture.

Upon contact, Gordie could feel her liquid form pulsating against his skin. She was lukewarm, like a heated pool. She locked her fingers into his and he jumped in alarm as her hand exploded into a torrent running over his wrist, but in an instant her limb regenerated, and he looked back at her in amazement, making her giggle again. She then raised her other hand in the same mime-trapped-in-a-box position, and he mimicked her.

But the second they made contact she pulled her arm away in alarm and looked up at him with wide-eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Gordie asked, right before he realized the issue: that was the hand that he had dipped in the River of Souls. “It’s okay,” he said, “it’s just from Styx.”

She looked at him in wonder before offering up her hand again, watching with delight as their fingers interlocked without dispersing her molecules.

She looked back up at Gordie (their hands still entwined) and bestowed him with an enormous grin as she squeezed his hand. An overwhelming sense of foreboding grasped him, but she did not allow him time to protest.

In an instant they were flying downstream fast as a speedboat. Gordie fought for breath as his body bounced in and out of the water of a river, though he could have sworn the stream was just inches deep. Through the crystal clear water he could see plants of every color swaying in the gentle current at the bottom of the river bed, brilliant neon fish that he had never seen before, and with a start, he noticed that they were being followed by a pack of women, barely discernible in the water because they were made of the selfsame fluid. When his head bounced above the surface he only heard the sound of whizzing along with his gasping breaths. Below the surface he heard the giggles of a group of young women, presumably those chasing him through the channel.

Gordie alternated between states of panic where he thought he was going to drown, and sheer astonishment at being privy to this world unseen by humans. When the novelty of the ride wore off, however, he tried to impress upon his guide his desire to dock. His screams were interrupted by vehement gurgles every time he sank beneath the surface of this definitely-not-lazy river. Without realizing that the train had reached the station, he was catapulted out of the water, hurtling through the air until he skidded to a halt on luscious grass.

Panting and coughing up water, Gordie pushed himself onto all fours as he fought to regain breath. He looked to his left and saw his captor standing on the waterway, giggling again, but this time joined by a troop of girls like her at her back. He felt like a kid who had just been pantsed in front of the popular girls at school, and he blushed.

“Very funny,” he snapped. “I almost drowned, but whatever.”

Her giggles ceased and she cocked her head, beckoning him once more. He was far more timid this time, but she had some sort of power over him, so he approached.

When they were once again face to face, the naiad gave Gordie a coy apologetic look, which transformed his anger into a similarly passionate emotion. She then grabbed his hand, pulled him to the bank, and kissed him. It was certainly the wettest kiss he had ever been involved in, but not in a bad way. He couldn’t tell if he could feel her lips on his or not, but he felt
something
roiling around on his smackers. His body relaxed into a stupefied sense of satisfaction before she pulled away from him. She gave him a bashful wave before she and her posse of naiads sank into the water and disappeared.

Gordie’s immediate sense was one of grave disappointment that one feels upon blowing a chance with a crush. In fact, it felt a lot like his last interaction with Bridget. As that sense of regret faded, it was replaced by a more survival-oriented instinct and he began to look around, trying to make heads or tails of where he was.

He was in some sort of glade. The vibrant vegetation here made Chiron’s forest look like a dreary marsh. The flora was no longer limited to deciduous species—everywhere he looked he could see plants from every corner of the world.

A towering thorn acacia was encircled by a ring of young, playful cedars as if they were frozen in some sort of tribal dance; a tremendous sequoia competed with a massive rainforest kapok tree, stretching their limbs to the heavens in a contest to see which was the greater skyscraper; a blue spruce stood plump and squat as a palm tree he didn’t recognize leaned over to caress it. Gordie could see little fruits hanging from the fronds of that palm and he approached excitedly.

The fruits were hanging in bunches five feet over his head, so he couldn’t reach them. Lamenting his latent power, Gordie looked for a different way to harvest these treats. He hugged the tilting trunk of the palm and shimmied his way outward while hanging upside down. When he reached the bunches, he stretched with one arm, making sure his legs were wrapped securely around the wood, and snatched a couple of the dark fruits. As he popped one into his mouth he celebrated his discovery of a date tree while moaning over the delectability of the morsel. He snatched a big bunch of the dates before releasing his feet and dropping onto the soft ground like a two-legged cat.

The cluster that he had commandeered had at least twenty fruits on it, so he plopped down happily and munched a couple more. Looking around, he took in the endless variety of species that he had not registered before. Cacti, willows, bonsais, olive trees, magnolias all basked in the mid-afternoon sun. A Venus flytrap gawked at him open-mouthed with malice written on its indistinct features. Flowers of every color bloomed from different trees and bushes. The grass on which he reclined was as plush as a goose-down comforter. This place was absolute paradise.

Gordie hopped back to his feet feeling replenished and elated, and headed off in search of figs. He got lucky with the date tree, but he had no idea what a fig tree looked like. He was not deterred by this, though. He wouldn’t mind spending the rest of his life wandering around this magical wood in search of its hidden wonders. He took one last glance at the river to mark his position, then turned to head in the opposite direction into the heart of the forest.

And he was stopped dead in his tracks.

He was on a wide corridor bordered by these many different plant species. The path on which he stood was straight and ran for miles until it opened onto the base of a mountain. The single peak towered over the landscape, nearly a third of it capped in snow. The mountain’s authority was palpable. It was clearly taller than Mount Pelion. Gordie couldn’t help but wonder where on Earth he was. He saw a winged creature soaring in the clear blue sky near the peak and rubbed his eyes to inspect it again, but it had disappeared. The bird must have been enormous to be visible from this great distance. When he finally adjusted to the sublime scenery he pressed on down the wooded strip.