The Heir of Olympus and the Forest Realm (38 page)

The silence stretched on for a time. Apollo stood looking out on the world. Gordie stood behind him looking into the open air. He did not know what to say at this point, so he waited. When boredom struck, he examined the room. The wall to his right depicted Prometheus giving fire to the humans; the wall to his left displayed a different scene . . . one of war.

The scene was red with blood and fire. The landscape was wild—mountains running into a great field of wheat which crashed into a tumultuous sea. Dark clouds roiled, streaks of lightning cutting through them in every direction. The Olympians were painted, battling against an enemy that Gordie did not recognize. Warriors were dispersed across the landscape, some battling one on one, others fighting two or three enemies at a time. From three separate peaks giants with countless hands hurled boulders. Some of the projectile rocks were frozen in the air; some were painted at the exact moment they impacted the ground, chunks flying everywhere as they exploded. Gordie looked at the giants, and a name floated to the front of his brain: Hekatonkheires—the hundred-handed ones.

In the upper right-hand corner, a charcoal, winged horse carried an archer. Gordie recoiled as he recognized a much younger Apollo unleashing arrows from his flying steed. His face was alight with battle frenzy; it made him terrible to behold. Gordie followed the path of his arrow and saw it sticking through the chest of a great four-armed being, the agony almost audible on his screaming face.

Poseidon stood in the surf—waves crashing around him—stabbing at oncoming combatants with his trident, two bleeding in the water at his feet. His hair and beard were flying in separate directions. The whole scene had a sepia-like tint, but his hair color appeared to be a dark blue. The red tint was coming from the nearby wheat field, which was ablaze.

In the center of the field, a goddess stood tall with her arms raised, a cyclone of flaming amber grain chased and encircled fleeing soldiers, their faces alight with terror. Demeter’s robes were the same color as the grain in which she stood. Her face was also lit by the blaze, but it did not show the frenzy plastered on Apollo’s features. Hers was a fierce concentration, but there was no joy in it. She was stony-faced except for her eyes. At first Gordie thought the fire was just painted there as the artist’s trick to reflect the flames. But something told him that fire came from within. It was her rage.

A great man fought with his back to her, twice her size in every dimension. He wielded an enormous knotted-club, which was shown bashing the skull of an unfortunate warrior. The club-wielder wore some sort of animal skin hung around his shoulders with a cap in the shape of a lion head. The lion’s mouth was open, it’s two front fangs hooked onto the warrior’s forehead, as if it were eating him, but the Nemean Lion had eaten its last meal long before, when Hercules killed it. Gordie stared at his ancestor in awe. Hercules wore an expression similar to that of Apollo’s, but it was even more gruesome, more blood thirsty. He reveled in death. And death was nearby.

A patch of barren earth butted up against the wheat field, from the center of which a dark abyss yawned. Great, mottled arms reached out grabbing at soldiers. One arm clenched the ankle of a fighter and was dragging him into the void as he clawed at the dirt. Even the tracks of his fingers were painted into the dust. Maybe Hades was confined to the Underworld, but even so he was a dangerous enemy.

Gordie’s eyes roved up the central mountain where a female warrior stood with her bow, felling soldiers in every direction. Four arrows were painted in the air before her with one just leaving her bow as she pulled another out of her quiver. Her face roared with a cry of battle. She was surrounded by wild animals: a jaguar was chomping the arm of one of her attackers, and a werewolf was pouncing on another. A great, shimmering elk stood just to the left of Artemis, goring a would-be attacker. Nearby, a squat, plump deity roared with laughter as his satyrs kicked and pummeled his enemies for him. Dark red wine stained the front of Dionysus’s robes, drunk in the heat of battle.

Higher up, two gods fought back to back. Ares’s beard was ablaze—not
on
fire, but literally comprised of fire. He laughed as he held a severed head in one hand, the other wielding a sword that was thrust through the armor-plated-abdomen of a foe. The flaming sword cut through metal, bone, and sinew like a knife through butter, blazing victoriously as it stuck out the back of its victim. Behind Ares, Aphrodite stood in front of a group of kneelers, almost as if she were giving a sermon in the midst of battle. But Gordie looked closely and saw the glaze in their eyes: they were mesmerized by her beauty and he couldn’t blame them. She was so beautiful, even in paint, it was almost scary. Her long, dark hair flowed in the wind and a light-blue aura surrounded her. Gordie realized with revulsion that one of the revelers lay prostrate on the ground, his eyes painted at the instant they had started to melt. Another lay next to him, a splatter of blood and gore on the ground above his shoulders. There was no head in sight.

And on the mountain top stood Zeus. The sight of him made Gordie nauseated, terrified, and furious all at once. His eyes had no pupils or irises, just like Apollo’s when he had gone into his trance to give Gordie his task. Zeus’s eyes were blindingly white like the instant of a lightning strike. His mouth was open in maniacal laughter. Above his head he held a glimmering lightning bolt, both frozen and electrified. Another bolt was shown speeding away from him towards an enemy, and a third was piercing two enemies, sending them flying down the mountain like a giant shish-kebab. A great, bearded man wielding a flame in his hand was approaching Zeus from the side with an angry roar on his face. Gordie recognized Prometheus from the mural on the opposite wall. He knew that Prometheus had not won this battle, and he felt solidarity with the famed titan.

Gordie had walked over to the mural absent-mindedly and was staring into the laughing face of Zeus, unable to look away, until he jumped when Apollo spoke at his side.

“The Titanomachy,” he said. “The War of the Titans . . . it was a terrible war. There is Atlas.” He pointed at the Titan who was being attacked by satyrs. He was roaring as he threw them in every direction. “That mountain, where my father fought,” he pointed at Zeus, “is where Atlas resides now holding up the sky. It is Prometheus’s home, too. He is chained near his brother, where his liver is eaten by a great eagle every day, until he is healed at nightfall, only to be devoured alive again the next morning.

“Cronus.” Apollo pointed at a giant falling backward into the waves that Gordie hadn’t noticed before, two lightning bolts stuck out of his chest as he crashed into the ocean. “My grandfather. As prone to filicide as his son—hereditary I suppose. Well, filicide as well as patricide. Maybe I will follow in his footsteps.” Gordie looked up at him with mixed feelings. He was talking about
killing
his dad. Given who his father was, it was understandable, but still a little creepy.

“You look pretty scary.” Gordie pointed at Apollo’s fierce depiction, changing the subject out of discomfort. Apollo did not respond immediately, and Gordie felt heat rising to his face.

“I fought for the wrong reasons then. And I could not appreciate, until much later, how much I had lost,” Apollo whispered, staring at his likeness. “I have known for quite some time that Prometheus was right all along. The titans were divided. Cronus was selfish and only wished to remain in power, but others fought for freedom. They did not wish to trade one despot for another. And when the humans came, Prometheus continued to fight for freedom, not for himself, but for
your
people. And now he is subjected to eternal torment.” Apollo went silent again, staring at the mural. Gordie looked into Prometheus’s enraged face, and then down the mountain at Artemis.

“Your sister is quite the fighter.” Gordie pointed at Artemis.

“She is.” Apollo looked over his left shoulder. Gordie turned to follow his eyes. The room they were in was what someone might imagine a throne room to look like—with its decorated walls and sparkling columns—but in the place where a throne might sit stood a statue of a goddess with her bow drawn. The statue was life-sized—or so Gordie assumed, as the stone goddess was nearly as tall as the deity to his right. The most amazing detail, to Gordie’s mind, was the chiseled hummingbirds hovering around her head, which weren’t tethered to the main body of the statue, but appeared to be magically suspended in midair.

“So, where can I find her?” Gordie looked back up at Apollo.

“I cannot say. But wherever she is, she has been there since your birth. She was, of course, always partial to the wilderness, but you will not find her in your world.”

Gordie looked at the mural depicting the Titanomachy. He stared at Artemis, watched her face her enemies. His eyes slid to the jaguar next to her mauling her adversaries and the werewolf eviscerating an unfortunate soldier. He stared into the dark eyes of the beast and shivered slightly, thinking about his close shave in the pine tree. He thought back to his return trip to the forest realm, the blood stain of the great beast, and the streak it left as it had been hauled away. And it clicked.

“Dasos,” Gordie said. Apollo looked down at him in surprise.

“Truly?” His voice almost broke. “You believe you know her whereabouts?”

“I can’t say for sure, but I’ve got a feeling.” He remembered the little silver jaguar that marked where the werewolf had died. “How many planes, or realms, or whatever, are there?”

“Oh, that is very difficult to say.” Apollo tossed a hand up in the air. “Most likely they are infinite in number.”

“What?
Infinite?
” Hot lead dropped into Gordie’s stomach. His certainty of Artemis’s location evaporated into thin air.

“Well, yes, most likely. But we never explored very far. I frequented a few realms myself: Earth, of course,” he started to tick them off on his fingers with as much consternation as a human, “Atlantis—mostly out of curiosity; Europa—it seems I have an affinity for water; Paraliamaia—yes, I see now I definitely tend towards water; here obviously, Koryfion—”

“Okay,” Gordie cut him off, “but how big is each place?” He felt a little better about her possible location, but anxiety was still rising inside him. He pictured the great mountain looming over the forest of Dasos. How far away was that peak? Miles to be sure. Was Dasos an entire
world?
She could be anywhere in that dense forest.

“The size of each realm varies. I have never been to Dasos, so I cannot say.” Apollo seemed unperturbed by Gordie’s interruption. Gordie wanted a better answer, but resigned himself to an arduous search. Only, after that, he would have to somehow play the role of family therapist, which was definitely not in his wheelhouse.

“All right, so can you shoot me over there?” Gordie looked around as if he expected to see a door marked Dasos.

“I’m sorry?” Apollo looked down at him.

“Ya know, send me to Dasos?” Gordie explained.

“I do not have the means to do that. I can return you to your world,” Apollo offered. “Giorgio will have the equipment necessary to transport you wherever you need to go from there.”

“All right, that works I guess.” Gordie shrugged. “I better get going. Clock’s ticking on my muscles.” He patted his swollen biceps.

“Indeed.” Apollo raised his arm towards the center of the room with his palm out and fingers extending stiffly towards the ceiling which, Gordie hadn’t before realized, was adorned with painted cherubs. He thought this was heavy-handed because hovering just beneath the ceiling was a gaggle of these flying-naked-babies who appeared to be playing tag with their bow-and-arrows. “Gordon?”

“What the—” Gordie stared at the impish infants.

“Gordon? Your bonny lass awaits,” Apollo said. Gordie looked at him and was pleased to see he was smiling.

“Right.” Gordie turned his attention towards the center of the room where a green portal floated above the ground, identical to the one he had used to arrive. “Well, thanks. I’ll try my best. With your sister, I mean.” He looked down.

“I know you will, Gordon.” Apollo grasped Gordie’s shoulder. “And thank you. It was not my intention to involve you in this, but I am eternally grateful for your assistance. Good luck and tread carefully.” Apollo nudged him toward the ghostly doorway, and Gordie surmised his time in Koryfion was over.

He looked up as he approached the portal. A cherub had paused his game of tag and was looking down the shaft of an arrow pointed right at Gordie. His face was split in a mischievous grin full of sharp little teeth.

“I dare you,” Gordie growled as he stopped to fix the aeronautical baby with his sternest gaze.

“Pew!” the cherub made a faux-shooting noise and zipped off, cackling madly.

“I apologize.” Gordie turned at the sound of Apollo’s voice. “He is a peevish fellow.” Apollo nodded toward the zooming baby who was now terrorizing his fellow taggers.

“Peevish indeed,” Gordie replied. He approached the portal and stepped through the green gloom.

***

Gordie’s bare feet pressed against the cool marble of the underground temple. Somehow, he had known that the portal would no longer be floating fifty feet in the air and had stepped through confidently. When he emerged, he was facing Bridget and Giorgio, who were sitting side by side on the great statue’s plinth. Bridget rested her head on her hand while Giorgio fidgeted. A second later, their eyes lit up as they both realized that Gordie had returned. Bridget stood and took a quick step towards him, but he was already being embraced by the laughing Giorgio.