Poseidon's Trident

by A P Mobley

  “Hey, that’s right,” Darko said, snapping his fingers. “Poseidon did contribute to creating the Minotaur. It makes sense he’d use that monster to guard his portal. When King Minos was fighting with his brothers over who would rule Crete, Minos prayed to Poseidon to give them a sign that Minos was meant to rule, since no one would question the authority of a god on that sort of stuff. Poseidon sent him a snow-white bull as a sign, and in return for being made king, Minos was supposed to sacrifice the bull to Poseidon. But by the time Minos became king, he’d grown attached to the bull, and tried to trick Poseidon by sacrificing a different one and hoping the god wouldn’t notice.

  “Obviously Minos didn’t trick Poseidon at all, and Poseidon was super mad. He asked Eros, Aphrodite’s son and a god of love, to make Minos’s wife, Pasiphae, fall in love with the snow-white bull. Eros did as Poseidon asked, and . . . well, the result of Pasiphae and the bull’s, uh, ‘union’ was the Minotaur.”

  Zoey grimaced. “Ew.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Andy said.

  “I’m telling you guys right now we can’t risk entering the Labyrinth,” Diana said. “There has to be another way to reach the palace. A ship, a spell, a . . .” She trailed off, her gaze falling to the ground.

  Atropos frowned and pulled out a pair of scissors from her robes. “You dare question the advice of the Fates?” She kneeled and began cutting the threads closest to her. “Do you forget we are all-powerful, all-knowing?”

  “Are you saying we won’t die if we use the portal?” Diana said. “Or that you guys are willing to counteract the enchantment on it so we can pass through?”

  Atropos laughed. “If you used the portal today, you would die. As for counteracting the enchantment, we will not. We have already helped you enough, Daughter of Apollo. We told you where the Chosen Two of the Prophecy were to be resurrected, explained how the gods can be defeated, and cast a protection spell on you and your allies against the gods. Granted, it cannot stop them from finding you if they physically stumble upon you, but even so you can ask no more from us. We have done all the universe permits.”

  Zoey creased her brow. “If we can’t go through the portal, and if you guys won’t cast a counter-spell on it, is there someone else who could?”

  Clotho stepped forward. “There may be one.”

  Atropos shot Clotho a glare. “They must struggle if they are to rise victorious. Tell them no more.”

  “They have already struggled much, and they will only continue to, even if I give them his name,” Clotho replied.

  “Who is it?” Zoey asked.

  Clotho grinned. “Prometheus.”

  “The Titan?” Darko blurted.

  Atropos stood. “Indeed, the Titan.”

  Andy scratched his head. “Where can we find him?”

  Lachesis gestured at Diana with one hand. “The Daughter of Apollo knows the answer to that question.”

  “Look at that, Princess,” Kali said with a wink, nudging Diana with her elbow. “You’re about to make yourself useful.” Diana’s eyebrow twitched.

  Zoey bowed to the Fates, and the rest of the group followed her lead. “Thank you so much for your help,” she said. “I’m not sure how we can ever repay you.”

  “Free humanity from the gods,” Lachesis replied. “Give them back free will. That is all we have ever wanted from you. But like we said before, other than what we have already done, we can help you no more. You must earn your victory.”

  “They’ll earn it for sure,” Darko said. “They slayed Medusa all by themselves. They can do anything.” Zoey smiled, and Andy’s gaze softened. He put an arm around Darko’s shoulders and gave the satyr a squeeze.

  Atropos shooed them away with her hands. “Now go, be off with you.”

  Diana stepped forward, hands clasped behind her back. “Before we go, I had one last question for you, and before you shut me down, it doesn’t have anything to do with helping us. It’s more of a personal thing. My father—well, he hasn’t spoken to us since he healed me when Karter struck me with lightning. I’m afraid for his safety. Can—can you tell me what happened to him? Please?”

  Clotho and Lachesis shared a glance, their eyes sad. “Apollo was discovered helping you, child,” Clotho said. “Within a day, Zeus and Poseidon annihilated his city. The citizens who refused to flee, remaining loyal to him, were killed in the destruction.”

  Zoey gasped and shared a look of shock with the rest of the group at this news, while Diana trembled, looking to the ground. “All those people . . . my father’s followers . . .” She wrung her hands. “What about my father, then? What has Zeus done with him?”

  “There are several potential outcomes for Apollo’s current predicament,” Lachesis replied. “But for now, Zeus holds him hostage on New Mount Olympus and plans to imprison him in Tartarus for his treachery.”

  A sense of dread flooded Zoey’s senses, and everyone in the Fates’ lair went silent. Apollo had helped them so much with their quest, all to ensure his daughter’s safety. Now, because of it, his city was gone and he’d be thrown into the most horrible eternal prison Zoey could ever imagine existed: the blue flames of Tartarus.

  A lump formed in Zoey’s throat. She swallowed it down and dabbed the tears from her eyes before they could trickle down her cheeks.

  Kali stepped beside Diana and rested a hand on the Daughter of Apollo’s back. The demigod hung her head. “I had a feeling that was what happened to him, but I needed to ask. Thank you for telling me.”

  With that the group mounted their pegasi, not uttering a word, then flew through and out of the cave into the afternoon sunlight peeking between the hundreds of green pine trees towering above them.

  They landed and climbed off the pegasi. Zoey cleared her throat. “So, once we find Prometheus, he’ll be able to help us through the portal into Poseidon’s palace. Hopefully. But where is he?”

  “About a day’s travel from Aphrodite City,” Diana said, her expression tight, as though she were trying to hold back a dozen emotions at once. Zoey couldn’t blame her, considering what the Fates had just told them about her father. “It’ll take us about a week to reach him. He’s imprisoned there, and every day the Caucasian Eagle comes and eats his liver. He’s immortal, obviously, so it just regenerates every night.”

  “Hey, I think I’ve heard about him before,” Andy said. “Isn’t the liver thing a punishment from Zeus for giving man fire, or something like that?”

  Diana nodded. “Yes. Prometheus made humans, and he gave them some abilities like the gods’, although they’re much weaker and, of course, mortal. Eventually Prometheus taught humans how to make fire, which was Zeus’s last straw. Zeus imprisoned Prometheus in the Caucasus Mountains with chains forged by Hephaestus, the Blacksmith of the Gods, and sent the Caucasian Eagle to eat his liver every day.”

  “But didn’t someone set him free?” Andy asked. “I thought someone helped him out eventually.”

  “He was set free by Heracles,” Diana replied. “Heracles slayed the Caucasian Eagle, and with their combined strength, the two broke Prometheus’s chains. He was free for a while, but nearly a century ago, he fell in love with a regular mortal woman who lived in one of the cities and they had a baby together. Zeus believed it was Prometheus’s way of trying to bring the ‘Dreaded Prophecy’ to fruition, considering Prometheus’s track record of helping out humanity, and then decided to re-imprison him the way he had been in the old days to avoid any sort of rebellion.”

  “Makes sense,” Andy remarked. “And freeing him from the eagle should be easy, considering we have Medusa’s head.”

  “Exactly,” Diana said. “With Medusa’s head, we can just turn the bird to stone. It’ll be easy and over in no time. Now, let’s gather some provisions and head his way.”

  Working together, the group stuffed their bags full of roots and berries. The pegasi gra
zed while they worked, and once they were satisfied with their findings, they mounted the pegasi and began their journey east.

  They soared over the forest and ruins of old cities for a long while, and as the day passed, the air grew slightly colder. While they flew, the wind bit Zoey’s cheeks, sending her into fits of shivers.

  When the sun began to set, Diana instructed the group to land and make camp. Just as they were about to descend toward the forest floor, the guttural roar of a bloodthirsty beast sounded from behind.

  Zoey’s pulse quickened. She whipped her head around to see a flying lioness the size of a truck, leathery dragon wings attached to the creature’s back. From the monster’s neck arose a second head, but rather than another lioness’s, this one was that of a goat’s with razor-sharp teeth. Where her tail should have been, a writhing, hissing serpent stemmed from her rear. She roared again, and a line of orange fire blazed from her throat, searing the brisk evening air.

  “What the hell is that thing?” Andy cried.

  Diana shot the monster a glance. “It’s the Chimera. Darko, use Medusa’s head. Turn her to stone.”

  Darko fumbled to retrieve the sweatshirt holding Medusa’s head from his pack. As the group sped on, he tipped every which way, coming dangerously close to tumbling off Ajax and into the forest below. Just as he got the bundle out of his bag with shaking hands, the Chimera roared again. Her fiery breath grazed Ajax’s back legs.

  The pegasus whinnied, halting midair. He kicked and thrashed, his hair sizzling, and Andy and Darko clung to him. The pegasus bucked them again, and the bundle slipped from Darko’s grasp.

  Zoey’s stomach clenched as Medusa’s head plummeted toward the trees below.

  CHAPTER TWO

  NYMPHS

  Andy gripped Ajax’s neck for dear life, the sulfurous scent of scorched hair filling the air. As the pegasus writhed in the air, Andy knew just one slip of his hands could mean being thrown off.

  Darko’s arms were wrapped tight around Andy’s waist. “Medusa’s head—I dropped it!”

  “Are you freaking kidding me?” Andy replied through clenched teeth. Without Medusa’s head, it was going to be a billion times harder to kill the monster, and they needed to do it before this thing charred them to a crisp.

  Ajax bucked again, and Andy did his best to hold on and stroke the pegasus’s mane. “Shhhhh, it’s okay, Ajax,” Andy said. “You’re okay.”

  Diana directed Aladdin to face the Chimera and blasted several golden spheres of light at her. The monster dodged the attacks. Kali veered Luna toward her, spear in hand. Staying by the monster’s side, Kali sank the spear into her goat head’s throat. Kali wrenched the weapon in her neck, blood gushing from the wound. The lion head roared in distress as the goat head fell limp.

  Kali tugged the spear back, and just as Luna began to flap away from the Chimera, she swung her lion head toward them and roared again. A stream of fire shot for them.

  “Kali!” Andy cried.

  Kali yelped as the flames hit Luna’s wing and crept up her arm. Diana tried to direct Aladdin toward Kali and Luna, but the Chimera blocked them with another wave of fire.

  Luna whinnied, flapping her unharmed wing frantically as smoke curled around them, but it was no use. Kali and her pegasus tumbled out of the pink sky and disappeared into the trees. Diana and Zoey screamed for them.

  Crap, crap, CRAP! Andy thought, beads of sweat forming on his forehead, his muscles tense. “Hold on, Darko,” he said, and the satyr tightened his grip on Andy.

  Andy squeezed his hands over Ajax’s mane, directed the panicked pegasus toward where Kali and Luna had fallen, and kicked his feet against the creature’s sides. Ajax heeded the command and they swooped down.

  Within moments they reached the forest floor. Andy leapt off Ajax’s back, Darko close behind. They stumbled through the trees.

  “Kali! Luna! Where are you?” Andy called, heart hammering against his rib cage. No one answered.

  Soon they reached the edge of a stream, and Andy’s stomach twisted at what he saw. Kali lay beside the stream, facedown in the dirt, her body turned so that her burnt arm rested in the water. Beside Kali, Luna lay on her side, her injured wing mangled beneath her body. The pack of supplies Luna usually carried on her back had fallen a few yards away from her, the Helm of Darkness and the group’s bundle of spears scattered about the ground.

  Andy and Darko rushed toward them. Were Kali and the pegasus just injured, or had the fall killed them?

  Andy grabbed Kali by the shoulders and turned her onto her back. She was unconscious, covered in grime and bruises, but her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. Andy let out a sigh of relief.

  “Is she okay?” Darko asked.

  “She’s alive at least,” Andy replied. “I don’t know about ‘okay’ though.”

  “Diana can heal her, I hope,” Darko said, glancing back to where they’d come from. “Why don’t you stay with her? I have to go find Medusa’s head.”

  Before the satyr could begin his search, a roar sounded from above. Flames rained down, setting several trees ablaze and broiling the air. The Chimera landed before them. She slammed her paws against the forest floor. The impact shook the earth.

  Diana and Zoey landed Aladdin alongside Andy and Darko and jumped off his back. The Chimera bounded toward the group.

  “How’re we supposed to kill that thing?” Darko cried.

  The monster stopped and roared, sending a stream of fire toward the group. Diana conjured two spheres of light and chucked them at the attack.

  “It’d have been simple if we could turn her to stone,” Diana said as the fire and light clashed. Upon collision they burst, sending sparks whizzing over the group’s heads. “But that’s not possible at the moment, so we’ll have to do something else.”

  Andy darted toward the group’s scattered supplies and seized two spears. “Was there someone who killed her in the old days?”

  The Chimera roared again and again, sending blasts of fire toward the group. Diana blocked the attacks with spheres of light. “Bellerophon did, yes,” she answered in a panicked tone. “He used his spear to lodge a block of lead in her throat. When she breathed fire, the lead melted, and she suffocated. But we don’t have any lead!”

  “We’ll have to find some other way, then,” Andy said, tossing a spear in Zoey’s direction and keeping the other for himself. She threw her handless arm in the air, trying to catch the spear, but it only clattered to the ground. She pressed her lips into a thin line and kneeled to pick it up awkwardly with her left hand.

  Darko readied his bow and arrow while Diana continued blocking the Chimera’s attacks. “A little help, please?” she shouted. “Sometime today would be nice!”

  Zoey ran toward the Chimera, ducking to avoid the flying sparks, weapon in hand. She brought her spear down on the Chimera’s leg, but the attack barely scraped through the monster’s fur. The monster snarled and swatted Zoey with a paw. Zoey yelped, tumbling backward, and crashed into a tree.

  Andy’s nostrils flared. No one, no one messed with his friends and got away with it.

  From the corner of his eye, Andy could see the Helm of Darkness as it lay on the forest floor, its metal gleaming in the light of the flames. Let’s see how you fare against us when I’m using that, he thought.

  While Diana threw spheres of light and Darko shot arrow after arrow at the Chimera, Andy grabbed the Helm and pulled it over his head. Chills charged through his body. He held up a hand and wiggled his fingers, but they couldn’t be seen. He was cloaked with complete invisibility.

  He advanced toward the Chimera, steering clear of the projectiles, then leapt onto her neck and pulled himself up by the thick, matted fur. The monster craned her head back and snapped her jaws. Her serpent tail hovered over Andy, hissing all the while. He raised the spear above his head, then, with all his strength, p
lunged the weapon down the monster’s throat.

  The Chimera shrieked and coughed, orange flames shooting from her mouth like cannonballs. Fire licked Andy’s hands. They erupted with searing pain, and he cried out, throwing himself off the monster’s neck.

  Andy rolled across the forest floor. His head slammed against the ground. The Helm came loose and tumbled to the side. The Chimera turned toward him, rage in her eyes, the spear still caught in her throat.

  Diana darted in front of Andy as if to guard him from the monster and conjured a final sphere of light. She brought her hand back and chucked the sphere at the Chimera. The attack hit the creature in the side with such intense force she went flying backward into a cluster of trees. As she hit them, several branches impaled her body. Gooey moss-green fluid seeped from her wounds. She roared, her serpent tail shuddering, until finally she fell limp.

  Diana gasped for breath and ran to Kali’s side. She lit her hands with golden light and placed them on Kali’s shoulders. The light expanded through Diana’s and Kali’s bodies like water after being dumped onto a hardwood floor, and they began to glow.

  Andy pulled himself up and trudged toward them, trembling. Small tendrils of smoke curled off his bloodied and blistered hands. The acrid fumes coming from them smelled of charcoal and copper, and they stung as if someone had peeled off his skin and poured salt in the wounds.

  Zoey climbed to her feet and made her way toward Andy. When she spotted his injuries, her eyes went wide. “Andy, your hands . . .”