Twisted Mythology: Three Tales of Greek Mythology

by Ashleigh Matthews

  “We should divide the world between us,” Zeus said.

  “How?” Hades asked.

  “We draw lots,” I said.

  My brothers quickly agreed and I picked the most loyal of my followers to hold the lots. He would ensure that I got the lot that would ensure my ascension to the throne of Olympus. And that he did. With my siblings ruling with me, I ruled with a firm hand, and with Zeus whispering his carefully considered advice into my ear from behind the throne.

  Chapter 8

  I was too drunk in my own power to see for myself that Zeus, despite his inability to be a faithful husband to Hera, plotted behind my back to take what was rightfully mine. His children proved useful gods and goddesses; it made me jealous even as I cultivated Apollo’s alliance. My nephew used his songs to keep my kin under my spell for millennia. Yet now it failed, and I had committed some crime that caused them change me up to this pillar. I yearned for Demeter to come to my side, to come to my defense against Zeus.

  But my sister did not come, only my younger brother. He looked down upon me. Somehow I believed that he had always looked down upon me from the first moment our paths crossed. Zeus, I knew, believed that he was the better warrior, the better lover, and the better King. For the first time I found myself believing that perhaps Zeus should have drawn first, that it had been a mistake on my part to believe myself the better King. I pushed the doubt away quickly. How could I think that? Had he forgotten that our mother had saved me first?

  I glared at my brother. He saw me as another Cronus, didn’t he? It would be so easy for him to send me below to Tartarus for eternity as we had the Titans. I grinned at my brother for a moment.

  “Speak,” I rasped.

  Zeus returned my grin. “Our siblings and other kin have had enough of your rule, Poseidon. They want a fair King, not a greedy one.”

  “And that’s you?” I asked, chuckling. My throat burned with pain.

  “I have no wish for power,” Zeus told me. “I have said from the beginning we should rule the universe together, that we should consult with one another before making major decisions. Never have you done this. Our kin has asked me to take the burden of kingship, and no matter how hard I argue against this, they will not hear of it.”

  “What other crimes have they accused me of?” I demanded. “That the children I sire are more often monsters than yours?”

  “It has been foreseen that if we behave like the Titans before us,” my brother said, “we would meet the same fate as them, be displaced by our sons. Do you really want that, brother?” He paused for an instant to give me time to answer. When I didn’t open my mouth again, Zeus continued. “It is with a heavy heart that I have accepted the kingship.” For an instant his eyes broke away from me to look towards Apollo. “It is my judgment, that both Poseidon and Apollo be stripped of their powers. And for a year, I command that they become the servants of Laomedon, the King of Troy.”

  Zeus did not give me the chance to curse his name. With a wave of his hand, he took my godly powers from me and disappeared into the palace with Hera at his side. The rest of our kin unchanged me and Apollo from our pillars and saw our wounds healed and our hunger and thirst satisfied. A minor god whose name I could never remember escorted to the city of Troy.

  He could have gotten us there quickly, but he meant to extend our torment by making us go by land and sea. It took us a fortnight to cross Hellas and make it to the sea where the god hired a boat to take us across the sea to Anatolia where Troy had been built. When we were presented to Laomedon, our escort forced us to our knees. Zeus had to be watching, I knew, with a grin on his face. In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to get even with my brother for this humiliation no matter how much we both knew I deserved it.

  The god did not remain behind to see us settled it, and the foolish mortal king gave us no respite either. He wanted a wall built to protect the city and sent us to work that very day. The year of building that wall was torture, especially hearing Apollo profess each day that it had been wrong to support me, that he missed his twin. I loathed hearing him whine that he and Artemis had never been separated for this long.

  I was grateful when our kin came to Troy to collect us and take us back to Olympus. This time, I didn’t have to wait for my brother to return from Hellas. Zeus embraced us both, returned our godly powers to us, and hosted a festival to welcome us home.

  Every day, my brother proved to me that I had made the greatest error in desiring the kingship for myself.