The High Court

by Chris Ledbetter

  “We should rejoin the others,” I said. “They’ll be wondering what happened.”

  “Or hoping you fell over a cliff and drowned, given your recent outbursts.”

  “Or that.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  We rejoined our MO Prep classmates and faculty in the courtyard, many still throwing accusatory stares my way. Which, given the way I had been acting, I deserved. Eurynome strode by with an arm full of scrolls.

  Rhea flagged Eurynome down. “How do we get to the mighty Hearthstone Forge at Mosychlos from here? Is it close?”

  Eurynome leered at Rhea. “Proximity depends on constitution. To look upon you, favored daughter of the slain Sky, I doubt you possess the toughness to withstand the hike and climb from here.”

  I gazed down the rocky road that led east from campus. Low clouds veiled the hilltops.

  “Luck would have it that I can guide you to Mount Mosychlos by Hurler later today. Before then, I have classes and an important faculty meeting.”

  “Time is of the essence, Headmistress. In order to return to Mount Olympus faster, we need what awaits us at Mosychlos. You want us gone sooner rather than later … yes?”

  “This top-secret activity that burns the flames of the forge such that not even I am allowed within its hallowed walls. Tell me, Rhea … what are they up to … these busy little bees? What are you up to?”

  “A secret is not a secret if it’s told. Is it now?”

  “Indeed. Well, as happenstance would have it, I’m off to class. I’ll take you all late—”

  “I can take us out there,” Shade stepped up.

  “Ah yes,” Eurynome mumbled. “I forgot, momentarily, you were once a student here … and so might have knowledge of the forge’s whereabouts. Not all students do, you know? But you do.”

  “I do.”

  “Very well,” Eurynome said. “I’m off then. Safe travels.”

  Rhea turned to Shade. “Hades, show us the way, please. I should’ve asked you first. I apologize.”

  “Headmistress, Eurynome should’ve shown a bit more hospitality, too.”

  Hera chuckled. “Lots of should haves. Let’s be gone.”

  In short order, we all reformulated at a Hurler post half-way up the side of a volcanic mountain. The ground shook for a moment and then stabilized. Three enormous, rectangular tents stood below us on level ground. A well-beaten, pockmarked path wound back and forth down to it.

  In front of us, a three-story cave entrance beckoned us to enter. A wooden sign hung from rusty metal hooks, swaying high above us. It read: Hearthstone Forge at Mosychlos. The sign vibrated as the ground beneath us rumbled like thunder.

  Shade nudged me forward into the cave. “Go ahead. Darkness doesn’t bite.”

  I sucked my teeth. “Please,” I scoffed. “I grew up in a cave. Darkness was my brother before you were.”

  “Don’t worry,” Aphro said. “I’ll protect you. I’ll keep the nightmares at bay.”

  “No you won’t either,” Metis said. “One wrong move and I’ll hack your arms off at the shoulders.”

  “Temper, temper,” Aphro cooed. “Calm down. It was just a joke. Insecurity is such an ill-fitting cloak. Besides, if I wanted him, even your tears couldn’t stop him from leaving you. It just so happens he’s not my type.”

  If I listened hard enough, I could almost hear Tia’s and Meter’s exasperated eye rolls.

  “Well … I …” Metis fumed. Her entire face matched a ripe pomegranate.

  “Silenced by the new girl.” Hera chuckled, almost to herself.

  “Enough,” Rhea said. “Just remember, at the end of the day, we’re all on the same team.”

  “Are we?” Metis mumbled under her breath.

  Don stepped in front of everyone and clapped his hands. “Let’s not waste all day flapping our gums. Why not head inside where the magic awaits. Shade, you’re on point.”

  Shade walked ahead of us following the long finger of sunlight. Helios’s gaze only dared stretch so far into the cave. Soon, cavernous darkness enveloped us. Our steps then became illuminated by torches. The ground shook again. And again.

  Aphro walked with quicker steps to catch up to Shade. “Air’s a little thick back there. I’m a sucker for a guy who knows where he’s headed.”

  We forged ahead, the surroundings simultaneously reminding me of Crete and of our expedition to the Underworld.

  At the end of the long corridor, a stone façade had been constructed into the mountain’s inner walls, possibly to bolster the ceiling. Tall columns stood like sentinels, guarding a tall wooden door. Shade pulled open the door to enter a large, square anteroom. The earth quaked yet again. This time, we all heard the shrill, metallic hammer strike that caused the tremors.

  “I’ve only actually been this far three times,” Shade remarked. “Some students are brought here once simply to know where it is. Two other times I snuck in here, hoping to glimpse the fires and the fury.”

  “It’s a shame you didn’t sneak some young girls up here, Shade,” Aphro said. “Certainly the heat of the forge could be an aphrodisiac. I’m getting a little hot right now.”

  “Stand down, Dite,” Hera said. “We’re all hot in this room … and it has nothing to do with—”

  “That’s enough, Hera,” Rhea interjected.

  Another hammer fall nearly pierced our ears. Shade pointed to a long table that stood just to the side of another impossibly large, metal door. “Put the beeswax ear plugs in your ears and slide a leather apron on.”

  We all geared up as a steady pounding of hammers fell. The unsteady ground jumped, quivered, and I fell a bit before rising back into my wobbly knees. My stomach flopped and rose into my throat. I almost vomited. Shade knifed his hand in the air over his head to signify that we were about to progress through the blast door into the inner sanctum of the forge.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Darkened cobblestone walls, half illuminated by the massive hearths, surrounded the interior of the forge. Firelight glinted off of gigantic helmets and breastplates that hung on the walls, large enough to fit the mighty Cyclopes. Swords, axes, and other implements congregated in one corner. I wondered if they represented finished products, or awaited reincarnation.

  Biceps bulging, Brontes manipulated a humongous pair of tongs and removed a piece of orangey-yellowish-red piece of metal from the fires of the hearth. He placed it on the anvil and smashed it several times with a giant hammer. Sparks jumped into the air with every strike. On one particular hammer’s fall, an odd image appeared in the air. A six-pointed star with brightly-lit points rotated. Interlocking squares morphed into spinning triangles, and then spiraling omegas, backward and forward. The images expanded as a silent explosion and then absorbed into the metal.

  Brontes caught me looking and smiled. His thunderous baritone boomed above the raging fires and the earplugs. “That’s the secret ingredient. Powered by the cosmos. The bearer calls the tune.”

  His statement stopped me cold. That was what was on the scroll we found. THE scroll. Last term, Hera and I had secured the cosmic dust scroll from kooky Kreios by winning a match of Stone, Scroll, and Sword. After uncovering the hidden message on it, the scroll had revealed nearly the same words Brontes had just spoken.

  The scroll said:

  Cosmic dust powers all.

  A speck is the source.

  The alpha and the omega.

  From a speck of dust, the universe is known.

  An entire cosmos in every granule.

  The power to build and the power to collapse.

  Absorbed into flesh, deities rise.

  Absorbed into metal, the bearer calls the tune.

  Absorbed into evil, disaster falls.

  Could bring death to deathless ones.

  “The bearer calls the tune …” How did Brontes … how could he have known about that? “You knew about the scroll?” I asked.

 
Brontes dipped the hot metal he’d just hammered into a vat of liquid. With a hiss, steam rose into the air. “Of course we did.”

  Tia pushed forward. “Wait… I thought I was conducting some ground-breaking research on cosmic dust. Professor Ouranos was going on and on about it. He told me that he told the Khaos Council about it.”

  Brontes shook his head. “I don’t know anything of your research, Hestia, but the scroll pre-dates you.”

  Tia’s face faltered. “So that means that Ouranos wasn’t being straight with me. He already knew other research was out there?”

  “Or maybe he was just encouraging your scholastic efforts.”

  Tia frowned. Hard.

  Steropes swung his hammer to rest atop his immense shoulders and then knelt down. “We’d discovered Hephaistianium, the strongest metal we’d ever encountered, long ago, deep below this forge. We kept it quiet because we knew it held the power to fatally harm deathless ones especially when mixed with dark matter.”

  “Yah,” Arges said. “We were rough-housing down here one day after we’d crafted some Hephaistianium based weapons …” He unhooked his leather apron from around his neck and unfastened his cuirass to bare his hefty chest. He exposed the scar tissue from a horrific wound. “A flesh wound. It still hasn’t totally healed. Not even the Hurlers and the cosmic dust can erase the scar tissue.”

  Steropes laughed. “That was your own fault. I told you I was a better swordsman than you.”

  “In any case, the weapons and armor you will have now are made of Hurler Iron, Adamantine, and Hephaistianium,” Brontes said. “Each implement contains the same manner of cosmic dust as the Hurler posts from which they originated.

  “The other major characteristic of your items is that they carry your individual signature essence … after the Sky Throne. They’re linked to your personal vibrations and any Sky Throne related abilities you were bequeathed,” Arges said. “But we have no idea what they will actually do when the time comes, so I suggest you set up a blasting range of some sort and test them out.”

  Rhea said, “We can do that.”

  “Cyclopean steel!” Shade said with a grand gesture. “I like the sound of that.”

  Arges kneeled and waved his hand toward nine hooks lined on the wall. “Your signature gear awaits.”

  Amphitrite’s hook was first. Mine was last. Everyone received a black shield and cuff bracelets. Like everyone else, I fastened my bracelets into place. They suctioned to my arms, covering from wrist to elbow. A surge of energy flowed into my arms. I clenched my fists and immediately produced tight balls of energy.

  “Opa!” I exclaimed.

  My gaze shifted to my shield next. I held the considerable heft of the shield in my hand and admired the design. The surface of it held the face of an aged, bearded man, surrounded by a geometric border. I snapped it into place on my arm. It clanked against my metal clad forearm. Other people’s shields contained different designs. Don flashed his shield around. It displayed a Ψ. Amphitrite’s boasted the Φ. Those two were so funny together.

  I gazed around at everyone acquainting themselves with additional gifts. Rhea helped Hera fit a tiara to her head. A lapis lazuli stone adorned the front of the semi-circular Cyclopean steel diadem. Hera’s eyes sparked full of wonder.

  Arges said to Hera, “This will help you to push your mental faculties, like Rhea.”

  “Wait,” Hera said. “I don’t get a weapon?”

  Rhea held Hera’s face in her palms. “Your mind is far more of a weapon than you realize. Now you just need to extend your abilities.”

  Just beyond Hera and Rhea, across the forge floor, Don tossed a three-pointed spear from hand to hand. He spun it around, thrusted it, and swung it.

  Brontes walked over to him. “Poseidon, I had fun making this one. The grip contains a mechanism that, if you twist it, the three prongs of the trident will collapse into a three-bladed spear tip. You know, for aerodynamics.” Don twisted the grip. Schwing! Brontes continued, “Also, we quenched it with seawater. I can’t wait to see what else it can do.”

  To the right of Don, Tia exuded a warm aura of excitement as she churned the air with a sword. Steropes side-stepped a barely tempered swipe of Tia’s blade. “My dear Hestia, this xiphos is a finely-tuned killing machine, balanced in every way, from hilt to point. But it also has a special quality. We quenched this in oil. There’s also a compartment of oil that can be released from the hilt within the blade. It flows down the ichor groove. So if there is a fire around …” Steropes took the sword over to a huge hearth and waved it through the fire. The blade ignited!

  “Whoa! By the fires of the Phlegethon!” Tia exclaimed.

  I turned around the other way. Spinning and thrusting a spear, Demeter danced in the shadows cast by the mighty hearths. She was a sight to behold, her movement as fluid as wind through a wheat field.

  Across the room in the opposite direction, in full warm view of the firelight, Aphrodite fastened a girdle around her waist. It glowed warmly. I could’ve sworn that in that moment, she became even more beautiful than she had been. I dragged my gaze away from her, and even noticed Don and Shade staring. Shade caught me catching him, and then slipped his helm upon his head … and promptly disappeared. I turned back to Aphro. She wasn’t one of us, after all. Nor did she hold any particular allegiance. Whatever power her beauty held, I hoped she’d use it to help us, and not tear us apart.

  After witnessing all the other gifts, my attention returned to my own. I gazed down at the forearm bracelets I’d already secured. I clenched and relaxed my fists several times to watch my lower arm muscles bulge against the dark metal. I then fastened gauntlets over each bracelet to encase my arms. Brontes walked over to me and knelt. “These will help to channel the power you possess. Acting to magnetize the energy, they will draw it forth and store it for you, thereby relieving you of a small bit of the pressure you feel when conjuring.”

  Just as soon as the words had dropped from his lips, something ignited within me. I gazed long and hard at my shield and my gauntlets. And everyone else’s. Images of darkness similar to the spear that killed Anytos appeared in my mind … and the breastplate, gauntlet, and greaves of Hyperion … our weapons and armor, now too, black as Erebus ink, reflected none of the light cast from the mighty hearths.

  Rage burned afresh at the back of my neck. I whipped toward Brontes. “This all looks the same as the dark matter weapons and armor Hyperion, Pallas, and Perses used.” I stalked toward him.

  Arges looked at Brontes. Brontes spoke slowly. “You are mistaken, my young friend. There is no dark matter in—”

  “There’s no difference. This is the same stuff!”

  Steropes took two thundering steps forward. “What are you saying? You think we … That is preposterous.”

  Brontes and Arges shook their heads behind him.

  “Zeus,” Tia pleaded. “What are you implying?”

  “All I know is that the spears that killed my friend, Anytos, and injured my mother, the armor that Hyperion wore, the spear that we found in the Observatory, and the weapon that we found that killed Ouranos … all of them looked exactly like these. They swallow the light. Just like Erebos of the Khaos Council. Smells like dark matter to me, which means—”

  “Probably not what you think it means,” Tia said. “We don’t know who created those weapons and armor.”

  “You’re looking at them!” I yelled.

  “Slow down …” Rhea held her hands up. “I think between myself and Hera, we can tell if anything untoward is or has traipsed around in anyone’s minds in here. I sense nothing. Hera?”

  Hera shook her head.

  “What is very odd, dear Zeus,” Rhea said, “is that your mind is the cloudiest of everyone in here. I am trying my hardest, and I can barely push through the dense kudzu and underbrush that seems to be strangling your mind.” She paused and turned to Hera. “Are you reading anything in Zeus’ head?”
<
br />   “Negative, Headmistress,” she replied. “Though, he’s slightly clearer now than when we were at morning meal. It’s like swimming through dark, muddy ink right now.”

  Tia cautioned, “Zeus … you’re doing it again. You’re becoming that monster again.”

  Don threw his hands in the air. “Here we go! Malaka!”

  Phi preemptively grabbed Don from advancing toward me. She glanced at Metis and shrugged.

  Shade joined in the chorus. “You’re not making sense, Spruce. What are you going on about now?”

  “Dammit!” I pounded my fists. Lightning sparked through the cavernous forge. I took a step toward Brontes. “One of you is responsible. One or all of you made those items!”

  Rhea walked in front of me. “Zeus, stop it! Now! That is not a request!”

  “Please, Zeus,” Metis called to me. “You’re going mad. Don’t do this.” She looked at Phi. Phi shook her head.

  Suddenly, a hand applied heat borne pressure to the back of my neck. Fire sparks encircled my upper body. Before I could even twist around, the pressure loosened on my spine. I closed my eyes and relaxed. My knees would barely support my weight, so I dropped to one knee.

  Tia crouched by my side and hugged me, keeping her hand on my neck. It felt so good as a counter to my agony. I never wanted her to remove it. She picked her head up off my shoulder and sighed. “Zeus, I’m not always going to be there at your side. You need to control this thing … whatever it is.”

  While most of my friends returned to examining their new equipment, Metis huddled with Rhea. Hera immediately walked over to join them for a spell. Hera adjusted her tiara and then left to talk with Tia. I’d remained kneeling where Tia had helped to dispel my affliction. Rhea and Metis approached me with somber expressions.

  Rhea offered me a hand, and then helped me to stand. “I have a plan—”