Theros

by Jenna Helland

  The man had retreated across the room and stood near the table as if waiting for her offering.

  “Are you an oracle?” she asked.

  “Who do you want dead?” he asked. He had a low voice that rumbled in his chest.

  “I just want answers,” Elspeth said. “I want someone who will tell me the truth.”

  “And why do you suppose Phenax, the God of Deception, would tell you the truth?” the man asked. There was no trace of mirth in his voice.

  “I’ve been to many temples in Akros,” Elspeth said, “and the oracles all tell me the same thing. Pray to the gods, honor the gods, and they will make your life the way you want it. Is that true? I need an answer unclouded by those who seek glory.”

  The man stared at her for a moment. He pushed back his hood so she could see his face more clearly despite the dim light. He was a handsome man with a clean-shaven head, dark eyes, and chiseled muscles in his arms and chest.

  “Who sent you to me?” he asked. “You knew the way. You must have had an insider’s introduction.”

  Xiro had obliged her request, but he didn’t understand it. Nor did she understand Xiro, a mercenary in thrall to Iroas, a god who had cast him out. She didn’t want to reveal him to this priest of Phenax, in case he had broken some rule by telling her where to find the altar.

  “I paid for the information, and I will pay you as well,” she said. She held out a handful of smooth gold coins that Xiro assured her would be accepted by anyone, anywhere.

  “You work for the Cutters of Iroas,” he said. “Phenax is aware of the strangers in this city.”

  “Yes, I have done some work for them,” she agreed.

  “I heard they were slaughtered by pug-faced satyrs,” he said. He looked at the coins and back to her face. He made no move to take them.

  “Not all of them,” she said.

  “You don’t mourn for your friends?”

  “They weren’t my friends,” she said.

  “But what will you do now?”

  “Maybe I’ll be an assassin, like you,” she said.

  “You seem too gentle to be an assassin,” he said.

  “So do you,” she replied.

  “You seem unafraid, even if I were,” he said with a vague smile.

  “Will you help me or not?” she asked. She rattled the coins in her hand. Xiro said that money was the only requirement for a Priest of Lies, but this man didn’t seem tempted at all.

  “What is your name?” the man asked.

  Elspeth hesitated and decided it didn’t matter. “I’m Elspeth.”

  “My name is Sarpedon, and you are seeking something I’m not entitled to give you,” he said. “You should leave the city. Anax’s advisors are increasingly mistrustful of outsiders. You will be cast out soon enough. Better to leave of your own free will. I can tell you’re a child lost in an unknown land.”

  “Are you an oracle?” she asked, despite the fact that he hadn’t accepted payment. There was a long silence, as if he were considering the merits of her question.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “Oracles can speak directly with the gods,” he told her. “We are the gods’ vessels. To all the world, we’re considered the greatest and most honored. But if you are seeking the truth, I will tell you. Being an oracle means devastation. An oracle is consumed by the god who chose him.”

  “What can an oracle do for gods that they can’t do themselves?” Elspeth asked.

  “Gods cannot see all things at once—they need the eyes of the mortals to multiply their domain. A mortal sees on a smaller scale than a god.”

  “You see things that the gods don’t?” Elspeth asked.

  “We see things that the gods dismiss as unimportant,” Sarpedon corrected. “We are their hands and feet among the mortal realm. A god cannot harm another’s oracle. But an oracle can kill whomever he pleases.”

  There was no threat in his words. He said them in a detached way, as if he was repeating words he’d read on a page long ago.

  “Can the gods determine my fate?” Elspeth asked. “What is truly the extent of their power? Can they make what I want happen—if only I please them enough?”

  “If you want a god to determine your fate, you must ask him for an ordeal,” Sarpedon said. “A god will only grant it if they think you are worthy—whatever ‘worthy’ means for them. If you accomplish it, you may request a hand in your own destiny.”

  As he said the words, Sarpedon reached out and grasped Elspeth’s hand. The coins were cupped between their palms. She started to yank her arm away, then stopped. This Priest of Lies was her best hope of understanding, and in that moment, she let go of logic. She didn’t care what happened to her. That had happened to her before, and she should know better. Part of her mind was warning her to act. But the other part of her was intensely curious to see what would happen. In a few seconds, no matter what he did, she would know more than she did now. She let the priest pull her closer to him until there was no space left between them. He placed the other hand on the curve of her hip. He leaned forward so his lips were close to her ear.

  “Why do you seek the divine?” he whispered.

  Then Elspeth knew for certain: Sarpedon was a mind-mage, and he was casting his net into her memories. She knew she could still free herself from his spell and break his nose with the flat of her hand. Instead, she permitted his touch—for a fleeting instant she wanted someone to know what had happened to her. She wanted someone to know what she had endured. Go ahead and look. With her free hand, she slipped the dagger from the sheath under her arm. I hope you drown.

  He became a light-footed spy, traveling along the pathways of her brain, seeing much but not all. It was a strange—and not unpleasant—feeling to have him steal through her mind.

  With a shudder, the man dropped her hand and the coins clattered to the floor. He slumped back against the wall and then dropped to his knees in front of her.

  “You are greater than the gods,” he said in awe. “You walk in worlds they can’t see. You’ve faced evil they can’t comprehend.”

  “No, I’m not,” Elspeth said.

  “I’m a conduit to Phenax,” Sarpedon said. There was a strange desperation in his voice. “Now he knows what you are. He knows what you carry.”

  “Please,” Elspeth reached down and tried to pull him to his feet. “Please stand up.”

  But the man remained on his knees as if in worship before her. “Have you heard this god-story, Elspeth? A woman wished to change her lot in life. So she prayed to Nylea to set her free. Nylea heard her prayers and transformed the woman into a butterfly. But now the world was so immense that the butterfly couldn’t find her way, so she prayed to Heliod to send the South Wind to guide her home. Heliod took pity on this speck of a life and sent the wind, but it battered her and tore her wings. Carried on currents she couldn’t control, she fluttered into the heart of a spider’s web. Which is what Phenax had intended all along.”

  “They can’t control the whole world,” Elspeth said after a moment of reflection. She couldn’t bear to stand above him so she sank to her heels so their eyes were on the same level. “They can only control their portions of it.”

  “Some gods’ domains are greater than the others,” he said. “But even the greatest of them all is going blind.”

  “What do you mean?” Elspeth asked.

  “The God of Deception will punish me for saying this,” Sarpedon told her. “So I say this as a man and not his servant: Step below the sun and seek your god there.”

  “You mean Heliod?” Elspeth said.

  “There is a great silence on the horizon,” Sarpedon said. “Already, I can feel your secrets leaking to Phenax. He will lock them in the chest of his mind until he knows how best to use them to his advantage.”

  Sarpedon crawled to the altar and pressed his forehead against the handle of one of the knives. Elspeth didn’t know what else to do. She dropp
ed the coins on the floor and went in search of the one god she’d been avoiding.

  Even as the Priest of Lies bowed in front of Elspeth, Phenax sought Thassa in the cold quiet of the sea. Thassa and Phenax shared an arrangement from the days when archons tyrannized the land—but sharing secrets had taken a toll on her, and Thassa regretted ever casting in her lot with the god of cheats and liars.

  Even as Elspeth recoiled from Sarpedon, Thassa listened intently to Phenax’s whispers about the stranger in Akros. Even as Elspeth despised the Priest of Lies, Thassa despised Phenax as he shared his secrets. Phenax threatened to use the secrets to control her, planning for the day when she would serve him in exchange for his silence. Phenax whispered: “This mortal wields the sword of a god. She possesses Purphoros’s Sword that was claimed by your ocean. Keranos never sent the weapon into your waters. It was never claimed by the ruins of Arixmethes. How could you deceive us all this time?”

  Thassa pushed Phenax away from her and sped for the surface. Whether she wanted it or not, a war between her brothers was coming.

  The satyr bowed before Purphoros, who was surprised to see the goatish creature in his inner chamber at the heart of Mt. Velus. Purphoros had no memory of granting him entrance to the divine forge where the god spent his days before the eternal flames. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t done so. Even before Kruphix’s punishment, Purphoros could lose himself for days—years, even eons—in the act of creation. Then Kruphix had limited his memories and taken hard-earned knowledge from him as compensation for the damage that his sword had inflicted on Nyx. Furious that the pantheon had let him be mistreated, Purphoros dwelled in the fires of Mt. Velus and no longer ventured into the realm of the gods. He took the form of a man. He felt the afflictions of a man. He’d even embraced the self-pity of a mortal’s mind.

  “What did you say?” Purphoros asked the satyr. Purphoros’s deep voice echoed in the chamber, and lesser creatures would have quailed in his presence. The satyr was small, corporeal, and self-assured. He did not shiver or quake in the presence of a god. Purphoros’s own priests kept their chins down in his presence for fear of angering him. But this satyr brazenly met his eyes and did not blink from the fire burning in them.

  “What about your sword?” the satyr asked. “It’s been called the sword of chaos. They say it’s your greatest creation.”

  “What of it?” Purphoros asked.

  “What became of it?” the satyr asked.

  “Lost to the sea,” Purphoros said.

  Purphoros didn’t correct the bleating satyr, but the sword was not his greatest work of art. His greatest creation was a Nyxborn man named Petros, who was in the chamber with them. Petros stood nearby in front of the divine forge, toiling in honor of his creator. When the world was young, Purphoros was jealous of Iroas and Mogis and wanted a twin of his own. He’d created Petros from the cosmos, divine bronze with a touch of mortal flesh. Petros, who had existed longer than any mortal human, was always present in the forge. As the eons passed, Petros aged. Not like a human, but he withered, and Purphoros was forced to patch the cracks with strips of bronze and refill the vessel of his Nyxborn twin.

  “Are you certain?” the satyr asked. “What if a fortune hunter were to find such a treasure? How might the world respond?”

  “The world can’t wield my sword,” Purphoros said with annoyance.

  “Then how might Polukranos respond?” the satyr wondered.

  “Who?” Purphoros said. The word sounded familiar, but he felt a black cloud cross his god-sight and couldn’t remember the question.

  But Petros turned away from the fires and stared at the satyr. He understood the mortal’s language, but he could not speak as other humans did. He’d helped Purphoros forge the sword in the searing, explosive furnace. Because Kruphix hobbled Purphoros’s mind, it was Petros who remembered how to craft with the essence of the cosmos. Through his actions, Petros reminded Purphoros of everything that Kruphix had stolen from him.

  The satyr was so unnerved at the sight of Petros’s face that he took a step backward. Petros had been made in Purphoros’s image, and his chiseled features were an exact replica of the god’s own face. Like Purphoros, Petros looked like a muscular man whose coal-hued skin was covered with mutable bronze. The satyr was one of the first mortals to ever see Petros and survive. At the height of Purphoros’s power, he killed mortals for gazing uninvited on him or his Nyxborn twin.

  “Who is this?” the satyr asked, regaining his composure.

  “This is my artisan, and who are you?” Purphoros inquired.

  “Your artisan is a wonder,” the satyr said. “And I am your oracle.”

  The satyr stared greedily at Petros, who could not speak to call the satyr a liar.

  A momentary panic washed over Purphoros, who couldn’t remember claiming this vessel to be his oracle. But he was distracted from his fears by drops of rain, which were falling through the open shaft of Mt. Velus and cascading into the fiery forge. He opened his massive palm and let the drops fall onto his starry skin, so not a drop would be lost into the dry earth. Thassa had come to call. By the time she had arrived, both the satyr and Petros were gone. But Purphoros was distracted by the sound of his sister, like a pearly seashell whispering the sounds of the sea. He didn’t comprehend the theft of Petros, whom he loved like a son.

  Besides, Thassa’s arrival reminded him of other things. Smoke clouded the god’s eyes, and he felt a glimmer of the rage in his belly. The anger was a shadow of his former self. In eons past, the world trembled in fear of his fury. As the civilization of humans grew and they constructed temples and built shrines, Heliod insisted on the finest rams, the finest lands, and placed himself at the head of the mortals’ table. Purphoros had his worshipers among the mortals, but Heliod was better loved. Purphoros’s fury grew at the thought of how he’d been wronged, but then Thassa’s musical voice spoke to him through the smoke, and the rage faded. It had been far too long since he’d seen his sister of the sea.

  “Your forge is as oppressive as always, brother,” Thassa complained, looking around the steaming chamber. “Where are your smiths?” she asked.

  Purphoros led her out of the heart of the mountain into his main cavern, where scores of smiths and masons toiled at endless rows of burning forges. She stood on the balcony above the work and admired the towering pillars filled with stars. There were statues of monsters with molten veins and tongues of fire. The ceiling of the cavern had been transformed into an airy dome. It pulsed with an artificial visage of stars created in the image of Nyx, but fashioned to his liking. In Purphoros’s version of the night sky, Heliod was bound with chains to the rock of Mt. Velus while Kruphix had been reduced to a puddle of murky stars.

  “You have no need to return to the god-realm,” Thassa said. “Your creations are more exquisite now than when you dwelled in the coldness of Nyx.”

  “When Heliod is put in his place among the snails, then I will return to the sky,” Purphoros said.

  “Have you created something new?” Thassa asked.

  “I am always creating,” Purphoros answered. “Just seldom are they worth keeping.”

  Purphoros swept his arm in an arc before him, and a warm breeze blew through the interior of the mountain. Of course he had created something new—the mountain was bursting at the seams with all that he had done.

  “Have you crafted a new weapon to take your revenge on our brother?” Thassa clarified. “Heliod’s a vain coward, and you can tell me. I would rejoice at the sight of him broken in the sand.”

  He stared at her. Hadn’t someone else just been asking about the weapon? There were dark clouds in his memory. He wondered if Kruphix had his mossy fingers around his throat even now, even so far away from the edge of the world.

  Purphoros did not answer, so Thassa spoke again: “I have heard the footfalls of the hydra echoing on the floor of the sea.”

  “Polukranos,” Purphoros said, the name finally returned to his mind accompanied b
y a sense of barely controlled fury.

  “Can the horizon lie, brother?” she asked. “The gods are so divided. Your sword brought discord that has never been resolved. The hydra—”

  “Kruphix is mad. If the horizon lies, it does so carelessly and at his bidding,” Purphoros said. Already, his attention on her was waning, his desire to return to his ceaseless creation tugging him away from her. Purphoros hated their brother Kruphix, who held dominion over time and the horizon. Kruphix had power the rest of them didn’t understand, power that seemed to reside outside his domain in the ribs of their world. As punishment for harming Nyx, he’d made Purphoros’s mind unravel, unlearning many things he already knew. But Kruphix couldn’t touch Purphoros’s drive to forge, to build, to destroy and re-create.

  “Are you attacking Heliod again?” she asked bluntly. “Did you call the hydra from his resting place? Is the god-realm threatened again?”

  “I am not?” Purphoros asked, though his curiosity was piqued. Wisps of fire caressed her skin.

  “You created the divine sword that made Heliod tremble,” Thassa reminded him. “You forged it with fire and ingenuity. Surely you must remember. And surely you want your revenge.”

  Purphoros raged his fury in an explosion of fire and molten stones that surged into the sky above Mt. Velus. Thassa drained herself into the ground to avoid his wrath. “Kruphix stole my mind! He strangles me still!”

  “No, he doesn’t, brother,” Thassa assured him when he had quieted and the forge rang again with the sound of hammers. “Not anymore.”

  “Why do you seek the weapon?” Purphoros asked.

  “Heliod claims the world is crumbling,” Thassa said. “He both dreams and is blind. Things are happening that should not be.”