The God of Olympus

by Matthew Argyle

  The God of Olympus

  By Matthew Argyle

  Author’s Note:

  The events contained in this book represent an attempt of epic fantasy fiction to be placed within historical context, and of course, much fictive imagining. Effort was made to place the occurrences of the novel between 454-427 B.C. (the Classical Era of Greece). Extensive effort was also made to make the novel true to fact and history, including the process of competing in the Olympic Games, as well as historical figures and locations. However, some historical details may have been distorted or discarded due to creative pleasure and processes.

  Prologue

  Before any light shed itself abroad over the mortal world there was a great war in heaven. The peace that had previously filled the universe dissipated when Zeus’ own brother Hades rebelled against his rule.

  “Zeus! You do not deserve to rule!” yelled Hades. “I am the rightful ruler of this universe!”

  Of course Zeus would not retreat or back down against Hades’ threats and accusations.

  So, in anger and desperation, Hades took all the Gods that would come with him and fought against Zeus and his Gods. This war spanned the entire universe. In fact, the war was so great and perilous that it became known as the War of Gods and everyone on every world in the universe knew that this Great War would shake the fortunes of all that exists or ever would exist.

  As the war continued Zeus and his armies fought fiercely against Hades and his armies. However, no matter the physical strength or skill in battle, because all those who fought were Gods and hence immortal, no victor could ever be decided should conditions remain the same. Instead, it would simply be an eternal battle of the Gods and Zeus knew there was much more to life than war. So instead of fighting a meaningless battle for an eternity Zeus devised a great plan, a plan to win the war.

  In the deepest magic of the past he read of the ability of a being to become a “Super-God.” A Super-God would have the ability to conquer other Gods or cast them out of their world entirely. And this is what was needed—a God above all Gods who could bind and cast out Hades and his followers forever, thereby ending the war. However, Zeus could not simply create a Super-God by his own power. Creating a Super-God could only come at great cost. The cost required to make a being into a Super-God was all the godly powers of both a man and a woman—Zeus and Hera. But in order to do this, in order to create a Super-God, Zeus approached Hades and demanded that the war stop for a short season. Hades was surprised by his brother’s demand, but agreed. Then later, in secret, Hades departed into his underworld on the mortal world and there consulted with his three secret weapons, the great Fates, who he was sure would help him win the war and gain ultimate power.

  Hades learned many things from the Fates. He learned of a “Super-God” and what Zeus was planning on doing to win the war. Hades then devised his own plan on winning the war, a plan he believed would trump Zeus’ plan.

  “Zeus thinks that he can create a being who is greater than any God, a being who can defeat a God—a being who can defeat me!” Hades laughed as he lifted up a vial. The vial was small and clear, made of some type of shiny glass, wrapped with black branch-like strings wrapped around it. Inside the vial was a dark red liquid.

  “What folly is this plan, for I shall make this Super-God into a mortal and then kill him! Then Zeus and Hera will have relinquished their power for nothing, and they shall be subject to my power. Their last hope at defeating me will then be gone forever!”

  So Hades permitted a short time of peace, time enough for Zeus and Hera to have a child.

  Zeus and Hera chose the only place in the universe that was to be a complete secret from the outside world, protected by an ancient magic—Mount Olympus. There, on Mount Olympus, Zeus and Hera looked down with joy at their newborn babe.

  “Look at what we have created Hera!” exclaimed Zeus as he rubbed his hands on the child’s head. “He is so young and pure! He shall be our savior, the one force to change the outcome of this war!”

  Hera smiled. “He shall be more than that Zeus, for he is our son, our gem! He will bring light to a universe where there is only darkness!”

  “What shall we call him?” asked Zeus.

  “Hercules…” said Hera. “We will call him Hercules!”

  Then Zeus turned to Hera and declared: “Now is the time my dear, for we have little time. This place is well protected from evil vision. Into the child we must pour all of our godly power!” Zeus and Hera then placed their hands on the baby, said a few words, and in those few moments poured all of their god power into their new-born child.

  Zeus watched as the babe smiled and emitted a powerful light.

  “Now it is finished!” exclaimed Zeus. “He is a Super-God! Let us celebrate!”

  And so, after the birth of their young child Zeus and Hera held a banquet on Mount Olympus and invited all of their friends to celebrate the birth of Hercules. However, while they were dining in their heavenly mansion Hades, hooded and covered in a black cloak, snuck into the mansion unnoticed. There, while Zeus and the other Gods were celebrating, Hades raced up to the top room of the mansion and entered into Hercules’ bedroom.

  There he saw the child neatly encased in a heavenly cradle. Hades approached the child carefully and slowly, afraid that the child would have some sort of weapon, or that Zeus had prepared some secret defense against intruders. But when nothing happened Hades laughed inside himself. “Ha!” he thought. “This is the thing they thought would defeat me! What fools!”

  Hades then removed from underneath his cloak the vial and raised it up above the baby. Then he began to pour the vial of mortality into his mouth. After tasting it Hercules suddenly started to cry. Zeus and Hera heard the crying and both rushed up to the child’s room to see what was wrong. Then, just before Hercules drank the last drop of the vial, Zeus and Hera entered. Hades was so startled that he dropped the vial, causing it to shatter on the floor. Hades turned around, looked at Zeus and Hera, and then suddenly reached down and grabbed the child. Hercules cried even more.

  “No! Hercules!” Hera screamed as she watched her poor babe suffer.

  Hades smiled and looked down at the child. “Ah, so the child’s name is Hercules…interesting…a name of which I am very familiar. Now I know for sure that you have placed all hope in this one child!”

  “What have you done?” asked Zeus.

  “What have I done?” replied Hades, mockingly. “I have done what must be done. I have made your child a mortal! Thus your great child cannot dwell here in the heavens anymore. You are foolish Zeus to believe that I would not be aware of your plan—your plan to create a ‘Super-God’—a God that could defeat me. And you were both foolish to surrender all of your powers. Now, without your only hope, you will easily be defeated!”

  “That is where you are wrong!” said Zeus. “We may have forfeited our godly powers, but because Mount Olympus is such a holy and magical place we have the right and power to cast you out if we wish because, although our godly power is gone, our mantle and title is still upon us.”

  “You are fools,” snapped Hades. “You may cast me out from Mount Olympus, but you will lose everything you love so dear, for I will send all my armies to wage war against your armies while I take your own precious child to the underworld to become its new leader!”

  These words brought great tears to Hera. Hera hated even imagining her child suffering such an awful fate. This seemed to anger Zeus even more as he held his wife firmly in his arms.

  Hades laughed again. “Ha! Yes, feel the pain, for your son will take my place and I will soon take your place great Zeus, as leader of both God and Man! And you will both be left to either watch in misery from Mount Olympus as the world
is taken over by my power, or leave Mount Olympus and be subject to my power.”

  “We will remain here, on Mount Olympus, where scum like you cannot dwell,” boomed Zeus. “I know that Hercules is more than flesh and bone…he will defeat you.”

  “Ha! Ha! Your Hercules will defeat me, God of the underworld? Do you forget the qualities of the mortal world? He will go down to a world where he will forget everything he knew about this world… a world where he will suffer, and where people will chastise him. He will not be normal and I will teach him hatred and deceit. In essence, you must know that you are sentencing this child to ultimate destruction!”

  “We shall see,” replied Zeus. “But no longer shall you linger here tormenting us. Hades, you slippery snake, I command you to depart this sacred place! Depart Mount Olympus! Go from our sight you devil!”

  Suddenly a powerful light emanated from Zeus’ being. Hades felt overwhelmed and so he retreated from Mount Olympus, departing with Hercules in his hands.

  Hera cried again and reached out, “No, don’t let him take our baby! Send the Gods after them!”

  “Sending the Gods will do no good,” said Zeus sadly. “For the child has now been corrupted and cannot dwell with us on Mount Olympus, even if the Gods were to retrieve him. And both of us cannot depart from here now that our Godlike powers are forfeit else we subject ourselves to death by Hades and his minions. Instead, we must both be apart. Sadly this is how it must be!”

  So Zeus and Hera watched from above as Hades loaded their child into his devilish flying chariot. His flying chariot was led by two powerful, black horses, with massive wings and hot, steamy breath. Both his horses sped off, down towards the mortal world. Hades felt he had won, however, yet another twist in this tale had yet to occur. As Hades was flying down from Mount Olympus there arose a terrible storm, as if by the Gods’ mere anger and sadness alone the heavens themselves became upset. Lightning, hail, thunder and even massive rocks shot down from the heavens.

  Hades struggled to manage navigating the flying chariot in this storm and set the child in the back of the chariot. Suddenly a large rock hit the chariot and knocked the child off the chariot towards the distant ground below. The child fell down towards the ground and landed softly in the back of an old wagon. Hades was so busy navigating the storm that he didn’t notice that Hercules was gone until it was too late, until he had arrived back within his dark underground lair. By then, however, the child was long gone, held carefully in a cart where he landed, led by an old mortal couple, so named Amphitryon and Alcmene.

  Once Hades realized that he had lost the child he was terribly angry. Hercules would look like any other babe. He knew the child was now completely lost to him, hidden among a maze of mortals. And instead, of being able to kill Hercules by being completely mortal, Hercules would still possess much of his Godlike strength and qualities, such as immortality. This was, for Hades, a major impediment to his great plan.

  What was Hades to do in this moment? He couldn’t kill all the newborn babies abroad in the land, for he had yet to gather the loyalty of many of the mortals which he needed to start his war on the earth. Hades knew, instead, that he must wait, wait for the moment when the child would expose himself to the world.

  Indeed, neither Hades’ nor Zeus’ plan worked as they would have supposed. Regardless of this fact, however, both Gods were, for now, content to let things be. The war in the heavens temporarily ceased and life, both on earth and in the heavens, was at peace. But it was not a hopeful peace. Instead, it was a peace of anticipation, nervousness, and planning, with both sides awaiting a war they would occur with ferocity once young Hercules grew to maturity.

  Indeed, on Mount Olympus, Zeus looked over the entire land and sighed, saying, “The plan for the child worked as neither Hades or myself intended. But perhaps that is how it must be. Now no plan may be created for Hercules except a plan he dictates!” He looked over to Hera, who was in tears. He wrapped his hands around her and said, “Do not cry my dear Hera, for I foresee that our child still has great potential. Regardless of the woes and trials that may come to him in the mortal world we may still look over him from a far. And know, my dear Hera, that he may yet be the God of Olympus!”

  Chapter 1: Hercules’ Early Life and Departure

  The moment the heavenly child landed in the back of their moving cart the two future parents were alarmed and gazed back to a see a naked baby clapping his hands gleefully. The baby chuckled slightly as he bounced up and down due to the bumpy trail. This surprised them because they had no idea where he came from but the heavens. But if he did come from heaven they thought that he should be dead after what seemed like a great fall (after all, he had fallen with so much apparent force that it seemed as if nobody would have survived the fall, let alone be happy about it). This was the first miracle of many other miracles that would come to this couple, with each miracle being as astounding or more astounding than the last.

  Before discussing in great depth the life of Hercules, the main hero of this tale, it is necessary to discuss the lives of our two great rescuers—Amphitryon and Alcmene. Amphitryon, now fifty-five, was once a great Theban general. As a general he won countless battles and led thousands into battle against their terrible foes. But his destiny changed one day when he killed his future father-in-law Electryon, King of Mycenae (thinking he was another man). After this Amphitryon lost his great mantle and was driven out of his home city where he fled to the city of Thebes to hide until his head was no longer wanted; and so in Thebes Amphitryon remained for a long period of time until, who did he meet, but Electryon’s own daughter—Alcmene.

  Amphitryon instantly fell in love with Alcmene and eventually she also fell in love with him. After some time of secretly meeting, however, he knew that he would eventually need to confess to her that he was the killer of her father Electryon. And so he eventually did the brave and noble thing—he told her everything that occurred that day. He told her how he had fought and killed her father. She was sad at this news and had every right to leave him, but their love would not be soiled and her heart would not be hardened. Instead of harboring any feelings of anger she was understanding of what had transpired and, in order to relieve his feelings of guilt, she brought him to the King of Thebes, named Creon, who cleansed his soul from the great guilt of the sin. After Amphitryon was cleansed from his sin he knew that these two now pure and young lovers could not remain in the wicked city of Thebes. Instead, they both left together out into the country of Greece, up into a peaceful cottage on a hill, where they would remain very much away from the world. There, the powerful love the two shared would only increase. And it was there that they hoped they would be able to have a child.

  Although they had departed from the evil of the world, the couple would not be shielded from their own pain and suffering. The couple had a young child they named Iphicles. But Iphilces did not last long in this world, for shortly after his birth he died (from causes quite unknown to this couple).

  Amphitryon and Alcmene were terribly disheartened.

  “How could the Gods have granted us a child only to take him back so quickly?” asked Alcmene.

  Amphitryon had no answer. “There are some things that men are not meant to know or understand.”

  Alcmene was so disheartened at having to bury her own little babe that she decided, even with her desire for a child, against ever having another child again. “We mustn’t have another child, for I could not bear to bury another one of my children.”

  Amphitryon, in his deep love for her, agreed. And so the couple lived together, but without a child for twenty long years. It is here, however, where our story now returns to the moment after the babe Hercules descended from the heavens.

  After the child landed in the cart, Amphitryon stopped the cart and both leapt out to examine the child. Amphitryon looked up. “Where did he come from?” asked Amphitryon as he looked up. “There are only trees all around.”

  Alcmene looked down at th
e cheerful babe who seemed to glow in the darkness. Then both looked up in awe at the rocks, hail, and lighting firing down from the heavens.

  “What is going on?” asked Amphitryon. “I haven’t seen a storm like this up here before…”

  “Come let us move quickly,” said Alcmene. “I sense a dark force at work this evening!” Whether it was the noble instincts of a mother or mere human intuition it was clear that Alcmene sensed something was very wrong.

  The two quickly traveled through the forest back up to their small house in the mountains, just to the north-east of the city of Delphi, where they hid the child. “The Gods are greatly upset!” yelled Amphitryon, now barely able to hear himself above the sound of the storm. The storm continued to rage with great intensity around their home, so much so in fact, that Amphitryon and Alcmene both thought that they were going to lose their cottage. However, before all was lost they suddenly heard the babe mumble a few clearly distinguishable words.

  “Stop!” yelled the child as he pointed his finger up towards the heavens.

  Amphitryon and Alcmene were both frightened, not as much by the fact that this child spoke (although this was surprising considering his age), but by the fact that after the child spoke the storm suddenly ceased.

  “What manner of child is this that the elements obey him?” asked Alcmene.

  The couple just stood there in awe, staring at this cheerful, heavenly child, until they heard a loud knock at their door.

  “Hide the child,” whispered Alcmene. “I will get the door.”

  Amphitryon nodded and went back to hide the babe in the back room.

  Alcmene opened the door slowly, but was surprised at what she saw. In front of her was a bright man who looked no older than twenty-one. He was clothed only in a light-blue robe and sandals. In his hand he held some kind of white staff.

  “You really are going to keep a God waiting at the door? How preposterous!”