Turning the gem over and over, he studied the sharp planes, the gentle angles, the illuminated depths.
“The Amulet of the Fates.” The words came unbidden to his mind, though no words had been spoken. The longer he gazed into the interior, the clearer it became what usefulness the jewel might provide. Time became sluggish, if not entirely halted.
He blinked his eyes and saw only the green gem. With a lithe dive, he reentered the underwater passage and emerged on the other side of the grate. He had to exit this level, go back outside, and see where he had originally entered the Temple of Lahkesis above. It was the work of only a few moments to scale the wall and once more face the towering statue with the diadem in its forehead.
Kratos purposefully stepped onto the pressure plate. As it yielded under his weight, the statue’s arms lowered. He knelt to see if there might be a spot to wedge the green stone but found nothing. But the magicks within him stirred, fed by the Cronos Rage and yet not blasting forth the destroying energy. Rather, one magic fed the other. He looked up at the distant statue. This time he did not attempt to run forward and reach the rapidly rising hands. He held out the Amulet of the Fates. It vibrated and turned warm, and then he felt as if he had been plunged into some netherworld.
The room turned a green reminiscent of the angry ocean, and movements all around were slow, as if everything floated in honey. His movements were precise, easy. The world—time itself—had been slowed.
He saw the outstretched hands begin to rise. Kratos strode to the statue, stepped up, and then did away with the time-slowing spell. The speed of the rising hands made his knees buckle slightly.
The hands stopped when he was face-to-face with the statue. The diadem in its forehead blazed with eye-searing brilliance. As he reached out to pluck the jewel from the stony brow, the statue spoke.
“Hear me, fallen god. None defy what the Fates decree!”
“WIPE THEM ALL OUT,” Clotho said. “Now that the matter is settled, I need to return to more serious work.”
“Wait!” Lahkesis cried. “Sister, it isn’t that easy.”
“Why should it be easy? But it is simple,” Clotho said. “The gods are misbehaving grievously, and we know why. The Titans are stirring after the Great War and threatening Olympus. Do we want to oversee such a conflict again?”
“The Titanomachy set the world spinning in a different direction,” Lahkesis said. “Was that so bad? Why should we try to keep the peace, to keep everything … staid?”
She saw a different problem, and it was one her sisters avoided even mentioning.
The Titans were growing bolder after so many centuries of imprisonment, servitude, and solitude. It did not surprise her that Gaia was responsible for shepherding Kratos from Hades’ arms all the way to the Island of Creation. What did surprise her was how this could have happened. She and her sisters worked as a team.
She frowned because she did not understand how Kratos had defeated the Warrior of Destiny so easily. The threads intertwining the two destinies should have merged, with only that of the Warrior continuing. She shook her head, the black horns on her helm reflecting rays as dark as her thoughts. That meant Clotho or Atropos had been responsible for the defeat of their most significant confederate.
Even one of them becoming independent ruined the Sisters of Fate’s control over the world. Lahkesis considered the possibility that more action on her own part might be required. She had no love for her sisters, but they were her sisters, chained together by a Fate beyond their control. A niggling thought refused to allow her return to duty, to the routine her sisters appreciated so. The time might have come for her to break free of their hitherto seamless collaboration and strike out on her own.
“You relish routine. I am the one who sees danger because it is always out of the ordinary,” Lahkesis said. Who would react? Could she determine which of her sisters had meddled … in her own meddling?
“You see danger everywhere,” Atropos said glumly. “As you did when you sent the Warrior of Destiny to fight Kratos.”
Through long eons Lahkesis had come to know her sister’s every reaction, the slight twitches, the feigned interest or boredom. The simple statement left her speechless, however. How could Atropos know of the Warrior of Destiny’s failure? Lahkesis had been improvident and had reacted rather than thought through her actions—not as either of her sisters would have. But the impetuous decision had invigorated her and made her dreary existence a little better. Was Atropos only guessing as to her role, though, or had she followed a thread of fate and knew the truth?
Or was her role more active? Were the Sisters of Fate capable of spinning their own destiny, or did some higher power determine their fate? Lahkesis immediately discarded such a fantasy. Over the centuries there had been no such indication—but they had worked together in unison until now. She found it difficult to believe that Kratos was the agent of their disunity. But was he the unwitting dupe used against them by someone beyond the Sisters’ control?
It could not be. The core of the dispute was lack of coordination. It had to be.
“Why do you go on so?” Clotho asked. “I am returning to the Loom Chamber to work. I suggest you both do likewise.” With that Clotho left.
“Kratos is more dangerous than you can imagine,” Lahkesis said to Atropos, when their sister had left. “Leave him to me. Keep yourself content with petty routine.” The more she could do to keep Atropos busy, the easier it would be to remedy the problems she had caused through her impetuous casting of fate.
“You think to dismiss me so easily?” Atropos flared. “I am not some simpleminded creature who does nothing but measure for your cut on the threads of destiny. You mock me when I try something more.”
“We all decide on the destinies,” Lahkesis said warily, noting how her sister had admitted to independent action and not informing her sisters. “Then it is up to each of us to spin, measure, and cut.”
“I would do more,” Atropos said. “This meddling of yours with what the three of us have decided is wrong.”
“So wrong?” Lahkesis said, uneasy at her sister’s vehemence. It was as if she had been caught doing something illicit. “So wrong that you wanted to try it, also? What have you done?”
“Kratos is not yours alone,” Atropos said. “I don’t find him as interesting as you obviously do, but he is diverting. For a while, at least.” She crossed her arms, talons pointing downward as she rose haughtily on a column of black fog.
Lahkesis started to press the matter, then remembered that discord among the Sisters only caused woe. The times they had argued, the world had spun away in chaos, order failing and the mortals doing as they saw fit because of neglected threads. Better to placate Atropos and find—and correct—what she might have done to Kratos’ destiny. Her tinkering was hardly ever useful or productive, because she hadn’t the practice at it Lahkesis did.
“We need to widen our view of the world,” Lahkesis said, thinking this would divert her sister.
“What of the Titans and the Olympians?” Atropos seemed willing to pursue destinies other than that of Kratos.
“That is worth considering—later. For the moment, I will guide more carefully what you call my pet, Kratos, and examine how Gaia supports his quest.”
“Why does he come here? We will never change what we have already spun for him. Zeus killed him. That should be the end of it.”
“But Gaia meddles.”
“Should we then launch a new Great War?” Atropos asked, flustered.
Lahkesis wondered if she ought to take advantage of her sister’s confusion at this and pry from her what she had done with Kratos’ thread of destiny. Lahkesis’ irritation with her sister grew. Routine chores were perfect for Atropos, but when something fell out of that wonted warp and woof, she became frantic. As she was now.
“There is no need for such desperate moves. Small changes in destiny, that’s what is required. We must agree on a course of action, a destiny we all a
pprove.”
“Like the game we played before? The one where whoever could make the smallest change and produce the greatest result wins?”
Lahkesis remembered the Trojan War with some fondness. She had won by introducing a single golden apple into mortal society. The war had killed heroes on both sides and was still talked about by the poets.
“Yes, Atropos, something like that. But Kratos has loosed the Steeds of Time and is now in my temple.”
“What! Why wasn’t I told? We must—”
“You must do nothing. I will take care of him. What is he, after all? Nothing that we didn’t make.”
“He cheated his fate,” Atropos insisted. “That makes him dangerous. He was a mortal and killed a god and became a god and—”
“And he is once more mortal.” Lahkesis stiffened. “I must issue a stern warning to him. He has found my statue in the temple. Go, Atropos, go and tend to business while I speak with our Kratos.”
Atropos left, muttering to herself. Her boneless fingers moved sinuously, creating knots of destiny and as easily undoing them in a nervous gesture. Lahkesis forced herself to ignore her sister and devote her full attention to Kratos. She cleared her throat and spoke.
“NONE DEFY WHAT THE FATES DECREE.”
Kratos glared at the talking statue. Its eyes blinked and its lips moved, but it was stone, not living flesh. Lahkesis might speak through the likeness but the Sister of Fate was elsewhere. This infuriated him. There was no reason for her to be distant. Let her face him and not use a stone surrogate.
“That is how it must be. Only death awaits you at the end of your journey.”
“My death is what began this journey,” Kratos said, fists clenched tightly. He stepped forward and wanted to strike out—but he also wanted to hear what Lahkesis had to say. Gaia had said that the Sisters of Fate alone could return him to the precise moment needed to save himself and kill Zeus on that desolate, devastated terrace in Rhodes.
“The Fates have not deemed victory for you. Your soul will never find peace for what you have become.”
“I am what the gods have made me!” He could no longer contain his anger. Swords flashing, he cut across the statue’s cheek, sending bits of stone and rock dust to the floor far below.
His fury mounted at being thwarted by Lahkesis. A second powerful slash cut the nose off the statue. The diadem in the forehead glowed more brightly, a blinding green that caused his innards to burn with a fire that threatened to consume him. This spurred Kratos to even greater acts of violence. Cheek and jaw, throat and each side of the head. He hacked until his muscles bulged and the helmeted head of Lahkesis slid backward, finally severed from the body. Kratos reared back, placed his foot against the ravaged stone face, and pushed hard. The head grated along a few feet, then toppled to the floor behind the statue and shattered into a thousand pieces.
Kratos vaulted down, walked around the remnants of the statue’s head, and saw a ghostly face in an arched portal to one side.
“You will die here, Kratos. We will never allow you to reach our sacred temple.”
Kratos turned away, ignoring Lahkesis’ phantasm. He stopped and drew his swords when a pair of boars snorted, snuffled, then brandished their curving tusks before charging him. He stood his ground, waited for one giant boar to leap, and then dodged to one side. Four-legged animals, once committed to such an attack, could not recover or change direction easily.
Kratos gutted the boar as it flashed past him.
The second boar learned from its companion’s death and did not leap but stayed on the ground, head low as it charged, ready to lift its head and catch him on vicious, yellowed tusks. As dangerous as this attack was, Kratos dealt with it easily enough. Rather than use his sword he bent down, grabbed hold of the boar’s ear and one saliva-wet tusk, and jerked to one side. The heavy creature flopped onto its side, kicking and squealing. Kratos balled one hand into a sledge of a fist and smashed the pig in the throat. It died, drowning in its own blood. He picked it up, turning toward the doorway, where the eerie outline of a woman’s face still shimmered.
“Here, Lahkesis,” Kratos called. “Take your servant!” He hurled the boar through the face. It flared as if he had disturbed a desert mirage, swirled about inchoate, then coalesced back into a taunting visage.
“We will never alter your fate, Kratos. You were meant to die by the hand of Zeus!”
Kratos turned away. The illusory face of the Fate could not harm him. If Lahkesis could have become corporeal, she would have died by his hand. From what she had said, she cowered in her palace with her sisters. Kratos needed only to find the palace and the flesh-and-blood bodies of the Sisters to persuade them to alter his destiny.
His swords clacked together to reassure himself of how that “persuasion” would be accomplished.
Having his blades already drawn saved him. A towering Cyclops dropped from a walkway above and crashed into the stone floor not ten feet away. For the immense one-eyed monster, such a distance was hardly more than a short reach. It grabbed for Kratos. Only his swords blocked the questing fingers.
He lopped off two, sending the sausage-thick fingers spinning away on the marble floor. Although the Cyclops’ body blocked his view, he knew what else he faced. He heard the squeals and snorts of more boars as they devoured the severed digits.
The Cyclops let out a roar of pain and fury and charged. Kratos spun his swords about, stabbing, hacking, slicing. And then he was forced to retreat under the fierce attack. The single bloodshot eye fixed on him with an intensity that would have frightened a lesser man. For him, it meant only that he had an eye to blind.
As he prepared for the leap that would send him aloft and his blade into the Cyclops’ giant eye, a boar attacked. Kratos was bowled over. His swords held the four-legged killer at bay long enough to somersault and come to his feet.
The Cyclops sucked on its severed fingers, then reached down, grabbed another boar, and ripped its head off. Kratos wondered if the Cyclops had become confused as to its enemy. Then he saw that the creature was simply using the weapons it had at hand. The powerful shoulders bunched, and the Cyclops threw the still-kicking headless boar at Kratos. He ducked and dropped to one knee.
Then he found himself under full attack by the roaring, gibbering Cyclops. Hairy arms batted at him, leaving him staggering and dazed. A fist larger than his head smashed into his back and pummeled him until he fell onto his belly. Then the Cyclops kicked him, lifting him off the floor and sending him crashing into a wall.
Eyes blurred from the punishment, Kratos saw the Cyclops lumber toward him, hands grasping for its enemy. All Kratos could see was the hand with the two fingers cut off. He shook his head clear and then released the spell contained in the Amulet of the Fates. The Cyclops’ headlong charge slowed to nothing. In the greenish light permeating this world, its bloodshot eye seemed to turn into diamond. Aching, muscles protesting, Kratos got to his feet, drew his swords, and then chopped off the already finger-deprived hand.
Then he released the magical spell and stepped to one side. The Cyclops roared in pain and disbelief that its hand had been hacked off. The pain broke its concentration, giving Kratos the opportunity he needed to slip around behind the monstrous creature, clamber up its back, reach around the bristle-haired head, and dig his fingers into the eye. The Cyclops went wild, thrashing about and trying to dislodge him. Kratos rooted about until he grabbed the tendrils at the back of the eye to pull it free, then crushed it.
As the Cyclops opened its mouth to screech in pain and fury, Kratos placed one hand at the back of its neck and with the other grabbed its tongue. With a sudden swift circular yank, he not only broke the Cyclops’ neck but pulled out the tongue as well. The monster stiffened and then fell like a tree with its trunk sawed through.
Kratos lightly jumped off and stared at the fallen giant for a moment.
“You cannot change your destiny,” the ghostly outline of Lahkesis’ head cried.
H
e threw the Cyclops’ tongue through the doorway, through Lahkesis’ ghostly face, and onto the path beyond. For a moment, he thought Lahkesis would return, but the image had disappeared for good. Along the path now opened lay a steamy, stinking bog. Corpses dangled from banyan trees on either side. Carrion birds pecked at the fresher bodies, one possibly still alive though Kratos never slowed his advance to see. Those strung up in the trees were of no concern to him.
On the other side of this bog rose the sky-gutting spire of the Palace of the Fates.
He was ready to meet the Sisters.
He was not ready for the chain whistling through the air and circling his neck. Kratos choked and then was dragged along on his belly behind a huge horse that galloped through the swampy terrain.
“THE WORLD BELOW is in turmoil, my father,” Athena said.
Zeus sat back, apparently unconcerned. He made vague brushing motions with his hand, as if she were nothing more than an insect to be shooed away.
“It comes from unrest in Olympus,” she went on. “There cannot be such upheaval among the gods and goddesses without repercussions.”
“You fear for my throne, daughter?” Zeus laughed harshly. Athena heard no humor in his tone. He had always treated her well before, even causing other gods to claim he favored her above them. She remembered how Ares had tried to use this as a lever with Zeus to gain more power. It hadn’t worked with the former God of War and from what she could tell, nothing she might say now would hold sway with Zeus.
“I do, Sky Father,” she said. Athena saw Iris peeking out from behind a large pillar at the side of the audience chamber. The instant the new Messenger of the Gods realized Athena saw her, she ducked away, as if this would take away all memory of her eavesdropping. “There are those atop Mount Olympus who would steal away your power, if not your throne.”
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