God of War 2

by Robert E. Vardeman

  Atropos found her ire rising, and she had no idea why. She considered grounding him by clipping his winged sandals to teach a lesson in humility. She held the power over the Olympians. She held power over the entire world! Hadn’t she, with her sisters, brought down the Titans in the Great War? The Olympians and Zeus in particular owed them for the position and power they had enjoyed ever since.

  “I cannot change your destiny, god of Olympus,” she said pompously. She wanted him to become more nervous and perhaps offer her great tribute as Cronos had done in the past. Gifts given in fear were always so interesting, reflecting on the thoughts of the giver. “Rather, I will not. It is not my pleasure to change what has already been spun so lovingly.”

  “Your choices confuse me, sister,” Hermes said.

  “They are not meant to be understood by mere gods.”

  “Why do you allow Kratos to possess the Golden Fleece?”

  “He doesn’t. Jason is attempting to reach us with that bribe, as if we had any use for the Golden Fleece.”

  “If you do not accept Kratos’ gift of the Golden Fleece—”

  “Jason brings the fleece, not Kratos. Kratos has been thwarted in his attempt to reach the Palace of the Fates. We do not permit mortals—or gods—to enter the palace unless we deem it their destiny.”

  “Not so, sister,” Hermes said. Now he became more confident, and this perplexed her. It irritated her even further. Too much slid along a string of fate bouncing and bobbing in unexpected directions. The outcome would be the same, of course, but those ripples gave too much unpredictability to allow her peace of mind. Lahkesis would relish it. Atropos wanted only to restore order.

  “I am aware of every gift I have ever given a mortal.”

  “What’s your point, Hermes?”

  The winged Messenger of the Gods stared boldly—too boldly—at her in open defiance. Had she and her sisters pushed Hermes too far? Allowing Zeus to cast Hermes from Olympus had left the messenger god with nothing to lose. She felt some of that cold determination in Kratos. What more could be done to him that the Sisters of Fate had not already decreed? His fate was sealed as surely as if they had affixed a blob of wax to him and used their signet rings to display an imprint on his forehead.

  “I gave the ram to Phrixus and Helle, who flew—”

  “Yes, yes, we decided that Helle would tumble to her death.” Atropos chuckled at the memory. None of the Sisters had foreseen that the mortals would name the narrow channel where Helle died after her.

  “Phrixus appreciated my gift. The ram had both reason and speech—and possessed the Golden Fleece. It was one of my finer gifts.”

  “I know this, Hermes. You waste my time. Now leave.” Atropos found the thread she had been spinning with such care.

  “Every gift I have ever given,” Hermes said more forcefully, “is forever linked to me.”

  “Hermes,” Atropos said, tiring of his reminiscences. “Your charities are of no interest to me.”

  His face hardened. “There is always more to my deeds. Do I not learn secrets and then divulge them? I knew when Jason killed the dragon and stole the fleece.”

  Atropos glared at him. Then she felt a coldness build within that was both unexpected and unusual. She controlled the fate of others, but now her own destiny slipped and slid in directions not of her choosing. She knew that Hermes spoke the truth.

  “Jason embarked on another quest, this time to offer the Golden Fleece to you as tribute so you would change his fate.”

  Hermes pressed on with what Atropos did not want to hear.

  “Jason is dead and Kratos possesses the Golden Fleece.”

  “He can enter the Temple of Euryale,” Atropos said, shocked.

  “Kratos has powerful allies.”

  Gaia! sprang instantly to Atropos’ mind.

  “Iris,” Hermes said. “The Goddess of the Rainbow aids him. I am sure of it.”

  “Iris?” Atropos was brought back from her speculations about the Titans plotting once more to gain ascendancy over the gods. She knew Gaia’s interest in Kratos, but had Iris somehow escaped her destiny? Atropos felt true fear. She had meddled and might have brought ruin down on herself through lack of skill. How she wished she had Lahkesis’ talents for such disregard of destinies they had all agreed upon. This had to be made right, and when it was, she would go back to her work of measuring and leave Lahkesis to her tiny diversions.

  A new, colder thought came to her. What if Lahkesis had countered her minor tweaks of Kratos’ fate, changing the warp and woof of his thread for her own purposes? Those purposes might not have Atropos’ best interests at heart. After all, she had become excited at the idea of meddling so that she determined destiny rather than all three Sisters of Fate.

  What if Lahkesis had decided two sisters might be better? Atropos never argued with Clotho, and she had never known Lahkesis to, either. But she and Lahkesis? They had moments of bitter dispute, although not lately. Had this lull in their contention been a clever plan of Lahkesis’ to lull her into—

  Atropos swelled to four times her normal size. The projection dwarfed Hermes now as she tried to conceal her agitation.

  “Who else can provide such accurate information but another Messenger of the Gods? She has designs on Zeus.”

  “His throne? She will never be accepted as Queen of the Gods, sitting on Zeus’ throne.”

  “Oh, no, not that. Iris is subtler. She thinks to supplant Hera as Zeus’ wife. From his side she would manipulate and direct to gain the power she seeks. Zeus is a god of immense loves and hates and does nothing by half measure, often responding with emotion rather than reason. Iris has his counsel in the guise of bringing him news from across the mortal world. She brings him lies!” Hermes was flushed now. His wings beat frantically now, lifting him many feet above the tiled floor as his passion grew.

  “We have not decreed that,” Atropos said. She dropped the complex weave and the distant Nile overflowed its banks, sweeping away thousands, all requiring her expert measurement. Forgotten for the moment, she left those threads of fate and sought the ones for Zeus, Hera, and Iris. No reworking revealed itself, but Lahkesis was always changing her work once she became bored. And Clotho was the subtlest of the Sisters. She could have worked in a strand that Atropos might never find without shredding the entire thread.

  The Sisters of Fate had not decreed such an upheaval in Olympus. But had one of the Sisters? Atropos stared at Hermes and wondered. Had Lahkesis become tired of her role as only one of the three Sisters of Fate? Did she have ambitions to become the Sister of Fate?

  KRATOS STOOD BEFORE the Gorgon Gate, its eyes emitting the deadly green beams that would permanently turn him to stone. His return through the ruins had been quick because a burning need rose within him. If Jason had sought the Sisters of Fate, other heroes might also come to beg them for a different destiny. His need lay paramount. He had killed Ares, the God of War. Now he intended to kill the very King of the Gods.

  Kratos touched the spot on his chest where the sword had penetrated and left his entrails dangling. He looked at the Gorgon Gate and sneered. He touched the Golden Fleece adorning his shoulders, magical tingles passing into him. Before it had been only a cape. Now glowing plates adhered to his armor.

  The Gorgon’s eyes fixed on him. The heat and stark power staggered him, but the golden armor bolstered his ability to fend off even the most severe blow. He advanced, the Barbarian King’s war hammer in his right hand.

  Torrents of energy poured around him, as if he were a seaside rock and a mighty storm’s waves crashed against him. Like that rock, he did not bend or yield. Grunting, he swung the hammer as hard as he could against the face of the stone Gorgon. It exploded into a million pieces. Kratos let out a bellow of triumph, then rushed into the Temple of Euryale.

  He began to explore, finding only desultory guards to block his way. He heard scraping sounds. Drawing his swords, he rounded a thick pillar to see a wizened soldier yanking hard at
a handle on a winch. The soldier looked up and grinned, revealing gaps between teeth so blackened with rot as to be useless. The flesh was pulled drum-tight on his face, and his eyes burned with fanatic fire. He yanked hard and pulled the wooden handle out of the winch, staggering back.

  “You’ll never reach the Sisters of Fate, Ghost of Sparta. It is my fate.” On spindly legs more bone than muscle he ran away to vanish around a pillar, cackling maniacally the entire distance.

  Kratos studied the winch and saw it controlled an elevator that would have lowered him into the bowels of the temple. Lacking the handle, he had two choices. He could track down the emaciated soldier and take the handle from him, or he could find another way down, for such had to be the direction he needed to travel. Why else would the old soldier in his battered, blood-encrusted armor try to keep him from the lower levels unless that way truly led to the Sisters of Fate?

  Stalking about finally revealed a small hole in the ancient stone flooring that Kratos enlarged with several swift blows from Alrik’s war hammer. Debris fell to the floor far below. He shoved his head down into the hole to look about and saw a strange iron cage spanning the length of one wall—but stranger yet were the spinning blades with serrated edges that rolled back and forth along channels mounted in the ceiling. The drop was too far to the floor, even for Kratos, but if he could reach a wall and climb down, he could continue his search.

  To do that, he had to cross the ceiling laden with spinning wheels of death. Any of the rotating, laterally moving wheels would sever an arm or legs—or head—if he made even an incautious move.

  Without hesitating, Kratos swung down, using the Blades of Athena to grapple into the stone ceiling. He fell into a rhythm that allowed him to swing forward, pull free his sword, and then reach for a new, secure anchor in the ceiling, but this almost caused his death. His path crossed that of whirling saw blades that came racing from the walls, following tracks on the ceiling. Kratos was forced to time his progress across to match the accelerating speeds of multiple saw blades.

  When he had almost reached the far wall, he was forced to use his sword to block a saw blade spinning directly at him. The impact wrenched his hand free. He dangled by one arm as the blade whipped past. It took several seconds for him to recover his senses; then he saw the blade had reached the end of its channel and was coming back at even greater speed. Wrenching himself about, he thrust his sword into the ceiling, got a firm anchor, and swung out of the way at the last possible instant. Kicking hard, he swung to and fro, then shot outward in an arc that caused him to smash into the wall. Quick reflexes brought his swords about and into the stone. From here it was the work of a moment to lower himself to the floor.

  “It’s a trap. A trap,” came the weak moan from inside the iron cage along the wall to his left. Kratos examined the mechanism and frowned.

  The decrepit soldier who had stolen the handle had been impaled on spikes mounted on a vertical wall that traversed the interior of the long iron cage.

  “A lever,” the skewered man whispered hoarsely. “Be quick or be dead … like me.”

  The soldier shook spasmodically, then fell lax. Kratos wondered for a brief moment how much of his life the soldier had wasted in attempting to change what the Fates had meted out for him, but before he could wallow any deeper in that pool of thought, Kratos forced his mind back to the task at hand. Carefully he examined the structure that lay before him. The warning given seemed accurate. He bent his back to pull the external lever, which drew back the piston mounted with the spikes and the impaled body enough to enter the cage. He released the lever and watched how the mechanism worked.

  A second lever along the rails worried Kratos. He walked farther, peered around, and saw a stone grate. He moved the lever twice more, watching and counting. On the third pull, he stepped in front; the piston began moving behind him. Stride long, Kratos went to the second lever in a nook beside the cage. He judged distances, counted duration for how long he had before the piston rammed the spikes into him, then drew back this lever. A heavy door opened beyond the end of the grating at the far end of the cage. By now the piston was speeding up as it came down the interior of the cage.

  Kratos gripped the edge of the grating, which was at the end of a steel tunnel, and heaved. The grating moved ponderously. He applied every ounce of his immense strength and lifted it in time to avoid being impaled as the soldier had been, but he saw the doorway ahead closing. He dived forward through the door at the last possible instant.

  He hit the floor fifteen feet below, rolled, and came to his feet, alert. All around the immense chamber rose stone pillars. Sea-green marble floors stretched about, but what drew him was a solitary pedestal in the center of the chamber. On it, open, lay a book. Rubble surrounded the pedestal. When he kicked at the debris to get closer, dust rose and shards scattered. Kratos stared at a petrified hand amid the debris. A single stone finger pointed up at him. His foot came down and ground the hand into dust.

  He saw words on the book’s open page. They had been written in blood.

  I AM ALL THAT REMAINS … I KNOW NOW THAT I WILL NEVER REACH THE SISTERS …

  Kratos had reached out to turn the page when he heard the awesome sound of breaking stone. He looked up as a pillar collapsed toward him. Flying behind it came a huge Gorgon, snakes on its head a-wiggle and its reptilian tail whipping about like a monstrous flail. Stubby arms reached for him as pendulous teats bobbed about. Amid the destruction of the column Kratos was forced to jump straight up or be crushed as that deadly tail turned the pedestal and book into dust with a single powerful smash.

  He stumbled away, reaching for the war hammer. By the time he regained his balance, he faced the towering monster, which hissed at him.

  Euryale, queen of serpents.

  “Kratosss. Murderer of my children. You are surprised I know you? Yes, I am aware of the misery you have brought my brood.”

  Her attack was blindingly quick for such a huge creature. She swept her tail around, forcing Kratos to jump over it, then tried to freeze him with her gaze. He landed on one knee and lifted the Golden Fleece, deflecting the deadly stare.

  “You will die, Kratos. Ruthlessly cutting down my line, your hands still wear their blood. Praise to the Sisters, for on this day, Kratos, you will meet your end!”

  Kratos had no time to bandy words. He swung the war hammer and smashed Euryale in the chest, knocking the monster back. He swung the hammer around in time to block the swish of the tail. The sting in his hands told him that if the blow from the powerful tail had connected, he would have been broken into small pieces. He drove the heavy hammer into her flesh but failed to elicit so much as a twitch of pain. Euryale was driven by fury and beyond sensation.

  Except, perhaps, the sensation of pleasure she would take at Kratos’ death.

  As she flopped on her stomach, she swung the tail about, then brought it high for an overhead blow.

  Kratos saw how the Gorgon queen fought and abandoned the war hammer in favor of his razor-edged swords. This almost cost his life. The deadly beams from her eyes caressed his left arm. He screamed in pain before it began turning numb. With an involuntary twist, he got his arm free, only to have his leg caught in the petrifying gaze. Instinct took over. He somersaulted twice and came up behind a pillar that afforded a momentary barrier to the Gorgon’s weapon.

  Rubbing his arm furiously produced needles of sensation. He flexed his hand and found he had restored its use, but he had no time to treat his leg similarly. The Gorgon slithered around, seeking him out. Rather than continue to run, as Euryale undoubtedly expected him to do with his injuries, he drew his swords and once more somersaulted—straight at her. He rolled under her twin death beams and came to his feet, ready to strike.

  His leg betrayed him and he lost his balance. The Gorgon hissed in victory, but Kratos never surrendered. His left leg scraping across the floor, stone on stone, he came to a kneeling position at arm’s length. As he slashed at Euryale’s flesh,
for the first time he drew blood, inflicted true pain, brought about a reaction that lifted his lip in a sneer. He had seen it before in battle when an overly confident foe first engaged him in combat.

  First came the overweening belief that Kratos would prove an easy foe, that his reputation was the stuff of legends and not reality. If the enemy survived long enough, that hubris turned to uncertainty. He read that in Euryale now. For now the thought of her own death flickered behind her eyes.

  Kratos blocked another stone-creating gaze with the fleece, then pressed forward with his slashing swords. Euryale backed away and curled her sinuous body around one of the thick stone columns.

  Casting out his swords like harpoons, he embedded them in Euryale’s shoulder and back. The Gorgon jerked in an attempt to free herself, but Kratos was implacable. Heaving, he yanked as hard as he could. Euryale refused to release her grip. Kratos increased the power of his yank. Something had to give—and it did.

  The stone column collapsed and fell atop Euryale. Kratos did not give her an instant to recover. Weapons driving into flesh, he hacked out huge gobbets and produced another shriek, this time of pain and utter fear. Spartan training had always told Kratos that it was not enough to defeat an opponent physically. True victory came in breaking the foe’s will to fight.

  Kratos recognized that Euryale had one final attack locked in her. As she unleashed her gaze, he used the fleece to deflect the Gorgon’s attack, leaving her helpless on the floor.

  But only for a moment was she writhing. Kratos leaped high in the air and came down on her back, using his stone leg as a pile driver, away from the feeble light dancing in her eyes now. The weight snapped her spine. Kratos jerked off her head, held it up, then sent it sailing across the chamber. It hit the floor and bounced, then rolled and stopped, faceup, once deadly eyes now fogging over as Hades claimed his due.

  He dropped to the floor, leg outstretched and tingling. Making the effort to rub circulation back into his flesh soon brought back full use of the leg. He stood, tested it, and found it once more sturdy under him.