“In my chambers?”
“He is often here since he trusts you above all others,” Iris said. She half turned to hide her disdain, sending bits of rainbow from her gown flying around the drab quarters. Poseidon lived like a fish. Her nose wrinkled slightly as the thought crossed her mind that he smelled like one, also.
“Zeus said that? He trusts me more than he does Hades?”
“Certainly,” Iris lied. “He would never take any of the other Olympians into his confidence.”
“I did best Oceanus,” Poseidon said thoughtfully. “That was an epic battle and saved Zeus from having to deal with a Titan controlling the waters that girdled the earth.”
Iris looked at him askance.
“Yes, this must be why Zeus said such a thing about me,” Poseidon went on, puffing himself up. “Oceanus was not easily vanquished. He had three thousand offspring! I had to bring every river and lake under my domination to defeat the Titans. Still,” he said, running fingers through his seaweed beard, “I find it odd that Zeus would trust me so when there are others …”
She sniffed and looked pained. “Certainly not Athena.”
“Athena? She is his favorite.” Poseidon chuckled. “I can see why. She has the gift of persuasion.”
“A thief with her words,” Iris said.
“How’s that?”
“Oh, just something I heard Zeus say. But I must find him. I have an urgent message. Do you know where he is?”
“He rushed off to do whatever his anger dictated,” Poseidon said. “His wrath has grown of late.”
“Kratos,” she said, nodding as if she agreed with him. “Kratos provokes him at every turn. It’s a shame none of the Olympians cares enough for Zeus to do anything about that annoying mortal. It seems that Kratos allies himself with Gaia, and you know what rabble-rousers those Titans can be.”
“What are you saying?” Poseidon bent over and looked at her closely. Iris tried not to flinch as seaweed from his beard flopped across her face. Worse than this saltwater assault, the stench of fish almost made her gag. Zeus always had a strangely pungent odor about him, something like garlic, especially after he had lashed out with his thunderbolt. That was bearable, but Poseidon!
“What everyone knows,” she said carefully. “The rumors run rampant that he holds back on dealing with Kratos again because of Athena’s importuning.”
“She is his favorite,” Poseidon repeated.
“But he would certainly favor anyone who relieved him of Kratos and his meddling ways. Zeus is far too hard on himself.”
“What do you mean?”
Iris looked hard at Poseidon and saw he was soaking up her every word like a sponge from his underwater kingdom. Trying not to laugh at his gullibility proved more difficult than the lies she told so glibly.
“He blames himself for elevating Kratos to the throne, although it was entirely Athena’s doing. She hated Ares and used Kratos to kill him, then thought she could control the new God of War. Kratos proved too obstinate for that. Once a mortal, always a mortal.”
“He would show great favor to anyone killing Kratos?”
“I am sure Zeus is on a pilgrimage now to think about this matter away from the Olympian hubbub.”
“He’s not going to kill Kratos himself?”
“I hardly think so. Not even Zeus dares oppose the Sisters of Fate,” Iris said. “But I do need to find him. I have important messages.” She hesitated because Poseidon pursed his lips but did not come to the conclusion she had hoped he might. “You don’t know where he is? Perhaps finding a way to deal with Kratos that would not anger Athena?”
“A way of killing Kratos.” The God of the Oceans smiled cruelly. “Now, what could kill a crafty warrior like the Ghost of Sparta?”
“I don’t know, Lord Poseidon, but a god of sufficient daring and power would,” Iris said. She silently added, But I am sure I will find out soon. All of Olympus will find out!
THE PHOENIX SAT on its perch with the Palace of the Fates some distance beyond it. Kratos compared the newly resurrected firebird with the spire of ash and the opened wing replica with the palace in its mouth. There had to be a connection between the actual Phoenix and the location of the Fates’ palace, but he could not see what it was. Blowing again on the horn would solve nothing, but a different perspective on both Phoenix and palace might. He began edging along a narrow walkway to find the true path to the Sisters.
The walkway ended in a room opening on the sea, the Phoenix, and the palace but otherwise in utter darkness. But Kratos sensed another being near even before he heard, “I have come too far to fail!”
Kratos drew the Blades of Athena and swung around in time to meet a sword thrust with a quick parry. His opponent, cloaked in darkness, peppered blows with a fist along with his sword attack. Kratos ignored the pummeling, blocked a lunge with the flat of one blade, then swung about and brought its razored edge down on the attacker’s head. Only a last-instant twitch saved the man from having his head split open.
This turned the tide of combat. His opponent weakened rapidly from the blow, which had severed an ear and cut deeply into his shoulder. Kratos pressed his advantage. He batted the sword from the man’s hand, grabbed him around the waist, and lifted. Grunting, Kratos slammed the man into a wall and felt even more fight drain away.
But his foe proved not to be as easy a kill as it first seemed. Kratos punched hard, but the man jerked to one side. Kratos’ fist slammed into the wall, and he loosened his grip on the hidden man. Kratos landed two more hard punches.
As quickly as the fight began, it ended. The man grappled with Kratos and wrenched him about. Kratos drew his sword and lunged; locked together, they plunged through an interior window, fell two stories, and landed hard in the center of a large porch overlooking the ocean, surrounded by shards of glass from above.
Kratos started to twist the sword he had buried in the man’s gut, then saw his opponent clearly for the first time.
“You?” Kratos slid his sword from the soldier’s torso.
The soldier looked up, clutching Kratos’ sword, which had run through his chest. “My lord. In the darkness, I didn’t recognize you! I sought the Sisters to …”
Kratos grabbed him by the cuirass as he had once before back in Rhodes.
“I told you to return to Sparta. Why do you leave Sparta unprotected?”
“Sparta,” the young soldier gasped out, visibly weakening, “is no more.” He looked away, unable to meet Kratos’ accusing gaze.
“What treachery is this?” Kratos shook him hard to focus his attention on reporting rather than dwelling on the sword wound that would soon end his life.
“Zeus,” the young soldier said, coughing up blood. “He came under the cloak of darkness. I was standing guard with two others when a thunderbolt destroyed the wall and sent us flying through the air. They were killed. I was trapped under a large stone, unable to move—but I saw. Oh, my lord, I saw every moment of the destruction!”
Kratos stared in disbelief, trying to understand what he was being told. Sparta laid to waste? Impossible!
“The people ran about in confusion, begging for their god to save them. I saw Zeus striding through the city, a hundred feet tall. More! He reached down and destroyed the tallest structures by plucking them like a thorn from flesh. He crushed smaller buildings underfoot, then ground what he had already crushed into powder finer than flour. Fires raged, fires Zeus caused by plucking lightning bolts from the sky and hurling them into the city. Women and children were burned to death before my eyes.” The soldier sagged back. Kratos shook him again until his eyelids fluttered and the soldier forced himself to speak.
“They ran past me, on fire, and I could do nothing. My legs were pinned under a stone from a temple—your temple, God of War.”
“Yet you are here,” Kratos said.
“I forced the stone from my legs and stood weaponless to face a god, but Lord Zeus had already gone to destroy more distant section
s of Sparta. I was left with no choice. I had to seek out the Sisters to change the fate of our beloved Sparta.”
“How did you penetrate this far into their temple?” Kratos asked.
The soldier looked up, his lips moving but no sound coming out. He shuddered and blood trickled from his lips before he spoke.
“I was brought here. A giant eagle caught me in its claws, then dropped me.”
Kratos caught his breath. Could the soldier have been brought by Zeus? The Sisters of Fate had to have allowed it. This made Kratos suspicious. Lahkesis had chosen to present him with a new challenge before giving him an audience. The dying soldier might be part of that barrier to his quest. Was his hatred for Zeus greater than his loyalty to his Spartans? A wrong decision now might doom him in Lahkesis’ eyes.
Kratos held the soldier upright. No strength remained in him, but he fought to finish his tale.
The soldier coughed and turned, croaking out, “For I am all that’s left.” He fell back and stared up, a tiny smile curling his lips. “Now you are all that’s left. I have faith that our brothers of Sparta will live on to see the true God of War.” He choked on his own blood, and died.
Kratos released his grip and stood, staring at his fallen comrade. The soldier’s death had taken away one possible course. There was no reason for him to abandon Gaia’s quest now and return to Sparta to save that city. He threw back his arms and looked skyward, bellowing, “Zeus! Is this how you face me? Coward! I am through doing the bidding of the gods. Come down here and face me now, Zeus!”
A fetid gust of wind pressed into Kratos’ back. He heard a squishing sound followed by the sharp clack of what might have been steel against steel. Slowly turning, he stared into a gaping mouth filled with viciously curved fangs. Eyes the size of a warrior’s shield fixed him with utter hatred, and curved pincers pressed into the stone flooring as the Kraken drew itself up from the sea.
“Zeus won’t even fight his own battle,” Kratos said, sneering. “He has Poseidon send his minion!”
The Kraken roared and spat at him.
“Come down here and face me now!” Kratos roared, not at the Kraken but at Olympus. “I grow tired of the lies of the gods.”
Kratos swung his war hammer in an arc before him. The Kraken reared higher and pulled more tentacles from the sea. It roared and lashed out with preternatural speed, a tentacle whipping around Kratos and circling him entirely. Arms pinned to his side, Kratos struggled in the slimy grasp—to no avail. The Kraken lifted him high and drew him closer to its maw. It would feast this day.
Kratos made a mighty heave in an attempt to break free but the tentacle slithered up around his neck. And squeezed. And squeezed and squeezed.
He blacked out for a moment and then thrashed about, startled to find himself on a hillside. The clouds in the overcast sky reflected light from the fires burning in the city below. Kratos took a step forward when he saw the woman making her way toward him. Silently she stopped a few feet away.
“I am so sorry, my love.” The furious hatred for Zeus faded as Lysandra stepped even closer. “Can you ever forgive me?” His voice was hardly a whisper, but earnest and spoken from the heart that he had forsaken for vengeance.
“All is not lost, Kratos.”
His eyes widened. The voice was not that of his beloved wife but of Gaia. He tried to speak but words refused to form. The gods had used him for their own whims, and he had rebelled. Gaia used him, too, speaking through Lysandra to manipulate him. Kratos found he did not care. Seeing his wife again, come across the Elysian Fields, even with the backdrop of a burning, destroyed Sparta, filled him with joy and longing.
“You must go on,” she said. “There is much at stake here.”
Kratos held up his hands, palms toward his wife, and shook his head in sorrow.
“I cannot defeat the gods.”
“Victory favors you, Kratos. But you must grab hold of your destiny and command it. There is a war on the horizon, and we need you to lead us into battle.”
Kratos looked past his wife—past Gaia—to destroyed Sparta. Fires burned like the campfires of some vast army, but none lived amid the ruins. Zeus had been too thorough in his rampage.
“To what end?” He was pleading for an answer.
“The death of Zeus! If you relent, Zeus will torment you still. He will not rest knowing you live. And when you die his brother Hades will see that your shade is tortured for all eternity. You will have no rest until you destroy him.”
His wife lifted her hands and placed them on his shoulders. Her touch was magic, electric—fire. Flames rose to consume her, to blend with those of the distant destruction in Sparta. Thunder rolled across the sky, and the flames consumed them both where she touched his shoulders.
“Take within you this fire that burned your beloved Sparta. Let it fuel your rage and hasten your steps toward destiny.”
From head to foot Kratos filled with molten fire. It raced through his veins and caused his heart to hammer so hard in his chest, he thought it might explode. She removed her hands but remained close.
“The time to act is upon us, Kratos. This battle is just the beginning of a great war that is to come.”
He reached for her and found his arms pinioned at his sides by slippery flesh. Kratos shook all over and twisted about in the Kraken’s tentacled grasp. It opened its mouth and roared. Kratos stared down its gullet and saw not flesh and blood but the eternal torture Gaia had promised at Hades’ hand should he fail.
Kratos summoned the Rage of the Titans and forced open the tentacle wide enough to slip to the stone flooring. The Kraken wrapped more tentacles around two pillars on either side to better pull itself up to the attack.
Kratos swung his spiked war hammer with all his strength. He tore away a gobbet of the Kraken’s tentacle but did not seem to affect it. The mighty sea monster roared, a green cloud expanding outward and searing all that it touched. Seeing how close it came to the fallen Spartan soldier, Kratos rushed over and heaved the young man’s body over his shoulder. The Kraken roared again and lashed out with its tentacles. Every attack Kratos made on the left side produced movement.
He dropped the soldier’s body onto a pressure plate near the left tentacle and immediately felt a rising column of hot air directly in front of the Kraken. Extending the wings of Icarus allowed Kratos to soar upward on the thermal so he could circle just above the sea monster’s head. With the Blades of Athena aflame, he stabbed downward into the ribbed forehead, cutting off part of a dorsal fin and further enraging the creature. A lashing tentacle knocked him from the sky, sending him rolling across the stone floor.
As the Kraken brought down a tentacle to crush him, Kratos lashed out with both blades and began sawing away at the slimy appendage. The Kraken fought to get free but only succeeded in aiding Kratos as he chopped off the tentacle’s end.
The Kraken recoiled, giving Kratos a chance to again become airborne and stab repeatedly at its head and upturned ugly face. Try as he might to blind it, the heavy bony ridges over the Kraken’s eyes protected its sight. A chance blow sent Kratos tumbling from the sky once more. He came to his feet in time to avoid a tentacle crashing down on him.
As before, he slashed at the end, worrying his blades about and digging deeply whenever the opportunity presented itself. The end of this tentacle soon lay on the floor, severed by Kratos’ slashing blades.
The Kraken recoiled at this new pain, giving Kratos the chance to unleash the Rage of the Titans once more. Electric sparks erupted, enveloping the Kraken, dancing from its eyes to the fangs in its mouth and finally burning at its tentacles. As the spell worked to humble Poseidon’s monster, Kratos launched himself upward on flapping wings and renewed his attacks against the monster’s head and eyes. He drove it downward. Seeing victory within his grasp, Kratos landed on the edge of the terrace.
The Kraken’s massive body had hidden a lever. Kratos drew it back. A bridge shot outward, decapitating the Kraken. Kratos nodded sole
mnly as he saw the bridge extended to the pedestal where the Phoenix perched, as if waiting for this moment. Kratos ran out onto the bridge, vaulted over the pieces of Kraken staining the roadway, and landed only a few feet from where the firebird perched on a roost atop a fiery brazier.
Kratos walked around the brazier, staring up at the thirty-foot-tall Phoenix. He glanced from its nervous movement on the perch to the distant spire of ash and the stone Phoenix that had opened its beak to reveal the Temple of the Fates.
Stopping directly in front of the Phoenix, Kratos cast out his blades, using them as grapples that caught on either side of the bird, just in front of its wings. The Phoenix went berserk, flapping and thrashing, burning hotter and trying to escape the punishment. With a powerful tug, Kratos dragged the Phoenix from its perch and knocked it flat on its breast in front of him. Ignoring the fiercely burning feathers, Kratos jumped onto the firebird’s back. It surged upward, dropped one wing, did everything possible to dislodge him.
Kratos held on firmly to the grapples and reined them in to gain better control. The Phoenix took to wing, rolling over and banking suddenly in further attempts to unseat him.
It would take more than this to deter Kratos now. He bent forward and guided his fiery transport toward the open mouth of the stone Phoenix far out to sea. The Phoenix understood that it would be free if it obeyed his commands.
On powerful wings blazing, the Phoenix carried Kratos toward his goal: the Temple of the Fates.
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” cried Athena.
“Keep a civil tone,” Zeus said, glowering at her. “I did what was necessary. Kratos had destroyed the other cities. I destroyed Sparta.”
“That won’t keep him from killing you—from trying to kill you,” she hastily amended, shocked at the slip of her tongue. More and more she said what she thought rather than what was wisest. Dealing with the Olympians had always required a large amount of diplomacy, to soothe bruised vanity, to gloss over slights, to guide the others in the direction she desired. Not for nothing had Zeus valued her counsel above all others. She had remained calm and tactful when others grew wroth or sulked.
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