The Stone Demon
Page 24
Her name was Twelve, and she was beautiful and kind and he loved her.
Hephaestus turned to the gods for help. He had helped them many times, and he felt certain that his own plea would not be ignored. He begged them to make Twelve human so that he could ask her to marry him. The gods were angry. They didn’t want to lose their maker to something as trivial as love. They liked him better when he was living quietly on his island, making things they wanted and needed. This new turn of events was too unexpected. It was too chaotic. Too human.
They refused his request.
Years passed, and some of the maidens began to show signs of slowing down. Hephaestus tried to fix them, but nothing he did seemed to make any difference. One by one, the beautiful automatons froze until there were eleven shining statues scattered across his island.
Only Twelve remained, but even she was having more difficulty getting around. Her knees hurt and her arms were stiff. No matter how much oil he poured on her joints it didn’t seem to help—at least, not for very long. Twelve never complained, although it was clear she was suffering. She wondered if this was what it was like to grow old, but Hephaestus couldn’t tell her because he himself was immortal. Just because he had chosen to live separate from the gods, it didn’t mean he wasn’t still one of them. One day, he watched his beautiful Twelve struggle to cut a pear in half—her fingers couldn’t grip the knife properly—and his heart shattered.
He went to the home of the gods and asked for their help. Unfortunately, he made his petition to the god whose wife had served as the template for the twelve metal maidens. This god was angry, and the only reply that Hephaestus received that day was to be lifted off his feet and physically thrown back down to the island.
It was a long way to fall, even for an immortal, and the impact was enough to break his legs. Twelve nursed him back to health, but Hephaestus never walked entirely unaided again. He had to use a cane, on rare good days, or a specially created chair on wheels. After his recovery, after he saw how tired Twelve still was, Hephaestus made a decision. Things couldn’t go on like this.
He returned to the home of the gods and threw himself on their mercy.
“Please,” he said. “I’ll do anything you ask. I will pay any price. You have already crippled me, and still I return to you and beg for the life of the woman I love. Please don’t take her from me. Make her human, that’s all I ask. Just a human lifespan so that she may live and know what it is like to feel the sun on her face.”
The gods decided to punish Hephaestus. They were cruel and selfish, and some of them were fed up with watching him live his hermit’s life on the island. They agreed to grant his wish and make Twelve human, but the cost was high: they would only do so if Hephaestus gave up his own immortality and became mortal with her. The gods were sure he would never agree to such terms.
They were wrong. Hephaestus thanked them and agreed to become mortal, so that he and Twelve could live out their days together on his beautiful island. He was happy.
The gods were furious and decided to trick him.
Yes, they transformed Twelve from a struggling silver and gold automaton into a beautiful young woman with her whole life ahead of her. But they didn’t really make Hephaestus mortal. They took away his godhood, meaning he could never again commune with those powers, but they left his immortality intact. A powerful glamour was cast on him, so that he seemed to grow young again and could age alongside his new wife, but in fact he hadn’t changed at all. Underneath the gods’ magic, he was still the same old Hephaestus.
As soon as Twelve died—of natural causes, of old age, in her loving husband’s arms—the glamour broke and he was once more old and alone and immortal. The gods cast him out of his island and hid it somewhere in the middle of the Mediterranean, behind an invisible shield so that nobody could ever find it again.
Hephaestus limped into the human world alone, grieving, and wondered how he would live the rest of his very long life. He changed his name to Maker and tried to blend in. He made things for people again. He remembered Twelve and the happy years they had spent together, and it was those memories that kept him going during the darkest days. There were many dark days.
It was at that time—at one of his lowest points—that he happened upon a morally ambiguous and yet immortal magus who had need of his ancient skills.
But that is another story.
Acknowledgments
This novel simply wouldn’t exist without the major contribution of four people: My agent, Miriam Kriss, who helped me weather some particularly tough times throughout the writing of this book—thank you, thank you! My editor at Flux, Brian Farrey-Latz, who was consistently kind and patient while I was struggling (no matter how much he might have been cursing me behind the scenes!), and who took a severely flawed and unfinished first draft and helped me to make it about a million times better. Thanks so much, Brian. My production editor, Sandy Sullivan, who took the manuscript to the next level and asked all the questions that needed to be asked. And my cover artist, Lisa Novak, who yet again delivered such a beautiful cover in the Iron Witch trilogy. We’re three for three, Lisa! Thanks also to everyone else at Flux in the U.S., and at Random House in the U.K. and Australia, for your continued support. I appreciate it more than I can say.
I would also like to thank Jenna Avery and her Writer’s Circle, who cheered me on through the many hours of production work on this book. You all rock! And I’m raising a glass to the “real” Demian, whose name I shamelessly borrowed for my demon king—it goes without saying that you aren’t evil. Right?
Finally, I couldn’t possibly wrap this up without sending big hugs to the Deadline Dames—for Good News Friday and everything else you’ve given me as a writer (and as a person); Maralyn Mahoney—the best mum (and first reader) anyone could ever have; and Vijay Rana—for putting up with the angst, and not minding (too much) when I only cook once in a blue moon.
© Vijay Rana
About the Author
Karen Mahoney (United Kingdom) is the author of The Iron Witch and The Wood Queen, the first two books in her trilogy for Flux. She has a highly trafficked blog where she talks about everything from writing books to her lifelong love of Wonder Woman. She is also addicted to Twitter and would love to chat with you there (@kazmahoney).
Visit Karen online at www.kazmahoney.com.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Information
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Epilogue
Appendix
Acknowledgments
About the Author