The Petros Chronicles Boxset

by Diana Tyler

  A peal of thunder sent Hermogenes to one knee, but still he held his ground, craning his neck forward as the fierce wind pushed him back. Every muscle in his skinny body straining, he proceeded toward his mother, his footsteps faltering as he fought to stay upright. He didn’t seem to notice when a lump of ice crashed onto his head and fell with a thud to the sodden ground, nor did he cover his ears as the wind shrieked like a harpy. He merely rubbed his eyes and continued forward.

  Leto was shouting something at the Asher, but her words were garbled in the stormy melee. She had no idea that her son, who heretofore was ignorant of his mother’s power, was reaching for her robe. When she felt him tug, she spun around with a fury so raw that with one look, blue bolts of lightning tore from the clouds and struck in a circle around them.

  The boy screamed and darted back, faster than a hare through a thicket, and joined Hermes beneath the colonnade.

  “I told you to get back inside,” Hermes growled.

  “Is Mama making the storm?” Hermogenes was trembling as primal fear besieged his nerves and stripped his face of color.

  Hermes reached for his wand, and then stopped himself from forcing the boy into the house. It wasn’t his job to protect Hermogenes’ innocence. The child was guilty the day he was conceived, marked and sentenced to suffering.

  The black hound, Panther, rubbed against Hermogenes’ leg, whimpering as his tail slowly wagged. They stood there, the three of them, watching Leto orchestrate this most unorthodox hunt. Somewhere out there, perhaps just behind the wall, or maybe a furlong removed from it, the Asher was fighting. Even if the Asher couldn’t feel the impact of the raging elements swirling around him, Hermes knew that his concentration was being tested. And concentration, for every Asher, had to be keen for a doma to operate.

  Hermes wanted to help, to fly out above the storm and see if he could use his own powers to further fracture the Asher’s concentration. But the second he exposed himself, Hermogenes would know that the gods were real. He would set his heart on becoming one, thereby making himself an enemy of Apollo. And Apollo had no patience for ambitious mortals, even half mortals like Hermogenes.

  “Why is she doing this?” Hermogenes’ honey-sweet voice was now soured. He clutched the dog’s scruff as he leaned against the animal for strength against the gale.

  Before Hermes could concoct a lie, Leto lowered her hands, signaling the deluge to end and the winds to cease. “He’s getting away!” She whipped her head back to Hermes, who stared at her dumbly. “What are you waiting for?”

  Still Hermes said nothing; he glanced at Hermogenes, hoping Leto would intuit his concerns.

  “Hermes!” she roared. “Seize him, or I’ll send a bolt through his skull.”

  “Hermes?” Hermogenes said, his copper eyes wide and glistening.

  Hermes dipped his brow to the boy in both affirmation and shame, and then took flight over the wall in pursuit of the Asher. He looked back over his shoulder, catching his son’s awestruck expression as he studied those golden wings.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  ANSWERS

  Wake up, Mr. Centaur,” whispered Chloe for the seventh time. She’d never seen anyone sleep so hard, especially in so uncomfortable a position. The Centaur was standing in an olive grove, leaning against the largest tree, his chin resting in a narrow crook between two boles. His bowcase hung from the branch nearest his snoring bald head, and his sword was propped next to his fingertips, its bronze tip sunk into the dirt.

  Ethan picked up a fallen limb and pointed it at the Centaur’s side. “I’d stand back,” he said to Chloe.

  She did so, backing all the way to the path. She knew better than to disturb a sword-carrying Centaur. “Please don’t kill him, please don’t kill him,” she whispered.

  Ethan reached out another inch and poked the Centaur gently in his flank. As she expected, the Centaur bucked, snatched his sword, and swung it around with a whoosh.

  “What in Zeus’ name do you think you’re doing, boy?” the Centaur said, lowering his sword, but just halfway.

  “Trying to wake you up,” shouted Chloe, holding up her palms in surrender as she walked toward them. “You know, it doesn’t do any good to lie down next to all your weapons if you sleep harder than a rock.”

  “Neither does it do any good to criticize a Centaur when he’s armed and you’re not.” The Centaur grinned as he directed his sword at Chloe.

  “With all due respect, Mr. Centaur,” said Chloe, “you’re full of crap. I don’t know why you try to play the tough guy all the time. We all know you’re more bunny rabbit than bully.”

  Ethan held his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing.

  “You think that’s funny, do you?” the Centaur said to him. “It’s amusing to you, is it, to cast aspersions at your elders?”

  “She’s just joking, sir,” said Ethan, dropping the limb. “Please, put the sword down. We only wanted to ask you something.”

  “Whatever it is, the answer is no thank you.” The Centaur stuck his sword in the ground and turned back to his tree. “I need my beauty rest.”

  “I think maybe you’re so grumpy because you’re bored,” said Chloe. “I’m the same way.”

  The Centaur cleared his throat then covered a yawn with his hand. “I’m in a poor mood, Miss Chloe, because the dawn has only just broken and you’ve awakened me rudely, in the fashion of thieving hoodlums.”

  “Just because we wear weird clothes doesn’t mean we’re hoodlums,” said Ethan. “We came here because we wanted to tell you that we agree with you about Aison. We don’t think he wanted to harm us.”

  “That’s all very well,” said the Centaur, spinning around to face them once more, “but what does it have to do with anything?”

  “Except for Tycho, everyone voted that we give the chip to the high priest,” Chloe said. “You weren’t there to vote, so we lost.”

  “That two-faced, yellow-bellied greybeard had a say, did he?”

  “He took the chip,” said Ethan. “He said it would curse us, maybe even kill us, if he didn’t.”

  The Centaur shook his head. “Nothing but poppycock, if you ask me. That man doesn’t have an honorable bone in his body.”

  “That’s what we think, too,” said Chloe. “Something about him—”

  “Everything about him,” the Centaur said. “His predecessor Anatolius would kick open his grave if he heard his successor was conferring with Pythonians.”

  “And giving money to them, too,” added Ethan.

  “Righteousness embodied.” The Centaur sighed. “Mark my words: he deceived the others.”

  Chloe smiled. “I knew you’d say yes.”

  The Centaur shifted his weight as he yawned again. “You must be hearing things, Miss Chloe. I’ve agreed to nothing.”

  “I was getting ahead of the conversation,” said Chloe. “You know the high priest has ulterior motives, so it stands to reason that you’d want to find out what those motives are, does it not?”

  The Centaur scratched the tattooed serpent atop his head. “If you’re proposing that I take part in upsetting the universe with your time-traveling shenanigans, I’ll have you know I’d rather scrub the priest’s crusty feet every day for a year.”

  “We’re not upsetting the universe,” Ethan said. “We’re trying to fix it. Duna gave Chloe her gift for a reason. You wouldn’t be here with Iris and Tycho if you didn’t believe that domas are meant to be used for good.”

  The Centaur glared at Chloe. “Aye, they are meant for good. But in the wrong hands, they work only evil.”

  “So because the Ashers have one bad apple, you’re not going to trust the rest of us?” Chloe asked. “That doesn’t seem fair.”

  The Centaur scratched the rust-colored stubble of his chin. “And what would you have me do concerning your ill-fated friend?”

  “Come with us back to the first Lycaea Festival,” said Chloe. “Help us find out what the chip does and why Aison wanted us to hav
e it.”

  “Why do you need my assistance? I have no doubt you two would fare perfectly well on your own.”

  “You were a Pythonian, weren’t you?” Ethan said, regarding the Centaur’s tattoo.

  “And what of it?” he snapped. “I know nothing of that blasted pagan festival. It was founded long after I broke free from Python.”

  “Python?” Chloe said.

  “Another name for Phoebus Apollo,” the Centaur said. “One part ray of the sun, the other part snake of the pit. It was his fall from heaven that cursed all of Petros with his depravity and pride.” He spat and took his bowcase from the tree. “He’s the far-striker, the great archer whose arrows destroy far more than men’s bodies.”

  “You don’t need to know about the festival,” Ethan said. “We just need you to help us infiltrate. I have a feeling they don’t let just anyone behind the scenes.”

  “You’re right about that. The mark of Python and the synthēma are required to participate in any ritual.”

  The word synthēma translated in Chloe’s ears as “passwords.” “Do you know the synthēma?”

  “As much as I’ve tried to forget their blasphemy, I’m afraid they’re as ingrained as ever.”

  “Good,” said Chloe, ignoring the Centaur’s scowl as she patted his back. “So they’ll let you in. Ethan and I will wait for you until the ceremony ends. We’ll be back in time for lunch.”

  “You’d better not go anywhere dressed like impious hooligans,” the Centaur said.

  Chloe looked down at her faded blue jeans and oversized plaid shirt. “Fair enough.”

  “But”—the Centaur pointed his hairy finger in Chloe’s face—“if you leave me behind, I will do everything in my power to visit you in the future after I die. And I swear the Katsaros you meet then will be anything but pleasant.”

  Chloe extended her hand for the Centaur to take. “Again, fair enough.”

  Damian’s skin tingled as he flexed every muscle, straining to make himself invisible. His hands were bound with iron shackles, and heavy fetters were fastened around his ankles. Hermes and Leto sat around the hearth enjoying unappetizing bowls of porridge and conversing in tones too low for Damian to hear. The boy, who was a miniature of Hermes, sat on the floor a few feet from him, rolling a leather ball back and forth against the wall.

  “What’s your name?” the boy asked.

  “Darling, I told you not to speak to him,” Leto said, pointing her spoon at Damian.

  “Why is he dressed so strangely, Mama? He’s wearing trousers like the outlaws do.”

  “Because he is an outlaw, Hermo,” she answered.

  Damian turned to Hermes. “Hermo. So he is your son.”

  The god’s face burned red as he snatched a rag from the empty stool beside him. “I should have done this earlier.” In a flash, he flew to Damian and gagged him with the rag. “Be grateful I don’t cut out your tongue, you little maggot.”

  The boy called Hermo let the ball roll down the uneven floor. His face held the ecstatic expression of an orphan who’d just learned his family wanted him after all. “Is that true, Mama? The flying neighbor is my father?”

  Leto’s eyes fell to her porridge and stayed there for long, soundless seconds. She folded her lips and crossed her arms as she scooted back her chair and glanced up at Hermes, who was still brooding over Damian.

  Damian could almost the see the battle being waged in Hermes’ brain. He parted his lips to speak, sealed them and paced a few steps. Then he floated to the top of the open ceiling, where the hearth smoke masked his face. Damian was sure the messenger would leave this place this second if it weren’t for his obligation to serve as prison guard.

  “I’m not an imbecile,” Hermo lifted his little voice to his elder. “You gave my mother a flower this morning, and I look like you, too. You’re my father, aren’t you?”

  “Don’t be a pest, Hermo.” Leto rose and laid a firm hand on her son’s slight shoulder.

  Damian studied the boy’s eyes, watching as his joy dissolved to confusion, then sadness, and finally anger.

  “Why have you been away all this time? Why do you want to keep it a secret?” Hermo needled his father as the latter descended slowly to the kitchen floor.

  “To protect you,” Hermes answered, in a tone that was almost gentle.

  “Protect me from what?”

  Hermes unsheathed his wand and waved it at the ball, propelling it back to its owner. Hermo picked it up and gazed in awe at the magical staff, his freckled cheeks reflecting its golden gleam. “The gods really do exist.” He looked to his mother. “Are you a goddess, Mama?”

  “Not yet, my sweet,” she cooed. “Not yet. And neither are you a god.”

  “Not yet,” the boy echoed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  LYCAEA

  It was just after sunset on a mountaintop Chloe had never seen before, not even in her history books. The Lycaea Festival, she knew from her time, was held in all four colonies in Petros on the same day each year; she had no idea where the festival had originated.

  Around her danced at least a dozen priestesses dressed in animal skins and carrying long sticks wrapped in vines. On some heads lay wreaths of ivy, while other dancers wore bull-shaped helmets. They were chanting and singing gibberish, their discordant notes interrupted by sporadic shrieks and squalls as a frenzied rhythm directed them from rows of frame drums and tambourines.

  Around the perimeter, hundreds of observers looked on, their silence a stark contrast to the clamorous spectacle before them. Men, women, children, even infants in their mothers’ arms, were gathered, all of them transfixed, waiting patiently to see what this new festival was about. What were they to make of hysterical women clothed in skins, dancing and shaking sticks?

  Chloe knew that the Lycaea Festival was an occasion for dressing up in funny wolf costumes and eating candy until it hurt to breathe. There was even a band of drummers, and castanet and rattle players, but the music was harmonious, not wild and abrasive like this. Here, the percussionists’ faces were dripping with sweat, their bloodshot eyes glazed over as they punched the drums with their knuckles, pounding them again and again, smearing the leather membranes with dark crimson streaks.

  In the midst of the commotion was a bronze wolf the size of the brazen bulls she’d watched chase down Ethan’s parents. Its eyes, the only part of it that was painted, were bright orange and seemed to follow Chloe as she stepped closer to the Centaur.

  She watched as two men, arrayed in white, approached the statue, their arms full of logs. A teenager followed closely behind, holding a torch with two hands, the flame of which enlivened the wolf’s hard eyes. As the men began to stack the logs, one of the priestesses stopped dancing and leapt onto a rock, then forcefully raised her stick, a gesture that seized the audience’s attention. Unlike her peers below, her robes were royal purple, and atop her raven hair rested a laurel wreath.

  “My fellow Pythonians,” she said, her orotund voice traveling easily to every ear. “On behalf of the holiest among us, the oracles of Python, whose presence here would be too glorious to behold, I welcome you to the inaugural festival of Lycaea. Henceforth, this shall be an annual celebration to honor almighty Python.”

  She paused and scanned the sea of faces, ensuring that every eye was upon her. With a proud smile, she continued. “Today marks the first occasion in which Python’s true identity shall be revealed.” A collective gasp swept through the throng. “The Eusebians have preached to you that the gods—Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo—are nothing but made-up entities, mythical deities created by clever poets to enchant the populace with tales of woe and valor. Let it be recorded here, on this day, that no greater lie has ever been told.”

  “Here we go,” the Centaur muttered.

  It was only then that Chloe noticed that many of the people around her were not people at all, but centaurs, and they all had the same serpent tattoo on their faces.

  The priestess dropped her st
ick on the grass below her. It writhed for a few seconds, then hissed and slithered toward the wolf. “Python, the serpent of the Great Sea, is just one of the many forms with which the preeminent god identifies.”

  The crowd murmured as the snake made its way up into the center of the logs just as the third man touched them with his torch. The serpent neither squirmed nor tried to flee the sudden blaze. It simply let itself be devoured by the hungry onslaught of flames. A few seconds later, it unhinged its jaws and bit into its own flesh, expediting its death.

  “Do you wish to know the name of the god, the most powerful god, who has ordained this festival,” the priestess said, “who has looked upon us all with favor and afforded us the honor of calling upon him by name?”

  The crowd cheered. Toddlers jumped up and down, feeding off the excitement of their parents and siblings.

  “Let us see who among us is well versed enough in our Pythonian lore to guess his name.”

  The priestess raised her palm; silencing her sisters and bidding them stand still. Another stick was handed to her, only this one was shorter, and made of gold: Hermes’ wand. The priestess lifted the wand overhead and waved it at the sky. The pink puff of cloud directly above split down the middle, taking the form of twin dolphins gliding through the dusk.

  “Apollo!”

  It was the Centaur who had shouted the answer, though the priestess didn’t see him. She merely acknowledged the whole of the crowd with an approving nod of her head. There were more gasps and utterances. Chloe held her gaze on Hermes’ wand, trying not to cower behind the Centaur. She’d experienced its power. If these people knew what it was capable of they’d be running, not marveling.

  “Who said that? Come forward at once,” said the priestess. Her expression was pleasant, welcoming, but Chloe knew better.

  “Don’t go,” she said, elbowing the Centaur in the leg.

  He stepped forward. “Trust me,” he said behind clenched teeth.