by Diana Tyler
Iris opened her hand, revealing an emerald oval, no larger than a pomegranate seed. “This, as the future has shown you, will be hidden away with the other artifacts, but I cannot part with it yet.”
“It’s beautiful,” Chloe said, watching the gemstone sparkle as a shy ray of sun winked through the clouds. “What does it symbolize?”
“New life,” said Iris. “The kind that springs forth from forgiveness.”
“You forgave the man who ordered your brother’s death?”
“Yes.” Iris looked down with fondness at the emerald. “And the executioner himself. It was he who gave this to me. He expected me to kill him and bring my brother justice. I wanted to. It was the moment I’d been waiting for, the chance I’d been chasing since the fire first escaped my palms.”
“Why didn’t you do it?”
Iris tapped the jasper stone in Chloe’s necklace. “Because of Jasper. Of all the people I knew, my brother had the most compelling reason to retaliate with violence against those who mocked him for his beliefs in the All-Powerful. He was ostracized, beaten, imprisoned on numerous occasions, yet he never once uttered a single syllable of complaint.” A solitary tear trailed down Iris’s cheek. “He would only repeat the words I’ve been saying to myself more and more: ‘I give thanks that I’ve been found worthy of suffering disgrace for the name of Phos.’”
“Phos…” Chloe envisioned Orpheus’s face, surrounded by the otherworldly cloud she’d last seen him in. “I’ve heard that name before. Who is he?”
“Hope,” Iris smiled, wiping the tear away. “Redemption. As Duna’s son, he’s the embodiment of all things pure and righteous. It was Jasper’s belief in Phos that got him killed.”
“And where is this Phos person now?”
Iris cast her gaze to the purple mountains, still shrouded in shadows as they slept soundly beyond the sunlight’s reach. “In heaven, letting Apollo’s rebellion unfold; waiting for us to call upon Duna to end it.”
Chloe felt the all-too-familiar heat of frustration in her chest. “Why wait? Why doesn’t he just stop it now and let everyone see him do it?”
“Because, unlike Apollo and Hades and every other man or god who’s ever set himself up as tyrant, Duna and Phos do not force themselves upon us.” Iris took a breath and looked up. Two falcons soared low over the valley, gliding downward with folded wings. “But they do pursue us—Ashers, Pythonians, orphans, widows, the whole world. But the day is coming when the world, and everything in it, will be theirs again, with no evil left to trouble it.”
“I was born two thousand years from now, and that day still hadn’t come,” Chloe said, watching the falcons arc upward and fly into the clouds.
“Duna’s patience is long. Long enough to wait for even the likes of Hermes to emerge from darkness.” Iris placed the emerald in Chloe’s hand. “Forgiving my brother’s killers freed me just as much as it freed them. If not more.”
Chloe felt the gem vibrating in her palm, punctuating Iris’s words.
“It doesn’t matter if Hermes never asks for your forgiveness,” Iris said. “You’ll be bound by bitterness unless you release him from the dungeon of your thoughts.”
Chloe clasped the jewel tightly before putting it back in Iris’s satchel. “I don’t think I could forgive myself if I lost it. But I’ll remember what you said.”
She stood up and helped Iris to her feet, then gulped down the remainder of her ironwort tea. Amazingly, the stuff had worked. Her headache was gone. Her eyes no longer felt like they were being pricked by forks. She felt awake, energetic, and strangely optimistic. “I do feel better. Thank you.”
“The heart, the soul and the body are connected, Chloe. When one is sick, the others suffer. When one is depleted, the others falter and grow weary. Tend always to all three, and you’ll find a contentment that no being, whether on Petros or below it, can destroy.”
The sound of footsteps treading on gravel made Chloe turn around. It was Ethan.
“Hermes is awake…” He paused when he saw their faces. “Sorry. I interrupted something, didn’t I?”
“Just girl talk,” said Chloe, pretty sure she’d never used that phrase before. In the past, any time she wanted to talk she went to her diary. It was refreshing to confide in a real person. “Hermes still wants to do this?”
“Right now I think he just wants to eat more honeycakes,” replied Ethan. “The Centaur said Hermes needs to put some meat on his bones. I guess honeycake making isn’t part of his wand’s repertoire.”
“I don’t recall seeing any food during my stint in Hades,” Chloe said. “I imagine he could use a good breakfast.” She felt her own stomach start to growl.
“Sounds like you could, too.” Ethan smiled when her stomach grumbled even louder. “Want me to bring you back something? Quail eggs? Salted fish? Barley stew?”
Chloe frowned in disgust. “It’s okay. I’ll see if I can get in on the honeycake action.” Maybe if she asked nicely, Hermes would make her a pot of coffee to go with it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
ORPHEUS
So far, Chloe was still alive. She’d taken Hermes’ advice and transported them back five hundred years to Orpheus’s time. The only name Hermes had given her to focus on was Mount Parnassos, home of the muses, and apparently Orpheus’s favorite place.
Hermes fell flat on his back when the time travel was over. Holding his stomach, and with his lips sucked in tightly, he rolled slowly onto his side.
Chloe took the wineskin from her sack and set it on Hermes’ chest. “I should have warned you that eating eleven honeycakes probably wasn’t the best idea before taking a ride in a wormhole.”
“That was incredible!” Charis exclaimed, her pale cheeks flushed and her red hair wild. “Can we do it again?”
“After we get Orpheus,” Chloe said. Hermes groaned in opposition. “We’ll have to if we want to get back.”
She turned back to Hermes. “Is this the right place? It’s kind of hard to breathe.”
Hermes suppressed a belch, pushed himself up to a sitting position and pointed to a mountaintop half covered with snow. “Aye. Liakouras is up there. The highest peak of the mountains.”
“Well, you know what they say,” said Chloe. “Go big or go home.” They blinked at her, clearly not knowing that’s what they said, whoever “they” were.
“How do you know Orpheus will be here?” Iris asked Hermes.
He poured water into his hand and splashed it onto his face. “I don’t. But it’s my best guess.”
“Great.” Charis plopped down to the grass and lay back, closing her eyes. “Wake me up if you need me.”
After a few more seconds of rest, Hermes got himself up and flew five feet into the air, holding a hand to his ear.
Iris was quick on the draw. She held out her hands, emitting a small flame of warning. “No flying, remember?”
Chloe took his wand from her sack and pointed it at him. “I have no idea how to work this thing. Don’t make me turn you into a newt or something.”
Hermes, still hovering, pressed a finger to his lips. “Shhh! I can’t hear over all your yammering.”
“Hear what?” Charis said, lifting herself onto her elbows.
Hermes fluttered a few yards forward, toward the mountain, stopping abruptly behind an olive tree. Two seconds later, he vanished.
Charis stood up and marched in a circle around the tree, looking it up and down. “How did he do that?”
Chloe shrugged. “No idea. I didn’t know he could do that either.”
“It’s my cap.”
Charis jumped at Hermes’ voice behind her. “You scared me to death!” she shouted, yanking the cap from his head. “Where did you go?”
“The Corycian Cave. Orpheus is there, wailing like an alleycat.”
“Eurydice must have died recently,” said Chloe.
“Such was my deduction as well.” Hermes jerked his cap from Charis’s hand. “Come. I’ll lead the way.”
What was it with Orpheus and caves, Chloe wondered. On the day she met him he’d taken her to the Psychro Cave, which contained a portal to the creepy zoo on Circe’s isle, where she almost became the latest attraction. If there were any mysterious-looking pools in this cave, she was keeping her distance.
The sound of Orpheus’s crying was as painful to Chloe’s ears as his music was beautiful. It echoed through the cave’s main chamber, filling it with a sorrow so strong it was almost palpable. The darkness, already difficult to navigate, was made all the more disorienting by the musician’s heartrending cries and sporadic gasps for air. It sounded as though he was being tortured. In a way, she realized, he was.
An orange flame floated out of Iris’s hand, only slightly illuminating the claustrophobic space of stalagmites, stalactites and water droplets falling from the roof. From her opposite hand emerged another fireball; five times the size of the first.
Orpheus’s sobbing stopped. “Leave me!” he shouted.
Chloe could barely make out his dark figure slumped against the farthest wall. “Orpheus, it’s me, Chloe.” No sooner had she said the words than she remembered that her name meant nothing to him, and nor would it for another twenty-five hundred years.
“Calm down, Orpheus,” said Hermes, his tone like that of a master pacifying his riled-up dog. “I come as a friend.”
“Uncle…” Orpheus growled the word, then rose and charged Hermes, grabbing him by the throat.
Chloe’s hand twitched over the wand in her sack. She’d throw it to Hermes if things got bloody.
“It is I, dear nephew,” Hermes managed to say as he lifted up his empty palms. “Please. I’m not here to set a snare.”
Orpheus grunted and shoved Hermes hard into the wall. “Apollo took your wand, did he? Have you come to request the use of my lyre so you can lull him to sleep and retrieve it?”
Chloe winced as Hermes cracked his neck back into place. “I took his wand, actually,” she said.
Orpheus glared at the three women standing before him. His gaze fell to the wand. He clearly knew what it was capable of. “I don’t know you.”
Chloe’s heart ached when he lifted his eyes to hers. They were empty, hopeless, reddened by a grief that wouldn’t subside. The first time she’d seen him, she’d been struck by the beautiful blue color of his eyes. Now they were totally gray, the color of the cavern to which he had exiled himself.
“I know you don’t.” Chloe lifted her sack over her shoulder and carefully took out the pýli. “Not yet. I’m from the future. You and I become friends in, oh, about two and a half thousand years.”
Orpheus returned her smile with a withering stare. He turned to Hermes. “This must be the most pathetic ruse you’ve ever devised.”
“It’s no ruse,” Hermes said. He pointed at the machine. “We need your help, but there will be no gimmicks or traps to obtain it. You have my word.”
“Your word is worthless,” the poet snapped. He wheeled around to face Charis and Iris. “Don’t believe a word that proceeds from this miscreant’s mouth. Whatever he’s promised you in return for your presence here, it’s a lie from the pit of hell.”
“He’s promised us nothing,” Iris said. She stepped forward and sent a tiny light, no bigger than a candle’s flame, in front of the pýli. “This device of the Cyclopes proved to us that Hermes is different. Let it prove to you that you know Chloe. Then you can decide whether to help us or turn us away. We will leave you if you wish it.”
Orpheus’s pupils constricted as he marveled at the flame that had come forth effortlessly from Iris’s hand. “You are goddesses, then. I gather you are Hestia,” he said to Iris.
“We’re Ashers,” said Charis. Then she vanished, appearing that same second in the entrance of the cave fifty yards away.
Orpheus stumbled back toward the corner they’d found him in. “I know of furies. Harpies. I know the muses that reared me, and the dryads to whom my beloved belonged. But never in my life have I heard of the Ashers.”
“The Ashers were created long after your time, nephew.” Hermes went to the pýli and took it from Chloe’s arms. Before any objections could be made, he turned the device around and set his right eye on the circle. “I remember it as if it were yesterday.”
As Hermes spoke, half of the limestone wall before them turned as black as tar. A low rumbling sound crawled across the darkness, accompanied by the quiet howl of the wind.
“What is this? Stop this madness,” Orpheus protested. But he didn’t make a move to stop it. His curiosity, or perhaps his fear, was getting the better of him.
Jagged lightning flashed on the wall, illuminating a diminutive grove of olive trees in the lower left corner.
“I’m hiding there.” Hermes pointed at the trees. “And so is Asher. The very first.”
Innumerable stars studded the sky as a full moon slid slowly into the frame. The midnight storm subsided.
“Asher…”
The voice was quiet and deafening all at once. It wasn’t a human voice, and it seemed to come from the moon itself.
“Duna,” Iris whispered. She and Charis fell to their knees in worship.
Chloe stood frozen, both petrified and awestruck.
A man, small as an ant in comparison to the vastness of space above him, tiptoed out of the trees. He, too, fell to his knees as a fingertip, as big as the moon, drew a vibrant red arch across the smoky black palette of sky. The first band was followed by ribbons of orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
It was the Moonbow.
“Record what you see, Asher,” said the voice, as the finger faded into the moon’s white aura.
The man opened his hands to the sky. “But, my king, I have neither stylus nor tablet to do what you say.” With a despondent cry, he tore his tunic and plunged both hands into the earth.
Chloe went closer, squinting at the tiny man to see what happened next.
“You have trusted me all your life,” said Duna. “Trust me now. Take the stylus I’ve placed in the earth and receive your doma, the first of many your line shall bear.”
Asher leaned toward his right side, sinking his hand deeper into the soil. When he brought it out, a stylus was wedged between his fingers. Chloe’s heart beat faster as her eyes jumped to a small mound of mud moving beside him.
“By the gods,” said Orpheus, “what is happening?”
“A miracle,” Iris said, from her prone position on the floor.
The amorphous sludge beside Asher tightened, its round edges evening out as it stretched into a rectangular tablet. A column of hazy light appeared beside him, like the mist that had surrounded Carya on several occasions. The column spun to face not Asher, but its onlookers. A bare foot stepped out of it, followed by another as the mist vanished like a vapor.
It was Carya, but Asher didn’t seem to realize she was there.
“She wasn’t there that night,” Hermes whispered.
Carya walked forward, her body growing taller with every step as the fresh scents of lavender and lemon permeated the air.
“She’s here,” Chloe said.
Hermes lowered the pýli away from his face, but still Carya’s form grew bigger. “I’m sorry!” he shouted. “Take the mechanism. I’ll never use it again.” He dropped the device and cowered like a cornered animal, covering his face with his hands.
Chloe wondered why he was so afraid of a teenager, and a female one at that.
Carya was now standing before them in three dimensions. Chloe could smell the sweetness of her wine-colored hair mingling with the aroma of herbs that followed her everywhere she went. Then she began to speak.
“I do not come to harm you, Hermes, so be not anxious or afraid,
I come with news of Leto and the plan that she had made.
She yearns to strike Duna’s name from history, to rise above Zeus and Apollo,
To silence her rivals, destroy every Asher, leaving no faith for Petros to follow.
All she lacks is one bite of ambrosia, and for this she keeps Damian in chains.
An age of darkness will surely descend if that substance fills her veins.
There is but one way to stop her, so listen to these words well:
Orpheus must save Hermogenes, and Chloe must undo the spell.”
The bejeweled coronet on Carya’s head glittered in the flames as she gave a slight bow and stepped back toward the plain cave wall. All eyes but hers moved to Orpheus, now holding his lyre at his side.
“I have half a mind to think this strangeness nothing more than a perverse hallucination,” Orpheus said. “I’ve been living alone in this squalor so long that perhaps I’ve lost my sanity.”
“You haven’t,” said Chloe. “I thought the same thing the day I met Carya in my car.”
She smiled at her friend, remembering when Carya’s reflection had appeared in the rearview mirror and she had given Chloe those ludicrous walnuts. Chloe had been positive she was going crazy, but curiosity had compelled her to eat one of the walnuts regardless. She’d convinced herself she had nothing to lose. That simple bite had changed her life, just as the bite of ambrosia could change Leto’s.
“Why not see where the hallucination takes you, Orpheus?” Charis said, a mischievous twinkle in her eye.
Then Chloe saw it, the piece of Orpheus she knew from before. The goodness she’d seen in him when he’d saved her from Circe. The compassion she’d observed when he met her outside of time and asked for her forgiveness. His was a poet’s heart, and she knew it couldn’t bear to see the world in turmoil, even a world that had crushed him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
AMBROSIA
I have one request,” said Orpheus, as the last speck of Carya’s mist evaporated.
