“I’ll lead the way, okay, and no stragglers.” He winked at Flint, who glared back as if he might break the slender man in half.
Theo hitched his own pack higher on his shoulders and tried to ignore the tension swirling around him. Selene’s staring daggers at Esme, he couldn’t help noticing. Philippe’s scowling at Scooter; I want to throttle Dennis; Scooter’s giving Maryam the stink eye; Esme keeps batting her lashes at me; and Flint is clearly furious at every single one of us. Forget the storm up ahead. We’ll be lucky if we don’t incinerate each other right here on the trail.
Chapter 42
CLOUD-COMPELLING ONE
The line of gods stretched down the slope like a sacred procession, passing through the rolling clouds as if emerging from a dream.
Scooter walked at the front, a hierophant leading his initiates. To Selene’s surprise, he’d chosen to wear his winged cap. After it’d been struck by lightning during the battle atop the Statue of Liberty, it didn’t fly anymore, not even for a Makarites like Theo. Yet the soft light of the mist-shrouded mountaintop obscured the dents and broken feathers, and Scooter made a surprisingly convincing Hermes, Messenger of the Gods.
Selene urged Philippe to walk faster so they could get upwind of his mother, whose unmistakable musk filled her with a discomfiting mélange of nausea and titillation. Dennis, who somehow managed to move with languorous slowness and still keep pace with the swifter gods, walked just behind Esme. He carried two large plastic water bottles—undoubtedly filled with something other than water—attached to a fanny pack he’d probably owned since the eighties. He used his thyrsus—a pinecone-tipped staff twined with vines—as a walking stick.
Maryam plodded along beneath her heavy pack, her eyes on her feet. Theo came next, wincing with every step. Flint hobbled behind them. Selene could hear his heavy breathing as he struggled to keep up, but wondered if part of his pacing was purposeful. He hadn’t spoken to his estranged wife, and he seemed careful not to get anywhere near her.
It took nearly an hour for the whole lumbering party to make it up the steep, boulder-covered slope to the start of the Skala plateau that marked the penultimate portion of the trail. Beyond it, only the final ascent remained.
The word “plateau” was misleading. “Skala,” after all, meant “stairs.” The expanse sloped continually upward, and at nearly three thousand meters above sea level, the thin oxygen sapped even Selene’s strength. Philippe, too, struggled with the other end of the stretcher, sweat making his spiky hair spikier. Only Scooter seemed unfazed. His swift pace soon took him over a slight rise and out of sight.
The summit, where Selene’s aunts and uncle waited with Saturn, never seemed to get any closer.
There were no trees this high on the mountain, just an unrelenting field of gray gravel. This is no longer my mountain realm, Selene realized. She felt as if they walked through the Sky instead, the ground the same color as the clouds that blew across the plateau and blocked the sun. She’d thought she’d feel like a goddess up here; instead, she felt like an intruder. This isn’t where I belong, she decided. This is my father’s turf.
She looked down at the stretcher, expecting to see Zeus open his eyes. Surely just being here would give him strength. But he remained unconscious, his breath rapid and uneven. She quickened her steps to make it over the rise ahead of them, then slowed once more when a figure appeared in the distance, obscured by the thick clouds. She could make out a protruding limb, a towering head, something that looked like a trident. Poseidon? She tensed at the thought. Does my blue-haired uncle know I killed his son Orion last year? she wondered belatedly. Is he about to attack me with his trident, seeking vengeance?
She looked around for Scooter, hoping he’d already dealt with the situation. But the Messenger of the Gods was nowhere to be found.
“Scooter?” she called. Her voice sounded strange and muffled in the wet air. “He was just ahead of us—did anyone see where he went?”
Esme patted her sweating upper lip delicately with the edge of her silk kerchief. “I wasn’t looking.”
Philippe shrugged. “You know how he is. Probably just ran ahead to show off his speed.”
The clouds scudded past, revealing the open ground ahead of them. The strange figure, she saw now, was no god—just a construction mechanism. Some sort of telescoping drill.
“That’s mine,” Flint said, coming up panting beside her.
“What do you mean?”
“I invented it. It can drill up to three hundred meters deep, but runs on solar power and is ultralight for easy transport though difficult terrain. It’s supposed to drill wells in villages in Africa.”
“Then why’s it on top of Olympus?”
Flint narrowed his eyes. “Because the man I sold it to must’ve brought it up here.”
“And who’s that?” she pressed.
“Scooter Joveson.”
Selene shrugged. “Maybe he’s going to use it to help open Tartarus.”
Theo joined them, already shaking his head. “No, it’s for the spring relocation project. I saw the signs down at the shelter. Listen, you can hear the water.”
Flint scowled at him. “There is no spring this high up. It starts at the shelter and runs downhill from there.”
“But Theo’s right,” Selene said, listening. She and Philippe laid down the stretcher. She followed the sound. Not far from the drilling machine, she found a narrow hole. She couldn’t see the water inside, but she could hear it burbling.
Flint crouched down as far as his leg braces would allow. “Scooter somehow redirected the spring water up to the plateau. That’s an engineering feat that even I’d have a hard time with. It must’ve taken all year—and it certainly wouldn’t help the shelter’s water supply.” He gave her a grim look. “Scooter must’ve been working on this since well before we freed your father from the mithraeum and heard about his plan to open Tartarus. What does he know that we don’t? This doesn’t feel safe.”
Esme frowned. “You’re being paranoid. We may all enjoy our little plots and ploys”—she ignored Theo’s indignant snort—“but Scooter would never put me in danger. He loves me.” She smiled a little smugly.
Flint gave his wife a black look. “Then what the hell’s he doing with the water?”
“If you’re so distrustful,” Selene snapped, too tired to bother tempering her tone, “then why come?” One look at his face and she knew the answer. He’d come for her, of course.
Philippe put a hand on his stepfather’s arm. “I’m sure Scooter just wants the same thing we all do, Papa,” he said gently. “To help Zeus. Trust me when I say he loves his father.” He gave Flint’s arm an affectionate squeeze. “I know real love when I see it.”
Maryam’s brow furrowed. “And yet there is much here we do not understand. We should consider turning around, synthesizing this new information about Scooter and the water flow, and then examining our options from several angles. We will miss our chance for the summit today, but we can spend the night at the shelter and try again tomorrow if we decide it’s prudent.”
On his stretcher, Zeus moaned and turned his head, then settled once more. His skin was the same flat gray as the stony ground.
“He won’t make it,” Selene insisted. “Two nights ago he told me this is all the time he had left. If we don’t get Tartarus opened today, then it’s too late.” She looked at each of the Athanatoi in turn, coming to a decision. “I’ve spent too long questioning my own siblings. Esme and Philippe are right: Scooter wouldn’t hurt Father. Or us. If he’s building some contraption up here, then it’s part of his plan to help. He’s the Giver of Good Things, remember?”
Maryam and Flint still didn’t look convinced, but neither did they protest.
“We have greater enemies to battle than each other,” Selene went on. “Death. Saturn. The giants. That’s who we should be worried about. So let’s be prepared.”
She took off her backpack and drew out the parts of her bow. Flint
scowled, but moved the massive hammer on his back into easy reach. The others followed suit: Philippe removed his own child-sized myrtle bow from his satchel, along with a quiver of tiny darts; Maryam opened her enormous backpack and, to Selene’s amazement, pulled out a complete set of bulletproof tactical armor. The Goddess of Love had no weapons Selene could see—Esme had never needed anything besides her own beauty. But Selene noticed she took a step closer to her son.
Dennis leaned on his thyrsus, watching with a lopsided leer. “This is finally getting good. Much more interesting than screwing my ten thousandth undergrad.”
Selene barely managed to restrain herself from sending an arrow through her half brother, but she somehow managed to keep her shafts—both wood and hawk-feather fletched—securely in the quiver at her hip. Greater enemies to battle… she reminded herself as she slung her bow across her back and hoisted her end of the stretcher again. She and Philippe started back up the path.
This time, Theo walked beside her. Despite her confident words, she shivered with apprehension as they continued up the slope. He seemed to sense her unease.
“You’re going to save your dad,” he said, for her ears alone. “I know it.” He put a hand on her arm. It was the first time he’d touched her with any warmth since that first passionate kiss in the Phrygianum.
“But if Flint’s right, and I just brought Father into danger, instead … Styx, if I brought you into danger …”
A spark flashed between them when he met her eyes—yet he didn’t pull away. “You didn’t bring me. I came.”
Another thick cloud moved across the plateau, sucking the warmth from the air and the light from the sun. Selene could see no more than ten feet ahead.
She paused to pull a fleece blanket from her pack and tuck it around her father. Flint had already donned a thick sweater. Maryam’s body armor protected her well enough. Theo simply clutched his bare arms across his chest; he hadn’t brought any other layers. Philippe put on a light windbreaker but looked like he barely minded the cold. This is a sure sign of who’s seriously fading and who’s not, Selene thought.
Dennis kept walking, clearly impervious to the temperature, while Esme simply tightened her silk kerchief around her face, probably just to protect her coiffure from the wind. Selene hoped Scooter had provided plenty of warm clothing for the Olympians he’d already helicoptered to the summit. Zeus’s siblings—Demeter, Poseidon, and Hestia—were likely as frail as their brother, and Aunt June hadn’t looked like a woman used to frigid temperatures either. Selene found the damp chill in the air more annoying than debilitating, but the hair on her arms stood up nonetheless. I’m cold more from worry than the weather, she knew, forcing herself to stay calm.
She glanced at Theo’s shivering form, reminded of just how frail his mortal body really was. He’d already died twice since she’d known him.
She wanted to tell him to turn around. His little adventure to meet the other gods might become something far more complicated, and Theo shouldn’t be there. Why did Father even invite him? she wondered belatedly. It can’t just be to help record the Gathering. But one look at Theo’s determined face and she knew any protest would be useless. Besides, hadn’t he just reminded her that coming to Olympus was his decision? The last time she’d tried to shield him from pain he’d wound up dying anyway. He knew as much as she did about what they were facing. If he wanted to turn back, he would.
He caught her staring at him and crooked her a faint ghost of his old familiar smile as if to say, Don’t let the shivering fool you—I’m perfectly content right where I am. She found herself smiling back. Still, she wished he’d agreed to bring his divine weapons along.
Maryam followed Selene’s gaze to Theo. Without a word, she pulled a foil emergency blanket from her pack and handed it to him. He wrapped it around his torso, a billowing silver cloak for a shaking Makarites.
They walked on, scree crunching beneath their feet. Even Selene’s usually sure steps sent shards of rock skipping down the hill behind her, raising a cloud of dust and eliciting several yelped protests from Esme.
The stretcher’s weight only made Selene’s footing worse. Her boot slipped on a large stone; she looked down to see that the moving gravel had uncovered a large capped pipe sticking up two inches from the ground. She stopped to look at it more closely just as the last ragged edges of a cloud passed by, clearing the landscape again and revealing at least a dozen more pipes marching across the plateau.
Flint caught up to them. “Scooter’s not just bringing the water to the plateau,” he warned. “He’s diverting it all the way to the summit.”
“But we still don’t know why,” Selene said, looking to Maryam for an answer.
The Goddess of Wisdom and Crafts just looked down pensively at the pipe without speaking.
“Okay, then,” Selene said brusquely. “We keep moving.”
They followed the trail, the pipes growing more frequent on either side. She couldn’t hear the water anymore, but she imagined it running uphill beneath her feet, an inexorable, impossible river carrying her toward the unknown.
Chapter 43
INTERMISSIO: THE TETRACTYS
The Tetractys sat cross-legged on the summit of Olympus, counting aloud.
“One and two. Two and three. Three and four.”
One and two. Two and three. Three and four.
Over and over he counted, trying to lose himself in the sacred numbers so he could forget what was about to happen to his friend Theo.
He watched his siblings wind their way up the slope beneath him, each one an ant carrying its own heavy burden.
Guilt, shame, grief, loneliness, weakness, despair.
He had tried to doff those loads time and again, to forget the past and make his way in the ever-changing mortal world. But his family had suffered. Even those who still retained their youth today would eventually fade away entirely. His family was dying.
The Tetractys couldn’t let that happen.
He’d always been a Trickster, but he was a Helper, a Shepherd, and a Giver of Good Things, too. The Father had given him a chance to help his family when they could not help themselves.
For years, the Tetractys had worked with the Father on this plan, although he didn’t want to admit that. His siblings would know how long he’d lied to them, and they’d find it harder to forgive him when they learned of the sacrifices that had been made along the way—not to mention the one still to come.
In a few minutes, everything he’d worked for and dreamed of for so long would finally become reality. He’d rushed to the summit, unable to wait any longer, and anxious to make sure the other Athanatoi were still in place. His instincts had served him well—Hera was about to back out when he arrived. Despite her complete lack of mountaineering skills, the woman who called herself June had started climbing down the summit on her own, claiming something didn’t feel right, and she should never have agreed to come in the first place. It had taken all his famed skills of persuasion to convince her to stay.
Now his hands shook with excitement—and trepidation. This is my moment of triumph, he knew. We will all enter the new Age together.
Yet he couldn’t help wondering if his family would see it that way. Selene certainly wouldn’t—not when the man she loved had to die to make it happen.
He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a set of reed pipes. I am the Tetractys. I am the perfect number, he reminded himself. I am the harmonies that will remake the world.
“One and two. Two and three. Three and four,” he counted as he played the sacred notes. Over and over until his own guilt floated away on the wings of melody.
Chapter 44
SHE WHO TURNS TO LOVE
“Mytikas,” the Greeks called Olympus’s peak—the Nose. But from the crest of the plateau, it looked more like a crown.
An oval slope rose before Selene, surrounded by great jagged spires of rock like a diadem’s points. The center looked carved by an ice-crea
m scoop, smooth and steep and impossible to climb.
From where she stood at the plateau’s edge, the Mytikas peak seemed to float in space two hundred yards away. But when she moved closer to the lip, a knife’s edge of rock appeared, connecting the plateau to the peak. One wrong step across that bridge would spell certain death, even for an Athanatos. Carrying Zeus’s stretcher across would prove extremely difficult—getting it up the slope to the summit itself would be nearly impossible.
Standing beside her, Theo gave a nervous smile. “Please tell me you smuggled a divine jet pack up here, because I don’t see a path.”
Selene pointed to the rock face. “There are red dots painted on the stone to show you where to put your hands and feet.”
Theo squinted, but clearly his mortal eyes weren’t up to the task. “Hands? You mean we’ve got to climb?”
“Yes, although you won’t need ropes. You might want them, but you don’t need them. And it’s your choice—you don’t have to come,” she couldn’t help saying.
“Please—and miss all the fun? I’m like Dennis; undergrads are getting boring.” He laughed shortly. “Teaching them, that is, not … you know.”
“I figured.”
He gazed at her, suddenly sober. “I’m coming. Not just to bear witness or for the thrill of meeting Poseidon and Demeter and the others—although, I have to admit, that’s pretty cool. But because you—you guys—might need me.”
She didn’t miss his stumble. He was coming for her, even if he wanted to pretend otherwise.
“So, great Hawk-Eyed One,” he went on. “Do you see the rest of the pantheon up there?”
Selene smiled at the made-up epithet. His teasing is a good sign. “Not from this angle. But I can see the storm clouds. The weather’s bad up there, and it’s only going to get worse. We’ve got to hurry.”
Philippe rubbed at the blisters on his hands. “We can’t hurry if we’re carrying this stretcher.”
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