Olympus Bound

by Jordanna Max Brodsky

  Around him, the police officers continued to moan. The trees continued to wither. His city continued to die.

  Philippe added his own desperate groan to the cacophony. “I wish I really did have wings. I’d fly you back.”

  Ruth poked her head out from behind her fish shield. “I’ve got a better idea.”

  Chapter 58

  THE GREAT MOTHER

  “THEO!” Selene screamed.

  She could see his blank shield on the far end of the bridge. Her immortal father and a whole army of promakhoi stood between them. She would’ve happily battled every one if she could. She pounded her fist against the invisible barrier of the portal.

  “It’s okay,” Hermes soothed. “With Father out there, we’ll be safe in here. Everyone else is almost free.” He was right. Athena crawled over the lip of the cleft and started reeling in the rope. Selene had little hope that Typhoeus was gone forever, but so far, he had not returned.

  “Look!” urged her brother. “We can all stay here now. Together.”

  Selene pointed an angry finger at the ever-narrowing portal. “No, you look! Look what Father is doing to my friends, my love, my city. He’s killing the trees, flooding the river, killing the people. You think I can just stay here dancing with my nymphs while New York crumbles and burns?”

  A sharp, piercing scream tore from the chasm behind her. Selene spun toward the sound to see Athena, Dionysus, and Demeter pulling up the rope with all their combined strength. One by one, the other gods clambered to safety, white-faced and shaking. Another shrill scream. A sound not of terror, but of command. The sound of a queen. Hera.

  Selene rushed to the chasm’s lip just in time to see Typhoeus, his whirling body reformed, roaring toward the end of the rope, his jaws gaping open to swallow the last dangling god.

  “Flint!” Selene cried, reaching desperately for her quiver. She had only two silver arrows left. She fired both at the Storm Giant, but neither music nor plague had any effect.

  Hera, who hung from the rope just above her son, screamed at the giant one more time, as if her voice alone could stop the unstoppable.

  Selene grabbed the end of the rope to help the others haul, but she knew it was too late. She watched in horror as Typhoeus’s jaws opened around Hephaestus’s strong, perfect legs. Hera cast one desperate look back at her son.

  Then she let go.

  She dropped straight into the giant’s waiting maw.

  It spiraled away, tearing the Queen of the Gods apart.

  Flint stopped climbing, just stared at the fountain of blood that gushed from the giant’s jaws. Selene and the others kept pulling, dragging him to safety whether he wanted them to or not.

  He lay on the ground at the chasm’s edge, his flawless body trembling in a way his crippled one never had. Aphrodite crouched beside her husband, wrapping him in her arms.

  Selene wanted desperately to help, but the roar of bullets on the Brooklyn Bridge sent her running back to the portal. “Zeus is killing them,” she gasped.

  Athena came to stand beside her, her knuckles white on the haft of her spear. “And he’s using my Athenians to do it.”

  Aphrodite, still holding Hephaestus, looked up in alarm. “Where’s my son?” she begged.

  Selene pointed. “There.” Philippe had laid his myrtle bow on the ground beside his winged shield. He walked forward with both hands outstretched, palms up, offering himself to Zeus.

  “No!” Aphrodite struggled to her feet. Hephaestus rose beside her, his tears subsumed by volcanic rage as he watched his beloved stepson walk into danger.

  “Father doesn’t want Eros dead,” Athena assured them. “Just captive.”

  But it was hard not to worry when Zeus reached down and grabbed Philippe by the neck. The young man looked like a child in the god’s mighty hand. Zeus held him at eye level for just a moment.

  Then he hurled him like a javelin toward the portal.

  Hephaestus grabbed Hermes. “You have to catch him!” he shouted. “He’ll go right into Tartarus!”

  Hermes leaped into the air just as Philippe came soaring through the rift—they slammed together with a bone-crushing thud. Hermes deposited him next to his parents with a grunt of effort. “You’ve been putting on weight.”

  Theo popped into view, pulling off Hades’ helmet and releasing Philippe’s waist. “Oh no, that’s just me. Now who wants to go home?”

  Selene bent to slam him into a kiss, ignoring his muffled protests.

  Hephaestus rushed toward his wounded stepson and folded him in his arms with a surprisingly careful embrace. “You all right, Phil?”

  But the mortal moniker no longer applied. Even as Hephaestus pulled away, Philippe became Eros. No longer a slender young man, but a twelve-year-old boy with a golden halo of curls.

  “Nothing like a little renewed supernatural power to heal what ails you,” he said, rolling his shoulders. The gesture unfurled the long wings that had sprung from his back. The feathers gleamed brilliant crimson at his shoulder blades then cascaded through every shade of the rainbow until they brushed the ground with an indigo as dark as the midnight sky.

  The universe is born of light, Selene thought, but also of Love.

  “You went after my mother when she tried to save me,” Hephaestus said hoarsely, gripping Eros’s arms tight. “You risked your life to help her.”

  “Where is Hera?” Eros peered worriedly over his stepfather’s massive shoulder at the assembled gods.

  “She’s gone,” Hephaestus choked. “I would’ve given up my legs again to save her. But she did it before I could stop her …” He bent his head, leaning his massive skull atop Eros’s smaller golden one.

  A bellow from the Brooklyn Bridge drew Selene’s attention back once more to the battle.

  “Selene,” Theo warned. “Zeus won’t wait. And neither will the portal. Whoever’s coming with us, we have to go. Now.”

  “I’ll come,” Hermes said quickly. “I helped Father regain his power. I will help take it back from him.”

  Dionysus, who’d been so eager to rejoin the ancient world, shrugged. “Yeah, Tartarus sort of took the joy out of antiquity for me.”

  Theo held out his hand to his old roommate. Dionysus held out his to Hermes. Hermes to Athena. To Aphrodite. Eros. Selene slipped her hand into his soft, small one.

  The portal contracted another inch.

  The other Athanatoi remained where they were.

  Selene couldn’t begrudge Persephone and the older gods the chance to be strong when they were so close to death in the other world. But Hephaestus …

  The Smith looked not at her, nor at his wife or stepson, but at his hammer. “It couldn’t save my mother,” he said softly. “But it once made beauty because I had none of my own. If I am strong, and whole, then I am no longer the Smith.” He turned to Eros. “I will fashion you a new pair of wings. For when you go back through the portal and lose them again. For when we go back through.”

  Selene held out her hand to the glorious god who had once been Flint. And would be again.

  Theo led the way. The others followed like links on a chain.

  They stood arrayed across the bridge, ready for battle. The Athenian promakhoi whose presence granted Zeus his strength did the same for Selene and the rest of her kin. The Olympians towered over Theo and the other mortals, their skin glowing in the night. Inhuman, immortal, divine. Selene motioned for her lover to stand behind her. This was a fight for Athanatoi alone.

  Athena clanged her spear against her shield.

  Zeus turned toward the sound. One great black brow rose above eyes that matched his daughters’ for ferocity. His eagle launched into the air, talons extended.

  “There you are,” the Lightning Bringer rumbled as he scanned the line of Olympians. “So strong, I see, that even Tartarus could not hold you.” Something that might have been pride gleamed in his eyes. “I created a mighty race. Next time, I will find stronger chains.”

  He slashed the
air with his hand. The ranks of promakhoi with their bristling spears turned to face the line of Olympians.

  Athena raised her own spear high. “O Athenaioi!” she bellowed, hailing her Athenians. Her voice clamored like a war trumpet, and the soldiers bent their heads before her in awe.

  “Hark to the goddess to whom you owe obedience,” she continued in the ancient tongue. “Once you asked a gift of me. I struck the rocks of the Acropolis with my spear, and an olive tree sprouted forth.” She thrust her shaft against the walkway, shaking the bridge with her blow.

  Even as Selene watched, a sapling sprang from the wooden planks, its branches spreading, thickening, and bursting into leaf in the span of a breath. “Did I not shelter you beneath its boughs? Feed you with its fruits? Light your way with its oil? You are my people, not my father’s,” she roared. “You will listen to my commands.”

  The soldiers murmured among themselves, their spears wavering. They could not disobey their patron goddess—but to thwart the will of Zeus meant certain death.

  “It is as the ancient prophecy foretold!” Zeus boomed, raising his thunderbolt. “You would challenge me, daughter! You would seize my throne for yourself. I cannot let that happen.” A single thread of current shot across the bridge from his thunderbolt. The olive tree burst into flame.

  Zeus turned to his other children. “I still control the storm! The sea! The seasons! The sky itself. You will come back to the land that birthed you, where my temples still stand and cities offer a hundred bulls in sacrifice to me! Where my glory expands with each plume of smoke, each spurt of blood.”

  Selene remembered the bull in the Phrygianum beneath Vatican City. The shower of blood had imbued her with the spirit of the Magna Mater—but none of her power. But that was Selene Neomenia who stood bound and captured, forced to participate in a rite stolen from the Great Mother and perverted by men. Selene Neomenia who lost the connection to her ancient grandmother when Saturn burned her alive.

  This is not Selene, she thought, looking down at her golden bow and her impossibly long limbs. This is ARTEMIS.

  Zeus followed her gaze. “I taught you how to use that bow—you think it can hurt me now?” He pointed his lightning bolt at Athena. “Or your spear? Who are you to stand against my will?”

  “I am the Huntress you made me,” Selene called to her father. “But I am also the Artemis dreamed of by the Ephesians. I carry my temple on my head and all the beasts of the world on my gown. I am Phrygian and Greek and Roman—and American too. I was made by those who worshiped me, those who loved me, and by myself most of all. I have always been and always will be.” She put down her bow—and reached for Athena and Aphrodite’s hands.

  “Together, we are more than Olympians. We are the Great Mother herself. Protectress of Cities, Mother of Desire, Mistress of Beasts. We are Cybele, Ops, Rhea. We are our grandmother’s granddaughter.”

  Zeus’s face darkened. The sky above his head clouded in concert. “The Magna Mater never challenged me.”

  “Because her strength was divided among us. And we were too blind to see. We need no ritual or ceremony to make her part of us—she was always within each of us, waiting to reclaim her place as Queen. We are healers. We make the crops grow and the beasts roar. We give life and shepherd toward death.”

  The other goddesses held tight to her hands. Selene—Artemis—felt power surge between them. When she spoke again, the others spoke with her.

  They were one Goddess now, ancient and powerful.

  Long ago, She had gladly surrendered Her rule to Her son, the Sky God.

  Now She wanted it back.

  “The Earth herself is My mother, and I am the Mother of All.”

  The Magna Mater reached out Her hand toward the police officers still writhing in agony with their ruined legs. She made them whole again and brought them to their feet. On the banks of the river, the trees straightened, their branches sprouting new leaves of citron green.

  She raised Her spear high. The bridge’s floodlights struck the blade, lighting it like a torch.

  “Go now, warriors,” She cried to the Athenian army. “The Frontline Solider summons you home!”

  She swung Her weapon toward far-off Athens, where the spearpoint’s mirror image winked atop the Acropolis. The soldiers stared at their distant bronze Promakhos with eyes full of longing. “Go back to your mothers!” She commanded. “Your daughters, your sisters, your wives. Go home.”

  Footsteps thundering as loud as a hekatonkheir’s, the army of Athenians began to march toward the ever-narrowing portal.

  Sparks flew from Zeus’s thunderbolt. “You give me no choice but to kill you!” Tears brightened his eyes even as he raised the bolt high, ready to incinerate the Goddess before him. But a new cloud darkened the sky—one not summoned by He Who Marshals Thunderheads.

  Thousands upon thousands of Aphrodite’s pigeon doves rose from the city’s streets and descended in a swirling mass upon the Father of the Gods. Their beaks pecked his eyes; their feet tangled in his beard. The golden eagle dove upon the flock, screeching in rage. Pigeon feathers fell like gray snow.

  Artemis’s hawks, summoned from the highest trees of Central Park, darted into the fray, tearing the Father’s eagle apart with bloodied talons. Two of Athena’s owls swooped across the river from Long Island on silent wings, ripping Zeus’s thunderbolt from his hands before he even noticed their approach.

  The bolt clutched tight between their talons, the owls flapped heavy wings to speed their escape from Zeus’s desperate grasp. They soared back over the river. There, right between Manhattan and Brooklyn, their talons opened. The bolt plummeted into the water, its light forever swallowed by the dark.

  The Goddess raised Her own spear once more. “Metis crafted My armor inside your mind. With every stroke, she told her daughter that it was She who would be the Savior. She who would fulfill the prophecy to throw you from your throne. You thought yourself safe when no son emerged. You were a fool.”

  The words of the Pythia returned. “The Wise Woman’s seat is right here, in the city where She stands tall. And Her spear alone can conquer our greatest foe.”

  Single file, the Athenian promakhoi passed through the portal. With every one that vanished, the Goddess felt Herself weaken, Her three parts unravel.

  But so did Zeus.

  He fled toward the rift, growing shorter and more haggard with every step. His hair grayed, his limbs bent, his flashing eyes dimmed. The cloud of birds streamed in his wake like a dark cloak.

  The Tetractys blocked his way.

  Scooter Joveson wrapped his arms around his frail, stooped father. He clutched him tightly for an instant as the ancient world squeezed shut just inches away.

  In the center of the Brooklyn Bridge, on a sultry summer night, with his exhausted siblings looking on, the Messenger sent his final message to the King.

  The old man’s neck snapped with a loud pop.

  The stars did not fall from the heavens with his death. No thunder drummed across the sky. The world mourned the passing of its former ruler with tears instead.

  Only the gentle patter of rain on the Brooklyn Bridge broke the silence.

  Chapter 59

  EPILOGUS

  One year later.

  The baby in Selene’s arms had hair as black as midnight and eyes as green as new-sprung leaves.

  Sibyl, they called her, in honor of Cybele, the Great Mother who’d saved New York from the hand of Zeus. Sibyl Jimenez-Loi.

  Her parents had decided it was a fitting name for a baby girl with multiple mothers.

  Sibyl screwed up her brow, and for just an instant, Selene wondered what it would be like to see her own expression on a child’s face. Would she scowl all the time? The thought made her laugh.

  “She’s trying to poop,” Gabriela said, holding out her arms to take back her child.

  Selene relinquished the baby happily enough, averting her eyes as Gabriela dealt with the diaper.

  Theo flashed
her a grin. “That’s the problem with having preternatural senses, right? The whole baby crap thing is that much worse.”

  Minh made an exhausted effort at a smile. “Selene never has to change a diaper if she doesn’t want to.” The astronomer had taken on responsibility for explaining the mayhem on the Brooklyn Bridge to a bewildered city. So far, a description of Einstein’s space-time theories and a claim of mass hysterical hallucinations had done the trick—anything seemed more plausible than Greek gods still wandering the earth. Between working on her latest journal article and caring for a newborn, Minh wasn’t getting a lot of sleep. But she turned to Theo with more humor than weariness.

  “You, on the other hand, Spunkle Theo, don’t get that option. Just because Sibyl lives with us doesn’t mean you don’t have to help when you’re around.”

  “Right, right,” Theo said, going to help Gabi with what Selene considered a totally unjustifiable amount of cheer.

  With everyone’s attention on Sybil, Selene pulled out her baby gift and slipped it onto the coffee table. She wasn’t sure exactly how Gabi and Minh would react to the present; she figured Theo would be better at explaining it to them.

  She left the all-too-domestic scene in her living room and went out to her tiny backyard. Ruth and Maryam were working in the garden; Hippo lay on the ground, watching contentedly.

  The two women bent over a sapling, discussing something about the interaction between rhizobium microorganisms and soil salinity.

  “You really think you’re going to get an olive tree to grow in Manhattan?” Selene asked.

  Maryam looked up and gave her a baleful stare. “I can get olive trees to grow anywhere.”

  Selene raised her hands in submission. “Okay, okay, sorry. You’re not the Great Mother anymore, but give it shot.”

  “Speaking of great mothers,” Ruth said, rolling her eyes. “Please don’t make me go back in there. I can’t keep talking about poop.”

  “Huh.” Selene couldn’t help prodding. “You and Steve Atwood aren’t …”

  Ruth flushed to the roots of her hair. “He’s very nice,” she said stiffly. “But he’s a classicist. I think I’ve had enough classicists for a while. No offense.”