The Gatekeeper's Sons

by Eva Pohler

  Chapter Forty-Two: The Battle

  Therese filled with hope and enthusiasm when it dawned on her that she could scuttle along this canyon wall beneath the cliff edge and make her way to the roaring fall behind Hephaestus without being seen. She prayed to Than to let him know her plan.

  She would find a place behind the falls to stash her food and store her rocks, which she started collecting in her arms now. She would find a lower place, visible to Ares, to set up a decoy camp. Then, when McAdams came to the decoy, she would launch her rocks at him. The rocks probably wouldn’t kill him, but as with the traps in the thick part of the woods by the fruit trees, they would injure him and slow him down, hopefully enough for her to defeat him with her sword.

  “Good!” Than shouted.

  A blood-curdling wail rang out across the canyon and caused Therese to freeze. “Was that McAdams?”

  “Yes!”

  “Did he find one of my traps?”

  “I think so! I can’t see him!” Than called out.

  Whether McAdams injured himself in one of her traps or in some other way, he was nevertheless injured, and this added to Therese’s overall optimism as she scrambled beneath the cliff edge with her arms full of rocks the size of softballs. The noise of the falls thundered as she neared them and the spray hit her bare skin and chilled her, a relief after the sweat she had worked up from building her traps in Demeter’s woods.

  “How long till nightfall?” she asked Than in her mind. It seemed like hours had passed, and yet the sun still bore down on them high in the sky. “Wait a minute. We never left Olympus, did we? The sun always shines, right?”

  If Than answered her, she could no longer hear him this close to the crashing falls. She hadn’t thought of that! How would she make it without him?

  Unlike Than and the other gods, she had no powers of telepathy and could not be sure if voices in her head were inspirations or delusions. She almost turned back. In fact, she changed her mind five or six times and nearly wore herself out beneath the cliff edge with indecision. At last she decided it was her best chance of survival to go on with her plan. “I can’t hear you anymore,” she prayed. “But I’ve decided to go on anyway.”

  She reached the falls and found a hidden grotto behind the roaring water, but if McAdams came this way to her decoy camp, she would have no advantage for attack. Although there were many little nooks and crevices back here that she could climb onto, she would be open, visible, and vulnerable to his retaliation. She dropped her rocks in a heap, set down her fruit, and looked around.

  At the furthest lip of the grotto on the outer edge of the falls, she found a nook way up high that just might work. If McAdams came through the grotto, she would see him, and she would be above him, with gravity on her side. She would also be hidden until he reached the point where she stood now. It also seemed, from down here, anyway, that she might have a view of the deeper canyon in case he came that route. The trick would be hauling the rocks and fruit up the steep wall nearly twenty feet to the nook. First she would try it empty-handed to see if it was possible.

  Now that she couldn’t hear Than, she felt really anxious that McAdams could be coming around the corner for her at any moment, and this anxiety caused her to tremble more profoundly than she had before. The trembling made climbing up the nearly vertical wall very difficult. She used her fingers to find places in the wall to grip, and she fished around with her feet for footholds to support her weight. One false step meant falling to her death at the bottom of the canyon.

  Dirt from the canyon wall got into her mouth and crunched in her teeth when she clenched them. She ran her tongue around her teeth, trying to wash it out, and she spit and gagged. She reached for another rock, keeping her mouth closed this time, breathing through her nose. A fingernail broke at the tip as she clung to another ledge, but that was the least of her worries.

  Thankfully, there were plenty of strong footholds within reach of one another. When she made it to the nook, she found it was actually a cave that tunneled back into darkness. While she was glad to have all this room to store her things and move around, the unknown darkness added to her anxiety. Stop it, Therese! McAdams was the only threat worth fearing right now, she reminded herself. She walked over to the furthest edge and saw that she could indeed see most of the lower canyon from here. This just might work. There were even a few loose boulders she could move, though barely and straining with all her might. Maybe if she scooted them to the edge and found something to give her leverage, she could launch them from the nook. She needed a branch or heavy stick, but there were none around. Would her sword work, or would the rock break it? She unsheathed the sword and tested it, gently at first. The blade gave. It was too flexible. She’d have to find something else. She returned the sword to its sheath.

  The sheath! It was light, but it was solid and firm. She unbelted it from her waist and tested it out. It would work! This could be her saving grace! She looked around for other such boulders and found four more loose enough and light enough for her to drag to the edge of her cave.

  She re-belted her sword and sheath and climbed back down, quickly but carefully, to carry up her bundle of fruit between her teeth. Then she took the empty shirt back down and filled it with six of the softball-sized rocks. Any more than that might throw off her balance too much or be too heavy and slip between her teeth. She’d have to make a third trip down for the remaining six. She hesitated. If McAdams spotted her, she’d lose the element of surprise. Was it worth getting the remaining rocks? She decided to go for it.

  Climbing up with the bundle between her teeth was not easy. She held on by the back molars, where her jaw was stronger. She couldn’t swallow properly, so she let the drool drip down her chin. Most of it was absorbed by her shirt. The rocks pressed against her neck and chest as she pulled herself up the wall. Her neck was sore from both the weight of the rocks and the position in which she had to hold her head in order to clear the rocks with her body. But her shirt wasn’t big enough to tie around her back or neck and still hold her bundle.

  Now she had twelve softball-sized rocks she could throw at him and seven watermelon-sized boulders she could launch at him with her sheath. It was time to set up her decoy camp, and she’d have to move quickly since McAdams could be gaining on her at any time and she would not hear Than’s warning. She gathered up three apples and put them in her shirt to take with her.

  Oh! Another idea struck her. She couldn’t hear Than, but maybe she would be able to hear several gods if they all shouted at once. She concentrated on all of them but Ares. She couldn’t risk giving away her position to him. “If you can hear me, please oh please scream yes as loud as you can when I get to the count of three. One, two, three!”

  Faint, but audible, she heard the whisper of a yes.

  Awesome!

  Again, with great concentration, she focused on all of the Olympian gods except for Ares. “If you think McAdams is still in the forest, when I count to three, please scream yes. One, two, three!”

  Again, faint, but audible, like a breeze across the canyon, she heard the gods say, “Yes.”

  Awesome! That meant she had time to set up her decoy camp. She cautiously but quickly scrambled down the wall from her cave back to the grotto floor behind the falls. Then she scaled further down beneath the grotto to the deeper canyon floor, all the while being careful to keep herself hidden behind the falls to avoid Ares’s watchful eyes. She hadn’t heard him communicating with McAdams so far, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t doing so now that McAdams was down in the woods.

  During her decent down the wall, she sought cliff edges, nooks, anything that might offer passage past the falls where she could be visible across the canyon from the platform and the lower edge of the forest. She needed to be seen in her decoy camp, but her entrance and exit to it should be hidden. She was getting nervous that this wasn’t going to work. Maybe she should head back to her real camp and simply wait.

  But she had come
this far, and this was the perfect plan if she could make it work.

  “If you can see McAdams, on my count of three, please say yes. One, two, three!”

  “Yes!”

  Oh, no! She was expecting a no. If they could see him, where was he? “If he has made it to the edge of the deeper canyon, please say yes on my count of three. One, two, three!”

  “Yes!”

  Oh my God! “Is he near the larger of the two falls? One, two, three!”

  “No.”

  She felt some relief, but she couldn’t see it in her hands, for they trembled so badly now, she could barely grab hold of the canyon wall. She climbed down a few more feet and found another nook. It tunneled beneath the cliff edge above it, into the wall of the canyon, about five feet or more and extended out past the falls. If she were to follow it to its length, she would become visible. It was now or never if she was going to set up this decoy camp. With shaking limbs and chattering teeth, she edged her way out and looked across the canyon at the gods.

  A memory of touring Mesa Verde, the ancient cliff dwellings in southwest Colorado, with her parents three years ago swept through her mind.

  “Than, if you can see me, wave! I want Ares to see me, and McAdams, too!”

  Than waved. She waved back and blew him a kiss. Then she saw McAdams across the canyon at the smaller fall below Aphrodite. He was without his jacket and tie, and his white shirt was stained with blood and dirt. His black pants were torn and also stained, and as he moved forward, he walked with a limp. Unlike her, he held his shield, but this, too, was smeared with blood and dirt. Either he had fallen or at least one of her traps had worked!

  Still, as she looked at him, trembling like her, fumbling along the rocky quay at the top of Aphrodite’s smaller waterfall, perhaps closer to death than she originally thought, she found it hard to feel joy. Therese! Remember what he did to your parents! Remember what you have to do to be with Than! The anger at her parents’ brutal, painful murder and the hopeful expectations of living eternally at Than’s side renewed her determination. Either McAdams would die, or she would die trying!

  She opened her bundle and took out an apple. Standing in sight of McAdams, she bit the apple and retreated back into the cave, leaving her shirt and the other two apples visible. Then she worried she was being too obvious in her attempts to lure him. She ran back to the edge and snatched her bundle and dragged it back out of sight. She went to the edge one more time and limped around, trying to look weaker than she was, and then she got down on her knees as though in supplication to the gods, and prayed, “Than, I’m not really injured. I am trying to appear weaker than I am to lure McAdams here. This is my decoy camp. I have another set up for attack.” She noticed how badly she trembled now that she was trying to hold still. She kept praying, “I love you, Than. I can tell the end is near. No matter what happens, after this I will be with you always, either as a god like you, or a soul among the dead like my parents. If you can hear me, please wave to me one more time.”

  She watched him lift his arm up to her and wipe his eyes with the other hand. She wished she could see the details of his face, but he was too far away. She looked over at McAdams. He was drinking from the top of the smaller falls. Now he washed his face. She couldn’t see the details, but the overall smear of red was horrible.

  He deserves this, she reminded herself.

  She took several bites of the apple, and looked up again at Than. The other gods had crowded around him, probably realizing that this canyon was where their game would end. Surprisingly, she felt ravenous, and ate her apple down to the core. Then, looking once more at the bowed figure of McAdams, she tossed the core to the canyon floor to lie beside her shield, and she retreated to the back of the cave and out of sight of all.

  From the back of the cave, she tunneled toward her real camp behind the roaring falls. She climbed back up to the grotto with her bundle between her teeth, and then rested there a moment, wondering which direction McAdams was going now. After ten or fifteen minutes, she climbed the rest of the way to her upper chamber where she had stored her food and rocks. She was still hungry, so she bit into another apple while she waited.

  She couldn’t see McAdams, but she could see the lower canyon if he tried to cross it. She doubted he would attempt it since he was apparently injured. More than likely, he would come the way she had, behind the falls, and so she mostly looked down in that direction. She had her sheath unbelted and her sword on the cave floor close by. She rested the sheath over a rock to form a lever and tucked the sheath beneath one of the watermelon-sized boulders ready to launch it at McAdams when he came.

  While she waited for signs of McAdams, she ate another apple and an orange. She was thirsty, and the juice quenched that thirst. She had planned to save more of the food in case McAdams dragged this battle out over the course of days, but once she had started eating, she had found it too hard to stop. Her food supplies were diminishing, and this filled her with new anxiety.

  But she couldn’t stop herself from eating another apple.

  On top of having only a few pieces of fruit left after her binging, she was getting sleepy. She wasn’t sure how many hours had passed, since the sun hadn’t moved from its position at high noon in the sky, but boy, oh boy, could she use some sleep! She knew, of course, that McAdams would find and kill her in her sleep and that closing her eyes for even a moment was out of the question.

  The adrenaline that had rushed through her body earlier when she had heard the gods warning her of McAdams’s pursuit had waned somewhat when she saw him, bloody and limping and trembling. And now that she was full and resting in this somewhat safe cave, the adrenaline seemed to have gone out of her body completely.

  Think of your parents! But even her attempts to force the images of her dying parents into her head could not pull her from this sudden fatigue and sleepiness. She would not share this with Than. She had been about to pray, “I’m sleepy,” to him, but now she realized it would only make him that more fraught with anxiety. No, she would bear this burden alone. She stood up and paced around the cave, like an animal in a zoo.

  A movement in the lower canyon caught her attention. She couldn’t believe her eyes. McAdams had climbed down into the lower canyon and had picked up her shield. What would he do with it? Wait. He tossed it aside. He was looking for something. What? He picked up the apple core she had tossed and was ravaging it like a starved animal. He had it eaten in an instant, seeds and stem and all, and then he looked around, trembling and pathetic.

  He went to the small reservoir at the lowest point of the deeper canyon, the pool to which both falls spilled into, and drank. This body of water wasn’t nearly as large as the one behind Poseidon—only about ten feet at the widest point—and Therese guessed it must empty into the ground and spring out again somewhere else. Then she remembered this was Mount Olympus, and all this was an illusion. The water didn’t have to flow anywhere. It could just disappear.

  McAdams continued to look around, over his shoulder, as though he feared he were the one being pursued. This thought made Therese giggle slightly. So he was afraid of her? He thought she was coming for him?

  From her height she could probably hit him with one of the softball-sized rocks, but her chances of missing him were high, and she would give away her location. Plus, he looked so pathetic, like a lame animal, and until he outright attacked her, she might not have it in her to further injure him. But then how long would this battle drag on? How long would she have to hang out here in this dark cave waiting for him to come for her? Shouldn’t she just end it now if she could? Launch her rocks and try to crush him to death? Wouldn’t she starve to death otherwise?

  “Should I attack?”

  “Yes!” the barely audible answer came.

  She watched McAdams scramble along the canyon floor toward her decoy camp. Perhaps he wouldn’t drag this battle out after all. He seemed anxious now, almost lustful. He climbed the wall of the cliff edge furthest from t
he gods directly beneath her decoy camp. It was time to launch her attack. It was now or never.

  Therese took a deep breath and, as she exhaled, she emitted a loud grunt, which she knew no one could hear because of the falls. But as she grunted, she took up a softball-sized rock and threw it at him. She missed, but without thinking, she threw again and again and again, until all twelve softball-sized rocks were gone, and she hit him more than once. He cowered beneath her with his arms over his head, sliding down to the canyon floor. She lunged against her sheath and launched the first watermelon-sized boulder. It dropped a foot or two away from where he crouched, so quickly, before he could move, she launched the next, and bam! It hit its target. He fell over onto the canyon floor, grasping his left shoulder, where the boulder had hit, and moaned. She couldn’t hear him but she could see his mouth moving. Now she moved her lever to another boulder and launched it directly on his chest. It hit him and then bounced and rolled away, breaking into smaller pieces. Although she couldn’t hear his wails, she could see his face, and she could see he was in terrible pain and agony. Shuddering at what she had done, but not allowing herself to think on it, she launched another boulder and hit her mark again.

  McAdams rolled over onto his hands and knees and crawled away from her. Blood poured from his shoulder, which he continued to hold with his right hand. He scrambled away, out of her reach but not her sight, and he sat against the canyon wall, breathing rapidly.

  It was time for her to go to him. She belted on the golden sheath and found her sword on the cave floor. She returned the blade to its sheath and prepared to descend. You can do this, she told herself. Then to the gods, even to Ares, she said, “I’m going to end this.”

  Although she dreaded what had to be done, the feeling of imminent victory lifted her spirits as she climbed down from her cave to the grotto below. McAdams was no longer in view from here, but once she worked her way out past the falls, scaling down toward the deeper canyon, she could see him again sitting and slumped against the rocks.

  “You killed my mom and dad!” she shouted as she got closer. “I had to watch them die! Your gunman shot my mom in the neck! My father drove off a bridge trying to dodge the gunman’s bullets, and he and my mother drowned right before my eyes!”

  McAdams’s eyes were wide and his breathing rapid. She was within ten feet of him. She drew her sword. It was dirty from use, but it would still do the trick.

  “Please don’t kill me,” McAdams begged in a shaky voice.

  “Kill him!” Hades shouted. “Do it now and be a god among us!”

  “Kill him!” the gods shouted.

  She looked up at them gathered above her, and even Ares had a look of lust on his face.

  She looked back at McAdams lying there quivering, bleeding, tears welling in his eyes. She looked for a place to stick him. Should she slit his throat? Stab his heart?

  She shuddered as she raised the blade, still not sure where to pierce him.

  “Kill him now!” Hades yelled. “Slit his throat! Think of what he did to your parents!”

  Therese gritted her teeth and raised the blade higher, shaking and breathing so rapidly. This was it! This was it! Do it!

  “Wait!” she screamed. “Isn’t this enough? To prove I could kill him? Can’t you make me a god without me having to follow through?”

  “No!” Hades shouted. “A deal is a deal! He deserves death, and so much more! Kill him!”

  Again she looked at him, trembling worse than she. Tears fell from his eyes. He had wet himself. What had she become? He looked at her like she was the monster, she the villain. Was she? Had she become as bad as he?

  What was so very different about them now? He had killed her parents for money, and she was going to kill him now for love and immortality. Wasn’t she better than this?

  “No!” she dropped her arm to her side. “I won’t kill him!”

  She expected McAdams to take his sword and lunge at her, but he didn’t move.

  Suddenly Hades was at her side holding her hand with the blade to McAdams’s throat. “Finish the job!” Hades commanded.

  Now Ares was there with McAdams’s sword at Therese’s throat. “No divine interference!” Ares said through gritted teeth.

  All the gods appeared around them. Hades didn’t move Therese’s blade from McAdams’s throat, and Ares didn’t move McAdams’s blade from her throat. They stood there with the other gods encircling them.

  “Ares, she won!” Than demanded. “Put down your blade!”

  “There’s no victory until death!” Ares said. “No one has won yet. Back away, Hades!”

  “Foolish girl!” Hades said, letting go of her hand and retreating to the ring of gods. “Stupid, cowardly girl! You had this won! You can still win! Plunge your blade into this despicable excuse for a human!”

  Ares returned McAdams’s blade and stepped back to the circle of gods.

  “Come on, man!” Ares said. “Don’t let yourself get beat by a girl. Stand up and kill her!”

  But McAdams didn’t move.

  “How long should we wait here while this man dies?” Aphrodite asked. “This is clearly a victory for the girl!”

  “Hear, hear!” many voices shouted.

  Hades moved to the center of the circle. “I swore on the river Styx that she would become a god if she avenged her parents’ death. She’s failed to do that. McAdams has yet to get his just dessert! This is no victory! This is pathetic and shameful! The girl does not deserve to be a god, especially among the Underworld! What kind of wife to Death would such a one as this make? She can’t even end the life of the man who destroyed her parents and brought the worst of human suffering upon her!”

  “Kill him!” Artemis pleaded. “You can do it, Therese!”

  Than looked at her expectantly. She met his hopeful eyes.

  “I’m sorry.” Tears fell from her eyes. “I refuse to kill him. I just can’t do it. I can’t take a life!” She threw her sword down to the canyon floor.

  “Kill her, McAdams!” Ares said. “This is your chance!”

  Therese looked at the quivering, bloody man who had wet himself, and he looked at her. He didn’t move from his spot.

  As much as she despised him, she hated herself for her injuries to him. “Apollo,” she asked silently in her mind, “Can you heal him?”

  He gave her a look of astonishment and then slowly shook his head.

  “Oh, this is an outrage!” Hades cried, guessing the meaning of the exchanged looks between her and Apollo. He took up her sword from the canyon floor and plunged it into McAdams’s chest.

  A collective gasp echoed throughout the canyon. Suddenly Ares had McAdams’s sword at her throat and Than stood in front of her protectively.

  “Back down, Ares!” Than cried.

  “Gods and goddesses of the court,” Ares said. “Would you not agree that Hades has broken the rules?”

  “At no fault of the girl’s!” Athena objected. “Father, she is innocent!”

  “Back off, Ares and put down the weapon,” Zeus commanded. “Let us think what to do.”

  Ares took a step back.

  Suddenly Hip appeared next to the body of McAdams. He gave Therese a sheepish grin and disappeared with the hazy soul of the man, but the mangled, lifeless body still lay there on the canyon floor.

  “Back to court!” Zeus commanded.