by Simon Archer
“Cameron, would you mind bringing me my scissors?” the goddess asked politely, as though she were asking me to pass the mustard.
I looked down at my feet and took an instinctive step back from the tool. They were splayed open, making an X on the ground. Rust shined in the flickering light of the fire. I could tell from here that the screws were loose so the blades didn’t match up perfectly. It didn’t help that the sharp ends were bumpy and had chips. There was a crack along the thumb ring that made holding the scissors uncomfortable.
A prickle ran up the length of my arms and down my spine. The metal sang to me, louder than something that far away should have. While scissors weren’t typically seen as weapons, they had all the same components of knives and blades I created during my lifetime.
It was no coincidence that the son of Hephaestus was a blacksmith. I was one of the best in the nation, or the world depending on who they asked. And no, I wasn’t being cocky. I created weapons and armor for the gods themselves, something that only the cyclops or Hephaestus had been known to do. There weren’t any master blacksmiths in the USA that could say that.
It helped that my father’s blood equipped me with some pretty advantageous powers, like my immunity to fire and extreme heats in general. I could also control the Eternal Flame, a rare feat even among demigods. The Eternal Flame was the fire of life that Prometheus gave the mortals to free themselves from slavery from the gods. It was a temperamental element, with a personality of its own.
Not only that, I could sense metals used to make weapons. They spoke to me and told me secrets of their creation. It was like having a sixth sense, though some days I would have traded the singing metal for ghosts.
Like now. This metal told stories of old. It mourned for the lives it had taken, the horrible things it had been forced to do. The metal rebelled the best it could, rusting before its time, and cracking under the pressure. But I didn’t want the weight of the scissors in my hands. The worry, the guilt, and the memories would be so much heavier if I actually held the metal, especially if it was this strong from right here.
“Cameron,” Atropos said, distracting me from the stories the metal sang in my ear. “Are you going to refuse me?”
“That wouldn’t be wise,” Clotho warned.
I knew to refuse a goddess, especially one who had her level of power, was a terrible idea. But I really didn’t think I could pick up the scissors. If I did, I might not be able to hand them back to her, the way it screamed for mercy from her control. Instead, I kicked the scissors across the floor.
They skidded like a hockey puck on ice and landed at Atropos’s high heeled foot. The goddess’s black eyes flicked from the scissors, up to me, and back again. She huffed but bent down and plucked the tool off the ground. The minute the scissors were back in her hand, the singing stopped. At least I could be grateful for that.
“So I bet you were wondering why we brought you here,” Atropos said as she slipped the scissors back into their place in her bosom.
“You could say that,” I said, choosing to keep my answers short and simple.
“I still don’t think we need him,” Lachesis said as she sat down on a piano bench by the fire. She crossed her arms defiantly, making her displeasure clear.
“Yes, but he needs us,” Clotho countered as she stretched out a long strand of the thin rope.
The middle goddess scoffed. “Everyone needs us.”
“But not everyone can help us that way he can,” Atropos cut in.
Again they spoke like I wasn’t in the room. I wanted to speak up, to clap back in the way I was known to do, but these goddesses were among the scariest I’d ever met. And I could honestly say that considering I’d met plenty of gods and goddesses, including the god of the dead himself.
“I saw the work he did for Aphrodite and Hades,” Atropos continued, interrupting Lachesis before the goddess could counter. “It’s worthwhile. As good as Hephaestus himself.”
I couldn’t help the plume of pride that swelled in my chest. Atropos wasn’t the only to say that. Arges, my cyclops mentor, who also worked with my father directly told me that my work was at the same level as the god. Even Hades complimented me. But to hear it from one of the Moirai, that was saying something.
“When did you see Aphrodite or Hades?” Lachesis accused, suspicion causing her eyes to narrow. The blackness turned into menacing slits and I knew instantly that I never wanted to be on the other end of one of those glares. Ever.
Atropos, though, was unbothered by her sister’s intimidating glare. “That’s not the point.”
“The point is that he does good work, and we need an upgrade,” Clotho interrupted. Something was different about her voice, stronger and more authoritative. Her sisters must have noticed it too because the both of them immediately quieted down. Their bickering ceased when Clotho lowered her hands into her lap, the rope going with it.
Then the goddess looked me in the eyes.
Universes exploded within the blackness of her eyes. I saw endless possibilities, dimensions that curved off to the left and right. They expanded and grew like limbs of a tree. Colors merged together as the strands intertwined with one another. It was a beautiful and terrifying sight. The amount of possibilities in the world offered a level of encouragement, but something in the depths of my soul knew that there were so many other routes. There were so many other souls that could be cut away with just one snip. It was that simple. There were souls before me and there would be millions more after me.
The smallness pressed against my bones and made the air shrivel up in my lungs. These three goddesses lived with their weight on a daily basis and while I only experienced seconds of it, I thought I was going to die from the pressure.
Clotho gave me a moment of reprieve and stared at the top of my head as she spoke to me. I immediately bent over and my chest heaved with labored breaths as if I’d just run a marathon, though I hadn’t done anything but stand there.
“Holy Hermes,” I croaked. “That was intense.”
“I’ve only given you a taste of our power,” Clotho informed me. “Any more and your mortal head would explode like Semele.”
“I think I’m good,” I said as I waved a limp hand in her direction. “I get it.”
“Good, so don’t take this request lightly,” Clotho warned.
That made my ears perk up. I took in one last heavy inhale before straightening back up. I put my hands on my hips and eyed each of the goddesses in turn. “Request? What kind of request?”
“Clever my ass,” Lachesis muttered from her spot on the bench. Her eyes wandered up to the ceiling as though she were watching a fly move about the room.
“We want you to make new tools for us,” Clotho proposed.
“All of you?” I asked, confused.
“Yes,” the older goddess confirmed.
My mouth opened and closed a couple of times like a fish. I didn’t know how to say what I was thinking, without sounding rude or stupid.
“New tools meaning the string, the rod, and the scissors?” I double-checked, counting out the three tools on my fingers.
“My confidence in him is waning every time he opens his mouth,” Lachesis said to her sisters. She clicked her nails against the wood bench, intimidating as hell.
“I know what they are,” I said, my irritation colliding with my fear, which was a dangerous combination. “I just… you know I’m a blacksmith, right? The scissors should be no problem, but I don’t deal with wood or weaving.”
“You’re still an artisan,” Atropos interjected. She took a hopeful step towards me, hands clenched in front of her. “You can figure it out. And your work as a blacksmith is beautiful. I’m sure you’ll put the same care into the other tools.”
“You don’t get it,” I argued, “I literally know nothing about those other skills. Like nothing.” I tried to spell it out for them that I wasn’t going to do this. I wasn’t the right person.
“But you made things
for other gods,” Clotho countered, her body never moving as she spoke. “Will you not do the same for us?”
“Those were all weapons or armor, metal-based items,” I emphasized. “Unless you want a metal rod or metal strings, I can’t help you.”
“What if we have something you want?” Atropos said as she licked her lips. Her expression changed suddenly as if I was a big steak she couldn’t wait to sink her teeth into. It was intimidating, but I held my ground, solid in my knowledge about the fates.
“I mean, yes, I want to live, and you literally hold my fate in your hands, but you’re also bound to fate itself,” I reminded them. “I’m the center of a prophecy. I’m supposed to make the Ultimate Weapon so you can’t kill me until I do that. It would wreck the space-time continuum or whatever the Greek equivalent of that is.”
Clotho pursed her lips. “That is true, Cameron. Your mother’s skills are more of a strength than you give them credit for.”
“Thanks,” I said, deciding to take the compliment rather than argue.
“But it’s not your life we would bargain,” Atropos stepped in. She rubbed her hands together, bursting at the seams to tell me.
But in true sisterly fashion, Lachesis beat her to it. “We’ll tell you where your father is if you make the tools for us.”
3
I nearly gagged after hearing Lachesis’s proposal. My ears seemed to fill with water because I couldn’t hear the fight that erupted between the two sisters. Atropos was understandably upset the Lachesis stole her thunder, but the middle-aged goddess clearly didn’t give a damn.
I was too consumed with my own thoughts to pay attention though. The Fates were offering me a chance to actually find my father.
Right after my birth, a little over twenty years ago, Hephaestus disappeared. Now, a god can’t really disappear completely because they were immortal. The last place he was seen was in my hometown.
My mom and Hephaestus met at a Renaissance faire where they worked. He was the resident blacksmith posing as a mortal, and she was one of the performers. She and her friends would perform a comedy drinking show for the adults in the audience. While my mom thought she was making up ridiculous rhyming songs for the crowd, she was actually spewing mini prophecies.
As much as I wanted to believe that Hephaestus loved my mom for who she was and that their relationship was genuine, I couldn’t shake the feeling that he sensed her powers. Being a god, he must have known that she was special somehow. Maybe not the specifics, but it was too coincidental to ignore.
The whole thing was suspicious, especially since he disappeared right around the time that a prophecy was made about the Ultimate Weapon. The prophecy told of a way to finally end the ongoing war between the demigods and the mythical monsters. Supposedly, I was going to be the one to make it. That’s what everyone thought, at least.
We also discovered that the war wasn’t because of years of unrest between the monsters and the demigods. It was propelled by Eris, the goddess of chaos. We just didn’t know why.
Last semester, Hades came to my dorm room and hinted that I needed to find my father. I figured that it was because I needed help with the Ultimate Weapon. While I could make the weapon itself, I couldn’t add anything magical to it. That was the job of a god. I knew my father was the best bet to try to get help with that. Then we could confront Eris and end this war once and for all.
So I planned to venture out at the end of this spring semester to find my father. The main problem was that I had no real idea where to start. Initially, I thought I could question Mom and some of her Renaissance faire friends, maybe go to the site he was last seen. But those were just guesses, nothing concrete like what the Moirai were offering.
I wanted to find Hephaestus after Kari’s hearing, but the Elemental Officials moved it up from the end of the semester to the beginning, right after Christmas break. While this shifted my plans only somewhat, I figured that this offer from the Fates was going to change it all over again.
“Do you have an answer, Cameron?” Clotho asked.
Again, her sharp voice stopped her sisters’ bickering. When I came back to reality, getting off my carousel of thoughts, I saw that the goddesses were literally on the floor. Atropos seemed to have the advantage as she sat atop Lachesis, who squirmed from beneath her sister, arms pinned at her sides.
“I…” The words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. I had no idea what I was going to say or what my answer was. The information they offered was enticing, and they knew it. But the challenge of creating the three most powerful tools in the universe was daunting at best, impossible as worst.
“I told you he wouldn’t do it,” Lachesis said, the pessimism clear in her voice.
“He would say yes if you would stop interrupting him,” Atropos snapped, smacking Lachesis in the side of her head again.
“He doesn’t know what to do,” Clotho clarified.
I could feel the older woman’s eyes on me, but I didn’t want to dive back down into the depths of the universe with her. That much I did know.
“Clotho is right,” I agreed, my voice surprisingly hoarse. “I don’t know. I don’t want to agree to something if I can’t do it.”
Atropos leaned back and got off her sister. Lachesis took advantage of the moment and scrambled up to her feet. She retreated to a dark corner of the ballroom and stroked the wall, lovingly. She muttered to herself, as though she were speaking at a confessional.
I made the conscious choice to ignore the crazy in the corner and addressed the other two goddesses. “I’m sorry but I’m not confident enough in my skills, and I don’t want to go back on my word. I can’t agree to this.”
“Oh gods, your word,” Atropos groaned. She rolled her head back, an exaggerated eye roll. “Hades was right. I hate it when he’s right.”
The goddess must have sensed my confusion because she added, “He warned us that you were unlike other demigods. You wouldn’t go out of your way to trick us or anything. You would be honest. I didn’t believe him because no demigod is honest. It’s not in their nature.”
“Well, I’m not like other demigods,” I countered, feeling defensive. “As much as I want to know where my dad is, I don’t think I can hold up my end of the bargain, so I have to say no.” I shrugged my shoulders. “It’s as simple as that.”
Clotho eyed me with pursed lips. “When you change your mind, let us know within the next day.”
I scoffed. “I’m not going to change my mind.”
“You can reach us through the Eternal Flame,” Clotho said dismissively. She gestured out her hand to indicate the fire burning in front of her. “You have a connection to it like we do. It won’t be hard to connect.”
I opened my mouth to counter the goddess again and tell her that she was wrong, but the old woman held up a hand. This time there wasn’t a single strand of rope on it. Just a wrinkly, knobbly hand. If it wasn’t attached to one of the most powerful beings in the universe, I would have thought it extremely ordinary.
“You may go now, we’ll talk to you soon,” Clotho said. She curled her fingers into a fist, one by one, from pinky to thumb. Then she resumed her weaving.
I looked to Atropos for an explanation, but the younger goddess turned away from me and returned to her spot, standing by the fire. Her body melted into the same position I had first seen her in. Soon, Lachesis came over and also got back into the crouched position she was in at the start of the encounter.
This tableau was the last thing I saw before another wall of flame shot up in front of me. The level of surprise was the same as before, except this time I didn’t have anything to hold onto.
So I lost my footing and fell right on my ass.
My exit from the fire cage was much less graceful and cool than my first one into the Cave of Eileithyia. I looked more like a clown than a spy as I rolled out back into the Elemental Officials’ board room.
My body was splayed out on the center of the table, its cool wood pressed
against my sweaty skin. I looked up, mentally thinking that the popcorn ceiling was seriously outdated. That was another thing that needed an upgrade, not just the Fates’ tools or the Cave of Eileithyia.
A surprised scream alerted everyone to my presence. Suddenly, I was surrounded by the twelve Elemental Officials, my girlfriends, and another goddess. They leaned over me and shouted in my ear, the chorus of their voices sounding like rushing water. Then two voices broke from the cacophony, singling themselves out.
“Enough!” The Stratego cried.
“Back away from him!” Phae boomed. The goddess displayed her radiant light and instinctively I closed my eyes, knowing the true effects of her powers.
A series of winces echoed across the onlookers as they looked away from the goddess’s light. I laid still, somehow knowing that Phae wanted to talk to me. So I waited for my friend to clear out the room. There were two people, however, that refused to leave: The Stratego and Hailey.
The daughter of Helios permitted the Stratego and Hailey to stay as long as everyone else vacated the room. They obliged if for no other reason than to give their eyes a break from the light. I heard the door shut, and the commotion instantly died down. Only then did I feel it was safe to sit up and address what happened.
Phae dimmed her light back to a tolerable level and stood directly across from me. The Stratego stood on the other end of the table, in his spot. The head of the Academy and the goddess faced off from one another with me in the middle.
Hailey was at my side within seconds and took my hand in her own. “Are you alright? What the hell happened? One second you were here, then there was fire, and you were gone.”
“We had to convince the Officials that you didn’t have the powers to teleport via fire,” Phae said with a glare directly at the Stratego.
“How else do you explain what happened?” The Stratego snapped, holding out a hand to the charred chair.
My eyes widened at the destruction. Nothing else in the whole room was burned, but the chair looked as though it had been tossed in a furnace. The plastic wheels were melted and ash floated off the cushioned seats. It smelled horrible, and I winced at the assault on my senses.
