Forge of the Gods 4

by Simon Archer

I knew I should have asked permission to leave the base. It was the proper thing to do. But if I did that then I would have to explain the note and why I needed to leave. Which also meant mentioning who I was supposed to go and meet which was the last thing I wanted to do.

  So I kept my posture casual and my steps measured as I made my way back down the hill. Luckily, most of the soldiers were still posted in her positions, though I knew there would be a change in shifts soon. That would mean more soldiers coming and going before things settled again. If I wanted to lessen my chances of being seen, then I needed to go now.

  The second I crested over the hill and out of sight of the base, I picked up the pace. As a child of Apollo, I wasn’t a fan of the cold and the snow. I knew how to trek across it and fight in it, but it wasn’t my favorite kind of terrain.

  I must have been moving too fast because I lost my footing as I descended. My boot slipped on a slick patch of ice and I landed right on my rear. The momentum took me down the hill, sliding as though I were on a makeshift sled.

  Somehow, my legs got out from in front of me and I tumbled, head over feet down the bottom of the hill. I landed with an oof and a smack. Snow blasted up around me and then flitted down as though from the clouds.

  I closed my eyes and assessed my body, hoping I hadn’t broken anything. When I figured that the only thing bruised was my ego, I reopened my eyes to one of the most unpleasant sights in the universe.

  My features immediately warped into a grimace. My eyes narrowed on the figure hovering over me, who was openly laughing.

  “Hi Dad,” I grumbled. “Good to see you too.”

  13

  It was official, drama class sucked balls.

  I was struggling with being anywhere near Holly because of the creepy crawling feeling that roamed my skin when I was with her. I even tried to request a new partner but Sasha wouldn’t have it.

  “You two are the oldest in the class and I think there’s real chemistry there,” Sasha said by way of excuse when I asked. Then she bounced her thin eyebrows at me suggestively. “Don’t be afraid to explore it.”

  I rolled my eyes at her answer and did what I could to avoid Holly in every way possible. She asked me to eat with her once and I simply walked away.

  It wasn’t my most suave moment, but it seemed to work because she never asked me to hang out outside of class again.

  Not only was there the Holly drama, but I couldn’t stand the actual work required in drama class. I was used to creativity in the forge where I got to make weapons and play with fire. But this kind of creativity in my body and with my emotions was completely foreign to me.

  Plus, I wasn’t as quick as the other students. Sasha would force us to do these improv scenes which meant that we had to make everything up on the spot. I didn’t even know this kind of theatre existed. I thought everything had a script, words already written for you. Not only was I expected to act, but now I had to write on the spot too?

  The whole thing was absurd, and I hated every second of it.

  However, each class I attended meant another session with the nymphs. It was an even trade. But the results were pretty much the same in both lessons. I was an utter failure at drama class, weaving, and wood carving.

  While I set fewer things on fire, I managed to create a huge knot in the spinning wheel that put it out of commission for a week. Pomona had to take the whole thing apart before she was able to find the source of the break. It was like the worst copier jam that I’d ever seen as she pulled out a rat's nest of yarn that wove its way between the wheel and the spindle.

  Wood carving wasn’t much better. I managed to get a better handle on the knife, but I couldn’t manage to even out my strokes. And I sliced through my fingers more than once, which always resulted in a sigh from Iynx as she yanked my hand into her lap and healed me so I could start over.

  I had survived Tartarus. I’d fought beasts three times my size. I’d handled dangerous materials every single day in the forge. But none of those compared to the torture of these mundane tasks and the absurdity of drama class.

  That didn’t stop me from trying though. And, not that would admit this to anyone, there were some brief moments of amusement in drama class. I found myself laughing more at some of the improv scenes, keeping my smiles behind my hand. While I didn’t do a very good job of making the other students laugh, I got better at crafting a story and keeping the scene going. Even though I didn’t enjoy it as much as the others, it felt good that I was making some improvements.

  Learning the trades with the nymphs was a little different, considering I kept making things catch fire unexpectedly. However, I started using something I rarely used: fireproof gloves. I borrowed them from the forge and while they made my fingers feel large and clunky, I stopped setting the materials on fire, so that was an improvement. I used my connection with metal to start manipulating the knife in midair instead of using my hands with the gloves and that helped. It was slow going but I appreciated the identifiable marks of improvement.

  A few weeks into drama class, Sasha finally started the dreaded scene work she spoke about when she first pitched the class to me.

  “These are your sides,” Sasha said as she walked around the room and handed out pieces of paper. “Your partner’s name is written at the top. Normally, I would have you split off into your groups and read the scenes together, but I want to throw you into the action today. I want to see what comes out of you naturally. So you’re going to get right up in front of the class and perform the scene cold.”

  My eyebrows shot up into my hairline. “We have to perform these? Like, right now?”

  “I don’t expect it to be perfect,” Sasha said as if that had been my main concern. “It’s supposed to be raw, unrehearsed. We will experiment and refine it later.”

  “I…” I started to protest but I couldn’t seem to find the right words. The daughter of Dionysus just thrust the paper into my hand, and I let it fall like a large snowflake in my lap.

  I had just gotten used to the weird spontaneous exercises. But now she was giving me a script, and I had to act. In front of everyone.

  Give me a chimera any day, this shit was awful.

  I resigned myself to the fact that I needed as much time with the nymphs as possible so I glanced down at the packet of papers in my hand. At the top of the page, it read Scene Partner: Holly in Sasha’s cursive handwriting.

  Even though I knew this was coming, as Sasha had told me and Holly that we would be paired together, I still felt like someone had socked me in the stomach.

  When we were forced to work together, I kept it as professional as possible, though that forced me to act like a robot more than once in the scenes. Which would, in turn, result in yelling from Sasha.

  “You’re so stiff, Cameron!” she would holler from across the room. “Loosen up boy! Where is that fire you’re always going on about? I want to see it on stage.”

  Oh, I wanted to give her fire alright. I wanted to hurl a fireball or the knife in my boot right at her head. But since we had to act without our shoes on, I didn’t have said knife and felt naked without it pressed into the side of my leg.

  “Let’s start with Cameron and Holly,” Sasha suggested.

  Because of course that’s where she would want to start.

  “I’m a little nervous,” I confessed, trying to exaggerate my anxiety. “Could maybe one of the other pairs go first?”

  “Are you not an Elemental Official?” Sasha bellowed. “Are you not a leader of our soldiers? Where is that leadership now? Go first and lead the way!”

  Sasha thrust out her arm as though she were leading a charge into battle. I grimaced but got to my feet, making my way to the side of the room with the storage alongside it. It was to act as our backdrop for the scene.

  The other students gathered around Sasha’s chair like kids ready for storytime. In a way, they were about to get it.

  I exhaled so hard that my lips fluttered into a raspberry. I was
trying to shake off the nerves but passing it as one of Sasha’s warm-ups. She had us work our lips and faces all the time, so maybe I could conceal some of my anxiety and stall the inevitable.

  But as I looked over at my scene partner, something stirred inside of me. I wondered if I could take this opportunity to get some information from Holly. The whole, know thy enemy thing. Sure, we would be in a scene together but as Sasha kept reminding us, there was at least a kernel of truth in every performance.

  Maybe I could figure out what had bothered me about this woman from the first day I met her.

  “Alright you two,” Sasha said as she rested on her box. She wrapped her fingers around her knee and braced herself, her straight back stiff as a board. “Your scene is from Alcestis by Euripedes. Do either of you know it?”

  As though she triggered something in my brain, the words spilled from my mouth uninhibited. The information simply flowed from me. “It’s about the queen Alcestis who is to be wed to any man who can complete her father’s challenges. Apollo helps Admetus complete the task to win her hand. But Artemis is pissed that Apollo cheated and curses Admetus to death.”

  I took a deep breath in and continued as if on autopilot. “Admetus can escape death if he finds someone to replace him in the Underworld but he’s a royal asshole so no one wants to do it but his future wife, Alcestis. So she sacrifices herself as long as he promises never to marry again. But he does because again, royal asshole.”

  When I finally stopped, the classroom looked at me with open mouths and wide eyes. I should have been used to that reaction by now when my Oracle of Delphi powers went into effect, but it still unnerved me. I did my best to smile after my speech, which only Sasha seemed to find impressive. She offered me a slow bout of applause and something told me that was the only compliment I was going to get from her after this performance.

  “Well done, Cameron,” Sasha said jovially. “That is all correct. You two will be acting out the scene where Alcestis is dying and forces Admetus to promise his celibacy.

  I looked down at the script in my hand, which shook slightly. There were a lot of Alcestis lines on the page and I raised an eyebrow in confusion.

  “Uh, Sasha?” I said, raising my hand apprehensively. “I think I have the wrong script. All of Aclestis’s lines are highlighted.”

  “Exactly!” Sasha said as she licked her lips as if I was juicy steak. I fought the urge to step backward. “We’re going to mix it up and let Holly play Ademtus and you play Aclestis, the queen.”

  “I didn’t think this was a Shakespeare class,” I clapped back.

  “The Greeks did gender swapping too,” Sasha said defensively. “You’re already such a strong man, Cameron. I want to see your vulnerable side. Think of it as a challenge.”

  “This whole class is a challenge,” I muttered low enough so that I thought I was the only one who could hear. But then, Holly stifled a snort into her hand and looked at me sideways. I knew she was trying to be cute, but I was too off put by her to respond.

  “Now,” Sasha said as she clapped her hands once. “Action!”

  I stared at Holly who stood across from me. We both waited, an awkward tension passing between the pair of us. Someone coughed in the audience.

  “It’s your line,” Holly whispered, leaning in slightly.

  “Oh,” I replied, and my eyes darted to the paper. “Sun, and you, light of day, Vast whirlings of swift cloud!”

  “Hold the paper away from your face, Cameron,” Sasha coached from the sidelines. “And make sure to project your voice so we can hear you. Now, continue.”

  I lowered the paper slightly and looked at Holly to keep the scene going. She straightened her shoulders and suddenly looked more regal with her lifted chin and saddened gaze. It was as though she put on a new outfit and suddenly became the king.

  “The sun looks upon you and me, both of us miserable, who have wrought nothing against the Gods to deserve death,” Holly pleaded as she reached forward and touched my forearm.

  Another jolt ran up and down my arm. This time it felt more like a warning than a spark of attraction. Automatically, I jerked away from her.

  “No, Cameron,” Sasha scolded as she waved her hands at us. “That was a good moment. Go back and let her touch you. She is your betrothed, after all.”

  Fuck me, I thought as stepped back into place. I tried to steady my breathing as Holly took up her resumed position and put her hand on my arm. I pushed through to my next line.

  “O Earth, O roof-tree of my home, Bridal-bed of my country, Iolcus!” I said, trying to put some other emotion than pure nervousness into my voice.

  “Rouse up, O unhappy one, and, do not leave me! Call upon the mighty Gods to pity!” Holly, then, reached out with her other hand, the one with the script in it and grabbed my other arm. She shook me slightly, desperation shining in her eyes.

  Slightly frightened by her sudden wave of emotion, I went stiff in her grip, my shoulders rising up to my ears. I struggled to get the paper between the two of us so I could read the words.

  “I see the two-oared boat, I see the boat on the lake! And Charon, the Ferryman of the Dead, Calls to me, his hand on the oar: ‘Why linger? Hasten! You delay me!’ Angrily he urges me,” I recited, feeling like a first grader trying to learn to read for the first time.

  “Cameron,” Sasha said with a large sigh. “Do you understand what’s happening in the scene?”

  “She’s dying?” I said, my voice turning the sentence into a question.

  “Yes,” Sasha said slowly as though she were walking someone through the math problem two plus two. “And she’s terrified. Charon is coming to get her! Imagine how horrifying that would be!”

  I didn’t have to imagine it. I had met Charon and even contested the god in a battle of wills over his boat. I’d seen the horrors of Tartarus with my own eyes.

  Something clicked in my brain as I thought back to those memories. I had real life experience as to what this was like. I had even died before. I knew what that felt like. Couldn’t I just remember what that felt like and put it into the words I had to read?

  “Try it again,” Sasha commanded. “From your line, Cameron.”

  I cleared my throat and pictured Charon with his gargoyle-like head in my mind's eye. I thought about the silent black river and the looming shadows along the rock walls of Tartarus. Then I spoke the words again.

  “I see the two-oared boat, I see the boat on the lake! And Charon, the Ferryman of the Dead, Calls to me, his hand on the oar: ‘Why linger? Hasten! You delay me!’ Angrily he urges me,” I choked out the words.

  “Yes Cameron!” Sasha cheered. “Just like that. Give me that raw emotion. Keep going. Don’t lose it.”

  So we continued. The pair of us pushed and pulled against each other as Aclestis perished before her future husband’s very eyes. She pleaded her love to remain celibate in her memory. I was on my knees as I gave the impassioned speech, reaching out to Admetus, demanding his promise.

  Holly met me line for line. She bowed down on the floor with me and held my weakening body. She recited her own monologue, claiming the promise to be true. The king vowed to the kingdom before him that he would love no other in honor of the sacrifice of his wife.

  Even though I knew in the back of my head that this whole speech was hogwash and Admetus would bang the first woman he got his hands on, Alcestis didn’t know that. She had to die, believing that her husband would be true to his word. So I lamented in his arms.

  “I should have lived my life out, and I go to the Underworld,” I said, my heart aching at the thought of a life lost.

  Holly reached down and touched my cheek with her hand, the cold an unexpected comfort. “Alas! What shall I do, left alone by you?”

  I reached up and mirrored the same gesture on her own cheek. “Time will console you. The dead are nothing.”

  “Take me with you, by the Gods! Take me to the Underworld!” Holly cried out, her voice echoing in the room as she
folded herself forward, crying into my chest. I stroked her head like the dutiful wife I was.

  “It is enough that I should die for you,” I cooed softly.

  Holly’s voice continued to cry, but this time she lifted his face to the sky, as if cursing the gods. “O Fate, what a wife you steal from me!”

  I let my eyes flutter as the stage directions told me to do so. Alcestis was close to death, and I even forced my body to lose energy, going limp in her arms.

  “I am nothing,” I said, breathless and weak.

  Holly’s head snapped down to me. Her grip around my body tightened. “What are you doing? Are you leaving me?”

  In a moment of dramatic inspiration, I reached up and tried to touch Holly’s face one last time. I planned to let it fall once the queen perished. It was the end of the scene. I had almost made it all the way through without any injury. And if I was honest with myself, it was kind of fun to pretend to be someone else and escape my own problems for a while.

  There was a pause as I realized that I still had one more line before Alcestis died in her husband’s arms. I flicked my eyes to the script which I conveniently placed on the floor.

  I saw my line, ready and waiting for me to end the scene. However, before I opened my mouth to speak the line, another sentence caught my eye. I hadn’t noticed it before because it was handwritten, scrawled with an arrow that led to the margin, indicating that this was supposed to be inserted before my character died. It wasn’t in the original script and when I followed the arrow to see the added section, I choked on my own spit and coughed.

  My body went stiff as a board in Holly’s arms, completely breaking character. The note shocked me senseless as I read the words over and over again.

  (They kiss.)

  Holly thought I was breaking character so leaned in and whispered to me. “It’s okay, Cameron, just lean into it. Lean into me and lie with me.”

  We were inches apart, nose to nose. Tension crackled between the two of us, but something about being this close to her gave me pause. For the first time, I saw Holly in a new light. Her features seemed eerily familiar to me as if I had seen them before. My brain searched through the possibilities, trying to match the raven color of her hair, her pale skin, the boney fingers…