Forge of the Gods 4

by Simon Archer

  “You don’t need my help because I’ve already given you everything that you need,” Hephaestus said as he spread his hands out as though he just dropped the mic.

  I opened my mouth to reply but found that I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t have anything else to say to him. The hole that had been in my gut since meeting the god of blacksmiths widened and threatened to swallow me. I realized in that moment that I had to get out of there. I didn’t want to waste any more time with this man, father or no.

  So I turned on my heel and ran into the jungle, back towards the beach, with my girlfriends calling out my name behind me.

  28

  I ran until I could feel sand beneath my feet. I pushed my exhausted body, which had been through an ordeal that day from nearly drowning and killing the Scylla. Not to mention the emotional toll of meeting my father for the first time and finding out that he was a giant douche.

  I let the sand catch me as I fell onto all fours, the sadness overwhelming me. I cried, my tears dripping into the sand, making little craters. A full moon shone overhead, illuminating the waves as they sloshed back and forth. If I gazed out, I could see the frozen tundra just beyond Calypso’s border and the Argo, still standing, still stuck.

  The whole situation just seemed so ridiculous and hopeless. I couldn’t believe I let my anger take hold of me like that. Part of me knew it was so that I didn’t have to address the sadness and disappointment over having an asshole for a father.

  Even though I prepared myself for the worst, I still hoped. My inner child still wished for a full family and a father that was always there for me. That would jump at the chance to help me, but instead, I got stuck with a shitty one who claimed to help me by abandoning me. Yeah, thanks Dad. That’s gotten me real far.

  Suddenly, I heard the continuous calls of my friends as they shouted my name. They emerged from the trees and found me on the sand. Immediately, each one of them surrounded me, giving me love and comfort on all sides.

  “Holy shit, Cam,” Bethany said as she sat on one side of me, letting me lean my head on her shoulder. “What a mess.”

  “You think?” I said with a sniffle.

  Jade wrapped her arms around me, sitting on her knees so she could be the same height as me. “Forget him, Cam. He’s a terrible god. Just awful.”

  “A complete shitbag if you ask me,” Daniella said with a confident nod. She sat in front of me, blocking my view of the ocean, with only our toes touching.

  “That’s fine, really it is,” I whimpered, trying to be brave in my words.

  “No, it’s not,” Bethany assured me. “You’re allowed to be pissed, and disappointed that you have a horrible godly parent. It sucks to say but most of them are that way.”

  “But at least now you know,” Daniella said, trying to comfort me. “Most of us demigods will never even meet our godly parent so we just keep living in the unknown.”

  “Or blissful ignorance, more like,” I countered with a grimace.

  “Cameron, you can’t think like that,” Jade said as she ran a hand through my hair, pushing it out of my face. “Now you know what he's like. And he’s an asshat. So you can let that curiosity, that hope, that whatever go. Just--” Jade whistled and held out a hand, letting it fly out towards the ocean.

  “As nice as that sounds, guys, I can’t just do that,” I reminded them, my voice finally returning to normal after all of the crying. “We can’t just do that. We need him, remember? How else are we supposed to make the Ultimate Weapon powerful enough to defeat a god? We need the help of another god.”

  “Maybe there are other gods we can ask?” Jade suggested gently. “I mean, Hades kind of owes you a boon, doesn’t he?”

  “Not really,” I said, rubbing the excess sand off my palms. “We’re technically even. He just said that he wouldn’t forget my honesty is all.”

  “And Aphrodite? What about her?” Bethany asked. “Especially after the whole saving her bacon by making a new girdle.”

  “We’re even too,” I confessed. “After I saved Harmonia, she helped the campus. I don’t think she’d go for it either. Aphrodite isn’t the most… agreeing of the gods.”

  “Surely you have built up some social capital with these immortals with all that shit you make for them?” Bethany persisted, aggravation coming through in her voice.

  “You’d think, wouldn’t you?” I said with a sigh. “Any of you want to ask your godly parents?”

  “I wouldn’t even know how to get in touch with mine,” Jade said with a snort.

  “Same,” Daniella agreed as Bethany rapidly shook her head to indicate her disapproval of that idea.

  “Why don’t we just leave?” Jade suggested. “Let’s get off the island and then we can form another game plan from there. There’s got to be a god that can help us.”

  “Sorry to break it to you, Jay,” I said slowly, “but if you haven’t noticed our boat isn’t going anywhere.” I pointed out over Daniella’s shoulder, reminding them of our predicament.

  “Right,” Jade said with a defeated sigh. “Fuck.”

  “Fuck is right,” I agreed.

  I leaned back and laid down flat in the sand, looking up at the stars. My three friends followed suit. For a moment, it felt as though we were back in middle school, at summer camp, learning about the constellations, rather than demigod students on the island of a crazy goddess after my father refused to help us and our only way home was stuck in a sea of ice.

  I thought about the last several hours and how the interaction with Hephaestus had gone. I hadn’t realized how much I relied on the idea that he would help me just because I was his son. He’d never helped me, ever. None of our godly parents had. When had they ever stepped in to lend us a hand? The answer was never. Not at least in my time of being a demigod.

  Hephaestus’s words kept running around in my head like horses on a track. The idea that the gods didn’t give two shits whether we lived or died was such a disturbing thought. Though, on the one hand, it made sense. Eris was willing to wage war because she hadn’t been invited to a graduation. Her pride was wounded so she spent a hundred years plotting her revenge. The whole notion was absurd, but when one literally had all the time in the world, who was to say how they should use it?

  It was a mentality I wasn’t ever going to understand. I had only one life, and I wanted to live it as well and as long as I possibly could. I wanted these memorable moments, like laying on a beach with my best friends. I wanted to see Hailey and Kari and Bella again and kiss them senseless. I wanted to walk my dogs around the lake and make more weapons, perfecting the craft. These were simple desires, but I had every right to them. I had a right to live the life I wanted. Unfortunately, in order to do any of that that I needed to follow through on this stupid prophecy.

  “Gods!” I exclaimed unexpectedly, even surprising myself. “Why do they have to make this so hard?”

  “What do you mean?” came Daniella’s voice even though I couldn’t see her.

  “With the prophecies and the riddles and the challenges,” I lamented. “I mean, we couldn’t just go and find Hephaestus. I had to make the tools and in order to do that, I had to go to the stupid drama class which was a disaster.”

  “No kidding,” Bethany said with a snort. There was a quick flash of sand as Daniella nudged her with her leg.

  “Then we had to solve the riddle, survive the library, survive the evil branch leaders, beat a Scylla, all to find out that Hephaestus is an asshole and we’re no better off than where we started,” I said as I sat up, the frustration forcing me to move. “It’s not fair.”

  I knew I sounded like a petulant child, but I didn’t care. I was exhausted and wanted a nap and a juice box, just like a five-year-old.

  Bethany reached out and put something into my hand. For the briefest of moments, I thought it was a juice box. But when I looked down it was a rock, a long flat oval shape.

  “What’s this?” I asked, blinking up at her in confusion. Beth
any got to her feet and held out her hand.

  “We’re going to throw some rocks,” Bethany said definitively.

  “Why?” I asked, drawing out the word into two syllables.

  “Because it will help you release some of that anger,” the daughter of Demeter reasoned as she extended her hand further towards me, indicating that I should take it.

  I eyed her warily. “Isn’t there some movie quote or something about there never being enough rocks?”

  Bethany rolled her eyes at me. “It’ll help. I promise.”

  Jade and Daniella also stood up, brushing themselves off so that soon I was the only one sitting. Reluctantly, I got to my feet and walked to the edge of the sand, right where the water touched the shore. My three friends stood behind me, each holding their own ammo to throw. But each of them waited for me to take the first shot.

  I looked out onto the horizon, most of it ice. However, knowing my arm, I probably wouldn’t make it that far. Feeling like I fool, I leaned into Bethany’s suggestion and hurled the rock as far as I could throw it. I even added in a ferocious grunt for good measure.

  It landed in the water, just on the inside edge of the barrier, with a little plunk.

  Something about the motion, the exclamation, and the effort satisfied a small part of me. I cocked my head to the side as I watched my three friends throw their rocks in, each of them making their own battle cries. Jade hollered like a Scottish warrior, a loud sound that I didn’t think could come from such a small human. Bethany practically sang out a note, straining her vocal cords with the guttural noise. Daniella growled like a bear before her rock just sort of fell out of her hand and landed closest to the shoreline.

  There was a pause as the four of us waited for the next step. There was no sound save for our labored breathing and the crashing waves.

  “I’m going to get another one,” I said, deciding for the group.

  “Let’s do it!” Bethany hollered as she jumped up into the air.

  Soon, my friends and I were throwing rocks into the ocean. We were the only mortals on this island, and the two gods never came to bother us. We took ownership of the beach, hurtling all kinds of shit into it. Eventually, Daniella abandoned the throwing--it wasn’t really her thing anyway--and became our perpetual supplier, getting each of us a pile of shit. Jade and Bethany made a contest out of it, seeing who could throw them the farthest.

  For a moment, we were just friends horsing around on a beach. We weren’t heroes tasked with saving the world. We grieved our pasts and enjoyed the present with laughter, some tears, and lots of rocks.

  I continued the cathartic route, relinquishing my anger with each throw. To be honest, it did take quite a lot of rocks. The weight of the item, along with my exclamation opened up something inside of me. I cracked and let the tears come when they needed to, let the laughs, and the anger. It was freeing to concentrate on one task at a time, one throw at a time.

  I was so in the zone, I didn’t notice when I picked up the stick. Daniella had already announced to us that she was running out of rocks without having to venture a half a mile down the beach. So I didn’t care about the change in item. It was still something to throw, something to channel my emotions into and release them into the ocean.

  Only it wasn’t a stick that I released. It was a stick on fire.

  Everything stopped as the four of us watched the line of flames arch through the air and land on the other side of the barrier, right on a piece of ice. We watched, dumbfounded as the fire stick melted a little circle into the ice. None of us spoke the entire time as the fire descended into the thick ice, until it hit the water below and sizzled into steam.

  The three soldiers turned to look at me with stunned expressions on their faces. I didn’t return their looks. Instead, I kept my eyes on my hands, ogling at what they had just accomplished.

  “Uh, Cameron,” Bethany ventured, always the one to break the awkward silences. “What just happened?”

  “I’m not sure?” I said, the rising pitch in my voice turning the statement into a question.

  “Did you just… make fire?” Jade checked, taking a tentative step in my direction. “With your bare hands?”

  “I… I can’t do that,” I said as I shook my head, though my gaze never left my hands as though I expected them to explode at any second.

  “Uh, honey,” Jade said sympathetically. “You just did.”

  “And you did before, right?” Daniella stepped in. She held out her hand, finger pointed at me. “When you were trying to make the tools with the traditional materials. The string and the wood caught fire when you touched them.”

  “But that wasn’t… that wasn’t me,” I said, unable to process this newfound ability. “Like, I can just control flames. And only the Eternal Flame. I can’t create fire. That’s Hailey’s thing.”

  “Maybe it’s your thing too,” Daniella suggested. She held out another stick for me to take from her. “Try it again.”

  “I don’t know how,” I protested, a weird wave of unease stirring my stomach uncomfortably.

  “What were you thinking about when you threw the stick?” Daniella prompted, keeping her voice calm like a teacher coaching a child through a hard math problem.

  “I guess I was thinking about my dad and my anger at this whole situation,” I answered, though I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that that wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

  Instead, Daniella’s face brightened into a smile. “Channeling your emotions into your powers is very common for demigods. It’s what Bethany uses, right?”

  “That and I like being able to help supply the soldiers with food and weapons that I can make really fast,” Bethany said with a shrug. “But a little bit of emotion goes a long way.”

  Daniella held out the stick further, encouraging me to take it. “Try again.”

  “Why?” I said with a shrug, still not taking the stick. “So I can burn down the whole island? As appealing as that is, we’re already in a war with another goddess. I don’t really want to start another one.”

  “No,” Daniella said with an exasperated sigh. “If you can use your fire and it’s hot enough, you can burn through the ice.” My friend gestured out to where our ship was still stuck in the frozen tundra.

  My mouth curved into an “o” shape and then it spread into a knowing smile. A sense of hope and accomplishment bloomed in my chest. There was a light at the end of the tunnel, a way out. All I had to do was channel my rage into a type of fire. I had a lot of rage I could use.

  I snagged the stick out of Daniella’s hand and turned it this way and that. Jade clapped her hands, like a parent on the sidelines at a little league game.

  “Come on, Cam, you got this!” she shouted like the supportive cheerleader she was.

  It was easy to bring up pictures of my father and the way he disgustingly gnawed at the pig’s leg. How he spoke so crudely about my mother. It was such an insult, speaking about her like trash while she meant the world to me.

  This time, I noticed the heat sizzling between my fingers. I had been so focused on other actions before now, that I didn’t notice the clear difference in my temperature as my inner fire bubbled at the surface, ready to break free.

  I reeled back and threw the stick as far as I could manage, a bear’s roar exploding from my lips. Once again, the stick lit up like a flare and soared through the air. It landed only a few feet from the first one and proceeded to melt its own hole through the ice.

  I looked over at my friends with a smirk on my face. “Let’s go. I’ve got some ice to melt.”

  “Really?” Bethany said after a pause. She cocked her head to the side. “That’s the catchphrase you’re going to go with?”

  “I couldn’t think of anything else, okay?” I defended, feeling slightly deflated at her judgment. “Let’s just get the stuff and head out, okay?”

  We layered up, gathered our supplies, and left on the beach. However, when Bethany tried to push through the ba
rrier, there was a loud smack as her forehead collided with the pink shield. She rubbed the wounded spot with her palm and squinted in disgust.

  “I forgot the whole, ‘this keeps people in’ thing,” Bethany mourned, grimacing at her mistake.

  “Great,” Jade said as she threw up her hands exasperatedly. “How are we going to get out of here now?”

  “You three can go,” came a sweet voice from behind us, back on the beach.

  The four of us whirled around to see Calypso standing on the shoreline. This time she wore a sheer, flowing afghan which didn’t so much to cover her, but I had to give her credit for trying to be modest. She folded her hands across her chest and cocked her hip out, expectantly.

  “But if you expect me to let you leave, son of Hephaestus, you’re wrong,” she said as she smiled wickedly. “I have no use for three female demigods.”

  “Calypso,” I said slowly, slipping back into the voice I used to whisper dirty things in her ear. “I thought we reached an understanding.”

  “I know we did,” Calypso said, stomping forward, her feet never sinking into the sand. “But then I realized how much of a fool I would be if I did let you go. So I decided I wasn’t going to. Not this time.”

  I looked at the desperation in the goddess’s eyes and knew this would be a harder conversation than I initially thought. “I can always come back after I save the world,” I reasoned.

  “I don’t care about the rest of the world,” the goddess said as she fluttered her lips, making a pft noise. “You can’t tell me that part of you doesn’t want to stay?”

  As if by magic, my memory went through the nights we spent together. The feelings that gathered in my stomach snaked down into my groin as I thought about her body. I knew that there was no way I was going to stay on the island. As flattering as it was to think that a goddess would want to keep me as her sex slave, I had to find a way to convince her she didn’t want me.

  “You are such a temptress,” I said as I moved closer to the goddess. “You’re such an amazing lover Calypso, really.”