MY CURSE SENDS a thunderclap booming across the sky, but it does little to calm my anger. From an area in the southeastern portion of Osteria that is delightfully free of mortals, on a map drawn in the ground with a wave of my hand, I had clearly seen that the wind I stirred up had succeeded in driving the ship to Lemnos. Why hadn’t they stayed? Mortal men never leave the island, not with what those women willingly offer. But this band escaped, not only satisfied but fully alive. I kick a boulder. Instead of flying across the barren landscape, the stone thuds into the redwood-thick arms of Prometheus.
“Taking matters out on the scenery rarely does much good,” Prometheus says. He tosses the boulder between his hands as if it weighs no more than a child’s ball. On the third round, he throws the rock high in the air, clenches his hands together and, with arms outstretched, swings at the boulder on its descent. His fists connect and the rock hurtles far out of my vast field of vision. “Although it does feel good sometimes. You need to stop this, Typhon. Nothing good will come of plotting against mortals.”
“What do you know? None of these mortals should live. Changes need to come and only the titans can bring them about. Which is why we’ve already begun.”
“Not we,” says Prometheus who has taken no part in the earthquakes, monsters and storms that I and other titans have sent to ravage Osteria and to shake the mortals’ belief in their gods who do little to protect them from our destruction. “The mortals don’t deserve what you’re doing. Things are different this time.”
“Different? No, you can see the pattern already. They are behaving just as they did before. They don’t speak of what caused the Disaster; they only refer to it as something that happened long ago as if prior mistakes are nothing but fodder for nostalgia. They even study the Pre-Disaster people in their schools. Do those lessons include how horribly those mortals ruined this land, fouled its soil, destroyed its creatures, or defiled its water? No, they only admire Pre-Disaster technology and Pre-Disaster ideas. These Osterians will end up just the same, and I will not sit idly by and watch everything be devastated again. Rid the land of the gods and then rid the land of mortals. Leave us, the plants, the beasts, the rocks. Let the world recover. Don’t allow the mortals to destroy, build, modify, and trample over the land as they did before.”
“And how does tormenting this one mortal and his friends help your plan? What is he to you?”
I falter. How am I to explain Ares’s intention to make the ruler of Illamos Valley ruler of all of Osteria, of that leader removing all the gods but Ares, or of my plans to destroy all the mortals once the gods have no power to protect them? I cannot breathe a syllable of any of this without Prometheus running back to the gods and raising the alarm.
“I have my reasons. He is a thorn in the side of Pelias.”
“And here I thought you hated mortals,” Prometheus mocks.
“Pelias has his uses, but unlike you and the gods, I don’t favor any of the mortals; I use them and then rid myself of them. They are no more to me than the head of a latrine sponge after it has been used to scrub the crack of a soiled ass.”
“This is a fool’s game. Children bickering, that’s all the gods and titans have become. We need to work with the mortals, guide them, not destroy them.”
“You love them. You think them worthy. It’s you who are the fool.”
I clap my hands. My map appears again in the dust of the ground with rivulets of water where the Col River flows. I dive my hands into the water, twirling them until the Col whirls around and overflows its shores. Then, I reverse direction, the sudden change causing the water to slosh and bash against itself. Too late, Prometheus grips my arms, yanks my hands out of the water, and shoves me to the ground. He’s acted too late though, and I laugh at the scene playing out in the image I’ve conjured up. The surging current that had been flat water only moments ago, now tosses the mortals’ tiny ship like a cat toying with a captured mouse.
“You are as cruel as any of the gods,” Prometheus says and disappears with a crack.
A flash of red blinds my view of the map until my eyes clear to see Ares.
“He’s no fun is he?”
“A titan-sized bore,” I say looking back to the map.
The men try to adjust the sails. Some of them stagger and fall as the ship jerks about in the turbulent current. But unfortunately none are thrown overboard in their unbalance. I spin and stop the water again as Ares sits down beside me in the dirt. The mortal with ship knowledge notices a small island in the distance and urges the crew to the oars. I can’t understand how they are able to maneuver the boat so easily until I see who wriggles just below the water’s surface.
“Well, that’s hardly fair, is it?” Ares says with a hint of annoyed amusement in his voice.
Prometheus swims under the water out of the crew’s view and uses his strength to steady the ship and guide it to the island. Instead of being scared, the crew laughs as if thrilled by the speed of the ride. They challenge one another to row harder until one of their oars snaps. Without Prometheus, the loss of the oar may have proved a tipping point against the churning water, but with the titan’s help the ship is quickly pulled out of the maelstrom and onto the island’s shore. Prometheus glares up at us through the water then swims away.
I curse and pound a fist into the ground. The surrounding area shudders with a quake. I’m about ready to deal the ground another blow when Ares stays my hand.
“You could have fun with this, you know. Zeus isn’t entirely wrong. Mortals can be entertaining; it’s just that my preferred form of entertainment often leaves them dead, or at least terribly wounded.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Your daughter.”
A shout of refusal echoes in my mind. I cannot send her. My daughter should not be a tool in this game. I do not want to risk the life of my child. But my rage as I recall the pain of watching my other children die, killed by the hands of Herc Dion, burns away my refusal.
“It would be good to give them a taste of the vile dish Zeus’s bastard served me.”
“The key is to be patient,” Ares says, so we wait and watch.
The one Pelias hates, Jason, is insuring everyone is alright as the ship man, clearly glad his little boat is safe, laments with humor the loss of the oar. A young one, the youngest on board, although all mortals seem pathetically youthful to me, volunteers to find a tree that can be fashioned into an oar. Jason insists they can make do but the youth eagerly asserts that he’d be glad to help.
“No doubt he hopes to encounter more willing women to practice the new sport he just learned on Lemnos,” Ares says. “This one will do. Send her in.”
“Chimera,” I call. My daughter paces up beside me, the lion part of her gives her the grace and stealth to walk silently on her four goat-like feet. She purrs at my attention that she receives in abundance now that her brother, the Nemean lion, and sister, the nine-headed Hydra, are dead. There is still her brother Cerberus, but the three-headed dog has nearly been domesticated under Hades’s ownership. For the affection my son dotes on the god, I consider Cerberus a traitor to the titans as much as Prometheus. As Chimera rubs against my shoulder, her reptilian tail snakes over me, rattling as it strokes my arm in greeting.
“It’s been a while since you’ve eaten,” I coo to her as I scratch under her chin. I have kept her close after the loss of the lion and the hydra and she hasn’t been allowed to feed as much as she is used to. Still, an untested mortal will be no challenge for her. “Go have a snack.”
With a clap of my hands, my daughter appears in the thin wood of the island. To protect her if I must, I use my power to become one with her, to feel what she feels and see what she sees. Our doubling of senses will allow her to react faster and allow me to get her instantly out of the situation should trouble appear.
A shudder passes through me as I remember the pain my daughter Hydra had been in as Herc Dion and his cousin hacked her to pieces. But I shove my agony aside to guard my remaining daughter. Chimera catches the boy’s scent in an instant: warm and thick with the smell of sex still on him. She crouches low, moving forward in silence on the bed of needles the trees have dropped over the centuries. She tucks her tail close to her body to keep the rattles at its end from announcing her presence. The youth looks upward, scanning larger branches hopefully, but then reaches down to test the strength of a few fallen branches. When none meet his scrutiny, he continues on deeper into the woods. Behind him, Chimera stalks pace by pace, her muscles almost to the point of shaking from holding them taut. She resists the urge to roar, but a low grumble gurgles in her throat.
The boy finds a low branch with girth and strength enough to be whittled down into an oar. He raises his saw and begins to cut it down. Midway through his work, the saw sticks. He tugs on it but the tool won’t budge. Holding onto the branch, he pulls down as he uses his other hand to yank on the saw. With a crack, the branch crashes to the ground. The sudden release of the saw staggers him backwards.
With her prey off balance Chimera pounces, her muscles bursting with release. Claws spring from her cloven feet and dig into the back of her victim when she lands on top of him. His hands flail for the saw. After not hunting for so long she purrs as she climbs off him letting him fumble for the saw until his fingers nearly grip the weapon. Just as he has it in reach, she leaps onto his back again and sweeps his arm away from the saw with her front hoof. Using a combination of strength and gentleness, she nips the skin at his neck, only skin, not the spine, not yet, not until she has played a bit.
She tosses the boy in the air as if he is no heavier than a small bird. The youth lands on his side but hurriedly pushes himself to sitting. Like a crab trying to stay clear of incoming water, he scuttles backwards as Chimera rumbles in throat and belly. When she sees her prey open his mouth to scream, she vaults toward him knocking the boy back and giving a swift bite to his throat. No scream comes, but he fights with gurgling breaths that bubble blood from his throat. After a couple more tosses, he goes limp. Although he is still breathing, the challenge is over and my daughter’s fun has ended. With a bite to the back of the neck, his gurgling stops and Chimera settles in to feed on the meager body.
I watch my daughter feed, tasting the blood and raw flesh as she tastes it, feeling the satisfaction she feels at having a warm meal. But if she takes too long, I know more mortals will come to the wood. Chimera’s hunger and stamina are strong enough that she could devour them all in succession, but I won’t put her in any more danger than is needed. Soon enough one of these mortals will come in armed and harm her. It is good enough to instill fear in them now and play with them until the final kill. As soon as Chimera has slowed her eating, I summon my daughter to me and stroke her back as she gnaws on an arm she has brought back with her.