“Though it pains me to say so, our Withdrawal must be absolute. I will tolerate no god to give hints or signs, or to accept sacrifices of any kind, lest they jeopardize this. Your mortal servants and priests must believe us to be gone completely. Toward that end, I command that no god shall go anywhere within a quarter-mile of any of our temples, for any reason, ever. Know that my law in this is resolute and inviolate; I do this to remove from you the temptation to risk my wrath. In time, we shall become used to existence without temples.”
—Zeus’s Withdrawal Edict, Article II, Section IV
AS APOLLO EXPLAINED EN ROUTE, they were bound for a temple of Zeus that was only a short hike away from the spot where they would leave the Styx. Zeus originally ordered its construction after a particularly spiteful feud with his brother, and he placed the temple on the edge of an exit from the underworld as something of a signpost: Hades’s kingdom had limits, beyond which stood the dominion of Zeus. The wind long ago eroded the original lettering carved into the rock in ancient Olympian, displaying, Zeus’s domain. Suck it, Hades! But according to Apollo, none of the Olympians had forgotten that the sign once existed, Hades especially. Meanwhile, the temple itself remained.
The river journey went quickly. Shut away in his shack, Marcus failed to notice the ex-god, Muse, and two living mortals who slipped down to the shoreline, inflated their river raft, and pushed off into the Acheron. (Or if he did notice them, they failed to notice his noticing, and for the purposes of this slipshod narrative, that’s more or less the same.) Tracy thought she caught a glimpse of the shack’s door opening when they fired up the raft’s outboard motor, but by then, they were so far downriver that she couldn’t be sure in the dim light.
Apollo also managed to shield them from the effects of both rivers as they traveled: Tracy’s headache did not return on the Acheron. As no one began trying to beat anyone to death after the Acheron passed into the Styx—a.k.a., the River of Hate—she assumed Apollo's protection was working there as well. She did suggest that Leif try a swallow of Styx-water in hopes it would shake his fascination with her, but Apollo assured her that it was more likely to kill him. Despite everything, she decided she didn’t want him dead, and so, after five or ten minutes of arguing, she dropped the matter.
Leif was starting to grow on her, she considered. Oh, he’d still end up with a broken heart, she was certain of that, but she would at least feel bad about it when it happened. Tracy guessed that would be of little comfort to Leif. She spent half the raft trip hating the position she was in, hating Leif for getting her into it, and hating that he just didn’t get that “I’m not interested” wasn’t a flimsy wall he could chip away at over time. She hated the smell of the water, hated the color of the raft, hated the stupid way bunnies would quiver their whiskers at you when they—
All right, so Apollo wasn’t able to shield them from the river completely, she’d decided toward the end of the journey.
Thankfully her anger subsided when they pulled ashore above ground, along a thin shelf in a narrow canyon. The Styx only appeared on the surface for a brief stretch before disappearing again back down a rocky maw―much like the one from which it flowed up out of thirty yards upstream, defying gravity in a way that natural law seemed unwilling to debate. Above, the sky was clear beyond the edges of the canyon. Tracy couldn’t help but recall the Erinyes chasing them down a similar stretch just a few days ago. A path led to a small tunnel (again with the tunnels!) through the rock. They left the raft and stood before the tunnel, through which further daylight beckoned.
“What are the chances the myriad of other ‘gods’ arrayed against us have guessed what we’re doing and have the temple staked out already?” Leif asked.
“You really shouldn’t do that air-quotes thing,” Thalia advised.
Leif just shrugged with a grin.
“It’s a good question, though,” Tracy agreed. “Any prophetic visions along those lines?”
Apollo shook his head sadly. “No, nor is there likely to be. The cost of my exit from the Fates’ realm was my skill with prophecy. I’m no better at it than the least of my peers, which is, I mourn to say, quite poor.”
Apollo wiped the regret from his face before anyone could think to offer sympathy and tossed the matter aside with a smile and a wave of his hand. He turned to address them in a statesmanlike, Olympian fashion that Tracy deemed as impressive as it was unnecessarily flashy.
“Happily,” he continued, “I may still answer Leif’s question. Know this: in keeping with Zeus’s edict of withdrawal millennia ago, the gods were physically barred from approaching within a quarter-mile of any temple. The Return cast down this law, yet its effects still remain in places to which Zeus was especially connected.”
“Like his temples,” Tracy finished.
“Correct. For now, this works to our advantage.”
“So you’re saying you can’t get any closer?” Leif asked. “This is the part where the mentor has to die and/or go away so that the hero and his babe can soldier on alone, right?”
Tracy bristled. “‘Babe’?”
Apollo shook his head. “Fortunately, no. My diminishment is ideal for slipping past this particular obstacle, so I will be with you the entire way. Of course, with Zeus gone these past nine months, the barriers he erected are fading with time. Eventually they will vanish entirely.”
Leif cleared his throat. “And how long before that happens, out of curiosity?”
“About an hour, maybe less.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Tracy insisted.
Leif just sighed and shook his head.
“Yeah,” consoled Thalia, a hand on both their shoulders. “Drama’s a knock in the neck, huh?”
Apollo waved them on. “As such, we should probably hurry.”
“As such, you should probably not have stopped to tell us that,” Leif said. “Can you do that speedy-running thing again?”
“No.”
Tracy missed hearing Apollo’s explanation for that as she took a few steps down the tunnel and stumbled when her knees turned to noodles beneath her. She managed to catch herself before crumpling to the ground entirely. Thalia offered a helping hand before the others noticed.
“Still getting your land legs back, huh?”
“I know, right?” Tracy answered. “Thanks.”
In truth, she’d felt a brief surge of weakness that didn’t seem related to the transition from raft to solid ground. Her first instinct was to blame the Styx, yet somehow the amulet seemed the more likely culprit. Leif and Apollo continued on ahead, Leif continuing to yammer—so although her irritation remained at the “babe” comment, the chance to speak about it had passed quickly. They were almost there, anyway, right? A small hike to the temple, a little ritual, then Zeus would be resurrected, and all their problems would be solved.
“I smell the ocean,” Leif was saying.
Apollo nodded. “The Mediterranean Sea is just on the other side of this ridge.”
“I thought the Styx wasn’t accessible from the surface? Or is this tunnel just so isolated that no one notices?”
“Both, in fact,” the ex-god explained. “Watch.”
They stepped out of the tunnel into the open air of a mountainside. Tracy watched. Nothing happened. She looked back at the tunnel behind them only to find it gone, replaced with solid rock. “Ooh,” she whispered, rapping her knuckles on it. It looked solid, felt solid, sounded solid . . . and as she wasn’t about to taste or smell it, she figured it must be solid.
Leif shrugged. “Big deal. Holograms and force fields.”
Thalia shook her head. “There’s no such thing as a hologram, sweetie.”
Tracy wondered at the omission but let it pass, still feeling the rock. “I didn’t even hear it close.”
“It didn’t. It’s just one-way. I’d explain how it works,” Apollo said, “but we’ve more pressing matters at the moment.”
“Convenient!” Leif laughed, adding in Tracy’s ear, “He just doesn’t know.”
Apollo turned and motioned for them to follow. “This way. Zeus’s temple is not far.”
“Not far!” Thalia added in a queer little voice. “Temple not far!”
They made their way up the mountainside. Apollo guided them along an animal trail at the edge of a ridge that overlooked the sparkling Mediterranean below. While not a sheer cliff, Tracy realized that if her legs grew weak again, she could very well stumble off the path; roll down a steep, rocky hillside of grass and wildflower tufts; and eventually pitch off a sheer edge into the water below.
More or less, anyway. She’d probably have to be pushed to get enough momentum to roll down the hill at least, and there’d likely be some chance to stop herself before she got to the drop-off into to the sea. There was also the fact that she was traveling with someone at least as powerful as a demigod who didn’t want to see anything happen to her―not that she had any idea what demigodhood meant in terms of quantitative power, any more than she had an idea of what godhood meant, but she expected it at least included a parachute―so she relaxed a bit and enjoyed the view. Even so, she was growing out of breath.
“How high up are we?” she huffed finally. “Air feels thin.”
“Not very. What’s wrong?”
She pondered whether or not to tell them and decided there was no point in hiding it. “Weaker. Been feeling that way for a while. Did the Fates say anything about the amulet doing something to me? It wasn’t in the vision I got.”
“No,” Apollo answered. “As it’s my first immortal resurrection, I regret I have no theory to offer you.”
“Maybe we should stop for a rest?” Leif suggested.
“Great.” Tracy shook her head. “And no. Let’s just get there and get this over with before it gets worse. We’re almost there, right?”
“Not far now.”
Thalia cast an encouraging smile back at Tracy and then appeared to focus on something farther behind. Frowning, she stopped walking and shielded her eyes from the sun as she peered.
“Apollo? I think something’s coming.”
Everyone stopped except Tracy, who continued on the path past Thalia toward Apollo. No sense stopping now, she kept telling herself. Get to the temple. Do the ritual. Worry about the rest later.
“Should we be worried that she said ‘-thing’?” Leif asked from the rear.
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure . . .”
Curiosity and fatigue got the better of her. Tracy sighed and turned around to see a line of stirred-up dust making its rapid way toward them on the trail below. The dust obscured whatever caused it. Unless, she realized, whatever caused it was invisible.
“You can’t tell?” she asked with a step back. “Don’t you have some sort of . . . god-vision or whatever?”
“Yeah, flip it on!” Leif insisted. “God mode!”
“Diminished-god mode,” Thalia corrected.
“Still better than nothing. What do your diminished eyes see?”
Apollo made them wait only a moment for an answer. “Get behind me. Now!” All right, so that wasn’t really an answer. Regardless, they did as they were told.
“What is it?”
Apollo drew a sword from somewhere down the back of his shirt, which is a neat trick if you can do it. “No time to explain!”
The dust drew closer up the path. Closer. Closer. Somewhere in the world, someone important checked a clock.
Thalia began to hover. Her hands patted anxiously at her hips. “Um, clearly there’s explainy-time here, Apollo!”
Anyone who’s been paying attention has by this point guessed that the Orthlaelapsian wraith had found them (and more to the point, they’d be correct). Incorporeal muscles pounding, it bounded across the final stretch of trail between them, flinging snarls from both snapping jaws. It flung itself at Apollo, left head catching the swing of his sword in its teeth to clamp down on the flat of the blade before it could do any damage. Wraith or not, the beast sent Apollo tumbling backward as Tracy and the others scrambled out of their way.
Now that it was upon them, Tracy could at least make out something of its form: like Cerberus but only two-headed, sleeker, and half the other’s size without seeming any weaker for it. She could discern only part of its shape at any one time, as if it were partially concealed in an invisibility cloak that was low on batteries. The fierce wrestling match it waged with Apollo wasn’t exactly helpful either.
Just after it pounced, the wraith gave a howl that was cut short by Apollo’s grip locking around its right neck. It enraged the creature instantly. For a moment it seemed to be all Apollo could do to hold on as he tried to choke the beast and keep it from achieving the apparent goal of either giving Apollo a kiss or chewing his face off. The two combatants rolled to the edge of the path, kicking up even more dust and forcing the spectators back farther as they tried to avoid being caught up in the melee. For a moment no one could speak, mesmerized at the sight.Tracy picked up a rock, ready to hurl it at one of the wraith’s heads, unsure if it would do any good; the wraith remained darned near transparent. Of course, it had knocked Apollo down and wrestled him just fine, but she would risk actually hitting Apollo with the rock during the scuffle. He probably wouldn’t like that (really, few people did)―but she couldn’t just stand there.
Tracy raised the rock and looked for an opening. With the creature atop him, Apollo struggled to sit up and strained to force it back with the sword and his own muscle. The wraith’s back arched, its jaws clenched tighter on Apollo’s blade, and for a moment, its hindquarters made a visible target amid the struggle and smoke. Tracy seized the opportunity and—
Leif caught hold of the rock before she could throw. “You’ll hit him!”
“Karlson! Let go!”
“No throwing into melee! It’s a basic rule!”
“Karlson, damn it—”
Then Apollo let go of his blade, trading it for a free hand to pummel the wraith’s left head as he clenched its neck. The assault was enough to stun the creature, if only for a moment. Apollo wasted no time. Rolling the wraith to its back as he got to his feet, keeping his grip strong, Apollo flung the wraith bodily from the path. It tumbled down the steep, rocky hillside of grass and wildflower tufts, unable to stop itself before it reached the edge, scrambled madly, and spilled down the sheer drop to the sea below and out of sight, still clenching Apollo’s sword in its teeth. For a moment they stood waiting, as if it might somehow fly back up again.
It failed to do so. The only sound was Apollo’s labored breath.
“What the hell was that?” Tracy shouted finally.
Thalia flew down to the edge of the drop-off to peer after it while Apollo dusted himself off. “Any sign of it?” he asked her.
The Muse shook her head, flying back. “I can’t see anything.”
Apollo frowned. “It’ll be back. We must hurry.” He put up a hand to stop Tracy’s repeated question. “And that was the Orthlaelapsian wraith.”
Thalia blinked. “What? No, that can’t be! They wouldn’t! I mean, points for sending something that could track you so well, but shouldn’t it be guarding—? Apollo, are you sure? I mean, I’ve never actually gone to see it so I don’t know exactly what it looks like and I don’t really like antiques anyway so I’ll take your word, but—you’re certain?”
Tracy, for her part, couldn’t help but wonder how many other insubstantial, two-headed hounds were running around to the extent that Thalia could doubt Apollo's identification of this one.
Apollo nodded. “Quite certain.”
Thalia gaped, then laughed. “Well shave my head and paint me blue! I didn’t think—Wow! Speechless. You’ve really got them worried!” She collapsed into giggling.
“We’ve got them worried,” Apollo corrected. “And this is not funny.”
She nodded, still giggling. “Sorry. Sorry. I’m sorry but laugh or cry, ya know? Oh, gods, if they’re pissed enough to send that thing after you, we’re all going down in a burning blaze, aren’t we?”
“We’ve only to bring back Zeus, Thalia, and things will be set right. I hope.”
“He hopes!” she giggled again. “Just had to add the last part, didn’t you? Oh, katratzi, we’re so screwed.”
“They’re going to tell us what’s going on eventually, you think?” Leif whispered to Tracy.
“I sure hope—You’re going to tell us what’s going on eventually, right? Like now?” Her adrenaline was fading and her fatigue was returning, bringing with it the desire to get on with things before she was out of strength entirely. Even so, Tracy didn’t like being kept in the dark, not even on a sunny mountainside overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.
“Yes, but as we go.” Apollo pointed up the path. “And hurry. It will be back.”
Far below, the wraith paddled its way through the surf toward shore. A small setback, but it didn’t mind. This is not to indicate any particular positive attitude on the wraith’s part, of course. After all, it was a wraith; it had no mind. (Were someone to grab it by the tail and vivisect it with a meat grinder, it wouldn’t mind that either. It might wonder, Why a meat grinder, exactly? But would it mind? Goodness, no.) So when it reported via telepathic link to its master, Hades, of finding and temporarily losing Apollo, only to be told, as it swam, to reacquire its target but not to attack again, it didn’t mind that either. Besides, it was a good boy, yes it was! Hades said so. Being a dog (wraith or no), that was enough.
As the wraith gained the shore and began its dash back up the mountainside, Hades ruminated but a moment on his options before telling Hermes.
“The wraith has found Apollo. Approaching Zeus’s temple in the Ionians.”
“Ah, brilliant! It’s holding him there?”
“Tracking only.” A more loquacious god would have expressed his hesitance to risk the wraith further in combat, perhaps even his regret of retasking the creature in the first place, but Hades had a reputation to consider, and left it at that. “We five will deal with Apollo ourselves and inform the Dodekatheon once he is caught. Tell the others.”
Hades resolved that he himself would not be implicated in Zeus’s murder. Let Ares take that cup if he wished; it would choke him eventually. They would learn Apollo’s full intentions and secure his silence before they turned him over to Poseidon. Once Apollo knew what would befall him should he go before the Dodekatheon without the conspirators’ support, the sun god would cut a deal. If he did not, there were other methods of persuasion.
“How close is he to the temple?” Hermes asked.
“Close. Why?”
“We’re bound from going in there, if you recall. The last remnant of Zeus’s edict hasn’t faded yet. Soon but not yet. I’d ask how he got in, but since we’re still trying to figure out how he’s avoided Poseidon, I’m guessing we don’t know that either. We’ll need to flush him out first.”
Black death, the limey bastard’s right. “I’ll take care of that. You inform the others. Be ready.”
Leif walked backward up the trail ahead of Tracy, likely the better to voice his interjections to Apollo’s story as the god brought up the rear. “So if I get what you’re saying, this wraith thing: it can’t be bargained with, it can’t be reasoned with, and it absolutely will not stop . . . until we are dead. Right?”
“Or captured,” answered Apollo. “Depending. It may be tasked with either, and the—”
“Whatever. My point is why didn’t they think to send this against us before?”
“You’re complaining?” asked Tracy.
“Well, yeah! Stuff like that bugs me.” Leif shrugged. “It has to be pointed out.”
“You are not possessed of all the facts,” Apollo explained. “The Orthlaelapsian wraith normally guards something important to those of us on Olympus; it has done so for millennia. That the wraith would be given another task—”
“How important are we talking, here?” Leif interrupted.
Apollo frowned and shook his head.
“The key to the Titans’ prison,” Thalia answered for him. “In a manner of speaking. What? Who’re they going to tell?”
At once Jason’s warning launched itself back to the forefront of Tracy’s mind. “Out of curiosity, does that have anything at all to do with a place called Swin—”
Tracy rammed into some sort of unseen force field that flung her into a fit of cursing. Already past the apparent force field, Leif turned immediately.
“Geez, what happened? You okay?”
The fact that Leif walked back through the invisible whatever-it-was didn’t help Tracy’s attitude. Muffled by a protective hand over her battered nose, Tracy’s cursing continued another few seconds before she managed a basic, “What the hell?”
Amid the impact’s lingering sting, Tracy noticed they’d nearly reached the end of the path. They stood in a flat, open area festooned with grasses, rocks, and a single oak tree that grew in the shadow of the small peak above them. A carved stone overhang supported by two columns formed the mouth of a tunnel into the peak, and leading up to the tunnel were a few weatherworn stone steps. The steps continued inside such that their elevation prevented her from seeing too far beyond the entrance. Though the rock face immediately in front of them was steep, around the sides more gradual, crumbling paths wove their way up some eight feet to the top of the mountain.
Thalia moved up beside Tracy, and ran an experimental hand over the barrier field. (That Thalia used the same experimental hand as Tracy—which is to say, Tracy’s right hand—was a small annoyance Tracy was too fatigued to bother with.) Whatever the barrier was, it appeared (insomuch as an invisible anything can appear) to cover the entrance to a cave. Despite Leif’s ability to step back and forth over the threshold with impunity, neither Tracy nor Thalia nor Apollo could breach it.
“Some sort of force field,” Apollo surmised.
“Then why doesn’t it affect me?” Leif asked.
“You couldn’t warn me about it before I smashed my face?”
“Quite obviously I didn’t know about it.” Apollo uncovered Tracy’s nose and ran his hand above it. “Stop complaining. There. Healed.”
“Thanks.”
Glancing upward, Tracy spotted signs of more carved stone columns that seemed embedded in the natural rock itself, as if the mountain had grown up around the temple in some geological attempt to consume it entirely.
“How high up do you suppose it goes? Or maybe it doesn't go all the way around the peak? We might be able to go around the field, climb up, and come back down from above.”
Thalia blew a strand of hair out of her face and shrugged. “Maybe. I’ll see what I can find. Watch for wraiths!” With that, she sprang into the air and vanished out of sight around the top of the stonework.
“I thought only gods couldn’t go in?” Tracy asked, feeling around for gaps in the field.
“Not within a quarter mile,” Apollo answered. “We’re already far within that radius.” After a worried glance back down the path, he ran a hand over the barrier himself to follow Tracy’s lead in the other direction. “This is something different. This is something . . . else.”
“Profound,” quipped Leif.
“Quiet, Mr. Karlson.” Apollo continued to study the barrier. “I would theorize it was designed to keep anything supernatural out, in order to reinforce the idea long ago that we gods did not exist. Thalia and I are obviously barred, and Tracy has an immortal parent. I seem to recall Zeus experimenting with force fields like this around all the temples, as a kind of failsafe built into the Withdrawal. It’s individually erected, rather than being an automatic byproduct of Zeus’s law, so it won’t completely dissolve the way the quarter-mile prohibition is about to. But nor will it be strong enough to keep out a full god once the prohibition dissolves. Even so, if we can find a way inside, it may buy us some time against the wraith or any others sent after us in the meantime. A blessing in disguise.”
Tracy didn’t figure it was any kind of blessing at all, just another layer in the whole bothersome and complex task of hiking up a freaking hill and into a temple to get things over with. Just her luck they picked the temple with some overly secure force field prototype. Why did everything have to be so damn difficult?
Leif walked over to the oak tree. “Maybe there’s a hole in the field up there where the branches can reach? It's a long shot, but we could climb the tree and check. Not that Thalia won’t be able—”
“Guardian-tree am not for climbings!”
The voice that interrupted Leif was swift, deep, and came right out of the tree. Tracy briefly considered the likelihood that the voice had come from a talking, baritone chipmunk or other such creature, before spotting the vague outline of a face in the bark. The face itself was as tall as she; she doubted she’d have noticed it at all were the lips not moving. The fact that it was talking helped too, of course.
“You not needing climbings anyway,” it continued. “Guardian of temple can be lettings you in! I am being guardian of temple! Hello, things with legs!” Leaves waved to them gently.
Overwhelmed by the urge to glance nervously behind them, the impatient impulse to continue, and the new stimulus of a talking tree, Tracy remained speechless. Leif was unencumbered by such a problem.
“What are you, like an ent?” he asked, studying it.
“No, am guardian-tree of temple!” answered the tree—or the guardian, Tracy supposed. Or both, even. “You not be hearings before when I say so? What is ent?”
“Er, it’s from a book,” Leif explained.
“What is book?”
“You don’t get out much, do you?”
“No, I always just be standings here. Is book anythings like rock over there?” The guardian-tree pointed with a few branches.
“No, it’s—”
Tracy put a hand on Leif’s shoulder in hopes it would be enough stop him, just in case he was about to mention the material that books were generally made from. The unexpected physical contact distracted him enough for the tree to continue.
“What about other rock over there?” the tree asked, perplexed. “Is book like that? Or like sky? Or like—what else is being in world? Other tree? Used to be other trees, but that long time ago.
“Oh!” it suddenly boomed. “Is book like lizard? Lots of lizards being here all the times. Not now, but . . .” The tree’s leaves drooped slightly. “Missing the lizards. They is good to talk to. Not being saying much, but good at listenings. Is good skill for lizard to haves. Lizard also be having legs, can be goings other places, seeing other rocks. And other trees. And sky. Lizard never mention book, but lizard never mention much at alls, really, so is hard to being sure.”
“Ah, we don’t mean to be rude,” Tracy tried, “but you mentioned something about letting us in the temple, yes?”
Apollo, having resumed his watch down the path, nodded his approval.
The tree didn’t nod so much as shimmy its trunk in an up-and-down motion, but the meaning remained apparent. “Did mention. You is being good listener too! Can let you in, is able! But is not being supposed to. I sorry.”
“Says who?” Leif asked.
The effect of her touch apparently having worn off, Tracy removed her hand.
“Says Zeus! He is puttings me here many many many many many . . .” It trailed off in thought before nodding again with satisfaction. “Many years ago, giving or taking. Picks me up as acorn, holdings me in his palm, and then there is all this lightings and flashings and then I be having thoughts! . . . Not know why I am rememberings what happens before I be having thoughts. Is big mystery but is fun to thinking on too. You is good listeners!” it said. “Excepting for him. Why he is keeping looking down path? Is looking for more rocks? Plenty of rocks being here already. And grass. No lizards now, but we covers that before.”
In fact, it wasn’t so much that they were good listeners as it was that the they had failed in their numerous attempts at interrupting the tree’s rapid yammering.
“Trees are supposed to talk slowly,” Leif protested.
“I not be knowings other trees talk at all. I be thinkings I am special. I am being oak tree! Zeus is being likings oak trees, you knows.”
“Zeus liked oak trees, actually,” Tracy corrected, seeing a way to possibly get back on track. “Past tense.”
“Ah, I is having troubles with tenses sometimes. Lizards is usually polite enough not to mind.”
“No, she means Zeus is dead,” Leif added.
The tree gasped and rocked back as incredulously as a tree can manage. “You is being speaking non-sense! Zeus is being a god, you knows! A god cannot die! Though that would being an explanation for why Zeus is not coming by to make visits in past thousand years or so. Guardian-tree just be thinkings he not liking me.”
Tracy shook her head. “He was murdered nine months ago, which is actually why we—”
“The wraith is back!” Apollo announced, pointing to what looked to Tracy like an empty patch of path fifty yards away. He pulled both bow and quiver from somewhere down the back of his shirt, which is a doubly neat trick if, again, you can do it. An arrow was nocked and sighted down in a flash, though he did not release it. “It waits and watches only, but we must hurry!”
Save for a quick glance, the tree ignored this new development. “Zeus is only dying nine months ago? So I guessings that makes him jerk for avoidings me for so long before then. But I still have to be obeying what he is telling me to do: no one going into the temple until he say so otherwise. What is wraith? Is wraith anythings like rock over there?”
Tracy moved closer, putting the tree between her and the wraith just to be safe (easier said than done when she couldn’t actually see the mostly-invisible creature at such a distance herself). “Tree,” she began, immediately disliking the moniker, “er—do you have a name?”
“I am being called guardian-tree!” it declared. “I be thinking that is good enough.”
Good, Tracy, nice waste of time there. “Guardian-tree, we’re here to resurrect Zeus. We can’t do that if we don’t get inside. Don’t you think he’d want you to do that for us?”
“Resurrectings? Not be knowing you can do that—but then not be knowings Zeus can be killed too. You is being sure you can do that? Maybe you just is confuseled?”
“We can!” Apollo called over his shoulder. “I am Apollo, god of healing, of music, of archery, poetry, and prophecy, and I swear that what she says is true.” His attention turned back forward before he muttered, “At least I was.”
Tracy nodded quickly. “I’m sure once Zeus is back, he can tell you that it’s safe to let us in. In fact, I’m certain of it.” She wasn’t certain of it, but priorities are priorities.
“And he regretted not visiting you more often!” Leif added. “He told us! It’s just that he was so busy with all the ruling and the lightning and—”
“Oooh, lightenings!” the tree shouted. “I can be doing lightenings. To be helping with the guardianing Zeus is teaching me how—or giving me the how. I knot really be knowings. Knot be knowings. (That tree joke!)”
Tracy balled her fists, fighting frustration. “We don’t really have time—”
“You be watching now!”
At once the tree’s leaves crackled and Tracy smelled ozone. Electricity flared across the tree's bark, and a bolt of lightning flashed out to a rocky outcropping a short distance down the path, blasting it to pieces. The shock alone (that lightning joke!) was enough to stand Tracy’s hair on end. Or maybe that was the static.
“Seeings? Guardian-tree can shoot lightenings! Zeus is once telling me that quite the turnaround, though I not being knowing what he means. Just know lightenings good for guardianing.”
Apollo backpedaled closer to the tree, bow still trained on the wraith in the distance. “Can you do that again?” he asked. “Can you see the wraith down there, hold it off with the lightning?”
“Yes, I can beings doing that. Though I have to wait for charge-up again. It not taking long. You wait half a day?”
“We don’t have half a day!” Leif protested.
“Listen,” tried Apollo, “the wraith isn’t attacking. That means it’s likely notified Zeus’s enemies and been ordered to stand down. As soon as they figure out that they can’t get near yet, something else is going to show up here. Tell us how to get inside!”
“I have to be turning off the shield for you to be gettings inside,” it told them. “But as I be tellings you, Zeus said not to do that for anyone until he say so. Oh, hello agains, pretty flying woman!”
Thalia had returned just then, ceasing her quizzical look at the tree for only a moment to shake her head. Her search for holes in the force field had been fruitless.
Tracy barely kept her exasperation hidden. Her hands pressed against the barrier before she could stop herself. It was a compulsion akin to what she felt when she first picked up the amulet, but being aware of the attraction made it no easier to resist.
“Zeus created you,” she tried. “You have to let us in; you have to let us save him! He only told you not to let anyone in because he wanted the gods and everyone to withdraw, but they’re back now! They’re out there, working publicly, building new temples and speaking on TV!”
“What is TV? Is TV anything like rock over—?”
“Please, just help us!” Tracy cried. Her heart pounding, her knees weak, she was growing crankier by the moment, taunted by the fact that their objective was so damned close and yet just out of reach. The urgency was building in her. The amulet itself felt like a beating heart on her chest. “I am Zeus’s daughter, and I demand you let us in!”
“Oh! Why you is not being saying so? That allowed. Part of exception-clausings, I be thinking. Not know what ‘exception’ means, but is being o-kay.”
Thalia’s hands were on her hips. “You know, I was going to mention that, but I thought, ‘No, Thalia, just this once, let them deal with it. Surely they already thought of that approach before you got back anyway, and it didn’t work! Just keep quiet. Don’t clutter the place with your beautiful voice!’ First instincts, I should always trust them. It just goes to show.”
No one responded. The tree, meanwhile, stretched a branch into a hollow between two boughs and pulled out a square marble block the size of an orange (not to mention that rock over there). Miniscule geometric carvings adorned one side, like a key. With little ceremony, the tree pushed the block into an indentation carved in a boulder standing outside the barrier field, turned it once, and pulled it away. A hum Tracy hadn’t noticed before suddenly ceased. The feel of the barrier vanished beneath her hands.
“There we is going! You can be using your legs to walkings in now, Zeus’s daughter!”
Tracy dashed into the entrance, gasping out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She paused long enough to make sure the others were coming and, after yelling a thank-you to the tree, made for the heart of the temple. There was a light ahead.
“Any others who may come are enemies of Zeus, no matter their relation,” she could hear Apollo telling the tree behind her. “Do not reopen the barrier for anyone but us.”
“I am knowings this. Why is tellings guardian-tree how to be doing its job? You is god of bossings around now that Zeus is killed or somethings?”
Tracy didn’t hear Apollo’s reply. On wavering legs, she continued toward the resurrection of a god, anxious for the final ritual, spurred forward by forces she didn’t understand and noting with some dismay that she’d still not gotten that sundae.