God of War

FOURTEEN

“SO LITTLE LEFT. Would you care to wager on how long before your city will be rebuilt in honor of Ares?” Hermes fluttered above the reflecting pool, breeze from his winged sandals rippling the water and blurring the view of Athens’s destruction. He bent down and poked a finger into the liquid and disturbed the image just under the surface. A heretofore undamaged building fell into rubble at his touch.

“Stop that,” Athena said sharply.

“Why? I would say Ares is the clear victor here,” the Messenger of the Gods said, smiling broadly. “Do you think that building would have survived his assault? He has left you nothing, and now he reduces that nothing to… even less.”

Zeus appeared, thunder rolling from his sudden entrance. Hands tucked into his toga, he frowned at Hermes, appearing wroth. “He’s done better than I expected. Ares usually blunders about like a Minotaur in a potter’s shop.”

“Better than you expected?” Athena said pointedly. “Have you chosen to support my brother?”

“No,” Zeus said, looking angrier yet. “He destroys too many of my shrines. It is almost as if he picks them out, but I must be wrong. It is your worshippers he kills, Athena.”

Athena could only glower.

“Ah, Lord and Father,” said Hermes cheerfully. “You have won handsomely in this business so far, haven’t you?”

Athena looked sharply at Hermes.

“What do you mean by that?” Zeus’s voice thundered and lightning sizzled his beard.

“Is Kratos not your creature?” Hermes asked, fluttering up and away, seeming a little frightened. He looked to Athena for support, but she had none to give. She worried that Hermes understood Kratos’s true quest into the Desert of Lost Souls and would tell Ares, simply to relieve himself of boredom by stirring more trouble.

“He is Athena’s pet, not mine,” Zeus said.

“Yes, of course. I was wrong to assume you were aiding him, though someone in Athens uses a thunderbolt similar to your own against Ares’s creatures.”

“Do you know that or is it only another of your whispered calumnies to set one god against another?” Athena asked.

“You accuse me- me!-of inciting civil war in Olympus. Never!” Hermes turned his attention back to Zeus. “I am your loyal subject and son, Skyfather! I seek to harm no one but only to keep all informed.”

“And amused,” Zeus said. “You would go to any length to avoid boredom.”

Hermes nodded, smiled, then caught himself. He fluttered higher so he could bow deeply while hovering above the scrying pool. More somber, he bowed his head and swept his arm through the air as he said, “My loyalty is without bounds, my king. You need only command me.”

“Very well,” Zeus said, grating his teeth. “Go to Ares and tell him I order him to cease his destruction of my temples and supplicants.”

“Ares?” Hermes looked so distraught that Athena fought to keep from laughing. Then she realized the gravity of the situation. Ares would never accede to Zeus’s wishes and, if anything, would redouble his effort to snuff out not only her followers but the Skyfather’s as well.

“My father, there is no need for Hermes to interrupt Ares. The God of War is only pursuing his true nature.” Athena’s gray eyes met the storm-filled ones of Zeus. She did not flinch. If Zeus sent this message, Hermes would become curious and would undoubtedly discover that Kratos sought Pandora’s Box. She knew the Messenger of the Gods well. He would never be able to restrain himself from slyly hinting to Ares that he knew something the God of War did not-and Ares would take only moments to learn all that she wanted kept secret from him.

Pandora’s Box, Athena thought in wonder. Kratos must find it before Ares realizes there is danger in the quest.

Zeus’s words startled Athena and relieved Hermes.

“You need not deliver the message to Ares,” Zeus said.

“How may I be of aid in other ways, my father?” Hermes almost babbled in his respite from delivering such a challenge. The Messenger of the Gods usually enjoyed such discord, being above the content of the news. With Ares willing to slay anyone, though, even the messenger would be at risk, in violation of Zeus’s decree against one god killing another.

“Father,” Athena said, choosing her words carefully, “the mortals bear the brunt of my brother’s rage. If Hermes were to warn our priests and priestesses, telling them the best avenues of escape, they could save themselves.”

“Well, get to work on it, then,” Zeus said. “I would see this conflict at an end.” Zeus grumbled some more, stroking his beard, then looked hard at Athena. “You are not goading your brother into destroying my shrines as a way to humiliate me, are you, Daughter?”

“Father, no! I would never add to the destruction in my city!”

“Even to save your pet mortal?”

“Kratos is nothing to me,” Athena said, forcing herself to remain as calm as possible. If she dared not provoke Ares into hunting Kratos, neither did she want Zeus spying on him. She had no idea how the King of the Gods would respond to a mortal killing not only a god but Ares, his son.

“Be gone,” Zeus said in a booming voice to Hermes.

Hermes took a single pass around the chamber for airspeed, then his winged sandals carried him high into the clouds around Olympus.

“Thought he’d never leave,” Zeus said, lowering himself gratefully onto his throne. When he regarded the Goddess of Wisdom, the noble gravity of authority shadowed his eyes. “I wouldn’t say this in front of Hermes-you know how he gossips-but I am growing concerned for you, Athena. Ares has delivered a surprisingly thorough destruction. Within a week or two, you may not have any worshippers left.”

“It’s been difficult,” she admitted. “He’s won the battle-but I always knew he would. I can still win the war.” She watched her father for any hint that he would aid her.

“Can you?” Zeus asked, a bit sadly. “I have great faith in your powers, my daughter-but so far you haven’t even hit back.”

If she admitted to doing nothing, Zeus would become suspicious, since this would be unlike her. His concern for her rang true and brought her to an audacious confession. She had worried that her father would hinder Kratos when he found that there was a way for a mortal to destroy a god. But perhaps he would remain neutral, if not aid her valiant hero. It was a risk, but one she had to take to prevent unwanted interference.

“That’s about to change.” Athena squinted at the Chariot of Helios where it hung in Olympus’s everlasting summer noon. “If everything has gone as planned, my oracle in Athens has just now opened the portal to the Desert of Lost Souls and sent Kratos through.”

“What does Kratos seek?”

Athena again paused, wary of her father’s power and his possible opposition. Then certainty settled upon her like a cloak. She told him of the object of Kratos’s search, revealed through the divination of the Oracle.

Zeus sat up straighter. His voice caught. “The box…”

“Yes, Father,” she said with grim satisfaction. “Pandora’s Box.”