Timeless, page 33
His smirk of triumph slipped when he realized who was standing next to her. Atlas. A ring of orange fire sprang up around them, stretching for miles around the crown of the mountaintop.
“You will not make a portal and leave this fight,” Hecate announced. They were on sacred ground now, like when they had fought the Olympians on the beach, and there were rules that neither side could break.
Backed into a corner, Zeus stared Helen down. “Seven against one?” he mocked. “This fight is between the gods and the Scions, yet you bring Titans. How is that fair?”
“There was no agreement between you as to who could or could not fight,” Hecate intoned. “Or the numbers allowed each side.”
Zeus narrowed his eyes at Hecate. “It’s dishonorable, and you know it.”
“Call your Olympians,” Helen said with a shrug. “One for each of my Scions. But let them know that I swear whoever fights for you will be imprisoned with you.”
The Olympians appeared, arrayed behind Zeus. Poseidon to his right, Athena to his left; Apollo stood beside Athena, and moving in a blur behind them was a younger teen. Hermes was smaller, but he never stood still, and it hurt Helen’s eyes to try to focus on him enough to discern his features distinctly.
But there was one more among them, someone Helen had not even considered. Behind Poseidon was a grizzled and bent figure. His back was misshapen, his features irregular, and he was covered in soot. The tanned animal skins he wore were patched together haphazardly, but the weapon he carried was like no other Helen had seen. Part scimitar, part spear, it shone with light, and the knife edge was so keen that it glistened. It was a work of art, certainly made by the incongruently gnarled hand that gripped it.
“Hephaestus,” Ariadne said on a surprised exhalation.
“Does anyone know what he can do in a fight?” Hector asked, his voice low and his words clipped with urgency.
“He has never fought in a battle before and is therefore unseasoned. But he is immensely strong,” Atlas replied, sounding slightly concerned. “And his weapon is made of adamantine. Impossible to shatter.”
“New plan!” Helen shouted desperately, but too late.
She didn’t know who moved first, the Olympians or the Scions, or if the opposing lines snapped simultaneously like over-wound guitar strings, but the combatants fell on each other as if ravenous. Each warrior collided with a foe, their battle cries curtailed by grunts of effort and the clanging of sword on shield.
Hephaestus engaged Atlas before the Titan could reach Zeus, and with a nasty wink in Helen’s direction to make sure she knew her plan to capture him had failed, Zeus took to the air.
Helen followed with a snarl, bursting from the ground like a geyser. Zeus climbed higher and higher until Helen’s lungs shriveled and her vision blurred. With a burst of speed, she closed the gap between them and grabbed onto his ankle. Switching instantly to her super-massive state, she dragged Zeus down with her, intending to drive him into the rocky mountainside beneath her.
They struggled in mid-air. Tumbling over each other, switching from buoyant to massive, they wrestled for position; each of them maneuvering to be the one on top when they hit the ground. Plummeting, floating, wrenching limbs, Helen never let go of Zeus though he tried several times to wriggle from her grasp. As the ground rushed up to meet them with Helen on top, Zeus struck her with lightning. It had no effect on her, but he was desperate.
Seeing the fear in his eyes as they neared impact, it occurred to Helen that Zeus might be the strongest, but he was not a great fighter. He relied on his bolts, which had always been enough until now. Helen had been trained by Hector, Orion, Ariadne, and Lucas. She’d worked on other skills besides the one weapon of her lightning, and although she had hated nearly every second of it, in that moment she smiled with satisfaction.
They hit the ground and Helen drove him into the mountain, plowing a great trench through the rubble with his body. She did not let him get up or release her hold on him. With Hector’s coaching in her mind, she straddled Zeus, pinning him between her legs, and rained down heavy punches on his face. He covered his head with his forearms, bucking beneath her uselessly, but Helen knew she had him.
Then she felt something connect with the side of her head, sending her sprawling beside Zeus.
Not knowing who or what had hit her, Helen saw Zeus trying to get airborne to flee again, and she latched onto his arm and dragged him back down. She felt another blow to her head but did not release Zeus. She wrapped one of her hands around his throat and craned her head left and right, looking for her attacker while she struggled to keep Zeus pinned beneath her.
On the next rise, Helen could see the battle rage between the Scions and the Olympians. In a glimpse, she saw Ariadne and Athena as they fought with sword and shield, trading blows expertly. Orion and Poseidon were in a close knife fight, their bodies crouched and their forearms blocking viper-fast strikes. Hector had already won, but unable to kill Apollo, he settled for dragging the unfortunate god around by one leg and smashing him into whatever he could find. Atlas had Hephaestus pinned beneath one of his enormous knees while he searched for Helen. He met her eyes, nodding at her in acknowledgment of his swift victory over Hephaestus.
The only pair missing was Jason and Hermes. Out of the corner of her eye, Helen saw a blur and snatched at it. She caught a boy, maybe eleven or twelve, by the hair. He shrieked and struggled. She held him until Jason, who Helen guessed had been chasing him this whole time, caught up, sucking in strained breaths in an alarming way after having run from one mountain peak to another. He tackled Hermes and touched the sides of Hermes’ face with his glowing healer hands. The god fell to the ground, unconscious. Jason collapsed next to him, still heaving breaths.
Helen glared down at Zeus. “You’ve lost, and your Olympians are being defeated one by one. Yield.”
Panicking now, Zeus doubled his efforts to get away, but Helen tightened her grip on his throat. “Yield!” she shouted into his face.
“Never!” he gasped back at her, barely able to form words. He somehow managed a hateful smirk. “Everyland… mine. Can’t put me… Tartarus.”
Helen felt a chill go down her spine. She loosened her grip slightly, just enough so that she could understand what he was trying to say. Golden ichor leaked from the corner of his mouth and from the many cuts on his face.
“Say that again,” she said.
He grinned up at her wolfishly. “You can open and close the boundaries to Everyland, but you can’t use it to make portals anywhere else, because Everyland belongs to me. Without full control of it, you can’t travel through it. Which means you can’t open a portal to send me to Tartarus, Helen.”
While Zeus looked up at her triumphantly, Helen tried. She could open a portal into Everyland, but she couldn’t go through it. If she couldn’t go through Everyland, she couldn’t open a second portal from Everyland into another place—in this case Tartarus. If she couldn’t open a portal to Tartarus, she couldn’t put Zeus in it. She simply didn’t have the power to imprison him, not without her world.
Enraged, she squeezed his throat. “Give it back to me!” she screamed in his face.
Though Zeus choked and sputtered under her hands he mouthed the word never.
She looked at Jason. Their eyes met and widened with dawning dread. Why would Zeus ever give Everyland back to her? Doing that would damn him. And without it, she could not imprison Zeus anywhere.
Gathering all that as quickly as Helen did, Jason asked, “What do we do?”
She shook her head in a daze. She searched her mind for a solution but found nothing of any use. Then the ground next to Helen shook. Atlas had jumped from the neighboring peak where the other Scions still fought and landed next to her.
“Zeus will not yield,” Jason told Atlas. “And without Everyland Helen can’t send him to Tartarus. Can you do it for her?”
Atlas shook his head. “I cannot make portals for I am not a Worldbuilder,” the Titan said. “Cronus is.”
Zeus’ expression was smug. “The orange flame—no one else may come within the boundaries of our fight until it is resolved. No one can send me to Tartarus but those who are already here. If Helen can’t do it, it won’t be done,” Zeus said, watching her face fall with terrible understanding and enjoying every second of it. He attempted to laugh but coughed instead under Helen’s choking hand, yet not even that momentary indignity could put a damper on his gloating.
She glanced at Hecate, pleading with her eyes for a way out, but saw only implacable acceptance in the Witch Titan.
“No one else may enter the ring until there is a winner,” Hecate said. “And I cannot send him to Tartarus. I am an adjudicator, not a combatant.”
Helen sensed a growing presence behind her as the Scions and the Olympians gave up their individual battles and jumped or flew across to be present at the outcome of this one, the only one that mattered.
“You may as well let me up,” Zeus said pityingly. “What are you going to do? Stay here on top of me forever?”
Helen wavered. Though she searched her mind for a loophole, she knew he was right.
“You will not rise!” Atlas boomed. The ground trembled and Zeus’ eyes flared with fear at the rage he saw in the Titan.
Atlas moved Helen out of the way and put his knee down on Zeus’ chest. “You will never rise again,” he said resolutely.
“What—no! You have no right to… to…” Zeus quibbled, pinned beneath Atlas’ knee, but his objections ran out.
“Holding you down for the rest of eternity is a joy compared to holding up the entire universe,” Atlas said. He looked at Helen and smiled. “I will gladly stay here with him beneath my knee forever. Tartarus be damned.”
“No!” Zeus screamed. He started discharging bolt after bolt into Atlas, but the Titan merely shrugged them off.
“How many times have I been struck by lightning standing atop this mountain? There is no torment you can dole out that is more than the merest fraction of what I have already endured at your hands,” Atlas said. He settled in, a look of peace across his face. “At last, I will have my revenge.”
“Brother!” Zeus called to Poseidon, but Poseidon averted his eyes. “Daughter!” he shouted at Athena, who would not look at him.
Orion and Ariadne tensed, ready to beat back the Olympians if they tried to help Zeus, but neither of them moved.
“You have lost, father,” Apollo said simply.
“We cannot aid you,” Athena added with a helpless gesture toward the orange fire on the mountainside. “Honor demands—”
“I decide what is honorable!” Zeus raged. The Olympians shrank further away from him, as if embarrassed.
Helen gazed first at Orion, and then at Hector, Ariadne, and Jason. They all looked as uncertain about this strange stalemate as the Olympians were, and though Atlas seemed perfectly happy to make good on his promise, it made Helen uneasy. This was not solved yet. Only one thing could end it.
“You could give me back Everyland,” Helen said.
Zeus calmed himself, panting under the pressure of Atlas’ knees. “Give you back Everyland, so you can send me to Tartarus?” he asked, incredulous. His gaze moved across the Olympians. “She will send all of you down with me! She swore it!”
“She did,” Hecate intoned, the orange fire glowing brighter.
“I swore that everyone who fought for Zeus would be imprisoned with him,” Helen clarified. She waited a beat. “But what if, instead of imprisoning you in Tartarus, I imprison you on Olympus?”
The Olympians paused, surprised by her offer.
“There is nothing in her oath to Zeus that disallows that,” Hecate confirmed, and the Olympians appeared enticed. Zeus looked from one to another, as if sensing that his control over his family was slipping.
“You’d have to swear on the River Styx never to leave Olympus again, of course,” Helen added.
“It’s a trick,” Zeus spat. “She lies!”
“She does not,” Apollo, the Falsefinder, countered in a ringing voice. “I hear truth in her words.”
The Olympians passed a questioning look amongst themselves. They all seemed decided.
“Olympus,” Athena said, as if casting her vote.
Apollo nodded. “Olympus.” He glanced at Hephaestus who was nodding already.
“No!” Zeus pushed at the Titan’s knee ineffectually. “We must stay here!” he nearly wailed.
Helen frowned in thought at that. To be in complete control of everything meant that nothing was ever at stake. In theory, omnipotence seemed like the ultimate prize, but in practice it leached meaning out of everything. This world was the only one in which anything mattered to the Olympians—or to Helen. Earth was where none of the Worldbuilders were in control because something else was.
The Fates.
And even the gods and Helen herself were subject to them. Things mattered here on earth because here was the only place none of them were omnipotent.
“Exile in Olympus is still a punishment, maybe even a kind of torture,” Helen said, meeting Atlas’ eyes and finding agreement there. “Or you can stay here. Trapped under the knee of a Titan. For eternity.”
To punctuate her point, Atlas drove his knee into Zeus’ chest. “I could make this much worse for you,” he growled.
“Olympus!” Zeus cried out in agony. Atlas relented slightly and Zeus glared at Helen. “I choose Olympus and exile.”
Helen narrowed her eyes at him. “Return Everyland to me.”
He huffed in frustration. “I give you back Everyland,” he said, and the orange flames licked higher.
Helen felt the return of her world like a familiar hand slipping into hers. She didn’t realize how much she had missed it, but she quickly hardened her expression. She wasn’t done with Zeus.
“And now swear on the River Styx that you will go to Olympus with all who fought for you and never leave it again,” she demanded.
Zeus’ face trembled with hatred, but Helen saw the pride leave his eyes, and knew that this time she had not simply outsmarted him. She had won. “I do so swear on the River Styx,” he rasped.
Hecate folded her hands in front of her with finality. “You may go,” she pronounced.
Atlas rose, releasing Zeus, who stood slowly. The rest of the Olympians moved away from him, most in embarrassment at his failure, but there was anger in one of them. Poseidon openly sneered at his brother.
“You promised me you had this in hand,” he growled.
“Don’t worry, brother. It’s not over yet.” Zeus smiled coldly at Helen, though he spoke to Poseidon.
“Really? It kind of feels over to me,” Helen said.
“You’re not going to like the job,” he promised. All bitterness had left him, and for the first time in her dealings with Zeus, Helen felt as if he was speaking to her as an equal. “In the end, when the Moirae call on you to perform that final task, you’re going to wish you’d left the world to me.”
The orange fire went out and Zeus and his Olympians disappeared.
“It is done,” Hecate said, a rare smile lighting up all three faces.
There was a long moment where everyone stared at each other, disbelieving. Then Ariadne let out a held breath and her shoulders suddenly slumped with fatigue. “I’m so glad that’s over!”
Jason sat down, exhausted. “You? I ran my ass off,” he said, letting his head drop between his knees, and everyone seemed to uncoil.
Helen looked at Orion, just now noticing that he was bleeding. She pointed, concerned, but Orion only shook his head. “Poseidon got me in the shoulder,” he admitted, gripping his injury with his good hand. “But I almost had him.”
“You did not,” Hector teased.
Atlas extended an enormous hand to Helen in congratulations, and she shook it. “I am glad that Zeus is defeated, but I wish I had been the one to bring him low,” he admitted.
“He’s actually not that good of a fighter without his lightning.” She shrugged. “I think you would have been disappointed.”
“Nah. You’re just a beast,” Hector said, pulling her in for a hug with one arm and Orion with the other.
“Can we hug it out down here?” Jason asked from the ground. “I don’t think I can stand.”
“Aw, is my baby brother tired?” Hector teased. He leaned and tipped the pile of Scions over onto Jason, making him regret his request.
After a short groaning tussle where everyone, including Hector, admitted that they were more beat up than they’d let on, Helen opened a portal into Cronus’ grove.
Lucas was waiting there with Cronus. He smiled and embraced everyone—cracking jokes and trading banter—but Helen could see he was working hard to push past his own feelings to celebrate with them. He seemed separated, even as he laughed at Hector’s boasting.
“Helen Hamilton,” Cronus said in his rumbling voice. The commotion died down and she stepped forward. “Our thanks are everlasting. You will have been starting your greatest task now that you have completed the first.”
Helen thought about that for a moment. She looked sideways at Lucas standing next to her, but he didn’t seem to know what to make of that, either.
“But Helen has completed all of her tasks, hasn’t she?” Lucas clarified haltingly.
Hecate stepped forward. “Helen is free from her debt to me,” she said, her middle face intent as she regarded the pair of them. “But she still has much to do.”
“Ah—good?” Helen said after a moment. “I like to make myself useful.”
Cronus and Atlas thought that was hilarious for a reason Helen couldn’t quite discern. “It is always good to see you, granddaughter,” Cronus said, still amused. “You will have been coming back soon, and I am glad for it.”
Helen opened her mouth to ask a question she hadn’t quite figured out yet when Cronus waved a hand, and she felt the cold of a portal snatch her words away.
Chapter 19
Helen was late again. But it wasn’t her fault.
