Pandora dropped back down, standing on her toes, and caught the woman, easing her back onto the shelf. The woman cast about with wild, unfocused eyes, hardly seeming to see Pandora at all, though her hands grabbed Pandora’s biceps and tightened painfully.
When she stood, her height revealed her as a Titan.
“I know you,” Pandora said, recognition setting in. Brizo, the Nymph Oracle from the western temple. She did not oft come to the city, but Pandora had certainly seen her on occasion. Perhaps she came when summoned by the Pleiades. Perhaps, desperate for answers, they had called for her after Prometheus foretold the coming of Zeus.
Brizo’s grip tightened even further, though her gaze finally settled upon Pandora’s face. “It falls!” She swallowed hard, still clearly trying to orient herself. “It all comes crashing down. Great sweeping waves rising like shadowy hands come to close in upon us. The land tossed about like a ship in a storm. Rent asunder! Everything breaking and screaming and death and the swallowing deep.”
What? What the fuck? Pandora tried to struggle free, but even Nymph strength was greater than that of a mortal. “What falls? This city?”
Brizo abruptly released her. “The whole of the island.” Another rough swallow, and now she seemed to be talking to herself more than Pandora. “I saw Atlantis torn to pieces. I saw the end of everything.” The Nymph trembled, hugging herself. The she vaulted onto the shelf, and again, up out of the pool. She took off, half running, seeming to forget even her clothes, and a slave girl went chasing after her, khiton in hand.
Pandora glanced about, though no one else seemed to have heard the Oracle’s words. Was this … was it even possible? Plenty of tomes and historical records made mention of Oracular prophecy, and these things were not always literal. Maybe the fall of Atlantis was her mind’s eye processing a conquest. Or maybe, being a Nymph, whatever she had seen would be centuries or millennia in the future.
But if it was conquest or some other political upheaval, Pandora had to imagine it would relate to Zeus’s arrival. Prometheus claimed the king no longer trusted the Pleiades. Which meant, unless his anger could be redirected, he might act against them. Maybe even kill them. Or throw them into Tartarus, as she’d heard he did with those who truly angered him.
Kelaino may have irked Pandora, but she didn’t want her dead and certainly not condemned to some eternal torment in the Underworld. Was there aught Pandora could do about any of this? Certainly not from inside the damn bath house.
She needed to get to that symposium. She needed to be there, to see what would happen. Maybe she could stop Zeus from exploding into his infamous wrath, though she shuddered at the thought of standing in the same room as the king. She had to try. Had to do something.
6
Kirke
1570 Silver Age
A few hours past dawn, Athene departed, ignoring Kirke’s half-hearted attempts to get her sister to linger. Much as she sympathized with the woman’s plight, her presence on Ogygia endangered Kirke’s own plans, and it was better Athene was off.
Thus, when the Olympian had traveled well out of earshot, Kirke returned to the garden where Kalypso was fussing over the moly. It was always so testy a plant to raise. The other Nymph looked up at her approach. “Well?”
“Yeah, she plans to raise the child, which is good and all. Well, that, and to exact vengeance on Hephaistos, which is maybe less good for all concerned. Uh, except us, of course.” Kirke shrugged. “Yeah, there’s gonna be blood.”
Kalypso nodded. “Will she kill him?”
“Oh, eventually, I should think so.” Subtly and slowly. From what Kirke had heard, few Titans could have stood against Athene in a fair fight. But then, Athene didn’t intend to challenge Hephaistos to a battle of arms, but to sweep away his control of Korinth.
“One less Olympian then,” Kalypso said, returning to dig at the moly. “And she won’t go to Zeus?”
“No.”
Finally, Kalypso rose, folding her arms over her chest. “Isn’t that a good sign? Could she be swayed against him?”
Kirke almost rolled her eyes, stopped only because it would have hurt her friend’s feelings. Zeus’s favored child turn on him? “Maybe when the sun rises at night and the seas drink the land. No, she’ll never move against her precious father.”
Which was why Athene could never be a true sister to Kirke. As an Olympian, she would never understand the plight faced by Nymphs, and she willfully blinded herself to the vile wretch that was her father.
Kalypso was frowning now. “And has your resolve weakened? She is your kin.”
“Psh. Just because Helios wasn’t bound in Tartarus like Atlas doesn’t mean my family has not suffered because of Zeus,” Kirke snapped. “Besides, you know damn well Io was a close friend. And how many more have been crushed under his heel? Zeus stomps around like a Gígas! Bam! You’re crushed, bam, you’re maimed! And what, you think one day I’ll say, ‘Oh, maybe a little maiming is all right. All for a good cause.’”
Kalypso raised her hands in mock surrender. “Sorry, I just … You know.”
Yeah, Kirke knew. They took terrible chances, and sooner or later, the Olympians might learn of the plot against them. But the World was broken, and maybe Kirke could fix it. If not, at least then she could enjoy her own slow, satisfying vengeance against Zeus and his ilk.
Kalypso stepped into her embrace, planting a kiss upon her lips. Her fingers traced the line of Kirke’s hip, sending shivers of pleasure shooting through her.
Well then.
A few cups of wine and languorous lovemaking couldn’t help but start the morning off well.
A dark expanse unfolded before her, the streets of some polis she could not recognize amid the gloom. There was no moon and no lamps lighting the path, just the sense of edifices enclosing
