MORTALIST

PROLOGUE--AWAKENING

I am in that place where I understand that I am still asleep but wakefulness has entered my periphery.

The process of waking is slow and painful: My limbs, being tight from unknown amounts of slumber. My brain refuses to cooperate. Around me, I sense bodies going through the same as I. I am the first to fully awake. Just as I was the last to fall into slumber.

Hushed smoky words filter in to my heavy head. Another though, voiced my initial thought.

“A prayer. I hear a prayer.”

I sit astride Nyx. Hot, smooth skin against damp, coarse hair. Nyx canters over a carpet of pine needles and fallen oak leaves. She understands what I want. As soon as I ran my fingers through her midnight coloured mane, she knew.

Dropping Nyx’s thin leather reigns; she slows to a trot. I soak in my surroundings and release my thoughts. Here in my forest, I can think.

Again, Kouros has asked me for a court-ship. I cannot accept due to who I am: A Servant of Artemis. Sworn to reject men or death. So here I am, releasing my emotions in the privacy of my forest.

I bring Nyx to a stop inside a sunray. The light that has escaped through the canopy of elms, oaks and black pines, throw colours at me: Greens, ochre’s, browns; rich along with the occasional white or pale yellow Narcissi.

Inside the warmth of the sunray particles of dust and tiny flies are magnified. Falling and hovering about me like gold rain. I see everything with crystal clarity and it feels so much more intense.

I smooth my hands across Nyx’s taught neck, bending low to her ear. “Be free.” I do not want intensity. And I do not want to be still. Nyx bursts from the sunray and I have to mould my body to hers before a low sweeping pine branch hits me. The pine needles tickle my exposed shoulders and come off in my free flowing, violet hair. Hair

that I usually enclose in a gold chain before I go on a ride.

From the corner of my eye, I see movement. I turn my head in its direction to see the graceful, golden arc of a fleeing deer. I vault from Nyx. Running along side her; dagger clasped in my hand. I cannot remember the last time that I was on a hunt.

I run parallel to the deer, unmistakable as it appears through the gaps in trees. Such a beautiful colour. Not the gold that I had first thought but the colour of dry beach sand. And so the forest provides no camouflage for it.

My senses are heightened through adrenaline. My eyesight; as I race passed trees, dodging thick low branches and roots coughed up by the earth. The sleek sand coloured deer never out of my sight. The pine needles; sharp pricks and quick scratches on my arms and face; I hardly feel. It is my sense of smell that I find the most fascinating. With each intake of breath, I can assimilate the different scents: Pine, wild garlic, fresh rain. My own scent, Nyx and the deer’s are all the same: Hot adrenaline, thick with musk.

As I hope the deer swerves to the right, heading straight toward a circle of trees. The only way out being the way it entered. My mouth curves into an indigo smile; all dark and verging on the sexual, for I know every inch of this forest. I know every tree; old and proud, young and willowy. All the intertwining paths and where they lead. I know them all.

In the excitement my foot catches in an oak root. “No.” My arms shoot out to brace the impending fall. I am unable to catch myself in time and get a face full of dry, gritty earth. But I am up; my arms and legs working in fluid motion. I run; wolf like into the circle of trees, spitting gritty pine tasting earth from my mouth.

I stand at the entrance to the circle of trees. It is not much wider than I am. The deer darts left to right, left to right: Trying to find a way out from the interwoven branches. I can

feel its urgency to escape the killing ground.

Our eyes meet. My dagger flies toward the deer’s exposed cream breast before I register its unnatural eyes: Human eyes of liquid copper.

“Siaa.”

I hear the warning too late. Events unfold in slow motion, though they happen in seconds: The dagger hits its intended mark; the deer’s vulnerable cream breast.

“Siaa.” Chiron skids to a halt behind me. His voice hot on my shoulder. The earth his hooves disturb is flung against my naked calves. Thousands of sharp stings jolt me into viewing the black reality of my actions.

On the deer’s breast I see blood start to flow. Crimson rivulets; intrusive on the cream. I begin to comprehend but it is the deer’s very disturbing, extremely human, “No.” As it falls to the ground, that enables me to understand what I have done.

The three sisters: Lachesis, Clotho and Atropis, sit on low wooden stools, barely able to keep their weight from age. The only light to illuminate the room comes from billions of threads: An aqua haze of insistent flickering, along with the slow dimming and renewed brightness from some of the threads. But always a constant frosty aqua glow.

Clotho finishes spinning a crimson thread and pulls it gently from her rickety, wooden spindle. She is careful not to cut her roughened fingers on the thread; it is deceptive. The appearance of silk and the sharpness of Ares’ mighty sword.

Clotho passes the thread to her sister. “It grows dim Lachesis.”

Lachesis takes the crimson thread from Clotho. She holds it up to her eyes: It does indeed grow dim. She had better work fast. She takes an aqua thread that has been resting in her lap and deftly, with a skill belying her gnarled fingers, weaves both threads together.

Lachesis’ blood stains both the crimson and the aqua threads. She smiles as the colours of both begin to change: The once separate colours blend to become a sunset purple. Satisfied by her work, Lachesis turns to her youngest sister, her eyes never leaving the dimming thread. “Atropis, it is time to take out your scissors.”

Atropis takes polished bronze scissors from a worn leather pouch at her waist.

“Are you sure Aphrodite would want us to?”

Clotho looks to the blur of Atropis’ face; the youngest, the least worn but the most

effected by her part to play in releasing death. Even now; Clotho is amused at her sister’s hesitation.

Lachesis speaks in answer to her sister’s question. “The thread has lost its light. It is out of our hands.” She holds up the thread, slowly taking her eyes from it. She looks to Atropis. “Do you want a repeat of…?”

“No.” Clotho says not wanting her sister to finish.

Atropis’ black eyes are wide with the memory. She shakes her head and grey hair covers each eye in turn. She sighs in submission, peering at the now dull thread. Its purple colour is only that: A colour. It has no light

Emanating from with in to give it dimension. To make it stand out.

Lachesis pulls the thread taught in her hands and Atropis closes her bronze scissors over it. They all watch as the purple thread separates in Lachesis’ hands and disintegrate.

I see myself rushing to the fallen deer. The whirl of trees bent over us, watching. I spill to my knees before the deer and place a hand on its heaving flank. Once my hand touches the hot slick fur of the deer, do events cease to be viewed by my protective self.

Deep red, thick blood gushes over my dagger’s intricately carved handle. I close my eyes; ruing my accuracy, my strength. The dagger is embedded to its hilt in the deer’s cream breast. I watch as the blood flow slows and is sucked into the thirsty earth.

All the time I feel the deer’s liquid copper eyes staring at my own down cast jade ones. I look into those eyes and see that our expressions are mirrored. Shock and disbelief.

The deer’s angled head changes from pale fur and black glistening snout, to a softer pale face: Small straight nose. Full coral lips. No angles. Just a young girl’s face. Flora’s face. Flora; an Attendant of Aphrodite.

I have to curb the urge to run. My breathing as quick as the girl’s is slow. “Hades, do not come. Hades pass over.” I say repeatedly, even though I know that my prayer will not be answered.

Soft chestnut curls flow over my hand. A hand that now rests; not on short sand coloured fur but on the smooth, pale flesh of a girl. Her liquid copper eyes becoming distant.

“What have you done?” Chiron says beside me. I did not hear even hear him move.

I cannot speak: My eyes are fixed on the dagger embedded between Flora’s pale

breasts. I watch and see them fall for the last time.

It seems to be a while before I can turn my head away and close my eyes. I no longer feel any life where my hand rests: Flora’s body is starting to feel cold. I snatch my hand away. “Artemis did not tell me that we had guests.” I say, staring at the bloody soil. I look to Chiron. “Flora is Immortal is she not?” The smell of blood in the air; it

clogs my throat and tastes of copper. The same copper of Flora’s eyes.

I stand so suddenly that I nearly fall over. Chiron’s arms close about me: He feels all to like Flora as a deer. I break free of his arms. “Oh Gods.” I place my forearm against a pine tree. Facing away from Chiron. My nails clench in the bark. I have just killed someone. My nails unclench.

Tears slip down my cheeks. I wipe them away. They are useless. “You did not answer my question, Chiron.” I turn to him. “Flora is Immortal, is she not?” Vomit rises to my stomach. “Why do you need to give her that?

Chiron holds a leather chain. Its amulet; a silver Obulus, dangles above Flora’s face. “The Ferryman will refuse her otherwise.”

“She is Immortal.” I whisper. The Obulus falls to Flora’s lips.

Chiron looks to me. “She is.” He whispers as low as I do. “She was not in this forest.”

I was lying on my bed when Maia called. “Goddess.”

I twisted my neck and opened my eyes. “What?” I know anger spilt from my eyes as Maia flinched.

Maia’s eyes lift from the cobalt Bio-Glass floor to a point above my head. “Chiron wishes to see you.” Her grey eyes lock on to mine: A rarity.

I sit up and the royal blue silk sheet that had been covering me, falls to my waist. I know something has happened to Siaa. “What has happened?” I ask; a hint of worry in my voice.

“Chiron did not say anymore than, “‘It is Siaa.’” Maia mumbles to the cobalt floor. Apart from rarely meeting my eyes, she always averts her gaze when I am naked.

As I have not dismissed her, I deliberately stand from the royal blue and cream cushions that form my bed. Retrieving my discarded midnight blue, leather skirt from the floor; I thrust my legs into it, nearly falling in my haste. “Help me with my cuirass.” I say.

Maia picks my cuirass from its stand as though it is diseased. It is cold against my skin. My breasts filling their bronzed cups; nipples erecting into their inserts. She threads the leather straps through their buckles at my shoulders and I place pins in their underarm jointing.

Maia stands away from me once the cuirass is fastened. “He is by the willow tree.”

Again, her gaze is nowhere near my eyes.

I stare hard at Maia’s’ down turned, rich auburn head before shaking my own.

“Thank you.” I say, walking from the room. Maia does not move from my path. My shoulder knocks her collarbone: She sprawls on the cushions. I do not bother to look back at her.

The sun is high as I walk over soft jade grass. Its’ seemingly flat, golden orb is reflected perfectly in my lake’s azure waters. As I near the willow tree, I rake a hand through my cropped sapphire hair and smooth down my short leather, segmented skirt.

“Chiron.” The blurred yellow-green willow curtain closes behind me. I now stand in an area of such calm to me; I hope it will not be marred by the news that I am about to receive.

“Blue Goddess.” Chiron bows as much as a Centuar can with out looking awkward. I find horses going to their knees ridiculous. It is a horse’s only flaw; spoiling their beauty for seconds. For a Centuar it looks less than dignified. Usually Chiron is more graceful.

“Siaa.” I prompt.

“She has killed Flora.”

His words assimilate slowly. Just to make sure, “Aphrodite’s?”

“Yes.” Chiron’s dark brown eyes look into my cobalt ones. “I was too late.”

For the first time in many years I feel the burn of tears behind my eyes. “I did not know she was coming.” I say.

I then realise what Chiron had said. “Too late?” I ask, my eyes narrowing, head cocking to one side. “You knew?”

“No.” His voice is like waves washing over pebbles. “By the time I had reached Siaa, I was too late.” He sweeps cream hair from his tanned, chiselled face. “Hope told me

that she had seen Flora in the forest on passing.”

“Siaa knows that there are no deer to be hunted in this forest.” I say to myself. I look to Chiron. “Go protect Siaa.” I sigh, dreading my task. “I will tell Aphrodite.” The

mists of Olympus and Gæa separate around me.

Chiron’s voice reaches me through the thick purple mist. “Siaa is in the clearing.”

I smile slightly, my feet stepping on to white marble. I have taught Siaa well.

Contrary to Gæa; The Realm is always warm. But I feel cold as I walk across the white marble to Olympus’ entrance. Ahead of me is Urania. Her dark head bent. She writes in the Immortal journal: Nothing we do goes unwritten.

Urania’s head lifts as I approach, but she carries on writing. “Artemis?” Her black eyes seem to reach deep inside me and I know she senses something.

“Do you know where Aphrodite is?”

Urania smiles; all red lips and teeth as white as the marble beneath my feet. “You will find Aphrodite on the Island of Cyprus.

“Thank you.” I am eager to get away.

“Was there anything else, Artemis?” Urania has stopped writing. Her pale hands lay flat on the vast journal, black eyes full of intuition. Her slim face, kind.

My own hands’ are clenched together at my back. “No there is nothing else.” I feel the musty brown guilt rising in slow inches to my face.

“If you need me.” She picks up her quill and starts to write. Her gaze returns to the

journal. “You know where to find me.”

“Yes.” I shift from Olympus, to the shores of Cyprus.

Cyprus is not how it was eleven-thousand years ago. When we reigned, life was

simple. We awoke to find palaces larger than we could ever imagine had consumed our Gæa. There were weapons more fearsome than the daggers, swords or bows and arrows that I wield.

It must have saddened Aphrodite; that her once beautiful Cyprus had become nothing more than a mere wasteland filled with broken Mortal experiments: Bio-Glass cells that did not grow to the palaces that they should have become. Weapons that did not destroy, as they ought. Her sumptuous palace; gone. There was nothing left of hers’. Not even a rock.

There were mortals on Cyprus. Ones who refused to conform to their own kind’s rules. Just as there were others’ scattered over tiny islands throughout Gæa. Those mortals on Cyprus: Some became Attendants of Aphrodite. Some; simply vanished.

I stand in front of Aphrodite’s new palace: Golden Bio-Glass constructed like our palaces of old. Tall thick columns. Graceful arcs and smooth walls. My own palace is similar except that its’ colour is cobalt.

“Can I help you?” I turn to see a curly haired youth, bronzed from the sun. His physique: Toned, square and defined. His hazel eyes thaw: From the guardian to the stud, as he looks at me. Breasts, legs, face and then breasts again.

“You are not my type, young man.’ My voice is light.

“Excuse me?” His own is confused.

I smile at him. It does not meet my eyes. “You were giving me the once over.” As I speak his eyes are nowhere near my own. They remain on my cuirass-covered breasts. “Could you please tell Aphrodite that I wish to see her?”

He misses the silver frost in my voice. “She is resting.”

“That is not wise, Cithæ us.” My heart skips a beat when I hear Aphrodite’s melodious voice behind me.

The youth, Cithaeus, straightens. His guilty, hazel eyes miss mine to look over my shoulder. “Goddess of Beauty.” He does not realise that Aphrodite means, ‘that is not

wise,’ to stare at me.

I turn to Aphrodite: Beautiful in her startling, white himation. Always wearing white. Only her head, feet and one pale golden shoulder are revealed. Yet the himation seems to reveal more of her; the way it clings to her body.

I lift my gaze. “Aphrodite.”

Aphrodite’s azure gaze oozes sex. She lifts a deliberate hand, running it through soft curling honey-gold hair. “Artemis.” She runs the same hand, fingers splayed, over her breasts. The action pull the himation’s wispy fabric taught. Thus, outlining her nipples. Her smile is malicious. “What can I do for you, Little One?” She calls me this still.

“I must speak with you.” I say. Hoping that Cithaeus understands that I want privacy.

Aphrodite turns, not even looking at him. “Follow me.” He is simply there to satisfy her needs.

I try not to stare as I walk behind her. We weave through white marble columns. Walking across black marble laced with white veins. The himation clings to her firm buttocks and shapes itself to long slim legs.

A peach whisper wafts over me: Girls. I look, hoping to catch a glimpse.

Not realising that Aphrodite had stopped, I bump into her: Full on contact. If I were not a Goddess, her touch would send me. I step away from her.

“They prefer men.” She says. Looking in the same direction as I. Her voice is full of amusement.

We continue walking. The type of walk: The very same, when I was summoned to my father many centuries ago for killing Orion. Head down, steps precise. My body coiled so tight as to what my penance will be. I know that any punishment I receive from Aphrodite would be worse than that of my father’s.

Aphrodite steps into a room of pure white which disturbs my eyes. Ivory wisps of

gossamer material hang overhead. Beneath my feet; bright white Bio-Glass. About me are choices of cream chaise longs or huge cushions that look like mounds of snow. Too much white.

Facing the marble columns I stand between, is what I assume to be Aphrodite’s throne: An expanse of paper white, silver and gold carvings, which form the shape of a scallop shell. The inside of the throne is inlayed with a sheen of Mother-Of-Pearl.

Aphrodite sits in the throne, long legs underneath her. “What did you wish to speak to me about, Little One?” Her voice is bored.

I shift on the balls of my feet. There is no Ambrosia coated way to tell her the news. “Flora is dead.” I say after stretched seconds.

I watch the different emotions emerge in her eyes: Disbelief, sadness, sorrow. Lastly, and worse, her azure eyes turn cold. She stands in a swift movement. Shifting: She is before me. “How is Flora dead, Little One?” Her voice is softness before insanity. “She is Immortal.” She takes hold of my chin. “So how could she possibly be dead?”

I feel blood rush from my face at her question. “I thought that you knew.” I whisper.

Aphrodite pulls me into the white room by my chin. “What did you think I knew?”

The ‘knew’ is stretched out: Enunciated. She pushes me down on a chaise long.

It was common knowledge among us that Flora had wanted to slumber again. She did not like the Gaea that she awoke to. We Immortals never speak ill about those of us who sleep, so I am at a dilemma.

It becomes increasingly clear, as stare up at Aphrodite’s cold questioning face, that Flora had planned this: That she knew of what the outcome would be.

“How can Flora be dead Artemis?” Aphrodite whispers, her face so close to mine

that I can smell the kisses she received from her last lover: Mint and passion.

The only option in answering her question is to lie. Flora has made sure that I cannot slander her name by telling Aphrodite of her desire for me.

I can protect myself: I am Immortal. Siaa is not.

I know that I am wrong to leave Flora’s prone, naked body alone in the clearing. There is no time in which to find a Spirit to guard over her: I refuse to let my error be the death of her. So I am running from the gap in the clearing just minutes after Chiron left. I am going to bring Flora back.

When I was a child and Artemis was visiting her temples. I would often sneak from my bed to sit with the Pleiades: Artemis’ seven Nymphs. I would sit in Maia’s, the eldest Pleiades’ lap and listen to their stories. One of those stories was of The Pool of the Dead.

Maia explained to me that it had it’s name, for anyone who swam in its waters; never returned. And on the other side of the pool was the entrance to The Underworld.

I had snuggled into Maia’s lap as Selene, regaled the story to us. All my sisters’ faces where burnished in golden-oranges and yellows from the flickering firelight. The scent of night was all around us: Pine, freshly forming dew, slightly damp earth and the smell of the meat, which had been eaten.

“No-one ventures through the wood behind ours anymore.” Selene’s voice was soft, embarrassed. She was not one for story telling. Her voice curled about me; conjuring up the wood. Trees that were old, their branches dark and gnarled. Trunks thick with black bark. I imagined that no light could escape through the wood’s vast canopy. A wood that would feel

suffocating.

“Only the Spirits’ and of course, us: We are able to venture through the wood and return. That is how he was found.” Selene looked at every one of us. Her apricot eyes bright. “Or rather. His clothes. They were strewn on the banks of the pool.” She smiled then. As she often did when Mortals’ died through lack of ignorance of Immortal culture.

I had snuggled in to Maia’s bosom. Selene’s eyes were directly on me: Piercing and intense. I did not stay to hear the rest of the tale. I fled from Selene’s apricot gaze and soft laughter.

I was four years of age then. I am twenty-four now. Old enough to understand and protect myself from any Immortal dangers. So I head to The Pool of the Dead in hopes of finding the back entrance to The Underworld.

Flora came to my attentions around forty years ago. As I said; it was common knowledge among us that she had wanted to slumber.

I was returning from an unsuccessful hunt. There was no quarry coming out to play that day, almost as if they knew. The forest was alive. Birds chatting, tiny rodents hunting amongst the foliage. There was a warm breeze whispering through the trees.

My two wolves were by my side. I felt the change in them, in the forest in an instant. Stillness swept over the whole forest: Unnatural and chilling. My wolves refused to walk and there was no sound to be heard. I should have realised immediately; an Immortal can change an aura. Make every living thing in close proximity, aware and feel their mood. Especially in an extremely high or low state.

My wolves started to bay. Their sound was full of sorrow. In the distance; deer bellowed to one another. I carried on walking. My steps careful, without a sound and full of trepidation.

My favourite tree was yards from me. An impressive oak with thick branches that I would sit upon and carve arrows. There I saw Flora: On the highest branch, a rope about her neck. She stepped from the branch.

I jumped to the lowest bough; bracing myself. Flora’s eyes were closed. She had not felt my presence. For that I was grateful. I felt the air whistle as she fell. It took much of my

strength to remain on the bough, catch Flora and keep the rope from becoming taut. I

had cut the rope from about her neck before she had time to struggle and twist in my grip. We both fell to the dry ground and lay there for some time. Her spread over me. The only sound that I could hear was our breathing. The animals were quiet once more.

Flora rolled from me. Agile. “I want to sleep, Blue Goddess.” I had never heard her speak. She had one of those voices. One that grabbed my attention. It had a vermilion whisper: Full of innocence and wisdom.

I rose to a kneeling position to face her. It was the first real glimpse I had had of her in thousands of years. Chestnut curls framed her face and shoulders. Her eyes were copper pools of melancholy. Her small frame svelte, lying on the dry earth.

Scooting over to her, I took one of her hands. “I know this Gaea is not the one you left in slumber.” I squeezed her hand tight: To make her look at me. Which she did in a wince. “But it is the only one we have. And there is nothing you or I can do to make it any different.”

She looked away from me. “You should have let me fall.” He voice was so resigned. It pulled something deep inside me that I had not felt in many years.

I smiled. A thin, cobalt crook. It was all I could manage. “If Aphrodite had found that I had not stopped you from jumping…”

She nodded. Sitting up.

I pulled her into an embrace: Something I do not often do. And when she cried I was helpless. I am used to people being strong around me. It was a change for me to be around someone who was not used to suppressing her emotions.

We became friends, much to Aphrodite’s consternation. Oh, for one of her Hours’ to be around a goddess such as myself. For both of us the forbidden was that much more

appealing. We happened: Our affair lasted for twenty-three good years. Flora helped me in

raising Siaa, when I found her left on the tiny island under the weeping willow. Flora, for a short while, became part of our family.

Unfortunately for Flora, she could never be what I wanted. She tried and I tried to accept her for what she was. I realised that the only thing that we had going for us was our passion: And that never is enough to sustain anything.

I began to spend more time away from her; doing more of the things I enjoyed. I discovered that Siaa had a natural skill and a love for these things too.

Flora became jealous of Siaa. Siaa who loved weapons, hunting, sparring. All of the things that she did not. Flora, although still in my bed, had lost her place in my heart. Siaa was set there, for she had renewed my love of those things that were once my whole life.

It was time to tell Flora that we were over. That I no longer wanted to be in a relationship. That there were other things more important to me than sex. I wanted us to end. I had not expected us to end the way that we had.

Our forest ends more suddenly than I expect. Lush green trees, rich soil and sunlight give way to old trees, with dense overlapping branches. The soil is dank and muddy under my bare feet. This part of the forest smells old. The scent of decay wafts over me. Rotten leaves and rotting flesh. There is also a stink of damp emanating from everything around me. Apollo’s rays have not graced here.

This part of the forest is cold. It seems empty: Except for the trees, it does not feel alive. I can feel the ground sucking the warmth from my body and leaving behind a chilling presence. My joints ache with every movement. My knees nearly ceasing with every running step that takes me further into this dark forest and my breath threatens to freeze before I have taken it.

I am so wrapped up in myself that I do not hear the sound rushing toward me in the darkness. By the time the loud, distressed sound rings in my ears; bouncing against the hollow trees, something rakes my arm sending me flying. My chest slams in to a tree so hollow it snaps.

I see them then, as I lay winded over the broken tree. I see them in the hollow of the tree. Across the ground: Tiny white lights swarming over the whole of this dark forest. With every breath that I take I see them sucked inside of me. I feel them: Tiny cold spots on the roof of my mouth. Lining my lungs.

I push myself off the broken tree. Turning to see what hit me. Only the white lights

allow me to depict its shape: A bear. A shape of flaying paws and wide mouth. If it were not for the distressed sound coming from its mouth it would not be real.

The bear falls with a resigned whimper. Shaking the ground beneath my feet, bringing me back to myself. I see and feel the white lights all over me and realise what the bear had not. To stop means death. So I move. My body screams with the effort. It is as though the memory to run has left me.

The thought of the lights sucking my life from me: All of my thoughts and memories, only to mimic my shape. The thought of becoming a decaying husk like the bear, the trees and all of the shapes that loom in the darkness; that keeps me going.

Trees become denser and I, tired. I can feel blood dripping from my right upper arm. My legs are leaden. The coldness swarms about me, wrapping me in a numbing blanket. Outlines move next to me: Bears, deer, rabbits, wolves. But worse are the human outlines: Men, women and children dancing before me.

All of the outlines have one thing in common: Horror in their expressions. They move with dexterity, their limbs twisted in unnatural positions. Animal necks twisted, along with their joints. Human hands covering their faces, elbows bent at right angles the way they should not. They follow me: Clambering close, trying to touch me.

I did not realise that I had been crawling until I feel a weight lift from my left hand, from my elbow. I look and it is bathed in sunlight. The white lights and the cold numbing weight; dispersed. My knees scrape against cold damp soil. My chest heaving to be free. To breathe golden air.

My head breaks in to the light. My shoulders. I collapse with a sob of relief, curling my legs in to my chest: The barest of millimetres between the forest and myself. Warmth

encloses me as I cry in to the soil.

My sobs bring with them pure air, infused with Apollo’s rays. With fresh air in my

lungs comes the awareness of my surroundings: I lie on a long semi-circle of dry, ochre earth. The dark forest curves behind me. Before me: An emerald pool.

I uncurl to sit up and survey my surroundings. The pool is long, into which crashes a waterfall. Foamy white in to crystal emerald. The pool’s width; a jump to the other side.

I assess the gap. I could make it to the waiting grass. Jade grass with pink Campions dancing between the between its blades. Bold and bright yellow Narcissi stare in to the emerald pool. My elation drops when I see the other flowers.

There are five of them. Each with numerous petals. Petals the colour that bleeds in to the sky with the coming of the moon. An intriguing purple overlaid with hazy silver, which is barely there. The flowers’ fiery stamens reach out in my direction.

They are Menmosyne flowers. Flowers that rob you of your mind. Making you forget everything. I have seen their pollen collected for things that make me retch. The penalty for collecting their pollen is death, for there is no antidote should the fiery atoms be breathed in. No God can help you.

The only way for me to cross the pool and avoid the flowers is to swim to a point away from them. I begin to wonder why The Pool of the Dead received its name.

I know that I have been staring up at Aphrodite’s cold face far too long than is acceptable without giving an answer. The position that I have been placed in is too much for my mind to wrap itself around. I must think quickly.

Flora has told Aphrodite nothing thus; it becomes clear to me why I never received any grief from her over my affair with Flora. She did not know.

I take a deep breath. Not for courage. But for what I am about to do, to say. “Flora is not Immortal in my forest.”

Aphrodite’s azure eyes narrow. She grabs my chin. I let her come to her own conclusions. “Flora is not your kind.” Her grip tightens. Blood wells in my mouth. I can taste its’ copper.

“So you thrust your attentions on her, even though you knew?” Her expression is repulsed. She releases my chin. Thrusting it away from her with such a force that my neck threatens to snap.

I am faced with the gossamer ceiling. It looms above me, taunting. This whole room. Its’ encumbering some whiteness. My situation. Anger boils over, spilling in to the room.

Lifting my head. Hand on the back of my neck, rubbing. Nostrils flared. I look at Aphrodite’s cold beauty. “Yes, I thrust my attentions on Flora. After all she was receiving none from you.” My teeth clench. “You knew she wanted to slumber.”

“I am not like you.” Her voice is full of superiority. “I prefer men.”

“Everyone knows, Aphrodite. Just how much you prefer men.” I point to her. “We are not talking of that.” I laugh. “Is it any wonder Flora wanted to slumber?”

The rage in Aphrodite’s face. Her clenched fists and body statue still, tell me that I should say no more. But I still continue. “I made no secret of wanting Flora. That want came from our friendship.” My eyes bore in to hers. “A friendship that would not have happened if you had paid more attention to Flora’s…”

Aphrodite slaps me. “You know nothing of the way I treat my Hours.” Her golden hair is in disarray around her face. She swipes it away to look better at me. Azure eyes glittering. Her arms are either side of my shoulders. “You made Flora’s life a misery. I saw her after she would visit you.” She stands. “She did not know where she was with you.”

Aphrodite stalks to her throne. Every one of her movements exaggerated. Something that only comes with anger that borders on a feeling much more intense. “Did she rebuke you and you could not handle it?”

I stand swiftly. I want to shut her up. “No. It was the other way about.” My voice is so low, I am not sure she heard my words. I pray to my father that she had not.

“You are lying.” She to is now standing.

I look to the white Bio-Glass beneath my feet. The time for secrets has passed. “No, I am not lying.” I whisper.

“Why did you rebuke her? Why is she now dead?” She tries not to believe my words. I hear that in her tone and the way that she shakes her golden head.

“I shot her with one of my arrows.” I say, folding my arms across my chest. I am suddenly cold.

“Why would you do that? You know what your arrows have the power to do.”

“She was trying to kill Siaa.” My voice is weary. “The arrow I picked was the

wrong one.”

Aphrodite shifts to me and whispers in my ear. “I will put you to slumber for this.”

I slip in to the pools’ emerald waters; my only dagger in hand. I do not bother to take my sword from its sheath at my back. It will not weigh me down. I start to swim.

The water is pleasant against my skin and I feel the taint of the dark forest being washed away. The water is exhilarating. It runs in to the deep gashes on my right arm: Numbing the pain, the dead weight and the aches that are spread throughout my bruised body.

“They usually stop swimming before the point you have reached.” I turn too slowly to the sound of the entrancing, drawn out voice: There are now only ripples on the water’s emerald surface. Before I can turn again, a strong grip on my ankles starts to bring me under the water.

I try not to panic. Bringing my legs and arms down. There is no leverage and my actions only lay me further in the water. Parallel to it’s surface: Enabling whatever it is holding my ankles to pull me under.

The water wraps itself around me. Warm and comforting. As I fall deeper in to its cocoon I see another world above me. Turquoise sky spread wide, its sun high. Cotton clouds. There: A svelte figure, hovering with wings made of crimson fire. Raine.

The water ceases to feel comforting. Suffocating, as I realise I do not live in its world. Reminding me of the grip on my ankles: It tightens as I attempt to swim to the

surface. To my world. My lungs begin to burn through lack of oxygen. Even though I thrash creating havoc. Using my energy. I am still pulled further down. Raine’s wings

become a blur and the grip on my ankles becomes a grip on my thighs. Bringing me down.

It is only when the grip insinuates itself on my forearms, do I remember the dagger. But the deafening, deep pain that shoots up my right arm as that grip tightens, makes me scream.

Water pours in my mouth. Down my throat. I feel my lungs fill and gurgle with the unnatural emerald liquid. All of the air is pushed from them. My body begins to feel weightless. Peaceful.

There is no fear when two engaging emerald orbs appear before my eyes: Watching me as I die. Those eyes bleed from emptiness to knowing.

I feel the last of the air in my lungs swarmed by water.

The feelings of weightlessness and peace are snatched from me. My head and upper torso break free of the water and my back slams in to something hard. The unnatural liquid is forced from my lungs in a rush of slithering, rasping pain.

I turn my head weakly to the side and cough. Sickening gurgling coughs that empty my lungs from the last vestiges of water and fill them with air. I can breath. Feel my body, all its aches and pains. Feel something more than water against my thighs.

I look to the water: Its surface breaks, giving birth to a head. One covered in emerald cornrow hair. Large emerald eyes, with no expression in their depths stare at me. They are set in a squared jawed face with a proud nose and soft emerald lips. The hands on my thighs do not relent as their owner rises from the water. Emerald cornrow hair falls to defined shoulders. Water beads on a smooth, toned golden chest that has a shimmering emerald tint

over the skin.

“I am Maddox. Nymph of these waters. Why are you here?” His entrancing voice resonates with loneliness.

I am too stunned by passed events to be scared, that I answer with out hesitation. “I have to bring someone back from The Underworld.”

“No-one alive enters there.” I shrink back as Maddox’s emerald eyes bore in to mine.

“I have to try.” I croak.

“Know you.” He pushes his face close to mine. I smell his breath. Pure and bittersweet cold. “I know your eyes.” He looks away from me, his eyes moving erratically. They pierce my own. Unexpected.

I take in a whistling breath.

Maddox takes my face in his hands. His index fingers so close to my eyes that they start to water. “Yes I know your eyes.” He says in a low voice. “Same jade eyes.” He runs his fingers through my sodden hair and places his soft cheek on mine. “Same violet hair. Only more.”

His sanity and insanity are a fine line. I must push my agenda carefully. Placing my left hand on golden-emerald shoulder, I whisper. “I have to go to The Underworld, Maddox.” His skin is warmer than I expected.

He leans back. Sanity bleeds in to his empty eyes. “What is your name?”

“Siaa.”

“I know a way, Siaa.” He looks to my hand, which is clenched on his shoulder. I had not realised. “I found the entrance when I was swimming.” He continues to look at my hand. It now lays flat on the warm skin. “A dark light.” Maddox grabs my bad arm. Squeezing. His eyes gave me no warning. I hiss a scream through clenched teeth. My head

falls to his shoulder.

Maddox lifts my head from his shoulder. His hands in my hair. Not hurting. “I will take you Siaa.” He holds my face in his hands. Emerald eyes sad. “But, there is no

returning.”

The three sisters: Lachesis, Clotho and Atropis, brush Hade’s black horses. Three enormous breasts, far larger than any Mortal horses. Their brushing is synchronised. Brush. Move along. Brush. There is no noise in the torch lit cave except for the horses eating: Their powerful jaws grind bones from their food trough. The sisters never speak when they brush.

Lachesis stops brushing and stares toward the cave’s black entrance. Her look is intense and knowing. “Someone has entered here.” She says slow and trance like.

Atropis and Clotho look at their sister, hands poised mid brush.

“Someone who is not dead.” She adds, her voice deviating from its usual monotone.

Atropis lets her hand fall from the black horses flank. “Cerebus allows no living being to enter.”

“And no soul, to leave.” Clotho finishes.

All three sisters’ smile and return to their synchronised brushing.

Ascalaphus came unannounced to Aphrodite’s palace. Stunning both her and myself. “Your Eighth is in The Underworld.” His soft voice makes my heart sink. “Hades wishes to see you both.”

“It was her?” Aphrodite faces me. “Your human bitch?” Her voice is amethyst venom.

I nod.

“Hades will see you in Tartarus.” Ascalaphus says, stepping in to The Realm.

I step in to Tartarus’ raging heat, a breath away from Siaa. She looks pitiful. Her usual bright, violet hair hangs about a wilted face. The Phlegathon casts its’ fiery glow across her, depicting the slim scar, now so vivid on the ivory skin of her temple. She has had it since she was a babe.

There are angry scratches scattered over her body, red and raised. But worse are three long, wide gashes on her right arm from shoulder to elbow. Siaa’s short, silver skirt is ragged. Barely there. Her silver top; one strap ripped. And it is torn showing her toned stomach and higher. I am thankful that only the barest undersides of her breasts are showing. Her face. Her neck and shoulders. Her toned stomach. Her legs. They are all covered in broken lines of dirt infused sweat.

“Artemis.”

I look up in to Siaa’s half open eyes. Her saying my name is pain. I hear the rasp in her voice. She is chained a few feet from terra firma. Her wrists and ankles bound by thick, metal manacles. Her body; one straight, taut line. Her hands hold metal chain links, trying to keep herself up. Bound like this she slowly suffocates.

“I tried to get her back.” Her voice breaks with tears and pain.

“Shush.” I smooth the hair from her temple. She is hot touch, yet she shivers.

“No Mortal returns, once they enter.” Hades says behind me.

I turn to him. “She does not need to be chained here.” I point to the Phlegathon.

“You wish me to place your Mortal in my personal quarters?” He arches his dark eyebrows. “Perhaps pour her a glass of Nectar?” His charcoal eyes narrow. “Because she has tried to rectify a death?” He takes a step forward. “Or because you are my niece?”

A scream from Siaa pierces the air. I whirl round to see Aphrodite. She moves from Siaa in a graceful step and can see why she screamed. A dagger is embedded in her left thigh to the hilt. The dagger that I gave her on her eighteenth birthday.

Aphrodite looks at me with an innocent face. “I was returning her knife.” I do not miss the way that she puts her right hand, (covered in blood) behind her back. She never likes becoming dirty. She does not like to see the everyday grime of life. For her everything must be pristine. This place must be irksome to her.

Blood begins to stain the silver cloth of Siaa’s skirt. It runs down her sleek, dirt-coved thigh. The chains holding her clink as she tries to move her arm in an impossible act to remove the dagger.

“Aphrodite.” My uncle says. His tone is low. Amused.

“Brother.” They play off each other. Both sickening and twisted.

I look at Siaa’s down turned face. Her eyes are a pain filled jade gleam. I reach for the dagger.

“Leave it.” Aphrodite’s voice is shrill. She is by me. In and out of The Realm and taking my hand in a cold, biting grip.

“Kirios Hades.” Siaa’s voce is faint. She struggles to keep herself up. The muscles in her wrists and arms are corded with effort. “Lord of The Underworld.” She swallows and I hear the difficulty. “Take me instead of Flora. That is why I entered here.”

I can see how all three of us stare at her. Incredulous.

“Those stories that you hear are not true.” My uncle laughs. A deep rumble. “No Mortal leaves here once they enter.”

“Is this true, Brother?” Aphrodite drops my hand and takes a step toward Hades. “No Mortal can leave. You have kept this from us?”

My Uncle shrugs. “I have kept nothing from you. If you choose to believe Mortals…”

Ascalaphus; having appeared behind my Uncle, smiles at is words.

Aphrodite moves back to Siaa. She strokes her hair. “Do you like it here?” She asks softly.

Siaa’s eyes flit to mine.

“Do you like it here?” Aphrodite’s voice is now raised. She forces Siaa’s head up, and her eyes away from me.

“No.” Siaa’s voice is broken.

Aphrodite looks deeply at Siaa. I do not understand the emotions flitting across her face. Finally she speaks. “There is nowhere else for you.” She releases Siaa’s head. “Hades can do what ever he wishes with you.” Her voice is resigned.

I did not want to see the look that passed between my Uncle and Aphrodite. But the look in Ascalaphus’ eyes told me that there are some things that even he cannot stop.

My Uncle moves panther like toward Siaa.

As I move to intercept anything that he might do, Ascalaphus’ arms enclose round me. Crushing. “You can not over-rule Aphrodite, even though the Mortal is yours.”

My Uncle places one dark hand on Siaa’s shoulder. Again she looks at me, begging with her jade eyes as he runs his hand down her front.

“Leave her.” I say. I know my voice lacks conviction.

My Uncle’s hand stops on Siaa’s thigh. He takes hold of the dagger. His other hand he places over her mouth.

“Uncle.” My voice is neither begging nor a warning.

Siaa’s cry is inaudible against my Uncle’s dark hand. Her breaths are smothered sobs: The dagger hits the ground with an amber note that vibrates inside my head.

“That is better.” My Uncle’s voice is thick with things that I do not want to think about. Siaa is limp. Her hands no longer clenched and holding herself up. I can see the metal manacles begin to cut in to her wrists and ankles.

“Ascalaphus.” My Uncles eyes are dark voids as he looks at me. “Take her down before she suffocates.” There is no hope for me in his eyes.

“Time to go, Little One.” Aphrodite says. She takes hold of my face as I step toward Siaa and covers my lips with her own. Kissing me, releasing her passion on me. I wind my arms around her neck and fall.

“Artemis.” It is all there in Siaa’s scream: Pain, pleading. But worse is the questioning. It is clear in her voice. So I struggle in Aphrodite’s arms, even though I know the consequences but I am unable to tear my lips from her kiss or stop myself from taking her

tongue with my own.

“Artemis.” I scream her name over and over, even though I know she cannot hear me. Each scream burns from my lungs. The silver haired man; Ascalaphus. The man who knocked me unconscious by the Cocytus, walks toward me. Stepping through the fog of my useless screams. His arm curls about me.

He unlocks the chains to my wrists: I fall against him, cutting off any further screams from my burning lungs. Relief pours through my body. My lungs no longer feel crushed. Pins and needles start: Deafening, buzzing as my blood flows once more to its full capacity throughout my wrists, ankles and chest. Ascalaphus lowers me to the ground.

I can do nothing except lie on the hot stone. I have been placed in a situation that I do not know how to break free of. My only thoughts; I do not want to become a plaything of a God and the only person who can break me free has left me.

I hear Hades walk to me, and there is nothing I can do to stop my body from shaking. He kneels. I feel him bent over my body. Looking.

I refuse to open my eyes.

“How did you escape Maddox?” His voice is deep. It fills my head. Curling itself inside my mind. Dark and sinful.

“Answer him.” Ascalaphus prompts. Prodding me with his foot.

I open my eyes and stare in to charcoal orbs. “He said that he knew me.”

White flecks of light dance in Hades’ eyes. “And does he?” I find it hard to

concentrate on any words that he says. His eyes draw me in, and I see deeper inside him. His eyes are not guarded. He does not use them to lie. They speak the truth: He is not going to harm me.

I blink to collect myself. “No.” I take a longer blink. “No, he does not know me, Kirios Hades.”

Hades takes my face in his hands. I flinch. He may not hurt me but I still fear him.

He tips my head back and stares thoughtfully at me. “I wonder.” His thumb grazes the scar on my temple. If it were not for The Phlegathon casting its’ fiery glow, Hades charcoal eyes would be the only visible thing. But beyond his captivating eyes is a God with a smothering presence. He would walk in to a room and you could only stare; enraptured. His skin is like dark lacquered wood. A cultivated goatee lines his chin. Black on black. I can even see a faint scar: It runs a slim line from his right eye to the corner of his top lip. His lips are dark chocolate.

“And Cerebus?” Hades’ voice is harsh. Annoyed. “How did you escape him?” His hands leave my face and I am confused at my bereft feelings.

“Cerebus let me passed.” I try to move back; away from his smothering presence, his intense gaze. But there is nowhere to go; Ascalaphus is behind me. I know that I have given him the wrong answer.

“He just let you go.” There is awe in his voice. I pick it out from the anger. “As simple as that?”

“Yes.” My voice is hesitant.

He grabs my arm, pulling me to my feet. My left leg collapses under me and my arm

twists painfully in his grip. He drags me across the stone floor passed the banks of the

Phlegathon. My knees scrape on the fire hued stone.

Hades scoops me in to his arms. He looks at me, jaw clenched. “If Cerebus lets you

go a second time. You are free to go.”

“No.” I say this in to his dark neck as purple mist swirls around us. “I can barely move.”

“But he let you passed.” He presses his face close to mine. “As simple as that.” The purple mist disappears as soon as it arrived, so all I can see is the gleam in Hades’ charcoal eyes. “If he lets you passed this time I will take you back to Gæ a and you shall be free of me.”

The smell of Cerebus hits my nostrils once again: Stale air, rotting flesh, faeces and acid coldness. “Cerebus let me go.” I shout in an attempt to make Hades think what he is doing. “I swear it.”

His dark face is impassive as he looks at me. “Then you have nothing to fear.” He flings me from his arms.

Biting cold air flows over my face as I fly ungracefully through darkness. I feel the ground rush toward me. I hit the ground with my forearms. The momentum flings me on to my back. I land painfully on the base of my spine, my head cracks off the hard ground. I just manage to see Hades disappear in purple mist. Two yellow orbs and the gleam of canines come in to my hazy, pain filled focus.

With me tight in her arms, her lips a lustful seal around mine; Aphrodite shifts to The Realm. I break from her hold to shift. No purple mist swirls about me, Olympus and Gæa do not merge. I knew this is how I would be. Still.

I round on Aphrodite.

Before any words can spill from my mouth. “Don’t Artemis.” There is no anger in her voice. No warning. Only finality. Passed events are not to be spoken of. Siaa is alive. Do not be foolish. That are what her words mean. The Immortal way of dealing with arguments. Would that I could brush chapters of my life aside so easily.

Aphrodite’s golden hair falls still across her shoulders. Showing the finality of her shift. All of her beauty: Azure eyes. Coral lips. Elegant nose. All are set perfectly in her oval face. Her willowy body, encased in its white silk himation. All of her beauty is framed by the orange and peach stain of the coming night. Then she is falling in to those colours. Orange, peach, and purple mist. Too soon; before I have had time to think beyond her beauty.

The Poseidon Sea is spread endlessly beneath me. Pink and inky blue. High above it as I am, I hear the gentle waves. Here I am, plain for all to see. Yet no one sees me. Not the birds nor the Spirits’ that occasionally fly passed me. Not even the Immortals. And I hear them: Their murmuring and their laughter. I hear it all around me. But them, I do not see.

I can smell Olympus. It smells of the sea, the sky, the forest. And is mixed with the

heat of the sun and the gentle light of the moon. I stand in complex air. I can walk. Run, even. But I will not fall, move any lower, higher or further than the point on which I stand. This is Enclosure. A perfect prison. A paradox. My only way out is when I am able to shift.

Night has now fallen and I am hidden within its indigo. The moon has risen. Its orb is as bright and clear as Siaa’s jade eyes. The look in them as I was forced to leave her. The pain. The questioning. The despair. The wretchedness of her screams: I have failed her.

“I thought Hades would be grateful for my little present.” The Fates huddle together as Aphrodite speaks. She is unpredictable. “Why therefore does he let her go free?” Aphrodite casts her angry, azure eyes upon them.

The sister’s may not be able to see Aphrodite with clarity but they can feel her anger burning. Feel her power crawling over them like a swarm of wasps. Feel her beauty and their insignificance. They are frightened.

Lachesis speaks. “We do not know the mind of our Lord.” She is pleased at the strength of her voice. “He does what he will.”

“Did you not give him the Mortal as a gift, Goddess of Beauty?” Instinctively, Clotho hides her face behind a curtain of long grey hair at the stupidity of her words.

“Yes, I gave him the Mortal as a gift. A gift, he was to play with.” Aphrodite says angrily.

“Perhaps our Lord does not wish to play.” Lachesis says. She becomes angry. Aphrodite does not behave like the other Gods. She twists their rules and their arguments to suit herself. Lachesis does not want Hades to become a pawn in her ploy to humiliate and sadden Artemis or any other God.

Atropis does not like the way that Aphrodite smiles. Nor the quietness of her voice. “But Eris likes to play. I am sure she would love a Mortal such as Siaa.” Her smile is bright.

“She does enjoy breaking those who are strong.”

Atropis flinches when she steps closer. “I shall gift Siaa to her.”

“You can not.” Lachesis steps forward. Matching Aphrodite. Her anger makes her brave. “You gifted the Mortal to our Lord.”

“I can.” Aphrodite snaps. “And I will with your help.”

“We will not help you in your dishonesty.” Lachesis says motioning her sisters’ to turn away.

“If you do not then I will speak of your perversions.” The three sisters’ stop at Aphrodite’s words. “How do you think, ‘your Lord’ will treat you then? With kindness? With love? No. I think not, Fates. He will look at you the same as I. With disgust.” Aphrodite glared at them. “He probably does already.”

The three sister’s hang their heads at the Goddess’ harsh words. They can feel dark heat rise to their faces: Their shame.

“Look at you. I am surprised my dark brother has put up with your disgusting, decaying selves for so long. I personally would have…”

“Enough.” Lachesis says resigned. She holds tight to her sister’s hands. “No more. We will help you.” They hated being in Aphrodite’s hold. But they would do anything to keep their perversions a secret. So they listened to what the Goddess wanted them to do.

For the second time as Cerebus steps slowly toward me, I am consumed by fear. All three of his heads are centred on me. My heart beats faster, faster as he comes closer. He starts to growl: Three different, deep pitches that make the ground shake beneath my body. Again his fetid breath threatens to render me unconscious.

He stands over me, his growls rumbling through my prone body. His centre head sniffs. The other two-follow suite; his breath so powerful that my hair blows about my face. The head nearest the dagger wound on my thigh stops sniffing, its jaws hovering.

My whole body freezes: Not one muscle contracting. And I am sure, even my heart stops in that moment as I wait. For what?

Cerebus thrusts one of his heads at my leg and its tongue scrapes across my thigh. Licking the wound; almost peeling the skin away. My whole leg rises with his action. It takes a lot for me not to cry out with fear, with pain. And the pain is intense, concentrated as his saliva enters the wound.

The wound starts to burn as though fire has entered the hole where the dagger had been. Another of Cerebus’ heads licks the gashes on my right arm, and it no longer feels numb. It burns: Fire eating inside the wounds. The pain in my arm, my leg, is excruciating and I would like nothing more than to writhe on the cold stone, crying out in agony. Anything to make the burning disappear. Anything to stop the pain eating in to my flesh.

Somewhere, buried deep inside my mind. A light amongst the agony and flesh

eating fire. Somewhere, a dim part of my brain reminds me that Cerebus stands over me and that I have no desire to become his next meal or chew bone. So I manage to remain still. Unmoving. My teeth gritting in a silent hiss of agony. My body reeking of dark, coiled torture.

I believed that dog’s saliva owning healing properties toward mankind was a myth. But as I lie here, I feel the tissue in my wounded arm and leg closing. Repairing itself. Each broken fibre re-knitting. The burning that I feel is my blood rushing to the wounds. Its white cells working in unison with Cerebus’ saliva. My wounds restructure, make themselves whole. Once more I feel that my right arm belongs to me. It is no longer a limp, useless appendage. And my leg? I no longer feel cold air whistling through the wound.

It takes me a while to realise that neither Cerebus nor myself has moved. Each of us is waiting. Sizing each other up.

I decide to speak. “Cerebus.” I say his name clear, hoping that no fear sounds in my voice. His breathing stops and I imagine his ears prick. All five of his eyes focus on me.

He lowers his middle head to my midriff. Unwittingly, I feel the muscles there contract. His saliva leaks on to the exposed skin. No burning now. I lift my arm in slow increments toward his lowered head. His murky yellow eyes help me to place where his muzzle is. I touch soft fur and stroke.

From my full-palmed touch I am able to assess that Cerebus is not much bigger than a Shire horse. Continuing to stroke his muzzle in gentle smooth strokes I bring myself to a sitting position. My face inches from his. I have found my way from the bowels of The Underworld. Cerebus. I am going to ride out of this place on a God. A God, it seems, that

has been neglected.

I stroke the saliva soaked fur of Cerebus’ breast, all the while murmuring soft sounds

to him. No words, just gentle sounds filled with caring and respect. Underneath the saliva

soaked fur I find a thick chain collar. I take hold of this, never stopping my murmurings to him, and hoist myself on to his back. He does not growl.

“Take me out Cerebus.” I whisper in to his ear as I would Nyx. Beneath my thighs, his shoulders move. The muscles are corded and his movements, graceful, like a panthers. I hold tight to his chain collar as he walks me through thick darkness.

Vixen fluttered down and perched on the huge journal to tell me of events that were unfolding in The Underworld. I laid my quill in its niche to listen in concern.

“Siaa has placated Maddox, Hades and Cerebus. The beast, she has placated not once but twice.” Vixen’s tiny jade wings flutter as she speaks. Gesticulating with the tones of her voice. “She now rides the beast through Tartarus.” Her wings open to their full glory: Jade, emerald and forest greens.

It is Vixen’s voice, as with all the Spirit’s, that is deceptive to her small size. Its lilac and silver tones fill this whole room. Her voice resonates with knowledge and beauty. Sunshine and wisdom.

In our time of power, a Spirit speaking was often thought to be a God. Now they rarely speak to Mortals. Mortal’s have distaste for anything other than their own kind. So I am filled with dread at the thought of Cerebus out in the Mortal world. Occasional glimpses of our creatures have been seen by Mortals. Spirit’s are called Pixies or Fæ ries. The Sirens are often written as mermaids. The Furies still torture truly evil men and women. Coming to them in the guise of the people that they have murdered and haunting them with the despicable deeds that they have done. The Furies then crumble those Mortal’s minds. The effects of the Titan’s will forever be felt as they try to escape Gæa’s clutches: Earthquakes and Volcanoes.

Cerebus in broad daylight could never be fabricated. The Mortals would hunt him

down and attempt to kill him. A God can ever die. Cerebus would be placed in great pain. And then the Mortals would come for us, thinking that we wanted them harm. My father has to be told of Siaa’s antics.

Vixen flutters along side me as I walk down a corridor of baby blue sky and gigantic, white marble columns. “The Mortal will be killed, Urania.” Her statement a matter-of-fact. I did not like its lack of inflection. Siaa is my friend.

“It will be a pity. But better than our alternative.” I say on arrival at my father’s quarters. I look straight at Vixen. “You are absolutely sure that you are correct on what you have told me?” I cannot afford to cause a stir over nothing.

“I would place my hand in The Styx and swear it, Goddess.” Vixen has used an unbreakable oath. She tells me the truth.

“Keep watch over Siaa, Vixen. I want to know immediately of her further actions and of those involved.” Vixen bobs in answer and disappears from Olympus.

As always Hebe stands between the two, huge, ebony marble columns to my father’s quarters. No one may see him without her say-so. “I rarely see you away from our Journal, Urania.” She twists my father’s staff on a floor that I will never see. There is no noise in the action. No metal clack or satisfying grind.

“Hebe, I must speak with Zeus.” Never My father, always Zeus around other Immortals.

Hebe studies me. Thought creeps in her pink eyes. It etches its lines across her porcelain face. A frown marks her forehead. Her tongue; a pink flick marring milk white teeth. I can give nothing away.

Swathes of crimson silk twist and flow as she turns. “I will announce you.” Her voice is thrust though clenched teeth. The staff (held in a grip so tight her knuckles begin to

mottle,) impresses her footsteps, without sound.

“I was waiting four moon falls before she announced me.” Eros lands gracefully on the balls of his feet. His white wings folding behind him. “And I have been waiting six moon falls. Still, she does not let me enter. Though Zeus has given his council to me.”

Eros steps up to me: Wrapping me in his glorious wings until I can only see his perfect face and midnight blue eyes. “It has been many moon falls, Urania.” He presses close to me so our thighs touch. His hands; he places on my shoulders. “Do you never sleep? Never get time for yourself?”

“Never enough, Eros.” I say wistfully.

He gives me a half smile. “There will be more time.” His lips are light on mine. Soft and barely there. Then he is gone: Leaving me alone and frustrated. I erase those feelings from my mind. It is hard.

I move to stand between the two impressive ebony columns to my father’s quarters. It would take twenty men, linking their arms to cover the circumference of them. Their height cuts in and out of thick cloud and disappears from my view.

Some part of my brain soaks up the chatter of many women long before my eyes rest on them. A collage of skin colour; golden, chocolate, yellow-bronze, ebony, porcelain. They chat like birds at sunrise. One girl, her feet dangling in a pool of liquid air, catches my eye.

“I do not understand this.” There is a sad lilt to her voice. Her face is one of sculpted beauty. Olive skin. Defined bone structure. Pouting lips. But it is her eyes that strike me the most. and probably the reason why my father picked her. The girl’s eyes: Large, almond shaped orbs, the colour of a stormy sea, draw you to her. In their depths a sadness. The kind

that is a memory never wanting to be forgotten.

A dark skinned girl swims up to her. Blocking my view of those arresting eyes. “I

do not think any of this can be explained, Solace.” The girls name is apt. She places a hand on the Solace’s knee. “This is where we are now.” There are those unspoken words. ‘ Get used to it.’ Her hand leaves Solace’s knee to gesture around the room. Her dark skin catches the light, showing off sculpted shoulder blades.

A hush comes over the room. A wave of disappearing sound. Through the throng of women I see Hebe returning. The women stare as she weaves passed them. One reaches to touch Hebe’s silver hair as it streams over her enraptured face. Most do not move as the crimson silk of Hebe’s himation shrouds across their semi-naked bodies.

Solace, I notice is trying hard not to be captured. But as it can only be for Mortals, she too is caught in Hebe’s thrall: Eyes glazing over, entering a trance where only Hebe matters.

Hebe stands square in front of me. Impressing her height over me. A good six inches taller than my five foot, two inches. “Zeus grants you council.” Her voice is frosty. “Follow me.” Oh how dare I get to see my father!

We walk through air that is filled with women. My writings in The Journal shall never do Olympus or The Realm justice. The Mortal’s call where we reside, Olympus.’ But it is only my father’s quarters that are called this as they lie over the great mountain it’s self. The rest is called The Realm. But I, never in my six millennia of living, shall be able to explain how we Gods can live in the vast sky and not be seen by the Mortals. Or how our columns and structures stay in The Realm without falling to Gæa.

Ahead of me is a banquet table on which lie mouth-watering morsels: Figs, fresh leaven bread; its floury scent wafts through my nostrils. There are oysters. Cheeses; soft

Camembert, creamy, subtle Brie, crumbling Feta and my favourite: Gruyere. I spot its sandy colour and pock marked skin. There is lamb; thinly sliced and glistening pink. All the food reminds me that I have not eaten in over a week.

Among the aromas: Coffee, salted ham, rosemary, the grassy scent of figs, I detect another smell. Copper. My eyes are drawn to Solace, who now sits at the banquet table. She is not caught in either Hebe’s or my thrall as the other women are.

My legs walk me in slow motion to the table. I feel Hebe’s annoyance and the women that turn their heads in my direction. My eyes stay locked on Solace’s and when I finally reach her she closes her stormy sea eyes to me in relief.

I lift her hands from under the table. See blood pooling in her lap. I hold her hands up. From one hand drops a slim, silver cutting knife. From the other; wrist to elbow, leaks blood.

Solace opens her eyes to me. “I want to be with my husband. My son.” Tears slip from her eyes and heaviness a falls on my heart. “He came to me in a dream. He promised to take me to them.” She sobs. “He lied.”

“Father you promised to take her to her husband and son.” I pace the hard sky in front of my father’s throne.

He sits there in the white marble affair, a lazy expression on his weather worn face.

My father gestures carelessly with one large hand. “Urania, why do you insist on wearing these mortal clothes?” His voice is bored. He takes a sip of wine. He used to have a way of staring over the rim of his golden goblet; with that stare you would not want to feel that you had disappointed him in any way. He has that look no longer. When his dark brown eyes meet mine all that I feel is pity and anger. How can he let himself go like this?

“We are not talking about my clothes, Father.” I say, running an annoyed hand over

them. Black linen trousers and black fitted, midriff top. “We are talking of about your

promise to Solace.”

“I know what I promised her Urania. It is not your concern.” His dark brown eyes pierce my own. He slams the goblet down on the arm of his throne: Vermillion liquid is

thrown from the goblet. It stains the white marble and spatters across his white himation. The wine’s red droplets bead on his naked shoulder as though it were blood on his ochre skin.

“Father.” My voice is a hiss. “Now is not like the days of our reign. We cannot take the Mortal’s from what they know. We have no right. You have to keep your promise to Solace.” I finish my words looking down at him on his throne.

He stands, forcing me back. “Do you know who I am, Urania?” His voice booms.

I fight not to clap my hands over my ears. “You are my Father.”

“I am Zeus. King of the God’s. King over you.” His finger is cast at me. “King over Mortals.” An angry finger points to the sky beneath his feet. He reaches for me, gripping my upper arms. “They reduce me to this.”

I try not to wince as his grip tightens. It does not work. “Father you are hurting me.” My voice is high pitched, childish.

“They reduce us to this and you are telling me to keep my promises to them?”

Once his voice ceases it’s echo inside my head, I whisper, “It is as it is, Father.” I extract myself from his arms and take his large hands in both of mine. “We have to co-exist with the Mortal’s. They are naïve no longer. And no longer do we have power over them.” Our eyes war. “Let it go.”

“They destroyed my Hera.” I help my father to sit on his throne.

“I know but it is not Solace’s fault.” I take his bearded face in my hands. “Only some Mortals’ think that they are strong. Think that we are weak. Only some want the power that we truly have.” I hold my father’s face so he has no choice but to look at me. “Only some Father. Please. Please keep your promise to Solace.”

I watch all the burning anger dissolve from his dark brown eyes. Watch as the realisation that I am right enters them. Then I see shame dull their brightness. “For you, I

will send her, her husband and son to the Elysian Fields.” His large hands cover mine on his face. “But only for you, Urania. Not for the Mortal.” His hands fall from mine.

“Thank you Father.” I retrieve his goblet from the sky floor and fill it with wine that sits on a crystal table in a large urn. The urn is from the Fourth Race. It stands fifty centimetres high. There are no handles on its breast. Painted on it are my Father and Hera in gold and black. They sit in their adjoining thrones, hands linked. And in my father’s free hand is a bolt of lightening.

The urn is all that my father has left to remind him of Hera, apart from my detailed journals of her. I have found him in my library reading them. Weeping. I know he reads about her decline over and over, knowing that he should not have had so many affairs. Knowing that he sired one to many children and knowing how much it broke her heart, as she could no longer bear any. He does not know that I have seen him. Over one-thousand years of grieving.

“You wanted to speak with me, Urania?” My father says as I pass him his refilled goblet. Gone is his earlier weakness. He indicates for me to sit in Hera’s throne.

“Yes.” The throne swallows me in its white marble stature. I feel dwarfed within its square lines. Hera was tall; six foot, three inches.

My father’s eyes tell me that he wants some company next to him in Hera’s throne.

That he misses his queen. Then he smiles at me, kindness in his deep brown eyes. They sparkle once more and I have not seen that in them for so long. Not just for me.

I rarely have time with my Father on my own. It makes me feel bereft. I make my face blank. Empty. I am the solitary pillar. But pillars do not stay up without support. I hope that my Father will have answers: Tell me how to deal with Siaa.

The news of the goings on in The Underworld did not affect my Father as I expected.

He did not loose his temper when I told him that Siaa had killed Flora. Or that she had placated Maddox. In fact his eyes began to burnish. A thrilled light in their brown depths. And when I told him that Siaa now rides to freedom on Cerebus, he smiled.

“What will we do, Father?”

His white teeth glare at me, enhanced by the now, dusk sky. “We will do nothing Urania.”

“But…”

He holds up a large hand to silence me. “Your time will come again. Your time will come when Mortal’s think they are wise.” He looks at me expectantly. I frown and it causes him to curl his fists. He bangs them on the arms of his throne. Both thrones tremble with the force. “Your time will come again. Your time will come when Mortal’s think they are wise.” His voice picks up in tempo, going down in pitch. “When Mortal’s rule over land, sea and sky. Your time will come when one Mortal rises from the bowels of Gæa.” His voice has become so loud that I have to cover my ears. He takes my hands away. “Do you not remember Urania?”

I do remember. I also recall there being a second verse to the Sphinx’s prophecy.

The Fates watch Siaa ride passed them. They notice that the beast walks much slower now. The heat of Tartarus. The temptation around him and the girl. The beast should have fallen long ago. The sisters’ know what keeps him going. What stops him from devouring the girl? Respect; something that he has never had.

Lachesis takes in the girl’s aura. Watching her atop the beast. Any other Mortal would have frozen at the sight of him. Not once did she climb from him in the Asphodel Fields. And that was where lost Mortal’s fell first. The grey trees. The icicle mist roads. The millions of souls and their one phrase repeated over and over. “Let us be free.”

The very few Mortal’s who had found themselves lost in The Underworld had ever made it through the Asphodel Fields. The souls with a child like expression in their colourless eyes. The cold. It would drive them insane slowly, until they themselves became one of the millions of souls questioning to be free.

“The girl is strong.” Lachesis says.

“Indeed.” Clotho scratches the rock face they hide behind with her long nails. Her other two sister’s do not wince at the grating sound, merely smile as they see fire appear in the four lines left behind.

Atropis takes a handful of the fresh fire. Moulding and shaping it between her wrinkled palms. The fire curls about her hands as if it were a snake. She sets it on the

molten stone beneath her bare feet. All three sisters’ watch as the fire undulates toward

Tartarus’ newest edition. A child. A girl of six: Long blonde hair, icy blue eyes and golden skin.

The girl sees the fire scorching its way toward her and starts to back away, throwing down the piece of Bio-Glass that had her so enrapt. The fire anticipates her every move. Cornering her, licking its way closer to her cowering form.

The sisters’ do no wince at the girls screams. They look down at her as she begs them to take the burning away.

“Little girls should never become evil.” Atropis says.

Lachesis raises her eyebrows at the child’s pleas. “Those who kill with fire…”

“…Shall burn eternally.” Clotho finishes.

Lachesis turns away from the girl. She was only a short distraction. They must not forget why they where in Tartarus. “We must call Tisiphone.” The sisters’ raise their hands to their mouths’ and call. The sound produced is low and sombre.

Not long after their call comes a powerful beating of wings. Lachesis, Atropis and Clotho step from behind their rock face. Undisturbed at having to step over the girl who writhed within the fires embrace. They stand in the short burst of wind made by leathered wings.

The sisters’ hair is blown away from their faces, revealing them to the winged creature as it settled before them. “You called, Sister’s?” Tisiphone looked at each of her callers and bowed her head in respect.

“Yes.” Lachesis says, stepping forward. “We need you, Megæ ra and Alecto to look after Siaa for The Goddess of Beauty.”

Tisiphone’s ruby lips curve in to a thoughtful smile. “I saw this Siaa riding Cerebus

no less.”

“The Goddess of Beauty said that if you do your job well, she has something special

for you.”

Tisiphone holds up a large black wing, halting any further talk. “My sister’s and I need no payment from the Goddess of Beauty.” She folds her wings behind her. “We have felt this Mortal. Her presence. She is strong. We shall enjoy breaking her.” She bowed her head to the sisters. “It shall be payment enough.” Her wings fan and start to work, lifting her in a slow heave from the ground. She was eager to capture the girl with the violet hair.

Tisiphone was a Fury. One of three. Sisters’ and whores of The Underworld. Herders’ of evil souls. Heartless beasts with the faces of beautiful women and the torsos of lizards. They had the blackened wings of bats and the power to creep inside the mind to break it in to thousands of fragments.

Eris: The Goddess of Spite was their mistress and they enjoyed watching her at work. Most of which was given to her by The Goddess of Beauty, to show other Gods’ the weakness of Mortal’s. Yes, Tisiphone and her sister’s were going to enjoy their mistress at play with this exceptional Mortal.

It is five long days before I fall from my prison. Dropping so suddenly in to a clear blue sky that I am smothered by fright.

Aqua waves come rushing to meet me. Before they slam and close around me, I remember to shift. I land; a sprawling of limbs in my forest. Stow-away sea spray patters over me like rain and my heart beats in time to its drops.

Maia is the first by my side, arranging me in to a sitting position. There is no greeting. “Siaa is in Eris’ Palace.”

My reaction to her words are fear. I cannot disguise that it reeks through me. Maia holds me and I am glad for the contact. It is not Eris that makes my blood freeze. We have no quarrel. It is the Furies, Eris’ minions. They make my blood freeze and my heart panic. They never forget a quarrel no matter how many millennia have passed.

I try to keep my grip on Cerebus’ collar. My sweat-slicked hands are too tired and too cramped to make their final bid for the metal chain. I fall.

I do not hit the ground but am caught, expertly in mid-air by a creature that I have no wish to see. I have seen enough in this God’s forsaken place to give me a lifetime of nightmares.

“Have you no screams? No struggles?” Pin pricks of red bore in to my eyes. Searching and bringing to the surface, every memory that I have ever had. All the snatches of joy and pain that I have ever experienced.

Black lips smile at me upside down. “You will scream. Beg, if my mistress wishes it. I am sure that I can see the voice that slides from those black lips. It wraps it’s self around my body, insinuating it’s self inside my mind. And I have neither the will nor the power to stop it.

“What prophecy have you to tell us Sphinx?” The King of the God’s voice carries across the endless desert, which basks in the honest orb of the moon.

The Sphinx’s wings open, unfolding from around her body and casting iridescent lights over us. The lights play over the King of the God’s face and I imagine, my own, before flickering at the blue hued sand beneath our bare feet.

The Sphinx’s vast wings close together at her back, revealing the downcast, marble face of a woman with ageless beauty. Her hair the colour of amber, bright against the full moon. Her breasts are as white as any marble, unbidden by cloth or adorned in gold.

A slight wind blows, shifting grains of sand caught between the glowing, golden hair of the Sphinx’s legs. Those of a lioness. The prophecy floats in a lilting hiss from her cerulean lips. “They who are forgotten, Will cause the divide and only the Great are to blame.”

The iridescent lights implode, without sound up to the Sphinx’s great wings as they close around her body: She is a statue once more.

I close the slim journal. The one especially for prophecies.

“It is related to Artemis’ mortal? How can you be sure?” My Father asks. He stands. vivid amongst the thousands of black spined journals. They vary in size.

“I am not sure Father, but it was the second verse to the prophecy that you spoke of

in your quarters.” I hold the journal up. “Siaa is one of my friends, father. I have no wish to sentence her to anything or cause Artemis pain. There is no surety but she is the one who now comes from the bowels of Gæa.” I place the journal on the vast oak table, my hand covering it. “This prophecy tells us of our reign and our divide. We must decide on a course of action to stop this…”

“I believe that what you are trying to say is that this Siaa, must be eliminated.” He draws out the last word deliberately. He knows that I wanted him to say it so I would be blameless. His dark brown eyes harden. “Send Artemis to me.” He turns. “I wish you to be in Hera’s throne, at my side. Bring the journal.”

The creature drops me before it lands - almost over me. I land in a practiced fall so I receive no injury. I know what the creature is now. Urania has told me of them. Furies; wherever there is one, her two sister’s cannot be far behind. I feel them in the shadows, creeping toward me.

“Is this the Mortal, Tisiphone?” Like her sisters voice, her words linger in the air. As cold as ice.

I can only see Tisiphone, my captor. The eldest, Urania says. “This is she, Megæ ra.” Her black, leathery wings arch over me. The scales of her reptilian lower body brush my cheek; surprisingly smooth. But her feet; the talons are lethal. I hope not to be grazed by them. Tisiphone bends low over me, her fiery curls; a suffocating curtain. She gazes hard at me and I find it hard not to back away.

“Her strength wanes.” This can only be Alecto. She is the only Fury that I have not heard. Her voice is like the heat of Tartarus: Smothering, tempting and uncomfortable.

“Do not crowd the Mortal.”

Tisiphone lifts her wings, showing me the owner of the young girl’s voice: An olive skinned china doll with blade straight shoulder length hair that shimmers many colours of red: Crimson, vermilion, deep sunset, ruby and garnet. Her eyes are the colour of slate and as flat: In their depths lie no emotion.

“You may stand, Siaa.” Her lip colour is as arresting as her hair, and her voice is

full of all the emotion that her eyes lack. She motions with a delicate hand.

Tisiphone moves further away from me, her sharp talon’s scrape without marking the black Bio-Glass floor beneath them.

Standing, “Eris?” I tower over her.

She makes a theatrical display with her hands. “I am she.” Her voice is full of all the images that Urania described of the goddess: Heavy with power. Full of twisted mischief and laced with dark beauty. I would not have expected her to have the looks of a child. A Lolita.

“You feel no fear.” She has the power to read the mind, Urania says. “In fact, you are angry.” A slight smile forms on her lips. “With me.” She could be a Mortal, until she speaks. She even wears our clothes: Black, hipster jeans. A midriff top of icy white, which shows of a navel piercing. Completing her ensemble are boots of sleek leather, laced to her calves with thick red Bio-Glass soles. The latest kind.

“I believe I do not have to explain myself.” I say. “You know my thoughts.”

“Not yet, Siaa.” She steps toward me, having to tilt her head back to meet my eyes. “You have not been well informed.” Her hand’s snake toward my wrists.

I anticipate her move and encircle her own wrists with my hands. I could snap her bones out of incense.

“I only have to touch you to know your every thought, feeling, pain.” She stresses the last word. “Or…” She splays her hands to me. “…Visa versa.”

I snap the bones in her wrists by lifting her up, and fling her from me, bending her hands at her wrists. The bones snap to her girlish laughter.

“Alecto.” Eris’ voice echoes, bouncing off the black Bio-Glass. “You are the closest.”

I feel a scratch at my back. My body tightens in helpless rage. I rush at Eris, who

sits cross-legged, her hands repairing themselves. She stares at me nonchalantly.

In the short time that I sprint, the black Bio-Glass floor changes colour and the room, its’ shape. The Bio-Glass changes from black to jade. The deep, rectangular room to that of a dome. My eyes leave Eris’ form for a split second: Confusion.

“Siaa.” A male voice. I know it.

In front of me stands Kouros.

I crash in to him and his arm’s wrap around me as we fall onto the jade Bio-Glass floor of my dome.

We roll together on the protective Bio-Glass floor. All the while Kouros’ arms stay locked around me. The floor gives to our weight, absorbing the shock of our fall. And when we are still, I stay in his arms, very aware that we lie thigh to thigh and that my hands are spread across the muscled expanse of his bronzed chest. His nipples harden under my unwitting touch. Our faces so close that I feel his breath on my face: Hot.

I push myself away from him. Tripping over backward in my haste to be free of the contact. I land on my rear. “This is not real.” I whisper to myself as I kneel, staring at the jade floor.

“What is not real?” Kouros’ voice is a deep, mocking drawl.

I refuse to answer to what I know is not him. I continue to stare at the floor. The jade Bio-Glass feels so real under my palms. It gives as I press, in the only way that protective Bio-Glass should. I lift one hand. Its imprint disappears slowly. Like a footprint in wet sand.

I look around me slowly. There is nothing in this room, save for the semi-circular table on which lie my hydrating pills and my weapons. It is as it should be.

The semi-circular table is near the entrance. I walk there, waving my hand in front

of the jade, transparent archway. The door disappears and I am greeted with the bustle of young students. My own. They are all changed from their taboks.

One of the students looks at me as he walks passed. “I will practice the kihon hard, Sensei.” He smiles, raking a hand through his brown tousled curls. “You will see. I will become as great as you.”

My smile is forced. “I know you will, Devil.”

He bows to me. Palm over fist. “Bye Sensei.”

I bow, watching him go. His classmates pat him on the back. Then I see him no more. The jade door appears, like flowing water.

“They have gone.” Kouros says behind me. “We are alone.”

“Be quiet.” I hiss. I do not turn to him. I move instead to the jade table. “You are not real.” I gesture with my hands and arms. “This is not real.” I stare at the table. The hydrating pills. The swords. “It can not be.” I mutter, picking up a sword. My favourite. A gift.

It is a Ninja sword. Its scabbard, smooth and black with silver engravings of the nine Muses. The delicate silver chain to link the sword around my waist is closed. Its buckle lays flat across the back of my hand: A woman’s eye, no detail spared. I run my finger over the eye; it splits exactly in half. The silver chain opens, falling like a thread of silk against the scabbard.

I take hold of the sword’s matt black handle. It moulds to my grip as through it were part of me. I slide the sword from the scabbard and look in to a sliver of sunset: Burnt orange and dusky pink. The sunset bleeds in to a night sky: Stars wink at me. The Pegasus constellation.

It is my sword. There can be no other to feel as light, look as beautiful or have a sliver of changing sky for a blade.

“Siaa.” Kouros’ voice is a maroon whisper.

I suck in a breath; his hands gently grip my shoulders. He turns me to face him and my eyes meet his: Pools of storm grey. His irises flash silver.

“Would it be so bad, Siaa?” His hand’s slide to my wrists. He holds them at my sides, trapping me between him and the table.

“What?” I croak.

He lifts up my left hand, squeezing the wrist as he does.

I hiss my pain through clenched teeth. The sword clatters to the floor.

“A courtship?”

I try to counteract his grip. “I cannot.” My movement brings me closer to him and my legs either side of his deep blue, leather clad ones.

He forces both my hands behind my back. “Because you are a servant of Artemis?”

I nod. Unable to speak.

“And what does that mean Siaa?” His voice is harsh.

I open my mouth. He does not let me talk. Stops me; his hands a painful vice around my wrists.

“It means you remain celibate. Unless you want to be with her.”

I shake my head. My violet hair becomes disarray across my face. “Stop.”

“Do you want her?” His voice is hoarse with anger. “Her to hold your hand?” He presses my hands on the table. A shuriken digs in to my palm. “Do you want her hand’s running through your hair? Running over your body?” His long raven coloured hair intertwines with mine and is like silk on my face. Its scent of sandalwood: Warm and calling.

He presses against me making the silver scrap of material that was a skirt, ride up my thighs so that I feel his leather clad ones even more. Through the soft leather I can feel

how strong they are.

“Do you want her this close to you?” His voice is like gravel under foot. “Do you want her attentions?”

“No.” I shout in his arrestingly handsome face. “But I do not want to die because of that.”

“You mean: You do not want to die. Because you want my attentions.” He whispers, letting go of my wrists. He does not move anything but his hands from mine.

“I… Will… Not… Break.” I say. I have to slide my hands up Kouros’ defined, bronzed chest to reach his shoulders. To push him away.

But I do not push. My hands remain on his hard shoulders: Satin and steel under my palms. They grip tight as I bring him toward me. My eyes widen at my actions. Too Late.

Kouros’ lips. His sensual lip’s are on mine.

As our lips are pressed together my mind wars with my body. But when Kouros runs his tongue across my lower lip I give in: Opening my mouth to him.

I shift from the Fates’ dismal living quarters, angry. They are my elders and I have to respect them, no matter what. They eventually told me that Siaa was with Eris in Tartarus. But I had to suffer their hands roaming over my cuirass.

Eris’ palace was etched in to a sheer cliff face. The Phlegathon’s fire-fall cascades over it. And only the Palace’s shocking pink Bio-Glass stops it from being destroyed. Before Bio-Glass, Eris’ palace used to be on top of the cliff. I can still make out its grey stone pillars. The roof crumbled long ago.

I stealth walk across black Bio-Glass squares, avoiding the red ones. The squares are almost too hot for bare feet to withstand. The room that I walk across is the Games Room. Eris enjoys her games.

The squares that I walk across form a large board. The game seems simple; reach the other side of the board. It is not simple. If the red squares are stepped upon; fire from the Phlegathon rains down. No God has ever reached the other side. Though we cannot die, we do feel pain. The highest amount of red squares ever stepped on? Two.

Eris’ chambers are across the board. I walk through a clear Bio-Glass tunnel. The Phlegathon rages all around me: Disconcerting. Finally I reach her chambers and look in to each room as I pass: Siaa is not held in the torture chamber. Relief floods over me in white waves, for Eris loves to ‘operate’ on mortals’ that end up in her realm. Finding out what makes them scream.

Neither is Siaa in Eris’ own room: Shocking pink Bio-Glass. Primary coloured velvet cushions for her bed and clothes scattered everywhere; short skirts, tight trousers, vest tops, himation’s, belts, cuffs and shoes.

There is only one more room. That of the Furies. I walk reluctantly to its entrance and hide behind a red Bio-Glass pillar. I peer inside. Siaa is there with Eris and the Furies.

Eris flies through the air, landing in a heap on black Bio-Glass. Her wrists are parallel to her arms, fingers able to touch them. My stomach clenches. Eris merely laughs and Siaa’s eyes blaze jade fire.

Eris holds her broken wrists up. “Alecto. You are the closest.”

Alecto’s claw flashes across Siaa’s back. I hope that she can fight what is about to happen to her: Her mind is no longer her own.

I pray to my father that she will be able to tell the difference between what is real and what is not. There is no cure for a Fury’s scratch. They will be able to torment Siaa as and when they wish.

Siaa runs toward Eris. The room around her begins to change: To green Bio-Glass. It changes to her Dojo on the outskirts of Rhea. Her eyes leave Eris and her gaze sweeps past me; puzzlement in their jade depths.

Eris takes her opportunity; she morphs. Her tiny frame grows. Her red hair becomes black and falls over wide male shoulders. Her small nose becomes a proud Roman one. Her flat black eyes become darker and full of expression. Eris has turned in to Kouros.

“Siaa.” Even Eris’ voice has changed. I see the falter in Siaa, in her running but she is unable to stop herself. They crash to the floor and I do not like the look in her eyes as she lies atop Kouros. Desire before confusion and shock.

She pushes herself of Kouros, tripping over as she does. “This is not real.” She

looks to the jade floor. She is fighting the poison from Alecto’s scratch. She stands, running her hand along the floor as she does. Deciphering: Trying to fathom if what she sees is real.

In front of me children appear. Some wear their taboks, others normal clothes. They mill around me and the pillar. The closest walk through me. Siaa watches them her eyes never seeing me.

I stiffen in fright as one of the children talks. Siaa listens and even responds. I am pleased to see that her eyes are full of doubt.

Behind her Kouros waves his hand.

Siaa steps to her left and I can see her no longer. I see Kouros though. He takes gradual steps, I presume in her direction.

I gage the distance to the red pillar opposite: From there I will be able to see. How engrossed are the Furies in the mind games before them? It takes a few minutes for me to work up the courage to shift to the pillar opposite. I just hope that the Furies do not see my shift mist.

“…attentions?” Kouros has Siaa wedged between him and a green Bio-Glass table. Her hands he has trapped behind her back. There is not an iota of space between them.

“No.” Siaa shouts. There is anger and resentment in her eyes, but not for Kouros. “No I do not want any of Artemis’s attentions.”

I turn away.

“You are going to miss the best part, Little Artemis.” Aphrodite swirls me around. One arm across my body and the other pressed against my forehead so I have only one direction to look in.

Siaa draws Kouros to her. Their lips stay touching, not moving. They stare into each other’s eyes. Then Siaa closes hers and deepens the kiss; her arms winding round his shoulders. Her fingers thrust into his hair; she brings him closer still.

“They are all the same, Mortals.” Aphrodite strokes my hair. “They have no respect, no love for us.” Her arms drop away from me.

I still stand there, watching as Kouros morphs into Eris. She stands looking up at Siaa. She could make innocent if her eyes were not so two-dimensional. “I think someone desires Kouros.” She sing songs.

Siaa grabs her by the throat.

I shift.

Siaa’s eyes flit in my direction: Shock then sorrow in their jade depths.

Kouros’ lips feel so good on my own: Moulding, strong. So right, regardless. He pulls away from the kiss so violently that his silky soft hair catches between my fingers biting into the skin between. My arms fall to my sides, lonely for his hot, velvet smooth skin.

I open my eyes expecting to see smugness in his. Only my gaze does not meet his black one.

Eris bites her bottom lip in feigned innocence. “Someone desires Kouros.” She sings up at me.

I grab her by the throat, fingers biting in to her larynx; squeezing. Her pulse throbs wildly beneath my fingertips. Still she smiles.

From the corner of my eye I see movement. The Furies; I had forgotten about them. It is not them but Artemis. And when our eyes meet I know that she has witnessed everything.

She shifts leaving me with the sombre note of her purple shift mist and Aphrodite’s azure gaze.

“It seems that you are all alone.” Aphrodite walks through the remnants of Artemis’ shift mist. Her bright white himation and golden hair swirling around her. “I do not think Artemis will come for you. ”

“I think she’d like to.” Eris says. Her voice vibrates through my fingertips in a husky

struggle.

Aphrodite’s eyes narrow at the innuendo. “Let Eris go.” Her voice is soft and warning. She walks closer like a snake mesmerising its prey. “There is no way for you to kill her.” She stops an arms length away from me.

I feel the Furies watching behind me, ready to strike.

Eris is still in my grasp. I loosen my fingers from her throat. If I cannot kill her, I have nothing to barter with. “All this because I slew Flora?”

“No.” Aphrodite circles me. “All this because you are what you are.” I can feel her look of disgust.

“A Mortal.” Eris says, rubbing her throat. There are four bruises; three one side of her larynx and one the other. They disappear in a rapid process: Purple-blue to yellow-green. Finally her olive skin shows through.

It occurs to me, too late about the sword. For as I turn to the green table it disappears; becoming an empty space. Black Bio-Glass washes the green pretence away. I turn.

Eris raises her eyebrows at me. She knows what I was looking for.

“You had to hurt Artemis?” I look at Aphrodite.

“It was you who hurt her.” Her jaw clenches. “I pity her. To think a Mortal can love her.”

“And an Immortal could love her so much better? You…” I stop myself from saying any more, realising what I was about to say.

“Do continue.” Aphrodite smiles. No humour, just coldness.

My eyes leave Aphrodite and my gaze sweeps across all of them in this black light. The Furies are stood side by side, merging in to shadows that should be. Their red, pinprick eyes resting on Eris. Waiting for her to speak the command to break me.

Eris looks up at me. She shrugs her shoulders. “I only did as I was asked.”

Aphrodite moves to Eris and takes her in her pale arms, as though a mother would a child. “Do not pretend you did not enjoy it.” She chides.

Eris cuddles in to her. “Oh I did.” She gazes up at her. “For all the time it were.”

Aphrodite smiles and there is almost love in her azure eyes. She looks at me. “Do you think I should allow Eris more time with you?” She extracts Eris from her arms and has my head in her hand’s before I think to move. She stares so deeply in to my eyes. “I would dearly love to know your exact thoughts on us.”

“I know them.” This from Tisiphone. Her voice snakes about the room, searching me out. Behind Aphrodite, on the black Bio-Glass, images appear. My thoughts. The whole surface of the rectangular room becomes them. My inner monologue is no longer secret. My fear; a humiliation for them all to see.

“Let her be, Aphrodite.” Hades says. His deep voice vibrates through the room, expunging the images on the Bio-Glass. Never have I been so glad to see another God.

Aphrodite’s fingers dig in to my head. “You have seen her thoughts. Her hand’s clench in my hair. “Why should I let her be?” Tears form in her eyes. Rage and frustration.

I smile at her weakness. Knowing that there is nothing she can do and knowing that she knows it to.

“Because I promised her that if she got passed Cerebus a second time,” I believe Hades shifts. Too smooth a movement to walk and align his body against mine in one movement. “I would let her go.” He takes my wrists, pressing his thumbs in to their soft undersides.

I let go of Aphrodite’s wrists unaware that I had hold of them.

Hades presses his face into my hair. He inhales. “I said this before you made any plans for her with Eris.”

Aphrodite’s eyes glitter. I am glad that she is feeling what I have been since my dagger slew Flora: Powerless. Her body shakes with it as my thoughts of this wash across the Bio-Glass. She releases me and as she does the images disappear. The room pulsates blackness once more.

“You should be afraid of Hades more than Eris or I.” She says.

Hades’ arms close around me. Again images flare across the Bio-Glass, lighting the blackness. Images of Hades and myself. It is my turn to shake but not through rage or frustration.

“Yes.” Aphrodite says. “There would be no Nectar coating to it.” She bares her teeth in a triumphant smile. “It would be rape. Pure and simple.”

I cannot stop the tears that flow from my eyes. I sit, knees hugged to my body. A fist in my mouth stopping any sound. I rock back and forth within the confines of my weeping willows dreadlock leaves.

The moon shines over my lake trying to reach me. It’s hushed blue rays call to me, trying to comfort. Tonight they do not. I find no comfort in their diaphanous glow. The soft leaves of the willow hide me from the Pleiades’ inquisitive eyes as I cry silently.

“Artemis?” The voice whispers through the feathery leaves to my crestfallen self.

“Leave me Urania.” I do not bother to hide the tears from my voice. She knows about them all ready. “I can not.” The leaves flow over her. Her pale face, bare midriff and arms are all that I see. The moon shines on her black hair.

“Please go.” I say, swiping tears from my cheeks.

“I am sorry.” Her voice is gentle and sad.

I stand. “No you are not.” I point to her. “None of you condone my behaviour. And this,” I slam my fist against my breast. “Is just another piece of me for you all to laugh at in The Journal”

“That is not so.” Her voice is motherly.

“Is it not?” I stalk over to her, taking her arms in a biting grip. I turn with her, pressing her hard against the trunk of the willow. “Her love for Siaa is pitiful.” I shout in her face. “A God should never show their emotions.” I push her away. “Especially to a

Mortal.”

“It is right for the others.” I run to Urania, to hurt her as I hurt. She shifts and I only catch her mist. “Just not right for me.” I scream my rage at nothing, so I turn to the willow and hit it with my bare fists, my throat making wordless sounds of unspent anger.

I am grabbed about the waist. The grip effectively capturing my arms. “You will hurt yourself.” Urania says. Her hold is like a chain of Hephæ stus’: Unrelenting.

“What made you the Seer? Who are you to judge?” I twist and turn like wild fire in her grasp, my legs kicking out.

“It is what I do.” She squeezes. “I do not care what your preference is. I only want you to be happy.” She holds me close. “I do not think that Siaa can be the one to do this, Artemis.”

My body goes limp. Again the tears flow. Urania turns me in her arm and sinks to the grass with me. I cry in to her lap and she holds me; rocking me as I cry out three millenia of tears.

Eventually my tears stop.

Urania lifts my face and wipes the tears from my cheeks with her soft thumb pads. “Better?”

I nod, feeling pathetic.

“What has made you so upset?” She whispers the last word and I hear the regret in its soliloquy.

I cock my head. “You do not know?”

She freezes and guilt flashes across her face. It lays bare in her black eyes and is gone. “I know all about Siaa.”

And I know she lies.

“Zeus requests counsel with you.” She can not hide the tremble in her voice, or the

rush of her words. She is usually more controlled.

I lean back in the circle of her arms. “Urania?” Anger returns.

She lets me go. “Right away, Artemis.”

It is always me that goes to see my Father, never the other way. He rarely requests counsel with me. the times that he has? To tell me off. The last time that he requested my counsel was at the beginning of the Trojan war: I ordered the death of Iphigenia. A Priestess and King Agamemnon’s first born. For he had slain my sacred wolves. Only in return for Iphigenia’s death, (which he had to perform) could the Trojan war begin.

I take hold of Urania’s wrist before she can stand. My grip is not gentle. “Should I find that you have a hand in anything to do with Siaa…” I let her go, leaving the threat to worm its way in to her brain.

Obtuse, I am obtuse. How could I let slip that I am not a Seer? That I am not The Journal’s keeper to its full meaning. Not even my father knows. No, he thinks (they all think,) I see all that they do.

In the beginning, when the race of man was new borne and the Gods’ were few, I could keep track of all that surpassed me. My father was proud of me. But I was vain and wanted more of my father’s respect. In gaining this; so the other God’s respected and feared me, for I knew all that they did. Or so they thought.

It was not until the Forth age of man, the age of hero’s: Hercules, Achilles, Odysseus…did my job become too much. I could not keep up with all that the hero’s did and record Immortal events: So I ensued the help of the Spirits’ It came at a price. A price that I shall forever be paying. My pleasure.

I am one of nine sisters. Daughter of Zeus and Menmosyne. My sister’s and I are Muses. We touch the lives of Immortal’s and Mortal’s with our thoughts. We help their ideas blossom; but we never let this be known. It was our unanimous decision: For an idea is not special unless you believe it is your own. And at the same time an idea does

nothing unless you do. Our silent roles are to give God’s and Mortal’s the insight that they need to bring out their ideas.

I was but four thousand years of age, a young goddess. My silent role was in helping the Mortal’s to find the stars and for the God’s to name their constellations. But I wanted more than being Muse of Astronomy, so I asked my Father for something more. He was more than happy since he thought my life was all about play. He made me The Journal Keeper.

I took my role seriously. There could be no err on my part. My kin needed their lives recorded in precise detail, with no fabrication. It is the Mortal’s that fabricate our deeds, not us.

To start with, I only knew of the births of my kin and their deeds to do with Mortal’s. Once I ensued the help of the Spirit’s did I learn more. Their affairs came to my attention, their wrong doings, their secrets. Nothing slipped passed me, for nowhere is without Spirit’s.

At first I enjoyed this kind of power and the pleasure that the Spirit’s Took. But then came my kin’s ostracizing of me. I grew to loathe that kind of power but I could not stop for my kin expected me to know all that was going on: A paradox of my creation.

In the end the pleasure that the Spirit’s Took could not take away the taint of loneliness. I resented it: But to re-engage in my pact with them… I would loose too much.

I shift from Artemis’ forest straight to my Father’s quarters.

“Is my Artemis coming?” He says as I kneel before him.

“She is.”

There is a dull thud and the leather bound journal lands near my bended knee. “Rise and take Hera’s throne.”

My mind is in turmoil: To find out Siaa’s thoughts on me. I, that has looked after her since she was a new borne. I, that took her in and taught her all that she knows. I, who let her become a part of all that is dear to me. Never have I let anyone so close.

She does not want me looking at her, touching her. She would rather Kouros’ attentions? Still, I cannot bring myself to say that she is welcome to him. I love her. Perhaps what pains me more is that Aphrodite knows this. Eris now knows. Therefore, all my kin will know.

I know why my Father wishes to see me; he knows about Siaa. He never approved of my decision to become what I am. He will not look at both sides of the coin. He will see that Siaa has killed one of us. He will not see Aphrodite’s waning attention of Flora as part of the equation, or that Flora attempted to kill Siaa. He will not care that I caused Flora her Immortality, or that I had a secret affair with her. He will not see the most important fact of all: That Flora wanted to die. He will be blind to all of these things because he hates Mortal’s; except when he lays with them.

Urania: I do not know what role she has to play but she is hiding something from me. My friend and confidant cannot be truthful with me. She that knows all that has gone on in my Immortal life.

Yes, she knew about my affair with Flora. Warned me to be careful, as she saw the broken side of Flora was irreparable.

She knows all about me, as she does with all of my kin. But there are some things that she has sworn, by the waters of The Styx, which will never be seen or heard by anyone other than herself. Has she spoken of them now? For her sake. I hope not.

I stand in front of Hebe. “My Father wishes to see me.”

She stands tall, my Father’s sceptre square in front of her. “Zeus has told me of this.” She looks down at me.

I move to step around her.

She intercepts, the sceptre making the marble ripple underneath my bare feet. My Father’s power. “You may not pass without my permission.”

My sword is out and the tip against her pale, vulnerable throat before any thought entered my mind. “He has asked for me Hebe.”

Her pink eyes narrow. She pushes a curtain of silver hair from her face. “Do not touch any of his girls.” Her words are laced with saccharine sweetness. My sword’s tip trembles with her words. It scratches her pale throat and when she swallows, its tip penetrates with painless ease.

I refuse to take the bate and remove the tip of my sword from her throat, sheathing it. “You are too kind Sister.” I walk passed her and into the throng of women. They scatter like a flock of disturbed birds: My aura of rage scaring them.

“Artemis.” Oh how have missed my Father’s strong voice.

I enter his throne room. “Father.” I go to hug him, stopping when I see Urania sat next to him in Hera’s throne.

“Do you not kneel before your King?” He asks.

What is this? I have never knelt before him. My eyes stray to Urania, I note that she cannot meet my gaze and I am sure that my mouth is open in an O’ of surprise. Not even I

have sat in Hera’s throne.

I look back to my Father, unsure. He sits in his white marble throne: Formidable. It is something he has never been with me. There has always been gentleness in his deep brown eyes. Not today. Today his eyes are hard.

So I kneel before him,