The Time of Zeus Book 5: the Coup
Copyright© 2025 by Carlos Santiago
Epilogue: Unknowing the Future
“You cannot leave everything to fate, boy. She’s got a lot to do. Sometimes you must give her a hand.”
— Leonardo da Vinci (as portrayed by Patrick Godfrey), Ever After: A Cinderella Story, directed by Andy Tennant, screenplay by Susannah Grant, Andy Tennant, and Rick Parks, inspired by the fairy tale “Cinderella” by Charles Perrault (1697) and the tale of Rhodopis as recounted by Strabo (circa 7 BCE–23 CE), 20th Century Fox, 1998. © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.
There were no paths in the Realm of Chaos. One either floated in the infinite or they found themselves on one of the platforms created by the Great Progenitor.
The air did not breathe; the ground did not hold. This entire plane of existence was older than the gods and more ancient than living memory.
In the heart of this stillness stood the Great Progenitor.
Chaos enjoyed their Realm because in this place, they simply existed. Their voice did not need to echo. They could enjoy silence or an operatic of noises between the syllables of words unspoken.
They had not moved from the center of their Realm in countless eons. There were small moments where they had needed to flow in and out of their own creation, but more recently, they found themselves far more hands-on than they would have liked.
At that moment, as their vast, unknowable gaze turned inward, they realized that they were not alone.
Clothos, Lachesis, and Atropos had come to the Progenitor’s Realm. They were the Sisters of Fate, time’s weavers, keepers of the Loom, and the daughters of Nyx.
They did not stumble into Chaos’ domain or pay the price of divine ichor like most others. They had cut their way in.
Clothos had moved in first. Lachesis followed with the grace of a moment that would instantaneously be lost to the past. Atropos was slow and precise, coming at the pace she wanted to, for the future did not come when anyone wanted, but it was always coming.
“Progenitor,” Clothos hissed. “You have interfered with your creation and our design.”
Chaos did not respond right away. Words were not needed just yet, only a tilt of perception. The entire domain they existed on shifted inward as if to represent Chaos inhaling.
Lachesis said nothing, but she seemed, somehow, happy.
Atropos’ voice came though. “Those two are not yet meant to exist, but they are here now. This is not by our design.”
Chaos regarded them without emotion. They had the Fulcrum’s assurance that a conversation would take place after Atlas was returned to his duty. Surely, this must have already occurred. Or was it occurring? Or would it soon occur?
Regardless, Chaos deemed to reply.
“They were not called by my voice, nor drawn by my hand.”
There was a moment of silence from all as the Fates knew Chaos to be honest, but a complicated being.
Clothos was the one to voice curiosity.
“Then who did?”
“Do you presume, I wonder,” Chaos mused, as though to themselves, “that every thread you weave remains tethered to your hands alone?”
Lachesis scowled, grasping her rod tighter. “Do not insult us. We weave destiny towards the future!”
“You view temporal existence as linear. I do not,” Chaos countered. “You view events as sewn, stitch by stitch. Once such as me sees them stirred, like stars cast into a dark sea.”
When the three sisters might have felt insulted, the creator went on. “You are the keepers of design. I am the void before the blueprint. You begin where I once waited.”
The Sisters seemed entirely fed up with the Progenitor and were prepared to let them become aware of this displeasure.
That was when Anicetus and Zagreus arrived.
They did not fall from the sky nor burst from light as when they were on the mortal plane. They stepped into the world of Chaos even though Zagreus was shaking his right hand. The red of blood was quickly being healed over with flesh.
The Sisters turned in unison. Their eyes widened in a unique blend of fear and confusion.
“Impossible,” Lachesis murmured in analysis of the two.
Clothos’ lips parted.
Atropos simply tilted her head.
“Why are you shaking your hand? How many times have you come to this place?” Anicetus asked his brother in annoyance.
“I thought the whole blood price thing was just part of my trials with Dad,” Zagreus whined.
When Zagreus realized that Chaos and the Moirai were together, he froze.
“Uh ... Ani, is there a plan? The Sisters like you more, and you know I know Chaos, but...”
“No,” Anicetus said, shaking his head and putting a hand on Zagreus’ forearm to calm him. “I think I know what’s going on.”
“You do?” Zagreus asked.
“That would be impossible,” Atropos remarked. “We know everything: Past, present, and future.”
“Except when it comes to me,” Anicetus replied with an awkward (if not modest) laugh.
“That is not true,” Lachesis said. “We have known you since the first prophecy.”
“And the whole Curse of Ouranos thing, right?” Anicetus replied, not missing a beat.
“Well,” Clothos said slowly, “yes.”
“I have been giving this a lot of thought since we got here. Do you mind if I tell you a little bit of a story?” Anicetus wondered.
“If illumination is to follow, please proceed,” came the ever distant voice of Chaos.
“In our time, well when and where we come from, a lot of my children were lost to other places and time. Our brother, Alex,” Anicetus went on letting out a laugh. “You’re gonna love him someday. You really help us out of that whole Pandora’s Box thing.”
“This is the one you love so much, Sister?” Clothos asked.
Lachesis seemed just as bewildered as her sisters and shrugged.
“My point is, they were sent to other places and times. They meet Prophets, Titans, madmen with boxes, heroes, mad gods,” he stopped focusing on Chaos. “You know the ones ... You failed to defeat them.”
For the first time in all of this incarnation of creation, Chaos froze in petrified fear.
“There’s ... No ... How?”
“At this moment in our timeline, we are working on a way to rid existence of Yog,” Zagreus cut in.
Anicetus gave him a look.
“What? Chaos knows who Yog-Sothoth is,” he whined.
“But the Sisters don’t! Not yet!”
“Oh fuck,” Zagreus murmured.
“Don’t worry about it, Zag,” Anicetus said. He turned back to the Sisters, and he smiled respectfully. “When I am done explaining, I think this will make sense for all of us, and I think my brother will be coming to pick us up.”
“Then, by all means, continue, promised prince,” Atropos said with an inviting arm.
“The point is, in the future, your threads will do far more than they do now, Sisters,” he said cryptically. “Further, a new bridge is created using a map you help make for us, along with some other ingredients.”
Anicetus paused to give his brother a look to not give more away.
“And my children returned, and we connected those times to ours. This put us onto the greater threats out in the celestial array that is multi-dimensional existence. We have been working hard to help those worlds and prepare for a final confrontation with the Dark Ones,” he said.
“What does that have to do with you being here?” Atropos asked.
“I believe that one of our enemy’s last ditch efforts to prevent us from battling your great enemy Chaos was to flung us through time. It is not the first time I have accidentally gotten stranded in another time and place.”
“But, to be fair,” Zagreus inserted, “this is the first time we have been thrown back into our own timeline.”
“Fascinating,” Lachesis muttered.
“But why is it that we could not anticipate your arrival?” Clothos wondered.
“There’s two reasons for that. One of which I think will allow us to leave.”
“And those are?” Atropos wondered, feeling rather stupid for the first time.
“The power of our adversaries are greater than Chaos, and so ... I think that makes it harder for you to anticipate,” Anicetus said.
Atropos nodded in consideration. “That makes sense. And the other?”
“I think that would be this,” Anicetus said, reaching for his brother’s vial of water for the River Lethe.
“What is that?” Clothos asked.
“Waters that would make one forget,” Atropos breathed.
“Correct,” Anicetus replied.
He charged his hands with the power of death, the sea, and lightning. The three sisters and Chaos looked confused.
“I have honed this water to me, so you will forget about me, and likely this event with Zagreus until I am born,” Anicetus said.
“Meaning what?” Clothos said.
“He would have us shed memory of what has not yet passed when it pertains to him. Erase the future from our gaze, only for us to stumble upon it anew after his birth—blind to the pattern we once perceived, until its shape reforms beneath our hands.”
“Precisely,” Anicetus remarked.
“But why?”
“In the future, I am a blind spot for you three, and Chaos claims I get to choose my destiny. I think that is only possible if you three take this now and drink it. If you don’t, who knows? Maybe I won’t be born in this timeline.”
He lifted his hand out with the vial of Lethe water. The Sisters and Chaos all froze in uncertainty.
They had known existence since before the beginning of time.
“What you ask goes against everything we are,” Atropos said. “To know destiny of all is our duty.”
“Yeah,” Anicetus said nervously.
“How can we know this is not some trap?” Clothos asked.
At first, Anicetus had no answer, but then he paused and looked at the Progenitor.
“You still have it, right?” he asked.
The Progenitor had no idea what he was talking about, and since mentioning the Great Foe, the creator struggled.
“Clarify, if you would. To what occurrence, precisely, do you allude?”
“The crown you put on my Ouranos’ head, and you reclaimed after Zag’s Dad killed him.”
“How do you know this?” Chaos asked.
Anicetus sighed and lowered his head, and a facsimile of the crown that Chaos had given to Ouranos glittered an outline on Anicetus’ head.
At the moment of him revealing his reflection of headwear, a tear opened up in the landscape, and within this wound, there stood a god who looked incredibly like Anicetus. At his back was Prometheus and another male being who was tall, had blond hair, and wielded a large sword alien to Greece. Further back were not three but six women standing side by side.
Lachesis did not hesitate after seeing another version of herself among the other five females and in accompaniment of the crown. She snatched the vial from Anicetus’ hand.