Chapter 10

~~Darian~~

Darian took a small step back, and kept his sword up and ready.

“Patrius.”

“Patrius ... the guard from Tiryns?” Otrera came up beside Darian, sword as ready as his own, and scanned over the group of villagers.

They were just people, armor as old and untended as a farmer’s sword, and untrained hands fumbling with their equipment with just as much clumsiness. Their fingers floundered over the weapons, and their eyes glazed over their work, half open, with heavy shoulders and faltering steps. How exhausted were these people?

“ ... what’s going on?” Darian said.

“I should be asking that.” Patrius started to unwrap the bandages from his hands, and motioned toward the two of them once he was done. “Last I knew, Bellerophon had just killed my king, his consort, and ran off with Otrera hot on his heels. Or at least, that was the story.” The man looked between the two of them with squinted eyes, and stopped on Otrera for far longer.

“At first I didn’t believe you, Bellerophon. But after examining their bodies, the situation, and asking around about Stheneboea, too many pieces fit your story versus what Otrera told us. And I ... well, I knew you. Much as I hated you for trying to rape Stheneboea, I realized ... she was probably lying.”

Finally. Fucking. Finally. Bellerophon walked over to the old soldier, picked him up, and hugged him. Hugged him hard.

His friend resisted him for a moment, but relented and patted him on the shoulder. Patrius was of average height, but strong and built well, with a hard face and several scars across his cheek and nose. A touch of white to his ear-length hair, and a beard kept short.

“Is your wife here? Your children?”

“No.” Patrius shook his head, and gestured to the onlookers of their hideaway. “I couldn’t bring them to this.”

“Hold on. Back up.” Otrera stepped in, and while Darian put his sword away, she did not. She pointed it at Patrius, and got close enough to touch its tip to his chest. “Darian’s old friend, just happens to be at the city we travel to? I want explanations.”

Darian grit his teeth, but nodded. Use your head, don’t let nostalgia blind you.

“Explanations from me? How about you explain why you killed Stheneboea and Proetus, Amazon? Why is my king and his lover dead, my city in chaos, and Bellerophon’s name now spreading across the land as an assassin?”

It took effort to keep a grin from appearing on his lips. Someone else was defending him?

Otrera growled, but put the sword away at least. “I killed your king’s consort because she was a vile, deceiving creature who didn’t deserve to live.” She threw up a silencing palm when Patrius tried to speak. “I killed Proetus because it served me to frame Bellerophon — Darian — with his murder. In a few more months, all of Greece will know him for his transgressions.” Wincing, she looked to Darian and offered a small grimace. “Sorry.”

“It’s ok,” Darian said. “ ... well, maybe not ok, but I understand. We’ll deal with that if it comes up.”

Patrius was not so understanding. “You killed Proetus just to make this man’s life harder? And now you’re working with him?” The man stepped closer to the Amazon, frown and all, and looked down at the small woman. “Do you ruin lives and kill people at a whim then?”

Mistake. Darian could only wince when Otrera pushed him, and sent the man backward five feet to land on his ass hard enough to bruise bone.

“Bite your tongue before I cut it off. You have no idea what has happened to me, him, or all the things in between. And I have no desire to explain them. Darian and I are here to deal with Andromeda, and then we’ll be gone.”

Poor Patrius. Always a prideful man, his old friend; Darian could see the frustration on his face when he got up with the groans of age and pain.

“Andromeda? Who is Andromeda? Why is Bellerophon now Darian? Why are you both in Aethiopia?”

“We do owe him at least some explanation, Otrera.” Darian shrugged, and sat down at Patrius’s table while motioning for the old soldier to join him. Once Patrius did, he did the same for Otrera.

“So,” Darian said, and he gestured to the growing crowd of people who stood around them. “An exchange of information then? Everyone’s confused, no one knows who’s doing what, but I trust Patrius enough to know he’s probably doing a good thing here, whatever that is.”

Otrera folded her arms across her chest, put her feet up on the table, leaned back, and watched, stern face and squinting eyes unrelenting. Darian couldn’t blame her; in fact, he was counting on it. Patrius was as old a friend as Proetus, and that made even talking to him cloud his judgment.

“Considering I saved your dumb ass — as usual — from the manticores, I suggest you start first.” Patrius smirked, and leaned in to put elbows on the table, fingers together.

Darian returned the smirk, and shrugged. “Alright. You know I’m not entirely human.”

“All of Greece knows you’re not entirely human, Darian.” Patrius spoke his name with a quiet clap of both hands, capturing the words in his palms as if it were fake and to be discarded. Not entirely incorrect either. “Demigod is the term a lot of people like to throw around.”

“Ah, well ... close enough. I escaped my imprisonment, and while I was recovering, the Fates came to me and asked me to help them.”

The crowd gasped. Patrius blinked several times. Otrera groaned.

“And,” Darian said, “that has brought me here. Andromeda, a powerful sorceress, has something the Fates want. But she also has something I want: Pegasus.”

“Your flying horse?”

Again the crowd gasped, and when Darian threw Otrera one of his perfect smiles, the Amazon rolled her eyes and cracked her knuckles.

“Indeed. Andromeda and her companion Perseus have captured him and have been using him. I want to free him. Two birds, one stone.” No need to mention Medusa or the others. Not yet.

“And that’s ... brought you to Aethiopia? Why?”

“You tell us,” Otrera said. “This places certainly seems like it’s being oppressed by something magical. I can’t walk the streets without feeling like death. Ancient creatures prowl the outskirts and the roads alike. And unless I’m mistaken, you’ve all been branded like cattle. Like sacrifices.” Pointing to each marked person and the brand on their forearms, she glowered.

“Andromeda, that is her name?” Patrius sighed, and exposed his forearm. He had no brand. “I have come to help these people. All I know is they are being oppressed, and I have been given a mission to save them. I only arrived a short time ago.”

“How short a time?” Otrera said.

“Seven days.”

Darian and Otrera exchanged glances. Around the same time their group set sail for Aethiopia.

Tapping his fingers on the table, Darian looked around at the tightening crowd again. “You said you were given a mission? By who?”

“ ... well, I suppose you might just be the only person who’d believe me if I told you.”

The only person? The Fates? No, the Fates rarely talked to people directly unless they were a Fate’s Child.

“ ... Athena,” he said.

Patrius smiled and nodded. “Athena. You do remember her don’t you? That golden mask, the long blonde hair, the tall majesty. I remember your tale about how you met Pegasus. And I ... she came to me, Bellerophon, and asked that I help her.”

Darian quirked a brow and studied his friend. A champion of Athena? He gulped, and looked down at the grooves of the table. How many champions of Athena had Medusa killed?

“Help her how?” Otrera said.

“There are many worshipers of Athena here, and her temple once stood tall and proud. King Cepheus and Queen Cassiopeia were ... but they have not been seen in days. If they are alive within the acropolis, I do not know. The plan is to remove the source of the curse upon this city, but I do not know where to begin. The branded cannot leave; the beasts will hunt them down by the brand on land. And if they leave by sea, the sea creature will find them. The creatures prowl at night to ensure everyone stays in their homes. The people cannot send messages for help, or ask for aid from visiting traders; the sorceress’s eyes are everywhere, and she will take any she thinks are suspect. And...”

“And those people will be sacrificed,” Otrera said, “by Andromeda.”

“Andromeda ... and Perseus, you said?”

“Yeah.” Darian leaned in, elbows on the table as well, eye to eye with his old friend. “She’s a sorceress, and Perseus is the same as us, a demigod. We have to deal with them.”

“Us?”

Otrera chuckled quietly, and made a tiny wave of her fingers. “Us.”

Patrius squinted at the two of them. “Two demigods, battling a sorceress and demigod, with these people trapped in the middle.” He raised a hand and motioned to the crowd that had started to shift shoulders to try and squeeze in tight. “What am I and this tiny rebellion force to do against that?”

“Well for starters,” Otrera said, “you can explain how you managed to move around outside so easily. It felt like Hades was holding me down out there.”

“To keep the people from running. The manticores are too stupid to bring the branded back alive, so with her curse upon the city, it’s as if Tartarus itself weighs upon the people’s shoulders come nightfall.”

“Do the bandages help with that?” Darian said.

“No, they help hide myself from the cats. The fog dampens their sense of smell, and with these bandages, I can last for an hour or so before they begin to smell me.”

“Then how did you move so freely through the city?” the Amazon said.

“The curse is one of the mind. Athena has given me this to take. Smell it, and it will clear your mind for the night.” The old soldier reached into his cloak and pulled from it a tiny jar. Upon opening it, he handed it to Darian.

Darian raised it to his nose, and took the tiniest whiff; odorless. When he felt weight begin to lift from his shoulders, he did it again, deeper. The whole of mass, death, and cold stuck to his back and body faded away, and the traces of its lingering touch melted. With a smile and nod, he handed it to Otrera to do the same.

“Athena knows the curse then?” Otrera said as she smelled it.

“She is a god after all.” Patrius got up, and started to circle the table, hands together behind his back, and head down. The old man had gone into thinking mode. “Said to take this, and to find a way to free the city from the unknown hand that curses it so. Not the most useful of instructions, I know, but you can’t deny the reality.”

The jar did work, no denying that. Athena, with her fingers in people’s lives, sending off her champions to do her work. Bad timing, or good timing?

“Unknown hand.” Scratching his beard, Darian looked between the onlookers. “Well, known now. None of you know an Andromeda? No one?”

“Um...” From the crowd, a woman stepped forth, tired, ragged, with long brown hair. “I remember the name, Bellerophontes. Just a name, spoken some twenty years ago in the halls of the acropolis where I once served. But ... for the life of me ... I cannot remember who it was.”

The crowd all started chatting. Andromeda’s name came up a few times, each with the same wisp of weightlessness as her first mention. Better than nothing.

“So, Patrius,” Darian said. “We sort of stumbled into your plan of ... rebellion, I’m guessing? You were here first, and our goals align. How can we help?”

Otrera snorted, and put her feet back down to stand up. “You trust this man that much, Darian?”

“About as much as I trust you.”

Otrera tilted her head to the side, but when their eyes met, she smirked and gave a small nod.

“The plan is to gather as much of the population as we can to our cause during the night, with Athena’s gift to protect us from the cursed city. Once we feel we have enough to mount an assault, we attack the acropolis, again during the night, when she suspects her cursed city will keep everyone in their beds.” Feet dragging and bones creaking, Patrius put himself back down into his chair and rubbed at his knee. “Sorry,” Patrius said, “getting old.”

Darian nodded, and watched as Patrius massaged his kneecap. Patrius had never been good at lying, with facial ticks and nervous glances during conversation if he was. But now, the man was steady, stern, and when he met eyes with Darian, he did not look away.

That wasn’t exactly enough to fully trust the man and the odd circumstance of his being here, but it did lend him credit.

“Can I have that?” Darian said, hand held out for the tiny jar now sitting on the table.

“ ... why?” Old soldier fingers found the bottle, and dragged it back to the center of the table where Patrius put the lid back on.

“I have more friends, two more, great warriors that will make this little rebellion a guaranteed success.” Or at least, dramatically increase their chances. “I’d like to go get them, now.”

“Now? The beasts will be hunting the streets until dawn. And come dawn, anyone who spots and recognizes you will report you, in hopes it will spare them from being sacrificed.”

Before Darian could stop her, Otrera opened her mouth. “Then your people deserve death for being cowards.”

Several of the crowd approached, but jumped back when the subtle ring of Otrera drawing her sword hit their ears. They gulped, and looked between Patrius and Darian. But Darian could only shrug, and nod.

“You’re telling me I have to fear the other people here?” he said. “I have to worry about not only other people in this city ratting out my efforts to save them, but maybe even the people in this room?” He got up as well, and started to pace while Otrera kept her sword raised and pointed. “But, at the same time, I need your gift from Athena to reach my goals.”

Sliding the jar closer to himself, Patrius rested his hand over top it, and glared at Darian. “That’s right.”

“We can just kill them all to take it.” Sword already out, Otrera only had to take a step forward to make the entire crowd step back. Many scampered to get their weapons, and soon the two of them were surrounded by farmers, fishermen, and brickmakers wielding old, ruined swords and shields.

And Darian kind of agreed with Otrera. How easy it would be to kill them all and take it. “But these are not the people deserving it, Otrera. These are the poor bastards risking their lives to help, and the ones deserving of our help.”

The queen sighed, sheathed her sword, and sat back down without a glance to the armed dozen around them.

Patrius wiped the new sweat from his brow. “Your friends. Can we trust them?”

Chuckling, Darian held out his hand for the jar, and smiled his favorite smile. “You can trust them. But unless you have a different door, one of them won’t be able to fit down here.”

“Fit? Um ... we have another basement hold, hidden beneath the animal pen where the smell of them covers up our own. The door is much larger, the room too.”

“Large is good, just hope it’s large enough. Alright, we’ll be back.”

“Bellero — Darian, I’m trusting you with not just my life here, but the lives of everyone in this city.”

As he put the jar into Darian’s hand, Darian could feel the weight and eyes of everyone around him staring with worry, anticipation, hope, anger, everything. Well, at least hope was in that list.

~~Chimera~~

Waiting. Always waiting. He envied the others their ability to sleep each night. Sleep for him did not come easily, but when he did let the heavy onyx pull over his eyes, it buried him for as long as he wished. If it was not so difficult and time consuming to wake, he would sleep every night as they did.

His mind wandered, and he stared up at the sky while the fog roamed over his feet. The old creatures such as he were all immortal, immune to the passage of time, and they too slept in such a manner. As if the creator had made mistakes, and in the next iteration of life, had made animals more complicated, more flexible, and instead of few but strong, many but weak.

Who was the creator? Chronos and Ananke? They had never been seen, with only their names spoken by the gods. From the chaos and the void then, did a creator come, and bring about life? Earth? Gaia herself? What changes did life—

“Whatcha thinking about?”

“Hmm?” The serpent’s noise brought his eyes down from the stars, and he looked over the long snake woman as she settled onto her coils beside him.

“What are you thinking about? You must think a lot, awake every night.”

He suppressed a chuckle. Did he wear it on his face so obviously? With a sigh, he managed his best human shrug, and licked a fang.

Yes, ‘Chimera’, what are you thinking about?

He shook his head, and forced down the bile rising in his throat.

“Life.”

“Life? That’s a big topic.”

“Indeed.”

“Do you think about life all the time? When we’re asleep, or when you’re waiting for things to happen?” Medusa uncoiled, slithered around a few times, and recoiled. Anxious without her lover no doubt. Should the time window Darian had provided expire, Chimera was sure the woman would ask for his help in attacking the city.

He could not defeat an entire city alone, but she could. A city of stone people. The thought earned a smirk. What would the gods think of their children then, as nothing more than ornaments for a garden of death?

A distant growl called his attention, and he raised his head to look to the rocky canyon that surrounded them. Creeping black, darker than the night, pulled and clawed its way out of the cracks and crevices of the rocks and boulders of their hideaway, and eased its obsidian tendrils onto the highest boulder.

Not again, not now. Medusa is here.

I do not care.

The fog around them remained unmoved, but thin as it was in the canyon, the fog also did not hide the black mist that blended into its folds with gentle whirls and a slow, insidious growth. Fur, a mess of dripping black, grew from the dark oil that dripped over the boulder. Horns slipped from the black, and beneath them followed the head of his tormentor.

Giant, massive, his old friend pulled itself free of the heavy sludge, until the colossal entity stood upon the great rock, and it leered over him. Black dripped from its lion teeth, and while its limbs never fully formed, wisps of its paws came and went like ripples of water in the black mist.

“If only she could see me, Chimera. If only she knew.”

He opened his mouth, but closed it. There would be no arguing with this thing, not while Medusa was near. The snake woman was unaware of the thing that stalked her, even as she looked in its direction she could not see the black mist that melded into the fog.

“If only she knew the sorts of things you want to do, Chimera.”

The giant closed his eyes and turned his head, but when he opened them, he twitched at the sudden proximity. Drooling and snarling, the enormous horned lion stood over Medusa, and stalked left and right in front of her.

“I have kept you alive for so many centuries, Chimera. Through the millennia I have kept you alive in your solitude. Where would you be without me? Dead! Dead on a cross or carved for meat or tied to rocks and thrown into the ocean. I kept you going, kept you hungering, and this is how you repay me?”

Chimera looked away once more, and down at his hands, and the snake tattoo that ran down one arm. Where are you now, father? To bestow upon me the gift of the animal and the land, but without the advice to last the ages.

“You ok, Chimera?” Medusa said. Warm and inviting, Medusa raised herself higher with her snake body to put her hand on his shoulder. “You seem distracted.”

“I am fine, Medusa.” Except for the hunger.

“Alright, if you’re sure...” Shrugging, Medusa lowered herself back down into a coil, and wriggled to get comfortable in the loop of scales until she closed her eyes.

“You are not fine.” With another snarl, the creature faded through Medusa, and reformed over her. Paws on her back, enormous jaw over her head, and animal eyes staring down at her with pure hunger. Medusa did not react. “Do you remember how she scolded you, for taking a single bite of that soldier outside Tiryns?”

He did remember, and it had annoyed him. But he had pledged himself to help her, and he would.

“You pledged yourself because you are weak and in need of a leader, someone else to follow and give you purpose. I gave you purpose! Give into the hunger, Chimera, and unleash havoc.”

He shook his head harder, and raised his hand up to hold his brow. He was in control. In control.

“How easy it would be to take her now, Chimera. Your leader is naive and juvenile despite her power. You could tear off her head right now before she even realized what was going on. Devour her, feast upon the meat of Athena’s power. And when Bellerophontes returns, when he sees what you have done, do the same to him as well.”

The beast opened its mighty jaws, and lowered them over Medusa’s head. The snakes of her hair did not stir, and the woman let her eyes close with time while the monster over her prepared to bite into her.

And when it did, Medusa screamed. Blood gushed from where the lion’s many teeth broke through the snakes of her hair and into her skull. The hisses and screeches of her now writhing body shook Chimera hard, and he reached out with his hands to try and grab the lion by its horns. It raised its head, and with Medusa’s skull still in its mouth, it forced its teeth through the bone.

“Medusa!”

“What? What?” Medusa raised herself from her slumber, and with scampering hands, managed to get her bow raised and an arrow drawn. “What, what’s going on? Did you see one?”

Chimera breathed deep, and looked around with a slow turn of his head. No creature, no black, no growls or oozing puss of onyx. Just himself, Medusa, and the unsettling fog of Aethiopia. The serpent was fine, without a trace of blood or harm.

“No ... no.” He shook his head, and started to walk out of the canyon and into the forest. “I am in control, I am in control.”

“ ... Chimera?” She slithered after him, but when she reached for his shoulder he slapped her hand away with the back of his own.

“Stay away from me!” His voice boomed and bellowed, and he rumbled in his chest. “Stay away...”

His walk turned into a run, and as Medusa called out his name, he ran into the brush and trees of the forest. In the night and dense mess of foliage and cliffs, he disappeared into the dark.

~~Darian~~

Getting out of the village was much easier without the curse weighing them down. Cursing an entire city like that was not something he’d expected, despite Chimera’s warning. The sorceress was powerful. All he could do was stab things and shoot an arrow or two; what was he going to do against someone who could enslave an entire city with their own power?

Stab her a whole bunch, probably. He’d just have to be sneaky about it.

He let images of how the potential battle would go drift through his mind as he and Otrera slipped out of the building, and back into the forest. The acropolis upon the mountain, the city, the terrain, the winding paths that connected them all, he put them into the puzzle of potential options. Would he need to scale the giant rock in the bay the city sat upon? It had a road surely, but that didn’t mean he had to take it.

But the sorceress could see much, according to the others. If he was caught in a position unable to defend himself, what would he do? What would he do if that sea creature attacked while he was climbing a mountain?

What would he do if it attacked while he was on the mountain road, for that matter? The mountain sat in the bay, after all. It was a possibility.

“So,” Otrera said, “think your old friend is going to betray us?”

The two of them stepped into the harsh rock and brush of the night landscape, and pushed their way through it to reach their original entry point from their new position.

“No. Patrius is a horrible liar, and I didn’t see any of his usual ticks when he tries. He’s a good man, with a family, and a devout worshiper of the gods, Athena especially. If she sent him as one of her champions, I trust he’s doing everything in his power to help her.” As much as it sickened him. “And if we help him in that goal, he’ll pay us back in kind.”

“Another champion of Athena. You know that’s going to be trouble right?”

“Yeah, I do. Medusa will do her best to make nice, but Chimera will make no such efforts unless Medusa makes him. Even when she does tell him to behave, Chimera is...”

“Is what?”

A hand found his shoulder, and pulled him back from his crouched sneaking. The city was a good ways behind them, and the Amazon apparently felt safe enough to stop him. Hard to see her eyes in the night, but she didn’t seem happy.

“He’s a giant.”

“And? What does that have to do with anything?”

“Otrera, I’m glad that you and Chimera are getting along, I really am. But you don’t know him the way I do.”

A snarl later, she gave him a hard enough shove that he had to take a knee to keep from falling over.

“I talk to him, I fuck him, and even a bit of the stuff in between. You telling me you know him better than I do?”

If words could freeze, he’d be ice.

“Otrera, I...”

“Out with it.”

“ ... I’ve seen him pushed to the edge, Amazon. I’ve seen what happens when he’s fighting and he’s giving his all and just ... have you ever seen a rabid dog?”

“I have. I — you think he’s a rabid dog?”

“I think Chimera has been an exemplary companion in this fucked up adventure, Otrera, but I remember the look on his face when I crushed it, and he still wanted to fight. For just a few moments before he passed out, just a few seconds, it was like staring into the manic eyes of a rabid dog.” He shook his head, and started moving again.

“He ... hasn’t been anything like that with me.”

“Good. If he does, I don’t think you’ll survive. I wouldn’t. I trust him Otrera, I really do, and even when I was fighting him, he was perfectly fine. But that one time, that one moment, I could tell he gave into something, like...” Like you do at the drop of a hat, Darian, you hypocrite. “I think he’ll be fine with us. I worry about how he’ll respond when he’s surrounded by servants of gods.”

Otrera grunted, and resumed following him. “Would you blame him for going nuts and slaughtering the village? And from what the others have told me, you’re the one most likely to do that.”

“And that’s one of the many reasons I am so damn thankful to have Medusa in my life.”

He turned back to her and tried to give her one of his smiles, but his words had stopped the Amazon a few steps back. She looked to him, down at the ground, then back to him. She was thinking. For a moment he thought she’d say something, but she only grunted and resumed following him through the black.

“Darian!”

Medusa raised herself high and struck out like a viper. Hands found his back, lifted him, and crushed him in a hug that soon turned into a coil of scales as Medusa pulled him into her, and wrapped herself around him.

Otrera rolled her eyes, and walked over to them to slap Medusa upside one of her coils. “Let the man go. And where’s Chimera? We have a lot to discuss.”

With a sigh and nod, Medusa uncoiled from him and settled to her usual height. “Chimera, he ... he um...”

“Something happened to Chimera?” Otrera said.

“He ... um ... ran off.”

“Ran off?”

“He was fine!” Medusa said. “Fine, just standing here, standing guard, and then he ran off, saying he was ‘in control’ and things. I ... I wanted to run after him, but he—”

Darian held up a hand, and patted the woman on the shoulder. “Just tell me which way he went.”

Medusa pointed toward some cracked brush and trees, and sighed with heavy shoulders. “I don’t know what happened! He seemed perfectly fine, nothing was happening, no manticores or people around, just ... nothing.”

Of all the worst possible moments. He shouldn’t have said anything to Otrera about it, shouldn’t have tempted fate like that, especially him.

“What are we waiting for then?” The Amazon started walking down the trail of the giant. “Let’s get after him.”

Darian joined her, and grabbed her shoulder to turn her to face him. She avoided his eyes, pointing her gaze down, even as she grit her teeth and clenched her fingers.

He really shouldn’t have said anything.

“ ... Otrera, stay here.”

“What? I’m not—”

“Stay here, tell Medusa what we found. I’m going after him.” And hopefully don’t get myself killed in the process. Images of their first fight drifted through his head; Chimera would be able to kill him in a straight fight, no question.

So maybe a little dialog and a great smile would work better.

“Why are you going after him?” The Amazon shook herself free, and shoved him back. “I should be the one to go get him! I’m the one ... trying to...”

“You said it yourself, I’m the one more likely to ... yeah, I’m going to talk to him.”