فصل 26

Imperators here?

Gag me with a peace symbol

Not groovy, Mama

MY HEAD WOUND MUST have tasted like Wagyu beef.

The lion kept licking the side of my face, making my hair stickier and wetter. Strangely, this seemed to clear my thoughts. Perhaps lion saliva had curative properties. I guess I should have known that, being a god of healing, but you’ll have to excuse me if I haven’t done trial-and-error experiments with the drool of every single animal.

With difficulty, I sat up and faced the Titan queen.

Rhea leaned against the side of a VW safari van painted with swirling black frond designs like those on her dress. I seemed to recall that the black fern was one of Rhea’s symbols, but I couldn’t remember why. Among the gods, Rhea had always been something of a mystery. Even Zeus, who knew her best, did not often speak of her.

Her turret crown circled her brow like a glittering railroad track. When she looked down at me, her tinted glasses changed from orange to purple. A macramé belt cinched her waist, and on a chain around her neck hung her brass peace symbol.

She smiled. “Glad you’re awake. I was worried, man.”

I really wished people would stop calling me man. “Why are you…Where have you been all these centuries?”

“Upstate.” She scratched her lion’s ears. “After Woodstock, I stuck around, started a pottery studio.”

“You…what?”

She tilted her head. “Was that last week or last millennium? I’ve lost track.”

“I—I believe you’re describing the 1960s. That was last century.”

“Oh, bummer.” Rhea sighed. “I get mixed up after so many years.”

“I sympathize.”

“After I left Kronos…well, that man was so square, you could cut yourself on his corners, you know what I mean? He was the ultimate 1950s dad—wanted us to be Ozzie and Harriet or Lucy and Ricky or something.”

“He—he swallowed his children alive.”

“Yeah.” Rhea brushed her hair from her face. “That was some bad karma. Anyway, I left him. Back then divorce wasn’t cool. You just didn’t do it. But me, I burned my apodesmos and got liberated. I raised Zeus in a commune with a bunch of naiads and kouretes. Lots of wheat germ and nectar. The kid grew up with a strong Aquarian vibe.”

I was fairly sure Rhea was misremembering her centuries, but I thought it would be impolite to keep pointing that out.

“You remind me of Iris,” I said. “She went organic vegan several decades ago.”

Rhea made a face—just a ripple of disapproval before regaining her karmic balance. “Iris is a good soul. I dig her. But you know, these younger goddesses, they weren’t around to fight the revolution. They don’t get what it was like when your old man was eating your children and you couldn’t get a real job and the Titan chauvinists just wanted you to stay home and cook and clean and have more Olympian babies. And speaking of Iris…”

Rhea touched her forehead. “Wait, were we speaking of Iris? Or did I just have a flashback?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

“Oh, I remember now. She’s a messenger of the gods, right? Along with Hermes and that other groovy liberated chick…Joan of Arc?”

“Er, I’m not sure about that last one.”

“Well, anyway, the communication lines are down, man. Nothing works. Rainbow messages, flying scrolls, Hermes Express…it’s all going haywire.”

“We know this. But we don’t know why.”

“It’s them. They’re doing it.”

“Who?”

She glanced to either side. “The Man, man. Big Brother. The suits. The imperators.”

I had been hoping she would say something else: giants, Titans, ancient killing machines, aliens. I would’ve rather tangled with Tartarus or Ouranos or Primordial Chaos itself. I had hoped Pete the geyser misunderstood what his brother told him about the imperator in the ants’ nest.

Now that I had confirmation, I wanted to steal Rhea’s safari van and drive to some commune far, far upstate.

“Triumvirate Holdings,” I said.

“Yeah,” Rhea agreed. “That’s their new military-industrial complex. It’s bumming me out in a big way.”

The lion stopped licking my face, probably because my blood had turned bitter. “How is this possible? How have they come back?”

“They never went away,” Rhea said. “They did it to themselves, you know. Wanted to make themselves gods. That never works out well. Ever since the old days they’ve been hiding out, influencing history from behind the curtains. They’re stuck in a kind of twilight life. They can’t die; they can’t really live.”

“But how could we not know about this?” I demanded. “We are gods!”

Rhea’s laugh reminded me of a piglet with asthma. “Apollo, Grandson, beautiful child…Has being a god ever stopped someone from being stupid?”

She had a point. Not about me personally, of course, but the stories I could tell you about the other Olympians…

“The emperors of Rome.” I tried to come to terms with the idea. “They can’t all be immortal.”

“No,” Rhea said. “Just the worst of them, the most notorious. They live in human memory, man. That’s what keeps them alive. Same as us, really. They’re tied to the course of Western civilization, even though that whole concept is imperialist Eurocentric propaganda, man. Like my guru would tell you—”

“Rhea”—I put my hands against my throbbing temples—“can we stick to one problem at a time?”

“Yeah, okay. I didn’t mean to blow your mind.”

“But how can they affect our lines of communication? How can they be so powerful?”

“They’ve had centuries, Apollo. Centuries. All that time, plotting and making war, building up their capitalist empire, waiting for this moment when you are mortal, when the Oracles are vulnerable for a hostile takeover. It’s just evil. They have no chill whatsoever.”

“I thought that was a more modern term.”

“Evil?”

“No. Chill. Never mind. The Beast…he is the leader?”

“Afraid so. He’s as twisted as the others, but he’s the smartest and the most stable—in a sociopathic homicidal way. You know who he is—who he was, right?”

Unfortunately, I did. I remembered where I had seen his smirking ugly face. I could hear his nasal voice echoing through the arena, ordering the execution of hundreds while the crowds cheered. I wanted to ask Rhea who his two compatriots were in the Triumvirate, but I decided I could not bear the information at present. None of the options were good, and knowing their names might bring me more despair than I could handle.

“It’s true, then,” I said. “The other Oracles still exist. The emperors hold them all?”

“They’re working on it. Python has Delphi—that’s the biggest problem. But you won’t have the strength to take him head-on. You’ve got to pry their fingers off the minor Oracles first, loosen their power. To do that, you need a new source of prophecy for this camp—an Oracle that is older and independent.”

“Dodona,” I said. “Your whispering grove.”

“Right on,” Rhea said. “I thought the grove was gone forever. But then—I don’t know how—the oak trees regrew themselves in the heart of these woods. You have to find the grove and protect it.”

“I’m working on that.” I touched the sticky wound on the side of my face. “But my friend Meg—”

“Yeah. You had some setbacks. But there are always setbacks, Apollo. When Lizzy Stanton and I hosted the first women’s rights convention in Woodstock—”

“I think you mean Seneca Falls?”

Rhea frowned. “Wasn’t that in the ’60s?”

“The ’40s,” I said. “The 1840s, if memory serves.”

“So…Jimi Hendrix wasn’t there?”

“Doubtful.”

Rhea fiddled with her peace symbol. “Then who set that guitar on fire? Ah, never mind. The point is, you have to persevere. Sometimes change takes centuries.”

“Except that I’m mortal now,” I said. “I don’t have centuries.”

“But you have willpower,” Rhea said. “You have mortal drive and urgency. Those are things the gods often lack.”

At her side, her lion roared.

“I’ve gotta split,” Rhea said. “If the imperators track me down—bad scene, man. I’ve been off the grid too long. I’m not going to get sucked into that patriarchal institutional oppression again. Just find Dodona. That’s your first trial.”

“And if the Beast finds the grove first?”

“Oh, he’s already found the gates, but he’ll never get through them without you and the girl.”

“I—I don’t understand.”

“That’s cool. Just breathe. Find your center. Enlightenment has to come from within.”

It was very much like a line I would’ve given my worshippers. I was tempted to choke Rhea with her macramé belt, but I doubted I would have the strength. Also, she had two lions. “But what do I do? How do I save Meg?”

“First, get healed. Rest up. Then…well, how you save Meg is up to you. The journey is greater than the destination, you know?”

She held out her hand. Draped on her fingers was a set of wind chimes—a collection of hollow brass tubes and medallions engraved with ancient Greek and Cretan symbols. “Hang these in the largest ancient oak. That will help you focus the voices of the Oracle. If you get a prophecy, groovy. It’ll only be the beginning, but without Dodona, nothing else will be possible. The emperors will suffocate our future and divide up the world. Only when you have defeated Python can you reclaim your rightful place on Olympus. My kid, Zeus…he’s got this whole ‘tough love’ disciplinarian hang-up, you dig? Taking back Delphi is the only way you’re going to get on his good side.”

“I—I was afraid you would say that.”

“There’s one other thing,” she warned. “The Beast is planning some kind of attack on your camp. I don’t know what it is, but it’s going to be big. Like, even worse than napalm. You have to warn your friends.”

The nearest lion nudged me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and allowed him to pull me to my feet. I managed to remain standing, but only because my legs locked up in complete fright. For the first time, I understood the trials that awaited me. I knew the enemies I must face. I would need more than wind chimes and enlightenment. I’d need a miracle. And as a god, I can tell you that those are never distributed lightly.

“Good luck, Apollo.” The Titan queen placed the wind chimes in my hands. “I’ve got to check my kiln before my pots crack. Keep on trucking, and save those trees!”

The woods dissolved. I found myself standing in the central green at Camp Half-Blood, face-to-face with Chiara Benvenuti, who jumped back in alarm. “Apollo?”

I smiled. “Hey, girl.” My eyes rolled up in my head and, for the second time that week, I charmingly passed out in front of her.