Chapter Twelve

## Twelve

The satyr's hooves clicked on the baked tile floor as his lips smacked, and his teeth chewed on some candied root. He sniffed and chuckled as he strolled around the scorched patterns in the floor and deeper into the cabin. Then, sidling up to the other figure in the humble residence with a smile, he lightly tapped her hip to inform him of his presence.

The tall, dark-skinned goddess with red locks looked down at him.

"So, it is true," he said with a sigh.

Demeter nodded in reply. She had spied the satyr's entrance, and if he were any other satyr, he would have been turned around before he had set hoof in the cabin, let alone got this near to her. It was not that the goddess had anything against satyrs. On the contrary, she had a deep affection for satyrs. She just wished not to be disturbed and had instructed the nymphs outside to facilitate that… but this was Pan. He was more than a satyr; he was a god in his own right.

"Yes," said Demeter after a long pause. "Artemis and Apollo were assaulted. Both nearly killed."

"Truly?" asked Pan, scratching his scalp near one of the two horns.

With a sigh and a nod, Demeter retreated from the back room and returned to the kitchen. "Yes. At least last I heard both were still among the living. Seriously injured and both poisoned, but still breathing."

"A small relief then," said Pan, gnawing on the root. "Wish the same could be said for our kind."

The Mother of Nature eyed Pan. "There was another attack?" she asked it as if it were a question as if the look in his eyes did not already tell her all she needed to know. Then, as his head made the slight hint of a nod, she went on. "How many?"

Pan shrugged. "We had eight satyrs butchered in Troy. They had been missing for a while... We suspected they had tried to deal with poachers, but..." he paused. A shiver crept over him. "I just received word that their remains had been found... being sold on the black market."

With head hung low, she let out a long sigh. "I am sorry. Poachers?"

Pan shook his head. "I do not believe so. Poachers kill satyrs to cover their tracks. They don't butcher our kind. I still think this is the heretics, same as the recent nymph and centaur killings. I believe they are just using the poacher's market to dispose of the evidence or turn a quick silver or two."

"I was afraid you would say that," she confessed to her much shorter companion. "I am concerned this attack on Artemis is connected to the others."

"Why?" asked Pan, biting off a piece of his snack.

"The attacks have mostly been confined to the remote wilds so far. We have had a few attacks here in these woods, but few and far between, and mostly on the edges. Never this far into the thick," Demeter explained her reasoning. "Why do you suppose that is?"

"Silver Wardens," Pan said with a nod, and no time needed to consider.

"Precisely," Demeter agreed, "and that does not mention the many gods in the Arcadian, such as the two of us and, more importantly, Artemis."

Pan moaned as he scratched his chin. "Now I am concerned. What if this heinous assault on Artemis was a precursor to a series of grisly attacks on our kind? Take out the sheepdog so that the wolves can swarm the flock as it were."

"We should call a meeting," she said, turning on her heel and exiting the residence.

Pan hopped three times to get his legs moving at the right speed to keep pace. Once caught up, he strolled beside her, his legs moving quickly to match the speed of her more extended gait. "When would you like to meet?"

"As soon as possible," Demeter said with a firm nod as she made a turn, taking a specific course.

Pan bounced his head from side to side. "I think I can rummage up quite a few members of the council within the day," he said with a wide grin. He then chuckled nervously. "But trying to get every member on short notice?"

Demeter nodded. "As much as I hate to not have every member, I fear we must act with haste. Which tribes would be represented?" she asked of the satyr god.

"Well, Lampetia happens to be right here, inside the enclave," Pan explained. "So that works a little in our favor-"

"The Heliades are here?"

Pan nodded. "They're investigating the assault on Apollo. They're in the Pit as we speak."

Demeter smiled. "Excellent... We should speak with them at once."

Trying not to look surprised, Pan chuckled and then returned his focus to recalling the details he had been asked for. "Aside from Lampetia and the Heliades, the dryads are present. Echo is never too far from this enclave."

Demeter stifled a giggle. "Of course you would know where she is, wouldn't you?"

Trying not to blush, Pan ignored Demeter's tease and went on. "Peitho should be near the western cove this time of year. I can send a messenger and have her here in two or three hours."

Eyeing the barracks they were approaching and seeing the Solar Carriage parked in the distance, Demeter smiled. The two closed their approach on the barracks and were permitted entry by the pair of Silver Warden sentries posted outside. Both sentries were exceptionally attractive, and Demeter let herself enjoy the fragrant scent of one of them as she passed, taking a moment to give herself that briefest of diversionary respites before she continued with the distressing matter. Pan, however, must have caught a whiff of the same scent as he now lingered in the doorway staring at the sentry in question. With an assertive clearing of her throat, Demeter reached back and caught one of Pan's floppy ears between her finger and thumb and, with a twist of her wrist and a gentle tug, returned his attention to the matter at hand.

Inside the barracks, the largest building in the enclave, there was everything that the Silver Wardens needed to sustain their lifestyle. It was by no means luxurious, but it was very comfortable. However, it was still just a fraction of the size of Demeter's Grand Lodge, located elsewhere in the same forest. There were master-crafted beds, sparring pits, an indoor archery range, a stocked kitchen with fresh game being skinned and cooked at all times, and more.

Approaching a large staircase in the middle of the building's open common area, Demeter could ascend the steps to find the Silver Wardens' quarters, but instead, she and Pan walked around the staircase and accessed a concealed heavy door behind the staircase. Beyond the door was another set of steps, hewn stone instead of wood, descending into the ground.

The two lower levels were known as the root cellar and the Pit. The root cellar was the higher of the two and was where dried goods and non-dangerous stores were kept. Anything that could be considered armor or weaponry was handled at the armory, an attached building on the main floor that was heavily guarded. The Pit was below the root cellar, and this was accessed via a second set of steps which Demeter and Pan descended to find a single slightly sloped corridor with metal doors on the sides of the hallway and a big open pit at the end, only sealed from access by a metallic grate placed over it.

Next to this Pit, Lampetia and two of her Heliade sisters were found. The Heliades were amber-skinned beauties with fall the color of autumn leaves, ranging in colors of reds, oranges, yellows, and browns. While no Heliade had a head of hair with a single color, most had two, and some had three, only Lampetia herself had all four colors, making her the most recognizable of the lot.

The Heliades were Apollo's sworn valets, bodyguards, attendants, and heralds. They wore a topcoat of gold cloth, a crimson silk scarf tucked into a scarlet leather waistcoat, brown wool trousers, and black knee-high riding boots, with the coats of Lampetia and her six sisters that made up the original seven Heliades adorned with sunburst embroidery on the shoulders and cuffs. One could also recognize them by the orichalcum whip lashed to their side, which gave off a brilliant golden essence glow when armed in hand.

"Leave us," Lampetia told the other two upon the arrival of Demeter and Pan. With a nod and no verbal response, the lesser Heliades consented to the order and retreated up the steps, likely taking posts in the root cellar to prevent any disruptions.

Demeter noted the lack of embroidery on their coats as they passed her by and felt better for not having recalled their specific faces. Though there were initially eight in their order: Lampetia and her six sisters, along with their late brother Phaeton, the order had grown considerably throughout thousands of years with their daughters' inclusion.

Often misunderstood to be like the Silver Wardens that serve Artemis, the Sunriders of Apollo are not made up of nymphs and mortal priestesses. Instead, their ranks are solely made up of the nymph-like race of Heliades. Demeter preferred to think of them as nymphs as they were recognized by the Natural Order as such, but the truth was they were similar but very different.

The Titans Tethys and Okeanos created the first nymphs, fusing their bodies together to avoid punishment from the other Titans. From the mass created by their strange joining, three-thousand nymphs were spawned along with one immortal nymph chieftess for each tribe of sixty.

Each tribe was different and unique, possessing wildly elementally based physiologies and appearance. All were female.

Though the nymphs were much less potent than the two original Titans, more of them meant they could oversee a wider area. In addition, their nature possessed the right amount of stability and mutability, which allowed them to mate with mortals to even further their numbers. When they bore male offspring, an entirely different being was born. The male sons of the nymphs were horned and goat-legged creatures they called satyrs.

The Heliades were a different story. Created much later and had a single parent. The Titan Hyperion, after surrendering in battle and pleading not to be locked in Tartarus with the other Titans, was forced by Apollo to douse himself in the Underworld river called Styx, dissolving him into the primordial matter he had been created from and then reshaped into eight beings from his eight souls, each with one-eighth of his power. These beings became Phaeton and his seven sisters: Merope, Helie, Aigle, Phoibe, Aetherie, Dioxippe, and Lampetia.

Though still bound by the oath their 'father' Hyperion had sworn, these newly spawned creatures were possessed of new identities and personalities, unique to each other and shaped by Apollo himself, thereby assuring the new sun god that they were not likely to revolt against him as he feared the Titan might do. They were given to the elder god Helios to foster, though Apollo would also mentor them. Taking the name of their foster father rather than the Titan that spawned them, they became the Heliosi (or Heliades when speaking of the seven sisters).

Initially, the Heliades were not considered nymphs, considering they had a non-satyr brother. However, after Phaeton's death, the Heliades were grief-stricken, and this emotional disruption also caused their internal essence to become unstable. They accidentally absorbed their departed brother's essence in this moment of vulnerability. As a result, they became even more unstable, soaking in essence from nature and transforming themselves into poplar trees, similar to how nymphs adapt to whatever essence is present in their environment over time.

Upon discovering that this had happened to his Heliades, Apollo reached out to Artemis for counsel, and in turn, Artemis sought the aid of the nymphs, specifically the dryads who were known to transform into trees themselves. Through the guidance of the nymphs, the Heliades learned to control their ability and newfound connection to nature and were then invited to join the union of nymph tribes.

While the seven original Heliades were each immortal and thus on par with the Okeanids, who each had a seat among the nymph elders, the Heliades chose to name Lampetia as their sole delegate, not wanting their tribe's representation to be unfairly represented or to pull too many of them away from their sworn service to Apollo.

Stern and dutiful, Lampetia was a fine choice to lead the Heliades. Despite their many differences, Demeter had always liked her. She hoped the feeling was mutual.

Now alone with the Mother of Nature and the satyr god, Lampetia eyed the two for a long moment before finally speaking. "Mother Nature. It is good to see you. I only wish it were under better circumstances."

Demeter nodded. "Agreed."

"I heard you had the perpetrator in custody," said Demeter with a nod, leaning against the stone wall of the corridor and folding her arms. "Would it be permissible for me to speak with him?"

Lampetia gave a quiet nod. "It would be, were he here."

Pan's eyes shot open. "He's escaped?"

Lampetia shook her head. "No," she explained. "Nike and Bia were here hours ago and retrieved him for prisoner transport to Olympus. At least that is what my sisters tell me," she said, using the term 'sisters' to denote the other members of her tribe, despite them technically being her distantly descended nieces or granddaughters. "I apparently missed them while I was transporting Apollo... I actually came here to have words with him myself, unaware of the transfer."

Demeter's eyes shot open. "Zeus summoned him for an audience?" she glanced at Pan. "We'll need to make haste to Olympus if we wish to have any words with him at all then. That is assuming all is not lost and Zeus has not already smote the bastard!" she exclaimed as she turned to leave the dungeon.

"What of the gathering?" asked Pan.

"Gathering?" asked Lampetia, stepping forward. "Is this in regard to the recent killings I have heard tale of?"

Demeter paused to look over her shoulder. "Yes, actually; is there something you know or wish to say?"

Nodding, Lampetia approached with a bold stride, one arm clasping the other behind her back. "I was looking through the effects stored here. I found this," she said as her arms appeared in front of her. She opened her gloved hand and displayed a flask. It looked rusty and unremarkable, but as she wiped her gloved thumb across the surface of the container, a deception was revealed. Smudged over the flask's surface was grease or paint, meant to hide the flask's true nature.

"Orichalcum?" asked the Mother of Nature. "What need would he have for such a precious metal to be made into something mundane?"

"Because it does not contain the mundane," said Pan, stroking his tuft of facial hair. "Orichalcum is used in alchemy. Perhaps, does this flask bear a potion?"

Removing the cap and holding her hand over its mouth, Lampetia allowed the contents to cast a golden glow on her gloved palm.

"Nektar?" asked Demeter, raising an eyebrow.

Pan shook his head. "No, the color is off… Nektar is in there, certainly, but it is mixed with something else."

Lampetia smirked and held the flask for Pan to examine. He accepted the offer with his own grin, placed one eye in the mouth for a visual inspection, and then dated to sniff at the contents. Immediately, he tossed the flask back to Lampetia, whose quick reflexes allowed her to snatch it from the air without spilling a drop and place the cap back on its mouth in one solid fluid motion before Pan could collapse in the corner, gagging and heaving.

Demeter shot a curious glance to Pan, and once she was sure he was not harmed, she eyed Lampetia once more with a curious tilt of her head. "Explain."

"I have my suspicions, but Pan has the more reliable nose," she said, folding her arms and waiting for the satyr to compose himself.

Coughing, Pan returned to the Sunrider and goddess, wiping his lips with the back of his head. He had not lost his morning meal entirely, but the smell of digested berries was on his breath. "It's ichor..."

The substance in the vein of the gods was ichor. It was bright and orange in color and burned mortal flesh on contact when freshly spilled. It was what gave them their essence manipulation powers and gave them immortality. It ran through the veins of all three, though Demeter had been a mortal of flesh-and-blood.

At once, Demeter understood the concern that Lampetia now had. "This prisoner drinks Nektar laced with ichor?"

The Sunrider nodded. "It seems so."

Pan let out an annoyed sigh as he looked up at the two goddesses. "Most of the missing nymphs and satyrs whose remains have been recovered have been dissected, defiled, or drained. Ichor harvesting could be their end goal here."

Releasing a wild groan and clenching her teeth, Demeter shook her head. "This heresy runs deeper than we could have ever possibly imagined. Send out the Call of the Wild, Pan…" she said as she made her way to the stairs, pausing at the base to gaze over her shoulder to Lampetia. "I want all available tribal leaders to proceed to Olympus. Will the Sunriders accommodate Pan's requests for transport of the Okeanids?"

Lampetia consented with a nod.

As Demeter carried herself up the stairs, Pan's cloven hooves raced to the steps. "And if I may be so bold," he stammered, "might I ask why you wish to convene a Gathering on Olympus?"

Continuing up the stairs, Demeter did not look back. "It is where I will be... But for now, I have to speak to my brother and his prisoner."

Within the hour, Demeter burst through the doors of the Olympian throne room. With a relentless pace, Demeter found Zeus standing halfway down the rainbow-colored steps to his raised throne. Zeus' throne was shaped from black marble and featured gold filament in the shape of abstract lightning across the night sky. It was large and majestic, befitting the King of the Gods.

Holding Zeus' left hand was Hera, walking down the crystal steps of her throne as she drank Nektar from a gossamer flute that was so clear it almost seemed as though the Nektar were simply floating untouched over her hand. As she descended from the royal dais, she was the first to notice Demeter's entrance. "Ah, sister! Welcome!"

Zeus did not smile; his eyes were locked ahead of him and toward the floor. As Demeter rounded the Chartis Kosmos in the chamber's center, she saw what was occupying the god's attention.

Before the god and goddess, the prisoner was kneeling on the ground and stripped of all clothing and possessions. He was shackled in adamant and orichalcum chains. On either side of him, armed with clockwork carbines with adamantine bayonets affixed to the barrels, were two members of the Throneguard, specifically Bia and Zelos.

Zeus, after a long pause, turned his gaze to Demeter. "Sister, whatever it is, it can wait-"

"I defy that," she halted a few steps behind the prisoner.

"Excuse me?" asked Zeus.

It was then that Hebe rushed up and handed Demeter a hastily filled chalice of Nektar.

Demeter silently thanked Hebe with a nod and then walked around the prisoner, angling herself toward Hera's side of the chamber where her own throne could be found. "As a member of this council, I have a right to use this chamber and never be denied a chance to speak. Is that not right?"

Zeus glowered but kept a smirk on his lips. "True, but this is a crucial matter that I am not certain you have been briefed-"

"I know enough," she assured him as she reached the point of standing between Bia and the prisoner. She paused, thinking better of her placement, and proceeded to walk behind Bia. She cautiously touched the guardian's shoulder as she walked around Bia's armed side—an unspoken apology for crossing between her and her charge. "I am not certain you are aware of all of this heretic's most heinous acts."

Hera raised an eyebrow. "Heretic? We were informed he was a god."

Zeus pointed to the prisoner, still bearing wounds and smeared ichor. "Can you not see he bleeds ichor even before you? How can one be a heretic *and a god?*"

"In his possession was a flask," said Demeter, holding her chalice by the exterior of its bowl with her thumb and four fingers as she lowered it to her side. "Contained inside this flask was what seems to be an alchemical mixture which combines our precious Nektar and the even more precious ichor of slain nymphs and satyrs."

Zeus scowled. "What?!" His booming reply carried the heft of contained thunder. He stomped toward the prisoner.

Hera took a step in the same direction but did not advance further. Likewise, the throne guards took a reflexive step toward the prisoner and placed the carbines against the god's neck, cautioning him against any hostile intentions for their king.

Crackling with electrical essence from his hands and eyes, Zeus lunged forward. He grabbed the shackle around the prisoner's neck and lifted the prisoner off the ground. As his arms were bound behind him, the prisoner could do little more than grit his teeth and wince as the lightning surged through his body.

The throne guards their carbines at the ready, trusting their king not to hit them with stray lightning.

"Husband!" barked Hera. "Might I remind you we have not finished questioning him?"

Demeter held a hand up, silencing her sister, and then approached Zeus as he cast the prisoner to the floor and let his lightning slowly die down. "You were not going to kill him. Let us be honest. If you had intended to kill him, you would have done so when he was first brought before you for what he had done to Artemis and Apollo."

Spitting upon the prisoner before turning to face Demeter, Zeus furrowed his brow. "Make no mistake about this, Demeter, he will die. Whether by hand or by my order, he will die… it is only a matter of when," he said, casting his eyes back to the prisoner as the throne guard got the prisoner back to his feet, only to kick the back of his shins and force him into a kneeling position once more.

As the prisoner was godhandled, Demeter saw the markings of scorched flesh, both recent and fresh on his flesh. She realized this outburst she had just witnessed was not Zeus' first attack on the perpetrator.

"My apologies, brother," Demeter said with a respectful nod and then retreated to her own throne. Shaped from bright-green malachite with golden barley designs in the upholstery, Demeter's throne was comfortable and grand, befitting the Mother of Nature. Miniature golden pigs served as the styled armrests. Rubies shaped like poppies crowned the top of her throne in a beautiful bouquet.

As Demeter settled into her throne, she finally sampled her Nektar. As she did, the goddess eyed Zeus and saw he was still focusing his eyes on her. She wondered if he was considering the news she had brought him or if his rage was still brewing. Demeter drank deep from her goblet and pondered the matter for a brief time before casting it from her mind. Deliberating the processes of Zeus' mind was a moot exercise as though both he and she shared a healthy libido and a passion for mortals; they differed in far more revealing ways that made them usually agree to disagree.

After a few moments longer, it was Hera who spoke. "Zeus," she said with a slight motion of her head, "the prisoner?"

Clearing his throat, Zeus returned his focus to the chained god. He stared for a long, awkward moment that Demeter was pleased to not be on the receiving end of. Then, the King of the Gods reached into the pocket of his long coat and retrieved a necklace with a broken chain.

The prisoner's eyes enlarged upon seeing this as those of Hera and Demeter narrowed to examine the jewelry from a distance.

"It has been sometime since we met… and you have aged in a most curious manner, seeing as though you are now so young and," Zeus took a moment to look the prisoner over with appraising eyes and a lascivious grin, "fit; but when we last met, you were old and wrinkled. I assumed you had finally withered and died, but now I see that is not so… Is it?"

The prisoner chuckled with a lopsided smirk. "You always were too clever for your own good, son of Kronos."

Hera stepped down a single step from her throne. "Zeus, you know who this man is?"

"I do," he said with a nod and an ever-growing smile. "I met him in my travels long, long ago. First when he was a general in his father's army. He chased me into a quarry with his battalion of soldiers, all of them abominations given unnatural might from tainted essence siphoned from his own automaton wife's artificial heart's blood."

The prisoner smiled. "We nearly had you. I could have struck you down then, Zeus," he said, slowly shaking his head, "and believe me, I wish I had."

Hera took another step forward as Demeter leaned forward. The sisters glanced at each other, measuring to see if either had reached the same conclusion about the prisoner's identity. But both also shared an expression of doubt as such a notion seemed impossible.

"It cannot be," said Hera.

"And yet," added Demeter, "it seems it is."

Zeus lowered his shoulders and controlled his breathing, containing his lightning from manifesting itself. "How can this be? By what foul magic do you still draw breath?"

The prisoner eyed the floor. He chuckled and slowly lifted his eyes, glowering at Zeus with disdain while his lips made a sickening grin. His lips turned black as putrid veins branched out from his mouth, causing his skin to grow pale as they spread. His eyes flashed red, and then his teeth became fangs. Then as he climbed to his feet in defiance of the throne guard's presence. Then, the prisoner began to cackle with an unearthly pitch. "Just a little trick my brother taught me once," he said, taking one step forward as Zeus took his own backward, "before you locked him away forever!" he screamed.

Then in a flurry of movement, the transformed prisoner swung his shoulders to either side, knocking both Bia and Zelos off-balance. Then, he lunged forward, his jaw unhinging and his cheeks tearing apart to give him an unnaturally large bite, poised to take Zeus' head off in one snap.

Fortunately, he did not get the chance to do so as he was pulled back by his chains. Then, landing on his feet, his back suddenly arched, and his foul features disappeared to return him to human form with torn cheeks as he let out an agonizing cry over the sounds of sizzling flesh and rattling chains.

When the prisoner fell to the floor unconscious, the eldest of the elder gods, Hestia, was standing a step behind where he once stood. One hand was on the prisoner's chains while the other was gripping the Empyrean Torch, which she had used to brand the back of the prisoner. As all eyes turned to her, thankful for her arrival, Hestia shifted the grip of her torch and tossed it back into the nearby Charis Kosmos' hearth.

Hestia scoffed and smirked. "Sorry to interrupt," she said as she strolled closer. In passing, she checked the prisoner's body with a sharp kick to his ribs and gave a quiet nod before finishing her approach to Zeus.

"Thank you," Zeus said with a polite nod.

Hestia smiled silently and retrieved the necklace from Zeus' hand. She eyed it, nodded to herself, and returned it to her brother. As she strolled back to the prisoner, she took a moment to breathe in deeply, and then she lifted her booted foot and stomped down on the freshly scorched skin between the prisoner's shoulder blades, causing him to let out a harrowing scream and cough up a discolored black tar-like substance that sizzled on the metallic floor like spilled ichor.

"Hestia!" barked Hera. "Control yourself!"

Hestia glanced at Hera, then to Zeus, and finally to Demeter. "Very well," she said, adjusting her tool belt and cap. "I have better things to attend to anyway," she said as she started to saunter away. As she rounded Artemis' throne on the right-hand side of the chamber from where her siblings stood, Hestia looked back at them and pointed to the prisoner. "You best not smite him without me. I deserve to watch him suffer for what he has done!"

And with that, Hestia saw her way out, disappearing through a door hidden in the wall's mural, slamming it shut after her departure.

This left a confused Hebe sitting next to the hearth, looking about the room for answers that were not forthcoming.

"Well?" asked Demeter.

Zeus waved his hand dismissively to the guards. "Take him to Tartarus."

Bia balked at this, still composing herself. "Surely, you misspoke... Did you mean the holding cells here, my king?"

Hera took another step and shook her head, glaring at the guardian. "March him down to the Underworld this instant. Tell Hades to contain this abomination where he belongs! Chain him next to his wretched brother for all I care!"

As the throne guards moved in to collect the collapsed prisoner, Demeter got from her throne and strolled next to Zeus. He was staring blankly into the distance as she procured the necklace from his hand to inspect it herself with that order given. "How can this be? How could he have survived? Surely, the ravages of time would have killed him long ago."

"Not to mention the fact he should have been left on Earth," Hera added as she strolled in to take a closer examination of the necklace, "during the Exodus and yet… here he is," she said as she watched Bia and Zelos drag the prisoner from the throne room. "So the truly vital question is not 'how this is', but instead 'what do we do now'?"

Zeus nodded. "And how many more like him are there?"

## Characters

### Gods

* Pan
* Demeter
* Zeus
* Hera
* Bia
* Zelos
* Hebe
* Hestia