Wrath "Rise of the Fallen"

The Temple of the Oracles was a wide affair of green granite blocks squatting low to the ground in a sun-splashed clearing at the base of the Isle of the Three’s only mount. Rectangular pavers of the same granite, chipped and frosted white from the elements, meandered toward the temple through tall grass waving in a mellow breeze. It was quiet, but not the heavy silence that preceded the demonic attack. A gathering of blackbirds jabbered happily among the trees and the sphere-shaped fountains surrounding the temple’s broad, low steps burbled peacefully. It seemed safe here, but Ares stayed alert because it could not possibly be safe.

His arm throbbed, his various spear wounds burned, but he’d been injured before and he was determined not to let it slow him down now. Not with Poseidon counting on him and not with an opportunity to clear the debt he owed Hermes. They climbed the three steps and crossed over the wide doorless threshold. The sunlight failed to reach inside the temple. Their footfalls on the marble-slab floor reverberated, and each step put Ares more and more on alert.

The interior was cool and quiet. The only light came from the shallow pool at the center of the temple, from which the oracles gleaned their glimpses of the past, present, and, most importantly to those who sought them out, future. Ares never liked the Oracles, the games those witches played. Doling out the truth wrapped in muddled veils, and always a hidden cost. The pool cast a plume of soft moon glow into the air, barely illuminating the walls and a single iron-strapped door that must’ve led back into the mountain. Poseidon walked up to the raised edge of the pool, looked into it, then looked around. He turned back to Ares and shrugged. “Sisters!” he called. “Surely, you know we’re here and why.”

A low, sensual laugh echoed around the room. Joined by a second and a third. A deep, eerie harmony of carnal pleasure. With left hand across his hip on his sword hilt, Ares scanned the temple. He saw nobody, but the pool rippled gently, making the lunar-lighted air shimmy and sway. He caught Poseidon’s eye and tipped his chin toward the door in the far wall. His uncle nodded and they moved swiftly around the pool to the door, tattoos beginning to twinkle softly. Poseidon thrust the butt end of his trident against the door and it exploded inward with a flurry of fat splinters and iron bands.

Inside, the room was entirely of some green stone with glittering depths filled with nightmares and bad thoughts. The three witches stood arrayed before a red marble altar lighted by blazing braziers. On the altar lay Hermes bound in chains glowing softly with some enchantment. Next to it, sat a tall hardwood table with a black-handled blade inscribed with unreadable glyphs and golden chalice gleaming in the firelight. Along with Hermes’ twin daggers. “Let us have Hermes, witches, and no harm need come to you,” Poseidon said quietly. The witches wore gowns of delicate white linen that clung to them like a second skin. Their feet were bare. They were, as Ares had always heard, beautiful—too severe for his liking, but striking nonetheless with rich olive skin, almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones, lush lips, and blonde hair piled on their heads in complicated braids and buns. The witch in the center spoke: “Hermes is serving a higher purpose than mere messenger boy,” she said. She appeared to be the leader.

Ares unsheathed his sword with his left hand.

“Arm bothering you, Ares?” the witch on the left asked with an alluring smile and tilt of her head. The smile vanished and her eyes flicked to Poseidon. “For so long—too long—we have served humans and abominations alike, answered your childish questions, assuaged your petty anxieties about the future, about love and death and fortune. Never were the true mysteries addressed. That has been the Lord’s bidding, and my sisters and I obeyed with relish, with adulation and patience.”

“And our patience has been rewarded,” the witch on the right said. “The Lord has proclaimed that now is the time for our true devotion to come to light. For the true mysteries to be solved. For all of you Greeks to have an opportunity to serve. Alive or,” she tipped her head toward Hermes, “dead.”

“Traitors,” Poseidon said.

The witches looked at each other with merriment, and it seemed their laughter fanned the flames of the fires behind them, setting shadows writhing in some terrible dance. “Traitors?” the leader said. “We had no allegiance to you pitiable abominations. Ever. Our arrangement existed for the same reasons all such arrangements exist: power, privilege, politics.”

“Who are you really?”

“Why, Poseidon, we are the Oracles. You know that. You also know that it is we who aided Zeus when he came groveling to us for help in defeating the Titans. Our Lord Lightbringer, the Son of the Morning, installed you abominations as ‘supreme gods’ with all of the benefits you’ve enjoyed lo these many years.” Chuckles from all three. “It just so happened that Zeus’ agenda coincided with our Lord’s interests.”

“An arrangement that has outlived its usefulness for our Lord,” the right witch said.

“Don’t look so befuddled, Poseidon,” the lead witch said. “This is all very simple. You will not be taking Hermes back to Olympus. What you will take back, however, is this one-time offer: Give allegiance to the Son of the Morning, join our cause, and live. Reject our generous offer and die. See? Simple.”

“You’re ignoring a third option,” Poseidon offered amiably. “We reject your offer and slaughter the three of you and your Lord Lightbringer. What say you, Ares?”

Ares’ sword rang free of its scabbard and he charged forward.

As one, the three witches hissed like feral cats and transformed. They were nude. Totally. No gowns, no hair. Grey-white flesh wrapped with plump blue veins running like vines from bald head to toes. Glistening spider eyes like fat black grapes, black lips, black talons curling off knotty fingers. They hissed again, their jaws gaping as if unhinged to reveal rows of fangs.

Black vomit sprayed from the middle witch’s mouth. Ares quickly brought his shield before him to block the thick black fluid, causing it to sizzle and smoke. As he approached, the witch on the left moved to attack him, but Poseidon flicked his trident and speared her through the gut. She squealed, and he disemboweled her with a vicious yank of the trident. She skidded atop the dark spill of her own innards, knocking Ares enough to upset his attack.

The remaining two witches wailed in unison, staggered by the loss, but they quickly recovered and with rage on their faces, they moved far apart to nearly opposite ends of the room and raised their arms. Their keening became a husky, rhythmic chant. The blue veins twining around their flesh began to throb and a dark aura swelled around them.

Ares had stumbled close to the altar. Seizing the opportunity, he slashed at Hermes’ bindings with his sword. The enchantments flared brightly, but blinked out quickly under the blows of a blade forged by Hephaestus. As soon as the chains snapped, Hermes sprang off the altar, grabbing his daggers off the ritual table. “Ah, my lovelies!” he cried with glee, then pulled up short at the sight of the witch laying atop her own guts. He made a sad face. “Started the party without me, fellows?”

“We’ll handle this, Hermes,” Poseidon snapped. “Get back to Olympus. We have trouble.”

“Ya think?” Hermes stepped over the body and brandished his daggers just as a flurry of blackbirds flooded through the doorway. Moving their hands together, the two witches guided the wild flock as it swirled around the room and with a flourish they snapped their hands and like a single entity the flock speared toward the three Greeks. Poseidon split the massive flock with his trident, Ares blocked screeching birds with his still-smoking shield, and Hermes lashed out with his daggers, but beaks and tiny talons still found their targets and tore at faces, necks, and arms. The blackbirds poured out of the room, leaving the echo of tormented cries, scattered lumps of bloody feathers, and the blood of gods in their wake. The two witches faced the Greeks from within their black aura.

Just a distraction, Ares thought, and then he locked eyes with the leader. The room faded behind a grey fog and a great sense of heaviness draped over him. The agony of his broken arm and the burning of dozens of wounds dwindled away.

“Ares!” Hermes’ thin, angular face and wild fiery hair swam into view, his words sounding muted as if spoken from behind a wall.

“His eyes are changed. Like lemons.” Poseidon’s voice boomed, but from a distance.

“I think they did the same to me,” Hermes said.

An incredibly dark rage welled up within Ares as he listened to those fools jabber. He’d had enough of Hermes smugly holding that secret over his head like a sword and he was sick of trying to please his uncle. He launched himself at Poseidon with a battle cry.

Poseidon parried Ares’ sword with his trident, but was knocked back a few steps on his heels. “He’s out of his mind! Stop those witches, Hermes!”

Hermes raced between the two naked creatures, flicking one dagger to the left and the other to the right. The left dagger stuck high up in a vein-wrapped thigh. The right dagger sank deep into the shoulder just at the side of the neck. The witches shrieked together in pain, but the black aura remained and Ares pressed his furious attack. He slashed his shield at Poseidon again and again, pushing him backward into the ceremonial table and sending the ritual blade spinning across the floor toward the altar. Emboldened, Ares winged his shield at Poseidon, catching him square in the knee and instantly readied his spear. “Play time is over, Uncle,” he said through gritted teeth.

Hermes spied the ritual blade near the altar and scooped it up.

Ares leapt into the air, spear poised to drive into the stumbling Poseidon’s undefended throat. But the Lord of the Seas anticipated the killing stroke and snapped the butt end of his trident at his nephew’s injured arm, truly shattering it. Ares dropped the spear and clutched his wrist to stare at the bone that had ruptured through the flesh of his forearm. He turned a murderous glare at his uncle.

Hermes slid up behind the lead witch and grabbed hold of the dagger sticking from her shoulder. She writhed like a serpent, but he held tight, and with his other hand, he swiped the ritual blade across her throat. He dropped the blade and yanked her head back, opening a gaping wound like a gigantic mouth gagging on blood, then shoved her to the floor. She crumpled with a scarlet spray that reached across the green marble like a pleading hand.

The aura shimmered and winked and Ares shook his head, looked at Poseidon with clear eyes and panicked bewilderment, then grimaced with the pain of his ruined arm.

“He’s back!” Poseidon said.

Ares blinked furiously and shook his head.

“Stop the last witch!” Poseidon yelled.

Hermes darted toward the witch who yanked the dagger from her thigh and began to vibrate with such speed she became a phantasmal smear. She winked out. “Damn!” Hermes cried, clutching desperately at the empty air, which began to roil like shifting tar.

“Don’t let her escape!” Poseidon’s tattoo rippled with pale light that struggled against the chamber’s increasing darkness.

Her giggles came from everywhere and nowhere, tumbling from out of the shadows. Poseidon’s head swiveled this way and that, trying to locate the source. “Form up on me,” he said. “Back to back.” Hermes and Ares closed in and faced outward, covering the dark room as best they could. The darkness ebbed and flowed, her maddening titters seeming to bob here and there as if caught in a swirling current. A giggle suddenly pitched up to a hysterical shriek and a whitish blur zipped from out of the murk to slash Poseidon’s face with her talons. Blood sheeted down his cheek. He lashed out with his trident. It whipped empty air, drawing a frustrated curse from his lips. And she kept coming. Over and over from out of the unnatural dark.

And although Ares’ spear deflected many blows from her talons and Hermes dagger, and Hermes parried thrusts with the ritual blade and his other dagger, and Poseidon caught flashing strikes with his trident, the last witch moved so swiftly like an invisible hornet, stinging the three Greeks again and again until their blood stippled the floor with crimson starbursts. Gritting his teeth and fighting a swelling fury, Poseidon risked letting his guard down to gently rat-a-tat the floor with his trident. The temple shook and thin fissures opened up in the stone.

“Nice try, abomination,” the witch sang. “But you missed me.” A scornful snigger echoed about the chamber.

Ares raged. Hermes made some smart remark. Poseidon was tired, so tired from the last few days, confused and deeply uneasy about all that he knew and still did not know. He could feel the Grace inside him and reached for it now, seeking help. A comforting warmth enveloped him and he brought his trident close to his face. He closed his eyes and emptied his body of breath and anger and of the distraction of the boys’ impotent bluster. Silence, as if in the eye of a typhoon.

As if it had its own mind, Poseidon’s trident twitched and shuddered, dipping away from his face, and swung about to his left to point its three tines like accusing fingers.

There.

Eyes closed, Poseidon saw a white shadow speed toward him from out of the tarry darkness like a shark. The trident slapped the floor once. Three fractures split the floor where the trident struck and shot outward like forks of lightning filled with fiery purple liquid—issuing forth from his Grace. A flash filled the room, blinding Poseidon and drawing harsh cries of surprise from Ares and Hermes.

The darkness was gone.

As Poseidon’s vision cleared he saw the room bathed in soft lavender light pulsing from a source near the altar.

The witch. Suspended somehow. The liquid from the trident had frozen into glowing purple prongs. And the witch was mounted on them, writhing slowly like a pinned insect. Poseidon approached slowly, keeping his trident ready. “You’re finished,” he said through gritted teeth.

Her bald head swung toward, black-globe eyes at half-mast, her jaw hanging open in a slack smile. The blue veins netting her body throbbed and pumped. “Finished?” she said huskily. “We’ve only just begun. You think this vexes me in the least I have endured eons of torment beyond anything you can imagine in service to Lord Lightbringer.” She laughed weakly and striking red blood dribbled over her black lips. “But now you’ll get to experience it all on your own.” One side of her leaking mouth tweaked upward.

Poseidon grunted, tugged at his beard, wondering how he might get the witch back to Olympus before she expired. Her eyes shifted left and her smile broadened, spilling more blood. “Ares….” she murmured. “You had your chance… to silence the trickster once… and for all. Lost your fighting spirit, God of War? Doesn’t… matter, I suppose, no amount of fight will stop… will stop the breaking of the seals.” She bowed her head, her bulbous eyes closing for a moment. Blood drip-drip-dripped from her mouth. Then her head snapped up, flinging droplets on Poseidon and Ares, and she looked Ares squarely in the eyes. “You will all burn forever!” she snarled and began chanting.

“Don’t look in her eyes!” Poseidon yelled.

Ares thrust his spear into her mouth, punching it through the back of her head. The light in her horrid spider eyes dimmed and blood curled around the spear shaft like a ruby serpent. She gurgled, shuddered, and starting sagging down the purple prongs.

“She could’ve been useful to us,” Poseidon said quietly, giving Ares a flinty look.

“Fuck her,” Ares growled.

Poseidon swallowed back an annoyed retort and nodded his head.

“What was she getting on about?” Hermes asked, stepping around his fellow Greeks to inspect the dead witch.

Ares glared at Hermes, wrapped a hand around his bloody forearm, and with the merest grimace, pressed the broken bones back down into the wound. “We’d best get back to Olympus,” he said.