Wrath "Rise of the Fallen"

At the top of the broken mountain the three supreme gods stopped and just stared. It was no mere mountain, but something else. He turned to face the way they had come and saw a cruel, never-ending desert wasteland haunted only by scalding whips of wind that ghosted along the dunes, and then turned back to make sense of what lay before him. Like some great upheaval in the land had raised a blister that ruptured to reveal something enchanted beneath the bleak desert, a seemingly never-ending valley covered by an immense forest spread away from the gods. Spires of rock, rolling hills, and clusters of tall, thick trees rose through the heavy emerald canopy, and the quiet crash of water echoed in metallic harmony from countless unseen sources. “Down in there somewhere,” Hades said with a shrug and wisp of spiritual fire from his helm. He trudged toward a path that started down the valley wall, using his spear as a walking staff. They traveled a narrow trail of loose shale and porous rock that spilled out onto the dim forest floor.

The ground was nearly perfectly green, carpeted in clover and tufts of velvety moss that spiraled up tree trunks like tentacles. Heavy vines hung from tree limbs and everywhere bunches of flowers splashed the green ground with a dozen bright colors. Animal calls flitted through the air and still the whisper of falling water echoed distantly. Gone was the arid heat, the sun mostly blocked by the thick canopy far overhead. A soothing coolness lay over the gods like damp silk. The difference was shocking.

“Like we’re in another world,” Zeus muttered. Poseidon grunted and Hades said, “This way,” leading them along a trail cut through a gauntlet of bushes so crazed with plump berries that they seemed to be blue and red. Despite the occasional cries of hidden creatures and the ever-present cascade of water, the forest breathed with a temple-like solace. Here and there, shafts of mellow sunlight, vibrant with dancing dust, touched down on the forest floor like veils of gold. The gods walked along the bank of a placid creek, whispering over and around smooth white, black, and grey rocks sparkling with silvery metals. The creek spilled into a tranquil pool bordering on a broad clearing. They skirted the edge of the pool, making their way through tall brown-and-green reeds until they stood in a vast field of long, shaggy grass beaded with yellow flowers and littered with what at first looked like fallen timber. A light breeze played over the field, making the grass seem to shimmer, and the sun bathed them in a delightfully spring-like warmth. It couldn’t possibly be the same sun baking the desert outside the valley.

“Those are Titan bones,” Zeus said. “And weapons.” He could see Titanic spears, shields, and scimitars strewn about the field.

“These are not all Titans,” Hades said, bending down to pull a rusted sword from a tangle of the long grass. He held it up, turning it so his brothers could see the telltale forward-curving blade. “A kopis. This belonged to a god.”

“A great battle occurred here,” Poseidon said. “Do you recall a battle in a place such as this, Zeus?”

Zeus shook his head. There had been many terrible battles during the war against the Titans, but none that he remembered in an impossible valley in a blasted desert. The skeletal remains of gods and Titans spilled across the clearing, a grim treasure trail that they followed until the clearing began to roll with low hills and renewed woodlands. Strange woodlands.

They passed beneath huge, ancient tree trunks furred with pea-green moss and veined with crimson and purple vines that swept and arched about the forest like monstrous serpents. In between these wild giants a dozen other kinds of trees climbed skyward, some gnarled and twisted, others straight as spears, more with a silvery bark peeling from them like flayed skin. Branches spread in a manic web of leaves, large and small, heart-shaped or teardrop-shaped or dagger-shaped, to cut the sunlight once again to an ivory, dusky dimness.

Several trickles of water fell from a pile of moss-covered boulders, gathering energy to splash down as a single cascade and set a small brook to giggling as it flowed along a rocky pathway. Fat-stemmed flowers with gigantic petals of orange and yellow and pink mobbed the trail and swayed back and forth in the most gentle breeze. The gods followed this path, cheered on it seemed by the leaves rustling in that breeze, until they reached the first unnatural structure. An arch of soot-black granite shot through with phantom-green and blue veins. The brook split around the arch and tumbled down rocky staircases to form two frantic whitewater flows bracing a long, wide land bridge from the arch to a sprawling structure set against the base of a jagged cliff.

“The water,” Poseidon said, eyeing both courses, “it moves unnaturally.” Who could know the ways of water better than Poseidon? No one, Zeus knew, and he took no comfort in the disquiet of his brother.

Hades held up his stone. It was white again. “We’re here,” he said. “I guess.”

Zeus nodded, finding little comfort in the development, and scanned the building, using his eagle vision to close the distance. Another stone archway led to a courtyard filled with statuary and unlit braziers. More statues looked down along ledges in the windowless façade, which formed two building wings that embraced a brass or gold dome. It looked like a sword had been stuck into the top of the dome. Tall columns framed a wide staircase leading up to a large double door. A huge statue squatted at the foot of the staircase as if dozing. Weird place for a statue, Zeus thought. But all of this was weird.

“Looks like a temple,” Zeus said.

“Yes,” Hades said, “but like none I’ve ever seen. What’s topping the dome?”

“A sword maybe.”

“That mean anything to you?”

“No,” Zeus said, shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Well,” Poseidon grumbled, “are we going to stand here looking like three kinds of stupid or are we going to go see what we’re supposed to go see?”

“Yes, let’s do this already,” Zeus said. He strode under the arch and his brothers followed.

The thunder of the water embraced them as they marched toward the temple. About halfway across the land bridge something changed. Zeus blinked and stared hard at what he thought he saw. And yes, he saw it again.

The statue on the stairs had moved. Twitched. Twitched again. Then stood to a towering height.

“What—?” Hades froze and his spiritual fire flared.

The thing—for it could be no statue—shook as if rousing itself from slumber, stared the gods down, and charged with a hoarse bellow. The thing moved fast. Really fast. And another sound could be heard, beastlike and growling. It was a massive chain locked to the thing’s ankle dragging behind it on the stone of the courtyard and then the hard ground beyond the arch.

Without thinking, the three gods aligned themselves side by side in a defensive posture. “What is that thing?” Poseidon asked, his tattoos shimmering with the pale-green glow of bioluminescent plankton.

“It looks like a Titan,” Zeus said.

“Impossible,” Hades said. He sipped in a deep breath and the spiritual fire above his head drew into his helm. He exhaled slowly and the spiritual fire danced along the two arrow-headed forks of his spear.

“This whole thing is impossible,” Zeus muttered and snapped the fingers of his right hand. Blue-white lightning wrapped around his fist, crackling quietly with a promise of devastation.

It was certainly a Titan—three times as tall as any god and wide as any Titan Zeus had encountered. And yet also not like any Titan that Zeus had ever seen before. So scoured of meat was its broad frame, that it seemed a giant skeleton sprinted at them. Shrieking and gibbering, lunacy lit its death’s head face with a horrific grin, and tendrils of frayed hair whipped behind him. Had the wretch been chained there since the original war? Immortal so unable to simply starve to death, chained up like some watchdog for eons… It drew a scimitar twice the size of the gods and prepared to strike.

As Zeus reared back to hurl his bolt, Poseidon tapped a short but complex rhythm on the ground with his trident, ending with a flourish that made his tattoos flare. The land bridge snapped like a whip, upending the Titan and sending it sprawling headlong into the rushing water. Chunks of the land bridge fell away as the ground still shook in violent fits. Zeus raced to where the Titan went into the water. He found the chain disappearing into the frothing whitewater and slowly dragging back toward the temple with the strong current.

Hades and Poseidon caught up. “I guess he’s a little tied up, huh?” Hades said, extinguishing the green fire blazing on the spear’s twin heads. Slowly, it began to flicker again above his helm.

“Heh.” Poseidon wore a grim little smile. Things were still trembling and the land bridge continued to crumble. “So is your little love tap going to bring everything down on us?” Zeus wanted to know.

“Yeah,” Hades said, “we kind of need that temple to stay standing.”

Poseidon snorted. “It’s just a temblor. It’s already calming down. Like you ought to be—this is only going to get wilder. Let’s go before that scrawny Titan figures out how to get his head above his ass again.” Twirling his trident, Poseidon, tattoos already dimmed, sauntered off toward the temple.