Vol.5 Ch.26.1 – Wait, What? I

Chapter 26: Wait, What?

Only after breaking the hug with Athena did it occur to me that hugging the goddess I still allegedly hated in front of all her peers might have been a bad idea but of the very few gods who had noticed, none had said a word. Better still, Athena hadn't been at all angry with me for it. I think she was still too relieved.

Because, even if it didn't really feel like it, we had just saved the world. I had just saved the world. It was only a temporary success, sure, but for the moment at least we were safe. In truth, I couldn't really feel relief because of it. Yes, the world was safe but knowing how close we'd come to ruin, knowing that, if Athena had been captured trying to flee Olympus we would never have known about this, would haunt me.

We needed to prepare, to make sure this wouldn't repeat in two years. I had plans for it, of course, though most of them were still rather nebulous. The most important but also the most vague was that bizarre ability I'd been given. If Athena could convince the Fates to teach me how to cut the threads of fate I could free Syr. If not...

I shook my head. Let's not go there. The second thing I needed to do was... Ares. Oh yes. Knowing that he was a traitor to Olympus, a traitor to this world, didn't really change things for me. If anything, it simplified them. I was worried I'd need to leave the bastard alone because we might need him to fight the Outsiders but now that was no longer a concern. He had already been at the top of my shit list and the stay of execution had just been rescinded. I was going to have to talk to Yume about this. The real question was how to defeat an immortal god and I had a pretty clear idea of how to do that now. Gods above, I even knew how to play it out.

Of course, Bres and, presumably, Wilhelm, were still at large as well. If Wilhelm was indeed still around I had no doubt we'd be running into him sooner or later but there was really no reason we had to make Bres our problem as well. If Brigid was at all smart she'd already be mobilizing her entire pantheon and all their worshipers against him and the Fomorians.

Of course, all of these grand plans and schemes were still far in the future. But there were two much more immediate things I could do right now. The first was to talk to Hephaestus.

Tholoi, being circular temple structures, didn't really have corners, so saying that I found Hephaestus in a corner cuddled up with his wife would have been inaccurate. But still, that's what it felt like. They were huddled up against a pillar far away from the entrance and shielded from the morning sun, just sitting there and hugging each other. I couldn't blame them. They'd spent months and months being tortured and even if they'd found a way to turn torture designed to break them into a bizarre kind of foreplay, they were still clearly in need of tenderness. Honestly, I would have loved to just sink into the arms of my girls right then as well, and I would, but there were still things I needed to do. I almost hesitated before approaching them but as he saw me he gave me a nod, letting me know that he was fine with it.

“You really saved our hides there, Tailor,” he rumbled.

“Of all mortals I really didn't expect you to come save us,” Aphrodite said. “But I am glad you did. Thank you.”

I gave her a nod of acknowledgment, then turned to Hephaestus: “I probably wouldn't have made it if it weren't for you.” I patted the pommel of Eleftheria affectionately. “Do you—“ I began but he cut me off:

“Keep it. I'm glad someone's getting some use out of it.”

I nodded, then braced myself as I asked: “What about Helios Edge?”

“Helios...” he began, then seemed to get it. “Ah. Right.” He pulled it out from a bag of holding, the beautiful gladius completely bent out of shape. “Rat bastard really did a number on it, stars damn that philistine.” He patted the blade affectionately. “She's almost as upset about it as you are.”

“She?” I asked.

Aphrodite tittered, then explained: “He treats his swords like women.”

I frowned. Was this like a metaphor or...?

Hephaestus must have noticed my confusion because he explained: “Have you ever wondered why so many legendary pieces of gear refuse to work for you? They have personalities, if only rudimentary ones. And they tend to be very loyal to the gods who commissioned them from us blacksmiths. Wrath F... Helios Edge accepted you because you showed her infinitely more respect than her previous owner did. You took care of her and she never let you down until Bres did this to her.”

In all fairness, I had always suspected something like this. Helios Edge had always felt like it understood me, to some degree. But having that spelled out was still bizarre. Although the real question was: “But can you fix her?”

He gave me a soft smile. “Would you even want her back, now that you have Eleftheria?”

I bit my lip. Eleftheria was an incredible weapon, maybe even more made for me than Helios Edge had ever been. If I had to choose then Eleftheria was very likely the better choice but... “If at all possible I would like to keep them both. I'm greedy like that.”

His small smile grew. “Good answer. They both chose you as their wielder, probably because you can feed them your quintessence.”

“You know about that?” I asked, baffled. Athena hadn't known about that until I'd taught her.

He clearly considered how much to tell me before he asked: “Where did you learn to do that?”

“Yume taught me,” I said, not even entertaining the idea of lying to him. “The Southern realms all know about this technique.”

His eyes widened. “Interesting.”

“So, here's what I don't understand,” I said. “If you didn't know quintessence manipulation was a thing, why did you make weapons that require it?”

“Between your newfound ability to see the threads of fate and your time spent with Athena you've probably figured out the trick with quintessence, right?”

I swallowed. A lot of this was conjecture but if he phrased it that way I was certain I was right. “Quintessence, life force, is generated by mortals. The gods siphon tiny little pieces of it off of their worshipers. When gods use their miracles, either on their own or channeled through a cleric, they use the life force of their worshipers.”

“Precisely,” Hephaestus said. “Us gods are, in essence, parasites who prey on the life force of our worshipers, though usually not enough that they would even notice.” Aphrodite scrunched up her face at the comparison so I decided not to agree with him too vigorously. It was nice to see a god confirming what I always thought about gods, though.

“So what you're saying is that these weapons aren't meant to be powered by a person's quintessence, but by a god's?”

He nodded. “Highly advanced magical catalysts siphon off a little bit of magic every time a spell is cast through them. That siphoned magic is placed into a reservoir and can then be unloaded with explosive results. Eleftheria and Helios Edge are weapons designed to do the same thing but with miracles instead of spells. Although I will say that the way you use quintessence charges them more efficiently than I ever even dreamed of.”

“And that's why your swords like me,” I concluded.

“Well, that, and because you treat them well. You fight evil with them, you oil them, you polish them, you clean them, and even if they're enchanted for durability and don't need to be sharpened you still check their edges after every major battle.” I could feel my cheeks warming. It wasn't really something to get embarrassed about but Alisha had commented on me caring more for my sword than for her on more than one occasion, though usually only when she needed a good, hard spanking.

“So can you fix Helios Edge up?”

He looked once again at the blade bend over into a u-shape. “Give me a day.”

I nodded deep and long in gratitude.

“But now I have a question for you, Tailor,” he said.

I perked up.

“Your paladin friend's armor,” he said. “The design is clearly based on something Eitri and Brok made but that matte steel is not their style. Who made it?” Where the Olympians had Hephaestus and the Tuatha Dé Danann had Goibniu, the Aesir had Eitri and Brok. The two dwarven brothers weren't really gods in their own right but they were still considered, together, as a divine blacksmith.

“When Freya Chose Selene she gave her a suit of armor made by Eitri and Brok,” I explained. “It was silver and gold and far too gaudy for her. So we tasked a blacksmith in the capital with forging her a suit of armor in the exact same style and shape but less gaudy.”

“And who was that blacksmith?” Hephaestus asked, leaning forward.

“His name is Andre,” I said, well aware of the fact that Andre was one of Hephaestus' disciples, one of the blacksmiths who had learned directly from the god of the forge.

Hephaestus smiled. “I thought I recognized his work in there.”

“You still remember him?” I asked, somewhat shocked. Andre was great but there had to be hundreds of blacksmiths who had studied under Hephaestus.

“Any god who doesn't know all their clerics by name doesn't deserve to be a god,” he said. Aphrodite nodded emphatically. I didn't know which god this was a dig against but I decided to make a mental note of it.

But something else he'd said there bothered me. “Andre's not a cleric.”

Hephaestus snorted. “Not all clerics wear robes and hold mass, Tailor. What use would I have for a congregation? Those who want my blessings will find their way to me regardless. Every anvil is an altar to me, each hammer blow a sacrament. And Andre is one of my most ardent worshipers.”

I frowned. “I met a priestess of Demeter a year ago and she wasn't working the fields.” Thea had been the picture of a cleric, all long robes and dignity, and she'd had nothing to do with agriculture.

Aphrodite rolled her eyes. “You've met Demeter. Do you really think she'd refuse the extra worship an entire congregation could provide?”

I winced. If Demeter's clerics didn't hold masses for her there was every chance she would curse their villages with loss of crops. And with a vengeful bitch like that keeping her happy was probably much more important than hoeing the fields. “Yeah, I get it.”

**

I stumbled out of that conversation slightly delirious. Hephaestus hadn't really told me anything completely new but he had changed the way I thought of things somewhat.

I had wondered how he'd known to build weapons that interacted with Qi when he really hadn't. I had simply found an exploit in the way his weapons did what they were supposed to do and substituted my own life force for the divine life force I would never be able to manipulate.

Similarly, I'd thought of clerics as just mages with access to miracles but if blacksmiths were clerics of divine blacksmiths then how would clerics of other gods manifest? Thanks to spending at least a small part of my life in Aphrodite's Orchard I knew that temples of Aphrodite existed and that her clerics held masses but judging by some of the stuff us teens had seen up on that hill I also knew that clinical worship wasn't all those clerics did. But then, what would a cleric of Ares be like? Normally I wouldn't spare a thought for that bastard but given what I was planning it was suddenly a pretty vital question.

I was pulled out of my musings when I saw Alisha talking to Melinoe up ahead, a soft smile on my little elf's lips. The two of them were standing close, a bit too close really, and I suddenly remembered that other thing I still had to do. It was high time Melinoe and I had that talk.

As she saw me approaching Alisha's soft smile became significantly more smug. She leaned forward to whisper something into Melinoe's ear, causing the demigoddess to turn around and face me, her cheeks tinged pink.

“Alisha,” I said, as gently as I could, “would you mind leaving Melinoe and me alone for a bit? I think the two of us need to have a little chat.”