Vol.6 Ch.3.1 – Audience With The King Of The Gods I
Chapter 3: Audience With The King Of The Gods
After my meeting with Prometheus I hurried back to Hermes' tholos, half expecting to find it empty. But, as I made my way across the main plateau of Olympus, Athena fell into step beside me.
Athena was beautiful, absolutely stunning, even more so right now. She was wearing a fine white toga, much nicer than the one she'd worn while traveling with us and her hair was done up in a bun framed by braids. She had opted to wear a golden laurel wreath today and I was certain it had been to impress her father.
My history with Athena was a complicated one. I would likely never fully forgive her for the way she had treated me but I had come to like her in spite of that. This aggravating, annoying, infinitely frustrating woman was fun to tease and, yes, fun to be around. Getting to work out all my frustrations with her in the bedroom certainly helped, too.
“I hear your dad's not too happy,” I said.
“He was fuming,” she said. “He agreed with me in the end but... I fear he will still try to demand your silence with no recompense.”
“You're not telling me I need to bow and scrape, are you?”
“Heavens no,” she said. “He'll walk all over you if you show him deference. Just be your usual obstinate self and you'll get what you want out of him.”
“Obstinate, huh?” I said, my voice dropping into a register that gave her pause. “That's not what you called me yesterday...”
“Please,” she all but whimpered. “Not now. I might do something really stupid if you talk to me like that now.”
I chuckled and reached over to ruffle her hair, causing her to swat at my hand. “I'll just do it tonight then.”
“I'd like that...”
**
When we reached Hermes' tholos Alisha gave me a smug look as she saw me entering with Athena in tow but I gave her a small shake of my head.
When everyone was ready to go we made our way to Zeus' tholos, the largest one on Olympus. The tholoi were supposed to all be the same size, to show the equal standing among the gods, but Hades' and Poseidon's tholoi were larger than the rest and Zeus' was significantly larger still. Which, come to think of it, had to sting for Hestia and Demeter. After all, they were all Zeus' siblings yet only the three men were given larger tholoi. Considering Zeus' attitude towards women that may have been an intentional slight. Then again, given his... track record... it wasn't just women that he saw as pieces of meat.
Either way, his tholos was sat apart from the rest not just through size but also distance. Instead of a light bridge connecting it to the main plateau it was only connected to a rock spire that was itself connected to the main plateau. That rock spire was the place we'd fought and killed Bres, the husband, or rather ex-husband, now, of my lovely Alisha's goddess Brigid. Although, to be fair, the actual killing had been done by Demeter, something I still had mixed feelings about.
Of all the gods who weren't traitors to the world, Demeter was the one I hated the most. Her reaction to being saved from her captor had been to spew vitriol at us, particularly at Melinoe and me. But in the end, despite all of that, she had come through for us and killed Bres, in a rather horrific fashion to boot. The enormous puddle of blood she'd created by tearing his skin and flesh apart was gone now, a slight tinge of pink on the grass the only indication that a god had been slain there.
We made it past that part as well and finally reached Zeus' tholos. And I immediately knew what kind of show trial the king of the gods had prepared for us.
Most of the Olympians were in attendance. Apollo and Artemis sat huddled together, him the only man Artemis would allow to touch her and both of them in desperate need of comfort still. In another spot Aphrodite clung to Hephaestus. The trauma of their situation had evidently only hit them after they were free again. Hestia was arguing with Dionysus, apparently upset that he'd cut her off but her cheeks so rosy that she'd clearly had too much to drink already. Poseidon stood off to the side, talking to Helios. But the most interesting to me was Hera. She stood to the right of Zeus, who sat on his throne. At a casual glance her demeanor might be considered demure but upon closer inspection it absolutely wasn't.
Instead of standing slightly behind the throne she stood right next to Zeus, shoulder to shoulder if he were standing, which he wasn't. Her hand rested on the throne in a proprietary manner and her glances at her husband told the whole story. After locking him up in chastity she was in control of their relationship, possibly for the first time in millennia. It would go a long way towards explaining why he was being so obstinate. For a god who defined himself almost entirely by being unable to keep it in his pants, being emasculated like this and by the wife he'd spurned no less had to sting. Just a shame he'd be trying to take it out on us.
“Brave Heroes who came to our aid in our time of need,” he boomed as he saw us. “Approach and receive your glory.”
We approached and as we did the eyes of all the gathered Olympians were on us. I did notice that none of them looked at us with disdain but their expressions all subtly shifted when their gazes rested on Zeus. It also hadn't escaped me that while the Olympians were nearly fully in attendance, their saints, saint candidates and other hangers-on were nowhere to be seen. I doubted that absolutely all of them had been killed, which meant that they hadn't been invited, presumably because at least someone knew that this might go poorly if other mortals were here to witness.
If I was reading the room correctly then right now I had a once-in-an-eon chance to drive a wedge between Zeus and the other Olympians. All I had to do was play my cards right.
We kept going until we stood before Zeus' throne, all of us shoulder to shoulder except for Athena, who placed herself halfway between us and her father.
“It is customary to kneel,” she told us quietly.
I almost wanted to chuckle at that but I knew I couldn't afford to. It had sounded like an admonishment and a hint but I knew it was neither. She had just told us what the polite thing to do was so that we could pointedly do the opposite.
We remained standing.
I could see Zeus' eye twitching. If he was this close to losing his temper already this might be even easier than I thought.
“All of you came to Olympus' aid in our time of great need,” he said. He sounded calm but his bloodshot eyes made his face look even more like a scowling thundercloud than usual. “As a show of gratitude all of you will have your names listed in the Book of Heroes.”
I heard some of the gods sputter behind me. I'd heard of the Book of Heroes before, a record of all the Heroes who had done services for the Olympians, a kind of memo to send down to Hades, to tell him who deserved the Elysian Fields and who didn't. Though after meeting Hades and Persephone I was absolutely certain that they didn't give a damn whom the other Olympians considered worthy of the Elysian Fields. And from the murmuring behind us this was evidently well known and therefore didn't make a fitting reward for saving their asses. And I decided to capitalize on that.
“That is very considerate. Of course, being registered in the Book of Heroes for our deeds I assume we will be able to brag about those heroic deeds and be immortalized by the bards, right? After all, we did just complete a Mythic Quest and lived to tell the tale.”
Murmuring broke out. Everyone present knew this was the one thing they absolutely could not afford. They also knew that this one thing they couldn't afford was the most natural reward to get from completing a Mythic Quest.
“You will not breathe a word of this outside of Mount Olympus,” he said, his voice like a judgment. “That is my decree.”
More muttering broke out. Apparently everyone here had assumed we would be getting a more proper reward out of this.
“We just saved an entire pantheon from ruination,” I said. “You say our reward for that is recognition as Heroes but we won't even be able to tell people what we're being recognized for? One might call that kind of behavior... ungrateful.”
“Ungrateful would be for a mortal to gain the recognition of the gods and ask for more,” Zeus growled and the muttering behind me became more pronounced.
And that's when I decided to, for the first time in this conversation, risk something. Athena had warned me against showing deference and I agreed with her assessment but I had screwed several gods over with malicious compliance. And so I decided to play along with his argument.
“Oh, I am very grateful for the recognition of the gods,” I lied through my teeth, “I am merely questioning how earnest that recognition is when I can't even brag about it. One might think you are trying to get out of this without rewarding us at all.”
He lost his temper. “If we publicly acknowledge what happened here we risk the whole world falling into disarray. The mortals might either think we are too weak to protect them or they might think we are weak enough for them to overthrow us. Both outcomes would weaken our standing, thus making it more likely for the Outsiders to pose a threat in the future.”
I'd had that concern before as well. Except for the little part where, even without having their standing weakened in any way, they had fallen to a concentrated assault by the Outsider cultists. We'd had to come bail them out, not the other way around. So as far as I was concerned keeping them powerful did precisely nothing for the safety of the world.
“Just give them a reward in exchange for their silence,” a voice from behind me boomed. Zeus stared daggers at the one who had spoken but, unfortunately for him, the one who had spoken was Poseidon, one of the few gods who didn't have to cow to him. And the other gods were agreeing with Poseidon.
“They've already received their reward,” Zeus growled back. The murmurs became yet more pronounced.
“Sure,” I said. “So I guess you're fine with us going straight to the bards after this.”
“You will do no such thing,” he boomed, his voice like a thunderclap. “On my decree, you shan't speak of this to anyone else.”
I set my jaw. “Or. What.” I heard gasps behind me and I saw a hint of worry on Hera's of all faces but I held fast.
“If you will not keep your silence I will be forced to silence you.”
Finally. I could finally play my whole hand. And unfortunately for Zeus, I'd had a royal flush lined up before I'd even come here. “I would rather strongly advise against that.”
“Are you threatening me, mortal?”
I stared straight into his eyes. “You bet. You see, we already told the queen all about what we did here. Kind of hard not to, given that her royal guards helped clean this realm up. And if we don't check in with her by noon tomorrow she will tell the entire kingdom what happened here. So unless you want to kill not just us but the entire royal family as well, I strongly advise not laying a finger on us.” I was not bluffing. I'd asked Anna to ask her mother for that specifically and the queen had obliged us.
His knuckles were white on his throne and he stared at us as if he wanted to kill us all and worry about the consequences later. But finally he calmed down and simply said: “Name your price.”
I smiled. Things would be so much easier if people were just polite to one another to begin with, no?
“I want three things,” I said. “The first you'll be amenable to, especially because it's us offering to take care of one of your problems for you. The second you will dislike but you'll grant anyway. And the third you're going to absolutely loathe and it's the one I'm the least willing to budge on.”
“Let's start with the first one, then,” he said, keeping his cool through sheer force of will.
