Chapter 39
The Farthest Shore
As they traveled inland, Danae gazed at the Caucasus Mountains towering in the distance, her stomach tingling in anticipation.
Rising above the spines of the dark green trees that clustered the bank, the snowy crags dominated the sky.
They were the largest mountains she’d ever seen.
Forests of dense pine trees carpeted their slopes, giving way to ice-coated rock at their peaks.
She could just make out the great stone walls of Colchis city, which harbored Jason’s golden fleece, nestled between the forest and the mountains.
She thought of the Titanomachy, how the Titans had supposedly ripped the earth apart until the Olympians ended their destructive rampage. She’d been told that mountains and ravines were the scars left behind.
Her eyes trailed along the Caucasus range to the highest crest, barely visible through the clouds. That’s where Prometheus would be. The highest peak of the largest mountain. That was where she and Heracles must go.
Eventually, the river became too narrow for the Argo, and they were forced to stop.
“Pull in the oars and tether the ship.” Jason jumped down from the stern and clambered across the benches to the prow deck. “First three rows, gather anything you can to camouflage the Argo. Next three, set up camp. At first light we stake out the city and get a look at what we’re up against.”
The crew disembarked, and Danae leaped down, her feet encased in fur boots, crunching on the snowy ground.
It creaked underfoot as she walked. There was an oppressive silence to the blanketing whiteness.
When the crew’s voices lulled and no birds sang, the quiet was deafening.
But it was beautiful too. Spiders’ webs hung like fine necklaces from the branches of ice-crisped trees and their leaves looked like they were laced with tiny flecks of glass.
She walked over to where Heracles was stripping branches from a pine tree, her gut a nest of writhing snakes.
“I need to tell you something.”
He straightened up.
“We should go somewhere private,” she whispered.
“Heracles!” Jason shouted from the Argo. “Bring the whole tree.”
The hero sighed. “Come to me tonight. I’ll leave my lion hide outside my tent...” His blue eyes twinkled. “So you don’t go into the wrong one.”
Her lips quirked. “Oh, I won’t.” She held his gaze, desire unfurling in the pit of her stomach.
“Heracles!” shouted Jason. “What are you waiting for?”
Danae stepped back as he grasped the trunk and pulled it from the earth in a shower of needles. Watching him carry the tree over to the Argo, she simmered with frustration.
She would just have to wait a few more hours.
Nightfall took an age to come. Despite the cold, Jason had forbidden them to make a fire in case it alerted the city guards to their presence.
Danae sat in her makeshift tent waiting for dark. Legs drawn into her chest, she rocked back and forth, trying to work out what she was going to say to Heracles.
You know how you hate your father? Well, the good news is I’m prophesied to destroy him. Want to join me?
She groaned. Why was this so difficult? She knew what the outcome would be. All she had to do was tell him the truth.
Finally, the shard of light faded from the gap in the tarpaulin.
Leaving her bag inside, she slid her knife into her belt and crept out through the opening.
With no fire to cluster round, the Argonauts had all retired to their beds.
Across the encampment she saw Heracles’s lion hide outside his tent, propped up on a branch he’d stuck into the ground. She smiled. Just as he’d promised.
It had stopped snowing, but trails of white still lined the branches of the trees. Danae’s breath clouded in front of her as she walked. This was it, the moment her destiny became theirs.
Nearby, a twig crunched underfoot.
She shrank back into the shadow of a tent and was still. A figure darted into the trees. It was hard to be sure in the dark, but it moved just like Dolos.
She looked back at the entrance of Heracles’s tent. She could not let herself be distracted. This was too important.
Follow the healer, said the voice.
She hesitated, caught between her plan and the spark of intuition ignited by the voice. Then she turned away from the camp and followed Dolos into the trees.
Eventually the pines thinned, and Danae glimpsed a clearing ahead. She hung back under the cover of the branches.
Dolos was standing in the center, his face daubed in moonlight. The healer glanced around like he was waiting for someone. Danae stayed very still, her hand clamped over her mouth so her frozen breath wouldn’t give her away.
Then she stopped breathing altogether.
Lurking in the trees on the other side of the clearing was a pair of crimson eyes. The pines oscillated as the shade moved toward Dolos. The healer hadn’t seen it yet.
Without waiting to summon her life-threads, she drew her knife and sprinted across the clearing.
She knocked the shade bodily to the ground, half surprised it had a solid form.
Dolos was shouting, but she couldn’t hear him over the thumping of her pulse as she plunged her knife into the rippling space beneath those terrible red eyes.
Blood splattered her furs as she stabbed over and over again until the shade stopped moving.
Then Dolos yanked her away. She staggered back, staring at the shade’s body in amazement.
She could see it. In death its skin was no longer invisible, but a dull gray, cracked and rough like a lizard’s.
It looked chillingly human, from the shape of its head and face to the composition of its limbs.
“What have you done?” whispered Dolos.
She turned to him, breathing heavily. “I just saved your life.”
Dolos fell to his knees, scrabbling around the icy ground.
She watched him with mounting confusion.
Then he pulled a bag toward him from the shadow of the trees.
Fumbling with its clasp, he rushed to open it, pulling out bottle after bottle of the blue health tonic she’d seen him use to revive Heracles on Lemnos.
“Thank the gods,” he muttered. “They’re not broken.”
Lastly, he drew out a small amulet. She recognized the design. It took her a moment to remember where from. It was identical to the one she’d seen in Polyxo’s hut save for the crest, which on this was a thunderbolt.
A terrible realization unfurled in Danae’s mind.
“Dolos, were you waiting for that thing?”
The healer stared at the amulet, his face stricken. She wasn’t sure he’d even heard her.
“Why was that shade carrying a bag of Heracles’s medicine?”
Dolos remained silent as he carefully placed the vials and amulet back into the bag. Then he rose to his feet, the pack clasped to his chest.
“There are things at play here you would never understand.”
“Try me.”
“I can’t,” he hissed.
“If you won’t tell me, you can explain it to Heracles.”
Dolos’s face tightened. “He can’t know.”
She took a step toward him. “Why, Dolos?”
The healer looked like a cornered rodent, eyes darting from her to the dead shade. Then his body sagged.
“Heracles’s power isn’t his own.”
Danae’s brow creased in confusion.
Dolos’s hand trembled as he held up the bag. “This elixir is what makes him strong. He doesn’t know...he thinks it’s just a tonic to help heal his wounds. Can you imagine what the truth would do to him?”
She couldn’t grasp what he was saying. “He’s a demigod...that’s why he’s strong.”
“There are no demigods.” Dolos’s eyes shone bright with fear. “The mortal children of gods have no powers.”
A cold ripple ran down her spine.
“Of course we do.”
“There’s no point lying. I know the truth.”
Her heart beat at a nauseating pace. “What about the heroes of old? Perseus, Bellerophon—”
“All lies,” Dolos whispered. “Gods-woven illusions to extend the reach of the Twelve’s divinity.
” Anger, deep and long repressed, twisted the healer’s face.
“But that was not enough for Zeus. He is fixated on passing on his divine powers to a mortal son. He believed Heracles might finally be the one, but it was not to be. Still, Zeus wanted him to be the greatest hero that ever lived. He did terrible things to Heracles, things no one, especially not a child, should ever have to endure. He’s been taking the elixir for so long he’d die within a year without it. ”
“But...all the deeds he’s done...he is a hero,” Danae said weakly.
Sadness shone in Dolos’s eyes. “Zeus arranged everything. He planted creatures for Heracles to defeat—the hydra, the Nemean lion, the Erymanthian boar. All so his son’s heroic deeds would be a part of his legacy.
” He barked a mirthless laugh. “Do you really think a merchant ship just happened to be passing at the exact moment he and I needed rescuing from the Doliones shore? I sent a message to Olympus. I got us out of there and back on course as I have always done.”
The legend of Heracles, just another deception by the gods.
“All this time, you’ve been working for his father.”
Dolos twitched, rage pulsing through his jaw.
“I hid the truth from him so he could have some sort of enjoyment from the life Zeus has forced him to lead, and because of me when he finally leaves the mortal world, he will be raised up to the heavens. He will be made into a star and shine forever, and all of this, all the pain, will have been worth it.”
Silence, glaring as the snow, settled between them.
Danae’s mind was a cacophony of confusion, but one thought rang clear above the rest. The healer had known all this time that she was no demigod.
“Dolos, I can explain...” She took a step toward him.
“You lied to him too. You lied to all of us.”
Fear curled around her like smoke, seeping into her heart. But she did not need to be afraid. She knew that, whatever happened, Heracles would come with her. The omphalos shard did not lie. It was fate.
“You’re right. We should both tell him the truth. Together.”