Chapter 29 Tales and Truths
Atalanta woke calling for wine.
Danae rose from where she waited in self-imposed isolation between the boulder and the stone hut and rushed into the dwelling. Telamon and Heracles sat beside the warrior. Metis still had not returned from the lake.
‘Need a drink,’ croaked Atalanta, pushing herself onto her elbows.
Danae hastened to pour water from the hydria into a bowl and proffered it to her. The warrior knocked the vessel from her hand.
‘Wine,’ she demanded groggily.
‘There’s none on the island,’ said Danae.
Atalanta stared at her, the warrior’s gaze morphing from rage to despair. Then she looked down at her legs. Her lips parted, face softening in wonder as she smoothed her hands across the whirling scars.
Her dark eyes lifted to Danae. ‘You healed me?’
‘No.’ Danae shook her head. ‘It was Metis.’
Atalanta opened her mouth as though she would ask another question, then became aware of the two men crouched beside her.
‘Heracles.’ She grasped Telamon’s shoulder and hauled herself up to sitting, staring at the hero. ‘You look like I feel.’
Telamon laughed. Heracles did not.
‘That’s what withdrawing from a lifetime of taking strength elixir will do,’ said Metis. ‘Though you’re free of it now.’
Danae turned around. The woman stood behind her, a clutch of dead lizards dangling from her fist.
‘How are the legs?’ she asked Atalanta as she moved past Danae into the hut.
‘You’re the one who healed me?’
Metis knelt and prodded Atalanta’s shins before lifting and manipulating her lower legs. Then she placed a hand on the warrior’s brow, which Atalanta knocked away. ‘There may still be a trace of fever. You should rest.’ She looked pointedly at Heracles. ‘As should you.’
‘Bollocks, I’m fighting fit.’ Atalanta climbed unsteadily to her feet.
‘Heracles, can you walk?’ asked Telamon.
‘Yes,’ said the hero with as much defiance as he could muster.
‘Well, then.’ Telamon rose and bowed to Metis. ‘We thank you for your hospitality and will take our leave as promised.’
The woman grunted and set about pinning the fresh lizards to the barbs wedged into the cracked stone.
Danae’s heart lurched into her throat. ‘Surely Heracles and Atalanta should build up their strength before they travel?’ She gazed imploringly at Metis.
‘I’m fine,’ Heracles spat between clenched teeth, hauling himself up the stone wall for support.
Telamon moved towards Danae blocking the entrance. ‘Daeira, move aside.’
She looked up into his freckled face and stood her ground. No longer would she play the part of dutiful servant of the gods, the seer willing to take orders from heroes. It was time to shed her old disguise once and for all.
‘My name is Danae.’
Telamon made a disparaging sound in the back of his throat. ‘All right, Danae, let us pass.’
Her skin was too tight, her blood racing.
‘I can’t do it on my own,’ she whispered.
Metis paused halfway through skewering a lizard’s tail and turned to look at her.
‘What are you talking about?’ asked Telamon.
Tears pricked her eyes. Of all the things she had done, all the terrors she’d faced, nothing had exposed her quite like this.
She needed them.
She had broken their trust, perhaps irrevocably. But she had to try and rebuild it. She stood before them, barefoot, draped in the torn dress Hades had given her in the Underworld, her shoulder-length hair barely contained in its unruly braid. All semblance of her old seer’s disguise stripped away.
‘Please, just listen to what I have to say. Then if you still want to leave, I won’t stand in your way.’
‘No one wants to hear it,’ snarled Heracles.
‘I do.’
Everyone looked at Atalanta. The warrior was scowling at Danae, arms crossed. ‘I want to hear what she has to say.’
Metis slunk into the shadows of the hut, watching them all with bright eyes.
‘You should sit,’ said Danae. ‘This might take a while.’
Telamon and Heracles looked at one another, but neither voiced their dissent as they lowered themselves down around the hearth. Danae moved into the hut and joined their circle.
‘I was born on Naxos …’ The first few sentences stuck in her throat like tar, but as she gained momentum they ran swift as a tumbling spring.
She told them of her family, of the island she grew up on.
When she spoke of what Zeus had done to Alea, of Arius’ disappearance and Alea’s death, silent tears fled down Atalanta’s cheeks.
Heracles would not look at her, his eyes hardening with every word.
Danae pressed on, describing how she had accidentally destroyed the oracle at Delphi by shattering the omphalos stone with her powers, meaning the one remaining shard, now lost in the Underworld, was the only true source of prophecy left in existence.
She told of Manto’s revelation of Prometheus’ prophecy and her fierce friend’s heroic death at the talons of the harpies.
While she spoke, the sun’s light faded from the hut, the sky blushing into twilight.
After a while, Metis rose, quietly working around them to light a fire.
Danae expected one of the group to interrupt and condemn her story or threaten to leave, but all remained silent.
She continued to tell her tale until the only light came from the hearth, its glow flickering over her companions’ drawn faces.
She told them of why she had joined their group, and her quest to reach Prometheus at the end of the world.
She repeated the truth of that fateful night with Dolos outside Colchis.
She told them that she was a Titan, what that truly meant and all that Prometheus had revealed to her atop the Caucasus Mountains about the false gods.
Finally, she spoke of the Underworld, of Orpheus’ tragic death, the Missing and the terrible truth of the shades’ origins.
Her voice had grown raw by the time she fell silent, the sky beyond the hut dark and star-cast. Her truth expelled, she felt empty, like a husk plundered of its soft insides.
No one spoke for some time. Danae felt so light she might laugh. There were no more lies left to weigh her down. They knew who she was, what she was, and what she must do.
‘Gods, I wish we had wine,’ Atalanta murmured.
‘It is true. All she has said.’ Metis stared at Danae, her dark eyes gleaming in the firelight. ‘Prometheus, the Titans, the false gods. It is all true.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us before?’ asked Telamon.
‘Would you have believed me?’ countered Danae.
Her question was met with silence.
‘There were no dead in the Underworld …’ croaked Heracles, still staring into the flames.
‘The cleverest lie of them all,’ said Metis.
‘Where do they go?’ pressed Heracles.
Danae stared at him. He believed her. Then she looked to Metis. She could not bring herself to repeat what Hades had told her.
Metis gazed around the circle. ‘Back to the tapestry of life.’
‘What does that even mean?’ Atalanta’s body was tight as a bowstring. ‘Who are you? Why do you live alone on this island?’
Metis met the warrior’s gaze with the weight of all her years. ‘We’ve heard enough for one night. My story shall keep for another day. Besides, we could all do with rest.’
The fire crackled. No one moved.
Then Telamon murmured, ‘What do we do now?’
‘We fight,’ said Danae, hope thrumming through her limbs. They had heard her truth and were still here. ‘We end the tyranny of the false gods.’
‘How?’ Telamon breathed.
Danae lifted her chin, pressing her hands into the floor to prevent them betraying her fear. ‘Once Metis has taught me how to fully master my powers, I’m going to storm Olympus and destroy Zeus.’
He blinked. ‘I see.’
‘You have a choice.’ Danae willed her voice not to waver. ‘You can join me or go back to your old life.’
‘Fuck that.’ Atalanta’s chest heaved. ‘Those bastards lied to us, to everyone. We sacrificed for them, we worshipped them, we loved them.’ She fixed Danae with a glare hot as molten bronze. ‘They all deserve to die.’
Metis tensed. Then the woman stood abruptly, saying, ‘I’m going to see if Pegasus has returned.’ She left the hut.
Danae looked after her for a moment, then turned to Telamon. ‘And you?’
He was silent for a while, his brow heavy with thought.
‘There are some truths you cannot come back from. I can’t make sense of everything I have been taught being a lie.
The origin of the world, the Titans being evil, the gods creating mankind …
the three realms of the afterlife … It doesn’t seem possible.
But I know what I saw in the Underworld.
And if that part of your story is true, then I suppose the rest of it must be …
’ He shook his head. ‘We are heroes, and it wouldn’t be very heroic if we ran from the greatest battle of our lives.
’ He braved a small smile. ‘Think of the stories they’ll tell. ’
Atalanta nodded, her face grim.
All eyes slid to Heracles. No one voiced what they were all surely thinking. Even if Heracles wished to take up arms against his father and the Olympians, he could not fight as he was. In joining Danae, Telamon and Atalanta were treading a path Heracles could not follow.
Then Telamon gingerly slapped the hero on the back. ‘What say you? Build up your strength then take revenge on your father?’
Danae bit the inside of her lip and glanced at Atalanta. The warrior was watching the two men under knitted brows. Danae could see her own thoughts mirrored in Atalanta’s gaze.
A smile stretched the hero’s wizened cheeks. Then he laughed, a pain-riddled sound that wheezed from him like a rattle. ‘You cannot win.’
Danae pressed her fingers into her palms, nails biting through her skin. ‘We can and we will. It is my destiny.’
Heracles blinked. ‘Whether my father was once mortal or not, does not change what he has become – he is King of the Gods, the most powerful being on earth with the full might of Olympus at his disposal. We are but men.’
‘I am not a man – I am a Titan. And fate is on my side.’