Chapter 2 #2
But Mount Olympus is spectacular in a different way, and I can’t deny the thrill that shivers across my skin as Athena’s chariot glides to a halt in the stables.
Divine horses stamp their bronze hooves, whickering at our arrival, and the air is crisp and cold in my throat.
Before us, the palace rises from the snowy summit in a dream of marble and gold, the setting sun striking the gilded columns so that they seem to glow from within.
It speaks of power—an opulent wonder at the top of the world that is made for us, and only us.
As we make our way up the broad, shining steps, I see Zeus at the entrance, waiting between two pillars.
“Aphrodite!” he greets me. “What’s kept you away so long?
” There’s a lascivious gleam in his eye that tells me he’d love to hear the details of precisely what—or, rather, who—has kept me so preoccupied, but I only smile.
He has a vivid imagination—one I don’t need to delve into the corners of his mind to discern—and he has little need of me to fuel it.
Athena brightens in the presence of her father. “Never mind that. She’s here now.”
Zeus looks briefly disappointed. He hates to be denied anything he desires, however inconsequential.
But Athena is striding ahead into the palace, and he’s quickly distracted from questioning me.
He catches up with her effortlessly, falling into conversation, and I trail behind them through the airy anteroom.
It’s as fabulous as I remember: the high ceiling tiled in dark blue squares, each with a golden star sparkling in its center so that when night falls it will mirror the wide sky visible through the slender, silver columns.
The walls are painted with a blue frieze that makes me yearn momentarily for the sea so far beneath us, but everywhere I look something else catches my eye—the glitter of gems, polished wood, a finely woven tapestry (Athena’s work, no doubt) decorated with animals so lifelike I expect to see them stretch and roar and run across the cloth—and I think that it could almost rival the rugged beauty of my island after all.
Athena and Zeus linger at the tall bronze doors to the throne room.
“Hephaestus has been busy,” I say, waving my hand around.
Zeus shrugs. He’s not so interested in his artistic son’s accomplishments.
Since Hephaestus was born, the palace has become more awe-inspiring, full of his work, from trinkets and ornaments to furniture both comfortable and exquisite.
But Zeus has a narrow definition of beauty.
He doesn’t look at much beyond the shapely form of whichever nymph he’s chasing next.
He’d notice if he wasn’t surrounded by elegance, but he’s not one to express gratitude.
I don’t mention Athena’s tapestry; she doesn’t care. Never mind—it’s pleasant to be back here amid the treasures of the gods. I’ve been gone longer than I’d realized.
They beckon me into the throne room, keeping up a brisk march through the high-vaulted hall and out through another corridor, winding further into the palace.
I lift a hand in greeting to Hestia, Goddess of the Hearth, and she smiles back at me, but we don’t stop, descending into the courtyard, where the snow-tinged chill makes the skin of my bare arms tingle, and moving on to a more modest building that lies behind the showy grandeur of Zeus’ palace. The workshop of Hephaestus.
The smoky warmth of the forge is the first thing I register, along with the noise.
The clang of metal against metal, hammer on anvil and the hiss of bellows create a cacophony of sound that’s almost overwhelming.
Sparks erupt in fiery dazzles through the haze, and there are so many figures bustling back and forth, wheeling golden tripods and pouring sheets of molten metal, that I think at first Hephaestus has a small army of gods working for him.
But, once I’ve drawn near, I laugh, startled, to see the blank gold face of an automaton, gliding brisk and expressionless from one station to another.
It’s so different to the languid, lazy peace of the halls we’ve just walked through.
“Hephaestus!” Zeus calls out, his voice thundering above the noise, and the god emerges, hurrying toward us.
His heavy brow is beaded with sweat, his arms smeared with ash and soot and his chiton stained.
When he sees me standing with his father and sister, he nods, awkward and uncertain, as though he doesn’t know what to do with himself when he’s not wielding a hammer or carving a block of stone.
I’m not entirely sure of the process by which he transforms lumps of metal or rock into his creations; I’ve always been more captivated by the result.
I smile at him, and he looks down at the floor.
“Show Aphrodite what we’ve been working on,” Athena urges him, touching his arm, her fingers delicate against the brawny muscles that shift as he turns to lead the way.
Her own quarters house a magnificent loom, baskets overflowing with yarn and walls hung with tapestries, but her hands remain uncallused and perfect, never touched by any sign of her toil.
Hephaestus, meanwhile, is shaped by his labor—his thick shoulders bunched and curved with muscle that makes him ungainly when he’s not at his anvil, heavy and lumbering when he’s moving among gods as sleek and swift as sharks.
He guides us out of the forge and into a lighter hall, where the air is clear. In the center, stands a statue, draped over with a thin cloth, a shaft of sunlight falling through the opening in the roof above.
A silver vase shimmers on a table, and I know I’m supposed to be interested in the motionless draped figure, but I can’t help but stop and look at it.
Its slender stem rises from the circular base, widening into a graceful curve, two handles arching from the sides.
It’s carved with a twisting vine, the leaves glossy, the clusters of grapes ripe and vibrant, as though you could pluck them, and I’m charmed by how alive this cold metal looks.
Zeus clears his throat, and I look up. Athena and Hephaestus flank the statue, and clearly my attention is expected.
“Well, show me,” I say. I can feel a laugh bubbling up in my throat, an eager anticipation of whatever is going to happen.
Hephaestus yanks the cloth away to reveal a female figure, amazingly lifelike. I move closer, looking at the fall of her hair around her shoulders and the bloom on her skin. She looks so soft, so touchable and beautiful, that it takes my breath away.
“You made this?” I glance at Hephaestus, noticing how pride suffuses his features, lightening his worries into an easy smile. “It’s lovely.”
“She is.” It’s Zeus who interjects, his voice almost a purr of satisfaction.
“She’s no statue.” Now I’m here, Athena wants to get to the point. “She’s a mortal woman. Hephaestus sculpted her from clay and Zeus gave her life. I can give her all the skills she needs, every accomplishment she’ll require, but we need a gift that only you can bestow.”
“Why spend so much time and care on one mortal?” I’m looking from one to the other, laughter escaping me now. There’s something odd about how intent they are on this, and I’m waiting for the final piece of the puzzle so it will make sense.
“You’ll see,” Zeus says.
I look at his smug expression and then back at the woman’s face: the delicate skin of her closed eyelids, the plumpness of her lips, the smoothness of her shoulders and the curves of her body.
“Well, if that’s what you want.” I can’t resist the urge to puncture his complacency just a little by not begging him to share his plans.
I trace a finger down the woman’s cheek, to her throat and over her collarbones to rest over her heart, and I close my eyes. Now that I listen, I can feel the vitality thrumming deep inside, a faint but perceptible stirring of life within her still and silent form.
It’s always easier in mortals than in gods.
In her, brand-new and freshly carved from clay, I find it at once.
We all came from Gaia’s earth, but she has only just risen from it.
I find the flame inside her, the one that burns to be reunited with all its disparate parts, the yearning that once brought all the elements of the universe together now surging at my touch.
A longing heat that I barely need to brush before it pulses toward me, a craving bright and strong that will call to others and make them desperate to answer.
I open my eyes and step back. Athena looks pleased, Zeus looks smug and Hephaestus is watching me with a kind of wonder. “Everyone will want her,” I say. “That’s my gift.”
“She has everything we can give her,” Athena breathes. “Pandora.”
And, now that she’s complete, she opens her eyes.
—
Zeus steers me back through the forge, while Athena stays behind to tend to the woman.
“You’ll feast with us tonight,” he says.
I’m not foolish enough to think this is a casual request. Zeus is in the business of giving orders, not asking.
“You can take this, if you want.” It’s Hephaestus, hurrying after us, the silver vase in his hand. “I noticed you looking at it,” he says.
I’m touched, both by the gesture and by the sight of his heavy fingers looped through the handle.
He’s so bulky that he looks like he should be clumsy, but he holds the vase with such tender care, as though he might crush it in his fist—which he easily could.
It’s hard to believe that he can create such tiny, precise details, and for a second I picture him leaning over the silver with his eyes squinting in concentration, utterly absorbed as he coaxes living beauty from inert metal.
“Thank you,” I say, placing my hand over his.
His skin is softer than it looks, warm under my touch.
His face reddens, and I can feel Zeus’ gleeful amusement. “But I’d rather have this actually.”
I pluck a necklace from a shelf at the side of the forge—a shining heap of deep-green stones linked together with delicate gold filigree so thin it’s almost invisible.
“Of course.”
“I’ve always loved your jewelry,” I tell him.
And it’s true; I was here when he was developing his talents, when Zeus and Hera were despairing over their ungainly son who seemed to have no dazzling skill befitting a god until the moment he seized hold of metal and transformed it into something divine.
“I’ll stay tonight,” I tell Zeus, coiling the necklace in my fist and smiling back at them both. “I’ll go and prepare in my quarters.”
He nods, pleased. “The Graces will attend to you.”
“Thank you.” With that, I’m gone, hastening down the steps of the forge, my dress fluttering around my ankles as the doors swing closed behind me, silent and smooth on the perfectly oiled hinges.