Page 22 of Immortal Sun (Dark Olympus)
CHAPTER 22
CLEO
“It is an old custom for the wisest to give way.” —The Saga of Harald Hardrada, ch. 27
M y head hurts from staring at books all day, and I really just want a nice glass of wine and to sit at the tree. I wonder what Jake is doing, if he’s doing well, if he’s backpacking somewhere and lost his phone. Maybe Jake’s in a dungeon and Cyrus’s going to use him as bait or something. No matter how I look at it, I can’t leave, but I know I can’t stay.
I search the kitchen and finally locate the door to the wine cellar. It leads down thirteen stairs into a giant cavern full of wines that look older than this house.
I try to pick one that’s not too old, even though it says 1922, and go to the wooden table in the middle of the chilly room and uncork it. There are beautiful silver goblets everywhere with dragons painted in red on them but no normal glasses to be seen.
Each of the glasses includes a polished white bone protrusion on each side. They’re old but all of them look like they’ve just been cleaned, so I pour the wine into one and examine it then stupidly look on the bottom to see if they’re made in China or something.
The only etch I find means blessing in Egyptian.
I think I’m at the point where I’m just going to accept that Cyrus has an obsession which far surpasses mine when it comes to history. I mean I understand being a fan of all of this but it’s surpassing weird and as if to remind me how weird, I walk and hear the bell again just as my charms hit the silver cup and make a scratching noise.
I’m all alone in a wine cellar with weird jewelry I refuse to believe in. I really need to find a friend here, and the squirrel shouldn’t be one of the options, but at this point…
Am I really going to go sit on a giant tree and talk to a squirrel that apparently loves to gossip?
Yup.
And I’m not even drunk—yet.
I grab my mug of wine and the wine bottle itself and make my way up the stairs then walk outside to the tree.
Sure enough, Rat is sitting at the bottom with another nut and one of the cows apparently got out because it’s literally standing right next to the tree eating. Oh, it’s the cow that makes friends by kicking up dirt.
I used to be afraid of cows, but this one has an otherworldly feel to it, it makes eye contact. That doesn’t seem normal for a cow.
I just shake my head and drink more wine. “Not normal at all, giant cow.” I can’t believe this is my life now.
“The world is weird.” I grumble.
I climb up onto the tree and notice that some of the leaves are continuing to fall. It’s November. Shouldn’t the leaves have already come off the tree? I’ve never seen a tree like this before. Strange.
At certain angles it appears to almost glow in the moonlight. Or maybe that’s just the weird glowing coming from the island across the way.
Wait! What? Wide-eyed, I take a second look at the island then I gulp the rest of my wine, staring in disbelief. Rat jumps up onto the tree, scurries along a branch, and sits next to me eating his nut while looking at the water.
“Is that real?” I ask. And again, I’m talking to a damn squirrel.
He finishes his nut and gulps.
I pour more wine in my mug, and I swear on the very tree I’m sitting on, he tries to steal it from me before I jerk it away.
The cow moos.
I wonder if it’s more sad than weird that I’m drinking with animals apparently and staring at the ocean, wondering why it looks like a red strip is drawn across it from the shore on this side to the island.
Am I that drunk already? I mean it’s been a while since I’ve had this much wine.
I rub my eyes and look again.
The red strip is still there. Is it a trick of the water? A certain sort of fish that lives in the water?
I’ve heard of those sorts of phenomena. I put the wine bottle on the ground by the cow and then carry my mug with me and walk toward the edge of the cliff. The water is almost glowing, spilling over the red.
It feels like something’s about to happen.
My breath leaves my entire body when I see six figures in armor of golds, reds, and black, carrying weapons as they start to walk across the rocky ground, and as they walk, arms come out of the water and reach for them.
One is bigger than the rest.
His golden helmet is quite literally a crown of sun, and he is carrying the same spear I’ve seen in the warehouse.
The rest keep moving while he stops in the middle. I feel like I’m supposed to go to him, but I don’t know why.
I stay rooted in place as the rest of them walk all the way to the beach beneath the cliffs.
I look over the cliff’s edge, nearly spilling my mug of wine, and blink. Nothing is there, as though the imposing group in crazy looking cosplay just disappeared into a cave.
And yet the one figure remains.
He starts walking, and the red bridge of rocks begins to disappear, getting swallowed by the sea in waves ten times taller than him. And he walks on. It’s like the Nile Delta receded it’s so massive.
I’m frozen.
Unable to move.
Wind swirls around me, whipping my hair. It hits my body so hard that the bell on my anklet starts to ring like it’s gone feral.
When the figure finally makes it to the beach, all traces of red are gone and the sea crashes in one last fury of ice before peacefully settling back into place.
He looks up, but I’m uncertain if he sees me.
I hide behind the rock, then after a few minutes risk a peek over the top.
Nothing is there.
“Where’d he go?” I frown then look back over at the tree only to see a golden boot of armor step next to my foot, the one with the anklet that holds the bell.
I’m afraid of a lot of things: storms, lightning, thunder. But anything else just feels foreign, numb. Right now, though, I’m petrified as I slowly look up the golden armor across the being’s calves, as it goes up his thick thighs to his belt, where a very dangerous and old-appearing black sword resides. His chest is massive, and his helmet is quite literally the sun.
All I see are his eyes.
Familiar eyes.
He presses his hands over his head and slices them through the air between us; it’s Cyrus in front of me.
I nearly swallow my tongue. What the hell was in that wine I drank?
I barely breathe as he leans down and tilts my chin toward him and chuckles. It’s not warm, it’s not happy, it’s like watching death laugh at me. “Are you ready to truly research now?”
“I’ve been researching, and why were you wearing a costume?”
I don’t want to know the answer, but I have to use the word costume so none of it seems real.
All fake.
Cyrus stands and folds his massive arms over his chest. “Lock her up.”
The mug drops out of my hand as a man wearing red and black armor approaches. He looks formidable.
He also looks like the man in The Book of the Dead.
And Cyrus’s armor. It’s also shown in that book.
I gasp, covering my mouth with my hands.
“So now you see,” Cyrus says. “There is only one reason for your existence, one reason for you to be here. Your death.”
“This makes no sense,” I say under my breath while my heart slams against my chest. “None of it.”
“And yet, it’s your reality,” he says. “I normally wait at least a few weeks, I keep tally marks on my tree to count the screams of torture, but you, you won’t listen, you won’t believe. I bet you wouldn’t even worship or sacrifice like the others willingly did, like your brother did.”
“Jake!” I jump to my feet. “Where is he?”
“Safe. Secure.” He grins. “I’ll let him go if you sign another contract.”
I shake my head. “No. No contracts. What the hell sort of trafficking thing do you have going on here?”
Someone else appears in full black armor, he’s carrying a dagger in his hand, and I know immediately it’s Enki. “It’s been prepared, Cyrus.”
“First,” Cyrus says with a cavalier grin, “we’ll make you shine like a star in the sky and then, slowly, your blood will drip, until there’s nothing left. In the meantime, you can write.”
“What?” I’m so terrified and confused I can’t feel my legs. I can’t feel anything. I can only hear the bell.
“Transcribe, really.”
“What exactly am I transcribing?” And why am I still asking questions when I should be running? But he would catch me, I know that. So I ask questions to stall.
He tosses a book in front of me, it’s black, dirty, covered in red stains that look like blood. “The Book of the Dead, your current obsession.”
I don’t pick it up, I just stare down at it, and its bell-shaped lock that perfectly matches the one on my ankle.
He leans down. “It’s every name of those who have died to keep humanity safe, and you’ll write it over and over again, so you understand the sacrifice you’ll be making. You’ll write their names down, the dates of their deaths, how they died, until you see why this is necessary. You will remember them for their sake and for your own. To save the world, sacrifice one. When you inscribe the last name, it will be your own. Then and only then will I release your precious Jake.”
“Where is he?” I scream.
“The underworld, of course.” Cyrus shrugs. “But, I’d stay far away from it even if you could figure out how to get there. A dragon guards him day and night, and when dragons are starved, they’ll eat just about anything.”
I stumble back. “Dragons aren’t real.”
“Apparently, neither are we.”
He nods to the book. “I’d get to work.” Cyrus’s eyes go white as he cups his ear. “Yes, even now I hear his screams. He hates the cold, doesn’t he?”
My breath stalls in my chest. He hates the cold the way I hate the thunder.
“Give him back!” I shriek. I jump toward Cyrus, but Enki holds me back and it’s impossible to move against his strength.
How is any of this happening right now?
Am I drugged?
Rat looks from the tree to me and then slowly turns his back. Even the stupid cow looks away as if to say they can’t help me.
Enki tosses me over his shoulder and starts walking me down the stairs off the cliff.
Cyrus says nothing.
I am carried by more people in armor, and then we descend through what feel like the gates of hell as Enki holds the book in his right hand and continues to walk with me over his shoulder.
“Stop,” I hiss. “You don’t have to do this.”
“We do,” Kratos says quickly from next to me, his voice sounds different, all teasing’s gone, even his smile is cruel. “There is no choice.”
“But you’re just a contractor!”
He laughs. “And you’re just a girl.”
“What?”
“You’ll see, they all do eventually. I always wonder what it would feel like to know that your entire existence was planned from the beginning—to be born only to die. That the very thoughts your father had when he conceived you was your eventual death, all in a sick way to hide his power away.”
I squirm against him. “That’s not true!”
“Sadly, it is.” Enki heaves me up over his shoulder higher and makes it to the beach then walks in front of the cliff until we reach the hole of a dark cave. “Take the book, and take my advice, do it fast so that you aren’t sitting there with anxiety about what’s to come.”
“My death.” I want to throw the book at him when he hands it to me. “Right?
“Don’t think of it so negatively.” Enki cups my cheek. “It’s life.”
“At the expense of mine?”
He moves his hand to grasp my chin and leans down. “It is why you exist and the only reason you exist.”
I jerk away and stumble back until I’m in the mouth of the cave. Torches flare to life, and suddenly he’s gone. When I try to run back toward the entrance, severe pain hits me from the bell on my ankle surging through my body.
He imprisoned me.
I glance around the room and see blood-red sheets on a bed, torches lighting a small area of the cave, grapes and wine, and a brand-new book on the bed with a pen on a table next to it.
Dread fills my stomach as I slowly walk over and pick up the pen. It turns into an old quill clutched between my fingers. I drop it when I see Bast running across the beach toward me. He breaks whatever seal they have on this place and enters the cave then turns into a freaking giant ass cat—this time with fur, holy shit he’s Bastet, or she, a goddess revered in Egypt. She’s fully black like a panther, huge, and seems to pity me or want to protect me I can’t tell which.
She approaches slowly, at least a hundred pounds of black fur move with her paws and then she plops at my feet near the bed.
I let out a scream and collapse onto the bed as darkness takes hold.