Kevin Hearne - Trapped

“We don’t have to snag a Bacchant and interrogate her anymore. I know precisely what’s going on—what’s been going on. You heard Bacchus talking outside the cave, right? He said Faunus couldn’t keep us trapped there forever.”

“Right. Except we weren’t trapped. We got away.”

“The trap is Olympus itself. It’s the only place we can bind you right now, and twice we’ve had to interrupt the ritual because of it. We’ve been operating on Lord Grundlebeard’s theory that the entire Eurasian plate was disrupted because Perun’s plane got burned up by Loki. I never really bought it—the trembling in North America faded right away and we were able to shift just fine, so why would the trembling last so much longer in Europe?—but I didn’t have a better theory to offer. Now I do. It’s been a month and a half. If the burning of Perun’s plane was the source of the disturbance, wouldn’t there have been some fluctuations throughout Europe? Wouldn’t the severity of the disturbance vary, being stronger in Russia and less so in Spain and Italy and so on, and shouldn’t it have tapered off a bit by now? But it’s still going strong. Something is producing the disruption consistently, and it’s purposely leaving Olympus alone.”

“I thought you agreed the Olympians were protecting their turf.”

“They are. But they’re also responsible for jacking up everything else, and it’s all to catch us in their net. It’s Faunus, Granuaile. Faunus and that worthless sot, Bacchus.”

“How are they responsible?”

“Pandemonium, you see.”

“No, I don’t see.”

“I didn’t see either, because I was thinking of the Roman god’s name and not the original Greek. Pandemonium is the disruption of order—it’s chaos, in other words. That’s what’s disrupting all the forests on the Eurasian plate so that we can’t shift anywhere else. This is a power that both Pan and Faunus possess—it’s explicitly stated in the mythology, and of course it’s inherent in the etymology of the word. And none of the Tuatha Dé Danann or the Fae recognize it for what it is. It probably hasn’t been used since truly ancient times, and even then it was never on this scale. This might be the first time it’s been used outside Greece, so that’s why the Fae are fumbling for explanations.”

Granuaile got a crinkle between her eyes. “Why would the Olympians have a power that specifically prevents Druids from shifting?”

“That wasn’t its original purpose—it’s just the purpose they’re using it for now, because it’s a side effect that gives them an advantage. Originally Pan was a way for people to get in touch with all that’s primal in nature and within themselves. He was a great big yang to all the yin of the other gods and the order of Olympus and civilization. Pan wanted to party and fuck and make a lot of noise—and once the monotheists came along and got a load of him—”

load .>

“—he became the very devil himself. He messes with the order of everything. I bet if we took time to pick up a newspaper and look at what’s going on in Europe right now, we’d see more than the usual ruckus. And that’s because Pan’s Roman doppelgänger, Faunus, is screwing up the entire continent. Our tethers to Tír na nÓg are Druidic order laid on top of nature, and he’s disrupting them.”

“So how do we get to him?”

“If Faunus is out in the world messing with all the forests except around Olympus, we need him to return to Olympus and stay there so we can have all the rest of the forests to work with in the meantime. The way I see it, only one thing will make him come running back.”

“What’s that?”

“We take away his sex toys.”

Literally and figuratively, the goat-footed god has always been a horny lad. The ancient Greeks provided him with plenty of nymphs and dryads to play with in the forest so he wouldn’t be tempted to wander into the cities and fuck around. Fucking around was all well and good to the Greeks, of course, but, you know: “Moderation in all things.” The Greeks were trying to lay the foundations for Western civilization as well as one another, so Pan and his worshippers were required to do their unchained frolicking in the woods.

Pan liked a good chase most days. It replaced foreplay. Nymphs were great for providing a chase. But sometimes he felt a bit lazy, so he hunted up dryads on those days, because dryads couldn’t run very far from their trees. Dryads who spent more than a couple of days separated from their trees tended to wither and die—and the same was true for the trees. The connection between them was not only symbiotic, it was vital.

I fully planned to take advantage of that to buy Granuaile and me the time we needed. What was true for Pan was also true for his Roman clone, Faunus.

“You know what’s cool about a dryad’s tree?” I said. We had paid off the limo driver to the south of Olympus and walked into the foothills with nothing but a couple bottles of water and our weapons. I was shirtless because I couldn’t stand the feel of fabric on my crispy skin.

“Well, it’s an oak tree with an immortal nymph attached. That’s pretty cool.”

“Agreed. But what’s also cool is that a dryad’s tree is exactly the same on three planes. It’s not only here, but it’s on the Roman and Greek planes too, every branch and leaf.”

“Each tree is a trinity, then. I dig it.” Granuaile was nodding and smiling, but this faded as a question occurred to her. “There aren’t three different dryads, are there?”

“No, just one. Pan and Faunus share them, and Artemis and Diana also divide their attentions between them.”

“Oh! Right. Dryads are kind of special to the huntresses. Um.” Her eyebrows drew together and she frowned, clearly disturbed.

“Yes?”

“Are you sure you want to mess with the dryads?”

“Are you sure you want to be a Druid?”

“Well, of course I am, but isn’t there any other way?”

“Sure. We could seek out the Olympians and ask them nicely to stop. But direct confrontation with true immortals will probably not work out in our favor.”

“I concur, sensei, which is why I’m questioning the wisdom of pursuing this.”

“Would you rather we continue as we have been, knowing that the Bacchants will track us down and interrupt the binding who knows how many more times? There are only so many places around Olympus where we can perform the ritual. No, it’s time to act boldly. Better to ask forgiveness than permission and to answer their shenanigans with even better shenanigans. We won’t hurt them.”

“The Olympians are not renowned for their forgiveness,” Granuaile pointed out.

“Well, I’m tired of playing defense. We’ve been lucky so far in that we’ve been able to move faster than them, but strategically we’ve been playing not to lose, if you see what I mean. And the two of us—”

“—Sorry. The three of us against the world’s vampires, the Fae, and the Svartálfar in a confined area are awfully long odds.”

“Exactly. So why risk antagonizing more Olympians?”

“It’s not about antagonizing anyone; it’s about giving us options and restoring our mobility. And shenanigans. But I’m willing to entertain alternatives. Do you have any?”

Granuaile sighed. “No.”

Not everyone can be bribed with meat, Oberon .

No, they eat meat. It simply doesn’t sway their decision-making process .