Carrie Vaughn - Discord's Apple

“Evie Walker. Evie, Evie.” His nose was an inch from her face, his breath caressing her. The young man bared his teeth when he smiled, vicious. He was Hera’s henchman, Robin.

“Do you know what’s happened?” he breathed into her ear. “You’re no longer safe. These walls will not protect you. I turned myself to dust and crept in through a crack in the floorboards. What do you think of that?”

Her mind raced, even as her body tried to thrash. She heard his words, but couldn’t make meaning of them. Scream, scream for help. But she couldn’t.

He said, “Hera is coming. She can have the apple. I want you.”

A fter hundreds of years, the island of Ithaca grew barren and difficult, and the family’s prosperity was divided between too many sons. Niko hadn’t wanted his share of land, the wealth that lay in olive groves and flocks of sheep. He took the main of his inheritance: the contents of the Storeroom, packed away into an underground cellar. The artifacts were what he truly inherited from his mother, who had inherited them from her father, and so on, eldest child to eldest child, for generations.

When the Storeroom came to Niko, he stood on the cusp of migration. He had to leave, or be drafted into the army. Under Alexander, Macedonia was swallowing the world. While he didn’t like to be called a coward, he felt in his bones he had a different calling, a stronger calling, one that meant he had to flee.

The room was just large enough for him to turn around in. He surveyed the items, packed into shelves and nooks carved into the earthen walls. Swords, shields, helmets, lyres, winged sandals, golden fleece, woolen cloaks. One by one, he placed them in a leather satchel. The bag never grew heavier, never bulged, no matter how much he put in it. The bag itself was magic—the bag was the Storeroom, made small.

Niko knew the stories. Even if his family had no magical legacy, he’d know what many of these items were. Here was the ball of twine Ariadne gave to Theseus, to lead him out of the labyrinth. Two quivers of arrows, one silver and one gold, had belonged to the twins Artemis and Apollo. And here, a golden apple bearing an ancient inscription. The characters had long ago faded from knowledge. Niko couldn’t read them, but he knew the story, and he knew what it said: “For the Fairest.”

Gingerly, he set it into the bag with everything else.

The Storeroom didn’t used to have this much, a vague familiar memory told him. But magic was going out of the world. Here it lay, inert, the stories finished and done with. The age of heroes had ended. It made Niko sad.

All his possessions contained in a bag over his shoulder, he sailed west, to a peninsula of warring chieftains that seemed unlikely to unite and develop aspirations of empire-building anytime soon.

Night had come to the Sun Palace.

The room was the same. A chair sat against the wall. An arch opened onto a porch. Beyond that was the garden, where a bird called from one of the trees. The fountains were silent.

Picking up the sword, Sinon stood. The screen was still pulled back from the doorway he’d been guarding. But the doorway—through it was a small room, only a few feet square, meant for storage.

The closet was just a closet. The doorway to Olympus was gone.

Sword in hand, he stalked through rooms and hallways, expecting an ambush. The place was so still, his own footsteps made him wince. He went to the garden.

The path led out past the hedge. Beyond this was an open field. Sinon could see the horizon. The path trailed away from the palace.

The sun rose and set twice more. Apart from a few bowls of fruit, jars of wine, and the odd pastry left here and there on discarded platters, there was no food. The wine pitchers were empty. The god had always summoned their meals, from where Sinon didn’t know. Some of the trees in the garden bore fruit. But Sinon would have to leave if he didn’t want to starve.

He wondered if he could starve. He still wore Apollo’s chain around his neck.

On the third day, Sinon lay on his pallet. The sun had risen to noon, and he was still trying to find the will to climb out of bed. Once he did that, he would have to find the will to leave the palace and take that path to the horizon. Facing that would mean facing that he was afraid of it. Afraid of the world that had grown older without him.

A man walked through the room, from one door to the next, without noticing Sinon lying there. Startled, Sinon took up the sword—he slept with it—and rose to follow the intruder.

The stranger was plain, with brown hair tied into a tail, of average build, but vibrant. He moved with purpose. A leather satchel hung over one shoulder, but he didn’t seem to mind the weight. He went to Apollo’s bedchamber. There, he found the god’s lyre resting in its corner, and started to put it in the bag.

“You, stop there,” Sinon said, pointing with the sword.

The man looked over his shoulder, but didn’t seem disturbed. The lyre disappeared into his bag. He then went to a table by the wall and looked in a box sitting there, where Apollo kept his golden circlet. Seeing the circlet in place, he closed the box and put it in the bag.

“I said stop!”

The man let his arms hang at his sides. “If you’re going to try to run me through, get on with it.”

The intruder was unarmed, or seemed to be. Sinon didn’t feel quite right just charging him and slashing his head off. But he’d lived among the gods long enough to know there was probably a trick to this. Apollo was testing him.

Sinon approached him slowly. “First put down the bag. Then tell me who you are.”

He didn’t put down the bag. He said, “I am Prometheus.”

Sinon stared. Whoever he was, he could have attacked Sinon then and he wouldn’t have thought to defend himself. He repeated flatly, “Prometheus.”

Prometheus, who brought fire and knowledge to humanity, who was at the heart of all the stories of creation, one of the Titans, who were older than the gods even. Wiser than the gods. His brother was earth-bearing Atlas, and yet he looked so normal.

Sinon laughed nervously. “The Prometheus of the stories isn’t a thief.”

The man grinned. “You’re wrong. The Prometheus of the stories stole fire and gave it to humankind.” Next, he went to the chest where Apollo kept his armor and weapons. From it he drew a quiver of arrows and slipped them into the bag as well.

The bag was no more full or bulging than it had been before.

Sinon couldn’t stand being treated as inconsequential, like he was harmless. Especially by someone claiming to be Prometheus, of all the outrageous lies.

Taking his sword firmly in an attacking grip, he charged the stranger. In three strides he crossed the room, moving swiftly, for all that he hadn’t done this in so long. He arced the sword low and drove up, to catch the intruder in the gut.

Then the intruder was gone. He stepped to the side faster than a blink and put his hand around Sinon’s throat. He shoved against Sinon with the force of a thunderstorm. His throat collapsed, he couldn’t breathe. Sinon’s body swung on the fulcrum of that grip, and he crashed headfirst on the floor. Bone cracked; skull crushed.

Sinon lay for a moment, blinded by stars that flashed in his vision, nauseated because he could feel the bone knitting back together, could feel his throat re-forming. He lay still, swathed in pain. Then he gasped, able to breathe through a newly healed windpipe.

He sat up slowly, dizzily. He touched the back of his head, which was slick with blood. He cursed softly. He should be dead. If only.

“What are you?” The man who claimed to be Prometheus walked a slow circle around him, a pace away. “You’re not a god or a demigod. In fact, you smell mortal. So what are you?”