Carrie Vaughn - Discord's Apple

Odysseus, his skin gray and loose on his bones, swatted them away. “Leave me, leave me. I’m not crippled, curse the lot of you.” His voice cracked, and he kept shaking his head. His eyes were clouded.

Sinon thought he might weep.

The girl said, “Grandfather, remember your manners. We have guests this evening.”

“Curse them, too!”

She looked quickly at Sinon and Prometheus. “He doesn’t mean it, sirs. Please don’t mind him.”

“I know,” Sinon said gently.

They ate. Sinon stole glances at the old man. Halfway through the meal, Sinon caught him staring back. Their gazes met, and Sinon almost dropped his knife.

He’s pretending, Sinon thought. He knows.

At the end of the meal, the two grandchildren guided him away. When they passed by Sinon, the old man fell. Everyone in the room jumped. Sinon reached to catch him, but Odysseus stopped his own fall by grabbing Sinon’s arm. His knobbed, arthritic hands dug into his skin.

Odysseus stared hard at him. Sinon wanted to hug the old man tight enough to break bones. But his grandchildren righted him quickly and led him out of the hall.

“Are you all right?” Prometheus whispered, his brow lined with concern.

Sinon nodded. “I’m just a bit shaken. Being here again, seeing him again, is so strange.”

“You’ll never get used to your friends growing old without you.”

Telemachus touched Sinon’s shoulder. “Let me show you your rooms.”

At the end of the hall, Prometheus stopped them and spoke in a low voice. “Telemachus, I would speak with you privately, if you’re willing. I need help, and I think you’re the man for it.”

And so Prometheus would charge Telemachus with guarding the treasures of the gods, would enchant this family, this household, and they could never have the peace Odysseus had earned for them. Would Prometheus give Telemachus the chance to refuse? Would Telemachus refuse? Sinon doubted it.

Prometheus turned to follow Telemachus down the passage, to the room where they would have their conversation.

In the middle of the night, Sinon went searching for Odysseus. He had marked which part of the house he’d been taken to. He listened at the doorways of bedchambers and entered the one where he heard no snoring.

Odysseus’s bed was empty, the coverlet pushed aside. The old man sat by the window, leaning on a cane, looking out at the moonlit ocean.

Sinon cleared his throat. Odysseus didn’t react, so Sinon said, “Will His Lordship indulge a visitor so late?”

Odysseus looked at him sideways and shook his head. “I know now that I am truly mad, because I see a ghost. A ghost has come into my house. I see the ghosts of all my dead warriors behind your face, Sinon.”

Sinon entered the room and leaned on the wall by the window. What could he tell this man? What insanity had brought him here, to see his hero in such a state? I had to tell him. Explain what had happened to him, why he hadn’t sailed home from Troy.

He hadn’t had a chance to tell anyone good-bye.

“You’re pretending, aren’t you? You’re not as senile as you’re letting on. It’s your way of letting go, of letting them take over the running of the household without feeling your authority hanging over them.”

Odysseus snorted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m mad. Demented. Everyone says it. So should you.”

That was a message. Don’t tell them my secret. Don’t say it aloud, even in private. Don’t even think it.

“I defer to your wisdom, old friend.”

“Your face,” the old man said. “It’s just like it was. Oh—” His eyes widened, a new realization overcoming him. “It isn’t you. You—you’re Athena in disguise. My lady, you’ve made yourself look like Sinon—why? What message do you have for me?”

“I’m not—Odysseus, my lord, I really am—” He looked away, tears pricking his eyes. He should not have come. He should not have disturbed an old man with ghosts.

He straightened. He tried to make his gaze and manner as imperious as Athena’s. “Rest easy, my friend. I only wished to look upon you and see that you are well.”

“I am well. But tired. Very tired, and haunted by too many ghosts.”

Sinon squeezed the old man’s shoulder, then returned to his room, where he lay awake all night, staring at the ceiling.

The next morning, Telemachus’s mood seemed subdued. Or Sinon may only have imagined that it was. His family acted no differently, as they would have if anything had been wrong. Prometheus was the same, but he no longer carried his leather satchel. So Telemachus had accepted the task of guarding the artifacts. Sinon wondered what the immortal had told him to convince him to say yes. Perhaps the man felt some sort of overwhelming sense of duty.

The family breakfasted. Odysseus didn’t join them. After, Telemachus saw them off at the gate of the manor. He offered them a few days’ provisions. They accepted, as befitted the laws of hospitality. When Sinon blessed Telemachus and his house, he did so without calling on the gods, so the words would be true. Outside Olympus, no one had noticed the destruction of the gods. And what did that say?

Prometheus commented on this, as they walked the road to the village. “You didn’t name any gods to bless him.”

“Of course not.”

“It sounded strange, don’t you think?”

He hadn’t called upon the gods in a long time. It didn’t sound strange at all. He shook his head.

“What will you do now?” Prometheus asked.

Before coming here, Sinon had thought he might settle down, farm, find a wife, as he’d been destined to do at his birth. But he couldn’t do that now.

He could see the ocean from here. “Maybe I can hire onto a boat. See if I remember how to sail. Travel to the ends of the earth. How does that sound?”

“It sounds marvelous,” Prometheus said. “I commend that plan.”

Which, surprisingly, made Sinon feel a little better. “What will you do?”

“I think I’ll travel as well.” He didn’t look across the water, though, but up, neck craned back, squinting into the sun. “To the sky, the stars. There are other worlds than this one. I’d like to see them.”

He would go to live among the constellations, the myths and legends preserved in the night sky. A fitting end to his story. In the coming nights, Sinon would look for a new collection of stars.

“Will you ever return?”

“I doubt it. I don’t think humankind needs my help anymore. Or wants it, really.”

They reached a fork in the road, one branch leading to the village and the other leading to the hills, where shepherds took their sheep and goats to graze. Prometheus offered his hand, and Sinon gripped his wrist, as if they were two friends on the road, and nothing more.

“I leave you here. Live well, Sinon of Ithaca,” Prometheus said, then departed along the path that led to the hills.

Sinon watched him for a moment, thought of running after him, to beg him to take him along— there’s nothing left on earth for me now. But Prometheus’s departure seemed much like a dismissal. If the immortal had wanted a companion, he would have offered to take Sinon along.

Sinon went to the village and the ocean, hired onto a ship setting sail for Egypt, and left Ithaca forever.

Evie awoke cradled in Alex’s lap. She curled around the box, covering it with her body. He draped one arm across her back, and with the other hand he stroked her head, running his fingers through her hair. He was singing softly, absently, the notes faltering. The words were lilting—Greek.

He sat propped against a slab of gray rock.

She stirred. He drew his hands away; she missed them. She could have stayed cradled with him forever, and with him, that really meant something.