Lacuna 9: Ithaca Calling You On
Aboard three battered ships careening on a wild night sea, dozens of pairs of eyes opened in unison. The heavens were screaming.
Foxfooted Udelar bounded nimbly out of his cot and was on the ladder to the deck almost before his comrades had decided whether to be frightened or not. Hand over hand to the top, a few rungs from being able to pull himself onto the deck… but wait. Something was wrong. Udelar looked down. Why was the ladder, which normally glinted silver on nights of the full moon, so dark and lifeless? Dread filling his mind, Udelar clambered to the deck at record speed. He did not even notice the bounding of the sea, or the strangeness of the sky. His eyes went to the moon – or rather, to where the moon ought to have been, and to where, against all reason, the only things in the sky were the blood-streaked clouds.
Brother Cayvie, traveller of islands, was the first to hear the mighty crash that sounded like a thunderclap. Emanating from the north, the sound seemed to fill the sky like a flock of dark birds. His eyes strained at the northern horizon. He felt he could almost see the sound’s faraway origin. His mind – borne, perhaps, on the wings of Athena – seemed to fly over the waters to a mountain Cayvie had never seen, but of which he had heard in the ancient legends. Olympus? No, not Olympus; there was no great palace at its peak, nor the twelve Olympians holding council. Indeed, there was only one man, held there in chains… yet as Cayvie watched, he saw a cleft in the mountain beneath the man grow wider and wider. To his astonishment, Cayvie realized that the mountain itself had split in two, causing the horrible thundering. And as he came to grips with this, he saw the chains of the prisoner, under the ever-increasing tension of the widening canyon, shatter into a thousand pieces.
Brother ChinDoGu of the sober jests did not look to the moon or the horizon. In an instant, with a mind suddenly terrifying in its lucidity, he realized what was happening. Why Poseidon had been so silent of late. Why all his prayers had gone unanswered. Why the devout Eriphyle had been wracked by misfortune and strife even as its crew feasted and praised its god. And he looked down into the wine-dark sea, boiling ferociously and sending up masses of froth, and said an awestruck prayer. Not for himself, not for his ship… but for Poseidon.
And Zeus, the bringer of thunder, slept prodigiously through the haunted night. It would not be until the morning, when a desperate Hermes succeeded in waking him, that he would hear what happened. How Menoetius had slunk back from his incarceration in Tartarus. How Phoebe had barred her daughter from entering the carriage of the moon. How Prometheus had slipped his bonds in the Caucasus mountains.
And how Amphitrite, having been poisoning her husband for months, had at last taken the reins of an insurrection. An insurrection of Titans against Olympians. A too-familiar battle – now to be fought again.
Foxfooted Udelar bounded nimbly out of his cot and was on the ladder to the deck almost before his comrades had decided whether to be frightened or not. Hand over hand to the top, a few rungs from being able to pull himself onto the deck… but wait. Something was wrong. Udelar looked down. Why was the ladder, which normally glinted silver on nights of the full moon, so dark and lifeless? Dread filling his mind, Udelar clambered to the deck at record speed. He did not even notice the bounding of the sea, or the strangeness of the sky. His eyes went to the moon – or rather, to where the moon ought to have been, and to where, against all reason, the only things in the sky were the blood-streaked clouds.
Brother Cayvie, traveller of islands, was the first to hear the mighty crash that sounded like a thunderclap. Emanating from the north, the sound seemed to fill the sky like a flock of dark birds. His eyes strained at the northern horizon. He felt he could almost see the sound’s faraway origin. His mind – borne, perhaps, on the wings of Athena – seemed to fly over the waters to a mountain Cayvie had never seen, but of which he had heard in the ancient legends. Olympus? No, not Olympus; there was no great palace at its peak, nor the twelve Olympians holding council. Indeed, there was only one man, held there in chains… yet as Cayvie watched, he saw a cleft in the mountain beneath the man grow wider and wider. To his astonishment, Cayvie realized that the mountain itself had split in two, causing the horrible thundering. And as he came to grips with this, he saw the chains of the prisoner, under the ever-increasing tension of the widening canyon, shatter into a thousand pieces.
Brother ChinDoGu of the sober jests did not look to the moon or the horizon. In an instant, with a mind suddenly terrifying in its lucidity, he realized what was happening. Why Poseidon had been so silent of late. Why all his prayers had gone unanswered. Why the devout Eriphyle had been wracked by misfortune and strife even as its crew feasted and praised its god. And he looked down into the wine-dark sea, boiling ferociously and sending up masses of froth, and said an awestruck prayer. Not for himself, not for his ship… but for Poseidon.
And Zeus, the bringer of thunder, slept prodigiously through the haunted night. It would not be until the morning, when a desperate Hermes succeeded in waking him, that he would hear what happened. How Menoetius had slunk back from his incarceration in Tartarus. How Phoebe had barred her daughter from entering the carriage of the moon. How Prometheus had slipped his bonds in the Caucasus mountains.
And how Amphitrite, having been poisoning her husband for months, had at last taken the reins of an insurrection. An insurrection of Titans against Olympians. A too-familiar battle – now to be fought again.
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