The Dark Prophecy

I took her face between my hands. “Meg, listen to me.” The darkness roiled around her, making my skin tingle. “I’m here. I’m Apollo, god of healing. You will not die on me.”

Meg didn’t take orders well. I knew this. She twitched and foamed, coughing up random words like horse, crossword, cloven, roots. Also not a great sign, medically speaking.

My singing had not worked. Stern language had not worked. There was only one other remedy I could think of—an ancient technique for drawing out poison and evil spirits. The practice was no longer endorsed by most medical associations, but I remembered the limerick from the Grove of Dodona, the line I had lost the most sleep over: Was forced death and madness to swallow.

Here we were.

I knelt over Meg’s face, as I used to do when I taught mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as part of first aid training at Camp Jupiter. (Those silly Roman demigods were always drowning.)

“I’m sorry about this.” I pinched Meg’s nose and clamped my mouth over hers. A slimy, unpleasant sensation—much like what I imagined Poseidon experienced when he realized he was kissing the gorgon Medusa.

I could not be deterred. Instead of exhaling, I inhaled, sucking the darkness from Meg’s lungs.

Perhaps, at some point in your life, you’ve gotten water up your nose? Imagine that feeling, except with bee venom and acid instead of water. The pain almost made me black out, a noxious cloud of horror flooding through my sinuses, down my throat, and into my chest. I felt ghostly bees ricocheting through my respiratory system, trying to sting their way out.

I held my breath, determined to keep as much of the darkness away from Meg for as long as I could. I would share this burden with her, even if it killed me.

My mind slid sideways into Meg’s own memories.

I was a frightened little girl, trembling on the steps of the library, staring down at the body of my murdered father.

The rose he had given me was crushed and dead. Its petals were scattered across the wounds the Beast had made in his belly.

The Beast had done this. I had no doubt. Nero had warned me again and again.

Daddy had promised me the rose would never die. I would never have to worry about thorns. He said the flower was a gift from my mother, a lady I had never met.

But the rose was dead. Daddy was dead. My life was nothing but thorns.

Nero put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Meg.”

His eyes were sad, but his voice was tinged with disappointment. This only proved what I already suspected. Daddy’s death was my fault. I should have been a better daughter. I should have trained harder, minded my manners, not objected when Nero told me to fight the larger children…or the animals I did not want to kill.

I had upset the Beast.

I sobbed, hating myself. Nero hugged me. I buried my face in his purple clothes, his sickly sweet cologne—not like flowers, but like old, desiccated potpourri in a nursing home. I wasn’t sure how I even knew that smell, but it brought back a half-remembered feeling of helplessness and terror. Nero was all I had. I didn’t get real flowers, a real father, a real mother. I wasn’t worthy of that. I had to cling to what I had.

Then, our minds comingled, Meg and I plunged into primordial Chaos—the miasma from which the Fates wove the future, making destiny out of randomness.

No one’s mind should be exposed to such power. Even as a god, I feared to go too near the boundaries of Chaos.

It was the same sort of danger mortals risked when they asked to see a god’s true form—a burning, terrible pyre of pure possibility. Seeing such a thing could vaporize humans, turn them into salt or dust.

I shielded Meg from the miasma as best I could, wrapping my mind around hers in a sort of embrace, but we both heard the piercing voices.

Swift white horse, they whispered. The crossword speaker. Lands of scorching death.

And more—lines spoken too fast, overlapping too much to make sense of. My eyes began to bake. The bees consumed my lungs. Still I held my breath. I saw a misty river in the distance—the Styx itself. The dark goddess beckoned me from the shore, inviting me to cross. I would be immortal again, if only in the way human souls were immortal after death. I could pass into the Fields of Punishment. Didn’t I deserve to be punished for my many crimes?

Unfortunately, Meg felt the same way. Guilt weighed her down. She did not believe she deserved to survive.

What saved us was a simultaneous thought:

I cannot give up. Apollo/Meg needs me.

I endured for another moment, then two. At last, I could stand it no more.

I exhaled, expelling the poison of the prophecy. Gasping for fresh air, I collapsed next to Meg on the cold, wet stone. Slowly, the world returned to a solid state. The voices were gone. The cloud of ghostly bees had vanished.

I rose to my elbows. I pressed my fingers against Meg’s neck. Her pulse pattered, thready and weak, but she was not dead.

“Thank the Three Fates,” I murmured.

For once, I actually meant it. If Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos had been in front of me right then, I would have kissed their warty noses.

On his island, Trophonius sighed. “Oh, well. The girl might still be insane for the rest of her life. That’s some consolation.”

I glared at my deceased son. “Some consolation?”

“Yes.” He tilted his ethereal head, listening again. “You’d best hurry. You’ll have to carry the girl through the underwater tunnel, so I suppose you might both drown. Or the blemmyae might kill you at the other end. But if not, I want that favor.”

I laughed. After my plunge into Chaos, it wasn’t a pretty sound. “You expect a favor? For attacking a defenseless girl?”

“For giving you your prophecy,” Trophonius corrected. “It’s yours, assuming you can extract it from the girl on the Throne of Memory. Now my favor, as you promised: Destroy this cave.”

I had to admit…I’d just come back from the miasma of pure prophecy, and I still didn’t see that request coming. “Say what, now?”

“This location is too exposed,” said Trophonius. “Your allies at the Waystation will never be able to defend it from the Triumvirate. The emperors will just keep attacking. I do not wish to be used by Commodus anymore. Better that the Oracle is destroyed.”

I wondered if Zeus would agree. I had been operating under the assumption that my father wanted me to restore all the ancient Oracles before I could regain my godhood. I wasn’t sure if destroying the Cavern of Trophonius would be an acceptable plan B. Then again, if Zeus wanted things done in a certain way, he should’ve given me instructions in writing. “But, Trophonius…what will happen to you?”

Trophonius shrugged. “Perhaps my Oracle will reappear somewhere else in a few centuries—under better circumstances, in a more secure location. Maybe that will give you time to become a nicer father.”

He was definitely making it easier to consider his request. “How do I destroy this place?”

“I may have mentioned the blemmyae with explosives in the next cave? If they do not use them, you must.”

“And Agamethus? Will he disappear as well?”

Dim flashes of light erupted from within the spirit’s form—perhaps sadness?

“Eventually,” said Trophonius. “Tell Agamethus…Tell him I love him, and I’m sorry this has been our fate. That’s more than I ever got from you.”