The Legacy of Callisto

Part 2

The Shadow of Sorrow

DISCLAIMER

First of all, the characters of Callisto, Xena, Gabrielle and any others from the TV shows Xena: Warrior Princess or Hercules: The Legendary Journeys are the property of Universal Pictures, Renaissance Pictures, and other affiliates. This work is intended purely for entertainment and nonprofit purposes, and no copy right infringement is intended.

"Be thine own palace, or the world's thy jail."

John Donne

Prologue: Rich Red Apples

"FATHER!"

The voice rang out strong and furious. It echoed off the pure set marble walls of the palace, moving quickly down the long hall, through an immaculate set of gilded golden doors and out into the vast throne room. From there, it seemed to resound loudly as it bounced from the thick and luxuriant carpet that ran the length of the room, and then right up into the enormous golden dome that shone with the same radiance as the noon day sun.

Zeus was seated alone on a high backed and ribbed golden throne at the opposite end of the enormous chamber to the doors. His back was hunched over a scrying bowl with a rich red apple, one that was the same shade as the fine carpet beneath his feet, held lightly between gnarled fingers and poised half way to his lips. At the sound of the shouted voice, he rolled his eyes in frustration and, with an annoyed flick of his wrist, he tossed the fruit back into the elegantly worked golden dish sitting on an equally ornate stand of the same design.

Why was it he could never have a moments peace? If it was not Hera interrupting him, it was Aphrodite; if not Aphrodite, it was Athena; if not Athena it was Apollo and so on and so forth, and always about something small, inconsequential and petty. The list of irritants in his life was endless and not a one of them seemed to truly comprehend the magnitude of his responsibilities. A whole sphere of the natural world was his to control and command, and yet unlike his brothers, who were rarely bothered, he constantly found himself inundated with a list of veiled threats, insinuated insults and outright lies that the rest of the pantheon would level against one another. Sometimes he found himself wishing that when he, Hades and Poseidon had drawn straws to decide which of the spheres of the world would belong to them, he had been the one to wind up with the Underworld. At least then, maybe, he would have had a little peace and quiet. Then he remembered Hades' dour temperament and decided that an eternity of irritation was preferable to an eternity in which the sun never rose, and the sky ran black with thunder clouds.

"FATHER, ARE YOU IN THERE!?" the voice yelled again.

With a long suffering sigh, Zeus leaned back to recline in his opulent throne, plush red cushions embroidered in silks and trimmed with a dazzling golden weave taking his weight easily. He lifted one ankle and slipped it over his knee while he slouched sideways in his seat, his elbow resting on the arm of the throne to prop up his chin. It was a posture he had perfected over the centuries of dealing with his many vainglorious children; an affectation of long suffering patience and purest vexation that unbalanced almost all the pantheon save Hera and his own brothers. With his free hand, he began to drum his fingers steadily on the other arm of the throne, sparks of lightning crackling back and forth between their tips as he did so. It was a little heavy handed to display his power so openly, but then he had found when dealing with this particular voice's owner that heavy handedness could work wonders.

The doors burst open and Zeus felt a small flutter of surprise as two gods entered rather than the one he had been expecting. Both strode purposefully across the room, their perfect figures moving with that same self-assured grace that all the gods possessed in abundance. Even lame Hephaestus could move with an air of dignity and self-possession when he felt the need.

The second of the pair was a woman of singular beauty, her cascading red hair tumbling in wild silken waves down her shoulders, but held in check around her crown by slim golden band. Her figure was lean and strong, all taught muscle and long-limbed elegance. She was clad in a supple leather breast plate and sectioned skirt; all dyed a gold that shimmered brighter than the throne room's dome. On her left hand she wore a flared golden glove, and on the opposite arm she wore a tight fitting three fingered archer's glove and bracer. Across her back was slung a perfectly strung bow and flight of arrows. As with the rest of her outfit, all were gold of course.

Ahead of her, a man strutted, almost so her opposite in appearance that it was difficult to believe that they were half brother and sister. Zeus would not have believed it himself were he not their father. The man was tall and powerfully built, broad across the shoulders with strong, thick set arms and a jutting jaw that lent him a fierce countenance. His shoulder length hair hung in a thick mass of tight curls and was black as a pitch night sky, yet it shone with the same luster as his sister's when the light hit it. Like his father he wore a beard, although unlike Zeus, whose beard was long and luxuriant, his was short and kept neatly trimmed and oiled, running in thin lines up his cheeks to meet his hair at his temples. He moved with the easy poise of a warrior born and bred, and his dress was similarly suggestive. Not as eye catching as his sister's shining gold, he was instead clad in more utilitarian black leathers that were embroidered in silver around the chest and across the shoulders. He carried an ornate sword at his hip, it's pommel a crafted skull, perfectly wrought in the finest silver, while the cross-guard was set with a large and flawless ruby that flashed a dark and bloody crimson in the glaring sunlight from the dome above.

"Ares," Zeus nodded to them as they crossed the chamber toward him. "Artemis. How can the king of Olympus be of service to you on this fine day?"

His voice was mannered and polite, but it carried a carefully judged undercurrent of threat that gave both his children pause as they neared him.

As usual, they overcame their hesitancy quicker than Zeus would have liked. On the one hand he respected their strength of will. It almost made him proud in an uncharacteristically paternal way. Then he remembered they were gods, that a strong will was practically an in born trait, and that it was that selfsame trait that served to make his immortal life far more difficult than it had any right to be.

"Did you know about Sparta?" Ares demanded angrily. "Did you know about the desecration of my shrines? The burning of my temple?"

"Hah!" Artemis sneered at her brother. "One small temple and a couple of homemade shrines being effaced and he acts as if his worship is failing all across Greece."

She turned to face Zeus, her eyes wide and pleading, the look of a daughter begging for her father's aid. It was a look that she had learned a long time ago, and she knew all too well how hard he found it to deny.

"It is I who am the victim here! Ares' pride is merely being wounded but my position in the city is being threatened! The Helot's were always a people devoted to me father. To me!" She cast a sideways glance at Ares. "Those great Spartan lummoxes have always favoured my dear brother here, and they always will. Rampant testosterone will see to that. But the Helot's father, my Helots are turning on me in droves. Just this last week, I have lost my main temple in the Outer City and a score of my shrines have been destroyed!"

Zeus regarded them both nonchalantly.

"And to what other worship, pray tell, have you found yourselves being ousted? What simple hedge god or nature spirit has outclassed the God of War and the Goddess of the Hunt in the hearts and minds of their followers?" His voice dripped with mockery, but in truth he was concerned. He had not expected this, at least not yet.

"It is a cult, some minor nature worshipers most likely." Ares announced with a dismissive wave of his hand. "The Spartans would never debase themselves to follow its teachings, but those tiresome Helots of hers, well, let's just say they didn't take long to turn in my dear sister here for a new model."

He let out a cruel chuckle as Artemis' cheeks flushed red in outrage.

"How dare you..." she began to reach for her bow and one of the quivered golden arrows at her back. She could not truly hurt Ares, and it was more a gesture of annoyance than a serious threat. His family did love their drama and theatrics, but Zeus still halted her with a withering look.

"Artemis," he said, his voice low, "I would ask that you don't shoot your brother. It always makes such a mess of the carpet."

Ares simply snorted.

"As if she could even hit me," he sneered. Zeus ignored him and leaned forward in his throne, to regard his daughter thoughtfully.

"Is all of this true? Are your worshipers abandoning you in favour of some other 'god'?"

"It's not just some other god and it is not just me!" Artemis protested. "Shrines all across the city and to every member of the pantheon have been defaced! This cult claims they are symbols of a pretender's faith and that the natural order we, the 'pretender' gods have upset, must be set to rights. Does that not sound familiar to either of you?"

Zeus was surprised to hear a tight knot of nervousness in her voice as she spoke, carefully tied off and controlled, but present nonetheless. He lifted his hands, steepling his fingers before his lips and tapping them thoughtfully.

The people in the world below were a superstitious lot. They needed their gods, their pantheons and all the associated rites and rituals that came with them. It gave them a sense of stability and hope to know that somewhere, up above them, all powerful beings were watching and listening. In truth the Olympians were usually far too busy embroiled in the seemingly endless clashing of their mountain sized egos and grand familial disputes to care much for the world below. The majority of the world was less aware of that however.

For something to come along and turn the devoted Spartans and Helots from their principle and patron gods so easily, and especially a goddess as beloved as Artemis, it would have to be more than just some up and coming new deity. It would have to be something powerful, something established, and more than likely something ancient. His eyes narrowed slightly. He did not even need to think really. He already knew who and what it was which moved against them in Sparta, but he was surprised at the speed at which it was progressing.

"Why have none of the others come to me about this?" he said.

"Artemis and I are the main deities of Sparta," interjected Ares. "Apollo couldn't care less about a couple of shrines here and there. Nor could Athena, Aphrodite or any of the others for that matter."

"And you have not thought to visit some horrific suffering on these fools for turning away from their rightful gods?" Zeus replied, cocking an eyebrow at both his son and daughter.

The muscles in Artemis' jaw bunched and Zeus knew he had hit a nerve.

"Unless..." he continued, and began to lean forward dangerously, "...there is something else you're not telling me?"

Artemis could no longer meet his gaze, instead shuffling her feet uncomfortably as she looked at the carpet beneath her feet.

"This cult," she said finally, her voice tight with just the vaguest hint of uneasiness behind it, "their symbol is a bloodied sickle."

Zeus' eyes narrowed to slits.

"Is it now," he said, his voice rumbling with the distant sound of thunder.

Ares turned on his sister, his voice ringing with genuine surprise.

"You never told me that!" he said.

Artemis glared back at him defiantly.

"You never asked!" she snapped. "And it did not seem you would have cared over much either way."

"But..." Ares blustered, caught unawares by the sudden revelation, "...but you know what this means! All the disturbances, the dead not reaching the Underworld in the correct numbers, the weakening of the boundary, Hades' sudden cloistering of himself in his fortress; it all adds up and..."

He turned back to Zeus, his expression one of sudden understanding.

"...and you already knew, didn't you," he said. It wasn't a question.

Zeus leaned back in his seat again, his pose this time straight backed and imperious, both hands clasping the arms of his throne.

"Of course I did," he replied.

"Then why didn't you tell us all!?" Ares snapped angrily, any deference he might have held for his father momentarily forgotten. "You know the danger we are in, the threat this represents! We cannot just sit here! We must marshal our forces and prepare for war! Sparta will only be the first. If this is allowed to continue more cities will follow until our worship and power withers and dies!"

Zeus shot to his feet as Ares finished speaking, the huge sunlit dome above their heads suddenly darkening as if being cloaked by fierce storm clouds, and when the King of the Gods spoke, his voice cracked sharply, a lightning strike against the deathly dark and silence of night.

"Do not try to lecture me Ares!" he boomed. "There is only one king on Olympus my son, and he sees all!"

He began to descend from his throne, moving to stand before the God of War so that the two of them were eye to eye. Ares straightened, his teeth grinding against one another as he glared defiantly back at his father.

"I did not tell you Ares, as you are the most fairweather of all my children," Zeus sneered derisively at him. "I saw how you, the brave and mighty God of War, trembled before Dahak and that monstrous half breed daughter of his. I saw how you tried to turn on us, all in the hopes of evading your own destruction! Had the time come for you to stand against us, I would have delighted in the opportunity to show you how foolish a decision that was."

Next to them Artemis was staring at her half-brother, a horrified look on her face.

"So it's true!" she said, her voice astounded. "You did try to betray us all."

"Please!" Ares snorted. "The son will always betray the father! That is our way, right back to Uranus! If you had been in my position you would've done the same."

"No." Artemis gave a definite shake of her head. "No, I wouldn't have."

The God of War gave a dismissive wave of his hand.

"None of this matters!" he insisted. "If he is rising again, the Underworld is under threat. Hades must be warned."

"Your uncle is well aware of the situation," Zeus shot back. "Even now he is testing his strength against our enemy. So far he has managed to hold his ground."

Artemis shifted uneasily.

"If all of this is true, then that would make Sparta a ripe target," she said, her voice tense but thoughtful. "There are many great souls there, some even granted favour by Ares and I. If the city falls, and they with it, it would be a terrible blow to the barrier between worlds. Hades' struggles would be made all that much more difficult."

Ares nodded.

"For once my sister and I agree on something," he said. "Sparta is crucial. In war the winning side chooses the battleground, and I say we choose to stand there. A line must be drawn against our enemies; this far and no further."

Zeus regarded his son coldly.

"It would seem we are all in agreement on what should be done," he said slowly.

Ares smiled triumphantly and was opening his mouth to speak again, no doubt to try and take charge of the battle plan, when Zeus interrupted him.

"What we are not in agreement on," he said, "is how it should be achieved. Sparta is a city of mortals and it is the mortal agents of our enemy that threaten it. While our interests may indeed be threatened, we cannot forget our roles."

Ares frowned at his father.

"Your point being...?" he said.

"My point being that you, your sister here, and any of the others thinking to get involved, will not. I am King of Olympus, and I am telling you now, unequivocally, to stay out of this."

"Stay out of it!" Ares practically exploded in outrage. "How can you say that? Our worship; no, our very existence is at threat, and you expect us to just sit here and twiddle our thumbs while we wait?"

"I expect you to do as your king commands," Zeus snapped. "The mortal agents of our enemy demand mortal agents of our own to counter them."

Artemis cocked her head slightly at her father, a knowing half smile settling on her face.

"You already have your agent in play, don't you father?" she said.

Zeus turned to her.

"I most certainly do dear daughter," he said. "Nothing is being left to chance."

Ares' frown deepened, his brow now as craggy as the slopes of Olympus itself.

"Who?" he asked, his voice all wariness and caution. Of all his children, Ares was among the most involved in mortal affairs and the god most likely to choose champions for his causes. Those he chose, he coveted above all others, and Xena in particular was his clear favourite. He was no doubt worried that his father had whisked away one of his favourite playthings on some suicidal saviour's quest. Zeus almost laughed out loud as he imagined the look on his son's face when he discovered who his father's chosen champion actually was.

"Don't worry Ares," the old king said, returning to his throne and gesturing to the scrying bowl as he did so. "Your little pets are safe from my machinations; at least for the time being."

Artemis glanced at Zeus quizzically as he settled himself back into his throne, and then crossed to the scrying bowl herself. Standing at her father's side, she leaned over, her eyes widening as she looked down into the shimmering waters that filled the bowl. A broad smile of perfect understanding lit her face and she straightened to regard Zeus, a look of wry amusement sparkling in her eyes.

"Oh father!" she laughed prettily, "This is just too perfect!"

Zeus flashed a fatherly smile of approval at her. Artemis, unlike many of the other gods, had always had a sense of humour. He expected it was one of the reasons why she was so well loved across much of Greece. He shot Ares a look out of the corner of his eye.

"Isn't it just," he said, the corner of his mouth curling up in a sly smile.

Ares' frown had become a glower at this point, his dark eyebrows arching furiously. With a frustrated grunt, he followed Artemis to the bowl, placing both hands around the rim to either of it side of it has he peered into it.

Zeus reached down to the dish of fruit he had been eating out of earlier. He watched as his son's expression changed, at first to one of confusion, then realisation and finally outright horror. Retrieving the rich red apple he had been about to eat before being interrupted, Zeus lifted it to his mouth and took a large bite, the crunch echoing loudly in the sudden silence of the throne room.

Ares looked up, his face pale and blanched but his eyes blazing with fury.

"You have got to be joking!" he snapped.

Zeus and Artemis both laughed.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Well here I am, back with part 2 of my series. This story is considerably more complicated than part 1 and will have a lot more moving parts as the main arc begins to kick in. As a result it will most likely take longer than the previous story to complete and updates may be slower in coming. I'm excited to try and do something a little more epic than the previous story which was kept intentionally small and more personal as I wanted to focus on the changing direction of Callisto's character. This time, we are going to get to see just what it is Zeus had in mind for her for face off against. I hope those of you who enjoyed the first story enjoy this one as well and, as ever, if people have feedback of any kind please feel free to review or drop me a line via PM.

Have fun reading.