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.
This story contains some violent themes as well as moderate depictions of violence, (we are talking Callisto here). I have done my best to keep things more suggestive than graphic however. That being said, should you be offended by such things I would suggest you stop reading.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is actually going to be a bit of a difficult one. It's the one I've dreaded writing the most as at the close of Part Two, Callisto herself was SPOILER out of action SPOILER. This means that a chunk of this story will be dealing with the supporting cast while Callisto is on a somewhat different journey (similar to episodes of Xena like Destiny). Needless to say this is a big gamble as it relies on the original characters I've created being able to carry a bit more of the main plot so that Callisto is free to go on a journey of self discovery. Callisto is still at the centre of the stories, but she has an ensemble now.
The idea is to tell a story that will move both Callisto and the supporting characters along and set up the events of the big finale to the Cronus stories in Part Four. Needless to say, this is very much a middle chapter in a trilogy (even though its part three of the series, it is in effect the second part of the core Cronus trilogy of stories). For those of you just joining now, if you want any of this to make sense, I highly advise looking at Part One and Part Two especially. Part Two in is very much required reading to understand what has happened and the state of play going into this, Part Three.
The Legacy of Callisto
Part Three
Palaces of the Mind
"I had been the author of unalterable evils; and I live in daily fear,
lest the monster whom I had created should perpetrate some new wickedness."
Frankenstein
Mary Shelley
Prologue: Meddlesome
There should not have been a breeze on the balcony, but that did not change the fact there was one.
Zeus, the King of all Olympus, leaned forward against the stone balcony rail and gazed out over the scene before him with morbid curiosity as the scorched wind that should not have been washed over him. Distant Tartarus – once little more than a giant fissure ripped in a jagged line across the floor of the seemingly infinite cavern that made up his brother Hades' Underworld – was beginning to spread. Like fracturing ice upon a winter's lake, a long network of ragged tears and ruptured stone was starting to creep inexorably outward, expanding slowly in every direction while each fissure's previously dull red glow had now become a burning, fiery crimson.
From somewhere deep beneath his feet, he could hear the first low rumblings of yet another earthquake, and he tightened his gnarled old fingers grimly around the balcony rail. The black stone of the fortress began to tremble all about him, and a heavy echoing crack sounded clear and strong across the cavern, reaching his ears even as far away as he was. Zeus' eyes narrowed as a fresh fissure split the rock of the cavern floor asunder in a spray of hot magma and roaring columns of flame. For a moment the fire climbed higher and higher, as if it were trying to reach the cavern ceiling high above. Then, in the blink of an eye, it guttered and died, the magma cooling with the same unnatural rapidity. The fissure remained however, and seconds later a fresh gust of hot, dry air washed up and over the balcony once more.
Zeus straightened, still watching the distant glow of Tartarus warily. Behind him he heard the sound of footsteps on stone, although in truth he had felt the others' approach even before he had heard her arrival.
"I thought you told us Hades had him contained," the newcomer said, moving to lean upon the balcony next to him.
He cast her a sideways glance. It was Artemis standing at his side. Her glorious mane of red hair today pulled back in a luxuriant braid and left to hang down across one shoulder. Across her back was slung her hunters' bow, the quiver of shining arrows that accompanied it seeming to glow even in the dim light of the Underworld.
"Trying a new look today are we my dear?" Zeus said with a nod toward her braid.
Artemis gave a soft sigh.
"And you are being evasive as always," she said. "Don't try and dodge the question father."
"I wasn't aware you had even asked me one," Zeus replied.
Artemis gave another sigh, this one more irritated and long suffering.
"You said Hades could keep Cronus trapped down there. Was that true?"
"Were the situation that simple, I have no doubt that it would've been," Zeus said, "but you of all people should know that there are other forces at work in this. My father was never so dull witted as to face a foe directly when there was no need to."
Artemis moved to join him at the balcony rail, leaning forward in a languid fashion that still spoke of readiness and danger.
"And so his little minions go scurrying about their work, while we gaze at our navels, and our own servants struggle to keep pace," she said softly, fixing him with a steady gaze as she followed his line of thought. "Sparta was the turning point wasn't it?"
He turned his gaze back to the vastness of the cavern before him, his eyes now the same colour as storm clouds on a cold winter's evening. He knew that it was not a question that required an answer this time, but he shrugged all the same.
"It was the pivot..." he said, drumming his fingers thoughtfully on the balcony rail as he mulled over possibilities in his mind. "...the focal point upon which the balance of this whole conflict was resting..."
"... And now the balance is tilting firmly in Cronus' favour," Artemis said.
Zeus nodded again, for the first time unsure of what to say. Artemis had always been one of the few of his children beyond Hercules that he felt any real affection for, and to hear her sounding so disappointed in him was more than a little sobering.
"And whose fault is that?" came a new voice from behind them.
The two of them turned as one, looking back into the private dining hall that the balcony was a part of. Along the walls, a selection of torches burned fiercely in sconces, yet none of them produced even the faintest hint of smoke or soot, while down the chamber's center ran a heavy table, shaped as one from a chunk of solid obsidian. Like everything else in the fortress it was plain and unadorned, and a number of simple chairs were arrayed along its length. A single seat was located at the far head of the table, only slightly more ostentatious than the rest, with a high back and a small end table at its side.
That seat and end table were both now occupied by a man and helmet respectively. The helmet appeared to be cast of bronze, and curving serpents worked their way from the nose to the nape of the neck. Its owner - the man in the chair - was dark haired and pale faced, with a thin lipped mouth set in a grim expression.
"Hades," Zeus nodded in greeting. "It is good to see you again dear brother. I was beginning to wonder if you had forgotten about our little meeting."
Hades tilted his head at that.
"I hadn't forgotten," he replied, giving a small gesture with his hand toward the balcony at their backs and the Underworld beyond. "I was just somewhat preoccupied, as I'm sure you can see."
Zeus narrowed his eyes as he regarded his older brother carefully. The God of the Underworld was reclining in his seat at the head of the table, seemingly relaxed, but in truth there was more of an exhausted slump to his shoulders than anything else and the heavy dark circles beneath his eyes only served to reinforce it. His cheeks were hollower than they had been previously and the rise and fall of his chest was shallow and occasionally uneven.
"You should've called upon us sooner," Zeus said softly. "How long have you been this way?"
Hades only cocked an eyebrow at Zeus in response before looking past him toward Artemis.
"So he's involved you in all of this?" he said quizzically.
"Not by choice," Artemis said, glancing at Zeus out of the corner of her eye. "I simply put two and two together that something was wrong and then the rest fell into place."
"And only when your own interests were threatened no doubt," Hades said with a dismissive wave of his hand that caused Artemis to visibly bristle.
"If I had known sooner…" she began defensively, but Hades cut her off, rising into an upright position as he spoke.
"If you had known sooner you would have done precisely what you have been doing all this time," he snapped viciously. "Nothing! You and all the rest of our kin, up there on Olympus, safe in the worship of your own devotees, all too ready and willing to forget about me and my realm, to pretend like I am beneath you!"
"I would have not had it be so," Artemis said, her eyes slightly down cast, her tone mollified. "I would have helped."
"Of course you would have," Hades sneered sarcastically at her.
"That's quite enough Hades," Zeus cut in, his voice quiet but strong, like the distant rumble of thunder.
Hades turned his angry glare back to Zeus, and the two of them locked gazes for a moment until, finally, Hades looked away, waving his hand in a gesture of supplication and letting out a long, tired exhale.
"My apologies," he said, although he did not sound particularly apologetic. "I was never the best of hosts, as I'm sure you both remember, and recently I've had even less call to be civil."
He gestured to the unoccupied seats along the length of the table.
"Please," he said. "Sit."
Zeus and Artemis both slid obligingly into chairs opposite one another, Zeus adopting his most confident air, but he could not help but notice how uncomfortable Artemis seemed. She was sitting stiffly in her seat, both hands splayed across the table and perfectly still as Hades regarded them both with a tired and resentful gaze.
"Quite the conspirators we make eh?" Zeus smiled, doing his best to appear jovial and at ease in an attempt to lessen some of the tension in the air. Hades just grunted.
"What about Ares?" Artemis asked.
"What about him?" Zeus replied, a little too sharply, and then crossed himself mentally for having displayed his emotions so brazenly. It would not do for him to be seen as overly emotional.
"He knows too," Artemis said. "Shouldn't we be waiting for him?"
Zeus gritted his teeth. If he could have stopped any of his children from learning about what was truly going on down here in the Underworld, the one he would have chosen above all others would have been Ares. He simply could not trust his most wayward son not to put the interests of them all above his own, but then considering the viper's nest of a family he had been born into, Zeus supposed he could hardly blame him.
"No need to wait on my account," came an irritatingly familiar voice, and in a bright flash, both the God of War and his ornate throne appeared, at the opposite end of the table to Hades. Ares lounged confidently in his seat, his booted feet up and resting on the smooth obsidian surface of the table.
"Speak my name, and I shall appear!" He said, flashing each of them that annoyingly confident smile he had when he thought he had the upper hand.
Zeus tapped a finger to the table, and a powerful arc of energy crackled across its surface to burst in a shower of sparks against the war god's feet. Ares let out a pained yelp and withdrew his boots quickly, glaring daggers at his father as he did so.
"My son," Zeus admonished him with a weary shake of his head. "How many times must I tell you to keep your feet off the furniture?"
Out of the corner of his vision, he caught a glimpse of Artemis trying to stifle a laugh, and for a moment the black mood hanging over the room seemed to lift slightly. Then a slight tremor from Tartarus made the table beneath his fingers shudder, and the mood turned somber once more.
Zeus leaned forward in his seat, his gaze flicking appraisingly across the gods assembled at the table. They were none of them the ideal conspirators he would have chosen. Indeed, had he had the choice, he would have preferred to involve no one but himself.
Hades was dour and grim at the best of times, defiant but also stubborn and inflexible. He saw the world in carefully measured terms, a million different checks and balances, each one cast in black and white. It made him thorough and careful, but also slow and methodical, unable to adapt quickly to those more dynamic than he. It might explain why he had always had such a hard time keeping firebrands like Callisto imprisoned in their deserved afterlives.
Artemis was compassionate and caring, much loved by her many worshipers but that strength was also her weakness. It made her softer than many of her siblings, less hardhearted and cutthroat. It was a weakness that she often refused to admit to herself, and with a potential battle for their very existences looming bleakly on the horizon, nor was it one they could afford to entertain.
Then there was Ares. The God of War was, in many ways, the most unpredictable of all his children. Ares' loyalties were fickle and ever changing. On any given day he could be a staunch ally or a fearsome enemy, but in his apparent unpredictability there was one constant that made him the easiest of all Zeus' children to read. His greatest loyalty was to himself. Every desire he had stemmed from it, and could be tied back to it in turn. For that reason, Zeus knew that despite his reservations about his son's character, in this he could trust him to hold true to them. So long as his own interests were threatened he would remain steadfast.
"Soooo," Zeus began, drumming his fingers impatiently against the table when it became clear no one else was about to speak. "You called us here Hades. Care to enlighten us as to why?"
"I had thought I would just be summoning you," Hades admitted, looking first at Zeus, then flicking his eyes toward Artemis and Ares in turn. "Not half of Olympus."
"Well, half of Olympus you have," Ares interjected smugly. "And a good job too, considering the mess that seems to have been made of things so far!"
"Ares..." Artemis, said, keeping her voice low, but doing little to disguise the hint of warning behind it.
Ares glanced at her then looked to Zeus and Hades. Both were glaring at him darkly.
"Very well then," he said, completely unfazed and leaning back in his chair while he speared Hades with a grim expression of his own. "Why did you call my father here dear Uncle?"
Hades regarded him coldly for a moment longer, then let out a long low sigh and slumped tiredly in his seat.
"Because I do not know how much longer I can hold Cronus unaided," he admitted.
"Thought as much," Ares muttered, but the others ignored him. Instead Artemis leaned forward across the table toward the God of the Underworld.
"So I was right then?" she said. "Sparta was the tipping point?"
"Did our most benevolent King not already tell you that?" Hades replied, shooting Zeus a caustic glance.
"Thermopylae," he continued. "King Leonidas, the Helot massacre, the Spartan Oracle; So many souls and so close together, all crossing the Styx at the same time..." He paused and gave a weary groan, lifting a hand to massage his temples as if they pained him.
Artemis got to her feet and crossed to his side, placing a concerned hand on his shoulder. Hades managed to give the weakest of smiles, but there was no real heart in it. Then he turned back to Zeus, his expression growing darker as he did so.
"It was all I could do to keep him from tearing a hole right through the barrier right then and there. Even now he is clawing his way to the surface of Tartarus, splitting the very fabric of the place apart as he does so."
Zeus sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest.
"This is hardly news Hades," he said. "I can see as much just by looking out of your window. So I say again, why call me here?"
"Isn't it glaringly obvious!?" Ares said incredulously, surging to his feet as he did so. "We need a new strategy! Your plan is failing father! Callisto was supposed to stop this! She was your chosen champion and where is she now? Lying insensate in some dreary forest cottage somewhere, surrounded by a cowering herd of former slaves and farmhands while Cronus' Followers stand completely unopposed!"
Zeus' expression did not change.
"Your point being?" he said flatly.
"Father please!" Artemis said imploringly. "You know what Ares is saying! It's not too late! We can still change the way this plays out! We have the power to..."
"...to what?" Zeus said, turning his impassive gaze on her. "To intervene? To strike down those Followers with our godly wrath? A poor solution if ever I heard one. After all, didn't you already try that Ares?"
The war god's face fell as he spoke, and a small smile curled at the corners of Zeus' mouth.
"Did you think I did not know my son?" he said chidingly. "Did you really believe me to be so easily fooled? Nothing escapes my notice, least of all your many treacheries, be they big or small."
Artemis and Hades both turned hard eyed stares on Ares.
"What did you do this time?" Hades said, his tone one of complete resignation and one that was not even remotely surprised by Ares' apparent disobedience.
"I... I uh..." Ares paused, speechless for the first time as he struggled to find the best way to admit his actions. "I may have... um... given Callisto a little nudge toward..."
"...The Tomb of Lycurgus, where she was thrown into the Pneuma." Zeus finished for him sharply, then cocked a knowing eyebrow toward Artemis.
"Do you see what happens when I am disobeyed my girl?" he said. "If it weren't for your dear brother over there and his ceaseless meddling, events may have turned out very differently. As it stands now, things happened the way they did because of his interference, and we are left having to pick up the pieces."
"I was just trying..." Ares began.
"And failing!" Zeus snapped at him with all the sudden fury of a thunder clap that made even the God of War wince at the harshness of it. "There is a reason, Ares, why I commanded you..." he looked around the room at the rest of them, "...all of you in fact, not to get involved. It is because, whether you believe it or not, I do actually know what I'm doing."
"Or at least you did," Hades corrected him. "Whatever plans you had concocted brother are no longer any of our concern. We do not have the luxury of contemplating whatever the circumstances might have been; only what they are now." He glanced toward Ares. "As much as I hate to admit it, Ares' point still stands. Callisto has failed, and it is long past time we started looking at our other options."
"And what other options would those be?" Artemis said. "The way I see it, we have been left little choice but to involve ourselves more directly and..."
"And if we should fail too? By even the smallest measure?" Zeus countered before she could finish. "Are you all forgetting who our enemy is? This is not some hedge spirit or foreign deity we are battling with. Cronus was the Lord of the Titans, and master over all that was. He had the hearts and minds of our worshipers in his iron grasp long before any of us!"
He regarded both Ares and Artemis with a pained look as he recalled the struggles he and the others like Hades and Poseidon had gone through in the early days of the Titanomachy.
"You were neither of you born my children," he continued, "but we defeated the Titans as much through trickery as strength. The Titans were powerful and the strength of the natural world was theirs to command. In the beginning we had no choice other than to outwit them, and with those early victories, we turned many of their worshipers to us. The more belief came to us, the more we were strengthened and they weakened, and the more the war tipped in our favour."
"The same could easily be true in reverse," Ares added, making this one of the rare occasions he and Zeus had ever seen eye to eye on anything. "If we were to openly involve ourselves, we would be putting our own belief and believers on the line."
"Aren't we already doing that?" Artemis shot back. "You and I have already lost Sparta to them. My temples were desecrated Ares! Your own Oracle was murdered in cold blood! Cronus' Followers turned whole city against us in a matter of weeks!"
"All the more reason to stop them now," Ares said, turning his gaze back to Zeus. "I stand by what I said the first time we discussed this. A line must be drawn in the sand, where we say this far and no further."
Zeus had to fight the urge not to laugh. Were his children really so slow on the uptake that they could not see that that decision had already been made for them? Did They honestly believe that they were in control here? That that had ever even been the case? Theirs was an entrenched position. It was the price they paid for being the dominant gods of Greece. They were exposed and open, while their enemy was hidden and unknowable save for the most basic of intentions. They had been on the back foot from the start, and whether they liked it or not, that looked set to be the way things would continue.
Next to him Zeus could see Hades shaking his head in weary disbelief at the naivety of the younger gods, and a felt a surge of relief. His brother at least understood.
"The line has already been drawn Ares," Hades said. "Cronus will have his Followers march the Spartans North, to the war which that Spartan 'King' of theirs promised them, and what will be lying in their path but..."
Artemis' mouth dropped open.
"...Delphi!" she gasped and Hades nodded.
"The Navel of Gaia," he said. "Where the barrier between my world and the world of the living is already at its thinnest, and once they are there..."
"...why not scalp themselves another Oracle while they're at it?" Ares said darkly. "Maybe Cronus will try and collect the whole set."
"But Delphi is my brother's city!" Artemis said, ignoring Ares' attempts at levity as her voice rose in concern for her twin sibling. "If they are planning to do there what they did to Sparta then Apollo must be..."
"Apollo!?" Ares interrupted. "That stuck up, arrogant, snot nosed little man child? What good would involving him do? He'd be as likely to just hover over the city on that 'board' of his and watch it burn than do anything actually useful. I'd be half tempted to let them wreck the place just so I could see the look on his face when it did."
Artemis tensed.
"That's my brother you're talking about!" she snapped.
"And mine too," Ares retorted with a shrug and a nod toward Zeus. "Thanks to dear old dad here and his many indiscretions, we're all of us related somehow. Doesn't mean I have to like it."
"That's quite enough!" Zeus barked and the two of them fell silent. "I have made my decision and there really is nothing more to be discussed. You will continue exactly as I have instructed; by doing nothing." He eyed the pair of them darkly. "The both of you."
"But Callisto is..." Ares began. Zeus rose easily to his feet and raised his hand, arcs of lightning dancing suggestively between his fingertips
"I have been questioned enough for one day Ares," he said, "and now I am beginning to lose my patience. Callisto has not failed. Not yet at least, and until I deem that she has done so, I see no reason to alter my plans simply to suit your capricious whims."
"Then what of Delphi and the..." Artemis started to protest only to be silenced by Hades rising from his seat in a similar manner to Zeus, and giving her a frosty eyed stare.
"Did you not hear what your King said?" he snapped. "This discussion is ended!"
Artemis met his gaze defiantly, but kept her mouth shut. With a loud complaining groan, Hades collapsed back into his chair, one hand again raised to massage his temples again.
"Now begone, the pair of you!" he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "You've worn me out with all this bickering, and as I'm sure you will appreciate, I need to keep my strength up at present."
Artemis opened her mouth to speak, but then seemed to think better of it and snapped it shut again. She turned to look appealingly at Ares who only gave her a 'what can you do?' shrug. She let out a long sigh then turned to face Zeus and Hades.
"Father," she said curtly. "Uncle," and with that, she vanished in a flash as bright and dazzling as sunshine dancing off rippling water.
Ares watched her go, then turned to face Zeus, a strange look on his face as he did so, an emotion Zeus could not quite gauge lurking behind his eyes.
"You may not believe it father," he said, "but I was trying to help when I went to Callisto. I've had more dealings with her than you, and I think I may just know her a little better as a result."
"You don't know anyone Ares," Zeus replied. "If you did, you would never have lost Xena."
The muscles in Ares' jaw bunched tightly at the barbed comment.
"Then I hope you're right about Callisto," he said. "I really do, because what's waiting out there, beneath the surface..." he gestured at the window and out over the balcony beyond toward Tartarus, "...will spell the doom of all of us if you're wrong."
With those final words he vanished too, leaving only Zeus and Hades in the chamber.
For long moments everything was silence until finally, Zeus spoke.
"Thank you for that," he said. "Living down here, I don't think you have any idea how willful some of the others can be."
Hades gave a dry snort.
"Do you think they will do as they're told?" he said.
Zeus shrugged.
"Our family has a talent for disobedience," he said.
"I wonder where that could come from," Hades said dryly, then winced as if sudden spike of pain had flared inside his head. Zeus began to move to his side, but Hades waved him back.
"It's nothing," he said. "Just a headache." He lifted his head to fix Zeus with a steady gaze. "Just tell me one thing, and I don't want any of your usual half answers or double speak."
Zeus tilted his head at his brother.
"What is it that you want to hear?" he asked.
"Tell me that what we're doing will work," Hades said, "that you're convinced that your way is the best way."
"The only way," Zeus corrected him smoothly. "Besides, when have I ever steered us wrong?"
Hades merely grunted in return.
"There's a first time for everything," he said.
"You still have no faith in me?" Zeus said from beneath arced brows.
"I always have faith in you," Hades said. "It's Callisto I have no faith in. Ares is right you know. This is more than she can handle and I think even you can see that, but you're betting all our lives on it regardless."
Zeus slid down into an empty seat and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table and steepling his fingers in front of his lips.
"Do you remember how our rule began?" he asked.
"I'm a god," Hades replied simply. "I never forget anything, but even were I not, how could I ever forget that?"
Zeus nodded, more to himself than anything else.
"Then you'll remember that it was Cronus who decided our worth, our roles..." he said, tapping his fingers thoughtfully against his lips as he spoke.
Hades just rolled his eyes.
"Oh here we go..." he groaned but Zeus pressed on, ignoring his brother's protests.
"The prophecy said that one of us would destroy him, and those simple words decided our fates before any of us were even born. When he heard them, our father decided that none of us were fit to replace him, that none could ever be greater than him. We were never given a chance to be any more than what he thought we would be Hades. We were destined to be a threat to him and his kind, and so that's exactly what we became. A self fulfilling prophecy it would seem, and a never ending cycle... Perhaps we could have been so much more if he had trusted in us instead of fearing us."
He paused and sat in silence for a moment before fixing Hades with a level stare. "Are you saying we should do the same thing to Callisto? Prejudge her? Decide who and what she is before she has ever been given the chance to prove that she can be anything different? Anything more? Should we damn her to being just another link in a never ending chain of hatred and vengeance and not allow her to make that decision for herself?"
"She's had those chances before!" Hades argued, his voice rising in frustration. "She has squandered each and every one of them!"
"What happened in Sparta wasn't her fault," Zeus said evenly.
Hades threw his hands up in exasperation.
"But what happened to Strife was!" He snapped. "This isn't the time for your sentimentality! Just because you have a weakness for blondes and she's pretty and tragic, doesn't mean you get to risk all our lives and the fate of the world we built so that she might be able to live hers happily ever after!"
"Isn't offering someone like her the chance for a better life the exact reason that so many of these mortals believed in us in the first place?" Zeus retorted.
Hades gave a frustrated grunt and slumped back in his seat in surrender.
"We chose her for practical reasons..." Zeus continued.
"You chose her," Hades interrupted, hooking an accusing finger toward his brother. Zeus nodded at that with grudging acceptance.
"Very well then," he said. "I chose her, and for reasons that I stand by even now, but if, out of all this suffering and death, she can prove to others and, most importantly to herself, that she was the person worth choosing, then I would call that no small victory."
Hades regarded him steadily for a moment, then shook his head and gave a dry chuckle.
"You know something," he said, "I think you're finally getting soft in your old age."
A wry smile slid slowly across Zeus' face.
"I think we've both seen what the alternative looks like," he said.
EDIT: Some tweaks and expanded dialogue, particularly toward the end.