Disclaimer: The characters and situations in the following story are the intellectual property of Megan Whalen Turner and her publishers and does not belong to me. (The standard of writing kind of gives it away.)
This room was one of the strangest he had ever seen. Some of it looked as if it came straight out of his childhood, all bright colours and mythological murals. Others looked like the mountains of his home. Parts of were built from the yellow bricks of the Sounisian megaron; he could see them from the peeling paint that was similar to a hunting lodge in Eddis, or maybe he was hallucinating again. In fact, he was quite sure that he was dreaming. This place could not exist; he has never seen one of its likes before. Then, there was a large wooden table, draped with a dark red peplos. He had seen it somewhere before; perhaps someone had worn it? He was not sure; he could not be sure of much these days. Then there were three crowns in front of him. There was a pretty headband made of gold, studded with bright red rubies, which glowed with a certain fire. He could almost see it against pale skin, holding back dark hair, though he could not, for the life of him, figure out why. Was that a… there was something floating there! A bright spot. It was gone. He did not know. His concentration was wandering again. Next to the headband was a simple silver circlet. Helen had worn it. But who is Helen? That strange person calling him? No, Helen had a nice kind voice. And where did that come from? Whoever was yelling at him was pressing some hot iron into him. It hurt. He wanted to scream. But then the pain remained and he was drifting away again. Was that him mother shouting at him, for… information? This was bewildering. Hmm, that was Hermander. Strange, who was that? And it could not be; Mother was dead, and she would not shout at him. Was he dead too? He could not think properly. It was a muddled mess! No, next to the circlet was a heavy, ornate gold crown. He took an immediate dislike to it. Past experience? Maybe. And then there were the cups. There were hundreds of them, thousands of them. Goblets and pottery and fine china and everything in between. Big, small, full, empty. Cracked, smooth, plain, decorative. He was confused an tired. He wanted to escape this nightmare. But he was trapped in these two places. This place made his head spin. The other was full of apin. Shards pressed into his skin, a horrible, wretched agony from his right limb, a massive headache, and blood dribbling down his chin from somewhere inside him. That frightened him even more. He was afraid; he wanted his father, his mother, his elder brother; did he have any of those? And back to the strange cups. Those that were filled had different things in them too. Something that smelled strange, yes, it was coleus root, a type of poison. That information drifted to the front from the recesses of his mind. Another filled with burgundy coloured wine. He had a feeling that he had pick out a path through the hundreds and thousands of cups to reach the door. At least he thought it was a door. He could just make out the faint outline of the grills. Hey, that looked like Hephestia. She was standing just beyond the grill, her mouth moving, but he could not hear anything. And then she was turning away, leaving. Panic seized him. He tried the only invocation of her he could remember, the stuttering words tripping over one another, but it was no good. Vaguely, he registered that the pain burning pain was gone, but he still ached in dimension. Now he was lost, his way blocked by all those damned cups. There was no exit behind him. And he could hear voices calling to him from the walls, quiet chattering that he could not understand, words that he could not make out, and he was going mad. The pressure in his head was growing as the voices became more insistent, drilling and pressing into his mind. He had to get out of here. So, which cups?