Hera stroked the arm her gilded throne. It reminded of how vanity could entrap even the Queen of Olympus. For Hepheastus, her hated crippled godling child, had forged it to be a prison. Release had been only been won at a high price, the hand of Aphrodite in marriage to the Smith. Hera had not forgotten. Only yesterday or so it seemed to her, Hera had enjoyed the talk of revenge against the mortals hubris, almost as much as her child Ares, oh, how he enjoyed the idea of first-hand action. The god of war had grown bored, he had enjoyed vicariously so much bloodshed in recent times, but hands on mayhem was something he yearned for. Ares was a brute, yet very much a force of humanity, but never humane, and useful. Ares was as beautiful as Hepheastus was ugly, as perfectly formed as Hepheastus was twisted. He had taken Aphrodite from the god of Smiths, and with it broken his heart.
Hera had learned patience held fast to the golden throne, its prisoner. Even now when Hera could come and go as she pleased, the god-smith's magic curse long broken, she chose to reflect on her position seated here. Alone in the throne room of Olympus it's Queen considered her complicated relationship with her brother and husband Zeus. Their marriage was not a love match, but a union of necessity. Where now, the human race was a multitude, grown to numbers in the thousands of millions, then, long ago, the gods had been one family, just a handful of individuals living in an unearthly realm full of monsters, giants and beasts. Chief among them had been their own father. Cronus devoured his own children, in reality not eating them as the simple human minds had imagined, gods were not creatures of flesh and blood, although that form was easily adopted, they were not destroyed if such a body perished. The gods' life-force was an energy that could manifest in many forms. Cronus ate his offspring by absorbing their energy, their life-force into his, increasing his own power exponentially. Zeus had been spared this fate, because his mother Rhea had at last managed to deceive her husband, and later as an adult Zeus had struck Cronus open. Thus Zeus released his elder siblings. Each emerged into their adult forms after so long entrapped, no longer slaves in Cronus's collective body. Later her husband emerged victorious in the battle with the primal forces the ancients called the Titans, leading his brothers Posideon, and Hades, dividing emergent world of men between themselves, with him as King. Hera had joined with Zeus to birth Ares, Enyo, Hebe, Eileithyia, Hephaestus and Eris. It was a matter of expedience.
"Necessity is the mother of invention or so say my little ones below." Hera whispered to herself. As Matriarch of Olympus she guarded her power closely. She had to be inventive. There was no abundance of Ichor in this modern age, it was a dwindling resource. Hera could no permit her reputation to wane among the handful of mystics and devotees who still paid lip service to the old ways. Neither could she appear weak to her own kind, or else some other might seize her position and usurp her. Anything was possible, especially if the action promised to increase the flow of Ichor, and bring with it that precious gift – novelty.
Only it wasn't yesterday that a man had stolen the remains of the Aegis, and used them for his own purposes, many seasons had already passed in the earthly realm and Zeus had not acted. His demonstration of ire had been godly, but that wrath hadn't translated into anything of substance in the material world. It irked Hera because her position was tied to his. Sometimes she considered untying the Gordian knot that bound them. Today was no different.
Today she had a visitor.
"Who brings you to Olympus daughter of Hectate?"
"Cousin I would treat with you."
The woman wore green and gold, she had gone to great lengths to create the right impression, and it deserved a moment of the Queen's time, if only for the fact it was novel.
"Circe, how can an Enchantress from the Earthly realms come to Throne of Olympus?" Hera laughed warmly, like a mother amused by an uppity child.
"I sponsor her Mother." Ares told her. Dripping blood the war-god left ruddy foot prints on the white marble floor, as Ares strolled from out of the concealing shadows. He wore modern human dress; a dark suit was immaculately tailored, his face vibrant, flush with power, in his hand an oversized wine glass, the kind which happily accommodates a bottle and more, the liquid was red, but this wasn't the blood of the grape, but a more vital kind.
"Whatever amuses you my darling. Your father always thought so much of Hectate, I think he would happily overlook a dalliance with such a daughter of the earthly realms. She is pretty, but she is no Aphrodite."
Circe's face strained with wrath, but here she bit her tongue, she knew better than that. "Your Grace is most generous. My Mother birthed me into the Earth, but she did not leave me powerless."
"Ah yes, the magic of your world, it is far more than humans can imagine, but then again they imagine very little these days."
"Mother Circe told me something of interest, something that affects you and me."
"What on Earth could trouble Olympus in these later days of disbelief?" Hera laughed.
"Zeus has fathered a child."
Hera laughed. "I didn't think the old goat had it in him." She laughed some more, but the sounds was hollow. "Another bastard makes no difference." Hera waved her hand to dismiss them. "There have been plenty enough, each one born weaker than the one before." Hera sniffed and settled back into the golden chair. "What can we expect as our influence wanes so does our strength."
She looked down at Ares. "And as plentiful as spilled blood has become it is not Ichor."
The room grew darker, and the shadows closed in as if threatening, fire in the torches flickered as if driven by wind.
"Please my Queen, there is still danger; should a child of Zeus rise and strike, as Zeus did to Cronus, and Cronus to his father Uranus." Circe shouted into the encroaching darkness.
"Is this why you come here cousin?" The Queen of the gods spat fire at Circe. "To sneer at me – as a gossip monger?" Flames washed over the Enchantress, but it was Ares who deflected his mother's wrath.
He sipped from his bloody flask. Hera watched as the red stained his lips, it was not Ichor, but the war-god was sustained by constant consumption with no fear the well of suffering would run dry. Hera believed she saw the future.
"Mother the bastard child is an Amazon." The war-god told the Queen stretching out his hand beckoning Circe forward. The Witch swallowed, found voice and said. "Your Grace the child is a daughter of the chief Amazon, Queen Hippolyta."
Hera growled, her face became bestial and her voice monstrous.
"How can he do this to me?" She spat. In that moment she saw herself replaced, unseated.
Circe spoke into the maelstrom. "Themyscira is a charmed Isle, full of godly power, its people are immortals living in a paradise created by the goddesses. The Sorority of Olympus, gave the Amazons the tools to forge themselves into demi-gods, immortals so they can guard the street to the underworld; the Doom Gate."
Hera stood from her chair, her fists clenched.
Ares said. "Mother one born of Zeus in this special realm could be great. Herakles threat has past, but even he was born to a mortal woman."
Circe nodded. "This child was born by a woman who has lived for three thousand years, steeped in the blessing of the old magic wrought when Olympus overflowed with Ichor and you Mother were at your mightiest. It is a She-viper that will strike at you and yours."
"And these Amazons dare honour my name." Hera growled.
"Wait mother." Ares cautioned.
"You..." Hera gasped in her anger, her shape changing as she channelled power from the Ichor Well below. "...of all of us,.. ask me to wait; you think the usurper would suffer you to live?" Hera growled and roared. "We will be avenged!"
"Yet the Amazon's are a well source, precious to Olympus." Ares told her.
"That is not enough." Hera replied. Her eyes glowed red, thunderbolts formed in her hands, legacy of her shared authority with Zeus.
"They don't know the truth." Her son told her. "The Amazon's all believe you gave a girl child to Queen, a golem made from the primal clay."
"Then it is all Hippolyta." Hera whispered.
"Yes your Grace," Circe agreed. "She has conspired to keep the truth secret from you, from all of us, her own people, even her own daughter."
"You have the ear of my lusty son, and his passions are not the loving kind." Hera noted as her enraged form coalesced into her classical appearance once more. "I see plans within plans, yet I shall not wait Ares. No my child I am not my husband drunk with time and liquor. Your mother will begin now, and those who see and understand. They will know that I have acted.
"You shall have the Amazons. Let Athena and the others complain, the insult is too great. These warrior women are rightly the vassals of the god of war.
"But most of all I will punish this Queen and her daughter. I will see them both suffer for a long, long time, and their pain will make the agonies of Prometheus seem gentle by comparison.
"But I shall spare Themyscira, for you Ares, and for the sake of the Ichor."
"Hello mother."
"Hermes."
The Messenger god saw his mother Maia. She shone in the darkness. This was her seat in the heavens, a great nuclear furnace in the Pleiades Constellation. There were two realities conjoined by invisible chains; first the real world where natural physics observed a star, and called it by her name, and another invisible dimension beyond the reach of human science. This was a god made realm, a string on the celestial lyre vibrating at different frequency occupying the same position in relative space, but not at the same time and place.
Hermes was a traveller, the god of transitions and boundaries, his power to move freely between worlds – between realities meant the trickster god of thieves and guide to souls, could cross the boundary between the realm of Olympus which extended beyond the Mountain including over and underworld dimensions, and to the otherwise insurmountable Catasterismi; the placing among the stars, where Zeus located gods and demi-gods in celestial safe houses, secure from the internecine bloody squabbles that characterised Olympian family politics.
For his mother Maia it secured her from Hera's wrath, for Hermes was fathered by Hera's brother-husband Zeus. Moreover his mother craved isolation, and this created realm resembled in every way the cave where she had dwelt happily in the mount, Cyllene in Arcadia, in what is now Southern Greece. Hermes birth place. Maia who craved solitude was happy to make an exception for her son.
"Hera moves against your sister and mine. She who emerged first from the rebirth of your people, and her child, the one you called Queen."
"And the other Amazon's?" Maia asked.
"They are safe – for now."
"Are you certain my son?"
"I am, in as much one can trust any of us. I stood and listened to Hera treat with her Son and his Witch Circe of Aeaea. Even Ares understands the value of Themyscira's tribute."
"Hera understands only her own desires; she places value on them and nothing else." Maia replied.
Hermes did not disagree, but he recognised that his mother was not unbiased in this matter.
"What does Hera intend?" His mother asked.
"She means to strike out, and quickly, to kill Hippolyta and her child. Her scorpions are but moments from emerging from their dust mote eggs in the Palace of Themyscira."
"Even Orion the Hunter succumbed to their sting." Maia noted. "Hera will not permit a threat to Olympian supremacy to live. A child, even one as strong as Diana of Themyscira would be dead in minutes and with it all our hopes."
"Agonising minutes" Hermes noted. "We must save our champion Mother."
Maia growled like a she cat. "I did not borrow your winged sandals; leave the sanctuary of this starry cave to act as midwife to my sister Hippolyta, to bring her babe Diana into the world to see them killed by Hera."
Hermes remembered, he had been trapped in this cave until his mother returned. By wearing the mystical Talaria, the signature shoes that enabled him to cross the inter-dimensional boundaries his mother had been able to do the impossible, leave her celestial realm, and cross over to Island of Themyscira. The winged sandals were not strictly speaking an article of clothing, any more than he or any Olympian possessed a material body to wear them rather the Talaria were, just as was Hermes outward human appearance, an idea given form.
His mother looked to him. "What does your father say?"
"He has withdrawn; he keeps company with Apollo, Hepheastus, and Posideon."
"And the wine-cup?" Maia suggested, saying. "Yet you and Athena's Sorority have his blessing?"
"The Ichor flows to Hepheastus forge, and the work is being done."
"But it isn't finished."
"No." Hermes shook his head. "Hepheastus says it is difficult in this Iron Age of Men to forge anything with the old magic's greater power, and he speaks the truth, I am still working myself on stitching my own life force into new Talaria." Hermes gestured to the winged sandals he wore on his feet. "And difficult means it takes many seasons to complete."
"Then what choice do we have, time is against us. You must snatch them away from Hera's reach my son - take them outside the Olympian commonwealth."
"I cannot bring them here?" Hermes replied. "Once they cross over into the Catasterismi, they cannot leave, one perhaps could, if I gave up my shoes, and what then?"
"Yes I know the new Talaria are not ready." His mother replied.
Hermes paused for thought. "And my part in our conspiracy would be exposed. All would be lost."
"There is another place, one that can be reached from Themyscira. One that is outside the Olympian realms" His mother suggested.
"But Hera can reach the Mortal world." Hermes considered the idea.
"True my son, but her powers are not as great as they were when I was saved from her wrath, plucked from Mount Cyllene by your father. The world is larger and more populous; it will be far easier to hide among mortals."
Hermes smiled. "And where Hera can reach so can I; so can Athena, Artemis, Aphrodite, and the sisters Hestia and Demeter." His smile left him. "But so can the most powerful of us, Ares."
"Nothing in life is ever certain."
Hermes nodded. "Time is my friend. I shall intervene."