Chapter 36
Ariston's point of view
The Nameless One has not visited my cell in a week, though I do see him every day. The door to my cell of ice opens and he tosses me my daily ambrosia and then the door closes. He has not pleaded with me to let go of Mera or help him, he does not speak a word to me, but there is a look in his eyes, something between hatred and fear.
When the door opened today, the Nameless One came in and sat down across from me on the floor of my cell. He was silent and deep in thought, looking at his hands. Worry was clear on his face, which was paler than usual. It was clear at once that he had not slept in some time. Gods do not need much sleep, but we do need sleep.
"You seem troubled." I said to him. His pale blue eyes met mine as he nodded.
"I am always troubled." He said. "But now even more so. Do you know why I visit your cell so often?" He asked.
"I have not been able to figure that out." I told him, he smiled a bit.
"Because you are the only person, mortal or immortal, that I can talk to about Mera." He told me, his voice soft. "I would not dare tell any of my 'companions' about her, knowing what they might do to her. The fact of the matter is that I love her, beyond all reasoning, beyond all explanations, I love her more than anything and I am afraid she does not love me as she once did."
"So it was a past life then?" I asked, he nodded.
"It was," he told me. "But the gods took her from me, thinking that she was not safe with me, that I would only harm her. After she was taken for me, I searched for her and found her many times. But every time I found her, the gods took her away from me again and she was reborn into a new life."
"That explains why she died young so many times." I said, he gave me a curious look. "I looked through her records before I became her protector, but most of them were restricted by the Twelve." He smirked.
"They would be." He said. "I know I do not deserve her, but I love her and there is nothing I can do about that."
"It is odd to hear you speaking of love." I admitted, he nodded.
"After this darkness consumed my soul, love meant nothing to me anymore. All I cared about was power." He told me. "Then my son was born, and the prophecy was foretold that he would bring about an end to my rule." The Nameless One looked into my eyes. "I do not know what kind of father I would have been to Zeus, but I wanted to try. Theia took him away from me and once again I became this monster that I never wanted to be. Then I met Lyra, the woman we now know as Mera, and she changed everything about me. My love for her was stronger than this being of darkness within me. I would have given up everything just to have a life with her, my power, my immortality, everything, but the gods would not allow it, so they took her from me."
I could not say in all honesty that I blamed my family, I would take her away from him as well. A woman like her does not belong with someone like him. I did not understand why he was telling me all of this, but I was going to find out as much as I could.
"And she loved you?" I asked him.
"She loved me far more than I deserved." He told me. "She still does love me, I see it in her eyes, she just will not let herself."
I looked at him in shock.
"You are in her life now?" I asked him, worried for her.
"I have been in her life for almost a month now," He told me with a smile, such genuine joy in his eyes. "She does not know who or what I truly am though."
"What did you tell her then?" I asked him.
"That my name is Jason Gray," He told me. "I promised to help her find you." He must have seen the worry in my eyes. "I would never harm her." He assured me.
"How can I believe that after all you have done? After everyone that you hurt?" I asked him, shaking my head. He may seem like a decent immortal when he talks to me like this, but I could not forget what he is. "You think Mera is just going to forgive you for everything you have done and ride off into the sunset with you? You killed her grandmother, you left her mother motherless when she was only five years old." My voice had become low as hatred filled me. "I was there that night, I saw what you did to Andrea… and how you could possibly think that after all of your work that I have witnessed, that I would just hand the woman I love over to you is beyond me."
"How was I to know Mera would be Andrea's granddaughter?" He snapped at once.
"You do not get it, do you?" I asked, my voice raising. "Your doings would not matter any less if it were some other family you murdered generation by generation! Mera is good and wonderful, she is better than the likes of you! Than a murdering lunatic who cares about nothing more than power and who will stop at nothing to get the throne again!"
"If that were true Mera would be dead right now and so would my daughter!" He yelled at me with clenched fists. "If power were all I cared about I would have killed each of my children the day they were born! I would have ripped Mera's beating heart out of her chest the moment I saw found her three years ago! Instead I protected her so that my Shadow's would not discover her!"
"Protected her?" I yelled back at him. "You sent Shadows after her the day I met her and a month later!"
"Those Shadows were never after her!" He yelled. "They were after you! When I saw how you looked at her the day you met her I wanted you dead! And a month later when you kissed the woman I love and touched her in a way that no other man except for me should touch her, I sent those Shadows after you hoping they would be enough to destroy you!"
We stared each other down, both still fuming. To my surprise, he was the one to calm down first. He took a deep breath and ran a hand through his head of dark curls as he rested his head against the wall behind him, staring at the ceiling. It was a few minutes more before I could calm myself down.
"When are you going to realize I love her as much as you do, if not more?" He asked, his voice calm again.
"Mera means everything to me…" I said to him softly. "How would you feel if our situations were reversed?"
"I would be plotting ways to kill you as we speak." He told me in all honesty. He looked away, his eyes pained. "You may not have to worry about me with Mera. She told me she never wants to see me again."
"What did you do?" I asked him. Mera has never said such a thing to a soul in her life.
"I kissed her." He told me. "She responded to the kiss just like she used to, but when it ended, she pushed me away with tears in her eyes and told me she never wants to see my face again. It has been a week since then and I am losing my mind. I cannot find her anywhere and I dare not send out my Shadows to search for her. I have no idea how to get in touch with her and if she will even see me if I do somehow find her." He shook his head, and let out a great sigh. "I cannot eat, I cannot sleep, I cannot do anything but pace around all day and worry that I may have lost her." The hurt in his voice, eyes and face was genuine. I took a deep breath, he looked up at me. "I realize how low this is, but I must ask for your help. I used to know Mera better than anyone else, but I am at a loss here. I do not know what to do… I cannot lose her."
"I am sorry," I said to him. "But I cannot help you in this." He sighed and nodded. We were quite for a time.
"Tell me about your father?" He asked.
"He is a great god and a great king," I told him. "When I think of what a leader should be, I think of him first and foremost. But beyond that, he is a great father, and he has said time and time again that he is who he is because of Cronus." A kind of pride came into the Nameless Ones eyes, one only a father could understand.
"You have a daughter?" He asked, which reminded me of when he threatened her. "I am not threatening her." he reassured me.
"I do." I told him.
"Any other children?" He asked, I smiled.
"I had four sons and two daughter other than Kallisto," I told him. "My first when I was a descendant. The first woman I was married to gave me my eldest when I was still a demigod, and she had two beautiful daughters that I raised and loved like my own. As a god I married a mortal woman named Elianna and had three sons and a daughter with her. My three eldest I had with Elianna died of old age a few years after their mother passed, only Kallisto out of all of my children became immortal." I did not know why I was telling him my life story, I suppose I thought it was only fair since he told me so much of himself.
"I am sorry you suffered that." He said, his voice genuine. "In some ways, I understand what you went through, only I never got the chance to raise my son. When Theia sent him away she took away the only chance I ever had at knowing him." he told me.
"Lets be fair here." I said. "Theia did what she had to do. She saw you for what you are and could not stand the thought of Zeus turning out like you. She wanted a better life for him and so she sent of her brand new infant son with her brother. I do not know how much you know of a mothers love, but that shattered her soul in a way we will never be able to understand. You took away your only chance at raising him when you took the throne from Theia's father."
I thought he would scream at me, or try and have me killed again for speaking the truth, but instead he simply looked at the wall ahead of him.
"I know." He said quietly, I could hear the regret in his voice. "He would never have let me marry her." he said softly.
"Who?" I asked.
"Theia." He told me, meeting my eyes with a bit of a smile. "Your grandmother. Her father would never have let me marry her. I was born from a crime, my mother was violated and from that act I was brought into this world. You know as well as I that children that are born from that crime are thought to be troublesome among the gods.
"When I was born I was left out in the woods to die, but by chance a mortal found me, a mother of two. By some miracle, I was found by an uncle of mine when I was ten and taken to Mt. Athos to be raised. He explained to me what I was, why I was different from those I thought to be my siblings. Somehow, he managed to find a place for me among the gods, but it was not a high one. I was to clean the palace, that was where I met Theia.
"Theia was to marry her brother Cronus when he came of age and she accepted that future until she fell in love with me years later. I left notes for her under her pillow and she in turn would leave them for me to find when I would clean. We began meeting in the woods and a few months later, she gave herself to me. We both knew that Ouranus would never allow his eldest daughter to marry someone so low born." He took a deep breath. "The day this being bonded with my soul, I had just gone to visit my mother… lets just say things did not go well between she and I. As I walked through a path on earth, I felt his presence. I was immediately on my guard, knowing I needed to protect myself. He whispered into my mind, telling me he was dying and begging for my help. He told me that he could give me everything I had ever wanted and more. Power, glory, riches, Theia, he offered me everything I had ever desired." He shook his head.
"He was incredibly weak at the time, so feeble." The Nameless One said. "I never knew how strong he would become, that he would corrupt my mind and soul as he has. By the time I knew what was happening it was too late. I heard his whisperings in my mind and with time I came to think they were my own thoughts. They said that there was only one way to have Theia as my own, and that was to overthrow her father and take his place as king with her as my queen.
"I succeeded in overthrowing her father, selling some lie to the gods that I was cleaver enough to get most of them to believe. Theia believed me at first, she stood by me and it was because of her that the gods followed me. She was Ouranus' eldest daughter after all.
"For a brief moment in time, Theia and I were happy together, but it would not last. She began to take notice of the changes within me, she began to see me for what I was. By the time that Theia realized the colossal mistake she made in supporting me, in marrying me, she was already a few months pregnant with our son Zeus, your father. The rest of the story you know." He told me. "The prophecy was given that my son would overthrow me as I did to his grandfather. My wife sent our son away for her brother Cronus to raise in hiding until he could fulfill his destiny.
"It was for the best that she did so." He told me, his voice far away. "I do not know what he would have convinced me to do if Theia had not protected our son from us. I like to think that my love for my boy would have protected him against the creature inside of me… but I cannot know for certain."
"I never heard that version." I told him.
"That is because no one except for myself and this being know of it." He told me, a bit of a smile lit his face then. "The only other soul I ever told this truth to was Lyra. Even before I told her this, she understood something that I had forgotten long ago. I am not the evil inside of me, my soul and goodness still exist somewhere deep down and she found that I was worth saving."
"What I put you through in trying to bind your soul," The Nameless One continued. "I went through that pain for thousands of years as the gods tried over and over again to rip him from my soul." He said. "They never succeeded, they could never figure out why."
"Why did it not work with you?" I asked him, knowing the stories. "They tried to help you, but they could not separate it from your soul."
"They did not know who they were dealing with." He said.
"You were powerful before you bound your soul." I said and he laughed once.
"I was not speaking of myself," He said. "The Shadow I carry within me is not like the others, he is far more powerful. He has bound with my soul so tightly, so completely, that even if I wanted to chance the purge again, I know it would not succeed. Nothing will ever be able to rid me of him."
"You speak as if the Shadow within you has a consciousness," I said in confusion. Shadows are simple-minded beings, they are neither male nor female, they breed asexually, by becoming so strong they split in half. They attack light, they do as they are told and are little more than pawns. They do not even speak, only make that horrible screeching noise. "You speak as if it has a personality." I said to him.
"That is because he does," He said to me, his eyes filled with an awful knowledge. "What I carry within me is far more than just a Shadow, he is from a race long forgotten, one imprisoned in a place that was never named so that it would never be found. His name is Zenophian it means something between darkness and evil in the oldest of languages. They are not written of in the histories you know of, only the oldest of gods know of his race. The Shadows are his offspring, but they could never be as powerful as him. From the moment I took him into my soul, he has whispered into my mind, planting dark thoughts. In well over fifteen thousand years, it was only when I was with Lyra, Mera," he corrected herself, using her name now. "That he was ever completely silenced. He does not like her because her hold over me is stronger than his could ever be. More than once he has tried to convince me to kill her, but both he and I know I will never do that.
"If I lose her, truly lose her, I know that he will take over completely once again." To my shock there was fear in his pale blue eyes. "Mera is the only thing keeping him at bay. I have done the things I did because he convinced me that winning the throne was the only way to get the woman I love back in my arms." He said.
"Why should I believe everything you have told me?" I asked him.
He came up to me and squatted in front of me, holding his hand out. I looked at him in confusion.
"Why don't you meet Zenophian, then try and tell me again that you think I am lying." He said. There was only one way to tell if he was telling the truth.
I clasped hands with him as one would while arm wrestling and gasped, my eyes going wide as darkness filled my sight. I felt the creature, I felt the darkness, it was more evil and terrifying than the worst Shadow I have ever faced. It was pure, unadulterated evil on a more horrible level than I could have ever imagined existed. I felt the being notice me, he knew me and greeted me, his voice was something between power, darkness and evil, there was no sound, only a feeling that transcended any horror I had ever faced in my five thousand years of life. I let go of the Nameless Ones hand as quickly as I could, my soul completely petrified for a time. I suddenly understood as I looked into the eyes of my grandfather. He never wanted to commit those crimes and horrors, he is not the Nameless One, the being inside of him is.
I would rather face down singlehanded an entire planet of Shadows all at once, have them attempt to bind my soul a hundred thousand more times, have my soul ripped to pieces, than feel that evil being ever again. I thought of my family, the Twelve. They have no idea what is coming, I realized. They do not even know such evil exists.
"How are you even still coherent with that evil inside of you?" I asked him, fear still within me. I was still too scared to be ashamed for feeling such fear.
"Mera is the reason," He said. "She is my only hope and in being so she is the only hope for this world. If I lose her, he will take over again and the World Wars and the Black Death will look like a spring picnic compared to what he will do if he comes into power through me." He took a deep breath before continuing, trying to rein in his fear. "I love Mera, I will not take her from you, I just ask to have her in my life, to be with her if she will still have me. I will consent to share her with you, I know what you mean to her." His eyes begged me and I knew he was being sincere.
"I will help you, if I can." I said to him after a long pause. "But I cannot promise she will still have you after all that you have done." He nodded and smiled to me.
"I cannot release you now," He said to me. "Then she would know who I am and what I have done. But I swear to you that when the time comes, I will free you and until then I will protect you. Mera will not allow herself to truly love me yet, she does not remember. I believe the only hope I have is to not tell her who I am until she truly loves me again."
"I hate the idea of Mera being lied to, but I believe that you are right." I told him, still not completely liking the fact that I am helping him get to the woman I love. I looked at him, still not entirely trusting him. "If you harm her,"
"You will kill me, I know." He stated. "If any harm comes to her because of me I will kill myself. I could not live with something like that." I saw in his eyes that the very thought of it haunted him.
"How do I know that you will not just kill me and keep Mera all for yourself?" I asked him.
"You don't, since you cannot trust my word." He said to me in all seriousness. "By some miracle, Mera may be able to forgive me for all that I have done, but she would never forgive me for killing you. You are a part of her, and she is a part of you, because of that Zenophian has no power over your fate." I nodded, wondering if I was a complete idiot to try and help him in this, if the woman I love would hate me because of it.
"Mera said she does not want to see you, so going to her is out of the question." I said, still trying to get my wits back after feeling Zenophian.
"I cannot find her anyways," He told me. "She is wearing a jade dragon bracelet. I have searched for her everywhere, but to no avail."
"Write her a letter," I told him, my voice resigned. I did not want to be doing this, playing matchmaker for the Nameless One and my wife, but I saw how important it was. I could not allow that dark evil to overcome this immortal again. "Be as truthful as you can. You cannot tell her who you are as of yet, but that does not mean you have to lie to her. Leave the letter at her parents home, it will get to her." I took a deep breath and looked at him. "Will you do one thing for me?"
"Name it." He said.
I looked down at the ring on my middle finger. It was nothing extravagant, just an adamantine band with thousands of tiny sapphires set into it, but it was a gift from Mera. Inside she had the words engraved I love you always my Ariston. I smiled a bit as I slipped it off of my finger, I could still hear Mera's voice in my mind and the words she said to me when she gave me this gift. "If you are planning on continuing with buying me expensive things, then you can bet that I will be giving you gifts just as grand now that I have the means to." She had a very satisfied look on her face and I could do nothing but laugh as I took her into my arms and kissed her like there was no tomorrow.
I held the ring up to the Nameless One.
"Give her this along with your letter." I said to him. "And tell her that I am alive and well and that I love her with all my soul." Jason took the ring and nodded.
"I will." He promised.
"And get her some chocolates," I told him. "Her favorite are the white chocolate truffles filled with ambrosia moose." I smiled. "I used to buy them for her all the time. They only sell them on Olympus, so they may be hard to come by for you." I told him, seeing as how only a select few can teleport into the home of the gods, others have to get through the well-guarded gates.
"It will not be a problem." He said with a wide smile. "Thank you." I nodded.