Chapter 16
Thanas had one of those nightmares, the ones Xanthe had warned him about.
"Eat Dharma!" the Panchala warrior barked. He shoved Dharma's intestines into his mouth. "Now!"
Percy whimpered, tasting the raw flesh and blood. He looked like he wanted to vomit as they force-fed him. His hands, tied behind his back, were useless. Anaklusmos lay on the ground just out of his reach, and there was no water in sight.
The Panchala warrior growled and threw Dharma's heart at him. "Eat!"
Percy ate.
Tears streamed down his face as he bent to the will of the attackers. Thanas could hardly watch any longer. He remembered what Xanthe told him about the worst dream she saw, the one of Percy in Babylonia watching a child named Nabu, who he'd grown close to, die at the hands of invaders from the northwest. The dream he was having eclipsed the barbarity of Nabu's death... and then went beyond imagination.
The gutted the body, grabbing anything that resembled flesh, and fed them to Percy like a feast. And none of it was cooked. If Percy hadn't been immune to any sickness, he surely would have died from the disease and garbage in those innards.
Thanas wanted to vomit.
He'd seen a lot of the Underworld. He'd seen the undead. He'd seen rotten flesh. But he had never seen this sort of atrocity before.
Dharma's son was being tortured not too far away from Percy. He'd just finished the order by the Panchala to rape and kill his sister and mother, and they flayed him alive. The Panchala men were taking their turns raping their corpses, and all the kin of Dharma who had come to his aid lay dead in the burning wreckage.
Percy was stabbed in the shoulder when he clamped down on the Panchala warrior's finger, and the son of Poseidon wailed out in pain. They shoved more flesh into his mouth.
It was like watching a hero's fall from grace.
When the dreams started, he saw Percy travelling with the Argonauts. He was a hero, a mortal, growing older and becoming more and more mature — both physically and mentally. He saw him save that girl, Zoë, and he saw their travels together. He saw Percy fight in the Trojan War, earning the respect and praise from the kings of the time.
But then the bad. Starving in the desert, being attacked by countless monsters and enemies, finding family only to have it stripped away from him.
Percy suddenly collapsed, and the Panchala warrior jumped back in surprise. The Panchala warrior looked down at the innards of Dharma and shrugged. Maybe he figured Percy died from all the guts he ate. Turning to his comrades, he shouted something in a language the dream was concealing from Thanas. The others quickly finished killing Dharma's son before they left the village in smoldering ruins.
As if time was suddenly moving faster and faster, dusk became night and night became dawn.
Thanas almost thought Percy really had succumbed to a sickness, but in the morning, Percy bolted upright, his eyes wild and alert. He looked like he'd woken up from a bad dream. But, then again, with the chaos around him, it almost seemed like he'd woken up into a bad dream.
Percy crawled over to Dharma's disfigured corpse. He shook violently as he realized the full extent of what he had done. He went over and checked every single dead body, at least ten of them.
None of them were alive.
Percy wept as he came to Dharma's son, daughter and wife, crying out their names. Vayu, Arya and Harini. He knelt over their bodies and cried for what seemed like half a day. No one came to him. The villagers that fled had avoided the site of atrocity, and there was hardly a soul in sight. Of the couple times a small group passed by on horseback, they continued riding with but a mere glance toward the ruins.
Thanas could only imagine the horror in Percy's mind.
Ionna's body was as clean as a freshly-made sword in comparison. He'd experienced the death of a loved one, but that paled in comparison to what Percy had faced. It was no wonder that Percy's eyes had the glint of a madman. But Thanas had one question. In everything he'd seen, in everything Xanthe had told him about, Percy never had the heart to kill. He gave up far more easily than he expected. The way he was now, Thanas expected Percy to go on a killing rampage, avenging all his fallen loved ones. It was almost as if he was holding himself back.
Percy had let loose before. Twice.
The first time had been when Achilles died. He'd killed all the Trojans and Aethiopians who'd tried to steal the warrior's armour. The second time had been after the death of Helen and during the sack of Troy when he turned on his fellow Greeks.
He'd tried to kill himself afterward and would have succeeded had it not been for Zoë.
If Thanas had to guess, it was that Percy didn't want to succumb to his anger. He wanted to find another way to defeat Apollo and Mars. At least, that was his intention before something triggered within him. Something terrible must have happened, or maybe something had happened often enough to flip that switch and never turn it back.
For the first time, Thanas felt truly scared by Percy's power and anger. Not because of how powerful he was. But because of the lengths he'd go to use his powers. When they destroyed the Eleventh Legion, Thanas had never seen eyes more poisonous than Percy's. Percy's execution tactics were hard to watch, even if they were far from graphic. It was as if Percy enjoyed watching the Romans die slowly, suffering in pain until they could no longer bear it.
But, even more so, Thanas believed he understood why he was having these dreams. Treasure the ones you love, he thought. They can disappear the next day. Honour the fallen. Love even in death. Human mortality is a scary thing. But the best thing you can do is embrace it and live every day like it's your last.
Even so, he felt like retching as soon as he woke.
"Thanas?" Leon asked. He looked wide awake, which never ceased to amaze Thanas. He wore a small smile. "Nightmare?"
The son of Hades nodded. "You look cheerful."
Leon gave him a smile. "Are you telling me that I always look awake? Even at night time?"
Thanas mumbled. "I don't understand how you do it."
"Years of practice," Leon shrugged. "Every dies Solis I take a day's rest. It's the Lord's day back home. Everyone prays. I wake up, pray, and then sleep. I'm not sure why, but the monsters seem to respect my village on those days. They never attack. Every other night, though..."
Thanas looked at himself. He always thought of himself as powerful, but looking at Leon made him jealous. Leon was handsome, powerful, the son of the King of the Gods. He was everything Thanas wasn't. The most important thing was that he was able to survive on his own for years, fighting monsters off and developing his skills. And he didn't even acknowledge his power.
Thanas thought it was odd that the son of Zeus wasn't crazy for power, wasn't crazy for leadership, like all the legends he'd heard. In all the stories he'd been told, the only son of Zeus who didn't turn out to be that bad was Perseus.
The boat shuddered, and Xanthe shot up like a bird.
She extended her hand in a clawed gesture to ward off evil and shouted 'Go away' in the old tongue. The ominous feeling creeping up Thanas' spine dissipated.
Leon gave her a small smile. "Nightmares?"
Xanthe stared at him. "How are you so cheerful?"
"Because no one else seems to want to be cheerful?" Leon suggested, gesturing at Thanas. "He was all grumpy and vomity when he woke up."
Xanthe looked at Thanas. The unspoken message was in her eyes. Are you having those dreams?
He nodded slightly.
Leon looked at the two of them and narrowed his eyes. "What is that look you guys are giving each other? What are you hiding from me?"
"Nothing," Thanas muttered.
"Have you had them?"
Thanas stared at Xanthe incredulously.
"Had what...?" Leon asked.
Xanthe began to explain. Thanas wanted to strangle the girl. She'd threatened to drown him if he ever mentioned those dreams to Leon just a few days ago, the morning after Ionna died, and now she was explaining the whole damn thing to him anyway. The girl really was just as unpredictable as her father.
After she explained what she'd seen, including her dream from the past night — which ended up being about Percy nearly starving to death before the Kuru, Dharma's people, found him near a riverbed — she forced Thanas to explain his dreams. He explained the continuation of Percy's experience with the Kuru and Panchala.
"That sounds... horrifying," Leon concluded after they finished explaining. "Honestly, I don't blame him. Anyone would go insane if every bad event possible happened to them."
"I think it only makes him more dangerous," Xanthe countered.
"In a good or bad way?" Leon asked.
She looked at Ionna's wrapped body. She looked solemn in the glittering moonlight. "Can it be both? I get that we need to fight the Romans but... I just don't want anything bad to happen again. Ionna already made her sacrifice. It's not fair if even more have to."
"But isn't that why we have to follow Percy?" Thanas couldn't bear to look toward Ionna's body. Just thinking about the reality that she was gone was almost enough to push him over the edge into unrelenting fury. "So that this never happens again. If we destroy the Roman legions—"
"Well, actually..." Leon licked his lips nervously. "I haven't had the dreams that you guys have had. But I have had dreams about Percy. He was there, in the Trojan War, alongside Achilles. I also saw him fighting alongside Leonidas at Thermopylae. And I'm not sure if you guys remember our chat about how Trajan's victorious Thirtieth was destroyed when I first arrived but..."
Thanas recalled that day vividly. It was the day Xanthe's mother had died. It was the day the Romans destroyed their camp. How could he forget? It hadn't been all that long ago.
"Destroyed in an earthquake and tidal wave some two hundred years ago," Xanthe nodded. "Why?"
Leon looked down and pressed his lips together tightly. Any sign of cheerfulness or cautious optimism had dissipated from his gaze. "It wasn't just your father that caused that earthquake and tidal wave. By the year units now, it was about 365 A.D. The very last task the Thirtieth Legion was given was to find a troublesome Greek demigod hiding near Kydonia on Crete. They tracked him all the way to the west coast of the island where they were met with their target: a lone son of Poseidon."
"No... he couldn't have..." Xanthe whispered.
Leon swallowed and continued. "He did. Percy nearly killed himself doing it, but he unleashed an earthquake and tidal wave that submerged and drowned the entire legion. He summoned the vengeance of his father's Roman form, and the fighting between Poseidon and Neptune unleashed another devastating earthquake and tidal wave that killed thousands."
Xanthe shook her head. "I don't... I don't understand how he became so cruel. In our dreams, he's broken and wants to heal. He wants revenge for what Apollo and Mars and Venus did to him, but he wasn't willing to compromise with his new ideals."
"Something must have pushed him over the edge," Thanas suggested. "But what...?"
"I'm sure we'll find out," Leon said. He pointed out to starboard. "Quite soon, in fact."
In the distance, land broke over the horizon. Even from out here he could see the famed Acropolis. They were back home. Thanas glanced at Ionna's carefully wrapped body next to him. They were back to her home. They would finally be able to grant her a proper burial. And, at last, grant her soul peace before he turned the Roman legions to dust.
"Why here?" Xanthe asked.
"The Goth King said this would be where we would find our answers," Leon said, staring at the old building. They were in the outskirts of the city, where the land beyond stretched into wilderness. Wild weeds and grass grew around the property, but Leon knew it had once been farmland. An old, familiar whisper filled the air around the place.
"I know this place," Thanas said quietly. "Ionna told me about it."
Leon and Xanthe looked at him.
He straightened, taking a long, hard look at the sign at the front. "Ionna's from Athens. When she first came to camp... I remember her mentioning something about her father living near a place called 'something' of the Gods. It was 'Property', I guess."
"Children!" a woman called out. "Children! Stay away!"
Leon looked over to their right. An elderly woman waved her hands frantically at them, as if warning them of a monster. "Stay away from those lands!"
Leon glanced at the Property of the Gods. He pointed at it.
The woman nodded. "They say pagans used to live there. Stay away from those wretched heathens!"
He could sense Thanas tense up. Before the son of Hades could do anything rash, Leon stepped forward and shook his head. "No, no. It's okay. We heard legends of this land. If God has willed us to be here, then he will protect us from the demons from Hell."
"I warn you!" the woman shouted back. She still didn't look satisfied. "The last man who entered the Property of the Gods lost his entire family to sickness. Only a child remained, one that looked nothing like him. She had blonde hair and grey eyes. A demon, I tell you. When she disappeared six years later, the man went insane. He visited the place one more time and he never left! Terrible fate!"
"I'm in no mood for this," Thanas growled and raised his hand.
Leon grabbed his arm and shook his head adamantly. "You can't just kill her because she's annoying us."
"Ionna is dead!" Thanas said coldly. His eyes burned black, though that made no logical sense. Leon felt like he was being sucked into the Underworld. "She's done nothing wrong! If another stupid Christian tells me about their stupid Lord again, I'll lose it!"
"Enough!" Leon snapped. He glanced back. The elderly woman had disappeared. "Let's just bring Ionna's body in and give her the proper burial rights, whatever they are."
Xanthe finally intervened. She still looked shaken up from seeing Ionna's dead body and the bad dream, but she seemed at least a little more in control of herself. "Let's go, Thanas. Respect Ionna. Respect the dead. Let's move on."
The building was small. Leon suspected it was once a home. There was a space to sleep in the back, an area where he presumed food was cooked, and a storage area. There was even a private area to go to the washroom in case of an emergency. It must have been ages ahead of its time. The structure looked like it had weathered a thousand years of storms. Considering it was called the Property of the Gods, he felt inclined to believe that it actually had.
They laid Ionna's body down in the main area.
Thanas took extra care to clean the floor around her, brushing away dust and dirt and rocks. Leon knelt down next to him, trying his best to support the son of Hades. He could sense Thanas' turbulent thoughts.
"Hey, guys!" Xanthe called out from another room. "Come look at this."
Leon glanced at Thanas, who looked up toward Xanthe's voice. The two of them stood and followed the sound of her voice to a room even farther in the back of the structure.
It was a storage room of sorts. Tables and shelves lined the walls, carrying a wide assortment of old artefacts and treasures. He could see mini statues and jewels, sort of like a museum on display. Whose property was this?
Then, suddenly, Thanas whirled around. His sword materialized in his hand and he took a step toward the entrance. A girl, who was dressed in what looked like a hunter's garments, leaned against the doorframe and took a long, hard look at them. Her beady red eyes were unnatural, and Leon could feel an unprovoked sense of aggravation just by looking at the girl.
"Who are you?" Thanas asked, strengthening his grip on his sword.
The girl looked him up and down and seemed to decide that he wasn't a threat. "I could ask the same of you. Why are there three children carrying a dead body into a building no one dares to enter?"
The way she called them 'children' unnerved Leon, as if she was not a child herself. Leon figured she looked barely twelve years old.
Thanas stared at her, as if analyzing her soul. "You're... you're immortal, aren't you?"
"In a way, yes," she nodded. She drew her knife, and Leon got the feeling that she was ready to fight if they weren't willing to cooperate. "My name is Phoebe. If I weren't in such a predicament, I wouldn't bother speaking to you, but alas..."
Leon wondered if the girl had seen them in her dreams or something. There was clearly something she was hiding from them.
"Why are you dressed like that?" Xanthe blurted. "What are you exactly?"
"A demigod, like Percy," Thanas said. "A child of Ares."
Phoebe scowled. "It would serve you well to not prod. But, I suppose, yes. A child of Ares. Born early in the Golden Age of demigods. An immortal Hunter under Artemis for generations before joining the group I help now, the Hunters of Artemis."
"Hunters of Artemis..." Leon recognized that name. The old seer had mentioned many things to him. One of them was about a group of girls pledging an oath to the goddess Artemis to never be swayed by men. They weren't very well known. At least, not amongst the common folk. But the first thing that came out of his mouth was: "The group of man-haters, right?"
Phoebe sheathed her knife and walked past the three of them. She approached a table where the collection of spheres and old machinery lay. She brushed the cobwebs off them and flung the spiders away with her blade. "I suppose that name is fitting."
"Man-haters?" Xanthe mumbled. "That sounds..."
"If you had witnessed the terrible things I've seen men do, you would agree," she said sharply. "Often, for no reason, women are treated like objects. Simply because many of us are weaker, smaller, more frail. Rape, plunder, pillage. War is gruesome in many ways. The way women are treated is perhaps the worst."
"What... you've been alive for thousands of years?" Leon asked.
"Like Percy," Thanas muttered.
"Longer," she said. She seemed to be searching for something among the spheres. "I became immortal when the original Perseus, the son of Zeus, was just a toddler. I only joined the Hunters later, after it became an official group tied to Artemis' hip."
Thanas put away his own sword and walked over to the table. He stood across from the Hunter and leaned forward on his palms. "You know Percy?"
"Perhaps the only man the Hunt has ever tolerated that has not ever been a part of the Hunt," she muttered. "There are legends about Orion. That man embodies the worst qualities in men. Deceitful, lustful and arrogant. We drove him off, but he makes his visits every so often for revenge. Percy, on the other hand..." Her expression turned sour. "We tolerated him once. Artemis warned us that it would not last. Now... now he has been corrupted. It would take a lot more than just a friend to save him."
Leon couldn't really tell if Phoebe was angry or disappointed. Maybe she was both. But the way she spoke about Percy, he could sense lingering resent.
"Seeing as you know Percy..." Phoebe said, grabbing one of the older-looking spheres. "I suppose you haven't seen why he's so adamant about destroying the Romans."
Leon glanced at Xanthe and Thanas.
"I want to destroy them too," Thanas mumbled.
"But tell me, son of Hades," the Hunter said, looking straight at him. "Why do you want to destroy Rome?"
Thanas opened his mouth to argue, but he couldn't manage anything but a mere squeak. Leon thought about his reason to fight against the Romans. Why did he fight against them? Why not try to make peace?
The answer was simple: because the Romans wanted to kill him.
There wasn't any intention or malice he felt toward Romans that made him want to destroy them. It was simply an issue of striking first. If the Romans wanted to kill him, he would make sure they wouldn't be able to. In fact, Leon had never really met any Romans in his life. He didn't know what kind of people they were. Were they all bloodthirsty savages? When they destroyed the Eleventh, a few of the younger Romans were laughing and playing around a campfire. Would that not be something he would do?
Leon looked over at Xanthe. She stared at the ground. Her eyes swirled with emotions, like the sea during a storm. She'd told him a lot about her half-brother, a Roman legionnaire in the Eleventh Legion. He would've been killed in their raid on the legion. He couldn't imagine how she must have felt. Even then, when he found her on that beach the day after they drowned the encampment, the signs of regret and self-loathing were evident.
"Archimedes' inventions plus a hint of magic," Phoebe muttered, turning the sphere. It was split into two, meaning she was able to rotate one half without moving the other. As she did, something seeped its way out of the sphere like mist. In fact, it was mist.
"What in the world!" Leon exclaimed, feeling jumpy.
"Watch," Phoebe ordered.
And the mist surrounded them, forming a moving image, as if they had been transported to another world.
A goddess, with a grim expression, said, "Run, Percy. Go as far as you can! Hide from the gods. You will not be welcome by Zeus anymore!"
"My father—"
"He will be fine! Go!"
Percy took one last look at her and ran off into the forest. He ran for what seemed like days, as the sun rose and set a dozen times. The landscape around him shifted from forest to hills to sea to desert.
He collapsed to the ground and, somewhere in the background, Percy's voice began to speak.
I ran for days, he narrated. All the way into Persia, into the lands that I had travelled all those years ago with Zoë. Before... before Hecate found me.
A wall of black Mist surrounded him, and Percy looked up. He looked tired, desperate and lonely. His eyes were red, as if he'd been crying. The palms of his hands and the soles of his feet were raw and red. He bled from a cut on his arm. Leon could hardly believe that Percy was the same Percy that had cut down ranks of Trojans during the Trojan War. It was one thing to hear Thanas and Xanthe describe their dreams. It was something completely different to see it with his own eyes.
"Stop!" the Percy in the image shouted. "Please!"
"I'm not here to kill you," a voice said. Out of the Mist stepped the goddess Hecate, carrying her famous torches. "You are now at a crossroads. This marks the edge of the land of the gods. Should you choose to venture east, you will no longer be under our influence, our guidance, or our protection. It is time to decide your fate."
"Don't play games with me!" Percy snarled. "Leave me be!"
"You want revenge?" Hecate asked. A door formed behind Percy, where he'd come from. "You can turn around and fight the gods if you dare. A sure death, but a painless and quick one."
A door formed to Percy's left. In the image, Percy trudged through endless snow, holding his arms and shivering. Slowly, he sank in the snow. As he walked forward, he disappeared into the endless white.
"You can turn north and leave civilization," Hecate said. "Live for years in the wilderness alone. But in these lands, you will not fare well. The animals, the earth, the sky. They will eat away at your body, your mind and your soul. The wild will consume you, as you endure a long, painful demise."
A door formed to Percy's right. In the image, Percy sat on the shore on a sunny day. He wore a different style of clothing; it was much looser, more suited for hotter climates. He looked more relaxed, more at peace.
"You can turn south and join the Near East," the goddess of magic explained. "You will enjoy your life, but as time passes, your connection with Olympus will fade. You will be unable to stop the inevitable. Your life will be peaceful and prosperous. But your days will end early. You will not stop what must come."
"What's east?" Percy asked, staring at the black Mist.
"Pain and suffering beyond anything you can imagine," Hecate said. She lifted her hand and raised the door. The door flashed, and a new image flickered to life. Percy hung by a single hand from a cliff's edge, screaming for help. He lay exhausted in what seemed like an endless desert. Hecate tossed one of her torches into the sand. "A part of you will be left behind, like a lost relic in the vast wilderness. But you will find your answers in the east. You will survive and you will draw the strength to defeat your own creation."
"Will it give me the power to defeat my enemy?" Percy's eyes suddenly swirled with anger. "Which paths will lead me that way?"
"North, west or south... you fail."
"Not an option," he said. "I'll... I'll go east."
Hecate nodded. "So let it be."
The north, west and south doors crumbled into Mist.
"Ah, yes," the goddess said, pulling something out of her pocket. It was a small container. "Nemesis sends you her regards. As the goddess of balance, she said to remind you that no victory comes without sacrifice. When the time comes, break open the container. Use it either as a shield or as a sword. It is your choice."
Percy took the container. "What is inside?"
"You are a part of two worlds, Percy," Hecate said. She picked up the torch she had tossed aside and began to back away to the west. "You are now on your own. All demigods have the capacity to learn magic. Some are more gifted than others. Take the vial's contents. If you are chosen, magic will bend to your will. If you are not, then you shall never be truly human again."
"Wait, Hecate!"
And the Mist, and the world, dissolved into a new scene.
"Welcome!" a man said.
The man had a short frame, slightly tanned complexion, and eyes in a permanent squint as if he'd been staring at the sun for years. But he was, evidently, muscular. His shoulders were broad, like he'd been a laborer for his entire life.
"Thank you," Percy said, bowing to the older man. "I thank you for your welcoming of me."
Xanthe grabbed Leon's hand, and he suddenly felt embarrassed. She looked at him and whispered, "This... I've had a dream about this place before. Last night. This is the Far East."
Looking around, Leon realized she was right. There was a whole village of foreign folk. Not all of them were short and lightly tanned like the man who'd greeted Percy. Some had dark skin like the Persians. The ones underneath parasols were fair, even fairer than them. There were those short in height. A few stood tall, even taller than Percy.
"Are you okay?" a girl a bit younger than Percy's physical form asked. "You look tired."
She was about nose height compared to him, which was taller than many of the girls in the village. She wore plain clothes made out of a fabric Leon had never seen before. It was a long tunic that went down to her ankles, strapped to her body by a belt around her waist. Her hair hung loosely past her shoulders, and a cone-shaped hat protected her from the sun. She was pretty; her skin was lightly tanned, much like the man, and her eyes were big and brown.
"I am," Percy replied. He didn't quite sound like himself, and Leon realized that he was listening to a translated version of the actual conversation. "I have travelled long and hard."
"You are from the west?" she asked.
He nodded.
"That is very far," she agreed. "Anyone who has gone west has never come back. Are there really people there?"
"Yes. Big cities."
The girl turned to the man, who Leon presumed was her father. "Isn't that amazing, Father?"
"You must tell us about these cities," the man agreed. He bowed with just his head. "My name is Shu Lin."
"I am Percy."
"Per... cy...?" the girl tried to pronounce. "That is a strange name."
"I am the first stranger from the lands in the west you have ever seen," Percy said with a smile. He extended his hand. "It is nice to meet you."
The girl stared at his hand. "What is this?"
"It is a... gesture that I have used back in my home," Percy said. His proficiency with the language must have been rudimentary at the time. He grabbed her hand and shook lightly. "It is a sign of respect."
She stared at his hand for a moment. Then she broke out into a smile. "Then I will respect you, too. My name is Mei."
The scene shifted.
It was night time, and Mei looked a few years older. They sat outside in the fields, looking out at the dazzling stars in the night sky. The rest of the village was quiet. Many of the villagers were inside their homes, sleeping or preparing to sleep. The few that remained outside were guards and village elders, checking on the villagers one last time before they went to bed.
"So you really do not grow," she marvelled through a sniffle. It looked like she had been crying. "You are mysterious, Percy."
"Is that really what you want to talk about after Jin...?" Percy asked. His eyes were filled with worry. He looked fond of the girl and was upset that she had been crying. "You were supposed to get married."
"I don't want to think about Jin," Mei said, shaking her head. A tear escaped her right eye. "I can't think about him without feeling like I have lost a part of me."
"I am sorry," he said, looking down. "I should have protected him. The five of us were supposed to come back if we saw the horsemen. We were not supposed to fight."
"It isn't your fault at all, Percy," Mei insisted. She sniffled and wiped her tears away. "At least... At least I know that Jin was brave in his last moments. I just wish... I just wish I had gotten to say goodbye."
"We gave him as much support as we could as he travels into the Underworld," he replied. "I just wish it had not come to this."
"Underworld?" Mei sniffed again and blinked at him. "You speak again of this different notion. What is the afterlife where you come from like? What do your people believe in?"
Percy went on to explain the Underworld to her in horrifyingly accurate detail. Or, at least, judging by Thanas' reaction, in accurate detail. He told her about the Olympians and how they actually existed and that the foreign spirits she believed in likely existed in tune. Mei nodded in understanding.
"Are you sure you are okay?" Percy asked.
Mei leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. "I am forbidden to do this. Let us keep it a secret, but thank you, Percy. You are like a brother to me. You don't need to treat me like royalty. I am just a farm girl. Nothing more."
Percy smiled sadly and looked up at the stars. "If I am honest, I am also just a farm boy."
Mei looked at him in confusion. "Just a farm boy? But you are a warrior! You can fire a bow. You can wield a spear and a sword like a master."
"I was born on a farm," he admitted. "Like this one. Back in my home, I was the lowest class. My mother and I had nothing but each other and the farm. We did not grow much in the fields because it was only two of us. But like I told you, I am the son of a god. My life is not easy. I had to learn to fight. If not, I would die. Sometimes, I wonder if fighting is really what I am meant to do."
She pursed her lips and stared at him. After a long silence, she said, "Your eyes are beautiful."
He turned to face her, startled and embarrassed by the compliment. "What do you mean? Why do you say that?"
"When you are happy or... what is the word for it?" She frowned and tried to think. "You know, the word for when you are sad but remembering good things?"
Percy looked up, as if in thought. "Yes, I understand. I do not know of a good word in this language."
"Yes, but anyway," she continued. "When you are happy or remembering good things, your eyes shine like the rivers on a sunny day. Traders from the east tell of a beautiful, enormous body of water that stretches beyond what we can see."
"The sea?"
Mei smiled and, as she did, her eyes suddenly looked like half-moons. She was dazzling with beauty like one of the stars, despite the fact that her clothes were covered with dirt and her face was matted with dried sweat. "Yes, the sea. You have seen it before?"
He nodded. "Far in the west, where I am from, we have the sea."
"That is amazing!" she exclaimed. She turned to face the east and gazed sadly into the distance. "I wish I could see the sea. Something tells me they look like your eyes. Beautiful and mesmerizing."
Percy blushed. "Thank you for the compliment."
Mei put her hand on his arm. "You are a good person, Percy. When you are not fighting, when you are at peace with your surroundings, you are a good person."
"So when I am fighting, I am not a good person?"
Mei laughed. "Of course not. Sometimes you look like you're crazy, like you want to crush the enemy. I suppose that is good in warfare, but I like you better when you do not kill anyone. You are much friendlier."
"Thanks," he mumbled.
The girl just smiled. "You will continue to be a good person, right? No fighting unless you have to?"
Percy's smile faltered.
She noticed his hesitation immediately. "What's wrong now?"
"I... I must admit something," he said. His eyes were sad and lost. "I have been in these lands for many years, living amongst your kind. Helping them prosper. I am still not good at the language yet. But I love the people. You are all great. Still, I have seen horrors that I cannot forget. Terrible, terrible misdeeds."
Mei tilted her head to the side in curiosity. "Like what?"
"Killing. Destroying. Stealing. Burning." Percy's voice began to waver and he caught himself. "So many bad things. You would not believe how much pain I have seen... how much I have suffered. It is... horrifying."
She looked at him with concern. The two seemed to have bonded quite closely over the past few years. "I can't speak for you or for my people, but what I know is this: the world is full of good and bad people. Good and bad exists everywhere. Among my people there are good and bad people. Among other people there are good and bad people. I understand how it is easy to blame others, and I do the same thing with the Donghu. But I think it's within yourself to determine what you want to be. Good and bad exists in everyone. Sometimes people may be more good than bad or they may be more bad than good. Good, bad. It is our duty to fight and be the good that we all can be. That is what makes us human. That is what makes us beautiful creatures."
Percy glanced at her tentatively.
"Be the best person you can be," Mei said. "That is all I can ask for."
The scene shifted again.
Percy was racing back on his horse, galloping along the riverside through the bushes. His face was taut with worry. Looking ahead to his right, the other horseman decided to take a sharp right and cross over the hill.
He followed suit.
"Percy!" the other horseman shouted. "The village!"
Percy's voice began to narrate. As I crested the hill, I saw the fires burning in the distance. A whole field of crops was on fire, and smoke rose in a thick column. I could see the scattered Donghu in different parts of the village, using their mounts to slaughter the men in a wave of death. I cursed so much that day. Reinforcements wouldn't arrive until at least midday. Only Huang and I were there to try and save the villagers.
The two of them charged into battle.
Percy immediately drew his bow and fired two arrows before jumping off his horse. He struck two of the Donghu warriors grabbing the women and children. Instead of engaging the Donghu, Percy looked around in a panic, as if he was looking for someone.
"No!" Percy shouted.
Leon turned and stepped back in terror at the sight. Xanthe's hand squeezed his hand in a death grip. She was white with fear and nausea.
Mei was screaming in pain as one of the nomads raped her. Her father and mother lay at her side, dead. Her father looked like he'd been stabbed several times, and a long arrow sprouted from her mother's neck. Even worse was that Mei had been fighting the warrior. His nose was broken, and he hadn't taken too kindly to it.
Leon felt like vomiting as he saw the body parts that had been cut off. Her hands were gone and her chest had been sawed open. She was bleeding heavily from the wound, and Leon thought it was a miracle that she wasn't dead. His hands went numb as he began to shudder in repulsion.
"Mei!" Percy ran toward the girl, but another Donghu nomad cut him off.
Leon tried to focus his attention on the fight, but the sheer brutality and graphic treatment of Mei's body was too much to ignore. The warrior finally released and pulled away. Quickly covering himself with his clothes and armour, he took a dagger and stabbed Mei right where he'd invaded her, as if to kill the child before it could be born.
Mei screamed in pain. She was sobbing with tears, and her body shuddered. The nomad yelled something at his partner fighting Percy, and the two of them quickly retreated on a horse. Percy dropped Anaklusmos and ran over to Mei.
"Mei..." Percy looked absolutely stunned. He was shaking violently. "Mei..."
Everyone watching knew she was going to die. And there was nothing Percy could do about it.
Phoebe was shaking with rage. Her fists clenched, Leon could imagine how this impacted the way she viewed men. It was senseless. It was brutal. It was absolutely revolting. And it was most definitely not the first time she'd seen it.
As Percy cried out in vain, a series of other images flooded the misty vision. Murder, looting, pillaging, raping. It was as if all the worst horrors the world had to offer had been burned into Percy's memory. A series of memories that nearly broke Leon's mind flashed in his eyes for just the briefest of moments.
"Mei!" Percy yelled as she died. He looked up to the heavens. "Why? Why!"
The world shimmered around them.
It didn't seem like they'd gone far from the village. The landscape around them was very similar. But around Percy were the corpses of dozens of dead nomads and horses. There was one nomad remaining. With a shock, Leon realized it was the one who had violated and delivered the killing blow to Mei.
The nomad whimpered and begged for forgiveness.
Percy wasn't giving him any.
Of the all the horrible things Leon had seen, the torture Percy was inflicting on the rapist ranked number one. His thumbs had been cut off and stuffed up his nose. His pinkies were stuffed into his ears. There were three arrows right in his exposed groin, and Leon could see his cut-off parts stuffed into his behind.
"Stop!" Xanthe shouted, her voice shaking. She had shut her eyes. She couldn't take it anymore. "Stop this! Don't show me this anymore!"
"I'll have you know," Percy said to the nomad, "that I do not forgive." He was speaking in their native tongue, Greek. "Not for beasts like you."
The nomad shook his head in fear. He was losing a lot of blood.
Percy stood up and watched him bleed. With Anaklusmos, he cut open the man's stomach and turned him on his side. The nomad was screaming bloody murder as his bowels slid out of his body.
That's when Leon saw it.
On the ground, at Percy's feet, was the container that Hecate had given to him as a gift from Nemesis. It had been cracked open. In horror, Leon realized that Percy had used whatever was inside the container as a weapon, to help him slaughter the nomads that sacked and destroyed his village.
No victory comes without sacrifice, Hecate had relayed.
It was more than just a simple sacrifice, Leon realized. Something had happened between him and the Olympians, causing a rift. His punishment was exile for whatever he had done to make Apollo and Ares mad. Of course, it made sense. Troy's most worshipped gods were Jupiter, Apollo and Mars. Apollo and Mars were the ones responsible for his exile. His travel east wasn't to help him merely get the power to enact revenge on them. His travel east was to unlock a savagery unmatched by any living demigod in history. To win against Rome, he would sacrifice his humanity.
Leon looked at Thanas. The son of Hades looked conflicted. He had come to the same conclusion.
The deal had been made. If Percy sacrificed his humanity, he would be able to reach his goal of destroying what Apollo and Ares held so dear. But if he stopped attacking Rome, he could feel human again, express the good within him that Mei had described. Or if he was made to feel human again...
The mist around them dissolved, sucked back up into the sphere.
Immediately, Xanthe let go of his hand and went into the corner of the room to vomit. Thanas leaned on the table, looking queasy.
Leon stumbled back and fell to his bottom, staring at the sphere in horror.
"Ahem," a voice coughed at the entrance of the room.
Leon looked up to see Percy and a girl about his age standing in the doorway. The girl was staring at Phoebe with a smile, as if glad to see her, but Percy was giving her a cold, hard look.
"Now, what do you think you're doing?"
I know it's been a while. I've been quite busy, and I'm still working out exactly what I want to happen. I don't want to suddenly jump to the ending I've written, and I'm still working on the kinks on how best to explain the path to it. The pace might suddenly pick up out of nowhere, just as a fair warning, simply because I've laid most of the groundwork already.
Anyway, happy (belated) new year!