To someone- (Chapter 33) Thought you'd fallen into a void somewhere! How you been? :D I look forward to the onslaught of reviews (I don't know if you lot have noticed, but I do like reviews ^_^ )
To 8Ball3- I LIVE IN A CONSTANT STATE OF STRESS, HAVE YOU MET MY FAMILY? Donny is awesome ^_^ And is that why Santa's such a big deal? XD
To Imagine Coldplay- All the good doctors, naturally ^_^
To readingbooksforlife- (Chapter 33) There's nothing better than ganging up on a brother with the other sibs, and I have three brothers to pick on, so yay ^_^ And no! No spoilers, please! I'm finishing the book I'm reading and then I'm reading ToN, if I get one single spoiler, I will kill Leo (8Ball3, I am looking at you) And for Chapter 34, we've dubbed the Arrow of Dodona Donny, we feel it fits him best ^_^ I love that the arrow will just roast Apollo, but only Apollo can hear it, so it's essentially getting away with murder XD Thank you very much! ^_^ Here is the next update :D
Reyna held Meg's hand, planting the other on Apollo's shoulder. Ready? She mouthed. Apollo managed a nod.
The effect was instantaneous. Strength surged through him. He laughed with soundless joy, feeling as potent as he had in the woods at Camp Half-Blood, when he had tossed one of Nero's barbarian bodyguards into low earth orbit. Reyna's power was awesome! He grabbed the uppermost chain and tore them like crepe paper. Then the next set and the next. The Imperial gold broke and crumpled noiselessly in his fists. The steel locking rods felt as soft as breadsticks as he pulled them from their fittings.
That left only the door handles.
The power may have gone to his head. He glanced back at Reyna and Meg with a self-satisfied smirk, ready to accept their silent adulation.
Instead, they looked as if he had bent them in two. Meg swayed, her complexion lima-bean green. The skin around Reyna's eyes was tight with pain, veins standing out on her temples. His energy surge was frying them. Finish it, Reyna mouthed. Her eyes added a silent plea, before we pass out.
Humbled and ashamed, Apollo grabbed the door handles. His friends had got him this far. If Harpocrates was indeed waiting inside the shipping box, he would make sure the full force of his anger fell on him, not Reyna or Meg.
He yanked the doors open and stepped inside. Immediately, he fell to his hands and knees under the weight of the other god's power. Silence enfolded him like liquid titanium. The cloying smell of roses was overwhelming. He had forgotten how Harpocrates communicated- with blasts of mental images, oppressive and devoid of sound.
Back when he was a god, Apollo had found this so annoying. Now, as a human, he realised it could pulp his brain. At the moment, Harpocrates was sending him continuous message: YOU? HATE!
Behind him, Reyna was on her knees, cupping her ears and screaming mutely. Meg was curled up on her side, kicking her legs as if trying to throw off the world's heaviest blanket.
A moment before, he had been tearing through metal like paper. Now, Apollo could hardly lift his head to meet Harpocrates's gaze.
The god floated cross-legged at the far end of the room. He was still the size of a ten-year-old, still wearing his ridiculous toga and pharaonic bowling-pin crown combo. His braided ponytail snaked down one side of his shaved head. He still held one finger to his mouth, like the most frustrated, burned-out librarian in the world. He could not do otherwise. Apollo remembered that Harpocrates required all his willpower to lower his finger from his mouth. As soon as he stopped concentrating, his hand was pop right back into position. In the old days, Apollo had found that hilarious. Now, not so much.
The centuries had not been kind to him. His skin was wrinkled and saggy. His once-bronze complexion was an unhealthy porcelain colour. His sunken eyes smouldered with anger and self-pity. Imperial gold fetters were clamped around his wrists and ankles, connecting him to a web of chains, cords and cables. Some were hooked up to elaborate control panels, others channelled through holes in the walls of the container. The set-up seemed to siphon and then amplify his power, broadcasting his magical silence across the world. This was the source of all their communications troubles- one sad, angry, forgotten little god.
It took Apollo a moment to understand why Harpocrates remained imprisoned. Even drained of his power, a minor deity should have been able to break a few chains. Harpocrates seemed to be alone and unguarded.
Then he realised. Floating on either side of the god, so entangled in chains that they were hard to distinguish from the general chaos of machinery and wires, were two objects he hadn't seen in centuries: identical, ceremonial axes, each about four foot tall, with a crescent blade and a thick bundle of wooden rods fastened around the shaft.
Fasces. The ultimate symbol of Roman might.
Looking at them made his ribs twist into bows. In the old days, powerful Roman officials never left home without a procession of lictor bodyguards, each carrying one of those bundled axes to let the commoners know somebody important was coming through. The more fasces, the more important the official.
These fasces before them were no ordinary standards. These blades were Imperial gold. Wrapped around the bundles of rods were silken banners embroidered with the names of their owners. Enough of the letters were visible that he could guess who they belonged to- Commodus and Caligula. These were the personal fasces of the two emperors, being used to drain Harpocrates's power and keep him enslaved.
The god glared at Apollo, forcing painful images into his mind: Apollo stuffing Harpocrates's head into a toilet on Mount Olympus; Apollo howling with amusement as he tied Harpocrates's wrists and ankles and shut him in the stables with his fire-breathing horses. Dozens of other encounters he had completely forgotten about. In every single one, he was as golden, as handsome and as powerful as any emperor- and just as cruel.
His skull throbbed from the pressure of Harpocrates's assault. Behind him, the girls writhed in agony. Reyna found his eye, blood trickling from both nostrils. Well, genius? She glared. What now?
Apollo crawled closer to the god. Tentatively and using a series of mental pictures, he tried to communicate with Harpocrates: how did you get here? He imagined Caligula and Commodus overpowering Harpocrates, binding him, forcing him to do their bidding. He envisioned Harpocrates floating alone in the dark box for months, years, unable to break free, growing weaker and weaker as his power was used to silence the demigod camps. Harpocrates was their prisoner, not their ally. Am I right? Apollo tried to ask. The god replied with a withering gust of resentment. That either meant yes or you suck, Apollo.
The god forced more images into his mind, showing him the emperors standing where they were now, smiling cruelly, taunting him, trying to convince him they were on the same side. Harpocrates refused, but he could not overpower them. Instead, he intended to fight them with every last bit of his soul, hence his decaying form.
Apollo sent out a pulse of sympathy and regret, only for it to be blasted away with scorn. Their mutual hatred of the emperors did not make them friends. It did not erase Apollo's cruelty.
Meg attempted to join the telepathic argument. At first, she could only muster garbled messages of pain and confusion. Then she gathered her thoughts, sharing an image of her father smiling down at her, handing her a rose. For her, the rose was a symbol of love, not secrets. She shared her life, the murder of her father at the Beast's hands, how she knew of monsters as she was raised by one such creature. No matter how much Harpocrates hated Apollo- who she agreed could be pretty stupid sometimes- they had to work together to stop the Triumvirate.
The god shredded her thoughts with rage. How dare she presume to understand his misery?
Reyna tried a different approach, sharing her memories of Tarquin's last attack, seeing her comrades, her friends, scratched, turned, dying. She showed Louisa walking through monsters in a hurricane and erupting their blood so forcefully, there was no trace of their bodies. She showed Harpocrates her greatest fear: that after all their battles, after centuries of upholding the best traditions of Rome, the Twelfth Legion might face their end tonight.
Harpocrates was unmoved. He sent back another fear:
Louisa, on a luxury yacht, a storm swallowing the sky, waves tearing through the ship and sloughing the hulls of its neighbours, pushing them away. Pandai were blasted from the sky or over the railings with green light or a wall of water, mortals fared no better, tumbling over and over into the sea. Louisa turned as more opponents rushed in- it didn't matter how many she took down, more would still come. She screamed in defiance, casting an energy so potent, it knocked the image from their minds with a clap of thunder.
Reyna's face was pale, shocked, lied to, her nosebleed heavier. Harpocrates moved on from her, bending his will towards Apollo, burying him in hatred.
Apollo countered with the most horrible, embarrassing failures he had suffered since becoming mortal. He shared how he had mourned the griffin, Heloise. Shared the memory of that horrible night on Caligula's yacht, his unyielding terror as he watched Jason battle the emperor, his injuries, the spear aimed at his back, Louisa coming to their rescue, the emptiness of the camp upon their return, how the city itself seemed to flinch at anything louder than a whisper.
For a moment, just for a moment, Harpocrates's wrath wavered. At the very least, Apollo had surprised him. The god had not been expecting such shame or grief or terror from him. If you let us destroy the fasces, Apollo thought, that will free you. It will also hurt the emperors, yes?
Yes, Harpocrates thought back, adding a brilliant red tint to the vision. Apollo had suggested something he wanted.
Reyna chimed in, muddling through her thoughts. At first, her concerns for Louisa were apparent, flashes of memories there and gone quicker than the blink of an eye- Louisa smiling at her, Louisa healing her from paralysis, Louisa pulling faces at the Athena Parthenos on a hilltop. Louisa screaming from a nightmare she could not wake from, Louisa sobbing that she had not saved them, Louisa shouting, pleading, begging for them to kill her, for Reyna, for someone, for anyone to kill her.
Reyna squeezed her eyes shut, a single tear sliding down her cheek. The message changed. She pictured Commodus and Caligula on their knees, groaning in pain. The fasces were connected to them. They had taken a great risk leaving them here. Destroying them could mean the emperors would be weakened and vulnerable, it could increase the Romans' chances of survival in the coming battle, the battle starting now, on the yachts.
Yes, Harpocrates replied. The pressure of the silence eased. Apollo could almost breathe painlessly. Reyna staggered to her feet, wiping her nose on her sleeve. She helped Meg to stand and then Apollo.
They were not out of danger, any number of terrible things that Harpocrates could use against them hovering unseen in the silence, manifesting as fears Apollo could not stop from being broadcasted. The god's hateful glower did nothing to reassure him.
The emperors must have anticipated this. They knew that, if Apollo did release their silent prisoner, Harpocrates's first act would probably be to kill him. They believed this so much so, they had not factored in the potential loss of their fasces. That worry did not outweigh the benefit of having him destroyed, a fate he had only brought on himself.
Reyna touched his shoulder, making him flinch. She and Meg were armed with their swords, awaiting his decision. Apollo studied the soundless god, a victim finally able to overpower his abuser.
Do what you want with me, he thought, just spare my friends. Please.
Harpocrates's eyes burned with malice, tinged with glee.
It was then that Apollo noticed what the god cradled in his lap. A glass jar, seemingly empty, with a metal lid. Rumours from centuries before filled his head, laying down the final piece: the Sibyl's body had crumbled away… she could not die… her attendants kept her life force… her voice… in a glass jar…
Harpocrates held all that remained of the Cumaean Sibyl- another person with every reason to hate Apollo and another person the emperors and Tarquin knew he would feel obliged to help.
They had left him two choices. Run away, let the Triumvirate win, and watch his mortal friends be slaughtered.
Or free two bitter enemies and face the fate that he undoubtedly deserved.
It was an easy decision. He turned to the girls, projecting his thoughts as clearly as he could.
Destroy the fasces. Cut him free.