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Rhea's tale

The next day Rhea told what had happened at the Castle of Cronos, how she had managed to get away, being pregnant and due to give birth any day:

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Cronos woke me up early in the morning, dressed for battle, and looking like the nightmare himself, from the blood-red crescent on his shining bronze helmet and down to his iron-studded boots. I rubbed sleep from my eyes, sitting up and showing attention and obedience, as I understood that he meant to address me. I didn't want him to hit me again. Not with those iron-gloves on.
"Wife", he thundered, "I am off to beat down more of these so called Gods. They seem to breed like rabbits, and multiply like flies. But soon, soon all this is going to be over. I soon will have the perfect weapon. "

"To kill them all? Wipe them out? I asked, my voice sounding like ashes."
"No, better than that. I am going to make them sterile. My master poison maker is working on a powerful brew. A virus to infect gods with. Then I'm going to wipe them out. Because then there isn't going to be any kids hidden somewhere. Kids to grow up and threaten me again. Then it will finally be over. No more lousy Gods. Just Titans. Titans obedient to me. I will succeed where Ouranos failed. I will be the greatest. "

Cronos clamped his fists, rose his big hands and threw back his head, roaring like a maniac:
"Then I will rule - forever and ever! "

After the speech he turned on his heels and marched out of my chamber. Numbed I remained sitting in my bed while dawn was slowly breaking outside the window. I could hear the calls from the guards in the courtyard, and the growlings and screechings of the Dark Warriors. For a while the noise went on, then I heard them all bellow in unison as their master arrived. A bit more hubbub and they took off, darkening the sky with their huge wings.

Resting my hand on the belly I felt the baby move inside, stirring and kicking, like he had felt the rage of his father and the adrenaline rush of my fear. Not for my own sake, I had already accepted my fate, that it would be over any day. As soon as Philyra was bleeding, as soon as she was ready to become the new wife of the King. My fear concerned the Gods of the world. Were they finally going to perish? If so there was no hope left.

Then I felt a kick against my spine, harder than anything else I had ever felt. Almost like a scolding. Almost like my baby was telling me "stop being such a wimp! Get up and do something about it instead of sitting here whining".

But I was cuffed to the bed! Cronos hadn't released me before he left. Or - was I? No, I suddenly realised that my shackles were gone! How could -

I decided to not think more of it. Last evening he had cuffed me and had me all right. Both ways. I hardly cared anymore, these abuses had become so much of a routine I actually felt like they were happening to somebody else and that I was only watching from far, far away. But now something had made the shackles disappear, and that sure wasn't my master.

I rose, felt almost giddy, and as if someone was giving me orders I opened up my wardrobe, browsed through the dresses. No, there was nothing I could use. Silk and lace all of them, transparent and fragile stuff that showed more or less skin. The things Cronos liked me to wear.

Instead I opened his wardrobe and pulled out a pair of leather pants. I had to fold them up quite a bit, since he was so much taller than me. On the other hand my belly was too large, so used a waistband to hold them up. A knee-long silk tunic for my upper body and then a woollen ditto above the silk one. A hooded cloak, also in leather finished my outfit.

Then I gathered a miscellany of arms, a blanket, towels, a water-bottle, the left-overs from Cronos' breakfast, my own breakfast, a lantern for divine light and some more stuff and threw it all down in a backpack. All save for a heavy broadsword which I tied to my back. Not that I knew how to use it, but perhaps it could fool someone into believing I could.

Last thing I did was tying up my long hair to get it out of the way. Then one final look around the chambers - not to say goodbye, it was a relieve to leave - but to check if there might be something more useful to take with me. There weren't.

Thus I exited the Royal Chambers for the first time in years and years. I met two of the maids on my way out, and this time their silence worked to my advantage. They didn't dare to try to hold me and they couldn't call for alarm, they were just trying to run off, so I hit one of them so she fell to the floor and hit her head, becoming unconscious while red blood coloured the light-brown pine tiles. The other one I just slammed the door upon, using the same locking spell as I had heard my master use. I hardly thought it was going to work but it did!

I decided to not worry about more than the next step. Pondering a complete escape seemed almost overwhelming, but taking one step at a time felt more manageable. And so I found myself climbing down a spiralling case of narrow back-stairs, not knowing where the old and concave granite steps led me.

Halfway down in the dusky stairs I encountered a servant, but he didn't seem the least surprised to meet a petite warrior there. Or perhaps he was of the kind who didn't rise his voice in bemusement and thus stayed out of trouble. A behaviour I learned most servants in a cruel house soon adopted. Not drawing attention was a way to stay safe.

The stairs ended by a narrow door opening up at the backside of the castle, into a small courtyard I hadn't known existed. First I feared that I had reached a dead end, because there were only dark stone walls surrounding me. Then I could hear waves crashing against rocks, and I realised that on my right hand there was only a one-store wall. I climbed it, and sure, in front of me was the sea. Unruly under a cloudy sky, the early morning sun shining through here and there, painting medallions of glitter on the gray-green surface. Seagulls were calling out in the air.

Closing my eyes I jumped, my returning divine powers protecting me from harm while landing on the soaked, black rocks beneath me and skidding the last few meters down in the salty water. Then I began to swim, feeling my powers return more and more as the spell of the castle seized to work on me. Soon I found myself able to leave the wet element and take off in the sky, flying like a real goddess should.

I was back! I was divine again! I was free! I and my baby!

First I didn't know where I was going other than as far from Leviathan and my master's stronghold as I could think of. Then I started to make plans in my mind, started to think of where I could give birth to my baby. My first thoughts were with Cronos' old enemy Oceanos of the Great Western Sea, but I knew that I was not going to make it as far. Instead I racketed my brain until remembered the name of my old maid Amalthea's island. Crete.

Yes, that was where I should go. To the mountainous and sparsely populated big island just where the Aegean meets the Mediterranean. I should seek Amalthea out and there give birth to my child. Then could I think of the next step.

But it didn't turn out exactly like that. I had hardly set foot on a rocky shore before I felt the water leave the womb. A familiar feeling in the spine. The baby wanted out.
" Soon soon, little one", I told. "I'm just going to have to find a safe place. A cave perhaps. "

As if my mind triggered it, I saw an opening in the rock ahead of me. Feathers of eagles and down of their kids strewn the ground and I gathered it all, thinking it a good bed for my child. Then I entered the cave. It held stalactites and bent twice until I reached its back, where a tiny pool of still, cold water awaited me. The perfect place!

The contractions were becoming more prominent as I lighted Divine Light in my lantern, created some kind of nest with the help of the eagle down and the towels and then undressed. Not a minute too early, a little head was on its way out through my widening opening.

I pushed once, twice, trice an then... a scream of life! Entrance, fluids and an almost overwhelming feeling of a soul so strong that it was strange the whole world didn't tip on its axis and all the deities within miles came running to check it out. My baby! My little - I picked the child up - a boy. A little God!

It had been a familiar sensation giving birth but the rest was different. All of my other children had been taken away from me even before I got the chance to sense their souls, to sample their imprints, learn who they were. But this one - he reached out for me in spirit so fast and so strong that I could hardly gasp for breath.

In my arms he opened his eyes - they were as blue as a clear spring sky. My son was looking at me like he already understood everything - about who I was, my escape from his cruel father and the terrible state of the world he had been born into.
"Zeus", I whispered. "Zeus, little one! I'm sorry to have brought you into this miserable world. But I guess - it was supposed to happen. At least you're getting a better start than your older siblings. At least I'm getting a chance to hold you. "

While the day passed on outside the cave and became afternoon then evening then nigh I cleaned my son and breast fed him, singing to him songs of my own childhood. And when he fell asleep in my arms an unexpected memory came back. The memory of Lanviari, an older goddess I had used to play with. She had shown me how to make man-like dolls out of stones. With the same temperature, texture and feeling as a real human.

" I cannot breath life into them", Lanviari had told me. "Only certain grown-ups can do that. But we can at least pretend that they are alive and play with them."

Stones looking like humans. We had made 'babies' for ourselves, and I remembered how to do it. A plan was starting to form in my mind...

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Three days later Rhea took off, bound for Leviathan and the cruel man she was married to. I had done everything I could to try to talk her out of it, try to convince her that the little village Dicte was safe for her as well. That no-one would bother looking for her here among the mountains and the goats. I told her it was too early stopping breast-feeding Zeus. She returned with that goat milk would do.
" Just change the protein strands the way I showed you and it will be just as good as human milk", she told me.

"Rhea - I don't know how to take care of babies."
"Do you think I know more then, just because I happened to give birth? No, I lost all the others. Now I want this one to live. I really, really, really want him to live. And he stands a better chance with me not around. Cronos knows my soul pattern, he will come looking for it, no matter where I hide. Then he'll find Zeus too. And that would be the end for us both. "

"I understand. Rhea, go in peace. I love you my friend, may the Faithes look well upon you. "
"May the Faithes look well upon you too Amalthea, my only friend. "

For the last time Rhea lifted up little Zeus and held him close, close. She held him for such a long time that I was actually beginning to hope she was changing her mind. But then she handed him over to me, teary eyed.
"Farewell my Zeus! You won't remember mummy but Amalthea will tell you how much I loved you."

Then she gathered her things, turned her back and went out in the falling dusk, took off in the blue twilight air as swift as an eagle. I lingered in the door-frame with the infant in my arms looking at her flying form until it disappeared among the purple clouds.
"Farewell Rhea, I whispered to the winds. Farewell my friend."