I own nothing
We had just returned to the Hancock building when Thomas Kirk greated us.
"Who's this"? He asked smiling at Cadmus.
"This is Cadmus, a son of Hermes and a Roman mortal." answered Bethóc.
"Pleased to meet you." the Greek said extending his hand towards Thomas.
"Right ," Thomas said ignoring the hand, "If you'd follow me," he said leading us into the skyscraper. "The city has changed since you've last been here," Thomas said looking over at me and then he turned his attention towards Cadmus, "since you are Greek you should feel accustomed to this, but Kothar and Khasis have been busy building cabins for all of our recruits based on your patron god.
"Patron god"?
"Yeah," I said "we're not all descendants of gods the gods just tend to smile upon us, and the god that smiles upon you the most is your patron, three days after I got here I was recognized by Astarte, goddess of love…"
"Thats hard to believe, you seem to have a firm understanding of war." Cadmus interrupted while Thomas just stifled a laugh.
"All of you greeks think the same, when everyone saw the dove the greeks who knew me started to laugh because I contradicted their picture of what a child of love should be like, they shut up when they saw the heart at my feet."
"A heart, how cute." Cadmus said smirking, probably trying imagining me in a dress
"Yup," Thomas said, "still beating too." Of course that didn't actually happen but it felt good to see Cadmus put in his place.
That wiped the smirk off of Cadmus's face, "Excuse me."
"Astarte is the Goddess of love and war, both are pleasurable to her. That shut him up for a while.
By that time we had arrived at the elevator that led us to the base Mount Zaphon. I was still hoping for a larger elevator, if we ever had to bring back three recruits there would have to be separate rides and all Bethóc and I wanted to do after a mission was to sleep.
As soon as the doors opened all of us were greeted by a stone-faced Gisco.
"I see you've returned."
"No, this is just a hologram Gisco." I said irritated.
"Whatever, I need to talk to you now." he said ignoring Bethóc, Cadmus, and Thomas .
"Can it wait," I asked annoyed, "I need to report to himilco and show Cadmus around."
"I think Bethóc can handle showing him around and I've already reported you progress to Himilco."
"How"? I asked startled.
"You can go." Gisco said dismissing the others.
Bethóc and Thomas just looked at eachother and then at me.
"Go ahead, I'll catch up with you latter." I said to Bethóc.
This way," Gisco said leading me towards the base of the mountain and into what looked like a lighthouse. "My office is at the top, my apologies for making you walk up this many stairs in your current condition, but you must be made aware of something that no one else can know.
"Your … office"? I asked, not remembering him having any office before I left. However I also didn't remember the city having a lighthouse, or even that Gisco would be in a position to have an office. The last time i had seen him he was just a researcher who spent most of his time at either the Field Museum, the art Institute or locked up in his room that he and Mago had shared when he was here.
A few minutes later we finally reached the top of the tower. However there was nothing to see it looked like the top of an observation tower without windows. I was about to question Gisco about why I was up here when I heard him mumbling to himself with his hands on the wall like he was being searched or something. Eventually part of the wall began to shimmer and then completely disappeared revealing a small side room.
"Take a seat." he said pointing to a chair facing a large desk. I did as he asked with him taking the seat on the opposite side. I felt like i was back in school being lectured to not fall asleep in class or pay attention when the teacher was talking, no doubt that's how Gisco wanted people to feel.
Unlike me and my brother Gisco had always been considered a genius, my brother, Mago, had a bigger focus on battlefield tactics, while I, I just performed better on the battlefield then any of them.
"A lot has changed since you two left three days ago." Gisco said sliding a stack of papers aside.
"Gee, I haven't noticed."
"Yes, yes your sarcasm knows no bounds. Anyway I take it Thomas told you about the cabins"?
"Yes, he did."
"Good, until your brother gets back I, Gisco Anderson, place you in charge of all of the cabins."
I was stunned, sure i was more qualified that most of the people here but Gisco wasn't the type of person to distribute power out to anyone other than my brother quickly."
"What about you, why aren't you in charge"? I asked.
"I have been ordered to inspect a certain area for, well, signs. I will leave at daybreak tomorrow, that's why I placed you in charge. I would have honestly felt better leaving Bethóc in charge but that would be a dilemma considering her knowledge of Punic mythology is even less than yours." Gisco said grabbing a notebook from under the desk.
"What about Thomas, not that I'm objecting or anything." I asked still confused.
"That brings me to my next point. After today Thomas will be leaving on a quest of his own ordered by Mathias Laterza to find Himilco."
"What, why isn't he here"? I asked.
"Don't know, the day you left he just up and left, didn't say a word to anybody other than me and all he said was "keep things running while I'm gone.""
"Cryptic." I said.
"Very." he agreed.
"Anyway , is Mathias still here or is he at another theatre"? I asked.
"He is going to show Thomas where his last known location is, after that, it's all up to him to find Himilco."
"Anyway don't mention his absence to anybody, we don't want to cause a stir. Finally sign this." he said handing me the notebook and a pen. "Its just to show the transfer of power when the highest ranking official leaves on important business."
"So much for humility." I said signing.
"Now if you would excuse me, I have to start getting ready for tomorrow." He said picking up a book, "I expect to be out of contact for around a fortnight, if you need any advice ask one of the greeks to set up an Iris message to your brother for you." He said motioning to me to leave.
"I would close the door, but I don't know how." I said remembering one of his largest pet peeves was people walking in on him interrupting his concentration.
"Don't worry about it," Gisco said standing, "I'll need to leave here soon, I need to pick up a package and am pretty sure that the mortal delivery person should not take the elevator up to here." he said following me down the tower's stairs.
Ok, I'll be honest, the first thing I did after getting down from the tower was to go check out the cabins, specifically mine.
Now if you thinking that these cabins would be the same as the ones in the Greek camp, you're wrong, there were about four set up in a square. The largest one, in the front was for Tanit, Goddess of Carthage itself, I was able to figure that out quickly enough thanks to the giant crescent moon symbol with circle and triangle underneath it.
I felt kind of sad looking at it, sure it was the largest and most elegantly decorated, but no one had her as a patron goddess. Of course she was Giscos mother, in a way, but not even he was chosen by her. However that didn't surprise me, from what I remembered about her was that she had the highest expectations for her disciples.
The Cabin on its right side looked like a forge, I expected it to be Kothar's.
The one directly opposite of Tanits Cabin was short but made up for the fact by the outsides seemed to made of gold. I had no idea what goddess or god this belonged to so i kept moving.
The final cabin looked like it was going to war with itself. Half of it was painted pink and the other half was blood red. The really interesting thing was the heart painted in the middle of the pointed top. The part painted on the pink side was your average hallmark I love you heart while the other half on the red side depicted, well, the real thing. Or as real as half a heart can look.
I started to smirk I knew that any disciples of Astarte who were originally daughters of Aphrodite were going to faint the first they saw it.
Inside the cabin didn't look any different from your usual camping rows of bunk beds leading up to one single bed at the front that arranged horizontally rather than vertically so that it was on both of the sides.
There was only one other occupant in it at the time, Metilda Adams, I remember Bethóc and I had found her escaped from a foster home, we returned her and asked for Himilco to adopt her as one of the reasons she escaped was that she reported having been followed by a cyclops.
She was claimed on her first day just after Bethóc and I had finished showing her around. She was a combination of both of Astarte's personalities, fierce but loyal.
"The head beds for you." she said looking up from whatever it was she was looking at, a phone probably, "Himilco is cutting down on the apartments so that we can rent them out."
"Thanks, I'll go get everything." I said leaving.
"Don't bother, I already got your stuff, it's all under you bed."
"Oh," I said looking under the bed to make sure she got everything, "Thanks."
"No problem, oh yeah, Bethóc is looking for you I told her I would let you know. She said she would be would be outside of Eshmun's cabin."
"Is that the gold one"? I asked.
"No," she said "Eshmun's is in the other complex on the other side of the road. I think she said it was across from Ba'al Hammon's."
"Right, ram horn dude." I said leaving.
In all retrospect calling the chief god of Carthage the ram horn god was probably a bad idea but his symbol is ram's horns and that is what the cabin had attached to the top. The cabin itself was made out of intertwined trees, making it look like four hollowed out baobab trees all tied together.
The cabin across from it, Eshmun's the god of healing, was built entirely out of Marble. That's all I have to say about it.
The on the left side of Hammon's cabin was a cabin that looked was lined with tin with precious jewels embedded into it. I recognized it immediately. That cabin was for Melqart, god of trade and the underworld, and the patron god of the old city of Tyre. Just like Tanit though he had no disciples,
Yet.
On the opposite side of Melqart's cabin was a cabin that was also made out of marble however covering the marble were droplets of rain. I decided that it was Ba'al Hadads, lord of the Phoenician gods and lord of the sky.
"Elissa," I heard Bethóc call out to me, "What did Gisco want"? She asked emerging from Eshmun's cabin.
"Oh, yeah, he just wanted to know if I heard anything about Mago." I said quickly trying to come up with a reason without telling her about what really happened.
"I got your pay for the job by the way, I was thinking about heading over to our usual restaurant." Bethóc said handing me a leather bag that I assumed contained my pay.
"Sure." I said. And with that we made our way to the elevator to go down to street level. When we got down we went to the closest currency exchange that Max Wright, a disciple of Kothar, was working, to make money for himself and he also allowed Carthaginians to exchange our shekels for American dollars.
We each exchanged half of our pay and received twenty dollars each.
Now let me tell you, after living in Cuba for my entire life I couldn't for the life of me figure out who the person on the front of the bill was, I did know who was on the front of a Cuban twenty dollar Peso, Camilo Cienfuegos.
And now you're going to ask why does that matter, it doesn't.
Anyway we've both had enough puls punica, Phoenician porridge, to last a lifetime since we've first freed Khasis.
After a lunch of burgers and fries, we headed back to New Hippone for dueling session in the newly built arena. Honestly it was more like a portion of land that was roped off, but we made the best of it with training dummies to help prefect maneuvers and space for dueling with others.
Gisco had a routine all figured out for the place, from after breakfast to lunch all of the soldiers would train for at least half an hour, after lunch everyone, including recruiters, would practice fighting someone else close to their style, and in the evening till eleven the arena was free for anything.
As seeing that both Gisco and Thomas were leaving for a while that would place me in charge of instructing the legion, I sighed, this was far too much responsibility dumped on me all at once.
Before heading to the arena I stopped at my cabin to retrieve my shield, soliferrum and dirk. As long as I could find someone whom I could demonstrate on properly teaching wouldn't be that hard.
As luck would have it when the group arrived for training I spotted out a boy with black hair and a Greek complexion about my age wearing an orange camp half blood t-shirt with a Greek short sword and shield.
"He'll do." I thought to myself.
"Elissa Barcid." I said greeting him. "Instructor for however long it takes for either Thomas or Mago to return."
"Seth Foster, son of Athena." he said nodding politely.
"Would you mind helping me to demonstrate something for the masses"? I asked.
"Are you offering anything for helping." he said looking around smirking a bit.
"Yeah, I can tell you why you were shunned by the rest of Camp Half-blood."
"Oh really."
"You're a pain in the (Now this is the part where Mago would say neck and Gisco would say Gluteus maximus or something like that) ass."
"Alright I'll help you, not that I didn't know that already of course, they compared me to, well, you guys." Seth said smiling.
Of course, back in the classical era whenever a Carthaginian was described the person they were talking about was manipulative, cynical and ambitious. I could go on but I think you get the picture.
"Thanks."
Five minutes after that encounter the session was ready to begin.
First I decided to just go ahead and start off with a duel before I taught anything; I picked up a practice falcata from the weapon rack and dropped my shield.
"Drop your shield," I shouted over to Seth.
He looked surprised but went along with it. I eventually started the session by showing how to fight without a shield.
Seth and I took opposite sides of a circle that I had drawn out earlier for pressing opponents, and we drew our blades.
He was good, I'll give him that, he easily parried my first attack and followed up with a strike that would have hit me if I hadn't feigned a fall.
I then leaped back to use the extra, minimal but still something, length the falcata offered over the Greek broadsword and tried to knock the sword out his hands by using the striking at the cross guard, he quickly realized what I was attempting and withdrew his sword hand fiercely.
Then Seth Stepped in closer and used his sword to try to twist my falcata out of my hands, I realized that he was trying a Greek method of disarming, I however, had confidence in the shape of the falcata's hilt which prevented the disarming maneuver to work leaving him astounded and me victorious after knocking the sword from his grasp.
"What the…" Seth looked at his dropped sword in disbelief.
"Even the best Greek swordsmen are caught off guard by the design of the falcata." I said picking his sword up and giving it back to him. "However the Greeks who are successful against Carthaginians usually end up adapting their fighting style." I said turning to the onlookers. "However, having a diverse army can also lead to victory as shown evident by Hannibal during the second Punic war." I said dismissing Seth back to the audience. "Instead of training his troops to be one giant mass of the same fighting style, however good it may be, Hannibal adapted to the fighting style of the troops and used their strengths. One example can be found in the battle of the Trebia when the small Numidian horses were able to be concealed by tall grass allowing Mago Barca to attack the flank of the Roman army.
By that time I was running out of things to say so I just decided to let them loose and start training which resulted in me having some time to myself.
I decided to try to find where Gisco was. I remembered that he was picking something up but that was a while ago and I assumed he had already gotten it, so I strolled over to the temple area.
When I say temple area I mean the area that temples will be not that they were already there. Kothar and Khasis only provided us with some buildings such as the cabins and the tower that Gisco had an office in I presumed.
So far there was only one temple under construction, a temple to Tanit, and the only part of it that was finished was the foundation, a square foundation made of what I assumed was marble with a couple of smaller squares on top, but each one was still easily as big as four of the cabins. Hopefully she'll like it. However since our current shortage of Kothar disciples and children of Athena, we did not dare do anything more.
Standing on top of the foundation was Gisco wearing his white priest robes and a purple tunic signifying his importance, cough cough.
"Elissa," he said walking off of the foundation, "what brings you here"?
"I was looking for you." I responded. "What is it that you're looking for exactly?" I asked.
"A friend." he responded stopping next to me.
"You said you were looking for signs of some sort in the tower, what's going on"? I asked.
"I know what I said," Gisco looking down. "My friend is a sign."
"What." I said confused. "How can a person be a sign"?
"If he's alive or not, that's the sign." Gisco responded looking me in the eye.
"If you need to tell anyone where I am tell them what I told you before, especially If Mago gets back by the time I return, I don't what to get his hopes up." Gisco said leaving me alone wondering. Who was he looking for, why my brother would know him, where he was going, and most importantly, what he had to go down to the street level in order to receive.