Thalia: The domain of Kronos and the enemy waiting in its remnants

Gabriel and I rushed into the beginning halls of the Black Throne of Orthys after Percy went to hold off Epimetheus. We ran with Gabriel leading the way on hunches on the quality of his memory since the hall was undoubtedly a mess. The bricks of partially destroy pillars were scattered around the floor so we had to watch our step.

Drapes were torn nearly all the way and pieces of those drapes lied around where they had fallen. Some of the pieces were even burned as though the Titans had torched them when Kronos died. The only thing intact was this door-shaped pillar of green-yellow light that shone brightly from its end of the hall and almost to ours. "It's a portal to the upper levels, I know because I used it to complete my escape from Mount Orthys," Gabriel explained.

"Does it have any time-limits?" I asked. He shook his head and said that as long as some magic remained in Orthys, the door would stay open. "It needs very little magic to be activated so it's not a gas guzzler (so to speak) for the magic power of the mountain. In fact, it requires almost no magic save its creation and purpose (which is very minimal if you're a god)," he added.

"Do you know if it's still safe to use it to get to the upper levels?" I asked. "Yes it should be, especially if the Titans have been through it lately," he answered. "What does it do if they go through it, does it keep it safe for our use?" I inquired. "It's not that it's unsafe unless they pass through, it's that if the levels of magic power it could essentially vaporize us while we're in the middle of it; even gods are affected by this," he explained.

It was nice that he explained that for me because afterwards, he told me to hold my shield out in front of me and have my spear ready to attack anything. After a while, he told me that the coast was clear and I could ease it up a little bit. "Let's go through the portal, I think we can find Prometheus and Ouranos if we go beyond the door. We may also be able to find Atlas if we're lucky," he said.

"How would it be lucky if we found Atlas alongside his brother and Ouranos?" I asked. "Let's put it this way: you fought Atlas, now he'll want to get even with you and you can draw him away if not kill him. If you defeat him, there will be quite some glory in it for you," Gabriel answered. "I should presume that it would be more glory than Hercules or Perseus?" I asked. "Anytime you defeat or kill a god, minor or major, it's more glory than just some monster like Medusa or the Minotaur," he answered.

"So let's see Percy has defeated both Ares and Epimetheus so he has quite the glory. And you've killed how many gods and/or goddesses now?" I inquired. "Excluding that time when we dueled with Oceanus and the times I dueled with Prometheus, I have defeated at least four gods. I defeated Perses, Hyperion, Nyx, and Tethys in individual duels and out of the four I have killed two: Hyperion and Tethys," he explained.

"Let me guess, you were doing it in the name of the gods," I said. "No, Hyperion was a case where I was obeying orders and Tethys was killed because of self-defense," he replied. "Self-defense, was this earlier in your career with the gods?" I asked. "Yeah, I was in the early months of my service to Helios when she attacked me," he answered.

"Did Helios and his sisters have a problem with you killing their father when Hera ordered you to?" I asked, curious about his service. "Yes and no; yes they wanted their father punished even if it came down to me doing it, no they didn't want him dead since he was their father after all," he told me. He added that though that was the case, they stood down when Hera insisted that it had to be done. "Besides, I hated Hyperion anyway for making Eos cry on that night when I had to tell her he sided with my father," Gabriel said humorously.

We walked into the portal and were instantly transported to the upper levels where we knew evil awaited us on every turn. On the other side of the portal, we saw a fork in the hall that led two ways. According to Gabriel, the left was the one he had been on when he escaped from the dungeons. "Because that one leads to the dungeons, the one on the right must lead to the Throne room and that's where we'll hope to find Ouranos and Prometheus," he said.

But something compelled me to head for the dungeons, a tiny but traceable reading of a demigod aura. "Gabriel, I sense something down in the dungeons that could be a surviving prisoner. May I go and investigate while you go on ahead and fight Ouranos?" I asked. He nodded and told me that it probably would be best if I did that since any chance of recruits was a good one.

"Plus there may be those who failed to escape last time I was here and were put back in the dungeons under more extreme circumstances," he told me before saying goodbye. I went down the hallway to the prison but before he was out of sight, Gabriel told me to be careful. "If Atlas is down there, only a clever trick will save you from him as it did Hercules and Percy," he warned. "I understand and tell me if an trick based on environment helps," I said.

"It does so when and if you face him, try to use the environment to trick him. That is your best chance if you are to defeat him," Gabe replied. I thanked him for the advice then headed down the hall for the dungeons in the hope of confirming whether or not demigods were there. It was a long walk but when I arrived, I wish I didn't have to see some of the things that I had to see.

People who had long since died were still chained to the walls of their cells and the cell doors would often be partially destroyed in some manner of explosive means. By that I mean that at one gate, all but some of the bottom and gear to open and close the door remained intact. Some of the demigods that were dead had blade wounds where either the Titans or whoever destroyed this place might have attacked. I even saw one woman with a gouged-out eye as well as a slash across her chest and abdomen while her hands were firmly wrapped around two of the bars of her cell.

Blood stains ran across the floor and walls as though the Titans had used blood to scrub their dungeons. Flies swarmed around many of the dead demigods some of which, I dared not touch with my hands in case they were diseased in a contagious sense. But in the distance I heard a whisper: "Help… us". It repeated often enough to where I could follow it to its source, which was a demigod with two broken legs that were covered in blood and ripped trousers that exposed the infected wounds on his legs.

He also had three broken fingers on his right hand and a dislocated shoulder on that same arm. His left hand was slashed across the back of it from the index knuckle to the left side of his wrist. But most disgusting of all was that he had burnt patches of skin where once hair had been on his head, burns that extended all the way to one ear and malformed it. The hair that remained was sticky, blood-covered, and lice-filled thanks to probably no baths for a long time.

A bruise that never healed had swollen his left temple to the point of taken the vision out of his eye on that side. When he breathed, he wheezed slightly and asked if I was really here or if I was just a hallucination. "I'm really here and I'm here to get you and any other survivors out," I told him. Then I asked him what his name was and at first, I thought he was going to die trying to answer.

But fortunately, he managed to tell me that his name was Conan and he was a son of Saturn. "Saturn, how come I have never heard of him?" I asked. "If you know Gabriel Johnson, it's his father's Roman form," Conan answered. One, I didn't know Kronos had a Roman form and two, I was surprised to hear that this guy was related to Gabriel. "We're half-brothers, Gabriel and myself plus almost thirty thousand other children of Saturn," Conan added.

"Saturn had thirty thousand kids? How come we've never heard of this?" I inquired. "For one, not all of the children of Saturn are his by blood but by rite of passage. The ones with an actual connection to Saturn are in high power where we live whereas people like myself who tagged along cover the bulk of our people," he explained between breaths. "And precisely where do you and your people live if it's safe to ask?" I asked him.

"Located deep in the Appalachian mountains, in a place called Saturn's Land," Conan answered. "I have never heard of it," I said to him. "Neither god nor demigod has except for the children of Saturn and Gabriel. Long ago in Roman legend, my adoptive father Saturn had once been accepted as one of the Olympian gods of agriculture after his defeat at the hands of Jupiter. Contentedly, Saturn served alongside his daughter Ceres as a fellow god of agriculture.

"But one day, Juno the queen of the Roman gods deemed Saturn a threat to the integrity of Olympus. She betrayed him and cast him out of Olympus in spite of Jupiter's protest afterwards. Betrayed and exiled, Saturn vowed vengeance on the Olympians and saw to it that his children as well as anyone who went with them were stationed in the Appalachians in Saturn's Land until the time was right. But one day, one of his children realized that Jupiter could not be defeated and decided to betray his father as well," Conan explained.

"So what did he do?" I asked. "With the aid of three sisters and two brothers, he cut Saturn's soul out of his body and imprisoned it in a medal statue designed in his image. As long as Saturn's soul and body are not rejoined, Saturn himself will never have his powers even if he still has his immortality," Conan answered. I nodded then I asked him if there were any other survivors besides himself in this chaotic hellhole.

He pointed to some of the people behind him and I thanked him. But before I could act, I heard a voice I knew all too well. "Even if they have survived this long, I doubt they will be alive much longer," Atlas said from behind me. I turned and saw the brute standing on top of a tall staircase in the same fashion that Darth Vader did in Star Wars.

He even had a cape and helmet to match but his face was clear for me to see. "Last time I saw you, you were acting on your cowardly brothers behalf in preventing us from stopping Ouranos' resurrection," I taunted. "And last time I saw you, you were cowering under your shield for protection against my broadsword," Atlas replied, also trying to taunt me. "Come down here and we can settle this once and for all," I told him.

To my surprise and to my eternal delight he obeyed and jumped down to face me. Now I remember Gabe telling me to think of a trick that required environment in order to save my skin when battling against Atlas so I looked around quickly. In the distance, I saw a fiery light that looked like a furnace and I knew I had my charm if I could get to it. By this time, Atlas had unsheathed his broadsword and was moving so fast that I barely had time to raise my shield as his sword came down on my head.

In response, I jabbed at him with my spear repeatedly and at different angles. Unfortunately, all of my attempts were deflected by him and I was once again on the defense. But instead of being helpless, although I had to deceive him into thinking I was, I turned myself so that my back was facing the door to the furnace. He kept on battering me in the hopes of a victory point while I turned myself in proportion to the furnace and was even pushed a little closer by Atlas' attack.

I jabbed again to remind him that I was very capable of fighting and even scored a graze across his shin with the front edge. As was part of my plan, it angered him and he hit my shield harder than he had before and was pushing me closer to the furnace. It was still another two meters away from me so I had to keep up a strong defense until I could reach it with occasion offense. When I was closer enough to the furnace door, I used the butt of my spear to press the button that would open the door then continued from there.

Now we were in the furnace for the final stages of my plan, which would be slightly postponed by Atlas' next move but not altered. He literally tore the shield Aegis off me and threw it into the fires below the rail we were on. Now I knew I had to go on a full offensive if I were to survive without my plan backfiring on me. I jabbed and thrust at Atlas and even went to the trouble of using my spear in the same manner as a sword and slashing at him.

But he had me beaten down at one point when I had to use the rod of my spear to defend myself and it bent toward me. "It's always a pleasure to take a brave warrior's life," Atlas said, intentionally mocking me. Not only that but it seemed like he was savoring a kill he thought was to come. I guessed it was due to the fact that since the time he killed his daughter Zoë Nightshade, my predecessor in my position, when she stood in Artemis' defense.

Then I noticed that there was an opening behind him that would lead to a fiery death for mortal and god alike if either one was to be thrown in. So I whirled around and used my spear as balance. I gave Atlas a good kick in the chest and face, sending him flying over the rail and to his death in the furnace below. He survived the fall but burned to death in the furnace's fire below and he shouted to me calling me a fool.

"What's so foolish about the move I just pulled off?" I asked him. "This furnace is the heart of all Mount Orthys, my power is enough to destroy it. Once the heart of Orthys is destroyed, this entire realm will crumble down to oblivion in fifty-four minutes," he answered. "Well then, I take you and this realm today as additions to my victory as a heroine," I said.

Then that reminded me to go back and check on the prisoners I had left behind. My greatest hope was that at least Conan was still alive so I could rescue him and maybe a couple others. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me back to the dungeons and out of the furnace to find only disappointment. When I returned, Conan was on his last stretch of life and everyone else was dead. He handed me a note just before he passed on and told me to give to Gabriel and reluctantly, I agreed to hand the note over to him.