Disclaimer: I don't own Trials of Apollo
Day 10: Redemption of a Ghost
Soon. It would all be over soon.
Trophonius had long since lost track of the exact passage of the years since his father's betrayal, decades blurring into centuries, possibly even millennia. It was difficult to keep track, without the sun, but Trophonius didn't miss the sun.
He didn't miss the warmth of his father, the feeling of being watched over, favoured, blessed.
In the darkness, he couldn't see the blood on his hands, or what had once been hands. His physical body was long since gone, morphing into an idea, a concept, dust and darkness agitated and whipped together by winds of fury and betrayal. He'd died the same day as Agamethus, died the day his father turned away from him, survived and endured without a death. Impossible contradictions, alive yet dead, bodied yet bodiless.
It was past time it ended. The Fates had given him an opportunity, at least. For vengeance, for peace, for his brother. Agamethus had never deserved an eternity of this, the restless death when Elysium existed. The Fields of Asphodel, even, would be better than this, a headless brother trapped and bound by the same loyalty that had killed him in the first place.
But Agamethus wouldn't find rest until Trophonius, until the Dark Oracle, ceased to be, and one way or another, that would happen soon. The wheels had been set in motion by powers beyond even his comprehension – he was an Oracle, a guardian of an Oracle, but to be an Oracle was to pass on messages, not to understand them all himself, but this he could comprehend just fine. The girl had been a sign, the beginning, and her shrouded origins made her perfect for the task he needed performing.
Agamethus couldn't talk, not anymore, even though Trophonius could understand his darkness because it sang in tune with his own. The women at the Waystation were ingenious, but this was beyond the shaking of a ball, no matter how enchanted it was. Besides, Agamethus was the catalyst, the cause, but this wasn't his fight.
He was Trophonius' brother, but he wasn't Apollo's son. The girl, on the other hand…
Perfect bait, and one that Apollo had no choice but to fall for because when it came to his children – most of his children – there was nothing the god wouldn't do. Trophonius, for all he'd seen and heard through the Dark Oracle, had yet to work out what had made him, of all Apollo's children, unworthy of his father's assistance. Perhaps he would solve that one, final mystery before the Oracle died.
Things worked even better than planned.
Apollo came, preparing himself to kneel at Trophonius' feet, at his mercy with his mind opened and the threads of his sanity fraying with every second that passed, and he prepared himself to tear his father apart from the inside out – the Oracle would not, could not turn Apollo insane, not even as a mortal. His divinity was still too strong for that, god of prophecy wrapped up in his essence beyond anywhere even Zeus could reach to tear it out entirely. Trophonius could make it hurt, though. Make his father wish his sanity had broken.
The girl loved Apollo more than anticipated. This was not a bad thing.
The Dark Oracle latched onto her, unprepared, vulnerable, more likely than not to die, and Trophonius was finally able to confront his father.
The taunts were sweeter than honey. Apollo fell into his lap, crying words that Trophonius had never been able to forget passing his own lips, and the reversal of their roles, the power rush it gave him, was heady.
Trophonius had no control over the Dark Oracle. It had come from him, was part of him, but it sought out the minds that opened themselves up to it with a single-minded focus to hurt while it sought answers.
It had always been easier to answer other people's questions. Even this girl's questions – what must Apollo do, where must Apollo go, how do I help Apollo? – were easy, the Oracle cramming all the information she could ever need and more besides into her small, unprepared, young mind.
Trophonius' own questions – why didn't Apollo help me, why am I the exception to the rule – had no such luxuries.
Apollo had made the promise. Trophonius' end was finally nigh. The irony that he would finally be killed by his own father, so many long, dark years after first pleading for the exact same thing, was not lost on him. For the girl, he would do what he had refused to do for Agamethus.
It enraged Trophonius, and the Dark Oracle responded in kind, pushing the girl's mind further, showing her more, more, more, dragging her into depths that would be so very, very hard to resurface from. Scathing words passed easily from the wisps of darkness that formed his mouth, anger and hurt finding no reason to hide as the betrayal lashed out.
Apollo's anger was legendary. Trophonius had grown up on stories of his father's fury and love in equal measures and always fancied himself the loved one protected by the anger.
Agamethus' life had been the price for his naivety, the first time, when Apollo's anger had manifested as a cold, gaping silence.
As an Oracle, being on the receiving end of it for a second time, igniting it on purpose and watching it fizzle and boil, restrained by mortality and a dying girl in his arms, was fascinating. It was easy, cathartic, to bite back, to rage at his father and be raged at in return.
There was no room for facades in the cave of an Oracle, and the Dark Oracle in particular let nothing stand, tearing it to shreds as it burrowed and sought the deepest, darkest secrets of the petitioner, dragging them out of breaking minds as it stuffed them with new information that may or may not be helpful.
No-one read the Dark Oracle, there was nothing accessible to be read, but Apollo?
Apollo was an open book.
His mind was stretched thin, exposed and tired by Mnemosyne and Lethe clashing inside him. He had questions, too, most prominent amongst them is Meg going to die? and associated questions about how to save her, and floating thoughts towards the young girl Trophonius had used as his messenger in the first place, but the Dark Oracle was too busy with his companion to bother with him.
Trophonius didn't want it to answer his father, anyway. Apollo did not deserve answers. Not when Trophonius had none of his own.
Why didn't Apollo help me?
It wasn't because Agamethus wasn't his child. If he cared about that, he wouldn't be trying to exchange his life for the demigod with him.
Why was I the exception?
Don't pray for me to bail you out Apollo shouted.
The Dark Oracle thrived on fear, generated it and encouraged it further. It opened the mind up further, made it more vulnerable.
Apollo's mind had flooded with fear the moment he realised his companion would be the one paying the price of their knowledge, but it was rigid, almost under control. Far too much control.
The fear had leaped, flashed like lightning as he shouted those words.
Trophonius didn't think his father even noticed, but he did. The Dark Oracle did.
Apollo spoke. His voice was one of his greatest powers, and it gave advice, gave recommendations and commendations. It got Trophonius and Agamethus one of the greatest honours they could have had, secured their future as renowned architects.
Ask me for advice, his words said then, beneath the rage. Don't ask me to do things.
A lightning-flash of fear.
An answer.
Even gods had limits. The Dark Oracle had learnt that over the years.
It wasn't a good answer. It meant nothing, didn't douse even a flicker of the rage and betrayal that Trophonius felt, because Apollo could have done more. The Dark Oracle knew that, too. Neither of them cared for excuses and reasons, not with the blood of Agamethus forever staining his palms long after his physical palms had ceased to exist. It changed nothing.
But it was an answer. Finally, finally, Trophonius had an answer to the questions that had haunted him for an eternity.
Finally, the Dark Oracle's purpose had been fulfilled. It was time to go.
The end came quickly, once he shooed his father and the maybe-dying girl away from his cavern and into the waiting arms of the Blemmyae. After an eternity of waiting it hurtled towards him in a ball of fire and cascading rocks, dashing the darkness of the Dark Oracle into nothing and parroting the end of Agamethus, all those years before.
Trophonius unravelled, wisps of darkness separating and fading as everything fell down around him, the way he should've died, the way he was finally dying.
His consciousness spread thin, stretched and scattered like the darkness and the rocks that fell. He sought nothing, had no questions left to ask – Agamethus will follow soon, the Dark Oracle whispered to him, a reassurance in their final moments – but still his father and the girl came into his awareness.
She was still half-dead and dying a little more with every breath she took. Apollo was stuck, trying to defend both of them from Blemmyae that wanted them both dead. It was pathetic to see, a kick that wouldn't do much from a feeble, mortal body.
It would be amusing if they fell there, dying the same way he and Agamethus had died long ago, ignored and doomed. It was tempting.
More tempting was the thought of one-upping his father, for doing the thing Apollo had turned away from. Of leaving Apollo forever in a debt he couldn't repay, and another mystery to spiral around in his mind when things were quiet.
He didn't have much strength left, but he had enough, for this last act. The stone ceiling of the underground lake cracked exactly over the flailing Blemmyae, plunging it into its depths and killing it instantly.
Don't say I never helped you, Father, he hissed silently, despite knowing Apollo would never know for certain if it was a coincidence or not. Compared to the conundrum of the little girl it was hardly a deep mystery, but it satisfied him, regardless.
One last act, one last piece of pettiness at the father he could, would never forgive, and he faded away.
Thanks for reading!
Tsari
