Omega (18 page)

“
Your first trial awaits,”
Adonis said. “My master has given me your tasking.”

A trial didn’t sound that bad. If anything,
it sounded easy. I knew myself well enough to believe I could
withstand anything.

“
After the trials, I get
my powers and I can stop the Wars, right?”

“
If the Triumvirate wishes
it.”

“
Like I care if they do!
Ten million people have died this year. The Oracle helps
people.”

“
The Oracle obeys her
masters.”

“
No.” I shook my head. “I
don’t care what they want. I’m going to do what’s right. Send the
gods home and free the people.”

“
You think you have a
choice.”

I hated it when he said something like that.
The only way to uncover exactly what was going on was to face these
trials and come out on the other side an official Oracle. Whatever
this test consisted of, it couldn’t be that bad. I was trained for
everything and I had the additional motivation of knowing I could
save the world.

I picked up the teddy bear. “You stay here,”
I said sternly. “Hey, why do you have this?”

Adonis’ cold glare was his only
response.

“
Whatever. Where is the
first trial?” Propping up the stuffed animal where it could see the
television, I stood and went as close to Adonis as I
dared.

He tilted his head towards the entrance to
the apartment. “Courtyard.”

“
It’s … here?”

“
Yes. But first …” His
eyes went to the bear and lingered. “… first you have been blessed
by Mnemosyne.”

Mnemosyne. The goddess of memory. Excitement
rushed through me. “What does that mean? I meet her? She returns my
memories?”

“
You’re the brave fool. Go
find out.”

Intrigued yet certain he was setting me up
for something quite awful, I went to the door.

“
You’ll need this,” he
called after me.

Turning, I caught the sheathed hunting knife
he tossed me. “Thanks. How long does it take for her to return my
memories?”

“
Do I look like a
god?”

“
Yeah, but …” Hearing my
response, I groaned. “Never mind. I’ll go see the goddess then to
the courtyard.”

He stood stoic and still, hands crossed in
front of him. I was getting no information out of him, but at least
he hadn’t reacted to my comment about him looking like a god.

A trickle of red seeped from one of his
nostrils. “Nosebleed,” I said.

He touched it gingerly then rested his
knuckle on his temple temporarily.

“
You have a headache?” I
asked, sensing the strange weakness in him I’d witnessed in the
courtyard. A man this strong didn’t seem susceptible to the
headaches I got with my fall sinus infections.

“
Not your
concern.”

“
Peppermint helps. Or, you
could …” My eyes swept over the couch again. “I thought I put it up
on the cushion.” His teddy bear was lying on its head on the floor.
Crossing to it, I plucked it up and replaced it, this time in a
corner. “Stay! Your daddy has a headache and can’t pick you
up.”

“
You are the most bizarre
person I’ve ever met,” Adonis said. “Is there any sense in there at
all?”

I shook my head at him and returned to the
door. “See you in a few,” I said. This time, I didn’t hesitate but
opened the door and stepped into the hallway.

Or … more accurately, into a forest. I
stopped in place, startled, and stretched out one hand towards the
side of the hallway I should’ve been able to feel, if this were a
mirage.

Nothing. A warm breeze swept the scents of
flowers and earth by me, and pine needles rustled far overhead. I
started to turn to see if I could still see Adonis.

The forest surrounded me on all sides. The
door had vanished. As far as I could tell, I’d stepped into a
different world.

Could be stranger,
I told myself. “If my trial were surviving the
woods, I’d be set!” But … supposedly, I wasn’t here for my trial. I
was here to find a goddess who held my memories.

I started into the forest.
And then I glimpsed it through the foliage. A wall stretching from
the earth towards the heavens, made of what appeared to be
concrete.
Different world or somewhere else
in my world?

Eager to see if what the news said was true,
I headed in that direction.

Know thyself

–
Thales

The wall was sheer with no stairs, doors or
ladders with which to scale it. After trotting back and forth along
a kilometer stretch, I rested my hands on it. It was cool to the
touch, and my palms came away chalky.

Not concrete. Not stone.

I had no idea what the material of the wall
before me really was, though I was grateful it appeared to be
porous and more prone to chipping than say, marble. I retreated to
the forest. I had a knife and the forest to supply me with
materials to help me scale it.

Because I was meant to. The woods extended
in all other directions with no end, and yet, I was drawn only to
the wall. I gathered some moss, flexible branches from saplings and
four chubby sticks the length of my forearm.

“
Piece of cake!” I sang to
myself, thrilled Mnemosyne thought to challenge me to a game of
survival. I’d spent years learning from Herakles and was eager to
put my knowledge to good use and maybe even impress a
goddess.

Beneath the warm, afternoon sun, I set to
work creating the tools I’d need to scale the wall. The rope took
me several hours to create, and I went back twice to the forest for
more saplings and moss until I’d braided a cord about two meters in
length. Setting it aside, I carved points into one end of the fat
branches and then spent a few grueling moments starting a fire with
the first point. I rubbed it into the channel I’d created fast and
hard, rotating it as I went. My goal wasn’t a fire but to help
crystalize the points of the branches, to make them harder than
wood, so they stood a chance against the wall.

Glancing at the sun, I sat back once I was
done with all four.

“
Definitely not the real
world,” I observed. The sun hadn’t moved despite the hours of work
I put into my preparations. The breeze was steady and warm, the
sound of pine needles brushing one another soothing and pleasant.
Any other time, I might not want to leave such a peaceful
place.

Shaking the thoughts away, I rose with my
tools and crossed to the wall. I stretched upward and dug a tiny
hole with my finger, placed the point of one branch into it, and
then hammered it in with another. The branch went in with some
resistance, causing a spray of chalky dust to rain down on me.

I sneezed and tugged at it. It held.

Pleased to discover my plan was going to
work, I tied the rope around me, placed the belt and knife sheathe
around my hips and tucked the extra stakes in the back of my
pants.

I began the arduous climb, using one stake
to balance my feet and two to haul me up. With no worry about
running out of room on a wall that ran for kilometers in each
direction, I ascended at a diagonal, stair stepping my way with
excruciating slowness, careful not to move too far out of reach of
the branch at my feet so I could wriggle it free and move it. I was
careful to anchor my rope to the highest stake as I went.

Foot, hand, hand, foot. I made a song of the
climb. My enthusiasm held out until I began to wear down
physically. Sweat rolled off my face and tickled my neck and chest.
I took a breather, wishing I’d thought to drink a liter or two of
water before I started.

I looked down and up to gauge my progress.
“This is … good,” I said aloud. “I think.” I was far from the
ground but didn’t seem any closer to the top of the wall. I rested
for a moment. The sun still hadn’t moved, but I was wearing down.
If I had to guess, I’d have said it was close to my normal bedtime
around nine in the evening. I had no food and no water, and I was
stuck in the middle of a wall. “I really wish I had a …” I grunted
and stretched to bury the branch in its next hold. “…
hippolectryon. It could fly me to the top and then I could eat it
for dinner.” I laughed at the idea of the horse-chicken creature
from Greek mythology. Herakles never cared for the monsters, but I
found them fascinating.

I soon returned my full focus to making sure
I didn’t misplace any hand or foot and end up plunging to my death
before I’d seen what was on the other side of the wall.

Just as I was beginning to wonder how long
it would remain midday in this odd place, the sun plunged towards
the horizon and disappeared. Within seconds.

Startled, I twisted as far as I dared to see
the sky. I was half a kilometer above the tops of the forest. A
bright moon worthy of the goddess Selene herself was nestled into
the bosom of Nyx. Stars glimmered around it.

“
Herakles will never
believe me when I tell him about this place,” I murmured. The moon
kept my climb from being impossible, but it was far more difficult
to place the branch tips well without squinting to see. I took one
and began chipping away at a new spot, using the now dulled tip to
create a small hole in the wall.

Tap, tap, tap. I squinted to see if it was
deep enough only to realize the sound continued.

Tap, tap, tap. Three more times it went. I
froze and then shook my head, sensing I was close to
exhaustion.

I tapped twice more with the dulled point
and stretched back, ready to plunge the branch into the concrete
with what strength remained.

Tap, tap.

I lowered my arm. More than my exhaustion
was at work here.

I tapped the wall again, and more tapping
answered. Forcing my tired mind to focus, I swiveled my head to my
right, the direction the sound came from, and gasped.

A hippolectryon was pecking the wall with
its beak. With the body of a horse and the legs, head and tale of a
chicken, it had wings and was uglier than I expected. I stared at
it, wanting to dismiss the possibility it existed, before recalling
that I was in a magic place where the sun stayed overhead for over
twelve hours and then dived across the sky to set in the time it
took me to sneeze.

“
You’re smaller than I
expected,” I said to the creature not two meters away from me. It
was the size of my foot. “Too little to eat. Too little to carry me
on your back.”

The creature looked at me, as if waiting for
me to tap again. I did more out of curiosity than anything else. It
pecked in response.

And then it hit me. The
creature wasn’t flying. It was
walking
up the wall on spindly
chicken feet.

“
How in Hades is that
possible?” I muttered. I tapped the wall beside me. The creature
tapped back, moving closer as it did. When it was within reach, I
picked it up to study its feet.

It squirmed with a clucking sound, but in
the moonlight I could see its feet weren’t magical or suction cups
or anything else. I dropped it away from the wall, unconcerned
about it falling since it had wings. Rather than drop downward, the
hippolectryon landed on the wall again.

With some caution, I drew one leg up from
the branch it was on and rested my knee against the wall. My
balance shifted to it, as if gravity itself were changing around
me, and I felt the heavy sense of lying on my stomach.

I lifted my second foot into place next, not
about to lose my death grip on the two branches preventing me from
falling. With incredulity making my heart sprint, I cautiously sat
up. I was kneeling, bent over my handholds.

The hippolectryon began pecking again and
walked on, as if bored now that I wasn’t playing with it
anymore.

Disorientated, I released one hand then the
other and risked a look in the direction that had been down seconds
before.

The forest was where it had been, and my
stomach lurched at the idea I was about to fall.

But I didn’t. I breathed deeply and released
my final grip on the branches. The hippolectryon was two meters
away again, pecking and pacing.

With some apprehension, I stood. I didn’t
topple into the forest, and the wall beneath me didn’t give out.
“Ha!” I couldn’t help the baffled laugh. “I’ll take it. I’m sick of
climbing. Thanks for rotating the world for me, Atlas.” Wrenching
my remaining foot and handholds out of the wall, I tucked all but
one into my cargo pockets and clenched the fourth, in case the
world’s gravitation changed on me again.

I began walking then trotting up the wall,
towards the top, followed closely by a hippolectryon that sometimes
ran, sometimes flew to keep up.

“
You have an interest in
what’s over the wall?” I asked, slowing. It landed beside me
without answering. The distance to the top of the wall was much
greater than I expected, a full kilometer and a half past the point
where I began walking. Finally, after fifteen minutes, I saw the
edge of the top come into view and silently admitted I’d never had
made it if I had to climb all that way.

Readying my stake in case I was about to
plunge down the other side, I knelt and leaned over the edge. The
top of the wall was about a meter wide. I tapped on the surface,
waiting for the hippolectryon to test it out.

The creature went. He didn’t fall. Just …
stood there.

“
Okay. Please do it again,
Atlas,” I begged the Titan quietly. Blowing out a breath, I lay
down on my stomach and crept over the top. My stomach dropped, and
the same lurching sensation returned as gravity changed around me
once again. “I’d think this was a dream if I didn’t know I was
awake.”