Zeus sat up straighter. His voice caught. “The box…”
“Yes, Father,” she said with grim satisfaction. “Pandora’s Box.”
FIFTEEN
LOST IN THE BLINDING SAND, Kratos had no idea where to go.
His eyes watered so hard that he might have been swimming in the sea, were it not for the grit in his mouth and the way the dust filled his nose. Kratos put his head down and slogged forward. He was keenly aware that there were an infinite number of wrong directions, and only one right one. He hoped.
He could not know if there even was a right direction to walk.
The Oracle had summoned the visions that haunted his nightmares. The revulsion at what she had seen in his head had been writ plain upon her lovely face. He found it all too easy to imagine that she might have decided a man as corrupt and evil as he knew himself to be was best taken forever from the company of humankind. She might have sent him to this terrible desert to die.
Worse, she might have sent him to this terrible desert to not die.
He had heard tales of the punishments of the Titans in Tartarus. This endless desert, endless slash of sand, endless heat, and endless thirst seemed all too similar to such tales.
He cursed the gods as he trudged along, then added their oracles. If there had chanced to be a rift in the sandstorm through which he could glimpse the sun, he might have gauged the passage of time. Or, at least, he might have discovered whether time did indeed pass in this awful waste or if this had become his eternal fate. As it was, all he knew was growing heat and the ever-present wind laden with blinding sand.
Above the howl of the wind came a shrill keening. He reached for the blades but did not draw. Slowly turning, he aimed himself toward the sound and advanced warily. Ares could lay a hundred traps in such a storm. Worse, Kratos knew he might be lured away from his true destination. The only hope he had was to get a fix on the sound and find what it might be. The sound was the first hint he’d had of anything other than his own sorry soul trudging through the storm.
A bright light flashed once, twice, then shone to rival the sun. His stride lengthened. Whatever lay ahead had to be better than stumbling blindly through the desert. As he neared, he saw that the twin beacons were eyes in a statue of Athena.
“Athena,” he said angrily, staring into the goddess’s gray eyes. He felt abandoned, and she was only the most recent of the Olympian pantheon to use and then discard him. “Why have you brought me here?”
The statue spoke. “Kratos, the journey forward is perilous but one you must complete if you are to have any hope of saving Athens.”
“The Oracle spoke of Pandora’s Box. Can it be real?” “The box exists. It is the most powerful weapon a mortal can wield.”
“Can I defeat Ares with it?”
“With the box, many things become possible. And so it is hidden well, far across the Desert of Lost Souls.”
For a brief instant the clouds of roiling sand cleared, and Kratos saw to the horizon. As quickly as the window opened, it closed.
“There is safe passage through deadly sand, but only those who hear the Sirens’ song will discover it, for only the Sirens can guide you to Cronos, the Titan. Zeus has commanded him to wander the desert endlessly with the Temple of Pandora chained to his back, until the swirling sands rip the very flesh from his bones.”
“How do I find him?”
“Stay true to the song of the Siren, Kratos. Your journey begins here. Pray it leads you back to Athens-with Pandora’s Box. Remember this: Seek the summit for only death awaits you below. There is no escape without the box.”
“How do I resist the Sirens’ song?” he asked. Athena’s statue did not answer. He moved closer and saw the eyes were featureless orbs of marble. The spirit of the goddess had left-and had left him. He held down his rising wrath. Hints, nothing but hints!
HE GRITTED HIS TEETH and trudged on. It was not given to mortals to understand the whys and wherefores of the gods. That was what his mother used to tell him, back before he turned seven and was taken from her to begin his training. He had always assumed that it meant nothing more or less than “Hush and do as you’re told.”
As he set forth, he saw that the statue had changed. Now the right arm was raised, pointing into the desert. As he turned to follow that direction, he heard the faint keening once more. He stood a little straighter against the wind. Now he knew that sound to be the song of the desert Sirens.
Athena had set him on his path but, as usual, had not even hinted at how he might overcome the Sirens. He assumed she trusted him to figure it out for himself-or, if his cleverness was unequal to the challenge, he could always rely on his native savagery and the Blades of Chaos.
Odysseus had stopped up the ears of his crew with beeswax, while he remained chained to the mast of his ship. Kratos had nothing that would block the insistent, seductive sound. Even at this distance, he felt his heart quickening and his body responding to their call. If he succumbed, he would be their dinner.
As he walked along, Kratos clapped his hands over his ears, hoping to muffle their insidious song. That failed. He found himself walking faster, hunting through the sandstorm for the creatures, wanting them as he had never wanted another before.
The heavy flapping of wings caused him to look upward. Through the dust clouds he saw a harpy struggling to carry a dangling body in its claws. The monster veered and disappeared in the storm, but Kratos knew it took the body to the Sirens.
Once, on a battlefield outside Sparta, he had come across two Sirens and had ordered his men to fill them full of arrows. The Sirens had been dining on the dead of both sides, greedily gobbling up human flesh and smearing the blood all over themselves. Their death cries had cost him three expert archers. As the Sirens had died, they screeched at such a pitch that the men’s heads exploded. Kratos had ordered the Sirens’ carcasses to be carved into pieces so small that even crows would ignore them and then be flung to the four winds, so that the monsters’ shades would wander forever restless upon the earth.
He pressed his palms harder against his ears. The Sirens’ song grew ever more enticing. The wind slackened, and their evil song lifted and filled him with irresistible lust. Soon he stared across a sandy dune marked with wavy ripples from the wind. Beyond lay the ruins of an ancient temple-perhaps where the Sirens made their home.
And then he saw them: four tall, spectral creatures floating about the plaza before the ruined temple.
The Sirens’ seductive sound turned Kratos weak. Sheer sexual allure pulled him forward like a shade in Hades shuffling toward Charon’s boat. Every move he made was slow, unsteady, and increasingly uncoordinated. One of the Sirens had seen him now. Drawn by his mortal blood, she turned toward him, and her part in their song rose.
Kratos tried to draw his swords but found he could not. The Blades of Chaos were never meant for creatures so lovely. The Siren who’d seen him slithered down the slope, her face unbearably beautiful as she smiled. The sharp yellow teeth that rimmed her gaping maw didn’t bother him in the slightest. Lovely, she was so lovely, and she became more so as she neared.
“Come to me, lover. I want you as much as you want me.” Her voice carried the Siren’s song. Kratos knew the song for what it was-knew it sang the melody of his doom-but still he could not resist. With a mighty exertion of will, he forced one hand back to his shoulder, fingers brushing the hilt of one blade.
The Siren didn’t flinch. She knew well the power of her vile song. “There is no need, lover. Come to me and love me. I love you. I want to feel you in my embrace.”
His resistance faded as he went to the most beautiful woman in the world. His arms wrapped around her as he pulled her close. Kratos jerked as he felt a bite.