The Phoinix: Age of Demigods (2 page)

Uproar ensued after Mot’s
declaration.

“How dare you tell us what we will
do!”

“Finally! A male god with a
brain.”

“The underworlds of this world will
witness a war they have never seen!”

Boom!

An explosion of a thousand
thunderbolts erupted through the room. Pillars swayed as gods
sought safety on the ground. The only gods left standing were the
six underworld lords. There were scorch marks on the floor, the
stone pillars were missing chunks, and smoldering holes decorated
the silk curtains.

“The Power seems to agree with my
decision,” said Mot, raising an eyebrow. “Now, let’s move
on.”

Mot’s tone dared the council to
question him. No one uttered a word against the Lords of the
Underworld. Finally, Aphrodite wiggled restlessly in her chair. Mot
sighed, waving a hand motioning her to speak.

“What should she look like?” asked a
giddy Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of Love, her curly blonde hair
bouncing with her enthusiasm.

“Always concerned with looks, aren’t
you, Aphrodite?” Loki called out after he fixed his
hammock.

“Silence, Loki,” warned Odin. “You
have caused enough trouble here. Do not make Mot deal with you once
more. Aphrodite is correct.” Odin bowed his head to the goddess
then stood to address the table. “If the vessel is to be a woman,
why not give her power over men? If she can subdue men with her
looks then more lives may be spared.”

“The child should have mortal blood.
Mortals have a love of life immortals will never understand,”
suggested Athena.

Thoth, the slender but tall Egyptian
god of balance wearing a headdress of a baboon head, jumped up and
sprinted to a sacred well across the room. He withdrew a silver
bucket of water and hurried back to the other gods. In one swift
movement, he tossed the water across the table.

The water streamed down from Thoth’s
end of the table to where Zeus sat at the head, forming a puddle
that met all edges of the table but did not drip off the side.
Thoth placed one finger in the water and an image emerged in the
ripples. As he swiped his finger side to side, different images
appeared. The images moved so quickly they were nothing but
colorful blurs.

“Here!” exclaimed Thoth. The images in
the water were of a man and a woman. “Meet, Tyreneas and
Arelia.”

“That’s my son!” shouted Ares,
violently tipping the chair backwards as he stood.

“And my daughter!” added Anath,
gripping the table so tightly her knuckles were white.

“Yes, yes. Now that you have claimed
your children, allow me to explain. A child of War and a child of
Love mate to create the perfect balance in one mortal being. All we
need to do is give the two demigods a push towards each other and
then we have our vessel for The Power. When we deem the vessel old
enough, we grant her The Power, making her immortal.” Thoth seemed
pleased with his plan.

“I’ll handle Tyreneas,” Ares stated,
folding his arms across his chest.

“Leave my daughter to me,” Anath said
in an annoyed tone.

* * *

Breanna, a young Etruscan
princess no older than five years old, convulsed on the bedroom
floor. Cool hands
firmly held
her warm
,
sticky forehead as her body shook
uncontrollably.

“
What’s happening to her!”
a woman cried out in the background.

“Brian, what’s going on? Use your
magic to heal her,” a man’s panicked voice demanded.

A soft blue hue filled the room. The
cool hands touching Breanna became hot, but returned to their cool
state when the blue light disappeared. “I can’t see into her mind.
Something is blocking me. She is beyond my power right now,” the
man with cool hands replied, stroking her silk brown
hair.

Breanna stopped convulsing and relaxed
under the soothing strokes from the cool hands. Her eyes fluttered
open and a calm, kind looking man with blue eyes smiled down at
her. His calmness quickly disappeared when he saw her usual bright
hazel eyes had changed to liquid gold.

The women in the background gasped at
the sight of the ill child.

“Who are you?” Brian
firmly asked, still holding Breanna’s head
. His hands trembled with fear, not because he was afraid of
the countless answers that it could be, but afraid to hear the
confirmation of what he already knew.

Breanna answered in a raspy dangerous
growl, “I am Elpis. Who in Tartarus are you?”

Chapter 2

Love and War

T
he War Council played their part in getting Tyreneas to
Phoenicia where he would meet Arelia. Ares convinced his son to
travel to the ancient city of Troy by promising wealth and glory.
With his father’s promise, Tyreneas immediately set sail with a
small army to the shores of Troy.

Poseidon crashed huge waves against
the Greek war ship to push them far south of Troy to Byblos, the
seaport of Phoenicia. Zeus sent the Greek harvest goddess, Demeter,
to spoil their food. Before long, Tyreneas and his men were
starving and desperate for port.

In Byblos, Anath met with her daughter
Arelia. “You have to watch the horizon for a Greek warship. The men
will need your help.”

Arelia picked seashells as she walked
along the seashore, waiting patiently for her mysterious Greek
ship. Finally, after several days, a Greek war ship sailed into
port. Arelia ran to greet the men but found them weak and barely
able to stand.

“Wait for me, I’ll bring food and
water,” Arelia said before rushing off to the market.

* * *

“
Thank you for your help,”
Tyreneas smiled as Arelia handed him a leather bladder of water.
His chapped lips cracked and bled.

Arelia tried to hide her blushing
cheeks beneath her curly blonde hair as Tyreneas gazed adoringly at
her. Even in his weakened state, Tyreneas was attractive. With his
scruffy dirty-blonde beard and aqua blue eyes, she could not help
but care for him as soon as they met.

“Are you able to stand?” Arelia asked
the soldiers while absentmindedly running her fingers through
Tyreneas’ hair.

The men nodded as they unsteadily
stood up to follow their savior back to her home.

* * *

“
Three months have passed,
Tyreneas. We need to get back to our quest,” one of the soldiers
pointed out. “We are strong enough now.”

“We’ve been strong enough,” added
another soldier.

“The map-maker has not finished his
drawings yet. We have at least two more days before the map is
complete,” Tyreneas informed his men.

“All he may need is a little incentive
to finish,” said another soldier as he picked up his dagger and
stabbed the air with a murderous look.

“Men coming from Troy speak of the
battle, Tyreneas. It is an epic war. We are missing our opportunity
for glory. Glory your father, Ares, promised. We should be bringing
pride and honor to our families, not sitting by like untrained
novices. Our ship is packed, we should leave,” argued
another.

“No harm will come to the old man and
we will wait until he is done. Am I understood?” Tyreneas glared at
his men, his tone final.

The men nodded, annoyed and
restless.

“How is Arelia?” a solider asked,
breaking the tension among the men.

Tyreneas lowered his head and
shrugged. “It’s been two weeks since our wedding. I do not
understand what is happening. The oracles refuse to give us
knowledge and the midwives have no answer.”

“I am fine, dear husband,” Arelia
waddled through the doorway to greet the men. She smiled, holding
on to her massive belly. In two weeks, she had grown to the size of
an eight-month pregnant woman.

“Look at you,” Tyreneas forced a laugh
to hide his fear. “You look like you swallowed a horse.”

Tyreneas helped his wife to a chair
and pushed a strand of curls out of her eyes.

“Please, I beg you, do not be so
frightened. The Kathirat have blessed us with a child. Do you not
hear their song every night? They visit us as swallows outside our
window,” said Arelia, smiling and rubbing her belly.

“Your Phoenician fertility goddesses
have a twisted way of giving blessings,” said a soldier, handing
Arelia a wooden cup of water.

“It is done!” an elderly man shouted
as he limped over to Tyreneas and handed him a rolled up
scroll.

Tyreneas unrolled it to reveal a
recently finished map with the ink slightly wet. Surprised at the
early delivery, he handed the mapmaker his payment. The men cheered
and snickered at Tyreneas for his earlier remarks about
waiting.

“All right, all right. We leave at
dawn,” announced Tyreneas. His men continued to cheer and pack food
for their journey to Troy.

* * *

That night a full Blood-Moon hung in
the sky, illuminating the seashore in crimson light. All was
silent: even the crickets were still.

Tyreneas could not sleep
and walked outside to clear his mind in the fresh sea air. The
silence
sent
chills through his
bones
, putting his senses on alert.
Something was wrong, and he did not want to find out what nature
seemed to be waiting for.

Suddenly, Arelia’s screams woke the
rest of the men. Tyreneas sprinted into their bedroom to find a
woman kneeling between Arelia’s legs.

“Get away from her, Anath!” Tyreneas
yelled, recognizing his mother-in-law as he reached for his sword.
He stopped at the sound of a baby crying. The woman turned to him,
revealing his beautiful baby girl.

Anath wrapped the baby in a blue silk
blanket and handed her to Arelia.

“Listen to me carefully. I will give
you a moment with your child but then I must take her. She belongs
to the gods now. She will play a great part in the history of your
world, as the savior of humanity,” Anath told the new
parents.

Tyreneas stood in front of his wife
and child, pointing his sword at Anath. “Get out of our house. Who
in Hades do you think you are, claiming our baby?”

A flash of red light lit up the room
as Ares appeared in front of Anath.

“Put your sword away, Son,” Ares
warned Tyreneas.

“You will not take my daughter, Ares,”
Tyreneas said through gritted teeth, his knuckles white from the
tight grip on his sword.

“You do not have a choice here. Our
appearance this night is merely out of respect for the fact you are
our children,” Ares casually replied.

Standing his ground
between the two gods and his family, Tyreneas growled, “I said you
will
not
be
taking my daughter.”

Anath sighed. “Enough of
this.”

Anath placed one hand on Ares’ bicep
to allow her to pass. Appearing apologetic, she made a crisp snap
of her fingers. From behind Tyreneas, Arelia wailed in anguish.
Before he could face his crying wife, he saw the bundle of blue
silk in Anath’s arms.

“Do not cry, Arelia. Your daughter is
the last hope for us all,” Anath looked down at Arelia
sympathetically. “I understand you had thought of naming her
Photine. However, her destiny has changed in my arms. She will be
named Elpis.”

Anath gave a sad smile to her daughter
and held Elpis close her chest. She vanished from the room leaving
Ares behind to deal with his son. Ares laughed at Tyreneas, whose
rage exceeded its capacity for containment. He placed one finger in
the middle of Tyreneas’ forehead and effortlessly pushed the 5’10”
Greek warrior to the floor.

“I can feel your rage,” Ares chuckled.
“It is good for the son of War to have such anger.”

“I will claim my daughter back,”
warned Tyreneas.

“You will do no such thing. Every day
she will grow a year older until the gods deem her beautiful and
wise enough to cease her aging. By the time you meet her again, you
will not recognize her as your own, but will bow down to her
power.”

“We will always recognize our child,”
cried Arelia.

“You two are so stubborn. I love it,”
Ares looked down at the pair laughing.

Tyreneas lunged at Ares with a
bloodcurdling war cry. He knocked the god to the ground and pushed
his blade against the god’s throat.

“Bre!
Breanna! Stop!
It’s me,” Ares’
panicked voice pleaded, using a name Tyreneas did not
recognize.

“I’ll kill you for taking my
daughter!” Tyreneas vowed, his voice feminine as the words escaped
his lips.

“It’s ok, Breanna you’re safe. Come
back to me.” Ares placed his large warm hands on either side of
Tyreneas’ face, gently stroking his cheekbone with his
bone.

Tyreneas’ senses were overwhelmed by
an abrupt change in scenery. The sweet smell of sea salt
accompanied by the humid sea air vanished, changing to an earthy
scent of rotting foliage and dirt. The bedroom lit with a red hue
from the Blood-Moon changed into thick, damp woods with the hum of
crickets and owls.