14 - Honest Intentions

"So I released those thunderbolts with a mighty shout!" The statue's voice rang all around them, "And wham! The titans fell to their prison beneath the waves! It was excellent craftsmanship, if you ask me - Hephaestus has always had a gift."

"Yes sir!" Hermes replied uneasily. Things weren't okay, that was clear enough. They would have to talk later, hash out a real tête-à-tête, really get to the bottom of Zeus' misplaced aggression right now, but that would have to wait. Zeus didn't like being interrupted mid-smite, and if you wanted the guy to listen you generally had to play things on his terms. He sighed, and hidden behind his dark glasses his eyes fell on Ganymede.

"Hey!" Hades' sharp voice cut through Zeus' story. The statue turned with a rumble, and the king of the gods gave a delighted laugh.

"I wish it was mutual," Hades said. Cup held in one tight fist, he entered the Temple of Zeus in a slow roll of smoke. Tendrils of soot and ash choked the entranceway and began a snuffing crawl towards them.

"Oh, don't be such a sore loser," Zeus replied with a playful pout, "After all! It's not like that thing - " he nodded to the cup, " - was even yours to begin with! Now..." With a wave of his hand, he gestured to the wide, flat offering bowl at his feet. "Let's trade."

Zeus' brows raised, and with a haughty puff of his chest he declared, "Beneath you? I didn't think anything was beneath you!"

Hades' eyes finally twitched to Ganymede. By now his struggling had waned, and though the kid's exhausted anger still seeped out from between Zeus' knuckles, he could only give the occasional kick or shift of his shoulder. Loathing still contorting his features like a gargoyle, Hades looked back to Zeus and replied, "Some things are, actually."

Pain and Panic skittered in through one of the openings in the roof used to vent the smoke of sacred fires, their claws leaving a reptilian clicking behind them. "This is stupid," Panic muttered as they passed over the carvings in the ceiling, slinking from shadow to shadow as Zeus' voice rumbled beneath them. "Zeus is gonna turn is into mincemeat when he catches us!"

Pain positioned himself at the top of a pillar, adjusting his hind legs like a toad about to jump. "If he catches us."

Ganymede heard the argument as it floated down and lifted his eyes to the ceiling. All at once he understood. Hades hadn't come here to trade; he'd come here to scam Zeus out of all the chess pieces. Seeing their tumble ignited a new round of indignation in the pit of his stomach and he tried to free himself enough to scream at them to pull themselves together.

"So just put it in here, huh?" Hades slunk to the offering bowl as it seemed to sing with reflected light. The flames from the torch brackets flickered down the rim of both bowl and cup, thick and opulent and blushing with modest pride. The entrance to the temple, now choked entirely by smoke, stood so blackly that it seemed as though Hades had brought the Underworld with him. But the smoke rolled to a stop, churning over and over itself in stasis, before it could reach the foot of the statue.

"That's the ticket," said Zeus. Miserably, Hades held the cup over the golden disk. Then he spied Hermes.

"Oh hey! If it isn't Zeus' favourite brown-noser!" Hades drew back his hand and noted the impatient hunger in Zeus' eyes. Hermes fluttered in concern. "How'd it feel, following orders in Crete? You have fun? Get a bump in your monthly check for that one?"

"Ha! When better?" Hades tossed the cup back and forth, He caught a frantic movement out the corner of his eye - the two imps now clawing at each other above Zeus' head. Eyes alighting with rage, he slapped a grin onto his face and kept talking. "I mean, I'm here, you're here, and we've got the big man himself right here too!" He spread his arms in a wide and welcoming gesture to the statue of his brother. "Come on, Zeus-y! Why don't you tell the guy why you really want this cup so bad?"

Hermes' wings dropped, and he turned to the statue's head. Ganymede tried to free himself enough to object, but could do nothing more than give a muffled scream. Zeus turned to Hermes with gentle paternity. "Well you see, lad..."

"You no-good jerk!" Pain shot from the ceiling and into the statue, followed by all of Panic's claws and teeth. The statue threw his hands up in shock, launching Ganymede across the room.

Ganymede hit the back wall and shattered into pieces. Buried in the smoke, coughing and spluttering, he could see nothing but burning shadows and hear nothing but screaming arguments as he scrambled to pull himself back together.

"Get that cup, Hermes!" A golden spark flew through the haze and Hades let out a squawk of outrage. Ganymede pulled on his last leg, screwed his foot into place, and backed exhaustedly against the wall.

The scrambling silhouettes of Pain and Panic twisted up the smoke like thick sheets of cloth, and though he couldn't make out what they were yelling he could hear the seething dislike in their voices. Over their heads he heard the sound of Hades roaring, "You idiots! Pull it together!" A burst of flame marked exactly where he stood, and for the first time, as Zeus' laugh shook the rafters, Ganymede realised where the ache in his chest really came from.

Was this all there really was? He sank to his knees, staring into the smoke, as before him stretched two eternities; one on Olympus, tyrranized and tortured, the other spent in the darkness of the Underworld surrounded by bitter, angry, frightened creatures who all hated each other. Nobody here was good, nobody here was kind, and he was so sick of fighting his own battles, losing them, and having nobody to cry to for help. He hugged his knees to his chest as hopelessness swelled up in his stomach and tears - again, always those damned tears - scalded his eyes.

Thumping his fist against the wall, hiding from the sounds of outrage and thunder, he spoke out loud just so the world would be forced to register his complaint. "Why can't anyone here just be nice to each other?!" He spat the word like it was cursed.

The burning brackets of the temple, barely visible through the smoke, flared to life. Pressing himself back, his eyes wide, they flashed so brightly that they bombed out Ganymede's vision - and yet the chaos didn't falter, as if nobody else had noticed. The flash faded, his eyes adjusted, and there before him in the smoke he saw that the flares had moved.

A string of lights floated in midair. He recognised them; they were the stars that had shone in the sky the night the Titans attacked Olympus.

Then a tiny light, at first only a pinprick, glimmered into existence in the very centre. His eyes froze on it as it grew larger and brighter, as his pupils tightened against the atomic brightness. The smoke surrounded its rays like the sun through a cloudbank, and filtered its beams into a horizontal stripe.

A cross shone before him, showering him in starlight. He threw an arm across his eyes before it could shine any brighter.

"Me?!" Ganymede snapped even as he curled against the wall. "I've got enough problems right now!" The smoke had blocked out the other sounds. They were still there - whatever fight was happening still raged on - but they were happening in a whole other world. Hades' shrill and angry voice couldn't quite penetrate the veil and the booming voice of Zeus glanced off it entirely. It all dampened down until his ears rang with nothingness.

His arms dropped from his eyes. "You!" He scrambled forwards. "You're the silence!" A shiver ran down his spine as he pushed himself with great caution back onto his feet. "Who are you?" Come on, you can tell me!" Glancing around at the fog - the world now void of anything but himself, he added with an ingratiating and dishonest grin, "Frankly you might be my last option!" As the silence settled around him, he realised he was the only one yelling.

"What?" Ganymede flustered, "That's back in the Underworld! What're you-" The billowing smoke drew back like a lapping wave, and he saw the wooden curl of his shepherd's crook lying on the moasic. His stomach flipped over in shock, but still he snatched it up. He hugged it to his front and stared back at the cross.

Some membrane inside of him broke open, and emotion - longing, a loneliness so deep that it left wreckage in its wake - flooded up from some tiny, secret place inside of him. The cross looked at it, he could feel the entity witnessing it with a patience he didn't know how to read - was it tolerance? Was he boring it?

His face crumpled up as tears filled his eyes, then poured hotly down his face. "What do you want from me?!" His heart clutched inside of him in hope and pain, in recognition and in total desolation. He would have given anything to have someone standing beside him, so he wasn't talking to this new and unknown power all by himself.

A rumble ran through his body. "My flock?!" His pupils shrank down to pins and the rage surged forth. "That's not my job anymore! I did the nice thing! I did kind and brave and peaceful and all I have to show for it is a bunch of dead sheep, dead dogs and an Olympian-sized headache!" Brandishing his crook, he advanced on the cross and shoved his thumb against his chest. "I never did anything wrong!" The tears streamed down his cheeks. "I was a good shepherd! And what good did that ever do me?!" The cross said nothing as the ache of loneliness cracked through him. Gripping onto his crook, the tears became a bleating he couldn't keep down, and then it was bearing his weight.

"You weren't there! Nobody has ever been there!" He sobbed furiously against the wood. "So what makes you think I'm gonna listen to you, huh?!"

"Tend to your flock," the light repeated itself in peace, as if it already knew that he would. Ganymede growled a furious, bestial, wet growl, but then it caught in his throat, and he could no longer form words. He broke down into a wail, into the howling shriek of the last of the Furies, but something sat with him in his heart and grieved with him. The light said nothing, but it mourned with him as the venom purged. He was bathed in it as the shattered pieces that the gods had left behind began to pull themselves back together - not seamlessly, as if their damage had never existed, but still perfectly whole as if the light had soldered them all together by hand.

He could only cry for so long, though he wasn't sure how long it took. His howls became sobbing, his sobbing became weeping, and then his senses started to return. He sniffed and spluttered, and ran his arm across his eyes. The crook creaked as he held on to it, and both he and it swayed with the effort it took to keep him upright.

Then there was nothing left to do but keep going. As always, there was nothing left to do but keep going.

The smoke erupted. It sucked itself up into the air, dragging at his robe and hair, disassembling the vision of the cross and bringing all the sounds back in. He stumbled, dizzied by the shifting world, until a small object landed on his head.

"Ow!" he snatched it off the ground and turned it over in his hand. The angry cupcake - or skull - reflected the torchlight in a silvery way that it hadn't before. Unbidden, a squeak of laughter bubbled out of him - incredulous, annoyed, amused, and he clipped it back onto his tunic. Finally a new sound broke in - the Minotaur's voice had joined the chaos, and its attempts to free itself were shaking cracks into the ceiling.

"Where's that brat?!" he heard Hades shout through the fog as Zeus boomed overhead. He ran for him.

Grey claws snatched his arm and whipped him off his feet. He stumbled behind the hunched and outraged figure of Hades, whose teeth were gritted as tight as iron bars and his eyes stared as wide as the eyes of a monster. His wretched and impotent fury seethed from every lick of flame. Ganymede watched his moon-like profile and saw him properly for the first time.

The golden cup lay in the offering bowl, but before any attempt could be made to retrieve it, it dissolved into thin air. It reappeared, atom by atom, into the hand of Zeus - now fifty times the size and carved out of rock.

Zeus' laughter shook the rafters as the Minotaur's thrashing brought plumes of dust down around their heads. "Don't you worry, Hades!" he crowed with delight, "I'll be sure to arrange a family reunion just as soon as I can!"

Hades' fire leapt red, but Ganymede's eyes were already darting around the chamber. He noted the confusion of the Minotaur, its fear and blindness scattering its efforts to escape. He noted the chain and the unfortunate fact that Zeus' statue had been fixed structurally to the temple floor.

He dodged from beneath Hades' arm and raced for the Minotaur, his ears ringing with the sudden cry of alarm from the god behind him. He swung out his crook, hooked around the beast's neck and vaulted up onto its back. The Minotaur reared up with alarm, but Ganymede lodged his heels into its sides and urged it forwards.

Whether or not the bull understood him, it still rammed forwards. It did so with such ferocity that a crack bolted up the statue's ankle. Zeus let out a roar of indignation.

Ganymede pulled on his crook and the Minotaur stumbled backwards. The leash fell slack. Zeus fumbled to keep hold of the cup as it charged again, forced in the exact same, weakened direction by the jamming of the staff.

It slammed the end of the leash as fissures exploded up from the ground and tiles and carvings crumbled around their heads. Hades shot one down with a fireball as it dared land too close to him. Zeus leant down to grab the both of them, so figuring enough damage had been done, Ganymede cried out,

The Minotaur backed up again, charged, and the chain vanished in a puff of smoke. The Minotaur shot like a cannonball towards the doors as the Temple walls crumbled. Zeus hurled a falling column as Hades' retreating back.

"You'll pay for this, Hades!" he roared as his stone cracked apart, the throne split, as the head crumbled from the statue's shoulders, and as Hermes fled through one of the last remaining vents in the ceiling. The Minotaur galloped through the falling doors as its rider clung for dear life.

Ganymede and the Minotaur thundered together over the fresh grass. The air smelled of bright, wet magnolia, and as he cast his eyes upwards Ganymede noticed just how high the stars span. He had grown so used to the feeling of his heart pulling in, of it squeezing, retracting and guarding every beat, that it hurt to feel so much joy so quickly. Doom was on the horizon, they hadn't won anything but a few moment's grace, but the hills shone silver in the moonlight and he was still free. He reached down and scrubbed the Minotaur's shaggy neck with his fingertips. They were still free.

Eventually he brought the Minotaur to heel by pulling up on its jaw and it rolled to an uncomfortable stop. Shaking out its ears, Ganymede slipped back down onto the ground.

"Theeeere you go, buddy," he said, giving the creature's shoulder a hard pat. Then, after a second, he leaned closer to its ear and added, "Sorry about the hose."

Hades, his two sulking, moth-eaten minions in tow, crested the hill. Ganymede's expression lifted and, though he would go on to deny ever being so enthusiastic, he trotted over the grass to join him. Hades clapped him on the back hard enough to buckle his legs. "Nice going, kid! You couldn't have sunk his battleship harder!"

Before Ganymede could puff his chest, however, a cold front rolled over him, and both he, Pain and Panic were swallowed by a furious shadow.