“Forensics analysis of the scene has yielded nothing yet, Your Worship,” an attendant reported. Zeus snorted and waved him away with one finger. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He ran his hands through the black curls of hair upon his head, brought them down, then toyed at twisting knots into his beard. His majordomo stood in patient silence, waiting upon the king.
Zeus finally broke the silence. “You were saying, Majordomo?”
“Preparations for tomorrow’s gathering are coming along. The nearest temples have delivered their tributes and the feast is already being prepared.”
Zeus nodded.
That was going well, at least.
“Are you sure that I should not be in contact wi-” the Majordomo anxiously began, but Zeus didn’t let him finish.
“Why bother? They’ll all be here tomorrow. In the meantime I’m sure Apate and Athena are already investigating, even without my explicit orders. I can manage this my–”
There he was, justifying himself to a subordinate. This wasn’t his predecessor posing him some hypothetical question, this was just a steward that served at
his whim now. Haughtily, Zeus stopped himself mid sentence. “Do not question me,” he smoldered. That was what he should’ve said from the start.
The Majordomo saw his lord’s consternation, understood it at once, and expertly bowed his head in supplication. He said nothing, and took a step back, and all was seemingly defused.
But then a man was flung before Zeus. The captive’s mouth was gagged, his hands cuffed behind his back, his terrified eyes pleading. Even with all of that, there were four guards flanking him. “This is the one, Your Worship,” one of them declared.
Those deep blue eyes of Zeus only stared impassively, his face blank. Then he suddenly chuckled; this fool before him was nothing. How could such an insignificant
fly think to defy the will of Olympus’ lord, his king?
“Well, let’s hear what you have to say for yourself,” Zeus smirked. “Take that gag off of him.”
He’d expected that the idiot would have at least put together a halfway decent story on the way to the palace – what else was there to do when you were arrested and dragged off? – or at least been able to muster up something of an excuse. But Zeus was disappointed; nothing but stammering and sputtering flew out of the demigod’s mouth. The king was about to open his own to hand out some fittingly terrible punishment, but then at long last the detainee managed, “Please! It was only my wife!”
Zeus raised an eyebrow at that. “Found your tongue? What part of my decree was not clear?” The man’s head was hanging, looking down onto the ground, so an exasperated Zeus strode forward to lift his chin. He wanted eye contact. “No word of the recent happenings regarding the death of the king’s predecessor is to be spoken to mortal ears,” Zeus quoted his own proclamation from earlier that day, “...on pain of
death.”
Zeus could only chortle again. “And still you what, babbled on and told your wife, was it? A priestess? Hmph!” The whole situation seemed preposterous, but at least it offered a chance to make an example. “Did you think that we would not be monitoring communications to the temples? Do you think that we’re all inept? That I’m some kind of a fool?” he demanded.
“No, no! Your Worship, I beg your forgiveness! I was, was, was not of sound mind!” he sobbed, “I was drunk, I did not think. Never would I think such thoughts of you..!”
On and on he went. Zeus had no ears for it; a dozen grisly methods of torture flashed through his mind as fitting punishments, but none had any real appeal to him. When he was younger, just a mere shadow of the late Zeus, he’d imagined moments like this a hundred times a day. How spectacular his justice would be! How terribly they’d fear his wrath! Instead it seemed that not even the drunkards possessed a healthy fear until they were on their knees before him, and on the first miserable day of his rule he was already weary of issuing reprimands and punishments to useless imbeciles.
So finally, he allowed himself to break that implacable look chiseled onto his face and to instead show a wide smile. He could afford to be merciful, at least this once. He was in the mood for it. Sometimes kindness and restraint left a more lasting memory than the crack of any whip.
“Enough,” he silenced the man – no, the
demigod of Olympus, for that’s what this person was. Zeus patted the supposed drunkard on the head. “Your misconduct here was a breach of my direct order, and it could have had disastrous effect upon the order of the realm. Nonetheless, your king has taken pity on you, and so you are forgiven.”
The drunken idiot’s red eyes opened wider than a child’s, as though he couldn’t believe what he had just heard. “Th-thank you, my lord,” he eventually piped out. Zeus was still smiling widely, a beautiful, charming, brotherly beam. Slowly, nervously, the man’s own face grinned to match. “But what happens now?”
“Now? Hmm, nothing. Well, I suppose that first I ought to have you freed of your bondage.”
Zeus flicked a finger, and the guards saw his order done. They were disciplined enough for their faces to hide their shock, but the eyes were windows to the soul, and they betrayed all. The men's disbelief was amusing, in a droll way.
“So tell me: what is your name?” Zeus casually asked as he reached one hand into a pocket.
“Ambrus,” the demigod breathed. He still couldn’t believe his luck. “Thank you again, yo-”
A wave of Zeus’ hand stopped his thanks. “Mistakes happen. What matters is that we never repeat them, and we accept responsibility for them. I’m sure that you will not do this again,” Zeus teased, “and well, it seems as though you’re taking responsibility for your foolishness. Truly, there’s nothing to thank me for.” From the pocket he’d been reaching into, Zeus procured a small white-gold object.
“So, Ambrus,” the king echoed. “That name is fitting for an Olympian. It means eternal or something along those lines, doesn’t it? Immortal! So what strange fancy compelled you to marry some primitive mortal? I couldn’t imagine any girl so beautiful as to be worth trekking down there through the muck to see every time.”
“Her hair is the color of the dawn,” Ambrus dreamily whispered. “I was just…struck. It’s hard to explain, Your Highness.”
“Struck by a heavy club over the head when you were young?” Zeus japed. Now even the guards were laughing. Even Ambrus laughed along. “Fortunately for you, I’m a married man, else I might have had an eye out for this vixen! Hair beautiful enough to seduce an Olympian! It’s hard to imagine.”
Zeus had unfolded the baton into his scepter. He noticed a tiny speck of gore somewhere on it and groaned slightly; the thing was supposed to have been sanitized after they’d pulled it out from the old Zeus’ visceral puddle where it’d lain that morning. But after pressing a few subtle buttons, the metallic surface came aglow with light. A holographic display showed the globe of Hellas. The Lord of the Skies glanced to the Majordomo. “Where?” he intoned. It was easier to use I.R.I.S. to translate the understanding of a location, so the dutiful steward was silent, merely blinking with concentration as he sent the thoughts over. “Ah, there,” Zeus said a moment later, panning across the globe of light and zooming in to one particular place.
Realization was beginning to set in. “What are you doing?” Ambrus asked, suddenly nervous again. The holographic display was a topographical view of a very familiar fishing village upon the seashore.
“Correcting your error, of course,” Zeus explained. He contemplated how best to approach the problem. The workings of the system were arcane and the controls were little easier, but he’d seen the scepter in use many a time before, and furthermore retained a fair few of his predecessor’s memories concerning the damned thing… he negotiated a few more scrolling menus, selecting a targeting point for the massive laser arrays in orbit. Enormous amounts of energy were channeled and focused upon the atmosphere above the sea, heating patches of sky. In other places, lasers fired into the atmosphere at different wavelengths created a resonant effect; through massive-scale application of Doppler cooling, other regions were rapidly cooled. The sudden temperature differential generated strong winds.
“You’re going to destroy their whole village?!” Spittle flew from Ambrus’ mouth, and he hurled himself at Zeus, but the soldiers intercepted him.
“No less.” Zeus pressed a button on the holographic display, and platforms in low-orbit precision-dropped pods designed to seed clouds through the dispersal of silver iodide into the atmosphere.
“I-I only told my wife!” Ambrus was still struggling against the soldiers. One of them lost patience and gave him a sharp kick to the back of the knee, knocking him prone.
Zeus answered with idle conversation. “What
was her name?” He made sure to subtly emphasize that one word:
was. A few parameters still needed tweaking. Zeus hadn’t bothered with refined numbers or calculations, he was merely using guesswork, following his gut. It looked like he’d overestimated how much energy was necessary. That was rather unfortunate; the resulting tempest would be quite large, and it might cause some collateral damage. With a sigh, he began scaling back, throttling a few of the weather control instruments.
Ambrus hadn’t said anything in a few moments, he realized. So he looked down from the holograph to see the demigod gasping for air.
“Oh, let him breathe,” the king absentmindedly ordered the guard crushing his neck. Ambrus only took two sharp breaths before his pleading began anew.
“Your Highness! She won’t tell anyone else!”
With the slightest hint of a grin, Zeus scoffed and dismissed the wishful thought. “That’s not a risk I’m willing to take.” The rain was already beginning. Soon it’d escalate to a torrential deluge, and for all the hapless denizens of that village prayed, they were already doomed. The monsoon would inundate the whole area, and more likely than not the flooding would wash everything into the sea and leave behind not even a trace of the hamlet, unless a few of the little huts had stone floors or solid foundation. Dark clouds were quickly obscuring the view from S.I.H.T. and ruining the holographic view. Soon there wouldn’t be anything left to see. One hut had its thatch roof blown off.
“She’s a priestess! She serves us!”
“Most heresies begin among the priesthood, you know. While the other mortals toil, the clergy laze about in our shrines and temples with little to save reflect upon our every word. Reflect upon it, and occasionally question it. And then they talk to one another, and a single errant thought, a single discordant tale, finds itself turning into a whole heresy. From there, things get messy, chaotic, and bloody indeed.” Zeus lectured, “Still, I suppose you have a point – she
did serve us, so perhaps she deserves some consideration. If you can spot her among all the other ones running about on the hologram, I’ll see if I can smite her with lightning – a quick, clean death.”
Of course the demigod wouldn’t, or couldn’t, bear to look at the holographic image anymore. Zeus had been hoping to have a chance to practice his aim with the targeted lightning, but alas! He supposed just about any target would do, so he idly messed with the controls. It was hard to hit an exact target; he mostly just succeeded in setting a few huts aflame. As in for Ambrus, by this point desperation had become despair, so Ambrus only heaved and sobbed. He was in a sorrier state than when he’d first been dragged in fearing for his life.
“Oh, have cheer, dear Ambrus,” Zeus nearly crooned. “You’re still pardoned, forgiven by your king. Nothing will be done to you. It’s unfortunate that the whole settlement must still be destroyed, but it’s just a natural consequence of these events. In a sense,
you killed them because you couldn’t keep your silence.”
He paused so that the gravity of that could sink into Ambrus, for
that had been the crack of the whip. “Knowledge of my predecessor’s death spreading through the mortal realms is unacceptable. If it reached the great cities there would be rioting, schisms, holy wars, and through all of that mayhem thousands would have to die. Perhaps tens or even hundreds of thousands, all on your conscience. Fortunately we caught this situation in the bud, while it was just a minor little mishap, before the unseemly tale managed to spread like a malignant tumor… before it grew out of hand.” The smiling Zeus pat Ambrus on the shoulder. “You might normally worry that the High Pantheon would be…
agitated if your recklessness leads to the destruction of their holy places, but there was only what, one or two in this village? Whoever the shrines were dedicated to, whoever your wife served – did you tell me her name? Oh well, I suppose it doesn’t matter now -- I’m sure that this time, those gods won’t even notice.”
Zeus figured a tsunami was warranted too, for good measure, so he programmed one of them before he finally finished the task at hand and folded up the scepter. It was best to be absolutely sure to leave no survivors; a strong man could sometimes climb up into a tree and outlast a mere flood, but a big enough wave could sweep away even the trees. He looked over to a heaving, writhing Ambrus, who the four guards were straining to keep pinned on the ground. “I suppose you’ll need a new wife, once this one is washed away. I also know that sentiment all too well!” Zeus leaned down over the drunkard, and mused, “There’s plenty more with coppery hair. I’m sure you’ll even manage to find a better one, Ambrus, given time. And if you ever despair at that, just remember your name and what it means; up here, we have all the time in the world! But down below, they’re practically just lumps of clay. Even the lowliest of us is worth ten thousand of them. Contemplate that. Remind yourself that nothing important was lost, if the tragic happenings of this day should ever trouble your conscience.”
He gestured for the wretch to be dragged back out of the palace compound, then began folding up his scepter once again. As if nothing had happened, the Majordomo told him, “Your Highness, GULA reports that its analysis is nearing completion.”
“There truly is no time for a king to rest,” the Lord of Olympus mused. “Well, we’d best go visit our favorite machine.”
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