Chapter 46: The first and The last
Ethan took another step.
The moment Ethan’s boot touched the black stone floor of the enormous chamber behind the vault, the world behind him disappeared.
Not literally, of course. The doorway was still there, and the light in it, and the sound of the Chief calling his name, but it seemed to have receded to the far end of the world. It seemed to have grown far, far away in an instant.
Ethan slowly raised his eyes to take in the scope of the chamber, and he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
It was so vast, and yet so dark, that it seemed to swallow everything around him. Black stone stretched out in every direction, and as he looked down at the floor beneath his feet he could see that it had been polished to a high gloss. It reflected the faint white glow of his eyes.
Chains.
Chains. Hundreds of them, thousands of them. Each stretching across the chamber in every possible direction until they disappeared off into the dark above and below him. Some dangled loosely, while others were pulled taut. Ethan slowly raised his head.
"That’s..."
One of the chains was thicker than Ethan himself. Many were sunk deep into the stone of the floor, with cracks radiating from the point of embedment that had long since healed.
Others hung in mid-air, without any sign of support. Some were loose, dragging along the ground. But none of them were attached to anything. No pillars, no anchors, no supports of any kind. They were just there, as if the chamber had willed them into existence.
Behind him, the Chief shouted again.
"Soldier!"
Then... nothing.
A voice finally came. Ancient. Tired. Almost amused.
"So..."
Ethan’s eyes narrowed. The voice continued.
"He’s finally made another one."
As the voice continued to speak, Spark, clinging to the back of Ethan’s neck, seemed to freeze in place. For a moment Ethan wasn’t even breathing as he stared into the darkness of the cavern.
"Another son of Zeus..."
The darkness opened up to reveal two huge eyes. They weren’t angry, they looked sad.
"How unfortunate."
Ethan stared into the darkness. Two eyes stared back at him. They were enormous for the creature in front of him, but that wasn’t because of its size. No, these eyes belonged to something that had been awake for far too long, and had seen far, far too much.
"Who are you? No, what are you?" Ethan demanded, his grip on his weapon tightening.
The figure wasn’t going to answer Ethan’s question directly. Instead,
"Hahahahaha!"
it began to laugh, a hollow, sorrowful sound that held no amusement in it. The laughter was so absent of joy that it seemed the figure had forgotten what it felt like after centuries.
"That’s the first question you ask? Last son of Zeus?"
Ethan didn’t move. "What should I ask?"
The eyes narrowed slightly. "First of all, why did your father lie to you? Why did he give you his lightning bolt?"
There was silence for a moment or two, and then Ethan’s expression changed. "You talk like you know Zeus?" he asked.
The figure in the blackness began to move, the sound of the chains scraping against the stone of the oubliette as they shifted and grew, making Ethan’s teeth hurt.
Ethan followed his eyes to the figure, which stepped forward into the dim light of the underground cave. A man, perhaps, but not quite as Ethan would normally expect to see.
This man was extremely tall, for one thing, and his body was amazingly thin, as though the passing of centuries had stripped away all non-essential flesh and left only the barest essentials of human form.
Long black hair fell about his face and down his back, and his skin had that same pale, drained-of-color look Ethan had seen before, but on no one as completely as this.
As for the chains, there were so many that it was hard to tell where one left off and another began. They surrounded his arms and legs and neck, hung from his torso like a set of empty sacs, and trailed behind him like a bridal train. And yet he seemed completely unaware of them.
He looked at Ethan, like he was looking at his soul. Then his expression softened.
"You look like him, when he was young."
Ethan’s eyes narrowed. "Zeus?"
"Wait... no?" he muttered. The man didn’t seem to understand. He began to nod excitedly. "Oh, I get it! You look like what he wanted to become!"
Ethan frowned. "Why are you here? Do you work for the Empire? The resistance? Which one?"
The man smiled at Ethan, but his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. "You’re asking the wrong questions."
"I don’t care. Just tell me. Why are you locked here, surrounded by the Empire."
"Of course you don’t. The same fearlessness. The same arrogance."
He took another step forward. The chains accompanying him dragged across the black stone of the cave. The instant he did, Ethan summoned his blaster from storage.
"Oh, you have your own pocket dimension."
Ethan’s eyes hardened. "I’ve killed people stronger than me, and I am not afraid to do the same."
"I know. I know... you are literally a demigod, a forbidden child, prophecy walks with you, fate bends around you. Of course you would think that."
Ethan froze. The man pointed toward Ethan’s chest with one long finger.
"Do you remember your first lightning strike?"
Ethan’s eyes widened. "...The forest?"
The man nodded. "The beast."
"Marcus."
"The blood."
"The System."
The man’s expression became even darker. "All of it."
Ethan lowered his weapon slightly. "How did you...?"
Is he some kind of god? What is he? What the hell is the Empire locking up here, and why does the revolution want to free it?
None of this made any sense. Ethan took another step forward, his eyes locked on the man. "Enough games. Who are you?" he asked, his voice hard with demand. "Just tell me, and I’ll be on my way."
The man stared at him for several seconds. Then he said:
"My name was erased..."
"By Zeus?"
"By Olympus!"
Ethan’s expression hardened. "You must at least have a name..."
The man smiled again. "The only thing that remains is a title. Once, they called me the First Son, before Hermes, before ares, before Athena..."
Ethan’s eyes narrowed. "First?"
"Unlike you, the one who will be known as the last son."
The chamber became silent. Ethan knew right away who this was.
"You’re Zeus’s son."
"I was." The man’s smile vanished. "That is what happens when gods decide you were never born."
Ethan said nothing as the man slowly made his way past him, his hand pressing against one of the massive chains as the whole chamber began to shudder under his touch.
A demigod, Ethan thought. A weapon the Empire might be trying to harness? But what did he do, to make all of Olympus his enemy?
Ethan felt a shiver run down his spine as he listened to the man speak. "What did you do?" he asked.
The man’s eyes became empty. "Hah? What did I do? I just asked a question. A damn simple question."
He looked upward toward the darkness above. "Why should gods rule men? That was what I asked."
Ethan stared at him. The man smiled without humor.
"Apparently, Olympus didn’t like the question."
A sound echoed from beyond the entrance to the sealed chamber, a sound that grew fainter with each passing moment. Marcus.
"ETHAN!"
Ethan looked at the man and said, "Why is the Empire guarding you?"
"They aren’t."
"They built this place."
"Thy mistake, Ethan, is in having misunderstood what was built. They didn’t build this to guard him. They built everything around it."
Ethan’s eyes narrowed. "What... why?"
"I guess I am out of time, brother."
Ethan looked at the chains covering the man’s body.
"Listen..." he muttered.
"The reason I’m still here, and the reason you are here, is simple: authority." He added, his smile growing thinner and thinner.
Ethan stared. "Authority?"
The man’s eyes locked onto Ethan’s. "That’s the difference between you and the gods. That’s it."
Ethan’s System appeared without being called.
[Unknown Divine Authority detected.]
[Attempting identification.]
[Error.]
The man chuckled once.
Ethan looked at him. "Authority? Like my System?"
For the first time, he looked genuinely surprised.
"Zeus gave it to you?"
"Yes."
"The multiplier System?"
Ethan’s eyes sharpened. "You know it?"
The man laughed again. This time it was different from the other times, when he was sad. This time he was just surprised.
"Of course I know it." He stepped closer. "I was there when he designed it."
Ethan’s heartbeat stopped for half a second. "You were—"
"I helped him build the first version."
The System window flickered violently in front of Ethan.
[WARNING.]
[Foreign information attempting to enter System architecture.]
[Connection rejected.]
The man looked at the window. Then he laughed again. "Still stubborn, huh..."
Ethan’s face hardened. "What... what did you do?"
The man didn’t answer right away.
"What is the System?"
"A simple weapon, brother."
Ethan’s expression changed. "For what?"
The man’s eyes locked onto Ethan’s without blinking. "For Olympus."
Silence. Ethan’s fingers wrapped tightly around the weapon at his side.
"That doesn’t make sense."
"It will."
"You said Father designed it."
"He did."
"Then why would he make a weapon against Olympus?"
Ethan blinked. The man was smiling at him. "Because Zeus has never been afraid of losing Rome. He was never afraid of losing anybody."
Ethan stopped. The man continued in the same calm voice.
"Rome was never the real problem."
A shudder ran through the room. In the distance outside, a roll of thunder reverberated through the sky.
"The gods are. He knows it. That’s why you exist. That’s why the System exists. A weapon."
Ethan stared at him. "But... he gave me a mission. A mission to destroy Rome."
"You still don’t get it?"
"..."
"You will know soon, brother. Soon."