Discord's Apple

17

Evie awoke cradled in Alex’s lap. She curled around the box, covering it with her body. He draped one arm across her back, and with the other hand he stroked her head, running his fingers through her hair. He was singing softly, absently, the notes faltering. The words were lilting—Greek.

He sat propped against a slab of gray rock.

She stirred. He drew his hands away; she missed them. She could have stayed cradled with him forever, and with him, that really meant something.

Their rock was one of many set in a wide circle. They were old, lichen covered, weathered. Lintels joined some, and broken slabs lay about. Farther out, lower marker stones were scattered on a plain of green grass, the color deep and striking against the slate of the stones, and the rolling gray clouds of the overcast sky. The breeze was warm, summerlike. It should have been—it used to be—December. It should have been cold.

Merlin had sent them to Stonehenge—but it wasn’t, because the plain overlooked an ocean. A cliff sloped down to a rocky beach where waves rushed and crashed. The air smelled of salt and seaweed. There were no roads, no gift shop, no barriers to keep out the graffiti artists. They were cast into a desolate world. A desolate time.

“What is this?”

“I think it’s Stonehenge. Or it used to be Stonehenge. Or it will be—” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I used to be able to recognize it when the gods played with time.”

She started to sit up, then changed her mind. The moment was so peaceful, she should be able to rest. Like Tess of the d’Urbervilles, who slept at Stonehenge before they came to hang her.

“It’s all gone,” she said, her face pressed against Alex’s thigh. Irrationally, she thought of her laptop on the coffee table. She laughed, and pinched her nose to keep the sound from turning into a sob. “I’ll never find out what happens to Tracker.”

“Don’t you know?”

“Not really. I keep writing to see what happens next.”

“Then tell me. Tell me now what happens to her.”

She did, the last pages of storyline, Tracker’s trek across Siberia, her loneliness, confusion, the desperation as she signaled for the helicopter, betting her life that whoever she called would help her and not kill her, and that moment when she saw the American flag, the symbol she’d devoted her life to, and didn’t know if it meant she was saved or damned. And she didn’t know what happened next. She hadn’t decided if the men in the helicopter were good guys or bad guys. It was such a little tragedy.

“I can’t decide if the end should be happy or sad,” she said. “By all rights, Talon should step out of the helicopter and save her. That should be his uniform she sees. But it seems too easy. She spent the whole book learning how to save herself.”

“I think it should have a happy ending. She learned to save herself, yes. But she can still get help now and then,” he said. “I’d like your story to have a happy ending.”

Me, too, she thought. “I hope Arthur and Merlin are okay.” She didn’t think she’d ever see them again. She and Alex had been yanked out of the old world and brought to a new one. She hoped they arrived here, too, and were just somewhere else. And Bruce, and everybody, and the world could get back to normal.

“I imagine they are,” he said absently. His touch against her scalp was hypnotic, and she let it lull her.

He said, “Was it worth it? Was that what you were meant to save?”

“Yes.” It had to be. It had to be enough. She stroked the edge of the box. It called to her; it was hers to keep and protect.

“What is it?”

She sat up, but stayed close to him, tucked under his arm. “Pandora’s box.”

His whole body tensed, a panicked flinch. “And that’s supposed to save us?”

“Shh.” Her father had been right. About everything, and the instinct spoke true after all. This was everything. They had saved it all. She unhooked the latch and opened the box.

Alex jerked, trying to reach around her to slam the lid shut, but she shifted, blocking him.

“It’s okay. You know the stories—it has only one thing left inside. The only thing worth saving.” Inside, resting on a piece of raw wool padding, was a small gem glowing with pure white light. No larger than a thumbnail, yet it filled her whole vision. “It’s hope.”

She closed the lid and latched it. The clouds swept across the sky, part of a storm, but the storm was passing. Low rumbles of thunder were distant.

“Wait here.” Alex eased away, preparing to stand. The back of his T-shirt was still covered with blood, where Robin had stabbed him. The blood shone wetly—was still damp. So not too much time could have passed.

When he saw her staring at the mess, he grumbled, and pulled the shirt off, showing his tanned, muscular body that had been fighting for three thousand years.

He still had the sword he’d claimed in the Storeroom. Holding it ready, he moved a dozen paces away and looked intently up the coast.

A figure approached, a woman in a black evening gown, a chiffon scarf dancing behind her in the wind. She should have had trouble walking across the soft earth in high heels, but she came with smooth, untroubled steps, her chin lifted, her arms easy at her sides.

Alex waited in a ready stance, standing guard. There, at last, Evie saw it: the Greek warrior who must have stood on the beach before Troy, his body sculpted, the muscles of his arms tensed, holding his sword at the ready, gripped easily in his hand. His face was calm.

The woman stopped, her gaze resting on Evie, who clutched Pandora’s box, then on Alex.

“You live,” she said, smiling. “It took me forever to find you. Relatively speaking.”

“But it’s only been a few—,” Evie began, but Hera silenced her with a look that clearly made a comment regarding Evie’s ignorance.

“I’ve vowed to protect her,” Alex said, indicating Evie over his shoulder. “If you come any closer, I will strike you.”

“Me? You worshipped me at your hearth fire when you were a boy. Your mother held your hand to help you light the offering. And you would strike me?”

“I’ve learned so much since then. We’re no different, you and I.”

She reached, like she was going to touch his cheek. He recoiled, leveling the sword’s point as a barrier between them.

“Oh, we are different. You are still afraid, and I am not.”

She slashed with her hand, an arc of motion across his middle. He parried, but she cut him without touching him, without coming close to his sword. The skin parted. Blood welled and dripped. He grunted and stepped back, holding his belly with one hand, keeping the sword leveled with the other. Then he straightened, ran his hand along the wound—and he was whole. The cut healed. Gripping the sword two-handed, he lunged, driving the point at her.

As easily as she might have touched the wind, she pushed his arm aside, stepped out of the way, and threw him. He flew back, smashing into one of the standing stones. A bloody wound flowered on his temple.

He looked up, glaring. His breath came hard, hissing through clenched teeth. He scrambled to put himself back between Evie and Hera.

Evie watched, awe-filled and trembling. She—her family—weren’t supposed to be part of the stories. They were keepers of the stories. But that world was gone now, wasn’t it? Magic was real, all the sparking, hand-waving, spell-weaving magic of the stories was real.

Hera raised her hand, and with the motion Alex levitated. Hovering a foot off the ground, he struggled in an invisible grip, cutting with his sword, kicking with his feet. She flattened her hand, and he slammed back against the stone and stayed there. His arms wrenched back, wrists against the stone, riveted as if held by chains. He grimaced with the pressure and dropped the sword.

They’d escaped. They’d earned a happy ending—as happy as the situation allowed. But Hera had found them. It wasn’t fair.

Evie hesitated, part of her wanting to run away, take what was left of the Storeroom and try to escape, to protect it.

But she couldn’t leave Alex.

“Let him go,” she said. Fear made her voice soft. “Leave him alone.”

He decided he wanted to die when he heard of the Great Alexander’s death. There’d never again be anyone worth following, worth dying for. He fought in the army that had conquered every corner of the world his people knew at that time. He gladly followed the general who reminded him so much of the heroes of his youth, the legends who occupied so many songs and stories. He’d thought perhaps another age of legends was upon them. But history had replaced mythology, Herodotus instead of Homer, and Alexander died. Sinon took his name as a memorial and began to look for a way to die himself. Because it was the only work he knew, he fought as a mercenary in a hundred armies over the next thousand years. He never found another hero to follow.

But he would follow Evie.

After all this time, Sinon—Alex—found he was afraid. He didn’t want to die after all. Evie stood nearby. She seemed waiflike in her jeans and sweater, her brown hair tangled in the breeze, her skin pale, chilled. He wanted to tell her to run. But where could she go? Hera would find her. He had to protect her.

Fine job of that he was doing, pinned to a slab of rock. He hadn’t dealt with the gods on their terms in a long time. He’d forgotten what they were like—children, pulling the wings off flies. How could the fly fight back?

Hera turned her hand, and he slid to the ground, his back scraping on the stone. His feet touched earth again, but he remained immobilized. Step by easy step she approached, and he realized she could kill him. All that remained was to see how she did it.

“Leave him alone,” Evie said. She tensed, like she might dash forward and take Hera on herself. Alex started to tell her to stop, but Hera turned to her first.

“Wait,” she said, holding out a manicured hand. “I wish to speak with him, that’s all. I’ve no wish to harm you.”

“Like you harmed my father.”

Hera gave Evie a long-suffering glance, then paid her no more attention than if she had disappeared.

The goddess turned the full charm of her smile on Alex.

“I know what you want, more than anything else.”

Wool and fog, that was the old trick to keep them from knowing what he thought. It didn’t work this time, because all his thoughts turned to Evie. Apollo would have laughed at him.

Hera touched his neck, sending gooseflesh rising on his skin. He couldn’t flinch away.

Die. He wanted to die more than anything.

No, before that, what had he wanted? On the shores of Troy, during the years of the war, what had they wanted, what had Odysseus spoken of with the light of a distant hearth fire in his eyes? A home, a family. Impossible now.

Hera lay her fingers on the chain around his neck.

“How much a part of you is this? Will you crumble to dust without it? If I take it away, will you die, or will it leave you as you were when Apollo captured you? Say the word, Sinon of Ithaca, and I will remove it. I have that power now.”

It was a part of him. Its power sustained him. Without it . . . He looked sideways, at Evie, caught her gaze.

If he died now, he wouldn’t have to watch her grow old and die without him.

“Why would you do this?” he said harshly. He didn’t trust her. He hated being trapped. He had thought he was done with the gods.

“Curiosity. I want to see what happens.”

That was an answer he’d expect from one of the lords of Olympus. His jaw was tense, his whole body painfully tense. “All right. Take it off.”

His skin tingled when she brushed her hand along the chain. She stroked the bronze links, lifted the chain, ran her fingers underneath it, a sensual motion. He closed his eyes.

Apollo, Zeus, Athena, Demeter, Hera, may all the gods protect me and have mercy on me.

She stepped away, and he felt so light that he thought he was floating. His shoulders were light, his neck, all of it, like air. He felt like he was going to fall.

He touched his neck. It was bare. He opened his eyes. Hera stood before him, the broken chain in her outstretched hand.

He felt his own body, his chest and arms, his face. He was still here. He was alive. The next sword he took in the gut would kill him.

Hera held his hand and placed the chain in it, closing his fingers around it. “Sometimes you do get what you want. You just have to wait longer for it than you expect.”

He marveled at the chain. It was dull, and trembled slightly with the shaking of his hand. Then it slipped from his fingers, and he fell to his knees.

“Zeus couldn’t do this for me,” he said, gasping. His life, it was over—No. His life could now continue.

“It probably didn’t occur to him to try,” she said wryly. She turned to Evie. “And now for you.”

“If you harm her—,” Alex said, as if he could still make threats after the goddess had defeated him.

Hera ignored him. Evie could only brace for whatever came next.

The goddess reached behind her back, turned her hand, and pulled an object out of the air. She offered it to Evie. “I’m finished with it. It’s done its work. Now I’d like you to keep it safe.”

It was the apple, sitting innocuously in her hand.

Evie’s mouth opened, caught on a disbelieving laugh. “You killed my father for this, and now you’re just giving it back?”

Hera said, “After all is said and done, I discover that you are still the Keeper of the Storeroom. As I said, I have no more use for this, now that I have the world the way I want it. I certainly don’t want it lying around to cause trouble. You must keep it.”

Yes, said the instinct, the voice that had spoken to her ancestors in an unbroken line across centuries. Keep it safe. Take a bit of Discord out of the world.

She raised her hand, and Hera set the apple into it. It felt massive, heavy as lead. Evie’s hand dropped to her side.

Hera started to walk away.

“Wait,” Evie said. “What now? What world is this? What happens next?”

Pausing to turn to her, to take Alex in with her glance as well, she shrugged. “You’ll have to figure that out for yourselves. A few survivors of the old world are scattered here and there. Seedlings, if you will. You could find them, start a village together, learn to herd goats or some such. I expect that’s what Arthur and Merlin are off doing.”

“Where are they?” Evie asked, hopeful. They had to be here, if she could find them . . . nothing would change.

Hera frowned. “Staying well out of my way. But you—if you say a prayer to me now and then, I may listen.”

Hera, poised and untroubled, walked away, over the hill, and was gone.

“Unbelievable,” Alex muttered, following with a curt laugh. “That beats everything.”

Evie went to him. He still knelt, his face creased with what seemed like anguish, or ecstasy.

“Are you all right?” she said.

He looked at her and laughed. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. But I think I am.”

She sat in front of him. His sword was within reach. “You can die now.”

“I know. But I don’t want to. The moment she appeared, I didn’t want to. When she said she knew what I wanted, she knew better than I did—because I was thinking of you.”

They didn’t have much. A sword, a box of hope, a leather sack. A broken chain. Each other. A happy ending, of sorts. Discord’s apple sitting in her hand, golden and warm. She tucked it inside the sack, where it lay inert and harmless.

She picked up the chain, which seemed frail and innocuous now.

“I’d like to bury that somewhere,” Alex said.

She shook her head. “No, you shouldn’t do that.” Above, clouds raced and tumbled, leaving behind a clean scent of rain. She breathed deeply. “It should go in the new Storeroom.”

Sing to me, Muse, of the Lady and Lord who thus came to a desert

After the storms razed and ravaged their home, after fleeing the goddess

Hera of Wrath, bent on vengeance most grave. On the Plains of the great stones

Peace gave them rest, the storms broke, the skies calmed; thus was born a new world.

Lady of Guardians took as her husband the Long-Lived Achaean.