3.01: The Prayer of Odysseus

Location: Temple of Athena, Ithaca

Time Remaining: 11 Months 7 Days

Three weeks after Hermes flew into Aeolia and announced his master’s plan, his own grandson, Odysseus, came to Athena's temple in Ithaca. He stood uncomfortably before the massive statue at its center. It wasn’t the largest effigy of Athena ever created, not by a long shot. Ithaca was a small island in the Ionian sea, northwest of Kefalonia. It was prosperous, but that prosperity was largely manifest in its fishing. Fishing was good business – even when the crops of the larger nations withered with drought, there were always fish to be had. It had even become the basis for Ithaca’s (unofficial) national motto. Still, while the people ate better than most achaens, they didn’t have the means or know-how to construct the great structures the other Greek cities took so much pride in.

3.00: The Invitation of Peleus

Location: Larissa, Aeolia

Time Remaining: 1 Year

Just south of Mt. Olympus, the nation of Aeolia prospered. Its food was abundant, and sitting on the doorstep of the gods ensured they were well attended to. In Pthiotis, the southernmost province of Aeolia, the city of Larissa sat at the base of a peninsula, between the Pagasaean Gulf and the Malian Gulf. The Pagasaean Gulf harbored fishermen and merchants, and the much rougher Malian Gulf was home to the reclusive but benevolent people commonly known as the Nereids. For a time, the Aeolians and the Nereids had lived on the edge of war, the Nereids feeling that the Pagasaean fisherman were taking more than their fair share. The tension between them came to an end when the Nereid princess, Thetis, fell in love with the Aeolian prince and naval hero, Peleus.

1.26: Prometheus's Damnation

Prometheus used his powers to dial back the catastrophic geothermal activity under the plateau - it was too late to save the entirety of the intricate cave system, but he prevented the Lasithi Plateau from becoming the Lasithi Caldera.

Prometheus used his powers to slide through the rocks as he debated whether to declare the battle a victory or a defeat. Kronos was dead, but Zeus had betrayed him the second the deed had been done. It seemed now that the seemingly endless cycle of war had turned once again, and he would be at war with Zeus now instead of Kronos. Fortunately, Zeus seemed more reasonable than Kronos - negotiation might still be a viable recourse - and even if it wasn't, Zeus's storm powers would be much less of a threat to Prometheus's human army than Kronos's withering necrotic powers, and an army is one thing Prometheus had that Zeus didn't.

Or at least, that was what he thought.

1.25: Olympus Rising

Pandora reluctantly led Zeus through the maze of tunnels beneath Knossos - she kept trying to think of a way to wriggle out of her current situation, but the man was warier than any she'd dealt with before. He kept his hands tight on the coin and the box, threatening to use them on her at the slightest hint of treachery. She'd offered to teleport him directly to where he wanted to go, but he'd correctly surmised her intention to leave him some place inhospitable, and so they'd had to walk to Knossos so that they could use the access tunnel every other titan used to get to Tartarus.

1.24: Titans' End

Pandora hadn't tried to portal very far - she'd mostly gone straight up, hoping to get clear of the cavern by teleporting to the mountainside above. Unfortunately, Zeus had tackled her half way through the portal, preventing her from opening another portal quickly, and sending them both tumbling down the bucking mountain side.

They clattered down through a field of white stones - no, not stones, bones - the entire mountainside was covered with dusty human skeletons. Pandora cried for help as she saw some of Prometheus and Kronos's surviving titans fleeing the quaking mountainside. Only two among them stood their ground as steam vents opened up and lava burned its way out of the mountain.

1.23: It's a Trap

Zeus, in his guise as Jupiter, led his father to the waterfall below the Lasithi Plateau. "This is where I came out," he claimed, "I'm certain Prometheus knows the box is missing by now, but no one saw me disappear into this passage from the stronghold above. You should still have the advantage of surprise."

1.22: Best Laid Plans of Gods

"He did WHAT?!" Morgania shouted. The veins in Macaria's neck showed through as her pale skin flushed green with anger. Pandora had never seen Morgania so volatile when Hekate was her host; the forced partnership with Macaria must be taking a toll.

1.21: Time Flies

Kronos flitted over the valley, his broad, leathery wings flapping with the sound of sails in a sporadic wind. He could no longer soar as he once had on his feathered, eagle-like wings, but it was a minor trade-off next to the raw power he now wielded. He swooped down on the small soldiers fighting below him, and many scattered in fear of his approach. Those that didn’t flee, he seized up in his claws, ripped apart, and tossed back to the ground as heavy, wet bombs that further panicked their surviving allies.

1.20: Deals

Prometheus stood to greet the man as he strode in. Zeus was big, the same size Typhon now was, with a broad frame and powerful muscles that he displayed with a loose tunic. His red hair was long, held back with a ponytail, and his thick beard matched its color. Except for his exceptional size and fitness, though, he actually looked completely human - unusual for a titan.

1.19: Secrets

Amalthea told her story hesitantly - Pandora had come to her and persuaded her that it was time to reveal the palace's secrets, but Amalthea had spent so long keeping them, it was difficult.

"Decades ago, Kronos - at that time prince of Knossos and ruler of this stronghold - decided that he needed to dispose of his legitimate children. Not permanently, mind you, but until he could ascend to the throne. He was sincerely afraid his mother and father would simply pass the throne off to one of their grandchildren, and pass over him entirely."

1.18: Plans

Prometheus wasn't sure how long they had. Kronos might decide that the disarray among both forces would ultimately balance in his favor, and that it would be better to make an awkward, clumsy attack against Prometheus now, than to wait until he had a solid grip on his remaining forces. Alternatively, he might decide there were too many unknowns - too many variables - to make that decision, and decide to move cautiously. Nyx seemed badly injured by Echidna, and as his best military commander besides Prometheus, that would make it even harder for him to regroup and attack. Whatever the case might be, they themselves needed to regroup, and they couldn't do that without taking a few moments to rest, and the best place to do that was the Lasithi Stronghold.

Prometheus was now standing at one of the stronghold's high windows, overlooking the scorched valley below. Saplings were starting to emerge from the black soil, but nothing substantial enough to be visible from such a distance.

"I don't hear anything," Echidna said, "You said we were supposed to hear a voice, right? Inside our head? The only voice I hear in there is mine."

"Typhon?" Prometheus asked, "Is it the same for you?"

"Yes sir," Typhon nodded, "I feel the same I always have, I think. I mean, I feel stronger, faster, tougher... but I'm not hearing voices."

"Kronos doesn't stand a chance now," Echidna said, "We're death-proof, like you sir."

"Death proof?"

"Yeah, the only thing that can hurt a titan is iron or steel, right? And we're all immune to that stuff. Deathproof."

"There're still a lot of things that can kill most titans," Prometheus said, "With enough force, even non-ferric substances can do damage - though admittedly, that sort of force generally only comes from a titan... But titans still need to eat and breath, of course, and enough cold or heat can kill most of us..."

Typhon held his hand over a candle on the table, "I'm immune to that!"

"I'm not talking about simply burning - some titans will burn like kindling, sure, but the rest can pass out and die from heat without their skin blistering. Same for cold - we don't get frostbite, but we can die of hypothermia."

"So, don't push my luck then," Typhon said.

"Exactly. And as far as your iron-immunity," Prometheus conjured an iron-nail and tossed it to Typhon. The man caught it, inspected it for a while, and then noticed his fingers itching.

"Feel anything?" Echidna asked.

"Yeah... I think I'm getting a rash or... ugh," he dropped the nail on the table.

"When we started our march here iron didn't affect you at all," Prometheus said, "Now it triggers, at the very least, an allergic reaction. I imagine the more like us you become, the more vulnerable you will be."

"So that's it, then," Echidna said, "It's reasonable to assume we're going to become titans..."

"That would make sense," Prometheus said, "The Legacy A.I. would need to adapt your physiology before it could bond with it. With training, you might be able to create objects or change shape as we do, maybe even hear other's thoughts."

"Wait, what?" Typhon asked, "That's a thing you can do?"

"If we concentrate, and if the other person isn't shutting us out," Prometheus said, "We can communicate with each other silently, when the situation calls for it, but it's fairly easy for a Titan to close themselves off - it's just like refusing to talk to someone."

"Have you been reading our thoughts all along?" Echidna asked, "Or does it require we know to answer you...?"

"If someone doesn't know I'm doing it, it's fairly easy for me to slip into a human's thoughts and prompt him or her to think about certain things, then listen to the unguarded answer - I mean, I can't stick beliefs in someone's head, but I can prime him to think about something. Three notes of a song will get him started thinking about the whole song - the smell of baking bread will remind him he's hungry, that sort of thing."

"That still feels... invasive," Typhon said.

"Humans and titans alike communicate through body language, right? We use facial expressions and posture to tell how someone's feeling or whether they're lying. If you exercise those skills to read the feelings of a blind person, who cannot do the same in return, would it be invasive?"

"No I suppose not," Typhon said, "But it still feels that way."

"Well, I obviously can't tell you what you should or shouldn't feel," Prometheus said, "but if it makes you feel at all better, it's saved both of your lives multiple times. Knowing what you're thinking in the heat of a battle is pretty helpful."

"Fair enough," Typhon nodded.

"Though, more on the privacy invasion thing, since we're talking about it anyway... you two really ought to stop tip-toeing about the romance thing and act on it."

"What?!" Echidna exclaimed.

"I wouldn't say anything, except I've heard both of you thinking about it, we could all die tomorrow, and I just lost the woman who might have actually been my soul mate, so seeing the two of you afraid to express your feelings because you - incorrectly - imagine they won't be reciprocated, I just... I can't even do it anymore. Sorry."

Typhon and Echidna stared at each other in shock. They'd been close for years, but it had always been platonic... hadn't it? But then Echidna's mind jumped back to the more pressing point.

"Wait, what do you mean 'we could all die tomorrow'?" she asked.

"Right, business first, relationship issues later," Prometheus sighed and pulled up a chair next to the map table, "I've been thinking about Kronos's new powers, what they did to your weapons and your bodies. With two unpracticed hits he nearly killed both of you when you were mortal."

"Yeah, but it doesn't work on us now," Typhon said.

"True, but we're standing at the front of several thousand men and women upon whom his powers will work just fine, and he'll get stronger the more people he subjugates with them. I was worried he'd use the lives of Crete's human populace as leverage to force my surrender, and he now has the power to do that in a spectacularly sadistic fashion."

"Aging one or two people at a time..." Echidna said, "He could have killed people with his bare hands just as quickly..."

"But he'd only had his powers for a matter of seconds when he did that to you. He will certainly grow stronger with time."

"How strong?" Typhon asked.

"I don't know for certain," Prometheus said, "But imagine that thunderstorm he used to raze this valley, but with it raining down those black lightning bolts instead of the good old-fashioned stuff."

"He could wipe out an army," Echidna said.

"Or a city," Prometheus nodded, "Or if he feels like being a bit less direct, he could just wipe out thousands of acres of farm land and plunge us all into famine. The fear my people used to dominate your people for thousands of years, Kronos will now have that a hundredfold. People will throw themselves on swords to spare his wrath being visited on their homes."

"Well, how are we supposed to fight that?" Typhon asked.

"I don't think we can fight a war against it," Prometheus said, "If Kronos attains that sort of power, our armies will be wiped out quickly, with nothing to show for their sacrifice. At best, they'll desert to join his side. From this point forward, we need to assume that any engagement on the battlefield will be a total defeat for us."

"So, no more armies fighting armies," Echidna said, "now we have to make it personal."

"I think that's the only way to preserve Crete," Prometheus said, "We should retain a few of our best soldiers, but we should be honest with everyone about what is at stake. Anyone who thinks they have anything that can't afford to lose - including their lives - should go home, tend to their crops, rebuild their houses, and keep their heads down."

"Go back to slavery," Typhon said grimly.

"For now, yes," Prometheus said, "But Echidna's right. We don't need to surrender, we just need to de-escalate this conflict so that Kronos won't be inclined to wipe out the people we're trying to liberate. We need a way to change this from a war into a face-to-face barroom brawl between us and the Kronies."

The clip-clopping of hooves on the stone floor announced the arrival of the fortress's steward, Amalthea.

"If you want to get up close and personal with Kronos, I might have a place for you to start..." Amalthea said.

1.17: Changing Faces

The urgent chirping from the earring Hekate had given Pandora was her cue to leave.  Pandora was a Titan - strong and resilient as any average member of their race - but she couldn't fight her way out of a camp full of trained soldiers with steel weapons. Fortunately, she was also one of the few free Legacy Bearers left in the northern Mediterranean.

1:16: Scions of War

Typhon and Echidna got to their feet, looking young and healthy again, though their armor was still rusted and rotted from Kronos's magic. Kronos reached out with both hands and unleashed more of his black lightning on the two humans. Their armor disintegrated, leaving them both stark naked on the battlefield, but they didn't age or wither. To the contrary, they seemed to get somewhat larger and... more powerful looking.

"Why don't you die?!" Kronos shouted, striking again.

1.15: Crossroads

Prometheus stayed at his knees, simply breathing exhaustedly, trying to get his mind clear. Kronos flapped down to one side of him, prepared to congratulate him on his victory, but Hekate reappeared to his other side.

“You’re a fool to come here witch,” Kronos said, “You’re trapped on all sides, just like your pets.”

“If you knew what an orbital transport relay was, you’d think that was hilarious,” Hekate said as she nonchalantly clicked one of her bracelets.

1.14: Titan Fall

The next morning, Prometheus stood on top of a hill to the northwest of Knossos with Macaria, watching the port city, Heraklion, to his northeast. He couldn’t see Tiamat closing on the city, but he could see Oceanos’s iron-prowed war galleys chasing her. The troops around him began shouting, and he turned his gaze southward – Kasios was rounding the walls of Knossos, trudging along in some sort of gigantic mechanized suit he’d created from his memory of their home world. Human troops pursued him with slings and spears, but they plinked off his alien armor – good, Kasios needed to think they weren’t a threat.

1.13: Pandora's Box

Prometheus, understanding that the war was also a battle for the hearts and minds of the humans that fed their powers, did everything he could to manage their images. He inundated the people – Titans and humans alike – with propaganda.  He composed poetic ballads praising Kronos, spreading tales of heroism and valor, and angelic statues celebrating Kronos’s death-from-above aerial campaign. His renditions depicted Kasios and Tiamat as demonic monsters, driven by a lust for carnage. Following their intimate encounter after the battle of Selakano Valley, though, Prometheus played soft with Hekate's image. He'd already had doubts about Kronos's leadership when Hekate came to him, and when she left, he was beginning to think about alternative paths ahead. Just in case Prometheus ultimately decided she was right, he some breathing room to make decisions - if he convinced all of his followers that Hekate was the ultimate evil, his options would be far more limited.

1.12: Star-Crossed

Prometheus came back to his senses in his chambers, Amalthea and Kronos at his side.

"There you are!" Kronos said gleefully, "I almost joined you in the dirt you know, that took an incredible toll on me. Father might have been able to do that sort of thing easily, but without a Legacy A.I. to do the math on the dynamic charges in the clouds, it's a lot of work."

"Did we get Kasios?" Prometheus asked.

1.11: The Battle of Selakano Valley (Part III)

Prometheus could see Kasios retreating through the smoldering fires on the far slope - Typhon and Echidna had defended the forts well, but now Kasios's ire would surely turn this way. The man depended on his troops' reverence and the deaths of his enemies to fuel his powers; suffering a lop-sided and embarrassing defeat would weaken him severely. Unfortunately, the routed battalions were far from destroyed, and Kasios still had two fresh battalions waiting in the forest below, which were now marching straight towards the mountaintop stronghold.

1.10: The Battle of Selakano Valley (Part II)

Kasios twitched his fingers and created another roll of dijoa weed. He put the roll in his mouth, touched it to one of the hot muzzles of his rotary plasma cannon to light it, and took a long slow drag off of it. The best part of the borderline immortality of being an Alpha was the ability to indulge in all the best vices consequence free.

1.09: The Battle of Selakano Valley (Part I)

Prometheus's war of attrition proceeded with the same pace that most such wars do - that being a very slow one. With little infrastructure prepared for the task, it took years for Prometheus to smith enough steel weapons just to arm his personal guard, a process that was greatly slowed by Hekate's guerilla tactics. At some point, Hekate clearly figured out what Prometheus was planning, because she began to make a point of targeting ships heavy with iron, and destroying caravans traveling to Knossos from Crete's various mines.

1.08: Strategic Concessions

The entire region around Knossos became a warzone, host to a conflict unlike any the world would see for thousands of years. With the help of Tiamat and Kasios, Hekate was able to win the awe, fear, and love of a large portion of the human population. The humans who’d become disenchanted with Oranos’s rule and moreso with Kronos’s rule saw her as their great liberator. Kasios and Tiamat thrived on the carnage they created, but it was Hekate – as their master – who received the mortals’ worship, a large and dedicated cult forming under her.

1.07: First Blood in Tartarus

Prometheus sat up too quickly, his mind wobbling from the disorientation of leaving the simulation. It took him a while to comprehend what Thanatos was saying – Hekate was in the underworld, she’d released Kasios and Tiamat, and Macaria was alone in the prison block with them. Prometheus nearly collapsed when he set his feet on the ground – his whole body felt numb – but he followed Thanatos out of the facility, across the cavern floor, to the nearest loading ramp of the scuttled Tartarus. An army of skeletal automatons created by Prometheus and Macaria’s predecessors stood ready to charge into the ship and fight.

1.06: An Irredeemable Truth

The giant serpent coiled around Kasios and transformed into a tall beautiful woman with iridescent blue skin. “Is this pause in our hostilities an invitation, beloved?” she asked suggestively. Kasios gave her a vexed look and pointed out Prometheus standing in front of them.

Tiamat studied the younger Titan for a moment before turning her attention back to Kasios, “That doesn’t clarify the situation for me, dear.”

1.05: Hell is War

Prometheus looked up and around, the sky was filled with the distinctive constellations visible from Earth, but as he watched, the stars began to rearrange themselves. When at last they settle into their new patterns, the sun began to rise again behind him, and as the faint light spread towards him, Prometheus realized his little wooden boat had been replaced by a vessel made of aluminum and a material he knew the denizens of this world would one day call ‘plastic’. The sail was gone, but a turbine at the back of the little boat sucked water in and jetted it out back like a squid or an octopus fleeing a predator.

1.04: Journey Into the Underworld

The aftermath of the betrayal had proven too chaotic to stop Hekate – with time they would find a way to outwit her petrifying contraption, but that day she and Pandora walked out of the city unopposed. Oranos was humiliated to say the least, and promptly ceded his throne to Kronos, who’d dispatched all the resources at his disposal to search for the two rogue Titans. No one could guess what Hekate and Pandora intended to do with the stolen Legacies – if they’d wanted to exploit the newfound weakness of the other Titans to take power, most believed that the time to do it would have been the night of the ceremony, when nearly every Titan on Knossos was in attendance.

1.03: The Sacrifice

It took fully two months to design and construct the vessel. Ultimately, it was not housing the Legacies that was problematic – when drawn from the body, a Legacy was no more than gray silicate dust that seemed to stir slightly on its own. The problem was that – contrary to Oranos’s assumption – a Legacy would only allow itself to be relinquished if its current host was dead or if it had a new host lined up. Gaia dragged what scraps of information she could out of Coatlinuku about how the Legacies worked, and combined with Hekate’s sharp knowledge of their past and Pandora’s knowledge of quantum engineering, they ultimately found a way to compel the Legacies to disengage themselves from living hosts without migrating to new hosts.

1.02: The Sky-Father's Court

King Oranos, bearer of the Legacy of Malanginui, listened quietly to the arguments bouncing back and forth around the room in the Titans’ ancestral language. The debate would have been difficult for mortals to follow – just as humans complemented their spoken word with facial expressions and body language, Titan’s used their shape-shifting abilities and telepathy to add context, connotation, and emphasis to their words.

1.01: Harbinger of Fire

Prometheus’s fiery red hair whipped about in the wind as his two-wheeled conveyance roared down the dirt road from Malia toward to Knossos. It was a beautiful day for a ride – bright sun, blue skies filled with puffy white clouds, propelled by a breeze that flowed across the Mediterranean island. To Prometheus's right the cliffs overlooked the Sea of Crete - its peaceful waves caressed the sandy beaches at the foot of the cliffs, and summoned flocks of chattering shorebirds. To Prometheus's left, crops of green and gold extended to the horizon. There were just over two lunar cycles left before the next winter solstice, which meant the grapes were already picked, and the olives would be harvested soon. In the mean time, the human helots toiled in the fields to plant wheat and barley.

1.00: The Beginning

Many thousands of years ago, the night sky glowed red over southeastern Europe. A great body descended from the heavens, wreathed in burning storm clouds. People watched its arrival from miles away. Some were immediately gripped with terror, others were stricken by a sense of awe or wonder. Many even made pilgrimages to the place where they thought the mysterious object came to rest. No man or woman found more than a massive scar in the Earth, channeling a river where once there had been none. The people waited for the end to come, but it didn’t. They waited for their gods to come, but they didn’t. With no written words to record the event, the strange occurrence had been nearly forgotten when the Primordial Titans emerged from the underworld.

Fresh Start

Those who follow my author blog are already aware that I unpublished Books I and II of Rise of Azraea for philosophical reasons. Though I don't see a place for me in the professional market,  I still want to write. I may eventually seek publication again, but since I don't know when (if ever) that might be the case, I've decided to devote a blog space to my current work-in-progress. I want to focus more on letting my creative whims off their reins and on having fun than on producing a publication ready manuscript. That means that what goes up on this blog will have much less polish than Rise of Azraea had, and that it might not be assembled into discrete, novel-length collections.

So what's going to be on this blog? A couple of years ago I wrote a book called Wild Justice; it was a historical/urban fantasy story set in Boston 1773, and focusing on the infamous pirate Anne Bonny - still very much alive thanks to being a semi-immortal banshee. It was an experiment in 'voice' (the entire book was written as if she were narrating it in the present) and an opportunity to exercise my academic background in history. I had one near-miss with getting an agent for the book, and based on her comments I decided it needed to have some heavy revision before I tried again.

Unfortunately, I had to put nose to the grindstone on finishing my education, and that prevented me from doing that while the book was still hot in my mind. On the upside, I've had lots of time to expand the story in my mind, world-building and history-building. Oddly, I've come up with more stories going backwards from Wild Justice than going forwards. How far backwards? One of the plot-lines I'm working on is a science fiction piece that takes place about 4000 years before Wild Justice, and another plot-line parallels the events of Homer's ultra-violent historical fantasy, the Iliad.

Anne Bonny has been, by far, my favorite character to write, but I don't want to rewrite Wild Justice until my writing skills and drive are back up to what they were when I wrote the original version of the book. Until then, I'm going to focus on the stories that occur earlier, and shape the world Wild Justice takes place in. That should work out to the equivalent of one short novel or novella for the story taking place in prehistory, two or three roughly novel-length stories spanning the Trojan War, and various short stories that bridge the very large leap of time between the Trojan War and the American Revolution.

Also, a caveat - the stories and characters I'm working with are not especially 'polite' - the villainous characters range from charlatan gods who readily abuse those beneath them in every way possible to undead sadists. The protagonists range from swashbuckling pirates to Greek war heroes which - if you know your history - were not especially good people. These stories will definitely be unsuitable for children (I leave it to the reader to define that for him or herself), and you can expect a fair bit of adult dialogue, language, sexuality, and violence.