2.01: The Left Hand of Zeus

Location: Mainland Greece

Time: 31 Years before the Beginning of the End

The rain pelted Nemesis’s feathers, the water gathering along the leading edges and rippling across them. It was a minor hindrance to her flight, but she had no doubt that her master had sent the fierce storm to provide a tactical and psychological advantage in executing her mission. She appreciated his blessing, though it was hardly necessary. The dissident she would be dealing with was a soft target, to say the least. There was no reason to expect any noteworthy attempt to escape or resist.

Due to the rain, though, Nemesis didn't see the target’s domicile until she was nearly upon it. Ordinarily she could see even small objects over three kilometers away, and the darkness of night was of no concern to her, but the heavy moisture in the air refracted the light, obstructing her vision considerably. Nevertheless, they had no way to expect or detect her approach, and even if they had, their only preparation would have been groveling for her master’s forgiveness.

With the stars blotted out by the storm, she had no confirmation of her location. She never liked that measure of uncertainty. The ramifications of hitting the wrong target would be terrible; she would need to take extra care to verify the identity of her quarry before she struck the punishing blow. Nemesis dropped down towards the house and alighted down the road, growing and shifting form as she landed. Her raptor form was stealthy and efficient, but in this instance, a human form was necessary. Nemesis quickly scanned her environment and found what she needed – laundry, hung out to dry near one of the other houses, which the occupants had failed to bring in before the storm rolled in. That simplified things - she could have conjured her own clothes, but what better way to pass for a human than in an actual human's clothes?

Nemesis slipped over the crude fence, crossed the property to the laundry line, and took some clothing that would be regarded as appropriate for her apparent age and gender. Donning the sopping wet, crudely fashioned garments in the driving rain with slick mud under foot was an annoyance, but if it was her master’s will that a storm follow her on this mission, then she was thankful for it.

Taking the clothing was arguably an act of theft, a punishable action if executed by one person against another, but Nemesis’s master was, in the grand scheme of things, the true owner of everything these people had. As his servant, it was hers to take and use as she saw fit in the execution of his will.

Nemesis threw some mud on herself and tore her clothing a bit to make it appear as if she’d had a mishap in the rain. Many humans were callous to the welfare of their own kind, but overall they were more likely to respond favorably to a woman in distress than to a woman who seemed simply to be wandering about in the dark. That predisposition had provided a tactical advantage on other occasions as well.

Nemesis trudged through the mud up to the house that concealed her target and knocked on the door. Her default knock was a steady, disciplined, evenly spaced repetition, but she deliberately tried to knock faster, less forcefully, and with more variance in the timing between her strikes. It would create an impression of desperation.

The door creaked open slightly, “I don’t know; it’s a woman,” Nemesis heard a male voice say just on the other side of the door.

“In this weather?” a female voice answered, “What’s she doing out there?”

“It looks like she’s in trouble,” without further discussion, the man opened the door, “Are you all right?”

The occupants of the building matched the description Nemesis was given. One man, black hair, mid to late twenties, distinctive facial hair. Approximately 1.79 meters tall, with a strong body, but slightly overweight. One woman, brown hair, late teens to early twenties. Approximately 1.65 meters tall, fit but has clearly given birth. One girl, brown hair; a toddler in good health.

“Please,” Nemesis said, “I’m lost, I need somewhere to shelter until the rain clears, so that I can get my bearings.”

The man started to invite her in, but the woman stopped him, “Are you alone? Why were you out there?” she asked mistrusting.

“I was on a pilgrimage,” Nemesis answered, “Traveling to Mycenae. I hoped to become a priestess of Qowija.”

“The goddess of marriage?” the woman asked, “That’s a niche cult.”

“I lost my husband,” Nemesis said, “And now I have nothing but these clothes you see. It seemed a fitting place for a lost widow to go.”

Appealing to her identity as a wife seemed to be the correct move. The woman nodded solemnly, let Nemesis in and guided her to a seat next to their fire. The husband dished up some warm food from the hearth. That he took the initiative to do so without being prompted by the family’s matriarch was unusual for these people. Possibly of no consequence, but in context it might have offered some insight into the nature of their household.

“I’m Tellus,” the man said, “My wife is Minia, and that lovely girl is Allasia,” he nodded to the child.

The names matched the information Nemesis had been given. Probably enough to go on, but again, the costs of misidentification were so high that Nemesis hesitated to act immediately. “I’m Adresteia,” she said, “Thank you for your hospitality, Tellus. What do you do?” she asked him, “You live too far from the coast to be a fisherman.”

“I worked on my uncle’s boat when I was younger,” he said, “But we kept having to go further out of port to bring in a decent haul, and the further out you go, the more dangerous it got. One condition Minia’s father set before he allowed us to marry was that I learn to work the land as he always had. This property was part of her dowry. He didn’t want to see his daughter widowed… I’m sure you understand.”

“Yes,” Nemesis nodded. She tried to convey a sense of solemnity at the non-existent memory of her non-existent late husband, but she had no personal experience to draw upon. The best she could do was attempt to replicate the microexpressions she’d seen humans use on such occasions.

After what seemed like a sufficiently long moment of silence, Nemesis asked, “Do you still worship Posedao this far inland?”

“Well… not as much. I mean, we respect his contributions to… things? Generally speaking. We’ve been spared any earthquakes, so I’m grateful for that, but when your life depends on the fields, there’s not much the god of saltwater would be interested in helping us with. We had an old mare, when we first married, to help us with plowing the field and hauling crops to market, but she had to be put down after an unfortunate accident. I thanked Posedao for the gift she had been, but since then there hasn’t been much cause to appeal to him.”

“This rain, then, that nurtures your fields. This must be the sort of blessing you seek?”

The wife made a distinctive, ‘harrumph’ noise. The husband explained, “The weather has been very dry, until tonight. At the market they’ve been calling it a drought. Many of the farmers have moved away from worshipping Sito Potinija and taken to praying to Zeus for rain. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him where you’re from…?”

“Oh yes. Many say Qowija is his partner. I am pleased to see he has answered your prayers; you are truly blessed.”

“I don’t know how much time you’ve spent around farms Adresteia,” Minia said, “but months of drought followed by a night of torrential rain don’t grow crops. All this ‘blessing’ does is wash the top soil downhill to Posedao and make it even harder to grow things. And if Sito Potinija is displeased that my husband has been giving praise to this, ‘Zeus,’ then we’ll probably have to deal with root-rot once the rain abides.”

“It can be hard to see the gods’ grace at times like this,” Tellus said, “I think it’s very admirable that you would devote yourself to Qowija after losing your husband; many of us would have our faith shaken by such misfortune.”

Ugh. ‘Misfortune.’ Nemesis hated that idea. Fortune and misfortune were antithetical to justice. Luck in any form was the enemy of hard work and careful planning. Good luck rewarded the stupid and the lazy, while bad luck punished even the smartest, most industrious of people.

“If the gods have willed it,” Nemesis said, “I cannot consider it misfortune. They must have determined that this was the best course for my life to take. I’m sure that, in time, I will see that the loss of my husband was a blessing.”

“Well I hope your husband feels the same way,” Minia grumbled, “Because I doubt they gave him much say in the matter.”

“Minia…” Tellus started.

“This is exactly what I was talking about earlier,” the woman cut him off, “Everyone praises the gods for anything good that happens, but never holds them to account for the bad things that happen. It’s always for the greater good, or part of a greater plan. Or their intentions are ‘unknowable’. But does anyone ever talk about the world before the Titans were cast down? Was it different? Weren’t there still rain and storms, droughts and floods? What changed in the war? The gods on Olympus haven’t done anything differently from the ones they struck down. In fact, I see no evidence they do anything at all, except, it seems, expect praise for allowing Gaea and Oranos to continue doing what they have always done. And isn’t that a fine -”

That was the point at which Minia finally noticed the look of terror in her husband’s face, and turned her attention back to their guest. Nemesis was a horrifying sight to mortals when she revealed herself fully. Her yellow eyes, black feathered wings, and long talons would have brought terror to most men, but her ability to absorb the light around herself made her far more terrifying. The result was a visage the human mind struggled to comprehend – she wasn’t simply dark, she was darkness. A human shape, but with no depth, she appeared to them as a walking hole in space. She flexed her talons as they slid from her fingertips, and she stretched her wings in the small home, engulfing much of it in darkness.