Location: Attica, Eastern Coast
Time Remaining: 16 Years
Nemesis carried the body away from the farmlands - she didn't want the widow finding his corpse the next time they plowed the fields, so she headed to the nearby forest and collected wood for a pyre.
"Athena?" Nemesis whipped around, summoning lightning in
her claws. Athena was of a later generation than Zeus, close to Persephone in
age, but powerful and influential despite being young and single. Athena was
said to be the wisest and most cunning of her brothers and sisters. She was a
fully recognized member of the Olympian Council, and had challenged Hera’s role
as Zeus’s chief adviser. Moreover, she was a talented and powerful warrior with
few peers - only the likes of Ares, Herakles, or Zeus himself could have stood
against her in battle. If Athena had come to kill her father's wayward servant,
Nemesis's best chance was to flee.
"Be at peace, Nemesis," Athena said, "Or should I
call you Adresteia?"
"Why would you call me that?"
"Isn't that the name you used the first night you rebelled
against Zeus?" Athena asked rhetorically, "It seems appropriate to
leave your old name behind with your old life."
"I didn't rebel against him," she said.
"You made a moral judgment, weighed right and wrong,
independent of his will," Athena said, finally appearing from the
darkness, "For Zeus and Hera, that's heresy."
"If it was heresy, then it was wrong," Nemesis said.
"You don't really believe that, do you?" Athena repeated
the question Nemesis had asked the boy.
"Honestly... I don't know what to believe anymore."
"Good," Athena said, "A conflicted mind is like a
dull blade; it needs sharpening, yes, but at least you know it's being
used."
"I don't know how to use my mind," Nemesis said,
"certainly not like a blade. I am not wise like you are."
"That boy in Rhamnous seemed to think otherwise," Athena
said, "and children are often the best judges of such matters - they've
not had so much time to submit to the dogmatic 'truths' of their people, and
they question things most take for granted."
"Well I certainly don't feel wise..."
Nemesis said, "I have, I think... many questions, but I don't even know
how to ask them.
"Those who feel wise seldom are," Athena said, "And
any wise man or woman will always ask more questions than they can answer. But,
your particular case has fascinated me for a long time. Hera is gifted in
crafting and shaping bodies through husbandry and other practices, but her
efforts to do the same with minds are... primitive. Crude. In your case, she
wanted a disciplined and loyal soldier, so she put blocks in your mind to
discourage you from having certain types of thoughts."
"I'm not sure I understand..."
"Exactly," Athena smiled mischievously, "If Hera
had left you capable of comprehending the damage she did, you might have
rebelled decades sooner."
"I'm... damaged?" Nemesis said, "In my mind?"
"More like... sabotaged," Athena said, "Taken away
and raised in a cold, sterile, controlled environment, without love or
kindness, and with no purpose but to make you an efficient and reliable
killer."
"I was... taken away? From where? Did I have parents? Where
are they?"
"You did have parents, yes. Zeus betrayed your father and
murdered him before you were born. Then he imprisoned your mother in the
deepest recesses of Tartarus."
"What? Well... who were they?" Nemesis asked.
Athena shook her head, "You have many things you need to
learn, and it's not yet time to learn the answer to that question. Tonight, we
need to disabuse you of certain wrong ideas that have been packed into your
head." Athena's eyes glowed white and she asked simply, "What is your
purpose, Adresteia?”
"I don't know," Nemesis said.
"What was Nemesis's purpose?" Athena
asked.
“Divine retribution,” Nemesis answered.
“Which entails what?” Athena demanded elaboration.
“Punishing those that offend the gods.”
“Is that all?” Athena asked.
“I also… protected the gods from those that would have done them
harm.”
“If they’re gods, why do they need you to protect them?” Athena
continued, “Why do they need you to punish people for them? Why could they not
do it themselves?”
Nemesis gave the answer that had been burned into her mind as a
child, “My purpose was not to question their will, only to enact it.”
“I see. Adresteia, who am I?”
“Athena… goddess of war and wisdom.”
“Would you have enacted my will as Nemesis?”
“I would have punished any who offended or threatened you,”
Nemesis gave the automatic answer.
"Then you would have trusted my wisdom, accepting my
judgments in such matters?" Athena asked.
"Yes."
"If I told you someone was unjust, cruel, abusive... you
would accept that as true?"
"Of course."
"If I told you that person needed to be punished, you would
accept that to be true?"
"Yes."
"If I told you Zeus himself was among the worst people who
walk this Earth, and that I needed you to kill him, would you do it?"
"I... I..." Nemesis stammered, "Are you
telling me that?"
"Maybe, maybe not," Athena said, "What do you think
of him?"
"He's the god above all gods, the arbiter of good and evil,
the ultimate authority on right and wrong."
"According to whom? Zeus himself, yes? If I, the goddess of
wisdom, told you that none of that were true, and that Zeus needed to be
punished for his hubris, what would you do?"
"I don't know. I can't punish Zeus, because he's a god. I
can't deny your will, because you're a god."
Athena smiled, “Let me resolve some of that conflict for you. I
want you to hear this, I want you to embrace it, and I want you to understand
it as deeply as you can,” Athena whispered into Nemesis’s ear as if she was
telling her a dangerous secret, “We are not gods.”
Again, Nemesis’s mind struggled at the brink of collapse. People
could be wrong, they could have crises of faith, or heretical thoughts, but the
integrity of a god’s words was above questioning, inviolable.
“There may be some cosmic power out there guiding us,
somewhere," Athena said, "I rather hope there is. But it’s not Zeus.
Or even me. Though, I can still grant you a blessing; I can give you a bit of
something Hera cheated you.” Athena took Nemesis’s head in her hands and gazed
into her eyes. Athena’s eyes gleamed with unearthly light, and suddenly things
seemed to move in Nemesis’s mind. It was like barriers that had been in place
suddenly became permeable; what had seemed like unrelated thoughts before now
began sliding together and building on one another. Abstract concepts began to
develop the same clarity that the act of pursuing and subduing a target had.
The rush of mental energy dropped Nemesis to her knees.
“Now, use what I’ve given you,” Athena said out loud, “speak to
me, and think, sister. Finish it.” The wildfire of
Athena’s gift became a red hot blade in Nemesis’s mind as her thoughts focused
on the logic.
“If Zeus says you are gods and you say that you aren’t, then one
of you must be wrong, but if gods are infallible, then gods must always agree.
If you disagree, then gods aren't infallible, and... Zeus must be wrong?”
“Or lying,” Athena pounded a fist on Nemesis’s shoulder, “Which is
more likely.”
“… Or you are lying,” Nemesis looked at her
skeptically.
“Fair enough,” Athena smiled. The woman Nemesis had only ever
known as the all-wise goddess of war now rolled back on her heels and sat in
the dirt like some human girl simply enjoying a nice evening in the woods. “But
aren’t you curious to find out the truth of it now?”
“I’m… I’m not sure.”
Athena nodded, “You know, I’ve been where you are. I had to come
to grips with all of this myself. I realized one day that diversity and
individuality require the potential for disagreement, meaning that an
infallible pantheon of colorful personalities like ours was a logical
impossibility. I realized I would have to either reject my own godhood or
reject my own logic. Given the choice, I chose the one that let me think for
myself. Therefore: I am not a god.”
“Why?” Nemesis suddenly had questions she wouldn’t have even been
able to comprehend before, “Why would you choose to think for
yourself?”
“As opposed to letting Zeus think for me?” Athena shrugged as she
absent-mindedly plucked a flower from the earth and began to scrutinize it,
“Zeus is a simple beast. I always know what Zeus thinks, or will think, but on
any given day, I never know what I might think tomorrow.
And I guess I like to be surprised.” Apparently satisfied with her inspection
of the plant, she handed it to Nemesis, “Now, tell me, what thoughts do you have?”
“I’m not sure I have thoughts,” Nemesis felt ashamed, “I think I
only have… questions.”
Athena grinned, “Questions are thoughts. Questions are the best
thoughts, because they lead us towards other thoughts.”
“What do I do now?” Nemesis asked.
“That is the most important
question of all, isn’t it?”
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