I Am Zeus

Chapter 220: Talking To Him



The great doors of the hall closed behind Zeus with a soft, final sound. The assembled gods—Odin, Hades, the others—were waiting, their faces etched with questions. He saw the concern in Hades's eyes, the grim calculation in Odin's single gaze. He saw Persephone, her hand subtly finding Hades's, a small gesture of solidarity in the face of the unknown.

He walked past them all.

He didn't stop to give a speech, to offer reassurance. He couldn't. The words Lucifer had spoken were echoing in the hollow spaces of his own soul. A promise. Not a threat of force, but a promise of corruption. It was a weapon for which he had no shield.

He climbed the long, winding stairs to the highest peak of Olympus, a place beyond even the halls of the gods, where the air was so thin it was barely breathable and the stars were close enough to touch. Here, there was no one. Only the wind, the cold, and the infinite, silent tapestry of the cosmos.

He stood on the edge, his robes whipping around him, and looked up. Not at the familiar constellations he had named, but into the deep, black void between them.

"Well?" he said, and his voice was swallowed by the vastness. It was not a king's voice. It was the voice of a man standing on a shore, shouting at a hurricane.

He took a breath, the cold stinging his lungs.

"I know you can hear me," he called out, louder this time. "You who set all this in motion. You who built the clock and then walked away."

The stars glittered, indifferent.

"Your son," Zeus said, the words feeling absurd and petty even as he spoke them. "Your first, your favorite, your little Light-Bringer… he's here. He's throwing a tantrum. A big one. He's burning your second draft because you're not paying attention to him."

He waited. There was only the wind.

A flicker of anger, hot and sudden, cut through the cold. "He wants your attention? Well, he has mine! He's at my door! He's killing my people, threatening my family, poisoning my world! And for what? To see if you'll bother to look down from whatever cloud you're on?"

His hands clenched into fists at his sides. "He says you're his Father. Fine. I'm not your son. I know that. We all sprung up from the mud and the chaos you left behind. We're the uninvited guests at the party you abandoned." He gestured wildly at the world below, invisible in the darkness. "But this is still your house! And he's breaking the furniture!"

The silence that answered him was more profound than any sound. It was an active, pressing silence, a void that offered nothing, not even an echo.

The anger curdled into something darker, more desperate. The frustration of a leader with no higher authority to appeal to.

"He's going to win unless I go all out," Zeus whispered, the admission torn from him. "He's infinite. He's patient. And he knows exactly where to cut us. He's going to turn our own hearts against us. I can feel it."

He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture of pure, human agitation. "I have fought Titans who wanted to unmake the world. I have fought my own father. I knew those enemies. I understood their rage, their ambition. This… this is different. This is a sickness of the soul. How do I fight a lie that wants to be true without destroying the very thing I'm fighting to protect?"

He looked up again, his eyes searching the emptiness for a sign, a flicker, anything.

"Just… a word," he pleaded, his voice cracking. "A sign. A little help. A nudge in the right direction. Do we fight? Do we try to reason with the unreasoning? What is the plan here?"

Nothing. The universe continued its slow, inexorable expansion, utterly unconcerned.

The last of his composure broke. He was no longer the King of Olympus. He was just a being, small and furious and alone in the dark.

"ANSWER ME!" he roared.

The thunder that followed was his own. It rolled out from him, a wave of pure, frustrated power that split the clouds below and shook the mountain to its roots. It was the loudest sound in the world, and it was utterly, devastatingly meaningless.

The sky remained silent. God remained silent.

The energy left him all at once. His shoulders slumped. The storm in his eyes died, leaving only a weary, hollowed-out acceptance.

He stood there for a long time, until the heat of his rage had been stolen by the cold, thin air. The truth, cold and hard as the stone beneath his feet, settled upon him.

There would be no help from on high. There would be no divine cavalry. There was no plan.

This was their fight. Their problem. Their world to lose.

He had shouted at the sky, and the sky had not answered. It was the most profound lesson in theology he would ever receive.

Finally, he turned his back on the infinite, silent blackness and began the long walk down. With each step, he felt the mantle of kingship settling back onto his shoulders, heavier than it had ever been before. The doubts, the fears, the frustration—he bundled them up and locked them away in a deep part of himself. They were a luxury he could no longer afford.

When he reached the hall, the others were still there. They looked at his face, and they saw that the man who had gone up the mountain was not the same one who had returned. The question was in their eyes.

He met Odin's gaze, then Hades's, then looked at each of the assembled gods in turn.

"He's gone," Zeus said, his voice flat, devoid of the fire from the peak. "There will be no answer. There is no one coming to save us."

He walked to his throne but did not sit. He stood before it, a king before his court, the weight of a silent heaven on his shoulders.

"It seems," he said, the words final and absolute, "this is our problem to solve."


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