The Twelve Gods of Olympus
"Your Majesty!"
The voice arrived before the sound of the door opening.
Eunomia came running down the corridor and bowed from the waist without even catching her breath. The measured etiquette she always kept like a ruler had half collapsed today.
"Never mind the full prostration. What is it?"
"Father—the King of Heaven—has collapsed."
I set down the petition I had been holding.
"Zeus collapsed?"
"He has been clutching his head for days. Lord Apollo's medicine does nothing, and neither ambrosia nor nectar has any effect. Lady Hera has summoned his brothers."
A headache for the King of Heaven.
In the stories I knew, the end of this headache was already decided. I could not remember how many days he suffered, but I knew how it finished.
"Go ahead and tell them. I'll be there soon."
When I reached Olympus, the gods stood packed around the sickbed. Zeus could not even sit on his throne; he only made beast-like sounds while clutching his head.
Even while Hera pressed a hand to his brow, the groans only deepened.
Everyone else fretted and shuffled their feet.
Everyone except me.
My mouth itched.
If you split the head open, it will heal. I could not bring myself to say it, so I only clenched my molars. The moment the King of the Underworld suggested splitting the King of Heaven's skull, the rumors that would fly were all too easy to imagine.
At last Prometheus stepped forward with a bronze axe.
Instead of looking surprised, I simply took a place with a clear view.
The axe came down on the head.
Light burst out instead of a scream.
From the split crown a spear-point rose first. Then a helmet. And then a gray-eyed goddess, fully armed, walked out and stepped down neatly beside her father.
Zeus sat bolt upright.
The face from which the headache had vanished as if washed away looked the newborn god up and down. He scanned the spear, the helmet, and finally the face beneath it.
"A daughter."
The King of Heaven let out a long breath. Then, as if he had never been ill at all, he broke into a booming laugh and pulled his daughter into his arms.
The gods, still not understanding, raised a belated cheer. The sickroom turned into a feast in an instant.
I was probably the only one who could guess the true nature of that relief.
There had been a prophecy I once read in a book. The daughter Metis bore would be as wise as her father, but a son would surpass his father's throne.
So the King of Heaven had swallowed Metis whole while she carried the child. A usurper always fears his own offspring.
Athena.
A scene I had merely accepted when reading it in a book now unfolded before my eyes, and the cup in my hand trembled. Beside me Kore covered her mouth with both hands as she watched.
The birth feast was held that very evening.
A banquet thrown in half a day left only half a day to prepare, and this time Kore had to set the table alone—payment for losing the last feast's wager.
"No coaching."
The moment I approached she struck first without even turning around.
"I wasn't."
"You were about to. You looked at the reed pen."
"The ball of yarn seems a little too far left."
"It's centered. I measured."
"The arrowhead's direction—"
"It's the other way. Exactly as you taught me, Mister."
Blocked at every turn, I truly had nothing left to do.
Kore walked once around the table she had finished in half a day, then lifted her chin slightly toward me. At the look that asked how it was, I nodded.
"Debt settled."
The problem was not the table but what stood in front of it.
I had known she would be born fully armed. I had not thought about the doljabi.
There was no baby to seat before the table. What we had was an adult goddess half a span shorter than me, spear in hand.
I could not tell her to crawl, and asking her to grab something felt equally odd. While I stood awkwardly between table and goddess, Athena's gray eyes swept the offerings once. Then they looked at me.
That single glance seemed enough for her to grasp the situation.
The goddess walked over and picked up the reed pen.
"I am told this is custom. An object that holds wisdom, is it not? I will take this as my portion."
Then she straightened a crooked staff on the table and stepped back.
A cheer mixed with relief burst through the hall. A goddess who observed the rites half a day after birth—admiration spilled from every side.
A first greeting worthy of the Goddess of Wisdom.
Several seasons later a strange rumor drifted even to the Underworld.
Hera had borne a son alone. Since the King of Heaven had obtained a daughter by himself, the Goddess of the Hearth had obtained a son by herself—so the gods whispered.
I prepared the doljabi chest in advance and waited for an invitation.
No invitation came.
No feast was held. The rumor simply stopped, and no god spoke the child's name.
Hephaestus.
Only one name came to mind. The god of the forge. In the myths I knew, the story began with his mother casting him out of Olympus.
I hoped it would not be so in this world. Yet the feast that never opened was answer enough.
I left the prepared chest unopened in a corner of the study. There might come a day to use it.
The next feast was different in scale from the start.
It was the birth of a legitimate son between the King of Heaven and the Goddess of the Hearth. Fresh banners hung from every pillar of the hall, and Hera's handmaidens stood in ranks at the door to receive the guests.
When I stepped down from the chariot, two handmaidens bowed on either side. The fingertips that greeted the King of Death trembled faintly.
At the high seat Hera held her newborn son and received each congratulation without a single flaw in the angle of her bow.
When my turn came she rose and returned the courtesy.
"The King of the Underworld has graced us with his presence. I entrust the child's table to you."
"I will prepare it as always."
I could guess well enough why this feast was so grand.
Kore and I set the table together as usual. At last Hera laid the baby before it.
Ares.
Before the swaddling was even unwrapped a lusty cry shook the hall, and the gods laughed that the lungs were fine. Only the mother at the high seat listened to that cry as if it were a lullaby.
The laughter did not last.
The baby seated before the table first seized an arrow.
The instant he gripped it he hurled it.
A servant who nearly took the arrowhead through the nose toppled backward.
The baby flung the arrow aside and this time grabbed the staff.
And swung it.
The lyre went flying. Kore, not caring that she stepped on her own skirts, dove and caught it.
The staff smashed the edge of the table. Gold coins scattered in every direction; a papyrus scroll rolled away. The table tipped halfway over.
The baby snatched up a fallen ball of yarn and brought it to his mouth. Two servants rushed in and barely wrested it free. I expected tears, but the baby only clapped in delight.
The hall fell quiet.
Zeus held his cup with the corner of his mouth lifted awkwardly. The gods who had placed bets each stared down at their own stakes.
No one had wagered on pure destruction—neither arrow nor staff nor lyre.
In the middle of it all the baby alone gripped the staff with both hands and laughed as if he owned the world.
Hera nodded with satisfaction.
"A boy overflowing with vigor, of course."
At his sister's single remark the gods belatedly added applause.
Someone asked for the result, and I answered while looking down at the half-overturned table.
"He caught nothing, but he knocked plenty down."
Kore, still clutching the lyre, looked from me to the baby with reproachful eyes.
Kore and I righted the table and gathered the scattered coins. Even then the baby kept stretching his hands from the cradle toward the staff without rest.
After that, seasons turned again and again.
The nephews and nieces grew at a frightening pace and each found their place.
Apollo opened an oracle on the slopes of Parnassus and set even the kings of the earth in line. Hermes soothed his brother's anger with a single lyre, claimed a herd of cattle as the price, and these days wore winged sandals while running the King of Heaven's errands across the world.
Ares seized a spear the moment he was old enough to hold one. Athena took her place as counselor beside her father's throne. The songs of the nine sisters became the custom that opened every feast, and Artemis led her nymphs through the forests.
In the meantime Kore completely took over the work of setting the tables. When a young god asked the meaning of an object, it was Kore who explained now.
Messages that came down to the Underworld remained Eunomia's duty. The Goddess of Order had become the only living being who could board the ferry without paying the fare.
On earth the cities of men multiplied and the smoke of temples grew thick. The boats that crossed to the Underworld grew more frequent in equal measure.
Olympus was completed piece by piece that way.
Feasts grew rarer. Yet whenever business took me up to Olympus, that voice always found me first.
"Mister!"
And the owner of that voice grew a little more each time we met.
Among the terrifyingly fast-growing nephews and nieces, only Kore's time flowed slowly. A span every few feasts. Another span every few turns of the seasons.
One day, after clearing the table and standing side by side, I suddenly noticed the difference in eye level. The crown of her head that once reached my solar plexus now sat near my shoulder.
In outward appearance she looked about eighteen.
Over the face of the little girl who used to run up clutching flowers and pebbles, the name Goddess of Spring now rested quite naturally. A few young gods passing by slowed their steps to glance at her, but Kore never noticed.
And then a change came to Kore's behavior.
She still found me first at every feast. Yet now she would slow her steps halfway through the run. She would smooth her hair once, straighten her skirts once, and only then walk over with a carefully casual face.
She spoke less. More precisely, the time spent speaking shrank and the time spent looking grew. While setting the table she would lift her head, catch my eye, and hastily look away more and more often.
"What? Something on my face?"
"No. Nothing."
The tips of Kore's ears turned red.
When I reached for the opposite end of the tablecloth the way I always did so we could fold it together, Kore flinched and let go.
"Today—today I'll fold it alone."
Watching her hurry away with the cloth hugged to her chest, I tilted my head.
Adolescence, perhaps.
Apparently even gods went through such a phase. With her outward form grown that far, it would have been stranger if she had not. For a while I would leave her alone and not tease her.
Between what had changed and what had not, the years continued to flow without stopping.