Chapter 6. This Isn't Mythology, It's an HR Assignment Sheet
Gaia's hand moved south.
At the far tip of the Italian peninsula on the map, two islands lit up. Sicily — and above it, a stretch of coastline that did not yet bear the name of Naples.
"Demeter."
"What?"
Demeter answered, her voice bristling with suspicion.
"You shall wed Prometheus."
"..."
The audience chamber went quiet. Demeter blinked.
"Who?"
"Prometheus."
"Who's that supposed to be?"
"A son of Iapetus. Among the Titans, his craftsmanship and cunning are second to none."
"Then why do I have to marry a man whose name I'm hearing for the very first time in my life!"
BAM!
Demeter drove her right heel into the floor with every ounce of strength she had. The entire audience chamber shuddered. Gaia's smile did not so much as waver.
"The earth is vast, Demeter."
"Don't you dodge the question!"
"And yet not all vast land is fertile."
Gaia swept her fingertip across Sicily and southern Italy. Mountains and fields shifted their colors with the turning seasons. Grain was sown. Harvested. Sown into the same field again. The first few years were bountiful — but as time wore on, the ears of wheat grew thin, until at last the soil itself dried out and died.
"Humans plant the same crops in the same earth, over and over," Gaia said. "And when the land wears out, they either wander off in search of new ground, or starve where they stand and curse our names."
On the map, the fields divided into four parts — grain in one, legumes in the next, fodder grass for the herds in the third, and the last left to lie fallow and rest. Each time the seasons turned, the crops traded places. The livestock grazed the grass and left their manure behind, and the soil that had dried to dust came back to life, black and rich once more.
"Four-field crop rotation."
My jaw dropped. We're in the Bronze Age right now, aren't we?
This time Gaia's hand pointed to the paddies along the water's edge. Seedlings raised in one bed were lifted out and set down again, row upon tidy row, in new fields. With fewer seeds than a careless scattering would have wasted, more rice rose from the same land.
"And transplanting cultivation."
Is she the Mother Earth Goddess, or a maxed-out Civilization player?
I stared at Gaia. She met my gaze and let the corners of her eyes curl in a graceful smile. She was showing off on purpose — making a display of the fact that she carried the knowledge of the future.
"Demeter, you know the nature of soil and grain. Prometheus can forge tools, and teach mankind how to use them."
Gaia laid their two emblems over Naples and Sicily. A sickle and a plow appeared. Irrigation channels threaded their way across the fields. Grain piled high in every granary.
"Join your strengths, and the harvests grow. More food means more people, and more people means more altars."
On the map, thousands of lights kindled at once.
"Every harvest season, mankind shall call upon your name and Prometheus's alike."
Demeter's expression turned conflicted. Being married off to a man whose face she had never seen and whose name she had learned mere moments ago — that, she hated. But her eyes kept drifting back to the vision of her own temples rising without end across those golden fields.
And Gaia was never one to let an opening like that slip by.
"Do you not like it?"
"The farming I like."
Demeter answered with finality.
"But I won't be forced into a marriage."
"You may feel differently once you meet him."
"That's for me to decide."
"She's right."
I cut in, and Gaia's gaze swung to me.
"I will release Prometheus. I intend to put him to work on the agricultural reforms as well."
I raised a single finger.
"But whether the two of them actually wed should be decided by the two of them, after they've met face to face. Don't you agree?"
"..."
"Force a couple together and they end up trying to kill each other, and Sicily will be split clean in half before agriculture gets anywhere at all."
Demeter nodded vigorously.
"Well said."
Gaia considered for a moment, then withdrew without protest.
"Very well. Then let us begin with the two of them simply working together."
Amendment one: passed.
I let out a silent breath of relief. But Gaia's hand was already sliding further south.
Egypt. Across the narrow strip of land between the Nile and the Red Sea, a blue line drew itself. The waters of the Mediterranean cut through the desert and joined the Red Sea beyond.
"Poseida."
"And what is it this time?"
"You shall go to Egypt."
Poseida's eyebrows twitched.
"Why must I go to a land ruled by other gods?"
"Because it has begun to crumble."
Gaia pointed to the Nile. Cities rose along its banks. A god crowned with the sun, a god with the face of a falcon, a god with the face of a jackal — they surfaced one after another.
"Compared to the age of Ra, his descendants have grown weak. They cannot even govern the Nile properly, and the waterway that once joined the two seas has fallen into ruin."
The Suez Canal already existed?
It was nothing like the history I knew. But then, this was a world where gods genuinely existed. It wouldn't be strange at all if they'd dug a canal or two ages before any pharaoh and simply let it be forgotten.
"So we restore that waterway for them."
Gaia's fingertip traveled along the blue line. Ships of the Mediterranean poured out into the Red Sea, while from the far side, vessels heavy with spices and jewels, ivory and gold, came sailing up to meet them. Poseida's trident planted itself at the mouth of both seas at once.
"Grant them your favor, and take your share in return."
"My share?"
"Every ship that passes through the canal will call your name."
Poseida couldn't tear her eyes from the blue line. Gaia added, gentle as honey:
"Take Aphrodite and Eros along with you."
"Why must those two come attached?"
"You will take the seas and the sea lanes."
Tridents rose from every harbor.
"Aphrodite will take the port cities and their luxuries, marriage and culture."
Gold and purple cloth, perfume and jewels filled the marketplaces.
"And Eros will move the desires of men and gods alike."
Along the blue trade routes, human hearts linked to one another with red thread.
"Open the road. Make things they want to buy. Make them long to travel that road."
Gaia set the three emblems side by side above Egypt.
"The three of you together shall persuade Egypt."
"Hold on."
I raised my hand.
"Eros already exists?"
Everyone turned to look at me.
"Why would you think otherwise?"
Gaia asked.
"Eros was originally, with Aphrodite..."
I let the sentence die. Ares was my son — one who might be born in the future. There was no way Eros had been born between me and Aphrodite by now.
Gaia laughed as though I'd said something delightful.
"That child is, by origin, a primordial being like myself, like Erebus and Nyx. It is only the nature of his dominion over love that he now plays at being Aphrodite's adopted son."
This is a mess.
Even the mythology I remembered came in conflicting editions. The real world was more tangled than every one of those versions boiled together in a single pot.
Poseida folded her arms.
"I'll give the canal some thought."
"And the marriage?"
Gaia asked.
"What marriage are you talking about?"
"You are to become Eros's wife. And then you'll travel to Egypt with Aphrodite — your new mother-in-law — the three of you as one happy family—"
"I refuse."
"I hadn't even finished."
"I don't need to hear the rest."
Poseida looked at me.
"Did Your Majesty not just declare there would be no forced marriages?"
"That is correct."
I raised a second finger.
"I will review the canal restoration and the dispatch of a diplomatic mission. Marriage, however, is a separate matter."
"What a pity."
Gaia looked genuinely, if only slightly, disappointed.
Why does everyone want to paint the map by marrying people off?
It wasn't as if this were some twenty-first-century medieval soap-opera strategy game. No — for Gaia, this was probably a method far older than that.
And right at that moment, Gaia's finger came to rest on the next name.
Hera.
"You are next."
Hera's face drained white.