The Valor of Perseus (ebook)

Brizo’s fall from Taygete’s Bridge heralded the doom of Atlantis. With her death, the whole of the island came apart in dust and crashing stone, in cacophony and the roaring collapse of dreams. All around Pandora, the world began to falter, colossal waves racing over the dying polis while a furious storm raged over the distant mountains.
With a shriek, Pandora fell a half-dozen feet to where a flagstone had settled below street level.
Oh, fuck. Not like this! Not like this, after everything!
A woman wearing a crimson khiton hopped down beside her, offering a hand. Pandora grasped it and was hefted to her feet. She met the other woman’s gaze.
It was her. She was looking in a mirror at another Pandora.
And the other Pandora held the Box in her free hand. “We don’t have much time.”
Despite the tumbling panoply of destruction unfolding around her, Pandora could do naught save stare at herself in incomprehension. Her mind refused to parse what she was seeing, and all she managed was an inarticulate moan at the other Pandora.
The woman grabbed her arm. “I know, I know. I remember what it was like. Try to focus, though.” She squeezed, tight enough to jolt Pandora from her daze. “Focus, Pandora. You’re trying to save Prometheus, yes? Only a son of Zeus will be able to set him free. You understand? A son of Zeus.” She waited for Pandora to nod, though the stupor had not quite passed. But the other woman pressed the Box back into Pandora’s hand. “I’ve set this for you, all you have to do is open it.”
Pandora accepted the puzzle box, glancing at it, then back up at the other Pandora who had released her and cast a sudden glance at the chaos unfolding around her, gaze lingering a moment on the storm raging on Mount Evenor. “Go, Pandora.”
Feeling the fool, Pandora nodded at herself, then searched for the clasp to pop the top of the Box and go wherever she was sending herself.
“Oh, wait!” the other Pandora blurted even as Pandora pressed the button. “You must convince Nike to fight alongside Zeus, against Kronos, or Pyrrha will die!”
Wait, what? Nike?
Pandora’s ears popped and light bent backwards, even as the city continued to pitch inward about itself.

* * *
The whole of her World shifted, and not just from the Box, though its vertiginous waves had her tumbling to her knees and pitching into the dirt. No, it was as though the foundations of her reality had imploded, throwing into question all intuited sense of causality, leaving her in a maelstrom of doubt.
Focus. Focus on the present moment for now.
Groaning, Pandora pushed herself up on her elbows. It had been slightly easier than last time, she supposed.
The ground beneath her had stilled, no longer rising and falling like a storm-tossed sea. That also counted as an improvement.
Based on the sun, it was nigh to noon, and she knelt upon a hill, blinking at an expanse of mountains that stretched up in the distance. The Olympian Mountains? Far off, she could just make out the eternal storm that raged above Olympus itself.
Gods, her mouth tasted foul, and her body ached, both from being hurled to the stones and from the bruising of her mind the other Pandora had delivered. That was so … She had seemed so different, as if seeing the World from some angle Pandora could not conceive of, and yet, if she was to be believed, that moment would lie in Pandora’s own future.
Trying to wrap her thoughts around it returned the sense of vertigo, and Pandora decided it best to remain upon her knees for a moment more, drawing in deep breaths. It was an enticing puzzle, yes, but one she was so deep in the midst of that it could consume her, drown her in a turbulent sea of unanswered questions.
In front of her lay the Box, and slowly, almost painfully, she felt her gaze drawn to it. What had she opened with this thing? What utter madness had she unleashed?
Part of her wanted to weep, but instead, she found herself seized by a burst of hysteric laughter at the sheer preposterousness of what had befallen her. What still would befall her, in the days to come. Unless she could change the future and come back to the same paradox that had led Prometheus to ensure the timeline remained unchanged so Pyrrha could be born. If she took steps that prevented her future self from saving her past self, wouldn’t she already be dead?
Actually, there were tears moistening her eyes, even while she knelt there, giggling. Giving over to it, Pandora pitched onto her side, wrapping her body around the Box, and letting the fit pass. It was too much.
Ananke was too much. An ouroboros, a serpent consuming its own tail, encircling the cosmos in its constricting coils. With every passing instant, with each deepening of her understanding, the ouroboros grew tighter, until the very life would seep out of her.
And Pandora could not but weep at the futility of finding a way free.
When at last she had composed herself, she rose and descended the hill, pausing at a packed dirt road that ran the length of the mountains. Indeed, this could well be the very track she and Prometheus had followed from Delphi to Olympus, and if so, Delphi lay to the west.
Perhaps the Oracle there—was there even an Oracle at this time?—could help her figure out how to find a son of Zeus. The other Pandora had neglected to provide a name, either because she had been so distracted by whatever else she was looking for at the time, or because she trusted Pandora to figure it out. Perhaps the latter if all of this had already happened to the other woman.
So, she would have sent her to a time and place close enough to find whomever she needed to save Prometheus, or at least, Pandora would have to assume so. “All right then,” she mumbled and set off down the road, toward Delphi.
She would find the son of Zeus, convince him to help her, even against his father’s wishes, and rescue Prometheus from Tartarus. Once all that was done, she could see about attending to the rest of the future.
And the Moirai—had they indeed woven this obscene procession of Fate—could go fuck themselves.