The Immortal Game (book 1) (17 page)

The woman in the tapestry was life-size. She had thick strawberry-blond hair that fell in a cascade of waves around her shoulders. Her skin was flawless, a blush of pink over fresh cream. Her bright green eyes seemed to dance and sparkle from the very fibers of the embroidery. She wasn’t smiling. Instead full red lips parted to reveal perfect white teeth. Her sheer flowing robes hid little of her voluptuous body.

Ruby’s breath caught in her throat. Could it be a real woman? A goddess? Who was she? She turned to ask Ares but he looked away into the hall behind them.

Ruby tried to focus on the next painting, the next statue, anything, but all she could see were empty possessions. Ares remained quiet. She tried to concentrate on her real worries: Zeus, Hera, and imminent death. But her fear only intensified the gap between her and Ares.

“Are you hungry?” he finally asked, when they had visited all the upstairs rooms.

She nodded, though she wasn’t sure she could really eat. They went down the curved staircase toward one set of the double doors in the main entrance hall.

“Wait,” Ruby said. “What’s in that room?” She pointed to the double doors opposite the pair he was leading her toward.

“Nothing really.”

She stopped. “I want to see it all.”

He shook his head. “It’s a mess in there. It’s not decorated or anything.”

She walked to the doors. She felt on edge about the woman in the tapestry. She was willing to push him a little. “I don’t mind.”

“It’s no big deal. It’s just …” he stammered.

She opened the doors.

The room was larger than any of the others they had seen. It was nearly as big as the entrance hall itself. And Ares was right. It was a mess.

A heavy wooden table stood in the middle of the room covered with oversized papers. An equally substantial desk stood in the corner. It too was covered. Books were open everywhere in haphazard piles and mounds on the floor. Maps hung along each wall. They showed the Earth in strikingly rich detail. There was not just one map of each continent, island, and land mass, but many: physical maps, population maps, political maps.

One showed religious factions by density. Another showed natural resources by region. Some were like the ones she had always seen, with countries, provinces, and states.

One map was covered in wavy lines and imperfect concentric circles with small numbers next to each one. It was purely topographical, no countries were named. It represented the Earth without borders, boundaries, or politics. It was the Earth without humans. The only thing that would change this map would be an earthquake, a volcano, or some other—
act of god.
She shivered.

She looked around again and saw that the large sheets of paper on the tables and desks were also maps, but in much greater detail. The one on top was of the Rogue Nations. It was of their cities and the rural areas in the hills.

She saw one of the Allied Countries and others of Africa and Asia. There were globes and instruments too. She recognized some as oddly shaped rulers. Others were compasses for drawing circles. Still others she had never seen before.

This was it.
This
was where he lived.

She thought that she might feel angry over such a place, but she only felt sad. Sad for the Earth and sad for Ares. She pictured him here over the years, the decades, the centuries, poring over these maps, planning and plotting, his body wracked with the pain of it, his mind overloaded with the desire for more.

With a pang in her chest she envisioned the moment when he could no longer stand to be apart from it. The moment he would leave this room and go to war.

She touched the maps and ran her finger over slick globes and sharp instruments. She followed the mechanics of war around the room until she got back to him, still standing in the doorway, watching her.

She looked into his guarded eyes. “
Now
I can feel you.” she said. “
Now
I’m glad I came.”

A smile touched his lips and then faded as his brow pinched together. “I love you,” he said, his expression more pain than joy.

She felt that too. It hurt her to see this room and to feel Ares in this way, but it was part of him.

She placed her palm flat against his chest and felt the steady rhythm of his heart. “I love you too.”

The room across the entrance way from the war room was its opposite in almost every way. It was furnished with tapestries of fruits and animals, dogs especially. Couches and overstuffed chairs were spaced around ornate rugs in clusters for conversation. This room, like most of the abode, held little of the real Ares.

In one corner stood an ornamented table. Its top was a chess board; the squares and the pieces were polished glass, red and clear instead of black and white. The table had carved gilt legs that ended in claws on the marble floor. The chairs looked like thrones with matching legs and arms, tall padded backs, and seats covered in red or white velvet.

Light glinted off the crystalline queen, and as Ruby got closer she could see that the pieces were faceted like gems. She touched the cold cut surface of the closest red pawn and turned to Ares. “It’s beautiful.”

“Diamonds vs. rubies,” he said.

She drew back her hand, an old impulse impressed on her as a child to not break something expensive. The chess set would be worth millions on Earth.

A heavy stone settled in her stomach. What could the gods do if they turned their attentions back to the Earth, not for their own pleasure, like Apollo; not for their own interests, like Athena; and not for relief from their own suffering, like Ares, but for the good of humanity?

They could change everything.

She glanced around the opulent room and saw all the empty possessions for what they truly were: an opportunity.

Ares led her to an intimate table set for dinner that stood in the middle of the room. Next to the table was a cart with several covered dishes. The scene reminded her of room service in a fancy hotel, something she’d never experienced, but had seen in movies. It wasn’t Thai takeout, but it would do.

Dinner included several cuts of meat, grape leaves stuffed with fragrant spiced rice, and roasted vegetables in brilliant hues. Ruby pushed her food around with her gold fork. Her stomach was more interested in doing slow somersaults than in eating.

She waved off the wine Ares offered her. She wanted to keep her wits about her. He poured a dark red liquid from another decanter into his own silver goblet but he didn’t offer her any.

If Ares was nervous about confronting Zeus with a human woman he wanted to marry it did not affect his appetite. She sneezed when a fleck of black pepper he generously applied to his meat floated her way and caught in her nose.

“Sorry,” he said. “I forgot about pepper.”

“Right, gods don’t sneeze,” she said and rubbed at her nose. She suddenly felt annoyed that their differences were so fundamental.

When Ares finished eating he lifted the lid off the last of the covered trays. There was a single glass goblet filled with a translucent golden pudding.

Ruby’s eyes went wide. Her mouth began to water.

Ares shot a glance at her and quickly replaced the cover. “I’ll go change,” he said. He pushed his chair back and stood. “The party’s probably warming up right about now.”

She felt beads of sweat form on her upper lip and she swallowed the saliva that had collected in her mouth. She watched Ares leave the room and glanced at the covered dish. She pictured herself eating the cup of pure ambrosia quickly and secretively before he got back. Would he ever know? She gave her head a quick shake to chase away the ridiculous thought.

Ares returned in a few minutes wearing a white outfit similar to hers. His was made of a rougher material and was shorter. His stopped at the knees instead of the floor. “A chiton,” he said. She glanced at his lean legs and at the muscles that slid over one another as he moved.

She stood and ran her hands down the silky front of her own peplos. The gold earrings Athena had chosen jingled in her ears and added to her nerves. Ruby’s shaking hands went up to touch her elaborate hairdo and she felt for the ruby butterfly pin that barely seemed to hold her outfit together. “Would you normally zap over there?” she asked.

“To the Great Hall?” He raised an eyebrow at her. “No. There’s no disassociating within Olympus or the other godly realms. It’s forbidden.”

“Right,” she said with a nervous shudder. “Zeus and his rules.”

THIRTEEN

Outside, the Olympic air was warm. A gentle breeze swept Ruby’s peplos softly across her skin. Torches lined the path leading away from Ares’s abode. More paths branched off the main. Even in the dimness Ruby could sense the life around her, lush and verdant. The smell of evening primrose and sweet rich earth permeated the air.
Ironic
, Ruby thought,
since we’re so far from Earth.

“How should I act in front of Zeus? What should I say? What should I do?” She gripped Ares’s hand. “Should I bow? Should I not turn my back on him? What’s the etiquette for the king of the gods?”

“He’ll want to deal with me,” he said, his jaw set and his eyes a fierce blue in the light of the torches. She steeled her courage and readied herself to follow his lead.

The path widened as they walked. It opened into a large clearing. There before them was the huge golden building she had seen from the air. The soft radiant light of a thousand torches lit the structure like a glowing ember. The relief carvings that decorated almost every inch of the facade cast eerie shadows that distorted the faces of their subjects.

The structure had looked large from above, but now Ruby could see how truly massive it was. She and Ares were dwarfed by the columns that lined each side. Her neck cramped as she looked up at the ceiling.

Ares started up the stairs that led to the main entrance without looking around. Ruby stopped to stare and pulled him back by the hand without realizing it. “Whoa,” she whispered.

He scanned the ceiling as though he were surprised she would find anything interesting up there. Every surface was etched, carved, or decorated in some way. And every inch was gold.

Her eyes roamed all over, and still she could not see it all. She felt a tug on her hand. Ares led her through one of the many arched entrances into the hall.

The entranceway was a vast gallery lit by candles and lamps that lined the walls and hung from the high ceiling. The carvings were so real and lifelike that it seemed their subjects might shift their positions and step out of their scenes. Color was laid over the gold in places. There was a goddess with blue robes and a creature that was half man-half lion in a red and yellow tunic.

Ares led her further into the building, past hallways that branched off into the distance and double doors two or three stories high. On the far side of the gallery Ruby saw the biggest set of doors by far. Ares’s pace slowed as he reached them.

Fear coursed through her like electricity and made her fingertips numb.

The look of determination remained set on Ares’s face and he stood with all the power and prowess of the god of war.

Ruby stood up as straight as she could.

He pushed on one of the great double doors. The solid gold easily swung open under his power. The room was larger than the entrance hall. Round tables were set up in front of a stage where a long rectangular table stood.

She saw Zeus right away. It was obviously him. He sat in the middle spot at the long table on the stage. He had a trim white beard and hair. He looked fit. He was tanned and she caught a glimmer of light blue eyes, not intense like Ares’s, but kind. Gentle, even. She could see how women would have been attracted to him.

To Zeus’s right was a beautiful goddess. She looked to be fifty or so. Her auburn hair was braided into ropes pinned to the top of her head and hanging down in graceful loops. She talked easily with a handsome black-haired god next to her. His eyes were fixed on her as her hands played in the air describing something to him.

Ruby thought the goddess must be Hera, though she wasn’t sure which god the younger one was.

She looked up and down the long table. It was obviously where the Twelve Olympians sat. Two older gods were on Zeus’s left side. The one closest to Zeus was clearly his brother. He had Zeus’s looks, though he did not have his presence.

The other god, one seat farther down, was dressed in black with stick-straight ebony hair. He was thin and lanky. His eyes scanned the room from deep hollows. He looked at Ruby and she saw that his eyes were the color of coal. His gaze didn’t linger. He continued to peruse the room, apparently unperturbed by seeing a stranger on Olympus.

The other end of the table was abuzz. Younger gods and goddesses talked over and around one another. Several were eating the same golden dessert that Ares had hidden away from her: ambrosia. Ruby swallowed at the thought, but her mouth was dry.

The gods held their cups out to a blond teenager with shaggy bangs and a slender build. He filled the golden goblets with the deep red liquid Ares had drunk with dinner: nectar.

Ruby spotted Athena and Apollo sitting next to each other. Athena’s black ringlets had been straightened and were braided into one long plait. Apollo leaned back in his chair. One long leg was crossed over the other. He plucked absently at the same pear-shaped stringed instrument she saw him with in the tapestries in Ares’s abode but she couldn’t hear the music he was playing over the din of the crowd. He chatted with a tall blond goddess whose face was serious. She barely looked at him while he spoke.

Next to Athena, on the other side, was an empty chair: for Ares.

Ruby scanned the Olympians she couldn’t name. One was young, maybe younger then Ruby. He was pretty more than handsome, like the lead singer of a boy band. Near him was a god who sat sideways with a deformed leg that jutted out from under the table. Ruby came up short when she saw the goddess sitting next to him.

It was her, the woman from the tapestry in Ares’s abode. The one Ares wouldn’t look at. She had the strawberry-blond hair, green eyes, and perfect skin. She was involved in the goings-on of the table. She looked away from the deformed god and said something to Apollo several seats away. She was even more beautiful there in the Great Hall, smiling, laughing, and moving, than the tapestry could capture.