The Goddess of Blessed Death

The Greatest Feat and Worst Omen

In the middle of the night, Thanatos is falling towards the ground, but instead of hitting the dirt ground outside Athena's Temple, he falls through it. Staying rigid, unmoving as there is a moment of free falling where nothing holds him but the cool night air and his break through time and space. Where the Acropolis of Athens once surrounded him, hills rise and fall around him. Several feet away a top one of the hills, nested among the shrubbery, soldiers sleeping on hard ground and tents replace the marble and elites sleeping in bed. The sound of the sea waves is far off in the distance, barely to be heard over the murmurs of those on watch at the small fires.

"You're breaking the rules," Ker says. She steps up to him. Her shaved head and pale eyes gleam against the moonlight in highlighted apprehension.

"Bending," he corrects. "Where are the Nosoi?"

"They're here, scouting," says Ker, gesturing out to the distant encampment. "Do you think she will appreciate your efforts? Humans are fickle. Human women have an especially bad rap."

"Didn't know you're faring any better as a goddess."

"Oh, touchy. . .. You haven't answered, though."

"I compared her to you, you know. How would you feel?"

"I have no interest in romance."

"If you did."

"I have no interest, but I'm not above using a man to my advantage. She is not like me, Thanatos, but that may mean that she'll appreciate it. . . or hate you for it. Who can know?"

The Nosoi came up. Several figures merged until one stood, Phthisis*, before Thanatos and Ker. The daemon's skin rose and peeled from oozing ulcers, open lesions down to the bone, and dry patches. One leg drags, one arm hangs lower than the other. Flies buzzed around. Thanatos is careful not to swat at them. He needs the Nosoi. With one insult, the daemon would disappear.

"It's done," the daemon says. Their voice is hoarse, as though their lungs have shriveled and blackened, filled with their own blood. "Their meat rots, their water infected. It will wipe out less than half."

"Good enough," Thanatos says. "And your word?"

The Nosos nods and winks. His eyelid is so saggy and thin it looks as though the slightest breeze could carry it away. Thanatos has seen a lot of death, but the violence of disease is a silent killer. Unlike how war calls to the Keres with the loud clanging of swords and booming of drums and horns, pestilence calls with the moans of elderly and coughs of infants.

"So long as you don't forget when I collect my boon," the Nosos says.

"I won't," Thanatos promises. "Thank you." He looks to his sister, who holds out her hand to the daemon.

"Time to go home, young one," she says with a toothy grin. "You did so well." When the daemon takes her outstretched hand, they disappear with the breeze like mist under the sun.

Thanatos overlooks the encampment, prepared to return as earlier as late morning, before returning to his comfortable kline in Athena.

Soft golden sun streams in through the open window, a breeze lifting the linen curtains. The horizon is a purplish brown that transitions into tangerine orange to wheat yellow, a thin line of sage to the pale, clearest blue. Apollo's sun is still young and new, Eos the Dawn having risen over Athena.

King Demophon stands before Mors, who glares down at him, in the king's private rooms. No one else is in the room. Guards stand yards away, deterring even servants from coming any closer to the room.