The Weight of The Moon

Chapter Fourteen

“My dear, you look beautiful.” With her words, Aphrodite painted a grin on my face, whereas, under normal circumstances, I would be frowning in disgust at my reflection in the mirror before me. In mirror stood a girl, a girl worlds away from me, dressed in a full suit of traditional Greek armour, the helmet included, looking like someone emerging from a totally legit fancy dress store. I looked cheesy, to say the least, and extremely overdressed for the circumstances, but Aphrodite’s language comforted me. 

“So what’s the plan?” I asked, cautiously and terribly afraid of the answer.

Aphrodite’s red lips parted into somewhat of a smile, displaying her snowy white teeth. “It’s simple. You sneak into Zeus’s temple. The twins, Apollo and Artemis, along with myself, used to see who could sneak into father’s temple the quickest, and without being spotted. And I’ll be honest with you, there are plenty of flaws in that magnificent design. Now, if my understandings are correct, Marlie will be in father’s ‘dungeon’, which is basically a glorified basement, and there are plenty of hidden routes into it, one of them being a particularly obvious design flaw in the ventilation system father recently had installed, keeping up with the times, you know? Then, you find Marlie, which shouldn’t be too difficult, but next comes the explicitly toilsome task of fracturing the mythically incorruptible chains that probably hold him to the walls. Then, you get out. Both of you, no ifs, no buts. OK?”

“Simple?” I almost choked on my own breath. “Incorruptible chains?”

Aphrodite laughed like a falling feather on a hot summer’s day. “No, no, mythically incorruptible chains. Cut it with the dagger in your belt, and you’ll be fine. It’s from the forges of Hephaestus, and it can cut through anything. Just be careful with it. Now, are you ready?”

I sighed inwardly, in a pathetic attempt to ensconce my unbearable consternation. “Sure.”

Obviously, Aphrodite was certain of my trepidation, yet she presented me with no words of comfort, perhaps because there were none to present me with. “I’ll take you to the passageway now. Close your eyes.”

Shortly after slamming shut my eyes, I felt the smoothest, silkiest skin slip into my hand, and wriggle its way out of my grasp but a few seconds later. With this, I peeled open my eyes, to be greeted with the back of Zeus’s beautiful temple. 

“Down there.” Aphrodite pointed to a square metal hole in the wall of the building, a few feet lower than the base of the temple, revealed by a thin waterless mole around the temple’s perimeter. Funny, I hadn’t noticed this moat from the front. Perhaps Zeus took more care with the aspects that anyone could see. 

I stretched out the corners of my mouth slightly, before I helped myself down into the moat, and squeezed my way into the ventilation routes. It was a tight squeeze, and my helmet frequently hit the roof of the routes, leaving me with no choice but to pause for a number of tense minutes, until I was nothing but certain that the echoing sounds had not been heard. I crawled, and I crawled, and I crawled, until I felt that I would be crawling for the remnants of my life. 

And then I reached a junction.

Aphrodite had certainly not informed me on what to do in this particular circumstance, and so, I took a chance and continued on straight ahead. And thank the heavens I did. No more than two minutes later, the ventilation route thwarted. And below me was Marlie. He was slumped on the floor, appearing as a sheet of crumpled paper. His hands were behind his back, held to the wall with huge metal chains, shredding any ounce of optimism that was hiding in the darkest crevices of my mind.

“Marlie!” I hissed, not wanting to be heard by any other being whom may be present in the dungeon. “Marlie!”

His head danced about, this way and that, searching for the owner of the voice.