A Dream Come True

7. Ares-1

Ares

The god of war would have been handsome if his face had not been twisted in rage and covered in blood. Whatever he had been up to in Thrace must have been more violent that any of the students really wanted to think about.

“Zeus, why have you interfered in Thrace?” he shouted, shaking his spear. “That is my land, to do with as I please.”

“You are its patron,” replied Zeus, “but it is yours to protect, not to destroy.”

“Toughening up people for war is helping them survive, not destroying them!” shouted Ares, making a sweeping gesture with his spear. The god was not paying any attention to anyone except Zeus, and his spear accidentally smacked Yong, knocking him to the floor.

All the other students froze, wanting to see if Yong was all right but not wanting to get caught by another one of Ares’s wild gestures. Yong, fueled by adrenaline and surprise, didn’t freeze, though it would have been better if he had.

“Watch it!” he snapped, still lying on the floor.

Ares looked at him, shocked and angry. “Mortal, who are you to speak a warning to me?”

“A guest,” said Zeus quickly. “As such, he is entitled to be safe from your ill-advised moves, Ares. You must apologize at once if you do not wish to dishonor the hospitality of Olympus.”

Ares bowed stiffly to Yong. “I beg your pardon, fragile mortal, unable to endure even the slightest blow. I took you for a man, but I see I was wrong. You are only a boy…or perhaps even a girl.”

Yong was on his feet and looking almost as angry as Ares had only moments before. Keisha could see he was about to speak and would have given anything to be able to stop him, but she was too far away.

“That’s not much of an apology,” said Yong.

“Indeed, it is not,” agreed Zeus. “Ares, you can certainly do better.”

“Yes, I can. “Forgive me, weak and—”

“I’m not weak!” Yong almost shouted.

“Then prove it,” said Ares. “Challenge me to single combat. We’ll see how much of a man you are then.”

“I challenge you,” said Yong fast enough that Zeus had no chance to intervene.

Shocked as the students were by Yong’s challenge, they still jumped when Hermes appeared right in front of them. The swift god was breathing heavily, as if he had somehow become aware of Yong’s peril and raced back.

“Father—” began Hermes, looking worried for the first time since the students had met him.

“He challenged me, and I have a right to answer,” insisted Ares. “Guest or no guest.”

“You speak the truth,” admitted Zeus, “but Ares, no good can come from this. Though by right you may answer his challenge, I ask you instead to allow him to withdraw it, for surely he spoke rashly and did not mean what he said.”

“If in truth, he is not a man, then he is welcome to withdraw the challenge,” said Ares, sneering at Yong.

Yong looked pale and shaky now, but he said, “I will not withdraw it.”

“Father—” began Hermes again.

“It saddens me to say this, but the mortal has made his choice,” replied Zeus. “Foolish as it is, it is his to make.”

“Choice of weapons is my right,” said Ares. “I choose swords.”

“The mortal has no sword,” said Hermes, perhaps looking for a loophole.

“He can use any one of mine,” replied Ares. “I shall bring them back, and he may have his pick.” Without waiting for a reply, Ares turned and almost ran from the throne room.

The other students rushed over to where Yong was standing. He looked as if he was beginning to realize what he had just done to himself.

“What’s wrong with you?” asked Keisha, who resisted the urge to shake him. “You’re usually so logical. Why would you challenge the god of war to a fight?”

“I just can’t stand bullies,” said Yong, looking down at the floor.

“We can put that on your tombstone,” said Mateo.

“Aren’t we forgetting this is a dream?” asked Yasmin. “Nothing is really going to happen to Yong.”

“That’s kind of what I figured,” said Yong, though he sounded less convinced.

“We don’t know what it is,” said Keisha. “Yeah, it’s a dream, but apparently an unprecedented shared dream, maybe more powerful than normal, more able to affect our physical bodies. I don’t believe that old wives’ tale about dying if you die in a dream, but this situation could be different. What if Yong dies in this battle, and the shock stops his heart? We just don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

“There must be some way out of this,” said Thanos. He looked at Hermes, who had just come over.

“If so, I don’t know what it is,” admitted Hermes. “Your friend might have withdrawn the challenge before Ares accepted it, and Ares even offered him that chance, however, mockingly, but your friend didn’t take it, and now that Ares has accepted, he has the right to insist the challenge be completed.”

“All right, then how can he beat Ares?” asked Mateo. “There must be some way.”

Hermes shook his head sadly. “We gods are not all-powerful, but we are invariably more powerful than mortals. Whenever a mortal has challenged any of us, it has ended badly for that mortal. The idea that a mortal could do anything as well as a god is one manifestation of hubris, the excessive pride that inevitably leads to harsh punishment.”

“Heracles won a fight with Ares, though, didn’t he?” asked Thanos.

“Yes, there was a time,” conceded Hermes. “Ares had a son, Cycnus, who became a bandit and frequently robbed pilgrims on their way to the oracle at Delphi. Apollo asked Heracles to deal with the criminal, and Heracles killed Ares’s son. The war god sought vengeance, and Heracles wounded him in a fight. Since gods can’t be killed, the wound was the best result Heracles could have hoped for. Is your friend the equal of Heracles, then? Because if he is not, I don’t see how that story helps us.”

No one wanted to say the truth aloud, but Yong, far from being Heracles, was the least athletic of the guys. Not only wasn’t he Heracles, but he wouldn’t have been a match for a human bully, let alone an enraged war god.

“Heracles won partly because Athena helped him, right?” asked Thanos, though he already knew the answer.

Hermes thought for a moment. “Yes, that is true—and it might just be a way out for your friend…uh—”

“Yong,” said Thanos.

“Yes, it might just be a way out for Yong,” continued Hermes. “Something similar happened during the Trojan War when Athena guided Diomedes’s spear to strike gods more than once. In theory, gods can offer such help invisibly, and if Ares isn’t paying attention, he might not notice. The problem is that Athena isn’t here at the moment, and she is the only one I know of, aside from elder Olympians like Zeus and Poseidon, who could beat Ares, let alone help a mortal to do so.”

“You could help, though, couldn’t you?” asked Yasmin, putting a hand gently on the god’s shoulder.

Hermes sighed. “The most I could do in a fight with Ares is run away.”

“Could you make Yong faster?” asked Thanos. “Speed is your specialty. Maybe if Yong evades Ares long enough, Ares will tire of battle.”

“Ares never tires of battle,” replied Hermes. “As for speeding up Yong, I can try, but you know the myths well enough to know I have never attempted something like that.”

To Yong, Hermes added, “Evasion alone will not be enough. Even if I can guide your limbs to make them faster, you’re going to have to strike well enough with a sword to wound him. That is the only way he’ll ever be willing to end the fight—without killing you.”

“What about magic?” asked Thanos. “All Olympians can perform some feats we’d think of as magical or miraculous, like becoming invisible and changing shape, but the myths suggest you have more versatile magic.”

“The later stories may exaggerate a bit,” said Hermes. “I can go places no one else can easily go, and I can put even divine beings to sleep, though I doubt I could do that with Ares in the middle of combat. The rest of the abilities I’m supposed to have come from people confusing me with the Egyptian god, Thoth.”

“Hermes Trismegistus,” said Yong. “Hermes Thrice-Greatest. I read about that somewhere. Greeks living in Egypt after the time of Alexander the Great worshiped you as a giver of all kinds of hidden knowledge, including magical and astrological lore. Later on, medieval alchemists invoked you as a source of their knowledge, though they no longer saw you as a god.”

Hermes shrugged. “Stories change over time, as you know. Some give me too much credit. Nonetheless, I will see if I can think of any magic that might be helpful.”

At this point Ares returned, accompanied by two grim looking twins, their arms loaded with swords of various types.

“Who are those others?” whispered Fatima.

“Twin sons of Ares and Aphrodite,” Hermes whispered back. “Deimos and Phobos—fear and flight.”

“Cheating?” asked Mateo suspiciously.

Hermes winked. “No more than we plan to. Actually, they are probably just here to carry the swords. Ares is many things, but he isn’t someone who would cheat in single combat.”

“Mortal, come pick your weapon!” commanded Ares, his tone lacking even a trace of humanity. Yong, trying to keep from trembling, walked over with Hermes close behind.

“He picks, not you!” Ares told Hermes.

Hermes gave his half-brother a little bow, then said, “I am merely here to advise him. The choice is his.”

Ares didn’t look happy, but he clearly didn’t want to look too concerned about a fight with a mortal, either, so he gestured in the direction of the weapons and backed away.

“Have you any training with a sword?” whispered Hermes.

“No,” Yong admitted.

“Then take that one,” suggested Hermes, pointing to a short, slender blade. “It’s called a xiphos. It’s lighter and therefore easier for an inexperienced arm to swing.”

“Wouldn’t a longer blade be better for keeping an opponent at a distance?” asked Yong, pointed to a longer one.

“The kopis would do that, but you don’t look as if you have the arm muscle to wield it effectively.” Yong felt his cheeks redden.

“Anyway, if you’re moving fast enough, the length of the blade will be less relevant,” Hermes added. “If Ares gets close enough to even make contact with your blade, whatever its length, you will have already lost.”

“Hurry up!” snapped Ares. “I will await you in the courtyard—unless, of course, you succumb to your cowardice.”

“Is that an option?” muttered Yong.

“No, it’s too late for that,” said Hermes, his tone lacking its usual lightness.

A door at the back of the throne room led out into a large, rectangular courtyard. The outer perimeter was walled and shaded by a roof supported by classical columns. It was also lined with several different kinds of trees, but the ones Yong noticed were the cypresses, because they were also said to grow in the Underworld—where he might soon be.

He kept telling himself he was just dreaming, that at worst he would awaken if something really bad happened, but the details were so realistic. He could feel the sun on his skin, hear the breeze rustling in the trees, and feel the cold metal of the borrowed sword as he clutched its hilt in his sweaty hand. How had he gotten himself into such a mess?

The audience was not huge, though Zeus and Hera were both there. Yong noticed that Zeus’s seat was flanked by two burly winged figures whom he took to be Cratus and Bia, the same two who had chained Prometheus to the mountain. Evidently, Zeus was anticipating some kind of problem and wanted some muscle on hand just in case.

Yong cursed himself for reacting so impulsively. Evidently, he should have found some constructive way to deal with the bullies he’d encountered instead of just hiding the fact that he was being bullied and bottling up all the feelings he had about them. It was that seething accumulation of negative emotions that had gotten him into this mess.