The Compass and the Coast
Back in the cool, dappled shade of the forest, far from the scorched meadow and Apollo's simmering presence, the world felt strangely quiet. The only sounds were the rustle of leaves and the distant call of a hawk.
"Man," Hermes sighed, breaking the silence. He was chewing on the tip of his thumb, his eyes glued to the bracer on Cyd's wrist. The single crystal glowed with a steady, warm, orange-gold light, like a piece of captured sunset. "I gotta admit, I'm kinda jealous. Didn't think Apollo had it in him to give out a blessing like that."
Cyd looked down at the crystal, then up at the sky, where the sun hung high and bright. He'd been feeling… different since the blessing settled. A subtle, pervasive warmth, like he was standing in a sunbeam even in the shade. His limbs felt lighter, his senses a touch sharper, as if the very air was more vibrant. "It feels… nice. Warm. But what does it actually do?"
"'Nice'? 'Warm'?" Hermes snorted, throwing his hands up. "Kid, that's not a mood ring. As long as sunlight touches you—and I mean any sunlight, dawn, dusk, filtered through a cloud—you're under Apollo's personal, divine umbrella. Poison in your wine? Stand in the sun for a bit, your body burns it off like morning fog. A nasty curse from a grumpy nymph? Sunlight scrubs it clean. And the stronger the sun, the stronger you get. More strength, more speed, more endurance. It's not just 'nice.' It's a get-out-of-death-free card with a built-in steroid function."
Cyd's eyes went wide. He flexed his hand, watching the muscles in his forearm shift. The idea was staggering. "That's… incredible."
"Yeah, 'incredible.' Which is my problem," Hermes grumbled, scratching the back of his head with a look of genuine consternation. "Now I feel like a cheapskate. I was totally gonna phone it in. Give you some generic 'travel safely' line and call it a day."
…Next time you piss off Apollo, I'm voting for the sun-comet option.
"Kidding! Mostly kidding!" Hermes said quickly, catching the flat, unamused look on Cyd's face. He clapped him on the shoulder, his grin turning more sincere. "You really bailed me out back there. I pushed it too far this time. Without you and that weird stick-fiddle, I'd be picking chariot splinters out of my backside for a month."
I still think that would've been a fitting end.
"Don't give me that look! I'm grateful! Really!" Hermes held up his hands in surrender, then snapped his fingers with a flourish. "Alright, fine. No half-measures. For the one who helped the trickster in his hour of need, here's my blessing." He adopted a mock-solemn tone. "May you never be lied to."
He waved a hand vaguely in the direction of Cyd's bracer.
Cyd looked down. Another of the thirteen crystals, previously clear as water, silently filled with a deep, forest-green hue. It didn't glow like Apollo's sun-crystal; it pulsed softly, like a resting heartbeat.
"…That's it?" Cyd couldn't help himself. Respect for the gods warred with sheer anti-climax. "It feels… a little casual."
"Hey, what do you want from me?" Hermes shrugged, his expression genuinely apologetic. "I'm not the God of War or the Earth-Shaker. I'm the messenger. The guy in the middle. My power is in words, in paths, in… knowing things. 'Never be lied to' might not sound flashy, but in a world run by gods who treat truth like a suggestion? It's not nothing. At least you'll always know when someone's feeding you a line."
Cyd considered it. In a landscape of divine plots and heroic bluster, knowing the truth of a statement could be more valuable than a sword. "It's… useful. I suppose."
"See? Useful!" Hermes beamed, then tapped the winged helm on his head. "Now, the lyre was one thing. That was the deal for getting Apollo off my back. But the song you hummed? That was extra. A bonus performance. And for that, you get a bonus prize. Something only I can give you, something you desperately need right now."
Cyd's breath caught. He knew exactly what Hermes meant. For a mortal on a quest to find thirteen specific, elusive, and often reclusive gods, there was one thing more precious than gold or strength.
"Information," Hermes said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. He waggled a finger. "You're a mortal. Finding one god is a lifetime of luck or a spectacular disaster. Finding thirteen? That's a statistical impossibility. Unless you have a guide. Someone who knows where they all are, what they're doing, what mood they're in." He grinned, a flash of white teeth. "Someone like the Chief Messenger of Olympus."
He rummaged in a pouch at his belt and pulled out a small, bronze object. It was a compass, but unlike any Cyd had seen. Its case was etched with tiny, intricate wings, and the needle was a sliver of what looked like polished moonlight. He tossed it to Cyd, who caught it one-handed.
"Whipped that up while I was skinning the python. It's keyed to you. The needle points to where you need to go next. Not necessarily where you want to go. There's a difference."
Cyd looked at the compass in his palm. The needle wasn't pointing north. It was spinning wildly, a silvery blur.
"Ahem," Hermes coughed. "That means you're currently dithering. You haven't decided on a destination. The moment you make a choice, a real one, it'll—"
Click.
The needle stopped dead. It pointed firmly to a gap in the trees to Hermes's left.
"—stop. Like I said." Hermes snapped his fingers again, looking pleased with himself. "Told you."
"I think I get it," Cyd said, weighing the cool bronze compass in his hand. It felt alive, a faint vibration humming through the metal. "Thank you."
"You earned it," Hermes said, his tone uncharacteristically earnest for a moment. "Honesty and cleverness are my favorite currencies. Anyway!" He stretched, his winged boots flexing. "Duty calls. Zeus probably has a stack of thunderbolt-delivery memos for me by now. Don't do anything I wouldn't do! Which is a very short list! Ta!"
With a wink and a gust of wind that smelled like open roads and distant thunderstorms, Hermes kicked off the ground. The wings on his boots beat once, a shimmer of iridescent light, and he shot upward, weaving through the canopy and vanishing into the blue sky.
"Flying looks convenient," Cyd muttered to the empty clearing, giving a stray pebble a frustrated kick. It sailed through the air and cracked against a tree trunk twenty yards away. If he could fly, he could avoid mountains, rivers, bandits, lions, and…
He followed the compass needle, trudging along a faint game trail. The forest was peaceful. Too peaceful.
After about an hour, the trail widened into a small, rocky clearing. A man stood on the other side, partially hidden by the trunk of an old oak. He was middle-aged, with the weathered face and lean build of someone who lived off the land. He held a hunting bow, an arrow loosely nocked. His eyes were fixed on Cyd, wide with a mixture of fear and determination.
Cyd stopped. He let out a long, weary sigh that seemed to come from the very bottom of his soul. He leaned heavily against a nearby pine, his head thunking against the bark.
"Another one? Seriously? And you're alone? Do I just have 'please rob me' carved on my forehead?" He waved a tired hand in the hunter's direction. "Look, let's skip the monologue. The whole 'your money or your life' speech? I've heard it six times this week. I'm getting bored of it. And I'm getting really, really tired of digging holes to plant unconscious idiots in."
To emphasize his point, he placed his palm flat against the trunk of the pine he was leaning on—a tree nearly as thick as he was tall. With a grunt of annoyance, he pushed. Not a shove, but a steady, inexorable pressure.
CRACK… SNAP… GROAN…
The sound was deep and final. Roots tore. The pine tree, a century-old sentinel of the forest, tilted, then toppled sideways with a ground-shaking crash, its crown demolishing a patch of younger saplings. Cyd straightened up, brushing splinters from his tunic. He stood in a new clearing of his own making, dust settling around him.
"I swear on every god on Olympus," he said, his voice dangerously calm, "I don't like killing people. But turning each and every one of you into a temporary tree fertilizer is starting to seriously cut into my travel time. So, what's it gonna be?"
The hunter stood frozen, his bow shaking in his hands. The shadow of the fallen tree now lay between them like a barrier. "I… I'm not…" he stammered, his voice a dry croak.
"Yeah, yeah, you're not a bandit. You're a misunderstood philanthropist," Cyd interrupted, rolling his eyes. "Just hand over your—wait." He paused, his eyes narrowing. The hunter wasn't advancing. He wasn't posturing. He looked… terrified.
The hunter, seeing his chance, fumbled behind his back and produced his proof: a plump, brown rabbit, its neck neatly broken, dangling from his grip. "A rabbit! I… I just got a rabbit! See? I'm hunting! Not… not robbing!"
Cyd blinked. He looked from the very dead, very non-threatening rabbit to the hunter's pale, sweating face. The truth of the statement rang in his ears, underscored by the soft, green pulse from the Hermes crystal on his wrist. Not a lie.
"Oh," Cyd said, all the fight draining out of him. His shoulders slumped. "Oh. You're really not." He ran a hand through his hair, suddenly feeling like the world's biggest bully. "Wow. Sorry. I just… I've had a week. A really long week."
You think?! The hunter didn't say it, but his expression screamed it. His legs gave out, and he sat down hard on the rocky ground, the rabbit falling from his limp fingers. He'd been seconds away from becoming a human kite in a tree-throwing contest.
"Hey, sorry," Cyd repeated, more gently. He walked over and offered a hand. The hunter stared at it like it was a venomous snake. "Look, I'm harmless. Mostly. I just get jumpy. Can I make it up to you? Do you know where the nearest coast is? I need to find a ship."
The hunter ignored the hand and pushed himself up, brushing dirt and pine needles from his trousers with trembling hands. "The coast? Yeah, a day's walk east. There's a port. There's… there's actually a ship making ready to sail. Big one. They've been recruiting crew for days. Picky, though. Need strong backs and some sailing know-how." He gave Cyd a wary once-over. "You've… uh… got the strong back part down."
"A ship?" Cyd's interest was piqued. "Where's it headed?"
"Colchis," the hunter said, spitting the name like it was a curse. "Fool's journey, if you ask me. Everyone's talking about it. Some prince on a suicide mission for a golden fleece. Makes for a good story, but no sane sailor wants to sign on for that. The seas that way are… bad. Monsters. Storms sent by pissed-off gods. The recruiting's not going well."
"Colchis…" Cyd mused, the name triggering a distant, ominous bell in his memory. Golden Fleece. Jason. Argonauts. A saga of heroes, betrayal, and more monsters per nautical mile than any reasonable ocean should hold. A place brimming with divine attention and heroic drama.
The exact opposite of where he wanted to be.
He looked at the hunter and forced a bright, completely unconvincing smile onto his face. "Sounds perfect! Could you point me the way? I'd be happy to pay you for your time."
The hunter eyed him skeptically. "Pay me? With what? That tree?"
"No, with these." Cyd knelt, opened his pack, and pulled out several large, beautifully cured wolf pelts. They were supple, the fur thick and unblemished.
The hunter's eyes widened. "Son, those… those are worth a small fortune in town. Too fine for the likes of me."
"I'm about to be a sailor," Cyd said with a careless shrug that felt like a lie even to him. He bundled the pelts and shoved them into the hunter's reluctant arms. "What am I gonna do with wolf skins on a ship? Get them salt-stained? You take them. Consider it an apology for the… premature deforestation."
The hunter hesitated, his fingers stroking the soft fur. The promise of warmth and security for his family warred with his pride. Finally, he nodded, tucking the pelts under his arm. "Alright. Alright, I'll take you to the road. It's an easy path from there."
"My thanks," Cyd said, standing. He fell into step beside the hunter, who gave him a wide berth. As they walked, the hunter glanced at him sidelong.
"So… you're really signing on for the Colchis run? You know what they say is out there, right?"
Cyd clasped his hands behind his back, gazing off into the middle distance with what he hoped was an expression of mysterious resolve. Inside, he was screaming.
"Me?" he said, his voice light. "I'm not going to Colchis. I just… want to go to sea. That's all."
The lie tasted like ash in his mouth, and the green crystal on his wrist gave a single, sharp, disapproving pulse. He ignored it. Sometimes, you had to lie to yourself just to take the next step.