Issue 5: "The Quest for the Syrinx"

In a vast, dark place, upon a cold stone throne, sat She Whom None Can Escape. She was a colossus, a manifestation of pure might and Inevitability, stirring fitfully now, with her eyes open. She was not yet fully awake, but would soon rise from her aeons-long slumber, and fulfill the task ordained for her by the natural order of the universe.

Nemesis, she was called by those that feared her rising, but to those that worshipped her, she was the Lady Adrastaea, the goddess of just retribution. The Furies flew on bat-wings around her giant head, cackling and cavorting in the twilit void.

Into this scene came the Olympian traitor. He approached the massive throne of Nemesis, bowing respectfully before a power greater even than his.

Immediately the Furies swooped down, landing on all sides of the god, hissing and cracking their whips of scorpion tails.

“Why do you delay your attack upon Olympus?” The Olympian demanded peremptorily. “Athena is not a fool, and will take steps to oppose your mistress.”

The three snake-haired sisters snarled and hissed at him, flicking their whips dangerously close to him, but the Olympian only regarded them with careful respect, unflinching.

“Our mistress cannot be opposed!” Tisiphone pressed close to the god, her breath hot on his face. “There is neither god nor mortal born that can resist her.”

“Indeed.” The Olympian glanced up at the stone-faced visage of Nemesis, the baleful eyes staring out as if upon a distant shore. “And I have planned too carefully for this moment for a stratagem of Athena’s to ruin it. Even now she rallies Olympus and her mortal puppets against your mistress for a last ditch effort.”

“Folly!” Chortled Megaera and Alecto, but Tisiphone’s black face grew blacker and twisted in hate.

“Such presumption must be answered.” She hissed to her sisters. “Come, sisters! Let us teach Athena and any who would follow her, the error of their ways. We will raze Olympus to its eternal foundations!”

The Furies rose into the air, leaving behind a shrieking cry to curdle the blood of even the stoutest men.

The Olympian watched as they receded into the distance, alone now with Nemesis. He could not refrain from a smug smile. It was a dangerous game, with a narrow window for victory, but he was playing it expertly. He had chosen his pawns, even the unwitting ones, well. Soon, he bowed once more to Nemesis, then retreated from the slumbering colossus, I shall be lord of all, or see it dashed all to pieces.

So began the Quest for the Syrinx, the Pipes of Pan that could lull Nemesis back to sleep.

All that first day, Diana stood at the fore, bathed in the godlight of the bronze lantern, staring ahead as if her violet eyes could pierce the fog of war and calamity that lay both ahead and behind them. And though the ancient trireme seemed to sail the earthly seas, soon the Serapis was on another course, blazed by the light of the lantern. The sea-lane to Aeaea was open to them, but not without dangers…

That first night out of Paradise Island, Apollo’s light shining like a star come to earth, the waters turned as dark as obsidian, and large, hideous shapes could be seen flowing beneath them, occasionally breaking the surface, but not yet attacking.

“Kraken.” Hippolytus explained grimly, rubbing his blond beard. “I wonder why they do not attack…”

In the stillness of the night, only the soft splashing of the oars could be heard. Diana stood at her cousin’s side, wrapped in her red robes against an unnatural chill.

“They fear the light of Apollo.” She said quietly, as if unwilling to disturb the hush. “Though I think they will grow bolder as we get closer to the isle of the witch.”

“What are they?” Lt. Barnes asked in the same quiet tones.

“Monsters.” Said Diana. “The misbegotten sons of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys… They are hideous and mad. Sightings of them gave birth to the legends of sea-dragons. It was one of their number that Perseus slew to rescue the Princess Andromeda.”

Lt Barnes nodded thoughtful, but did not ask what a Titan was, or who Perseus or Princess Andromeda were. Steve Trevor smiled at the young man, clasping his shoulder companionably.

“Son, you’re just going to have to accept that the unknown variables are going to really outnumber the known. We are way off the map, here…”

The next morning dawned not at all; an opalescent mist shrouded everything, and the quest could barely see past the rails of the ship. The godlight still shone with a cold, blue-white fire, but barely pierced the fog.

“She knows we’re coming.” Diana pronounced. “I have been to Aeaea before and the mists that surround it were never this thick this far out…”

The Kraken attacked that day. One of them strafed the Serapis on the port side, breaking rows of oars, while another erupted from the water to starboard, roaring a challenge. The US Marines could only stare in momentary stupefaction at the towering monster shedding waves of water off its scaly hide as it bellowed its rage over the trireme. And then they watched as Wonder Woman took to the air to grapple with the beast, whirling her golden lasso over her head!

Hippolytus rallied his Amazon sailors to port, attacking the other Kraken with arrows. The Prince himself produced a broad-bladed battle ax and hacked at the squirming tentacles that crawled over the gunwales of the boat, spraying blood and salt water everywhere.
Then the USMC went into action. Led by Lt. Barnes, the grunts opened fire on the still-submerged Kraken, lighting the water with hundreds of M-16 rounds. A low, sonorous moan came from below the water-line, and the tentacles slid lifelessly off the side of the Serapis, even as Wonder Woman was dragged beneath the waves by the other monster!

“Diana!” Steve bellowed, peering over the side, searching desperately for some sign she was still alive.
All of them waited for one long, tense moment, feeling the reverberations of tremendous blows exchanged underwater, echoing in the very hull of the trireme.

There was an ominous stillness…Then Diana burst triumphantly into the air!

“She took one of those out herself…?” Lt Barnes marveled, still shaken.

“That’s why they call her Wonder Woman.” Steve watched appreciatively as Diana landed on the deck, Hippolytus draping her with her dry red cape.

On Aeaea, the witch Circe lounged on her divan and gazed into the floating crystal sphere at the battle occurring on the decks of the Serapis. She did not delude herself that this would prevent the Amazon quest from reaching her, but she was justifiably proud of the spell. She had sown the ocean bed with the teeth of the hydra and raised the skeletal warriors to fight her enemies--- and these men of bone and malice would not be easy to destroy! Perhaps they would even take out one or two of Diana’s mortal playthings…

The Amazons and Marines were hard-pressed to fend off the witch’s assault. They were taken by surprise, and before they could rally, some of them fell to the deck, their blood washing the boards.

Then the hated Wonder Woman herself was there, a cyclone of action, wading into the thick of the battle and smashing bone into dust. The cutlasses of the hydra-men sparked ineffectually off her bracelets, and she instantly began to turn the tide.

Thus it was with glee she watched as the blond mortal, Trevor, used his rifle as a truncheon, batting aside the hydra-men and scattering their bones. But they crowded him, driving him to the edge of the deck. He fought heroically, but there was just too many! They swarmed and pushed, and Trevor went over the edge…!

The skies above Olympus, smudged an inky black since the death of Zeus, were now streaked with fire. The Furies screeched and laid waste to the ancient home of the gods, their cruel whips of scorpion’s tails blasting what had stood since time immemorial. Tisiphone razed the gardens of Demeter, the bower of Aphrodite and the smithy of Hephaestus; Alecto demolished the Halls of Hera, the vineyards of Dionysus and the stables of Artemis; and Megaera smashed the pools of Athena, the throne of Zeus and the tinkling fountains of the Muses.

So consumed with their lust for destruction, they did not notice at first that the hallowed home of the gods had been hastily abandoned. The forge in Hephaestus’ smithy was cold, the stables of Artemis empty. And when it all lay cracked and burning around them, the Furies met to howl their rage before the empty throne of dead Zeus.

“The gods have fled! Olympus is ours!” Alecto crowed.

“Fool!” Tisiphone slashed her sister with her whip, cutting a bloody trail across Alecto’s dark cheek. “We have won nothing but a hill of cold stone and rank grapes! Better that we should be supping on godflesh now!”

“Cursed Athena! She has stolen our victory from us!” Megaera moaned.

“Their end is only delayed, not avoided.” Tisiphone narrowed her eyes. She glanced up at the statue of Zeus looming by the dead Olympian’s throne. The blank marble eyes seemed to be glaring down at her, the regal mouth curled in the slightest suggestion of mirth. “They cannot hide long from the Furies. No place in the universe is safe from our whips…”

And leaving the ruins of Olympus behind, the Furies beat their wings and sprang into the sky.