Centaurian Ch. 06

"How did you know how to use the eternal flame to destroy Kratos?" asked Liam.

"The same way you know how to digest food."

"I don't know how to digest food; it's just something my body does."

"Exactly. I've only used my mostly internalized abilities, those aren't much different than taking an intentional breath or flexing a muscle but manifesting something external from myself or instantaneously transporting something from one place to another, especially over a great distance is something else entirely. I feel the power within me to do that and more, but I don't know how it works."

"It's not much different," said Emma. "I could probably guide you a bit on how to teleport. I wish I could show you how to manifest externally, but I wouldn't know where to begin. It's something you will have to figure out on your own. I will say this, however, once you've done one thing, you'll quickly get the idea how it works, and the rest will come naturally."

"That's good to know." Ronan turned to the captain. "If Zeus should try to sink the ship, at the moment, I don't know what I can do to stop him."

He remembered what Prometheus told him and a thought occurred to him. He rewatched the video of the brothers, and although difficult to discern with clarity, he observed them closely. Zeus and Hades never turned fully toward the CCTV camera on the wall, but at one point, Poseidon looked directly into its lens, and he seemed undeterred. "Perhaps, it's time you retired," he had said to Zeus.

"There's someone I need to speak to," said Ronan.

"Who?" asked Liam.

"I don't want to say just yet."

"Should I come with you?" he asked.

"I wish you could, but I think him more prone to show himself and speak candidly if I were alone."

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Poseidon, the god of the oceans and seas, earth-shaker, storm-maker, horse-pater, and middle brother to the major Olympians was not the god he used to be, but few of them were, anymore. Humanity's abandonment of them proved the best thing that could have happened to both humankind and the gods. The gods, like the attention whores they were, had convinced humanity that it needed them, but that could never have been true, any more than a slave could really need their master, when the master, apparently, could do nothing for themselves. Masters and gods become spoiled at great cost to the ones spoiling them—whether that spoilage occurs by force or by choice. Humanity lavished the gods with the attention they craved—and felt entitled to receive—in the form of worship, sacrifices, and adoration. The supplication of the masses teeming with valid needs, however, the gods had fulfilled on divine whims at no greater frequency than coincidence. One only puts up with negative returns on earnest efforts for so long before the inevitable questioning occurs, followed by a well-deserved desertion.

Most of the gods found their abandonment a humiliating and humbling experience. Their golden age had come and gone, and with it, their perceived importance, along with all that lovely attention used to bolster their massive egos. In its absence, many of them became more introspective and searched for a way to find some purpose for their existence. Others—usually lesser gods—lived in denial that anything had changed or had the grace to diminish in a divine melancholia from which they seldom ever resurfaced, if at all.

Ronan could see the first traces of the sun peaking above the horizon as he made his way toward the forecastle to call to Poseidon. Upon reaching the forwardmost point of the ship in silence, he found Poseidon leaning naked against the foremast enjoying the sunrise with his eyes closed. Within reach, his glowing golden trident defied gravity in its unsupported vertical position upon the deck.

Ronan hadn't immediately made his presence known; he simply studied Poseidon's hairy and tan body for a moment. Droplets of water traced the lines of his impressive musculature. It visibly dripped from his hair, short beard, elbows, and generously sized genitals as it puddled around his feet, discoloring the metal deck plating beneath him. He ran his fingers through his tousled heartthrob hairstyle to keep it from his face and crossed his arms. His overall appearance characterized a modern notion of masculine handsomeness, rivaled only by Ronan himself. He sensed Poseidon's mystique and could understand why he had had so many lovers of both sexes.

He opened his eyes and turned his head to gaze upon Ronan. "Have I met with your approval?"

"You are far more handsome and different than I had imagined, you have body hair, and your penis is certainly larger than I expected; so much classical art tends to depict your body as hairless, and when they bother to show your penis at all, it tends toward the diminutive. You don't mind that I took a moment to admire you?"

"I've always been this size. The minuscule genitals in artworks are nothing more than popular sculptors and painters placating some ridiculous cultural notion of intellectualism, and when they have me draped in cloth, it's to avoid encouraging pruriency among the viewing public."

"If they ever depicted you as you actually are," said Ronan, "they would have plenty of pruriency among the viewing public. I found myself with a few prurient thoughts myself."

Poseidon smiled. "Thank you. That means a lot to me coming from you. You'll find that I am always naked. For the god of the ocean to wear clothing makes about as much sense as a man wearing an overcoat in the shower. I will admit, though, the body hair is new, it seems you've started a trend among the gods. So no, I don't mind if you admired me; it only seems fair; I've admired you since you met Henri Estalon, but I must say, you have excellent taste in your appearance. I much prefer you this way, although you look even better without the clothes."

"Knowing your blatant disregard for keeping a familial distance," said Ronan, "I figured being one-quarter your brother wouldn't stop any flirtations, but I must ask, 'Aren't I a little old for you?'"

"Damn those ancient Hellenes and their proclivities. They merely ascribed to the gods what they would have done, but I assure you, speaking for myself, all my lovers were adults. Granted, one might even view a twenty-year-old as a child compared to someone thousands of years old, but still, the legal authorities of the age would consider them legal adults today; so, no, you're not too old. As for the rest of you, the eternal flame has you far removed from your biological origins, and mentally you're three-quarters not my brother. Besides, I have an appreciation for horses. I've been a stallion many times, and sired several equine children, two of whom were particularly famous."

"That all sounds strange to me."

He shrugged a little. "Meh...the life of a god." He held out his hand to shake. "I believe you have the custom for this form of greeting."

Ronan stepped up and shook his hand.

"It's nice to finally meet you," said Poseidon.

"And not merely spy on me?"

"I spied in the most appreciative and respectful way possible."

"Oh, then you left when Liam and I had sex."

"Well, no, of course not."

Ronan's brows rose in surprise. "Would you watch and masturbate like some peeping-tom?"

"Oh, don't make it sound so sordid."

"So, you did masturbate while we had sex? How is that respectful?"

"It's of the highest respect. One, I had never before had the compulsion, and two, I'm a god; what greater compliments do you need?"

Ronan thought about it for a moment and realized they came from entirely two different perspectives and decided not to press the point. "Oh, well, in that case, thank you for bestowing the honor upon us."

"It was entirely my pleasure," he said.

"Yes, I dare say it was," said Ronan.

"I believe we have something to discuss," said Poseidon, "shall we get on with it?"

"Would we not attract the attention of our paranoia-prone brother?"

Poseidon pointed to his trident. "I have us isolated from the outside world. We are neither seen nor overheard."

"So, you can do that. As I suspected, you wanted the CCTV camera to see the three of you."

He nodded. "You needed to see it firsthand. I even stopped the wind to improve the sound quality. I hoped you would want to speak to me."

"But why now? Why not just come to me from the start?"

"I hadn't wanted to interfere with you and Liam; you need one another. This little experiment of Prometheus has proven pure genius, but it has succeeded because I helped you; I helped all the Stallions over the years, especially during their crucial transition period. You're rather vulnerable just then, and I've held everyone at bay who might have caused any of you harm, and as for you, I paved the way from the island where Liam found you to the hospital and all the way into his apartment, so he would have as little difficulty as possible. I have done all this because the gods are people too, and as someone who has vowed to help others, we need you."

"You started the rumor because you want me to dethrone Zeus."

"No, Athena started the rumor," he said, "but we don't want you to dethrone Zeus, we need you to, and as the Temptations would say, I ain't too proud to beg, if you should insist."

"You, Poseidon, would beg. You really are desperate. Has Zeus gotten that bad?"

He took a deep breath and gave an awkward little laugh. "Firstly, I want you to know that I loathe speaking ill of our brother; I honestly wish I had no call to. Many of us were wilder in our younger years, doing terrible things we shouldn't have, but the passage of time has tempered us—the changes on Earth have affected the gods too—but while most of us have matured to varying degrees, for some, maturity isn't enough. Based on a fully developed concept of evil, some gods are evil by their nature, and some, like Zeus, come to be that way. You haven't access to all of Chiron's memories, have you?"

"No, I think a lot is missing."

"Zeus is the reason we won the Titanomachy, the war against the Titans. He saved us from the belly of our beast of a father, he led the rebellion, and then came ten years of war. The written descriptions of the war, as bad as they sound, invariably gloss over the true horrors of it. When humans wage war, it results in deaths, and as such, it deprives the enemy of soldiers. The war of the gods included many mortal beings that fought alongside the gods of their loyalty. Their enemies had slain most of the mortals, but since gods don't die, and none could destroy us, how could the gods wage war against one another? We get creative. To make someone give up, pain, torture, and confinement are pretty much our only options, and Zeus proved himself rather clever at it. Some of his punishments since the war reflect what he had learned. He had Prometheus chained to a rock, where he endured a never-ending cycle of an eagle tearing open his body to eat his liver every day, only for it to grow back every night. The war taught him that cruelty and malevolence would get him what he wants, and it desensitized him to the suffering of others. As a result, Zeus is not good, so he is not a good king, never was, never will be. He is a malevolent tyrant, and his occasional displays of compassion and mercy are nothing more than an attractive veneer intended to impress."

"Couldn't all of you ban together and remove him?"

"Apparently, you don't remember, but ages ago, Hera, Athena, and Apollo sought my help to end Zeus's tyranny. At first, I refused them, but they convinced me to go along with it. However, it would never have succeeded.

"What happened?"

"Zeus overpowered us. As punishment for our attempt to overthrow him, Zeus tortured Hera. He used golden chains to hang her by her hands from the sky with anvils attached to her feet and forced her to stare into the abyss; it almost drove her mad. As his favorite child, he never punished Athena, but—for a while—he stripped Apollo and me of our powers and sent us to serve that con man, King Laomedon for wages. He tricked me into building the walls of Troy by refusing payment."

"So, a scoundrel of the first water."

"A multifaceted and highly polished scoundrel. I learned he did it frequently and once too often. After all that work, I was so angry with the king, I sicced a sea monster on him, which of course, would have destroyed the city and the creature would have eaten all who crossed his path. Some fake oracle told them they could only appease the monster by the king sacrificing his daughter to it. They often believed such nonsense back then, and it wasn't true. She would just be an appetizer for the meal to come. Heracles, who happened to be in the vicinity, offered to kill it for a price and save the princess. Laomedon agreed to the price, so Heracles killed the monster, but the king reneged on that deal too. Afterward, Heracles, with the help of a squadron of warriors, promptly killed him for it."

"Well, if Zeus can take away your powers," said Ronan, "what makes you think I can dethrone him then?"

He stood straight and made a sexy rake of his fingers through his drying hair. "What I will tell you, you must keep to yourself."

"Okay," he said, "you have my word."

"Do you know what an eternal flame actually is?" asked Poseidon.

Ronan shrugged a little. "Enchanted fire?"

"Not even close." He shook his head. "Energy is neither created nor destroyed, so even an eternal flame must have a continuous source. The flame is a remnant from the formation of our universe. It's a tiny permanent leak from the failed universe adjacent to this one from where Chaos broke free to create our universe.

"The one there is filled with nothing but a nearly inexhaustible amount of creative energy that, for some reason, never expanded, but when it leaks into the space of this already formed universe, it appears intensely bright and produces heat, so we perceive it as a kind of fire, but it's just pure creative energy with nothing to do."

"And I can tap into that leak."

"Yes," he said. "It's inside of you. It constantly creates what you are through your will. It's why you're entirely self-sustaining. However, there's more to it than that."

"And that is..."

"On our own, none of the gods were ever fully immortal. That was a presumption from our having an extremely long lifespan."

"How can that be?"

"Because, at birth, our parents imbued us with a finite amount of that same creative energy, and over our considerable lifetimes, we deplete it. I couldn't say how long we would live with no external input—it could be a million years. However, Ambrosia is a transmuted form of that same creative energy. We all drink Ambrosia, so we keep adding energy to our reserves, extending our lives and our ability to maintain our powers at their peak level."

"I see. Speaking of that, why do I have Ambrosia for cum? Surely, that's not where Ambrosia comes from. Where the other Stallions just the same?"

"I have no knowledge of the origins of Ambrosia. I have come to think that we might find a hint in the fountain of youth story. But you must remember that Henri had a son, so he couldn't have produced Ambrosia. I suspect that Zeus had less to do with the creation of Aquila than it sounds or as much as he prefers to take credit. Zeus often takes full or partial credit for things in which he was not involved. He likes to claim credit for instigating the creation of humanity, but regardless of the stories told about it, he had nothing to do with it. He saw Prometheus' genius and wanted a share of the accolades. And as Aletheia is the personification of truth, Zeus likes to claim her as his daughter, but she isn't. I could go on and on about that topic. On Henri's own—with just any woman—he could never have had a child. So, what I think Zeus did was bring Henri's ideal woman into his path and he into her's. It occurred the way Prometheus brought you and Liam together. I think both you and Henri gave the one you love—and to whom you have a special connection—exactly what they wanted. Henri's wife wanted to have his child so badly, he subconsciously manifested what he needed to make that happen."

Ronan remembered. "Liam expressed a concern about growing old, burdening me, and a fear that I would leave him if he wasn't handsome anymore."

"So, you subconsciously manifested Ambrosia to solve the problem," said Poseidon.

"If it is the same energy that gives the gods their power, then that would mean-"

"Your Ambrosia has charged Liam with so much creative energy that, if things continue—at some point—he could achieve godhood."

"Okay," said Ronan, "that I will need to discuss with Liam."

Poseidon nodded. "Agreed."

"So, how do you know all this?"

"Athena, the goddess of wisdom and knowledge, would only discuss her dangerous insights with a rare few and in secret. We have discussed various points on the nature of our power and how it relates to you. Here's why you can dethrone Zeus. You are the creative energy in its purest form, and through the leak, you receive a continuous supply of it. A god's powers emanate from the same energy but it's several steps removed in purity from yours, we can't hold as much as you do, and we can deplete ours."

"But I don't know how to wield it," said Ronan.

"Like all the rest of us, you can learn, and it's deceptively simple. I suspect you would find little impossible for you; the problem would come from your inability to effectively utilize your imagination and see beyond your perceived limitations."

"So, imagination is important?"

"It's all-important. You cannot manifest what you cannot conceive."

"I see. So, why hasn't Zeus tried to take away my power as he did yours?"

"I suspect he tried that first, and his failure has caused him to fear you, and the ease in which you destroyed Kratos has him worried. He was the strongest, and not even Zeus can generate the heat necessary to vaporize a god and convert their energy. A god's destruction results in an instantaneous conversion of all their energy into an unstable form which is the source of the explosion, or so Athena says. The more powerful the god, the larger the explosion. Destroying Kratos required power beyond the ability of any god that I know. I couldn't speak to how far your abilities go. None of us are truly omnipotent, but you may be the closest to reach it."

"The idea of having that kind of power scares me," said Ronan.

"Good," said Poseidon. "It would worry me if it didn't, but you asked me if Zeus had gotten that bad. You've no need to just take my word for it. Unlike with Zeus, you're welcome to question my veracity anytime you like. That's something I've learned from Aletheia. If I'm honest, the truth will stand on its own. So, believe your own eyes. Zeus refused to stop you from destroying Kratos just to see if you could. He threw his life away, so yes, he is that bad."

"I destroyed him without remorse," said Ronan, "so what does that make me?"

"Kratos was a rabid tiger and the strong arm of Zeus's tyranny. You gave both Zeus and him an opportunity. You even told them what you would do if they wouldn't back off. Those are not the actions of someone who is without kindness, understanding, patience, or control. You destroyed him to protect people. You did what you did because you care about others, but Zeus and Kratos did what they did because they only care about themselves, and therein lies the difference. You question yourself, Ronan, because you are good; the people who aren't, wouldn't bother."

Ronan thought about that for a moment. "He never even called out to Zeus."

"Kratos would have viewed that as weakness," said Poseidon. "He swore long ago that, if need be, he would die in Zeus's service, but in full disclosure, he only swore that because Zeus insisted."