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He had tried to warn the Agent of Change: Should you verbalize your thoughts, the outcome shall be of no benefit to either of us. But of course he had known that she would not listen. He had foreseen the skeptical bend of her eyebrow, the arrogant (such arrogance! She is a god, like all the rest of them) curl of her lip.
Now I know that you are bluffing, she said, because I fail to see how passing along Lord Dionysus’s invitation to join his thoughtless feasting halfway up the mountain will change anything that’s happening here.
He had foreseen that she would make that mistake. Though he’d had to try. He told her, You are not safe from what you fail to see. Remember, when it all collapses around you, that I warned you.
Then they had fought. She had vanquished him. He had foreseen that, too.
*
Now he wakes, in a hidden cave near Olympus’s summit decked with luxurious gold silk and scattered all over with hourglass emblems, to the familiar sensations of talon and beak. He groans—this, he cannot help, not when he is not yet fully conscious. The sound draws Aetos’s attention. The eagle lifts his bloodstained head out of the wound in Prometheus’s front and trills quiet concern. Prometheus raises his hand and gently scritches the bird’s head.
“Eat up,” he says. His voice is rough and strained; he doesn’t usually try to speak during this part of the process. “You will need your strength. We are headed down the mountain tonight.”
For a moment, Aetos behaves like a pet, butting his head into Prometheus’s touch. But long ago Zeus set in this eagle a great and brutally specific hunger. He cannot be asked to withstand his instincts. Soon, talons pull Prometheus’s flesh open once more, and Aetos lowers his head. Prometheus closes his eyes. This time he does not make a sound as Aetos feasts on his liver. He only breathes heavily through the pain.
The witch is regular and methodical. Tonight, she will go down into the Underworld rather than venture up Mount Olympus. So Prometheus and Aetos will not be needed at the mountain’s summit. Instead they will go—once Aetos has finished eating, and once Prometheus’s body has sufficiently recovered—to the secret chamber inside the mountain where the God of Wine holds his frivolous revels. It is not that the location of this eternal feast has been unknown to Prometheus’s master, or to Prometheus himself. But it is a very exclusive party, and without the aid of witchcraft, only the invited can enter.
Prometheus is now newly among the invited. Aetos will be his plus one.
He will step out of the cold and into the steamy lounging area with surprisingly little to-do from the rest of Dionysus’s guests; they will all be too absorbed in their own languid debauchery to take much notice of the Titan walking in with an enormous eagle on his shoulder. Dionysus himself, though, has a divine knack for hosting. He will sidle away from the nymphs he is talking to with a plastered grin across his face.
“Hey-hey, here’s somebody new and I think I know who you are, so Mel must’ve passed on the invite, right? Prometheus, the original firestarter himself! Come on in, and nice bird, by the way.”
If Prometheus were to be seeing this revel for the first time—if it were the first time that he witnessed Dionysus’s flushed, drunken face, his eyes that every now and then slide out of focus—would he be repulsed? That possibility is lost. He has foreseen all of it, he already knows it. He will behold the God of Wine’s grotesque jollity, and all he will feel is distaste.
But he will not lead with that. What he will say first is, “Your father would not appreciate your referring to me as the original firestarter.”
Dionysus’s grin will, if anything, grow at that pronouncement. “And that is just fine, man, because we are all, well mostly me if I’m honest, doing all sorts of things that Dad wouldn’t appreciate in here.”
“Such as feasting while your mountain burns.”
“Such as exactly that!” Dionysus will not quite have the height to sling an arm around Prometheus’s shoulder, and besides Aetos will be perched there. He will, with surprising insight, think better of throwing his arm around Prometheus’s bandaged torso, either. So after a strange teetering motion he will busy himself at the bar. “Tell you what, why don’t you get out of that skirt and into that pool and start making yourself some new friends? And I’ll bring you something good to get you started. Loosen you up a bit, maybe, you look like you haven’t relaxed in ages!”
Prometheus will reach out and lay a heavy hand on Dionysus’s shoulder. He will feel the half-mortal god flinch, just slightly.
“I’ve come to this party with the intention of speaking to you,” Prometheus will tell him, which will be the perfect truth.
For a split second, Dionysus will look cornered. Then his eyebrows will do several things as he, facetiously or not, draws the incorrect conclusion from Prometheus’s words. His grin will grow sly. “Oh-hoh, well then you slip on into that pool and save a seat for me, all right? And I’ll be right over.”
Prometheus will oblige. To clear space for Dionysus to join him will not be difficult, since Prometheus’s comparatively unfestive demeanor will inspire nearby satyrs and nymphs to give him a wide berth. And when Dionysus brings him a kylix of dark wine and slides into the thermally heated water beside him, Prometheus will raise the cup and meet his eyes with a challenge.
“Match me,” he will propose.
Disbelief at his own good fortune will spread sloppily across Dionysus’s face. Another kylix will appear in his hand. “A drinking contest? Now you are speaking my language, Pro,” he will say, and he will down his own wine without a second thought.
That is how it will begin.
*
Aetos finishes his meal, and Prometheus lies on his stained silks to recover, his innards shifting and cramping around the swell of his regrowing liver. When he can focus, he lifts his hand to his abdomen and sears the wound shut, and his strength improves more rapidly from there now that he is not bleeding his life out onto the ground. Aetos uses the time to preen, to clean blood from his beak and feathers. When he has cleaned himself to his own satisfaction, he comes to preen Prometheus’s hair instead.
This is all mundane and familiar, but it does not put Prometheus at ease. Dionysus will be right to say that it has been aeons since Prometheus has relaxed. Unfortunately for the God of Wine, he will not relax in Dionysus’s pool, either, as the two of them drink together.
Dionysus will attempt to set the terms of conversation early.
“Before you start,” he’ll say, grinning as Prometheus sips his wine, “don’t go trying to tell me why you’re doing what you’re doing or anything like that because I’ll be honest, I just don’t care. That’s all happening out there. You’re in here now, you get me?”
Prometheus will say, “And in here, you believe that nothing of the outside world can touch you?”
“You got it, I mean just look around!” The broad, careless sweep of his arm then will nearly collide with Aetos, stationed near the edge of the pool to watch over Prometheus. The eagle will hop out of the way with a chittering squeak of irritation. Dionysus will not pay him much attention. “I don’t even know how long we’ve been at it in here, but we’re not gonna be stopping anytime soon. This is me, man. This is what I’ve got for people, and they want it.”
He will not be wrong about that. The chamber will be full of truant satyrs and carefree nymphs, divesting themselves of their senses by means of Dionysus’s ever-flowing wine. Mortals, too, often crave Dionysus’s escape from their miserable, brutal lives.
Prometheus will say, “They want—and you want—to drown in pleasure so that you do not have to face reality.”
“I sure do!” Dionysus will say, his voice too loud as though he is trying to speak over Prometheus. He’ll notice that Prometheus has emptied his cup and refill it. His forced merriment will barely waver. “And don’t think you can, I don’t know, shock me out of this so I break down sobbing and then run back to Dad to help out with this crazy war going on or whatever. Because I gotta tell you, Mel’s been trying the same thing and you’re not gonna have any more luck than she has.”
Prometheus will take a long drink from his kylix. He does not yet know what the wine will taste like—only that, instead of intoxicating him, it will clear and focus his mind.
“There is one difference between myself and that witch,” he will tell Dionysus. There are a number of significant differences between himself and the Agent of Change, but one that will be relevant here.
In the middle of refilling his own cup, Dionysus will chuckle. “What’s that?” he’ll ask.
“She cannot foresee, the way I can, what it will take to break you.”
Dionysus’s hand will twitch, splashing wine over the edge of his cup.
In all his years of life, Prometheus has never met anyone comforted by his foresight. Mortals and immortals alike fear it, or they deny the truth of it entirely. He supposes they find it uncomfortable to be faced with someone who knows their future better than they do. He finds it difficult to feel sympathy for them. Prometheus finds it difficult to feel anything.
Dionysus will collect himself. He’ll put down the pitcher and shift his kylix to his other hand so that he can suck the spilled wine off his fingers. “Listen, man,” he’ll say, licking them clean, “don’t go bringing down the vibe in here. I don’t want to kick you out after you came all this way, but I will if I have to, all right? And trust me, you won’t like me in that mode. I mean I don’t even like me in that mode!”
Prometheus will say, “You mean your aspect of ritual madness?”
And that will make Dionysus freeze. At the other end of the pool, one nymph’s voice will rise in shrill agitation before dying down again, and the music piping in from somewhere will stumble over a sudden sour note. Then Dionysus will spread his lips in a very, very deliberate grin. He’ll lean close to Prometheus, far closer than is appropriate, only to turn his head and lift his kylix and empty it in one long, gulping swallow.
“Look,” he’ll say conspiratorially as he lowers his cup. “You have got to start drinking a little faster, man, or I’m going to wind up way ahead of you.”
In spite of Dionysus’s admonition, Prometheus will continue to drink at his own patient pace. But he will allow the conversation to follow Dionysus’s rambling lead for a time. The God of Wine’s mental defenses against the darkness of the present are not as good as he pretends they are. Each occasional reference he makes to “what’s going on out there” will make his grip on his wine tighten and his grin grow obviously strained. But he will sail past these moments with hollow bravado. They will settle onto the topic of mortals, perhaps a natural one for the two of them.
“Honestly,” Dionysus will say, his face more flushed than ever and his elbows propped on the edge of the pool in nonchalant relaxation, “I don’t know how my family’s gotten away with what they do for so long. I mean, some of the things they want to be worshipped for, can you believe it? At least I know how to show the mortals a good time. They appreciate me. I think they appreciate me. Don’t they?” He will look at Prometheus. “Do you know?”
“I’m afraid that falls outside the realm of foresight,” Prometheus will tell him, dryly, and Dionysus will laugh as though he’s made a joke instead of just producing the words he has foreseen himself producing.
The opportunity to laugh will make it easier for Dionysus to wave away his moment of insecurity. “But you get it though, right?” he’ll press. “You like them. The mortals. Like I do.”
Does Prometheus like mortals? This is one of the questions that has haunted him for aeons. Sometimes the question takes the form Were they worth it?, although that is an easy one to answer: yes, yes, a thousand times over. But does he like them? Is there anything left in him that knows fondness or care? Sometimes he feels like an empty husk filled with nothing but the fires of his rage. And other times, even his rage burns out and leaves him hollow.
But the answer he foresees himself giving Dionysus is, “Yes, I do.”
This will inspire Dionysus to top off Prometheus’s wine, and Aetos to preen Prometheus’s hair with an insistent chirring sound. Prometheus will not have an eternity for these machinations. He will say to Dionysus, “Your own mother was a mortal who caught Zeus’s eye, was she not?”
It will be too heavy-handed, slightly too soon. Dionysus will brandish a finger in his face. “Ah-ah, none of that,” he’ll say. “This isn’t the time or place to talk about mothers, you get me?”
And he will want to turn the topic aside, make some lascivious suggestion about the sexual appeal of mothers as a genre of person. But Prometheus will speak over him with even inevitability. “Zeus’s attentions sealed her fate, because once he spotted her, so did Hera. And so the queen of Olympus turned her anger at her husband’s infidelity against Semele.”
For the first time, Dionysus’s grin will well and truly slip out of place at the sound of his mother’s name. It will take him two tries, and a fortifying sip of wine, before he can speak. “Listen, Pro, I’m only going to warn you so many times—” he’ll start to say, but Prometheus will already know that.
“You have not gone to retrieve her from the Underworld yet, have you?” he will ask.
He will, one day. But Dionysus, as he is now—as he has been for aeons, since he was first raised to Olympus—is a coward. He loves mortals only until they pass, and then he drives away thoughts of the dead and the grieving alike with his fug of revelry. He stunts himself, leaves himself half of what he could be.
In a faint voice, reeling slightly in drunken confusion, Dionysus will repeat, “Yet?”
Will the God of Wine notice the way the music hushes around him, the way his guests seem to fall into a strange, tense stupor as his own mood falters? Probably not. He will be too committed to his own insensate obliviousness, and too caught up in that particular moment in the tantalizing implication of that single, small word.
Prometheus will show him pity then. He will lift his kylix to his lips and drink deeply, emptying the cup. And Dionysus, in response, will have an opportunity to drain his own kylix and then to refill both. It will be the moment’s reprieve he needs to drown out his better nature and repair his grin. “Seriously, man,” he’ll say, leaning louchely on the words, “this isn’t party talk. Let’s move on, yeah?”
And Prometheus will allow it.
*
As the pain fades, Prometheus rouses himself and twists experimentally from side to side. Yes, he is whole again, as always, only that burned scar left across his torso in witness to his daily punishment. He bandages himself more to strengthen his beleaguered core than out of a need to keep anything in. And because he does not care to be looked at with pity. No one else can understand the choices he made, deliberately and with intent. No one who cannot see the future understands consequences the way he does. And so his punishment is no one’s business but his own. Well, his and Aetos’s.
The eagle has been out hunting while Prometheus heals, and he has carried back several rabbits and a fox kit. These, Prometheus cooks and prepares for himself. The gods feast on nectar and ambrosia, substances hardly worth calling food; Prometheus prefers to eat as the mortals do. It isn’t entirely necessary, but it makes him feel closer to his poor creations.
He eats efficiently, pausing only to offer the occasional scrap to Aetos, and when he finishes, he stands and whistles to the bird. Aetos hops willingly up onto his gloved hand.
“Shall we, then?” Prometheus murmurs, and they set out down the mountain.
Today, having eaten will provide additional benefit: a degree of protection against drunkenness. Neither gods nor titans can truly get drunk unless they wish to, but considering the sheer amount of wine it will take to push Dionysus over the edge, it seems practical to approach the party with a full stomach.
Dionysus himself, of course, welcomes drunkenness. Prometheus supposes that it is a comfortable state for him. But as the two of them sit together in the thermal pool, matching each other cup-for-cup, Dionysus’s control will begin to fray. The signs of it will be subtle: a faint slur to his voice, a weaving, wavering motion of his head as he speaks. But Prometheus has foreseen all of it, and he has had plenty of time to identify the signals. When he has reached a certain threshold, Prometheus will ask him, “What is it that you’re running from, God of Wine?”
Dionysus will make a wet, indistinct pshfhshh of dismissal, waving his hand. “That is a baseless accusation,” he’ll say through a shit-eating grin. “I have not run from anything, toward anything, or indeed for any other purpose, in… oh I’d say aeons, honestly.”
Over a sip of his wine—his seventh cup, at that point—Prometheus will say, “Hiding, then.”
And rather than treat that as the accusation it is, Dionysus will raise his cup in a toast. “See, that’s a better question! And the answer is, I am just hiding myself and my good followers here from anything out there that wants to bring us down, you get me? Listen, it’s—” Dionysus’s eyes will swim for a moment, his throat working to swallow. His grin will waver and then attempt to recover. “It’s not like I’m not aware. It’s bad out there. It’s been bad for a while, since before Dad kicked me out. It’s going down, right?”
The word it is vague enough to encompass any number of things which are in fact going down. “Yes,” Prometheus will confirm. And then—because it is the right moment—he will add, “The mortals are no longer willing to tolerate the cruel and flippant treatment of the gods. They will bring Olympus to its knees.”
“And all the more power to ’em!” Dionysus will say, slapping his hand on the side of the pool. And then, as though he has not just spoken treason, he will continue, his voice too loud: “But here’s the thing, here’s what you have got to understand: none of that has anything to do with me. What… what would… why should I have to care? What would me caring change?” Prometheus will not answer that. Dionysus will not really want an answer anyway. As a frenzied undertone begins to creep into the music that surrounds them, his voice will grow tighter, tenser. “What good would it do anyone for me to stop partying? You think I have anything else to offer? I don’t, man! I’d just be cooped up in Dad’s stuffy old palace with the rest of them and I’d have to be miserable and it wouldn’t benefit anyone! Nothing would change!” He will gesticulate with both hands, wine spilling over the edge of his kylix. “That’s the truth of the matter, Pro. I can’t do anything. I’ve never been able to do anything. I mean who can, right? Who can do anything about anything? Things—just—are.” His breath will catch in a hiccup. Breathing unsteadily, he’ll look at Prometheus. “You know what I mean?” he’ll ask, his brow vaguely furrowed.
And Prometheus will tell him, “I do.”
Prometheus can only see the future, not read minds, but he knows himself. He knows that in that moment he will think back to his icy descent down the mountain, Aetos perched on his shoulder, his destination clear and inevitable. He will remember his thoughts about choice and consequence, and he will know that none of those thoughts matter once a choice has been made and the consequences are set into motion.
“You are done hiding,” he will tell Dionysus. The words will be the truth. By speaking them, he will make them irrevocable. In the far corner of the room, two satyrs will be arguing, and what they are saying won’t matter and maybe it won’t even make sense anyway. It’s the conflict that will matter, in the same way that it will matter that the music has gone sour around them. The same way it will matter that Dionysus’s face will have gone slack, his eyes swimming in their sockets.
“I feel bad, man,” Dionysus will say, indistinctly. Prometheus will not respond. He’ll try to swallow—try again—his breath will come in short, heavy wheezes. He will be desperately afraid. “This,” he’ll say thickly, with effort. “This is going to happen, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Prometheus will answer without pity, absolutely certain of it.
Dionysus will breathe for a moment longer, staring at his own reflection in his wine.
And then he will give in.
With a sudden motion, he will throw back his head and chug his wine. His adam’s apple will bob over and over as he gulps down the liquor, too much liquor, far more than the kylix should contain—but then again, he is the God of Wine. It will spill out from the corners of his mouth and down his bare body. He will drink until his eyes roll back in his head. Then, smacking his lips, he will throw the cup aside. It will strike an amphora with a crash, shattering both and sending a deluge of purple wine pouring into the pool. Satyrs and nymphs will shriek, and they will not stop shrieking, and all at once Dionysus will lunge at Prometheus.
He will miss by a mile. Even if he were sober, even if the water did not slow his movement, Prometheus has foreseen all of this. It will be easy to leap out of the way, and then to dodge again as the nearest satyr charges him. When the satyr slams into Dionysus instead, the God of Wine will bare his teeth in a furious grin and tear his arm off without a second thought. Then he’ll begin to laugh, and he won’t stop. His revelers will gather into a formless mass around him, some laughing as well, some screaming, all of them infected by the change in his nature. They will all move together, stamping, undulating, their actions too crazed to be called a dance but too synchronized to be called anything else.
Prometheus will stand aside and lift his gloved hand. Aetos will land there, feathers unruffled by the madness that has replaced revelry, and preen a few drops of spilled wine from Prometheus’s hair. And Prometheus will wait until Dionysus looks his way.
The change in aspect will have transformed the god’s face. Shadows will fall more deeply across it, and his eyes will be wide and rolling. When he grins, it will look more like a leer. “Now, you,” he will say, pointing at Prometheus over the heads of his followers, “you had better get the hell out of here before my followers and I tear every limb from your body and the flesh from your bones.”
It will not be entirely clear whether this is a warning or a threat. But Prometheus is sure enough of the future that he will turn his back on the mad crowd and walk away without fear. Behind him, Dionysus will laugh again. Dionysus will say, So what’s up first, should we go fuck my dad’s shit up or should we see if we can spring some VIPs out of hell? His followers will cheer, louder and louder and louder, as the music plays fast and out of control—
*
But not yet.
Right now, Prometheus stands outside Dionysus’s hidden chamber and listens to the faint sounds of the music from inside. It is smooth and rocking and peaceful. He hears laughter, people having a good time. Ignorant of what is coming for them.
Prometheus knows that Dionysus’s transformation will offer Chronos no benefit whatsoever. He and his followers will, at some point, swarm into the Underworld, ostensibly in search of Semele: they will pose no threat, they will achieve none of their goals, but they will be an inconvenience. And Dionysus’s madness will peel all but the most dependable of satyrs away from the tasks to which Chronos has set them. That Dionysus will also storm his father’s palace and distract the rest of the Olympians from empowering the Agent of Change will hardly be a sufficient trade.
But Prometheus’s mind is crowded with premonition, and every action has its consequences. This is necessary and inevitable. He has seen no future in which he does not break Dionysus’s mind tonight. Was it the witch’s sarcastic invitation that eliminated all other paths? Or something else?
It’s too late to wonder that.
Prometheus steps out of the cold into Dionysus’s steamy lounge, catches the god’s eye, and plays his part.