3) Crystal Earth

Artemis visits a mystical women, and the villain arrives

3) Crystal Earth

The next thing I know, I’m being torn from a peaceful sleep. Janus stands in the door, “Wakey Wakey eggs and bakey.” She says, “Showers to your left. Meet me in the dining room when you’re done.”

The showers are warm and soothing. The dining room is less so. Something about the atmosphere today reeks of fear. Janus sits at the table, “I’m afraid there’s no time to eat.”

We walk through the courtyard, past the pink pettled tree. Janus leads me across a gravel path; it takes us on a winding route towards the hills.

The gravel path abruptly stops being gravel and becomes a dirt track. All around me are mountains. They stand tall and ominous, their tips breaching the clouds. Ripping gashes in them. Grass stretches out all around us. We walk along the dirt path. It leads us into the cliffs. Something shifts in the tall grass besides us. Janus doesn’t notice. More things move. The grass shifts as something approaches.
“Janus… there’s something in the grass.”
“No monsters out here.”
“You sure…”  I ask, as the thing in the grass gets closer.
“Yes.”
“Cool, cause there’s something in the grass.” I whisper. Janus stops, turns and looks at the grass with a confused look. A snout pokes through the grass. Raising slowly. Finally, it breaches the grass. A deer stares back at me. Another deer appears right next to it. The deer step out from the grass. A two-headed deer steps out from the grass. “What the f**k…” I whisper quietly. The deer has two heads, the body of a tiger, a snake for a tail, and the legs of an elephant. “Is this what passes for normal here?”
“No.” 
“No? Then what the f**k?”
“Probably Gaia messing around, or, literally anyone. Most likely Gaia though, she loves to play jokes. It’s nothing to worry about, probably harmless.” As if on cue, the deer heads snarl at us, exposing long, big, and thick teeth complete with sharp points. “Righty. Off with you.” Janus says flicking her wrists at the thing, sending it flying over the mountains.

After hours of walking. I say hours. But the sun never moves. The wind never changes. Finally, we reach a temple. Pillars as wide as four men and as tall as thirty hold up a pyramid shaped roof. A set of humongous doors sit squarely in the centre. Janus walks right up to the doors, and walks in, doesn’t even knock. “I come bearing gifts of frankincense and myrrh. The only gold is my presence.”
“And who have you brought?” A voice echoes around the temple. I can’t describe the voice, it sounded exactly like you would expect something called the seer to sound like.
“Artemis of the humans.”
“I see. Bring them to me.”
“Where you at?” Silence follows, “Right, be a mysterious b***h, guess we’ll have to find you in the giant-a*s temple.” Janus turns to a door, pushes it open, “First try, suck on that Aphrodite.”
“Come forward Artemis of the humans.” The Seer says. I step forward. A small figure turns around, “Ah, such youth, so much potential.” The Seer says, their breath stinking of fish. “I may be blind, but I can hear quite well. Now let us see what you are.”
“That’s a question.” Janus whispers.
“Artemis.” I reply weakly,
“Not who, what.” The Seer says.
“Human.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“You most certainly aren’t human. But you are not not human. Human but not human, something else lives within you, something I haven’t felt for millennia. Do you feel it Janus?”
“No.” Janus says monotone.
“Most definitely not human. But not a God. What are you? A curled finger stretches towards my face. I recoil. “Don’t fear my child, I want to merely observe your future.”
“Of course you do.” I mumble. The finger touches my face.

I find myself in a huge room. Two giant tables in the centre, a fireplace in the centre of a stonewall. Huge pillars support a roof covered in paintings depicting great battles, men and women clad in vibrant armour. By the fireplace are four people, two men, two women. One of the women sits in a rocking chair by the fire. Her white hair shines ominously in the flicking red of the fire. She rocks gently back and forth.
“You speak of the prophecy as if it is the word of God.” She says calmly. One of the men �" the one with blond hair responds.
“It is!” He argues.
“It is not the word of God. There is no reason for why we can’t.” She pauses. She looks at the man with brown hair. “Something has escaped. We need to be prepared.”
“I agree.” Says the second woman.
“But Crystal Earth!” The man with blond hair splutters.
“What of it?” Says the woman in the rocking chair.
“We cannot interfere with the events that have already been set in motion. It is not our place. It is not our war. Coatlicue, you must understand this. This war has nothing to do with us.”
“Silence!” Coatlicue responds �" her white hair glows brighter than the fireplace, “This ‘prophecy’ is not the word of God. There is no reason for it to happen. We all swore to protect this universe �"“
“We swore to protect a prophecy, which you’re claiming isn’t real. Odin was right �"“ He shouts. The woman’s hair changes, her entire head changes into a ball of writhing snakes.
“Odin is a fool.” She hisses, “We do as we will. The prophecy talks of The Four; and as of right now, they are useless. We will do whatever we have to if it means stopping this war.” Her face starts to settle, the snakes wriggle back into a humanoid face-shape, and the skin starts to reform. She looks at the man with brown hair, “Ra, find whatever has escaped, do whatever you must.” She turns to the woman,” Danu, protect Artemis Kaliaski at all costs.” Finally, she turns to the blond haired man, “As for you Zeus. Do as you will, join Odin, or stay and prevent a war. Either way, your task is the same. Protect this child.” Then she looks at me. Right at me. “This child is of utmost importance. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” Zeus and Danu say in unison.
“Where to?” Danu asks,
“New York.” Coatlicue says. Then they shimmer, and three of the Evil Foursome stands in front of me. Dressed the same as they were in New York.

The Seer stumbles away from me. Her face scrunched up in pain. “NO!” She screeches. “How?” Tears cascade down her face. I stare at her in confusion. Janus stares at her too.  The Seer collapses to the floor, and there she stays, sobbing uncontrollably.

Janus takes me outside, “Sorry about that, she’s old, gets overwhelmed easily. Never seen it this bad though.” She glances back at the temple, “Stay here, I’ll be back in a couple minutes.” Then she leaves me.

I stand in the foyer. The wind blows gently, somewhere crickets chirp cheerily. The sun shines peacefully. Clouds drift along the sky.
“So, how was your first time?” A voice says behind me. I turn to face the voice, a girl stares back at me, her blues eyes glisten with flecks of pink, “I suppose you have questions? About what you just saw, I mean.” She continues.
“Yeah.”
“Shoot.”
“What the f**k is going on?”
“This is The Other World. Bordering Heaven, Hell, and Earth. That tree in the palace is the Goddess Tree, which is one of the things that connects all of these places.” She sits on the floor and leans against a pillar, “It took me a while at first, so I’ll give you the run down. God’s are real. But they prefer the term Deities, the term God is saved for the big cheese. Who might or might not exist. No one’s sure. There’s a prophecy stating that several beings, called The Four are destined to ‘save or destroy the universe’. They also might or might not be real.” She laughs, “There’s a lot of might or might nots.”
“What are you?”
“Human, female, sixteen years old. Called Dawn. Born in Auckland, lived most of it there, some in South Africa.”
“So, you’re human.”
“One-hundred percent human.”
“How are you here then?”
“What do you mean?”
“Someone said that I’m the first human to be here.”
“Right yeah. They don’t know I’m here. Not meant to be here. But need to be here.”
“Why you being so cryptic?”
“Cause if I just up and told you everything, there’d be no mystery.”
“YOU TWO!” A voice yells at us. Dawn freezes up. “Stay right there.” And the next thing I know there’s a sword pressed against my neck and a man with blond hair stares at me. “Who are you?”
“Artemis.” I stutter, afraid if I move too much I’ll end up slitting my own neck. The man looks at Dawn,
“Oh me too?” She says, “Dawn. And you are?”
“Lugh.” He says lowering the sword, “What happened?” He asks Dawn and me. Dawn shrugs, nods to me, and says,
“Ask them.”
“What happened?” Lugh asks me more firmly,
“I saw The Seer?” I say nervously.
“Is that all?” He growls.
“Darling, darling.” A woman with brown hair sings as she enter the foyer, “Leave the poor children alone. If The Seer saw something, don’t you think we’d know by now?” As she says this Janus comes out of the temple. Something about the way she walks throws me off.
“Oh good, you’re here. Macha, where are your sisters?”
“Coming Janus. Something up?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Nemain and Badb should be here any minute.” While she’s saying this, two crows land on the marble floor, then they transform into two women.
“Good, good.” Janus mutters, “Macha, Nemain, Badb, Lugh. We might have a problem.” Janus says. She stops, looks at Dawn, and asks, “Who are you?”
“Oh, Dawn” She bites her lip as if stopping herself from saying something.
“What’s the problem, Janus? Is it the type I can kill with my sword?” Lugh says brandishing said sword.
“Almost certainly not.” Janus muses, “Macha, go to Dagda. Tell him to come here, as quick as he can. Get anyone else you can.”
“Janus, what’s going on?” Asks one of Macha’s sisters.

“Now, you might be like, ‘there’s so many people’, I can’t keep track. It calms down soon; like very soon.”
“Explain to me what The Seer made you see.” Desk-Head says.
“I saw, four Deities. Zeus, Danu, Ra, and Coatlicue. Who are, ‘protectors’ of a prophecy that The Seer had at like the start of time. I don’t know. The Prophecy says that four people will either save or destroy the universe.”
“But why?”
“F**k should I know.”

“Something very bad.” Janus says. It might just be a coincidence, but when she says this, the sky darkens, the wind stops, the crickets stop chirping, and air turns cold. “Something very, very bad.” As if a reply to this, the ground rumbles.
“Gaia?” Lugh says in shock.
“No, no. Worse. Way worse.” Janus almost weeps. The ground lets out an almighty groan, as if it’s about to split around. “Even Gaia is scared. God help us.” A crack of lightning rips across the sky. The ground stops rumbling. Thunder shatters the silence. The world around us seems to move. All the darkness swarms to one place, knitting itself into a figure. The darkness that had blotched out the world is now stood in front of us. And I swear to God it’s smiling. The Darkness seems like it’s made of smoke. It swirls as if caught in a breeze.
“S**t.” I hear Dawn say. Lugh makes a lunge at The Darkness, but he goes right through it.
“Bow to me. Your new God is here.” The Darkness says. Not says, thinks directly into my head.
“Time to go.” Dawn whispers into my ear, she places a hand on my shoulder. And the world goes black.