By the gods!
Something very strange is happening in the dimension of Mount Olympus. If it can be called a dimension. It's difficult to describe really. One day it might be an interplanar realm, another it might be a country. One night it could be an island in an impossibly large sea, while another time it could be a kingdom in the clouds.
Either way, ( Read more... )
Either way, ( Read more... )
One of his top hats is sitting on the arm-rest of his chair-- a fine hat, of the sort almost impossible to find today, silk and wool, hand-crafted originally and refurbished a dozen times in the years he's owned it, but whatever else, a thing of the material world, a thing of fabric.
Or it was. Now it is pure darkness, a silhouette given three-dimensionality. The Shade's lips purse as he regards it, and he lifts it without touching it, turning it this way and that.
A patch of primordial night; the darkness of Erebus (....or Hades) made tangible, although he willed no such thing.
He reaches out and touches it, his fingers passing into the darkness, and... comprehends much, although the knowledge is not entirely welcome to him. The Helm of Hades, it was called in myth. Other translations have it as a cap of invisibility, although that makes it sound like nothing more than a gimmick of smoke and mirrors. The Cyclopes gave these and other such weapons to the fledgling gods in their war.
The Shade scowls, fingering a brim that used to be very fine silk petersham.
"I dislike gifts when the price is unlisted," he say crisply to the darkness, to whatever force had brought about this change. "And if you're going to be bestowing wondrous nonsense upon me, you might have used one of my more easily replaced hats."
Still. The Shade closes his eyes, lets his consciousness expand to the shadows. One room is easy. But this extends beyond that-- his senses roll through the shadows of the rest of the house, the street-- the city...
He keeps expecting the inevitable wall of strain, his concentration spread too thin and diffused, but it doesn't come. Everything remains clear and sharp and easy.
He has seen nearly two centuries upon the earth, and wonder doesn't come easily to him anymore. But the Shade comprehends the new extent... one might say, the god-like extent... of his powers, and sucks in a harsh breath.
He dons the hat, and fades from both sight and all other senses, mystical and otherwise. Out into the night, and into the world. He slaughters no civilians, engages in no acts of destruction, proclaims no ascent to divinity.
He does not trust this new power, and seeks an answer.
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