Colossal I

“You who name yourselves Titans desecrate what the word once meant. You make yourselves petty tyrants over children and break bones for hollow works, greedy as the wyrms we overthrew. Are you not ashamed at what we are become?”

– Antigone Strides-Ever-Unyielding, amphore for the Chorus of the Gentle Hand

She was cold.

It had been the howls in the distance she’d feared enough to run deeper into the woods, through thick brush in places where no moonlight reached, but now it was the cold that threatened to swallow her whole. She was shivering, shaking, and twice now she’d tripped on a root. Her knees were skinned and her arms bruised. The child had gotten lost in the dark, and the panic that followed that realization only made it worse. She ran back, branches raking her skin, but she did not know where back was anymore. She was tired and, sometimes she could hear things moving around her.

Monsters, creeping close. She fled those with all that was left of her strength, stumbling into a thornbush whose harsh bite set her weeping again as she crawled away and through the muck and leaves. Hands groping blindly she found a way up the fallen trunk blocking her way, hearing breaths coming ever closer to her, and when she reached the summit- beautiful, she thought. A clearing that was a perfect circle of green grass touched by pale moonlight, the silver painting tall stone slabs standing upright like silent sentinels.

She stumbled forward, onto the grass, and shivered under the cool wind. Holding herself with hands scraped raw, trying to keep what little warmth remained from leaving her, she tread across the soft grass and closer to the stones. The noises, the things in the woods, did not come closer. Was this a sacred place, one that would scare the creatures? Perhaps the Gods were safeguarding her. Hesitating but unwilling to stay out in the open, she went further in. The moonlight sliced in between the silhouettes, and as she approached for the span of a heartbeat she thought she saw a door.

There was nothing between the stones when she went there, though, only a play of light and shadows. Trembling, she extended a hand and gasped when it disappeared. It was as if she was going through a veil! And the air beyond was warmer. Biting her lip, she went through.

It was a room of stone, bare stone carved with strange symbols every which way. She’d come through a door, but immediately she knew this was not a refuge: there was something else inside, a hulking shape seated and breathing shallowly. Its eyes opened, each larger than her head, and she shrieked out in fear.

“Small-child,” a deep voice said, a voice like a mountain would have if they could talk, “how did you come here?”

She knelt, her knees knocking.

“I’m sorry,” she shivered, “it was an accident, I was cold and-“

She yelped in surprise when the hulking shape rose, revealing itself to look like a man. A giant. They ate children, she had been told. Ground their bones for flour and… a large palm settle gently atop her head, patting it.

“Do not fear,” the giant said.

She mutely nodded.

“The Pattern does not know coincidence,” the giant told her, tone thoughtful. “This was taught.”

She didn’t know how to reply, and the great one sighed.

“I must consider the portents,” the giant said. “You may remain, small-child.”

She stayed on her knees, trembling, as he bent down and passed through the veil into the night. It was a long time before the shakes ended, and longer still before she fell asleep.

—

She thought the giant would never come back, and wept bitterly not knowing whether this was a blessing or not.

The day passed in fits of tears as she huddled within the hidden altar, too afraid of what awaited in the woods to risk leaving. Warm sunlight passed through the veil, revealing strange symbols on the ground and shifting as the hours passed. Yet when dusk came and darkness spread over the land – the Gods Above had closed their eyes, her father had once told her, and the Gods Below stolen the sky in their slumber – soft, lumbering footsteps returned. As the stars shone down on the circle of stones and the altar hid within them, the giant returned.

His hair was long and dark, its face fiercely bearded but bearing gentle eyes and though it robes were pure white and long, dragging across the ground, there was not a speck of dirt on them. The giant bent down to peer at her, great eyes unblinking, and after sniffing her raised its hand. She choke on a scream of fear, but no pain came: a gargantuan hand gently patted the top of her hair, ruffling her ratty hair.

“Small-child,” the giant said. “I greet you.”

She mumbled back a greeting of her own.

“Have you eaten?” the giant asked.

“No,” she whispered.

“Then follow.”

His back straightened and slowly it moved away. She hastily followed, taking care not to step on the trailing robes whose white knew no taint. She hesitated to pass the threshold, knowing what lay past it. The beautiful circle, but also cold. The creatures that prowled the night. Terror and dark and pain. A great palm settled on her head, as gentle eyes smiled at her.

“This is,” the giant said, “a good place.”

Eyes watering, she nodded and she followed. She gasped when she found that the air outside was not cold, as it had been the last night, but instead of a soft warmth.

“A good place,” the giant repeated, “and it likes you.”

It was beautiful, she thought. The stones dipped in silver moonlight, the soft green grass and the… perfection of it. Like the two halves were perfect mirrors, like the little clearing was a single whole and it was complete. The giant gently nudged her along, though he did not seem displeased by her staring, and the two of them went to the edge of the clearing. There shapes were moving in the underbrush and she shivered, hiding behind one of his great legs. A great muzzle peeked out, sniffing at the wind, and out of the dark came a wolf so large it could not be called a wolf. In its jaws, it bore something large and bloody.

It smelled of death.

She whimpered, but the giant was not troubled. He hummed three deep notes, and the world hummed along with him. The stones echoed of it, the sound rippling between them until it faded away. The great wolf bowed its head, placing on the ground what it had held in its mouth. A great stag, she saw in the moonlight, with antlers and hooves of glittering bronze. The giant bowed his head at the wolf, which raised its own and withdrew into the dark.

“The Pattern is a balance, small-child,” the giant told her. “This night, the she-wolf feeds us. One day we will return favour for favour.”

She mutely nodded. The giant smiled.

“Good,” he said. “We must pursue completion in all things, for a soul without balance weighs down all the world. This was taught.”

She nodded again. The giant was pleased.

“Now, we eat.”

The great stag was brought within the circle, where she sat as the giant reached atop one of the stones and took a bronze knife that had been hidden there. He skinned the stag as she watched, trying not to retch and backing away until she was resting against one of the stones. The stag was run on a spit of moonlight, made to hang in the air, and pale flames bloomed below it. The giant reached atop another stone and brought down a broad silver bowl, with water within. He drank deep if, the set it down before her. It smelled like rain.

“Drink,” the giant said.

She did, and it was sweeter than any water she had ever drunk. She felt cleaner, even if she was still caked in filth, and her knees no longer hurt. It was a relief, the absence of pain almost like a pleasure. Suddenly tired, she leaned against the stone and felt her eyes begin to close. The warmth of the fire, the smell of the roasting stag, it was all lulling her to sleep. Almost smiling, she breathed out three notes. The last, faintly and to her surprise, echoed among the stones.

Utter stillness followed.

It only lasted for a heartbeat. After it passed, the giant began to turn the stag on the spit again. And the echo it’d died immediately, almost been snuffed out. Not at all like a real one. The giant finished the roast and cut her a large piece, which she dug into with relish, while he ate the rest until there little left but bones. When their bellies were full, he spoke again.

“Small-child,” he said, “do you like this place?”

After a moment of consideration, she nodded. It was beautiful, and she was safe here. She almost asked a question, but bit her tongue. People did not like it when you asked questions.

“Ask,” the giant gently said.

She bit her lip, then spoke up.

“What is it?” she mumbled. “This place?”

“A shrine,” the giant said.

She nodded, for this was sensible. Gods must be honoured, or they would take away the day and let the land dry up.

“To what god?” she asked.

The giant laughed, a kind and rumbling thing that tasted not of mockery.

“To me,” the giant said.

She looked at him with awe, for she had never seen a god before. The god considered her thoughtfully, stroking his beard.

“Would you like to stay here?”

A sob ripped its way out of her throat.

“Please,” she pleaded. “I don’t want to leave.”

The giant-god patted her head again, gently.

“Then you will not,” he said. “But you will not idle. I will gave you tasks, and teachings. You will attend them.”

She nodded. Anything, to avoid going back in the woods. The giant-god seemed pleased.

“Small-child,” he said, “do you have a name?”

She shook her head.

“I had one,” she said. “My father gave it. But the men with the cranes took it. They made us drink something and…”

Her heart seized. Nameless dread came upon her, even in this gentle place.

“Then I will give you one,” the giant-god said.

Silence as the great being watched her. His eyes were piercing, at first, but then they softened with something like grief.

“Antigone,” the giant said. “Your name will be Antigone, in honour of another. She who taught without ruling, disdaining the greed of titans and scorning the apathy of grief. Eighteen cities did she found, never once straying from the path she decided on.”

Antigone shivered. The night was still warm, but somehow she’d felt cold creep up her spine. The god, though, was looking up at the sky.

“You look sad,” she quietly said.

“I am,” the god said.

“Do you miss her?” she asked.

The god smiled softly, eyes on the stars.

“Every day.”

—

“Show me,” the god said.

Antigone stood with her hands linked behind her back, wearing the new woolen tunic she had been given. She’d never had new clothes before. It was grand gift, and she would not disappoint the god. Eyes on the symbols carved into the standing stone, she sang them in the order they were written. Each glimmered with moonlight as she awaked the letters, her pronunciation perfect until she tripped over ai-si-e, fumbling the last syllable, and the glimmer died. She bit her lip, ashamed.

“Try again,” the god encouraged.

One the second try she got all eleven letters of what the god called the Shallow Reflection, and he was pleased. Together they read words from slates of stone, the giant explaining their meaning, and under the moonlight Antigone learned her lesson. Soon, the god said, she would know enough to read. When she was ready he would give her scrolls and she would be able to read them during the day. It would give her more to do, he said, than to keep the shrine clean and eat.

“I’ll read all the words,” Antigone ferociously promised.

He patted her head with what she thought might be affection. They had already eaten, taken from the pack that the god had brought and drunk from the silver bowl that rainwater filled. There were remains from the meal, enough for her to eat tomorrow during the day and not be hungry. It was a great luxury. And yet Antigone sat down and could not help but wiggle a bit, because after the lessons came her favourite part. The god looked at her, chuckling, and sat down as well.

“Where did we leave off, Antigone?”

“The great drakon sundered the land with its wrath, splitting the earth and making two shores with a great island between,” Antigone excitedly said. “But Okeanos called forth the waters to rise and bind it, dragging it to the crushing depths where many songs were sung and the drakon was stripped of its power and made a petty beast.”

“It was a great victory,” the god agreed. “Yet many defeats had come before it, and the cities of the children knew great ruin. You see, the drakoi could not truly die until they had spent long enough as beasts that the Pattern forgot their divinity, else even in death they would only rise anew with terrifying splendor.”

Even as he spoke the shimmered with mirages, Antigone’s eyes going wide as she saw a great winged dragon, its wings large as a city, slain by a great bolt of lightning. But the dragon came back in a great storm of flames, blighting the land around it.

“But the Titans had a plan,” Antigone said.

As it always did when she spoke the word, the mirage shifted. There were a lot of silhouettes in the background of the group of people shown, but there were fifteen in front that could be made out clearly. Some of theirs names she already knew – Okeanos, with the wild temper and the words of the sea, Kronia with her cold stare and deadly sickle – but it was always the same one she reached for with her fingers. Tall and beautiful, with long silver hair and a kind smile, Antigone’s namesake seemed close enough to touch. The mirage would disperse if she did, though, so she held back.

“Vainglorious fools that they were,” the god agreed, “they had a plan.”

He told her of the fall of the Mirror-City, that night, of how the last cries of the children there drew in the hungriest of the drakoi and they Titans fell upon it as it slept after having fed on the dying. How it struggled mightily, flattening hills into plains, and how as it was stripped of power its blood flew and the hunger sunk into the land itself. It was thrilling story, and Antigone listened to every word avidly. She’d grown sleepy by the end, though. Not so sleepy she forgot to ask this time, though.

“May I ask a question?” Antigone dutifully asked.

The god nodded, as he always did.

“When you show the Titans,” she said, “there’s always one whose faces I can’t make out. Like it’s in shadows. Who is it?”

The giant-god was silent, for a long moment.

“Kreios,” he finally said. “His name was Kreios.”

“Why don’t you show his face?” Antigone sleepily asked.

“Because he was the worst fool of them all,” the god said, and they spoke of it no more.

—

It changed when Antigone realized that when spoke, the world listened.

It wasn’t the same as when the god did it. The stones did not sing for her the way they did for him, every word an echo and with the rights words those echoes turning into a melody that always made her weep when she heard it. But even when it was Antigone putting together the letters of the Shallow Reflection together into words, when she tied the together neatly and spoke them into the Pattern, there was… something. She could not feel what it was, could not see it the way she thought the god might under moonlight, but she knew it was there.

At first she thought perhaps she could figure it out if she just spoke words until she saw something, but Antigone hesitated. That felt wrong somehow. Like she’d be wasting a gift. The god always said that the Pattern was a balance. Wouldn’t she make things crooked, if she just spoke all those words uselessly? No, she decided, she wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t be wasteful. Instead Antigone sat in the grass and tried to find a worthy purpose. Something worth doing. Something that deserved to have a reflection in the Pattern.

And after thinking about it for days, Antigone found her answer. On the second night she had ever spent here, a she-wolf had gone hungry so that Antigone and the god could eat. A favour had been done unto her. So now it was her turn. Over more days she saved up food from the packs, going slightly hungry, choosing things that wouldn’t go bad if they were left. If the god saw, he said nothing. When she had enough to make up for part of a great stag, Antigone put it together on a blanket and brought it to the edge of the circle. The woods were never silent, but neither did she hear something come. So Antigone knelt, and she waited.

It was long hours in the sun that passed, as sweat trickled down her brow and her legs ached, but still she knelt. There would be no sincerity, otherwise, and somehow she though that speaking words without meaning them would be a very grave mistake.

And as the sun began to slowly crawl downwards, at last the great she-wolf came.

She was taller than some of the trees, Antigone saw with awe. Her fur was thick and grey, kissed by scars and marks, and her eyes were of a deep yellow. The she-wolf watched her for a long moment, panting softly as she stood just before the edge of the clearing. Her breath was warm as it washed over the small girl who did not know her own age. The she-wolf licked her chops, expectant. Antigone slowly bowed forward, still kneeling.

“Thank you,” she said.

Immediately she bit her lip. Not, it hadn’t come out right. The world had not listened to the words. The she-wolf eyed her patiently. She thought of the letters, then, and fixed them in her mind. And though it hurt, she kept them there.

“Thank you,” Antigone said, and the world heard.

A shiver went through the air, an expectation, and the she-wolf grinned with bloody fangs. To Antigone’s utter surprise, the great wolf stepped into the clearing. Her paws touched the grass and Antigone froze in fear. The god was not here. She was alone with a great and hungry wolf, that somehow she thought she might have let in. And as the wolf opener her maw Antigone closed her eyes, body clenching together, but the pain did not come. Instead she wailed in discomfort as a great wet tongue licked her face. Antigone backed away, trying to wipe away some of the stinking drool, but there was too much for her hands to make a difference. She shot an aggrieved look at the great wolf, who only panted amusedly.

Adding insult to injury, the she-wolf then bumped her chidingly with her nose and whined, as if to reproach her this entire idea.

“I was returning favour for favour,” Antigone sulkily told her.

The she-wolf considered that a moment, the leaned forward and pinned her down to lick her face again. Shrieking with laughter and disgust the girl tried to wriggle out, but it was only after the she-wolf decided sufficient cleaning had been inflicted that she was freed. Getting back on her feet, Antigone pulled close and tried to wipe herself clean against the fur. It was a vain hope that smudged dirt and leaves over her, and the she-wolf strolled away. Turning, though, the great wolf leaned close to the little girl’s ear and breathed out.

Lykaia, Antigone heard, though the word had not been spoken.

“Is that your name?” she asked.

The she-wolf snorted, slinking away. She also, Antigone noted, took the food on the blanket in a single snap of her jaw. And back into the woods she went, leaving the girl standing bemused and stinking of drool.

—

The following morning, when Antigone went out from the shrine into the sunlight, there was a great wolf lying on the grass and waiting for her.