Ego's Iliad

Ego’s Iliad, the sequel to Ego's Odyssey, is a psychological fantasy inspired by Greco-Roman mythology.

Seeking to fulfil the prophecy of Mentor the Magician, Ego returns to his homeland of Aeonia to save his ailing mother and become king. He wields the Stone of Destiny, an ancient crystal of great power, and is accompanied on his quest by Mentor, his crew, his knave of a half-brother and his shapeshifting half-sister, the demigoddess Anima. They arrive to find the land ravaged by civil war. Thraxa has slaughtered most of the royal family and taken the capital, Aeos, built on the slopes of a dormant volcano. The tyrant is backed by the dark god Archon the Dread, Mentor's enemy of seven-thousand-years, the beautiful goddess Gyke the Temptress, whose touch turns mortals to stone, and the bloodthirsty giant Memnon the Bold, who is invincible – provided he wears his golden armour. They are opposed by the Royalist army of King Cretos, a feckless puppet of the warlord Phaetor. Ego's telekinesis and apparent fulfilment of the prophecy win him supporters and enemies in the Royalist camp. But whilst the Royalists fight among themselves, Archon uses magic to cause a distraction, and Thraxa the Cruel orders an all-out attack…

Ego will face gods, giants, krakens, minotaurs, famine, plague, griffins and a dragon. If he is to have a hope of victory, he must learn the power of belief. Belief, and good old-fashioned treachery – a sword that cuts both ways...

Copyright © 2023 Robert Ensor

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. The author’s moral rights have been asserted. First published 18 March 2023.

Chapter 1: The Middle Course

We sailed toward The Rock Gates: the narrow fjord between the headland of Tyria and the bluffs of the barren islet Menoa. The waters were strewn with treacherous, jagged rocks, many of them concealed beneath the waves, yet tall enough to rake open the bottom of our hull. Ominous storm clouds gathered about the tops of the cliffs. I could see the kraken’s tentacles groping the black rocks at the foot of the port-side cliff, and the insatiable whirlpool churning away on our starboard side. Already I felt the ship listing to the right with the pull of the current.

I would have preferred to sail around Menoa, but the islet was too long, her coastline was littered with dangerous hidden rocks, and the winds and currents were against it.

Mentor and Anima had taken an oar each, since we were well short of a full complement. I stared at her swaying blonde hair as she worked the oar, then forced myself to look away. Our son, Omni, was hidden safely in the hold. I was at the helm; our captain was long since dead, and Persona no longer had the nerve for the job.

As the crew rowed into danger, I recalled the twisted thread of fate that had taken me here. I had joined my friend Nero aboard a merchant ship, bound for the salt isle of Thessalia, but as soon as we embarked, he set about turning the entire crew against me, whipped me every night and stole our food, leaving many of us starving on half rations. Then plague had broken out, for there were rats everywhere on the ship, and our doctor was terrible. I was about to confront Nero and his cronies, when a storm broke and we ran into the very whirlpool that now lay ahead of us. I found myself shipwrecked on the mysterious island of Tyria, along with the rest of the crew. My back was broken, and I was riddled with plague, but I was cured by talking with my beautiful nurse Anima about the buried memories and emotions in my Unknown Mind; the very things my pain sought to distract me from. Once recovered, I moved into the palace, where it was revealed that Anima was a goddess and that she had turned the crew into beasts, except for myself, Nero, Doloma and Persona. She made me her court poet, but refused to speak to me. Exploring the sacred grove, Nero and I saw Persona being ritually castrated by the nymphs of the palace. Frustrated by unrequited love for Anima, I met a hermit in the forest called Mentor who initiated me into the Forbidden Wisdom; using his magic, I was able to win my freedom from Nero, who had been blackmailing me, and almost killed him, but stayed my blade when he said we were brothers. Mentor revealed that I was a demigod and concluded that my unknown father must have been immortal. This meant that I was still mortal, but possessed latent divine powers, and the godsblood in me would enable me to use telekinesis and wield the Stones of Destiny, red crystals from an antediluvian civilisation that amplified the power of the gods. I developed my abilities still further by increasing my self-knowledge and seeing a vision in the wilderness. Then I openly defied Anima and took her wand (with its powerful red stone). We kissed and coupled. At Mentor’s urging, I seized power and locked the goddess in a cage. I almost killed her after she ordered a serving maid to poison me, but I realised Mentor was playing us against one another, and showed mercy. Anima and I fought the wicked wizard together and defeated him. Having confiscated his staff, we forced Mentor to reveal the truth. He told me that he was my father – which made Anima my half-sister – and that he had orchestrated everything so that I would come to Tyria and lie with Anima, because our child was prophesied to be the new God that would topple the corrupt old gods of Magirov; Mentor, himself an ancient immortal, wanted revenge on the other gods, because they had imprisoned him in a cavern beneath the earth for spreading the sacred wisdom to humans.

The child, Omni, was born amidst dazzling light after a four-month gestation. Though little more than a babe in arms, already he displayed divine powers; he could heal some people merely by touching them. Then Mentor told me of a disturbing vision: back in my homeland of Aeonia, my mother was sick. We couldn’t kill the wizard, since he was immortal and only the fires of a volcano can kill immortals. So we caged him, but he soon escaped. Since Mentor showed no inclination to further mischief, we let him be. The wizard prophesied that I would one day return to Aeonia, put an end to the civil war that ravaged the land, and become king. It was to fulfil the prophecy that we were sailing home in our rebuilt ship.

‘Give me my staff!’ Mentor demanded, eyes wide with fright.

I hesitated.

‘What use is a warrior who marches to war without his sword and shield?’

‘Very well,’ I said, handing him the staff. Mentor’s gnarled hand enclosed around the wood, but I did not relinquish my grip. ‘Do not betray me, old man, or you will live to regret it!’ I hissed.

He nodded, gravely.

‘Double speed!’ I ordered, as we careened over crashing waves to meet our fate. I bared my teeth into the howling wind, feeling the salty spray hit my cheeks. By the gods, I felt alive.

Our ship tilted to starboard. The whirlpool was sucking us in. I steered further to port; right into the heart of the monster’s lair. Last time, I had erred out of fear of the kraken and we had been shipwrecked. I was determined not to make the same mistake twice.

‘Full speed ahead!’ I screamed, into the face of the winds, in defiance of all nature.

Mentor turned to stare at me; I could see he feared for my sanity. But the truth was, though fearless, I had never been saner. The ship was rocked by a giant wave. I sensed a massive presence gliding beneath us, through the deep; a presence that dwarfed our ramshackle amateur-built ship. The prow smashed into something. The mast creaked and threatened to snap. Was it a rock? No, for the obstacle yielded, reluctantly. There was an organic softness to it.

The kraken!

‘Full speed ahead!’ I yelled, but our progress was slow, despite the men slaving away frantically at their oars.

A massive skin-coloured tentacle slapped down out of the sky, crushing the port-side gunwale and breaking an oar. More arms wrapped themselves around the prow. Our ship groaned, buckled, slowed, and tilted forward. Then the questing suckers of a fourth ghastly limb grasped the nearest oarsman and flung him screaming overboard.

‘Cease rowing! Take up spears!’ I yelled, seeing that further progress was impossible until the kraken was at least injured.

At this, the men grabbed their spears and began hurling them at the beast. Mentor and Anima rose from their oars. The wizard was quick to act; he pointed his staff at the cliffs of Tyria. A crackle of purple lightning shot from the staff, striking fragments from a huge boulder on the precipice – the boulder tumbled, causing a rockslide ­– the rocks rolled down the slope and crashed into the kraken. The monster made a spine-raking shriek, as if it were some giant horrid bird. My decision to entrust Mentor with his staff was vindicated.

But the beast was not vanquished, merely angered. The tentacles loosened from the prow and came crashing down in our midst, crushing Titus into a bag of broken bones, grasping Maedor by the heel and flinging him into the sky. Anima rushed to the gunwale. A stream of red flame leapt from her wand, scorching two of the monster’s limbs, which steamed as they withdrew into the sea. Again, that hideous bird cry grated my ears and violated my soul.

A tentacle wrapped around the mast, which began to creak and groan. I heard the tearing sound of snapping wood. Memories of our last shipwreck ran amok through my mind’s eye.

Another flash of lightning lit the deck and struck the tentacle entwined around the mast, which recoiled, smoking, into the deep. I bounded down to the deck, took Titus’ spear in my hand and, planting my right foot on the gunwale, hurled the javelin into the fiend’s massive black eye. The spear pierced the soft membrane. A geyser of ink burst forth from the hideous pink craw. The hull and the deck were splashed with the stuff. I was soaked and momentarily blinded. I staggered about the deck trying to wipe the ink off my eyes, so fiercely did they sting.

‘Back to oars!’ I yelled, since all the limbs had been withdrawn.

The men returned to their stations and we rowed on through the narrow pass, to calmer waters. Mentor, my first mate, took the wheel in my stead and someone threw a bucket of water over my head.

Blinking, I could at last see again. It was Persona who had washed me.

‘My thanks. I was damn near blinded there!’

‘I can’t believe we bested that monster!’ Persona said, still shaken, for his hands trembled on the bucket.

‘A lot has changed since last we passed the kraken,’ I said, slapping a hand on his muscular shoulder. ‘Now back to your oar!’

Our voyage henceforth was uneventful. Recalling the horrible famine of the outward journey, I ensured we had ample food and water before setting out; indeed, without cargo, we had space for two months’ provisions. Needless to say, Nero was not allowed to work in the kitchens a second time. The old man did his best to ensure the winds were in our favour, so we made a good pace across the Olearic Sea. His eagle flew on ahead of the ship to scout for storms beyond the horizon and reported to his master in a strange language of caws and head-twitches, which Mentor claimed to understand. There may have been something in this obscure method of reconnaissance, because we did not run into any storms or pirates for the entire voyage. Despite the poor diet, Omni grew almost daily. Within a month of his birth, he looked and spoke like a three-year-old. He and Anima were the ship’s doctors. They proved a damn sight better than Placebo, which was just as well, for with our skeleton crew, no man could afford to be away from his oar for more than a few hours at a time.

After a month at sea, we sighted land at last. It was a fair day, with a strong south-westerly wind and we were making good pace. The old man, interpreting the cries of his eagle, counselled me, ‘It is the isle of Memnos, off the southern coast of the mainland.’

I saw a small island fringed with white beaches and palm trees, a tiny port choked with ships and people and a white walled fishing town scrambling up a sheer cliff.

‘We stop here,’ Mentor said.

‘Why?’

He turned to me, a mischievous twinkle in his grey eyes.

‘You want to get some confirmation, don’t you?’

‘Confirmation of what?’

‘My report of the situation in Aeonia. It came from a dream. You would base your plan of campaign on the dream of a mad old hermit?’

‘No,’ I said, feeling foolish to have believed in Mentor’s counsel so implicitly, when the man himself did not even place full confidence in his visions, utterances and prophecies.

Unable to find a mooring at the docks, we rowed onto the beach farther down the coast and wandered into the port. The palm fronds blew wildly in the wind and the paved promenade offered a pleasant view of the sea. Things were not so restful in the port itself. The docks were heaving with vagabonds, the sick and the wounded. Entire families were reduced to tatters.

‘Why are there so many destitute and wounded here?’ I asked.

‘Refugees, my boy. From the conflict in Aeonia,’ answered Mentor.

‘How do you know?’

‘A reasonable guess. But don’t take my word for it. We must ask the people themselves,’ he said, ducking into a reeking, low-ceilinged tavern.

Though it was a bright day outside and the sunlight reflected off the white-walled buildings was almost blinding, in here the light was so poor it could have been the dead of night, for there were no windows.

We barged our way past several drunkards and ordered a beer each at the bar. The surly barkeep proceeded to spit and polish a clay mug and fill it from the barrel. I felt something furry scuttle across my feet. I looked down; it was a squeaking rat with a sickly pink tail.

The man next to me was another ragged looking fellow. He was bald and gaunt, his tunic was dirty, blood-spattered and ripped, he was bleeding from the shoulder, his breath was sour, and one eye was swollen half shut, worsening his already unprepossessing appearance.

‘Hello friend, how do you fare?’ asked Mentor.

The man gave a surly grunt. His eyes were dead. Blunted by trauma and closed to the world.

‘Can I buy you an ale?’

He regarded Mentor and his stained brown cloak with open scepticism.

‘Why not?’ the man said, at last.

Mentor did as he promised.

‘I am Mentor. What is your name?’

‘Philip.’

‘Where are you from, Philip?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’

‘Not to us. We are travellers from the far west.’

‘Well, you’re in for a shock if you keep going east; to Aeonia, I mean.’

‘Yes, we heard there was war there?’

‘Worse. Civil war. Brother kills brother, father kills son. It’s bloody horrific.’

‘We have business in Aeonia. We’re cloth merchants, you see, and would pay you handsomely for any information you could give us about the situation there. I’ll give you half now and half later,’ Mentor said, pulling the string of his purse to reveal gold coins. He had to be surreptitious, for there were many desperate and criminal types in this none-too salubrious establishment.

Philip took the bag and led us to a quiet table in a darkened corner of the tavern. There, perching on piss-stained wooden stools, we leaned over the creaking, candle-lit table and spoke in hushed tones.

‘The tyrant Thraxa the Cruel has taken the city of Aeos.’

Mentor held up his hand.

‘Slow down, friend. Who is Thraxa the Cruel?’ he said, giving me a meaningful look. Back in the snake-temple of Tyria, Mentor told me that a man called Thraxa had seized power in Aeonia.

Phillip sighed.

‘Thraxa was the head of King Menarcos’ bodyguard. He is a short, crude, ugly man, getting on in years now. He was born a peasant and enlisted in the City Guard. He grew envious of the court and resented their mockery of his coarse manners. Despite this, rumour has it he began an affair with the Queen, who had him promoted, but she soon dumped him for another favourite, a young aristocrat called Laocoon.

Thraxa won distinction for himself as a member of the guard, after he saved the king from poison; poison it is said he had placed in the cup himself. Anyway, the incident saw him made Head of the City Guard. He repaid the king by having him butchered in his bath. Then the royal family were slaughtered. Thraxa raped the Queen, Iulia, with a pitchfork – she died – and had the little prince and princess put to the sword in their beds. Blamed it all on the king’s brother, whom he tossed from the palace roof. Then he started a witch-hunt for the other “would-be usurpers,” whilst usurping the throne himself. The army officers in the city were massacred under this pretext, since they were deemed too loyal to the king and his dynasty.’

‘And they went to their doom, like lambs to the slaughter?’ Mentor asked.

‘All of this happened in the first day of the coup, before anyone could organise a resistance or even work out what had really happened. Most of the navy supported Thraxa, since he had plotted the revolution with the leading admirals and promised them double pay and the war with Khem that they had always clamoured for, but which King Menarcos in his parsimony had always denied them. Thraxa won over the masses by dispensing some of the riches from the temple treasury, though these were later found to be forgeries made of tin. He claims to be for the common folk over against the aristocracy, but like all tyrants, he is only for himself. He plundered my home, for I was a rich merchant, before all this. His Black Cloaks beat me and killed my wife, after they raped her.’

‘How come they let you live?’ I asked, suspiciously.

He grinned, bitterly, revealing a mouth full of broken teeth.

‘Only because they thought I was dead from a hard blow to the head. So I gathered what scraps they had left me and what gold I had buried in the field and took the first ship out of there, for I have business partners at the port of Pyra.’

‘But there must be opposition?’ I said, ignoring Philip’s tale of personal woe. ‘Else how can there be a war?’

‘You’re a bright one, aren’t you?’ Philip said, with a condescending grin.

I smiled back at him, biting my tongue, for we needed his information, and this was not the place to start a ruckus.

‘The only ones who remained to oppose Thraxa the Cruel were the army officers in the provinces and colonies. These men gathered under the leadership of General Meleager, the king’s nephew. He fell in battle, cut down by the hand of Memnon the Bold.’

‘Memnon the Bold, you say?’ I cut in. ‘The hero of Theros?’

I had idolised Memnon as a child; all the boys in my village wanted to be him.

‘The very same. Memnon and his father, the god Archon, sided with Thraxa, because the tyrant made some unholy pact with them.’

At the mere mention of Archon, Mentor’s bushy brow furrowed and he exuded an oppressive, leaden gravity.

‘What kind of pact?’ he asked.

Phillip cast a nervous glance around the nearby tables. Seeing no one was interested, he proceeded, in a low voice:

‘It is whispered that Thraxa sacrificed his own daughter to Archon, stabbing her on the god’s altar as if she were a ewe, and promised to do Archon’s bidding in all things.’

‘It is said that Archon was whispering in Thraxa’s ear the whole time, telling him what to do, and even put the idea of seizing the throne into his head by means of a dream, for he is a wrathful god and has some longstanding grudge against all the Kings of Aeonia.’

I looked at Mentor. He gave me a barely perceptible nod.

Philip went on, oblivious, ‘Anyway, the remnants of this Royalist army tracked down the sole surviving member of the royal family: the king’s second cousin, Cretos. They found him hiding in a cave. He survived because he was the least valorous of his house: a weak, cowardly, vain little man. Anyway, he is king now, or would be, if he could retake his throne. His army marches on Aeos to that end, but I do not rate his chances very highly, since Thraxa’s men outnumber his three to one by land, and five to one by sea, and he has an ancient god and a great hero ranged against him.’

We thanked Philip and paid him the rest of the gold he was promised.

‘One more thing. The Royalists fly the old blue banner. Thraxa has taken red for his colour. Red or blue, you’d be best advised to avoid the lot of them,’ he said, with a grim note of warning.

We left the tavern and joined the rest of our crew, who were buying fresh fruit and vegetables in the market, for our supply had long since run out. On our walk back along the waterfront, I asked Mentor about Archon.

‘Archon the Destroyer is the bane of this world. He is a very ancient and very powerful god, the deity of matter, the ancestor of evil and the materialisation of Zorimahn The Deceiver, for it was he who made this wretched world, he who had the Stones of Destiny mined, he who destroyed Atlantea with his damn crystals in the folly and madness of his pride. I warned the other gods against him, but they did not listen; they were too fearful of his power, even father Tonos. After the Great Deluge proved me right, and I spoke against him in the council of the gods, Archon was banished from Magirov. He has born me a grudge ever since; a grudge my descendants, the kings of Aeonia, have inherited. He revenged himself upon me by informing the messenger god Urmon of my attempts to restart civilisation by spreading knowledge of seed, stone, horse, plough – and the sacred wisdom. The other gods did not begrudge me teaching mankind of agriculture and building, but spreading the sacred wisdom,’ he shook his head, bitterly. ‘That, they could not forgive. Since I am immortal, they could not kill me without great difficulty, so they had me thrown into the pit with the great five-headed worm, bound and tormented in the fiery bowels of the earth for a thousand years,’ he said, grey eyes smouldering with long-burning fire.

‘And Memnon is Archon’s son, the man said?’

Mentor nodded.

‘That is right. For Archon is a lustful god and took many a mortal woman for his concubine. Most of them died during the act or shortly thereafter, on account of the bleeding, but some survived to bear him children. Memnon is the product of one such coupling,’ he said, with a sneer of distaste.

‘Though he is not all bad, like his father. He performed many heroic feats: he killed the Mancian boar, slayed the dragon of Arithmea, and conquered this very island with a handful of chosen men during the Miletian war; it is said he killed a thousand men single-handedly. He is without peer on the battlefield; stronger and more deadly with sword and hammer than any mortal man or demigod. But do not let his valour fool you, for Memnon is just as vain, proud and lustful as his father. All his noble deeds were done for glory and the immortality of his name. Though half a god, Memnon is still mortal, and it is foretold he will die by the hand of a man.’

‘Yes, I have heard tell of this prophecy. That is why Archon had Haeston forge him a suit of golden armour, is it not?’

Mentor nodded, the sea breeze blowing his straggly grey hair into his eyes.

‘The armour makes him invincible, but only while he wears it. When he takes the armour off, he is mortal, though still damned hard to kill, given his strength, speed and valour at arms.’

I sighed, wearied in anticipation.

‘It seems we have quite the task before us.’

‘Yes, at moments like this, I’m glad of my immortality.’ Mentor chuckled.

‘That’s reassuring.’

‘Fear not lad, for even heroes have their weaknesses. Especially heroes.’

‘What of gods?’

Mentor grimaced.

‘You need not concern yourself with Archon. He is mine, for I have a seven-thousand-year-old score to settle.’

We clambered aboard ship and set sail.