Could be stranger, I told myself. "If my trial were surviving the woods, I'd be set!" But ... supposedly, I wasn't here for my trial. I was here to find a G.o.ddess who held my memories.

I started into the forest. And then I glimpsed it through the foliage. A wall stretching from the earth towards the heavens, made of what appeared to be concrete. Different world or somewhere else in my world?

Eager to see if what the news said was true, I headed in that direction.

Chapter Eleven.

Know thyself Thales The wall was sheer with no stairs, doors or ladders with which to scale it. After trotting back and forth along a kilometer stretch, I rested my hands on it. It was cool to the touch, and my palms came away chalky.

Not concrete. Not stone.

I had no idea what the material of the wall before me really was, though I was grateful it appeared to be porous and more p.r.o.ne to chipping than say, marble. I retreated to the forest. I had a knife and the forest to supply me with materials to help me scale it.

Because I was meant to. The woods extended in all other directions with no end, and yet, I was drawn only to the wall. I gathered some moss, flexible branches from saplings and four chubby sticks the length of my forearm.

"Piece of cake!" I sang to myself, thrilled Mnemosyne thought to challenge me to a game of survival. I'd spent years learning from Herakles and was eager to put my knowledge to good use and maybe even impress a G.o.ddess.

Beneath the warm, afternoon sun, I set to work creating the tools I'd need to scale the wall. The rope took me several hours to create, and I went back twice to the forest for more saplings and moss until I'd braided a cord about two meters in length. Setting it aside, I carved points into one end of the fat branches and then spent a few grueling moments starting a fire with the first point. I rubbed it into the channel I'd created fast and hard, rotating it as I went. My goal wasn't a fire but to help crystalize the points of the branches, to make them harder than wood, so they stood a chance against the wall.

Glancing at the sun, I sat back once I was done with all four.

"Definitely not the real world," I observed. The sun hadn't moved despite the hours of work I put into my preparations. The breeze was steady and warm, the sound of pine needles brushing one another soothing and pleasant. Any other time, I might not want to leave such a peaceful place.

Shaking the thoughts away, I rose with my tools and crossed to the wall. I stretched upward and dug a tiny hole with my finger, placed the point of one branch into it, and then hammered it in with another. The branch went in with some resistance, causing a spray of chalky dust to rain down on me.

I sneezed and tugged at it. It held.

Pleased to discover my plan was going to work, I tied the rope around me, placed the belt and knife sheathe around my hips and tucked the extra stakes in the back of my pants.

I began the arduous climb, using one stake to balance my feet and two to haul me up. With no worry about running out of room on a wall that ran for kilometers in each direction, I ascended at a diagonal, stair stepping my way with excruciating slowness, careful not to move too far out of reach of the branch at my feet so I could wriggle it free and move it. I was careful to anchor my rope to the highest stake as I went.

Foot, hand, hand, foot. I made a song of the climb. My enthusiasm held out until I began to wear down physically. Sweat rolled off my face and tickled my neck and chest. I took a breather, wishing I'd thought to drink a liter or two of water before I started.

I looked down and up to gauge my progress. "This is ... good," I said aloud. "I think." I was far from the ground but didn't seem any closer to the top of the wall. I rested for a moment. The sun still hadn't moved, but I was wearing down. If I had to guess, I'd have said it was close to my normal bedtime around nine in the evening. I had no food and no water, and I was stuck in the middle of a wall. "I really wish I had a ..." I grunted and stretched to bury the branch in its next hold. "... hippolectryon. It could fly me to the top and then I could eat it for dinner." I laughed at the idea of the horse-chicken creature from Greek mythology. Herakles never cared for the monsters, but I found them fascinating.

I soon returned my full focus to making sure I didn't misplace any hand or foot and end up plunging to my death before I'd seen what was on the other side of the wall.

Just as I was beginning to wonder how long it would remain midday in this odd place, the sun plunged towards the horizon and disappeared. Within seconds.

Startled, I twisted as far as I dared to see the sky. I was half a kilometer above the tops of the forest. A bright moon worthy of the G.o.ddess Selene herself was nestled into the bosom of Nyx. Stars glimmered around it.

"Herakles will never believe me when I tell him about this place," I murmured. The moon kept my climb from being impossible, but it was far more difficult to place the branch tips well without squinting to see. I took one and began chipping away at a new spot, using the now dulled tip to create a small hole in the wall.

Tap, tap, tap. I squinted to see if it was deep enough only to realize the sound continued.

Tap, tap, tap. Three more times it went. I froze and then shook my head, sensing I was close to exhaustion.

I tapped twice more with the dulled point and stretched back, ready to plunge the branch into the concrete with what strength remained.

Tap, tap.

I lowered my arm. More than my exhaustion was at work here.

I tapped the wall again, and more tapping answered. Forcing my tired mind to focus, I swiveled my head to my right, the direction the sound came from, and gasped.

A hippolectryon was pecking the wall with its beak. With the body of a horse and the legs, head and tale of a chicken, it had wings and was uglier than I expected. I stared at it, wanting to dismiss the possibility it existed, before recalling that I was in a magic place where the sun stayed overhead for over twelve hours and then dived across the sky to set in the time it took me to sneeze.

"You're smaller than I expected," I said to the creature not two meters away from me. It was the size of my foot. "Too little to eat. Too little to carry me on your back."

The creature looked at me, as if waiting for me to tap again. I did more out of curiosity than anything else. It pecked in response.

And then it hit me. The creature wasn't flying. It was walking up the wall on spindly chicken feet.

"How in Hades is that possible?" I muttered. I tapped the wall beside me. The creature tapped back, moving closer as it did. When it was within reach, I picked it up to study its feet.

It squirmed with a clucking sound, but in the moonlight I could see its feet weren't magical or suction cups or anything else. I dropped it away from the wall, unconcerned about it falling since it had wings. Rather than drop downward, the hippolectryon landed on the wall again.

With some caution, I drew one leg up from the branch it was on and rested my knee against the wall. My balance shifted to it, as if gravity itself were changing around me, and I felt the heavy sense of lying on my stomach.

I lifted my second foot into place next, not about to lose my death grip on the two branches preventing me from falling. With incredulity making my heart sprint, I cautiously sat up. I was kneeling, bent over my handholds.

The hippolectryon began pecking again and walked on, as if bored now that I wasn't playing with it anymore.

Disorientated, I released one hand then the other and risked a look in the direction that had been down seconds before.

The forest was where it had been, and my stomach lurched at the idea I was about to fall.

But I didn't. I breathed deeply and released my final grip on the branches. The hippolectryon was two meters away again, pecking and pacing.

With some apprehension, I stood. I didn't topple into the forest, and the wall beneath me didn't give out. "Ha!" I couldn't help the baffled laugh. "I'll take it. I'm sick of climbing. Thanks for rotating the world for me, Atlas." Wrenching my remaining foot and handholds out of the wall, I tucked all but one into my cargo pockets and clenched the fourth, in case the world's gravitation changed on me again.

I began walking then trotting up the wall, towards the top, followed closely by a hippolectryon that sometimes ran, sometimes flew to keep up.

"You have an interest in what's over the wall?" I asked, slowing. It landed beside me without answering. The distance to the top of the wall was much greater than I expected, a full kilometer and a half past the point where I began walking. Finally, after fifteen minutes, I saw the edge of the top come into view and silently admitted I'd never had made it if I had to climb all that way.

Readying my stake in case I was about to plunge down the other side, I knelt and leaned over the edge. The top of the wall was about a meter wide. I tapped on the surface, waiting for the hippolectryon to test it out.

The creature went. He didn't fall. Just ... stood there.

"Okay. Please do it again, Atlas," I begged the t.i.tan quietly. Blowing out a breath, I lay down on my stomach and crept over the top. My stomach dropped, and the same lurching sensation returned as gravity changed around me once again. "I'd think this was a dream if I didn't know I was awake."

I rolled onto the top and lay on my back, staring at the sky briefly. The hippolectryon pecked at one of my hands, and I moved it out of reach. Tired, I nonetheless was exited to move on and shifted to my knees to peer at what lay at the bottom of the wall on the other side.

A single, solitary house stood half a kilometer from the foot of the wall. Otherwise, only darkness existed. Not the kind of darkness that occurred when the sun set. This was unnatural. Nothingness. I wasn't certain what I expected of a blessing from Mnemosyne but it wasn't this. I readied myself for the odd sensation of gravity changing and leaned carefully over the side of the wall, waiting for the unsettling sensation to leave my belly.

"All right. We're set," I said cheerfully and stood. "You ready?" I looked back.

The hippolectryon was gone.

"I guess not." I started forward, down the side of the wall, not looking at the house for fear of becoming disoriented once more. When I reached the bottom, I knelt and placed my hands on the gra.s.s ahead of me.

"Atlas, just one more " I toppled onto my face. "G.o.ds dammit!" I muttered and sat up. "Thanks anyway." With a sigh, I looked around. Nothing else had appeared. Just the house. I dropped the stakes and rope at the wall and strode down a sidewalk towards the house. Nothingness ran on either side. I peered over the edge of the sidewalk once then not again, not about to wade into the void on either side.

Pausing in front of the two-story house, I studied it. Was I supposed to know it? Because it wasn't remotely familiar. A small porch and several windows faced me. It seemed so very normal, the kind of cookie cutter suburbia I imagined everyone lived in, before learning the world was in a state of chaos brought on by warring G.o.ds.

"Mnemosyne?" I called. I wasn't expecting her to magically appear and wasn't disappointed. I'd never been blessed by a G.o.d or G.o.ddess. I knew less of the protocol handling one of them than I did about the people who lived outside my forest.

Uncertain if I was supposed to waltz in or knock first, I decided to be polite and knocked. The door creaked open under the force of my knock. I pushed it the rest of the way open. Lights I couldn't see from the outside glowed from the second floor of the house. Stairs were ahead of me, a formal dining room on one side of the foyer and a formal living room on the other side. The hallway to the left of the stairwell led to a kitchen. Nightlights positioned in outlets along the walls lit up the bottom floor.

It was quiet, calm and ... familiar. Not like Adonis, who I felt I'd never met before, but familiar as if I had been here before. As if I should know this place.

"h.e.l.lo?" I called.

No one answered. I started up the stairs, to the part of the house beckoning me to it with bright, cheerful light. Three bedrooms, a study and bathroom. Thus far, everything about this place screamed ordinary. The door to one bedroom was wide open, and I went to it.

Stuffed animals and dolls were scattered on the floor. A television with a pink remote control was at one side, a twin bed with a purple canopy on the other. The dressers and furniture were bright white, the curtains overlooking the s.p.a.ce behind the house pink and green. Purple, heart-shaped rugs were on the floor.

I smiled, liking the bright, happy colors of the room. Beside the TV remote, in front of a blanket that appeared to have been wrapped around a small form before being pushed off, were a s...o...b..x and a sc.r.a.pbook. I knelt beside the sc.r.a.pbook, curious to see the child who lived here.

Flipping open the cover, I was surprised at the t.i.tle page.

The Oracle of Delphi I turned the page. The sc.r.a.pbook was filled with articles cut out of newspapers and printed from online sources about the current Oracle of Delphi. Pictures, news reports, tabloid covers. Nothing about the book was personal to its owner at all.

"Someone's obsessed with the Oracle," I said and closed it. The s...o...b..x beside it was empty, and I stood, puzzled as to what I was supposed to do next.

I started towards the door, wondering if I'd find more in the next room over, when I tripped over something hidden in the blanket at my feet.

"Hey. I know you." I bent and retrieved the stuffed koala bear I'd first seen with Adonis. It appeared almost new, and it was ... rumbling. My fingertips vibrated with the strange sensation. "Some kind of talking toy?"

Mrs. Nettles.

The voice from Adonis' bedroom.

"Uh. You're not talking to me are you?" I asked, holding it away from my body.

Mrs. Nettles.

I dropped it then gasped. "Oh, G.o.ds, I'm so sorry." I picked it up and gazed at it. "Are you hurt?" My face turned hot at the idea of talking to a toy.

The stuffed animal blinked. It blinked.

This time when I dropped it, I leapt back. "The flying horse-chicken was a little weird. But this ..."

The koala climbed to its feet. I had the sudden flashback to a horror movie I once watched where a doll came to life and slaughtered people.

Mnemosyne sent Mrs. Nettles to guide you.

"What does that mean?" I demanded of the quiet world around me. "What is a Mrs. Nettles?"

The koala pointed to itself then began to stroke one of its ears.

"You're ... you're Mrs. Nettles."

It nodded.

"Oh." If this world weren't surreal, I might short out. I decided to accept a walking, talking teddy bear as I did the wall. "Okay, Mrs. Nettles. I'm trying to figure out what Mnemosyne wants me to do here."

Mrs. Nettles extended her arm in my general direction.

"I'm not sure what that means."

It did it again.

Not getting whatever she wanted me to know, I knelt and cautiously drew nearer to her. "Do you know Adonis?"

Mrs. Nettles nodded and waddled towards me. She paused at my knees and then shifted forward to try to grasp the red cord around my wrist between her two chubby paws.

"You, uh, want me to take it off?"

It nodded.

"You know what happens if I do?"

Another nod.

I'm in some weird world where toys can talk. Why not? I tugged the red cord off and braced myself to hear the shattering of gla.s.s.

Immediately, the world around me erupted into activity and color. Thin, shifting ribbons twisted and twirled around every single object in the room. I'd seen them before, and I racked my brain to figure out where.

The lake. In the water, I had witnessed smoky, faded ribbons like these twisting in the depths.

"What are they?" I asked, stunned by the life in the room filled with inanimate objects. The toys on the bed had two ribbons each, one blue and one yellow, though the exact hue and widths were unique around each toy. Mrs. Nettles, however, had three blue, yellow, and faded green.

Mrs. Nettles had no answer.

Mesmerized by the colors and movement, I let my gaze roam over everything in the room. Even the television had two ribbons. I looked up towards the ceiling to see if I had any floating above my head. If I did, they were invisible.

Rustling came from the direction of the window. I blinked out of my amazed stupor to find Mrs. Nettles had moved. She was beneath the window, staring up at it, unable to reach the pane or see out of it.

"Don't tell me you fly," I said with a half laugh and rose. I crossed to the window and froze.