Read the First Three Chapters of War of the Words
Read the Opening Chapters
Welcome to the world of War of the Words.
Before the conflict of gods, symbols, and hidden knowledge begins to unfold, every story must start somewhere. Below you can read the first three chapters of the novel and begin the journey into a world shaped by ancient mythology and the power of language.
Chapter One — War of the Words
A Dialogue Between Idun and the Serpent of the Roots
Idun: Whence do you slither, serpent of shadow?
Serpent: From winding through Yggdrasil’s roots and coiling up and down its spine.
Idun: What seeks your tongue in the grove of the gods?
Serpent: Hunger—and the glint of gold in your garden. The apples gleam like suns in winter.
Idun: These fruits are not for feasting. They are fate-bound. Their flesh is sacred to the Aesir.
Serpent: Then let me tempt not with your gold, but with my own gift. Would you share a bite?
(The serpent twists upon the soil. From beneath his scaled folds, he lifts a crimson apple, rich as blood and sweet with rot. The scent wafts upward—earthy, ancient, and unnervingly sweet.)
Idun: You mock me. That is not of Asgard’s grove. Have you stolen from the tree that binds the worlds?
Serpent: My daughter, they are ambrosial. One taste, and even the blind may see—the runes of good and evil etched in bark.
Idun: To taste is to betray. The unknown preserves the balance.
Serpent: Then tell me this—how speak you of a tree you claim to have never known?
(Idun’s eyes narrow. She steps lightly on the moss, as if unwilling to disturb the roots beneath.)
Idun: Because we guard it. We name the lie that coils itself in riddles.
Serpent: If I shook the bough and golden fruit did fall—would you let it rot upon the earth?
Idun: Yes. It is not for mouths that twist truth.
Serpent: If I sowed a seed in Jötunheim’s soil, and a tree grew wild and strong, would you eat from its branches?
(She folds her arms, unmoved.)
Idun: Even echoes of the sacred are forbidden.
Serpent: If I swore eternal youth in trade for one bite? Right here. Right now. Paid in full.
Idun: Eternity is not yours to give—only yours to steal.
Serpent: Then it seems today is not your lucky day.
(Silence stretches. The wind hums through the leaves above.)
Idun: But I have not tasted. Nor will I fall.
Serpent: Foolish goddess, you might as well have.
Idun: And why is that?
Serpent: Because I have eaten. And with that power, I shall shape the tale.
Idun: There are threads that twist back upon the liar.
Serpent: Perhaps. But when I pen my saga, I will write that you offered me the fruit.
Idun: You’ll weave deceit into legend?
Serpent: Not tonight. Not this century. Not in the age of iron.
Idun: Who will believe a snake that hisses through every myth?
Serpent: Did you not speak of fools? They make the best scribes.
Idun: In a hundred winters, you’ll smear my name?
Serpent: No, not then.
Idun: In two hundred? In a thousand?
Serpent: Not even then.
Idun: Then when, oh whisperer?
Serpent: In two thousand more, when scrolls are dust and tongues forget the old songs—I will write your confession. And the world will chant: The Serpent beguiled her.
(She steps back, eyes aflame.)
Idun: Who will trust the one who admits to lies?
Serpent: If no one believed me—what good would I be?
Chapter Two — Not So Sweet
It was a beautiful, moonlit night.
In her dream, Aster found herself walking down to the lake, as she had done so many times before. The water stretched out before her like a mirror, reflecting the moon and the stars above. A breeze rustled the leaves along the shore.
As she gazed into the shimmering surface, she saw a light falling from the sky.
Then someone touched her shoulder.
She turned quickly, but no one was there—yet she felt a presence beside her, unmistakable and close.
“Who’s there?” Aster called out.
“It’s Pandora,” a voice replied.
Still, she saw no one.
“The light you see is a box falling from the sky,” the voice said. “Whatever you do, don’t open it.”
Aster turned back just in time to see the box strike the lake, sending up a plume of steam that hissed against the night air.
Curiosity took hold of her.
She dove into the water, drawn by the pulsing light beneath the surface. It led her straight to the box. But when she reached it, she found it impossibly heavy—far too heavy to lift.
She surfaced for air, heart pounding, and knew what she was about to do.
Diving back down, she grasped the lid and opened it.
Inside was a man.
“Who are you?” Aster asked.
“I am Cain,” he answered.
“What are you doing hiding inside this box?”
“I have just murdered my brother,” he said flatly. “Now go away.”
He paused, then added:
“But wait. Before you go, take this rock and hide it for me.”
When Aster accepted it, the box vanished without a sound.
She made her way back to the bank.
As she looked down at the rock in her hands, she realized it had changed. Its edges were gone, its surface smooth and warm.
It had become an egg.
She set it gently on the ground.
The egg cracked.
A serpent emerged and slithered toward the nearest tree, winding its way up the trunk. From her position in the lake, Aster knew the creature could not see her.
A movement to her right caught her attention.
A naked woman dove into the water, sending ripples across the lake’s surface.
When Aster looked back at the tree, she saw the serpent with its jaws clamped around an apple it had plucked from a branch.
It slid down the trunk and slithered toward the woman’s clothes, left on the bank.
The serpent slipped the apple into the woman’s bag just as she climbed out of the lake, water glistening on her skin.
Then, to Aster’s left, near the tree, another figure appeared—a deity, quietly counting apples.
He stopped.
One was missing.
His body stiffened. Without a word, he turned and marched toward the woman.
A conversation followed.
The woman protested her innocence and turned her bag upside down. The apple fell free and struck the earth with a dull thud.
Aster tried to move.
She tried to speak.
Before she could come to the woman’s defence—
She woke.
Aster lay still, the remnants of the dream clinging to her like mist. Her heart was racing, her skin warm, the images too sharp to fade like ordinary dreams.
This one mattered.
She knew it had not come to her by chance.
Chapter Three — War in Heaven
On the dark side of the moon, a world not far from Earth, Aphrodite and a small delegation of deities entered the throne room in the newly renovated Temple of Zeus.
Starlight gleamed through tall crystal windows, casting fractured beams across the marbled floor. The base sprawled across a cratered plain, half-buried in silver dust and shadow.
Above it rose the Temple—its crystalline towers gleaming like fangs in the starlight, part cathedral, part control centre. Antennas pulsed with silent signals, relaying ancient frequencies across the void.
Though divine in architecture, the facility bore the scars of exile—its perfection chipped by time, regret, and the weight of forgotten wars.
Aphrodite stepped forward, her tone reverent but urgent.
“My lord, we have intercepted a signal between the heavenly realm and the planet we evacuated—the one we called Earth.”
Zeus raised an eyebrow beneath his golden helm.
“Wasn’t that planet destroyed thousands of years ago?”
“It seems not, sir. Even though we had to leave in a hurry because of the flood, there was a slender chance it could survive the impact.”
“Tell me more about the signal,” Zeus said.
“It was picked up on frequency 99.9, my lord.”
“Dreamers’ channel,” Zeus muttered. “Used by ancient oracles.”
“Correct, sir. Oracles used it to send and receive messages back in the day, bypassing our technology.”
“So, you think they may have survived?”
“It appears so, my lord. And from the message, it’s evident—they are at war.”
Zeus stiffened in his throne.
“War? Send for Athena.”
“Not that type of war, sir.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a war of words, sir.”
There was a brief pause.
“A war of words?” Zeus echoed. “That’s in my wheelhouse.”
“Nonsense, sir. You were bested by Enoch, their prince who ran rings around you constantly.”
Zeus blinked.
“He did?”
“You know he did, my lord. This is a job for Mnemosyne, our language expert.”
“Who is Mnemosyne?”
“You don’t know Mnemosyne? Without her, we wouldn’t be using these words to communicate, sir.”
“Oh, that lady—the inventor of languages. Has she had my children yet?”
“More than likely, sir.”
“Then send for her immediately.”
“I already did, sir. She is here right now.”
From the shadows stepped Mnemosyne, serene and sharp-eyed, draped in robes embroidered with ancient scripts. Her presence quieted the room like a sudden gust extinguishing a flame.
“Allow me, sir,” she said.
“Go ahead,” Zeus replied.
“We believe the message was a distress call in the form of a dream—from Idun in the realm of heaven to an Aster Solenne in a place called New York,” Mnemosyne explained.
“Do we know this location?” Zeus asked.
“It’s in the same region where we built the statue of Artemis—Apollo’s wife, sir,” Aphrodite answered.
“She’s right, sir,” Mnemosyne confirmed.
“I wonder if it’s still there,” Zeus mused.
“It’s doubtful, sir.”
“Regardless, we know where she lives,” Mnemosyne continued.
“We do? Do you think she’d want my children?” Zeus asked.
“Negative, sir,” Aphrodite said firmly.
“Sir,” Mnemosyne continued, “they are using very primitive devices—computers and cell phones—to communicate. We have recreated a model to attempt to access their information.”
“Computers?” Zeus frowned.
“Another one of Mnemosyne’s inventions, sir,” Aphrodite added.
“Is there anything you didn’t invent?” Zeus grumbled. “Would you like some more of my children?”
“Perhaps later, sir,” Mnemosyne said coolly. “So far, we believe the dream concerns violations against the sacred tree.”
“Violations against the sacred tree? Who would do such a thing?”
“We did, sir,” Aphrodite replied. “That’s why we are eternal—and have to spend eternity on this rock on the dark side of nowhere.”
A heavy silence followed. The hum of the base systems buzzed like gnats in the background.
“Isn’t eternity a good thing?” Zeus asked.
Born of seafoam and desire, Aphrodite carried her beauty like a weapon—brilliant, disarming, and unending. Yet here, on the dark side of exile, her radiance was tempered with bitterness, her charm sharpened into irony.
She was both muse and prisoner, forever conscious of love’s power to wound as much as it healed.
“It could have been,” she said softly, “had it not been for Cassandra, the greatest oracle who ever walked the Earth.”
“Oh yes, Cassandra,” Zeus said. “Tell me again what happened.”
“She laid down a trap for us—and we walked right into it.”
“How?”
“With her words, sir.”
“With just words? That’s impossible.”
“No, sir,” Mnemosyne interjected. “Words have power.”
“She’s right, sir,” Aphrodite added. “In the wrong hands, words can be deadly.”
“Words are like dynamite,” Mnemosyne said, “only a hundred times more explosive.”
“Stop it, girls. You’re frightening me,” Zeus muttered.
“You have to face it, sir,” Aphrodite said. “Words can be devastating.”
“She ruined us, sir,” Mnemosyne said. “With basic words. And we had no answer.”
“Then who is this, Cassandra?” Zeus demanded.
“It’s early days, sir,” Mnemosyne said carefully, “but we’ve been working on the signal and the information. From what we know, she was a great Trojan oracle.”
“But the post-diluvian civilization has mangled their history, creating confusion. We believe she was Hellen—also thought to be Hector’s sister, but in reality, she was his wife.”
“What happened to her?”
“She was the only person brave enough to stand up to us, sir,” Aphrodite replied. “She had us all figured out.”
“When she warned King Priam about our plans to violate the sacred tree, they locked her up in a tower, claiming she was crazy.”
“But that was her plan.”
“Yes,” Mnemosyne said. “They locked her up, hung her upside down, blindfolded her, and tied her arms behind her back.”
“Because they were scared of her words?”
“Yes. Under torture she declared she had discovered the secret to immortality—and wrote it in her journal.”
“While bound hand and foot, with a blindfold?” Zeus asked incredulously.
“Yes,” Aphrodite said. “That’s how terrified they were.”
“Following her statement, the race was on to find her diary,” Mnemosyne continued.
“After cracking her code, our oracles found it first.”
The atmosphere shifted. Even the starlight seemed colder as the memory returned.
“It said that if you ate the fruit from the sacred tree, you’d become immortal,” Aphrodite said.
“So, we used the serpent to test the theory—but the serpent died.”
“Cassandra had anticipated that scenario,” Mnemosyne explained.
“When we returned to her journal, we found the loophole we thought we’d missed.”
“The loophole said—under no circumstances must you eat the seeds of the apple,” Aphrodite continued.
“Then I shared the apples out,” Zeus recalled, “and everybody ate them—except the seeds.”
“And three days later,” Mnemosyne said gravely, “the serpent came back to life.”
“That was when we realized Cassandra had outwitted us,” Aphrodite admitted. “And we were doomed.”
“The fruit gave us immortality,” Mnemosyne explained, “but by failing to consume the seeds, we didn’t gain eternal youth.”
“We just keep getting older.”
A moment passed.
Zeus stared at his hands—once godlike, now slightly withered.
“That’s worse than death.”
“It is, sir,” Mnemosyne confirmed.
“And now,” Aphrodite said, her voice tightening, “we believe Aster Solenne is Cassandra—the oracle reborn.”
“Oh, my word,” Zeus groaned. “How bad can it get?”
“You said it, sir,” Aphrodite reminded him.
“Said what?”
“Word, sir.”
Mnemosyne’s gaze darkened.
“And it gets worse. After analysing and deconstructing the dream, we’ve confirmed that the serpent... is back on the loose.”
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