Storming Paradise Read online

  Chapter 15

  “What do you think you’re doing?” the giant growled, hurrying across the cavern, his great footsteps thumping against the rocky ground with a sound like rolling thunder.

  Peering from the recess, Hercules watched as the multi-limbed giant batted Iolaus aside—just a casual flick of one of his hands, sending the smaller figure reeling to the floor. An instant later, the giant was clambering up the ladder-like protrusions in the rock wall.

  “Get away from that!” the giant growled, working up the ladder, hand over hand.

  Hercules braced himself as the giant hurried up the ladder, drawing his fist back in anticipation. The giant moved fast—faster than his great size suggested—and was at the topmost rung in a matter of moments. A hand appeared at the top level, then another, before the Hecatonchire giant’s centermost head appeared above the edge.

  “You will release these people that you’ve trapped,” Hercules warned, “and send them—and us—back to the surface.”

  The giant laughed, pulling himself up, ape-like, to the same level as Hercules, so that his torso was above the floor of the recessed cave, his waist pressed against the highest rung of the ladder. “And why would I do that, little man?” he asked when he had finished laughing.

  “Because if you don’t, I’m going to be forced to hurt you,” Hercules said.

  “Hurt me?” he laughed. “You couldn’t, not even in your wildest dreams!”

  Without warning, the giant swiped at Hercules with one of his many arms. Hercules’ fist jabbed out in response, striking the giant in the nose and knocking him back before his arms could connect. The giant swayed in place.

  The giant recovered fast, pulling himself up higher, a wicked grin crossing not just the face that had been struck, but every other face on the front part of his body. “You think that hurt?” he snarled.

  Hercules drove a second punch into the giant’s central face, batting the nose with such force that the giant hissed in surprise. “You’ve already hit my friend,” Hercules said. “Don’t think I won’t enjoy this.”

  The giant spat a glob of blood-tinged saliva down to the floor below. “You and me both, pal,” he growled, while his other heads chimed in with similar comments and insults. An instant later, the giant had pulled himself up to the high level of the smaller cave, moving with incredible swiftness. He stretched out his arms, hands balling into fists as he loomed over Hercules’ smaller frame.

  There was nowhere to move. The space where the mechanism was located had barely enough room for the giant, let alone for Hercules to avoid him.

  Hercules ducked low, using his relative short stature to his advantage, coming in below his opponent in an effort to unbalance him. He struck, shoulder first into the giant’s gut with the force of a runaway bull.

  The giant grunted, feet shifting just slightly as he reached for his antagonist. Hercules ducked, gliding out of the way of grasping hands that seemed to come from all directions.

  Twisting his body, Hercules weaved out of the giant’s reach, and the giant unleashed a roar of irritation.

  “Come here, bug!” the giant growled, taking a step towards Hercules.

  Hercules knocked aside a grasping arm, but was batted back by a second, a third, and a fourth. Fighting a multi-limbed creature like this put him in mind of the time he had battled the hydra—in a situation like this you had to keep your wits about you and watch for attacks from numerous different directions at once.

  Hercules struck a pummeling arm across a wrist with enough force that the giant gasped in pain. Then Hercules dropped, slipping down into a running crouch that sent him sprinting between the giant’s wide-spaced legs. Beyond the legs was the edge of the recessed cave.

  Hercules leapt, kicking off from the ledge and out into the cavern beyond. He flew through the air, arms windmilling as he hurtled across the gap between the ledge and the platform-like structure that had once contained the street.

  The giant roared as Hercules slipped away, watching in frustration as Hercules landed on the far platform in a kind of staggered run.

  Hercules turned in time to see the giant leap after him, a great mass of muscle dropping from the high ledge. Hercules drew back his arm, fist balled, and threw a punch upwards at the falling figure, timing it to perfection so that his fist collided with the giant’s gut. The giant seemed to flop over Hercules’ outstretched arm as the fist struck, letting out a howl of pain from two dozen mouths as his momentum was abruptly halted.

  Hercules drew back his fist as the multi-limbed giant sagged to the floor, and the giant rolled over until he lay at the edge of the platform, gasping to catch his breath.

  “What in the name of Cronus is going on in here?” a booming voice called from below the platform. “Briareos?”

  Hercules spun, eyeing the two new figures who had entered the cavern. They were giants like the first, the same two figures he had seen speaking with the she-dragon called Campe—Hecatonchire giants, the guardians of the Tartarus Pits.

  One of the giants pointed with a multitude of arms. “Look! Up there!” he said in a voice that echoed with repetitions across his body.

  “Who is—?” the other began. “One of the prisoners?” Even as the giant spoke, another of his heads spied Iolaus lying sprawled on the floor where Briareos the vigorous had knocked him down. “They’re escaping!” the head shrieked.

  “Uh oh,” Hercules muttered, his gaze sweeping across the platform and the chamber beyond. There was nowhere left to run—the cavern had just one exit, which was blocked by these two monstrous beings, and the only other escape was in the ceiling, where the tunnel bored to the surface in some arcane, supernatural manner.

  Even as Hercules weighed his limited options, one of the other giants climbed up onto the platform. His weight made it rock in place as he strode towards Hercules. Hercules braced himself, spreading his legs wide in a fighter’s stance—but as he did so, something grabbed at his ankle.

  “What—?!” Hercules looked down and saw that Briareos, the giant whom he had winded, had the fingers of one of his many hands wrapped around Hercules’ right ankle, a wicked smile on his faces while he still lay flat on his back trying to catch his breath.

  Hercules turned back as the pounding of onrushing feet became louder, the platform shaking with the approach of the second giant, Cottus. Hercules raised his arms defensively as a half dozen fists came racing through the air towards him from all directions.

  “They don’t call me the Striker for nothing!” Cottus bragged as his fists connected with Hercules’ face and torso.

  “Yearghhh!” Hercules screamed as he was knocked backwards in a swiveling pivot where the other giant still had hold of his leg. He fell to one knee, while his other leg was still caught as if in a mantrap. He batted the hand holding him away, but it was already too late. Cottus was standing over him, arms raised ready to deliver a savage beat-down.

  The next thing Hercules knew was pain. Pain followed by darkness.

  Hercules woke from unconsciousness slowly, dream visions of a multiplicity of fists driving at him hanging heavy on his subconscious. He did not open his eyes straight away, instead feeling where he was and listening for clues. It was warm, stuffy, the smell of sweat and fear heavy on the air. He was tied, his hands above his head, sitting upright on a narrow seat with his back to a cold, rough wall. There were voices too, some moaning incomprehensibly while others could be made out more clearly.

  I’m in a cage, Hercules realized after a few moments. Slowly, warily, he opened his eyes to a slit.

  He was in a cage right enough, a trellis-like crisscross of wooden bars poised before him, their tops sharpened to points so that they could not be climbed. Above and to either side were more cells, low-ceilinged and stacked like storage lockers, divided by wooden bars, the people within them wailing hopelessly, crying out for clemency and for release.
No one could stand in these cells—there simply was not the headroom to do so.

  There was debris on the floor of Hercules’ cell, rotting food, rags and human waste, things that had dropped through the bars from the cells above. There was another level below, where Hercules could see a young woman hunched over, sobbing uncontrollably. In his quick assessment, Hercules could not see Iolaus, but he knew—or hoped—he had to be here somewhere.

  Figures paced beyond the bars, the three giants and the dragon-beast called Campe, their heads looming as high as Hercules’ head.

  “I told you they were onto us,” Campe spat, her beautiful face marred by an ugly sneer.

  Briareos, the giant with whom Hercules had first fought, shook his heads uncertainly. “How can you be so sure, my lady?”

  “Look at him,” she hissed, pointing at the bound figure of Hercules with a slender, outstretched arm. “Don’t you recognize progeny of the gods when you see one?”

  “Him?” Briareos said in astonishment. “He could throw a punch but—”

  “Prattling,” Campe snarled, interrupting the giant’s words, “such prattling. That there is a god, an agent of the hated Olympians.”

  Inwardly, Hercules cursed. This dragon woman had been in charge here so long that she could recognize the individual traits of souls, could sense the god strand within him. Not that that strand made a jot of difference to why he was down here; Campe was barking up the wrong tree if she thought that.

  Hercules strained at the ties that bound his hands, testing their strength. There was not much give in them, but maybe . . .

  “You found him trying to operate the ‘trap’?” Campe checked, her eyes on Hercules.

  “Yes,” Briareos confirmed. “He asked me to release the captive souls.”

  Campe turned to Briareos, taking in the other giants with her gaze. “You see? All of you? The Olympians have sent this . . . whatever he’s called . . . to investigate what we’re doing down here. They suspect—”

  “Um,” Hercules began tentatively, “if I may speak.”

  One-hundred-and-fifty-one faces turned to stare at Hercules, an audience of four beings who shared a multitude of heads. With their undivided attention on him, Hercules stopped straining against his bonds. Now was not the time to break free.

  “Well?” Campe snarled, glaring at Hercules’ bound form.

  “I think you have me mistaken for someone else,” Hercules said. “My friend and I came down here because people had gone missing. We’re not on any mission from the gods—we just wanted to find out what had happened to those people. Now, if you’d be so kind as to release them and us—”

  “Silence!” Campe spat, her yellow eyes widening with anger. “Do you honestly expect me to believe that story? It’s as thin as a water nymph’s robes!”

  Hercules smiled uncomfortably, trying to find a way to convince Campe. “Look, I’m sure you can be a reasonable . . . woman . . . thing,” he said carefully. “If we could sit down and discuss—”

  Campe hissed, a sound like an angered crocodile, before turning away from Hercules’ cage. “Start the drain,” she said to Briareos. “We act now!”

  “Yes, my lady,” her second in command agreed, his faces solemn with respect.

  Hercules watched as the strange giants and their mistress left the line of cells and departed the cavern.

  Once he was certain that his captors were gone, Hercules peered animatedly around the cavern, scanning the cells to try to locate Iolaus. “Iolaus?” he called. “Iolaus? Where are you? Are you in here?”

  After a moment a weary voice echoed back to Hercules from a few cells’ distant. “I’m here,” Iolaus said. “They got you, too, I take it?”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t matter now,” Hercules said. “Are you okay, my friend? Are you injured?”

  “I’m fine,” Iolaus responded. “My head’s a little woozy where that great oaf clouted it, but otherwise I’m okay.” He was somewhere to the right of Hercules, probably just a couple of partitions away, Hercules realized.

  Hercules looked around his cell, wondering what they were going to do. The cell was made of wooden struts like bamboo, with a rock wall making up the fourth side. It was small, more like a dog’s kennel than something a man should occupy, and the dimensions forced the occupants to crouch. Hercules was bound with manacles of cool metal that were cinched to a ring in the wall. The other captives were similarly manacled, some with thick metal anklets, others bound by their wrists like him.

  Hercules searched the wall as Iolaus recounted what little he had picked up from listening to Campe and her Hecatonchire guards. It amounted to nothing, just snatches of information that were useless without a context, so Hercules tuned him out as he examined the walls. Up close like this, he noticed the metal rings that locked the far ends of the manacle chains were all connected, one long strip running down the height of the cells, and across in a matrix, linking them all together. That was odd—it did not make sense as a design, it would not significantly strengthen the bindings, and if anything it seemed to be a waste of metal.

  Hercules tried the manacles again. His strength was legendary—manacles like these should prove no problem to the prodigious power in his muscles. He strained, gritting his teeth, muscles bulging as he tried to snap the manacles that were locked over his head.

  “You okay there, buddy?” Iolaus called, the concern clear in his voice. “I thought I heard you—like you were in pain.”

  “Not . . . pain,” Hercules insisted, straining at the manacles. “Just . . .”—Surprise, maybe? Hercules was not sure. One thing he was sure about was that the metal had a supernatural quality—its strength went far beyond the component parts themselves.

  Hercules pulled at the manacles again, wrenching harder. Then, without warning, a sudden shock ran through Hercules’ system, like a hundred thorns being pressed against his nerve endings in a lightning strike. And it was not just Hercules who felt it; he was aware that dozens of people in the cells around him were gasping or yelling in surprise or pain, others just shaking against their manacles as the sensation—whatever it was—tore through their bodies, digging down into their very souls.

  “What did I do?” Hercules muttered before he—and several hundred captives around him—passed out in pain.

  Chapter 16

  Campe crouched down on the circular stone platform beneath the open ceiling of the rocky cavern. There were souls all around her, trembling as their energies were drained, shaking in the cages, line after line of them crammed floor to ceiling, double and triple stacked and covering every wall. Others waited on the rocky outcroppings all around. These were tired creatures, free from the cages but their resistance long-since worn down, just shells whose lives had reached their ends. Some were still recognizably human, here a handsome warrior, there a woman whose hair was gray and listless. Others had lost their features, their faces smooth, fingers and toes webbed together where they had been down here so long that they had forgotten what it was to be human. These cursed souls bowed down to their mistress, chomping down on the metal bits that had been placed between their teeth—those that had teeth—each bit connected by a wire to a series of pipes and bubbling vessels at the side of the cave. Those without teeth had found other ways to hold the bits, their connections made through rents in their flesh, indentations in their own bodies, done willingly if not with any joy.

  Rough-hewn from the rock, Campe’s platform was at the center of all of this, held aloft now by the energies that were already coursing through it, its edges tottering as it hovered a few feet above the ground. The platform was barely large enough to accommodate Campe’s long body, and her scorpion tail hung free, dangling below. The platform stood three feet in the air, raised on chains that were attached to it on four sides, a fifth chain, thick as a man’s torso, ran through the middle of the rock, driven straight through so that it pierced a pl
ug below, like a ship dropping anchor. There were other platforms too, waiting on the ground in a circle around the one that Campe occupied, large as banquet tables and rough-hewn from the rock of the cave.

  Below Campe, the three Hecatonchire giants watched, working the delicate supernatural machinery that monitored and channeled the soul energy into the chains to launch the platforms. The machinery operated through scrying pools, great bowls of dark water carved directly from the rock, each change of the current prefacing a new step in the process. As the giants watched, the chains began to boil with color, crackling lines of energy running up and down their lengths, the fierce greens seen only in afterimage when one stares at the sun too long, burning reds like sunsets, the flickering blue of the ocean—all of them mixing together, forming new patterns, new blurs of fantastical brightness.

  Campe squinted against that onslaught of color, feeling the platform beneath her begin to move as if caught in the aftershock of a quake. The platform trembled, shaking harder as those already brilliant colors became more brilliant still, as the greens and reds and blues were laced with great swooshes of gold and the relentless, blazing white found at the core of burning magnesium. Darker bubbles appeared across the chains and the rock platform as it started to ascend, like mushrooms budding in shadows, expanding in little clusters and cutting holes in the burning brilliance.

  The platform rose faster, shaking beneath Campe’s feet as it began to ascend towards a gap in the rock ceiling of the chamber.

  With the ascent came a sound, the tortured cry of a thousand healthy souls being drained from their bodies, scooped unwillingly from the living vessels within which they resided. More cries joined those living souls, the sounds of a million dead, all the inhabitants of the Tartarus Pits enlisted to serve the ruler of this cruel place. The cries were spat through the clinging muzzles of the bits that had been forced between their teeth, some coming impossibly from throats that no longer had mouths to voice complaint. It was like an orchestra, one made solely of the agonized cries of tortured victims. It was the chillingly cruel anthem of the Tartarus Pits.