Storming Paradise Page 14

  “We would become the new gods,” Gyes said without any hint of awareness of how crazy it sounded. “Pantheons need a whole lot of gods.”

  “That they do,” Hercules agreed as they passed across the vast bridge that linked the rest of Tartarus to the cavern holding the sorcerous street.

  Gyes was as good as his word, working the convoluted pulley system that launched the sorcerous street back to the surface once it had been loaded full of freed prisoners. Hercules watched carefully, making a mental note of how to get the street to ascend. It took three runs to send everyone back to the surface—almost nine-hundred people in all—and many expressed their gratitude to Hercules and Iolaus before they departed.

  “I cannot wait to be reunited with my wife once more,” a man called Erastos said, holding his son’s hand as they stepped up onto the platform. “Kyros has been missing his Mom.”

  “Phoibe’s a good woman,” Iolaus told them both, remembering the woman they had met weeks ago when they had first become embroiled in this mystery. “She’ll be glad to have you back.”

  Once the final group had ascended, Gyes stood humbly before Hercules while Iolaus looked on. “Now, may we free my brothers?” the giant asked.

  Hercules shook his head. “There is just one more task before we are done,” he said. “I need to go where Campe went. Elysium. She must be stopped.”

  Gyes was outraged. “I cannot betray my mistress,” he said.

  Hercules took a step closer to the humbled giant and stared him in the eyes of his centermost face with a no-nonsense look that could not be mistaken. “I’m not giving you a choice.”

  “Can’t be done,” Gyes insisted. “You’d need the energy of living souls to power the ascent. And you’ve just sent all of those back up to the surface.”

  “Not all of them,” Iolaus said.

  Gyes peered quizzically at Iolaus, tilting his heads in confusion. “One soul? That would never be enough to power the elevator.”

  “Not just one soul,” Hercules said, slapping Iolaus across the shoulders, “but the most noble soul of all.”

  Chapter 19

  “I’m starting to think this was a very bad idea,” Iolaus said as he was strapped into a manacled harness in the room where the platforms waited to rise to Elysium.

  “You volunteered, remember?” Hercules reminded him as Gyes prepped the launch device.

  “Yeah, but I kind of thought it’d be like getting my hair cut, you know?” Iolaus said. “Trim a little off my soul and use that to get everything working.”

  “As far as I understand it, you have to be alive, Iolaus,” Hercules stated.

  “That’s real reassuring,” Iolaus told him. “But do I really have to be hooked up to this thing? I already did this once and, let me tell you, it was not a nice experience.”

  “I know,” Hercules said with sincerity. “I was hooked up to the thing too. It was . . . unpleasant.”

  Iolaus looked at his friend in annoyance. “What? That’s it?! Unpleasant!!! That’s all the sympathy I get?!”

  Hercules reached over to Iolaus and placed a steadying hand on the man’s shoulder. “You’re a brave man, Iolaus,” he said. “Braver than I give you credit for sometimes.”

  Iolaus shook his head, floppy blond curls falling across his sweating brow. “Don’t say that.”

  Hercules smiled. “Sorry. I did not mean to embarrass you, my friend.”

  “You didn’t embarrass me,” Iolaus said. “It’s just, well, everyone knows that once you start telling them how gods-darn brave they are, they’re going to end up, you know, toasting bread in the pits of Tartarus.”

  “If that happens,” Hercules said, “make sure you toast enough for me because I’ll be coming back to drag you out again. Understand?”

  Iolaus nodded, swallowing hard. “Sure. When have you ever let me down, right?”

  “Right.”

  Hercules made his way back to one of the ascent platforms. “Gyes?” he called. “Are we ready?”

  Standing at the sorcerous pool, Gyes shook several of his great heads as he ran his fingers through the water. “One soul,” his heads muttered in duo-tonal reverberation. “One soul to get you to Elysium.”

  “Are we ready?” Hercules asked again as he climbed up onto the elevator platform.

  Gyes looked up at him, his expression solemn. “You’re crazy, bug man,” he said. “But if it’s going to work, now’s as likely a time as ever to try it.”

  Still hanging from their chains, the other giants laughed and taunted, assuring Hercules that he was destined to fail.

  Standing on the ascent platform, Hercules smiled. “Then let’s do it.”

  Gyes reached into the water, manipulating the magical forces that would tie Iolaus’ soul to the engine that powered the ascent platform, ready to launch it. “You may want to hold on to something,” Gyes warned as he activated the launch sequence.

  A moment later, Hercules felt a rumbling below him as the platform began to build power, a shuddering through his feet and legs as the power grew like tension in a rubber band. Taking Gyes’ advice, he crouched down, grabbing the rough-hewn sides of the platform as it began to levitate above the floor of the cave.

  Iolaus grunted, his head sinking backwards as the energy was drawn from his soul with a feeling like a burning knife being plunged into his heart. “Good luck, pal,” he muttered through gritted teeth as sweat began to stream down his face.

  The platform beneath Hercules shook again, rising a little higher until it was eight feet above the cavern floor. All around him, the chains that held it in place were glowing with luminescent greens and golds, energies streaking across their surfaces in tiny flares of lightning.

  Gyes brushed his hands through the magic pool, guiding the currents as he had been instructed. The chains grew brighter, and Iolaus let out a stifled cry of pain.

  Then, the platform containing Hercules rocketed upwards, blasting towards the rent in the cave’s roof at incredible speed. Hercules clung on as the chains holding the platform in place snapped free and it was sent through the hole in the roof and up, up, up into the tunnel of light and color and scent.

  No man was ever meant to make that journey from Tartarus to Elysium. No mortal could bear the strain.

  But then, Hercules was not just a man and he was most assuredly no mortal. He clung onto the rising platform as it sped through the tunnel of light and eternity. His muscles ached, burning across his shoulders and back as the pressure of that ascent drummed him down against the stone platform.

  His eyes were reduced to slits where the pressure was so relentless against them, like deep-sea diving, the force so strong it felt as though his eyes would pop free from his skull. Through those slit eyes he saw colors the likes of which he had never seen before—colors that man had never seen and thus had no name for. Blues and greens and golds and others, mingling and dancing, streaked with fiery blasts of lightning, each streak colored in yet more hues, more shades. Pinpricks of white light peppered those streaks, like stars raining down from the heavens.

  There were smells too, a thousand mingled scents, the smell of fresh apples and cherries plucked from the tree, of heady wine and freshly baked bread—beautiful scents, but in such extremes that they became overpowering and unpleasant.

  Hercules grit his teeth, clinging tighter as the platform ascended through that corridor in space and time, through the tunnel between realms. It seemed without end, and in those moments Hercules lost all sense of time.

  As abruptly as it had started, it ended. Hercules felt the shudder run through the rock below him, like a great smack against his hands and knees and feet. The shudder was so forceful that Hercules lurched forwards, grasping a handful of crumbling stone as he threatened to overbalance and fall from the sorcerous platform.

  Breathing hard, he opened his eyes, letting the fantastic light s
trike them for the first time.

  Elysium.

  It was everything he had been told it would be but nothing like he expected. There was a crispness to the air, a vividness, that made it like experiencing something with more senses than Hercules knew that he had.

  He clung to the rock, crouched on hands and knees, looking around him, just taking everything in. The grass was green and seemingly without end, the sky likewise blue—but they were a green and a blue that Hercules had never seen before, brighter, fuller, richer than any greens or blues he had ever seen.

  Slowly, feeling a little giddy, Hercules eased himself from the rock platform that had brought him here to paradise. He stepped down onto the grass, felt its luxuriant softness even through the soles of his boots. The fabled Elysium Fields undulated in all directions, hills and clefts and valleys rolling as far as the eye could see.

  He peered back at the rock that had brought him here and saw it was blackened with smoke in a dozen places, great holes at its cardinal points where the chains had been ripped free upon launch. There was a man’s outline, lighter in color than the rest of the brown rock, where he had been clinging to the platform as it rose. Somehow, he had survived an impossible journey between realms.

  Hercules wondered then if Campe had survived, such were the forces at play here. He peered around, wondering if her corpse might even now be lying on one of those pristine, rolling hills. He did not see her, but something else caught his eye. There was a rock, like the one he had traveled on to get here although a little larger, lying about twenty-five feet from where he had appeared. The rock was charred like his, and featured the same telltale holes where the launch chains had been wrenched free, a further hole in its center like a torus. The rock was part buried in the ground, the grass oozing over it in a green blanket, taking it in like a lover’s embrace.

  Whatever ends up here becomes a part of Elysium, Hercules guessed, checking over the rock. There was no sign of Campe.

  Looking all around him, Hercules spotted a glistening lake located in the dip between hills. He settled on that direction, and began to walk towards the lake, pleased to be able to stretch his muscles after the torturous ride here.

  Hercules strode down to the lake. There were people there, some enjoying the warm weather as they sat and chatted at the shore, others paddling in the water or swimming across the vast body of the lake itself. Hercules waved as he spotted a few people looking his way, and they waved back.

  There were men and women here, all of them barefoot and dressed in pure white robes. They were of different ages, but most seemed older—presumably the age at which their mortal bodies had died. There were smiles all around and the sense of joy was palpable.

  “Hello, stranger,” an older woman called as Hercules approached the shore. She had iron gray hair tied back in a bun, and a kindly face with smile lines around the eyes and mouth. “You new here?” she asked, indicating his clothes.

  “Just visiting,” Hercules told her. “I came here looking for someone.”

  The woman stepped forward and offered Hercules her hand, and when he took it she grabbed his arm with her other hand in a warm, friendly manner. “Plenty of people here,” she said. “I’m Irene, but call me Reen—everyone else does.”

  “Hey, Reen,” Hercules said, still holding the woman’s hand. “The person I’m looking for is rather individual-looking. Face and torso of a beautiful woman, body of a dragon. Her name’s Campe.”

  “Ach, a beautiful woman,” Reen said knowingly. “It’s always a beautiful woman with a handsome stud like you.”

  “With the body of a dragon,” Hercules reminded her.

  “I haven’t seen her,” Reen told him, adding with a wink, “because I may be old but I’m sure I’d remember someone with a dragon’s body. But let’s ask around, someone’s bound to have seen your girl.”

  With that, Reen took Hercules by the arm and led him to join the other revelers at the shore. Some were playing games, contemplating tiles that had been laid out on the sand in specific patterns or a set of skittles that had been arranged in a triangle on the grass overlooking the lake.

  With Reen as his guide, Hercules asked almost everyone at the lake. Eventually, one of the younger men—who looked to be fifty if he was a day—nodded and laughed. “Yes, I saw her,” he said. “Took to the skies while I was taking a break from the journey here. Great set of . . . wings on her.” (His accompanying action did not suggest wings.)

  His colleague, a bald man whose skittle-playing was enhanced by his permanently being hunched over, laughed at that. “I thought you were a leg man, Ace,” he chided.

  “Did you see where she went?” Hercules asked before the two old men could get into an argument about the best attributes a dragon woman could have.

  The man called Ace gestured with his thumb over to his right, away from the lake. “Kept her distance,” he said, “but purposeful with it. Headed that way, over to the citadel.”

  “Citadel?” Hercules asked.

  “Where the old warriors live,” Ace said, nodding. “You won’t miss it.”

  Hercules bowed his head respectfully. “Thank you, sir,” he said. “Might I enquire what you did to earn a place here, in Elysium?”

  “Medic,” Ace told him with a smile. “Caduceus in hand, out in the battlefield. Saw some pretty grim stuff.”

  His companion laughed and shook his head. “Don’t listen to him,” he told Hercules. “He’s an animal doctor. Only patients he ever saved were horses.”

  “I’m sure they appreciated that,” Hercules said, before thanking the two men and saying farewell to Irene and the other oldsters who were enjoying the tranquility of the lakeside. It was a tranquility that was about to be shattered, he knew, if Campe had her way.

  Hercules continued in the direction that the old men had indicated, passing clear springs and streams that ran through the meadows of Elysium. There were animals here too, lambs gamboling in the green fields, peacocks whose feathers displayed the eyes of Argus, galloping stags that Artemis would have hunted given half a chance. Above all, the serene sense of tranquility struck Hercules, a fulfilling sense he wished he could hold onto forever.

  Hercules saw the citadel as soon as he crested the hill. It stood at the edge of forever, to its far side a cliff whose sharp drop disappeared into clouds through which poked the summit of Mount Olympus itself, the home of the gods. The building was huge, its proportions colossal. A grand arch towered over the entrance, wide as a dozen great temples, huge columns towering up to support it. Behind this stood a set of great doors, their height enough to accommodate a dozen men standing on one another’s shoulders. Colorful frescos lined its walls and high arches, their designs showing acts of heroism—the slaying of monsters, the protection of children. It was a place where the bravest might lay down to rest. It had to be the place.

  Hercules marched down the slope towards the citadel, wondering whether he might be too late. Campe had such a head start on Hercules, pursuing her devious plan to recruit the most formidable heroes of history. He could only hope he might somehow convince them not to follow her into godhood, to see through her selfish schemes.

  The doors to the citadel had been left open and, as Hercules approached, he heard raised voices emanating from within. Someone was shouting, and though the words were unclear, the fury in their tone was not.

  Hercules approached the doors gingerly, listening to the shouting, wary of ambush or attack. He was about to step into the home of the greatest heroes rallying behind Campe—what chance did one man-god have against such an army?

  Chapter 20

  Hercules pushed aside one of the great doors into the citadel, running his hand along the carving that adorned its surface. He stepped into a grand atrium, whose high ceiling was dominated by a circular skylight peering out into the blue, and whose farthest wall was open, gazing down upon Mount Olympus. The shou
ting from inside the building was louder here, a female voice, the tone chiding.

  “I am offering you absolute power,” the woman was shouting, her voice echoing between the pillars that held the high roof aloft, “all you need do is stand—stand at my side!”

  Hercules recognized the voice: Campe.

  Then perhaps he was not too late. Perhaps he could somehow talk the greatest warriors in all of history to stand down, to spurn the offer that the she-dragon had made them. But, he figured he had better move fast if he was to have any hope at all.

  Hercules ran, scrambling through the vast atrium, his feet slapping loudly against the polished marble floor as he sought the direction from which the sound was coming from.

  There, to his left. The woman’s voice was coming from there.

  Hercules weaved past two of the colossal pillars, scanning the space beyond, which was hidden in shadows from the overhang of the roof. It took just a moment for Hercules’ eyes to adjust.

  There were doors here, a whole line of them, single doors and twinned doors, running all the way along the wall of the vast space. Hercules’ gaze swept across them, searching for signs of Campe’s entry. Several doors were open, including a set of double doors located close to the center of the row. There!

  Hercules sprinted towards the double doors, peeking inside one of the open doors as he hurried past. There was a modest room inside, a simple cot of the type a soldier might be used to, with a pillow and colorful woolen blanket resting atop it. A water jug stood at a table in one corner of the room, along with a hand basin and mug. “Sleeping quarters,” Hercules murmured in realization. Then this was not just a place where old heroes visited, it was where they slept.