Storming Paradise Read online

  When Hercules inquired about the boots and other trinkets he had recovered from the cave, it seemed that people were only too willing to talk to him. They would share anecdotes and tell him jokes, some as old as his father, who was an immortal. They would invite him to join in games of luck, to bet on insect races with money he didn’t have, and when he told them this they would say it did not matter and that he could bet with their money, just so long as he was having fun.

  Hercules also asked whose party this was, what it was being held in celebration of, and the answer was always the same. Nobody knew who was hosting the party nor why. It seemed that the party had simply appeared, taking over a whole street that was just long enough to hold every participant with enough room for music and dancing and an occasional romance.

  As for the boots and the trinkets—well, those never seemed to quite register on the minds of the people of whom Hercules inquired. Oh, they were happy to talk to him, happy to hear of his exploits and to share their own over a drink and a bite to eat, but the conversations always seemed to spiral off into other directions and Hercules never did quite get around to learning if anyone recognized the items that he had recovered.

  Before long, Hercules was involved in a game that involved running across the width of the street to try to snag a maiden, and the whole quest with the boots and the trinkets was forgotten.

  At some point during the night of celebration, Hercules recognized the man they had encountered on the road. His cloak looked wrinkled where he had dried it in the sun, and he seemed oddly deflated as he picked at the food and tried to keep a low profile. Before Hercules could approach him, several of the locals surrounded him and he looked up guiltily as if expecting a beating.

  “Look, fellas—” he began.

  But the locals didn’t want to hear his excuses. Instead they simply welcomed him to the party, the joie de vivre of the occasion a panacea for all grudges.

  The moon was still in the sky when Iolaus began meandering to the end of the street in search of somewhere to sleep. He had been playing a game of tiles with three other men, none of whom he could say he had learned the name of, when he had realized that he had fallen fast asleep with his head rested against his hand.

  “Time I called it a . . . whatever,” he said, pushing himself up from the games table and staggering away on leaden feet. He had drunk a lot, and eaten his fill of chicken and pork and some muddled dish made from eggs and flour that tasted of cheese and felt effortless to chew. But he had spent most of the preceding day trekking through the mountains with Hercules, and he was exhausted.

  Iolaus made his way unsteadily past strumming lyre players and tables that seemed to still have enough food on them to feed an army, stepping over the fallen drunks who had already gone to sleep in the street, and past the huddled gamblers who were locked in games of chance involving painted stones whose sides made them fall in different ways, creating new combinations with every throw.

  There is a kind of homing instinct that kicks in at these moments, Iolaus realized. Too tired to party further, he followed that instinct as it drew him down the length of the street—a street that seemed almost unfeasibly long at that moment—and out into the village square from which he suspected he could find an inn or perhaps a storage shed in which to bed down for a few hours’ sleep.

  As he exited the street, Iolaus heard a cry.

  “Iolaus! Wait!” It was Hercules, waving to Iolaus from a few dozen feet along the street, where the party remained in full swing.

  Iolaus stopped, his head suddenly heavy, his footsteps graceless, as Hercules hurried along the street towards him.

  “Where are you going?” Hercules asked. “There’s a group at the far end, by the boar, that are just starting on songs about my father. You must hear them, they are hilarious.”

  Iolaus gave Hercules an up from under look where his head felt too heavy to lift. “Need sleep,” he slurred.

  “‘Sleep’?!” Hercules repeated the word as if it were a curse. “Come on, my friend—while the wine still flows—”

  Iolaus rested a hand on one of Hercules’ impressive biceps, as much to steady himself as to halt his friend’s speech. “Hercules,” he said, slowly. “I am tired and . . . and I am also . . . tired. I need sleep, not songs.”

  Hercules shook his head and tsked. “Listen to you. Where’s your sense of fun?” he challenged.

  “Asleep already, prob’ly,” Iolaus slurred in reply.

  Hercules glared at him, shaking his head in incredulity while the street party continued behind him. “I never thought I would say this, Iolaus, but you are a party pooper.”

  “I am no such thing,” Iolaus retorted, weaving in place as he tried to look at Hercules through heavily lidded eyes. “I poop on no parties. Except political parties, because they always want to build a labyrinth or a temple to some god who insists on awkward tributes.”

  Hercules shook his head in disappointment, and to Iolaus it seemed that he was shaking his head so hard that the ground itself shook.

  “You cut that out,” Iolaus said. “I’m having enough trouble standing here as it is.”

  Hercules stopped shaking his head. But the ground did not stop shaking with him. “Wait,” he said. “Do you feel that?”

  Iolaus did the kind of slow blink that seemed almost as if he had gone to sleep in the middle of it. But when he opened his eyes, the ground was still shaking, and he could see loose dirt and pebbles dancing on its surface where the first rays of dawn sunlight struck the street. “Izzat . . . ?” he asked, and tried again, making more effort to form the words. “Is that . . . an earthquake?”

  Hercules was alert, looking all around them for the source of the sudden disruption. “It’s something, but I don’t know what it is. Monster maybe?”

  “That griffin coulda—?” Iolaus began.

  But his words were cut short when the street hosting the party began to shake harder, plates and goblets and painted game pieces tiles dropping from tables, the bunting shaking and falling, dropping away from where it had been hitched against the sides of the buildings.

  Then, with a rumbling shake, the street began to descend. It was being swallowed by the earth.

  Chapter 4

  Iolaus looked down at the ground. Dust was being churned up as the street sank into the ground, as if a great, shifting tectonic plate was located right here, whose edge was the very end of the street that was hosting the party. In fact, he realized, feeling suddenly a lot more sober than he had just thirty seconds before, it was precisely the end of the street where the juncture lay—and Hercules was standing on one side of it while he was on the other.

  Hercules, too, was all too aware that something strange was happening. He had spun to look around him, searching for the source of the tremor even as the street started to sink—an inch, then two—into the ground.

  “Hercules, get out of there,” Iolaus urged, grabbing his partner’s arm. “Something’s happening to the street.”

  Still facing away from Iolaus, Hercules looked at the street and saw the bunting swaying in place and the way the tables were starting to fall over, spilling their contents. The people, it seemed, did not notice or care—the dancers continued their dancing, the musicians their tunes, and the few drinkers who were still awake enough to pour more simply poured, laughing too loudly at what was occurring all around them.

  “What’s going on?” Hercules asked.

  Iolaus’ eyes were fixed on the ground, watching as the street sunk another inch, dropping Hercules and its other attendees down into the ground. “The whole street is sinking!” he shouted. “Come on, buddy—let’s get out of here before we get swallowed up!”

  Hercules spun, turning back to face Iolaus, and his friend recognized his expression of fixed determination. “We need to do something, come on!”

  An instant later, Hercules was running down t
he street, shouting a warning at the top of his lungs. “Earthquake! Get off the street! Get off the street!”

  Iolaus stepped down onto the street and followed his partner’s lead, repeating the warning and struggling to wake up the sleeping drunks. This was not how he had imagined this party would end.

  Despite Hercules’ warnings, no one seemed much bothered by the turn of events. Most of the party’s attendees seemed quite satisfied to continue their games of chance, recite their anecdotes or dance with the pretty girls with the fluttering ribbons.

  “It’ll pass,” one assured Hercules.

  “If this is how I go, at least I did it before the hangover kicked in,” another assured him, a man with a patchy beard and a ruddy face.

  “Maybe they’re right,” Hercules muttered, looking around the street. Over ninety people were here, and not one of them seemed to be in a rush to leave. They had a point—it wasn’t as if being on another street would guarantee their safety. Except . . .

  “Hercules!” Iolaus called from the far end of the street, the end where Hercules had caught him just a few minutes before. “Look!”

  Hercules looked at where his friend pointed, saw how the street had dropped so far that now there was what looked like a wall of dirt standing at the street’s end, four feet in height like a stable gate. Hercules glanced down to the other end of the street, saw that it too had sunk to a similar depth, and that the buildings lining the street were now up above them, and beginning to lean in.

  “Sorcery,” Hercules hissed, instinctively recognizing what he was looking at.

  As he spoke the word, the street sunk another foot as the bright rays of dawn touched the skies above for the first time.

  Hercules reached towards the nearest building that now rose high above him, grabbing a handful of soil from the ground there. Dried in the sun, the soil came loose in his hands and the street continued to sink. He reached farther, grasping for the stone block that served as a step into the residential building whose ground level was now five feet above him.

  “Hercules?” Iolaus called. “You got any bright ideas?”

  Hercules clung onto the stone step, using all of his strength to hold the street in place and to stop it sinking further. His strength was legendary, but even he could only hope to slow the street’s descent for a few moments. “Evacuate the street,” he shouted to Iolaus.

  “How?” Iolaus shot back. “No one wants to leave!”

  He was right, Hercules knew. He had tried to get people to leave but no one wanted to listen, they were too caught up in this party to end all parties.

  At that moment, as Hercules tried to figure out an answer, the stone step to which he clung broke away and a great chunk of masonry came crumbling down in his hands, dropping to the street with a crash. The street continued to sink, five feet becoming six, the buildings above shifting to enclose the space, marching forward like centurions. As the buildings shifted, closing together above their heads, the street became darker, cast in shadow where it had been momentarily touched by the dawn’s light. People started screaming as they finally realized that something was very wrong.

  “Hercules!!!” Iolaus called again, fear unmistakable in his tone.

  Hercules looked around frantically, wondering what he could possibly do now to stop this disaster. His strength was not enough to hold back the street’s descent, and if that was not enough then he did not know what else he could do. Hercules made a tough decision then, the kind that would haunt a man of even the firmest resolve: he ran.

  Iolaus was bewildered when he saw Hercules come charging towards him. “What’s the plan, big guy?”

  “Save our skins!” Hercules replied without slowing his pace. His outstretched hand slapped against Iolaus’ back as he spoke, pushing the man in a stuttering run towards the end of the street.

  “Woo! Gonna . . . let me . . . catch my . . . breath?” Iolaus complained as Hercules shoved him towards the disappearing end of the street.

  “No time!” Hercules replied, grabbing Iolaus by the top of his pants with one hand and his collar with the other. Then, Hercules lifted Iolaus from the ground and threw him high into the air.

  Iolaus sailed through the air, screaming as he hurtled ten feet upwards and out of the disappearing street. Around him, the buildings that had lined the street were closing in, barely a two foot gap between them now.

  Iolaus landed hard on the ground, tucking and rolling automatically as he struck the dirt. He came to a halt a moment later, rolling to a stop beside the well that dominated the center of the village square. Around him were buildings on four sides with streets between them.

  Getting up on hands and knees, Iolaus turned and looked back at the party street, now ten feet behind him. Except there was no street—the buildings had all but closed in on the space where it had been, the only indication of its existence a dark trench that still ran between them.

  “Hercules!” Iolaus called, scrambling back towards where the street had been.

  For a moment the only movement was the twin rows of buildings as they shifted impossibly back to cover the hole in the ground where the street had been, sealing the ditch. Iolaus stared, mouth open, unable to process what had just happened.

  And then the ground between those buildings seemed to explode, and the familiar form of Hercules came bursting from the soil, a woman tucked under each arm. He leapt forward and seemed to take a few steps through the air before finally landing six feet behind where Iolaus stood at the edge of the disappeared street. He and his charges were covered in dirt, but they were otherwise unharmed.

  “What in the name of Zeus’ lightning just happened?” Iolaus asked as Hercules set down the two women whom he had rescued. One was clad in the short white dress of the dancing girls that he and Iolaus had first encountered, while the other was a woman in her thirties, wearing a loose cotton blouse and lightweight skirt, her dark hair tied in a plait.

  “No time,” Hercules spat, scrambling across the square and back to where the street had been. He skidded down on his knees and plunged his hands into the soil, tossing clumps of dirt aside. “Come on, help me! Dig!”

  Iolaus knelt down beside Hercules and started to dig, shifting handfuls of dry soil aside as he burrowed beneath the surface. The two of them dug for a couple of minutes, but it soon became clear that there was nothing there other than the dirt, no trace of the street that had been hosting the party.

  Iolaus had stopped digging long before Hercules, and he knelt there and watched as his friend, whose noble heart knew no limits, continued to scoop handfuls of soil aside.

  “Give up,” Iolaus said gently. “It’s gone.”

  Hercules lay flat, his arms buried in the dirt almost down to his shoulders.

  “It’s gone,” Iolaus repeated.

  Hercules turned his head and looked at Iolaus, and for just a moment Iolaus thought his friend was going to scream in frustration. But he did not. Instead, wearily, as if the fight had gone out of him, Hercules pulled his arms out of the soil and stood up, brushing himself down.

  “Hey, buddy,” Iolaus said, standing before Hercules as he wiped dirt from his hands. “You can’t win them all. You tried. But sometimes the odds are too heavily stacked against you.”

  Hercules nodded solemnly in agreement. “I detected magic at work there,” he averred, glancing down what was now just a narrow alleyway between the buildings that had previously lined the street.

  “I think you’re right,” Iolaus agreed. “Question is, did someone steal the street, or did the street actually exist to begin with?”

  Hercules nodded once more, gazing out at the rising sun as it peeked over the mountains before finally turning his gaze upon the two women he had rescued. “Why don’t we ask them?” he said.

  The woman with the plaited hair was frazzled. She had come out of the party with all the energy of a flop
py rag doll, presumably having spent all night there. There were food stains on her blouse and strands of her hair were coming loose from the braid. She told Hercules that her name was Phoibe, but when he tried to question her, sitting on a stone bench in the shade a few feet from the well, she brushed him away as if swatting a fly.

  “I don’t know anything,” she mumbled, gazing at Hercules with eyes that clearly did not want to focus.

  “What were you doing at the party?” Hercules asked, not really certain whether that was the right question.

  “Heard that sweet music,” the woman said, and her mouth was left open where she had said this last word. Her eyelids began to close.

  “Where from?” Hercules urged, and he repeated the question twice more until the woman replied.

  “Was just folding clothes in back,” the woman called Phoibe mumbled quietly, “when I heard . . . I heard . . .” She slumped sideways until her head rested on Hercules’ shoulder. She was already snoring lightly, each expelled breath smelling like a winery during fermentation season.

  Iolaus, meanwhile, spoke with the younger woman who was one of the ribbon dancers as they sat in the shade of a building’s porch. She wore a short dress that clung to her svelte body and exposed her long, tanned legs. Her long, dark hair was loose and she wore a garland of flowers there, propped just above her forehead. Judging by her flawless skin, Iolaus guessed she was in her late teens or early twenties. She was full of energy despite partying all night and the sudden and dramatic escape that Hercules had performed, and seemed to be abuzz with excitement.