Storming Paradise Page 9

  Close by, a mortal called Ixion was screaming for mercy where he was strapped to a spinning fiery wheel, looping over and over, his back in torment from the flames, his face white with terror. Ixion had killed his father-in-law by pushing him into burning coals, but it was the fact he coveted Hera, Zeus’ wife, that had ultimately seen him sent down here, to this place of eternal punishment.

  A wall divided Ixion from a figure whom Hercules recognized—Tantalus. Tantalus had once tried to steal from the gods themselves. Now he was held for eternity against a wall by the branches of an apple tree, its plump fruit hanging before his face, just out of reach of his craving lips. Below Tantalus, a pool of clear water ebbed and flowed at his feet, ever out of reach of his dry throat. It was a reminder that the gods could be cruel.

  Hercules turned away from the grisly sights below and hurried along the walkway until he and Iolaus had reached the entrance to the mountain. They halted a moment, listening for danger. Moans came from within the mountain, the wails of women who had lost their husbands, orphaned children and men who found themselves utterly helpless in the face of catastrophe.

  Warily, Hercules stepped over the threshold and into the mountain. A hollow space dominated the interior, an ill-lit cavern housing towering lines of cages, the kind one might keep chickens in. Inside these cages were not chickens, however, but people, one to each cage, manacled by either wrists or ankles to iron chains that were hitched to great lines of hoop-shaped attachments lining the walls. The cages were so small that the people could only sit down. This was where the moaning was coming from.

  Hercules ran his eyes over the lines of cages that covered each wall of the cave, estimating that there must have been over four hundred people there. The captives, he realized, had been stolen from their homes by the mysterious street party, abducted for new lives in this place of eternal torment.

  Standing to Hercules’ side, Iolaus let out a gasp, horrified by what he saw. Immediately, he recognized several people from Phoibe’s village where he and Hercules had first encountered the arcane street. “Looks like we hit pay dirt,” he said grimly.

  Hercules nodded, scanning the room. The cages were constructed of wooden bars, not just their walls but their ceilings too, meaning that the captives on the higher levels were balanced on the rounded bars with no place to properly rest. Some had found outcroppings in the rough, rock wall of their cages that served as proxy seats, while the others sat or crouched on the painful bars, trying their best to make themselves comfortable. The bars that made up the doors had been sharpened to points, leaving just a little gap between them and the next level. Each door was locked using a simple wooden bar.

  There were people of all ages within the cages, young and old, a whole gaggle of children populating a tower that loomed five cages high. Everyone was suffering; some wept, others clung to the bars of the doors and moaned for help, while still others tried to sleep, as if they could somehow awaken to something other than this nightmare.

  “They’re still alive,” Hercules said, casting an eye over the people in the cages. “We just need to find a way to get them all out of here and back where they belong.”

  Iolaus looked glum. “Hercules always saves the day,” he said with mock cheer. “You have a plan that’ll save the day today, Hercules?”

  Hercules frowned, pacing further into the cave. A pathway ran between the towers of cages, running from the entrance to another opening at the far end of the cavern. “I’m thinking,” he said, examining the locks that held the cages closed, and working out the logistics of moving this many people without being noticed. “If we could somehow seal this cave at that end,” he said, gesturing to the farther opening, “we could—”

  “What if there’s more?” Iolaus pointed out. “We don’t know how many people this spook street snatched, could be a thousand people down here being treated like dogs, trapped inside these . . . kennels.”

  Hercules ran a hand through his messy hair in thought. “You’re right,” he agreed. “Tartarus is a big place. But we’ll need to employ stealth if we’re to check it out without being spotted.”

  “I can be silent as a mouse,” Iolaus assured him. Then, off Hercules’ look, he shrugged innocently and added: “What? It’s an old hunter’s trick.”

  Hercules shook his head with despair. He knew all about Iolaus’ “old hunter’s tricks” and they often resulted in dropping the pair of them in even more trouble than they were in before.

  As they pondered their predicament, the sound of heavy footsteps came from the far end of the cavern. “Someone’s coming,” Hercules hissed, pulling Iolaus by the wrist. “Come on.”

  Before Iolaus could say a word, Hercules had dragged him to a narrow space between two towering columns of cages, one that seemed barely wide enough to fit one man, let alone two. There were cages to either side: on the left a woman in her twenties, her bedraggled hair in loose bunches, her clothes stained; and above her an older woman in her fifties with graying hair and a bloated belly, lying fast asleep on the uncomfortable bars; to the right, both cells contained men in their thirties, their close cropped hair and dark looks suggesting that they might be brothers. The younger woman cried out in hope, begging these newcomers to release her.

  “Quiet,” Hercules whispered, placing a finger to his lips. “We’re here to help. Just stay quiet for now.”

  The woman moaned something unintelligible and sat staring hopefully at Hercules and Iolaus.

  Less than a half-minute had passed by the time the owners of the echoing footsteps emerged from the mouth of the cavern. There were two of them and they were tall, at least twice as tall as Hercules, so tall that they had to duck to enter the wide mouth of the cavern without scraping their heads. They were not just tall, however—they were freakish. Spawned from the same race, these giants had elongated torsos from which protruded a multitude of arms, some of normal length and some much shorter, an even hundred in all. Atop their shoulders was not one head but a whole array of them, eleven lined up from shoulder-to-shoulder, with the centermost larger and more obviously dominant. Beside these, there were additional heads arrayed like necklaces across their chests and still more running down the bumps of the giants’ spinal ridges. The giants wore simple skirts, exposing legs and bare feet that seemed normal enough despite their freakish upper bodies.

  “What are they?” Iolaus whispered.

  As he whispered, the giants turned, one-hundred pairs of ears twitching to try to detect the location of the sound amid the chorus of moans and wails. Iolaus clamped his own hand over his mouth and would have wished for the earth to swallow him if it had not done so already.

  The giants spoke to one another in a rapid tongue, multiple mouths contributing, all at the same time. Hercules picked up the words “quiet,” “check” and “street” but the conversation was so fast, and so garbled, that it was almost impossible to make sense of. They had their own language, or at least their own way of speaking to one another, Hercules realized—a side-effect of having so many mouths per person.

  Of course, Hercules realized, running the strangely fragmented conversation over in his mind. They were guards, and they had come expecting a bounty from the sorcerous street that had just arrived from its “fishing trip” above ground. Finding it empty was going to raise a lot of questions.

  Hercules pushed back tighter against the rocky wall of the cavern as the two multi-limbed giants strode past, their disjointed conversation sounding more like the twitter of birds.

  The giants walked past the cages, unaware that Hercules and Iolaus were crouching in the gap between them, and made their way through the cavern and out towards the bridge beyond which Hercules and Iolaus had traveled barely a minute earlier.

  We’re doomed, Iolaus thought as the monstrous figures strode away. They disappeared through the second exit to the cavern, and Iolaus was all too aware that that was his and Hercules’
only way out.

  “So, what do we do now?” Iolaus asked as soon as he was certain that the two giants were well beyond the cavern mouth.

  “Like I said,” Hercules confirmed. “Check the place out, release the prisoners and get back to the surface.”

  “Think again, big guy,” Iolaus hissed. “Those two bruisers just left to check on the street. Which, in case you’ve forgotten, is our only way out.”

  Hercules nodded thoughtfully. “We definitely need a plan,” he said.

  “Now you realize,” Iolaus hissed in despair. “Well?”

  “Quiet,” Hercules told him. “I think they’re coming back.”

  Iolaus peered out from their hiding place and saw that Hercules was right. Two huge shadows became larger as they approached the mouth to the cavern, and then the twin giants came striding through into the cave of cages once more. They were each carrying several of the lifeless shells that had previously been dancing girls of musicians, used to populate the street. Now the shells were empty, their features smeared to an eerily smooth nothingness.

  The giants seemed frantic, hurling insults at one another in at least a dozen different tongues—literally in their case.

  “Nobody there,” said one.

  “I saw that,” said the other. “You saw that?” another of his heads asked. “Yes, I saw,” the larger, centermost head snapped back at the face on his left shoulder. “What did I just say?”

  “Where do you think everyone is?” the other giant asked.

  “Mebbe it was a bust,” his hulking companion responded. “Fisherman can’t expect to net a catch every time he sails,” one of his other heads pointed out, this one located in the line around his neck.

  “I don’t like it, Gyes,” the other giant said with a shake of several of his oversized heads. “We should take it to the boss.” As he said this, several of the other faces located on his form also offered opinions, not conflicting ones yet none were quite the same. This trait made it hard to make sense of the giants’ discussions, but Hercules was beginning to get the hang of it by concentrating on the main head located at the center of the giant’s shoulders.

  “She won’t be happy,” the other told him. “I say let the cursed souls tell her. It’s their fault, after all.” “Definitely their fault,” added another head. “They’re to blame,” added a third, “they’re to blame.”

  The giants paced through the cavern, past the shadow-filled hiding place of Hercules and Iolaus.

  “How many did she expect this time, anyway?” the one who had been addressed as Gyes asked.

  “Fifty more healthy ones, she said,” the other replied. “Wheat from chaff, wheat from chaff,” another of his hideous faces chipped in in a sing-song voice.

  As the freakish giants passed towards the far end of the cavern and out through the mouth, Hercules indicated to Iolaus that they were to follow.

  Iolaus shook his head. “Nuh-uh, not me, pal,” he whispered. “I’ve come this far, but I can tell you right now that I’m no match for those bruisers.”

  Hercules glared at him. “Will you keep your voice down,” he hissed. “They have—” and he gestured to his ears before holding up his fingers as if counting a high number.

  Iolaus grimaced.

  Warily, Hercules nudged out from the gap between the cages, and Iolaus followed. Silently, Hercules indicated the cavern mouth, from which the giants’ retreating footsteps could be heard.

  Together, the two men hurried along the walkway between the cages, the large space somehow claustrophobic thanks to the towers of people crammed on each side. Moans and wails echoed from all sides, and Iolaus found it unnerving the way the people were looking at him—their expressions those of the hopeless and the defeated.

  Once they had reached the cavern mouth, Hercules dragged Iolaus out of the light, and the two of them pressed against the wall at the edge of the opening and waited. There was some talk coming from beyond the cavern, the familiar chatter of the two giants as they spoke to one another in their frenetic, jumbled way. Slowly, the footsteps retreated, becoming quieter as the giants retreated.

  Beyond the mouth of the cave lay another walkway, this one just a few paces long and leading into a warren of caves. Hercules and Iolaus followed the two hulking brutes at a distance, keeping their movements as silent as they could. The next cavern that they entered held even more cages, hundreds stacked cheek to jowl in the tight confines, using every available jot of space. There were people in these cages too, malnourished and exhausted, their expressions haunted. For what little comfort it gave them, Iolaus and Hercules saw that some of the cells were, thankfully, empty—but this was an ominous sign, as well.

  Iolaus tapped Hercules on the shoulder and gestured around. “There must be room for a thousand people in here,” he whispered.

  Hercules nodded. “A thousand at least,” he agreed,

  The walls of this prisoner area narrowed, the high ceiling dropping as they passed towards the distant far end of the cavern. They watched as the two giants passed through a doorway-like aperture, set between two towering columns of rock. Hercules held his hand up, urging Iolaus to wait. He wanted to be certain that the giants were not setting up an ambush, or that there might be some other trap in the space where the cavern narrowed. After a moment, Hercules was satisfied, and he crouch-walked to the doorway and peered into it.

  Out there, beyond the confines of the holding area, was a stony path angled further downwards into the depths of the Earth. Wide enough to host a cart, the path was edged by two sheer drops, one to either side. Below this was an eerie abyss lit with a fiery red glow.

  “The pits of eternal damnation,” Hercules muttered as he watched the two giants continue down the path towards the dark mouth of a cave located at its far end. He waited for the multi-limbed giants to disappear into the cavern mouth, and then gestured for Iolaus to follow.

  “This is insane,” Iolaus hissed as he and Hercules began to jog along the path.

  “Just keep up,” Hercules replied. “I want to see where they’re going.”

  The two companions hurried along the path, well aware of how exposed they were. Iolaus could feel his heart pounding in his chest where the fight or flight response was kicking in—he didn’t like this, not one bit.

  In a few seconds the two friends had reached the cave-like opening at the other end of the path. Pressing himself flat against the wall, Hercules leaned forward and peered inside. There was a wide cavernous space there, rock-walled like the prisoner areas, with a winding path spiraling around its walls in a gradual slope that ended in a wide, circular space forty feet below their feet. Doorways could be seen leading off in all directions from the lower level, the sounds of moaning and screaming emanating from them as unimaginable tortures were dealt to the dwellers of Tartarus. A stone block was located in the center of the circular chamber, like a table or sacrificial altar, around which were more stone platforms, six in all, arranged in a circle. Chains linked the blocks to the ceiling, poised to raise them via a complex system of springs and pulleys. The two giants were following the spiraling path down to the lower level.

  As the giants approached the bottom, a third giant appeared from a side doorway, clearly of the same species as the other two, with thickset brows over the dark, matching eyes of every face on his body. This giant preceded another figure, one so tall that it had to duck the high doorway just to enter the circular chamber. Hercules watched silently as the figure appeared. It was a woman, twelve feet tall judging by the figures around her, with flowing blond tresses framing her beautiful face. She wore a brass breastplate that left her shoulders, arms and midriff bare, along with a matching circlet around her head like a crown. Her slender torso seemed almost to snake into the room as she emerged through the doorway. It was then that Hercules saw the rest of her—and realized that she was anything but human.

  Chapter
13

  Hercules watched as the she-creature strode into the room on four strong legs. Below the navel, the womanly body ended, and in its place was a body of scaled, mottled green, like the hide of a lizard. Four widespread legs, thick like tree trunks, gave the creature admirable balance, with a rounded belly below and a ridge of spiny protrusions running along the top of her back, and two enormous wings fanning out at her sides. The body ended in a long, thick tail capped by the thick bulb of a scorpion’s sting.

  On slow, steady legs, the monstrous creature made her way to the flat table-like stone that dominated the center of the cavern and stepped up onto it as the two giants who had checked on the cells came to a halt before her. The other giant, the one who had accompanied her into the cavern, waited at her side, standing a foot shorter than her towering form where it was raised on the stone platform.

  “Briareos, Gyes—what news?” the woman-creature demanded, glaring at the two giants.

  “Bad news, Mistress Campe,” one of the giants said with a bow of his fifty heads. “The trap has returned empty.”

  The woman-creature whom the giant had called Campe glared at the giant with barely contained fury in her eyes. Hercules saw now that those eyes were not quite human, with a reptile yellow where they should have been white and jet black irises burning in their centers. “What?!” she hissed. “Explain this to me!”

  The giant bowed again, fifty heads dipping as one in the presence of his mistress. “Even a fisherman’s net comes empty once in a while,” he explained. “We cannot expect—”

  Campe clapped her hands to cease the giant’s whining. “We have had low hauls before, Briareos,” she said, “but never nothing. Could it be that the gods are onto us?”

  Outside the cavern, Iolaus leaned close to Hercules and whispered a question. “What’s going on in there, pal? I can hear voices.”