by Gene Stiles
The ghostly pale little boy did not know exactly how long he lived down here. His first parents once lived in a tiny cave about halfway up. They died long ago when one of the hourly earthquakes collapsed a new shaft above their heads, crushing them into pulp. Since then, he passed from bed to bed, never staying more than a month in one dwelling. His place in this hell was always at the bottom.
Stories and rumors abounded about the little boy. They whispered he was of royal blood, a scion of the greatest family of Atlantis, cast aside for his imperfections. Whether true or not, the innuendos tortured him in mind, body and soul. Cornered against the wall or in a cave, the boy suffered horrible beatings at the hands of the older boys and, many times, at the whims of the guards and elders. “Little Prince,” they would spit as fists pounded flesh, blood flowed and boots broke bones. “You are nothing here, Little Prince! You are the lowest of the low. How do you like that, Little Prince?”
Yet, the lessons they taught him by their brutality and distain did not go unlearned. The boy learned to be cunning, smashing their heads with rocks while they slept or waiting until one separated from the pack. He might be skinny, but his sinewy muscles were as tough as iron from hammering chunks of minerals and ores from the granite-like walls. Bones crushed to powder under his bloody knuckles. Even the bigger boys soon learned it was best to leave the little boy alone.
The boy carefully studied the ways of the mine. His sharp intellect watched for opportunities other than the simple building of wealth. He scrutinized the people, carefully and covertly took note of their actions, listening to every murmur of dissent and anger. He learned to hide in the shadows and to become invisible in the eyes of others, hearing their hidden secrets and desires. He filed it all away in his bear-trap mind. His time would come, he knew in his heart. When it did, it was these people who would be his wealth and his weapon worth more than all the gold in this hell. Then he would rule.
The only thing the little boy knew from his past was his name. Hades.
The city of Daedalia on the southern tip of the Atlantean continent teemed with a constant flow of life. Spires of silver covered in panes of tinted glass shimmered in the heat waves of the dry desert lands and clove the cloudless blue sky in numbers so abundant as to rival the great city of Atlantis, itself. Gracefully arched domes and gaily painted, stone buildings with carved and stained oak storefronts lined clean, smooth streets emanating from the city center like spokes in a massive wheel. The massive, harbor that was the city’s lifeblood bordered on one side by the aquamarine waters of the Southern Sea and the other where the warm, dark blue waters of Lake Cassini drained into the cold, churning ocean waves. A four-towered wall of gigantic granite blocks protected the waterfront from the raging currents of the Western Ocean, each tower equipped with huge crystal lights that kept the port as bright as day in the nighttime. The docks could handle up to twenty of the largest ships in the Atlantean fleet. No matter what time of day or night, the busy harbor swarmed with people loading and unloading freight, stocking the vessels and serving the needs of the ship’s crews.
Thirty miles northwest of Daedalia, an ugly tiered pit scarred the hot desert floor. The copper mine spread out in every direction for eight miles, ripping away the few scraggly, spike-leaved trees and the water-starved, sunburned brushes. Layer upon layer of the hard, rocky ground was torn from the pit in consecrate, distorted circles two miles deep as men and machines raped the earth of its precious ores. Pockets of invaluable gold, silver, platinum and palladium lay alongside the copper adding to the torturous, explosive rending of the landscape.
A ramshackle city grew upon the abandoned lower terraces to serve the miners of the pit with hovels and dilapidated apartments for them to rent at exorbitant prices. Sun bleached wooden buildings lined each plateau, chips of gaudy paint flaking from the walls, the moisture leached from them by the unrelenting heat. A shabby promenade of storefronts plied their services to the workmen, providing them with provisions and entertainment. Seedy establishments, dark and rundown, hawked their wares to all who passed, promising the best ales and opium, loosest women and blessed distraction from the days of hard labor in the pit. To enter these shadowy dens, one must always be cognizant of the probable dangers. The music boomed through the interior not only to illicit frenzied dancing and heavy drinking, but to cover the sounds of screams and weeping coming from the curtained back rooms. Fights could break out at a moment’s notice, drawing in the unwary and leaving bleeding and broken bodies scattered across shattered tables and chairs. Bulky, muscle-bound men dragged the unfortunate outside and onto the hard-packed dusty dirt streets to leave them lying in pools of their own crimson blood.
Deep, dank side tunnels, bored into the rock by plasma cannons, fanned out from the sides of each terrace like the decrepit gray rays of a dying black sun. Twilight-bright light dripped from a wide crystal strip attached to the roof of these abandoned tunnels, bled dry of the slightest trace of any useful ore. Now they provided cool, damp living quarters for the impoverished who used picks, shovels and stolen condensed-light rifles to carve out a cave large enough for themselves and their families. Constant peril haunted these passageways. Robberies and rapes happened on a weekly basis, striking those helpless to defend themselves. Occasionally, a body would be pulled from a dark corner too broken to Heal itself. Thugs ruled, charging the dwellers for protection to keep them safe from the very people they are forced to pay.
The Dire Wolf resided on the fourth steppe from the dusky darkness at the bottom of the hellish mine. A cracked wooden sign displaying the snarling visage of the deadly animal hung from rusty chains over two mismatched, carved oak doors. Fervent, fiery music blasted within the dark-lit establishment, the walls covered with faded paintings of perfervid, naked women lounging in desirous, lascivious, lustful, wanton positions. The scattered tables overflowed with laughing patrons at this late hour and the dance floor squirmed with gyrating, sweaty bodies. Unlike most of the bars in the pit, partiers here were at ease, unconcerned with breakouts of violence. The Dire Wolf had a reputation.
Walking blocks of granite in black leather vests, breeches and boots patrolled the interior, their eyes vigilant and menacing. Should a patron get out of line, these monsters converged upon them, beating them into a bloody pulp, tossing their remains out into the rocky, trash-strewn alleyway between the back of the bar and the roughhewn rock wall of the terrace. The girls and women that occupied the curtained bedrooms at the side of the club were the best treated in the pit. No one dare harm or mark any of these girls to the point they would be unattractive to the next patron. To do so meant a slow and permanent death. If a customer wanted something too painful or brutal, they referred them to other establishments with looser standards.
It was here the little girls resided.
“Hessie, get your sorry ass into the Hussies room,” Moretta yelled from across the busy bar. “Some bitch just yacked all over the floor!”
“Yes, Mum,” Hestia replied, rushing to weave her way through the throng of laughing, sweaty bodies. She grabbed a rag mop, bucket of dirty water and a couple of tattered rags from an alcove against one chipped wooden wall and fought her way to the bathroom. Two tough-looking women, dressed in faded red leathers and dingy white, lacy blouses chatted to each other in front of the mirrors graphically discussing the customers they serviced earlier in the evening. They laughed at their cruel commentary of some of the body parts they touched, exiting the lavatory leaning heavily on each other’s shoulders.
A putrid pile of chunky grayish vomit streaked with pinkish blood covered the shiny stone counter, spilling over onto the chipped granite floor. Hestia wiped the stench from the counter, dipping her rags into the brackish water, then knelt next to the rancid, fetid pool on the floor. Some of the spew got on her skin as she wrung the sopping rags in the water, making her want to retch. She stopped breathing, attempting to keep the foul smell from her crinkled, thin lips. It did not help much.
No matter
how nauseating or repugnant the task Moretta set for her, Hestia knew how lucky she was. No matter how much physical or mental abuse the harsh, hard-shelled owner of the Dire Wolf heaped upon her and her sisters, she was deeply grateful to her guardian. In private, Moretta taught the girls to hide their identities, beauty and budding bodies beneath ratted hair cut short and jagged, over-sized, bulky clothing and smudge-covered faces. Around barbarous men or women who might look lustfully beyond such disguises, she told them to bathe themselves in odious, repellent aromas that would keep the hungriest predator a bay. She kept Hestia, Demeter and little Hera secluded from the whores, bar muscle and the rest of the staff, tucked away in a tiny, beat-up cabin next to her own, more lavish home. She protected them and taught them how to keep from becoming prey.
“Are you finished cleaning the crap from the Hammers room?” Moretta yelled over her shoulder, referring the bathroom for the men, while carefully eyeing the three women bartenders as they counted out the coins from the night’s trade. At Hestia’s acknowledgement, she continued. “Are the tables polished, the floors swept and mopped and the trash taken out?”
“Yes, Mum,” Hestia replied, her shoulders hunched, her head bowed as she shuffled toward the bar.
“They better be,” Moretta snapped dangerously, staring with blue eyes as cold and icy as a mountain glacier at the huddled girl. “If I have to send someone to finish all the things you missed again, you will pay dearly. Now get home and out of my sight!”
“Yes, Mum,” Hestia muttered, quickly exiting the building before she would find more disfavor with the woman.
Moretta’s face would have been stunning if not for the callus, churlish twist to her full, rose-red lips. The woman was almost nine-foot tall and as formidable as the most vicious of her ex-Aam bouncers. Her voluptuous body drew the lustful attention of men and the greenish envy of women wherever she moved among them. She usually dressed in skin-tight, crimson leather pants and matching vest, inlaid with glistening diamonds in starbursts on the front and laced up the sides with black leather laces. A wide strip of diamond studs ran down the outside of her knee-high, bright red, high-heeled boots from top to bottom. The white silk, form-fitting, billow-sleeved blouse she wore had wide lapels edged in a thin band of gold filigree and a deep V cut so wide that the fabric barely covered her copper-skinned, over-ample breasts. Her indigo eyes always held a hint of malice that could cut like a knife, but also glistened with a sharp, cunning intelligence.
Still, within the confines of her home she dropped her façade and treated the girls with an almost kind toughness. Moretta saw to it that they were clothed, well fed and had a warm, safe place to sleep. She spoke sternly and often crudely, but schooled the girls daily in the harsh realities and dangers of life in the pit - especially for them. Though sent to her as only orphans of no consequence, Moretta knew whom they really were. She kept that secret close to her chest and taught Hestia, Demeter and Hera to do the same. If anyone, anyone at all, learned of their true linage, they would all die horrible deaths - Moretta included. The Twelve were bitterly hated here in the dark, dirty bottom of the mine. Cronus especially.
“I do not know why you hide her away,” Brock growled, his wolfish sapphire eyes coldly assessing the girl as she shuffled out of the bar. The massive head of security towered a foot and a half taller than Moretta, towering over her like a solid block of granite as he stood at her side. He chose to shave his boulder-sized head to save him from the bother of caring for the tight black curls that would otherwise be there. His square jaw, straight nose and thick, black eyebrows gave him a tough, but handsome face, but his full pink lips always held a heavy touch of sadistic menace that kept most women far, far away. Moretta was not ‘most women’.
“She would bring a high price in the brothel. She is old enough and fresh. Men would pay a month’s wages to break in a young virgin.”
“You know why.” Moretta stuffed the square gold coins and silver coins that arose as the method of exchange in this world into a large leather bag, pulling the drawstrings tight. Brock not only ran the men, he was her lover, confidant and the only person in this entire horrid world that she trusted. “You have heard the rumors from Atlantis. Rhea searches high and low for these little princesses. She will pay dearly for their safe return. So we will keep them safe and unharmed until the time is right.”
“Why not just sell them to Rhea now?” He helped her turn off the last of the light strips still on, escorted her out of the dark, empty bar and locked the thick oak door behind them. “We would be rich enough to leave this place.”
“Leave, yes,” Moretta replied, interlocking her arm with the tree limb that was his. The two strode down the dusty, rock-strewn, dirt street, dimly lit by crystal globes hanging from wooden poles along the road. “But not live as richly as we would want to live. Besides, I am not sure I want to leave here. What would I do out there?”
The night was warm almost to the point of hot, the oppressive weight of humidity pressing down upon them as they walked. In areas around the entrances to the side tunnels where the air was cooler, pools of swirling, dingy white fog hugged rocky ground. High in the brownish air a few sickly stars shimmered in the darkness. If not for the crystal globes, the night down here, two hellish miles from the surface of the desert floor, would be so black as to make it impossible to see your own feet. The pair did not fear the thieves and killers that hid in the darkness between the buildings and in the alleyways. None would dare attempt to molest these two. The penalty would be permanent and painful.
“You could open a new club in any city you choose,” Brock told her. “The most incredible club anyone has ever seen. We could rule the streets up there as we do here.”
“And we will one day,” Moretta said, walking up the steps to the wide, white-pillared porch of her square-cut log house. Thick layers of beige paint covered the walls, smooth and unchipped, fresh coats added every two months to protect them from the environmental harshness of the pit. She opened the ornately carved, two-inch thick, polished oak door and slipped inside with Brock at her side. She closed it behind them, reached up and caressed his cheek with her long, manicured fingers.
“I promise you,” Moretta said in a husky whisper, planting a wet and hungry kiss upon his lips, “one day we will.” She bit his lower lip, drawing a small trickle of bright red blood, scratching his bronzed cheek with her sharpened fingernails. “Until then, I need to be punished. I have been bad. Very, very bad.”
Chapter XVIII
Ra strode along the promenade surrounding the acropolis at the top of Central Pyramid with Raet close by his side, her arm interlaced with his. The rich, heady aroma of the multitude of colorful blossoms overflowing their flowerbeds in the dry desert air filled his nostrils with a bouquet of sweet perfume. The brilliant yellow sun, high in the wispy-clouded, azure sky bathed him in its golden warmth, darkening his already bronze skin. A fairly stiff breeze blew across the man-made plateau, but it did nothing to cool the mid-day heat. The thick carpet of carefully tended, transplanted green grass had to be watered every night to keep it alive and soft beneath his sandaled feet. Walls of white lattice, lush with flowering vines, hung between tall, fluted, granite pillars scattered along the edges of the precipice. Darkly stained wooden roofs overhung the pillars, walled on two sides by flowered trellises providing cool, shaded areas of quiet reflection. White-painted, worked-iron benches sat in each alcove and it was toward one of these that Ramathus moved.
He had to admit, the view from here was breathtaking. Ramathus sat near one corner of the pyramid with the rising sun at his back staring out at the swaying vastness of the yellow grasslands beyond the cultivated fields of maze, wheat and fresh vegetables below. Barely visible in the distance, the snow-capped peaks of the Western Mountains sparkled like diamonds in the shimmering waves of heat dancing in the air. Off to his right, the mighty Nil River churned its way toward the immense green lowlands of the Nil Delta where the waters split like the forked ton
gue of a serpent before racing onward toward the northern sea. A voluminous swath of thick, lush, verdant plant life bordered the river on both sides making the waters appear far wider than they were. Combined with the endless blue sky above and the golden rays of the daytime sun, the panorama was simply stunning.
Ra absorbed it all in quiet contemplation, losing himself in the feeling of smallness the boundless scene invoked within his soul. He closed his crystal-blue eyes, feeling the touch of the wind against his bronzed skin and breathing deeply the scents of the blossoms it carried with it. Having adapted partly to the norms of the Nillian People, he wore a sleeveless, white silk shirt, collarless, with a deep V cut to the middle of his rippling abs. The tightness of the blouse displayed, in high relief, the burly muscles of his broad chest, sinewy torso and narrow waist. His mane of wavy, golden hair, held from his forehead by a white silk headband, cascaded over his flat shoulders, down and over the back of the bench. A white skirt, edged in a wide band of gold, belted with a turquoise and sliver-beaded sash that fanned out to just below his crotch, wrapped around him to mid-thigh. Ramathus stretched out his tree-trunk legs and crossed his ankles just above his sandaled feet.
“What troubles you so, my Captain?” Raet drew her head away from the warmth of his bare shoulder and peered up at thin with her large, almond-shaped, gold-flecked hazel eyes, on black eyebrow raised in query. Her wavy ebony hair glistened in the sunlight as it lay across her lightly sloping shoulders, falling over the gentle rise of her ample chest and down to her slender waistline. A simple, sleeveless, light blue shift of rippled cotton, edged with a band of cerulean blue, followed every curve of her sensuous body down to just a little above the middle of her shapely, muscled thighs. A belt of beaded silver, clasped with an oval of worked gold encircled her tiny waist just above her slender hips. The cinnamon of her skin glowed with few rays of the sun that intruded upon their shaded alcove. Her small, but full, rose-colored lips pouted slightly as she gazed up at Ra, questioning and welcoming him at the same time.
