“But you said there was no one on the road, didn’t you?” Stuka asked.
“Yes, my queen,” the wizard replied. “But there is some evidence that they left the road and are making their way toward us overland.”
Stuka just stared back at him.
“Overland?” she asked. “You mean, traveling in the forest itself? Not using the road?”
The wizard nodded unsteadily.
“But, I don’t think even the bravest warriors would do that for very long,” she said. “It’s very dangerous, isn’t it?”
“It is,” the wizard answered. “Very much so.”
Stuka stopped drinking her wine. “These special warriors are risking all that, just to get here?”
“It looks that way,” the wizard said.
Stuka’s face dropped a mile. The special warriors must be the best in the world, she thought glumly.
“What happened with the secret weapon?” she asked the nervous wizard. “He was trained to watch the road, correct?”
“Yes, ma’am. But you see, that’s why we suspect what we do. He returned, just a while ago.”
“And?”
“Well, he was quite hungry, my lady,” the wizard admitted. “Not a good sign.”
Stuka was instantly furious. She swept her bowl and wine goblet off the table. Both smashed on the stone floor below.
“I’m getting very tired of this!” she screamed.
Then she grabbed the wizard by his cloak. Stuka was not an Amazon herself—but she was still very strong and had a mean streak a mile long. She pulled the wizard’s cloak tight to his neck and growled at him from no more than an inch away.
“I want you to get together with the rest of my so-called wizards,” she spat at him. “And combine whatever powers you have left—and with them, I want you to hurt the village of Xeres! Do you understand what I mean? It’s my sister’s favorite place and I want you to do something horrible to that miserable little village—and teach my sister that she cannot get at me!”
The wizard was startled. Even for Stuka, this was asking for a bit too much.
“Do something . . . like what, my queen?” he stuttered.
Stuka pulled the wizard even closer to her.
“It’s very simple,” she hissed again. “If you want to hurt your enemy, you find out what they consider to be their most valuable possession:
“And then you take it from them.”
Chapter 12
Close to the Edge
It was late afternoon when Hercules and Geekus finally reached the Great Chasm.
Hercules was surprised by just how wide and high it was. And how enormous Castletop was.
To him, it looked more like a gigantic apple core after someone had eaten the apple. To Geekus, it looked like an immense mushroom.
The amazing thing was the drop between the edge of the forest and Castletop. It was at least a mile straight down! And below was a raging river—not that anyone could survive the fall.
“What kind of an enchantment could make such a place?” Geekus breathed, clearly in awe of it all.
“A powerful one,” Hercules answered. “Very, very powerful.”
You wouldn’t believe how powerful, Brooma said on the stiff breeze.
Hercules realized they were now facing the huge problem he’d forced himself not to think about the whole trip here. He’d never imagined the chasm to be this wide. He’d assumed that once they reached this place, they could climb down one side of it, and back up the other. Or that they could somehow swing across on ropes or vines.
Dumb, Hercules thought.
Very dumb, Brooma agreed.
Hercules sat down and just looked out at the wide gorge. The truth was, it would be impossible to cross. That was obvious now. Hercules was suddenly very mad at himself and at everyone else connected with this lame-brained quest. He’d endured rough travel, sleeping plants, dragons, night creatures, roadblocks, ghosts, and Geekus’s sniffling—and for what? To get here finally and discover they could go no farther?
“Are you sure that enchantment of yours won’t work from here?” Hercules asked the wind.
“Are you sure you’re really talking to someone when you do that?” Geekus sniffled.
I’m sure, came Brooma’s reply to Hercules’ ear. It be just the length of your shadow on a very sunny day. No more. . . .
“Can you turn us into birds?” Hercules asked the wind.
The cackle in Hercules’ ear was almost painful.
If I could have done that, we all could have flown here. . . .
Hercules grabbed a handful of grass and threw it into the wind, as if this would hurt Brooma.
At that moment he happened to look over at Geekus, who was not sniffling or wheezing. He was instead just staring up into the sky, his mouth wide open.
“What is it now?” Hercules asked him harshly.
But Geekus couldn’t reply.
All he could do was point.
Up in the sky. Right overhead. A great shadow was passing over them.
Get down! Brooma’s voice screamed.
Hercules needed no prompting. However, he did have to reach up and grab Geekus by his smock and pull him down into the underbrush with him.
“By the gods, look at that,” the boy wheezed.
It was the dragon—the same one they’d encountered earlier, flying right over their heads. Looking up at it, it seemed even more enormous than before. It was snarling and breathing fire and smoke.
“Wow! It can’t be real!” Geekus yelled out.
Hercules had to agree with him. The thing just looked way too big to be able to fly, and he said so.
“Of course,” Geekus said after a sniff, “it’s not really flying. Technically, it’s gliding. See?”
Hercules did see what he meant. The huge creature wasn’t beating its wings as much as holding them straight out and letting the wind do the work.
“So that’s how he does it,” Hercules whispered as the dragon settled down onto a piece of land outside the walls of Castletop.
Hercules and Geekus stayed hidden and watched in silence for the next few minutes. They heard trumpets blaring and saw the Amazons deposit a small mountain of food in front of the creature. The creature inhaled the food in a matter of seconds.
Once the dragon had consumed his meal and sniffed the ground all round him, the trumpets blared again. The creature reluctantly walked to the edge of Castletop and jumped off.
Once again, he spread his wings like a condor and let the air currents carry him across to the forested side. This time he passed about a half mile to the south of Hercules and Geekus and disappeared into the woods.
“If we could only hitch a ride on his back, that would solve the problem of how to get over to the castle,” Hercules mused.
Suddenly Geekus began scratching his head and drawing numbers in the dirt.
“No need to do that,” he announced, taking Hercules’ suggestion seriously. “I think I might have an even better way for us to get across.”
Hercules rolled his eyes again and lay down in the weeds to rest. He knew there was no way they were going to get across. No way they were ever going to use Brooma’s enchantment and get inside the fortress vault.
This quest would end in failure—and the death of Queen Xumonia.
It will be a long journey back, he thought as he closed his eyes and went to sleep.
Maybe, Brooma’s voice answered inside his head. Maybe not. . . .
Chapter 13
Wings
When Hercules woke up again, it was almost dusk and Geekus was nowhere to be seen.
Hercules turned to XL, who was feeding nearby.
“Where is he now?” he playfully asked the horse.
In the clearing, twenty paces that way, another voice
answered, followed by a slight breeze.
Hercules just shook his head.
“And what is he up to, Brooma?” he asked.
I cannot figure that out, she replied. Something about how the dragon flew.
Hercules picked himself up and then patted XL.
“Eat plenty, my friend,” he said. “We must start the long journey back very soon.”
Then Hercules made his way through the dense growth and came upon the clearing.
Sure enough, there was Geekus, moving in a hundred different directions at once.
He’d constructed something. It was made of bamboo-like sticks and twigs and tied together with hemp and vines. It was probably eleven feet long in all.
And it had wings. . . .
“What are you doing?” Hercules finally asked him.
“We need to get across the chasm, right?” Geekus replied. “Well, we can go across . . . on this.”
Hercules laughed so hard he had to cover his mouth. He didn’t want the dragon to hear him, but he couldn’t help it—it was too funny!
“What is it?” Hercules asked Geekus, his words having trouble coming out because he was snickering so hard.
“Well . . . I’m not sure,” Geekus said, stopping for a moment. “I mean, I don’t know what you could call it. But if my calculations are correct, it will carry us across the chasm to the Castletop, using the wind, just like the dragon.”
Hercules was laughing so hard now, he couldn’t catch his breath.
“You expect me to climb on that thing with you? And actually go off the side of this cliff?” he asked.
“Yes,” Geekus answered as he went back to securing the rope vines that held the long fragile wing to the body of the thing. “In fact, your weight will be essential for this to work properly. You see, the two of us have to be on board to balance it. If not, who knows where we’ll wind up.”
“I know exactly where we’ll wind up,” Hercules huffed at him. “Right at the bottom of that gorge—in a million tiny pieces—both of us!”
“The probability of that happening is low,” Geekus said.
“Look, Geeky,” Hercules began again tensely. “Maybe I’m not as smart as you when it comes to science or whatever you want to call it. But I do know that if we get on this thing and go off the edge—we’ll drop. It’s called gravity.”
To demonstrate, he took a rock and threw it out over the chasm. It fell all the way to the bottom—and took a long time to do so!
“Yes, well, you see, the difference between us and that rock is that we will have a means of propulsion,” Geekus said.
Hear him out, Brooma was telling Hercules.
“Just like the dragon,” Geekus went on. “His means of propulsion is his wings. He only has to flap them a few times, that’s all he needs.”
Hercules was laughing again.
“Okay,” he said. “So what do we do? We fly out there on this thing and start flapping our arms?”
Now it was Geekus’s turn to laugh. That did conjure up a funny vision.
“No, we won’t have to do that,” he said. “I’ve already installed our means of propulsion. And it is quite artificial.”
He brought Hercules around to the rear of the invention. Here he’d installed a makeshift wooden pot. Inside Hercules could see the same combustible mixture of dust and herbs that Geekus had used to blow up the roadblock.
“You intend to blow us up? Is that it?” he exclaimed.
“Not blow us up,” Geekus corrected him. “Blow us across.”
Chapter 14
Learning to Fly
Hercules decided he had to get away from Geekus.
What he wanted to do to get across the chasm was so stupid, Hercules just couldn’t stand to be around him anymore.
So he left the clearing and began making plans for himself. He would make sure XL was properly fed and watered. Then he was going to pack up his things and start back for Zim. He figured he could get at least six good hours of riding in before night fell.
But when he got back to where he had left XL, the mighty steed was not there.
Hercules called to him—but he did not come.
Hercules felt his chest tighten. Where was he?
He’s gone, he heard Brooma say.
“Gone?” Hercules demanded. “Gone where?”
I sent him home. . . .
“You did what?” Hercules thundered. “Why?”
Because it is the way to success, Brooma answered.
“And what way is that?” Hercules cried out—he was furious. “That I walk back to Zim?”
It is time to believe, Hercules, he heard, before the wind blew again.
“Believe what?” Hercules called out.
But there was no reply.
Hercules heard Geekus cry out a second later.
“Whoa! Whoa . . .”
Hercules spun around and ran back to where Geekus had been working on his invention.
He found the boy, his helmet on, holding a long stick with a flame at one end. He was trying to ignite the explosive pack at the rear end of his invention.
Hercules couldn’t believe it. Geekus was trying to cross over the chasm himself?
Hercules began running toward him, reaching the invention just as Geekus finally lit the fuse on his explosive. There was a great boom! then a flash of fire. And then the wooden plane started slowly moving toward the edge of the cliff.
Hercules had to think quick. In the blink of an eye, he leapt forward and landed on the invention right in back of Geekus. His intention was to stop the boy from this foolish action—but it was too late for that. As soon as Hercules landed in the seat behind Geekus, the winged invention started to move very fast.
An instant later, it went right over the side of the cliff.
Suddenly Hercules felt very strange. He was floating. He was weightless. The wind was blowing fiercely in his face, whipping his long hair behind him in a torrent. How strange was this?
He was flying.
“Wow!” Geekus was yelling. “It actually works!”
Next thing Hercules knew, they were heading right for the Castletop wall, trailing a long plume of fire and smoke behind them.
The flight from the chasm’s edge to Castletop only took a few seconds, but to Hercules it seemed to last forever. It wasn’t scary—that wasn’t the right word for it. Terrifying. Frightening. But also awesome. And beautiful. And very, very cool.
But it was a short trip. And Hercules was glad of that.
The landing was something else, though. It was rough and bumpy. Worse, the flying machine crashed on impact. One wing ripped off, and the body split in two. Geekus went headfirst off the front of the machine, tumbled once, and came to a stop near the castle wall. Hercules was able to jump right before the machine cracked up, and with a few rolls, actually landed on his feet.
Surprisingly, they made very little noise during their crash landing. And everything seemed quiet on the outside of the castle wall as well as within.
“We made it?” Geekus asked woozily as Hercules picked him up and pulled him against the wall. “Outstanding!”
“Shhh, there might be guards,” Hercules whispered sternly. They both contemplated the wreckage of the smoldering flying machine. It wasn’t in any shape to fly again.
“I just thought of something. . . .” Geekus stuttered. “How are we ever—?”
“—going to get back?” Hercules interrupted him. “Don’t even ask!”
The truth was, Hercules didn’t know.
“Okay, then;” Geekus said to him. “What do we do now?”
Hercules pulled him even closer against the wall. He really didn’t know the answer to that question, either.
Luckily, a stiff breeze came along.
It’s time for the ench
antment, he heard Brooma say.
At that moment, they heard voices from the top of the wall, shouting about something outside. Now the voices got louder. And now the huge gates were opening. Suddenly, Amazons were pouring out of the gate and heading right for them!
“Yes Brooma,” Hercules whispered urgently. “Hurry.”
Okay. I will. Let’s see now. How did it go, again?
“Brooma!” Hercules yelled.
The Amazons had spotted them. Now some were running right at them with swords held high. Others were loading their bows with what looked to be very sharp arrows.
I think it went like this, Brooma exclaimed. Oh, no! . . . that’s not it. . . .
“Wow!” Geekus yelled. The Amazons were not fifty paces away from them now. “Look at all the beautiful women!”
Hercules almost laughed. That Geekus, he thought, he’s all man, no doubt about that.
Trouble was, those beautiful women were almost on top of them—and there was nowhere to go—but straight down.
“Brooma!” Hercules yelled.
Suddenly Hercules felt a tingling feeling all over. He looked over at Geekus and the boy seemed covered in a kind of golden haze. Then he looked down at his own hands, and they too were glowing.
An Amazon was not three feet away from them now.
And she was lifting her club. . . .
But then suddenly, Hercules and Geekus weren’t there anymore.
Chapter 15
In the Vault
It was strange how it happened.
One moment Hercules and Geekus were out beyond the castle wall, the next, they were inside an incredibly beautiful room.
This room was filled with gold, silver, and jewels. There were necklaces, earrings, bracelets—all sparkling with diamonds or rubies. Emeralds were strewn everywhere.
It looked to be a combination between a queen’s dressing room and a vault.
“Wow!” Geekus nearly screamed, doubly shocked by his sudden appearance here and by all the riches surrounding them.
Hercules and the Geek of Greece Page 6
