“No,” Laufeson said simply, confidence oozing from him like a bad smell, “you won’t.”
He tucked the scorpion in his pocket, snagged a clockwork cockroach and snapped his fingers. One of the silver –eyed technicians ran in. “Yes, Sire?”
“Bring me Sylvester,” he ordered.
The technician nodded and ran out, then returned with a thin man who looked to be about thirty years old. He had dark eyes and hair and a crude claw replaced his left hand, obviously the handiwork of an English back alley mechanist. His clothes were clean, serviceable garments. A dishtowel hung off his right shoulder, green fingerprints and food stains on the cloth, showing that he worked in the kitchen. There was nothing out of the ordinary about him except the crude and difficult to hide Enhancement he possessed. I winced mentally. With such an obvious artificial limb, his fellow citizens of the Empire would’ve treated him badly.
“Welcome, Sylvester,” Laufeson said.
“Sire,” the man said, his delight at the specific attention of his master evident in his tone.
“Would you like to join the ranks of my elite?” Laufeson indicated Toby and Silas. “You may find it worth your while.”
Sylvester shifted from foot to foot in his excitement at the prospect. “Yes, Sire. I’d like that very much.”
“Don’t do this,” Andrew said, low and urgent. “Sylvester – get away while you can.” My thoughts mirrored Andrew’s, but I couldn’t express them.
Andrew’s comments obviously troubled Sylvester. His excitement dimmed somewhat, and he looked at each of us in turn in an attempt to figure out what was going on and what the truth was.
“Don’t listen to him, Sylvester,” Laufeson said, holding out the cockroach. “Take this, and you’ll end up like Mr. Toby and Mr. Silas.”
Sylvester took the insect tentatively and turned it over, looking at the mechanism with interest. “What does this do?” Sylvester asked, curious.
Laufeson waved a hand and the cockroach started to glow with a brighter shade of green. “It changes your life,” he said.
The beetle’s legs moved with lightning speed to grab Sylvester’s hand, making him jump in surprise. Green magic suffused his body and he stiffened as the device began its work. His left claw became a silver hand. From there, silver cords ran up the arm to attach to Sylvester’s neck. Armored plates bloomed from the cords, covering the left side of Sylvester’s left arm, side, neck and head in flexible silver armor. Then the magic went to work on Sylvester’s body. His eyes turned completely silver. He grew half a foot and his shoulders and muscles expanded in proportion to his new height. He became a behemoth, and the expression on his face changed from one of an eager desire to serve to one that indicated an eager desire to do violence. The shift chilled my soul. The fact that I’d created the vile device chilled my soul even further.
I realized Laufeson’s boast about the success of his mad plan wasn’t as far-fetched as it seemed. I imagined Victoria Station filled with unsuspecting people bathed in green magic and turning into silver-eyed monsters with a penchant for violence. I had to find a way to stop Laufeson before that happened, but I’d no idea how.
The insect let go of Sylvester’s human hand and dropped to the floor. Its job completed, the legs of the device curled up underneath its body and it ceased moving as the green glow of magic faded from it.
Sylvester staggered as the magic stopped coursing over him. He had to adjust to his new height and girth. He ran his steel gaze over his new hand first, opening and closing it to test it. Then he moved his armored arm and head, experimenting with the new addition to his body. “Thank you, Sire,” he said in a gruff, thick voice, awed and pleased with his transformation.
“I think,” Laufeson remarked, nodding in approval, “you’ll no longer be needed in the kitchens.” He motioned at the technician. “Take him. See what he can do and report back to me when we return. While I’m gone, prepare for distribution.”
The technician nodded and indicated the hallway he and Sylvester had come from. They left, Sylvester lumbering back and forth as he grappled with moving his new body.
Laufeson turned to Andrew. “You see? How is that not an improvement over what he was before?”
“You’ve made him even more a victim of your evil,” Andrew said tersely. “There’s nothing ‘improved’ about that.” He stuck his hands in the pockets of his ripped coveralls, the white shirt open and bloodstained. He tilted his head in thought. “You’ll never convince me that you’re acting in the best interests of anyone but yourself. I’m more interested in where we’re going.”
“You’ll see soon enough, Facti,” Laufeson said. He turned to his left and spoke an incantation in a language that sounded like Ancient Greek as he drew a circle in the air with his left hand. A circular door made of swirling black smoke appeared where he’d drawn the circle. He turned to look at me. Toby let go of me and I found my energy mostly restored.
“Ariana, bring Andrew and follow me,” he ordered. “Mr. Toby, Mr. Silas: attend us.”
Silas handed Andrew off to me and I took custody of him as ordered. I propelled him forward to join Laufeson in front of the dark arcane door while Toby and Silas took up a position behind us, like guards.
Andrew glared at me, then put a hand to my cheek in an attempt to touch my thoughts, which failed. Then he tried to use his healing abilities to reverse what the Diabolical had done to me, which also didn’t work. I didn’t stop him, since I hadn’t been ordered to keep him from using his abilities as Khonshu’s Heir. It was then that I began to see Odin’s plan.
Laufeson’s magic didn’t allow for initiative or independent thought. The Son of Loki believed so completely in his ability to control everything he didn’t trust anyone else to think for themselves, even if they were magically compelled to serve his monstrous interests. Clearly, I was a weapon of great power but limited scope, and Laufeson saw that as an advantage. I wasn’t sure how it would happen, but I knew that belief would bring about his downfall. I’d already changed the insectoid Diabolicals so their magic could be reversed, and my captor was none the wiser. He assumed I did what he wanted and didn’t think much beyond that.
Odin had altered the nature of the magic used on my body, but it was what he’d done to preserve my mind that was the key to getting myself, Andrew, and the world out of this mess. I was a Trojan Horse. I just had to figure out how to make use of the advantage he’d provided. I remembered Odysseus had been a crafty, clever warrior who made good use of his skills to survive. I wished he’d been with me as an advisor since I felt very much alone and worried.
Andrew closed his eyes and focused hard, trying again to touch my mind, but the barrier Odin put up to keep my mind insulated from Laufeson kept Andrew out as well. My throat tightened to see his sadness at what he obviously thought of as some sort of death of me. I tried to push through Odin’s barrier from my side to touch Andrew’s mind and tell him I wasn’t lost, but the barrier held firm against my efforts.
The smoky door opened. “Come,” Laufeson ordered, and the five of us stepped through the door into abject darkness.
Chapter Forty-Four
The trip through swirling smoke was disorienting. We dropped at breakneck speed, the curls of smoke around us sometimes incorporeal, sometimes not. I heard screams of agony – felt the pain they came from as a visceral ache – and generally bounced around like a doll in a butterchurn. My grip on Andrew’s arm didn’t falter despite the confusion, and when we landed I still had him firmly by my side, though smoke enclosed us and I couldn’t see much beyond Andrew’s head. Toby and Silas behind me wavered a bit on their feet, expressions of dismay spoken in low tones pitched so Laufeson wouldn’t hear them. I heard Laufeson speak more words in Ancient Greek and a cold wind blew the smoke off of us. I smelled sulfur mixed with heated stone and felt the heat radiate from the walls around us. Decay and offal completed the olfactory landscape. The miles and miles of stone and earth above our heads bore down on
us, increasing the unpleasant and oppressive feel of the place.
“Laufeson,” Andrew said, looking around, “where are we?”
“That depends on the pantheon you ascribe to,” Laufeson said simply. “Near the roots of Yggdrasil for the Norse is one way to think about it. The Romans called it ‘Dis’, but the ‘Realm of the Dead’ is probably the best explanation.”
“Hell,” Andrew swore.
“That description is also accurate,” Laufeson continued smoothly, “though this area only bears a resemblance to that Christian concept. This is the afterlife as conceived by the Ancient Greeks, not the fools who worship the Christian god,” he sneered. “Come along. We have an appointment.” He motioned us forward, and we started walking into the blackest darkness I’d ever known, Laufeson confidently leading the way.
Toby and Silas continued their susurrus conversation behind me and Andrew. He noticed and looked back at them. I kept my eyes forward, not having been given permission to look behind me.
“You still think Laufeson is someone you want to serve?” he hissed at them. “He’s brought you to Hell – the domain of Hades. He’s a god who does not forgive trespasses lightly. The number of people who have entered and exited Hades’ realm alive and well over the course of history is infinitesimal, and he’s striding in bold as brass!”
I hadn’t known our odds of escaping alive were so small, yet my feet took me inexorably further into what was clearly an extremely dangerous place for living beings. Why, I wondered, would Laufeson place himself at the mercy of Hades like this?
“I trust the Boss,” Toby said defiantly. “This is all part of his big plan, and Hades is on our side.”
“Really? That’s what he’s told you,” Andrew hissed back, “but who knows? Has the Boss filled you in on this part of his grand scheme? Was a trip to Hell on your schedule for the week?”
A greenish light popped into existence in Laufeson’s hand, illuminating the corridor ahead of us with a sickly glow. Blue-white multi-legged creatures scrabbled away from the light, their blind eyestalks waving in alarm as they sought the shadows. I tried not to wonder what other creatures lurked in the darkness.
“Andrew,” Laufeson called over his shoulder, “be quiet or I’ll have Silas use his snake on you.”
Glowering, Andrew turned back to face front and stopped talking. He tried again to touch my mind as we walked, but Odin’s barrier held firm.
Laufeson stopped. The green glow of his hand revealed a door made of obsidian with silver hinges and handle. He said a few words and waved his hand.
The door swung open toward us, blasting us with a wall of brimstone-scented heat and smoke. Toby and Silas gasped and coughed while Andrew waved his free hand in front of his face to keep the smoke away. Once the smoke rolled over and beyond us, we saw a jagged black and grey peak in the midst of a huge cavern. Red and orange magma lit the cavern, the lava flowing around the peak like a moat. Gouts of flame roared to the top of the cavern at regular intervals, sending waves of heat blasting outward.
A classical temple in black stone with columns and a pediment that reminded me of the pictures I’d seen of the Parthenon sat on the top of the peak. The figures on the pediment writhed in agony, tormented by monsters as they begged for mercy with hands and arms outstretched. A stone pathway to the palace curved up from where we stood, crossing the lava by way of a stone bridge. The whole vista filled me with dismay. How will Odin’s plan get Andrew and me out of a place like this? I worried. How can the remaining Facti, assuming they intend to rescue us, find us here?
“Blimey,” Toby whispered behind us. “I’d heard Hell was hot, but I never really thought – “
“My Ma was right,” Silas breathed. “Eternal torment in flames. God help us.”
“Bit late for that,” Andrew murmured.
“Boss?” Toby said, loud enough for Laufeson to hear, “we ain’t gonna burn up before we get the job done, are we?”
“Of course not,” he snapped. “Follow me.”
We crossed the threshold into blazing heat, surrounded by the glutinous sound of liquid stone flowing around in its riverbed, the chunkier bits on the top crashing and rubbing against each other and the sides of the riverbank. Flames roared around us. This must be what standing in a volcano is like, I thought.
Laufeson spoke more words I couldn’t quite make out, then turned to face us. “Three steps will take us into Hades’ presence,” he said, then looked to me, holding out his hand. “You will take my hand, and the others will clasp hands so we stay together as one group. You will not let go until I command you to do so.”
As commanded, I changed my grip from Andrew’s upper arm to his hand with one hand while I grasped Laufeson’s outstretched hand with the other. Andrew reached back to clasp hands with Toby. Toby took Silas’s hand and we were ready.
“On the count of three, we step together. One, two... three!”
We stepped forward as a group. There was a blur of red magma and a swirl of brimstone heat around us for a moment. When we’d finished, we stood on the other side of the stone bridge and the Greek temple-like palace loomed above us. Its columns and walls were made of obsidian. The walls glowed red as they reflected the lava flowing around them. The writhing figures on the pediment flowed back and forth in agony, lit from below with the red glow. The tormenting monsters bared their teeth and growled at their victims.
Laufeson indicated a second step forward. After a three count and another moment of disorientation, we stopped inside the covered porch of the palace, surrounded by obsidian columns, their fluting beautiful and as sharp as broken glass. The wall we faced was a solid sheet of black volcanic glass with a double door of silver in its center.
Laufeson nodded at the door. “Our last step will take us into Hades’ audience chamber,” he said. “One, two…”
Chapter Forty-Five
The interior of the obsidian temple was a huge cavern lit with magma torches and stone braziers of molten rock. Heat came off the torches and braziers in waves. Sweat ran down the faces of the men around me, but although I felt the heat, it didn’t bother me. The floor of black stone under our feet was polished to a mirror shine, reflecting the red and yellow glowing light of the torches. Obsidian with veins of silver stone that travelled up and down made up the cavern walls. The silver doors remained closed behind us while a wall of grey-black smoke obscured the end of the cavern opposite the doors.
“You may let go,” Laufeson said, letting go my hand. The rest of us followed suit. He pointed at the wall of smoke. “We’re heading there. Don’t speak unless I tell you to,” he ordered, shooting a look at Andrew. Andrew narrowed his eyes suspiciously but said nothing. “Follow me,” Laufeson ordered.
We did so in silence. As we got closer to the wall of grey-black smoke, it retreated from us like a curtain, revealing the god who ruled the Greek Realm of the Dead.
Hades was a huge creature of smoke. He had the form of something human, but his edges blurred and swirled as puffs of smoke traveled in curls around the space he seemed to occupy. Red coals served as his eyes, and an ugly slash in the head-like shape worked as a mouth, its interior darker than any cave I’d ever seen. His foggy body sat on an equally huge throne made of thousands of writhing people floating on a sea of bleached human bones.
“You see the spirits of the dead, and the bones those of the bodies they once inhabited in that throne,” Laufeson explained. “I suppose the Christians would call that the ‘wages of sin.' Hades enjoys punishing impure mortals very much.”
Faces and body parts flowed like water across and within the throne, distorted by the corners and sides of the massive chair. Occasionally, Hades pulled one of the spirits off an armrest and consumed it, a faint horrific scream accompanying the grey fog of the dread god’s chewing. Once swallowed, the swirls of smoke in Hades’ torso became the face of the tortured soul he’d masticated, its mouth open in a silent image of profound agony.
“Welcome, Son of Lo
ki,” came the coal-laced voice of the ancient god of the Underworld. The walls reverberated with the power of his words. “You come to fulfill the last part of our bargain?”
Laufeson smiled and bowed. “I do, my Lord. I trust you will hold up your end of the deal.”
“Of course,” he said. He looked our group over, noting Andrew’s presence. “You bring a Facti into my presence,” the dread god grumbled. “Why is this?”
“He’s my prisoner,” Laufeson said.
“An interesting turn of events,” Hades said. He pointed a smoky finger at the Facti. “He is far from the protection of his god. Your Egyptian father cannot help you here, Facti,” he ground out. “This is a place of death, not healing.”
Andrew’s eyes took on a look of defiance as he met Hades’ gaze, unafraid and unmoved by the god’s comments. Behind me, Toby and Silas shifted nervously but said nothing.
Hades tilted his smoky head in thought. “The Facti healer is unafraid of death. How unexpected.” I felt the red gaze of Hades fall on me, its heat on my skin. “This is the female you sought?”
“She is a Daughter of Odin and a chooser of the slain, stolen from the knife of the Fates themselves.”
“Why should she help you, Son of Loki?” Hades asked, tugging a soul from his chair, putting it in his mouth and chewing absently. I watched, fascinated and sickened, as the smoky face of an old woman strained in a misshapen rictus of torment across Hades’ chest.
“I have made her my creature,” Laufeson said. He picked up my left arm and showed it to Hades as proof of my bondage. “See? Her form is bound with silver. She serves me and no one else.”
Hades stretched his smoke head out on a smoky neck to inspect the angular silver traces in my skin. The smell of brimstone and oily decay filled my nostrils as he looked me up and down. I stood silently as ordered. What Hades saw on me seemed to pass muster, and his head flowed back to sit on his swirling body.
“Has she the power you require?” Hades asked. “Your magic is strong, but Odin is not easily conquered or outwitted.”
The Odin Inheritance (The Pessarine Chronicles Book 1) Page 32
