Beyond Hades (The Prometheus Wars)
Page 14
He was free.
Talbot actually laughed out loud before reigning his relief back in. He couldn’t let it go too far. Hysteria crept within that laughter, and he wanted to be in full control of himself when he died. He had nothing else left except his pride.
The beast covered the distance between the blue forest and the walled-in centaur village quickly. It reached the gap in the wall and tore into it, throwing logs aside like kindling, enlarging the hole in the gateway.
Its heads swung one way, and then the other. Peering around, looking for something. And finally it spied Talbot.
A chorus of multi-tuned voices bellowed in unity, the force of which knocked Talbot backwards, but he retained his footing and stared coldly back at the beast.
The beast charged once more, directly at Talbot. The archaeologist didn’t flinch. He was ready for this.
Talbot smiled.
Dust plumed up around Talbot as the gigantic creature screeched to a halt directly in front of him, rage glowering within its many, many eyes.
“WHERE IS PORPHYRION?” the beast roared through fifty voices, all blending into one.
Talbot stepped back, more from shock at the question than anything else. He’d been prepared for death, not an inquisition. He assumed the creature was speaking in Elder-tongue, but couldn’t tell.
“Err.... He went through the rift,” replied Talbot uncertainly.
The monster’s heads swiveled, taking in the bodies of the dead centaurs, grief clearly displaying on many of its faces.
What the hell is going on now? thought Talbot.
“Where is Chiron?” grunted the beast through one of the heads still facing Talbot. Its voice, while still rough, held a remarkably softer tone now.
“He went through the rift with some of his warriors to protect the other side. They were killed when Porphyrion came through.”
Several eyes closed in sadness while other faces burned with obvious rage. “You come with me now,” the beast said. “Boss said you must come, so you will come. I not kill you yet.”
“Well, that’s reassuring,” murmured Talbot. In a louder voice, he said, “Who are you? What is this place?”
The beast’s multiple necks craned to peer down at him. “I am one of three. We called Hecatonchires. Mine name Briareus.”
He had heard of the Hecatonchires brothers before. They were three giant-like creatures who supposedly battled alongside Zeus in the war between the Greek gods and the mighty Titans, finally helping Zeus overthrow the powerful Elder-gods of Greece.
Talbot looked up at the fifty-foot-tall figure who had called himself Briareus. None of this came as a surprise to Talbot anymore. The events over the past few days – was it only days? – had worn smooth any delusions he had of knowing what the hell was supposed to happen within the universe.
“Where do you want to take me?” asked Talbot.
The enormous Briareus pointed half a dozen arms back in the direction he had emerged from. “I take you to boss,” three voices began, quickly replaced by a different four heads. “I not kill you yet,” they said, repeating their seemingly reassuring message from before, but Talbot couldn’t discern if there were a specific emphasis on the word yet.
He remembered something. “You never answered my question from just before,” he said, but was met with a look of puzzlement from Briareus. “Where are we? Is this Tartarus?”
The look of puzzlement seemed to wash from Briareus’s fifty faces, replaced by one of amusement. Laughter rang from several mouths. “We are in Olympia,” said one of the heads, others apparently chuckling at the stupidity of the little man. Briareus turned his colossal body away and began walking toward the ruined gateway.
“Of course we’re in Olympia,” muttered Talbot to himself. “Where else did you expect to be? Kansas?”
Still muttering, Talbot followed the giant, part of him wondering if he’d get eaten for asking the massive creature for a ride.
CHAPTER 9
The space between worlds tore at Wes, much as it had Talbot, if not worse. Because where Talbot had ceased resisting, Wes fought back, harder and harder. It was not in his list of qualities to surrender to anything, and with the most important mission of his life hanging in the balance; he wasn’t going to learn how to lose now.
His soul tore apart for the hundredth – or was it the millionth – time since entering this place, and Wes screamed soundlessly. He would not give in.
When Talbot had mysteriously disappeared from beside him, Wes had tried to fight, to swim, to kick, to cry. Anything to stay beside the man he had vowed to protect. He wouldn’t fail.
Not again.
Not like before.
He thrashed through the nothingness, his agony nothing compared with the roiling emotions bursting through him. He had to get loose, had to continue his mission. If he didn’t, he’d be lost forever. If only his parents were alive.
The memory popped unbidden into Wes’s wracked consciousness. It hadn’t been his fault.
It was my fault, damn it!
The fire had been electrical. The smoke killed them before they felt a thing.
I heard them screaming!
Just because he’d decided to spend the night in his tree house, it didn’t mean their deaths should weigh on his conscience.
I could have saved them! I should have been there!
He’d only been eight, what could he have done?
I should have woken up. They were screaming in the flames! THEY’RE STILL SCREAMING!!!
Wes convulsed so heavily that in any other environment he would have torn every ligament in his body and shredded his muscles. His back arched to a degree the human spine is not supposed to bend and twist. As it was, with the rapid dissolution and reformation of his body, Wes remained unharmed... at least physically.
I KILLED THEM!!!
Wes’s body shimmered and thrashed. He knew he’d killed his parents. It was his battery charger which had malfunctioned and started the fire. If he’d been in the house he could have saved them. He could have....
He could still protect people. He could save other people.
I want my parents back. Alive.
But he knew that couldn’t happen. Even manipulating the prototype jet to travel into the past had failed. He might be able to fool the people from this time, but he couldn’t lie to himself. He’d been trying to return in order to prevent his childhood home from burning down. The ship wasn’t designed for it, but he’d convinced it to go beyond its set parameters, and he’d torn through time, plummeting out of control into the past.
Because the ship was sentient. It could think for itself.
But that had also been Wes’s downfall. In linking with the ship, he had partially opened up his mind to it, and it had glimpsed his plan. Changing events in time, while not illegal – mainly because nobody had travelled back in time before – was still deemed so potentially disastrous that the ship had altered course at the last moment and thrown them into this time instead.
The problem now was Wes couldn’t get back.
Traveling back in time had always been theorized, even Albert Einstein had written about it. Unfortunately, travelling forward in time was impossible; simply because it hadn’t happened yet.
Wes was stuck in a past which wasn’t his.
Initially he had raged against the unfairness of the situation, but then his training had kicked in. The SAS did not cry about unfairness. They acted or they re-acted, but they didn’t whine.
And so Wes had organized a deal with the President of the United States – the eminent power during this time – and he remained free from any authority as long as he assisted with the development of advanced technology. He had also requested to be placed in charge of close protection on the highest risk target they had; in this case it was Doctor Talbot Harrison.
And Wes was failing that mission!
Once more Wes thrashed about in the nothingness, the agony of his constant molecular deconstructi
on and reformation pushed aside as his absolute need to protect Talbot came to the fore.
You can save him. Just do what he did.
The thought came to Wes unbidden, and instantly he relaxed his thrashing. He still held himself tense, ready at the first opportunity to break free from this nothingness, but he had to think logically. Talbot had been beside him, enduring the same agony Wes was, when suddenly he had vanished.
No, that wasn’t exactly true. He had done something first, but what had it been? Wes wracked his tortured mind. What the hell had Talbot done? And then it came to him through the haze of pain.
Talbot had done absolutely nothing. In his mind’s eye, Wes pictured the doctor once more, just before he had disappeared, remembering Talbot’s relaxed nature, and the way he had smiled....
Smiled? Why would he smile?
Another jolt of power shredded Wes, and he cried out soundlessly. He’d been here for hours... days... years? Time had no meaning in this nothing place. Maybe if he just rested for a while....
And then it came to him.
Wes smiled, relinquishing control. He allowed his body to be fully consumed by whatever energy resided in this place; the same power which had been testing his intentions before allowing him access to whatever lay beyond it. It was a most remarkable precaution, effectively barring anyone with aggressive natures or intentions. It was almost like....
And then he was gone.
***
Wes crashed heavily to the ground, but tucked and rolled his body, flipping smoothly into a crouch with his M4A5 up and cocked against his shoulder – nostrils flaring, scanning for hostiles.
The area was clear. No motion beyond the natural movement of the blue trees, beyond the stockade walls –
Blue trees?
This caused Wes to pause. As usual when entering a hostile situation, details were bypassed with the need to ascertain necessary facts: enemy potentials, locations, armament, probable retreat positions and such. The blue trees had been missed in his initial scan of the alien landscape, along with the purple sky, red sun and green clouds. He shook his head and dismissed it – these things held no real relevance right now.
Wes quickly checked himself, finding all his gear – including Chiron’s sword and his backpack – still in place. He looked around once more, noting in greater detail the condition of the barricade as opposed to the steel-reinforced gates. He could tell it had been a singular, concentrated attack on the weakest part of the external structure. The most logical culprit was Porphyrion, now buried on the Earth side of the rift and unlikely to be a further threat. Wes doubted the King of the Gigantes would have survived the collapse of the enormous pyramid. Even if he had, it seemed highly unlikely he’d be able to bypass the rift’s defensive measures to re-enter this world. At the very least they would delay him for a long time... or so Wes hoped.
Regardless of what might happen, Wes had to move out. A cursory examination of the centaur corpses drew no emotion from the hardened veteran – he’d seen too much death to start caring now. No, he only cared about one thing, and that was protecting Doctor Talbot Harrison.
Wes crouched down, noting the light tread pattern of the doctor’s running shoe imprinted in the sandy earth. He followed these prints to a place where the doctor had stood still waiting for....
Whatever had charged at Talbot had feet like a man, but they were over a meter long! And its weight! Judging from the stride length and depth of the impressions, Wes guessed the thing weighed close to twenty tons and around fifty feet tall! But whatever it was, it hadn’t killed the archaeologist. There wasn’t a trace of blood anywhere near where the two had stood.
The doctor’s footsteps seemed to follow those of the giant; who now appeared to be merely walking, judging by the difference in the stride as compared to when it had charged Talbot. The fact Talbot was following the large figure also showed he was acting compliantly, and thus not in any danger so far.
Wes sat back on his haunches, musing over this new player in the game. He finally shrugged, taking off in the direction the doctor had gone with the giant.
***
Talbot didn’t ask Briareus to carry him.
The multi-limbed – and headed! – giant led the way through the broken blue forest, down exactly the same path from which he had originally emerged. Talbot trudged on behind the huge creature, wondering for the thousandth time if he were doing the right thing.
All of Talbot’s questions were either ignored or answered with a simple, “Ask boss,” and Talbot’s frustration was running high. Briareus had not imparted anything useful since his snippet about them being in Olympia. But even this was hardly helpful to Talbot. Olympia was back in Greece, in his own world, not here. Talbot had even been there once, and he couldn’t recall seeing a single blue tree during his month-long tour.
Olympia played home to the original Olympic Games during ancient times; the Games themselves were shrouded deep within Greek mythology, many believing them based upon the twelve tasks set for Heracles, which in turn were molded into the modern games of athletic endurance. Some believed it was actually Heracles – now commonly known as Hercules – who had paced out the size of the stadium in Olympia, but this seemed so far-fetched Talbot had never researched beyond the surface mythology. He was an archaeologist, using details to discern the truth about structures. People like his brother dealt in rumors and stories. Talbot liked to work with facts; tangible evidence of things which had occurred.
About twenty minutes into their journey, the unlikely duo encountered a junction where they had to travel close to the coastline – a pristine stretch of beach covered in pinkish sand, beautiful teal waves crashing against the shore. The ocean was the first thing in this world which even came close to anything Talbot recognized from back home, and he paused to smile at its beauty.
The waves erupted.
A massive upheaval from the sea gave Talbot only a moment to recognize the threat before a huge green serpentine head – one of several – shot down and consumed him whole. Darkness surrounded Talbot, and he was swallowed down a long throat, squeezing and sliding him at the same time, making it impossible for him to move his arms, let alone get a grip on the slime-covered walls.
Panic threatened to engulf him, and Talbot searched deep within for the calm confidence he had felt when facing down Briareus – but found it had abandoned him. Granted, when he’d felt that confidence he wasn’t being eaten alive, but Talbot still found it unsettling that his confidence could be so fickle. He couldn’t worry about that now. He had to worry about being eaten.
Talbot pushed his arms away from his sides, trying to slow his progress down the creature’s throat. He didn’t want to end up in the stomach; that was one thing he was sure of. For a start, it would be full of acid and, secondly, Talbot was pretty sure there wouldn’t be any air in there – or rather, no air he wanted to breathe.
The entire beast suddenly lurched sideways, as though hit by something massive, and Talbot was momentarily thankful for the swaddling effect of the throat. Without it, he would have been thrown about mercilessly. Another mammoth collision knocked the beast the other way and Talbot’s descent down the throat paused.
Still enshrouded in absolute darkness, the enormous jolting and concussive blows were so disorientating Talbot couldn’t tell which way was up. He was thrown, left, right, around in a complete circle. Through it all he thought he could hear some sort of roaring, and remembered the multiple heads and long necks he had glimpsed in the moment before being snatched.
Another blow seemed to knock the beast onto its side and the constricting throat muscles instantly released him. In a way, this was almost the worst moment for Talbot, as the throat was no longer controlled. It suddenly relaxed and the weight of unsupported flesh threatened to smother him completely like an enormous blanket made of meat. Indeed, the breath left in Talbot’s lungs was rapidly expelled, and he fought to gather another before realizing there was no air to be had.
AIR!!!
Sucking in a huge gasp, Talbot barely noticed the many hands grasping him, hauling him free, coarse sand and stones beneath him as he was gently laid down. He opened his eyes – wincing as the bright red sunlight hit his face. But he was free! And alive! He glanced around and saw Briareus standing on the sand nearby, beside a beast the likes which Talbot was finding himself less and less surprised by. He stood slowly, shakily testing his legs before moving to stand beside the giant.
The creature was another giant, even larger than Briareus. Around the same height as a ten-story building, the fallen beast had absolutely enormous hands; each boasting scores of column-thick fingers – one of which he now saw was completely torn loose.
It took Talbot a moment to realize this was the creature which had swallowed him whole, but it hadn’t been its head which had done so. Each finger was mouthed, a blind serpent able to consume anything it touched, which it had apparently done so effortlessly with Talbot. He turned his gaze to stare up at his companion – the giant, multi-limbed creature which had destroyed this monstrosity in order to save his life.
“Thank you, Briareus,” Talbot said.
Several heads turned to look at him. “Why?”
“You saved my life.” The giant shrugged, as though this was of little importance. “What was that thing?” Talbot asked.
Briareus pointed at the dead giant. “Him Typhoeus. Boss put him in Tartarus. Him get loose.” Briareus turned all of his heads toward Talbot, the rage within his gaze accusing the doctor more than any words ever could. “Your fault,” he growled.
Talbot took a step back, but remembered his former vow and stood his ground, holding the gaze of one of Briareus’s faces. “Why is it my fault?”