by Lentz, P. K.
A scorching wind, the serpent's breath, rushes at us from the direction of the plain, burning eyes that already blink in disbelief. We have emerged high up on one of the stone teeth, a mountainside, and we are not alone. A little way down, upon a craggy shelf of black rock, figures scurry about in clusters. I have little doubt that they are the awakened corpses who ascended the tunnel before us. On this mountainside they appear minuscule.
Their movements are frantic, showing scant direction, and they are crying out. I cannot extract meaning from the shouts, but for one word: Myriad.
"Look, there," Ayessa says calmly, and my eyes turn in the direction of her outstretched arm. In the distance, a bright green line writhes, as if a colossal, wriggling worm sat upon the jagged horizon.
"What is it?" Crow asks. None among us know more than he, but some instinct tells me that it this green mass is the object of our fellow corpse-warriors' fear.
Suddenly I know its probable name, and I venture to speak it.
"Myriad."
"You there!" someone cries, and I look down the slope to see one of our kind waving an arm wildly. "Come down and arm yourselves! Swiftly!"
We look at one another, Crow, Ayessa, the hulk, and I, and decide as one, in silence, that we have no good reason not to obey. As we pick our way down the mountainside, I for one find it hard to keep my eyes on the rock underfoot rather than on the peaks and plains of this new world, a view as wondrous as it is terrifying.
The man who has summoned us wears a sheathed sword and carries a round shield on his back. As we reach him, he points to a pile of arms and says impatiently, "Choose from it whatever suits you."
Before he can dash off to rejoin his comrades, I grab his shoulder and demand, "What is this place, brother?" Brother, I call him without any cause I know. But it suits, and perhaps emphasizing our shared plight will incline him to talk.
"Hades," he replies tersely, then shakes off my grip and departs.
Ayessa becomes first to push on down the slope. The hulk follows her, then Crow and I, and we all hasten to the heap of weapons. There are long, slender lances, stout spears, swords of varying length with scabbards to fit, shields that are round, oblong, flat or curved, and bows with quivers of arrows. All have clearly seen prior use. A dried, flaking residue coats many of the blades and the outer faces of the shields. I would call it blood except that it is black, and just as I know seas and sunsets without having seen one, I am fairly confident that blood ought to be red.
I pick up and swing a few weapons from the pile before selecting a sword with a well-nicked blade a little longer than my thigh. I feel no particular connection to it, but of the choices, it feels the best in my hand. There is less on offer when it comes to shields. I feel drawn to a round one, but Crow claims the finest of this type, or at least the most intact, forcing me to settle for second best. Underneath blotches of the black substance, my shield's blazon depicts the face of an animal that a moment's searching of my newly awakened mind tells me is a lion. Crow arms himself similarly to me, while Ayessa chooses a lance and a curved, rectangular shield. The hulk takes a heavy, long-bladed spear.
Thus equipped, we race to join the massed others, this army in which we apparently are soldiers. The green mass, in the meantime, has grown larger, its appearance less akin to a worm now than a great roiling cloud, glowing green in the gaps between the distant peaks. In the space of a minute, it wraps around the mountains, enveloping them so that only the jagged, dark crests still show. It oozes out onto the plain, inexorable in its advance, blotting out the rivers of liquid fire which prove no barrier.
As we reach the rock shelf where stands the army of the dead, I see that the warriors have tethered themselves together with lengths of thick rope in groups of four or five. I quickly count and put our number at less than a hundred. I cannot be sure what sort of enemy approaches in that green tide, but it surely dwarfs us.
I seize the first man I come upon and ask, "What is our purpose?"
He looks at me with fear and not a little confusion, and he laughs bleakly. "If you heard Ares address us, then you know as much as I."
"Ares?" I echo. "I know not the name, and have heard nothing. What did he say?"
"The Myriad comes." He nods at the now less-distant green fog. "It has devoured all their kingdoms save this one. We are to battle it."
"How does one battle a cloud?" This from Crow.
"It's no cloud," the man snorts. "It is a swarm. Of those." He sweeps his unsheathed sword in the direction of something I had scarcely noted until now, a collection of what look like three multicolored boulders. Leaving the man behind, Crow, Ayessa, the hulk and I walk closer to the lumps, which I quickly learn are not boulders at all.
The first we reach is a purple blob about the mass of four men. From its glistening skin extend more than a dozen tentacles, all irregularly studded from base to tip with razor-like spurs. The body has more eyes than it does limbs. Some are closed, others open and sightless. Hardly any two eyes are of the same size, and they are set into the wrinkled, gelatinous carcass with no thought given to symmetry. It gives off a putrid stench which combined with the sight itself fills me with revulsion.
The second, nearby, is also tentacled, and summons forth from my shrouded memory of another life the image of a certain slimy sea creature, an octopus I think we called it. But however fractured and imperfect my memory is, I know that the many arms of a typical octopus were never affixed to a single, enormous eye comprising almost the entirety of its bright green body. Nor should its tentacles end in sharply spiked clubs.
A third carcass is red and tubular with two eyeless mouths, one at either end, each brimming with sword-like yellow teeth. It has no eyes or other features.
All three monstrosities are damaged. Black blood is smeared around their gaping wounds, surely accounting for the dried smears on our weapons.
"The Myriad," a voice booms from behind me, like two rough rocks grating together. "Endless in form, endless in number." I tense and whirl, hand falling to sword as I look upon a monster of different kind, a living one. This creature looks much like a man, but of giant proportions, twice my height and breadth. His size, however, is not his most remarkable trait; that distinction goes instead to the single, round eye set in the center of his expansive forehead. By its placement, it seems that he was never meant to have possessed more than the one.
"I'm sorry, friend," I say to One-Eye in hope of assuaging any offense given by my reaction. "You but startled me."
"They took my home of Ocean, killed my people, the Cyclopes, my king, Poseidon, and then ravaged high Olympus, where Zeus was slain. What you see is all that remains of the three realms of the Chrysioi. It is Hades, the lowest of the three, and its king and queen, too, lie dead."
Chrysioi. The name by which these people call themselves. My flesh-memory knows its meaning: Golden Ones.
When the giant stops speaking, I swiftly entreat him, "Know you who we are, good giant?"
"Pyrakmon is my name," he says in his rumbling voice. "And aye, I know the form of that flesh you borrow, even if I know not the borrower." He produces in one of his huge, hide-bound hands a coil of rope, the same which I saw my fellow warriors using to lash themselves together. "You had best secure yourselves quickly," Pyrakmon says, "lest you become hopelessly separated and lost in the mist."
I take the heavy thing from him, take an end and begin fastening it about my waist. The others gather round me to do likewise.
"Might I lash myself to you, giant?" I ask of Pyrakmon. "You look as though you can weather a storm."
"Aye," he replies. "Do so, and when the time comes, follow me with as many of your fellows as you can muster."
Seeing no cause to disagree, even if I do not fully grasp his meaning, I join Pyrakmon to our group, looping the rope around his considerable girth. In an act that is only half-conscious, I subtly ensure that Ayessa is tethered to my left side, with Crow in turn on her left, that we might protect her. For al
l I know, she is our equal, even superior, in battle, yet some primal instinct moves me.
The cloud, meanwhile—the swarm—draws nearer. Now, thankfully, I can see that it has a trailing edge, behind which the black crags and lava floes of Hades become once more visible. Within the mist, it is just possible to make out individual creatures, dark flecks which must soon see for what they are, each an assemblage of thoughtlessly placed eyes, tentacles, claws, horns, teeth. A faint sound reaches our ears, a high-pitched hum like a chorus of screams.
Over the sound, as we secure ourselves, I remind Pyrakmon the Cyclops, "You claim to know my form. To whom does it belong?"
The giant chuckles, a sound like a rockslide. "Why, it was that of Ares' own son, Enyalios, who fell in battle against this very foe. As did all your bodies before Medea filled them with souls drawn from... I know not where."
"Atlantis."
This utterance comes from Ayessa, and causes myself, Crow and the hulk to turn and look at her. I know that the others recognize the name, as I do, though they have never heard it spoken with their present ears.
Atlantis. Our home. My brothers and sisters and I are Atlanteans.
"You were to accompany them, but..." the Cyclops briefly resumes before trailing off.
"Who?" I demand over the swarm's unearthly, ear-piercing shriek. "The Chrysioi? To where?"
"No more time for talk!" Pyrakmon shouts, and he aims a meaty hand at the plains of Hades, or where they would be, if anything were visible past the edge of our rock shelf apart from a screeching, radiant green mist.
"Spread out," the Cyclops instructs. "And kill anything that does not walk on two legs!"
Seconds before the cloud roils over the edge and envelops us, I grasp Ayessa by her arm and endeavor to look through this new face she wears and see what lies within, that I might follow her again into another life should this one happen shortly to end.
I cannot know if the effort succeeds. Her borrowed eyes regard me with little other than irritation. I break her gaze, and mine settles lower, on a necklace she wears, or rather which was worn by the body in which she awoke. Hanging from a leather thong, it is comprised mostly of a large, sharp tooth, that of some animal or perhaps a member of the Myriad, onto which intricate, swirling designs have been etched.
As I stare absently at the tooth, an impulse overcomes me which, if not for the imminent likelihood of death, I might well have suppressed. But death is near, and I do not. I pull Ayessa toward me and press my lips to hers. She gasps in surprise, but does not resist. Her warm lips melt against mine, and the nameless spirit in me, be it that of a warrior, a poet, or a madman, soars.
The kiss endures for both an eternity and an instant, and then—Ayessa stiffens. Her arms come between us as her mouth turns away and forms syllables which resound in my soul and become instantly familiar.
"Thamoth!" she screams, backing away. I open my eyes to find hers wide with terror. "No! Stay away from me!" She points her lance at me, backpedaling over the rock shelf as far as the rope connecting us allows.
And then the monsters come.
4. Myriad
I am Thamoth of Atlantis. I have just learned that. It may be the first and last thing I learn about myself before my soul flies screaming back to the abyss from whence it but recently sprang, summoned into these foreign limbs by the witch Medea.
I am unaware of whether my prior life in Atlantis includes experience of war. If it does, I feel certain it was against no enemy such as this. But this flesh I wear, that of Ares' son, has faced the Myriad before. Perhaps it remembers, as it does the speech of the Chrysioi. Drawing a deep breath of the green mist, which stings the eyes and nostrils, I endeavor to summon up whatever remains of Enyalios to help guide my limbs now.
The glowing fog turns my fellow defenders Atlanteans and Cyclops, into vague, dark shapes at the end of slack, gently swaying ropes. My own legs below the knee are barely visible, the rock under my feet completely obscured as if I stand in an insubstantial cloud. In front of me, greenish shadows flit this way and that, growing larger, closer. They gain in definition, edges and tendrils becoming sharper, as the nightmarish shriek rises to ear-splitting volume. Holding my breath, I raise shield and sword in arms that twitch in anticipation of imminent life-or-death struggle.
Then, at once, the shadows become solid, screaming out of the mist on erratic, unpredictable paths, brightly colored skin, razor-sharp teeth, whip-like tentacles, shining eyes of all sizes. They look similar in form to the dead Myriad I have seen, but not identical. Perhaps no two are precisely alike. They flit about more like flies than birds, darting in every direction, in and out of the mist, becoming horrific creatures one moment, shadows again the next. Their frenetic movement makes it hard to know which ones pose the immediate threat either to myself or to Ayessa whom I am determined protect, that she might tell me more about myself.
Tell me why she fears me.
While I track indistinct shapes, a cry pierces both the mist and the sonic wall of inhuman screaming. It is a cry of pain and death, and it belongs to man, not beast. First blood has been spilled.
A heartbeat later, from out of the gloom, a blue, bloated sphere comprised entirely of fang-laden mouths swoops straight at me. I raise my shield in time for the thing to thud against it, unbalancing me. A yellow dagger-tooth drips clear fluid an inch from my brow and a foul odor flows over my shield rim. The instant my balance is recovered, my sword stabs relentlessly in and out of one of the thing's many snapping mouths, which grind and scrape against my shield.
I yield a step, partly in strategy and partly out of revulsion, then yank my blade free to begin hacking. I do not let my weapon rest; I cannot, so long as one of these beasts is within reach. I am yet flailing at the creature pressing upon my shield when a glimpse of movement to my right prompts me to send a backhand blow in that direction. My sword connects with a disc-shaped lump of flesh ringed all round with jagged, bony protrusions. One of them cuts my hand as my blade digs deep into the strange flesh, but there is no room in this shrieking, green world for pain. I scramble out of its way, pulling my sword free, and the disc crashes to the ground near my feet. The blue sphere, meanwhile, presses the attack with its countless, snapping maws. I turn my attention back to it, cutting and slashing and breaking yellow teeth now covered with the thing's own black ichor.
Finally the creature slides from my shield, landing heavily on the rock. I draw a long-delayed breath that sears my lungs, and I look to my left and see Ayessa's mist-shrouded shadow fighting for its life, ending my brief respite. I take two steps closer to her but am stopped by the rope binding me to unseen Pyrakmon. I yank harder on the rope with my shield-arm, but it does not give. Whether the Cyclops is alive or dead, I would not be able to shift him on my own, and so I make a snap decision, slicing the line with a flick of my sword, freeing me to race toward the struggling shadows opposite.
Within a few steps, the shapes coalesce and become Ayessa, in a crouch behind her shield, grip tight on upraised lance. Impaled on the lance's end is a pink mass of wriggling, hook-ended limbs that remains yet eager to press the attack, and would if not for the lance keeping it at bay. Without a thought, I scramble to her aid and slice into the hovering creature with all my strength. Ayessa's lance dips with the force of my blow and slides free while I continue to hack at the creature. In a burst of black ichor, the thing falls the ground, where we both stab at it again and again until the flailing pink limbs fall flaccid. I hasten to Ayessa's side and stand there with eyes, shield and blade flicking from one darting, hazy shape to another. Ayessa does the same, her back to mine. At our feet sits the carcass of a second Myriad which she has evidently dispatched herself before my arrival. I feel relieved by that. She is a warrior in one or both of flesh and spirit, as I have likewise found myself to be.
From somewhere comes a scream. I say into Ayessa's ear, loudly enough to ensure she hears it over the Myriad's screeching, "Move toward Crow!"
As I speak, a bea
st emerges from the mist above to swoop down on us, its screaming, wide-open mouth packed with row upon row of stiletto-like teeth. I set my sword to meet its charge, and Ayessa spins and thrusts with her lance. Both blades meet flesh, mine in its jaw and hers in one of its numerous eyes. Ichor spurts from the wounds, running down our arms. Ayessa screams sharply, and I throw her a look to see the spiked tip of a beastly appendage, a tail or tentacle, fly off trailing blood. Red blood—hers. My heart pauses beating as I think her lost. She cannot spare a hand to clutch the gash in her shield arm, and so she just grits her teeth and twists her lance in the creature's eye.
My heartbeat resumes; her wound is not a mortal one. I continue to rip at the Myriad's disgusting, brightly colored flesh. In a seconds-long frenzy of blows, the thing succumbs to sword and lance, and we both take to swiveling rapidly left and right, scanning for the next attack.
A shape emerges from the haze. We point our blades at it, only to lower them. The mist is thick, but not thick enough to mistake Crow for our enemy. A slack rope still tethers him to Ayessa, but on his other side the rope has been cut.
"Our massive friend proved less capable than he appeared," Crow shouts, his voice barely audible. No sooner has he finished than another death cry pierces the Myriad's persistent shriek. I wonder how many of us there will be when the mist clears, or if any of us will see sky again.
Did the Chrysioi even intend for us to survive?
I do not bother asking Crow whether he is injured. All of his limbs appear to be present, and that will have to do for now.
From out of the swirling green mist, another shadow turns flesh, charging us from above. Between the three of us we slaughter it, only to have another to take its place, and then another and another. Sometimes they come two at a time, sometimes three. Thankfully no more than that, for it is all we can handle. Somehow, we fight them all off and stand panting, bathed in black ichor and jumping at shadows. We do thus for some minutes before realizing that the shriek has faded from our ears. Tiny cuts sting my arms and thighs all over. A gash on one knee causes my leg to quiver. I look at Crow and Ayessa. Their eyes are wide in black-spattered faces—but they live, and so do I. Laughter surges into my throat, where I stifle it. We dare not celebrate, or even relax.
