by Lentz, P. K.
"When the first of us arrived, the Chrysioi were stepping into a disc of bright light on the floor," he says. "A skirmish broke out—I'm not certain which side started it. It lasted hardly a minute. By its end, the light had faded and we had prevented these five of theirs from entering it." He hesitated, adopting a grave expression. "About ten of ours went through."
"Ayessa?" I gasp. With greater urgency, I search the faces around me, already knowing it to be in vain.
"She was among those who... left."
I want to curse Crow for failing to protect her, but I know it is not his fault. Even if it were, it is not the time for recriminations.
"Ayessa... all of them," Crow said, "went willingly. They ran into the light as it began to shrink. They escaped. Would that we all could have done likewise."
7. Portal
With some difficulty, I set aside my irrational concern for the woman whom I know I loved in another life, and I make my way to stand before the prisoners.
“Have you questioned them?” I ask.
“Briefly,” answers Crow, at my shoulder. “Only to ask what the light was. The woman with the strange hair answered. She seems the most inclined of them to cooperate.”
I have no trouble determining which of the two kneeling Chrysioi females is the one to whom Crow refers: her hair is iridescent, glowing first one pale hue and then another. She gazes up at me with bright eyes, wearing an expression that is guarded and somewhat worried, but not overtly hostile.
“What was her answer?” I ask of Crow, looking upon the woman without sympathy. I know not yet what their fate is to be.
“A portal,” he informs me, “leading into some other world, where the Chrysioi hope to find sanctuary from the Myriad.”
“What world?” This question I direct at the female prisoner.
“We don't know,” she answers swiftly. “We know only that it is habitable, unlike most that Medea has found. It was—”
“Iris, don't talk to them!”
I aim a glare at the speaker, the second female prisoner, who is dark-haired and evidently darker, too, in opinion of her captors.
“It's alright, Daphne,” the other, Iris, calmly assures her. “I can tell they are reasonable.”
She does not sound so certain.
“Iris,” I say, returning my attention to her. “Yes, we are very reasonable. Like you and your folk, we wish only to survive. Will you help us to do that?”
“I will try,” Iris says. “But first, would you answer a question for me?”
“If I can.”
“The Cyclops, Pyrakmon...” I see worry cloud her bright eyes, and they alone tell me what she wishes to know and why. “He did not... Is he... ?”
“He gave his life to save us,” I answer. “I am glad I had the honor of knowing him, even if for so short a time. Was he friend to you?”
Iris's head sinks, and a cascade of shimmering colors falls over her face. “Before the Myriad,” she begins after a mournful silence, “I thought all his kind to be savage and brutal, but...” Her voice chokes. “He was so kind. He saved my life several times, and yes... yes, he was my friend.” A tear slides from her cheek to darken the floor of smooth stone.
“Your fate is tied to ours,” I say. “Let us do right by noble Pyrakmon by escaping this mountain. All of us together. Is there any way that might be achieved?”
“We must reopen the portal.”
This contribution, spoken quite casually, comes from yet another of the Chrysioi, one of the kneeling males, who has a head full of blond curls. Of the prisoners, it is on his face alone that I see no trace of either worry or animosity; his manner is almost careless.
“How?” I demand. “We have no witch.”
“That we know of,” Crow observes, accurately, if unhelpfully.
“The portal yet exists,” the male Chrysioi declares. “See it there, at the center of the graven circle.” He angles his head. “It is merely too small for any of us who happen to be larger than a gnat.”
Looking as directed, I observe a nearby area where the stone floor is etched with a circle, within which radial lines converge on a central depression where, squinting, I glimpse a tiny fleck of white light.
“How can it be... enlarged?”
“With blood,” Iris volunteers. “That of a sacrifice. Medea used a goat.”
“We have no goat,” I say.
With a smile, Crow once again adds, “That we know of.”
“Iris, shut your mouth!” yells the Chrysioi whose face is pinned to the floor, prompting the Atlanteans restraining him to press him harder against the stone.
“If we need a sacrifice, the choice is clear!” one of those men says.
“No,” I correct him. “It is not that simple.”
“Then who?” This from Crow. “Surely not one of us, and not—” A nod at Iris.
“If what we desire is a future in another world,” I reason, “I hardly think the best course is war with the Chrysioi, which is a likely outcome if we murder one of theirs. We must show good faith and make peace with Ares. And do not forget”—I surely could not—“that they may hold some number of Atlanteans prisoner.”
“By all appearances, they were ready to leave us for dead...” Crow remarks, almost idly. He does not relish opposing me.
“Pyrakmon told me, before he died,” I say, “that the Chrysioi are not of one mind when it comes to us. We must persuade them to accept us as allies.”
“Who made you leader?” challenges the same man who moments ago had suggested sacrificing a Chrysioi.
“I lead because it feels natural to me,” I say with a glare, perturbed by this waste of breath and time. I put hand to sword hilt. “If some challenger wishes to come forward, then perhaps blood will be easier to come by after all.”
The man scowls, but my threat works to deter him.
I address the Chrysioi: “Might any more living animals be found inside this mountain?”
None are quick to answer. It is the yellow-haired male Chrysioi who speaks first. “We five are of Olympus, not this bleak realm, so we know not. But whatever it is you choose to do, best make it quick. The greater beasts of the Myriad soon will come and coat this mountain in acid slime, reducing it, and us, to puddles. I worry not for myself, as I have survived four Myriad swarms before this, and doubtless will survive this one, some way or other. But my companions are not blessed with my good fortune.”
“No, Kairos, we are cursed with yours,” grumbles the only Chrysioi captive yet to have spoken, a weather-beaten, bearded male wearing garments of fur.
“Kairos...” I repeat. I know what the word means in the language of the Chrysioi, the one which we Atlanteans speak with our once-dead tongues. His name is Luck. “Explain,” I demand of them.
“There is little to explain,” Kairos says. “I have a habit of surviving. No more than that.”
I look to the bearded one in furs, who only scowls and averts his face.
Kairos snorts. “Aristaeus's temperament is better suited to his flocks.”
At that moment, Crow nudges me and calls my attention to the open entrance to the adjacent room, where we entered the mountain through the shaft; the room has begun to fill with green mist.
“What did he mean, cursed?” I ask Kairos. Although I am acutely aware of the need for haste, I have the sense of being near to some solution which will spare us the need to slay one of their number or ours.
Lighthearted Kairos frowns, but even that expression is somehow cheerful. “He refers to the fact that in all four cases, I was the sole survivor of said swarms. My fellow Olympians now consider my presence somewhat... unwelcome.”
“But your good fortune,” I press, “it is real?”
He cocks his golden head. “Real enough.”
I draw my sword, step forward and set its point in the hollow of Kairos's throat. “Well then, my new friend, here is what will happen,” I say. “You and I will take a walk inside this mountain, and you will
find me some suitable creature to serve as sacrifice. And if you do not, then you will serve the purpose yourself.”
Kairos, to his credit, and lending credence to his claim, or at least his belief in it, does not shrink from my blade or appear afraid. “Did you not earlier speak of good faith and alliance with my people?”
“I did,” I reply. “And then you told me that your people might not particularly grieve your loss.”
Kairos scowls, then laughs. Carefully, under my sword point, he rises. “Very well,” he says. “Let us put your plan to the test.”
While I go with Kairos alone down one of three passages which lead away from the chamber in which we stand, I direct Crow and seven more Atlanteans to split up and explore the remaining two, leaving roughly thirty Atlanteans left behind to dissuade rash action on the part of the Chrysioi captives. None question my commands.
“How many Chrysioi await us in this other world?” I ask of Kairos as we walk through a tunnel carved into the mountain itself. I know not the source of the dull orange light which allows us to see; it is some witchery, I suppose.
Kairos laughs, something he does frequently. Since he is, for the moment, my enemy, I feel that should aggravate me. On the contrary, it inclines me to like him more than otherwise I might.
“You have a sword at my back, and your current plans include executing me. Tell me truthfully, if our places were reversed, would you give an honest answer to that question?”
“Likely not,” I confess. “But I assure you of two things. I have no wish whatever to kill you, and I desire only peaceful coexistence with the Chrysioi. If we are lucky enough to escape this mountain and find your people, I hope you will help me to convince them of that.”
“Assurances! Zeus assured us of the Myriad's defeat, and so did his brothers and all the rest. But...” Kairos shrugs. “For all that my people will listen to someone they wouldn't bother to miss,” he says, using my words against me, “I will plead your case when I rejoin them in the next world. If any of you are lucky enough to be with me.”
Now I allow myself a brief laugh, quickly stifled by thoughts of death, mine and Ayessa's.
We search chamber after chamber—some bare, others sparsely furnished, others lavishly decorated with all manner of treasure. What we do not find is any sign of life. Our progress ends at a locked door of metal which is warm to the touch, which Kairos claims, believably, to have no knowledge of or ability to open.
We turn back and slowly retrace our path. My thoughts are grim ones, of being forced to carry through with my threat to slaughter Kairos, even lacking certainty, as I do, that doing so will achieve the intended result of reopening Medea's portal. Kairos himself, as we return in failure, does not seem worried by the prospect of his death. His belief in his own good fortune, it would seem, is ironclad.
By the time we emerge into the 'portal chamber,' one of the other groups sent out to explore has already returned having met no more success than did we. The last group, Crow's, remains at large.
“Do you hear that?” someone says.
I cock my head and listen intently and do hear a small, distant sound. It is that of a sustained shout, one of fear and alarm. Not just one voice but several, I quickly realize, growing closer by the second. Knowing to whom the voices must belong, I race to the entrance of the corridor which Crow's group was sent to explore, pointing behind me with my sword at fellow Atlanteans. “You, you, you, and you—guard the Chrysioi! Be ready to kill them. Anyone else who has a weapon, with me!”
The shouting grows louder, closer, as nearly twenty of us form a semicircle at the tunnel entrance, swords at the ready. I make out words in the frantic cries:
“Kill it! Kill it!”
There is another, deeper sound, too, like... snarling?
Seconds later, I hear frantic footfalls and then see the shadowy forms of Atlanteans dashing toward us, the source of the fearful shouts. I grip my sword tighter in sweaty palm, set my jaw and tense for whatever is to come. The Atlanteans explode into the chamber, our half-circle breaking to let them pass. Behind the runners I half expect to see a fleshy, amorphous creature of the Myriad, all mouths and boneless arms, but what bounds out on their heels instead is lithe and covered in dark fur.
Only when it halts, landing on its four legs, and lets out three simultaneous roars from three mouths lined with yellow daggers and looks upon us with six red eyes do I understand what it is: a great, three-headed dog.
“Attack!” I cry out, and charge toward the beast. It likewise launches forward, and one of its heads snaps at me. I barely position my sword before me in time that it bites iron instead of my flesh. I avoid a bite from a second head while tugging on my blade with the thought of slicing the creature's mouth from within, at the hinge of its jaw. But clamped tight, the sword will not budge. Thankfully, it is then that my comrades press attacks of their own. It roars and lashes out at several of them with muzzle and claw, and in the course of defending itself, releases my blade, which shortly thereafter sinks deep into the neck of the nearest head. I yank the blade free and blood gouts onto the stone floor.
“Get it to the circle!” I shout over the beast's roars. “Kill it there!”
The creature is fearsome, to be sure, and it manages to stain its teeth and claws with the blood of a few Atlanteans, but within half a minute, it becomes clear that the fight is one-sided; it cannot handle our numbers. When two of its heads hang limp and the beast hobbles on three legs, beset from all sides, I dig my shoulder into the blood-matted fur of thing's flank and shove it toward the etched circle, even as my comrades press the attack. Just as we pass the circle's edge, the beast crashes to the floor, where five or ten death-blows are delivered.
“Hold!” I shout, throwing arms wide. “It is done!”
The Atlanteans stay their blades and stand watching, silent but for their hard breathing, while dark red blood gushes from the slain dog's many wounds onto the stone inside the etched circle. The radial grooves act as as runnels, catching the blood and directing it to the center. Reaching the glowing fleck which sits there, the blood only vanishes, failing to dim or obscure the light.
After an endless minute, I begin to despair. The torrent of blood slows to a steady stream and finally a drip, but nothing happens.
Crow, exhausted from his flight, comes up behind me and claps my shoulder. “We opened a door, and that thing was behind it.”
“A hound of Hades, the late lord of this realm,” offers Kairos. “He kept many such pets.”
“Perhaps we can find another,” I muse, eager to avoid the only other option.
Even as I speak, the glowing fleck suddenly flares into a brightly burning disc which fills the room with light and my heart with new hope.
The disc slowly swells, its edge creeping toward the rim of the etched circle on the floor. It reaches the dead dog, and its three heads vanish, then its forelegs, and finally the whole carcass. At the circle's edge, the light stops advancing.
My next word, my last in this world, is a barked order which forms of its own accord. “In!”
Most do not hesitate, but swiftly leap into the light. Although I am as eager as any, I stand at the edge to usher my people in. Crow pauses to grin at me, then vanishes.
“Release them,” I instruct those watching over the Chrysioi captives. Then to the captives themselves I say, “Go.”
The Chrysioi who once pinned to the floor, since allowed to kneel with the others, offers me a sneer as he passes into the light. Aristaeus and Daphne give me no attention whatever, while Iris and Kairos each spare time to give a smile, hers warm and sad, his full of good humor.
The last few Atlanteans move into the shining portal, and I am left alone. I do not linger long, lest the gate slam shut and separate me from my brethren and my destiny... my Ayessa. Drawing a final breath of the stifling, green-tinged air of conquered Hades, I plunge into the light.
8. Mountain
All is dark. Quiet. Warm. Pleasant, but for a s
harp pain in my side.
I ignore it. It wants to drag me out of the lovely darkness whose embrace I crave, and keep me at the edge of slumber when I would plunge deeper.
Then a new enemy of sleep appears. A sound: loud, piercing, insistent. Caw! Caw! Caw!
A bird? A... crow.
Crow... Hades, Pyrakmon, Myriad... Ayessa!
Memories flood back. Suddenly the darkness becomes my enemy, a temptation I must fight. I force my eyes open and light fills them, hurting. I shut them again, twist my body and understand that the cause of my discomfort is the hard, uneven ground on which I lie. More slowly, I let my eyes open. The light here has a different quality than that of Hades, not pink but more like what my sense of having lived once before tells me sunlight should look like.
The urge to know where I am and what has become of my brethren gives me the strength to drag myself to a seated position on the cold, hard ground and look around. Immediately I find some cause for relief in the sight of other Atlanteans around me. They range from inert to semi-inert and seem, like me, freshly woken. Around thirty of us entered the portal, and all would seem to be present, loosely scattered across a rocky slope of a mountain. This is no range of Hades, I am sure, for the peaks in the distance here do not spew smoke and fire. But it is a desolate place, all dull gray with only snatches of green in the mist-shrouded distance.
Nearby, among the stirring and rising Atlanteans, I see the creature responsible for waking me. It is an enormous black bird that struts about, now and then spreading and flapping its broad black wings to rise a few feet and settle elsewhere. I stare at it. As I do, knowledge comes forth. It is like a crow, but different... a raven. I know enough about ravens to realize that it hopes a few of us have not survived, so that it might feast.
I will do my best to see that it goes hungry.
Before I finish climbing to my feet, the wingless Atlantean named Crow approaches, easily recognizable by the long black hair that caused Ayessa to name him thus. He is smiling at the good fortune of our escape from danger. I share his relief, even if I cannot return the expression.
