Rivers of Hell (Shadows of the Immortals Book 3)

by Marina Finlayson

  “Is it just me or is it getting darker?” I asked. My eyes were burning from the smoke, but now there was more than just smoke swirling around us. Darkness crept out of the cracks, oozing across the land, swallowing rocks and bushes. Shadows stretched their inky fingers toward us on every side. I could hardly see where I was putting my feet anymore.

  Jake gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. “That’s a good sign. It means we’re getting closer to Tartarus.”

  Yay, Tartarus. Thank goodness our path didn’t actually lead us there. I didn’t know much about it, but what I’d heard sounded pretty uninviting. Imprisoned giants, tortured souls, eternal punishments of the particularly gruesome kind—fun times. And to top it off, the place was guarded by harpies. I’d had quite enough of those to last me a lifetime.

  “How far from Tartarus to the gate?”

  Jake shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. The map wasn’t exactly accurate, was it? But legends say it’s not far.”

  “Does it seem weird to you to have a gate so close to the entrance to your biggest, most important prison? I mean, if these guys broke out of Tartarus, they’d be out of here and back on Earth faster than you could say ‘destruction time’.”

  “No one has ever broken out of Tartarus. There have been a few rescues, but no one ever gets out under their own steam. It’s a prison for gods and monsters. It would hardly be effective if a smuggled nail file was all it took to escape.”

  “Hercules got in there, didn’t he?” I thought I remembered reading something about that. “Wasn’t that one of his trials to become a god?”

  Jake snorted. “No. Zeus wouldn’t have rewarded him with divinity for doing something like that. Hades mightn’t have been too happy either. When Zeus wants you in prison, you stay in prison. I don’t know of any mortal who has managed to break someone out of Tartarus. Hermes managed it once, and I bet even he wouldn’t try again. Zeus was not a happy chappy.”

  “Zeus sounds like a hard ass. Doesn’t he ever forgive anyone?”

  “Don’t ask me. That kind of stuff is way above my pay grade.”

  The darkness was definitely deepening now. I could barely see where we were going anymore. “Is it night time?”

  Jake looked doubtful. “I don’t think this part of the underworld experiences night and day. Only Elysium and the area around Hades’ Palace. We must be getting close.”

  I liked darkness as much as the next person—probably more, in fact. I did a lot of my best work in the dark. You could say it was my workplace. But there was something about this darkness that set my teeth on edge, as though something was stalking me under cover of night. The occasional harpy screech still floated on the still air, though they seemed to have abandoned their game of rock dropping. Apart from that, there was very little noise other than the sound of our own breathing and the odd pebble being kicked away as we stumbled on the uneven ground. Somewhere off to our right, a geyser vented, and I jumped at the hissing sound, my imagination leaping to large cats or even snakes before I realised what it was. Cautiously, I sent my awareness out, just in case, but I found no animal life nearby. Shame. I could have done with a boost to my night vision.

  I glanced back the way we had come. The River of Fire glowed orange, forming a bright thread against the black, but that was the only thing I could see. Ahead, a small red circle appeared out of the gloom. As we came closer, the circle grew until I could see it was the opening to a cave or tunnel. Red light spilled from it, painting the ground in front of the cave in blood-red tones.

  “There it is,” Jake said.

  “The Gate of Dusk?” I wasn’t too keen on going through there if so. It looked like the mouth of Hell.

  “No. The entrance to Tartarus.”

  A winged shadow fell into the ruby light—a harpy returning to the cave.

  “Let’s keep moving,” Jake whispered, drawing me away.

  Good plan. I didn’t want to come to the harpies’ attention again. Besides, the place gave me the creeps. There was a moaning sound coming from the cave that might just possibly have been the wind. At least, that’s what I told myself.

  “Who’s down there?” I whispered as we left the hellish glow behind. My imagination was supplying all kinds of monsters, complete with clanking chains.

  “Most of the old gods,” Jake said. “Only a few, like Styx, managed to hang on to their freedom once the Olympians took over. Chronos is there, Chaos, most of the Titans. Various cyclopes. Probably a few other monsters, too. I don’t know what happened to that dragon that used to guard the golden apples, for instance.”

  “I thought Jason killed it?”

  There was enough light to see the flash of white teeth as Jake grinned. “You can’t believe everything you read in books, you know.”

  I glanced back at the fast receding cave mouth. Shadows moved against the ruddy light, but no one came in or out. “Brontes is there, isn’t he? The cyclops Hephaistos mentioned?”

  Jake nodded.

  “What did he ever do? Hephaistos said he was the best assistant he ever had, almost as good as himself.”

  “Same as the rest of them, probably. Pissed off Zeus.”

  Note to self: don’t piss off Zeus. Sounded like the guy had a short fuse.

  Another glow appeared ahead of us, but this one wasn’t the red of Tartarus’s mouth or the orange of the River of Fire. It reminded me of the grey light just before dawn, just a slight break in the unrelenting blackness. My stride lengthened as I sensed an end to our journey.

  “There it is,” Jake said. “The Gate of Dusk.”

  An archway appeared out of the gloom. Made of rough stone, it looked as though it might tumble down any moment. “I’m guessing this doesn’t get used much anymore.”

  Jake’s face was awed as he traced a hand over the large blocks of the gate. “Don’t let looks deceive you. This has been here since the dawn of time, and it will probably still be here after the world ends.” He shook his head. “I never thought I would see this. My life has gone completely crazy since I met you.”

  “Mine hasn’t exactly been a picnic either.” Conscious that I was still holding his hand, I tried to pull away.

  His grip on my fingers tightened, and he smiled a slow, sweet smile. “I didn’t say it was a problem.”

  Right. I could feel my cheeks heating and looked away. Beyond the gate mist swirled, hiding whatever awaited us on the other side. “You ready to blow that horn?” Another time, I could probably have come up with some cute pun on ‘horny’, but I felt unaccountably flustered by our conversation.

  Thankfully, Jake at last let my hand go. He reached into his backpack and pulled out the horn that Hephaistos had given him. “Ready?”

  Ready to leave this place? You bet I was. “Let’s go.”

  Together we stepped through the gate. Jake lifted the horn to his lips and blew.

  11

  Damn, but that thing was loud. The echoes of the horn were still ringing in my ears when reality kind of glitched, throwing me completely off balance. It was like when you’re watching TV and the picture suddenly goes on the fritz—all jagged, wavy lines. I staggered as reality twisted around me, feeling as though I was about to throw up.

  I swallowed hard and managed to hold it all together. We stood high on a rocky mountainside, a warm breeze ruffling our hair. Moonlight showed a few wisps of cloud scudding across the sky, and a dark sea stretching to the horizon on every side. A jungle rioted at the mountain’s foot, filled with the cries of night birds and the cough of some nocturnal predator. The heavy perfume of night-blooming flowers drifted up on the breeze.

  We were on an island, and it was hot, hot, hot. I tilted my face to the dark sky and enjoyed the cooling breeze on my face.

  In front of us, a golden door set into the mountain’s face glittered in the moonlight, looking very out of place in its craggy surroundings.

  “Seems kind of ostentatious,” I said. “Surely anyone who happened upon this place would realis
e there was something important here.”

  “No one is going to just stumble upon this,” Jake said. “I know it all looks real enough, but this isn’t really Earth, but a little pocket between worlds.” He pushed hesitantly on the door and it swung open.

  I tried to crane over his shoulder, but he was way too tall and his bulk filled the doorway. “What are you waiting for? We’re on a tight deadline here, remember?”

  “I know.” He stepped inside and I followed him in, eager to see the fabled forge of the god of metalshaping. “It’s just so unbelievable to be here. The actual forge of Hephaistos. How did my life ever turn out this way?”

  He looked around like a small child in a toy shop, his face alive with wonder. It wasn’t as impressive as I’d been expecting, considering the flashy door. It all looked pretty workmanlike to me. We stood in a large, natural cave. Two tunnels led deeper into the mountain’s heart, both dark. But there was plenty of light in this large space, mostly supplied by the torches that had sprung to life as soon as we entered. A giant furnace took up most of the wall between the two tunnels, and the wall to our left was covered with tools whose purpose I could only begin to imagine, all hanging in neat, orderly rows. A large anvil stood near the furnace, and there were two heavy tables in the middle of the room, whose scarred surfaces showed their years of use.

  I turned slowly, taking in the whole room. To our right, on the wall opposite the tools, the wall was covered in shelving, which displayed all manner of things, some beautiful and some more utilitarian. Golden cups sat beside iron chests, jewel-encrusted swords shared space with things that looked more like farm implements, and there were many other things whose purposes I could only guess at. Beside the door through which we had entered stood two full suits of armour, one on each side, the torchlight glinting off the intricate engravings on the breastplate of one and the hundreds of tiny interlocking rings of the other. It was a big place, and between the tools and all Hephaistos’s creations, I could see us being here for a while, searching for the one piece of star-metal that we needed.

  “Where do you think the star-metal is?” I asked. I could practically hear a ticking clock in the back of my mind, filling me with a sense of urgency.

  “It should be in one of those chests,” Jake said.

  He moved toward the wall of shelving. So many shinies that winked and sparkled in the torchlight! It was truly a cave of wonders.

  “Remember not to touch anything,” I cautioned him. Hephaistos hadn’t said exactly what would happen if we did, but I had no wish to find out. I’d had enough nasty surprises to last me for quite some time.

  “I hadn’t forgotten,” Jake said, shooting me a rather exasperated glance. “I’m actually quite good at remembering basic instructions.”

  “Just checking that Hephaistos made it basic enough for you.” I had to force myself to stand still, or I might have been the one to trigger whatever disaster befell those who couldn’t keep their hands to themselves. All those pretty things called to me in a professional capacity. It wasn’t every day you got to share space with so much treasure. The urge to sample something was hard to resist.

  I hugged my arms around myself and drifted closer as Jake opened the first chest. The lid creaked as he lifted it, revealing a chess set, cast in gold and silver. Jake’s hand reached out automatically before he remembered. He closed the lid with a bang and gave me a sheepish grin.

  “Next,” he said.

  I hovered at his elbow as he opened the next chest. There were a lot to get through. “Did he say it was in this room? It could be somewhere back there.” I jerked my head in the direction of the two dark tunnel mouths.

  “Let’s hope not. This could take longer than I thought.”

  I wandered over towards the massive forge. It was hot here; almost as hot as it had been near the River of Fire in the underworld. “Does he keep a fire going here all the time?” I asked. “That seems a little wasteful.”

  “How so?” Jake didn’t look at me, too intent on his search. “The fires are powered by the volcano itself.”

  “Really?” I inspected the forge with renewed interest, though I kept a careful distance. “Do you think it ever erupts?”

  “It probably does exactly what Hephaistos wants it to,” Jake said. “Aha!”

  “What? Have you found it?” I left the forge and hurried back to his side. He was staring into a chest full of bars of metal. Most of them appeared to be gold, shiny, and glorious, though a few were a darker, dull grey. “Is that the star-metal?”

  “It looks like ordinary iron.” He frowned, catching his lower lip between his teeth. “But I’d have to touch it to be sure.”

  “Oh.” We stared at each other. “Well, you’ve been touching all these chests and nothing’s happened.”

  “True. And Hephaistos told me to look inside the chests. He couldn’t have meant not to touch anything in them. That wouldn’t make sense.”

  I gazed up at the wall of shining beauty, at all the goblets, knives, swords, and other pretties. “There can’t be any harm in touching a few bits of metal. He must have meant to keep our hands off all these treasures.”

  “You’re right.” But Jake still let out a deep breath before picking up one of the grey bars. As soon as he touched it, he shook his head. “Just iron.”

  He put the bar back in the chest and closed the lid. The next one also contained iron bars.

  “We must be getting closer,” he said.

  I agreed, but several more chests came and went without revealing the star-metal. I moved closer to the shelving, my eye caught by a particularly beautiful dagger. I’d lost one of mine, throwing it at that harpy. Not that I would be stupid enough to take one from Hephaistos’s forge. I just wanted to look.

  A long, ominous metallic scraping sounded behind me. I whirled around to find Jake standing with a small bar of metal in his hand.

  “Jake Harlan Steele! What did you do? Did you touch something?”

  “It wasn’t me,” he said, shoving the metal bar into his pocket.

  I looked around; what had made that noise? There was no one here but Jake and me.

  The suit of armour to the left of the golden door caught my eye, and adrenaline jolted through me. “Jake, wasn’t that sword sheathed when we came in?”

  The sword was now clutched in a mailed fist, held in the ready position. As we watched, the suit of armour on the other side of the door stiffly drew its own sword with a long hiss of metal. I backed up towards Jake.

  “Zeus’s balls,” he breathed.

  In unison, the two suits of armour took a step away from the door, swords at the ready. I eyed the wall of weapons. It probably didn’t matter now what we touched. I mentally discarded the swords; I was no swordswoman. But there were a couple of spears that looked pretty inviting.

  As I eyed the closest one, the suits of armour moved again, turning to face the door. Jake and I exchanged confused looks—why were they turning their backs on us?

  A moment later the golden door opened with such force it smashed back against the rock wall, and we had our answer. Fire surged into the room as three newcomers leapt through the door, and the armoured figures opposing them disappeared into a maelstrom of flame. That was all I saw as Jake shoved me down behind a table. I landed hard on my back, my backpack crushed beneath me. Catching my breath, I twisted around and scrambled up into a crouch, my heart pounding from the shock. Jake brought up a wall of his own flame as figures surged through the inferno towards us.

  “Stay down,” he ordered, before striding forward to meet the threat, a shield of flame held in front of him.

  What the hell was going on? Who were these people, and how had they found us? Because there was no doubt in my mind that they had come here to find us. How much of a coincidence would it have to be for a bunch of fireshapers to turn up at exactly the same moment that we did? A bunch of hostile fireshapers. I hadn’t forgotten the warrant the Ruby Council had out for Jake’s arrest. The only
question was how they had managed to track us, when even we didn’t know where we were.

  No, scratch that. There was another question, too. Hephaistos had given us his horn to open the way to his forge, and said that only a god would have been able to find this place without it. So where had these fireshapers found a god to aid them?

  All this tumbled through my brain in a flash while I groped in my backpack for my spare knife. I didn’t dare go for one of the weapons on the wall now—I would be seen as soon as I stood up. At least we’d had a moment’s warning, courtesy of the animated suits of armour. They had to be the guardians of this place, since they’d activated the minute the fireshapers had reached the golden door.

  My hand closed on an unfamiliar object. Holy shit. I’d forgotten all about the Baseball Cap of Supreme Sneakiness. I shoved it onto my head, cowering behind the table as flame roared across the room towards Jake. The noise was unbelievable and the air crackled with heat. From where I crouched, I could see Jake, his arms outstretched. They trembled with the effort of supporting his shield of flame. A maelstrom writhed between the two parties where the flames met. Flames licked at the roof of the cavern far overhead, spinning and turning. The stone beneath my feet began to warm. Now I knew what it felt like to be a turkey roasting in an oven. I didn’t know how long I could last in this environment.

  Jake threw a glance over his shoulder, desperately searching. “Lexi!”

  Of course he couldn’t see me. I couldn’t even see myself. The minute I touched my backpack, it disappeared, too. I shouldered it and, crouching low, ran to Jake’s side, taking shelter behind his wall of flame. Immediately, I felt relief from the heat of the firestorm. I drew a breath that didn’t sear my lungs and wiped my sweaty face with my shirt.