Tears of the Furies (A Novel of the Menagerie)

by Thomas E. Sniegoski Christopher Golden

  The one-eyed beast regarded him with a grimace as though it was trying to decide how to cook him. Then, slowly, Danny felt himself moving. Conan Doyle had caught him in a spell, a net of sorcerous fire, and now the mage drew him down to the stone floor of this Underworld cavern. When at last the spell dissipated he looked around to see Conan Doyle taking a step nearer to the Cyclopes. He was about to protest what the old guy had done when he felt Ceridwen’s hand on his shoulder.

  Danny glanced up at her and felt all his anger dissipate. Her eyes had that effect. Even weakened, she had that effect on him. The Fey sorceress was ethereally beautiful — his opposite in so many ways — and yet it was not just her beauty that soothed him, but the benevolence that exuded from her.

  "What the hell —" he began.

  Ceridwen placed a pale finger over his lips and Danny hushed. Confused, but no longer angry, he turned to see what Conan Doyle was up to. The mage had both hands up, blue light still misting from his palms but making no movements the Cyclopes might interpret as hostile.

  " — apologies for my young friend," Conan Doyle said, speaking loudly so that the giant might hear him. "This place is new to us and unsettling. We have met only enemies here and have had to defend ourselves many times. I believe he’d come to think there could be no kindness in this place."

  The mage glanced back at Ceridwen and Danny. The sorceress kept a firm hand on the demon boy’s shoulder and an unseen wind blew through that ancient ruined world, that endless catacomb, and her linen cloak fluttered against him.

  Danny shrugged, glaring back at Conan Doyle. What? he thought defiantly.

  When the mage spoke again, he kept his eyes on Danny. "We have to adjust our expectations now that we have met you. We cannot confuse a hospitable invitation with a heinous threat."

  Conan Doyle let his gaze linger on Danny a moment longer and the boy saw the mage sigh, chest rising and falling. Then Conan Doyle turned to the Cyclopes again.

  "My name is Arthur. My friends are Ceridwen and Daniel. Please forgive us, and accept our thanks for your gracious offer."

  Throughout this apology the Cyclopes had touched its throat and shoulder several times. The wounds had stopped bleeding. It did not even seem to be bothered by the cut he had made to its fingers, but Danny was not going to remind the monster either. Its single eye blinked and it had a sour expression twisting up its ugly face.

  For a long moment the Cyclopes stared down at Conan Doyle. Its cooking fire crackled a hundred feet behind it, burning brightly, though the dead, black wood seemed to cry out as it surrendered to char and ember.

  The monster looked at Danny, who flinched. He might have tried to defend himself but Ceridwen held him fast.

  "That was an interesting attack, with your tongue," she whispered.

  With Eve he might have made a joke of it. Even with Ceridwen, had he been feeling bold. But as the Cyclopes pushed Conan Doyle gently aside and took two long strides toward him, he could not have thought of a humorous retort if his life depended on it. His throat was dry. He ran his rough, sharp tongue across the backs of his teeth.

  The Cyclopes crouched in front of him like a man bending to scold a puppy. The monster extended one long finger with its cracked yellow nail and poked him.

  "That hurt," it said. "Don’t do it again."

  "I . . . I won’t." It felt absurd, having this conversation. But it felt dangerous as well.

  Then the Cyclopes grinned and nodded. "Good. Are you hungry, little satyr?"

  And Danny realized that he was. The smell of meat cooking over the flames had his stomach growling. He glanced over at Conan Doyle, who nodded his encouragement, looking almost sinister in the shadows of this place.

  "Um, well, yeah. I could eat."

  "Excellent!" the Cyclopes rumbled. "Come!"

  He moved back to his fire and picked up a long shaft of wood — a long tree branch to the rest of them but little more than a stick to the monster — and began to cook once more. At the end of the branch was some kind of creature but it was only smoking meat and bone now and Danny could not tell what it had once been. Nor did he want to know.

  Ceridwen ushered him forward and the two of them strode up beside Conan Doyle.

  "That was a near thing, Daniel," the mage said, brushing fingers across his mustache, unconsciously straightening it. He glanced warily at the Cyclopes.

  Danny glanced at Ceridwen, then back to Mr. Doyle. "How did you know he wasn’t going to eat us?"

  Conan Doyle stared at him for a moment, then gestured up at the tall rock Danny had leaped from. "He seemed surprised when you attacked him. Mystified by it. Perhaps even a bit hurt. Before that, I confess his invitation to dinner did sound menacing to my ears. Even now, I’m not completely certain of his motives."

  "I am," Ceridwen said. They both glanced at her and she shook her head. "There’s no cruelty in him. His kindness is genuine."

  Danny wasn’t convinced. Were farmers cruel to the turkeys before Thanksgiving? He didn’t think so. But there was such certainty in the way Ceridwen spoke that he thought her reasoning was from more than just observation, that she had a sense about the Cyclopes.

  The one-eyed creature inhaled the aroma of his cooking and grunted appreciatively. "Are you coming, friends?"

  "Yes, absolutely. Sorry for the delay." Conan Doyle nodded at them and started toward the Cyclopes’ cooking fire.

  Danny stopped him. "Wait, one last thing. How does he know English?"

  Conan Doyle frowned. "What are you talking about?"

  Ceridwen smiled, her grave features lighting up with fond amusement. "Oh, I see. You were speaking with him and you thought . . . no, Danny. He wasn’t speaking English. You were speaking Greek. Very old Greek."

  "What? But I —"

  "It isn’t only you," Ceridwen told him. "It is happening to us all. When we first entered this place, it was draining me. Cut off from the nature of the world I know, with only the cruel, lifeless elements of the Underworld, I was weak. I’ve begun to regain my strength now, at least a little of it. And just as I adjust, as this place comes to think of us as —"

  Danny scoffed. "A place can’t think."

  Ceridwen raised an eyebrow. "No? All right. If it’s simpler, consider this. This is a place of magick. A place where the souls of the dead from the entire history of a grand empire came upon their death. Not all of them spoke the same language. Yet they had to understand this place and one another."

  He felt sick. "So the Underworld is treating us like we’re dead? Like we’re, what, damned to this place?"

  Conan Doyle put a hand on his shoulder. "Something like that."

  Danny sighed and gave a small shrug. "I’m not gonna say I like the sound of that, but at least it makes sense. I was afraid it was just me."

  "There are things about your nature and your parentage that are only beginning to reveal themselves," Conan Doyle said. "In this case, you’re not the only one affected. But at a guess, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that you could have understood the language here even without the magick present. Demons are ancient. Ancestral memory for you will be different from that of ordinary humans. I’ve no doubt you may discover you speak dozens of languages. Or, perhaps —" and he looked thoughtful as he said this "— all of them."

  "Holy shit," Danny whispered.

  Conan Doyle smiled. "Yes."

  He linked one arm beneath Ceridwen’s as if they were strolling through the park and together they walked toward the Cyclopes’s fire. Danny hesitated only a moment before following.

  "That smells wonderful, my enormous friend," Conan Doyle said. "Your hospitality is greatly appreciated."

  As they sat on an outcropping of stone near the fire, the Cyclopes grinned at them, obviously pleased with the unexpected pleasure of socialization in this place.

  "The pleasure is mine, Arthur."

  Ceridwen gazed up at the giant. "It saddens us that we will not be able to stay very long. One of our number has been stolen
from us by vile enemies. We know only that our enemies seek the Erinyes, the Furies, and so we must seek them as well."

  The Cyclopes’s single eye narrowed and his expression was grim. He nodded heavily and regarded each of them in turn. "I am sorry you cannot stay. This is a bleak place and it is not easy to find friends. I hope that we will meet again. You will eat your fill and be on your way. And while you eat, I will make a map for you, to show you the safest way. The Erinyes are very cruel, though. Not like me.

  "They don’t like visitors at all."

  Squire missed driving.

  The train had left Athens headed due west toward Corinth and there seemed no choice but to pursue it, pausing at each of its scheduled stops in dreadful hope that some catastrophe would have occurred to give them a clue as to Medusa’s actions. How long could she go unnoticed, after all? Whatever part of Dr. Graves’s spirit had tainted her when he had shot her with those bullets, Medusa had managed to extricate it. Perhaps she had pried out the spectral bullets. However she had done it, Graves could no longer track her.

  They had to find another way. For now, following the train was the only solution. Their greatest concern was that she might throw herself from the train and disappear into the countryside or some village along the Aegean. There was also the possibility that they might actually overtake the train and manage to be waiting for it when it pulled into Corinth.

  But with Clay behind the wheel, that seemed a distant hope. He drove like an old lady. Back home Squire had rigged Conan Doyle’s limo with foot blocks on the brake and accelerator so his short legs could reach. He loved to drive . . . and he loved to drive fast. It was torture for him to sit in the passenger seat.

  They had driven through Megara a while back. Now the road had swung far enough south that the blue-green shimmer of the Aegean was visible, like some ancient paradise beckoning them to abandon the modern world.

  "It’s beautiful, isn’t it?" Clay said, glancing out his window.

  "Absolutely. So nice that we have time to appreciate the wonders of the Mediterranean. For Christ’s sake, just drive the fucking car! If you stop sightseeing, we might actually catch up to her."

  He wanted something fried to eat. Onion rings, yeah, that would be perfect.

  Clay gave him a sidelong glance, accelerating to a speed at which the car began to shudder. The shapeshifter grunted in amusement, but he wore a fond smile.

  "Don’t take it out on me because you’re too short to drive."

  The ghost of Dr. Graves drifted forward from the back seat, moving his head between them and glancing at Squire. "Need I remind you, my friend, that you have the advantage of being solid?"

  "Oh, so now we’re trying to top each other’s miseries? Next Captain Quint’s gonna show us his shark bite."

  But Graves was right. He liked being solid, and not just because it meant he could drive a car. There were a few other of his favorite things he needed flesh and bone to do. Eating was up there, but it wasn’t number one. Much as he hated to admit it to himself, the ghost had given him some perspective.

  Squire glanced at Clay again and grumbled. "Just drive."

  The engine whined loudly, as though under the hood was not an ordinary car engine but something swapped out from a Honda motorcycle. Traffic was sparse and for all of Squire’s complaints, Clay was driving fast. The road hummed under the tires.

  The hobgoblin reached out and clicked on the radio. He scanned the stations, finding a lot of static and too many voices speaking Greek. At one point he paused on a familiar song, Bruce Springsteen’s "Born to Run," but the reception was for crap, fading in and out, sounding muffled and tinny, and he gave up, cursing.

  "Greek radio," he muttered.

  "Yeah," Clay agreed. "You don’t get a lot of international pop stars out of Greece."

  Squire snorted. "Exactly."

  The hobgoblin punched the radio off with a stubby, leathery finger.

  "Well, gentlemen," said the ghost in the back seat, "as much as I hate to miss a moment of this scintillating conversation, I think I ought to check on the train’s progress again."

  Squire sighed and crossed his arms. "Yeah, well, I don’t see you jumping in with the funny anecdotes, Doc. I need to get one of them Game Boys. Or, hey, either of you guys know Mad-Libs? What I wouldn’t give for a Mad-Libs right now. I’m a riot with those things."

  There was silence from the back seat. After a moment Squire frowned and twisted around to glance behind him, expecting to see the familiar features of Dr. Graves. Squire had to hand it to the guy, the 1940s adventurer look really worked for him. Tall, dark, and handsome, all that shit. Only problem was, he was too serious.

  He was also gone.

  "Son of a bitch," Squire muttered, shooting a glance at Clay behind the wheel. "Now that’s just downright rude. Here I am talking and he just . . . poof!"

  Clay nodded. "Ghosts do that."

  "Fucking ghosts."

  "Sometimes Leonard just needs to be on his own," Clay added. He reached up a hand and brushed back his brown hair, fingers pushing through the single, odd patch of white. It wasn’t his real hair, or his real face for that matter, just the one he used the most often. Squire was not completely sure Clay had a real face, unless it was the formidable shape he often took in battle, the hairless, dried-earth creature that seemed made of actual clay.

  "Still, he could have said something," Squire replied.

  Graves had gone to check on the progress of the train eight or ten times already. They had agreed at the outset that he would not try to locate Medusa on the train, or to engage her. Clay could have shapeshifted into a falcon or something even faster on the wing and caught up with the train as well. If Squire knew where he was going along the shadow paths he probably could have found the train — saving them all the trouble of traveling in this crappy car and the uncertainty of their pursuit of the Gorgon — but he’d never been aboard the train, and it was in motion, and it might have taken him ages to find the right shadow. Never mind that he’d have to carry along all of the nets and weapons he’d gathered to catch Medusa. And they had agreed it was wiser if they were together when they located her again.

  It soured Squire’s outlook considerably, knowing he was holding them back.

  The road curved northward and soon they lost their view of the Aegean. Only then did Squire realize how much he had appreciated it. The sea was the only thing worth looking at from the road. Sure, they had seen little villages sprawled on either side of the highway, but there was not much chance to appreciate them while whipping past them at eighty miles per hour. The isthmus that connected Athens and its surroundings with the Peloponnese was a part of Greece that deserved a more casual approach. Squire would much rather have been meandering through seaside villages, sampling the local cuisine at each stop. At that moment a piece of spinach pie would have gone down very nicely.

  But from the highway, and without the gleaming Aegean to remind them of their location, the landscape could have been a hundred other places.

  Squire glanced at Clay. He was intent on the road, hands at ten o’clock and two o’clock like the poster boy for auto school. But the shapeshifter’s eyes kept moving, checking the rearview mirror. Every couple of minutes he would lean to one side and try to get a view of the sky out of his window. He wasn’t looking for the ghost of Dr. Graves.

  "He can’t fly," Squire told him.

  "Who?" Clay asked.

  "Who? The guy who’s got you so antsy. The reason none of us had been that talkative. Got you spooked, didn’t he, with his dirt from the Doc’s grave and whatever that thing was he did to you. Not only is he watching out for Medusa, protecting her, but he was expecting us."

  For a long moment, Clay said nothing. Squire realized that he must really be a little spooked. That didn’t sit well with the hobgoblin after all. Clay was . . . he didn’t like to think about what and who Clay was. And if he was nervous —

  "Hey, I killed the idiot once," Squire added.
"We can do it again."

  A car whipped by them on the highway doing nearly a hundred miles an hour, judging by how quickly it passed them. Neither of them bothered to comment. Clay gave Squire a sidelong glance.

  "Over time I’ve learned that anybody who comes back to life after you kill them is usually much harder to finish off the second time around."

  Squire rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. You’re a font of wisdom. I’m just saying he’s maybe hard to kill, but that doesn’t make him special."

  "All right, then tell me about him. Tassarian. How did you kill him the first time?"

  The hobgoblin grinned. He leaned back in his seat and put his boots up on the dashboard. "Now that’s a memory I cherish."

  They passed a small town to the north of the highway but he could see nothing more than the sides of buildings and cars going by on the roads. It had been twenty years — more — but his recollections were crystal clear.

  "Used to be, every couple of years Conan Doyle would send me on a little acquisition trip to buy — or, ah, otherwise get my mitts on — some ancient weapon or other. Some of ‘em he wanted because they had special attributes, enchanted swords, an ensorcelled quiver of arrows, that kind of thing. Others he just had his eye on. Of course the ones he just wanted he wouldn’t have me steal if they were in a museum. But the lion’s share of these beauties are owned by private collectors who didn’t come by them any more honestly than I did."

  The car jittered over a section of cracked pavement, hitting a pothole that Clay did not even try to avoid. The shapeshifter glanced at Squire.

  "That thing you’re doing right now? It’s called a tangent."

  The hobgoblin shot him a gnarled middle finger. "Anyway, Tassarian worked for Nigel Gull. I’d met him a couple of times before that. Gull and Conan Doyle have history, obviously. Can’t stand the sight of each other, but they keep tabs. Run in the same circles, too. So it was inevitable they’d bump into each other now and again. Especially with Conan Doyle looking for Sweetblood.