Beyond Hades

by Luke Romyn

  He couldn't give up, not after all he'd been through.

  His brother had died trying to correct this thing.

  Men had given their lives trying to protect him.

  He couldn't give up.

  His feet seemed to move even slower, but Talbot pushed on, the flapping of metallic wings becoming thunderous. In fact, it began to sound more like something else, almost like....

  Talbot glanced around to his right and gasped before tripping, rolling end over end down the gradual slope, finally stopping in a heap. Wes ran straight over to him, grabbing him by the collar and hauling him easily to his feet, but Talbot breathlessly stopped him when he tried to move on. Instead, he silently pointed toward the new threat he'd seen just prior to falling. The commando followed the direction his arm indicated, and Wes's jaw dropped as he saw what Talbot meant.

  Thundering toward them from the opposite side of the cavern to the stymphalian birds were creatures of legend. Huge horses' bodies, larger even than the biggest Clydesdale, ended at the shoulders and merged seamlessly with the muscular torsos of men - but men twice the size of any Talbot had ever met.

  Centaurs.

  Hundreds of them hurtled in a wide line toward Talbot and Wes; the sound of hooves striking the sandstone. They were already close enough for Talbot to see each carried a bow, all flawlessly drawing back a shimmering arrow, aiming expertly....

  Directly at the stymphalian birds!

  The ceiling of the cavern momentarily disappeared as hundreds of glowing arrows shot straight over Wes's and Talbot's heads, into the mass of monstrous birds. The arrows did not stop at a single strike; they viciously hewed through the ranks of the birds, killing scores with their power.

  Scores of stymphalian birds dropped from the sky and the rest paused. "They're too far away to counter-attack," observed Wes. "They don't have the range."

  Within moments another volley of centaur arrow-fire smashed into the birds' ranks once again, slaying dozens more. The few that remained turned mid-air and fled, and Talbot watched them go, breathless with wonder, before realizing they hadn't necessarily been rescued. What was on the centaurs' agenda to have assisted at such a time? Did they simply want Talbot for themselves?

  He'd know soon enough. The massive creatures galloped toward him and Wes, slowing as they neared, calmly trotting up and surrounding them. Talbot reached over, putting a restraining hand on Wes's shoulder, who glanced at him before nodding and lowering his assault rifle. They couldn't fight their way out of this one.

  A single centaur moved forward.

  Talbot studied the beast as it approached them. It stood even larger than his initial estimation. Judging from the centaur's torso, if it had been a man, he would have stood over eight feet tall and at least three times as broad as a wrestler from television. The creature had a bestial face, crossed between human and lion, light tawny fur covering its cheeks. Yet it peered at him through startlingly intelligent eyes.

  It halted several yards away from them. "Which one of you understands what I am saying?" it inquired, its voice surprisingly eloquent.

  Talbot glanced sideways at Wes, seeing only confusion upon his features. He grimaced, looking back at the centaur, and then stepped forward. "I understand you."

  The creature stared down at Talbot, no emotion creasing its features. "We are here to assist you," it said simply, "just as we assisted your ancestors when the Syrpeas Gate was foolishly opened the last time."

  "Syrpeas Gate? What's that?" asked Talbot, aware that Wes was staring at him, not comprehending a word of what he was saying.

  "The Syrpeas Gate is the doorway between our realms. Someone here must have opened it again. We thought you would have learned from the mistakes of the last time, but apparently not."

  "Oh, the rift," said Talbot. "You're talking about the rift between the dimensions."

  "Whatever you name it, the Syrpeas Gate should never have been re-opened." A note of condemnation lurked within the centaur's words.

  "Yeah, well, sorry about that. We had nothing to do with it," said Talbot offhandedly. "We -"

  "DO NOT LIE TO ME!!!" roared the centaur, causing Talbot to stumble back in fright. Wes leaped protectively in front of him, his M4A5 drawing an instant bead on the head of the centaur. Several of the other creatures moved to draw their own weapons, but were stilled at a minute gesture from their leader.

  "Wes! Wait!" gushed Talbot urgently, scrambling back to his feet. He pushed the commando aside gently and indicated he should once more lower his weapon. Wes eventually complied, albeit reluctantly.

  Talbot met the centaur's glowering stare steadily. "What are you talking about?"

  "YOU...!" began the centaur, but reigned in its emotions. "You must have been involved. Those gifted in the Elder-tongue are rare - perhaps only one born in every thousand of your years. And only those with the gift of the Elder-tongue have the ability to manipulate the machinery of the Elders. So you must have been directly involved."

  "Not necessarily," began Talbot, raising his hand as the centaur moved to protest. "It was my brother - my identical twin brother. He helped my government start the machinery."

  The huge beast stared impassively at him, a hoof scraping at the stony ground. Talbot didn't drop his eyes for a moment. He had a feeling that this was a test of his strength, and if he failed they might kill them both.

  "I believe you," said the centaur finally. "My name is Chiron, and these are my warriors." His muscular arm swept around at the other centaurs, some of whom nodded at Talbot in acknowledgement.

  "This is my...." Talbot paused. "Um... this is Wes," he finally said simply. "He tries to protect me while we attempt to find a way to close the rift - er... gate."

  "He does not understand what we are saying," stated Chiron. "He looks confused. Perhaps you should explain things to him."

  Talbot nodded and turned to Wes, swiftly explaining what had transpired. The SAS commando merely shrugged, nodding his acceptance of the change of events, and moving forward to Chiron and grasping his huge hand, to shake it firmly.

  "Nice to meet you, mate," Wes drawled in his Australian twang, even though Talbot had just explained the centaurs didn't understand a word of English. "I hope it wasn't you I shot in the arse in that fucking tunnel, but you guys should have introduced yourselves sooner. I thought you might have been one of those bad-ass fuckers, ya know?"

  Talbot shrewdly thought it best to omit mention of the incident in his translation to Chiron. "He says he is very pleased to meet you, and it will be an honor to fight alongside your warriors," he improvised in Elder-tongue. Chiron nodded, something akin to a grimace crossing his lips.

  "We must go swiftly," said Chiron. "The carrion of Tartarus will return in greater numbers, and perhaps with others; those who can overpower us with a mere thought."

  The centaurs surrounded Wes and Talbot as they began to move toward the pyramid. None of them offered for Talbot or Wes to ride them, and Talbot figured it would probably be insulting to ask.

  Approaching the towering entrance - a huge gaping hole in the middle of one side of the pyramid's base - Talbot saw something terrifying stride out from the darkness, moving toward them.

  "No," grated Chiron, halting mid-stride, "it cannot be."

  "What is it?" asked Talbot.

  "When your brother opened the Syrpeas Gate, another rift opened here. Our kind protects the entrance from the other side, and as such only the stymphalian birds were able to get through to await you here. They only managed because they were upon it before we were fully aware it had opened. My brethren and I followed them through, emerging just in time to see them attack you.

  "Our kin are able to stop all but the most powerful from getting through the Syrpeas Gate." Chiron paused, his enormous arm stretching out and pointing toward the figure which had just emerged from the entrance. "That is Porphyrion. He was King of the Gigantes before being struck down by Zeus and Heracles. His emergence means that my kin on the other side ar
e now dead. He would not have left any to attack him from behind."

  Talbot turned back to the figure barring their way in and realized how large it actually was. The entrance to the pyramid was at least a hundred and fifty feet high, and Porphyrion reached almost to the very top.

  The King of the Gigantes wore glinting bronze armor upon his extraordinarily muscular frame, a full-face helm masking his features. A leather kilt with bronze plating shielded his thighs, but when Talbot saw the giant's legs beneath the kilt, he gasped audibly.

  They were snakes!

  Huge and scaled, Porphyrion's legs each ended in a cobra's head where the foot should have been, bright green venom dripping from razor-sharp fangs, cutting through the dust like acid. Porphyrion drew a sword, its blade longer than Chiron was tall and moved toward them at a jog, its serpentine feet seeming to hiss with each thunderous footstep.

  Chiron turned to Talbot, grasping him by the shoulders and staring into his face with such controlled emotion that Talbot thought the centaur was about to explode into a rage, just as he had before.

  "We will distract Porphyrion while you and your companion sneak into the chamber he has just come from; the one holding the Syrpeas Gate," grated Chiron, each word carrying emotion only the centaur's dark eyes betrayed. "We will die doing this. Do not let our sacrifice mean nothing. There is more at stake in this endeavor than merely saving your world."

  Without another word, Chiron turned away and signaled his brethren, who raised their bows and turned as a wall toward the towering figure of Porphyrion. The powerful glowing arrows of the centaurs were smoothly drawn back upon shimmering strings. An almighty howl rose from the half-horse warriors, and they charged at the enormous figure, arrows soaring through the air, aimed directly for his chest....

  Where they ricocheted of his armor, bouncing uselessly away.

  Talbot gazed awestruck as he witnessed the weapons which had been so devastating against the stymphalian birds looking like mere toothpicks hurled by an unruly child. Hundreds of the glowing shafts flew, some even hitting the giant in the face and eyes, only to fall away without even causing Porphyrion to blink.

  And then he was upon them.

  With a tremendous sweep of his sword, a score of the centaurs flew high into the air. They remained undeterred, however, pouring forward, swords drawn and glowing with a deep, inner power.

  "Unless that guy told you otherwise, Doc, now would be a good time to slip past that big bastard," said Wes, causing Talbot to start. He had been so engrossed in the battle he'd forgotten the centaur's orders.

  "Yeah," he replied. "Let's go before it's too late."

  Talbot and Wes sprinted past the battle, heading for the opening from which Porphyrion had emerged. Talbot kept glancing back at the valiant centaurs as they flung themselves uselessly against the giant. One darted to attack only to have his entire head snatched from his shoulders by one of Porphyrion's snake-feet. The centaurs were being decimated, but still they charged forward.

  How could they summon so much courage? Guilt weighed heavily on Talbot's shoulders, and panic threatened to overwhelm him, finding he couldn't remember the name of the marine captain who had died protecting him during the attack on the beach....

  Was this how it was going to go? Would he forget all those who had sacrificed everything to keep him safe?

  He followed closely behind Wes as the commando skirted the edge of the enormous pyramid, both of them running as hard as they could toward the entrance. Glancing back once more, Talbot saw only a hundred or so centaurs left fighting. The majority of Chiron's force littered the floor of the dusty cave.

  The five hundred yards ahead of Talbot seemed impossible. Breath tore from his wracked lungs as he struggled to keep up with Wes. He was an archaeologist, not some damn adventurer!

  They arrived at the opening, and Talbot paused, sucking in huge gulps of air. He cast a fleeting look back and saw Chiron sliced through the chest by the massive sword of Porphyrion. The centaur fell sideways, but as he died he used the last of his strength to hurl his sword. He didn't launch the weapon at Porphyrion as Talbot would have expected, rather he threw it toward himself and Wes!

  The sword twirled through the air, end over end, finally stabbing into the hard-packed earth of the cave floor, quivering in the sandstone. Wes cursed softly before hurling himself away from the entrance, sprinting the short distance to where the sword stuck out of the ground.

  Luckily it was designed as a short-sword for the centaur, similar in size and heft as a Scottish broadsword. As such, Wes was able to wrench it free from the stone and run back resting the flat of the blade upon his shoulder.

  "Figure he threw it to us for a reason," gasped Wes. "Now are you all rested up or what, Doc? I hope so, because Mr. Fancy Pants over there is now looking our way."

  Talbot glanced back at Porphyrion and saw that the King of the Gigantes was indeed turning toward them, and though his visor guarded his features, Talbot guessed the giant wasn't too impressed with what he gazed upon. Talbot's suspicions were confirmed the next instant as a tremendous bellow resonated throughout the cavern.

  "Oh crap," he muttered.

  "Exactly what I was about to say!" shouted Wes. "MOVE!!!"

  The SAS commando grabbed Talbot and flung him through the entrance as Porphyrion charged toward them. The very ground trembled as Wes flicked on his barrel-mounted flashlight, faintly illuminating their way with the bouncing light. The illumination behind them from the tunnel entrance was abruptly snuffed out, and Talbot instinctively shivered, knowing Porphyrion had entered the tunnel.

  He stumbled through the darkness, struggling against the shuddering approach of Porphyrion. The giant's stomping footsteps echoed through the blackened passageway.

  They were done for....

  Fortunately, nobody told Wes that. The SAS commando spun easily, dropping the sword and raising his M4A5 assault rifle to his shoulder, squeezing the forward trigger.

  A faint thook! sounded and a small puff of smoke spurted from the barrel of the 40mm grenade launcher attached beneath the assault rifle.

  That won't hurt Porphyrion, thought Talbot abstractly.

  But Wes, with the instinctual reflexes of the true warrior, had taken in the entire situation in a nanosecond. The high explosive grenade hit the roof of the tunnel and detonated directly above Porphyrion's head. The giant paused, smashing its arms into the walls to halt its momentum, giving Wes time to scoop up Chiron's sword and begin running down the tunnel once more.

  The roof collapsed.

  But it wasn't just a roof. They were within one of the largest pyramids the Earth had ever seen. Thousands of tons of carved stone blocks sat precariously above the sealed tunnel.

  And now it began to come down. The combination of Wes's grenade and Porphyrion's crushing of the walls collapsed a structure which had stood for centuries.

  All on top of the King of the Gigantes's head. No matter how invulnerable the giant was, Talbot knew that there was no way it could escape the huge stones which rained down upon it now. Porphyrion's roars echoed momentarily until they too disappeared beneath the avalanche of cut stone blocks.

  Talbot hoped that would stop the giant permanently.

  But he didn't have time to find out as Wes hustled the two of them down the passageway, heading toward the center of the pyramid and down, forever down. There were no adornments along the way, just as there were no other tunnels branching away from this one. It was a one way street all the way as they tried to outrun the collapsing pyramid. Huge slabs of rock crashed down all around them and they dodged between the falling rubble - more from luck than any real skill - with only Wes's barrel-mounted flashlight to illuminate the way.

  Finally the tunnel opened out into an immense chamber with a single focal point: the sister rift of the one they'd seen within the pyramid at Atlantis. This one seemed smaller, but then again the chamber was enormous and wasn't filled with human technology like the other one. Thankfully, the rif
t was already open and they didn't need to waste time trying to figure out how to work the machinery - time they didn't have.

  Whatever Wes had hit with his grenade, it must have been integral to the structure; more and more stone raining down without any letup in sight. As much as Talbot appreciated Wes's quick-thinking and ability to stop Porphyrion, right now he wished he had more time to consider what they were about to do. But then again, if he had more time, he might not do it.

  With stone blocks the size of Volkswagens falling all around them, the archaeologist and the SAS commando dodged and weaved their way closer....

  And the pyramid collapsed completely; millions of tons of ancient stone crashing down.

  But Wes and Talbot were already gone....

  CHAPTER 8

  The universe exploded around them, and Talbot cried out soundlessly. Colors the likes of which he had never imagined flashed through his mind as every atom in his body shredded and remolded a hundred times a second. Insanity beckoned, and he tried to suck in breath only to find it impossible. There was no air around him to inhale.

  Talbot's eyeballs barely registered Wes enduring a similar torture beside him before once again detonating from within. The agony was beyond anything physical; it was as though his soul itself were being chewed away. He tried to weep, but even this release was denied him as his tear ducts were currently absent.

  He thought he might be floating, but there seemed no way to tell. While his nerves screamed at the repeated disintegration, Talbot had no time to acknowledge anything else. Time ceased to have meaning, and he felt his mind slip ever closer to complete fracture. It would be so nice to just let go of all his stress, and all of this pain. Slide away into the darkness and forget everything....

  Talbot snapped back, away from the beckoning madness, screaming soundlessly once more. He had come dangerously close to letting go. Panic roared through him as he instinctively reacted to what that might mean. The world would be overcome by the rift - indeed, the entire universe might be destroyed. He had to fight back. He had to hang on. Nothing else mattered.