by Luke Romyn
Gritting his teeth, even though they constantly shattered and reformed, Talbot focused on what he had to do.
Talbot held onto one single thread of consciousness within the maelstrom of anguish. He clung onto the hope that if he made it through this agony, he might have a chance to redeem himself against his past selfishness.
He'd always been a selfish bastard, he understood that now. When his mother had died, Talbot had withdrawn inside his own misery, shutting himself off from the only other person in the world who had ever cared for him: his brother.
Thomas had loved him, had always been looking after him, even when he'd fallen into his selfish bouts of depression. His brother had cared for him unconditionally, always the one to reach out - trying to mend the split that had opened between them when their mother had died. Thomas had been the one always trying to make up for something which had never been his fault.
For Talbot had blamed his brother for their mother's death; though he hadn't recognized it at the time.
Thomas had stoically borne the brunt of Talbot's anguish, not complaining as Talbot had lashed him with words of fire and acid. They were words which could never be retracted, but still Thomas had reached out, trying to stay close through the years.
It was Talbot who'd refused to take any of Thomas's phone calls, and it was only the rare occasion when he hadn't bothered to screen his calls that one slipped through. Those conversations were always one-sided, as Talbot refused to embellish on any of the answers which were eventually torn from him.
As he lay within the worst physical and spiritual torment imaginable, this was the thread of hope which Talbot hung onto: that somehow he might find some sort of redemption in this life.
Thomas had a son.
Talbot had never visited in the three years since he'd been born, though he'd always meant to. In that child lay the only hope to drag his selfish ass away from the hole of misery he had dwelt within ever since their mother had passed. The fact that he might save the world in the process was secondary; in this moment of his purest agony everything else burned away from Talbot's consciousness, and he realized what really mattered -
His nephew. His namesake.
The only other person alive who bore the same bloodline as him, also bore his name. Thomas had called his son Talbot.
What the hell had he been thinking?
In this moment, everything became so clear in Talbot's mind that if he still had the ability to breathe he would have gasped. He wanted a family. He'd lost everything and told himself he only needed his work. But you can't lie to yourself forever; Talbot understood that now.
His mother had died, and he'd needed someone to blame. It couldn't just be a simple act of fate, it had to be somebody's fault. He'd told his brother it was because of him that their mother had suffered so horribly. For a man used to dealing in facts and logic, Talbot had acted with remarkable stupidity.
And now his brother was also dead.
Another bolt of agony passed through him, stronger than the rest, but Talbot ignored it. He relaxed completely within the vortex and allowed it to shred him utterly - no longer resisting the powers which sought his ultimate demise. He would not fight any longer.
With a loud thud, Talbot landed on something solid, knocking the breath from his lungs with a Whoosh! He struggled, gasping on the ground, but then suddenly: Breath!
Even amid the discomfort of his winding, Talbot appreciated the beauty of being able to breathe once more, sucking in a huge gulp of air. It tasted and felt wonderful.
Remembering they were supposed to arrive beyond the rift, Talbot scrambled awkwardly to his feet - sudden panic flooding through him. He was in... he was in...
... somewhere purple?
Talbot was alone, standing atop a small gray-earthed mountain, about twenty feet from the edge of a craggy cliff. The vista beyond that cliff was more than astonishing - it was breathtaking!
Stretching high above him was a sky of the most brilliant violet; like an ocean of purple velvet stretched across the heavens. Looking down, Talbot stared, mouth agape, at a landscape stretching off into the distance dotted with trees the color of emeralds and a grass so blue it seemed painted. It gave Talbot the impression he was gazing at a solid ocean beneath a sky painted by a Van Gogh. Green clouds could now be seen floating high above.
This was not what Talbot had been expecting Tartarus to look like, not by a long shot.
A cacophony arose from a stretch of azure trees below him and Talbot watched a flock of bat-like creatures rise from the forest, squawking like geese as their thick, membranous wings carried them away from whatever had startled them. Talbot shook his head, turning away from the wondrous landscape -
- and coming face to face with a massacre.
Strewn before him were thousands of mutilated corpses. They were centaurs. Talbot had thought it wrenching to watch the centaurs on the other side of the Syrpeas Gate getting slaughtered, but this was worse. Much worse.
A massive, fortress-like log wall, complete with ramp-accessed towers, surrounded what appeared to be a sprawling village. The structures were alien and large, but after meeting with Chiron and his warriors, Talbot understood their construction was due to the horse-like bodies of the centaurs. The gateway entrance - a thick, steel-reinforced structure at least a hundred feet tall - lay smashed and broken. But this was not the worst of it. Not by a long shot.
Tiny foal-like bodies topped with the torsos of children were crushed and cut to ribbons along with the bodies of the female centaurs, all of whom bore weapons. This had been the final line of victims, trapped with the edge of the cliff behind them, as something - it must have been Porphyrion - cut through them mercilessly. Talbot turned away from the scene and retched onto the blue grass. Logic said they weren't really children... but his heart told him the truth.
Why would something do this? What had Porphyrion gained from such slaughter?
The rift.
Following the trail of devastation, Talbot realized the King of the Gigantes had come from the direction of the forest beyond the fortress walls, destroying the village's defenses as he moved. But if Porphyrion had come from the direction of the forest, then that meant....
Talbot retraced his steps, this time going all the way to the edge of the cliff. Several small stones trickled over the ridge as Talbot looked out, left, right and finally down.
Swirling horizontally below him was the rift - the sister of what Chiron had called the Syrpeas Gate. Talbot hadn't had much time to survey the gate as he and Wes -
Where the hell was Wes?
Realization struck Talbot, and he spun around in a full circle, almost losing his footing, managing to catch his balance just before he plummeted off the cliff. Somehow the thought of repeating the agony of the rift was even more terrifying than if the cliff fall merely ended in death. He never wanted to go through that again. And then there was the issue with the pyramid on the other side being collapsed, would he emerge into the midst of destruction? Talbot shook the thought away and looked around for his companion once more.
Wes was nowhere to be seen.
Now Talbot was faced with a dilemma. Did he take off in search of the machines which promised to close the rifts, or did he wait here for his protector, knowing that every moment he stayed in one place drew more of the nightmarish creatures toward him?
Not a nice thought.
Talbot eventually decided to wait in the hopes that Wes would somehow emerge from the rift. He had a feeling it had only been dumb luck which had allowed him to pass through into this place, but wondered if that luck could be duplicated for Wes. Thomas had gone through the Syrpeas Gate with a full squad of soldiers without drama - at least none that he knew of - but Talbot feared it had been because either his brother knew about the nature of travelling through the rift, or that this one was somehow different from the one in Atlantis.
Talbot sat down on a large rock near the edge of the cliff and waited. Hefting a thick branch
like a club didn't help his confidence much, recalling the power and speed of the creatures opposing him. Heck, he might as well have been holding a matchstick.
Talbot looked at the sky, gazing up at the red sun. He had heard somewhere that stars of different ages were different colors, and as such this one was theoretically much older than Earth's yellow sun. A white flamed sun was hottest, and theoretically had the most amount of fuel to burn. Then followed blue, yellow and finally red. As far as Talbot knew, a red sun was the last step prior to extinction and rebirth as a supernova - an expansion of matter which eventually sucked in on itself and whose incredible gravity formed what was commonly known as a black hole.
Shaking aside the physics lesson, Talbot gazed around at the landscape. This was definitely not what he had expected from the Greek version of Hell. Tartarus was supposed to be much darker, surely. While the alien landscape certainly appeared imposing, it hardly seemed supernatural. It was more like a separate planet, not a different dimension. Even Captain Benedict's description of their first trip into Tartarus had been markedly different.
Talbot remembered the haunted expression upon Benedict's face as he retold what had happened to them beyond the rift. This place seemed almost a utopia in comparison. If not for the scene of the massacre before him, Talbot would have though this world to be almost peaceful.
Time ticked by.
Around twenty minutes passed, and Talbot rose to his feet, shaking his head in frustration. There had been no sign of Wes, despite Talbot peering into the rift several times to check. He didn't want to wander off on his own, but there was really very little option. He had to go on.
A tremendous roar bellowed from the blue forest beyond the barricaded centaur village, and Talbot noticed several bird-like creatures take flight in panic, huge trees launched effortlessly to the side like kindling as something gargantuan hurtled through them toward Talbot.
The ground began to shake.
Talbot began to tremble.
He had nowhere to flee to. The edge of the cliff was behind him and the high timber walls of the fortress barred escape in any other direction. Talbot momentarily contemplated hiding within one of the centaur dwellings, but swiftly discarded the idea. Whatever was coming knew he was here. He couldn't hide from it.
Talbot was tired of running. A trembling anger began to rise within him, giving him the strength to stand straighter, holding his chin slightly higher. These bastards had been scaring him for too long, and he'd run too far. People had been sacrificing themselves trying to protect him, and what had he done? Nothing. He'd scampered from one place to the next, always guarded by others willing to die for him, always waiting for some sort of instruction.
A part of Talbot withered and died in that moment. Anticipating the demise of his physical body, something inside Talbot shriveled and disappeared like smoke in a hurricane.
Talbot wasn't going to run anymore. He would stand and die like a man, something he'd never been throughout his life. Talbot had always looked at men like Captain Benedict and Wes and scoffed. They were arrogant peacocks rushing around trying to increase their own status in a world which craved heroes. Talbot had sneered at their efforts to make the world a better place, deeming it a pointless exercise.
Wasn't it?
Captain Benedict had died horribly preserving Talbot's life, and Wes was now trapped within a limbo, a place worse than any sort of torture Talbot could imagine. And yet Talbot knew both men had acted without thought, not regretting their decision if given the chance. If they could somehow be given the choice again, Talbot knew - knew - they wouldn't think for a second of doing anything differently. Those men were heroes, not peacocks. The least Talbot could do now was to try to emulate their strength. The creature finally broke clear of the trees, spotted Talbot, and roared once more.
Talbot's new-found courage almost fled at the sight of the beast. It was so far beyond anything he could have imagined that his knees instantly weakened. But Talbot swallowed his fear and straightened himself once more. He would die a man, no matter how terrifying the carrier of his death appeared.
The beast that emerged from the blue forest stretched nearly to the treetops But what set it apart were its arms... all of them. Talbot couldn't tell exactly, but he guessed there had to be close to a hundred arms, each powerfully-muscled. They sprouted from all over the immense torso, covering the creature's upper-body completely. And then there was its head....
Or rather, its heads.
Above the multi-limbed torso sprouted a horrific multitude of heads, dozens of them, probably close to fifty. Some boasted blonde hair, others brown or black, while still others gleamed completely bald. They seemed to operate independently of each other, moving individually, but all were currently gazing hatefully toward the village.
The creature pounded the ground dramatically with several massive fists, making the ground itself shudder, almost causing Talbot to lose his footing. Talbot savagely fought down his panic and stood his ground as it charged toward him once more.
He would not cower.
He would not flee.
Never again.
And bizarrely, facing down the most terrifying thing he had yet come across, Talbot felt a strange peace fill him. In accepting his fate, he had lost his fear. It was an incredible feeling for the normally timid archaeologist.
He was free.
Talbot actually laughed out loud before reigning his relief back in. He couldn't let it go too far. Hysteria crept within that laughter, and he wanted to be in full control of himself when he died. He had nothing else left except his pride.
The beast covered the distance between the blue forest and the walled-in centaur village quickly. It reached the gap in the wall and tore into it, throwing logs aside like kindling, enlarging the hole in the gateway.
Its heads swung one way, and then the other. Peering around, looking for something. And finally it spied Talbot.
A chorus of multi-tuned voices bellowed in unity, the force of which knocked Talbot backwards, but he retained his footing and stared coldly back at the beast.
The beast charged once more, directly at Talbot. The archaeologist didn't flinch. He was ready for this.
Talbot smiled.
Dust plumed up around Talbot as the gigantic creature screeched to a halt directly in front of him, rage glowering within its many, many eyes.
"WHERE IS PORPHYRION?" the beast roared through fifty voices, all blending into one.
Talbot stepped back, more from shock at the question than anything else. He'd been prepared for death, not an inquisition. He assumed the creature was speaking in Elder-tongue, but couldn't tell.
"Err.... He went through the rift," replied Talbot uncertainly.
The monster's heads swiveled, taking in the bodies of the dead centaurs, grief clearly displaying on many of its faces.
What the hell is going on now? thought Talbot.
"Where is Chiron?" grunted the beast through one of the heads still facing Talbot. Its voice, while still rough, held a remarkably softer tone now.
"He went through the rift with some of his warriors to protect the other side. They were killed when Porphyrion came through."
Several eyes closed in sadness while other faces burned with obvious rage. "You come with me now," the beast said. "Boss said you must come, so you will come. I not kill you yet."
"Well, that's reassuring," murmured Talbot. In a louder voice, he said, "Who are you? What is this place?"
The beast's multiple necks craned to peer down at him. "I am one of three. We called Hecatonchires. Mine name Briareus."
He had heard of the Hecatonchires brothers before. They were three giant-like creatures who supposedly battled alongside Zeus in the war between the Greek gods and the mighty Titans, finally helping Zeus overthrow the powerful Elder-gods of Greece.
Talbot looked up at the fifty-foot-tall figure who had called himself Briareus. None of this came as a surprise to Talbot anymore. The events over the
past few days - was it only days? - had worn smooth any delusions he had of knowing what the hell was supposed to happen within the universe.
"Where do you want to take me?" asked Talbot.
The enormous Briareus pointed half a dozen arms back in the direction he had emerged from. "I take you to boss," three voices began, quickly replaced by a different four heads. "I not kill you yet," they said, repeating their seemingly reassuring message from before, but Talbot couldn't discern if there were a specific emphasis on the word yet.
He remembered something. "You never answered my question from just before," he said, but was met with a look of puzzlement from Briareus. "Where are we? Is this Tartarus?"
The look of puzzlement seemed to wash from Briareus's fifty faces, replaced by one of amusement. Laughter rang from several mouths. "We are in Olympia," said one of the heads, others apparently chuckling at the stupidity of the little man. Briareus turned his colossal body away and began walking toward the ruined gateway.
"Of course we're in Olympia," muttered Talbot to himself. "Where else did you expect to be? Kansas?"
Still muttering, Talbot followed the giant, part of him wondering if he'd get eaten for asking the massive creature for a ride.
CHAPTER 9
The space between worlds tore at Wes, much as it had Talbot, if not worse. Because where Talbot had ceased resisting, Wes fought back, harder and harder. It was not in his list of qualities to surrender to anything, and with the most important mission of his life hanging in the balance; he wasn't going to learn how to lose now.
His soul tore apart for the hundredth - or was it the millionth - time since entering this place, and Wes screamed soundlessly. He would not give in.
When Talbot had mysteriously disappeared from beside him, Wes had tried to fight, to swim, to kick, to cry. Anything to stay beside the man he had vowed to protect. He wouldn't fail.
