by Luke Romyn
"Hold it!" snapped Wes. "What is that shit?"
Kharon raised his dead eyes, the only feature which didn't look like Heracles. "It is the antidote my master consumed; the one designed to create immunity against the Olympian root which did this to your friend. How do you think my master remained untouched?"
Wes hesitated. "If that shit hurts him, I'm gonna cut this bastard's head off and wear it as a condom right before I find out some way to kill you. Is that understood, Casper?"
"Everything... except for the word 'Casper'."
"Yeah, well don't worry about that. Just make sure my buddy is okay," grunted Wes.
Kharon lifted the jug once more to Talbot's lips. Plenty of the liquid splashed and dribbled from the sides of his mouth, but enough made it in for him to reflexively swallow. Within moments the doctor's eyes began to clear, and he swayed slightly. Kharon caught him, and Talbot was lowered to a sitting position, coughing several times before noticing Kharon and pulling himself free of the Ferryman's grasp, rising swiftly to his feet.
"You alright there, princess?" asked Wes, still positioned to strike Hades should Kharon betray them or Hades awaken.
Talbot looked around at Wes, his eyes blurry. "What happened?"
"This asshole," Wes nudged Hades, "put some of that shit that makes you go all passive into the air. At first I didn't understand why you were getting so tense, but soon realized something was going on. When you blanked out completely I played along just to get Herpes here to show his cards. He wanted fuckhole there -" Wes indicated Kharon with a nod of his head, "- to suck you off and take over your language shit. You know what I'm saying?"
Talbot really had very little idea, but he nodded, still groggy. "Why didn't it affect you?"
"Why didn't what affect me? Oh, you mean that mesmerizing shit. I just decided not to listen, that's all. It's like when that bitch was singing to me out there. I heard her the same way I felt the pull of this stuff, I just didn't listen to it, that's all," Wes said simply, leaving Talbot with more questions than answers.
Talbot put aside the growing enigma of Wes for the time being. They had bigger problems. "So what do we do now?" he asked.
"First things first. You!" Wes indicated Kharon with his chin while still keeping his weapon poised above Hades. "Move over and face that far wall now, or I'll skin Hemorrhoid here and dry-hump his bones."
Kharon's eyes narrowed. Wes sensed the Ferryman was contemplating attacking him. He pressed the point of the sword down hard on the back of Hades's neck, slicing the skin and causing the electricity to crackle loudly.
"Are you going to make me repeat myself?" asked Wes. Reluctantly, Kharon shuffled to the far wall and stood facing it.
"Doc, I need you to start this thing up." Wes pointed at the gate controls. "Can you do that?"
Talbot nodded, swiftly moving to the stone panel and rapidly pressing the controls. Within moments the Stonehenge-type structure in the center of the room began to rotate, accelerating faster and faster until with a loud clap it disappeared and was replaced with the inky quality of a dimensional rift.
"You need to go first this time, Doc. But before you go, give me a hand with this bastard. I want to get him closer to the rift so I don't have to run too far before that freaky fucker gets me." Wes nodded toward Kharon.
Talbot came over, but before they began to move Hades's large frame, Wes unbuckled the scabbard the Olympian wore and swiftly looped it into his own belt. They each then grabbed an arm and dragged Hades across the floor to the edge of the rift.
"Quick, you go," ordered Wes. "I'll keep an eye on our Ferryman friend over there."
Talbot nodded, quickly ducking his head and diving headlong into the rift.
***
Wes glanced back at Kharon, seeing he hadn't moved from the wall, and he allowed himself a grin. Rising, he pressed his palm flat upon the stone control panel, praying it had the desired effect.
Several symbols lit up at his touch and the entire tablet of stone suddenly flared, illuminating everything like an intense flashbulb. Wes turned and - blinking rapidly to clear the dots before his eyes - saw the rift shimmer and shrink to about half its size. He didn't have long before it reset and collapsed completely.
Taking a single step toward the wavering rift, something suddenly clamped around his ankle. Snapping his gaze down, Wes saw Hades was partially aware, enough so for him to grab a hold of Wes's leg with his right arm.
"Kharon!" bellowed the prone lord. "Get him, Kharon!"
The Ferryman shot across the floor at a bewildering speed, malice radiating from his inhuman eyes.
"Fuck it!" snarled Wes, bringing the sword of Chiron down as hard as he could on Hades's arm, severing it completely at the shoulder before leaping backwards into the collapsing rift. Strangely, as grievous as it was, Hades's wound didn't seem to bleed.
Wes didn't have time to marvel the incident. Just as he stepped into the rift, Kharon leaped for him, but was too late. The rift snapped shut like a bear trap, cutting off the Keres before its clawing hands managed to grasp him.
CHAPTER 13
This rift seemed different from the others, and Talbot felt as though he were shooting through the barrel of an enormous gun, thrown forward with incredible velocity. The rift seemed to slowly twist and turn until Talbot had the impression he was pointed downwards, though there was no sort of gravity in the rift, so he couldn't be sure which way he was truly aimed. He shot through the kaleidoscopic tunnel, moving faster than thought -
And then it ended.
There was no warning, no tapering off of speed. It just stopped, and suddenly Talbot found himself falling....
Falling....
He seemed to drop for an eternity. Initially Talbot had let out a yell of terror, but after his scream tapered out, he was still falling. Now he forced himself to remain calm and look around.
Obsidian walls skidded past Talbot, looping past him in a full circle at least a hundred feet wide. The light was dim, but Talbot could see the inky stone with its slight illumination. Below him was nothing. The pit just seemed to drop into darkness forever. But something was emerging from that darkness....
Some sort of creature possessing a huge mouth brimming with needle-like fangs darted directly for him out of the dark. Its skin was like toughened leather as Talbot bashed it aside with a backhanded blow. Whatever it was, it was small enough, only about the size of a large dog with wings, that he had conquered it with simple brute force. Its wings were like those of a bat, and as Talbot struck out at it, it spun away into the obsidian stone, hitting hard and sticking to the wall like a fly in honey. The wall then opened up like a nightmarish maw, swiftly absorbing the creature into it.
It all happened so quickly that Talbot couldn't believe what he'd seen. He glanced at the walls shooting by all around him. They appeared to be solid stone, but he hadn't been mistaken; the flying thing had been swallowed whole, he was certain of it.
Twisting his body through the air, Talbot moved as close to the center of the pit as possible, trying not to think about what would happen when he reached the bottom. He spread his arms and legs like a skydiver in an attempt to control his fall as much as possible.
Talbot had time to think while he dropped through the unending pit - after he stopped his heart from beating about a billion times a minute. For a time he wondered how the creatures of Tartarus without wings had escaped - there was no way for them to scale the walls. But then he remembered various references to other, smaller rifts tearing open. That must be how the creatures escaped into Hades, Olympia and Earth.
A disturbing thought occurred to Talbot. One that made his heart hammer once more in his chest.
How the hell was he going to get back to Earth?
A sound from above caused Talbot to twist his body mid-air once more. Hurtling through the inkiness he saw Wes, head down and arms to his sides streaming towards him like a bullet. He seemed to be calling Talbot's name at the top of his lungs, yet the sound ba
rely reached him.
As Wes spied him, he instantly flattened his body, leveling out and slowing his descent. Within moments he was beside Talbot.
"Hey, how ya doing?" Wes yelled over the wind buffeting them both.
"Stay away from the walls," Talbot called back. "They'll suck you in if you touch them. What happened back there?"
"Shit broke loose, you know how it goes. I came through that rift like a crap riding a super-lax surfboard! Shit was falling down all around me after I shut down the control panel and the rift started to close."
"You shut down the panel?" asked Talbot. "How will we get home?"
Wes shrugged mid-air. "Buggered if I know. Not that way, that's for sure. Maybe there's a back door in this place."
"I hope so," muttered Talbot. "What do we do now?"
"Have a nap," replied Wes, closing his eyes.
"Have a nap?" asked Talbot incredulously, but Wes seemed to have already dozed off.
Looking around, Talbot thought about it. The walls were far enough away now that they posed no direct threat. Despite his fear, fatigue was desperately heavy upon him. What if he just closed his eyes? Just for a little while....
Beyond all reason, Talbot drifted into a light doze. It seemed like weeks since he'd slept. Flying creatures tried to invade his thoughts, but he pushed them away. Whatever was going to happen would occur whether he stressed about it or not. Worrying wouldn't change a thing.
The wind rushing by him was like a whispered lullaby....
***
Talbot hit the ground hard, waking instantly, winded and bruised. Several moments passed before he was able to sit up and probe himself for injuries. Apart from what felt like deep bruising to his chest, there appeared to be no adverse effects from the fall -
The fall!
Talbot glanced around and saw Wes squatting nearby, Chiron's sword in his hand. He scanned the area for enemies, giving no indication he'd suffered any injury from the landing.
"What happened?" asked Talbot.
Wes didn't even look at him. "The wind coming up through the pit just got stronger and stronger until it began to slow us down. When we hit the ground, the impact was about the same as if we'd been wearing a parachute."
Talbot cast his gaze around swiftly, finally looking directly above, into the sky, and seeing the yawning exit from which they'd just emerged. It was like a gigantic ebony whirlwind suspended in the sky, opening downward, the obsidian walls fading away at the edges, wisps of black floating away like ebony steam.
Was that what it was, some sort of trans-dimensional tornado?
At the moment it didn't matter. They had survived through some miracle of physics which should not exist, drawing one step closer to completing their mission.
Talbot glanced around. Yep, this was definitely the place.
The ground was more like flesh than soil or rock. It was even pinkish in color, and sticky. As Talbot's feet lifted, it seemed as though he were walking on flypaper. He had the unpleasant sensation of standing upon a gigantic tongue.
Looking to the sky, clouds of pure black eddied and swirled through a hazy atmosphere. Nothing beyond the clouds - which stretched from horizon to horizon - could be seen. Talbot had no idea what color the heavens of this world were, but the charcoal clouds were enough to make him feel hemmed in and oppressed.
"Where do we go?" asked Talbot.
Wes glanced at him. "How the hell should I know?" he retorted. "You're supposed to be the guru."
"Oh...."
Talbot hadn't thought this far ahead. The entire time he'd either been led or fleeing for his life; none of the responsibility for finding their way had been on his shoulders. What the hell was he supposed to do now?
Scanning the horizon, Talbot looked for a sign of something, anything, which would tell him where to go. Wes pulled a compass from his pocket, but after glancing at it simply shook his head. "Fucking thing just lies there like a hooker on sedatives."
We'd better move, thought Talbot. But where do we go?
It was like a desert; a land without water or life, much as Hades had been, though it did offer more color. Thinking of water made Talbot realize how thirsty he was, checking his canteen, he found it still half full and took a small sip.
Damn it! There had to be some way to tell which direction to go.
"How about we have something to eat?" said Wes, pulling two MREs from his pack and throwing one to Talbot.
Talbot looked at it - scrambled eggs. Oh boy. What was this going to be like? He'd eaten a roast beef one earlier, and imagined the box it came in was probably tastier, but it was food, and it was hot. It might even help him to think.
They sat down, waiting for their meals to cook in the chemical 'ovens', both of them constantly checking the surrounding area in case of attack. The one good thing about the landscape was that nothing could sneak up on them. Then Talbot remembered the sphinx which had erupted from beneath the earth and those hideous crab-things on the beach.
Who cares? he thought. Things were swiftly mounting against them, and as Wes had said back in Hades, worrying about the little things wouldn't stop them from happening.
He ate his scrambled eggs in silence, thinking they had a texture similar to sodden tissues filled with snot - and probably the same flavor too.
"What's that?" asked Wes suddenly, interrupting his thoughts. Talbot followed where Wes pointed and spied something.
It was miles away, but Talbot was sure it hadn't been there earlier. At this distance, it was impossible to make out exactly what it was, but judging from its size - not that such a thing was a definitive factor when talking about the creatures they had already faced - the dark smudge looked to be some sort of tower.
Now they were faced with a conundrum - should they head toward the only thing they had seen since coming to this world, or run from it? It could very well be something meaning them harm, but it was stationary... or at least it looked stationary.
Where the hell had it come from?
"Screw it," muttered Talbot, throwing away the rest of his snotty dinner. "Let's go and find out what that thing is. If it's bad, I'm sure you'll find a way to kill it."
Wes laughed, throwing aside his own meal and slapping Talbot on the shoulder, checking that Chiron's sword was still in its scabbard at his hip. "That's the spirit! Face it head-on and figure out what to do when you get there!"
They walked for hours... or at least an approximation of hours. Without being able to see the sun - if there even were a sun behind those inky clouds - they had no way to tell what part of the day it was. Nor could they fathom how long they'd been here.
The dark smudge didn't appear to get any closer. Glancing back, Talbot couldn't see the exit from the Pit now. It was almost as though after disgorging the two of them onto this plane of existence, it had simply vanished. Part of Talbot wondered if it were some kind of optical illusion which would re-appear should they return to the same spot. Another part ridiculed him for thinking about things not concerning their current predicament.
The black smudge hovered just out of reach for their eyes to fully focus on it. In one instant it appeared to be a tower of some sort, in the next it looked like some kind of huge, lumbering creature. Talbot couldn't tell if it were moving away from them, or if it were merely a complete illusion - this world's version of a mirage.
They didn't talk. At this point they were beyond small talk. It wasn't like they could have a chat about the fact that at any moment Talbot expected something to tear through the ground or materialize from the very air and kill them. Maybe he could mention the fact that part of him wished this very thing would happen, that this entire mess would finally end, and everybody would stop relying on him.
Talbot plodded on; each step talking more energy than the last as the tackiness of the ground leeched his energy.
He looked up once more, noticing Wes had now pulled ahead, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. What could he be thinking? Was the commando, even n
ow, developing some sort of strategy for what they were about to come up against? Or was he merely reciting lyrics from a Kylie Minogue single in his head?
That was the thing with Wes; you could never tell what he was thinking. On the surface he seemed like a joker, a clown looking for a laugh. But Talbot suspected the commando's humor hid something, something painful from Wes's past which he held at bay by making jokes. What could have hurt the man who appeared to fear nothing?
Perhaps he feared nothing because he had already lost everything?
The thought came to Talbot suddenly, like a bolt out of the blue - or black, as it were, the ominous clouds swirling overhead.
Wes was completely nonchalant when it came to matters regarding life and death. He fought without thought for his own safety, risking his life in a crusade which most would have fled from at the first chance. No man who loved life actually sought these things out.
The more Talbot thought about it, the more the pieces seemed to fit. He gazed at the back of the SAS commando, thinking he now saw a man searching, yearning for a way to die.
"Stop staring at my arse, Doc," said Wes without turning around.
"How did you know that?" asked Talbot. "I mean, how did you know I was looking at you? Not the bit about your ass."
"My buns were burning," replied Wes, turning around and giving Talbot a wink. "It's okay Doc. You're only human."
"But I wasn't...." Talbot trailed off, spying something rapidly approaching across the sticky desert. "What's that?" he asked, pointing.
Wes shot a hand to his pack, dropping it from his shoulders. The other drew the sword of Chiron from the scabbard at his left hip. The entire action was accomplished with such an economy of movement it would have left Talbot speechless - if he weren't suddenly terrified by the sight of something rapidly approaching with no sign of any impediment from the tacky surface of the ground.
