Beyond Hades

by Luke Romyn

  "What the hell is it?" asked Talbot once more, unable to keep the hitch of fear from his voice.

  "I'm not sure," said Wes. "Chances are it's not Little Red Riding Hood."

  The hazy shape suddenly broke into several. These were different from the tower-like shape they had been moving toward; they moved much lower to the ground, more like -

  "It's those dogs!" Talbot yelled. "The same as the ones that attacked us when we entered Hades!"

  "No they're something else," replied Wes, his voice steady. "These things are bigger and they move differently."

  Talbot looked once again, noticing Wes was correct. The creatures approaching them didn't run like dogs, they moved more like, like....

  "Oh shit," he heard Wes announce. "They're minotaurs, dozens of the fuckers."

  The creatures were still unclear in the dim light, but as Talbot stared harder, he saw that Wes was correct. It was an entire herd of the bull-headed men, running toward them like a pack of wild dogs.

  And it had only taken one of them to destroy Atlantis.

  ***

  Jogging was not something Talbot did particularly well. He tried to hit the treadmill on a regular basis down at the gym, but he never professed to be very skilled at it. This, however, was not jogging. This was running in panic in a world where there was absolutely no safe haven.

  No, this wasn't jogging. This was fleeing in mute terror.

  Talbot's heart pounded in his chest as Wes ran alongside him, urging him along, glancing back occasionally to gauge the distance between them and their attackers. Judging from the commando's expression, it wasn't far enough

  But they were only prolonging the inevitable. This was it. Even Wes, with his seemingly limitless optimism, was beginning to look concerned. His eyes were narrowed and focused, his nostrils flaring slightly.

  "We have to stop," gasped Talbot, halting his run. Wes began to argue, but Talbot held up his hand, sucking in huge gulps of air. "I'm not going to die running," Talbot said simply.

  Wes nodded. "Good. Let's die like men," he said, a wide grin splitting his features.

  They both turned, and Talbot witnessed the entire horde of Minotaurs fanning out in front of them, increasing their pace as they closed in on the source of their hunt. Talbot's mind raced. The only chance they stood was to out-think the beasts.

  "Wes," he whispered, "don't do anything. Let me try to talk to them."

  Wes appeared dubious, but stepped aside and allowed Talbot to face the terrifying creatures stampeding toward them. He'd only get one shot at this, so he needed it to work.

  "STOP!!!" he commanded, trying to mimic the authoritative tone of General Sharpe, but also adopting the confident stance of the toughest guy he'd ever met in his life - Wes.

  He failed.

  They were going to trample them to death.

  Talbot felt Wes's hand on his shoulder, but shrugged it off. He'd face his death the way he should have lived his life - like a man. He held a proud, confident stance, glaring at the minotaurs as they charged at them.

  "I said HALT!!!" Talbot boomed.

  And amazingly, they did.

  Skidding on the tacky terrain, the horde of beasts all tore at the ground - fighting to stop. Talbot held the stance, determined to not show any sign of the shock he felt. He was going to hold this bluff until the end. All of the beasts stood up on their rear legs, the shortest still at least six inches over seven feet tall, the largest pushing ten feet in height. All of them glowered with equal malignance down at Talbot.

  "Who's in charge?" demanded Talbot.

  The beasts looked at each other, uncertain. Finally one stepped forward. "I am herd leader. What you want?" Its voice was rough, and Talbot guessed it was unused to speaking. He glanced at Wes, noting by the incomprehension etched across the commando's features that Wes couldn't understand them. So whatever language he now spoke with the minotaurs was not Olympian.

  "We mean you no harm," said Talbot, his hands open.

  The lead beast snorted, mucus spraying upon Talbot. "We eat you, stupid human!" the minotaur roared. Wes realized the threat, even if he couldn't understand the words, and he attempted to step forward, but Talbot once more motioned the commando back.

  "What then?" asked Talbot. "What will you do once you've eaten us?"

  The huge, muscular beast tossed its head around, red eyes glaring murderously, but without a direct reason, it seemed unable to attack. Following its lead the rest of the herd also stamped feet and snorted, but otherwise made no overtly threatening moves toward Talbot or Wes. Confusion seemed to radiate from the group. Their prey was supposed to flee, not ask questions.

  "We...." The lead minotaur paused, uncertain.

  "I tell you what you'll do," said Talbot. He suddenly noticed the scars many of the beasts bore. "You'll return to being bored, passing time in this existence by simply raging against each other. Do you enjoy attacking each other? What is your name?"

  The lead minotaur glared at him, confusion etched across its bestial features. "Name? I have no -"

  Suddenly, its head was gone, along with the heads of several of the beasts standing close by. Talbot's gaze shot to Wes, but judging from his expression, the commando was just as surprised as Talbot by the sudden attack on the herd of minotaurs.

  Both men glanced around behind them, the rest of the herd scattering, fleeing, panic-stricken back the way they'd come. A solitary figure was approaching their location. As he came closer, he raised his hands to show he was weaponless. Wes still held Chiron's sword ready. Nothing could be taken for granted in this place.

  The man - or whatever he was - looked much taller than Heracles or any of the other Olympians they had seen, and dressed in a simple loincloth. His lean muscularity made him look slimmer than Heracles, yet he appeared almost as dangerous, but in a different way. Whereas Heracles had seemed like a lion, this man appeared to be a cobra - sleek and full of peril.

  A fluttering of wings sounded, and the towering figure raised his right forearm. A great, golden eagle swooped low over Talbot's and Wes's heads, blood and bits of flesh from the decapitated minotaurs hanging from its razor-like claws and its sharpened beak. It shot in as a blur to land on the tall man's forearm, its claws digging deep into the flesh, which appeared to heal immediately without spilling a single drop of blood.

  "Who the hell are you?" demanded Wes.

  The man drew even closer, and Talbot peered up at the newcomer. Standing around double Hercules's height, the man's alabaster skin appeared blemish- and hair-free, apart from the short curly locks which framed his sculpted features. Within his angular face were a set of ebony eyes without iris or pupil, merely dual black orbs. Gazing into them, Talbot felt vaguely unsettled. He had seen special effects in movies similar to this, but these were not merely contact lenses over normal eyes, these eyes were something else entirely. What resided within those sockets were spheres of swirling, black smoke - much like the black clouds hovering overhead.

  "Who -?" Wes began to repeat.

  "I am Prometheus, human, and I expect some semblance of respect for the fact I just saved your lives."

  "I was doing okay," countered Talbot.

  "You were merely delaying the inevitable. Confusing them was a good tactic, but ultimately doomed to failure. Their hunger and lust for violence would have soon overridden anything else, and you would have been torn to pieces."

  "You speak Olympian," said Talbot, picking up on the fact that Wes seemed to understand the words. "But why do I think you're not from Olympia?"

  "Do not insult me," said the figure, a small sneer marring his features. "I am as far removed from those pompous fools as you are from the beasts you just faced."

  "You seem pretty pompous yourself," Wes snapped, with his usual lack of subtlety.

  Rather than insulting the figure, however, it seemed to intrigue him. He appeared to contemplate what Wes said momentarily, his expression introspective. "I suppose you are correct," he eventually replied.
"But I believe I have earned that right, especially from humans like you."

  "You know of Earth?" asked Talbot.

  "Of course. In a sense, I helped your people more than any other during my time there. Tell me, do the gardens of Babylon still hold images of me?"

  "The Hanging Gardens?" asked Talbot incredulously.

  "Yes," replied the tall man. "I believe some called them that. Do they still bear statues or frescoes of me there?"

  "The Hanging Gardens of Babylon disappeared centuries ago," said Talbot. "How long since you were there?"

  The tall figure looked thoughtful. "It must have been several decades, but I do not think it would be centuries. It is hard to keep track sometimes." He suddenly slapped his palm to his forehead. "Of course! I forgot about the difference in our timelines. It would have been centuries for you."

  "I don't mean to be disrespectful," said Talbot, "but what are you?"

  Prometheus appeared shocked initially, but gradually broke into a wide grin, though it did nothing to reduce the unearthly quality of the swirling, ebony orbs where his eyes should have been. Talbot also noticed that the newcomer appeared to have no eyelids either, something which bit deeper into Talbot's nerves than the appearance of his eyes.

  "I am a Titan," replied Prometheus simply.

  "What the fuck is a Titan?" interjected Wes before Talbot could say anything.

  "A Titan?" For a moment Prometheus appeared to be beyond words. "That's like me asking you what a human is. It is what I am; I am a Titan. We originally ruled Olympia, but were driven out by the ones who now reside there. Now we are forced to exist in this living hell; a place where torment becomes a constant thing as the environment itself conspires against our sanity, and the air we breathe tries to make us into beasts such as those you have just seen." He waved his hand in the direction the minotaurs had retreated.

  "You mean this place, Tartarus, is what creates the mutations?" asked Talbot.

  "Of course," replied Prometheus. "Why else did you think these things were so warped? How could something so obscene be created naturally? No, the people who inhabited this realm before us conspired against the land in such a way as to poison everything with their waste."

  Talbot glanced at his hands nervously.

  "It does not happen like that," said Prometheus. "It takes many generations of the toxins seeping into the skin or being ingested for any mutations to be evident."

  "Who lived here before?" asked Talbot.

  Prometheus grinned mirthlessly. "For you to be here, you must have met them already. They are the only ones we have ever come across with the technology to open the gates between dimensions," he began, a small trickle of animosity seeming to leak into his tone. "They're the ones who created this land of horrors; the ones who poisoned the air, water and earth are also the ones who expelled my kind into this realm. The Olympians."

  "You've gotta be shittin' me," muttered Wes. Talbot nodded absently in agreement, his own mind twisting at the revelation.

  "Did they invade your realm - I mean Olympia?" asked Talbot.

  "They came there once this place became too desolate for them to survive for more than a few more generations. We fought as well as we could, but their technology was too advanced, such as this wondrous bird," Prometheus indicated the eagle sitting with its claws wedged deeply into the flesh of his forearm, which had healed around them. "This incredible invention was created by one known as Hephaestus, who was something of a weapons inventor. If I'm not mistaken, he devised that dangerous-looking sword your companion is carrying. Yes?" He indicated Chiron's sword, which Wes still carried in his right hand, the bands of electric energy running up and down the three-foot blade.

  Talbot nodded, noticing for the first time that the eagle shone like bronze, rather than boasting real feathers, and its beak was indeed razor sharp - it was made of metal!

  Prometheus continued. "Hephaestus created this creature as a torment for me, for when they found I could regenerate flesh at a vastly accelerated rate, they captured and bound me, setting this one to tear at my flesh until I died from starvation or thirst. Luckily, however, I was able to manipulate myself loose and managed to retrain this wonderful creation to be my aid, rather than my enemy. It helped me escape and fight the Olympians right up until they forced us through the Syrpeas Gate and into this realm." He tickled the side of the artificial eagle's head, and it cocked it slightly in response.

  "Why would they want to hurt you like that?" asked Wes. "What did you do to them?"

  "Why... I helped your kind, of course. Do your texts not tell of this?" asked Prometheus. The skin around his cloudy orbs furrowed slightly.

  "No," answered Talbot, "not that I know of."

  "Ah well, history is always written by those who win, and we did not," mused Prometheus. "I aided your people when the Olympians tried to invade your world after seeing it as an easier target than my own people. This is why they had to return to my world, I am the one who caused the rift gate in Atlantis to overload and sink below the ocean to a place even the Olympians couldn't reach. They returned to my world - which we called Gaia, but they renamed Olympia upon their conquest - and waged war upon my people, eventually casting us into the pit you undoubtedly travelled to get to this place, and they stole our world, making it their own."

  There was a deep, bitter note within Prometheus's speech which made Talbot believe his words.

  "But Zeus told us the Olympians returned to help expel the creatures of Tartarus from Earth," Talbot said.

  "Did he also show evidence of his ability to enter your thoughts?"

  Talbot nodded, and Prometheus continued. "Then did it never occur to you that he would then word his answers to coincide with events which you would be most likely to believe?"

  "I... well, no. I hadn't thought of that," Talbot replied. He glanced at Wes and saw he also wore a concerned expression.

  "The Olympians always were incredible manipulators." Prometheus gazed intensely at Talbot, flicking the swirling black orbs over to study Wes also, who returned his gaze calmly.

  "I will take you both to meet the leader of my people, a man named Kronos," said Prometheus. "He will advise us on what action we are to take."

  Prometheus turned and, without another word, began walking back the way he had come. The giant eagle released its grip on his arm and took flight, soon becoming a speck in the blackened sky.

  Talbot looked at Wes who merely shrugged, sheathing the sword of Chiron. What choice did they have? Talbot shrugged also, and the two of them turned and followed Prometheus across the sticky desert toward the unknown.

  CHAPTER 14

  Talbot and Wes followed Prometheus toward the gates of a colossal city, surrounded again by walls stretching toward the sky. The dark-gray seemed somehow alive in the dim light. Instinct, some deep primal voice within Talbot said anything touching that surface would be in serious trouble - and he was reminded of the walls of the pit consuming the creature which had attacked him.

  Swallowing down his trepidation, Talbot straightened his stance and relaxed his jaw, which he'd unconsciously been clenching so hard his teeth now hurt.

  The gates - huge, stone structures reinforced with black steel ribbons - opened outward upon their approach, like the jaws of an enormous beast. Talbot stopped, his breath catching in his throat as something emerged from within.

  It was a tiny puppy.

  A tiny puppy with three heads and a tail of snakes.

  Cerberus.

  Apart from the obvious details, Talbot noticed the dog was actually quite small - about the same size as a fox terrier - with a thick, black, glossy coat and tawny markings around the eyes and mouth.

  Talbot glanced at Wes, but the commando seemed unperturbed. Wes had no idea that this was the creature which had torn apart the troops protecting Talbot's brother, and possibly Thomas along with them.

  The tiny puppy trotted straight up to Prometheus, who stooped to allow one of its three heads to sniff his h
and. "This is Kerberos," the enormous man said. "He is the guardian of our city; do not take his stature at face value."

  "It killed my brother." The words escaped before Talbot even realized it. From the corner of his eye he saw Wes glance at him, and then back at the three-headed puppy. His hand tensed on the hilt of Chiron's sword.

  "Your brother?" asked Prometheus, turning to face him. "What do you mean?"

  "My brother came here with some troops from my world in an attempt to close the rift from this side. They got as far as here before that thing," he pointed a shaking hand at Kerberos, "emerged and tore them to pieces. My brother died trying to delay it long enough for the others to retreat." He gazed at the tiny beast, hatred growing within him. Kerberos began to growl, the sound deep in its tiny throat, seeming to vibrate the very ground. Wes stepped in front of him.

  "Your brother? You mean the one called Thomas?" asked Prometheus.

  Talbot's gaze shot back to Prometheus. "How do you know that?"

  "Because Thomas is here. I thought you knew that."

  Talbot stared at Prometheus, hardly aware as he stumbled backward and fell on his rump. The words weren't registering. Talbot had finally gotten used to the idea his brother was dead.

  Thomas couldn't be alive. Was this some kind of cruel joke?

  "But the soldiers heard him scream," argued Talbot.

  "Your brother communicated what was going on directly with Kerberos. The sound those men heard was Kerberos calling for myself. It is indeed very similar to the sound of a human scream."

  "How did his brother communicate with the dog?" asked Wes.

  "I am not sure," said Prometheus. "It is something which is beyond the knowledge of any of the Titans, and he himself could not explain it. All he could say was that when the bullet hit him, he -"

  "Bullet? What bullet?" asked Talbot, scrambling to his feet.

  "Your brother was hit with one of the projectiles called bullets. It was fired by one of the warriors trying to fight Kerberos."