Beyond Hades (The Prometheus Wars) Read online

  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 hand. “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.”


  “Damn,” muttered Talbot. “When did that happen?”

  Prometheus looked at him quizzically. “Mere hours ago. Our physicians have been trying to aid him, but it does not look good. I was trying to find others from his group when I came across the two of you. I take it you were not with him?”

  “Of course not,” responded Talbot absently, his eyes returning to Kerberos as it trotted over to him and sniffed his dangling hand before going over to Wes who squatted down and scratched the beast behind one of its ears. The serpent tail swung happily from side to side, and Kerberos trotted back inside. Only Wes could make a demonic dog do such a thing.

  “I will take you to him,” said Prometheus.

  They strode swiftly through the thick gates and into the central boulevard of the city. The buildings were simple structures made of a hybridized cross between stone and wood. The buildings themselves were of a gigantic scale, stretching high into the sky. The other denizens must be of equal stature to his and Wes’s guide. Moments later an enormous woman with lidless eyes of swirling blue poked her head from her front door, took one look at the strangers and promptly slammed it shut again.

  “Hmm. Friendly folks, aren’t they?” muttered Wes.

  Several others exhibited reactions similar to the first woman, as they made their way through the streets, and Talbot began to think these were a people scared beyond measure; almost as though they’d spent too long seeing things which were not meant to be.

  “How long have you been here, Prometheus?” Talbot asked, skipping slightly to keep up with the Titan’s elongated stride.

  Prometheus glanced down at him, his features hard. “We were expelled from Gaia one generation ago.”

  Talbot understood the tension in Prometheus’s response. He had said it took more than a generation for the mutations of this world to take effect in their offspring, and they were swiftly approaching the time when the mutations in their children would begin to take over.

  Prometheus didn’t divert from the main thoroughfare and swiftly escorted them straight to a towering four-storey structure, its thick stairs carved directly into the hillside leading up to the strange-looking building. The narrow, window-like slits across the front of the structure, its thick, reinforced doors and the wide space cleared around the front of it suggested it had been designed with defense in mind.

  Hauling open the front doors, Prometheus strode inside. Talbot and Wes followed, pausing slightly just inside the entryway. Talbot had stopped to take in the simple majesty of the reception area, whereas Wes appeared to be ascertaining the threat level of the room.

  The ceiling rose to the height of two floors – perhaps five floors when compared to a conventional human building – and a single enormous staircase faced them. Four doorways exited the room on the ground level, one close to each corner. The design was so otherworldly in its construction that it drew the eye to every facet of it.

  Rather than looking like it had been tacked together by nails or fastened by something similar, the entire building appeared to have been molded from solid things, much as clay is formed by the hands of a master potter. Nothing appeared contrived, and the overall effect was one of intense harmony. For all their fearsome size, Talbot was beginning to think the Titans might prefer avoiding violence.

  Perhaps that was how the Olympians had defeated them, forcing them from their home world and into this barren, hellish place.

  Another Titan, a woman with swirling green eyes – or what passed for eyes in this place – met them just inside the main doors. Prometheus spoke quietly to her, finally nodding and turning back to Talbot and Wes.

  “This is Themis, my cousin. She will take you to your brother. I have been called away for urgent business, but will meet with you after. I apologize for any rudeness.” He bowed and departed swiftly up the stairs.

  Themis turned and moved up the stairs, but Talbot and Wes slowed her progress, practically having to jump up each step in order to overcome their two-foot pitch. At the top, Themis led them left and through a heavy door, moving swiftly down a long hallway and through another series of doors before stopping outside one.

  “Your brother is in here with one of our surgeons,” said Themis softly, her voice musical. “But his wound is terrible. He may not survive.”

  Talbot nodded, steeling himself for the worst. His brother had died once already in his mind, he figured he could handle it if he lost him again. Themis opened the door, allowing him to enter, motioning for Wes to wait with her, and then closing the door behind him.

  The last thing Talbot heard before the door clicked shut behind him was Wes asking Themis, “So, what’s your story, gorgeous?”

  ***

  A thin male Titan wearing light-colored clothes splashed with bright red blood looked up as Talbot entered. Talbot merely gave him a passing glance before looking at the frail figure lying in the center of the enormous, Titan-sized bed.

  It was Thomas, his skin a tinge of gray which bespoke substantial loss of blood.

  A small part of Talbot had hoped Prometheus had been wrong, that it’d been someone else wounded, but it was indeed his twin brother. Identical eyes to his own looked out from the sunken sockets of his brother’s skull, and the surgeon backed out of the room unnoticed. Talbot moved to the side of the bed and climbed onto it, gripping his brother’s hand. It was cold and clammy.

  “What happened, Thomas?” he asked.

  His brother’s mouth moved, but only a croaking sound came out. Talbot saw a cup containing water beside the bed which he picked up and lifted to Thomas’s lips. His brother took a deep sip and looked partially better, but Talbot knew the end couldn’t be too far away.

  “They lied to me, Talbot,” rasped Thomas, his voice little more than a whisper. “They said they wanted to find out if there was a threat to our world here, and then when they opened the rift they said the only way to close it was from this side. I was such an idiot.”

  “What happened?”

  “They brought me in when they discovered the Syrpeas Gate in Atlantis. At the time I never questioned how they knew I spoke the Elder-tongue, but I realized after that they had been watching me for a very long time....” Thomas took a huge gasp of air. “They’ve been planning this... for ages. There’s something here they wanted, some kind of... power source which will secure America’s dominance over the world for centuries to come.

  “In any case..., I helped them to open the gate,” continued Thomas, his breath rattling between his lips. “I knew more by the time we opened it, but I was too scared to stand up to them. That minotaur which broke through the first time damaged some stuff, and when they said we couldn’t close the gate from Earth, I just went along with it.”

  Thomas broke into a coughing fit, blood spraying from his gray lips. Talbot grabbed a cloth and dabbed at his lips once the coughing subsided.

  “They knew there was something here, Talbot. They made us come through to find it, but once we got... to the gates of this city, Kerberos knew the soldiers planned on stealing from the Titans, and he attacked them, causing them to flee. He turned on me also, but I had studied some ancient script using the Elder-tongue which had explained a language of such simplicity it could sometimes be used to placate the beasts of this world – a world our people erroneously thought was either Hades or a kind of hell, but is in fact Tartarus.”

  Talbot nodded silently, unwilling to break the momentum of his brother’s speech.

  “Anyway,” continued Thomas, “one of the stray bullets must have hit me, because right after those bastards left me, I collapsed... and the Titans brought me here. These people are peaceful, Talbot, and they’ve been persecuted. First by the Olympians, and then by our people who thought they could steal their most sacred artifact. You must help them!”

  There was so much power in Thomas’s plea that Talbot had to look away.

  “How can I help them?” Talbot asked helplessly.

  “Give them guidance,” rasped Thomas. “They ar
e a race of people strong in body, but weak in aggression. This is something to be applauded, but holds them back when dealing with issues of violence. You must help them to retake their home world; to return to Gaia before their children become beasts such as those of this world.”

  At mention of the beasts, Talbot remembered Earth’s dilemma. “How do I close the rifts, Thomas? They’ve fractured and now creatures are breaking through into Earth from here.”

  Thomas drew in another rattling breath, his skin looking increasingly more sallow by the moment. “There is no way to close the rifts from this land,” Thomas said, his words barely audible. “They lied to us both, it seems.... They want the power these people possess, but they’ll never get their hands on it. The only way to close off the power of the rifts is through the mechanisms in Atlantis.”

  Talbot looked away. “Another minotaur broke through when they tried to open the rift for me and it destroyed the base. I’m pretty sure Atlantis is completely flooded again.”

  Thomas looked horrified, his weak breathing coming in choked gasps. “Then all is lost....” Blood began to flow steadily from the corner of Thomas’ mouth, and Talbot moved to call for help, but was forestalled by the sudden intense power of his brother’s grip on his forearm.

  “Save them, Talbot...,” his brother gasped. “Save these people, they have done no harm to any –”

  The words stopped, cut short as breath ceased flowing into his brother’s lungs. Talbot looked down helplessly before crying out for help with all his might. The door exploded inwards, and Wes charged through, followed closely by Themis. They reached the bedside swiftly, but Talbot knew it was too late.

  His brother was gone. Again.

  Wes had to pry Thomas’s fingers from their grip on Talbot’s arm, such was the intensity of his brother’s final wish, a wish he had begged Talbot to secure. Talbot glanced at Themis, seeing the sorrow upon the Titan’s brow, and made his decision.