The Pillars of Hercules (52 page)

“I’m… fine,” muttered Barsine.

“Hey guys,” said Matthias,
“where the fuck are we?”

That wasn’t clear, though other ladders and platforms were visible in the distance. Strangely, although they were presumably still in the tower, the overall space around them seemed to be far wider than the tower itself. Lugorix had no idea how that was possible.

“The center must be above us,” said Eurydice, pointing back the way they’d come.

“What?”

“The center of balance. The summit of those waterfalls. Maybe all that water is condensing out of all that mist. I don’t know. All I know is—”

“There’s something else below us,” said Matthias.

Lugorix looked over the edge of the platform. It took him a few moments to decide that his friend was right. There
was
something down there in the mist—in fact, it was almost indistinguishable from mist, shimmering here and there, practically transparent. But it wasn’t mist. It was something else. Not that far below them either…

“What
is
that?” he heard himself asking.

“Need to… get closer,” said Barsine.

Matthias pointed. “That’s the only ladder down from this platform.”

But even as he said that, they heard noises above them—the Macks yelling back and forth to each other. Like they were still dealing with those snakes. Even as they closed in on their quarry…

“We need to climb down,” said Barsine.

But as Lugorix looked at the ladder, he noticed something. “It ends in midair,” he said. “Too far above whatever’s down there.”

“But it gets us closer,” said Barsine. “We need to get
closer
.”

Lugorix shrugged. He bent down, got onto the ladder when—

“No,” said Barsine. “I’m going with you.”

“You
can’t,
” said Eurydice. “Don’t you realize you’re sick?”

“Can’t be helped,” replied Barsine. She was practically doubling over now in pain.

“Listen to me,” snarled Eurydice. “It sounds like you’re
miscarrying
. For pity’s sake, lay down and let me tend to—”

“I
can’t
,” Barsine said. And then, to Lugorix: “In the name of any love you may bear me,
get me down this ladder
.”

“Don’t do it,” said Eurydice.

“Shut up,” said Lugorix as he bent down and helped the stricken Barsine onto his back. Then he began to climb down the ladder. Eurydice shrugged, turned away. Matthias had his bow out, was scanning the mist and ladders above for the first sign of those Macks. Lugorix rapidly descended, Barsine clinging to his back—maybe a hundred rungs or so.

After which there was only air. Lugorix held onto the lowest set of rungs, struggling to control his vertigo, staring down at whatever it was that was shimmering in the mist. Now that he was closer—maybe only about ten yards above it—he could see it was somehow reflecting the light…

“It’s a
mirror,
” said Barsine.

Lugorix realized she was right. It
was
a mirror—or a series of them fixed together—as though each one was the facet of some great gemstone. Its dimensions were hard to tell. It seemed to run parallel with most of the platform. But—and now he was squinting—were its edges falling away off in the distance?

That was when he noticed something else—something right on the surface of those mirrors.

“Moving pictures,” he said. “Like the ones when the
Xerxes
is submerged.”

“What?” said Barsine—she turned her head to see.

“But they’re not reflections,”
said Lugorix.

And the surface below them obviously wasn’t just a mirror either. Now it looked like they were gazing into water—a shimmering pool of water, with
images
appearing and fading away on that surface. Lugorix wanted nothing more than to get away from it. It took all his willpower not to climb back up the ladder. He was directly above some kind of witches’ scrying device—one of their magick cauldrons, perhaps. It occurred to him that maybe it was Barsine who was the real witch—or at least Damitra’s apprentice. But he glanced back at her, couldn’t help but notice that she seemed as astonished as he was. He started to say something, but Barsine motioned him to be quiet.

So he just clung onto those rungs and stared.

The image was of a city that Lugorix recognized: Syracuse. Only some of the buildings he knew weren’t there, and there were others he didn’t recognize. Athenian soldiers were being paraded through its streets, their hands bound in captivity, flanked by Syracusan soldiers. But their uniforms and weapons were somehow… off. And they were accompanied by
Spartan
soldiers too.

“Their uniforms are from a century ago,” said Barsine.

“But Athens
conquered
Syracuse,” said Lugorix. “This is the—”

“—other way round. Yes.”

The image faded, to be replaced by another: that of generals and retainers clustering around a man laying in a luxuriant bed. The room might have been a palace. The man might have been a king. And he seemed to have just died—mourners were wailing, and slaves were wiping the last beads of sweat from his brow.

And now sweat was running down Barsine’s too.

“That’s
Alexander,
” she said. Her voice was shaking. “Back at Babylon.”

“Maybe it’s prophecy?” said Lugorix.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “He took ill, in just this way.
But he lived
.”

“What?”

“This is something
that didn’t happen
.”

No sooner had she said that then she began convulsing—foaming at the mouth, clutching her hands around his neck, muttering deliriously to herself. In a near-panic, Lugorix started to climb back up the ladder. There was nothing else he could do.

But that was when he heard the repeated twanging of Matthias’ bow.

“They’re
here,
” yelled Eurydice. Lugorix quickened his climb.

Yet as he did so, a voice sounded right next to his ear. It was speaking his name. It was using Barsine’s mouth.

But it wasn’t her.

“We have them,” said Ptolemy.

Eumenes certainly hoped so. The Persians only had one archer, but he was a serious pain in the ass. He’d already wounded one soldier and killed another, and neither of the slingers had adequate armor to have a hope of withstanding his arrows. Hanno assured him that on normal terrain that wasn’t such a huge problem—they just had shieldbearers stand in front of them—but on these ladders, none of the Macedonians could effectively perform that role. The only real way to approach the platform where the Persians seemed to be trapped was to climb face downward, shield out, and hope you could maneuver that shield against any angle the archer might be able to get. That was what Eumenes’ soldiers were trying to do now.

Problem was, the hydra was behind them. At least several heads were only a few hundred yards back—Eumenes’ initial fear that they were for all practical purposes indefinitely long had proved to be true. The only piece of good news was those heads continued to prove vulnerable to the slingers’ rocks. They’d already nailed four of them, smashing those beautiful faces into mushy pulp, after which the necks on which they were attached withdrew. Eumenes thanked the gods—did thanking the gods even make sense any more?—that he’d never seen more than a fraction of the bulk of the hydra’s body, which presumably was still just sitting there in the waters beneath the tower. Hell, it never even needed to
move
—all it needed to do was send out its undulating heads. Kalyana had suggested that it might actually be a type of
plant,
one that automatically went into accelerated-growth mode in the event of intruders.

Not that Eumenes gave a shit about that. He was much more concerned about whether those heads might be coming in from multiple directions—like from the flanks, for instance. Anything was possible, especially with the weird-ass gravity of this place. Even Kalyana had no idea what
that
was all about. The Vedic scholars had always believed that objects naturally tend to fall toward the center of the universe. So the idea that gravity could suddenly reverse itself made no sense.

“Unless we’ve
reached
the center of the universe,” said Eumenes.

“I had hoped it would be a cleaner place than this,” muttered Kalyana.

“What the hell did you do with Barsine?” said Lugorix. He was as comfortable with the notion of possession as any superstitious tribesman. Possession he could deal with. What he couldn’t deal with was having its arms draped around his neck. Every instinct within him wanted to climb like crazy for the platform above. But those arms had tightened onto his windpipe, along with a single word from Barsine’s own:

“Stop.”

So he stopped. He couldn’t tell how he knew that it was no longer Barsine’s voice. There was almost no difference. Perhaps it was slightly deeper. Perhaps it was slightly higher. Perhaps that was the problem—there was a curious ambiguity to it that made it tough to pin down—an odd factor that just didn’t sound fully human. He twisted his head to look at Barsine’s face but it wasn’t like her eyes were glowing red or her tongue was lolling out or anything dramatic. There was just a curious absence—as though Barsine was no longer home. To be replaced by an undeniable
presence
that sent chills up Lugorix’s spine.

“What did you do with her?” he asked.

“I need you to climb down to the last rung,” said the voice.

Lugorix clambered on down. “What did you do with Barsine?” he repeated, looking down at nothing below save mist and mirror.

“Now I need you to jump,” said the voice.

“Are you nuts? The fall will kill us both—
aarrgh
.” This as the grip on his neck tightened. “Just do it,” said the voice.

“Did you already kill her?”
Barsine’s grip tightened still further. Lugorix let go one of his hands, and grabbed her arms. Under normal circumstances, he should have been able to pull her hands away from his throat and release the pressure. Clearly these weren’t normal circumstances. Her grip was like iron. But all of a sudden the grip relaxed.

“No,” said the voice, “I didn’t kill her.”

Lugorix took a deep breath.
“Because she’s your fucking mother?”

The arms of Barsine grabbed his own and pulled him off the rung. He and Barsine plunged more than thirty feet—and suddenly slowed down about ten feet above the transluscent surface as the gravity simply gave out, cushioning their fall—but not totally, for its pull resumed just below that. They hit the surface—Lugorix grabbed Barsine by both arms—only to be shoved aside by her.

“You’re going to do what I say,” she said. “Take your axe and smash”—she looked around the curved surface at their endless reflections, seemed to be picking out a certain point—“smash
that
mirror there.”

“Hey,” yelled Matthias, “what’s going on down there?”

“Just jump,” shouted Lugorix. “Otherwise the Macks will kill you anyway.”

There wasn’t much doubt about that. Lugorix could see the first of the Macedonian soldiers coming down out of the mist, climbing downward like a monkey, his shield facing Matthias, daring him to try something. Matthias fired off a single shot—the arrow hit the shield and stuck there quivering. Then he grasped the ladder and started climbing down, Eurydice following behind him. They reached the ladder’s bottom, stared down at Lugorix and Barsine.

“You want us to
jump?”
yelled Eurydice.

“I don’t really care what you do,” yelled Barsine—and when projected, her voice was so strange that Lugorix had no doubt that Matthias and Eurydice were realizing something was up. And then, to Lugorix:
“Now smash that mirror.”

But as Lugorix raised his axe to do that, something humanoid plunged past the platform and struck the sphere. Unlike he and Barsine, it didn’t sprawl when it hit. It landed on its feet.

It was a golem.

He hadn’t realized the Macedonians had brought one down here—and neither did Barsine from the look of shock on her face. It had the helmet of a hoplite but its eyes were dark. Its mouth was expressionless, and its body was as metal as the broadsword it held—a Thracian
rhompaia,
good for both cutting and stabbing. Which it now proceeded to do, heading toward Lugorix with a speed easily the equal of any man. He got his axe up just in time, tried to use its size to keep the thing at a distance while he gauged its reactions. They were quick: he had to use his axe’s hilt to forestall a particularly swift blow. But the golem had overextended itself—and now Lugorix swung Skullseeker forward in an arc, slicing straight through the golem’s neck, sending its head sliding away down the curve of mirror, scores of tiny gears streaming out behind it.

But the headless golem kept on coming.

“Shit,” said Lugorix. An arrow bounced off its back as Matthias unleashed from above—but it had no effect, and the Greek had to turn his attention back onto the other Macedonians clambering down toward the platform. They were running out of time. And the golem was still very much in the fight, its blade darting in and almost getting under Lugorix’s guard. There was only one way to deal with this kind of thing and Lugorix knew it. He feinted to the right, then cut left—and chopped off its sword-arm in a single mighty stroke.

Only to find the golem lunging for his neck.

It wasn’t the move Lugorix expected and before he knew it those metal fingers had closed on his windpipe. He couldn’t believe it: in less than a minute two different sets of hands had tried to choke him. But these fingers felt like they were severing his neck already. He kicked out with his legs, trying to use his bulk against it, but instead its weight bore him over backward—and then he was on his back while the creature crushed out his life. He heard Barsine yelling something at him—saw something fly through the air toward him. He reached out with one hand and caught it.

It was Damitra’s amulet—and as he touched it to the golem there was a flare of blue light and a hissing. Electric sparks ran over the golem, and Lugorix was practically blinded by the acrid smoke as a rattling noise rose from the golem’s severed neck. It twitched once more, like a living creature.