The Pillars of Hercules (56 page)

“Hell no,” said Leosthenes. “Too well defended.”

“But we’ve at least got a diversion going,” said Agathocles.

“And not much time to use it,” said Xanthippus.

They didn’t have
any
time at all. They were already sliding down ramps from the orbit of Ares to that of the Sun, but they weren’t going to make it. Because the Macedonians had pulled a fast one on them—they’d known about the secret rails that no planet would ever traverse.
The hairy star
—that’s what Eurydice had said as they watched the railcar soar down across the Earth—and then on another rail altogether, up toward the Moon. The hairy star. It had beaten them. It meant they had lost.

“And how come you didn’t know about it?”
demanded Eurydice.

Barsine shrugged. “I never claimed to have perfect knowledge of this place,” said the thing inside her.

“Then how the fuck do they?”

“They shouldn’t. There’s some other factor at play here.”

Eurydice looked like she wanted to strangle her. “Maybe one of these other
royal bloodlines
you keep yammering about?”

Barsine said nothing—just led the way off the ramp and onto the Sun’s orbit. Though it was a lot more than just an orbit. It was a crystalline sphere, stretching out in all directions, practically translucent, the glow of Sun just visible from behind the disc of Earth, since it was night up here. Lugorix glanced up at Ares high above them, was startled to see those fucking
snakes
already reaching down to its orbit, past all the wreckage that littered the orbits above. They were like some kind of cosmic infection—they would fill up this place until they had consumed all flesh. He suddenly became aware that Barsine was tapping him on the shoulder. He whirled around. She gestured at the sphere upon which they were standing, and for a moment—just a moment—he thought he saw the real Barsine flickering behind those eyes.

“I need your axe again,” she said.

Chapter Twenty-Three

E
umenes gritted his teeth as the Moon filled his vision, covered with patterns of dancing shadow and dappled light, patterns that coalesced into… what? Some said it was the face of an old man, some said an old woman, and some could see her faithful dog from the years of her youth right there beside her, while still others said there was a trickster rabbit in there, a rabbit with a human face and a mind cleverer than any man had any right to be.

All of which caused problems for sorcerors and scientists alike (whatever they were in the mood to call themselves). Celestial bodies were supposed to be perfect, and yet the Moon was very evidently not. Aristotle had said it partook in the corruption of the Earth itself—was marred by the weight of the four elements—and that was why it looked so unlike any of the objects above it. But certainly the builders of the machine that had operated through eons beneath the core of Earth had taken care to render their Moon faithfully. It had unique standing. Not just because of its imperfection…

“This is it,” said Ptolemy as the rail veered in toward the Moon, curving in amidst those lunar valleys. The rail led straight in to one valley in particular. Its sides closed in around them—and then so did the roof. They came to a halt in a gigantic cave.

And then they saw the thing that lay inside it.

The blaze-battling operation inside the Helepolis must have been getting things under control, because the smoke that had been billowing up the stairs was starting to die out. Still, it had bought the intruders some time—they’d gotten up four more levels on that vertical ammunition belt and then made their way along a catwalk that led right above a series of ballistaes, all of them lined up along the front of the Helepolis and flinging rocks out ahead of them as fast as their gunners could pull the projectiles off the ammo belts and reload. Diocles noticed that they were now within range of central Syracuse—that the sky was practically black with projectiles chucked by the Helepolis, crashing down upon the heart of the city. But the defenders were still trying to give as good as they were getting: streaks of fire and balls of stone kept ripping in toward them, crashing against the structure. It was hard to miss. But doing some real damage was another matter altogether. Perhaps the great machine’s armor had been penetrated in some places, but the single best way to hurt those aboard was to get a lucky shot through one of the portals through which the gunnery teams were firing. Diocles couldn’t help but notice that some of the ballistaes over which they were climbing were smashed, along with the bodies of those who been manning them. He saw his own fate in that torn and crumpled flesh—and then the view of Syracuse outside swayed as the Helepolis began traversing down the steepest portion of the Epipolae plateau’s slopes. But the siege-tower stabilized itself once more, continued its relentless progress. The catwalk ended in a hatch. Leosthenes kicked it open.

Lugorix smashed his axe into the sphere of Sun. Cracks spiderwebbed out from where Skullseeker’s blade was buried—then he pulled back the axe and raised it high above his head for another blow.

“This seems like a terrible idea,” said Matthias.

“No one’s interested in your opinion,” said Eurydice.

That wasn’t quite true. Lugorix was. But he knew better than to make an argument of it. He smashed the axe down again; the cracks he’d already created got wider and spawned their own cracks, rippling out around the four who stood there. Far below he could see orbs that had been pointed out to him as Aphrodite and Hermes: the only planets which were closer to Earth than the Sun itself.

But it was the Moon that everybody was interested in. Barsine had explained the plan for getting there, and it was the shittiest that Lugorix had ever heard. That he was the one setting it in motion endeared him to the scheme not in the slightest. But if it came down to certain death by falling versus getting chewed to bits by the maws of those things that were sidling down toward them, that had left Ares behind, getting ever closer… for a moment he permitted himself a look at all those myriad teeth and eyes—it was the eyes that were the worst, they looked so human. But no human face was ever so hypnotic…

“Finish this,”
hissed Barsine.

The next blow from his axe did just that.

“What in the name of all the
gods?”
breathed Ptolemy.

“Exactly,” said Eumenes softly. “The gods.”

Anyone else would have trouble claiming ownership. The machine was several times the length of Eumenes’ ironclad, though it wasn’t much taller: it stood barely two ship’s masts in height. It sat atop a series of low wheels and was the shape of a crescent moon, its extremities sweeping back from the men who stared at it, so graceful it looked almost more organic than mechanic. Eumenes was reminded of some great bird. But this bird had a ramp that led up into its belly.

“We have made it,” said Kalyana as he led them up that ramp.

“Made what,” said Ptolemy.

“Like you need to ask,” said Eumenes—even as he ducked to avoid the dagger that Ptolemy was hurling at his head. It missed by inches, clattering against the wall behind them. Both men drew their swords while Kalyana backed out of the way, deeper into the room they’d just arrived at. It was lined with rows of windows and crammed with banks of lights—there were things that looked like levers and gears and dials amidst them, but they weren’t of a sort that Eumenes had ever seen. And right now he didn’t really have time to study them because he was too busy fending off Ptolemy. Sparks flew in front of his face as their two blades clashed together, each searching for an opening, each seeking to deny the other. Ptolemy and Eumenes had fought together for years, and not just side by side either. They had been matched in the ring since they were boys—were among that chosen group of youths who were Alexander’s own sparring partners, and as such were the only men alive to have ever managed to have broken past the king’s guard. So now they fought as they’d never fought before—no holds barred, no practice moves, each seeking to slit the other’s throat, penetrate the other’s chest, disembowel the other as they battled with the
xiphos
in the dance could only have one ending.

And finally Eumenes achieved it.

He feinted at Ptolemy’s neck—but then struck low, slashing his leg with a stroke that brought the larger man to his knee, then kicked him in the face hard enough to send teeth flying. Ptolemy was on the ground, blood streaming from his mouth. Eumenes stepped in toward him, raised his sword.

Something sliced through his back.

Right through his spine—he dropped, both legs paralyzed in a single instant by the blade that Kalyana had just used on him. Though really it looked like more of a whip—Kalyana pulled back his hand, snapping the bending blade back in toward him, letting it wrap around his wrist, back beneath his cloak…

“An
urumi,
” said Kalyana in a manner that was almost apologetic. “My people know it as the coiled sword.”

“I thought you were… no warrior,” muttered Eumenes. His back was sticky with blood.

“The stakes are too high to allow me such luxury,” said Kalyana.

“Which allowed us to come to an arrangement,” said Ptolemy. He pulled himself painfully to his feet, standing on one leg while he tore strips of cloth from his cloak to bandage his other. But all the while he was grinning down at Eumenes.

“Fuck,”
said Eumenes. “He’s been working for
you
.”

“And now it’s time to go to work,” said Kalyana.

At first Diocles thought he was looking out into the engine-room of the Helepolis. But he’d already seen that room, near the base of the structure. This was something else—an enormous shaft that cut down toward the lower levels, filled with a whole network of pulleys and gears to which were attached huge rectangle-shaped stones that rose or fell depending on the minute adjustments that members of the crew were making. The entire system groaned and creaked, obviously under enormous strain. In a flash, Diocles understood: the stones were counterweights. They were the Helepolis’ brakes—the mechanisms which allowed the Helepolis to descend steep slopes without losing control.

Which of course was why Leosthenes had led them to this room.

“Somehow I knew I’d find you here,” said a voice.

They looked up—a man wearing the uniform of a Macedonian general stood on a platform on the other side of the room. Leosthenes seemed to recognize him.

“Perdiccas,” he said. “So nice to see you again.”

For just a moment, the universe was nothing but shards of light—all those countless pieces of heliosphere as they shattered all around like some vast sea of glass crumbling. Lugorix barely had time to swing Skullseeker’s straps over his shoulder and do exactly what Barsine had told them all to do: grab onto one of those shards.

And fall.

He had both hands on it, was suspended below it as it dropped. But it was descending nowhere near as fast as he would have thought. To his astonishment, it was doing exactly what Barsine had said it would—wafting down like a leaf caught in an autumn gust, slow enough to make him wonder if he was actually going to survive, fast enough to outpace all those terrible heads above. Below him he could see Matthias and Eurydice clinging to a larger shard; even further below them was Barsine, shifting her body back and forth as though she was being buffeted by some kind of wind. It seemed to Lugorix that he could literally see the waves that wind was making, ripples in the substance through which they were all plunging. But that was why she’d been so emphatic that they had to follow her—she’d said the aether got thicker the closer one got to the terrestrial sphere, and that if one knew how, one could ride its waves as though they were really some kind of liquid.
Stay in my wake and you’ll survive,
she said, and they were all trying to do just that as she twisted and turned like an acrobat, riding the aetheric currents past Aphrodite, shining out green amidst the darkness—and then past Hermes, an orange hue set against the backdrop of the Earth. Then for the first time Lugorix saw the Moon from above—nothing on it he recognized, no man in the moon, nothing that formed any pattern, just pock-marks, endless fields of them as though they contained all the universe’s distemper…

“The ancients built to last,” said Kalyana.

Eumenes could only writhe on the floor as the Indian sage went about his work—turning dials, pulling levers, shifting knobs. A humming noise filled the room, rose steadily in volume, accompanied by a vibration that rumbled through the place.

“Shall I?” said Ptolemy.

“By all means,” replied Kalyana.

Ptolemy sat down at one of the chairs that stood on a raised dias up against the forward windows, wedged in between banks of instruments. There was a whirring as what might have been a miniature version of one of Aristotle’s lenses descended from the ceiling, suspended on a slender metal arm. Ptolemy pulled the lens toward him, stared through it out at the lunar cavern that lay outside the window. A hatch slid open in the chair’s armrest. A slab rose from that hatch. It contained an indentation shaped exactly like a human hand.

“Keyed to the bloodline,” muttered Eumenes.

“Yes,” said Kalyana. “Which Ptolemy partakes in. How did
you
think to bypass it?”

Eumenes grimaced. “Alexander gave me one of his fingers.”

Ptolemy was aghast.
“Cut it off
and
gave
it to you?” But Kalyana just nodded. “Exceedingly generous of him,” he said. “Then again, I’m sure he was exceedingly anxious to possess this chariot.”

“Chariot,” said Eumenes. “Is that what you know it as?”

Kalyana looked like he was choosing his words carefully. “For me, it is the chariot of Krishna. For you perhaps it is the wing that gave Hermes flight. For Ptolemy—”

“It’s power,” said Ptolemy. “Just that. Nothing more.”

“Spoken like a pragmatic Macedonian,” said Kalyana. “I think that’s why I enjoyed our conversations so much, Eumenes. You have all the imagination and wonder of your people, so why do you serve another?”