The Pillars of Hercules (59 page)

“But if it
was
all their trap, then so be it. I don’t
feel
loyalty to them, that’s for sure. Not like my father. He really
does
think the gods are talking to him, that he exists to be their loyal servant.”

“And what about you?” muttered Eumenes. “What do you intend to do?”

“What my mother wanted,” said Hercules.

They soared out into the world above.

Rising away from a cratered mountain—roaring above the greenery of adjacent coasts facing each other across a sea of sun-polished blue… Lugorix didn’t recognize any of it. But Eurydice did.

“We’re over Sicily,” she said.

Eumenes nodded. “We just got spat out of Mount Etna.”

“Had to emerge somewhere,” said Hercules as blood ran from his mother’s mouth. “There are many portals between this world and the one below. They cause no end of trouble.” Barsine’s dead hands tightened on the controls; the craft swung about, describing a long turn as it descended toward a long line spanning Italy and Sicily. Just as they got close enough to see it was a bridge of boats and ramps, flame ripped from the chariot again, long streaks of light that seared in toward several points along the bridge. There were a series of monstrous explosions. The biggest two occurred on land: huge clouds of fire rising up above the boot of Italy and the edge of Sicily.

“So much for the Macedonian supply-lines,” said Hercules. The chariot’s engines surged as it hurtled down the Sicilian coast, running due south.

“We’re heading for Syracuse,” said Eurydice, understanding.

“Yes. At the hour of Alexander’s triumph.”

“And you know this how?”

“He’s my father.” Part of Lugorix wanted to sweep Barsine’s head off with Skullseeker. Part of him didn’t dare harm the god-child she’d created in tandem with the man she’d known such terrible passion with. “He knows I’m coming for him and yet there is nothing he can do. His stranglehold on the elements is broken and his bid to conquer the world is at end.” As he said this, they saw plumes of smoke in the air ahead of them. Syracuse was fast approaching. The chariot accelerated, dipping in low toward the plateau that dominated the city. Lugorix caught a glimpse of the Macedonian army covering that rock, swarming down into the town.

Then the chariot opened up with all its weapons.

They circled back twice more, mercilessly gunning down the invaders, raining down liquid fire on elephants and men and golems as the invincible phalanx broke and fled. It wasn’t like the Macedonians didn’t try. Rocks and projectiles of every description hit the craft but nothing made a dent. The chariot veered back over the Macedonian camp and destroyed it with a single bomb while the surviving defenders of Syracuse cheered and cheered. When it was over, they roared away, gaining height, climbing out over Italy, over Europe, rising ever higher. The real disc of Earth lay below now. Yet Lugorix still found himself wondering if it was really any different from the one he’d already seen, save in size. Above them was only Sun and sky—but now he knew that the daytime blaze of that Sun blotted out all that cosmic machinery overhead.

“That’s where we’re going now,” said Hercules as though reading his mind.

“Why?” Lugorix wasn’t following. “We’ve done what you wanted to do.”

“I’ve only just
started
. You saw what’s going on down there. The war between Macedonia and Athens is over. But the real war is just beginning. The Plutonian gods are awakening. Which means someone needs to get the Olympians into the game fast. Or else rise up into the heavens and take charge of their machinery.”

“We saw how well
that
worked downstairs,” said Eurydice sardonically.

“But he’s right,” said Eumenes with the tone of someone making up their mind at long last. “We don’t have a choice. We need to find their calculator-of-worlds and switch it on so that we can….” His voice trailed off.

“Yes?” said Eurydice—and then they all saw it, another flame in the sky, a ball of fire rising up toward them out of the heart of Italy, closing on them with insane speeds. Eurydice’s face went white.

“Avernus,” she said.
“Another of those gates”
—and then the fireball hit the chariot. There was a deafening bang and this time Lugorix was hurled across the craft. For a moment there was nothing outside the windows save flame. The roar of engine shredded away into a high-pitch whining that intensified as the craft plummeted. Lugorix hauled himself back to the chair to which the body of Barsine was somehow still clinging, her hand gripping that armrest but no longer resting on the imprint.

“I need you to hold my hand there,” muttered the mouth of the woman he’d loved like no other. He reached out and did just that, grabbing onto the back of her chair as the machine stabilized slightly. But nowhere near enough—it was more of a controlled dive now, the Earth still rushing up toward them. At the last moment, the mind of Hercules or the body of Barsine or his own hope or just plain luck managed to even the thing out. They just missed a range of mountains, soared back up into the air. Ahead of them were endless plains of grass. Off to the right was a body of water…a giant lake of some kind…

“The Black Sea,” said Eumenes.

But they were moving past it, leaving it behind as they descended. Barsine’s body gripped the controls, throwing her whole weight into it, leaning this way and that as though the force of her physical exertions could somehow maintain control. But they kept getting ever lower. Endless green-brown became tractless steppes, nothing in all directions. They were racing just above the ground now.

“Get ready,” said Barsine—and this time it
was
her voice.

They hit.

And bounced back into the air, still throttling forward. And down again. And then back up—skipping through a vast plain of grassland. Each time they impacted more of the chariot broke apart and more of what remained caught fire and all the while all Lugorix could do was cradle Barsine’s broken body, trying to somehow shield the living baby within. Smoke filled his vision and noise filled his brain and finally he could see nothing and hear nothing save the tearing of metal and the roar of engines as what was left disintegrated, the craft sliding toward a halt. Even before it stopped, he was climbing out the front window, choking against the smoke as he leapt onto the wing, ran down it and jumped into the grass. He set Barsine down, then turned back to the shattered chariot. There wasn’t much left of it—but he waded back into that smoke to see if he could save anyone else. Yet even as he did so, Eurydice emerged, her face ash-black, Eumenes riding piggy-back on her shoulders while she carried Matthias in her arms.

He was dead.

There was no doubt about it. His neck was broken, his head at an unnatural angle. Eurydice was weeping, staggering, and it was all Lugorix could do to get through to her that they had to keep moving away from the chariot lest its remnants explode. He took the limp Matthias from her, led her over to where he’d placed Barsine, put his friend down beside the dead princess. And then he was kneeling beside him, holding his hands, closing his eyes, wishing him good fortune in the afterlife. But inside, he just felt hollow. He gradually became aware that Eumenes was speaking to him.

“We need to operate right now,” said the Greek.

Lugorix didn’t understand, but Eurydice did. She drew her knife and bent over Barsine. Three strokes of the blade and the noise of a baby’s crying filled the air. She lifted him out and held him for a moment—then handed him to Lugorix.

“She wanted you to keep him safe,” she said.

Lugorix gripped the baby that had called itself Hercules—that might yet call itself Hercules again. It looked like a normal baby—which was surprising given that Barsine hadn’t made it past the sixth month of pregnancy. But holding it felt anything but normal. It felt like it was his own child. And as he stared into its eyes, he realized they were odd: one was brown, the other blue. Unlike those of regular newborn babies, they were already focusing—staring up at him as though imploring.

“It doesn’t have access to adult vocal chords anymore,” said Eumenes.

“He’s going to have to grow up fast,” said Eurydice.

Lugorix held the baby close. He looked at the splintered, flaming chariot—and then at the blackened trail that vehicle had scorched through the grasslands, a line of smoke leading back to the horizon. Then he looked down at the baby again.

“We all do,” he said softly.

Three months later

Frigid mountain air blew through the evening streets of the Macedonian capital. Pella in the dead of winter was about as unappetizing a place as could be imagined. People huddled indoors around their fires and no one went out without a good excuse.

That was fine by the man who’d just entered the western gates. He wasn’t there to attract attention. He was nothing special. He looked exhausted and bedraggled and wore the dirty, tattered uniform of a veteran soldier. There were certainly enough like him right now. And there were so many more who wouldn’t be returning. The war in the West had been lost, the army destroyed, most of the bodies too charred to even identify.

Alexander’s among them.

It seemed incredible that the king who never been beaten was gone. But even more incredible were the stories told by the survivors—of how a great burning bird of the gods had descended from the skies and poured flame down upon the entire army as thousands watched from downtown Syracuse. The bird had then climbed toward the Sun and vanished in its glare. It had subsequently been seen by witnesses over Italy, who had reported it being hit by a sudden eruption from the crater of Avernus that had been unlike any other volcanic eruption they’d ever seen: a single bolt of lava shooting for miles into the sky that struck the bird and sent it streaking off wounded, metal feathers falling for miles, smoke and fire trailing behind it as it vanished northeast, into the heart of Europa. What had happened there, no one knew. There were rumors that the bird had crashed into the steppes north of the Black Sea. Macedonian cavalry had galloped north from the naval bases on the coast. But what they found, only the king knew.

And there was only one king now. He sat in his palace and no one saw him. Earlier in the year all the talk around the campfires was whether he had one son or two, but now he had none. He had lost one in Sicily, the other (so it was rumored) in the far west, at the world’s edge. He had no flesh to call his own anymore. Save his own…

He still had a kingdom, though. Not just Macedonia either: the East was still his; Persia showed no signs of shaking off his yoke, and he showed no signs of coming to terms with Athens. That city had held onto at least some of its empire—had kept at some portion of its navy, had regained Carthage and struck a deal with Syracuse. Now the world waited to see what would happen next.

Nor was it simply about kings and empires anymore. It was something more. First the hairy star; then the storms; then the burning bird. And now the tremors in the Earth. The autumn had been bad. The winter promised to be worse. It seemed the ground shook every few days now. Strange portents had been seen. Oracles said the gods were displeased. Priests kept to themselves. Peasants kept to their villages at night. They were said to fear monsters that had crawled up from the underworld and that roamed the woods around them. No one of any repute had seen one. Still, it made people nervous. It made it easier for the man to skulk through Pella. He was no monster. He may have been missing a finger, but no one would notice that. No one would care. He was just one of the crowd.

Now he was one of the king’s guards. He knew a brothel where some of them cavorted. He knew a back door. He never even used the front—just went straight into one of the rooms and relieved the client within of his uniform and his life. The girl too. By the time they found the bodies none of this would matter. Ten minutes later he was riding with a score of other guards across the promontory that led to the palace, escorting a train of wagons carrying supplies. Five minutes after that he was moving through the darkened, draft-filled halls. He didn’t need any credentials now. He was at one with the shadows of the flickering braziers. He blended right in—walked past sentry-posts and guards and he was just darkness flitting on the wall.

Getting into the throne room was a little more difficult. There were no guards inside, but there were plenty of traps. Fortunately he knew most of them. And those that didn’t, he was able to deduce. He knew too much of the mind of the man who had set them. In short order he was climbing across the vaulted ceiling that overlooked the throne room—and then sliding down one of the lion-emblazoned banners that hung from the arches. From the bottom of the banner it was twenty feet to the floor. The man dropped to it as lithely as a cat.

Then he approached the throne. It was the only thing in that huge chamber that wasn’t entirely in darkness. Torches surrounded the giant chair, their light making the tree from which it had been carved look all the more misshapen.

Same with the man who sat in it. If anything, Philip had gotten even fatter. It would have been impossible for him to get uglier. He stared at the figure closing on his throne and didn’t seem in the least surprised.

“You took your time getting here,” he said—and raised a wine goblet in mock-toast.

The figure stopped, threw back his hood. “It wasn’t easy,” he replied.

“Neither was being defeated, I’m sure.”

Alexander nodded. He’d seen it in the mirror: his face looked five years older. He felt at least ten. “Hephaestion is dead,” he said dully.

“Dead?” asked Philip. “Or just keeping a low profile?”

“He was burnt across half his body. I held him as he died.”

“That must have been touching.”

“I never”—Alexander stopped for a moment. Then: “I never imagined defeat would be so hard.”

“You mean you thought you’d never be defeated.”

“It wasn’t a fair fight.”

Philip laughed.
“Fair?
That word means nothing. You knew the stakes. You failed to master them.”