Prison of Hope (20 page)

CHAPTER
19

T
he mists stopped a few hundred feet before we reached the shore, revealing a green field next to a sizeable pier. Griffins flew over the buildings that dotted the bank of the lake, occasionally landing and entering one of them. The guard barracks were placed there for a very good reason: everyone entering had to walk through them to get to the town, which was about a mile away, next to the coast.

Charon stopped the boat and moored it to a post on the pier, motioning for us all to leave.

“Are you staying?” Lucie asked.

Charon nodded. “I have a hut just over there.” He pointed off toward a two-story building a short distance away from the rest. “It’s why it takes awhile for someone to arrange to come here. Those on Hades’s side have to send word to the griffins to go get me, and then I start rowing.”

“Why don’t you live with the rest of
them
?” I asked. “I’ve always wondered that.”

“I just prefer the company of the griffins. They aren’t good at political bullshit. Just like me. There’s too much vying for power in the town. Everyone wants to control their little piece of
whatever
power they can get. Atlas with his damn mines; Rhea, the farmland; and Cronus, whatever he’s allowed to take. I don’t have the energy for it.”

“We’ll see you in a few hours then,” Sky told him, and he turned and walked off toward his home, leaving the three of us on the pier.

The walk to the town took about ten minutes, with the landscape becoming greener every minute. A lush forest bordered one side of us, and open grassland the other, until we were a few hundred feet from our destination. The large houses of those who lived there were easy to spot. Some of them were three or four stories high and made from carved stone and wood. They reminded me a little of ancient Roman villas, with immaculate columns standing at the front of each house.

The grassland faded away, replaced with a golden beach that led to some of the clearest ocean water I’d ever seen. I wasn’t sure if anyone had ever tried to sail the ocean and see what else was in the realm. I imagined a few had, but no one ever gave any
indication
of wanting to be anywhere else.

“Wow,” Lucie said. “You could sell real estate here and m
ake millions.”

We walked under a huge archway that was held up by two 20-foot tall marble columns. The word “Atlantis” had been etched onto the arch—the name of the town. The Titans had destroyed the original Atlantis during the war with the
Olympians
. Hundreds of thousands had died during the few days of attack, which had led to the end of the war; Zeus and his forces had been outraged by what had happened and had retaliated in the most horrific way possible with the creation of Pandora. After the fighting was over, Zeus had forced the Titans to take the name as recompense for their crime, a reminder of how the Titans had brought about their own downfall.

A gigantic golden statue of Zeus had originally stood at the entrance, always looking down on the Titans in their new homes, but Hades had it moved and melted down well before I was born. Ensuring your prisoners were behaving was one thing, but antagonizing them
every single day
with a gleaming thirty-foot statue of the person who had defeated them was only going to end in rebellion and more death.

There were plenty of people living in this Atlantis who had been born and raised here, and even more who had decided that living under the gaze of the griffins was infinitely better than living under the gaze of Avalon. So the town of Atlantis had swelled from a few hundred at the end of the war, to over twenty thousand by the end of the twenty-first century. This feat was even more impressive considering that none of the inhabitants were human and anything that uses magic has a reproduction rate that makes even giant pandas look positively prolific.

The red, brick-paved streets weren’t teeming with people, but we walked past several on our way to Rhea’s house, which was on the far side of the town, another half-hour walk from the entrance. I’d considered getting horses for each of us but had decided I’d rather not have everyone know of our arrival, and three strangers riding horses through the town would have set tongues wagging.

Each person we passed eyed us suspiciously until they
realized
that Sky was in our ranks and decided we were no
longer
a threat. Most of the people in Tartarus would
recognize
Hades and his family by sight, and their regular appearance in the realm meant that there was probably nothing to
be concerned
about. Even so, a certain tension was in the air. T
he fact
that Cronus had escaped had probably not been lost on the
inhabitants
, and they were likely worried about the reaction that it would cause.

We reached a large town square where a number of
market
stalls had been set up along one side, closest to the ocean.
Various
foods, some of which I’d never seen before, were being sold and bartered for by dozens of people.

Farther down the street I could see the blacksmith who made many of the weapons used by both the griffins and inhabitants of the town. Owning weapons was not considered a transgression because many people still hunted for meat and fish.

An ornate fountain stood in the middle of the square, water rising up through the blowholes of five large whalelike creatures, the sprays crisscrossing over one another before returning to the basin below to begin their journey anew.

We passed by and I ran my hand through the cool water. From the moment we’d made our way through the fog, the sun had beat down on us, unrelenting, but never unpleasant. A lovely breeze came over the town from the ocean, bringing with it the scent of saltwater, something I’d always really enjoyed.

“You okay?” Sky asked.

I nodded. “I’d forgotten how amazing this place is.”

“It is beautiful,” Lucie said and smiled at a few teenage children who ran past, shouting to one another in ancient Greek; one of them nearly bumped into her and gave her a nervous grin. Everyone who lived in Tartarus was required to learn some of the modern languages, but most dropped back to their traditional language whenever possible, as though it were a safety blanket made entirely of words.

“What did they say?” Lucie asked.

“ ‘Who’s the pretty lady; she must be very hot,’ ” I said.

Lucie looked at her bandaged hands and arms, and then down at her long dark dress that would soak up heat like a sponge. “It
is
a bit warm,” she admitted with a slight smile.

“The houses are cooler,” Sky told her. “They use runes to remove most of the heat.”

Lucie’s eyes opened wider. “Really? How interesting, I’d love to talk to people about that. Do they have an enchanter in town?”

Sky shook her head. “Apart from you, I’ve never met one who lived longer than a human.”

Lucie shook her head as if that were information she should have guessed, and we started off again.

We’d almost made it to the edge of the square when a deep, booming voice called out, “Nathan Garrett, you goddamn cur.”

I stopped walking and turned to see Atlas standing in one entrance to the square. Everyone between us stopped what they were doing and quickly moved aside or dashed past me.

“I knew you’d be back one day, you pissant,” Atlas roared. He was well over seven feet tall and probably weighed over four hundred pounds of pure muscle. His gargantuan arms and chest were covered with dirt from the mines he worked in. They were bare, except for a leather strap across his chest that held his
battle
-axe in place on his back. His brown hair cascaded over
his should
ers. He looked every inch the god people used to
consider
him to be.

He unstrapped the battle-axe from his back and swung it lazily onto the ground with a resounding crunch as it split the bricks the blade touched.

“Can’t we do this some other time?” I asked him.

“You’ll make time
now
,” Atlas roared. “You took her virtue and will pay for your transgression.”

“To be fair, her virtue was a distant memory
well before
I ever got near her.”

To the shock of no one, that didn’t help matters at all.

Atlas roared with anger. “Face me in combat, little man. I’ll even tie my hands behind my back if you like.”

“Atlas, this is a bad idea,” I advised.

The big man laughed. “You think you can take me?”

“If we were back in my realm, I wouldn’t have a hope in hell. But here, in Tartarus—well, I wouldn’t put money on you coming away unharmed.”

“You arrogant little shit.”

“You misunderstand,” I said and took a step toward him. “You’re not at full power here. For thousands of years, you’ve not been at full power, and while your half-giant side allows you to retain your permanent bulk and strength, you’d be fighting me, a sorcerer who just arrived and whose power hasn’t yet been affected by this realm. I think the fight would be a lot closer than you’d care to admit. I think if you took a moment and allowed yourself to consider this, you’d agree that fighting me now would be dangerous.”

Atlas took a step toward me, radiating hatred at my words. I sighed and removed my T-shirt.

“Ah, you can’t possibly match these.” Atlas laughed and flexed his biceps.

“No, I just don’t want blood on my clothes twice in one day,” I explained as I tossed the shirt to Sky.

“We don’t have time for this,” Sky said.

“No,” I agreed. “We don’t.”

“Can you take him?”

I shook my head. “Probably not.”

“So, why try?” Lucie asked.

“I might not be able to win, but I can lose with style. You two go on and find Rhea.”

“I’m not leaving,” Sky said.

I turned back to Atlas, who had a big grin on his face. “I’m going to break every bone in your body.”

“You’re welcome to try.”

Atlas dropped his axe to the ground and sprinted toward me, swinging his massive fists—and hitting nothing but air. I used my air magic to increase my speed and dashed around the angry Titan, slamming a ball of fire into his ribs, forcing the flames to engulf one side of his body.

Atlas jumped back, but instead of putting out the fire, he just swung another punch, something I wasn’t expecting at all. I didn’t move quickly enough, and he caught me on the shoulder with a blow that took me off my feet and threw me back against a nearby wall.

The flames immediately vanished, and a murderous glare settled in Atlas’s eyes. He took a step toward me as I readied my lightning.

“What the hell is this testosterone-fueled nonsense?” shouted a woman who’d walked into the middle of the square, between Atlas and me.

“It’s my right,” Atlas told her.

She spun on the much larger man, and he visibly shrank. “Get out of my sight, Atlas! The next time you feel the need to threaten guests in our realm, you’ll spend two weeks working out on the fishing boats.”

Atlas shook his head violently. “Rhea, he took my woman’s honor!” he shouted and pointed at me.

“Your woman wouldn’t know her honor if it came up to her and bit her on the ass. Now get out of my sight before I lose m
y temper.”

Atlas retrieved his axe from the ground, glared at me, and stormed out of the square.

Rhea walked over toward me. Her long, almost white hair fell down her back. She wore a thin blue dress that hugged her figure. In human terms, she appeared to be maybe in her late forties or early fifties, although she was probably close to ten thousand years older than that. “Nathan,” she said, “you’re a
goddamn
idiot.”

I nodded my head slightly and got back to my feet,
wincing
slightly as I moved my arm. “In my defense, I had no way of knowing that Atlas would marry the girl a decade after I slept with her.”

“Your defense nothing,” Rhea snapped. “You antagonized him back then, all those years ago, and he doesn’t soon forget. You’ll have to fight him one day. And when that comes, no one will be here to stop him.”

“A day I’d like to avoid for a while if I can.”

“Yes, today we have other matters to discuss.” She turned to Sky and hugged her tightly before introducing herself to Lucie.

“Come, the three of you. I assume you wish to discuss my husband’s recent absconding. And how I’d quite like him back without him being killed.”

CHAPTER
20

W
e rode horses to Rhea’s villa at the far edge of the town limits. Any notion of remaining undetected had ended the second Atlas had decided to single me out.

The villa was a sprawling three-story structure with more rooms than I could possibly think of uses for, and gardens inside which you could have easily fit a football stadium. It was the very definition of opulence, a fact that was even more obvious as we made our way to the side of the building and noticed the view from the cliff top we found ourselves on, looking down at the clear ocean two hundred feet below us.

“This must be the biggest house in the town,” Lucie said as we took our seats under the shade of several huge trees.

“One of them,” Rhea told her. “All the Titans tried to outdo each other when we first arrived. When the dust settled and everyone decided to behave with dignity, one of the first things we did was create a government. The griffins, our jailers, weren’t really up to the task, and we couldn’t wallow in self-pity forever, so it was up to Cronus to lead. Toward that end, he decided that our house should be apart from the rest of the Titans’ and closer to other groups who had
supported us.”

“The griffins aren’t your jailers,” Sky said. “They haven’t been for a long time.”

“We are not permitted to leave this realm. They stop us. Therefore, they are our jailers. Doesn’t matter how pretty the scenery might be; if you can’t leave, it’s still just a jail.”

“Did you help Cronus leave?” I asked, deliberately stopping myself from using the word “escape” instead.

“No,” Rhea said softly. “I like it here. We’re left alone to live our lives.”

“But you just said this is your jail,” Lucie pointed out.

“And so it is, but it’s also my home. We either deal with that or go mad wanting something we can never achieve.”

“Hyperion got out of here; why can’t others?” Lucie asked.

“Hyperion was a special case. He had something Hera and her friends wanted. I assure you, Hera doesn’t want anything from Cronus or myself. Most of the people who live here would rather tear out her heart than work for her.”

“Apparently Hyperion doesn’t have that complaint,” I said and could hear the anger in my voice.

“So I hear,” Rhea said. “You should be careful around him; he’s incredibly powerful. Even my husband would have thought twice before engaging him in combat.”

“I’m not going fight him,” I admitted. “Doesn’t mean I have to like him, though.”

“Okay,” Sky said, “we need to know why Cronus escaped and where he went.”

Rhea poured herself a glass of something that looked like cloudy lemonade and took a sip as blue glyphs appeared on the back of her hand, creating ice cubes that clinked together as they fell into the drink. “I have no idea,” she said eventually.

“Bullshit,” Sky snapped. “You expect me to believe that
Cronus
told you nothing about his plans?”

Rhea raised an eyebrow and placed her glass back on the table that sat between the four of us. “If he’d told me his plan, I would have stopped him. I do not know where he is.”

“How’d he escape?” I asked.

“Do you want facts or my theory?” she asked me. “Because I have very few of the former, but quite an interesting latter.”

“What facts have you got for us?” Lucie asked.

“Cronus had help in getting free. There’s no way to cross that lake without taking in at least a little of the water that ages you. Only Charon has a boat. And no, before you ask, Charon did not help my husband escape. Charon is loyal to those griffins and would see it as a gross betrayal.”

“Did the griffins help?”

“Not a chance. After Pandora escaped, none of them
would dare.”

“So, how do you think he did it?” Lucie asked.

Rhea shrugged. “No idea. He wanted out of here long ago, but until Pandora escaped, he was content with his life. Once she got free, he began working in secret. He didn’t think I knew what he was doing, but I’d see him trying to figure out how to get across the lake.”

“Did he have any visitors recently?” I asked.

“Doesn’t Hades keep a log of those who come and go?” she asked me.

I nodded and Rhea smiled; she knew that I just wanted her to confirm what I already knew.

“We don’t get many. But Hyperion would visit Cronus fairly regularly. They’d chat away for a while, and then Cronus would seem calmer after. For a few days anyway.”

“What did they discuss?” Sky asked.

“I assume Hyperion was telling my husband about his life outside of here and working for Hera. They remained friends even after Hyperion left.”

“Could Hyperion have helped him escape?” I asked.

Rhea laughed. “Hyperion works for Hera, who would be the last person on earth to want my husband free. I doubt very much that he helped Cronus do anything except discuss the good old days.”

“So, is that it?” Sky asked. “That’s all the facts you have?”

Rhea nodded. “But the theory is much more interesting.”

“Regale us,” I said and drank some of the cloudy drink, which tasted more like strawberry than lemon.

“I think my husband has been working on his plan for a long time, since well before Pandora escaped. I think her escape was what lit a fire under him.

“I think if you walk along the coast for long enough, you’ll come to a forest. In there, I think you’ll find something that shows how Cronus managed to escape the lake. The answers are there.”

“Do you know where he would have gone once he escaped this place?” Sky asked.

“I don’t know
exactly
where he’ll be, but I’ll tell you where you can find him.”

“And where might that be?” Lucie asked.

“Wherever that bitch Hera is. She murdered our son, and for centuries we’ve wanted justice. My husband will undoubtedly be close to Hera, tracking her wherever she might be. That way he can cut her fucking cunt heart out for what she did to our son.”

We all sat stunned for a few minutes after Rhea’s outburst and her subsequently walking away from us.

Lucie was the first to break the silence. “If that’s true, we can’t let him get to Hera.”

“Don’t see why not. Let him have a shot,” Sky said. “The world would be better off without her in it.”

“You think so?” Lucie asked. “Because I think the world would descend into war without her in it.”

“How the hell do you get that idea?” Sky asked.

“Hera has one of the largest and most powerful groups on earth, comprising roughly fifteen percent of all voting power at Avalon. That’s only second to the knights. In her group are
Demeter
,
Aphrodite
, Ares, Hephaestus, Dionysus, various
children
of each of those people, and their families, who include people like Selene and Eros.

“Many of Zeus’s old allies were merged into Hera’s conglomerate when he vanished. In that group, you’ve got powerful
people
from the Egyptian, Chinese, and Japanese lines. There’s also the matter of the witches, who still get a voting block in
Avalon
; they’re almost always allied with whatever group
Demeter
prefers
. In short, Hera controls a huge amount of power and influence in the world, probably more than any other single
person
who isn’t Merlin. If she dies, it will create a vacuum that will be fought over by everyone who thinks they have a chance of filling it. You really believe that Demeter or Ares would be willing to let someone else get that spot? There would be a massacre the likes of which we haven’t seen in centuries.”

“When Zeus went missing, there was nothing like that,” Sky pointed out.

“There was still a mass exodus of people who didn’t trust Hera and a lot more people whom Hera decided to get vengeance on for whatever slight they’d once given her. A lot of people died, and many more were cast away.

“If it happens now, with Hera’s organization being so involved in the world market, it would make the recession of a few years ago look like a slight blip. Currencies would cease to exist, and countries would go to war, because any human who has a position of power in a government and who also happens to be Hera’s puppet will be very quickly dispatched by those seeking to gain favor with whoever takes over after her death. It might only last a few years, a decade at the most, but in that decade a lot of bad things would happen.”

“That’s a worst-case scenario,” Sky told her.

“We have to stop Cronus,” I said softly. “There’s no good scenario in which he kills Hera. The only way to stop what Lucie described from happening is to completely replace Hera and her immediate allies, like Demeter and Ares—to take them all out at once and replace them en masse. Cronus won’t do that. And if he tries and fails to kill Hera, and she discovers he’s escaped from here, she’ll petition Avalon to get power in the dealings at Tartarus. She’s done it before, and Avalon almost agreed. I doubt they’d be so keen to say no with Cronus running around.”

Lucie and Sky stared at me. “Have you been considering how to take out Hera?” Lucie asked.

“When I was with Avalon, it was my job to figure out the weaknesses of other organizations. Hera’s weakness is that she has no natural successor. She’s privately named Ares, but that doesn’t mean shit to the rest of them. You want stability, you remove the Olympians as one and have people you trust placed in their positions. There will still be a time of crisis, but without the constant in-fighting taking precedence over the running of her empire, it won’t be so noticeable to the world market or Hera’s other enemies.”

“It scares me that you think about stuff like that,” Sky said.

I shrugged. “It would be impossible to do. Or at the very least, impossible without the help of every other Olympian not tied to Hera, along with a sizeable portion of Avalon. Those groups aren’t likely to band together anytime soon. Anyway, back to the problem: Cronus. He’s after Hera, but where is Hera? And who helped him escape in the first place?”

“Maybe Rhea’s suggestion about taking a walk is a good one,” Sky said. “If Cronus had anything from an ally outside of the realm, he wouldn’t keep it at his home. Not where Rhea might find it, surely.”

“He isn’t that stupid,” Rhea said as she rejoined us. “He would have destroyed anything like correspondence from outside the realm.”

I stood and walked closer to the cliff edge, looking out across the ocean. I turned back to the three women, who were still talking among themselves.

“How long is the lake?” I asked, interrupting them.

“Roughly a five-mile radius to get from any point here to the realm gate,” Sky told me.

“How deep is it?”

“Just under two thousand feet,” Lucie said. “Why?”

“I think I know how he managed to get across the lake.”

“You care to share?” Rhea asked.

“Sure, I think he dug himself a tunnel to get there.”

There are people in the world who like to be right all the time. They’re the same people who, when you tell them something, immediately google it to see if you’re right. And if you correct them, and they discover that you’re right, they’ll come up with an excuse as to why they’re wrong. Those people are a real pain in the ass.

I’ve never been all that concerned with being right. If I’m wrong, someone will correct me, and if I’m right, then no one will. Being wrong is how we learn; it’s how every species—human, sorcerer, or otherwise—has managed to survive without imploding. We learn from our mistakes. Saying that, I did feel a slight twinge of pride when Sky, Lucie, Rhea, and I found a hole some distance into the forest, exactly where I thought it would be.

It had been created at an angle; the hole at the surface was only big enough for someone to crawl into and was covered by ferns and branches. Once I got inside and ignited my night vision, I saw that it opened out considerably to allow someone to stand, with headroom to spare, after a few dozen feet in. I’d managed to walk about a hundred feet when I realized that the almost steplike earth beneath my feet had carried me down a considerably steep trajectory.

I tapped the wall beside me, which felt like concrete, and made my way back to those waiting for me; Sky offered me her hand, and helped me out of the hole.