Storming Paradise (14 page)

Hercules pushed aside one of the great doors into the citadel, running his hand along the carving that adorned its surface. He stepped into a grand atrium, whose high ceiling was dominated by a circular skylight peering out into the blue, and whose farthest wall was open, gazing down upon Mount Olympus. The shouting from inside the building was louder here, a female voice, the tone chiding.

“I am offering you absolute power,” the woman was shouting, her voice echoing between the pillars that held the high roof aloft, “all you need do is stand—stand at my side!”

Hercules recognized the voice:
Campe.

Then perhaps he was not too late. Perhaps he could somehow talk the greatest warriors in all of history to stand down, to spurn the offer that the she-dragon had made them. But, he figured he had better move fast if he was to have any hope at all.

Hercules ran, scrambling through the vast atrium, his feet slapping loudly against the polished marble floor as he sought the direction from which the sound was coming from.

There, to his left. The woman's voice was coming from there.

Hercules weaved past two of the colossal pillars, scanning the space beyond, which was hidden in shadows from the overhang of the roof. It took just a moment for Hercules' eyes to adjust.

There were doors here, a whole line of them, single doors and twinned doors, running all the way along the wall of the vast space. Hercules' gaze swept across them, searching for signs of Campe's entry. Several doors were open, including a set of double doors located close to the center of the row.
There!

Hercules sprinted towards the double doors, peeking inside one of the open doors as he hurried past. There was a modest room inside, a simple cot of the type a soldier might be used to, with a pillow and colorful woolen blanket resting atop it. A water jug stood at a table in one corner of the room, along with a hand basin and mug. “Sleeping quarters,” Hercules murmured in realization. Then this was not just a place where old heroes visited, it was where they slept.

Hercules hurried on towards the double doors, hearing Campe's rising voice as she tried to recruit her army.

“Each one of you shall be reborn,” Campe was saying, “loved and worshipped in a way you never were as soldiers! You will receive the adoration of millions—the whole of Greece shall know your names!”

Hercules dashed through the double doors—and stopped.

He was standing on the threshold of a vast communal area. A vast window dominated the far end of the room, gazing down at mighty Olympus much like the one in the main atrium, the angle slightly different but the view otherwise the same. Comfortable chairs were dotted all around the room, an approximate circle of them dominating the center of the space, with others scattered around, some of them pressed close to the window. Men, old and fragile with the scars of many battles visible on the exposed flesh of their faces and arms, occupied those seats, gazing out at the vista of Olympus, or just sitting quietly, supping on warm drinks and chewing their food with toothless gums, warm blankets hitched high to their bodies. A few women were here too, old Amazons whose eyes were rheumy with cataracts, whose flesh had sagged into dry folds where once it had been taut. A few smartly attired attendants moved among the resting occupants of the room, four women and a man, younger than the people here, dressed in linen overalls of such a brilliant white that it seemed almost to glow. And wending among all of them, Campe the she-dragon was ranting, stomping back and forth as she tried to drum up interest in her insane power bid.

“You shall be reborn on Olympus,” Campe cried, pumping her fist in the air, “mighty once more, the taste of ambrosia never leaving your lips!”

Campe was about to continue when one of the old men raised a shaking hand for her attention. “Are you with the freak show?” he asked in a husky voice.

“What?!” Campe demanded. “No, I'm not! Have you not heard a word I've said?”

The old man turned to his nearest colleague, a gray-haired man who was so thin he looked more like a bag of bones than a human being. “I think she's with the freak show,” he shouted. “I didn't catch the rest.”

His cadaverous companion nodded and smacked his gums, snorting in agreement before turning his attention back to the window on Olympus. “Never had much time for freak shows,” he muttered.

“No!” Campe snarled, leaning close to the questioner. “Please try to listen to me . . .”

One of the attendants, a woman in brilliant white, with long ringlets of ginger hair trailing out from beneath a white cap, interposed herself between Campe and the two men, her face fixed in concern. “You're over-stimulating the residents,” she said in an earnest whisper. “If you could try to keep it down, please. Thank you.”

Campe glared at the woman, drawing back one clawed hand in preparation to strike her.

Hercules chose that moment to make his presence known. “It seems you might be barking up the wrong paradise, ma'am,” he said.

“Such insolence,” Campe muttered, turning in readiness to rebuke Hercules. Her rejoinder died on her lips when she saw who it was standing at the threshold of the day room. “You!” she snarled.

Hercules smiled with smug confidence. “How's your army shaping up? Many people take you up on your offer of immortal adoration?”

Campe glared at him. “There are two right here who—” she stopped, looking around her, left and right. “Oh, they must have sat back down,” she muttered in surprise. “But that doesn't matter. It's only a matter of time until I find the right people for my cause,” she said, stomping across the room towards Hercules.

As Campe strode across the room, one of the retired heroes in the comfy chairs, a man with no hair left on his liver-spotted head, called to her for another goblet of milk. “Cold this time, not like last time!” he added. Fuming, Campe ignored him. As if she would ever serve washed-up old fools!

“I came here to put a stop to your little recruitment drive,” Hercules said as Campe stood before him, “but it looks to me like you've overlooked one thing. You came here looking for heroes, but they've done their duty, their wars are over. Sometimes old soldiers are happy to just fade away, after all.”

Campe glared at him, her thick, scorpion tail swishing angrily behind her. “I don't need an army to defeat you,” she insisted.

Before Hercules could respond, the dragon-lady hybrid charged forward, striking Hercules with an open palm slap so hard that it knocked him off his feet. Hercules tumbled back out the doorway and into the atrium overlooking Olympus.
It was on—on like Bellerophon!

Hercules started to pull himself back to his feet, but Campe was on him in a flash, charging out of the open doors towards him, two-and-a-half tons of woman-slash-reptile fury. “You!” Campe snarled, swiping her tail at Hercules. “You're a tool of the gods!”

“Not me, sister,” Hercules assured her, rolling out of the way of that sweeping appendage. Instead of hitting him, the bulb of the tail struck one of the grand columns holding the roof aloft. Stone dust spewed across the atrium and, for just a moment, the sky above them seemed to shake where a tremor ran through the circular window. One solid strike from that tail would shatter bones, Hercules realized as he scrambled to his feet and began to sprint across the atrium.

But Campe had another weapon in her arsenal. Part human, part dragon, she opened her mouth wide and breathed a fearsome jet of fire that lit the room with its brilliance. The fire lanced across the wide atrium as Hercules ran, searing a black smear across the mosaic tiles of the floor inches from Hercules' heels. Hercules ran faster, feeling the heat of those flames on his back.

Campe galloped after him, four heavy feet slamming against the smoldering mosaic design with a sound like rolling thunder. “Then why try to stop me?” Campe asked, leaping at Hercules, a trail of dark smoke funneling from her nostrils. “Why not join me? We'll be new gods, ruling the world together with no one to tell us what to do!”

Hercules dropped down as Campe lunged at him, slipping to the floor and sliding along it on his flank. Campe was poised over him now, glaring down it him, standing the way a cat will stand over a mouse it is toying with. Her breath came to Hercules as she loomed closer, hot with the stench of brimstone.

“Gods are selfish and petty—in my experience you'd fit right in,” Hercules assured her as Campe drew a breath in preparation to burn him alive. Then Hercules threw a punch, right hand connecting with Campe's dragon belly where she loomed over him. She reared back with a pained gasp, yellow eyes widening, the flames on her tongue lashing just a foot from her face in a stifled plume that snuffed out immediately.

Campe shook her head, mouth wide, puffs of dark smoke emanating from deep in her throat. Her wings flapped behind her, helping her retain her balance, but there was not enough space for her to take off.

As Campe recovered from the blow, Hercules rolled out of her way. “You can always trust a god to do what's in their own self-interest, no matter what happens to anyone else.” He got to his feet then and began to sprint for the columns, heading for the shadows.

“You sound as if you have no love for the gods,” Campe observed, shaking off the aftermath of Hercules' blow. She started to stride after him, her breath coming in angry gasps, her wings rising behind her like a shield.

“That's right,” Hercules said, ducking behind a column on the far side of the atrium, “but I don't want to replace one system with something even worse.”

Hercules weaved between the grand columns as Campe chased after him like a runaway cart on a steep path, another blast of her fire breath lashing against the towering pillars. A pillar shuddered in place as Campe struck it with the edge of one muscular leg, another turned black under the assault of her flames, and two more sputtered with fire burning across them like moss on a tree.

In that moment, Hercules slipped into the shadows, bending almost double as he scrambled for cover behind another column, his movements momentarily hidden by the jets of flame.

“Bah!” Campe sneered, peering around the columns, searching for her quarry. “I'm going to enjoy watching you suffer.”

Hercules pressed his back to the column he now found himself behind, watching the shadows on the floor as Campe approached, her shadow dancing in the wake of the flickering flames. He needed to find a way to stop her—needed it fast.

“I have a lot of experience with suffering,” Campe trilled as she stalked between the columns. “I've doled out more suffering than any mortal can comprehend, punishments meted down from the gods themselves.”

And you've suffered their punishments, too,
Hercules realized.
That's how you ended up as guardian of the Tartarus Pits—because the old gods didn't want you around anymore. And the new ones didn't care.

Hercules felt pity for Campe, but cast it aside—he was here to stop a dangerous schemer, not sympathize with her, but maybe he could play on her fears.

“You think you've suffered,” Hercules warned from his hiding place. “Just imagine how mad the gods are going to be when this little scheme of yours fails.”

“Fool!” Campe hissed. “It won't fail. It—”

“It already has,” Hercules told her. “Face it—your proposed army is just tired old soldiers who've fought their last fight. They just want to rest. What's more, you've lost your transportation. There's no way to get out of here now, no way out of Elysium. You're stranded.”

“No!” Campe snarled. “We stole enough souls to power the elevator for a month. More than enough time to infiltrate Olympus.”

The shadows shifted, and Hercules realized that Campe was just one column behind him. Her breath came close, the stench of brimstone so strong it made Hercules' nose wrinkle.

“I released the souls of the living before I came here,” Hercules bragged. “You have no more reserves of power. This was a one-way trip.”

Campe's head appeared from around the pillar as she searched for her prey, ashes glowing on her tongue as she spat the word: “No!”

Hercules lunged for Campe then, driving a two-handed punch into her human gut, which hove at just a little above his eye level.

Campe doubled up in pain, spitting a great gob of flame across the floor. As she did, Hercules ran for the next closest pillar, pouring on the speed, his arms and legs pumping. He ran to it and kept going, running one, two, three strides up the side of the pillar, bringing himself up at an angle in momentary defiance of gravity. Then, before gravity took hold, Hercules kicked out against the pillar, springing back towards where Campe, coughing fiery gobs of spittle, was still recovering from his punch.

In motion, the momentum of his leap adding to the force of his blow, Hercules struck Campe across the jaw with a haymaker, right fist clobbering her with the power of a sledgehammer striking a stone wall.

Campe lurched back, her well-spread dragon legs holding her stable just for a moment as she swayed in place. Then, as Hercules executed a perfect two-point landing that even Hermes himself would have been proud of, Campe finally toppled over, her legs buckling underneath her as she sunk to the floor, like a great tree being felled. The dragon woman landed with a loud crash, like a clash of cymbals against the marble floor, unconscious.

It was over.

Hercules turned at the sound of cheering. The heroes of Elysium, the bravest, most noble souls in all of history, were crowded at the open doors to the day room, applauding him as he stood over the fallen body of Campe.

“Good work, son,” an old man shouted, shaking his fist in the air in triumph.

“Our hero!” called another, sitting in a comfy chair just inside the doorway and waving his walking cane.

Hercules blushed. “It was nothing, really,” he said, ever humble.

“Nothing
shmothing
!” an aged Amazon called from the back of the crowd. “Takes plenty of chutzpah to knock out a monster like that. Suck it up and take a bow already! You've earned it.”

Blushing, Hercules took a bow and, as he did so, the applause and cheering became louder.

Some time had passed. Hercules was still in the atrium of the citadel of heroes, leaning against a pillar. His eyes were fixed on the distant vista of Mount Olympus, safe and undisturbed—but he was not really looking at it, instead he looked past it, thinking of Iolaus and Tartarus and everything he had sacrificed to stop this insurgency against his father Zeus and the other gods. Cruel and manipulative though they were, the gods were still the gods—and it was sometimes better the gods you knew.

Campe lay defeated, her body sprawled across the scuffed mosaic of the floor, her mighty legs and wings tied. But it seemed that Hercules was defeated too, by something more basic—transport. He had traveled here to Elysium using Iolaus' noble soul to power the transport through the realms, from Tartarus to paradise. But there was nothing left, certainly not enough energy to transport him home again, let alone down as far as Tartarus where his best friend resided with the souls in torment. He was stumped.

Hercules was still gazing out the massive window overlooking Olympus when a voice came from behind him.

“Stranger?”

Hercules turned. It was one of the female attendants who occupied this place, tending to the needs of the retired heroes as they enjoyed their eternal reward in paradise.

“Is everything okay?” the attendant asked. She was pretty, with strawberry-blond hair trailing from beneath her cap until it brushed the tops of her shoulders.

Hercules nodded. “I did what I came here to do,” he said, but there was regret in his voice.

“The dragon lady—” the attendant asked, “is she—?”

“No,” Hercules answered as the attendant trailed off. “She's still alive. I tied her, but I'll have to find a proper way to contain her—all that rage can be a dangerous thing, unchecked.”

The attendant stepped closer, fixing Hercules with a look of sincerity. “We'll handle that,” she promised. “She's not the first person who's come here in error, nor do I expect she'll be the last. There are procedures in place.”

“Good.”

“What about you?”

“Me?” Hercules asked, surprised. “I shouldn't really be here either. Nice place, though—calming.”

“It's supposed to be,” the attendant told him with a smile. “Yet you seem restless.”

“My friend is still down in the Tartarus Pits,” Hercules explained, “where this she-dragon came from. He traded his soul to grant me the opportunity to stop her. I suppose perhaps that was a wasted trip in light of the response she received here from the heroes.”

“Don't be so sure,” the attendant told him. “You've averted a catastrophe here. And given the old men and women in this place a little vicarious entertainment in the process.”

Hercules raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I thought they didn't want to fight anymore,” he said.

“That doesn't mean that they can't enjoy a good brawl now and again,” the attendant said. “Why do you think this facility is placed here where it overlooks Olympus? The gods lead tempestuous lives, and even at this distance we see many of the broader brush strokes as they resolve their disputes.”

Hercules laughed. His father knew how to throw a tantrum better than just about anyone else, he knew, all thunder and lightning and mortals being transformed into animals. But he kept that to himself—now was not the time to reveal his heritage.

“When are you planning on leaving?” the attendant asked. There was something in her question, the suggestion that, her gratitude notwithstanding, she knew that Hercules could not stay here.

“My transportation is exhausted,” Hercules explained. “One way trip, I'm afraid.”

“What was it?” the white-clad woman asked. “Flying horse? Wings glued with bee's wax? Lightning fork?”

“A rock,” Hercules said, feeling slightly embarrassed. “Powered by the soul energy of the most noble man I know.”

“Nobility makes a strong soul,” the attendant confirmed. She would know better than most. “So, why is it that you feel you cannot return? I thought you said your friend was still being held in the Tartarus Pits.”

“He is,” Hercules said. “Sadly we didn't have the facility to store his energies for a return journey. It was all rather hasty.”

The blond-haired attendant smiled sympathetically. “We have souls here,” she said. “The greatest, most noble souls you'll ever meet. I am certain that they would not mind loaning you a little of their energies to power your . . . did you say
rock?
”

“I did,” Hercules told her. “But I could not prevail upon the heroes here to aid me so. They have earned their rest—”

The attendant placed her finger against Hercules' lips to quiet him. “Hush,” she said. “It's the least they can do after that throw down you put on with the dragon lady.”

The decision was made. Every noble warrior in Elysium gave a tiny sliver of their soul's energy to Hercules, energy that they had in abundance, energy that presumably Campe planned to tap to transport herself on the next leg of her quest had she succeeded here. After that it was really just a question of how to channel that energy in a way that it would transport Hercules back to the Tartarus Pits. The rock he had traveled here on required tinkering if it was to be used again, but an inventor of war machinery who had been granted eternal paradise proposed another way, hooking Hercules into a harness that could receive and hold the charge long enough to launch him.

“No rock?” Hercules checked.

“You'll be fine, lad,” the inventor told him. “Nobody ever died using one of my inventions.”

Hercules nodded for a moment, then turned back to the inventor as the man took a few paces to put some safety distance between himself and Hercules. They were on a grassy hillock outside the citadel of heroes, a thousand retired warriors watching and waiting with bated breath.

“So, how is it you ended up here?” Hercules asked, concern furrowing his brow.

“Ah, well,” the inventor replied self-consciously. “Let's say nobody
else
ever died using one of my inventions.”

Before Hercules could ask anything further, the energies of a thousand noble souls rushed into the harness, and he found the ground opening up beneath his feet. With a jolt, Hercules was sent rocketing down into the grass, down through the channel of light and scent, down past Hades' realm, down into the depths of the Underworld.

Hercules came plummeting from the ceiling of the cavern, accompanied by his yell of sheer exhilaration. The floor of the cavern rushed up to meet him, and an instant later he struck its hard, unforgiving rock surface with a great crash.

It took a few moments for Hercules to recover his senses after that. He lay against the floor, groaning. When he looked up, he saw a pair of huge feet standing just a few feet away from him—a Hecatonchire giant.

“Hi, Gyes,” Hercules said cheerfully as he began to push himself up from the floor.

But it wasn't Gyes. Standing before Hercules was another of the Hecatonchire giants, the one known as Cottus the Striker—and from his expression, it was clear where Cottus had got that appellation. Cottus held a baton in his hand the length of a sapling.

“Stay there, worm,” a voice instructed from over to Hercules' left.

Hercules looked to his left and saw Briareos standing grim-faced over him, a mighty ax clutched in one set of his many hands.

Groaning, Hercules turned to his right and saw that Gyes, the last of the trio of Hecatonchire guards, was poised with a battle hammer in his hands and a grim expression on his many faces. “Did you honestly think that releasing my brothers wasn't the first thing I was going to do the very second you were out of my hair, little man?” Gyes asked accusingly. “Tiny bug!” added another head. “Slender maggot!” another taunted.

Hercules shook his head, as much to clear the abiding sense of vertigo as an expression of disagreement. “I hadn't really considered,” he admitted.

Warily, Hercules adopted a more comfortable position as the grim-faced giants paced around him with their weapons in hands.

“We are masters of pain and suffering,” Briareos bragged, thumping the haft of his ax against his open palm threateningly.

“You embarrassed us,” Gyes added, polishing the head of his hammer against his skirts but unable to get the ancient dried blood stains from its surface.

“Now you're going to find out how long eternity feels,” Cottus explained, jabbing his nightstick at Hercules, “when you spend the whole of it in agony.”

“Now hold on,” Hercules said, dodging the tree-length baton. “I've returned to bring some good news for all three of you.”

The giants laughed, one-hundred-and-fifty throats chiming in with mocking hysteria.

“Good news has no place down here in Tartarus,” said one of Gyes' many faces. “It withers away in a place where hope has been expunged.”

“Then I guess none of you guys are interested in a promotion,” Hercules said as an ax, hammer and tree-thick baton came swinging towards him.

In an instant, all three weapons halted in mid-swing although Briareos' ax landed a foot away from Hercules' leg, chomping into the bedrock with an echoing clang.

“Promotion?” Gyes asked, his other faces adopting a contemptuous sneer. “What trickery is this?”

“No trick,” Hercules assured the giants, holding his hands up where they could see them. “Your old mistress Campe has got herself a new job—”

“Goddess!” Cottus shouted, and the other giants agreed.

“No, I'm afraid that didn't work out for her,” Hercules said, throwing Campe's headband circlet onto the ground before him. “But she won't be coming back here, which leaves you fellas in charge of the place.”

The giants looked at Hercules, laughing at their obvious good fortune.

“So,” Hercules said, brushing himself down, “which one of you fine gentlemen intends to take position as the lead guard now?”

The giants looked from Hercules to one another, and their expressions turned sour.

“I am clearly the most qualified,” Cottus said before the others could claim the role. “I, Cottus the Striker.”

“What good is fury in running a place of eternal suffering?” Briareos challenged him. “You need vigor to stay on top of this operation, and I, Briareos the Vigorous, have vigor in spades.”

“Forget that!” Gyes sneered. “What you need is broad shoulders and the ability to juggle all the demands of the Tartarus Pits! They call me ‘the big-limbed,' it should be my hand steering the ship.”

Hercules padded quietly away as the giants continued to argue over who would run the realm of eternal suffering.

While the giants' argument turned to blows, Hercules found Iolaus where he had left him, hitched to the charging machinery by manacles. Iolaus' head flopped on his neck, exhausted but alive.

“Iolaus, wake up,” Hercules whispered, unlocking the manacles with the key that had been left just out of Iolaus' reach. “It's time we were leaving.”

“Leaving?” Iolaus asked, leaning heavily against Hercules as they walked from the cage. “But I was having such a nice time.”

Hercules shook his head in amusement. “You will never cease to amaze me, my mortal friend.”

They worked their way slowly across the cavern, Iolaus taking baby steps. Hercules had watched how Gyes worked the sorcerous street, and he was pretty sure that he could get it operating one last time so that he and Iolaus would be returned to the surface of the Earth.

As they reached the mouth of the cave, however, a tree trunk-like club thumped down on the ground before them. They turned to see Cottus standing behind them, sporting a few swollen eyes and cuts, a grizzly expression on his faces.

“And just where do you think you're going, little men?” Cottus asked. Evidently he had bested his companions to take control—albeit temporarily—of the situation.

“Home,” Hercules replied. “I don't think you need us down here anymore.”

Cottus crossed a dozen sets of arms. “There's always room for more souls,” he said, “and I believe there was the matter of torturing you.”

Hercules shook his head with despair. “My friend here has suffered enough,” he stated. “If you keep him here his living soul with burn out and you'll be left with a mess, a soul that knows not where it belongs.”

Cottus considered this a moment before replying. “That could prove problematic,” he agreed, “drawing unwanted attention to our little camp. But I cannot let you both go—it just wouldn't be right.”

“Let Iolaus go,” Hercules said, “and you may have my soul in his place. You heard what Campe said about me, you've seen that I survived the journey to Elysium and back—you must know that there's only one way that I could do that. My soul's value is beyond price—of far more worth than a mortal's.”

Cottus' many eyes narrowed as he appraised Hercules. “A god's soul,” he realized, and Hercules shrugged. “No wonder you could travel freely. Obtaining that would be quite the coup. Yes, then—I shall send your mortal whipping boy back on condition we retain your godly soul.”