Tears of the Furies (A Novel of the Menagerie) (27 page)

The Harpies huddled together, strengthening the image of
vultures. But vultures did not speak. "
What have we here, Sister
Twilight
?" one of them asked in archaic Greek, its voice a terrible
screech.

"
I’m not sure, Sister Dark
," replied a
second.

"
I think a tribute has been paid to us, sisters
,"
said the last of the three. "
Oh yes, I think the one whose beautiful
song we heard has bestowed this honor of fresh meat."

"Come now, Sister Dusk
," said Twilight. "
Why
would one who sang so beautifully wish to pay us tribute?"

"Are we not beautiful as well?"
Dusk
replied.

As the other Harpies agreed, Conan Doyle frowned. He was
skilled in linguistics, particularly ancient languages, but he should not have
been able to understand them so well. Curious, he glanced sidelong at the demon
boy. "Daniel," he whispered. "Can you understand these
creatures’ speech?"

"Yeah, but I wish I didn’t. If they’re gonna eat us I
wish they’d just do it and get it over with, their voices are like fingernails
on a damn blackboard."

Fascinating
, Doyle mused. It was as if the Underworld
were somehow accepting them, bestowing upon them an understanding of the
ancient language of myth. They were becoming part of this place. It made
certain things easier, but somehow he found it very unsettling as well to
wonder what else it might mean. This was something that he would need to look
into later . . . if there was a later for them.

"An offering perhaps
," Sister Dark
suggested. "
For safe passage across the land. As Charon takes payment
for passage across the Styx, this is our due for allowing them to cross the
land unhindered."

"An interesting theory,"
said Twilight,
reaching up with a talon to scratch the side of her head. The Harpy’s hair was
long and gray, matted with filth.
"But I’m not sure that . . ."

Conan Doyle cleared his throat. He could understand the
Harpies. Could they understand him? "If you would like to know why we have
been left here, good sisters, all you need do is ask."

The creatures exchanged glances and then fluttered down from
their perch on the rocks. They alighted upon the ground, another cloud of black
dust roiling beneath them.

"
Look, sisters, the carrion speaks
,"
Twilight said, bending forward to take a closer look. "
Do you have
answers for us, tender morsel? Do you know the reason why you have been
abandoned here
?"

Conan Doyle could feel Gull’s spell weakening slightly, and
was able to sit up. The Harpies recoiled, baring razor-sharp teeth and hissing
in warning.

"Just stretching, my dears. No cause for concern."
He wanted them as calm and complacent as possible, in case an opportunity to
escape should present itself. Danny was moving about more freely also, as was
Ceridwen.

"My belly rumbles for food,"
Dusk shrieked.
"
You will explain why you are here immediately — or go down our
gullets with questions unanswered. Soon I will be too hungry to care."

"Of course, of course," Doyle answered. "Let
me see." He raised a hand to stroke his mustache. "Where to begin?"

The Harpies leaned closer, eager to hear his tale. Their
feathers were stained and matted with the dried blood of previous meals, the
smell wafting off their bodies sickening.

"We are here, my compatriots and I, because we were
betrayed."

Twilight cocked her head to one side, intrigued.
"The
one whose voice sang the most lovely of songs, was he the purveyor of this
betrayal?"

Conan Doyle nodded. "Sadly, yes," he explained. "He
acquired, by magicks most foul, the voice of Orpheus, and has used its
persuasive capability to steal away one of our group, and to order us to stay
to meet our fate at your mercy."

"Horrible
," Twilight hissed.

"
Terrible
," said Dark, with a disgusted
shake of her head.

"
Appalling
," Dusk interjected for the sake
of unity with her sisters.
"It is enough to weaken the already
precarious trust we have in those that we so tentatively call friend."

Dark and Twilight turned their attentions to their sister,
obviously taken aback by her words.

"Your trust in us is precarious, darling sister
?"
Twilight asked, ire in her tone.

Dusk shook her head furiously. "
No, no. Do not
misconstrue. I speak of friends, not dearest family."

Then Dark flapped her wings in agitation.
"And what
friends do you have in this misbegotten place but us? Can you tell me this?"

Like the electricity in the air before a thunderstorm, Conan
Doyle sensed it growing around him, raising gooseflesh on his arms. He frowned
deeply and glanced around, trying not to draw the Harpies’ attention. Someone
was using magick. He glanced toward Ceridwen, her regal features in profile. She
was conscious and sitting up, but he could tell that she was in no condition to
attempt a spell of any kind, and Danny was not capable of such a feat.

Then who?

The Harpies were being manipulated, a spell had been cast to
foment hostility among them. Their argument was reaching a fevered pitch and
they had begun to scream at one another, their talons digging into the dry,
rocky earth as they grew more agitated.

"And what of you, Twilight?"
Dark shrieked,
spittle flying.
"Do you mistrust me as well? Am I the last to know how
you two really feel about me?"

Twilight flapped her powerful wings, stirring up clouds of
dirt.
"I have had suspicions about the two of you for quite some time,"
she snarled.
"When were you going to do it? As I slept? Helpless
while in the embrace of dream? I should have known."

Conan Doyle caught Danny’s eye as the sisters continued
their tirade against one another. The demon boy slid closer to him.

"What the hell’s going on?"

The mage managed to stand. The effect of Orpheus’s voice was
indeed wearing off, and he helped Ceridwen to her feet as well. "I’ll
explain later." He reached down to haul Danny up. "But now might be a
good time to get as far away from here as possible."

The Harpies did not even notice them getting to their feet
and moving away. The sisters were totally engrossed in one another, blind to
anything other than their heated squabble about betrayal and mistrust.

"
I’ll see you both dead!"
Twilight raged,
and the ugly beast spread her wings, lifted off the ground several feet and
then descended upon her sisters, curved black talons tearing at them savagely.

Dusk and Dark responded with equal fury, their screeches of
outrage filling the air as they attacked each other with wanton abandon.

Potent magick
, Conan Doyle thought as he watched the
horrible creatures engage in their insane melee. As he and his companions made
their escape, he scanned the cliffs surrounding them, but still could not find
the source of the spell.

They were moving far slower than he would have liked, the
residual effects of Gull’s song still working on them, but they made progress
nonetheless. The screams of the Harpies receded into the distance as they
scrambled down an embankment into a gully.

In places the cavern ceilings were so high that moisture
gathered in the eaves and swirled into clouds. As they traveled, hour after
hour, they heard the sounds of distant oceans and the thunder of lumbering
beasts as they made their way through tunnels and across barren plains of rock
and cold, slippery moss.

In time they found themselves on rough terrain with uneven
hills of craggy stone and outcroppings of rock that jutted up from the ground
as though rammed through the earth from below. Some were small, little more
than a scattering of blocks, and others were towers. It reminded Conan Doyle of
the American Southwest, of the red rocks that were spread across sections of
Arizona, among other places.

They weaved their way around the largest of these, following
paths cut into the ground by the wind that scoured the stone. It was rough
going, but at least they had left the Harpies far behind.

"So what happened with the sisters back there?"
Danny asked. "Why’d they go all Jerry Springer on each other?"

"Magick happened to them," Conan Doyle explained. "A
spell was cast that caused their already rabid emotions to run amok."

Ceridwen stopped and turned to look at him, her face cast in
eerie shadows from the strange gloom of this place. "And did you cast this
spell, Arthur?"

Before he could answer the wind brought a new scent to them.
It was the smell of a campfire, and of cooking meat.

Conan Doyle didn’t know how the others were responding to
the drifting aroma, but his stomach was close to cramping, it was so empty. And
like the cobra charmed by a tune, he found himself drawn toward the smell. They
fell silent and walked quietly in between two tall stone outcroppings, which
seemed part of a ridge of towers that seemed to loom up on all sides of them
now.

"Hey!" Danny said. "Is this a good idea?"

"Perhaps we should find out," Conan Doyle
answered. At this point he had gone beyond caution, his sudden realization of
hunger perhaps making him a tad careless. Beyond that was the simple fact that
this was the direction Gull had taken Eve, and he was determined to retrieve
her.

They saw the flicker of the campfire reflected on the stone
thrusting up from the earth ahead. The smell of roasting meat was nearly
overwhelming, and Conan Doyle could have sworn he heard the hissing sound of
grease as it dripped into the fire.

It compelled him to move closer.

Their path among the stones twisted slightly and around that
bend was the prize that had drawn them like a moth to flame. Conan Doyle
slowly, cautiously peered around the corner into an open area, a clearing in
this forest of stone.

A giant sat upon a rock before a roaring fire, some sort of
beast roasting over the hissing flames on a spit. The giant’s back was to him,
but Conan Doyle could see that he was powerfully proportioned. The hair
cascading down his back was very long and curly and he wore only a loincloth
made from the fur of some animal.

Conan Doyle was unsure of how to proceed. He thought about
clearing his throat to introduce himself and the others, but considering how
friendly the other denizens of the Underworld had been, wasn’t sure if this was
the best course. His questions were answered for him when the huge man, sitting
hunched before the fire, addressed him in a low, melodious voice.

"Welcome, strangers." The giant turned to face
them from his rocky seat. "Step into my humble abode."

Ceridwen and Danny froze beside Conan Doyle as the giant
fixed them in the stare of the single eye at the center of his broad, bearded
face.

"You’re just in time for dinner," said the
Cyclopes, and his lips spread wide in a ghastly smile.

The Underworld was vast. And yet for all its size it seemed
stifling and small, claustrophobic, and crowded.

Yeah
, Danny Ferrick thought as he stared up at the
one-eyed giant, the Cyclopes, that leered hungrily down at him and his
companions.
Crowded’s exactly the fucking word.

They had climbed over the ruins of ancient temples and
trekked beneath the gaze of sentinel statuary. Fires burned in the walls. Every
new tunnel, every change in the landscape, seemed to push them into the midst
of another threat, into the lair of another monster.
Then Gull shows up and
it’s like this was what the ugly bastard had intended all along,
that he
wanted them to follow, that he needed Eve and had planned to take her. And he’d
just
done
it, right under their goddamned noses, and there wasn’t a
thing they could do about it.

Danny was sick of it. The whole time down here he’d been
wishing for a minute to breathe, for their trail to lead them somewhere there
weren’t ancient horrors lying in wait. Now he’d changed his mind. The Cyclopes
started to laugh, glaring at him and Ceridwen and Mr. Doyle with that big,
damp, bloodshot eye, and Danny was never happier to meet up with something that
wanted to kill him.

"Come, my friends —" the Cyclopes began
again, its voice like an earth tremor. The single horn that jutted up from its
head gleamed in the blue light that misted off of Conan Doyle’s hands.

"We’re not your friends," Danny snarled.

With a grunt the demon boy leaped onto Conan Doyle’s
shoulders, then sprang to the top of a stone ridge that had earlier hid the
monster from view. He heard the mage shout in protest, but Danny wasn’t worried
about hurting Conan Doyle. He wasn’t any ordinary man and could take a bit of
shoving around.

His claws dug into the stone and he twisted his upper body,
tensed to spring. The Cyclopes blinked its one eye slowly and the expression on
its huge, leathery face was one of confusion and then amusement.

"What are you, young one? You have a satyr’s face, but
I have never —"

Danny bared his razor teeth in a shout of frustration and
rage and he sprang from the stone, powerful legs rocketing him at the giant
monster’s face. The beast’s single eye went wide and it tried to turn away. The
demon boy shifted his body in mid-air. He had been lunging at the monster’s
face but managed now to land on the Cyclopes’ shoulder. Danny tore into the
monster’s back with the claws of his left hand, just to anchor himself, and
with the right he gripped its throat, beginning to tear the thick hide there.

Ceridwen and Mr. Doyle were shouting but Danny could not
hear them. There was a red haze in his mind, a fury he had bottled up. If they
were going to survive the Underworld this was the way they were all going to
have to fight. Brutally and without hesitation, without reserve.