by James Hunter
“No,” the last Gorgon replied with a brief shake of her head. “All know the location. It sits in plain sight on the northern hill. Yet, at the same time, the Temple of Cronus exists outside of time and space. We can see only the echoes of its creation from when Zeus banished Cronus to the Cave of Nyx. Cronus crafted his temple to make sure nothing could harm him ever again. He is a capricious god, as so many of you are.”
That made me feel good. Euryale wasn’t referring to me as a baby god or a godling, none of that. She was treating me like the war god I was. About damn time.
I scooped up some hummus on a triangle of pita. “Yeah, totally capricious. So if I understand right, we could run up to that hill—assuming we don’t piss off the Stymphalian Omegas or encounter too many more dinomythics—but once we get there, no door, no entryway, outside of time. We’d probably only see the blur of a temple. Right?”
“Just so,” the Gorgon replied.
“Okay, but here’s the thing. I’m figuring you didn’t bring us all the way out here just to tell us a bunch of bad news.”
“She better not have,” Myrina growled, absently pulling out a short dagger and inspecting its blade.
Euryale laughed lightly, ignoring my Warden’s not-so-subtle threat. “No, I would not want to anger the heroes that slew my sister and have been such a thorn in the side of the death god. There is one in Nyx that might know how to gain access to the temple. She is Ailuros, an oracle that lives on the Isle of Cats, in the Lake of the Sphinx.”
“That’s the huge reservoir in the middle of the swamp near the western stalactites, right?” I asked.
“Precisely. The waters of the great River Kairos emerge from the Western Daggers and feed into the Lake of the Sphinx and the Great Swamps scattered through this valley. On the Isle of Cats, you will find Ailuros. Be warned, though, she is a powerful entity given to riddles and games and other pleasantries that might seem tame, but which can grow quite deadly if unchecked. She is not an evil creature, exactly, but an immortal … and a bored one.”
“Riddles, cool, I can Bilbo Baggins it up,” I said. “I always like that one riddle the sphinx had about the baby, the dude, and the old man. Four legs, two legs, three legs in the evening. Hell yeah, sounds like a cake walk.”
“Hell … yeah … as you say,” Euryale said agreeably. Too agreeably?
“So why help us?” I asked.
“Because I do not wish to end up like my sisters,” Euryale offered earnestly. “You yourself witnessed their fate. Death. I do not wish to die. It is my desire to live forever, and if I am careful, I shall since I am immortal. This necromancer, however, is a pawn of Hades, and Hades wants the destruction of all. If you defeat the death god, it is one less danger for me to consider. Besides, this Earl Necro Earl you spoke of slighted me—he killed what belonged to me. I do not wish to use my resources to oppose him myself, but I will gladly rejoice at his downfall.”
I looked over at the tall redwood walls and the army of velocentaurs and realized Euryale had made herself a fortress outside of time. If she wanted to live forever, she had the setup for it. And she must’ve realized that if she didn’t mess with us, we wouldn’t mess with her.
“Okay, well, thanks for lunch and for the intel,” I said. “It’s not like we can really trust each other, but Euryale, if you don’t get in our way, if you don’t attack us, we’ll let you be. Sound like a deal?”
“It is, as you say, a deal, darling,” the Gorgon hissed in reply. She reached out a hand of writhing snakes. “Shall we join hands to seal this agreement?”
I grunted in suspicion. “How do you know we do that in the modern world?” I asked.
Phoebe broke in, “The handshake is an ancient symbol, Jacob. Even Homer talked about handshakes.”
I grimaced and, uh, shook snakes? with the Gorgon. The serpents wrapped themselves around my hand and wrist. Their coils were cool and dry.
With full bellies, we left the Temple of the Gorgon through the huge redwood gates. Euryale watched us go from behind her veil. She seemed reasonable, but I couldn’t shake the feeling she had an agenda all her own, and she was using us somehow. But then, I might’ve been paranoid. Still, paranoia had saved me more than a few times since winding up on Lycastia, so I didn’t dismiss my unease out of hand.
We found a winding game trail that took us across the plains and to the edge of the tropical jungle surrounding the swampland. The walk was long, exhausting, and tedious, but nothing jumped out and tried to eat my face, so I considered it a win. Eventually, we made camp on the edge of the forest. A group of stegosaurs ambled by as we set up, trimming the trees with their beaked mouths. Thankfully, these ones seemed like plain-Jane dinos—peaceful giants, devoid of glowing back plates or crazy lightning breath.
We pulled out camping supplies, set up our bivouac, and came up with a watch rotation while Loxo scouted the surrounding area for any potential threats. We broke our rations out next, removing them from a variety of compartments built into Phoebe’s steampunk mech. In the end, though, we didn’t need to eat the dried arachnaswine and unleavened bread. Nope. Loxo, being the awesome Huntress that she was, returned with one of the massive buffalos we’d see on the way to Euryale’s temple. The beast was already dead—its eyes shut, its throat slit—and strapped down onto Thunderfoot’s broad back.
In next to no time, we had a crackling bonfire burning bright. Myrina set about spitting and roasting the meat, until it was seared on the outside and nearly raw on the inside. Sabra found some herbs, and we used them to spice up our meal.
We ate and ate and ate—the meat succulent, just a little gamey, and dripping with delicious fatty grease.
Asteria turned into various animals to eat the carcass that we’d left raw for her. The Beastiamancer started out as a tiger, changed to a bear, then went vulture before ending her meal of buffalo guts as a hyena. I’m not sure I’d ever seen her happier. Buttercup nestled right up to her and eagerly helped strip the bones clean.
While my Amazons chitchatted, I pulled up my interface and checked over my stats—I hadn’t realized it in the heat of the battle, but I’d managed to get another level up from the Dino throw down. I’d been in something of a rut for the past week, so getting all these new levels was a huge relief. I guess the key to power-leveling as god of war was finding new and interesting monsters, then butchering the crap out of ’em. And the dinomythics had definitely been new and interesting.
I dropped five more Attribute Points into Intelligence, three into Strength, and the last two into Willpower, then pulled up my character sheet, looking over the changes.
Satisfied, I closed out and toggled over to my skill trees. My miracles were just about as badass as abilities came, but I wanted to diversify just a bit and add a few other tools to my War God belt. So, I pulled up my Path of War Skill Tree and gave it a long look:
Since I already had both Warfighter and Fury unlocked, I could branch out and pick up either the Defender ability or the Smite ability. Defender and Colossus seemed to be defense-oriented skills, built around the idea of a war god tank. Defender drastically increased Armor Rating—permanently, which was a huge bonus—while also having an active effect that looked similar to the old DnD skill Iron Flesh. And Colossus … Well, that bad boy allowed me to triple in size and quadrupled my Armor Rating, HP, and Health Regen for the duration of the spell.
Impressive as hell.
The right-hand side of the skill tree, by contrast, was firmly attack oriented.
Kill, slay, maim, ravage.
The Smite ability cost next to nothing—a measly five Essence Points—and could be triggered on contact, allowing me to do an extra 25% Attack Damage while giving me a huge 250% attack bonus against enemies in heavy armor. And Bloodlust was an active Aura that allowed me to absorb HP for every point of damage dealt to my enemies. Good shit all around, though each branch seemed designed for very different styles of game play.
Ultimately, I decided to go with the Defende
r ability since that would offer me some permanent gains—not to mention, the idea of unlocking the Colossus skill was deeply appealing. Who wouldn’t want the ability to transform into a thirty-foot-tall murder-machine?
By the time I was done tinkering around in my interface, most of the Amazons had finished their meals and were settling in for a bit of well-deserved shut-eye, exhausted to the bone from our long day. Antiope took the first watch. She seemed restless and immediately took off to check and double-check our perimeter. Loxo followed like a wraith. The night came quick and the darkness was nearly complete. Not totally surprising since we were in a subterranean cavern. The jagged crystal suspended high above didn’t generate light, so without the sun it could only reflect weak silver starlight and errant moonbeams.
There was some glow, but not much.
Our fire was the only real source of illumination. Strange tiny night dinosaurs—their eyes milky and useless—crept around in the brush. I figured they’d be going for bugs and small rodents, but I’d seen the second Jurassic Park movie. Get enough little carnivores together, and they could be a problem, so we kept an eye on them.
While the rest of the crew nodded off, Myrina, Phoebe, and I sat around the fire, planning. Asteria changed into a wolf form, her extended belly looking painful, and curled up into her fluffy tail to sleep. She’d eaten herself into a food coma.
“What does Earl seek in the Cave of Nyx?” Myrina asked.
That’s the million-dollar question, Phoebe messaged. I think he’s here to get the Crystal Scythe like we are. Maybe he wants to use it for himself, or maybe he wants to keep it from us.
“How would he have known about it?” I asked.
Well, it’s not like the Crystal Scythe is this big secret, Phoebe sent. It’s been in like, books. You know books? Paper things? With pages?
“Obviously you don’t know Earl very well,” I said, picking up a small twig and chucking it into the dancing flames. “I’d wager my left arm that asshole has never read a book in his whole fucking life. Assuming you don’t count porn mags.”
“Perhaps Praxidike told him,” Myrina said with a shrug. “Or Hades. Surely this Earl is in communication with Hades.”
I’m thinking Hades is still napping. Phoebe offered, her gaze distant and thoughtful. But we don’t know, not really. From what Jacob said, Ares was all fucked up after that last big battle over the Lycastia sigil. We don’t know what state Hades is in.
“He’s not at full power,” I said. “That we do know, or he’d be leading his troops himself and not using lackeys.” I paused, then said words I hated to speak. “What if we have a spy? Is it possible one of our soldiers heard us talking about the Crystal Scythe and then told Earl about it? What if one of our resurrected Amazons came back corrupted, and we just don’t know it yet? I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but after hearing what Loxo told us?” I faltered, lips pressed into a thin line. “Could be.”
Well, that’s super fucked, Phoebe sent.
“My thoughts exactly,” I said.
FIFTEEN
Bite Me
The night passed uneventfully, and in the crystalline light of the new day our fears about a possible spy seemed unfounded. These were my Amazons, dammit. Cool as ice, badass, and dedicated heart and soul to me and our mission. With all the magical shenanigans afoot, Necro Earl might’ve had some sort of scrying device. We discussed it while we packed, and Phoebe maintained that the spy theory was the most likely. I went back through all the Amazons I’d resurrected—from Hippolyta to Antiope to Loxo—and I couldn’t imagine any of them betraying us.
In the end, Phoebe and I decided we’d just have to keep our eyes open and see what happened.
We broke camp and continued our trek through the land that time forgot. Traveling through the ancient primeval forest, animals scattered in front of us. We saw a few of the huge sloths amble slowly through trees teeming with rodent-like creatures—some gray-furred ancestor of the modern squirrel. The Cave of Nyx was bursting with life from every epoch. Idly, I wondered if we would run across a Neanderthal, or some version of an early human.
That would be cool as hell, so long as we didn’t have to duke it out with ’em.
Loxo and Sophia remained a powerful recon team, running ahead, scoping out our path, and looking for unseen dangers. With Sophia’s power to teleport, she could vanish in an instant only to appear a hundred yards away, well out of harm’s reach. And Loxo? She could melt into even the slimmest of shadows, disappearing in a blink and a whisper. With our messaging system, either could warn us if they saw anything sketchy. So far, the forest of towering trees and thick ferns seemed peaceful enough.
The real enemy, I figured, was the goddamn heat.
We were all sweating and stinking up a storm.
The humidity worsened when we hit the Great Swamps. The ground became soft, then soupy, until the pines ended in a series of channels, muddy ridges, and cypress trees heavy with moss and vines. That muddy water—who knew how deep—could hide any number of monsters. Phoebe walked her mech into the first riverway we encountered. The stinky murk only came up to the first joint in her legs, but three steps later she was up to her firebox in swamp stew.
Awesome.
And the fetid water was only the first annoyance. Worse were horsefly-sized mosquitoes, which filled the air in droves, harassing us before we’d even gone ten feet into the gloom. The little bastards were bold as could be and nearly impossible to kill. And for every one I turned into bug paste, five more seemed to take its place like some kind of insectile Hydra.
This was my own personal version of Hell.
Thunderfoot stepped into the water, drank, then looked dolefully at Ariadne. The bull didn’t want to take another step—and I couldn’t blame him one bit. The water was grosser than a Tijuana outhouse, and the mosquitoes were damned good at finding spots on his body just out of reach of his lashing tail. Ariadne helped by slapping the bugs away with the flat of her hand, but they were quick and persistent. Real go-getters.
Buttercup fared better because of her fur, though only marginally.
Phoebe reversed her mech and backed out of the water. Well, Jacob, this is going to be all kinds of fun. We can’t fly over this shit because of the Stymphalian Omegas. And going through it is going to take us forever. The mosquitoes suck—get it, they suck—but I’m not too worried about them. I’ll bet my sweet ass, though, that there are monsters under all that muddy water just waiting for a little snack. Dollars to donuts on that action.
I had no doubt she was right, but I also had a glimmer of an idea. Sophia, I sent, can you teleport just above the tree line and find a path through the swamp that can take us to the Lake of the Sphinx?
I can, War God, Sophia replied. I will be careful to stay low and inconspicuous.
Loxo threw in, And you do have a sweet ass, Phoebe. I’ve seen Jacob staring at it.
Phoebe gave me a quick glance of surprise.
Instead of blushing, I felt the godstone flare in my chest. I nodded and arched an eyebrow. “Yep. Totally sweet,” I said.
This time it was Phoebe who did the blushing. That was a nice change of pace since I was usually on the receiving end of the flirtatious harassment. My Rune-Caster cleared her throat, tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and forged on. Okay. Whatever. She paused, faltered, and cleared her throat again. Anyway, I like your plan, Jacob. But let’s keep our eyes on the water. I don’t trust it.
I can help with that! Asteria sent happily. She took three steps and changed, mid-stride, into a gargantuan crocodile. Her reptilian body belly-flopped into the water and she disappeared with a wiggle of her powerful tail. Fish! Me. Love. Fish! Yummy fish. You tall walkabouts know nothing. Cook? Why? Bad! FISH!
While my shifter explored the swamp, Sophia and Loxo found us a muddy ridge that rose above the pools and threaded its way through thick-packed cypress trees. Myrina led the way and Antiope took up the rear. I found myself smack-dab in the middle of
the formation, walking next to Sabra.
“Is the swamp not beautiful, Jacob?” my Forest-Witch asked, the ghost of a smile glued on her lips, her gaze dancing over the vines and leaves and sprawling ferns.
I took a quick look around, imagining how much I’d like to set the whole place on fire. “It sure is something,” I muttered darkly, fanning the Great Mammoth Cloak, which did a whole lot of nothing to help with the oppressive heat. A mosquito buzzed close and I grabbed it like a fucking kung fu master, squishing its plump body in my fingers. Naturally, one of my sandals sank into a soft muddy part and goop oozed between my toes.
Sabra witnessed all that and chuckled. “Beautiful, but not easy, War God.”
“Boy, isn’t that the truth,” I replied, soldiering on.
We followed the muddy ridge for a solid ten minutes, winding our way through the undergrowth, avoiding pools, and skirting odd-looking clumps of purple-leafed vegetation which seemed strangely aware. Out of all the places I’d been so far in Lycastia, this was definitely the worst. Hands down. Eventually, the muddy ridge ended at a burbling river, fifteen feet wide.
Water’s clear, came Asteria’s voice, but deep. So deep. Many fish. So good to eat.
I sighed and crouched down, eyeballing the river as I rubbed at my chin. Well that was unfortunate. Sophia, any chance of a quick, convenient detour?
My apologies, Jacob, Sophia replied, but there is no other way. You will either need to fly or ford the waterway.
As though sensing my thoughts, Sabra stepped up and thrust her hands straight out, a mischievous grin slicing her face. Our side of the muddy bank wriggled and danced, the dark earth shifting and crawling as a bridge of hearty vines sprouted up, arcing over the top of the water, then rooted themselves in the loamy earth on the far side. She whirled on me and cocked an eyebrow. “Not an easy land, but a manageable one with the right skills.” She folded her arms smugly. “And thankfully, in this place my skills thrive.” She positively glowed she was so happy.