The Tomb of Hercules

by Andy McDermott

Two more had fallen victim to this last trap, having slipped and fallen under the huge rollers acting as the bull’s “feet” as they tried to pull down the head. Nina paused to examine them more closely. “These are more recent,” she realized. “The clothing, what’s left of it, I’d say was fifteenth- or sixteenth-century European. Even a failed attempt to get through the traps clears the way for the next set of robbers.”

  “So the next task should have been triggered as well?” Corvus asked as he clambered onto the bull to reach the exit passage behind its head.

  “Not necessarily,” Sophia said as she followed him. “We know the way through the maze. They didn’t. Even if they got past each challenge, there might still have been other traps that killed them.” As she emerged on the other side of the statue, she looked calculatingly at Chase. “Maybe we should find out.”

  “There isn’t time,” said Corvus, brushing dust from his clothes. Sophia seemed disappointed, but still gave Chase a look that suggested her idea wasn’t going to go away. “What is the next trial?” he asked Nina as she caught up.

  She checked her notes. “The mares of Diomedes.”

  “Horses, eh?” said Chase. “I bet in the legend they weren’t exactly My Little Ponies.”

  “Not really. There are different versions of the story, but in all of them the horses are man-eaters.”

  “Sounds like someone I know,” Chase muttered, glaring at Sophia.

  “We should stop here for a while,” Nina told Corvus. “I need to keep working on the translation—I haven’t got very far past the next challenge.”

  “No,” he replied. “Work on the move. We are so close now, I will not wait. Concentrate on guiding us through the maze—even if any of the trials are still working, my men have weapons and explosives. We can take care of them.”

  Nina made a disbelieving face, then shrugged. “Whatever,” she said, concealing her concern—and also her hope. If any of the remaining trials actually were still functional, they could pose a genuine threat to Corvus’s men—and give herself and Chase chance to escape.

  Once the entire party had gathered, they set off again, Nina directing them through the darkened twists of the labyrinth. Before long they reached the entrance to another chamber.

  Bertillon, leading the way, shone his light inside. “I see no bodies,” he reported. “I don’t think this one has been sprung.” He switched the flashlight to his other hand as he unshouldered his gun, a sleek and futuristic Fabrique Nationale F2000 assault rifle with a 40mm grenade launcher fitted beneath the barrel. Two of his companions did the same.

  Komosa joined them, flashlight glinting from his piercings as he looked into the long chamber. Nina peered past him to see what lay inside. At the far end were four oversized statues of horses, even more forcefully stylized than the previous creatures they had encountered. Their long, sharp teeth were bared, legs raised as if frozen midgallop … and ready to resume at any moment. The hooves were elongated, narrowed, more like blades than feet—making Nina think uncomfortably of some kind of agricultural threshing machine. The animals’ legs ran the full width of the passage.

  “Christ,” said Chase, standing beside her to see for himself. “Teeth on those things look like the bloody Alien Queen.”

  “We must go through,” said Corvus. He turned to Nina. “How did Hercules defeat them?”

  Nina paused, thinking—and gave Chase the briefest of knowing glances. “His task was to steal the horses from Diomedes, who kept them chained to a bronze manger,” she recounted after a moment. Corvus looked at the statues, which had bronze chains hanging from their necks, and nodded. “Once he freed them, he drove them onto a peninsula and dug a trench to make it into an island so they couldn’t escape.”

  Bertillon aimed his light at the floor of the chamber. “Perhaps we are supposed to dig up the floor so the horses cannot get across, hey?” He switched off the flashlight and pocketed it, then raised his gun and activated its spotlight before loading the grenade launcher. “I know a quick way to do that.”

  Another man, an American, examined the chamber’s entrance. “There’s a slot in the top of the arch here,” he announced. “I guess a gate drops down when the trap goes off so you can’t get out. We’ve got some titanium jacks—we can wedge them in so that it can’t fall.”

  “Do it,” ordered Corvus.

  The jacks were quickly set in place, an inverted V blocking the slot above the entrance while still allowing room to pass underneath. Bertillon, Komosa and the two other men who had unshouldered their F2000s entered the chamber and cautiously advanced on the statues. The others watched from the entrance, Corvus using a radio so the team could communicate via headsets without shouting.

  “Is there any sign of a spot where you might be supposed to dig up the floor?” he asked.

  “Nothing so far,” Bertillon replied, carefully stepping forward. “Perhaps we should use grenades to destroy the statues before they—”

  Crunch.

  A dull grind of shifting stone came from beneath his foot, clearly audible even to those waiting outside the entrance.

  And then the entrance slammed shut, a metal portcullis dropping down—not from the slot that had been blocked by the jacks, but beyond it, on the far side of the arch. The slot was just a decoy, the real trap suspended a foot away.

  With a screech of metal and rasp of stone the statues burst into life, moving for the first time in thousands of years. Their jaws snapped and their legs churned up and down, sharp hooves slicing the air and clanging cacophonously against the stone floor as they advanced.

  Corvus’s men outside the chamber ran to the gate and tried to lift it, but it refused to move, locked down.

  Nina cringed and put her hands over her ears as Bertillon fired his grenade launcher. The echoing shotgun-like thud was nothing compared to the explosive crack that shook the chamber a moment later as the grenade hit one of the statues. Lumps of stone showered the room as a chunk was blown from the horse’s chest, but the relentless advance continued.

  Another man fired. The grenade shot between the stamping legs of the horses and into the exit tunnel behind them, detonating with a bang followed by the crunch of falling rocks.

  “Stop!” Corvus shouted. “You’ll block the tunnel!” Bertillon and Komosa looked back at him in disbelief. “Use bullets, not grenades! Destroy the legs!”

  The three men with rifles exchanged glances, then did as they were ordered and switched their attack. Bullets blazed from the weapons, chipping and cratering the statues and spraying debris in all directions. The sharp metal hoof was blown from one of the pounding legs, but the jagged spear of stone that remained appeared just as lethal.

  Komosa took out a large pistol as the others backed towards the entrance. “What are their weak spots?” he demanded over the radio. “How do we stop them?”

  Sophia drew her own gun and pressed it against Nina’s head. “Well? Answer him! How did Hercules kill them?”

  “He didn’t kill them—” Nina began, before being interrupted by a scream from the chamber.

  A bullet had ricocheted off the statues and hit Bertillon in his right thigh, dropping him bloodily to the floor. One of the other men went to drag him away, but jumped back as shrapnel from the third man’s shots scythed past his face. By the time he recovered, the horses had reached the fallen man—

  Bertillon screamed again, his agonized howl cut off within moments as the stamping feet trampled over him and tore him to pieces, the statues turning red with splattered blood. Nina looked away in horror, and even Chase was repulsed. Lumps of shredded flesh were flung into the air to slap down before the remaining three men.

  Sophia aimed her gun at Chase. “How did he stop them?” she yelled at Nina. “In the other version of the legend? Tell me or Eddie dies!”

  Nina gave Chase a despairing look, then acquiesced. “He killed Diomedes and fed him to his own horses. Once they’d been fed, they calmed down and Hercules was able to take them!”<
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  Sophia turned to the entrance, where Komosa and the two other men had their backs to the portcullis—the horses were only fifteen feet away and still coming. “Joe! It’s the mouths—you have to feed them with something!”

  “Like what?” Komosa demanded.

  “There’s plenty of meat in there!”

  Komosa was puzzled, then realized what she meant. With a disgusted look, he picked up Bertillon’s left forearm, the hand flopping as he lifted it.

  The mouths of the horses kept chomping, sharp teeth glistening in the light. Every time they opened, they revealed a hole beyond, a channel curving down inside each statue.

  Komosa pulled back his arm to make a throw, hesitating to get the timing right—then flung the severed limb into the mouth of the nearest horse.

  It caught on the teeth, hanging for a moment as the mouth snapped shut—then dropped out of sight into the hole as the jaw opened again. Komosa and the others backed against the wall. The horses kept advancing … then slowed, the thundering gallop of their legs falling to a canter before stopping, barely four feet from the portcullis. Something rattled overhead. One of Corvus’s men tried to lift the gate, and this time found that it moved.

  Sophia whirled on Nina and punched her hard in the face, knocking her to the floor. Enraged, Chase stepped forward, but found guns thrust against his chest. “If you hold anything back again,” Sophia snarled down at Nina, “I won’t just kill Eddie. I’ll cut him apart, piece by piece, and make you watch every second of it. Am I clear?”

  Nina spat out blood. “Crystal,” she groaned.

  “Good. Now get up. There are three more trials.” Sophia paused thoughtfully, then looked across at Chase. A malevolent smile grew on her face. “Uncuff him,” she ordered one of the men.

  “Are you sure that’s wise?” asked Corvus.

  Sophia’s smile widened. “He’s going to need his hands free.”

  Nina stood, a hand pressed against her cut lip. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m giving you an incentive to work as quickly and accurately as possible,” Sophia told her. “Because Eddie’s going to be leading the way. If you make a mistake… he dies.”

  22

  Which way?” Chase said into his headset. The winding tunnel had reached another junction. “Left or right?”

  “Left,” said Nina through the earpiece after a moment.

  “You sure?”

  “Will you stop asking me that? Yes, I’m sure.”

  “Just checking.” He took a step down the left passage, then looked back. Komosa watched him from about twenty feet behind, a silver Browning longslide pistol with a laser sight in one hand. Past him, Chase could see the flashlight beams of the rest of the party.

  Komosa waved the gun for him to keep moving. Chase shot him a foul look, then continued down the next passage.

  It didn’t take long before his light picked out something new. “Okay, looks like another trial,” he reported. “What’s next on the list?”

  Another pause from Nina. “The apples of the Hesperides.”

  Chase rolled his eyes. “What, I’m going to be attacked by giant apples?”

  “There’s only one way to find out, Eddie,” Sophia cut in mockingly. “In you go.”

  He glanced back to see the smiling Komosa pointing the gun at him. Huffing, Chase entered the chamber.

  Unlike the long rooms that had housed the previous trials, this one was square. The floor was laid out in a grid of light and dark tiles like a chessboard, each tile around five feet to a side. The grid itself measured nine squares by nine, a light tile in each corner. Four stone columns carved to resemble trees, a squat metal cage at the top of each, rose to chest height on the light tiles halfway between the center of the grid and the corners. At the far side of the room beyond the chessboard was a figure whom even Chase, with his limited knowledge of mythology, recognized as Atlas, holding the heavens on his shoulders. In this case, the heavens were represented by a large globe of copper or bronze. A pair of rails curved down from behind the statue’s shoulders to the floor.

  “Eddie, what do you see?” Nina asked.

  Chase described the scene. “I don’t see any apples, though. How does the story go?”

  “Atlas guarded the garden of the Hesperides. Hercules wasn’t able to reach the apples himself, so he offered to take the weight of the heavens for a while so Atlas could get them for him. Once Atlas got the apples, he decided to deliver them himself for a reward, but Hercules tricked him into taking back the heavens by saying that he wanted to adjust his cloak to get more comfortable, so if Atlas could just hold them for a moment…”

  “So Atlas was thick as shit, then.” Chase scanned the room again. “The globe looks like it moves, so… ah, I get it. I’m supposed to shove the globe off his shoulders so Atlas gets the apples somehow, then I have to roll it back up the rails onto his shoulders again to get out.”

  “I doubt that the statue’s going to come to life and collect the apples for you,” Sophia said. “There must be more to it.”

  “I’m still working on the text,” Nina told him. “It’s like the description of the Augean stables—it’s a puzzle, a test of wits rather than fighting skills, so it’s more involved than the others. I just need time to transcribe and translate it.”

  “Time is in short supply, Dr. Wilde,” said Corvus impatiently. “Chase, go to one of the columns, see if the apples are inside it.”

  “I’d rather wait,” Chase said testily. He looked back at the entrance, seeing Komosa signaling with the Browning for him to go on. “But I guess that’s not an option, is it? Oh well, let’s grab some Golden Delicious.”

  He moved towards the first column on the left side of the room, stepping onto a dark tile—

  “Eddie, stay still!” Nina shrieked through the headset, but too late.

  The tile dropped out from under him. It was hinged along one edge, swinging away to pitch him into a black void below—

  Chase threw out his arms, his flashlight spinning down into the darkness as he caught the side of the hole with one hand. Pain searing through the wound in his back, he swung helplessly for a moment before struggling to bring up his other arm. With a groan, he finally managed to secure himself.

  Nina screamed his name through the headset. “I’m okay, I’m okay!” he gasped. “Well, technically.”

  “What happened?” Sophia asked, sounding more professionally curious than concerned.

  “The tile was hinged; it gave way when I stepped on it.” Chase turned his head to examine the side of the hole opposite the hinge. Metal strips supporting the tile from beneath had bent under his weight.

  “I always said you could stand to lose a few pounds, Eddie,” said Sophia.

  “Yeah, ho fucking ho. Get me out of here.”

  Her voice became patronizing. “I’m disappointed in you. Can’t you climb out on your own?”

  “I would’ve if some bastard hadn’t stuck a drill in my shoulder!” Chase twisted around to see Komosa still lurking in the entrance. “Oi, Silvernips! Give me a hand, for fuck’s sake.”

  Komosa smirked, making no effort to move. Behind him, the other members of the expedition arrived, Nina leading. “Help him, then!” she cried.

  Corvus directed his flashlight at the dangling Chase. “He fell in the hole, let him get out of it. Why should we help?”

  Nina fixed him with a cold, determined stare. “Because if he dies, you might as well kill me too, because there’s no way in hell I’m going to translate another word of this.” She held up the parchments, thumb tightening. Part of one page tore. “Oops.”

  Sophia brought up her gun, but Corvus raised his hands. “All right, Dr. Wilde.” He nodded to Komosa. “Get him out.” Annoyed, Komosa entered the room and pulled Chase from the hole.

  “Cheers, mate,” Chase said sarcastically, kneeling on the solid light tile that he’d grabbed. He peered into the hole to see his light lying on the ground ten feet below—surrou
nded by a nest of jagged metal spikes. “Jesus. You’d need more than a tetanus shot if you landed on those.”

  “How do we get across safely?” Sophia asked, looking at the transcribed Greek text in Nina’s notebook. “Are all the dark squares booby-trapped?”

  “Yes, but so are some of the light ones too,” said Nina, defensively turning the book away from her. “Let me see… oh, Christ, this is complicated.” She frowned as she read through the text. “Okay, I think I’ve got it. Every second light-colored tile in the first row, the one along the left side of the room, is booby-trapped. Then in the second row, the third light tile is trapped. The third row, all the light tiles are safe. Then the pattern repeats—every second one, every third. All the others should be safe.”

  “Should be safe?” Chase remarked dubiously.

  Sophia pointed her gun at him. “Only one way to find out.”

  Cursing under his breath, Chase banged a heel down hard on the next light tile in the adjoining row. It didn’t move. He warily stepped onto it, then with a little more confidence hopped diagonally to the light tile on which the column stood. “Okay. Any chance of another torch?”

  Komosa tossed him his flashlight. Chase caught it and examined the metal cage on top of the column. “Yeah, we’ve got an apple in here.” He tugged at the cage, but it held firm. “Better roll the ball, I suppose. You’re absolutely sure about which tiles are booby-trapped?” he asked Nina.

  Nina was working as quickly as she could, holding the red plastic sheet over one of the parchment pages and shining a light on it to spot each hidden letter in turn, then scrawling them into her notebook. “As far as I can tell.”

  “Well, if you’re sure, that’s good enough for me. Which way do I go?”

  There was a short pause while Nina worked out the pattern. “Okay, if I’m right, the light square diagonally to the right is trapped.”

  Chase tested it with his heel. It dropped fractionally. “Yep, you’re right.”

  “Okay, go left.” He moved cautiously; this light tile was solid. “Now go right, right again and left to get to the second column, then go left, then right, and you’ll be at the statue.”