by Bill Hiatt
“Are there any restrictions on targets?” asked Tal. “I would not wish to give you too difficult a task.”
What? Tal was going to take the deal?
“Trust,” whispered Gordy, who must have noticed my reaction even in near darkness.
“There is no target my assassins cannot kill,” said Erebus. “In fact, since we wish to restore our reputation, the harder the better.”
“Let it be as you’ve spoken,” replied Tal. “In that case, I name Asmodeus, King of the Nine Hells, demon of lust.”
I felt a shudder pass through me, as if Erebus himself were writhing and sending ripples through the shadow into this world.
“Asmodeus cannot be killed,” said Erebus.
“Since nothing is beyond the power of your assassins, I know you will find a way,” said Tal. Not only was he gutsy; he was a good enough actor to deliver that line without even a hint of sarcasm.
“I will return in another half hour with an answer,” said Erebus. I could not really see him leave the shadow I had been staring at so intently, but I could feel his sudden absence.
“If it’s OK with everyone, I’d like to link us up psychically for a little chat while we wait for Erebus,” said Tal. Everyone agreed at once, and it took only a couple of minutes for Tal to cast the spells necessary to tie us all together mentally. That part I was actually getting used to.
“It would have been more comfortable to just talk,” thought Tal, “but I know the imperator has someone watching and listening from the shadows. This way we can all get on the same page without anybody overhearing.”
“We got that,” thought Gordy. “I’m not sure, though, why we want to get to Tartarus.”
“I saw and heard enough on Olympus to know the friendly Olympians have been captured,” thought Tal. “Tartarus is the logical place to lock them up. Correct me if I’m wrong, Alex, but Tartarus is supposed to be as far below the Underworld as the Underworld is below the ground, right?”
“The stories vary,” thought Alex, “But that’s the most common view.”
“Well, if we can liberate the good Olympians, we have a fighting chance at beating Hecate and her group, especially if we have the element of surprise.”
“Why not just go to Tartarus through the Underworld?” asked Alex. “Isn’t that the way it’s usually done?”
“Remember we have a tynged with Hades not to enter the Underworld without his permission. I’m not clear whether he’s one of the prisoners in Tartarus or not, but even if not, there’s no easy way to find him and get permission. Besides, the entrance to Tartarus from the Underworld is heavily guarded; we’d hardly get through without Hecate becoming aware of us. I’m pretty sure no one is guarding every shadow in Tartarus, though. With any luck we can get in, liberate the captives, portal them out, and be ready to storm Olympus right after.”
“So Olympus is our first point of attack?” asked Gordy. “Why take on the hardest point first?”
“Indeed, would it not be better to help Gwynn to victory first, so that you would have the support of his troops?” asked Arianrhod.
“Or liberate Santa Brígida,” asked Carlos, doubtless thinking, as we all were, about our parents.
“In the absence of knowing where Nicneven is, or how much support she has, not necessarily,” thought Tal. “I agree Olympus is going to be tough but, with a whole bunch of Olympians on our side, still doable. In Santa Brígida we would just have us, without any clue of who or what we were up against. Most of you saw the freak show Nicneven had the last time. An army even half that size—even a quarter—would be hard to beat. We don’t have Carla this time, or Nurse Florence or the Dagda, for that matter. Nor do we have the Holy Grail.”
I didn’t see how Tal could keep all the details straight, how he could strategize off the top of his head that way.
Of course, he wasn’t just some ordinary teenager. Not only was he the original Taliesin. He was also Greek heroes like Patroclus and Hephaestion, with all of their battle experience at his fingertips. That might explain why he could process tactical information so fast.
For a second I wondered what I might be able to do if I had access to whatever superpowered past life I’d had. Only for a second, though.
“What if the imperator rejects the deal?” asked Carlos. “He has to know you’ve given him an impossible task.”
“That’s the beauty of it,” thought Tal. “Even if in the worst case scenario he refuses to change the deal as I asked, under the original terms I have the unrestricted right to name a target. I got him to specifically reiterate that language during our conversation. He can’t kill Asmodeus even if he sends every shadow assassin after him, which means he’ll never be able to use the deal as a public relations coup. That’ll keep us from being responsible for any future assassinations. Even better, the contract will force him to keep on trying. I can think of worse things than having the Populus Umbrae locked in an eternal war with the forces of Hell. That’s bound to interfere with both.”
“Brilliant,” conceded Arianrhod, who still sounded unhappy. “What if he refuses to honor the deal?”
“He really can’t without further damaging the reputation of the Populus Umbrae. His only alternative is to get out of the Asmodeus part by agreeing to Umbra’s freedom and safe passage to Tartarus. He can have the gold as a face-saver. He probably won’t accept the prohibition of assassinations, but I’m willing to give that part up in a scenario in which we aren’t doing anything to help him get more contracts. At least we aren’t leaving the universe any worse off than it was to start with.”
Mental conversation is much faster than the physical alternative, so we got quite a bit of planning accomplished, working through each possible scenario and discussing what preparation it would require.
When the half hour was nearly gone, Arianrhod once again dimmed the lights, and right to the second the imperator returned.
“Your request for amendment of the original contract is rejected,” he announced, his words vibrating with triumph. I could feel everyone else’s surprise through the links.
“I will enter into the record your naming of Asmodeus as the one to be assassinated, and I will reclaim Umbra now.”
At the time Umbra had suggested the agreement, she was weighing going back into the Populus Umbrae against certain death. Since then, though, all the talk about amending the agreement had given her hope. I could see the surging disappointment in her eyes.
“I will of course kill her,” continued the imperator.
“You cannot!” insisted Tal. “If the original wording is still in force, it calls for her to be taken back into the Populus Umbrae for the completion of her training.”
“So it does, but since she has already failed in her training mission, I rule that her training is complete under our laws. Nothing is said in the contract about successful completion, and the penalty for failing in a training mission is death.
“Of course,” said the imperator, with a dark smile in his voice, “if you wish to renegotiate and name a more possible target, I might be moved to consider sparing her life.”
Damn! Clever as I thought Tal was, the imperator had outmaneuvered him. The imperator must have guessed from Tal’s desire to see the assassinations ended that Tal would not allow Umbra to die.
“I am ready to return,” said Umbra.
“No!” ordered Tal.
“Do you refuse to comply with the terms of the contract?” asked the imperator, his words swelling with menace.
“I wish to renegotiate again,” said Tal. “I have a counter offer. This whole agreement started because you wanted to restore the reputation of the Populus Umbrae. I will withdraw Asmodeus as the target, and you will give Umbra her freedom. Rather than naming another target, however, I will fight twenty of your assassins in single combat. If I lose, surely the stain on your reputation will be removed. If I win, you will give us free passage to Tartarus and never trouble any of us again.”
There
’s gutsy…and then again, there’s crazy!
“Single unarmed combat?” asked the imperator, clearly remembering what kind of damage Tal could do with magic swords.
“Unarmed on both sides…which means your assassins cannot carry those poisoned daggers, either.”
Oddly, I got the impression the imperator had been visualizing only Tal being disarmed. Nonetheless, he rallied quickly.
“The contest seems uneven. You are naturally physical, whereas the assassins need effort to become so. The daggers would level the field.”
“Very well,” said Tal to my surprise, “as long as I am permitted the dragon armor I am wearing right now.”
“Are you crazy?” thought Shar. Tal ignored him.
“No armor…and no daggers,” said the imperator.
“Done!” said Tal. “No articles except ordinary, nonmagical clothing. However, combatants may use their own inherent magic.”
The imperator hesitated at that point, perhaps uncertain of how much magic Tal had and of what kind. Nonetheless, he couldn’t very well refuse to allow magic; his assassins used shadow magic to become physical. Without it they wouldn’t be able to fight at all.
With the basic conditions agreed to, the conversation shifted to the location. The imperator wanted the Land of the Shades, but Tal insisted on something more neutral, and in the end they agreed on the dark side of the moon—not our moon, obviously. We would use the one here in Annwn. There would be some starlight, but otherwise more than enough darkness for the shadow assassins to operate.
There were a few preparations. Tal took a portal to Earth and returned with a change of clothes to replace the dragon armor. He adapted his eyes and ours to be able to see in extremely low-light conditions, and then used Arianrhod’s knowledge of the moon to move us by portal to the dark side. Arianrhod then used her magic to outline the huge arena in which the battle would take place. We could stand and watch but were forbidden to intervene. The same was true of the extra shadow assassins eerily surrounding us, and of the imperator himself, whose great black blob of a body hovered over the far side of the arena from us, giving the impression it extended almost infinitely into the space beyond. Evidently, he had come through completely into this world to watch the action. I was a little surprised by that, but I guessed he must have decided this battle was too important to watch from a distance.
“How often does the imperator leave the Land of the Shades?” I asked Umbra.
“This is the only time he ever has as far as I know,” she replied.
“Is this safe?” I asked Tal. “Looks like half an army all around us, plus the big boss.”
“The imperator can’t break a contract without risking his whole operation,” replied Tal. “So yeah, it’s safe. Assassins for hire don’t get many jobs if they double-cross their own clients.”
“Yeah, tricking them into bad deals is the worst they can do,” thought Shar sarcastically.
None of us liked Tal risking himself in this way. I had to keep holding onto the memory of Gordy telling me to trust Tal—an effort that would have been a lot easier if Gordy didn’t look so unhappy himself.
Tal entered the arena, and a few moments after his opponents arrived.
At that moment we realized what he had forgotten to specify in the rules.
Most of the shadows came from men, but not all of them. We should have foreseen that, because the imperator had sent the shadow of the Chimera out against us when I was the target, but Tal forgot to stipulate human shadows, and the force that faced him was far from human.
The Chimera was there, as was a creature with snakelike hair that had to be a Medusa shadow. Alex pointed out to us the looming multiple-serpent heads of a hydra shadow, the horns and bull head of a minotaur shadow, two giant shadows he identified as Otus and Ephialtes, a gigantic serpent he told us was a Greek dragon, and a gigantic animal shadow he said belonged to the Calydonian boar.
The other twelve combatants were human shadows, but Alex was pretty sure an especially buff-looking one was probably that of Hercules. As a group they looked about as fierce as any shadows could be.
Being less experienced than the others, I couldn’t be sure, but the force facing Tal looked far too powerful for him to beat alone and unarmed.
I hadn’t heard anyone say so, but I was pretty sure this was a fight to the death, at least on Tal’s part—and if he died, it was going to be my fault.
Chapter 17: The End of the Road? (Tal)
I kept telling myself that I had faced greater odds before and won, but the simple truth was I hadn’t—not alone, and not with only my own magic.
Probably I’d become too dependent on White Hilt, on being able to wreak havoc with it the way no one else could. If I met an opponent defended against fire, I could always grab Shar’s sword or someone else’s and overcome pretty much anything that came along. If there were too many enemies to hit at once, my friends had my back.
Well, there was no use worrying about that now. If I had seen this coming, I could have trained for it, but I didn’t, and I hadn’t.
I was still psychically networked with the guys, but that wasn’t helping at this point.
“We have to stop this!” thought Shar.
“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” I thought back.
“This isn’t what you signed up for,” said Alex.
“It’s what I’ve got, though, and trying to break the contract now will get us all killed. Stand down!” I could feel their desire to intervene spiking through the link, but they couldn’t. Outside the arena, shadow assassins were everywhere, and unlike the ones I was facing, the ones in the audience were armed with those instantly poisonous daggers. If Erebus thought we were breaking the contract, the assassins would strike. The guys would put up a good fight, but they were outnumbered, and none of them could use the power of their swords as rays or bursts the way I could.
Then there was Erebus. Probably all of us together couldn’t take him on. He was so vast I couldn’t even fully visualize him.
Ours wasn’t like a military organization. I couldn’t just issue orders. I could and did enjoin them all, on our friendship, not to intervene, no matter what happened.
I insulated myself momentarily and sent out as powerful a call to Magnus as I could. I had no idea where he was. All I could do was count on our unique connection.
I made the message simple and direct: “Come back!” If I did fall in this battle, the guys would need someone with magic to protect them. In some ways leaving them with Magnus was a little like hiring Jack the Ripper as a babysitter, but he had seemed different lately, and since Nicneven was out to get him now, it was in his interest to have allies. Snarky as he might be about them, he knew as well as I did how much my warriors could do.
Having sent my message, I turned to Arianrhod, who had been designated as a sort of referee, and signaled her I was ready.
The shadows were at the opposite end of a very large arena, but it would not take them long to reach me. I started singing to build power and sped myself up to faerie levels so I could at least maneuver as fast as they could. Then I wove a glow around myself. It was nothing compared to what I would have been able to pull out of the Apollo sword Jimmie was carrying, but at least it was bright enough to make the shadows hesitate. They could take a little light, but too much would inhibit their ability to take physical form, maybe even force them back to the Land of the Shades, and eliminate them from the contest.
The Chimera was flying forward, and I could see the shadow team’s strategy. The beast could breathe shadow strong enough to extinguish my light, maybe even strong enough to freeze me if it got in enough hits. It was going to darken the arena all around me, at which point the others would charge.
Fortunately, it was neither especially fast nor especially agile. I shot up in the air, dodged one of its blasts, and got myself around behind it. Its heads twisted as fast as they could, but not fast enough to prevent me from hovering right above it. The
body wasn’t physical enough for me to land and ride the creature, but I could still shoot light into it like arrows. I couldn’t hit it with enough juice to destroy it instantly, because I needed my power to last, but I could do enough damage to get it writhing. I had to shift out of the way once or twice as it tried to breathe on me, but the light was keeping it in enough pain to weaken its aim. A little more maneuvering, and maybe I could trick it into going out of bounds, which would also eliminate it from the battle.
That’s when I got hit with a tidal wave of shadow power, not from the Chimera but from somewhere else. My light went out like a candle in a typhoon, and the magical impact of the wave threw me toward the ground. I just barely managed to slow myself enough to avoid broken bones, but I was still jarred, and I felt frostbitten from the blast. The Chimera, free from my attack, was circling to hit me with its breath weapon. Though I realized what it was doing, I found myself moving sluggishly. I was not going to be able to get out of its way. At the same time, the other shadows, seeing my light gone, were charging. In less than a minute, they would be on me, and since there were so many of them, I couldn’t see a decent way to slip around them.
“Stop!” yelled Arianrhod. “The rules have been violated.”
The shadows stopped. If my speculation was correct, Erebus had to play by his own rules if he wanted to avoid divine intervention.
“What rule has been violated, and how?” he asked.
“That great wave that knocked Taliesin from the sky,” said Arianrhod. “Its power came from you. The rules prohibit any outside help.”
That certainly explained why that burst had been so strong. Even the Chimera’s breath couldn’t approach that intensity.
“The Populus Umbrae can channel my power,” replied Erebus. “This ability is inherent in their shadow magic, which after all comes from me in the first place. The rules specifically allow for magic inherent in the combatants.”