“They think we’re dead,” said Eurydice.
“Let’s hope so,” said Barsine as she pulled on more of those levers. They began speeding up, getting in behind the ironclad, moving into its wake.
“Are we going to attack ’em?” asked Matthias. Lugorix wondered what he was proposing to attack them with, but Eurydice just grinned.
“Why should we?” she said. “Last thing we want to do now is call attention to ourselves.”
Lugorix laughed. It made sense to him. “You’re saying that whatever the defenses of that tower are, they’re going to be keying on them, not us.”
“Exactly,” said Barsine.
“Sure,” said Matthias, “but why the fuck are we even going in there in the first place?”
“Because,” said Eurydice, “they’ve got something worth the stealing.”
“And when we get it?” asked Ptolemy.
Eumenes nodded. He understood the question perfectly—knew that Ptolemy wasn’t really asking what to do with it. He was asking who would control it. The two Macedonians had sequestered themselves in the forward observation chamber and barred the door. Kalyana was giving Hanno and his slingers a tour of the ship while pumping him for info. Because Hanno had to have some kind of info—surely he hadn’t come down here blind? At any rate, that gave the agents of Philip and Alexander some privacy while they tried to come to a meeting of the minds. Eumenes looked at Ptolemy’s aquiline face, saw in those eyes the same thing that filled his own head: raw calculation.
“We need to get our hands on it first,” he said simply.
“Right,” said Ptolemy, making one of those half-shrugs of his. They were on the same page: if by some miracle they weren’t killed by what was in the Tower—if they actually got what they’d come all this way for—then there’d be no splitting the difference. Ptolemy and Eumenes were both servants of the Macedonian Empire, but they were still bound to different masters. If Ptolemy got near Alexander, then the king would kill him, probably quite slowly. If Eumenes got near Philip, he would have to either betray Alexander or die. Which meant that if the Tower failed to kill either Ptolemy or Eumenes, at some point one of them would have to slay the other. There was no getting around it. But until that point, they were stronger working together. Years of surviving in the shark-tank known as the Macedonian court meant that such realities could go unspoken. The playing-field was very simple now. In theory Eumenes had the advantage, since he was the one who the soldiers reported to. Then again, Eumenes was Greek. As always, that was his weakness—the factor that might allow Ptolemy to suborn the loyalty of his crew and soldiers. So taking Ptolemy on board the ship was a gamble, to say the least. Then again, so was coming downstairs into Hades…
“What maps are you using?” asked Eumenes.
“I was following the Carthaginian ships,” said Ptolemy. “Who were following the Persians—”
“I’m not talking about how you got in. I meant once you got here. What are you using?”
“Some scraps that Philip lifted from Aristotle’s lab. Before the old man split. What about you?”
“Same. Some of Aristotle’s notes.”
“Which ones?”
“You missed some of the shit in the fireplace.”
Ptolemy looked disgusted with himself. “Tell me it wasn’t worth too much.”
“It had its uses,” said Eumenes. He watched as several crocodile-men ran along the shore and hurled themselves into the water, their tails thrashing as they swam toward the ironclad. There was the distinct sound of one of the ship’s gun’s whirring; next moment, Greek fire poured over them. The smell of a particularly foul roast meat drifted through the cabin. “Though not so much for trying to piece together whatever we’re going to find in that Tower,” he added. “For that I’ve mostly been relying on the Sibylline Books and some of the scrolls that Alexander took from Siwah.”
Ptolemy’s eyes narrowed. “So what did happen there?”
“The oracle told him what he wanted to hear.”
“Of course he did,” said Ptolemy. “We’re down in the pits of hell, so how about you level with me?”
“Sounds like you already know most of it,” said Eumenes evenly.
“Enough to know just how crazy the man really is.”
“He’s not crazy,” said Eumenes. And then, off Ptolemy’s look: “He’s not.”
“Then what is he?”
“He’s hearing voices.”
“So there you go. He’s crazy.”
“But say he isn’t?”
“How would he not be?”
“Say the voices are real?”
“Then I’d have to say you’re crazy too.”
“And let’s say those voices gave him powers over, oh I don’t know—how about some of the elements? Like, say, the currents of the sea and the winds of the air?”
Ptolemy took a deep breath. “You’ve seen this?”
“The Athenian fleet has.”
“So you’re telling me—what? …he really is the son of Zeus?”
“Honestly, at this point I’m not sure how productive labels are.”
“Spoken like an oh-so-pragmatic Greek.”
“You think we should just fall to our knees in wonder and throw reason out the window?”
“I’m more interested in what you think,” said Ptolemy.
“The Earth is flat.”
“That seems hard to deny at this point.”
“The Earth is flat,” repeated Eumenes. Off on the shore there was an explosion, followed by some truly hair-raising shrieking. “There’s been a debate about whether it’s round or flat, and now that debate’s settled.”
“Fine. Granted. Will you please tell me where you’re going with this?”
“Kalyana was the one who pointed it out to me. If the Earth was flat, and the Sun were far away—
“How far away?”
“Far enough so that the rays of the sun are in effect parallel to someone on Earth. Hundreds of thousands of miles. Maybe millions.”
Ptolemy looked skeptical. “Is the universe even that big?”
“Wait till you see where I’m going with this. If the Earth was flat—”
“Which it is.”
“—and the Sun were that far away, then shadows of the same-sized objects would be the same size no matter where you were on any given north-south line. Which they fucking aren’t. So the Sun is close. Very close. Only a few thousand miles away.”
Ptolemy frowned. He was struggling to keep up with this. “If it’s so close, wouldn’t it appear to change size as it crosses the heavens?”
“It should.”
“So then how do you explain—”
“Either we’re missing something, or… well, Kalyana thinks the atmosphere’s distorting it, magnifying it the further it gets away from the observer. I don’t know if he’s right. But what we’re starting to think is that the celestial sphere isn’t that far overhead. It probably includes the sun, the stars, the Moon, the planets, anything we can see up there. And we don’t know what that sphere is made of. We don’t know what intelligence or machinery is behind it. But somehow the operators of that machinery—or that machinery itself—is in touch with Alexander.”
Ptolemy mulled this over. “Is it possible that machinery is in the Tower?”
“I daresay it’s more than possible.”
Just as Ptolemy was about to reply, there was a loud rapping on the door. “Sir? You’re needed on the bridge.” Eumenes swung the door open—and walked out, following the sailor who had summoned him.
But then he turned.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked Ptolemy.
“Me?” Ptolemy hadn’t moved. “Oh, I thought I’d stay here and keep an eye on things.”
“How about you come with me to the bridge so we can keep an eye on each other?”
Ptolemy shrugged, the ghost of a smile on his face. “Works for me,” he said.
The bridge was crowded
. Several members of the crew were there, along with Kalyana. The Tower loomed large in the observation window. Now that it was so close, it seemed like it was hewn from a single rock. The lights atop the tower were flickering on and off like flashes of lightning. The ironclad was closing in on the archway from which the river Lethe ran—above that archway was a single round window-opening. As Ptolemy inspected the gears and levers, Eumenes took Kalyana aside.
“Where’s the Carthaginian?”
“He’s with two marines and a sailor who speaks Phoenician. We’re getting him new armor, since his is so beaten up.”
“Never mind his armor,” said Eumenes. “What did you learn from him?”
“That he knows what we are after. And he wants it to.”
“But he’ll join forces until we’ve got our hands on it?”
“Presumably,” said Kalyana. “But I would not turn your back on him.”
Eumenes smiled grimly. “Does he have anything that passes for a map of Hades?”
Kalyana nodded. “Quite a detailed one from the sound of it. Though they lost it when the ship went down. He keeps saying that the lowest level is death.”
“Like we needed him to tell us that.” Eumenes turned to a member of his bridge-crew. “Full throttle,” he said. “Keep an eye on that archway.” Sailors adjusted controls; a rumbling went through the craft as the ironclad plowed into the whitewater rapids that were surging out of that arch. But suddenly another sailor rushed onto the bridge. Eumenes recognized him—he was the one who spoke Phoenician.
“Aren’t you supposed to be with the Carthaginian?” he asked.
“Sir, sorry sir. But I was just talking with him about the Persian ship.”
“What about it? It sunk. No longer a problem—”
“Sir, he said it had underwater capacity.”
All conversation on the bridge stopped. Eumenes turned to Kalyana. “You should have found that out,” he said calmly.
“Hanno and I were talking about Hell, not—”
But Eumenes was already talking over him, giving orders. “Get more men onto the rear-observation platform. Anything they see in the water that’s the slightest bit weird, we’ll use the Greek fire. Now move.”
As sailors raced from the room, the Carthaginian entered, bedecked in a splendid Macedonian cuirass, the two slingers behind him, seemingly content to remain half-naked. Eumenes glanced at him: “And someone ask this guy what else that ship can do.” Kalyana began talking in Phoenician but the Carthaginian wasn’t listening—he was just looking at the edifice that towered over them and babbling in his own language. They’d almost reached the tower’s arch.
“What’s he saying?” asked Eumenes.
“Same thing he told me earlier,” replied Kalyana. “The lowermost level is death.” Understanding suddenly dawned in his eyes but Eumenes was already yelling the order: “Reverse full speed! Reverse full speed!”
That was the moment the Xerxes rammed the ironclad.
Once they’d gotten close enough to the tower, Barsine and Eurydice had decided that there weren’t going to be any automatic defenses and there was thus no point in using the ironclad as a stalking horse. So they hit the ironclad from the side, the Xerxes’ ram slicing straight through the weak point between two of the metal plates, smashing into the hybrid wooden-metal framework behind them. Within moments, the Xerxes had thoroughly embedded itself in the side of the ironclad; water rushed in and the ship started to list just as Lugorix, Matthias, Barsine and Eurydice scrambled out of the hatch and onto the platform of the Xerxes.
It was only now that they were right next to it that Lugorix truly realized just how much bigger the ironclad was—twice the height and three times the width, lined with gunnery and observation slits. But the ship was in trouble, and he could hear pandemonium within. Matthias clambered up next to him and aimed a crossbow that Eurydice had radically modified at the archway overhead, at the window above it, lining it up—
“Do it,” hissed Lugorix.
Matthias fired. The bolt shot upward, its spikes burying itself between the keystones of the arch. Eurydice grabbed Matthias; Barsine grabbed Lugorix; both men grabbed onto the rope and then Matthias pulled the second lever attached to the trigger; next moment, they were all hauled upward as the miniature flywheels that lined the crossbow began spinning, the stricken ironclad-Xerxes combo dropping away from them, its forward momentum carrying it inside the archway and out of sight.
“Sucks to be them,” said Eurydice.
“How about we focus on us?” asked Barsine as they reached the upper portion of the archway. Lugorix placed one foot on a keystone, reached out toward the window. His hands closed around the edge. He levered himself around and onto the sill, found himsef staring into a tunnel leading into the tower’s interior. He reached out his hand, grabbed that of Barsine, helped her inside, then did the same for Matthias and then for Eurydice. They stared into the darkness of the tunnel.
“A light would help,” said Eurydice.
“You sure about that?” asked Matthias. “After those damn creatures earlier—”
“Those are outside the tower,” said Barsine. She fumbled with something—and suddenly the blueish light of Damitra’s amulet filled the tunnel.
“Guess the Xerxes won’t be needing that anymore,” said Eurydice.
“None of those bastards down there will be needing anything again,” said Barsine.
The ironclad’s throttle was on maximum now, as the ship desperately tried to make some kind of landfall before it went under. Because go under it clearly would: the Persian ship had embedded itself below the waterline and the list to the side was becoming ever more critical, the helmsman compensating at an ever greater angle to keep the ship going straight. And now soldiers were on top of the ironclad, looking for survivors from the Persian ship’s crew; with them were sailors with torches. In the flickering light, Eumenes could make out a vast and cavernous chamber: the carved vaults of the ceiling sweeping overhead, with platform-jetties at each corner, each one with stairs winding up into darkness. Eumenes pointed at one of the jetties; the ship slowly turned toward it.
But then the black-powder bomb in the nose of the Xerxes detonated.
It had been Eurydice’s idea, of course. Barsine had hated the idea of assembling a live hi-ex device on her ship, but Eurydice had convinced her that once they lit the fuse they’d have at least a few minutes. The force of the blast tore what was left of the front of the Xerxes to pieces, ripping more of the ironclad’s side away, almost breaking that ship’s spine and knocking everybody on board off their feet. Just as Eumenes regained his, the ironclad smashed into the corner of the room, the engines still going as they shoved the nose of the ship ever further forward onto the platform—
“Shut it off!” he screamed. One of the sailors who’d been thrown against the controls managed to do do just that. The clanking of the engines died away; the ironclad was now tilting at a thirty degree angle and sinking rapidly, sliding back off the platform. Eumenes had no idea how deep the water was in this place and he had zero intention of finding out. He threw open the top hatch. In short order he and Kalyana and Ptolemy and Hanno and the slingers were up on the sloping roof of the ironclad, along with about fifteen of the commandos. The others were either still below deck, or had been knocked into the water.
And the men down in that water were curiously passive. They just lay there, as though they weren’t even trying to swim. None of them were shouting for help. Several were already drifting under. Eumenes caught a glimpse of one of those blank faces and then he understood.
This was, after all, the river Lethe.
“Their minds have been wiped,” said Ptolemy.
It wasn’t like anyone was planning to take a dip in the first place but now they knew the full penalty for doing so. Struggling to keep his balance, Eumenes led the others along the roof of the ironclad toward the stairway in the corner. Two sailors lost their footing, slid into the water—their
screams cut off even as they hit. The water must be working on touch alone, thought Eumenes. It would be hard for this to get any worse.
He had rarely been more wrong.
Suddenly something enormous erupted from the water, something that dwarfed the ironclad, a leviathan-like grey-green scaled body from which were unfurling way too many… at first Eumenes thought they were snakes.
But then he realized they were necks.
Several of them were swooping in toward him.
It was then that he made the decision that would save his life. The natural response was to get out of there as fast as possible—just start running up those stairs. But Eumenes realized that the necks were easily narrow enough to follow. And maybe they were long enough too…
“Phalanx,” he yelled to those who had made it to the platform. Those who hadn’t were getting plucked straight off the sinking ship by those snake-necks—or pulled straight out of the water. Either way, they were being devoured wholesale. The hell of it was that it was only when they were being eaten did those who had been mindwiped scream. Eumenes’ commandos turned on the stairs, clustered around him, locking shields as the first of the necks came at them. It wasn’t much of a phalanx. It wasn’t intended to be—they only had a small number of men, and they certainly hadn’t brought their sarissae. But they would fight together. The first of the necks came darting in.
And at last Eumenes saw what the heads were.
He froze for a moment in his tracks but fortunately the soldier being targeted didn’t—in fact, he was the only among them who was beyond any such emotion, and now he lashed out with his sword and severed the head from the neck with a single adroit swipe. The head hit the stone floor and rolled into the water; the neck thrashed about, blood spraying. But there were many more necks behind that and the creature itself was now pulling itself toward the mini-phalanx—which started to retreat, Eumenes anchoring the left and Ptolemy the right, up the stairs, weapons out and shields locked the entire way. The slingers remained in the rear, flinging rocks over the heads of the Macedonians with good effect, scoring direct hits on two of the heads. The last glimpse Eumenes had of the ironclad was of it settling onto the side, crewmembers abandoning it out the side-portals only to be consumed almost immediately by the monstrosity.
The Pillars of Hercules Page 39