Agathocles flicked something on the amulet and the light switched off. He pulled himself slowly to his feet, looking up at the rows of benches stretching all around them.
“Mind explaining what just happened?” said Xanthippus as Diocles cradled him.
Agathocles nodded. He stared around at the burning city, looking like he was about to weep. “It’s what didn’t happen,” he said. “From the moment Aristotle reached Syracuse, my whole goal was to loot his lab and kidnap him,” he said. “The only way to save my city: I made one run myself, and another through proxies. The first yielded me this”—he pocketed the amulet—“while the second brought me nothing but the news that Aristotle was dead at the hands of Macedonian agents.”
Diocles was scarcely listening. He was too busy removing Xanthippus’ cuirass and tearing off strips of his own tunic, bandaging the wound. It didn’t seem to be deep but it was right next to where the arrow had struck him back on the beach. There was plenty of blood.
“You’ll want to get some wine on that,” said Agathocles.
“I could use some wine elsewhere too,” said Xanthippus, grimacing with pain as Diocles wrapped the makeshift bandage. “So Aristotle made that thing of yours?”
“I doubt it,” said the Syracusan. “I think it’s a piece of ancient magick. From what I’ve learnt, there’re several of them, one for each of the colors of the rainbow, and each of them have different effects. I’d hoped to collect more, use them to stop Macedonia.”
“Too late for that,” said Xanthippus. He gestured up above the arena, up along the trail of wreckage that the runaway Helepolis had left, all the way to the very top of the Epipolae. Steel glinted all along those heights.
Along with the banners of Alexander the Great.
“The Macedonian phalanx,” breathed Diocles.
But Agathocles was looking in the other direction—staring up above the city, an odd expression on his face. The clouds were clearing. The sun was coming through.
“What?” said Diocles.
A vast screaming filled the sky.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The chariot turned out to be crammed with guns of every description, crowded all along the length of what Lugorix was coming to think of as the wings. He’d have expected nothing less but he was still in awe as the hydra’s heads disintegrated before the roar of the craft’s weaponry: rays of light, beams of fire, and thousands of tiny iron balls tore through the necks and sent their flesh falling down in pieces, splattering against the chariot, some of it sailing through the open window where it slapped against the back of the wall against which everyone except Barsine was huddling. She looked like total shit. Her head was lolling from side to side as she sent the craft roaring past what was left of the planets, the Earth-disc dwindling beneath them as they hurtled in toward one of the holes in the vast sphere’s shell. The same one they’d come in, in fact. But there was something peculiar about it. It took Lugorix a moment to figure out what.
“Where did all the fires go?” he asked.
“Cauterized,” said Barsine. “Automated processes to wall off further damage.”
“Not like we haven’t done enough already,” said Eurydice. They swept through the hole in the ceiling and out into mist. They could see nothing, though Lugorix could feel the craft banking sharply, the occasional platform and ladder reeling past, way too close. And then they were completely surrounded by mist, getting ever darker. As though her life was linked to that light, Barsine began to slide from the chair.
“Hold me up,” she murmured—but Lugorix was already leaping forward, grabbing her shoulders, steadying her in the seat, keeping her hand pressed against that glowing armrest. To his horror, that hand was icy cold.
“My mother is dead,” her voice said with suddenly renewed strength. “I’m sorry. The shock of direct interface with the chariot finished her.”
“You mean you finished her,” said Eurydice from the back wall where she and Matthias clung to each other. It was tough to tell which of them looked more freaked out amidst the vehicle’s headlong rush. Lugorix grabbed Barsine and shook her.
“Come back,” he said. “Please.”
“I said she’s gone,” her voice said. “I’m all that’s left.”
“I don’t even know who you are,” said Lugorix dully.
“Don’t you get it?” said Eumenes. “The one who battles the hydra?”
“Hercules reborn,” said Eurydice and her voice had gone all hollow.
“I haven’t even been born,” said the voice, no longer sounding female, no longer sounding anything at all. “This place feels familiar, but I can’t tell if that’s because I’ve been here before or simply because of what runs in my blood.” The mist outside was almost entirely black now—then suddenly they roared out of the top of the tower whose base they’d entered all that time ago, its lights falling away beneath them. They seemed to Lugorix to be the same type of yellow-white illumination as that which winked amidst the levers of the chariot. The tower fell away as they soared toward the vault of the underworld.
But the floor of that underworld was changing rapidly.
The tower they’d just left was shaking—and then toppling. The ground was crumbling all across that great space, collapsing as though into a sinkhole. The rivers were draining away, becoming waterfalls that poured away into darkness—revealing something impossibly huge beneath all that collapsing surface, something with giant gnarled branches sprouting up from around a vast trunk which could only be described as a—
“Tree,” breathed Eurydice.
“That’s what holds up the Earth,” said Barsine’s son—for Lugorix could no longer think of it as Barsine. His mind was so far gone he could no longer really think at all.
“But what holds up the tree?” said Eurydice.
“No one’s ever gone down to find out,” said Hercules.
“Not even you?”
“Not when the gods are down there.”
“That’s where the rulers of Hades sleep?”
“Not anymore. They’re waking up.”
And maybe it was true. There seemed to be some kind of huge, sinuous movement in those depths, as well as a glowing that was altogether different from that of the phosphorescent forests that had just tumbled away into nothing. It seemed almost like the embers of some great fire. Lugorix was happy that the chariot was steadily gaining height, climbing up toward the ceiling. But Eumenes didn’t seem pleased at all.
“You did it,” he said to the thing at the chariot’s controls. “You woke them up. That was the whole point of your coming down here, wasn’t it?”
“You keep on assuming that I have the answers,” said Hercules. “I don’t. When my mother’s body boarded this craft, your friend was ready. You saw what happened: he used the ship’s internal defenses to batter the life out of her and almost kill me too. So don’t make the mistake of thinking I’ve got some kind of masterplan. I’m making this up as I go: I became aware of myself about half an hour ago—came to full consciousness inside my dying mother, absorbed her own consciousness as I did so.”
“Thus does your own blood condemn you,” said Eumenes.
“Spare me,” said Hercules.
“Too many have already done so. It’s like Kalyana said: those with the genetikos were intended to be tools of the those who created them. So don’t try to—”
“I’m not,” said Hercules. “I probably am the tool of those stirring below. Do you think I’m a fool? Turning on this chariot has activated something that lay latent. So now the Chthonic gods themselves are coming back to life, to take charge of the machinery that kept watch over them while they slept. But as to how long they will take to wake—neither you nor I know for sure.” Barsine’s right hand reached out, turned a dial—and suddenly the chariot went vertical, flinging everybody back to the wall. Only Lugorix held onto the flight-chair, held onto Barsine while they burned up a shaft just barely wide enough to accommodate the vehicle. He buried his
face in her hair while rock streaked past, tried not to listen while that mouth kept talking:
“But if it was all their trap, then so be it. I don’t feel loyalty to them, that’s for sure. Not like my father. He really does think the gods are talking to him, that he exists to be their loyal servant.”
“And what about you?” muttered Eumenes. “What do you intend to do?”
“What my mother wanted,” said Hercules.
They soared out into the world above.
Rising away from a cratered mountain—roaring above the greenery of adjacent coasts facing each other across a sea of sun-polished blue… Lugorix didn’t recognize any of it. But Eurydice did.
“We’re over Sicily,” she said.
Eumenes nodded. “We just got spat out of Mount Etna.”
“Had to emerge somewhere,” said Hercules as blood ran from his mother’s mouth. “There are many portals between this world and the one below. They cause no end of trouble.” Barsine’s dead hands tightened on the controls; the craft swung about, describing a long turn as it descended toward a long line spanning Italy and Sicily. Just as they got close enough to see it was a bridge of boats and ramps, flame ripped from the chariot again, long streaks of light that seared in toward several points along the bridge. There were a series of monstrous explosions. The biggest two occurred on land: huge clouds of fire rising up above the boot of Italy and the edge of Sicily.
“So much for the Macedonian supply-lines,” said Hercules. The chariot’s engines surged as it hurtled down the Sicilian coast, running due south.
“We’re heading for Syracuse,” said Eurydice, understanding.
“Yes. At the hour of Alexander’s triumph.”
“And you know this how?”
“He’s my father.” Part of Lugorix wanted to sweep Barsine’s head off with Skullseeker. Part of him didn’t dare harm the god-child she’d created in tandem with the man she’d known such terrible passion with. “He knows I’m coming for him and yet there is nothing he can do. His stranglehold on the elements is broken and his bid to conquer the world is at end.” As he said this, they saw plumes of smoke in the air ahead of them. Syracuse was fast approaching. The chariot accelerated, dipping in low toward the plateau that dominated the city. Lugorix caught a glimpse of the Macedonian army covering that rock, swarming down into the town.
Then the chariot opened up with all its weapons.
They circled back twice more, mercilessly gunning down the invaders, raining down liquid fire on elephants and men and golems as the invincible phalanx broke and fled. It wasn’t like the Macedonians didn’t try. Rocks and projectiles of every description hit the craft but nothing made a dent. The chariot veered back over the Macedonian camp and destroyed it with a single bomb while the surviving defenders of Syracuse cheered and cheered. When it was over, they roared away, gaining height, climbing out over Italy, over Europe, rising ever higher. The real disc of Earth lay below now. Yet Lugorix still found himself wondering if it was really any different from the one he’d already seen, save in size. Above them was only Sun and sky—but now he knew that the daytime blaze of that Sun blotted out all that cosmic machinery overhead.
“That’s where we’re going now,” said Hercules as though reading his mind.
“Why?” Lugorix wasn’t following. “We’ve done what you wanted to do.”
“I’ve only just started. You saw what’s going on down there. The war between Macedonia and Athens is over. But the real war is just beginning. The Plutonian gods are awakening. Which means someone needs to get the Olympians into the game fast. Or else rise up into the heavens and take charge of their machinery.”
“We saw how well that worked downstairs,” said Eurydice sardonically.
“But he’s right,” said Eumenes with the tone of someone making up their mind at long last. “We don’t have a choice. We need to find their calculator-of-worlds and switch it on so that we can….” His voice trailed off.
“Yes?” said Eurydice—and then they all saw it, another flame in the sky, a ball of fire rising up toward them out of the heart of Italy, closing on them with insane speeds. Eurydice’s face went white.
“Avernus,” she said. “Another of those gates”—and then the fireball hit the chariot. There was a deafening bang and this time Lugorix was hurled across the craft. For a moment there was nothing outside the windows save flame. The roar of engine shredded away into a high-pitch whining that intensified as the craft plummeted. Lugorix hauled himself back to the chair to which the body of Barsine was somehow still clinging, her hand gripping that armrest but no longer resting on the imprint.
“I need you to hold my hand there,” muttered the mouth of the woman he’d loved like no other. He reached out and did just that, grabbing onto the back of her chair as the machine stabilized slightly. But nowhere near enough—it was more of a controlled dive now, the Earth still rushing up toward them. At the last moment, the mind of Hercules or the body of Barsine or his own hope or just plain luck managed to even the thing out. They just missed a range of mountains, soared back up into the air. Ahead of them were endless plains of grass. Off to the right was a body of water…a giant lake of some kind…
“The Black Sea,” said Eumenes.
But they were moving past it, leaving it behind as they descended. Barsine’s body gripped the controls, throwing her whole weight into it, leaning this way and that as though the force of her physical exertions could somehow maintain control. But they kept getting ever lower. Endless green-brown became tractless steppes, nothing in all directions. They were racing just above the ground now.
“Get ready,” said Barsine—and this time it was her voice.
They hit.
And bounced back into the air, still throttling forward. And down again. And then back up—skipping through a vast plain of grassland. Each time they impacted more of the chariot broke apart and more of what remained caught fire and all the while all Lugorix could do was cradle Barsine’s broken body, trying to somehow shield the living baby within. Smoke filled his vision and noise filled his brain and finally he could see nothing and hear nothing save the tearing of metal and the roar of engines as what was left disintegrated, the craft sliding toward a halt. Even before it stopped, he was climbing out the front window, choking against the smoke as he leapt onto the wing, ran down it and jumped into the grass. He set Barsine down, then turned back to the shattered chariot. There wasn’t much left of it—but he waded back into that smoke to see if he could save anyone else. Yet even as he did so, Eurydice emerged, her face ash-black, Eumenes riding piggy-back on her shoulders while she carried Matthias in her arms.
He was dead.
There was no doubt about it. His neck was broken, his head at an unnatural angle. Eurydice was weeping, staggering, and it was all Lugorix could do to get through to her that they had to keep moving away from the chariot lest its remnants explode. He took the limp Matthias from her, led her over to where he’d placed Barsine, put his friend down beside the dead princess. And then he was kneeling beside him, holding his hands, closing his eyes, wishing him good fortune in the afterlife. But inside, he just felt hollow. He gradually became aware that Eumenes was speaking to him.
“We need to operate right now,” said the Greek.
Lugorix didn’t understand, but Eurydice did. She drew her knife and bent over Barsine. Three strokes of the blade and the noise of a baby’s crying filled the air. She lifted him out and held him for a moment—then handed him to Lugorix.
“She wanted you to keep him safe,” she said.
Lugorix gripped the baby that had called itself Hercules—that might yet call itself Hercules again. It looked like a normal baby—which was surprising given that Barsine hadn’t made it past the sixth month of pregnancy. But holding it felt anything but normal. It felt like it was his own child. And as he stared into its eyes, he realized they were odd: one was brown, the other blue. Unlike those of regular newborn babies, they were already focusing�
��staring up at him as though imploring.
“It doesn’t have access to adult vocal chords anymore,” said Eumenes.
“He’s going to have to grow up fast,” said Eurydice.
Lugorix held the baby close. He looked at the splintered, flaming chariot—and then at the blackened trail that vehicle had scorched through the grasslands, a line of smoke leading back to the horizon. Then he looked down at the baby again.
“We all do,” he said softly.
Three months later
Frigid mountain air blew through the evening streets of the Macedonian capital. Pella in the dead of winter was about as unappetizing a place as could be imagined. People huddled indoors around their fires and no one went out without a good excuse.
That was fine by the man who’d just entered the western gates. He wasn’t there to attract attention. He was nothing special. He looked exhausted and bedraggled and wore the dirty, tattered uniform of a veteran soldier. There were certainly enough like him right now. And there were so many more who wouldn’t be returning. The war in the West had been lost, the army destroyed, most of the bodies too charred to even identify.
Alexander’s among them.
It seemed incredible that the king who never been beaten was gone. But even more incredible were the stories told by the survivors—of how a great burning bird of the gods had descended from the skies and poured flame down upon the entire army as thousands watched from downtown Syracuse. The bird had then climbed toward the Sun and vanished in its glare. It had subsequently been seen by witnesses over Italy, who had reported it being hit by a sudden eruption from the crater of Avernus that had been unlike any other volcanic eruption they’d ever seen: a single bolt of lava shooting for miles into the sky that struck the bird and sent it streaking off wounded, metal feathers falling for miles, smoke and fire trailing behind it as it vanished northeast, into the heart of Europa. What had happened there, no one knew. There were rumors that the bird had crashed into the steppes north of the Black Sea. Macedonian cavalry had galloped north from the naval bases on the coast. But what they found, only the king knew.
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