The decision, as Leonidas had hoped, was made to face the more immediate threat: the Spartans arrayed on the killing ground. The Assyrians were well trained, wheeling into ranks facing the mountain, shields up, long swords at the ready. Leonidas was in the front center of the first rank of Spartans. He had barely 140 of his original 300 left that could stand. He estimated at least a thousand Assyrians were already in the killing ground with more pressing up the pass.
The Assyrians advanced. Leonidas raised his shield into place, the Naga Staff at three-quarters. The rest of the Spartan line snapped into place in a similar position. The Assyrians were barely ten meters away, when Leonidas dropped the Naga Staff into the horizontal position. One hundred and twenty spears did the same.
And on the Middle Gate, Lichas and his men reached down, and grabbed their bows, which had arrows already locked. In one smooth movement, they brought their weapons to bear on the left flank of the Assyrians. Every third man fired, their arrows impacting, mowing down the flank. The next third immediately fired, then the last third, by which time the first third had their second arrows ready.
The effect of the rolling barrage on the exposed flank was devastating. The right flank of the Assyrians, unaware of what was happening to their left, collided with the Spartan line in a cacophony of metal on metal. Assyrian officers who were aware of what was happening were trying to bend back the surviving left of their line. When the arrows were killing Assyrians a third of the way into their line, Leonidas snapped the Naga Staff into the upright position. Lichas saw the signal and fired a flaming arrow across the front of his archers, who immediately ceased fire.
The unengaged Spartan right charged. They rolled up the disorganized Assyrian left flank, shoving over 100 of the warriors right off the cliff, then wheeling left. It was a classic pincer movement. And for the third day, a massacre ensued. Leonidas halted the advance when the killing field was swept clear of the Assyrians. He drew his Spartans back to their start position, backs against the mountain. Lichas and his men dropped their bows and resumed their original stance.
And the fresh Assyrian troops repeated the mistake of their predecessors, unaware of what had happened. And again. And again as the morning wore on. Blood flowed, soaking the killing field. Hundreds of Assyrians died falling off the cliff. Hundreds more fell to Spartan metal. And here and there one of Leonidas’s knights went down in the fierce fighting.
After four unsuccessful assaults, word must have finally reached the commander of the Assyrians. There was a lull in the fighting, and Leonidas took stock. He’d lost over 30 men against at least 1,000 of the enemy. But tens of thousands more waited on the trail, and he knew that the next assault would not expose its flank to the archers. He glanced up at the sun. It was after mid-morn. Noon was about an hour, perhaps an hour and a half off.
Leonidas pointed the Naga Staff toward the Middle Gate. “The wall, men.”
In good order, the Spartans relinquished the killing field and retreated behind the Middle Gate. Squires carried the dead and severely wounded with them. Leonidas was the last remaining in front of the wall, watching as a fresh group of Assyrian warriors deployed at the far end of the killing field. Reluctantly, he climbed over the wall and took his place in the center.
For the first time, he noticed that the sun was no longer shining. Looking up, he noted that dark clouds blanketed the sky. Thunder sounded in the distance. Drowning out momentarily the sound of the Persian army drums and horns signaling the advance. Leonidas looked across at the ledge where Xerxes was perched. The Persian King seemed calm, a change from the last three days. Leonidas frowned.
“A storm comes,” Cyra was next to him.
“He’s up to something,” Leonidas said, indicating Xerxes.
“All we need are a few more hours,” Cyra said.
“We can hold the wall for a while,” Leonidas said. “But once they breach it. It will be over quickly.” He turned to Lichas. “You have many arrows. You may fire at will.”
The archers opened fire, their missiles slamming into the Assyrians. The bombardment was fierce, but the Assyrian officers marshaled their troops as if on a parade ground, lining them up moving unlimited reinforcements up to take the place of those struck down.
“They’re good,” Leonidas allowed, watching the spectacle.
“They’re insane,” Cyra muttered.
“No. They need a solid front to move forward. It’s what I would be doing.”
Cyra shook her head. “1 never said you were sane, either.”
Leonidas laughed. “I suppose we aren’t. But you needed us. Still need us.”
The Assyrians were finally formed and began moving forward. Their shield wall was up, and the effect of the barrage was almost negligible now. Leonidas went to the right side of the wall and tapped Lichas on the shoulder. “You’ve done your duty.”
Lichas nodded, then passed the word down his line. The archers slowly slipped away, making their way down the south trail until only Lichas remained. There was no time for more farewells, as the Assyrians were just about at the wall.
“I will tell Greece what you have done here,” Lichas said to Leonidas before following his men.
Spartan spears were leveled. And the points met the Assyrian’s assault along the rocks of the Middle Wall. The front rank of Assyrians died, then the second. The third clambered over the bodies of those in front. Leonidas ran to and fro on the wall, using the Naga Staff wherever it was most needed, slicing through shields and flesh. He’d dropped his shield some time during the fighting, the leather hooked on an Assyrian sword.
It was even darker, and the sound of thunder was close. An Assyrian leaped up onto the wall to Leonidas’s right. A huge warrior, a four-foot-long sword in his hand. He decapitated a Spartan who tried to push him back. Leonidas jabbed at the man, the blade of the Naga Staff punching easily into the man’s chest, but the Assyrian still managed a strong blow, which slammed into the Spartan King’s helmet, staggering him. Leonidas twisted the haft of the staff, gutting the warrior, then pushed the dead man back over the wall to crash into his fellows.
Leonidas couldn’t see out of his left eye. He wiped with a free hand and pulled it away, covered with blood. Someone touched him to his left, and he whirled blade first, halting when he recognized Cyra. She used her cloak to wipe away the blood from the wound on his scalp.
“It is almost time!” she yelled, straining to be heard over the screams of the dying, the clash of arms and the thunder.
Leonidas shook his head, spraying blood and trying to organize his thoughts. He saw Assyrians on the wall here and there, his Spartans trying to push them back. He looked to the rear. Ten Spartans stood, spears ready, eager to join the fray, their eyes locked on him, waiting for his command.
“There!” Cyra pointed at the spot she had indicated in the morning. A black sphere was forming. Frightened Assyrians stepped back from it, opening a hole in their front. Leonidas held up five fingers and pointed. Half of the ten Spartans he had held in reserve broke ranks and dashed forward.
“Come,” Leonidas yelled at Cyra, straining to be heard over the sound of battle and storm.
He jumped over the wall, swinging the Naga Staff in a large arc. Clearing space. The five Spartans followed. Locking their shields, protecting the priestess. Leonidas pressed forward. The black sphere was just like the one he had gone into to get here, hovering just above the ground. One of the Assyrians stumbled back fell into it, and disappeared. That caused the others in the immediate vicinity to panic.
The way was open. Leonidas stepped off to the left, just short of the black sphere, feeling the power emanating from it race over his skin. The other five Spartans completed a semicircle around the portal, Cyra on the inside.
Leonidas risked a glance over his shoulder. Cyra was reaching forward, toward the darkness, hands outstretched. And out of the portal came two hands holding a golden sphere about three feet in diameter. The skin on these hands was blistered and raw,
but they were steady, holding the sphere. The arms extended out all the way but whoever it was didn’t come through.
Cyra took the globe, staggering as if it was heavy, her body shaking as she stepped back from the portal.
“To the wall!” Leonidas yelled. He took point, the five Spartans flanking him in a wedge. There was little resistance from the Assyrians, their ranks still disjointed. The rest of the Spartans had regained the Middle Gate and stood on top of it.
Leonidas paused at the gap in the Gate, allowing Cyra and her precious cargo to pass through. He looked over his shoulder. The Assyrians had pulled back and were re-forming, the task easier now that Lichas and his archers weren’t bombarding them. With the reinforcements that were pouring into the killing ground, and the losses his men had already endured, Leonidas knew the next assault would ride over the wall and break his line.
He turned his attention back to this side of the wall. Cyra was reverently holding the golden sphere in her hands, peering into it. He could see that the surface wasn’t smooth but appeared to be made of numerous two-inch strands of gold interwoven in a complex pattern.
Leonidas blinked, because the strands seemed to be pulsing, as if they were alive, even shifting
in place, as if she were holding a nest of snakes.
“You must go,” Leonidas said to Cyra.
She didn’t appear to hear him, her focus on the sphere.
Leonidas placed a blood-spattered hand on her shoulder.
“You must go.”
Cyra slowly looked up. “I see … ” Her voice trailed off.
Then Leonidas saw something beyond her that caused his heart to pause momentarily: Lichas limping up the trail with a half dozen of his men. And they were firing their bows back down the trail. The king held up his free hand, five fingers spread wide. Then he pointed to the south. The five remaining knights broke ranks and dashed to support Lichas. The other five stayed near Cyra and Leonidas.
There were shouts of alarm from the east. When Leonidas looked in that direction. He saw the solid line of Assyrian reinforcements moving forward in step toward the Middle Gate.
A horn sounded to the south, and fifty Immortals came rushing up the path, overwhelming Lichas, his archers, and the five Spartans Leonidas had sent as reinforcements. And in the center of the Immortals was a woman who the King recognized as having been the one next to Xerxes: Pandora.
“We’re surrounded,” Leonidas stepped between Cyra and the Immortals. He saw that Pandora also carried a Naga Staff. His eyes darted about, searching for a way to get Cyra out of the pass, but the Assyrians were charging to the north, the Immortals filled the pass to the south, the cliff and sea to the east and the rock wall to the west. He felt a pang of failure, that despite his best efforts, he had not achieved what the Oracle had tasked him to do; the map would be Pandora’s.
“King.” Cyra’s voice was so low, Leonidas almost didn’t hear her over the din of battle.
“What?” His eyes were on the advancing Immortals, now less than fifty feet away. Pandora in the lead. At the very least, he figured he could kill her.
“I can open a portal”
Leonidas didn’t understand. He held the Naga Staff across his body, ready for action. The skin on the back of his neck tingled. He’d felt this before. He turned away from the Immortals. Even as the Assyrian ranks smashed into the depleted Spartans holding the Middle Gate.
Leonidas saw that Cyra’s eyes were closed and one hand was running lightly over the surface of the sphere.
“I see the path.” Her hand wrapped tightly around one of the strands. A golden glow suffused her, then extended out about three feet in front, between her and the King.
Leonidas stepped back as a portal began to open there. He heard a female yell and could see that Pandora was leading the Immortals in an all-out charge toward them. His time sense had slowed, as it did in the heat of battle, and every second dragged slowly.
Cyra stepped toward the portal, the map sphere in her hands, still covered in gold. “Come with me.”
Leonidas smiled, and held out the Naga Staff toward her, drawing his sword. “My place, my destiny is here.”
Cyra didn’t argue. She took the staff. Leonidas spun about, bringing the sword up, the haft of Pandora’s staff slamming into it, the blade stopping just short of slicing Cyra in two. The priestess stepped into the portal, and it snapped shut behind her.
CHAPTER 27
BEYOND THE SPACE BETWEEN
They had crossed what used to be the Potomac, and Dane’s best guess was that they were in the vicinity of where the Pentagon had once sat. A black circle hovered a foot over the ground ten feet in front of them.
“Is the map through there?” Dane asked.
Ariana’s answer was less than reassuring. “So I have been told through a vision.”
Dane felt the urgency of their quest. Yet he paused, so many unanswered questions nagged at him. “What happened to this timeline?” he asked. “Why wasn’t the core — and the planet. This planet-destroyed”
“The Shadow was able to tap all the energy slowly and under control,” Ariana said. “I would guess that your fight against the Shadow in your timeline has caused it to act precipitously, with a certain amount of control being lost.”
“’The crystal skulls?” Dane threw out. “Are they useful?”
“I don’t know,” Ariana said. “They obviously still have some residual power and can definitely channel the larger power from the planet.”
“Can we travel back in time and save your planet?” Dane asked.
“I don’t think so,” Ariana said. “As far as I can figure out, from the visions I have been given, the Shadow can use the portals but they didn’t make them.”
“I don’t understand,” Dane said.
“The walls between parallel universes are thicker in some places and thinner in others. And, in some places there are openings-portals-through the walls. I think the Shadow searches for these and uses its power to open the portal. But what that means is that it doesn’t control where and when the portals go in those worlds. The Shadow just takes advantage of what it finds. Also, we affect portals somehow.”
“What do you mean?” Dane asked.
“Our minds just don’t channel power, they help create it. In some level we’ve never known. When enough minds are one place, pushed to the limit, I think they can affect the portals.”
“Is there anything else you can tell us,” Dane asked, “that might help?”
“I don’t think so,” Ariana said. “It is hard for me,” she added. “My world.” Her white arm lifted and slowly swept from side to side, indicating the desolation around them. "Everyone I knew, including, you” —she pointed at Dane—“are gone.”
“How did I die?” Dane asked, feeling the absurdity of the question as he asked it.
“A tsunami took out the FLIP and everyone on board,” Ariana said.
“Are you coming with us?” Dane moved toward the portal, Earhart at his side.
“No. I’m dying. I had to go through another portal to get this ‘suit’. It’s sustained me enough to meet you, but I don’t have much longer.”
“You can go to my camp in THE SPACE BETWEEN,” Earhart said.
“No. This is where I belong.”
Dane had already experienced Ariana’s-his timeline’s Ariana’sdeath. To realize it was going to happen again in this timeline was ripping the scab off a barely healed wound.
“Do you know what is through there?” Dane pointed at the portal.
“I just know enough to bring you here and tell you it is the next step.” The white figure floated a few feet away, as if there were no one inside the suit. “I am very tired.” Her right hand went to her left arm.
Dane knew what she was going to do and reached out to stop her.
“No!” her sharp rejection caused him to halt. Ariana’s fingers punched in the code, and the suit split open. Dane’s breath caught in his throat as he recogni
zed the woman he had first met during a rescue mission in the Angkor Gate as she stepped out of the suit. She staggered and this time accepted his arm to help her from falling. Her skin was covered in red lesions and pus was crusted around her eyes. Dane now understood her desire to end it quickly.
Ariana waved toward the portal. “Go. Go now.”
“Thank you,” Earhart said, then she stepped into the portal and disappeared.
Dane hesitated, reaching with a white-armored hand toward Ariana’s face, clearing the yellow gunk away from around her eyes. He realized she was crying.
“We did it wrong,” Ariana said, looking up at him. “So far, your timeline has done it right. You need to take the next step.”
Dane couldn’t find words to say what he was feeling. He turned and went into the portal, leaving Ariana sitting alone and dying on the surface of her devastated planet.
THE SPACE BETWEEN
Captain Stokes and his surviving crewmen from the Connecticut were stuffed into Deepflight. On the video monitor above the controls, Rachel was clearly visible, swimming back and forth slowly as they followed as quickly as they could. They passed between two small portals, leading farther out into the middle sea.
Stokes pushed the throttle forward and increased speed to keep up with the dolphin. After a couple of minutes, there was no doubting their destination. A large wall of black, a massive portal, was directly ahead. When they were less than fifty meters from the portal, Rachel stopped.
Stokes didn’t hesitate. He kept the throttle at full speed, and they went into the blackness, each man on board instinctively flinching as the screen went dark for a moment. When it cleared, they were on the surface of a circular body of water with a large, black portal over three-quarters of a mile taking up the center directly behind them. And on the black beach that delineated the edge of the water were thousands of craft: ships mostly, with planes, and even two dirigibles.
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