“I do. I’ve come to offer you a bargain.”
“Show yourself, spirit.” The cyclops lurched to his feet and approached the door. “Or am I finally going mad like my brothers?”
“You’re not going mad.” At least I hoped so. I could certainly do without any further complications. I took the baseball cap off and shoved it into my pack, revealing myself to the imprisoned giant. “My name is Lexi. I’m a friend of Hephaistos.”
Bloody hell, but he was big. It was all I could do not to back away as he bent down to bring his eye level with the tiny opening in the door. If he didn’t turn out to be friendly, we were in serious trouble. “Are you real? What is this magic that brings a human to the Pit?”
“It’s called having friends in high places,” I said. “Hephaistos told me all about you.”
“I haven’t seen Lord Hephaistos since I was sent to this miserable place. He tried to speak for me, you know, but Zeus wouldn’t listen.”
“I know.” Zeus sounded like a right charmer. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that he’d gone missing.
“Did Lord Hephaistos send you here?”
“Kind of.” Not really, but I figured it would only help my case if he thought so. “Lord Hephaistos told me of your great skill with metalshaping, and I’m in desperate need of a good metalshaper.”
He regarded me gravely from that single eye. “You must be, to come into a place like this. What do you want of me?”
“My friends are trapped in magic collars, and I need someone to create a key that will unlock them.” It felt odd to refer to Apollo as my friend, but I didn’t want to name any names.
I shifted from foot to foot, impatient to have this over with—impatient to get to the part where I rushed outside and liberated Apollo and Syl. One step closer to saving Jake. But the cyclops seemed in no hurry.
He frowned. “Why come to me? Lord Hephaistos is far more skilled than I will ever be. If you are such great friends with him, why did he not create this key himself instead of sending you here?” He shook his head in wonder. “It has been so long since a mortal found their way into the underworld. Can you really be true, or are you but a dream?”
I reached through the slit and prodded his cheek. It was like poking a rock. “I’m as real as you are, buddy.” I sighed, not wanting to tell him the truth, but I could see no way around it. “But I’m afraid Lord Hephaistos was in no position to help me.” I paused. Damn. How did I put this? Best to just rip through it and get the pain over with. “I’m afraid he’s no longer in the land of the living.” There, I’d said it.
Brontes’ frown only deepened. “But … What do you mean? You make no sense, mortal. Truly, this is a confusing dream.”
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Brontes, but Lord Hephaistos is dead.”
“Now I know you are a figment of my imagination. Begone, dream woman. Lord Hephaistos is a god. He cannot die.”
“And you are the son of a god, and yet you are buried in this living tomb. A lot has changed upstairs since you last saw the sunlight, and it turns out gods aren’t quite as bullet-proof as everybody thought. There’s a new game in town, and it’s called ‘let’s kill the gods and steal their powers’. Hephaistos is dead, and so are several minor godlings. Hades is missing. Zeus is missing.” Not that I expected that to bother Brontes, considering Zeus was the one responsible for his imprisonment. “And my friends are cut off from their power by these collars I mentioned. Hephaistos would want you to help them. He did want you to help them. That’s why he told me where to find you.” Maybe that was embellishing the truth a little, but I didn’t care. And I’d managed to get all that out without once mentioning Apollo’s name.
Brontes slammed a massive fist against the door, which barely vibrated under the blow. It must be ridiculously thick—guess it would have to be to keep a cyclops locked away. Unlike the other cyclopes’ cells, his didn’t have any iron bars. Trying to keep a metalshaper locked up with metal would have been a fool’s game. There was a padlock on the outside of the door, but that was beyond his reach.
“Even supposing I believed you, little figment, how can I help you? There is no metal here for me to work, and a little thing like you will never get this door open.”
“I have metal.” I’d left it in Apollo’s care—it hadn’t seemed like a smart idea to bring the precious bar of star-metal into Tartarus. “If you promise to help me, I can get you out of there.”
“And then what? There are guardians of this hell that you haven’t seen yet. Shall you free me just to see me die? You will die, too.”
Apollo hadn’t mentioned anything about guardians. Surely he’d have told me if there was anything to worry about.
“You’d rather stay here for the rest of eternity? Come with me and make the key, and then you can join Hephaistos in Elysium.” He’d be thrilled to have his old companion back.
He gave a bitter laugh. “Are you a god, to promise such a thing? Hades will send me straight back to Tartarus.”
“He won’t.” Hopefully. Surely he’d understand? “I’ll explain it all to him.” Besides, Hades wasn’t here anyway. By the time we found him—if we found him—no one would remember a lone cyclops who was living somewhere he shouldn’t be. I knew Hephaistos wouldn’t say anything. And Apollo would be so grateful to have the damn collar off he’d promise anything. He, at least, would support me. “Swear to help me, and leave the details to me.”
He sighed, a great gusty noise of resignation. “I must be mad, but if you are indeed more than a figment, it would be good to breathe the free air again before I die. I swear to aid you in your quest.”
Hallelujah. I hoped he wasn’t expecting much in the way of free air. All I had to offer was the type that was laden with the smell of sulphur and the stench of angry harpies. But even that might be welcome after a few thousand years inside Tartarus.
“Then stand back.” I pulled Jake’s safecracking gizmo from my backpack. I’d been carting this thing around forever, just waiting for an opportunity to use it. Finally, the big moment had arrived. It was small, no bigger than my fist, and shaped like a slightly squished egg. I attached it to the padlock—it was magnetic—and offered up a silent prayer. Please work this time. It had failed when I’d been trying to crack Mrs Emery’s safe, because it relied on Jake’s magic to function, and Jake had been wearing one of the collars at the time, cut off from his power. I just hoped that the fact that we were in the underworld and Jake wasn’t wouldn’t cause a similar problem.
I pushed the button down and stepped smartly away. Fingers crossed. I counted down from thirty, my whole body taut with tension. Please.
At seventeen, it went off like a firecracker in a flash of white light so bright it blinded me. There was a metallic clank as the padlock hit the stone ramp. I darted forward to free the bolt. It took me a couple of tries, as the bolt was stiff and my fingers were shaking, but I got it loose at last and pushed the heavy door open. The hinges squealed as the door scraped across the stone floor of Brontes’ cell, and I glanced around uneasily. We were making a lot of noise.
Brontes dropped to his knees and crawled through the opening. His shoulders only just fit through the doorway. As he climbed to his feet, a bell began to toll somewhere deep within the pit, loud and frantic, as if a drunken bell ringer was hanging on the rope.
Brontes hunched his massive shoulders, as if he thought he could make himself small enough to hide. The creatures in the other cells began to shout and throw themselves against the bars. We stared at each other in horror. There’d be no sneaking out of here now.
“Run,” I said.
17
We pounded up the ramp and back through the tunnel. I took two strides for every one of Brontes’, but the cyclops was no athlete, and his condition wasn’t improved for having been locked in a tiny cell for the last umpteen-hundred years, so I kept up with him easily, despite my injured leg. The monster in the first room inside the tunnel roared and hurled itself a
gainst the door again as we passed, but there were no other signs of life, and I began to relax as the opening to the cave came into view. We were almost there! I’d been terrified that we’d get here and find the opening blocked, but the way was clear. We burst out of the cave, skidding on the loose rock outside, and the panting cyclops drew in his first breath of free air.
“Lord of Chaos!” the cyclops cried. “What is happening?”
The scene before us made no sense. The ferry lay at anchor in the Styx where I’d left it. There was no sign of Apollo or Syl, but Cerberus was on the shore, barking all three of his heads off. Not at the harpies, who were circling en masse in the sky overhead, and making enough noise of their own to wake the dead, but at the Phlegethon.
The River of Fire had grown a giant lump, which was writhing its way into the sky, spitting fire in every direction. It was like an enormous bubble that refused to burst as it grew bigger and bigger, until it towered over the ferry, making it look like a child’s toy.
And then the bubble stretched and grew a neck, with a horned head atop it. The head swung in our direction, and a mighty foot slammed down on the ground as something too big to comprehend heaved itself from the river.
It was a dragon. Made of fire.
“Zeus’s balls,” I breathed. “Where did that come from?”
“It’s the guardian,” Brontes said. “I told you we would die.”
He didn’t even sound upset, just resigned, as if death were a foregone conclusion. Well, not on my watch, buddy. I quested outwards, feeling for the mind that animated the enormous beast. It might be made of fire, but if it were even remotely animal, it should respond to me.
It was even stranger inside the dragon’s head than inside Cerberus’s. I looked out through its glowing eyes at the giant hellhound, and he looked like a toy, his barking a tiny sound, less significant than the buzz of a mosquito. I saw myself, burning like a dying star, and I planted a powerful suggestion inside the alien consciousness. *Stop. Turn away from the tiny humans and their yipping dog. Blast those harpies from the sky instead.*
The dragon shook its head as if trying to shake me off, scattering droplets of molten lava everywhere. The rock sizzled where they landed. Its will was strong; it had been created to be the last line of defence for Tartarus. Its whole purpose in life was to prevent anyone leaving without authorisation, and the tolling bell called to something deep inside it. *Ignore these people,* I urged it. *The harpies are the ones you need to destroy.*
The dragon snarled, and its voice was like rock shattering. Was this the sound I had heard deep in the pit? I poured my will into my efforts, fists clenched, my whole body shaking. The dragon would obey me.
It heaved itself fully onto the land. It wasn’t scaled like a normal dragon, but coated in molten lava. Huh. That was cute—a “normal dragon”? Since when had dragons been normal? My whole life was the very definition of “abnormal” these days.
I gathered my will, determined to stare the bastard down. Like staring into the sun, it hurt my eyes to look directly at it for too long. I squinted into its fiery light, tears leaking from my stinging eyes. The great creature roared again and the earth shook beneath us. The harpies were screeching, urging it on. Two of them dived toward us, vicious claws outstretched. I had nothing but a knife. *Kill them,* I urged the dragon. *They are your enemies.*
Brontes picked up a rock the size of my head and lobbed it into the sky, trying to bring down a harpy. His aim was off, but he merely found another rock and tried again. Despite his conviction that we were doomed, he didn’t seem inclined to simply lie down and accept his fate. The dragon roared in a final act of defiance, and then turned to obey me, snarling. My head felt as if it were about to explode, but the sight of the enormous tongues of flame shooting into the air from its mouth went a long way towards soothing my pain.
Some of the harpies were lucky enough to see it coming, and managed to swerve out of the way in time, but most of them were not. Nothing but ashes rained down from the leaden sky. The dragon’s flame was so potent that nothing else remained of the dozen or more harpies caught in the inferno of its breath.
The remaining harpies fled the scene. They weren’t stupid enough to try to stand against such a force. The dragon sent a bolt of fire blasting after them, but they were too far away to be singed.
“Come on,” I said to Brontes. “Let’s get to the ferry.”
Brontes looked at me as if I were crazy. “Are you in such a hurry to die? That monster will kill us.”
Of course, Brontes had no idea what had just happened. All he had seen were random acts of violence from the biggest monster in a world full of them. “It’s all right,” I said. “I’ve got this under control. The dragon won’t harm us.”
I staggered out into the open. The dragon’s blazing head turned to watch me, its will still straining to be free. My head was pounding in time with my overtaxed heart. I wasn’t quite as confident as I was making out. If the dragon slipped my control, we were all dead. I gestured to Brontes to follow me. “Come on!”
We needed Apollo’s help. I needed Apollo’s help. I had a feeling only a god with full access to his powers could hold this beast for long.
Brontes hurried after me, the expression on his face making it clear that he expected to be charred to a crisp at any moment, but I didn’t care, as long as he was moving.
The dragon snarled and took another step closer. It felt like someone had just opened an oven door right next to me as the heat from its massive body swirled across the baking rocks. I ran faster, staggering every time my numb left leg threatened to give way on me.
“Guys!” I screamed, my voice hoarse. I’d have given anything for a beer right then, or even just a long cool drink of clean water. “Get down here! We need the star-metal.”
Cerberus bounded towards me, his hackles raised, barking for all he was worth. Clearly, he meant to defend me from the fiery menace stalking across the plain. It was a nice thought, but I doubted even a hellhound would stand a chance against the dragon. Its body was halfway to the ferry, but it was so big that the end of its tail was still immersed in the River of Fire. No wonder the harpies had fled once it had turned on them. No one could hope to take on such a creature and live.
Apollo appeared at the top of the gangway, Syl at his side. I could hear her shouting, but I couldn’t make out the words over the crackling of flames. The dragon was getting closer. It appeared to be made of flame and molten lava, its surface shifting and its shape changing as it moved, but the ground shook with every step it took, so there must be some substance to it underneath the fiery exterior. How long had it lain hidden at the bottom of the River of Fire, waiting until it was needed? It was a thing of impossible beauty, but as my legs strained and I fought for breath in the superheated air, I was in no mood to appreciate its charms. It was also an unstoppable killing machine and its will writhed against mine, straining to be free.
I staggered again and would have face-planted onto the rocky ground except that Brontes swooped in and hoisted me up without breaking his stride. He threw me over his shoulder and ran for the ferry as if his life depended on it. I was starting to think it did—I couldn’t hold the dragon’s will much longer. My vision was blurring and all I could see was fire, flames dancing in front of my eyes wherever I looked.
Syl rushed to my side as Brontes laid me on the stony ground with surprising gentleness. “Are you hurt? What’s wrong?”
“Give the star-metal to Brontes,” I gasped, my chest heaving. My head was spinning, as if there were less and less oxygen in the air. I couldn’t pass out; I would lose the dragon the minute I lost consciousness, and then we were all dead. “I’m trying to hold the dragon. Hurry.”
I didn’t see much of what happened next; I was too busy lying around gasping like a fish out of water. Apollo handed Brontes the bar of precious star-metal, and the cyclops crouched down to inspect the collar around Apollo’s neck.
“This is beautiful work
,” Brontes said. “I recognise Lord Hephaistos’s hand in it.”
“Hurry up,” I moaned as the seconds ticked past, every one drilling a new lance of pain into my skull. This was not the time for admiring the craftsmanship of the collars’ maker.
Brontes glanced across at where I lay, half-supported by Syl’s arms. “Hush, Figment. I need to listen to the metal.”
Sweet baby Hermes, as Jake would say—how could he hear anything with all this racket going on? The dragon was making more noise than twenty bonfires, between the flames crackling all over him and the shuddering thunder of each step. The remaining harpies circled the peak of the mountain, screeching insults and threats. Beneath all that lay the regular hisses and pops of steam venting all over the blasted landscape. My head was pounding fit to explode, the noise battering against me like a physical assault. It was a wonder Brontes could hear himself think, never mind anything the metal could tell him.
I started to giggle, imagining the little bar of star-metal actually growing a mouth and chatting to the giant cyclops. Yeah, Brontes, I’ve had a pretty crazy time since I arrived on this planet. Haven’t had much chance for sightseeing, unfortunately. Been locked up in some weird forge pretty much the whole time. It’s a shame; I was really hoping to get out and try the seafood down here—I hear it’s awesome.
“Lexi!” I could hear Syl’s voice calling me, but it sounded a long way away. “Lexi, stop it! You’re scaring me.”
Well, of course she was scared. Syl was always scared of something—such a scaredy cat. That set me off again. Scaredy cat.
Inside my head, something was pushing at me, searing me with talons of fire. I knew I was supposed to push back, but I could no longer remember why. Maybe I could stop soon? I was so tired. If only Syl would stop shaking me, I could go to sleep right here, even though whatever I was lying on was so damn uncomfortable.
Rivers of Hell (Shadows of the Immortals Book 3) Page 18