The Hermeporta Beyond the Gates of Hermes

by Hogarth Brown

  ‘You bitch!’ he screamed, ‘just you wait, you li’ll prick teasing whore’ he hollered again and tried to get up to make a lunge for Illawara’s legs. Illawara leapt back, whipped the Taser from her pouch, her hands trembling, forced herself to be still, took aim, with a point of light, as the man tried to thrash his way upwards, and discharged the firing pins into the man’s struggling torso. He recoiled in pain, but before he could tear the bolts from his flesh, Illawara pulled the trigger again to unleash the full voltage into the man’s body. He screamed, wrenching the air with his howls, and convulsed where he lay, unable to stop his body moving as the voltage ripped through him.

  The hairs left on his bald-cap head stood on end like sheaves of wheat: ‘that’s the last time you ever touch me again!’ Illawara screeched, her face angular with vulpine contempt, as she remembered the ugly groping she had to escape from only weeks before.

  As she relived her fear, she pulled the trigger again to electrocute her foe, who jerked and writhed about on the stone floor. ‘I’m sorry’ the man wailed, ‘stop - I beg you’ he implored as Illawara yanked back the velvet curtain to reveal the Hermeporta: the antiquity whole again and intact from its resting place in Turkey. It was too late for mercy. The man froze, paralysed by a force greater than himself, as the marble serpents about the pool of liquid mercury softened and uncoiled into life. Illawara stepped back and watched with morbid fascination as the eyes of the snakes opened, revealing the red glow of their garnet eyes in the fading light.

  The man, rigid with fear opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out, as his body slid across the floor towards the Hermeporta as if magnetised. The electrocuting cables tugged out of his flesh, while Illawara gripped the Taser gun before the man flew up into the air above the Hermeporta and hung there suspended. With an invisible force, the serpents began to bend and break his body. Illawara, wide-eyed, cried out when she saw and heard the man’s legs and ribs snapping, she dropped the Taser gun as his piercing shrieks split the air. She wrenched back the curtain to obscure her view, covered her ears, and ran back into the main house where she half slid back the heavy door to muffle the man’s agonised cries. Illawara then sprinted to the stereo and fumbled to turn on the device, dropping the remote several times, before turning up the volume to let music smother the last screams of the dying man.

  Illawara shook from head to foot, her heart a locomotive, her lungs bellows, and she gulped several breaths to try and calm herself down. But Illawara burst into tears, overwhelmed - revenge, guilt, and relief combined. After a while, Hermes flew down from his perch and nuzzled at Illawara’s neck. ‘Turn off the music. It’s over now’ he said, returning to her elaborate sleeved shoulder and using his little eyes to peer up at her. Illawara, hands shaking, switched off the stereo. Silence dominated the space. ‘You did what you had to do, Illy, it’s done now' said Hermes. Illawara dried her eyes with her fingers and nodded before she sobbed again.

  ‘Oh, God, what have I done?' she said, gazing into space. She shook her head several times, trying to rid herself of what she saw. 'I hope… I hope it’s worth it' she coughed. Illawara then shook her head again, 'but he was a horrible man. Wasn’t he?’ she added, Hermes nodded, ‘yes, horrible.' She stood up. Illawara walked forward, wobbling with dizziness, to take up a tissue from the coffee table and blow her nose. Her chest heaved again but, with an effort, she forced herself to try to be calm. She tapped herself several times on the face – as if to revive herself - before she walked back to straighten herself out in the mirror. She adjusted her wire ruff and smoothed her glossy hair with trembling hands. Illawara tried to forget the man that had menaced her, and many other girls on campus.

  With her breath still shaking she took a long hard look at herself – her mind far beyond her reflection. Her eyes looked pink but fierce, gleaming with a flash of brilliance and power she had not seen before. ‘I guess this is how Dad felt’ she muttered as Hermes buzzed above.

  She had crossed a threshold: part of her had changed forever.

  Illawara tore her eyes away from her reflection and the new revelations that emerged within her. But she had looked at herself with more self-respect, no longer a victim, and somewhat awed by what she, and the Hermeporta, could do. ‘We have to get out of here’ she said, pushing thoughts of her victim to the back of her mind, and focusing again on the uncertain journey that lay ahead. Illawara walked across to a small hinged door on the wall. Her shaky hands turned the dial this way and that, inputting the correct code, before pressing forward with a click to open the mini volt. A jewel dazzled upon a black cushion, and Illawara felt a tremble of excitement within her - even then - when she lifted out the brilliant cut diamond choker upon a black leather thong. The diamond sparkled and seemed illuminated within with a fire of its own. The gem refracted light in rainbows over Illawara’s arm: the only real jewel she owned. She closed her eyes to picture her father and a corner of her mouth smiled. Illawara secured the diamond upon her forehead by tying the thong in place: crowning herself as the mistress of her own destiny. Illawara coughed, but checked herself one last time by straightening her pearls, drying her eyes, and regaining her composure.

  ‘It’s time to go’ she said. She gazed about her living room as if to take photographs of it with her mind, and accepted that she would miss her plants, her music and her new iPod. ‘I’ll be back soon’ she called out into the space as if her plants would cry out in protest when she left. Her botanical experiments would be fine: they were fed and watered with automatic pumps and timers. Illawara slid back the heavy door of the passageway to return to the Hermeporta. She walked forward with trepidation in the silence.

  The Trucker had to be dead. Seeing her leather bag where it lay she picked it up and slung it over one shoulder to avoid bending her high wired ruff. She looked at the Taser on the floor and kicked it aside not wanting to touch the weapon again. Hermes fluttered above, careful to keep himself the correct side of the hanging velvet that obscured the antiquity, as Illawara began to make her preparations. She reached down into a small ancient box made of fossilised oak, set close to the velvet screen, and began to remove its precious contents.

  The first item being a silver incense burner with a silver chain, and then the incense itself contained within a tied parchment: the faded ribbon frayed at the edges. Next came a small rusk of charcoal combined with saltpetre: this she ignited with a small gas lighter, and cursed aloud after scorching herself when the saltpetre spat. The rusk crackled to into life as she dropped it into the burner. Last, of all, she pulled from the box a candle made of a greasy yellow wax enriched with rare oils that gave off a numbing vapour when burned. Illawara stared off into the distance, but once the charcoal had turned a grey-white, it proved ready for the incense. Using her fingers, Illawara placed a small clump of the sticky substance into the burner, where it began to smoke. The sweet, and musky scented cloud filled the air and defined the last beams of light that could still reach the skylight as the evening took hold.

  Like a priest, Illawara waved the burner by its silver chain above her head till the air became dense with the soporific smoke and choked the area around the Hermeporta. Illawara hesitated as she moved towards the velvet curtain, breathed deep, and slid the fabric back to reveal the antiquity - it glistened. The serpents gave out a low hiss. Illawara grimaced when she saw the mangled and withered body of her attacker. ‘Oh, my… God’ she whispered through clenched jaws before she covered her mouth. She looked at his remains curled up and dry on the floor, seeming like a digested pellet wretched from the crop of an owl. He looked like he had been dead for twenty years: reduced to a waste product, a dismal end to a dissolute life. Hermes buzzed overhead, wanting to comment, but remained silent. He had seen bodies such as this before.

  Illawara pitied the desiccated corpse, but thought of what could have happened to her should he have won. She clamped her eyes shut, shook her head, concentrated on her purpose, and carried on with her preparations for the dang
erous Hermeporta. The opiates within the candle had done much to pacify the serpents. Illawara felt light headed, the smoke dulling the raw edge of her emotions. She took great care to avoid her image being reflected within the mercury pool of the Hermeporta. She reached up, standing on a stool, with an arm extended to place the yellow candle into a mirrored fixture, which protruded from the wall behind the antiquity. After reaching down to a flowerpot of Anemones nearby, she tore off two of the blood red flowers.

  With a nod Illawara checked that Hermes had made ready, before, slow and deliberate, she began to ascend the marble steps leading to the brim of the Hermeporta. The hissing of the alabaster serpents grew louder, as her reflection passed into the pool of quicksilver. Her body flinched, when she felt the slow squeeze of the serpent’s invisible grip, as they increased their focus upon her. Illawara stood numb and stiff clinging to her breath, as their hard stone bodies softened yet more into life. Their marble scales shimmering in the ebbing light. Like two hefty pneumatic screws, the alabaster snakes began to uncoil themselves. The serpent’s garnet eyes lit up to throw a ghoulish red glow into the foggy area, as they increased their height by arching their bodies upwards.

  Their hissing grew louder, as the quartz crystal fixed within their jaws drew level with the mirrored candle. The light intensified, as the candles glow became refracted and scattered by the stone, which caused trembling strings of honeyed light to strobe about the area. Illawara fought to maintain her breathing, and in a solemn manner she tore the petals from the Anemones, before projecting her words:

  ‘Blood to spare blood’ she then tossed them into the pool where the petal’s dark red hues were bled of colour. The symbolic offering satisfied the serpents, and their hissing became less ferocious. The petals along with Illawara’s reflection then vanished, and she no longer felt the serpent’s icy grip so strong upon her. She, then able to breathe with more ease, focused her mind on her destination. Using all her concentration the diamond on her brow began to glow and take on life, shining like a star on her forehead, as its light mingled with that of the snakes and the candle.

  Illawara raised her arms and, like the birth of a new Tornado, the different colours of light began to blend, merge, and then swirl together at ever-greater speeds, becoming an orb like matrix that engulfed Illawara and the Hermeporta. ‘Now’s the time, Hermes’ she declared in full voice, as the hissing of the serpents rose again with increasing volume. Hermes darted into action flying as fast as he could around Illawara, and with such pace, he blurred into a wavering band of streaked green light. Illawara’s body began to rise from the steps and to hover directly above the Quicksilver pool. The hissing of the snakes became deafening. Illawara used all her focus to project an image from her mind, via the diamond, onto the surface of the pool, where a silvery leaning tower could be seen upon its trembling surface. She raised her voice to a high soprano, and held the note for as long as she could before screaming:

  ‘To Pisa!’ over the loud din boomed out by the writhing serpents.

  In an instant, an almost blinding flash emerged from below temporarily filling the Volt, and illuminating the domed glass nearby above like a lighthouse obscured by fog in the dying sunset. Illawara and Hermes crashed into the image upon the Mercury’s surface, which parted itself to let them through, and devoured them whole with a bang as they broke the sound barrier: their bodies shattering into light before vanishing into the antiquity.

  Tentacles of electricity lashed out from all sides of the Hermeporta’s egg like amethyst at its base, as the vessel shuddered. The bronze claws of the Hermeporta’s foot struggled to keep hold of the gem and its pedestal. The force of the sonic boom extinguished the candle in its fixture and blew the Trucker’s corpse aside like tumbleweed. The sound and force rippled the fog of the volt as it ebbed into darkness. With the sun gone, slow and languid the serpents coiled back to their former positions as the troubled air relaxed to a steady calm. The vipers yielded their bodies once again to stone and gave out a long, deep, satisfied hiss. The dying embers of their garnet eyes just visible through the smoke.

  Chapter 4

  Space

  The limitless void

  Illawara observed, after the initial blast and acceleration upon entering the Hermeporta, that her environment seemed to stretch and slow down. While travelling close to the speed of light, and in the last glimpses of her home, she saw solid objects contort and pull into glowing strings of colour, only to be erased by glaring white. Illawara clasped Hermes close to her chest as they emerged into the blackness of the void within an orb both weightless and suspended: two beings alone in space enveloped by stillness and conquered by silence.

  Illawara then saw more stars than she could ever have imagined, and the full enormity of space in every direction. Illawara screamed her lungs empty as a look of terror gripped her face. Hermes shrank into her. ‘I feel like a grain of sand’ she wailed, ‘oh, my GOD. This is too much, too much', Illawara shrieked again, flailing at the air in their bubble, while Hermes' heart pounded.

  ‘Calm down’ he said, as Illawara then tried to shrink and pull herself away from what she saw all around her, ‘please quiet down, or you’ll make it worse.'

  ‘What if we die like this?’ she exclaimed, looking from side to side, as the orb moved forward, ‘what if we float on like this forever – until we’re dead?’ Illawara’s eyes grew wild. Hermes would have to calm Illawara down, but was unable, bound as he was, to share his own experiences of the Hermeporta. Illawara covered her face with her sleeve and then peeped through the fingers of her free hand: unable to turn her face away from the spectacle. Her shining eyes then became glassy and transfixed.

  ‘Let me go’ Hermes said, and struggled against her grip, Illawara shook her head and clung tighter, ‘you’re crushing me - please’ he gasped. Illawara trembled and held onto him like a comfort blanket as he wriggled, before pecking her hand as hard as he could. With a cry, she released him. Hermes floated from her grasp, 'you were choking me' he coughed before he encircled Illawara and buzzed around the space - tracing the circumference of the orb with his flight. ‘Stop panicking; we’re safe in here, nothing can get us’ he said, unable to stop moving. Hermes stopped flying but his movements showed their confinement. ‘Catch me please’ said Hermes still in orbit. Illawara nodded, and caught him, before she stretched her arms and legs out wide, and felt a cool resistance against her palms and pressure at her feet. Illawara then closed her eyes and did her best to control her ragged breathing. The layers of Illawara's dress lifted like petals from her bodice as she tried to calm herself down. After a while, she opened her eyes again.

  ‘Look’ said Hermes. Illawara turned to look behind her and saw the Earth. She gasped and clamped her hand to her chest.

  ‘Oh… isn’t it beautiful? Look at it’ Illawara reached out her hands towards the planet, ‘I’ve seen so many pictures before, but never like this. Up here it looks a jewel, a blue, green, and white jewel.’

  Illawara then pointed to the continents and oceans she could see, a storm forming in the Indian Ocean and the aurora borealis in the Northern Hemisphere - she then stared at the Earth in silence, mesmerised. Hermes floated from her grip to cling onto Illawara’s shoulder when he could see that she had relaxed.

  ‘You could have killed me… I didn’t think you would me let go’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry' she said, 'I wasn’t prepared for this. What happens now?’

  Hermes tried to reply before he felt a crushing weight move through him, stifling any details he could have mustered into a response. ‘Let’s just wait, something will happen’ he said with great effort. Illawara recognised his behaviour, nodded, but did not question him further. As the idle pair floated, they began to feel a gentle tug of gravitation upon them: the two became magnetised toward the next stage of their journey, by a vessel not yet visible ahead.

  ‘Something's happening’ she said, and Illawara tensed again, but tried to stay calm. She marvelled at the
astonishing clarity of space around her.

  Every phenomenon of the night sky had sharpened and intensified. Without an atmosphere to obscure them the stars shone without twinkling, and the Milky Way erupted into a chorus of colour: embroidered with stars like a Persian carpet. Silence dominated, but Illawara felt a choir of awe rise within her, as they gravitated at ever-greater speed toward a translucent tunnel that was about to envelop them.

  ‘This is incredible’ she said, her voice shaking, ‘whatever happens, I’ll never forget this, we’ve become astronauts Hermes - we’ve seen the stars up close. How many down there on Earth could ever say that?’ Illawara said as their speed increased, but Hermes, as if paralysed within, could only twitch in acknowledgement - unable to divulge what he had witnessed and learned long ago. Up ahead, like spun sugar, the faint threads of a tubular matrix could be seen, gentle and rotating in space, reaching back in an arc toward the Earth’s orbit. Illawara’s eyes widened, ‘what’s this?’ she said, peering at the strands that drew closer.

  Hermes sat rigid perched on Illawara’s shoulder.

  Once inside the tube’s delicate structure, the universe began to blur around them. The narrow tunnel in space held them close and squeezed the pair as they began to accelerate onward. Colours once distinct and perfect then merged, and fanned outwards as their speed intensified. ‘Whooohoooo, oh my, God’ Illawara cried again, stretching out her hands to the sides of the orb, ‘this is incredible: like riding a rollercoaster. I love it; I love it, love it.'

  Hermes hurried to Illawara’s neck to bury himself there while trembling and sick with nerves, as the colours of a distant nebula merged with an intense blue in the birthing of a new star. Both phenomena appeared to blur together to create a shimmering purple haze, which stretched by in silence like the silk ribbons of a flying kite. Hermes turned his head away to ignore the yellow stars that crisscrossed one another in a lattice of honeycombed light, as he and Illawara raced along the time tube created by the Hermeporta.