by ST Branton
I stopped beside him and turned my gaze to the unfriendly sky. “I don’t doubt you,” I said. “You’re the guide here. But I need to keep going.” I glanced at his clean-shaven teenage face. “If you’re afraid, it’s okay. I won’t judge you. I’ve been scared too. But if your concern is for me, it’s not necessary.”
Shiva chewed his lip. “I am not fearful,” he admitted. “There was a time once, when I was a child, that I was stranded by a storm in the mountains for four days. My survival made me believe that my time is appointed by higher beings. It will come when it comes, whether that is on this peak or on the rickshaw going home.” Despite this brave talk, the uneasiness refused to leave his face. He stood with his feet planted firmly and stared at the rest of the mountain path.
I laughed. “Don’t sweat it, kid. I’ve spent the better part of a year constantly on the edge and waiting to be dropped into the great abyss. If I can hang on for this long, so can you. Let’s keep going, okay? You and me. I’ll be with you all the way.”
“You had better be,” Shiva said. “For your own sake.” He moved forward again and guided me along increasingly narrow switchbacks into a hovering blanket of fog. The freezing water droplets clung to my face and eyelashes and blurred my vision. My whole leg ached fiercely. Shiva was little more than two vague backpack humps ahead of me. I pushed to keep up because to lose sight of him meant sheer catastrophe.
This high up, the rocks were frigid and slick. I climbed with my heart in my throat and fought to ignore the incredible altitude. My hands and feet slid on the icy surfaces, and more than once, I felt myself lose all purchase for half a terrifying second. And man, did my leg hurt.
I hadn’t had more than a passing chance to rest it since I’d left San Francisco, and that now caught up with me. It was almost all I could do to stay on Shiva’s tail. He might as well have been an apparition for all I could of see him through the mist.
Then, I saw his partial silhouette falter. One foot slipped free of the ledge he walked on and I stared in horror as he slid toward the edge of a deep, dark crevasse. The opening was narrow but not narrow enough to keep him from falling to his death. Shiva shouted something that was whipped away by the wind.
All thoughts of my personal safety left my mind. I shoved myself off the rock with all my might and hurtled toward his falling form. His right hand grasped desperately for any hold but found nothing. He had only yards before he was lost forever.
I ran on my sore, unsteady leg as far as I could along that rickety ledge. My footing slipped too, but I used that to my advantage and dived down toward Shiva.
“Grab my hand!” I yelled.
He looked up as I seized his fingers. The jerk as his momentum halted almost tore me loose from the precarious hold I had on the cliff face. Thankfully, I managed to hold on, even if only barely, and I used my good leg to drag us both back to relative safety. We slumped side by side against the rock, our mirrored pants testimony to shared relief. My heart thrummed wildly in my chest.
“How can you be so strong?” he asked somewhat reverently. “Never mind. I do not question. I am only grateful.”
“I go to the gym,” I told him. “Like, a lot.”
You were also trained by a brilliant, dashing centurion of the Roman army, Marcus piped up. His words instilled you with the courage you now selflessly exhibit on a regular basis. You can only hope to one day be molded in his noble image.
I sucked in a deep breath and let it out. “Yep,” I said. “Definitely the gym.”
Chapter Twenty
We slowed our pace after that little mishap and picked our way cautiously through the thin, wet air. The rocks grew a covering of ice and then snow. By the time we reached the path to the summit, we trudged through it, paranoid at the thought of hidden ravines. Shiva pulled himself up over a ledge and stopped to catch his breath. He pointed straight ahead.
“The peak,” he said. “It’s there. A hundred feet.”
I perched beside him and surreptitiously massaged my leg. “Thank you, Shiva. You can turn back now. I’ll take it from here.”
“What do you mean?” He gazed at me with a trace of suspicion. “You must not believe you can make the descent without a guide. Climbing down is harder, not easier. You cannot see where you are going.” He sounded a little irritated as if I wasn’t the first dumb foreigner to try to dismiss him early. Unlike the others before me, I wouldn’t be dissuaded.
“You talked about your appointed time before,” I said and scowled at the swirl of fog and snow above. “This is mine. I have to meet it alone.” Talking to him that way gave me flashbacks of when I’d said more or less the same thing to my crew at the base of Delano’s temple. I hoped dearly that this venture, whatever it turned out to be, would have a happier ending.
Shiva surprised me by moving to block the path. His eyes were somber. “You tricked me,” he said. “Had I known you meant to end your life here, I would not have agreed to be your guide.”
I gasped. “No! No, no, kiddo. I’m not here for that. That’s insane.”
“Is it?” he demanded. “I have seen it happen many times. Lost souls find their way to the peaks so that their last moments may pass as close to paradise as they can be. They believe it will make the transition easier. Less painful? More peaceful? I do not know.” He shook his head to clear it. “I cannot allow you to die this way, whether or not it is your wish.”
“Shiva, listen to me.” I grabbed the kid’s gloved hand in my own. “I didn’t climb all this way to die on the summit. I don’t want to meet the gods. I want to know how to kill them.”
The poor boy understood that even less, judging by the way he stared at me like I’d grown another head. He looked like he debated whether to drag my crazy ass back down to the town anyway, but at the last moment, he thought better of it.
“You are not suffering from oxygen deprivation,” he said as though he needed to convince himself.
“No,” I insisted. “I know what I’m here to do, and I want you to know you can’t stop me. Go home, Shiva. I’ll see you when I see you. Don’t forget that you’re not responsible for the choices I’ve made.”
He wanted very badly to argue and to talk me out of it. I could see it in his face, and I really felt for him. To someone who lacked the context for everything I had said, I was sure I sounded insane—and yes, like a person with a weird death wish.
Here lies Vic, the woman who wanted to kill the gods.
But he saw through to my grim conviction and backed away reluctantly before he turned in the direction from which we’d come a few minutes earlier. I watched until I was absolutely certain that he hadn’t doubled back and I set out for the peak.
The last hundred feet were brutal in a way I never expected. I clawed my way up the practically sheer face, one slip away from certain doom. My feet scrabbled against slippery rock and snow fell away on either side to plummet thousands of feet to a bottom beyond my imagination. The sound of my heart pounded in my head. With every shallow breath, I inched a little higher.
Near the very top, the whine of the sharp wind rose to a screech. The currents of air ripped at my body and threatened to tear me off the mountain and throw me into a hidden grave. A couple of times, I stopped moving entirely and clung to the rocks until I stopped shaking. “Fucking hell,” I whispered hoarsely. “If I ever see that smoking jackass again, I’m gonna punch him in the face. I don’t care what’s up here.”
Focus, Victoria. You are very close.
“Yeah, yeah.” I scrabbled above me with my right hand and hooked my fingers over a reasonably flat edge that felt deeper than a few inches. My heart skipped a beat. I grabbed hold with my other hand, and for a second, I swung freely from the shoulders down. The excitement drowned out the fear as I hauled myself up over the ledge and onto the peak of my mountain. Nothing but a slate-grey sky loomed over my head.
I almost cried with relief and joy but my rest only lasted a minute. Soon, I pushed to my feet and walked forw
ard while I searched for clues. The fog was thicker than ever up there, but there was no hiding the massive, ornately carved wooden door fitted into the mountain’s highest point. It was ancient and smooth and there was something strangely familiar about its design.
“Ready?” I asked Marcus. My hand touched the wood.
As ever, Victoria. Let us away.
I exhaled a billowing plume of white and I pushed firmly against it.
The door rumbled open, and I walked through.
Chapter Twenty-One
On the other side of the door, the howling wind was immediately silenced. The bone-chilling cold melted into soothing heat. The mountain peak was replaced by a vast banquet room with a golden throne. Lavish trappings notwithstanding, the room lay empty and still but my eyes were drawn to something other than the inexplicable finery. Standing off to my left was a person I hadn’t seen in a small eternity. My mouth dropped open. “Marcus?”
He grinned broadly and stepped forward with his arms out. “Hail, Victoria.”
“You son of a bitch!” I said and hugged him tightly. “What the hell?”
He laughed and returned the embrace. “It is wonderful to truly see you again, my friend. And to occupy the same physical space.”
We looked at each other for a long time and I soaked in the bizarre reality of the moment.
“Seriously, what the hell?” I asked. “Five seconds ago, I was climbing a mountain and you were right here.” I patted the medallion which still hung around my neck. Its metal was no longer warm to the touch and it had lost some of its ethereal luster. “Now, we’re in a fucking throne room and you’re in front of me. In the flesh.” The words were surreal to my ears.
“Calm yourself, Victoria.” Marcus chuckled and rested a hand on my shoulder. “What else would you expect from the realm of the gods?”
“The realm of the—” I jerked backward to study the rich chamber one more time. “You have got to be shitting me.”
He made a face. “I am not, in fact, doing that.” He turned and spread his arms wide in a gesture he had probably practiced since the dawn of time. “Welcome to Carcerum.”
“Damn.” I couldn’t keep the goofy smile off my face. “I gotta be honest. I never thought I’d be so happy to see your ugly mug.”
Marcus didn’t answer right away and I was about to rib him again when I noticed his attention had become fixed on something across the room. I pivoted, and my exuberant grin instantly faded. The smoking man sat upon the golden throne, his legs crossed casually and a cigarette clamped between his lips. Immediately, I looked toward Marcus to gauge his reaction. The old centurion was so guarded, he revealed nothing.
I knew what I wanted to say, but I kept it locked tightly behind my teeth. What the shit was that guy doing there? My fists clenched instinctively at my sides. I still wanted to throw that punch for everything he’d put me through.
The man watched us impassively as he took another deep drag. “Come,” he instructed, his head wreathed in a white plume.
As if compelled by an outside force, Marcus and I stepped forward in unison until we stood below the steps that led to the throne. The smoking man uncrossed his legs. He stubbed his cigarette out in a jeweled ashtray and its miniscule embers faded into nothing. Then, he stood and something happened to the sinewy old-man body. He grew and his shoulders broadened. His jawline became clean and sharp. The shape of his muscles filled out. He even glowed a little.
I blinked. The smoking man had gone, replaced by a man who could only be a king. Although his face was drawn with hidden pain, his features looked like they’d been sculpted by an artist and he exuded an irresistible charisma.
Marcus gasped. When I glanced his way, he had dropped to one knee, his head bowed in utmost reverence. “My Lord,” he intoned.
I folded my arms. “My Lord is right,” I said. “Will somebody tell me what in high freaking heaven is going on here?”
The old centurion looked aghast at my impropriety. “Victoria!” he chastised. “That is no way to speak before the God-King. I will thank you to show the proper respect in his hall.”
I gave him a hard look. “Dude, listen to yourself right now. The God-King’s gone, and it’s a damn good thing he is because Delano beat me up and took his sword—or don’t you remember that part? Something tells me he wouldn’t be too happy if he knew.”
Marcus grimaced. He obviously wanted to shrivel up and die of embarrassment. “Victoria—”
“Well, she’s not completely wrong.” The man spoke for the first time since his transformation. “I must admit, I was disheartened to witness that particular defeat. But the fault lies with me, Vic. Not you.”
I stopped cold. My eyes locked onto his face and revelation crashed over me. “Tell me who you are,” I said. “Uh…please.”
Marcus sighed audibly.
The man only smiled. “My name is nothing you don’t already know,” he replied. “I am Kronin, former king of the gods, ruler of Carcerum, and bearer of the Gladius Solis. Loyal Marcus speaks the truth. You walk in my domain.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
My jaw dropped as the force of the truth smacked me in the face. The smoking man, the guy who fished me out of an Indiana river after he’d left me and my crew to fend for ourselves against Delano, had been Kronin the whole time.
Memories of his brief appearances during the last months of my life flashed through my head. They all had one thing in common—he showed up, dispensed some sage wisdom, and dropped off the face of the earth again, often for weeks without any form of contact. Knowing that he had likely retreated to his undisturbed godly kingdom during those periods of strife made me mad. Then I thought about it some more and it made me furious.
Marcus must have seen the color rise in my face because he reached out a hand toward my arm, ready to mediate between me and his lord and savior.
Steaming, I brushed him off. “You have some nerve, Kronin,” I said. “You know that? Leave it to one of the freaking gods to let the world fall into chaos while they sit idly by, doing nothing.” I glared directly into his eyes and refused to give an inch. He made no reply. “And now you have nothing to say. Typical.”
The centurion’s hand landed on my shoulder. He tried to ease me back gently, maybe because he was afraid I’d storm up those fancy golden steps and slap the God-King in his omniscient face. His grip was firm but I didn’t budge. My hurt leg trembled slightly and I prayed it wouldn’t give out. Marcus made another attempt to mollify me.
“Keep your temper,” he said softly. “We need Kronin now more than ever.”
I had already seen red, however. “No,” I retorted and continued to glower at the king of gods. “We don’t. The only thing he’s done for us is make false promises.” I could literally feel my blood pressure rise and a tension headache brewed in the back of my skull.
The fact that Kronin had yet to go on the defensive only annoyed me more. There was no honor in simply sitting there and taking it. I was more than happy to force him into a direct confrontation and release some of the pent-up frustration. Maybe after that, I’d be able to look at him without wanting to throw up.
“You—” I didn’t really know what I wanted up to say, but as it turned out, it didn’t matter. My voice had risen to a level barely below a shout, and when I went to kick it up a notch, my lungs refused to cooperate. Instead of taking a stand, I doubled over and coughed so hard that I eventually sagged onto the floor. Marcus knelt at my side and glanced at Kronin.
“I must apologize for her, my liege. She is very weak and she is not herself. I am sure you understand that these past weeks have been exceptionally difficult for her on many levels. But she is strong. She will recover.”
I swatted at him and did my best to indicate that his sentiments were full of crap and he didn’t have permission to speak for me. Recent events had been as tough as hell, but so was I.
“I’m not weak,” I tried to say. “I’m fucking pissed.” The cough wouldn’t
abate, however, and the words were reduced to a series of rusty croaks. Not cool or impressive, I acknowledged miserably.
“Relax, Vic.” Kronin broke his contemplative silence at last. “I mean that literally. Nourish your body with food, drink, and rest. Hospitality is the least I can provide you in the wake of a journey like the one you’ve had. The halls of Carcerum will no doubt refresh you as they have rejuvenated me on countless occasions. It is an honor to host you.”
Marcus helped me up and slung my arm around his shoulders. I mumbled a sullen reply.
“Thank you, my Lord,” Marcus said. “We are most grateful.”
Kronin nodded. He addressed me again. “Once your strength has returned, I shall answer for every choice I have made thus far—the good and the bad. You may judge me then as you see fit.” He stepped back and resumed his position on the gleaming throne. Marcus bowed his head and guided me toward an archway at the end of the hall.
“Where are we going?” I rasped. “I’m not done with him yet.”
“It can wait,” Marcus replied, a touch of dry amusement in his tone. “For now, Kronin is right. You need to recuperate and get strong. Time flows differently in Carcerum, but it does not stop.”
He walked me carefully through shining corridors to a luxurious bedchamber. While I dragged myself under the downy covers, the old Roman soldier brought me strange, brightly colored fruits that dripped with sweet juice, water clearer than crystal, and a ladle brimful of the mystical nectar that worked overtime to keep me alive.
I didn’t think I was hungry until he piled food on plates in front of me, balanced across the bedspread on a polished tray. Once I’d lifted the first piece of exotic fruit to my lips, I recalled suddenly that I hadn’t had anything to eat since my breakfast of bread and jerky at Shiva’s house. Marcus sat on the end of the bed, watched me devour his offerings, and smiled like a proud dad.