by Dan Simmons
“He serves Setebos again,” said Harman.
“Yes.”
“But Caliban did survive and return to Earth after centuries.”
“Yes.”
Harman sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. He suddenly felt very tired and very thirsty.
“The wooden box beneath the mezzanine is a sort of cold-keeper,” said Prospero. “There is food in there…and bottles of pure water.”
Harman sat up straight. “Are you reading my mind, Magus?”
“No. Your face. There is no more obvious map than the human face. Go—get a drink. I will take a seat here by the window and await your return, refreshed, as interlocutor.”
Harman felt how shaky his legs and arms were as he walked to the large wooden box with the brass handle, then stared into the cold a minute at all the bottles of water and heaps of clear-wrapped food. He drank deeply.
Returning to the center of the red and tan carpet where Prospero sat at the table with the sunlight behind him, he said, “Why did you have Ariel bring me here?”
“Actually, in deference to accuracy, I had my biosphere sprite bring you to the jungle near Khajuraho since no faxing is allowed within twenty kilometers of the eiffelbahn.”
“Eiffelbahn?” repeated Harman, still sipping from the ice-cold water bottle. “Is that what you and Ariel call this tower?”
“No, no, my dear Harman. That is what we—or Khan Ho Tep, to be precise, since that gentleman built the eiffelbahn some millennia ago—called this system. This is just one of…oh, let me see…fourteen thousand eight hundred towers just like this.”
“Why so many?” asked Harman.
“It pleased the Khan,” said the magus. “And it takes that many Eiffel Towers to connect the cables from the east coast of China to the Atlantic Breach on the coast of Spain, what with all the trunk lines, spurs, side branches, and so forth.”
Harman had no idea what the old man was talking about. “The eiffelbahn is some sort of transport system?”
“An opportunity for you to travel in style for a change,” said Prospero. “Or I should say—for us to travel in style, for I shall travel with you for a small part of the way.”
“I’m not traveling anywhere with you until…” began Harman. Then he stopped, dropped the water bottle to the floor, and clutched the heavy table with both hands.
The entire two-story platform one thousand feet atop the tower had lurched. There was a grinding and tearing of metal, an horrendous screech, and then the entire structure tilted, lurched again, tilted further.
“The tower’s falling!” cried Harman. Beyond the many panes of glass in their elaborate iron frames, he could see the distant green horizon tilt, wobble, then tilt again.
“Not at all,” said Prospero.
The two-story living unit was falling—sliding right out of the tower, screeching and rending across dry metal as if giant metal hands were pushing it out into thin air.
Harman leaped to his feet, decided to run for the doorway on the mezzanine, but then fell to his hands and knees as the two-story unit fell free of the tower, dropped at least fifteen feet, and then jerked violently before beginning a slide to the west.
Heart pounding, Harman stayed on his knees while the huge living unit rocked perilously back and forth on its long axis, then steadied. Above them, the screeching turned into a high-decibal hum. Harman stood, found his balance, staggered to the table, and looked out the window.
The tower was to their left and receding, an open patch of sky visible where this two-story, one-thousand-foot-level apartment had been. Harman could see the cables overhead and now understood the hum to be connected with some sort of flywheel in the housing above them. The eiffelbahn was some sort of cablecar system and this large iron house of a structure was the car. The vertical line he’d seen to the east earlier had been another tower, just like the one they’d just left. And the car was moving quickly to the west.
He turned to Prospero and took a step closer but stopped before coming within range of the magus’s solid staff. “You have to let me get back to Ada,” he said, trying for firmness but hearing the detestable pleading whine in his voice. “The voynix are all around Ardis Hall. I can’t let her stay there in danger…without me. Please, Lord Prospero. Please.”
“It is too late for you to intercede there, Harman, friend of Noman,” said Prospero in his throaty, old-man’s voice. “What’s done is done at Ardis Hall. But let us put aside our sea-sorrow, sir, and not burden our remembrances with a heaviness that is gone. For we are embarked upon a new voyage now—surely the stuff of sea-change, friend of Noman—and one of us shall soon be the wiser, the deeper, fuller man, whilst our enemies—namely that darkness I bred and harbored out of Sycorax—shall drink of seawater and be forced to eat the withered roots of failure and the husks of scorn.”
43
There was a storm brewing on and around Mount Olympos. A planetary dust storm had blanketed Mars in a red shroud, the howling winds swirling around the forcefield aegis that the absent Zeus had left in place around the home of the gods. Electrostatic particles so excited the shield that lightning flashed day and night around the summit of Olympos and thunder rumbled in the subsonic. Sunlight near the top of the mountain was diffused into a dull, bloody glow, punctuated by sheets of lightning and the ever-present rumble of the wind and thunder.
Achilles—still carrying his beloved but dead Amazon queen, Penthesilea—had quantum teleported to the home of his captive, Hephaestus, god of fire, chief Artificer to all the gods, husband of Aglaia, also known as Charis—the “delightfulness of art,” one of the loveliest of Graces. Some said that the Artificer had built his wife as well.
Hephaestus had quantum teleported not directly into his home, but to its front door. To the casual glance the front of the crippled fire god’s home looked like other dwelling places of the immortals—white stone, white pillars, white portico—but this was only the entrance; in truth Hephaestus had built his house and extensive workshops into the steep south slope of Olympos, far from Caldera Lake and the cluster of so many of the gods’ huge temple-houses. He lived in a cave.
It was quite a cave, Achilles saw, as the foot-dragging Hephaestus led the way in and secured multiple iron doors behind them.
The cave had been carved out of the solid black stone of Olympos and this one room stretched away for hundreds of yards into the gloom. Everywhere were tables, arcane devices, magnifying lenses, tools, and machines in various stages of creation or dismembering. Deep in the cave roared an open hearth with liquid steel bubbling like orange lava. Closer to the front, where various stools, couches, low tables, a bed and braziers showed Hephaestus’s actual living space carved out of the endless workshop, stood, sat, and walked some gold women—Hephaestus’s infamous attendants—machine women with rivets, human eyes, metal breasts, and soft synthetic-flesh vaginas but also—so the tales said—with the stolen souls of human beings.
“You can lay her down here,” said the dwarf-god, gesturing to a littered benchtop. With one swipe of his hairy forearm, Hephaestus cleared the table.
Releasing his grip on the dwarf-god, Achilles laid his linen-wrapped burden down with the utmost gentleness and reverence.
Penthesilea’s face was visible and Hephaestus stared down for a minute. “She was beautiful, all right. And I can see Athena’s work in the preservation of the corpse. Several days since death obviously and no rot or discoloration at all. The Amazon still has a flush to her cheeks. Do you mind if I roll the linen down just to take a peek at her tits?”
“If you touch her or her shroud,” said Achilles, “I will kill you.”
Hephaestus held up his palms. “All right, all right. Just curious.” He slapped his palms together. “Food,” he said. “Then strategy to bring your lady back.”
The golden female attendants began bringing trays of hot food and large cups of wine to the round table at the center of Hephaestus’ circle of couches. Fleet-footed Achilles and hairy H
ephaestus both dug in with a will, not speaking except to demand more food or for the communal wine cup to be passed.
The attendants brought steaming fried liver wrapped in lamb intestines as an appetizer—one of Achilles’ favorites. They carried in a complete roast piglet stuffed with the flesh of many small birds, raisins, chestnuts, egg yolks, and spiced meats. They set out bowls of pork stewed with bubbling apples and pears. They brought in pure delicacies such as roasted sow’s womb and olives with mashed chickpeas. For the main course they served huge fish fried to a crispy, flaky brown on the outside.
“Netted in Zeus’s own Caldera Lake atop Olympos,” Hephaestus said with his mouth full.
For dessert and to cleanse the palate between courses they had a variety of fruits, sweetmeats, and nuts. The golden metal women set out bowls of figs and heaps of almonds, more bowls of fat dates and flat plates of the kind of delicious honeycakes that Achilles had tasted only once before when visiting the small city of Athens. Finally came that dessert most loved by Agamemnon, Priam, and other kings of kings—cheesecake.
After the meal, the robot attendants swept the table and floor and brought in more casks and double-handed goblets of wine—ten types of wine at least. Hephaestus did the honor of mixing the water with the wine and passing the huge cups.
The dwarf-god and god-man drank for two hours but neither entered the state that Achilles’ people called paroinia—“intoxication frenzy.”
The two males were mostly silent, but the naked, golden, female attendants celebrated for them—lining up and dancing around the table in the sensuous conga line that aesthetes such as Odysseus called the komos.
The man and god took turns going off to use the cave’s toilet facilities, and when they were drinking wine again, Achilles said, “Is it night yet? Is it time for you to spirit me to the Healer’s Hall?”
“Do you really think that Olympos’ healing tanks will bring your Amazon doxie back to life, son of wet-breasted Thetis? Those tanks and worms were designed to repair immortals, not some human bitch—however beautiful.”
Achilles was too drunk and too distracted to take offense. “Goddess Athena told me that the tanks would renew life to Penthesilea and Athena does not lie.”
“Athena does nothing but lie,” snorted Hephaestus, lifting the huge two-handled cup and drinking deeply. “And a few days ago you were waiting at the foot of Olympos, throwing rocks at Zeus’s impenetrable aegis, howling for Athena to come down to fight so you could kill her just as surely as you stuck a spear through this Amazon’s lovely tit. What changed, O Noble Mankiller?”
Achilles frowned at the god of fire. “This Trojan War has been…complicated, Cripple.”
“I’ll drink to that,” laughed Hephaestus and lifted the big goblet again.
When they were ready to QT to the Healer’s Hall, Achilles dressed in full armor again, his sword sharpened on the fire god’s wheel and his shield polished, the son of Peleus walked to the bench to lift Penthesilea’s body to his shoulder.
“No, leave her,” said Hephaestus.
“What are you talking about?” growled Achilles. “She’s the reason we’re going to the Healer’s Hall. I can’t leave her here.”
“We don’t know which of the gods or guards will be there tonight,” said the artificer. “You may have to fight your way through a phalanx. Do you want to do that with an Amazon’s corpse on your shoulder? Or were you planning to use her beautiful body as a shield?”
Achilles hesitated.
“There’s nothing here to harm her body,” said Hephaestus. “I used to have rats and bats and roaches, but I built mechanical cats and falcons and praying mantises to rid the cave of them.”
“Still…”
“If the Healer’s Hall is empty, it’ll take us three seconds to QT back here and fetch her corpse. In the meantime, I’ll have the golden girls watch over her,” said the artificer god. He snapped his stubby fingers and six of the metal attendants took up positions around the Amazon’s body. “Are you ready now?”
“Yes.”
Achilles gripped Hephaestus’ heavily scarred upper arm and the two men popped out of existence.
The Healer’s Hall was empty. No immortals were posted as guards. More surprising—even to Hephaestus—was that the many glass cylinders were empty. No gods were being healed and resurrected here tonight. In the huge space, lighted by only a few low-burning braziers and the violet light of the bubbling tanks themselves, nothing moved except the shuffling Hephaestus and the fleet-footed Achilles, shield held high.
Then the Healer emerged from the shadows of the bubbling vats.
Achilles raised his shield higher.
Athena had said to him over the corpse of Penthesilea—“Kill the Healer—a great, monstrous, centipede thing with too many arms and eyes. Destroy everything in the Healer’s Hall”—but Achilles had assumed that Athena was calling the healer a centipede out of insult, not as a literal description.
This thing had the segmented body of a centipede, but it rose thirty feet high, its segmented body swaying, its body-circling rings of black eyes on the top segment locked on Achilles and Hephaestus. The Healer had feelers and segmented arms—too many—and spindly hands with spidery fingers on the ends of half a dozen of those upper arms. One body segment near the top wore a vest of many pockets, bulging with tools, and there were straps and bands and black belts holding other tools on other segments of the swaying torso.
“Healer,” called Hephaestus, “where is everybody?”
The huge centipede swayed, waggled arms, and erupted in a stutter of noise from unseen mouths.
“Did you understand that?” Hephaestus asked Achilles.
“Understand what? It sounded like a boy running a stick along the rib cage of a skeleton.”
“It’s all good Greek,” said Hephaestus. “You just have to slow it down in your mind, listen more carefully.” To the Healer, the dwarf-god cried, “My mortal friend did not understand you. Could you repeat that, O Healer?”
“Lord God Zeus’s Orders Are That No Mortal Shall Ever Be Placed In One Of The Regeneration Tanks Without His Express Command. The Lord God Master Zeus Is Now here To Be Found. And Since His Command Only On Olympos Does The Healer Obey I Cannot Allow A Mortal To Pass Until Zeus Returns To His Throne On Olympos.”
“Did you understand that?” the artificer asked Achilles.
“Something about this thing obeying only Zeus and not allowing Penthesilea to be put into one of the vats without Zeus’s express command?”
“Precisely.”
“I can kill this big bug,” said Achilles.
“Perhaps so,” said Hephaestus. “Although the Healer is whispered to be even more immortal than we johnny-come-lately gods. But if you kill it, Penthesilea will never be brought back to life. Only the Healer knows how to operate the machinery and command the blue and green worms that are part of the healing process.”
“You’re the Artificer,” said Achilles, tapping his sword against the rim of his golden shield. “You must know how to operate this machinery.”
“The fuck I do,” growled Hephaestus. “This isn’t simple technology like we used when we were mere post-humans. I could never figure out the Healer’s quantum machines…and if I did, I still couldn’t order the blue worms to work. I think they respond only to telepathy and only to the Healer.”
“This bug said that he only obeyed Zeus on Olympos,” said Achilles, who was perilously close to losing his temper and killing the god of fire, the giant centipede, and every god still left on Olympos. “Who else can command it?”
“Kronos,” said Hephaestus with a maddening smile. “But Kronos and the other Titans have been banished to Tartarus forever. Only Zeus in this universe can tell the Healer what to do.”
“Then where is Zeus?”
“No one knows,” growled Hephaestus, “but in his absence the gods are warring with one another for control. The fighting is now mostly centered down on Ilium’s Earth, where
the gods still support their Trojans or their Greeks, and Olympos is largely empty and peaceful now—it’s why I ventured out onto this fucking volcano’s slopes to survey the damage to my escalator.”
“Why would Athena give me this god-killing knife and order me to kill the Healer after the thing brings Penthesilea back to life?” asked Achilles.
Hephaestus’ eyes widened. “She told you to kill the Healer?” The bearded dwarf-god’s voice was low and puzzled. “I have no idea why she would order such a thing. She has some scheme, but it must be a mad one. With the Healer dead, the vats here would be useless…all of our immortality would be a joke. We could live a very long time, but we would suffer, son of Peleus. Suffer terribly without nano-rejuvenation.”
Achilles strode toward the Healer, pulling his famous shield tight until his eyes blazed through the slits of his shining war helmet. He pulled back his sword. “I’ll make this thing activate the vats for Penthesilea.”
Hephaestus hurried forward to grab Achilles’ arm. “No, my mortal friend. Believe me when I say that the Healer does not fear death and it will not be moved. It obeys only Zeus. Without the fucking Healer, the blue worms will not perform. Without the fucking blue worms, the vats are useless. Without the fucking vats, your Amazon queen will stay fucking dead for fucking ever.”
Achilles angrily shook off the artificer’s hand. “This…bug…has to put Penthesilea in the healing vats.” Even while he was saying this, Achilles again is reminded of Athena’s command for him to kill the Healer. What is that bitch-goddess up to? How is she using me? To what purpose? She’s not insane and she certainly has no intention of killing the one creature who can preserve her immortality.
“The Healer does not fear you, son of Peleus. You can kill it, but that only means you will never see your queen alive again.”
Achilles walked away from the dwarf-god, brushed past the huge Healer, and slammed his beautiful shield—with all its hammered concentric circles of symbols—hard into the clear plastic of the huge regeneration tank. The sound echoed in the dim darkness of the hall.