Timothy Boggs - Hercules Legendary Joureneys 02 (3 page)

"Okay. But I'm still hurt."

Hercules laughed once, quickly, and watched as Iolaus gathered his pack onto the bench and rooted through it.

"Wait until you see this, Here. It's amazing. It's the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life. You'll love it. You'll just love it."

"No."

On the bench between them Iolaus piled some clothes, flint, wrapped food that smelled as if it should have been buried three days ago, more clothes, a whetstone for his blades, and some things Hercules decided instantly he didn't want to learn more about.

"I know it's here," Iolaus muttered. "I saw it yesterday."

"What?"

"You'll see."

"Iolaus, I'll be dead of old age by the time you find what you're looking for."

Iolaus waved a hand. "Nah. You'll—aha!" He held up a small object triumphantly. "Here it is!"

Hercules looked at it. "It's a scroll."

"Exactly!"

"I've seen them before. They have writing on them."

"Exactly!"

As much as Hercules loved his friend, there were times, like now, when he wanted to whack him around a little, just to see if somehow that might force him to make more sense. A futile and an admittedly not very serious hope.

Iolaus slapped the scroll into Hercules' palm. "It's an invitation."

"To what?"

"Hercules," Iolaus announced solemnly, "it is an invitation to the greatest event in the history of my life. Your life. Our lives. This, Hercules, is going to make us rich!"

Hercules said nothing.

"All right," Iolaus admitted, "maybe it won't make us rich. But it'll sure make us famous."

Hercules looked toward the house, hoping someone would call them to dinner. Now.

"Well, maybe not famous, either." Iolaus tapped the scroll with one finger, then shifted the finger to Hercules' chest. "But it will make us popular, my friend."

"I don't get it. How will this—"

Iolaus smiled broadly. "Women, Herc. Popular with women. Beautiful, sensuous, available, eager, stunning, magnificent, stupendous women!"

"How?" was all Hercules said.

Iolaus puffed out his chest. "By being the judges of a beauty contest, that's how."

Give him one more chance, Hercules thought; then you can whack him.

"What beauty contest?"

Iolaus sighed. "Aren't you paying attention?" He waved the scroll in Hercules' face. "This one. And I'll tell you this—it's one thing we can do together that won't nearly get us killed."

Well, if that's true, Hercules thought, it would be a first.

But as they headed for the house he paused, frowned, and looked back and up.

A few wisps of cloud, a flock of dark birds, nothing more.

So why did he have the feeling something was up there, something watching?

Something waiting.

Themon did not always sit on the bountiful plain its residents now called home. Originally it was right off the beach, a comfortable mixture of fanners, herders, and fishermen. But the farmers, the herders, and most of the fishermen quickly grew tired of rebuilding their homes every time a storm drove in from the sea, raising the tides and flattening everything in sight, as well as a few things they didn't even realize had been there in the first place.

They considered it a sign.

Within a single year the entire population, except for a few hardheaded fishermen, had moved inland, and the new village they built soon grew to a town that quickly burgeoned into a small city. The mile ride to the beach and harbor was a small price to pay for not having to wake up one morning to find your bed transformed into a raft. And not a very stable one, at that.

In Themon, swimming wasn't a sport, it was a matter of survival.

In the city's center was a magnificent plaza, tiled in marble and lined with marble columns that lofted statues of the gods above the surrounding rooftops. Reaching southward from the plaza was a wide boulevard made smooth by interlocking paving stones, lined with busy shops and dining establishments, All the other north-south streets were paved as well, but only the boulevard extended beyond the city's bound-ary and ran all the way to where the grassy plain sloped sharply downward to the sand.

The council that ran the city was housed in an impressive two-story structure at the north side of the plaza. Eight steps took the visitor to a wide porch inlaid with turquoise and crimson tiles and lined with columns almost as impressive as those that lined the plaza. Beneath an overhanging peaked roof was a set of double doors paneled in bronze. Past the doors was a long corridor lit by torchlight at night, and by the sun in daylight because of a rectangular hole in the roof.

At the end of the corridor was another set of double doors, these ornamented with silver and gold medallions. Beyond this threshold was the council chamber, where laws were set, judgments rendered, and citizens either honored or disgraced.

There were nine men on the council, elected every five years.

The head of the council was Titus Perical.

In fact, Titus had been leader for so long, there were few who remembered who had preceded him in the office.

Titus hated the chamber. It was chilly and drafty, it echoed every word and sneeze, it had truly dreadful artwork and statuary, and every time it rained, water ran down the central corridor and under the double doors with the silver and gold inlays, as if to remind the council that the sea might be distant but the rain could ruin a good set of sandals just as easily as a wave.

He had been trying for over a decade to hire someone to cover the roof. Tradition, however, foiled him every time.

It wasn't tradition, though, that brought him to a narrow, winding tunnel carved out of the cliff face on the west end of the harbor. The boulders that reached into the sea protected the secret entrance. Getting to that entrance meant using the beach, or climbing down from the cliff's edge.

Titus was not a climber.

At the end of the tunnel was a chamber wide enough to hold four men and high enough for one tall man to stand on the shoulders of another.

In this chamber there were no representations of Demeter or Poseidon, no offerings to Zeus or Aphrodite, no luxuries at all.

There was a simple stone bench that faced an arched niche in which had been set a simple altar made of dark brown stone. Flanking the niche were two ordinary stone pedestals upon which had been placed two ordinary candlesticks.

Carved out of the black stone wall behind the altar were two large green eyes. Slanted at the corners.

Not at all human, and yet too human looking to belong to a beast.

Titus sat on the bench, his plain robes gathered around him as if he were cold.

On the altar was the beheaded body of a small deer, whose blood ran along four trenches in the stone, each ending at one corner. On the ground beneath each corner was a gold bowl into which the blood ran.

Drop by drop.

"It's getting harder," Titus said wearily. His head was bowed, but he could feel those eyes staring at him. "Very hard."

He waited a moment.

The only sound was the deafening bellow of the sea.

He never questioned why the tide never reached here, why the waves had never found their way inside.

"I'm not complaining, you understand," he added hastily. "I know what has to done. It's just that.. .

well, it's very hard these days. You know how
they
are. They have no respect for tradition. All they want to do is party, have a good time, and expect us to catch them when they fall." He shook his head in sorrow for the good old days. "Used to be, they
wanted
to grow up to be the queen. Used to be ..." He sighed, and smiled at the memory. "Used to be they'd sooner kill whoever they thought might be their competition than lose. They had more spunk then. More ambition."

He squirmed; the damn bench was hard, and his butt was getting sore. "It's not like that now."

The sea thundered.

A voice said, "This will be the last time."

Titus started and nearly slid off the bench. ' 'What? The last time?"

"Yes."

The voice was calm and quiet, yet not even the roar of the sea could smother it.

"The last time."

Titus wasn't sure how he felt about this news. For his entire life the festival had been the lifeblood of the city, had spurred its inhabitants to create bigger and better things, larger buildings, more contacts with other cities and towns, not to mention voyages across the sea to places that most never heard of.

On the other hand, the end of the festival would mean that he and his family would finally be free of the curse that made him a slave to this—

"The festival will go on."

He frowned. "But—"

"The other. That will end with this year."

"Ah." He understood. He thought he understood. He certainly hoped he understood, because he had no intention of being chomped in the middle of the night just because he got something wrong. "Ah."

Waves, split by the boulders, slammed against the cliff wall, and the chamber trembled. Clouds of loose dirt swirled down from the ceiling.

"But only," the voice continued, "if you do what you are told." .

Titus drew himself up and faced the eyes squarely. "Have I ever failed you? Ever?"

A moment. Then: "No."

"Then I won't fail you now," Titus said.

And thought: what choice do I have?

"You sound very sure of yourself, Titus Perical."

He wasn't, but he was sure glad he sounded that way.

"I am."

"And what about the rebels?"

He laughed without making a sound, and his expression hardened, his voice growing harsh. "Rebels?

They're not rebels, they're pests. They're not smart enough to try anything more than painting words on the walls, and their numbers are not large enough to frighten a newborn child." He spat dryly to one side.

"Rebels. 1 have been Council Head longer than most of them have been alive. They will be no trouble. No trouble at all."

"Will there be blood?"

He shrugged. "There's always blood." He certainly hoped there wouldn't be, but since that's what the voice expected him to say, he said it.

The chamber walls shook again, mildly.

The voice boomed, "And have you heard?"

"They're coming," he answered. "I've had word already."

"Good."

"I expect they'll be here in a couple of days."

"Wonderful."

He allowed himself a self-congratulatory smile, but not so big that he would make himself a target. You could never tell with the gods and their capricious ways. One day they were all friendly and kind and showing you how to make a dinar or two that wasn't exactly legal; the next, they were threatening you with earthquakes and pestilence and lopping your legs off so you had to crawl to Hades and hope he didn't turn you into a football.

Titus waited until there was a lull in the sea's thunder.

"There's ... if you don't mind, of course . . . there's one thing I'd like to know."

"Yes?"

"What about, uh . .. you know. Klothon."

The voice sounded impatient: "Klothon will do what Klothon always does."

"Of course, of course, naturally." Titus hunched his shoulders, and ducked his head again. "It's just that, well, if the ..." He almost choked, and ordered himself not to break down now. The meeting was almost over. "If the sacrifice isn't going to be—"

"Klothon," the voice repeated, with a faint hint of annoyance, "will do what Klothon always does."

That was another problem with the gods. They were always repeating the same thing over and over again, as if he hadn't heard the first time.

He nodded thoughtfully. "I see."

There was no response.

"So, if Klothon will do what. Klothon always does, I guess I'll have to figure out a way to make sure it's done someplace else next time he's around."

There was no response.

Thinking the meeting had gone quite well so far, all in all, Titus dared to ask, "I don't suppose you'd like to give me a hint on how I'm supposed to pull that off?"

The chamber shook.

Clots of dirt showered from the ceiling.

The candles were caught in a wind he could not feel, and their flames expanded, brightened to a glaring white, and vanished.

From the place on the floor where he had unceremoniously landed after sliding off the bench, Titus said, "No. I guess you're not going to tell me how to pull it off."

Yet he waited another hour, praying silently, just in case there were more instructions. When it was evident that the meeting was over, he picked up a sack and removed four gold lids from it. He placed one lid over each bowl, fastened them shut, and put the bowls into the sack.