Vampires Don't Sparkle: Deathless Book 3 (20 page)

Take heart, Ka-Dun. Time flows on a scale you have yet to comprehend. Even if it takes years, you will have your freedom. The collar mutes your abilities, but it does not stop them entirely. You can shape, and the more you strain at your bonds the stronger you will grow.

That drew a grim smile from Jordan. He’d simply treat this like working out. The time would come for him to make his move, and when it did he’d be ready. It wouldn’t take years, either. He’d be free before he knew it.

Chapter 33- Hades

“Holy. Shit,” Blair said, jaw dropping open as he gaped up at the sky. A torrent of competing thoughts rushed through his mind, because what he was seeing explained so much of the history of the western world.

“What the hell is that?” Liz asked, shading her eyes as she stepped up next to Blair along the trail. Each step sent up little puffs of dust, and Blair waved them away absently.

“That has to be Olympus,” he replied, studied the shimmering city high above. It flickered and danced in the sky, maybe a mile above the stunted hills around them. The fluted columns and heavy marble architecture would have been at home in Rome, though this was clearly beyond anything the ancient Romans had created. Clouds boiled all around the base, shot through with veins of pink, gold, and red. It reminded him of a sunrise, though this particularly sunrise was created by the floating city.

He’d guess there were two or three dozen structures, ranging from temples to a colosseum. There were even houses—well, mansions, actually. If he were a god, this was definitely where he’d want to live. “How the hell is it hovering there?”

“You’re the shaper; you tell me. It’s like the frigging cloud city from
Empire Strikes Back
. What was it called? Bespin,” Liz replied, fishing her sunglasses from her pack and sliding them over her eyes. She added a green baseball cap a moment later, tucking her hair through the back in a simple pony tail. “Why does it keep shimmering like that? It’s like a mirage.”

“I don’t know,” Blair said, shaking his head slowly. He could feel something each time the city shimmered. It would disappear for a split second, and he would feel an absence. When it returned he could feel it, like the sunrise on his face. “A better question is: how are we going to get up there? I’m guessing that’s what Isis meant when she said Olympus.”

“I thought it was
Mount
Olympus. Where’s the mountain?” Liz asked.

“It is,” Blair said, starting up the trail. At the very least they could get to higher ground and get a look around them. A number of monuments had been unearthed and, given what he could see, Blair had a suspicion he knew exactly where they were. “The Greeks claimed their gods lived on Mount Olympus. It’s not even the highest mountain in Greece, but it is a real place. My guess is they created it in remembrance of this place. Their ancestors probably worshiped here.”

They made their way to the top of the hill, and by that time the sun had plastered their clothing to them in a thick layer of sweat. It was definitely over a hundred degrees. It might have been a hundred and ten.

“What’s that city?” Liz asked, pointing at a series of ruined buildings below them. None stood more than two stories, but the complex was massive. Far larger than man should have been able to construct before agriculture.

“That’s Gobekli Tepe,” Blair said, scrambling down the trail as he made his way toward the ruins. He slid down some gravel, catching himself as he made it to even ground. “These are, so far as we know, the oldest human ruins in the world. They’re from about nine thousand BCE, well before man had learned to farm or build permanent settlements. The anthropological community teaches that we were nothing more than hunter-gatherer tribes back then. It was the tail end of the Pleistocene, the last ice age.”

“Weren’t we cave men back then? Like the Cro-Magnon?” Liz asked, tucking her hat low to block the sun as she scanned the structures.

“That’s what universities teach, but this place proves that theory wrong,” Blair replied, starting towards a pillar just a few dozen yards ahead. “See these animals? There’s a fox, a cow, that’s probably a raven. There are a couple I don’t recognize that are likely extinct. This kind of iconography shouldn’t have been possible, but clearly it was.”

“So what do you think happened?” Liz asked, leaning close to examine the pillar.

“Well, so far as we know, this complex was used for about two thousand years, then in about seven thousand BCE it was deliberately buried. We don’t know by who, and we haven’t the faintest idea why,” Blair explained, walking slowly around the pillar. “It’s a good thing, though. Otherwise this place would never have survived.”

“The fact that it sits right beneath a floating city certainly seems suggestive,” Liz said, peering back up at the shimmering city. “I’m not an anthropologist, but it doesn’t seem like the dates line up, though. From what we understand the Arks submerged around eleven thousand BCE right?”

“I can see where you’re going with this, and you’re right,” Blair said, peering up at the city himself. “If the dating is accurate, this place was built two millennia after the Arks disappeared. If that’s the case, maybe they could still see that city. That would definitely explain why they went through so much effort to build it here. Can you imagine what that place would have looked like to primitive cultures?”
 

Be wary Ka-Dun, we are no longer alone
, the beast rumbled.

Blair spun, looking for whatever had alarmed it. A figure stepped from behind one of the buildings, a man with long white hair in dark blue robes. He wore golden slippers completely unsuited to the hot gravel, and leaned heavily on a gnarled wooden stick a little taller than he was. If he’d been wearing a hat he would have given Ian McClellan a run for the part of Gandalf in the
Lord of the Rings
.

“You are the first to come here since the sky turned,” the man called in a quavering voice. He started down the path towards Blair, tottering like he might fall at any moment. “Judging by your companion’s hasty departure, I’m guessing you’re either of Isis’s bestial get, or perhaps that of Osiris. Am I correct?”

Blair realized for the first time that Liz had disappeared. Good on her. She’d probably gotten into position to attack, which very well might save their lives. There was
no way
this was just some kindly old man. No god they’d run into was benevolent, not even Isis.

“We’re champions of Isis,” Blair said, shading his eyes as he moved to meet the man. He concentrated for a moment, feeling for the na-kopesh he’d taken from Irakesh when they’d beaten him. The weapon was there, melded with his body and waiting to be called. Blair didn’t really have much idea how to use it, but the sword still gave him comfort. “I’m Ka-Dun Blair. Who are you?”

“I am known by many names,” the man said, giving a gap-toothed smile. Every part of him looked harmless, except for the steely grey eyes. “You would know me as Hades, I think.”

Blair blinked a few times, considering the legends he’d heard. Supposedly Hades was bound to the underworld, though clearly that couldn’t be the case if he was standing before them. “Isis sent us to negotiate with you. We’re, uh, emissaries I guess.”

“I see,” Hades said. He gestured weakly at a neighboring building that might once have been a temple. “Perhaps we could get out of this hot sun? I enjoy it no more than you do.”

That was an interesting tidbit. Deathless drew strength from the sun, and they didn’t sweat. Hades had a clear sheen across his brow, and seemed to be genuinely suffering in the heat.

“Of course,” Blair said, following the elderly man inside the temple. It was a single story adobe building. One corner of the roof had caved in, and whatever drawings had once adorned the walls were long stripped by time.
 

Hades stopped in a corner, sitting atop a large rock that had fallen from the roof. He propped his staff beside him, then wiped the sweat from his brow before finally turning his attention back to Blair. “So, you claim Isis sent you. Why did she not come herself?”

How much do you think I should tell him?
Blair thought at Liz. It wasn’t difficult pinpointing her location, just a few feet to his right in the shadow cast by the crumbling wall.

Well, the Mother did tell us to strike a deal. I guess we should be honest about why we’re here and what we’re after.

“An interesting trick, that,” Hades said, raising a thick snowy eyebrow. “You can communicate with the Ka-Ken despite not being able to see her. That’s something I haven’t seen before.”

“Isis sent us to find out what’s happening with the Well,” Blair said, ignoring the god’s comment about his ping ability. “The conduit to the Nexus has been severed, and it is in danger of collapse.”

“Interesting,” Hades said, folding his arms across his robes and leaning back against the wall. He coughed once, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth before continuing. “And just what does she think I can do about it?”

“According to Isis, you’re one of only two gods with direct access to the Well,” Blair said. He looked about for a place to sit, but didn’t spot a comfortable perch. Damn, but it was hot. “From what I gather, there’s a portal here leading to a place she calls the underworld.”

“Do you know what the underworld is, Ka-Dun?” Hades asked, clearly amused.

“I have our legends to go by, but they’re clearly based on mythology. If there is any truth to them, the underworld is where souls go when bodies die. The Egyptians believed Osiris was the caretaker of the underworld. The Greeks believed you were.”

“Both are right, after a fashion,” Hades said, rolling one shoulder as he massaged his forearm. “The underworld is the world under ours, hence the name. Spirits don’t go there. So far as we know there is no such thing as a spirit. I suspect the legends arose from the armies of the dead that both Osiris and I accumulated over the millennia. Before he went mad, that is.”

“Osiris went mad?” Blair asked, blinking.
 

“Indeed,” Hades continued with a nod. “He was once the best of the gods, not just the first, but the most just and most powerful. After the Arks went into hibernation he changed. In a few centuries he grew callous, far more concerned with his own survival than that of his people or of the gods who would one day return. He began a campaign to seize the underworld.
 

“I resisted at first. I am not without power, after all. Yet I was doomed from the first. Osiris had direct access to the well, you see. He could use the First Ark to create endless soldiers. Demons of exquisite power. I was left with my paltry forge, manned by one of my few surviving companions. You’d know him as Vulcan, I think,” Hades explained. He paused, watching Blair. “Or perhaps Hephaestus?”

“I’m familiar with both names. Vulcan is the Roman god of the forge,” Blair offered. He was less familiar with Roman lore, but he’d studied it for a semester once upon a time. “So you have a forge of some kind, and you were battling Osiris?”

“Indeed,” Hades continued, immersed in the tale again. “Osiris encroached further and further upon the underworld. From the frozen north to the distant east, he launched a campaign of conquest. My army of the dead was shattered, as were those of every other surviving ruler. In the end my connection to the Well was severed, and I was left to my own devices. This occurred roughly four thousand years ago, and I have been losing strength ever since. That is what has brought me to the wretched state you see before you. Now that the true energy we thrive upon has returned, I am growing in strength, but it will be months before I am hale and able to fight again.”

“So Osiris conquered the underworld, and you were stranded up here?” Blair asked, trying to digest the information. The idea that early human mythology was rooted in fact still floored him, and he wasn’t sure how close it lay to the truth.

“He is a treacherous snake, and while I do not know what he intends for this new world, it is clear we will not enjoy it,” Hades said, offering a sigh. “Without the conduit to the Well, I cannot fully return Olympus to this dimension. Those of my brothers who took shelter there are trapped, if they survived at all once the conduit was severed.”

That gave Blair pause as he considered the ramifications. If Osiris were truly trying to conquer it made sense. Lock away the Greek gods and cut their power supply. Then your only competition would be the returning Ark Lords.

Thunder rolled across the sky behind them, ominous and distant. Blair glanced through the hole in the roof, but the sky remained an unbroken blue.
 

Chapter 34- Training

Mark felt strange wearing the nylon body suit. It wasn’t at all like the tailored suits he preferred; it was too tight and far less professional. Seeing Osiris wearing a similar one was just as jarring. One of the few things they had in common, other than both being vampires, was their taste in clothing. Osiris had a wardrobe most billionaires would envy.

“I’ve had basic combat training,” Mark said, shifting his stance as he prepared to launch another grapple. He glided forward, but Osiris flowed around the attack like a cat that didn’t want to be petted.

“Indeed, but that training was for and against mortals,” Osiris said, tapping Mark on the chest with a finger. “You need to learn to think differently, to anticipate abilities other supernaturals will employ. Try again.”

Mark did. He rushed forward, ducking lower and aiming a kick at Osiris’s knee. Osiris exploded into mist, solidifying the instant Mark’s blow had passed harmlessly through. He lunged, tapping Mark on the chest again. “Deathless, champions, and vampires all have their respective abilities. Some overlap, some do not. You need to learn each, and learn how to counter them. Again.”

Mark gritted his teeth, but obligingly launched another attack. This time he sent a right hook at Osiris’s jaw. Osiris vanished, but Mark had expected it. He summoned his energy, willing himself to vanish. Mark reappeared behind Osiris, triumphantly kicking at the back of his knee. His foot passed through…nothing. It was an illusion.