Jeremy Robinson, Sean Ellis
Herculean
Jeremy dedicates Herculean to Ray Harryhausen,
who made myths come to life.
Sean dedicates Herculean to Nancy Osterlund.
Teachers matter.
Prologue
Twelve
At last, he thought. The end of my journey is in sight.
While that was not entirely true, the location on the map was indeed close at hand. But reaching that destination would not mean the end of his quest. Finding the Source — Echidna, the Well of Monsters — would merely be the halfway point. He would also have to make it back home, to the other side of the world.
To come this far, he had endured stormy seas and worse, entire oceans, where there was no wind at all. He had crossed deserts where no rain ever fell and climbed mountains so cold that his breath froze into snowflakes. He had ventured into the eternal darkness of the Earth’s bowels, where only monsters dwelt. To return whence he came, he would have to tread those paths again, face the same perils one more time.
The return trip would not be as difficult though. The path was already traveled, the unknown stripped of its mystery. He knew the way now, knew which roads led to danger and which winds would blow him to safe harbor. He had the map to guide him.
And he was not the same man that had set forth on this desperate quest.
He was stronger now. Almost as indestructible as the lion whose impervious skin he now wore as a cloak. His trials had refined him, melted away the base impurities of his being, left him stronger, purer…god-like.
He had been worshipped once or twice along the way. At first, the adoration had pleased him, but the novelty of the experience did not last. Yet, there was nothing the simple folk could give him that he could not just as easily take for himself. Their adulation was empty, rooted in fear more than anything else. Worse, their sacrificial offerings were always accompanied by endless supplications for divine assistance. Destroy our enemies. Bless our harvest. Restore my virility. Marry my daughter.
No wonder it had taken him so long to make it this far. The return journey would go more swiftly. Of that, he was certain.
But first, this one last labor. A journey into Erebus, the primal darkness. The Underworld, realm of the dead.
More superstitions for the simple-minded.
But not even he could deny that this was a cursed place. A few days previously, he had stridden through a sea of golden grass, pasture for the great horned beasts that roamed in herds, stretching from one edge of the horizon to the other. But here the ground was scorched and lifeless. He could feel the heat rising up from the earth, burning the skin of his feet even through the leather soles of his sandals. Fumaroles belched out a poisonous fog. The rivers boiled. If there was a place where the wicked dead wandered in misery for all eternity, then this surely was its doorstep.
But the Underworld was not inhabited by the forsaken spirits of the dead.
It was a source of life.
He paused, and consulted the map again. The scale was too broad to show him the way now, but he knew he was close. He turned in a slow circle, his sharp eyes searching the landscape until, at last, he saw the path marker.
He moved in the indicated direction, maintaining a straight line to the extent the treacherous terrain permitted. There was no trail. It had been a long time since anyone had walked this ground. The living rarely had business in such a blighted place. There were, however, a few signs of more ancient travelers. Footprints, stamped in soft mud long ago, baked by the sun and the terrible heat of the Earth itself, until the mud was as hard as stone.
Had Typhon walked here once? He did not know the answer to that question. Perhaps the man who styled himself both a sorcerer and a god had procured the source of his power in some other way, not daring to brave the terrors of the Underworld. That would be so like him. He was a coward, who used others to accomplish his ends. There were braver men in the world, men willing to face such danger for the right amount of gold.
Some of the prints did not belong to a man, or even, judging by their size, an ordinary beast of the Earth. Those prints, if he read the signs correctly, led away from the entrance to the Underworld.
He found a second marker, then another, and then, as if drawn like iron to a lodestone, he entered a hollow depression in the scorched earth, where more ancient symbols indicated that he had arrived, warning him to proceed no further. It was a warning that he had no intention of heeding.
He consulted the map once more to find the words. They were strange, like nothing he had ever uttered before, and yet when he spoke them, the earth…changed. He was a learned man, far more knowledgeable than anyone who walked the world — even Typhon, the ‘divine intellect,’ was a mere child in such matters — yet he did not understand how it was possible for mere words to change the fabric of the physical realm.
When this task was complete, he would make a study of the matter, but for the moment, he could spare no mental energy investigating.
He spoke the words.
The rough stone wall shimmered like a waterfall.
He set his club on the ground by his feet and took a bundle of tightly wrapped dry grass from the leather sack that held his provisions. He coaxed an ember to life, and then touched it to the end of the torch. The resulting flame was paltry in comparison to the mid-afternoon sun’s glare, but it would be more than enough to light his way.
He dared not linger now. He had four more torches in his sack, but they would burn quickly, and he had no desire to face the darkness beyond the gate without a light source. If he could not accomplish his task before a second torch burned out, he would have to turn back.
After retrieving his club and hefting it onto one shoulder, he started forward, stepping into the shimmering wall of rock as easily as one might walk through a heavy fog. The darkness closed upon him. Not even the torch could light his way as he passed through.
A moment later, he saw the flickering light again, and he knew he was now in what some believed was the realm of Hades.
He paused there, holding the torch aloft to orient himself.
The cavern had formed from molten stone, which had cooled and left a hollow lobe-shaped cavity at the center. The perfectly round tunnel led deeper into the interior. If he had any doubts about the volcanic origin of the cave system, the stifling heat and vile sulfurous atmosphere wiped them away.
One more reason not to tarry.
He had taken only a few steps into the tunnel when he heard a low rumble. A growl perhaps. Or the Earth clearing its throat in preparation to vomit a mass of superheated steam and liquefied rock.
He eased the club off his shoulder and raised it high, ready to meet whatever the Underworld decided to throw at him.
He glimpsed movement ahead. With a thunderous war cry, he charged and swung the club one-handed, driving down into the enormous, shadowy mass. There was a loud thunk as wood connected with…something solid. The impact rang through the iron-hard wood of his bludgeon, and buzzed through his forearm. Had he merely struck a large rock? Had the movement been an illusion, caused by the flickering light of his torch?
He jabbed the torch forward at the shape, even as he hauled back the club for another swing.
His first thought was that he had been right to attack, for the shape was most definitely not a rock. His second thought was that he had been foolish to attack, for the beast in front of him was immense beyond comprehension. As big as the elephants that roamed the African plains. No…bigger even than that, and covered in black fur that devoured the light of his guttering torch.