Beyond Hades: The Prometheus Wars (33 page)

"You shut down the panel?" asked Talbot. "How will we get home?"

Wes shrugged mid-air. "Buggered if I know. Not that way, that's for sure. Maybe there's a back door in this place."

"I hope so," muttered Talbot. "What do we do now?"

"Have a nap," replied Wes, closing his eyes.

"Have a nap?" asked Talbot incredulously, but Wes seemed to have already dozed off.

Looking around, Talbot thought about it. The walls were far enough away now that they posed no direct threat. Despite his fear, fatigue was desperately heavy upon him. What if he just closed his eyes? Just for a little while....

Beyond all reason, Talbot drifted into a light doze. It seemed like weeks since he'd slept. Flying creatures tried to invade his thoughts, but he pushed them away. Whatever was going to happen would occur whether he stressed about it or not. Worrying wouldn't change a thing.

The wind rushing by him was like a whispered lullaby....

***

Talbot hit the ground hard, waking instantly, winded and bruised. Several moments passed before he was able to sit up and probe himself for injuries. Apart from what felt like deep bruising to his chest, there appeared to be no adverse effects from the fall -

The fall!

Talbot glanced around and saw Wes squatting nearby, Chiron's sword in his hand. He scanned the area for enemies, giving no indication he'd suffered any injury from the landing.

"What happened?" asked Talbot.

Wes didn't even look at him. "The wind coming up through the pit just got stronger and stronger until it began to slow us down. When we hit the ground, the impact was about the same as if we'd been wearing a parachute."

Talbot cast his gaze around swiftly, finally looking directly above, into the sky, and seeing the yawning exit from which they'd just emerged. It was like a gigantic ebony whirlwind suspended in the sky, opening downward, the obsidian walls fading away at the edges, wisps of black floating away like ebony steam.

Was that what it was, some sort of trans-dimensional tornado?

At the moment it didn't matter. They had survived through some miracle of physics which should not exist, drawing one step closer to completing their mission.

Talbot glanced around. Yep, this was definitely the place.

The ground was more like flesh than soil or rock. It was even pinkish in color, and sticky. As Talbot's feet lifted, it seemed as though he were walking on flypaper. He had the unpleasant sensation of standing upon a gigantic tongue.

Looking to the sky, clouds of pure black eddied and swirled through a hazy atmosphere. Nothing beyond the clouds - which stretched from horizon to horizon - could be seen. Talbot had no idea what color the heavens of this world were, but the charcoal clouds were enough to make him feel hemmed in and oppressed.

"Where do we go?" asked Talbot.

Wes glanced at him. "How the hell should I know?" he retorted. "You're supposed to be the guru."

"Oh...."

Talbot hadn't thought this far ahead. The entire time he'd either been led or fleeing for his life; none of the responsibility for finding their way had been on his shoulders. What the hell was he supposed to do now?

Scanning the horizon, Talbot looked for a sign of something, anything, which would tell him where to go. Wes pulled a compass from his pocket, but after glancing at it simply shook his head. "Fucking thing just lies there like a hooker on sedatives."

We'd better move, thought Talbot. But where do we go?

It was like a desert; a land without water or life, much as Hades had been, though it did offer more color. Thinking of water made Talbot realize how thirsty he was, checking his canteen, he found it still half full and took a small sip.

Damn it! There had to be some way to tell which direction to go.

"How about we have something to eat?" said Wes, pulling two MREs from his pack and throwing one to Talbot.

Talbot looked at it - scrambled eggs. Oh boy. What was this going to be like? He'd eaten a roast beef one earlier, and imagined the box it came in was probably tastier, but it was food, and it was hot. It might even help him to think.

They sat down, waiting for their meals to cook in the chemical 'ovens', both of them constantly checking the surrounding area in case of attack. The one good thing about the landscape was that nothing could sneak up on them. Then Talbot remembered the sphinx which had erupted from beneath the earth and those hideous crab-things on the beach.

Who cares?
he thought. Things were swiftly mounting against them, and as Wes had said back in Hades, worrying about the little things wouldn't stop them from happening.

He ate his scrambled eggs in silence, thinking they had a texture similar to sodden tissues filled with snot - and probably the same flavor too.

"What's that?" asked Wes suddenly, interrupting his thoughts. Talbot followed where Wes pointed and spied something.

It was miles away, but Talbot was sure it hadn't been there earlier. At this distance, it was impossible to make out exactly what it was, but judging from its size - not that such a thing was a definitive factor when talking about the creatures they had already faced - the dark smudge looked to be some sort of tower.

Now they were faced with a conundrum - should they head toward the only thing they had seen since coming to this world, or run from it? It could very well be something meaning them harm, but it was stationary... or at least it
looked
stationary.

Where the hell had it come from?

"Screw it," muttered Talbot, throwing away the rest of his snotty dinner. "Let's go and find out what that thing is. If it's bad, I'm sure you'll find a way to kill it."

Wes laughed, throwing aside his own meal and slapping Talbot on the shoulder, checking that Chiron's sword was still in its scabbard at his hip. "That's the spirit! Face it head-on and figure out what to do when you get there!"

They walked for hours... or at least an approximation of hours. Without being able to see the sun - if there even
were
a sun behind those inky clouds - they had no way to tell what part of the day it was. Nor could they fathom how long they'd been here.

The dark smudge didn't appear to get any closer. Glancing back, Talbot couldn't see the exit from the Pit now. It was almost as though after disgorging the two of them onto this plane of existence, it had simply vanished. Part of Talbot wondered if it were some kind of optical illusion which would re-appear should they return to the same spot. Another part ridiculed him for thinking about things not concerning their current predicament.

The black smudge hovered just out of reach for their eyes to fully focus on it. In one instant it appeared to be a tower of some sort, in the next it looked like some kind of huge, lumbering creature. Talbot couldn't tell if it were moving away from them, or if it were merely a complete illusion - this world's version of a mirage.

They didn't talk. At this point they were beyond small talk. It wasn't like they could have a chat about the fact that at any moment Talbot expected something to tear through the ground or materialize from the very air and kill them. Maybe he could mention the fact that part of him wished this very thing would happen, that this entire mess would finally end, and everybody would stop relying on him.

Talbot plodded on; each step talking more energy than the last as the tackiness of the ground leeched his energy.

He looked up once more, noticing Wes had now pulled ahead, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. What could he be thinking? Was the commando, even now, developing some sort of strategy for what they were about to come up against? Or was he merely reciting lyrics from a Kylie Minogue single in his head?

That was the thing with Wes; you could never tell what he was thinking. On the surface he seemed like a joker, a clown looking for a laugh. But Talbot suspected the commando's humor hid something, something painful from Wes's past which he held at bay by making jokes. What could have hurt the man who appeared to fear nothing?

Perhaps he feared nothing because he had already lost everything?

The thought came to Talbot suddenly, like a bolt out of the blue - or black, as it were, the ominous clouds swirling overhead.

Wes was completely nonchalant when it came to matters regarding life and death. He fought without thought for his own safety, risking his life in a crusade which most would have fled from at the first chance. No man who loved life actually sought these things out.

The more Talbot thought about it, the more the pieces seemed to fit. He gazed at the back of the SAS commando, thinking he now saw a man searching,
yearning
for a way to die.

"Stop staring at my arse, Doc," said Wes without turning around.

"How did you know that?" asked Talbot. "I mean, how did you know I was looking at you? Not the bit about your ass."

"My buns were burning," replied Wes, turning around and giving Talbot a wink. "It's okay Doc. You're only human."

"But I wasn't...." Talbot trailed off, spying something rapidly approaching across the sticky desert. "What's that?" he asked, pointing.

Wes shot a hand to his pack, dropping it from his shoulders. The other drew the sword of Chiron from the scabbard at his left hip. The entire action was accomplished with such an economy of movement it would have left Talbot speechless -
if
he weren't suddenly terrified by the sight of something rapidly approaching with no sign of any impediment from the tacky surface of the ground.

"What the hell is it?" asked Talbot once more, unable to keep the hitch of fear from his voice.

"I'm not sure," said Wes. "Chances are it's not Little Red Riding Hood."

The hazy shape suddenly broke into several. These were different from the tower-like shape they had been moving toward; they moved much lower to the ground, more like -

"It's those dogs!" Talbot yelled. "The same as the ones that attacked us when we entered Hades!"

"No they're something else," replied Wes, his voice steady. "These things are bigger and they move differently."

Talbot looked once again, noticing Wes was correct. The creatures approaching them didn't run like dogs, they moved more like, like....

"Oh shit," he heard Wes announce. "They're minotaurs, dozens of the fuckers."

The creatures were still unclear in the dim light, but as Talbot stared harder, he saw that Wes was correct. It was an entire herd of the bull-headed men, running toward them like a pack of wild dogs.

And it had only taken
one
of them to destroy Atlantis.

***

Jogging was not something Talbot did particularly well. He tried to hit the treadmill on a regular basis down at the gym, but he never professed to be very skilled at it. This, however, was not jogging. This was running in panic in a world where there was absolutely no safe haven.

No, this wasn't jogging. This was fleeing in mute terror.

Talbot's heart pounded in his chest as Wes ran alongside him, urging him along, glancing back occasionally to gauge the distance between them and their attackers. Judging from the commando's expression, it wasn't far enough

But they were only prolonging the inevitable. This was it. Even Wes, with his seemingly limitless optimism, was beginning to look concerned. His eyes were narrowed and focused, his nostrils flaring slightly.

"We have to stop," gasped Talbot, halting his run. Wes began to argue, but Talbot held up his hand, sucking in huge gulps of air. "I'm not going to die running," Talbot said simply.