Prometheus Road (23 page)

“Lebowski is a genius. He needs no accompaniment. He transmits emotion as easily as a common musician generates sound waves. He can show you fear in a handful of dust, or the intensity of a love such as you have never felt.” He stopped to look up at the sky for a moment, took a deep breath, then strode forward with a steady gait and gestured for Tom to follow. “Let us go then, you and I, as the evening is spread out against the sky.”

In a far corner of the casino, Tom and the gray man spent almost an hour seated in a dark booth to one side of a small stage. They were waiting for Lebowski to arrive. Helix slept quietly on the seat between them. Tom’s gray companion refused to say anything else until Blue Nova, a female freelight player, finished her performance on the stage, dancing through pools of light and intersecting laser beams to create a spectacle of sound and light unlike anything Tom had ever seen. The fact that Blue Nova was an attractive young woman in a remarkably brief costume might have played a part in Tom’s fascination with her show, but he certainly wasn’t going to admit that to anyone. A waitress had delivered drinks to their table when the show started: water for the gray man—half of which went to Helix—and a minty blue concoction in a fancy glass that glowed as if it were radioactive. The gray man had called the blue drink a “Meltdown” when he ordered it for Tom.

When Blue Nova bowed to the appreciative applause of the small audience and left the stage, the gray man turned to face him across the booth’s table. The lighting was quite dim, but the man still wore his hood and the mask over his face. His eyes glittered in the reflected glare from the stage spotlights. “My guess is that He Who Shall Remain Nameless, our mutual friend, has sent you on a mission.”

Tom nodded. “That’s right. I’m supposed to—”

The gray man held up a hand to silence him. “Don’t say it. I’ll just assume that you need help and that you have special talents that some would consider powerful. I hope they are, man; otherwise, you won’t last more than a few seconds when you defy the will of the gods.”

Tom raised an eyebrow at him. “You said ‘our mutual friend.’ You’re Lebowski, aren’t you?” The way that the gray man stared into Tom’s eyes gave him the creeps.

“Maybe.”

Tom sighed and rubbed his eyes. His headache was getting worse. He didn’t understand why Magnus had wanted him to team up with a musical drug addict in the first place, but he didn’t have any other options at the moment. “Will you take off your mask now that I know who you are?”

“Maybe when I know you better,” Lebowski said cryptically. “I don’t wish to frighten you.”

Tom felt embarrassed. It hadn’t occurred to him that the mask might be hiding a disfigured face; he had assumed it was part of the musician’s stage costume. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”

Lebowski shrugged. “We all have our secrets. As to the Nameless One, I don’t think we should wait too long for him. He can leave a message at the bar if we’re not here when he arrives. We can go ahead and make contact with my friends on the Strip to minimize further delays.”

Tom closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. After sipping some of his drink, the room had begun to spin, and it had not done anything to help his headache, so he’d left the rest of it glowing in his glass.

“The Nameless One gave you some of his joy juice, didn’t he?”

Tom peered at Lebowski through his splayed fingers. “You know about the vision vine?”

“It’s a rite of passage. I had something similar when I was a boy, but my training was different from yours. Are the headaches very bad?”

“They’re getting worse,” Tom mumbled, looking down at his drink.

“Your deadline draws near. You’ll have to do something about the poison in your system soon.”

Hope sparked in Tom’s mind. “Can you help me with that?”

“I would if I could. You’ll have to fight that particular battle in your own head. However, perhaps I can—”

Lebowski was interrupted by shouts from the front entrance to the casino; his head snapped up to peer over the high back of the booth. Blue-uniformed men with assault weapons and body armor flowed in through the door, and the gamblers didn’t look happy about it. Helix sat up on the seat and looked in the wrong direction, ready for action.

“Let’s go,” Lebowski whispered, tugging Tom out of the booth as he slid off the seat in a crouch. “Those are federal police. Try to act natural.”

Following Lebowski in a crouched position, Tom wondered how that posture was supposed to look natural. When they reached the edge of the stage, Lebowski hopped up on the stage and quickly circled around behind the curtain. Tom followed him into the backstage area, occupied by a stage manager and Blue Nova, who was preparing to go on for her next set. Tom wanted to tell her how much he enjoyed her performance, and get a close-up look at her, but Lebowski was already moving off down the corridor past two tiny people, miniature adults in a tuxedo and a formal gown, who were walking toward the stage.

“Are those police after you?” Tom asked as he jogged up alongside Lebowski. Helix stopped to be petted by the little people, then followed Tom.

“No. They’re after you.”

“Me? How can you be sure?”

Lebowski held a door open so that Tom and Helix could pass through. “I hear things. President Breckenridge is supposed to be in town soon as well. There’s a story going around that hordes of mutants are about to attack the city from the other side of the barrier.”

They entered what appeared to be a stairwell without stairs; a dingy concrete ramp spiraled down into darkness. “I’ve never heard about any mutants,” Tom said, inhaling cool air that wafted up from below while he stepped cautiously down the ramp ahead of Lebowski. He kept his hand on the center column to steady himself in the dimming light.

“Neither have I. The story was started by someone high up in the federal government. I’m sure it’s just an excuse to send troops here to stop us.”

Tom gasped. “How could they know that we’re planning an attack on the data center?”

“The gods didn’t get to be gods without being able to guess at our motivations. They take all of the available data, send their nanoborgs out to hunt for additional information, then compute the probable events arising from that mass of data. The good part about it is that they consider you an actual threat; the bad part is that they’re sending hundreds of troops into Las Vegas to find you.”

Tom stumbled on the level floor when they reached the bottom of the spiral ramp. A strong organic smell wafted through the humid air. Tom heard an echo of dripping water in the darkness. Helix growled.

“There’s a small boat just ahead of you,” Lebowski said, placing his hand on Tom’s shoulder to guide him forward. “Slide your feet forward until you make contact with the boat, then climb in.”

Tom’s boots grated over the concrete until his toes thumped against wood. He crouched, placed his hands on the edge of the bobbing boat to hold it steady, then carefully slid forward to sit down. Helix jumped in beside him, then the boat wobbled as Lebowski hefted himself in. Tom heard thumping beneath his feet, then something hard brushed against his leg as it slid past.

“I’ve got the paddle,” Lebowski said. “If you’ll lean forward and untie the line from the bow, we can be on our way.”

The boat rocked gently as Lebowski poled their small craft through the darkness. The paddle dripped with a pleasant sound whenever he lifted it from the water. Worried that he might hit his head on something in the dark, Tom lowered himself into the bottom of the boat next to Helix and made himself comfortable.

“Get some rest if you want to, man. We’ll be down here a while, and we should be safe until we go topside again.”

“Thanks, Lebowski.”

“Don’t thank me yet, man. You’re the star performer here, and I haven’t really done anything to help you so far. However, I can help you go to sleep.”

Lebowski began to hum, but it wasn’t like any humming that Tom had ever heard—the sound was too full, as if an entire backup chorus had shown up to accompany Lebowski, and the complicated harmonics prompted feelings in Tom that he didn’t understand. It wasn’t long before the soothing tones put him to sleep.

RAINBOWS. Tom found himself lying facedown on a fine carpet of deep green grass that glittered with morning diamonds of cool dew. Just inches away from his eyes was a perfect little rainbow he would have missed had he been standing. Raising his head, he saw that the entire field in which he lay was a riot of brilliant rainbows of various sizes, their ephemeral beauty suspended and preserved in this time and space as if it were a nursery for young rainbows. He turned his head from side to side, but Helix was nowhere in sight, at least not in any form that he could recognize. Looking back, he saw the gray lands under gray sunlight, cut by the river of pain: the Acheron steadily bearing its lifeless burdens toward their final destinations in Hades.

Tom lifted himself off the grass, intending to stand, but he stumbled and sat down hard when he saw the magnificent sight that lay ahead of him. Beyond the small rainbows, a tall grove of shady redwoods clustered together beside an azure river. The grove seemed to act as a gate to the vast structure beyond that arced above the water in a broad display of gleaming color bands, rising high into the ruby sky to form a massive rainbow bridge. Beyond the distant hills, the bridge vanished beyond the horizon. One of the odd things about the rainbow was its perspective, as Tom had never looked up at a rainbow from its end before. The beauty of it drew him closer, down the hill to the redwood grove by the river. In the cool, dusty shadows beneath the big redwood trees, he heard only the sound of the burbling river; no birds or other creatures raised their voices in this natural shrine.

Starting right at the riverbank, where the blue waters met the roots of the redwoods, the glowing red base of the rainbow appeared almost solid. When Tom crouched and reached out to touch it, the rainbow made a clear vibrating tone as if someone had run a damp finger around the rim of a fine crystal glass. Higher on the arch, the translucent yellow band of the rainbow was the brightest and most solid in appearance, the orange and green bands surrounding it were almost as bright, while the blue, indigo, and violet bands had a thin, gauzy quality.

It seemed only natural to climb this bridge into the sky.

Tom placed his right foot on the red base of the rainbow bridge, testing the surface, and it seemed as if it would hold his weight. The surface wasn’t slippery, and it felt as if it would cling to the soles of his boots to provide excellent traction. He felt a humming vibration race through his body.

He took a deep breath, then leaned forward and placed his left foot on the bridge.

His head exploded in pain.

Tom doubled over, his eyes shut tight, gasping for air, unable to concentrate as the thunder of the gods rumbled through his skull and all the nerves in his body screamed in unison. He fell sideways and was barely aware of hitting the surface of the river. He spluttered and gasped as the strong current tugged at him, but he managed to grab on to a tree root and lift his head above the water, anchoring himself so he wouldn’t be swept away. When he could breathe again, the pain in his head had receded somewhat. His head began to clear along with his vision, and he was eventually able to think again, although the dull roar in his head remained as a constant reminder of the pain that lurked in his skull, ready to return at any moment.

It was the poison. Magnus’s poison, the vision vine energy that would kill him or help him, depending on what he was able to learn about it on his journey. Magnus had said he’d be there when the time came to save himself from the fatal drug in his system. Instead, he might well have sacrificed himself to Hermes in one final noble act that allowed Tom to escape, and that meant Tom was on his own; there would be no one here to help him with this pain.

Clutching the tree roots, Tom hauled himself out of the river and lay panting in the shade on the grassy bank. Sparkling gray mud coated the legs of his pants. The redwoods rustled in response to a breeze that capered among their branches. Despite the clear sky, he thought he detected the rumble of distant thunder; but the sound changed as it came closer, forming into words that shook the trees.

“It’s time to create your path, Tom.”

Tom jumped to his feet and looked for the source of the male voice. There was no one around, and he regretted the sudden movement; his brain pounded against the inside of his skull with extra force, trying to escape. He took two deep breaths to calm himself, then squinted up at the sky. There was something familiar about the voice.

“Your time is short, Tom. The vision vine mixture has almost completed its work, and it’s ready to kill you if you hesitate. For the first time, you will have to look deep inside yourself while controlling your external environment, journeying within to make progress on your external journey. You may not like what you find inside, but the experience is different for all of us, and you will have to confront your dark places directly. This knowledge will give you power. However, the rainbow bridge spans many places in its arc across the sky, and one of those places is the land of the dead. If you fail, you will fall. If you succeed, death will have to wait for you another day, and you will become a master of the Prometheus Road.”

Tom gasped. “Magnus? Is that you?”

There was a brief pause before the thunder spoke again. “I told you I’d be here when you were ready.”

Another wave of pain rolled through Tom’s head, driving him to his knees. He felt nauseous, but a new glimmer of hope pierced the darkness inside his skull. “Thank you, Magnus,” he whispered, afraid to break the spell and lose his friend again.

“You must cross the rainbow bridge to reach the Road, but you can’t do it alone. You’ll have to choose a source of power to help you defeat the enemy in your head. Each power source has its good and bad points, and I’ve warned you about some of them. Now, you must sense these power sources and pick the one that feels right for you.”

With his eyes still closed, Tom focused his concentration, cutting a path through the pain so that he could think clearly for a moment. That strange muscle flexed inside his mind once again, pushing his awareness farther inside himself while he also reached out with his mind to sense his surroundings. He felt a sense of security in the background, and identified it as the presence of Magnus. He touched the consciousness of the vision vine, a dark threat pulsing deep within his mind, sparking in anger whenever he came too close. He felt the power of the rainbow nursery and the redwood grove and the river, majestic and enduring. The ruby sky shimmered with the power elementals of the air. Strongest of all, summoning him with creeping tentacles of shadow that wound their inexorable way toward him in the spaces between the walls of the world, was the dark power of the Dead Lands. The shadows spoke to him without words—beckoning, convincing, pleading for the new master to accept their help and their gift of power.