The Immortal Game (book 1) (33 page)

Ruby thought they were through the narrow spot when a hand shot out from between the bars and grabbed her invisible arm, jerking her back. Pain and surprise made her yelp. Ares pulled her toward him, away from the bars of the cell. The attacker’s grip did not give and she felt like she was being ripped apart.

“A human,” a husky voice said, like a starved man who’d stumbled into a feast.

She continued to fight, trying to pull away, but his grip was too strong. Ares held her with one hand as he reached for his sword with the other. Before he could get it, the voice, now full of command and authority, said, “Don’t try it,
boy
.”

Ruby was shocked and twice as frightened. Even people who didn’t know Ares as the god of war would never speak to him that way. His sheer physical presence forbade that.

Ares pulled away. He let go of Ruby’s arm. She was visible again. “And a pretty one,” the voice sneered.

Ares took off Hades’s helmet and drew his sword. “Who are you?” he demanded. His blade was poised above the wrinkled and gnarled arm that held Ruby.

“Come closer. Bring your light.” Ruby could hear the sounds of other shades, if that’s what they were, moving in their cells to have a look.

Ares lit the torch and moved in closer.

In slow motion Ruby saw the flame cast its light one inch at a time: black bars with flaking patches of rust, broken sandals and dirty feet, skinny white legs, then the hem of dirty and tattered golden robes. A filthy belt was tied at the waist and hung down to the man’s knees. He was dressed like an Olympian, but dirty and ragged. When the light reached his face Ruby saw that his features were strong; commanding, even. He looked to be sixty or so. Sky blue eyes, dirty gray hair and beard.

In the dim light she saw Ares’s jaw tighten. “Kronos.”

“Grandson,” Kronos said with feigned emotion.

Ruby began to shake, but neither Ares nor Kronos noticed.

This place
was
familiar, from the vision Athena had given her. The rank smell, the cold, and the darkness mixed with the flickering light from the fiery river Phlegethon in the distance. And she knew how Kronos felt. She had felt the consuming hate, and the bottomless despair. The desire for revenge.

Zeus had indeed sunk the Titans deep in Tartarus: the only prison strong enough, and cruel enough, for his greatest enemies. And now the king of the Titans held Ruby’s arm painfully against the bars of that prison.

“We have no quarrel with you, Kronos. Or any of you.” Ares eyes glanced to the other Titans, now looking through the bars of their own cells that lined the narrow passageway. “Let her go and we’ll move on.”

“You may have no quarrel with us, but we have not forgotten your deeds, Ares. In fact we’ve had quite a lot of time to think on them.” The oiliness of his voice, mixed with the authority it assumed, made Ruby’s legs shake. Even with him on one side of the bars and her on the other, she felt like he had all the power.

“I have no quarrel,” Ares repeated.

Kronos laughed a cold, hearty laugh. “Ares, you’ve changed,” he said. “You used to have nothing but quarrels. Has the god of war become a sap? A sucker?”

Ares didn’t take the bait.

“And why would you bring such a lovely treasure to such an abysmal place? It’s not the way to win a girl’s heart, Ares. Surely your father taught you something about winning with the girls.”

“Zeus and Hades have taken Persephone. We’ve come to rescue her. My father’s overstepped his bounds.”

Yes
, Ruby thought.
Get him to be on our side, against his old enemies: his children, Zeus and Hades.

Kronos perked up. “Trouble topside, eh?”

“You know how Zeus is.” Ares left it at that.

“Yes.” Kronos’s grip on Ruby’s arm slackened, just a bit. She felt the blood returning to her skin. She didn’t breathe and hoped he might forget about her altogether.

“Have you seen her?” Ares asked.

“Oh, yes. I saw her. Beautiful girl. Just lovely.” Ruby wondered if Zeus had inherited his wandering eye from dear old dad. “Aegaeon was with her. No time to talk, though. All business.”

“Did they go this way?” Ares asked.

“Yes,” he hissed. “Follow them. Rescue the girl and show Zeus he’s not all-powerful. He’s king in name only, sitting on a stolen throne.” Kronos’s blue eyes shone bright in the torch light.

“Let’s go,” Ares said to Ruby, now pulling her away.

Ruby, to her great relief, felt Kronos’s grip continue to loosen. Her arm slipped through his grasp until her small hand was in his larger one. Then he tightened his fist and pulled her close again. She saw him glance at something on her hand. Ares’s ring.

Kronos sneered.

Ruby’s heart, already pounding, quickened to a dangerous pace. Panic engulfed her throat.

Kronos’s blue eyes blazed. He held her tight and began to chant, “Bazagra berebescu bescu gen paid areo peira part apat alg anade tropa aiti neo basil bescu berebescu bazagra.”

She stared at Kronos, unable to look away.

Ares pulled Ruby from the other side, but it was useless, Kronos’s power was too great.

She couldn’t tell how long he held her that way, when he suddenly let go. She and Ares tumbled across the passage and into the hard iron bars on the far side. They both grunted from the force.

A hand came out and stroked Ruby’s cheek. Her voice, which had been frozen in her throat, broke free and she screamed. Her heart pulsed through her body, beating like a jackhammer. Her shaking muscles nearly convulsed in panic.

Ares grabbed for her. He pulled her up in a run. Hands reached out from the bars of the cells as they passed. Voices repeated the same strange chant Kronos had said.

Kronos called out after them, “A human girl who wears Ares’s ring. The downfall of the Olympians is close.”

They ran on and on, long after the dim lights next to the cells had faded.

Ruby could not stop shuddering.

Ares pulled her close, holding her together with the strength of his body. His energy soothed her.

When the tremors abated, he looked at her. She burst into tears. He pulled her in again. “My love. My love,” he said over and over, holding her, his hands in her hair, his cheek resting on her head, as she cried and cried.

When she found her voice again it was thin and choked. “What was it?”

Ares didn’t answer, but continued to hold her. His silence scared her more.

“What did he do to me?” She felt no different, but she knew Kronos’s chants meant something.

Ares let out a slow breath. She pulled away and looked up at him. “What?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. He has no power.”

But it had felt powerful, and Ruby wasn’t so sure. “What did he
try
to do to me?” Her voice shook.

“It’s not important.” He looked into her eyes. “Let’s go. The Titans are held deep in Tartarus. I’m sure we’ll find Persephone soon.”

“You have to tell me.” She found her courage. “What was that chant about? Did he curse me or something?” She sputtered out a laugh, high in her throat, nervous.

He looked at her for a long time, concern in his blue eyes “He …
suggested,”
Ares started and then stopped. He took a deep breath. “He said that you would bear a son.” He hesitated. “
My
son. A son to overthrow the gods, and rule over them.”

“Like his son did,” she said. Kronos had overthrown his father, and Kronos’s son, Zeus, had overthrown him. “He cursed me to bear the son of a god, who would someday overthrow the gods?” It wasn’t really a question.

“It means nothing. Kronos swallowed his children whole to prevent them from overthrowing him. We’ll be better parents than that. I promise.” He smiled, but Ruby couldn’t smile back.

“Can we remove it, somehow?”

“Ruby.
Please
don’t worry about this. We have to concentrate on Persephone and on getting ourselves out of here.”

He was right, and the reminder of why they were here, what they were doing, and the danger they were in brought her up to the present moment.

Kronos’s curse would have to wait.

TWENTY FIVE

Few paths branched off of the main one now. It was narrower here, with more twists and turns, and darker too. The fiery river had not come back into view.

She and Ares stayed beneath the Helm of Darkness, invisible. They did not dare light Eros’s torch. The light might draw the Hecatonchires. The dark and the curves in the path made the going slower. Ares stopped often to peer around a corner. Their stealth would be pointless if a fifty-headed monster came barreling around the bend.

They rounded a turn and saw light ahead. It made Ruby nervous. She had begun to equate light with the punishments of the Underworld. There was no hiding in the dark. Not in Tartarus. Only the Titans were kept in the shadows.

The passageway opened up ahead. She held fast to Ares’s arm and tried to pique her wounded courage.

They approached at a measured pace and maneuvered into a small recess in the rock where they could stay at a distance and still see into the cavern to assess what lay ahead. Torches illuminated the space. There was a lone cell door in the far wall. It was open. A brown-haired goddess in a pink peplos sat outside the cell at a small table. Persephone.

Ruby’s heart stopped cold when she saw the implausible creature that sat opposite the queen of the Underworld. He was enormous. A true giant. His broad shoulders sported a thick, muscular neck the size of a tree trunk, which in turn supported smaller branching necks leading to the creature’s many, many heads. Ares had said fifty and Ruby didn’t need to count them to believe it.
How can we get past a creature with one hundred eyes, one hundred ears, and fifty noses? Are all his senses multiplied by fifty?

He wore a metal breastplate over rustic brown clothes. There were an unknown number of swords, knives, and other weapons hanging from a leather belt around his generous middle, an easy reach for any of his one hundred hands.

Persephone’s face was serene. Her hands were behind her back. One set of the giant’s hands was also hidden behind his massive back. Persephone looked at the monster and smiled.

Ruby flinched.
How can she smile?

“Go!” the goddess said, as if to start a race.

Both the Hecatonchire and Persephone threw their two hands around to the front of them. They each spread out a different number of fingers on their hands. Persephone looked up at the giant as he looked down to their splayed out fingers.

“Seven,” the giant boomed. “I win!”

“Are you sure?” the goddess’s voice was playful.

“I’m sure. See.” The giant stuck out the pointer finger from another of his one hundred hands and began to count his fingers. “One, two, three…”

When he got to seven Persephone laughed. “You got me again.”

“Let’s play more,” the giant said and they each drew their hands behind their backs again.

Ruby and Ares backed up the small passageway and out of sight. Ares removed Hades’s helmet and held it in his hands.

“How can we fight him?” Ruby whispered. Even Ares could not battle such a creature with only one sword, and all six of her arrows would not be enough to stop him.

“That’s Aegaeon. He’s the slowest of the three brothers. They aren’t terribly bright in general, even with all those heads. Some are just tangles of neuron bundles, not even brains. The heads that do have brains tend to confuse each other. Hecatonchires take orders well, but they can’t think clearly on their own.”

Ruby tried to make sense of all those heads and all those brains, but her fear was clouding her own. Animalistic grunts and heavy footfalls echoed toward them from up the passageway, a loud thudding that reminded her of a locomotive’s massive pistons hitting down and down.

Ares shoved the helmet on his head and pulled Ruby close on top of him, flat against the rock. As he did, two more of the giant beasts came into view. The ground shook beneath them as they ran right for Ares and Ruby.

First one, and then another of the huge creatures passed by, almost crushing them against the wall. Their unwashed scent caught up in the air drafts created by their movement.

Ruby choked and felt a tickle rise into her throat. She stifled it as best she could, but it remained on the edge. She gripped Ares’s hand.

He took it as fear and squeezed back.

The Hecatonchires reached the cavern where their brother and Persephone sat, both with their hands behind their backs.

“Put her in the cell,” their many voices yelled in unison.

“But we’re playing Morra. And I’m winning,” Aegaeon complained.

“You fool, she’s letting you win.”

“She wouldn’t trick me.” For all his height and brutish looks, he sounded like a wounded five-year-old.

“Put her back. Hades has summoned us to the Fields of Asphodel. Ares is here.” Ruby’s heart jumped into her throat, bumping the cough that still sat there. “And he’s brought a
human
with him.”

The second brother laughed; fifty laughs at once. “Hades promised her body to whoever finds and kills her.”

Ruby shuddered. Ares tightened his grip on her. She had known she was in danger coming here, but she never imagined that she would be a prize for the monsters of the Underworld.

“We’re going. Stay here,” a chorus of heads said. “Guard the queen. Ares might even be in Tartarus.”

“But I want the human, too,” Aegaeon protested.

“We’ll split her with you,” the other brothers said as a compromise.

Ruby heard the metal clang of a cell door shutting closed. If the queen of the Underworld said anything Ruby couldn’t make it out. The two Hecatonchire brothers passed by Ares and Ruby again, almost running them over in the small recess. Their stench revived the cough that persisted in Ruby’s throat.

Ares lifted off the helmet. He drew her in and whispered, “I’m so sorry. I should never have brought you here.”

She shook her head and pulled away. She felt the cough rising into her throat and tried to swallow it down.

“Now that Persephone’s in her cell, I have to reassess,” he said. The calculating warrior look returned to his eyes.

“There must be a key,” Ruby croaked and fought her working throat. The cough was closer to the surface with each word. She tried to remember back to the cells that held the Titans, but they didn’t even have doors, let alone keys. Her eyes filled with tears as she fought against her body, but in the next moment the cough overtook her in a loud fit.