Storming Paradise (5 page)

How do you chase a rumor? That was the challenge that faced Hercules and Iolaus as they went in search of the mysterious street party.

They tried other villages, waiting for nightfall, which was the time that the street seemed to have appeared before. They found several abandoned villages, one where just a couple—sick and infirm—remained along with their doting daughter, while the rest of the village had been deserted. Hercules asked the people who remained what had happened and a familiar story emerged:

“There was a party,” a young woman called Zosime, who tended to her sick parents, explained as she washed cloths in a kitchen basin. “It started when the sun set, and it ran all night. We could hear the noise of it from here, and I did sneak out to look,” she said, peering momentarily out of the kitchen window to where the party had been. “It was so . . . joyful. Everyone attended, laughing and dancing and drinking. There was food, too, so much food! I stole a plateful before returning to check on my parents, about an hour later.”

“Do you have any idea what happened to the street?” Hercules asked gently.

Zosime shook her head. “I could not leave my parents,” she said. “They're both unwell. I came home after eating and I slept while the party carried on without me. When I awoke the next morning, the party had gone, and so had the people. Everyone, except for us.” She looked to be on the verge of tears.

“It's okay,” Hercules told her. “You're all safe.”

Zosime looked at him, tears streaming down her face. “But where did they go? Why did they all leave?”

“We don't know,” Iolaus told her.

“Yet,” Hercules added. “But we will.”

There was nothing more to be said, but Hercules and Iolaus stayed through the afternoon, helping Zosime do some chores with which she would have struggled now that she was alone with her parents. Hercules rebuilt a broken wall that had tumbled down months before, and Iolaus worked the vegetable patches around the village until the woman had enough to feed herself and her parents for two weeks—any longer than that and the vegetables would rot, but at least she could defer the backbreaking work for a while.

The two friends also took the time to examine the place where the street party had been held, led there by Zosime between her chores. It was all too similar to the spot at the fishing village, where Hercules and Iolaus had almost been sucked down into the earth. Now there was no evidence, no street, not even space for a street. It was as if the whole town, every building and tree and bench, had all shifted to accommodate the mysterious street for one night only. If they had harbored any doubts as to the role of magic in this situation, the evidence—or lack thereof—that they found here quelled them.

Before they left, Hercules spoke with Zosime with some gravity. “If the people do not return soon, you should consider moving on. It is not healthy to remain in a town that has been deserted.”

“I don't fear attack,” Zosime assured him with a proud jut of her jaw.

“Loneliness is what you should be wary of,” Hercules told her. “It is an insidious thing that drives men mad without their realizing.”

Zosime nodded, accepting his words. “You're a good man,” she said, “to say that. Most people wouldn't care.”

The days multiplied into weeks. Hercules and Iolaus became increasingly aware of the signs of the mysterious street party—missing people, empty houses, sorrow—and wherever they trekked they looked for them.

The villages that had been affected seemed to be of a uniform size, no haul larger than one hundred people at a time, and they were spread across a group of islands in the Aegean Sea. Hercules and Iolaus passed through several villages of that size, and heard the occasional rumor of more disappearances. One time they came upon a hamlet that had been abandoned some weeks before, enough time for wolves to settle there in the absence of people, and to defend their territory when the two humans tried to pass through.

“Disappearance upon disappearance,” Hercules said as he and Iolaus sat on an island beach after close to three weeks of searching. Above them, the late afternoon sun dawdled in the sky, searching for a place to retreat, while the gulls circled, crying for food. “And yet still, we are no closer to finding out why these streets have appeared, nor where they have departed to.”

“I don't know what else we can do,” Iolaus admitted, tossing a flat-bottomed stone across the water so that it skimmed over the waves. After three bounces, the stone sunk with a
plop.

“If only we could watch every village,” Hercules said, “but we'd need the fabled eyes of Argus for such a task.”

“Or a lot of mirrors,” Iolaus suggested, half-joking.

Hercules eyed the waves as they lapped at the shore, mulling over the dilemma. “There must be a way to watch every village,” he said. “We have identified the type of settlement, and the area within which our mystery street strikes. How hard can this be?”

Iolaus pushed himself up, glancing up at the sun. “Face it: there isn't,” he said. “Best we get moving before the sun sets and it starts to get cold.”

Hercules nodded, rising from the sandy beach. Suddenly, he stopped, gazing out once more at the ocean and the distant islands that waited out there, dark bumps on the horizon. “There is a way, Iolaus!” he cried joyfully.

“What? I mean . . . how?” Iolaus stuttered.

“A boat!” Hercules told him, gesturing out at the waters. “We'll scan from a boat, sail through the night if we need to.”

“You have rocks in your head,” Iolaus told him dismissively. “How are you going to visit every potential village—”

“We won't have to,” Hercules assured him. “Sound carries. Right across the water, enough that we could hear that party from miles away.”

“We never heard it before,” Iolaus pointed out.

“We were on land before, not out at sea,” Hercules told him. “Listen—waves and a little breeze, but nothing more. It's perfect.”

“And you think we're just going to hear this party?” Iolaus asked. He sounded doubtful.

“I think we are going to do what we always do, old friend,” Hercules told him. “We are going to keep going and not give up. Agreed?”

Iolaus shook his head regretfully. “Yeah, agreed, I guess,” he finally said, rolling his eyes.

That evening, Hercules and Iolaus chartered passage on a boat owned by an old fisherman who proudly told them he was more at home on the water than on land. “I'll sail you where you need sailing,” the captain said, “Get you wherever you need.”

“Ah, that may be a problem,” Hercules explained as he stepped down onto the ten-foot-long sail boat. “See, we don't really know where it is, exactly, that we're going.”

Seeing the captain's surprise, Iolaus made a show of laughing at his companion's words. “Ignore my friend,” he said. “He's a little . . . eccentric in the head. We know where we're going, right, Hercules?”

Hercules looked at Iolaus who was nodding encouragingly. “Yes, we'll know the very moment we get there,” he agreed. “Just get us out on the water.”

Uncertain, but happy to get out on the water, the fisherman unfurled the sail of the boat and pushed off from the harbor. “Night fishing can be dangerous,” he told his passengers as they sailed out into the open waters. “Let's get moving, and you fellows point the way.”

Iolaus had to admit that Hercules had been right about one thing. As they sailed beneath the waning moon, its crescent casting a Mallen Streak across the surface of the water, they could hear a wonderful stillness like nowhere else in Greece. Out here on the nighttime water there was a palpable tranquility; the shushing of the waves against the hull and the whisper of the wind soon faded from consciousness, leaving just an empty void of sound, populated only now and then by the sounds of activity on a distant shore.

Having told the fisherman to head north, they drifted out into open water and listened for sounds of the street party that was plaguing the area. Hercules heard it first.

“I think I hear something,” he said, cupping a hand to his ear and turning his head. “That way,” he said after a moment. Then he addressed the fisherman who sat at the rudder steering. “Captain, you know these waters well,” he said. “Is there an island over in that direction?”

The captain looked where Hercules indicated, and nodded. “A little cluster of them,” he said, “three in all.”

“Can you head towards them?” Hercules asked.

Adjusting the rudder, the captain assured them that they could. “We're on our way,” he said.

As anyone will tell you, traveling the sea by night can be dangerous. Hazards like sandbars and rocks, while obvious in the daylight, can be almost impossible to find, let alone navigate, in darkness. There were other dangers out there too, and even knowing where the strong currents were was no guarantee that one could always avoid them. Thus, it was no reflection on the captain of the vessel, whose experience and courage on the water were above doubt, that the fishing boat ran into trouble before it reached its destination.

The nature of the trouble, however, was something that no one could have predicted. As the boat sailed towards the clustered islands, the sounds of the street party came in ebbs and flows across the water, each burst dragged by the wind, and something moved alongside the boat, closing in on them from their starboard side.

Hercules and Iolaus were up front in the prow, where the empty nets were stacked while not in use, concentrating on the fractured sounds of the street party as they became more solid, trying to locate them by their muddled narrative. The fisherman was adjusting the sail, catching as much of the night breeze as he could as the boat cut through the dark waters. As such, neither he nor his passengers realized the danger they were in until it was almost too late.

One moment, the small vessel was bobbing along the surface, making passage towards the islands without hindrance. The next, the boat shuddered to a sudden halt, so sudden that it was pulled back in mid-motion, its prow rising up and out of the water.

As the prow lifted, Iolaus stumbled sideways and suddenly he had dropped over the edge of the boat and into the water with a splash.

More sure-footed, Hercules tottered in place before scrambling to the side, searching for his companion. “Captain!” he bellowed. “What just happened?”

Hercules glanced back up the length of the boat just in time to see the captain being dragged over the side by what appeared to be a dark, ridged tentacle.

It was hard to see what it was in the moonlight. Hercules glimpsed the flash of—
was that a tentacle?
—wrapping around the boat captain's waist, and then both captain and tentacle had disappeared over the side. In the wake of that disappearance, the small boat pitched and yawed, threatening to capsize.

Still standing on the prow, Hercules danced in place as he fought to keep his balance, turning back to the sea where Iolaus had fallen overboard. “Iolaus!” he cried. “Iolaus, where are you?”

A sopping mop of blond hair emerged four feet from where Hercules was looking, accompanied by a loud gasp as Iolaus sucked desperately for air. “Herc—?” he spluttered through a mouthful of seawater. “What hap-happened?”

Crouching down, Hercules thrust one arm out towards Iolaus' bobbing figure in the moonlight. “Here, give me your hand,” he said. “Quickly.”

Iolaus grabbed for the hand, paddling in the waves to reach it. “What happened?” he repeated as Hercules hefted his soaking form from the cold water.

“We're under attack,” Hercules said, already hurrying back along the length of the boat. Four long strides and he was at the rudder where the boat's captain had been dragged under by that
thing.

“Captain?” Hercules shouted. “Can you hear me?”

No reply.

A moment later, his clothes dripping with water, his wet hair clinging to his brow, a shivering Iolaus joined Hercules. “What's going on? Where's th—?”

Hercules did not answer. He simply dived over the side of the boat, bringing his hands together as he cut the water.

“Hercules?” Iolaus shouted in his wake as he was splashed with water. “Now what's he think he's doing?”

It was cold beneath the surface; colder than Hercules had been expecting. Moonlight painted everything at the surface in a kind of deep blue shade, but a few feet below the ocean was just a spreading darkness, black on black on black,
ad nauseam.

Holding the breath he had taken, Hercules swam down, driving himself farther into that characterless blackness. He could not see anything down here, and in just a few strokes it was like being lost in absolute darkness, with no sense of direction, no up or down.

Something moved close by, close enough that Hercules felt the pull of the current and found himself lurching sideward. He looked all around, the pressure in his lungs building, trying to find the source of the drag—and hopefully locate the captain.

For a long span of time—where seconds stretched to hours in the featureless darkness—Hercules saw nothing. Then the creature shimmered past like a millipede, scales catching just a fleck of the moonlight so that it looked like a handful of coins had been dropped in the water. Hercules swam for those “coins,” driving himself onwards, ignoring the growing ache in his lungs.

It moved fast, whatever it was. Hercules saw it turning, following a different course away from the boat and its destination. It was fast, yes—but it was also big, a long body wavering in a great arc as it made its way through the dark water.

Come on,
Hercules chided himself.
Catch it. Don't think about the need to draw breath, just catch it.

He swam harder, faster, driving every iota of his strength and stamina into that chase as the mystery creature plunged away through the curtain of darkness. For a moment it seemed that Hercules would not catch it, that it was moving too fast, in its element here in the water, while his breath stagnated in his lungs and threatened to sink him. Then something brushed right beside him, a curving length of tentacle or tail—Hercules could not be certain which—wavering through the water, thick as his arm. Hercules grabbed it, felt the pressure in his arm as it was almost wrenched from its socket. A conga line of bubbles escaped Hercules' mouth in that moment, forced from his lungs with the sudden jolt of his body.

The thing that Hercules had grabbed swam on for a moment, slowing as it realized it had picked up a passenger. Hercules felt the extended body turn, flipping through the water as it doubled back the way it had come. An instant later, Hercules saw the thing's face, drawn in flashes in the moonbeams, a blunt nose with dead eyes to either side and a grin of teeth as long as his forearm stretched around to the sides of the monster's head.

Hercules did what he did best. Out of breath, out of time, he bunched the fingers of his free hand into a fist and drove a mighty punch—slowed by the water's drag but still impressive—straight into the thing's nose, right smack between the soulless eyes.

What happened next was confusion. Hercules felt his grip loosen on the thing's—tail? tentacle?—and then he was hurtling away from it in a wash of bubbles as his breath charged out of his mouth and nose. Something hurtled past him, a ridged body, a rigid fin, a man. The man was the boat's captain, Hercules realized as he tumbled away in the darkness, and he had the presence of mind to grab for the man and hold him as they both went careering through the water in the backwash of the sea creature.

“Hercules!” Iolaus shouted, scrambling along the deck of the boat. “Come on, buddy—where are you?”

The ocean stretched out before Iolaus, a shimmering dark blanket lit only insubstantially by the slip of a moon. It had not seemed so bad when they were just sailing through it, Iolaus lamented, but once you were looking for someone in that undulating darkness it suddenly seemed a whole lot scarier.

Long moments passed. Iolaus considered jumping back into the water, wondered what good that would do if he didn't know where Hercules and the boat's captain were, let alone what they were facing. Granted, he was already wet, but still—diving into darkness was not his idea of a smart plan.

As Iolaus debated this, Hercules reappeared, thirty feet away and clutching the static figure of the fisherman.

“Hercules!” Iolaus called. “Over here!”

“Iolaus!” Hercules called back as he turned towards the boat. “Watch the water. There's something out here. I don't know what it is.”

Hercules took long strokes to bring him back to the boat, dragging the sea captain with him. After a moment, the sea captain began to struggle, and Hercules thanked all the gods that the man was still alive. “It's okay, I have you,” Hercules told him. “Don't struggle, I'll get us—”

“Hercules!” Iolaus shrieked. “Behind you, right behind you!”

Still swimming forwards, Hercules looked over his shoulder and saw the creature emerge from the water like a tidal wave. It was large—its body at least fifteen feet in length, larger than it had seemed even in the water. It barreled up out of the water, leaping and diving in an undulating mass of muscle. The head was gray-white, with the blunt nose and wicked grin of a shark. But the body was not a shark's—instead it appeared to be something snakelike, thick like a boa constrictor, some kind of water snake perhaps, darker than the face with a single jutting fin poised along its top like an up-thrust blade. Following that, last of all, came the ridged thing that Hercules had mistaken for a tentacle. It was not a tentacle, he saw now—it looked more like a crocodile's tail, great armor plates running along its length with two stubby legs protruding from its sides.

Hercules did not have a name for it, but he had an idea of what it was. A trick of the gods, an amalgam thing made of the welded aspects of three animals. Bellerophon had fought something similar in the Court of Proteus—a creature that was part lion, part goat, and with a viper for its tail. The thing had been called a Chimaera.

“Hold onto me,” Hercules instructed the dazed fisherman, pushing the man's arms so that they were wrapped over his shoulders. Then he began to swim in earnest, huge strokes that ate up as much water as he could, taking great gasping breaths each time he surfaced before lunging for that water once more.

Behind Hercules, the Sea Chimaera disappeared and then emerged again, seen in fragments through the moonlight and the wash of the dark water.

Iolaus knelt down at the very edge of the boat and reached forward, grabbing Hercules' hand the moment he got there.

“Take the captain,” Hercules ordered him.

“What about you?” Iolaus retorted.

Hercules had a hand on the edge of the boat by then and was in the process of pulling himself up. “Just take him, Iolaus. Quickly.”

Iolaus reached down with both arms and grabbed the boat's captain. The man was awake but he seemed dazed, as if he could not comprehend what was happened. Iolaus pulled, hefting the fisherman from his partner's back as Hercules pressed his own body against the boat.

Then the Chimaera emerged again, its great writhing body leaping out of the water as it plunged towards the boat. Hercules pushed against the boat in that same moment, kicking off and diving back into the water where the monster was hurtling like a loosed arrow. In an instant, the two figures met.

Hercules came at the Chimaera from under its great length of body, slamming into it with all of his might in a cannonball blow. The Chimaera lurched and flailed, body curling around and vicious teeth snapping at Hercules where he had struck against it.

On board the little fishing vessel, Iolaus listened to the frantic sounds of battle as he tried to revive the boat's captain to full consciousness. The water chocked and splashed as Hercules and the Chimaera fought, tossing the boat up on a swell of rising waves.

Beneath the surface, Hercules was struggling to get a grip on the beast. He reached around its snake-like torso as its body knifed through the water, his hands slipping from the slick, scaly hide before he could secure a grip. Then the face came at him, that sinister blunt moon of a face, jaws distending to reveal twin rows of sharp, triangular teeth. The mouth snapped closed, missing Hercules by the faintest of margins.

Hercules pushed away, feet kicking out as he swam for the surface. A moment later he had emerged, sucking in desperate breaths as the beast circled just a few feet beneath him.

Then the Chimaera rammed against Hercules, knocking him just below the ribs with a savage blow. Hercules gasped, ducked under the water to locate the Chimaera before diving lower, powering himself down into the shadowy depths of the ocean.

The creature was large and swift, but close up it had trouble handling prey that was moving alongside it. Prey that lay ahead was fodder for its snapping jaws, prey behind would fall victim to its crocodile tail, the way it had wrapped around the boat captain. But alongside, it had only the scantest of crocodile limbs to reach for its prey, and its long body worked against it where it could not see what was swimming by its flanks. Hercules had figured all of this out as he tussled with the creature the second time, ensuring that he remained side-by-side with the Sea Chimaera as it hunted for him. But the abomination still had the advantage over Hercules—it could breathe underwater where he could only hold his breath for a relatively short time. Hercules only hoped that would be enough.

Hercules had tried before to grab onto the thing's snake-like torso, only to discover it was too slick to secure an adequate grip. This time he aimed his body like a dart through the water, reaching ahead until his hands snagged the single, protruding fin that stood proudly up from its back. He grabbed it, pulling himself up and behind the creature as it thrashed in place, trying to locate its attacker. Once atop the beast, Hercules wrapped his legs around its slithering torso, pressing tight. It was like riding a wild stallion—the Chimaera bucked and shifted, trying to lose its unwanted passenger.

Once he was there, Hercules let go of the dorsal fin, drew both arms back and then—

Slam!

Hercules brought both fists down in a brutal blow, striking either side of the creature's torso just beneath the dorsal fin. The creature lurched, a trembling spasm running through its body in the wake of that powerful blow.

Hercules struck again, driving his mighty fists into the creature's flanks, once, twice, thrice, even as the pressure on his lungs started to build. Below him, the Chimaera flipped and flopped, turning and turning in place as it tried to dislodge its attacker.

Hercules kept up his assault, striking again and again, over and over. The beast quaked, another great spasm running through its whole body. His blows were having an effect, Hercules knew—but whether he was enraging the Sea Chimaera further or forcing it to rethink its attack, he could not tell. Thus, he kept pounding on the creature, driving punch after punch into the same two spots on its sides.

Suddenly, the muffled light that Hercules could see beneath the surface grew brighter. A moment later, the creature cut the surface, leaping up in its writhing attempts to dislodge its attacker. Hercules took that moment to suck in a breath of desperately needed air, clinging tightly to the monster's body by his strong leg muscles.

The monster shook, rolling in the water to try to dislodge Hercules. Hercules reached for the dorsal fin, but his hand slipped and suddenly he was floundering in the water as that long expanse of slithering body hurried past beneath.

An instant later, Hercules found himself adrift. He could no longer feel the beast beneath him, only the momentary pull of the current in the wake of its passage. The Sea Chimaera was gone.

Hercules took a few moments just to catch his breath and to wait to see if the beast was planning to renew its attack. He ducked his head below the water, dived once, twice, three times, trying to locate the Sea Chimaera. But, there was no sign of it and, after a minute's searching, Hercules was satisfied that it was gone.

It took Hercules another three minutes to swim back to the boat, for the Sea Chimaera had taken them both so far from where it was drifting. Iolaus called out when he saw his partner cutting through the water, and leant over the side of the boat to give Hercules a hand up.

Once he was back on board, Hercules asked about the boat's captain. The man was a little shaken up, and his voice was hoarse from bringing up the salty seawater he had swallowed, but he was otherwise okay.