Storming Paradise (6 page)

“How about you, buddy?” Iolaus asked.

“We still need to get to that island,” Hercules said, dismissing his friend's concern. “Captain? Are you fit to sail?”

The fisherman rocked uncertainly in place. “I will be,” he said, rubbing at his forehead. “Give me . . . a little . . . more time . . . to catch my . . . breath.”

Hercules looked up at the sky, judging the passage of the moon. He estimated that it was less than two hours to sunrise, not long to find the correct island and locate the sinister street party. “I'll work the sail,” he decided, “and Iolaus, you work the rudder.”

Iolaus did not need any further coaxing; he simply trotted to the rear of the boat and placed both hands on the rudder while Hercules adjusted the sail to catch the wind. A moment later, the boat was moving again, clipping through the water towards the distant echo of music.

The source of the music became clearer as the fishing boat got closer to the clustered islands. By the time they crossed through the waters abutting the second island, it was plain that the street party was being held there, just a little way from the shore.

Iolaus worked the rudder, while Hercules used a set of oars to navigate the last passage and bring them into port. The fisherman knew the island, though not well. “Small place,” he said. “Two ports, one on either side. I brought grain over here in my younger days, but I think they're mostly self-sufficient now.”

Hercules listened to the music as the boat drew up to the docks, noticing how hypnotic it now seemed. He had not consciously noticed that before, but with hindsight he realized that he and Iolaus had never questioned joining the party in the shadow of the mountains, and had stayed far longer than they had intended. It only served to confirm his suspicion that sorcery was involved.

“I'd like to thank you for your time, sir,” Hercules told the fisherman once he and Iolaus were off the boat, “and pay you for passage.”

The captain shook his head and laughed, a throaty noise where he had strained his voice earlier. “I owe you my life, I think,” he said. “That's payment enough for any journey, wouldn't you say?”

Hercules touched his brow in acknowledgement. “Safe waters to you, sir.”

“And keep your eyes open for sea monsters,” Iolaus added.

The captain assured him that he would, and with that Hercules and Iolaus made their way into the town, ears tuned for the sound of the street party. Above them, the sky was beginning to lighten with the pre-dawn. Time was running out.

The port ran along the bay of a small town, with less than two dozen dwellings running up a shallow incline away from the water. A statue of Poseidon overlooked the harbor, five feet tall but standing on a raised plinth, looking out to sea to provide protection for sailors.

Hercules and Iolaus hurried through the darkened streets, searching for the party that they could hear echoing off the hard surfaces of every building.

They found it after two minutes of searching, in a street that ran between the buildings on the higher levels, the sounds of music and laughter echoing down to the bay.

As before, there was nothing particularly unusual about the street. It ran the breadth of the village, located between twin sets of wide spaced buildings, weaving a little to pass a jutting stable outside of which stood a two-wheeled cart. Colored bunting ran in streams from building to building, hanging ten feet above the ground. Tables ran along both sides of the street, a whole line of them geared to feeding the attendees, another shorter line playing host to barrels and wine skins, towering stacks of used goblets tottering on the ground beside it. People were everywhere, all ages and all sizes represented, doubtless the whole populace of this isolated island town. And again there were the songs, the cheerful, upbeat tunes, and people merrily dancing in drunken swagger. How the street knew where to go, or how it placed itself so seamlessly within a town or village, Hercules did not know. He only knew it was close to dawn, and that seemed to be the fracture point, when the street descended and its attendees were never seen again.

As if he had read his mind, Iolaus hissed at Hercules as they strode onto the farthest reach of the party street. “It's almost dawn, big guy,” he said in a whisper. “You might want to hurry this up if you have an actual plan.”

The words struck Hercules like a blow. He and Iolaus had spent all this time searching for the street that abducted the unwary, but not once had they considered how they might actually stop such a phenomenon once they had found it.
Oh well, time to improvise!

Striding over to one of the drinks tables, Hercules climbed up onto it and stood there, surveying the crowd of revelers. Then, cupping his hands to his lips, he began to shout: “Friends—may I have your attention, please?”

A few people turned to face Hercules; a few others tapped their companions and pointed. Presumably they took him for another drunk and expected him to put on some embarrassing performance before keeling over. They were about to be disappointed.

“I need you all to listen very carefully,” Hercules continued. “You must evacuate this place right now. Go back to your homes. If you have children or other dependents here, such as the elderly or the infirm, you must take them with you. It is imperative that—”

“Shut up, you boring old goat!” a woman shouted from a little way up the street.

“Yeah, pipe down!” another crowd member called, this time a teenage lad with thick hair standing up from his head like a briar.

“No, please,” Hercules pressed. “I need everyone to pay attention to this.” He glanced up at the sky, searching for the first hints of dawn. “You are in great danger. This party—”

Something sailed towards Hercules then, striking the wall just behind his head and shattering. It was a clay flagon, and it broke as it met the wall.

Hercules scanned the crowd, trying to see who had thrown the vessel. More of the crowd turned at the noise, and some jeered.

“You're losing them, buddy,” Iolaus pointed out helpfully, holding his hand before his mouth as he hissed the words.

Hercules raised his arms, gesturing for calm. “Please, people, let's all settle down. There is great danger here—”

Another flagon came sailing towards Hercules, followed by a goblet, contents and all. Hercules ducked the first and batted the second aside. “Please listen,” he tried again, but it was no good. Already the crowd was bored with the measly entertainment he provided. They turned back to their games of chance, their dancing and their mayfly romances.

Hercules glared at Iolaus where he stood at street level. “What do I do?”

“Why ask me?” Iolaus replied.

“You've talked your way out of a few situations in your time,” Hercules said. “How do you handle hecklers?”

Iolaus shrugged. “Ah, heckle them back,” he said.

Hercules glanced up at the sky, searching again for the first hint of dawn. The sky was lightening, the deep indigo of night turning paler, the stars were still bright. “No time,” he decided. He scanned the street, searching for some way to convince the unsuspecting victims of its curse. He could show them the effects of sunlight on the dancing girls, but only once dawn arrived, and that would be after the street was gone. It was hopeless. But there had to be something, there had to be.

Hercules spied what he needed an instant later, and almost laughed as he leapt down from the table. He sprinted along the street, running Hades for leather towards the stable that abutted the street just two buildings away. Outside the building stood that two-wheeled cart, its yoke angled to the ground.

Hercules grabbed the cart's back plate and pushed, balancing it so that the yoke was raised a few inches from the ground, keeping the cart at a downwards angle.

“Join the ride! Come on!” Hercules cried as he slammed the cart into a group of unsuspecting gamers who were huddled around a table littered with colored tiles. The players tumbled into the cart while the table fell to one side.

Hercules kept running, pushing the cart hard as he swept up the next group, a line of dancers whose sense of rhythm had apparently deserted them some hours—which is to say,
some drinks
—before.

Slam!
—Another group was added to the heavily-laden cart, then another. More people every step, in ones and twos and whole groups, knocked off their feet and thrust onto the angled cart as Hercules ran the length of the street. In just a handful of seconds, the cart was host to over a dozen surprised passengers, and more joined them in tumbling piles. Some would sustain bruises, maybe even broken limbs, Hercules knew, but the alternative was far, far worse.

“Room for plenty up top!” Hercules cried as he continued the incredible feat of strength, pushing the cart farther up the street as the party played on.

Iolaus watched his friend with astonishment, momentarily applauding the combination of brashness and ingenuity that the legendary strongman was showing. But even Hercules could not catch everyone. There had to be fifty people on that street, including a crèche of babies. Iolaus began to trek along the street, gathering up stragglers and urging them, physically lifting them, or dragging the sleeping drunks out the near end of the street, always conscious that the sun was about to rise.

It took four minutes and three journeys with the cart. By the third time, Hercules was starting to recognize some of the faces, and he saw a few people he knew had simply wandered straight back into the party at the siren-like beckoning of the musicians and dancers. The obvious strategy was to put those temptresses out of commission, but time was against them now, and Hercules—with Iolaus' support—was hoping that simply wiping the street clean would be enough.

After the third run with the cart, there were just a dozen people left on the street, nine of them identified as musicians and waiting staff who had doubtless materialized with the street.

“Um . . . Hercules?” Iolaus called as Hercules turned the cart around for yet another run at playing taxi cab.

Hercules turned to look at his partner who was standing just a few feet away penning some children behind a coral hastily constructed out of stacked tables. Iolaus was looking up at the sky to east, and Hercules followed. There, low on the horizon, a golden streak was glowing, as if a painter had run his brush across the sky. It was dawn, the first rays of the sun clambering over the distant fields.

Before Hercules could comment, he felt the ground at his feet begin to tremble. “The street!” he told Iolaus. “You feel it?”

Iolaus stepped forward and nodded. “It's descending. So, what now?”

Hercules stared up the mysterious street with its bunting and its tables stocked with foods and wines. “Stragglers,” he said, breaking into a run. “Guard the ends.”

Iolaus looked at Hercules, then from one end of the street to the other, where groups of temporarily saved victims were milling about in confusion, many of them eager to rejoin the festivities. “What, both of them?” Iolaus asked incredulously. But Hercules was already gone, racing up the street away from Iolaus and the cart.

Hercules identified the remaining victims by their level of inebriation. Whoever was behind this nightmarish trap had ensured that its staff—if that was the right word—remained sober. But the unsuspecting participants were plied with drink, enough that even the strongest will could not see through the sorcery in use that was ensnaring them. All around, the street began its slow descent into the earth, a gap of two inches appearing on all sides as it dropped away from the surrounding buildings and roads.

Hercules reached the first of the inebriated, a man in his twenties with the hearty, cracked complexion of a sailor, and grasped him by the front of his shirt. The man was holding a goblet and laughing as Hercules grabbed him, and he uttered a few words in confusion.

“Sorry, friend,” Hercules said as he lifted the man off his feet, “no time to be gentle!”

Then Hercules threw him, tossing the man fourteen feet into the air and backwards, drawing an arc from street level to the roof of a bunting-strewn house, even as the bunting fell away. The man landed with a thud, but was otherwise all right; alcohol numbed his landing.

The next two proved a little harder. The dancing girls had finally cottoned on to what Hercules was doing, and they danced before him, blocking his way, moving gracefully but obstructively in time with the music. They were pretty and very enticing, Hercules realized, making it all too easy to become trapped in their spell.

Hercules glanced at the edges of the street, saw that they had now descended two feet, and were dropping faster. “Sorry, ladies,” he said, leaping onto a keg of ale, “but I'll have to sit this dance out!” Then he leapt from the barrel, over the heads of the surprised women and across to the last two stragglers on the street—two men engaged in an intense game of strategy that involved the movement of differently colored beads to entrap one's opponent. Hercules landed beside the games table and, grabbing the men and table in widespread arms, hefted them off the ground and began to run for the street's far end.

Hercules' feet pounded on the ground, carrying the mismatched group before him as he ran as hard as he could. The street was dropping further, already it was four feet beneath the ground and the buildings along the sides were beginning their eerie shift to enclose where it had been.

“Iolaus, get ready!” Hercules called, not bothering to look behind him.

The two games players seemed to wake up at that, suddenly realizing that they were being moved along with their game board. “What's happening?” one asked.

“Where are you taking us?” asked the other.

“Change of arena,” Hercules said jovially. “Go, team!” Then he pushed the strange parcel of people, table and game board up over his head, launching it over the lip of the descending street and to safety. Whether the game survived, he did not like to guess.

Hercules spun on his heel as the street continued its rumbling descent below the earth. The street was all but empty, only the handful of musicians and attendants remaining. Iolaus was standing at the far end however, high above the dropping street, penning in the people who had been trying to rejoin its sorcerous clutches. Those people had stopped now, leaving Iolaus on the high ground as the magic street traveled its strange descent.

“Iolaus?” Hercules called. “Come on!”

Iolaus looked down at the dropping street, and shook his head uncertainly. “Is this such a good idea?” he asked.

“Come on!” Hercules urged.

Up above, Iolaus watched as the street dropped another foot and the soil and surrounding buildings began to swallow it, erasing it from the face of the Earth. “Well, I suppose we did promise Phoibe,” he told himself, knowing he was about to do something he would regret. The next moment, Iolaus leapt down to the rapidly disappearing street as the earth above closed over it, sealing it below.