Timothy Boggs - Hercules Legendary Joureneys 03 (16 page)

' 'Then he came here, to this arena. Alone. When he came out, he looked as if he had seen a ghost, and he told me that it was all over. He had it all, and now he was ready."

With a trembling finger she pointed at the thickening clouds. "He did that. He made the ground move.

He turned that poor man into that frog. A test, he called it. A game.

"He wants to be in charge, Hercules. He wants everyone to bow to him. And if you won't be his slave, he'll kill you.

"He doesn't care which you choose. That's the really frightening part—he doesn't care which."

Hercules watched helplessly as Aulma burst into silent tears, turning to Virgil for the comfort of his arms.

Virgil, for his part, looked too terrified to breathe.

Salmoneus took a step toward the nearest exit, and changed his mind; he pointed at Flovi, opened his mouth to say something, and changed his mind; he took another step toward the exit, gave everyone a wan smile, took another step, threw up his hands and sighed.

"We can't go, can we?" he said to Hercules.

"I wish we could."

"He's a kind of sorcerer now, isn't he?"

Hercules nodded solemnly.

"He's going to fry us, right?"

"Not if I can help it."

"But what can you do?" Flovi asked. "You saw what he did to that poor dog."

"We could pray to the gods," Virgil suggested.

Hercules looked over to Peyra, still weeping in her seat. "No, that might take too long. Besides, they might not be in the mood."

Salmoneus looked around in a panic. "Well, we can't just go on, business as usual."

Suddenly Hercules grinned. "You know . . . maybe we can."

They followed his gaze to Peyra, who was no longer alone. The duck had regained consciousness, and had waddled over to her, laying its head in her lap. She stroked its back gently, and for the first time that day she actually smiled.

"I don't get it," Salmoneus said.

Hercules tapped his temple with a finger. "I'm not sure I do either, my friend, but this is what you're going to do."

"Run?" Salmoneus asked hopefully.

"The show."

"You're kidding."

"This place is where it begins," Hercules reminded him. "The beginning of whatever Dragar has in mind. Conquering the world, enslaving us all, whatever sickness has taken him." He jabbed a finger at the man's chest. "You are going to put on the best show you've ever done. You're going to make this a night to remember."

"He conquers the world, I'll remember that pretty good, too," Salmoneus grumbled.

Hercules laughed. "A long show, Salmoneus. I'm going to need time."

"For what?"

"Do you really want to know?"

Salmoneus almost said yes, but changed his mind and shook his head.

Flovi tugged at his mustache. "And here I thought I'd be able to find out what the mystery of this place is for me, for my destiny."

"You will," Hercules assured him.

"So will I still be alive to enjoy it?"

"Sure," Hercules promised, and pulled Salmoneus to one side. He gave three instructions: that the show be big, noisy, and above all, long; that Dragar, no matter what, be the last act; and, more importantly, that nothing happen to Peyra until he returned.

"I'm counting on you," he said gravely. "Don't screw it up."

Surprisingly Salmoneus didn't look hurt. "For a change?'

"I didn't say that."

"You were thinking it."

"It was tempting."

Salmoneus smiled and shook his head before his expression grew somber. "I won't screw it up, Hercules. By the all the gods, I swear it."

Hercules nodded. And grinned. "Sure you will"

Salmoneus didn't know whether to laugh or throw a punch, and so said, "For gods' sake, then, please get back before Flovi sings, or I'm ruined."

"I will," Hercules answered, and prayed it wouldn't prove to be a lie.

Dragar wasn't in his room, and no one at the inn knew where he had gone.

Not that Hercules had expected anything else. That would have been too easy: sitting down with the man, making sure the conquering and enslaving was what he had in mind, and then doing something about it.

He walked slowly along the narrow street, sidestepping carts and horses, watching repairs being made, listening to people talk about the "shift" the night before, and about the big show at the arena. Apparently Virgil and his help had already begun to make their way through town, announcing the special performances, at special prices, with extra special appearances by extra special people.

Hercules had a feeling the place would be packed.

A stop at a fruit vendor's stall told him Dragar had passed by only a few minutes before, muttering to himself and paying no attention to the bustle around him.

Another stop, this time at a blacksmith's, made it clear the magician was on his way out of town.

Hercules had to force himself not to run. Which he probably couldn't have done even if he wanted to, which he did, since he was stopped every few yards by someone who recognized the Red Power Beast and wanted to know if he could really bend iron bars with his ears.

Virgil, it appeared, was laying it on a little thick.

By the time he arrived at Phyphe's north exit, too much time had passed. Dragar was long gone. The road, while not crowded, was busy, as travelers rode and walked into town; by the bits of conversation he overheard, he deduced that most of them were here to do some business, then attend the show.

"Packed," he decided, was undoubtedly an understatement.

He walked on, keeping to the verge as Phyphe slipped away behind him, doing his best not to give in to anxiety, or the unpleasant feeling that he was headed in the wrong direction.

Here was mostly open land that rolled gently to the horizon. Mostly farms, he reckoned, and probably a few scattered estates of the area's most wealthy families. A few lonely trees. A creek.

But still no sign of Dragar.

Frustration made him impatient. He walked, ran a few steps, walked again, and glared at the sky, where the overcast had finally coalesced into thick clouds streaked with white and gray. A slow, damp wind pushed through the high grass. A flock of crows circled in the distance.

Crazy, he thought; this is crazy. If I keep this up, I'll end up in Sparta.

Maybe he would have to wait until tonight after all.

With a grunt of disgust he turned around, and grunted again when he saw it: several hundred yards away on his right, across an unused field, was an arm of the forest that marched to Phyphe from the south. He had been so intent on following the road that he hadn't noticed it before, almost indistinguish-able from the gloom where the land met the horizon.

Without hesitation he ran into the long grass, pacing himself and hoping he wasn't making a mistake.

If he was, he would never get back in time.

Virgil slumped against the wall of a shop that sold jars and plates and decorative copper shields.

He was exhausted, and his vision had grown a little blurry.

He and the local band had split up as soon as Hercules left the arena, each of them instructed to spread the word of the benefit performance to as many people as they could. With Aulma unwilling to leave his side, he decided that the taverns and inns were good places to start, because the news would spread more quickly there, but he hadn't counted on how many inns and taverns there were in a little place like this.

But at least he hadn't run into Olivia.

That would have killed him.

And if that didn't kill him, Aulma would, before Olivia could.

Wouldn't you know it, he thought as he panted; a guy goes for years without a single woman paying any attention to him, then suddenly there are two.

He leaned over, hands braced on his knees, and waited for his lungs to catch up.

He wasn't sure exactly what was going on, even with all that weird stuff Aulma had told them, but he had a strong feeling it was worse than his admittedly feeble imagination could manage.

"Aulma," he said, swallowing hard, "when this is over, do you think you could stand leaving show business?"

He laughed shortly. Now that was a particularly stupid question considering what Dragar had gone to her.

"So what do you think?"

She didn't answer.

He took one more deep breath and straightened, rested his hands on his hips, and grinned sheepishly. "1

don't want you to get the wrong idea, though. 1 mean, I'm not really asking you to do anything—"

"You drunk?"

That wasn't Aulma.

He blinked, turned his head, and saw a tall man in a plain robe staring at him oddly. "No, I am not drunk."

The shopkeeper scratched through his skimpy beard. "Then who are you talking to?"

Virgil pointed. "Aulma."

"Aulma who?"

Virgil looked.

Aulma was gone.

"Aulma?" He stepped into the crowded street. "Aulma?"

"Drunk," the shopkeeper muttered and returned inside.

Virgil forgot about the announcements; he had to find the woman he was pretty sure he was in love with before something happened to her.

"Aulma!" he called. "Aulma!"

Salmoneus paced back and forth outside the arena.

Although he had every confidence in Hercules, he still couldn't help feeling that Vaudalville was dead.

Even if Dragar was defeated ... even
when
Dragar was defeated, word would spread, no town or village would risk the vaudalvillian jinx, and he'd be left with a dozen chests of clothes he wouldn't be caught dead in. Except maybe the purple thing with the gold trim and the glittery stuff on the hem.

His fingers brushed across his paunch. His stomach growled, demanding food, but he didn't dare eat because he didn't think his nerves would let him keep it all down.

A footstep made him jump.

"Sorry," Peyra whispered.

"It's all right." He smiled with more confidence than he felt. "I'm just rehearsing." He tapped his temple. "In here."

At her side the large white duck quacked softly.

"No," Salmoneus said. "I do not know where the Harpy is."

The duck sighed and wandered away.

Peyra gasped. "You speak duck?"

Salmoneus gave her a look. "Lucky guess."

Tenderly she lifted her husband from his pouch and stroked his back with one finger. The frog didn't move. "I know how he feels."

Salmoneus looked at the frog, looked at the duck, looked at the sky, and thought, This isn't a jinx, it's a curse, right? You're getting back at me for that air-sandal thing, aren't you?

"Salmoneus?"

"Yes?"

"Are we going to be all right?"

He nodded without hesitation. "Hercules promised. And no matter how it looks, he never goes back on a promise."

She looked at his hands. "Then how come your fingers are crossed?"

"Insurance."

"What's that?"

I don't know, he thought, but it damn well better work.

It was the arena, Hercules thought as he ran across the empty field; it was the overwhelming surge of power that he had felt.

He knew that here and there throughout the many lands he had traveled there were places marked by certain mystical properties. He had no idea why this was so, and none of the gods he knew had ever explained it. Of course, they didn't have to; they were gods.

He had also believed that no human could ever tap this energy, but that was obviously untrue.

Dragar had.

If Aulma was right, the answer must have been in the scroll the man had found. It had told him how to take that power for his own.

The power he had concentrated in the head of the silver ram.

Hercules slowed as he approached the trees, wondering why it was that the good guys never found stuff like that. It would certainly, for example, make his life a whole lot easier, and he wouldn't have to work up such a big sweat taking care of the bad guys.

Bad guys who could enchant demigods, however briefly, were never any fun. Especially for the good
guys.

He saw the first sign of passage then, grass that had been trampled recently and was just now beginning to recover. He followed the faint trail until he spotted a narrow path that led deeper into the woodland.

The trees were still widely spaced, their high branches filtering what little light there was into patches of lesser gloom that swayed and shifted as the wind touched the trees.

He flexed his fingers as he moved on, much as a cat will twitch its tail.

Birds called faintly.

A growing tension in the air raised the hairs on the back of his neck.

He scolded himself for not bringing someone with him; preferably an army, perhaps two.