"You're Hercules?"
Hercules tried hard not to give away his reaction to that one. Wouldn't it be nice if someday I just got, "Good to meet you, Hercules." Or maybe just, "Hello." Iolaus caught his eye and grinned.
"Yes, I am," Hercules answered the man.
"Boy, am I glad to see you! I didn't think Marcus would find you so quickly."
Uh-oh. "Uh…who?" Damn it! They were only a mile from Calydon. He didn't want to be sucked in to someone else's problems until he'd seen Dione.
The man – keeper of the tavern where Iolaus had insisted they stop – was still speaking. "You will help us, won't you, Hercules?"
Hercules exchanged a glance with Iolaus. "Maybe you should tell me about your problem."
There was a small crowd gathering around them. The tavern keeper said, "The beast of Calydon, of course. Didn't Marcus tell you?"
"I haven't seen Marcus. I'm just passing through." Hercules had a very bad feeling about this, suddenly. "Just tell me about it, would you?"
"Three nights ago the beast went through Echion's farm. Killed three people and most of his livestock. Then…"
"Are you sure it was a beast?" Hercules interrupted. "Not men?"
An elderly man spoke up from the crowd. "It left pig-tracks the size of your head. I saw 'em."
The tavern-keeper picked up the tale. "Two nights ago it got a young couple in the fields. And last night…"
"OK, I'm getting the picture." Hercules received Dione's summons two days ago. If he understood correctly, that was the day after this "beast" started to cause trouble. "And nothing like this happened before three nights ago?" he asked, to confirm it.
The people around them exchanged glances. "Well," the old man said, eventually, "there's been stories for years. No one goes near the wood if they plan to come out alive. And my grandfather had some stories…"
"But recently?"
"No. Nothing until three nights ago."
"Just what we need, Herc." Iolaus shrugged, burying his face in a foaming tankard. "Another monster."
"Well, we won't be fighting this one, yet. I have to see Dione first, remember?"
Iolaus stared at him. "Herc, are you nuts? This monster is killing people!"
"Iolaus." Hercules spoke quietly, conscious of the crowd around him. "This started three nights ago. The night before we started this journey." Put it together, Iolaus, he was thinking.
"Yeah, but…"
Mentally, Hercules shrugged. Is it my imagination, or is Iolaus being denser than usual? "I'm not going to argue about this, Iolaus. You wait for me here. Enjoy your ale. You might even like to find out a bit more about this beast. I'll try to be back before dark." Quickly he strode away, leaving Iolaus, and the people of the village, to stare after him. He didn't look back.
Even after fifteen years, Hercules could have found Dione's cave blindfold. The forest seemed not to have changed at all: he found her pool and followed the well-remembered path from there, up the rocky hill to her cave. He was trying to tell himself not to worry, but in truth he had no idea what to expect: he had changed in fifteen years, it would be foolish to expect her to be the same. But nothing, not even his worst fears, prepared him for what he found.
Dione's cave was a mess. The chests that stood along one wall and the drying rack where she'd kept her herbs had been smashed to pieces: it looked like the work of an axe. There was broken glass on the floor, the spilled liquids left uncleaned. A stain among the debris looked like dried blood. Her altar, too, was untidy. Hercules had seen similar scenes too often not to recognise the signs of a struggle, a fight. All this, however, was secondary, barely noticed.
The worst thing was his first sight of Dione. Hercules found her curled up on the ground just inside the cave. There was a fur wrapped around her shoulders; beneath it her once-white gown was dusty and grey. She had always been slender, now she was thin. Her hair, once gorgeous dark curls, was streaked with white, and hung limply around her face. Fear filled Hercules' heart as he knelt beside her. He reached for her and she lifted her head. She looked, not merely older, but old: deep lines etched into her face around the eyes and mouth. That shocked him more than anything.
Speechless, Hercules lifted her into his arms, cradling her thin body tenderly. She looked up at him and their eyes met.
The world changed. For an instant the years rolled back: it was fifteen years earlier and he had never left Calydon, never known Deianeira or Serena, loved only Dione. Then the moment passed.
<<I knew you would come>> Oh, that mind-speech. He'd forgotten how intimate that felt. Then she drew a painful breath and he heard her voice, hoarse and weak. "What…day?"
He knew what she was asking. "Tonight the moon will be dark," he told her. "Dione, what happened here?"
Her eyes were full of pain. "Can't…say. There's no…time. …Trust…me?"
"With my life."
"Open…"
This was hard. Hercules had been through a lot in the past fifteen years, and it was not easy to lower his barriers. Hercules would have walked through fire if she asked it without so much as a second thought, but for a moment he thought she had asked the one thing he couldn't do. If he trusted her, he could do it, he reminded himself. He met her eyes once again…
The girl's silvery laugher rang out again and Dione turned to catch the carved bowl she threw. She dropped it and fumbled, managing to catch it just before it hit the floor. "Alani!" she protested. "Be more careful." She put the bowl away and had begun to close the chest when a sudden wave of dizziness washed over her. She was dimly aware of the girl rushing to her side. Dizziness turned to fear.
"Dione, what is it?" Alani asked, concerned.
"It's the Chimera," she gasped. There was a sharp pain in her back. "Hunters!" Dione ran from the cave. Alani followed her and Dione turned back. "No. Wait here."
"I want to come with you."
"Not this time. Wait here, Alani." Not waiting for the girl's response, Dione hurried into the trees. Her senses led her unerringly to where the creature she protected was. Dione approached with caution, seeing the hunters already surrounding the Chimera. In the daytime he was hardly a threat to anyone: he was too slow, his eyesight too poor, his bulk worked against him. That pain in her back: the poor creature had already been speared. Silently, Dione called on Hecate for aid. These men had come here to kill: they would accept neither Dione's authority nor her warning. She felt the goddess's response as a promise of power. She looked above, and with her magic loosened a branch of one of the trees, bringing it down on one of the hunters. As it hit him the arrow he had been about to shoot was loosed. It only took a little effort to divert the arrow from its target into another of the men. She heard a man scream with pain.
Moments later it was over. Two men lay dead: one gored by the Chimera in its frantic attempts to escape its pain, the other killed by his comrade's arrow. The others lay about the clearing, two if them unconscious, the third trapped by that fallen branch. Dione was free to approach, now, and she did. The Chimera was an old friend, she his trusted companion. At her touch, he calmed almost instantly, and she felt his pain anew. Calling on Hecate again she examined the creature's wound, and slowly poured her healing power into it.
The healing took a lot of effort. To move things was easy: she merely borrowed power from all around her, the energies of nature. Healing required the sacrifice of her own life-force, which she could replenish naturally over the following days. It was exhausting work, and Dione knew it would take her hours to recover her strength. Once she had assured herself that the Chimera would be well, she turned and stumbled from the clearing, returning to her cave. Dione did not consider hiding her tracks, she had never needed to do such a thing. Only a few times in her long guardianship had it been necessary for her to defend the Chimera, and on each of those occasions the hunters who threatened him had all died. This time, because she saved her strength to heal, some of them were left alive. If she considered this at all, she thought it a good thing, an act of mercy.
It did not occur to her that defeated men would want revenge.
Not until she heard the triumphant shout of the first man who saw her cave did Dione realise she might have made a mistake. In panic, she called to Alani. They tried to run. If they could only escape the immediate area she could lose them: her knowledge of the forest was superior to theirs. They hadn't gone far when Dione felt something slam into her back and she fell, sprawling inelegantly on the ground. "Alani, run!" she cried, trying to scramble up.
A rough hand grasped her arm and dragged her around. Dione stared into the face of the hunter she had felled. Too proud to scream, to show fear for herself, she lifted her chin defiantly. With a snarl he slapped her, hard. The sudden pain was followed by a wave of nausea and she collapsed to her knees, dimly aware of another of the hunters passing her in his pursuit of Alani.
Her captor dragged her, struggling, to her cave. He threw her roughly to the ground and she was still for a moment, catching her breath. Then she got to her feet and faced him.
"Witch," he rasped. His blow took her by surprise. No slap this time: a punch to her stomach with his whole weight behind it. She doubled over in agony, gasping for air. He grasped her hair and jerked her head up. "Witch," he said again. "Not so smug now, are you?" He brought his face close to hers and she gagged on the smell of his unwashed body, his foul breath. "Well, I'm gonna show you what happens to witches," he promised. "Hold her."
Before she realised what was happening, Dione was on her back. Strong hands pinned her arms above her head. In terror she realised what they intended to do to her. She felt the cold steel of a knife at her throat. The hunter drew the blade swiftly down her body, slicing her gown to pieces. She screamed involuntarily. He laughed. The weight of his body above hers prevented her from moving. He leaned forward to kiss her and she writhed, desperately trying to keep her mouth away from his. He grabbed her chin in a vicelike grip and forced her to kiss him. His tongue plunged deeply into her mouth until she thought she would choke. He moved away from her lips, his foul mouth exploring her ear and neck. She felt his hands force her legs apart and he began to toy with her cunt, forcing his fingers inside her.
She moaned with pain. A moment later that pain was forgotten. A new sound had added to her horror: Alani's scream. Dione could hear Alani struggling nearby, but couldn't see. Hardly knowing what she was saying, she begged them to leave Alani alone, please, do as you will with me, but don't hurt her, just let her be, please, she hasn't harmed you it's me you want oh, dark lady, please don't let them harm her…
And the hunter was cramming his cock into her dry passage. A scream of agony was torn from her lips. His rough clothing chaffed her bare skin, his teeth ripped the skin of her shoulders, her neck, her breasts. Each thrust increased her pain…and his enjoyment. Even through her terror and pain, her empathic gift forced her to experience his excitement as well: the rising of his lust, his fierce joy in his possession of her. By the time he was finished with her she was sure it was more than she could bear. He gave her nipple a parting twist as he pulled out of her. She winced. "The witch enjoys it," he said with contempt. "Look at 'er."
She could not even imagine what would make him think that.
Dione, finding herself suddenly free, tried to curl her naked body into a ball around the pain. "You're not done, witch," a new voice growled. Rough hands on her legs forced them apart, rough hands on her hips dragged her into position, and it all began again. Through it all, Dione heard Alani screaming her name, over and over. Dione tried to hold back her sobs of pain, she tried. But it wasn't possible. This one took longer than the first man. He held her down with his hand around her throat. His pumping cock was a weapon, tearing at her skin, beating her inside as his fists beat her face and body. She was only half conscious when he was done.
She was aware of him leaving her, but only just. Then water poured in her face brought her spluttering back to full consciousness. Would it never end, she thought in despair, as she saw the face of a third man looming over her. The sharp point of his sword rested just above her navel.
"The man you murdered," he said through clenched teeth, "was called Grassus. He was my best friend." Coldly and deliberately he ran her through.
Hercules saw it all. Through their mind to mind rapport, he lived that hour with her, felt her terror, her panic, the agony of the rape, her desperate, thwarted need to save the girl she loved. Finally, unable to take it any longer, he broke the contact between them. His own body was aching, as if he had somehow experienced it in more than thought. It had taken only seconds.
Hercules hadn't felt such rage since Deianeira died. When he found the men who did this, he would… Then he remembered the last thing. Reluctantly, gently, Hercules moved aside the fur that covered Dione's abdomen. It was soaked through with blood, her blood, a constant seepage from the mortal wound that third man inflicted. "Oh, Dione," he whispered, his voice breaking. She was dying. He knew that now as a certainty. Only her magic had kept her alive this long.
"Alani…" Dione forced the word past her cracked lips.
Even in her pain, she was worried about the girl. Hercules leaned closer to her, his strong arms supporting her, trying to hear what she needed to say. Her voice wouldn't obey her. Hercules met her eyes again, and suddenly, clearly, he heard her voice in his head.
<<Alani…my daughter. Your daughter, Hercules>> A series of images followed: Hercules and Dione making love by her forest pool; Dione's last words to him as they parted, "You leave a part of yourself with me…"; Dione with a baby in her arms; the child as a toddler, playing with a rabbit outside the cave; the child's face screwed up with tears when she fell down in the grass; Alani aged five, laughing as she and her mother played together in the pool; Alani aged eight, her young face serious as she concentrated on learning to weave a basket out of dried grass; Dione watching the twelve-year old Alani with the Chimera; mother and daughter smiling together in the moonlight. <<Your daughter>>
"Why didn't you tell me?" he blurted out. The words were totally inadequate, but nothing he said could have summed up his feelings. He had never thought, never once considered… A daughter? All these years…how had he never known? Gods, all the things he had missed. And Dione? How had she even considered giving birth alone, without help? She might have died! "I can't believe you did all this alone. Why didn't you send for me?"
<<No. This is our way, Hecate's way>> Dione broke the contact as a spasm of pain shook her body. <<We each live as her Moon lives: in phases. Maiden, mother, crone. The cycle continues, the wheel of life turns. The way of nature>>
"But you didn't have to raise a child alone!"
<<I was never alone. My goddess is with me, always>>
Hercules felt her body convulse in his arms. He held her tenderly until the pain began to fade.
Dione forced the words past her pain. "Promise me…find Alani. Save her."
"I promise," Hercules answered. Inside, though, his heart was sinking. If Alani had been taken by those men, it seemed likely she would be dead by now.
<<I would know if she were dead. Hercules, she is alone. And very afraid. Help her>>
"I will. I promise. If she's alive, I will find her."
<<My love>>
Hercules couldn't speak. Tears filled his eyes, an overflowing of grief for this brave and selfless woman. The back of his hand brushed her cheek and she closed her eyes, turning her head toward his touch. And in that moment, Hercules became aware of another presence in the cave.
Hecate, dark goddess of the underworld, appeared before them both. Hercules had never seen her before, but it was impossible to mistake her presence. She looked like a witch out of a children's story, her black robes dusty and ragged, white hair hanging in matted locks around her ravaged face. Hecate had an aura of dark power that not even Hades could rival. In the instant he perceived her presence, Hercules understood – on an emotional level – why Zeus forbade the invocation of her name. Hecate had three faces, like the moon, but she appeared in that moment with her third. She was the Crone of Wisdom, the Ancient One, the Hag of Death. No man, mortal or otherwise, could look upon that face without fear, and Hercules was no exception.
Yet he also recognised the significance of her presence: she had come, as he had seen Celesta come for others, to guide her worshipper into the next world.
Hercules' eyes returned to Dione's face. She, too, had seen her goddess there. A smile touched her lips, a look of peace settled on her features.
"No," Hercules said suddenly, desperate to deny what he knew. He turned to the goddess, holding Dione protectively. "Please. There has to be another way."
Hecate's silver eyes held compassion, but no mercy. "She is suffering," the dark goddess said. "It is time."
"You're a goddess! Can't you heal her?"
"My daughter chose to exchange her healing for the power to call you here. I will not gainsay her choice, son of Zeus. There is nothing more I can do for her."
His voice refused to obey him. He tried to blink back tears and failed. With all the tenderness he knew, Hercules brushed Dione's hair out of her face. She smiled, meeting his eyes for the last time. He bent his head and kissed her lips.
<<My love>>
Hercules carefully placed Dione's silver pendant on top of the cairn that marked her grave. To the west, the sun was setting, turning the sky blood-red. There would be no moon tonight. The dark moon meant death. How appropriate. Hercules remained standing by the grave, remembering her. The way her smile transformed her face from mere prettiness to breathtaking beauty. Her kind and generous spirit. The sweet taste of her when they kissed. And the terrible, agonising way she had met her end. Dione probably hadn't intended it, but she had made certain Hercules could never forget that last. The faces of the three men who raped and killed her were branded into his memory as they had been in hers.
"You have a more important task than to mourn, son of Zeus."
He knew it would be Hecate and he spoke without turning to look at her. "I know. I've been waiting for you." A brief flash of light caught his eye as Dione's pendant disappeared from the cairn.
"The pendant," Hecate told him, "belongs to Alani now. Until you find her…" A second flash of silver and the pendant re-appeared – around Hercules' neck.
Startled, he touched it, turning to face the goddess. "My father will love this," he said. When he saw her he was surprised again. Hecate had chosen to appear this time in her Maiden form: that of a beautiful young woman. There was a seriousness about her expression, though, that reminded him perhaps too much of her earlier appearance.
Hecate pursed her lips as she looked at him. "I am not unaware of irony, son of Zeus." Then she shrugged, abruptly dropping her formal mode of speech. "You don't have to wear it. But as long as you do you may call on me for aid. You may not know it, but for one night you were my priest."
Hecate's knowing smile made him uncomfortable. "I…became aware of it," Hercules admitted carefully. "That's why I've never spoken of the time I spent here."
The goddess moved closer to him, meeting his steady gaze with her silver eyes. "For shame?" she teased. It was almost flirtatious.
"No. For discretion," he corrected, firmly. "Since I live – in part – under my father's protection, I should at least seem to obey his rules. So," Hercules lifted the silver disk in his hand, "I'll wear this, Hecate, but I won't call on you."
She seemed pleased. "That is your choice," she allowed. Hercules had the feeling he had just been tested, somehow. Hecate beckoned to him as she moved away. "Come, there's not much time. You must be out of the forest before dark."
"Then the stories I heard…"
Hecate turned on him, eyes flashing. "My Chimera is no threat to anyone – as long as there's a guardian in Calydon. But Dione is dead and her successor taken from here. That is your task."
The separate pieces of the puzzle suddenly fell into place in his mind; the resulting picture was not a pretty one. "Hecate…if that creature turns wild, it could kill hundreds. I'll have to…"
"No!" she snapped. Then, more quietly, "You could kill it, Hercules. Of course you could. But Alani can control it. Your task is to find her. You might kill the Chimera, Hercules. But in that act, should you attempt it, you will lose your own life."
"And how many lives will be lost while I look for her? I don't even know where to begin!"
"Here." Hecate waved her hand and a vision appeared before his eyes.
Alani sat with her back against the wide trunk of a tree, her head bowed. Her arms were stretched out behind her and tied behind the tree, leaving her helpless. A dirty hand grabbed her hair and lifted her head up: Alani's lip was cut and swollen, and there was a purple bruise on her cheekbone, just below the eye. Her captor put a cup of water to her mouth and held it while she drank: some of the water spilled out the sides of her mouth, but she managed to swallow most of it. She stared up at her captor with sullen hatred in her clear blue eyes.
The man let go of her hair and crouched beside her. "How 'bout thankin' me properly, then, girl?" He began to undo his belt. Alani tried to ignore him, her face impassive. The man ran a hand up her leg, grinning as she flinched away from him. He fondled her breast through her torn clothing, reaching into his trousers and playing with his stiffening cock with his other hand. "So. 'Ave you got something for me?" he leered. There could be no doubt what he had in mind.
Alani closed her eyes, enduring his lewd touch and putting it out of her mind. She focussed on visualising a circle of blue-white fire surrounding her body. When the circle was firmly fixed in her mind's eye, she expanded it, creating a sphere, cutting herself off completely from the rest of the world. At the apex of the sphere she drew a five-pointed star. She had to guess which direction was north, but managed to visualise the correct symbols at each quarter. As she placed the last one in the west, she felt the man's filthy hand, which had been about to slide inside her waistband, draw away.
The man's erection began to droop. "Ah, you're not worth it," he muttered, tightening his belt and walking away. He failed to see Alani's faint smile of triumph.
"Leave her alone, Lycus," one of the other men called. "Krassis will give us a better price if she's virgin."
"Yeah." The third man grunted his agreement. "We'd better get something worthwhile out of this trip," he grumbled.
"Krassis," Hercules repeated grimly. Now he knew where to look for them. Krassis was a worthless weasel of a man, a slave trader he had crossed paths with before. Hercules was horrified by the scene he had just witnessed. A rage worthy of Ares was beginning to build in his blood: had the object of his anger been nearby in that moment, he would have committed murder.
And then he heard Hecate's voice, "Anger will not serve you in this, son of Zeus."
There was a fist-sized rock next to his foot. Hercules picked it up, turned it over a few times in his hands, then crushed it very slowly in his fist. By the time he'd reduced the rock to sand, he'd taken the edge off his anger. Only the edge. The images stayed with him. That filthy swine abusing Dione's child…his child…that really hadn't sunk in yet. Then he realised what she had done. Watching the scene through Hecate's scrying, Hercules had seen, though not fully understood, her circle of protection. Now he began to understand what he'd seen.
"By the gods, she has some power," he muttered.
"Would you expect less?" Hecate gave him a very direct look as Hercules spun to face her. He had almost forgotten she was there. "She comes from a line of my priestesses unbroken for thirty generations. And her father – "
"…Is the son of a god," Hercules finished for her. Naturally, Hecate would exploit that. Not for the first time, he wondered if he was making a mistake involving himself with Hera's sister: there were some disturbing similarities between the two goddesses.
Come on, Herc, focus, he reminded himself firmly. He had a job to do. Whatever he might say, whatever he might want to believe, he knew he would use whatever resources he had to do it. There was no way he could allow another child of his to die. As the decision firmed in his mind, he saw the brief flash of silver that accompanied Hecate's disappearance.
Involuntarily, his hand went to the medallion around his neck. It was cool to the touch, despite being against his skin. For a moment he considered removing it. Then, for no good reason, he changed his mind.
Turning his back on the gravesite, Hercules began the long walk that would take him out of the forest. First, he had to find Iolaus. Then the two of them would find Alani.
He only prayed she would remain unharmed until they did.