“Ah, I forgot about the cur,” she said, seeming annoyed rather than afraid. “His telepathy cleverly masked their approach. This may be more complicated.”
Then Duban loosed his bolt. It was not directed at me, but it felt like an elephant crashing through a stand of bamboo as it passed. It hurtled toward Medea, seeming unstoppable in its horrendous power.
And bounced. It struck Cerberus and hurled him back. It struck the four women and froze them in place. It shoved me like a rogue wave, but I managed to keep my footing. And a back-draft struck Medea and pushed her into the Gate. “Stronger than I thought,” she gasped, surprised.
Then the Gate disappeared. It was illusion. Behind it was a gulf, a precipice leading to a drop-off of unfathomable depth. The sorceress had deceived us all. But why?
“The real gate is over here,” Medea said, walking back along the gallery. Sure enough, there was a far more modest gate with its own keyhole. It had been covered over by the illusion of a blank wall. The sorceress extended the key toward it, and paused again. “Aladdin, are you sure you won’t make the trade? This is your last chance.”
She was still willing to give up her mission in order to obtain the flying ship? This did not make complete sense to me. I could not answer immediately.
“No it isn’t!” Duban said as he charged toward her. He tackled her around the waist. Both went down in a tangle, and the key flew wide. Toward the gulf.
I leaped toward it. But Jewel was there ahead of me. Only her balance was uncertain, probably from the recent blast, and she was about to go over the edge into the chasm. I was in range to catch the Key or my wife. Not both.
I went for Jewel. I caught her about the waist and hauled her back onto the firm cave floor. As I did so I saw, mostly peripherally, Cerberus going for the Key. One head caught it. And inadvertently swallowed it. Then the big dog’s inertia carried him on over the brink, and he dropped out of sight. Oh, no!
I’m all right, Cerberus thought. I can handle drops. But it will take me a while to climb out of this pit, and longer to get the Key out.
“You should have let me go,” Jewel said. “I could have handled the drop too.”
“No!” I said, horrified by the thought.
Then her features changed. “Because I’m not your wife. I’m Nylon. I assumed her likeness in case the sorceress tried to kill her so as to put pressure on you. Put me on your finger and go to Jewel.” She shrank as she spoke, and in a moment was back on my finger.
“And of course you are too late,” Medea said, extricating herself from Duban’s grasp. “I made sure of that. I unlocked the real Gate before showing you the fake, so I could have more time to tempt you with the Key. Now it’s show time.” She flung open the smaller Gate.
I charged her and Duban grabbed for her. We met in a tangle of arms, legs, and torsos that crashed though the Gate. But I kept my focus on what counted: I reached out and slammed the Gate shut behind us. That would keep the demons confined.
Good show, Sylvie thought. Now how do we get out, without the Key?
Then I realized: I had shut the gate behind us, locking us in. “Good question,” I said as I unstuck my face from a remarkable bosom and Duban escaped the scissor grip of a marvelous pair of legs. “I will get back to you on that.”
“We have a more immediate problem,” Medea said, putting herself back together. “The fiends of Hades have arrived. I think we have become accidental allies.”
We looked up. What appeared to be a storm of sheer awfulness was about to engulf us. We did indeed have a problem.
Chapter Twenty-one
Is there a way to fight back, Nylon? I asked, even as the dense cloud of awfulness coalesced into many hundreds of winged demons. No, many thousands. Each had flat faces, black eyes, clawed talons and wings like dragons.
We are in their realm, Aladdin. Here, demons have free rein. Here, there is no hope. Perhaps for all eternity. We are beyond even mortal prayers to the gods.
And yet, we had one such god in our presence. A demigod, granted, but a god nonetheless. Medea, of course, was picking up my thoughts. She said, “Hades delights in torturing my kind as surely as he does your kind. We are doomed. We were supposed to free the demons of hell, Aladdin, not get locked inside with them.”
Don’t listen to her, my liege, came Myrrh’s faint but urgent voice in my head. She was shielding her thoughts, directing them only at me, in a way I never fully understood but seemed to be second nature to her. She’s hatching a nefarious plan.
What kind of plan?
Myrrh paused, even as the demons continued to gather above us. Now they were swirling slowly. As they did, I scanned our surroundings for the first time. Before us, black rock stretched as far as the eye could see, glowing intermittently. It turned out that all the childhood stories I’d heard of the place were true, and I had no doubt that the glowing rocks were, in fact, tunnels that led to the fires of hell.
I’m doing my best to poke around without her knowledge. Luckily, she’s distracted by the demons and fears for her own immortal soul. But I think I have a handle on her plan.
Which is?
She plans to use Sinbad and the Thief in exchange for her husband, Jason.
What about her two sons?
Her sons are not in hell. They are in Purgatory. At least, that’s what she believes. Myrrh paused again, and I knew she was probing the demigod’s mind. She’s aware that her plan may not work. Apparently, Hades is unpredictable at best, and the supreme ruler of the Underworld. Obviously, he makes the rules. Not a lesser god.
Does she have plans for me?
For now, she desires to return to the mortal world with you.
What about Jason?
With both of you. She is, after all, the goddess of lust, Aladdin. She can more than accommodate the two of you.
Her plans for me were not important. At least, not at the moment. Escaping with Duban, Sinbad, the Thief and the nymphs was my primary objective.
I sensed Queen Nylon and Sylvie closely following my train of thoughts. I also sensed something else from the two bound nymphs: fear. I didn’t blame them.
From above a demon screeched, and now they all screeched, their mouths stretching wide, showing long teeth. My bowels instantly turned to water.
Allah be with me, I thought.
Just then a winged creature dropped from the sky, landing directly in front of us with such force that the rocky earth shook. The creature straightened slowly and its black wings folded in on themselves smoothly.
The demon was tall and thin and looked very different than the demon I had seen in Djinnland. Perhaps that demon had been native to that world. Or perhaps there were varying degrees of hideousness. I could imagine no creature looking more foul than the one moving towards us now.
“Seven unexpected arrivals,” it said, and although the entity spoke in a whisper, its voice carried easily. “Master will be pleased.”
Above, the demons continued to circle and swirl. Sometimes they dipped closer, hissing and flapping their wings. Mostly, they seemed to be waiting and watching.
Medea stepped boldly forward. “Tell Lord Hades that Medea is here to see him and to offer him a trade.”
The entity came closer, its clawed feet clicking over the smooth stone. Its black flesh undulated with the motion, the long strips of muscle flexing. I shivered. Duban hugged my leg tightly. He was, after all, still a boy. And I was still the worst father ever.
“A trade?” whispered the demon. “The master does not trade. The master takes what he wants.”
“I understand that,” said Medea, folding her arms under her ample bosom. “But he might be pleased to know that Medea, Goddess of Lust, is here.”
The demon turned its flat face to the side, so much so that I thought its head would twist off. “Yes, I imagine master will be very pleased to have the...goddess of lust as his eternal slave.”
Medea clearly didn’t like the sound of that. She had been about to speak,
but paused instead. However, she quickly collected herself. “Obviously, Lord Hades takes what he wants, when he wants here in his realm. I am only asking for an audience.”
“Master doesn’t take audience with the damned.”
“Technically,” said Medea, clearly thinking fast, “we are not damned. We are of the living, and should, therefore, be given a special audience with Hades.”
“Ah, yes. The living,” said the creature, and now he stepped closer still and dipped his flat face down toward me and studied me with his round, black eyes. My bladder threatened to spill. Never had I seen something so hideous at such close proximity. “Well, we have ways of taking care of the living here.”
“I have no doubt,” said Medea. “But first an audience with Hades. Then do what you must.”
The demon paused in his examination of me to look back at Medea. “You are a persistent wench. Very well, I shall inquire if master will see you. It’s not often we see the living in our realm. He might have some special, ah, plans for you. Plans for your deaths no doubt.”
The demon then flicked his hand once and three more demons descended from the sky, each grabbing one of us under the arms and lifting us into the air.
Aladdin! came Myrrh’s frantic voice. No doubt she had seen all of this through my eyes. What do we do?
Her voice growing fainter as we climbed higher into the black sky. Duban hung from the demon’s claws next to me, as did Medea.
Just get the key and be ready to unlock the gate.
What about you? she asked, although her words were only mere whispers in my thoughts.
I’m going to figure a way out of this mess, I thought, but wondered if my words had reached the girl. After all, we had finished climbing and were now speeding rapidly through the empty skies above Hell, and toward a palace that sat high upon a steep rocky hill.
This should get interesting.
Chapter Twenty-two
The scenery below changed.
Now I saw a golden river coursing between snow-capped mountains, with people disporting themselves along its banks. How could such a nice scene be here in hell? I could see that Duban and Medea were similarly curious.
“Show them,” the lead demon said.
The minions descended until we were flying close enough to get a better view. It was horrible. The river was not golden so much as a coursing flow of fire, liquid lava from some volcano, burning everything it touched. The men were not enjoying themselves so much as trying to cross that flow, burning their toes. Why? Because on the other side were clusters of luscious nude damsels eagerly beckoning them.
“They are wracked with thirst,” the demon explained helpfully. “So they eat of the snow of the mountains, freezing their faces. But when it finally melts, it is not water but lust-inciting wine that makes them utterly desperate for the company of obliging maidens. But first they must cross the river of fire. They are already dead, so it can’t kill them, but it does make them hurt as much as it would mortal folk. That makes crossing difficult.”
“What a sublime torture!” Medea said appreciatively. “Men deserve it.”
“It works on women too, cute buns,” the demon said. “They become as charged as the men. But they too must cross the fire, and suffer similarly. And of course when they do navigate the river and reach the handsome beckoning men, the men change their minds and ignore them. They are of course mere demons emulating human folk.”
Medea frowned. Evidently she did not find that as amusing.
We flew on, seeing other torture settings of all kinds, ranging from standard torture chambers to innovative vivisection. It was like looking at a crowded city from above; each section had its own specialty, but the suffering was universal. Hell was not a nice place.
We came to a giant castle girt with flying flags. But closer up we saw that the flags were not cloth, but impaled people struggling desperately to get free but only making their condition worse. Some were men, some were women, and some were children. The din of their screaming was uncomfortable.
“Everybody suffers,” the demon said with satisfaction. “Including the spectators.”
We swooped into the main access and through the long passages. There were murals depicting further tortures. Then I realized that these were not paintings, but condensed scenes of actual events; the victims were moaning and bleeding.
Then we were in the main audience hall, standing, the minions gone. There was Lord Hades, seated on a throne carved from a giant skull. “Welcome to Hades,” he said. “King Aladdin, Magician Duban, Sorceress Medea, and four others on your fingers. We seldom are visited by mortals who remain alive. To what do I owe the dubious pleasure of this visit?”
Sylvie and Nylon, on my fingers, were silent, not wishing to call any avoidable attention to themselves. I suspected the same was true of Sinbad and the Thief, on Medea’s fingers.
“I came to proffer a deal,” Medea said.
Hades eyed her. I saw her clothing become transparent wherever his gaze progressed. Had any of her assets been false, as is the case with some women, they would have been exposed. “I am more than surfeit with experienced women.”
“But not with mortal ones,” Medea said. “All your whores are long since dead, however they may appear.”
“True. I long for mortality and inexperience. There is precious little naivete here, and that is highly perishable.” He seemed sad for a moment. “But let me hear you out, sorceress. What is the deal you propose?”
“I will trade Sinbad the Sailor and the Thief of Baghdad for my beloved Jason. It is a good deal for you, as both are mortal while Jason is not.”
I saw the rings on her fingers twitch: the two named men were objecting. Not that she cared.
“I am intrigued,” Hades said. I had the feeling that he was playing cat and mouse with her, one of the very few males who could. What was he up to?
“And I want to take Aladdin back with me, as my second love slave,” Medea said.
Hades glanced at me. “Is Aladdin not married, and with a competent concubine he wraps around his finger?”
Ouch.
“What of it?”
Ouch again. Neither of those two gave half a rotten fig for our sentiments.
Hades smiled. “You might after all be fun to play with, sorceress. But I am jaded. It will be more entertaining to douse you in honey and chain you out for the ants to eat. After the first century I will think of something else to do with you.”
“Then consider my second offer. You like virginal mortals? These days no girl over thirteen will qualify, nor would she come to you if she did. But there is one who would.”
I felt an ugly chill. Where was Medea going with this?
“Who? Speak, woman, while you still have a tongue.”
“Her name is Myrrh. Not only is she young, pretty, and physically innocent, she is telepathic. You would find her completely delightful.”
“No!” Duban and I said almost together before Medea even completed her speech, and there was a surge of outrage from Myrrh herself. I had thought she was now out of range, but maybe not quite.
“Unfortunately that particular mortal girl was caught on the wrong side of the Gate,” Hades said. “I could not summon her, regardless, as I lack power over the mortal realm, and she would not come to me voluntarily. She is not yours to bargain with.”
“You have but to threaten to torture Duban, here, and she will make the deal immediately to spare him.”
Hades considered. “True?” he asked Myrrh.
“No!” Duban said.
I felt the horror and the tears as Myrrh answered. True. She was young, but she truly loved Duban.
And of course the Lord of Hades would do it, in his utter cynicism, to win his innocent mortal victim. Myrrh would do it to save Duban. Medea knew this, and so did Hades. Now we knew why the sorceress had communed with Myrrh: to get her measure.
“Perhaps we do have a deal,” Hades said. “But there remain some trifling detail
s.” He snapped his fingers. “Jason.”
Jason appeared. He was a handsome man in Greek attire. “Master.”
“Your ex-wife Medea wishes to take you with her to the mortal realm. Do you care to go?”
“She killed my beloved!” Jason said. “And my children. Bring her here so I can torture her myself.”
Hades glanced at Medea, amused. “It seems he spurns you again, sorceress.”
“Bind him to me,” Medea said evenly. “I don’t want him as an independent man; I want him as my obedient love slave. The same way I want Aladdin. They can both curse me as long as they satisfy my lust.”
“I wouldn’t touch you, granddaughter of a dog!” Jason swore. “Except to whip your sorry hide.”
“There may be whipping, yes,” the sorceress murmured. “But not of that nature.” She licked her lips.
Now I knew the nature of Medea’s interest in me. It was a turnoff, quite apart from my loyalty to Jewel and Nylon.
Thank you, Nylon thought.
“Since the group of you entered my domain voluntarily, you are in my power,” Hades said. “So it seems the deal is mine to make. The three of you and the two female rings will be freed unharmed, Jason the Greek will be bound to Medea, and the girl Myrrh will meet you at the gate and enter in your place.” He glanced at Medea. “Satisfactory, canine granddaughter?”
Medea opened her mouth, but I spoke first. “No!”
Hades glanced at me with mild curiosity. “You are under the impression that you have some say in this matter?”
“I demand that we settle this in another manner,” I said. “As is the right of kings.”
“And this manner is?”
“Trial by personal combat, me versus you, with scimitars.”
“Now this is really interesting,” Hades said, not at all fazed. “A good individual combat for high stakes is always entertaining. The minions of hell will enjoy the spectacle. But we will need two things.”