Here is the next installment....

more later...

love,

^-^
>b< ~ms~
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Darkfall: Part Ten
From the Annals of Bastet

Hercules and Iolaus had left the desert now and entered into a series of crevasses that cut through a low mountain range. The path was cooler than the heat of the desert and they had pushed on from the night traveling to continue on into the day. Both were eager to get to their destination. As they plod along on the backs of the camels, both men looked up frequently to check for any ambushes from above. Wind and weather had worn a strange network of paths through the mountains that according to the map would eventually lead to a large valley where the ancient ones had built the temple enclosure for the prison of Set.

Hercules had continued to be quiet through the journey. Iolaus was uncomfortable with silence and chattered on about things that he had seen and done when the two men were not together but when they had entered the crevasses with massive rock walls rising up on either side, sometimes so close that they had to go single file in order to get through, the sound of Iolaus’ voice reverberated on the walls and the effect was unnerving. Iolaus too had lapsed into silence.

“Why only Set?” Hercules asked out of the blue.

“Huh?”

“Why make a prison only for Set?” Hercules asked again. “He was one of three enemies of the Ancient Ones like Bastet and Isis. Why were there not three prisons?”

Iolaus had had the same nagging thought. He felt that there was something that was missing, that the two had not been told but he was hesitant to ask Bastet for fear of offending or angering her. At the same time, he regretted not asking as he felt that the two had the right to know. He also felt that she would not have been upset but, as usual, he had taken his lead from his friend. The confusion he felt was beginning to create anxiety.

“Why didn’t you ask?” he said, hoping that Hercules would have a good reason.

“I don’t know, why didn’t you?”

Iolaus snorted, annoyed. “Because I am the side kick,” he said. “You and Ares are the heroes and I am the side kick, for you that is, not Ares. He can find his own side kick.”

Hercules looked over at him and laughed for the first time in several days. “You’re not the side kick to me! We are both heroes. I watch your back and you watch mine. Equals. Brothers.”

“Oh no! You have to be the hero,” Iolaus replied.

“Where did this come from?”

“From the hero’s scroll, very clearly stating that there are heroes and side kicks.”

Hercules laughed again. “Well, what makes me the hero? Maybe you’re the hero in this one,” he answered.

“No, no,” Iolaus. “Has to be you.”

“Why?”

Iolaus struggled for words and finally blurted out. “You’re taller!”

Hercules laughed so loud that the echo surprised both men. “Have you been eating fermented dates?” he asked. “I think you’re losing your mind?”

Iolaus laughed now too. He looked over at his friend. “I knew I could get you to laugh,” he answered.

Hercules snorted. “Whatever, but cut out the hero stuff, all right. Upsets me that people don’t see how much you are a part of what we do.”

“Well, it upsets me too,” Iolaus replied. He grimaced affectedly. “But I have learned to embrace the pain.”

Hercules laughed again. “Gods, maybe it’s better that they ignore you.” He had felt his spirits lift as they spoke. He put his head back and yelled. “Oh, Ancient One! What is the story with only one prison? Get back to me on that one, all right?”

Iolaus laughing now too so hard that he almost fell off his camel. He righted himself in the precarious seat and joined his friend in marveling at how the echo went on and on through the halls of rock.

They were still laughing when in the distance, they could see a break in the rocky corridor where the path opened up onto the Valley of the Temples. The two men spurred their mounts on with kicks. As they came into the entrance of the valley, they both stopped and looked at each other.

“Are you thinking what I am thinking?” Iolaus asked.

“Are you thinking that this has been way too easy and we need to be cautious about a trap?” his friend replied, looking over the vast space that lay out before them. Sheer granite cliffs rose up on all sides with what appeared to be few paths leading out of the valley. They could see temples on three sides cut into the face of the cliffs. A small square building lay in the middle. There was no movement anywhere. No birds flew overhead. They had noticed as they had stopped a while ago in the rock path that there were not even the smallest insects in the air or on the ground.

“Well, yes, I was thinking that and that I’m hungry,” Iolaus answered back.

“I wasn’t thinking about you’re being hungry,” Hercules retorted. “You’re always hungry.”

“So let’s kill two birds with one stone,” Iolaus said. “Let’s stop here for a break, set up camp and watch what goes on or doesn’t go on for a while before we enter the valley. This place makes me feel like the furies are walking around in my guts.”

Hercules sighed. “I’ll agree with you there.”

They dismounted and took food from their saddlebags. In a while, they had made a fire to cook. The sun had set and in the distance over the far cliff the moon began to rise, a huge white orb in a blackening sky. As the two men sat on either side of the small fire, roasting the tubers that Ahkmed had given them, they marveled quietly at the beauty of the night. They were quiet also because the morning light would bring the final battle of the struggle to overcome Set. Both men were nervously aware of how easy the journey had been up until now. Iolaus took the first shift on guard while Hercules lay down to sleep.

******************

Set stood next to his mount. The poor beast was nervous and snorted as it waited, pulling at the hold the Snake God had on its bridle. Set growled at the horse and pulled the bridle hard toward him. The snake around his neck had slithered over to his shoulder and struck as the horse neared it. Soon the mount was quiet under the same spell as Ares’ troop.

The soldiers of the War God had gotten up from a dreamless sleep and washed, dressed and eaten in complete silence. They went about their business with emotionless faces, each trapped inside their bodies like prisoners. The armor they usually wore had been replaced by the black and green armor of the Snake God. On each breast plate was emblazoned the rearing snake.

Now the soldiers were assembling in the courtyard of the fortress. In the distance, Tosh roared, reacting to the unease that had fallen over everything. The plants in the throne room, like the plants here in the courtyard, were beginning to whither. Soon without the power that Hera had infused into the palace in the clouds the cold would overtake the fortress and kill all the lush flora. Tosh would be alone and in peril of freezing as he was not use to the cold and the thin air. He growled as he roamed among the dying plants, feeling the icy chill invade his prison.

Whisper stood at the head of her troop, stony faced on the surface but frantic within. She wracked her brain for a way out of this spell. The only thing that she could feel of her body was the site where the snake had bitten her. It was a strange sensation. She could feel a wound but could not place it because she had no sensation of where her hands were. It was as if she looked out the face plate of a suit of armor that surrounded her but that she could not control.

She heard Tosh’s roar in the distance and had an overwhelming sense of dread for what would happen to the large tiger that had trusted the Amazons enough to give up his wild ways to live with them. Now the Amazons were lost, and he was prisoner like Whisper. She had a sense of hopelessness that she had never experienced. She wanted to cry but the face she wore would not respond.

Set mounted his horse and the warriors around him did the same. He rode over to the gate and it opened by magic.

“I’ll take the same highway that the Lord of War,” Set said. He looked over at Mace who rode now at his side. “I give you the power to speak,” he added with a flourish of his hand.

The sensation of locating your mouth and having the ability to speak now was an odd one. Mace stared had. “What would you have me say?” he asked.

“Speak your mind,” Set answered. “It is boring not to have company that can interact with me.”

“I hope you are ground under Ares’ heel like dust,” Mace replied.

Set smiled but made no reply.

The troop had taken off into the air, transversing miles in seconds. The lands of the East flew by below. Soon the Mediterranean could been seen below them, then the sand of the desert of Northern Africa. The mounts were nervous now as they felt no bond with their riders. Set looked down and located the mountain range that held his prison. He smiled at seeing the valley, so tiny from the air that held the building that the Ancient Ones had built to contain him. He planned to raze the tiny temple to the ground and erect a temple so splendid that kings and priests would come from all over the world to worship their new Lord there. The other temples would be pleasure houses for his followers. He planned to have the temple of Bastet changed into a brothel. She had, after all, been worshiped as the goddess of joy. Perhaps he would recall the Amazons from the plane they were imprisoned on to be the slaves for the pleasure of his servants.

The Snake God laughed as he thought about these plans and drew his troop down onto the mountain top above the valley. He reached out to locate his prey down below but could not get a sense of the two men.

“Hmm, interesting,” Set said as he dismounted. Mace and the other followed him. “I wonder where they are. Perhaps they have not gotten here or perhaps the nature of this place makes them invisible to my senses.”

“Or perhaps they have found help that will crush you like an insignificant bug,” Mace answered. If words were all he had to fight with, the tall warrior decided to use his only weapon as best he could.

Set laughed out loud. The hissing sound echoed through the valley. “Ah, my poor Mace,” he said. “Insolent but ineffective.” He looked back down at the valley and then at the rising sun.

***************

"The Hero's scroll clearly states..."
Can't argue with that!
{{{Bastet}}}

Keeps getting more interesting