Son of Zeus, Page 3

  Dak breathed in the salty air, enjoying the warm breeze as they exited the forest and walked out onto a bluff that overlooked the city of Corinth. He felt a little burst of pride at seeing the grand buildings of classic Greek design, knowing that it was in this very place that one of the best examples of early democratic government had existed. The famous League of Corinth boasted representatives from every city-state in the Macedonian Empire except Sparta, which had its own agenda.

  Aristotle had been a key figure in organizing the League, which for many years ceased the infighting of the Greek states and helped lay the foundation for a force strong enough to counter the Persian Empire. That was, until their two best hopes at leading were murdered by a man named Pausanius.

  “Uh, Dak?” Riq said, nudging his shoulder. “Looks like you checked out there for a sec, buddy.”

  Dak realized he was staring, almost cross-eyed, at the fresco of famous Greek gods adorning one of the larger buildings. At Zeus himself. Son of Zeus . . . Could Olympias really have been behind the murders? It seemed crazy. He could barely keep straight all the things swirling in his head.

  “Earth to Dak; come innnnnn, Dak,” Sera said, stepping right in front of him.

  He snapped to his senses. “Sorry. It’s just amazing, sometimes, you know. Looking down on actual history.” This brought a pang of sadness. “And I still can’t bear the thought that everything is changing, getting all jumbled up by what we’re doing. I tell myself I’ll have the rest of my life to study it, kinda like reading a brand-new book with the same characters. I’ll just . . . miss the old book. Make sense? Or do I sound like one of Riq’s doofuseseses?”

  “No comment,” Sera said with a very knowing grin. “It makes perfect sense. It does, trust me. We all feel different weird stuff when it comes to this Hystorian business, but that binds us. We’re all weirdos together.”

  “And that’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said,” Riq added. “Come on: group hug.”

  Dak knew it was weird. Awkward. Maybe the dumbest thing they’d done yet. But he, Sera, and Riq embraced one another in a tangle of arms and shoulders, and squeezed, crushing the breath out of their lungs. A group hug for the ages, right on top of the city of Corinth, Greece.

  And it felt good.

  THE HUG had helped Sera feel better.

  As they picked their way down the sandy bluff, using weeds as handholds, she kept thinking how close they were. They didn’t have to do something so grand and amazing as prevent a mutiny or stop an entire war. This mission might be as easy as warning King Philip or Alexander the Third, making sure they were on their guard. All they had to do was prevent an assassination.

  Her instinct tried to tell her it couldn’t possibly be that easy, but she held on to hope.

  They reached the bottom of the slope and quickly made their way to the outskirts of the town, where some dwellings had laundry out to dry. It was a trick they’d become very accustomed to: good old-fashioned thievery.

  “We should really be thankful the electric dryer wasn’t invented until 1938,” Dak whispered as he pulled on something that looked like a cross between a robe and a toga. He chuckled, that sound that always served as a warning to those who knew him well. “His name was J. Ross Moore, bless him. He hailed from North Dakota and had obviously gotten sick of hanging his undies on a wire. His prototype —”

  “Dak.” Sera eyed him, then gestured at the dwellings, reminding her friend that they were standing on other people’s property, stealing their property, and could be spotted at any second. “Not the best time.”

  He nodded, not bothering to hide his disappointment. “Remind me to tell you later, then.”

  “Oh, we will,” Riq replied. “No doubt. Soon as possible.”

  “You see any sandals anywhere?” Dak asked, obviously choosing to ignore the older boy’s sarcasm. “Sneakers will not go over well in 336 BC.”

  “Let’s just wear what we’ve got until we find something better,” Sera offered. “These . . . clothes” — she gestured down at the loose-flowing material of the robe she’d pulled over her head — “should mostly hide them anyway. Man, the way these things drag on the ground, I’d hate to do laundry in this place. Dryer or no dryer.”

  Riq huffed. “Let’s just get out of here before some crazy Greek-warrior-ninja comes out and chops our heads off with a scimitar.”

  Dak shook his head. “I’ll pretend like I didn’t hear that. It was maybe the most historically inaccurate sentence in . . . history. Come on, follow me.”

  “You know where to go?” Sera asked.

  “I spotted the statue of the hegemon from the top of the bluff,” Dak answered, already on the move away from the humble dwellings. “That’s as good a place to start as any.”

  “What the heck is a hegemon anyway?” Sera asked when they reached the main street of Corinth, a bustle of markets and shops and people everywhere. It reminded Riq a bit of Baghdad except that the architecture was so different — all stone columns and frescoes. “Is it some kind of mythical beast? Lots of arms?”

  Dak stopped and turned to look at her. “Lots of . . . what are you talking about? Hegemon is another word for king. Right now it’s Philip. He’s the hegemon of the League of Corinth. All the city-states of Greece and Macedonia send representatives here to work through their issues. You know, all that political stuff. It’s basically a republic, and it keeps them all from fighting one another all the time.”

  “Most republics don’t have a king,” Riq countered. “Or a hegemon.”

  Dak shrugged. “Well, it was a good start after years of civil war. I won’t bore you with any more details.” He paused. “Unless you want me to.”

  Riq had to restrain the look of horror that wanted to pop on his face. “Uh, I think you know the answer to that one. Maybe later.”

  “Yeah. If you’re lucky. Some seriously fascinating stuff.”

  “I bet.” Riq smiled when Dak turned around and started maneuvering his way through the crowds of Corinth. The kid was a weirdo, but had really become likable. Almost to Riq’s chagrin. It had been kind of fun when all they did was fight. He looked at Sera, who knowingly winked at him.

  They turned off of the busier part of the street and entered a square with fountains and pigeons everywhere. Things were a little more relaxed here — people strolling about, lovers whispering into each other’s ears, friends eating lunch on stone benches. At the far end of the square, a huge statue of a man on a warhorse towered over the people. The man had a laurel crown on his head and a spear in his fist. Beyond the statue was a majestic building with fluted pillars — it was the tallest structure that Riq had seen so far.

  “The hegemon,” Dak whispered reverently. “And the League of Corinth. This is amazing. If you would’ve told me when I was seven years old that I’d be standing here someday . . .”

  Riq just shook his head. Sera rolled her eyes.

  “Some reason you three are here?”

  Riq spun around, startled at hearing plain English in such a place. A person stood there — he couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman because he or she was swathed in a loose robe with a deep hood pulled so far forward it obscured the face. And the voice had been muffled.

  “Wait,” Dak said, tapping Riq on the arm, “was that the translator kicking in?”

  “No,” Riq answered, alarm bells ringing inside his mind. “That was perfect English, something that no one from here . . . from this time . . . would speak.”

  “Who are you?” Sera asked, attempting, rather poorly, to throw some threat in her voice.

  The person didn’t answer, just stared at them through the darkness within the folds of his or her hood.

  “Who are you?” Sera repeated. This time she did a pretty good job of sounding tough.

  Still, the person said nothing. Then, after a few seconds, the stranger lifted the hood and pulled it back, revealing a man with a bald head. Riq took in a quick breath — scars covered the man’s face,
and one of his eyes was deeply bloodshot, as if every vessel had burst and never healed. The guy was about three doors down from death.

  “I’d say I’m a Time Warden,” the stranger said, “but you three know that’s not true. There’s nobody fitting that description at this point in time, now is there?”

  “But you could be from the future,” Dak said. “If we can do it —”

  Sera whacked Dak on the arm, right before Riq did the same. The last thing they needed to do was reveal information to the menacing weirdo.

  “Ow,” Dak responded sarcastically.

  “For the last time,” Sera said, “who are you? And what do you want with us?”

  “Who I am is none of your concern,” the man growled, as if he were an actor in a bad local theater. He pulled out a long, sharp, gleaming knife. “’Cause you’re all about to be dead, and I’d just as soon my name not spill from your lips when you meet the devil.”

  INSTEAD OF a rush of fear, Dak only felt impatience. He’d gotten used to bad guys threatening them, and right that second the only thing in the world he wanted to do was find Aristotle. This bald buffoon standing in front of him threatened to delay that meeting, and Dak wasn’t going to let that happen.

  “Sir,” he said, “I know you’re holding a knife and all, and we look pretty helpless — at least my companions do anyway — but I’m just going to give you one word of warning. We’ve been through a lot of junk, and we’re the last people on earth you want to mess with. So stand aside or pay the consequences. Your choice.”

  Sera gave him a look, and Dak wasn’t quite sure what it meant. Something between amazement and embarrassment. He figured both applied at the moment. A crowd had gathered around them, and the bald man of scars lowered himself into a crouch, the tip of his blade pointed directly at Dak.

  “Tough words for a little man,” the stranger said, once again in that growl that sounded about as authentic as Riq trying to explain the qualities of a particularly gourmet cheese. “Now just watch as I —”

  Dak would never find out what the next word to come out of the man’s mouth was going to be. Before he could spit it out, Sera had punched the man in the face. Once, hard, a stroke quick as lightning with her fist all balled up like a coiled snake.

  The man grunted, then stumbled back, flailing to catch his balance. He regained it a split second before running into the lip of the fountain — then fell backward and made an impressive splash in the churning waters. The people in the crowd around them burst into laughter and applause, just as two men in tunics and armor moved in to take the bald menace away.

  Sera held up her hand, wincing with the pain of the punch. “Let’s go find that Aristotle guy,” she said.

  Dak had never been prouder.

  Riq couldn’t wipe the smile off of his own face, and he hoped he didn’t look too goofy as he and his friends quickly made their escape from the fountain encounter with the scary-looking man who seemed to come from nowhere. Sera had shown plenty of grit over the course of their adventures, but punching a man twice her size — that quickly and that fiercely — had taken the cake.

  When they felt as if they were far enough away to avoid any further suspicion or questioning, the three of them stopped to regroup. Riq just looked at Sera in awe, but of course Dak let his thoughts spill out a mile a minute.

  “That was awesome!” he yelled, dancing back and forth on his feet like a boxer, throwing out fake punches. “I mean, I knew you had it in you, and I wasn’t surprised at all, but still . . . So cool! I was about to take care of the poor sap myself, but just as well that you did it!”

  Sera gave him an amused look and simply said, “Thanks.”

  They stood under a tree that was part of a long line bordering the front stairs of what Dak had indicated was the headquarters of the League of Corinth. How someone could know history well enough to figure that out so easily was beyond Riq — but then again, people were baffled beyond measure when they realized he could speak over two dozen languages. Even when he showed off a bit, most listeners still didn’t believe — they just assumed he was putting them on with gibberish.

  “How much do we need to worry about that dude?” Dak asked. “You don’t think he’s SQ, do you? Did Tilda get some of her people back to this time somehow? With her Eternity Ring?”

  “Seems pretty darn likely to me,” Riq responded. “There’s no way that guy was a local, and he said the words Time Warden.”

  “Who knows what Tilda is up to?” Sera murmured. Any look of satisfaction she’d gotten from punching the bald guy’s lights out had long since faded into grim worry. “We just have to hope we’re one step ahead of them. Aristotle was close to Alexander and his dad, so we have an in that she should never be able to get. Let’s just find him and make sure we keep this . . . Pausanius from getting anywhere near his target.”

  “Excellent plan,” Dak said. He and Sera both then eyed Riq to see if he approved.

  “After you,” he said with an ornate, sweeping bow, stepping aside so the other two could lead the way.

  Up the stairs they went.

  Things were a little different back in the old days.

  Sera half-expected the front entrance to have metal detectors and beefy men and women with guns strapped on their belts to watch for strangers up to no good. Not so, of course. Nothing like it — not even an ancient Greek version. Instead they found an open, breezy atrium without a soul in sight save for a man who had to be a hundred years old if he was ten. He sat at a wooden desk, staring at the huge front doors but not seeing anything. He didn’t blink or budge a muscle when Sera and the others walked in.

  Dak started to approach the guy, but Sera quickly reached out and grabbed his arm. “Are you sure we want to bother him?” she asked. “Better to ask for forgiveness than permission sometimes. Let’s just go find Aristotle.”

  Dak shook his head. “Your lack of Greek political etiquette is embarrassing. Just give me a sec with the old dude, and we’ll save ourselves hours of wandering around like dweebs.”

  “Fine,” Sera replied.

  “Careful,” Riq butt in. “He might keel over dead if you get him too excited.”

  Dak gave him an appalled look, then jogged over to the patron for the League of Corinth. Sera and Riq followed.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Dak began. “We’re . . . not from around here, but we have some very — and trust me when I say very, I mean very, very — important information for Master Aristotle.”

  “Want to throw in a couple more verys?” Riq whispered. “That’ll get us in for sure.”

  Sera elbowed him. She was the only one with official permission to give Dak a hard time.

  The old man at the desk acted as if he hadn’t heard a word or seen anyone enter the building. His eyes hadn’t so much as twitched.

  “Sir?” Dak asked. “Can you tell us where to find Aristotle?”

  Still nothing. They might as well have been talking to a statue. But Sera could see the geezer’s chest moving, although his breaths were very shallow and spaced apart.

  Dak shrugged. “Oh, well, at least we tried. So . . . I guess we just start walking around, yelling ‘Aristooooootle, where arrrrrrrrre you?’”

  “That oughta do it,” Riq answered.

  They moved to go around the man and his desk, heading for a set of marble stairs behind him, when the old guy suddenly sprang to his feet, fury animating his face. It seemed like an entirely different person had magically replaced the wrinkled zombie who’d been sitting there seconds earlier.

  “Stop!” the man yelled, his surprisingly deep voice echoing off the high stone ceiling — in ancient Greek. “None shall enter here who has not sworn the oath! Those not of the League shall suffer the consequences for even attempting such a breach against the hegemon!”

  Sera suddenly realized their mistake. The last person they’d spoken to had been speaking English. That meant their translators were only now calibrating to ancient Greek. And that meant Dak had
effectively been speaking gibberish to the man who stood between them and Arisotle.

  A thunder of footsteps sounded from down a hallway to their left. Seconds later, at least a dozen soldiers appeared, spears pointing at the three young newcomers.

  “Kill these foreigners,” the old man standing at the desk barked. “Kill them swiftly and without mercy.”

  The soldiers seemed all too eager to obey, charging forward with a chorus of yells.

  DAK FELT like he’d been thrown into the middle of a practical joke. This couldn’t be happening. The League of Corinth was about peace, about philosophy, about negotiation, about bettering the fate of man. And now Dak had some old dude calling him names at the top of his lungs and a group of manly soldiers charging at him with big, heavy spears, their points looking sharp enough to gut a half-ton pig.

  It all seemed so out of place that he almost forgot to run.

  Sera grabbed him by the arm, yanking him back to cold, ugly reality.

  They sprinted on the heels of Riq toward the stairs that led deeper into the building. As they rounded the wooden desk, Dak glared at the traitorous old geezer, red-faced and puffing his chest, standing at attention, shouting orders that were drowned out by the screaming soldiers. Dak thought those guys must’ve not seen any action in a while and wanted to make up for it by slicing three kids to tiny pieces. How had everything gone so terribly wrong?

  They hit the stairs and started leaping up them two at a time. Sera had yet to let go of Dak’s arm, like a mother shepherding her son. He wanted to rip it free — he was perfectly fine to run from bad guys on his own, thank you. But his smarter side said that he might lose his balance doing such a stupid thing.

  Up, up they went, the stairs seeming to multiply the more they ascended. They were only three from the top when something sharp poked Dak in the shoulder just as a hand gripped him by the ankle. He yelped and his arm came loose from Sera’s grip after all as he stumbled forward, smacking his head on the blunted edge of the very top step. He had a split moment to be thankful that thousands of feet had smoothed the thing out over the years, then a soldier was on top of him. There was a clatter as the spear the man had held tumbled down the marble stairs. But it was quickly replaced by the nastiest-looking dagger Dak had ever seen — all iron and sharp edges.