Chapter 9
Todeswind
Begrudgingly thread marking.
- Location
- Ry'leth
I left the majority of my parade in the main party hall to engage in celebrations with the Jaffa of Bastet and Zeus. Those Olympian guardsmen not unfortunate enough to be on duty were already three sheets to the wind, lounging on sofas and cushions in truly massive hall laid out for the party to beat all parties. It was large enough to fit everyone who'd come to attend the Olympics, with space for the many hundreds of Goa'uld rulers lost to time and war. The toga clad Jaffa greeted my Jaffa like brothers, offering them bread and meat from their table while telling raucous jokes and inviting them to watch holographic displays of the Goa'uld still racing up the mountainside.
I was actually surprised to see Ul'tak embrace the First Prime of Bastet. A gorgeous woman with tan skin and dark eyes, the First Prime of Bastet would have been remarkable for her looks alone but I had it on good authority that her prowess as a General made her beauty the least of her talents. Bastet was one of the few Goa'uld who exclusively used female Jaffa in her armies, using male Jaffa as either functionaries or guardians for her sub-lords.
Though I knew that Ul'tak had spent most of the year planning a counter-invasion of Bastet's territory in the event she decided to invade my own holdings, he was speaking with treating his contemporary like an old friend rather than someone he'd kill as soon as blinking. It was just… nice. I knew that the Olympics had once been a time where all men put aside their grudges and old hatreds, I'd just never quite seen it in the Olympics I'd watched.
The lion-men of Bastet found themselves gravitating towards my Unas by default, both groups of carnivores heading for a table heaped with freshly slaughtered raw meat. The predators snarled at each other as they devoured flesh but otherwise seemed content to ignore each other as they devoured hunks of bloody bovine.
I found myself almost sad that I wasn't sitting down with my sub-lords and wives to break bread as they all fell into a comfortable mass of laughter and stories. Heracles smiled broadly at the happy people all around him, crossing his thick thews over his barrel chest muscles and stretching out the Leonine cloak, "It is always good to see the peace of the Olympics. There is too much war."
"Amen to that," I chuckled. "But I'm not here to enjoy the party."
"No." Heracles' face grew grim. "I suppose you are not. Father is expecting you but I warn you he is… a bit distracted at the moment."
"I need to see the crime scene as soon as possible." I shook my head. "It very well may have been too long for me to get anything useful from it, but the trail is only going to grow colder with time."
"A logical course of action." Heracles nodded, letting out a long suffering sigh and rolling his eyes skyward. "My uncle warned me that you would be unable to partake in the festivities while you were under oath but I had not imagined this… speed in completing your duties. The gods are rarely inclined to deny indulgence."
"I've never been particularly good at acting like a god." I intoned, gesturing towards Ul'tak over the shoulder of Bastet's First Prime. The Jaffa nodded, taking his leave from his contemporary and walking over to me.
One by one I drew the attention of those I would need for my investigation. Bob, Enlil, Ul'tak and Muminah would be coming with me. Bob because I needed someone to provide me perspective on the crime scene, Enlil because I needed someone more familiar with Goa'uld politics than I was, Ul'tak because it wouldn't do to not have my most trusted bodyguard present and Muminah because if even a tenth of the rumors about Zeus were true I needed someone to distract him from directing all of his attention towards myself. Muminah was very good at being distracting - especially given how perspiration had turned her already sheer garment more or less transparent.
Heracles joked animatedly with Ul'tak as we walked deeper into the palace, going out of his way to make it appear that we were just engaging in idle revelry before we made our way past a guard post and he was able to close a bulkhead behind us. The massive Jaffa pulled a small device from his belt and flipped a switch. Judging by the readouts on my helmet's display he was actively jamming any listening devices we might have.
His joyous demeanor turned deadly serious as he stopped abruptly in the hallway and turned to me. "Before we go any further, I will have your promise, Lord Warden. I need you to promise me that you will solve my Father's murder and see that those conspirators involved are brought to justice. They will meet deserving ends."
"You dare to - " I cut off the start of Enlil's furious tirade with a raised finger in his direction.
"Heracles, I understand that you don't know me. And I'm not part of your patheon so you have no reason to trust me, but I am not a liar." I shook my head. "I have given my word to Hades that I will solve this murder, out of self interest if nothing else. But if it needs be, I promise on my power - I will solve the mystery of who is responsible for your Father's death."
"And if it requires that you kill those of the Olympian pantheon to see justice done?" Heracles intoned dangerously.
"I will not allow justice to go undone." I intoned.
Heracles grinned widely. "I knew I would like you. But know this, Lord Warden, Olympus is full of vipers. Trust no-one."
"A planet full of Goa'uld can't be trusted? No - say it isn't so." Bob joked, leaning down to stage-whisper to Enlil. The Babylonian god barely managed to stifle his laughter with a cough.
Heracles glared at Enlil then back at me. "Is his presence required?"
"He's loyal to me." I replied, then after thinking about it for a second I added, "And he has no other options other than loyalty to me. His knowledge is required."
"Then I will have your promise that you will not tell what you learn from this investigation to anyone else. Your discretion is required, as is that of your servants. If they betray your trust I expect you to punish them." Heracles intoned.
"I do so swear it on my power." I said, feeling the magical power making the contract. There was a sucking sensation in the room as the air ionized around me.
Heracles nodded once, then dismissed Enlil from his regard. "We are within the first passage leading to the sanctum of Olympus. There are ten passages one must pass through to reach the King of Gods. Each is guarded and each requires a different method to open them. We will pass them to enter. The first is the simplest - Olympian guardsmen are implanted with a subdermal implant that our secured doors recognize."
"Turrets?" Asked Ul'tak, looking up at the crevasses along the hall.
"Turrets," Heracles agreed, pointing them out as he walked. They were nestled behind gaudy statues, hidden in the shadows but positioned to force any progression through them to be slow and bloody.
As we reached the second gate Heracles put his hand in the mouth of a statue of an ogre, he cut his finger on the statue's tooth and the wall lifted to reveal a passageway beyond it. "The second door is programmed to recognize the genetics of trusted servants."
There were many Olympian guardsmen within the second passage, all of them bearing weapons and armor of the finest quality. They saluted Heracles but otherwise paid us no mind, keeping their attention on the door as it closed. We passed them, heading for yet another door.
This one was protected by a forcefield instead of a door. It glowed a violent green color that hissed malevolently as Heracles approached it. He pulled a broach from his belt and touched it to the energy. The green wall dissipated, melting back into the door frame as he did so. I realized that it had filled the entire room, not just the door-frame.
"Nasty stuff," Bob the mummy shivered. "That would have disintegrated anyone who entered it."
"Unless they had a key." Heracles agreed. We walked into the third passage and on to a raised plinth with a set of ring transporters on it. Heracles touched his wrist and to my surprise, rather than teleporting us an elevator descended down beneath the rings. It was a good trap. Pretty much any Goa'uld or Jaffa who saw rings would assume that the rings lead to the fifth passage.
Enlil let out an approving whistle and asked, "Where would that have taken us if we were foolish enough to use the rings?"
Heracles ignored the question until I spoke. "I would like to know that."
"Some questions are best left unconsidered." Heracles replied, shuddering at the idea of wherever that was. "Suffice it to say, you wouldn't be coming back."
I was only marginally sure the fifth passage was an improvement. Its walls were lined with thick metal doors. I could hear the sounds of horrific things behind them, screeching and hissing. Heracles let us across the tiles, indicating which were safe to stand on as we went. Apparently a missed step would unleash the beasts within.
There was no door to the sixth passage, not that there needed to be one. The fifth passage opened up to a gaping chasm leading to a sheer stone wall on the other side. My jaw nearly dropped when the First Prime of Zeus raised his hand and spoke a word that opened a way to the Nevernever. My eyes flitted to the door-jam and I realized that a ritual had been placed upon it, probably before the folly of Thoth.
We followed him through another hallway, this one made of thick brambles and moss covered stones. Heracles nodded approvingly as we walked through it without issue and out the other side. "You did not lie, Lord Warden. You came here with no ill-intent to Zeus. If you had meant to harm him, his ancient pact with the Summer Fae would have consumed you."
I looked back at the brambles as the way closed, their thorns looking more ominous as I realized they were shifting ever so slightly. Would the whole passage have collapsed in on me like a venus fly trap if I'd come meaning him harm? How would an assassin hope to get past those?
As we walked through the eighth passage I was keenly aware of the twinge of ancient magics. Someone had placed wards upon the stones we walked through - powerful magical defenses to do grievous harm to spirits or creatures of the Nevernever. And if that wasn't enough there was a massive cannon facing us that seemed to have been taken from a Goa'uld warship. Olympian guardsmen stood around it, watching us with predatory interest. They allowed us to pass, Heracles sticking his hand into yet another statue's mouth.
This one didn't take his blood. Instead I felt a rush of magical energy as it consumed something. I looked to Bob in curiosity. His eye lights flickered before he confirmed my suspicion. "It took a bit of his life force - his soul. Not enough that it won't grow back but you can't fake your soul."
Heracles pulled back his hand, shaking it in apparent pain as another bulkhead lifted. We then came face to face with a creature I'd never actually expected to see. The massive sphynx barely fit into the room it was in, it's naked female torso clashing with its wings and leonine body. The creature's mouth had been sewn shut and its' eyes had been replaced with glimmering orbs of crystal. It leaned down to sniff us, purring angrily. I noted that it's body seemed to have been injured lately and its wounded bodyparts had been replaced with Goa'uld cybernetics rather than waiting for it to heal naturally.
"What did that?" I blanched at the two story, cybernetic monstrosity before me. "How? What could have gotten past everything else?"
"Nothing should have been able to. Something did. Something followed Zeus into his inner sanctum, not managing to trip any alarms till the ninth passage. I found the Sphinx here, on the verge of death and the guards on the cannon ripped to shreds." He pointed to the delirious seeming monstrosity as it towered over us, looking at us with dead, crystalline eyes.
"Why is its mouth sewn shut?" Asked Muminah. "Can it not speak?"
"I dare not free it to talk." Heracles shuddered. "It remembers the time before the Folly and Fall. It remembers names that cannot be said aloud."
"Are you kidding me? I have a freaking witness and she can't speak because we're worried that she's going to summon an eldritch abomination?" I waved at the cybernetic sphynx. "Why even have her here then?"
"Because it remembers the creatures that the rest of us have forgotten on sight. It could defeat an entire army by itself if it were allowed to roam free." Heracles replied, looking sadly at the creature. He raised his wrist, prodding a bracer as he did so. The creature hissed in pain and seemed to dissolve into sand, melting into the floor. "Come, it has been dismissed. It will not attempt to stop us."
He opened the door to the tenth passage by touching a series of symbols on it. He nodded at them, "There are ten thousand riddles to open this door. One must be able to know where to look on the door to find the question, then know the exact answer to open it. If one answers incorrectly the Sphynx is given free reign to slaughter you."
The door opened into a corridor that glowed with a hideous glow that chilled me to the bone. A forcefield was the only barrier between us and a floor, walls and ceiling made of pure deathstone. Someone had made a mordite mosaic.
Against my better judgement we crossed the forcefield after the First-prime of Zeus. Even Bob seemed unsettled by that much deathstone. I could survive mordite without much bother, but as I didn't want that to be public knowledge I made a show of seeming bothered by the deathstone. Only Muminah was unbothered by it, her faith in me greater than her fear of death.
We reached the last door, a featureless slab of marble and Heracles waved to it. "This is the final door."
We waited several moments before I realized what he was implying. "Even you don't know how to open this one, do you?"
"No." The first prime of Zeus nodded. "Only Zeus, Poseidon and Hades have that knowledge."
"I mean, not to belabor the obvious, but Zeus does clone himself. Couldn't one of his clones open the door?" I waved at the slab. "I can't imagine the clones are thrilled if they become second banana."
"No, Lord Warden, every time a new Zeus becomes King of the Gods the three brothers change the key to enter this room." Heracles shook his head. "Zeus shares it with none of his peers, not even his beloved son."
"You could be lying to me." I replied, calmly. "It is not lost on me that you're one of the suspects who'd be in a prime position to kill your employer."
"I could no more betray him than betray my own hand." He turned around, pointing to a raised lump at the base of his skull. "When Zeus clones me after one of me dies he puts in an implant that reads my thoughts. If I were to try to betray him I would die in an instant and another Heracles would replace me before my body hit the ground."
"A wise course of action." Ul'tak gave me a pointed look. "Perhaps my own Lord could benefit from the addition of such loyalty measures."
"Ul'tak, now is not the time to discuss the ritual." I glared at him before looking at Enlil. "We will of course be verifying that this is true."
Enlil nodded once but judging by his expression, he seemed to find Heracles' alabi credible. That was actually something of a relief. I didn't want to have to kill Heracles. I still kinda thought of the guy as a hero even if I knew some of the horrible things he'd done on Zeus' behalf. Plus I didn't know if I could make it out without his help. That would definitely suck.
There was a long pause before I asked, "Uh… so what are we waiting for?"
"That," Heracles intoned before the door opened and a naked woman scurried out from the space. She was holding a bag full of coins and quite entirely naked. There were tears in her eyes as she reached the center of the room and there was a sudden whoosh of rings appearing from its center and heading upwards as she ran past the mordite and into the Sphynx room.
Enlil groaned in incredulity. "There are ring devices down here? Why bother even having precautions if you have a teleporter?"
"They only go one way - their purpose is to allow Zeus dalliances a fast exit when he grows tired of them." Heracles walked through the open door as loud fleshy sounds echoed out from Zeus inner sanctum. I would hesitate to call the noises I heard to be pleasure.
Even without the sight I wasn't going to be able to unsee what was going on in the private quarters of the God King of Olympus. The myths of Zeus tastes hadn't been exaggerated in the slightest. Sandwiched between two buxom women was an oversized, plump Swan that was honking loudly as it flapped its wings animatedly between them. It's eyes glowed with the tint of the Goa'uld as it looked into the face of its abandoned clone body as the barely sentient host body clapped animatedly watching the unholy coupling happening on top of a table full of food.
"That's… much even for me, Boss." Bob intoned in bemusement as the trio seemed to reach their final rictus of rapture, pulling themselves apart and demonstrating that both the Swan and one of the women seemed to have been surgically altered have anatomy one generally didn't associate with either women or swans. The swan looked up at us and promptly ejected a Goa'uld serpent from it's throat, vomiting the symbiote across the room and towards Zeus' human host.
The King of the Sky took a non-traditional route into his host as he slithered up the leg of the drooling clone and up its toga. There was a decidedly unpleasant squelch before the Zeus demonstrated that his clothing had not been properly designed to conceal his modesty as he stood up, leering in my direction as he tossed a coin purse to the woman lying face down on the table. She grasped the purse and rushed out the door, seemingly too ashamed to worry if she was forcing her way past Goa'uld System Lord.
Zeus kissed the remaining… woman? Yes… woman I guess, before placing her on a circular pad that glowed with blue energy, seemingly freezing her in time. He then corralled the swan upon another platform, freezing it as well. Sheets lowered over both pillars, suddenly giving the existing sheets lining the walls deeply disturbing implications.
"Lord Warden," Spoke Zeus, his face upturned in a paternal smile that did not match the debauchery he had just been engaging in. "Welcome to my home."
I was actually surprised to see Ul'tak embrace the First Prime of Bastet. A gorgeous woman with tan skin and dark eyes, the First Prime of Bastet would have been remarkable for her looks alone but I had it on good authority that her prowess as a General made her beauty the least of her talents. Bastet was one of the few Goa'uld who exclusively used female Jaffa in her armies, using male Jaffa as either functionaries or guardians for her sub-lords.
Though I knew that Ul'tak had spent most of the year planning a counter-invasion of Bastet's territory in the event she decided to invade my own holdings, he was speaking with treating his contemporary like an old friend rather than someone he'd kill as soon as blinking. It was just… nice. I knew that the Olympics had once been a time where all men put aside their grudges and old hatreds, I'd just never quite seen it in the Olympics I'd watched.
The lion-men of Bastet found themselves gravitating towards my Unas by default, both groups of carnivores heading for a table heaped with freshly slaughtered raw meat. The predators snarled at each other as they devoured flesh but otherwise seemed content to ignore each other as they devoured hunks of bloody bovine.
I found myself almost sad that I wasn't sitting down with my sub-lords and wives to break bread as they all fell into a comfortable mass of laughter and stories. Heracles smiled broadly at the happy people all around him, crossing his thick thews over his barrel chest muscles and stretching out the Leonine cloak, "It is always good to see the peace of the Olympics. There is too much war."
"Amen to that," I chuckled. "But I'm not here to enjoy the party."
"No." Heracles' face grew grim. "I suppose you are not. Father is expecting you but I warn you he is… a bit distracted at the moment."
"I need to see the crime scene as soon as possible." I shook my head. "It very well may have been too long for me to get anything useful from it, but the trail is only going to grow colder with time."
"A logical course of action." Heracles nodded, letting out a long suffering sigh and rolling his eyes skyward. "My uncle warned me that you would be unable to partake in the festivities while you were under oath but I had not imagined this… speed in completing your duties. The gods are rarely inclined to deny indulgence."
"I've never been particularly good at acting like a god." I intoned, gesturing towards Ul'tak over the shoulder of Bastet's First Prime. The Jaffa nodded, taking his leave from his contemporary and walking over to me.
One by one I drew the attention of those I would need for my investigation. Bob, Enlil, Ul'tak and Muminah would be coming with me. Bob because I needed someone to provide me perspective on the crime scene, Enlil because I needed someone more familiar with Goa'uld politics than I was, Ul'tak because it wouldn't do to not have my most trusted bodyguard present and Muminah because if even a tenth of the rumors about Zeus were true I needed someone to distract him from directing all of his attention towards myself. Muminah was very good at being distracting - especially given how perspiration had turned her already sheer garment more or less transparent.
Heracles joked animatedly with Ul'tak as we walked deeper into the palace, going out of his way to make it appear that we were just engaging in idle revelry before we made our way past a guard post and he was able to close a bulkhead behind us. The massive Jaffa pulled a small device from his belt and flipped a switch. Judging by the readouts on my helmet's display he was actively jamming any listening devices we might have.
His joyous demeanor turned deadly serious as he stopped abruptly in the hallway and turned to me. "Before we go any further, I will have your promise, Lord Warden. I need you to promise me that you will solve my Father's murder and see that those conspirators involved are brought to justice. They will meet deserving ends."
"You dare to - " I cut off the start of Enlil's furious tirade with a raised finger in his direction.
"Heracles, I understand that you don't know me. And I'm not part of your patheon so you have no reason to trust me, but I am not a liar." I shook my head. "I have given my word to Hades that I will solve this murder, out of self interest if nothing else. But if it needs be, I promise on my power - I will solve the mystery of who is responsible for your Father's death."
"And if it requires that you kill those of the Olympian pantheon to see justice done?" Heracles intoned dangerously.
"I will not allow justice to go undone." I intoned.
Heracles grinned widely. "I knew I would like you. But know this, Lord Warden, Olympus is full of vipers. Trust no-one."
"A planet full of Goa'uld can't be trusted? No - say it isn't so." Bob joked, leaning down to stage-whisper to Enlil. The Babylonian god barely managed to stifle his laughter with a cough.
Heracles glared at Enlil then back at me. "Is his presence required?"
"He's loyal to me." I replied, then after thinking about it for a second I added, "And he has no other options other than loyalty to me. His knowledge is required."
"Then I will have your promise that you will not tell what you learn from this investigation to anyone else. Your discretion is required, as is that of your servants. If they betray your trust I expect you to punish them." Heracles intoned.
"I do so swear it on my power." I said, feeling the magical power making the contract. There was a sucking sensation in the room as the air ionized around me.
Heracles nodded once, then dismissed Enlil from his regard. "We are within the first passage leading to the sanctum of Olympus. There are ten passages one must pass through to reach the King of Gods. Each is guarded and each requires a different method to open them. We will pass them to enter. The first is the simplest - Olympian guardsmen are implanted with a subdermal implant that our secured doors recognize."
"Turrets?" Asked Ul'tak, looking up at the crevasses along the hall.
"Turrets," Heracles agreed, pointing them out as he walked. They were nestled behind gaudy statues, hidden in the shadows but positioned to force any progression through them to be slow and bloody.
As we reached the second gate Heracles put his hand in the mouth of a statue of an ogre, he cut his finger on the statue's tooth and the wall lifted to reveal a passageway beyond it. "The second door is programmed to recognize the genetics of trusted servants."
There were many Olympian guardsmen within the second passage, all of them bearing weapons and armor of the finest quality. They saluted Heracles but otherwise paid us no mind, keeping their attention on the door as it closed. We passed them, heading for yet another door.
This one was protected by a forcefield instead of a door. It glowed a violent green color that hissed malevolently as Heracles approached it. He pulled a broach from his belt and touched it to the energy. The green wall dissipated, melting back into the door frame as he did so. I realized that it had filled the entire room, not just the door-frame.
"Nasty stuff," Bob the mummy shivered. "That would have disintegrated anyone who entered it."
"Unless they had a key." Heracles agreed. We walked into the third passage and on to a raised plinth with a set of ring transporters on it. Heracles touched his wrist and to my surprise, rather than teleporting us an elevator descended down beneath the rings. It was a good trap. Pretty much any Goa'uld or Jaffa who saw rings would assume that the rings lead to the fifth passage.
Enlil let out an approving whistle and asked, "Where would that have taken us if we were foolish enough to use the rings?"
Heracles ignored the question until I spoke. "I would like to know that."
"Some questions are best left unconsidered." Heracles replied, shuddering at the idea of wherever that was. "Suffice it to say, you wouldn't be coming back."
I was only marginally sure the fifth passage was an improvement. Its walls were lined with thick metal doors. I could hear the sounds of horrific things behind them, screeching and hissing. Heracles let us across the tiles, indicating which were safe to stand on as we went. Apparently a missed step would unleash the beasts within.
There was no door to the sixth passage, not that there needed to be one. The fifth passage opened up to a gaping chasm leading to a sheer stone wall on the other side. My jaw nearly dropped when the First Prime of Zeus raised his hand and spoke a word that opened a way to the Nevernever. My eyes flitted to the door-jam and I realized that a ritual had been placed upon it, probably before the folly of Thoth.
We followed him through another hallway, this one made of thick brambles and moss covered stones. Heracles nodded approvingly as we walked through it without issue and out the other side. "You did not lie, Lord Warden. You came here with no ill-intent to Zeus. If you had meant to harm him, his ancient pact with the Summer Fae would have consumed you."
I looked back at the brambles as the way closed, their thorns looking more ominous as I realized they were shifting ever so slightly. Would the whole passage have collapsed in on me like a venus fly trap if I'd come meaning him harm? How would an assassin hope to get past those?
As we walked through the eighth passage I was keenly aware of the twinge of ancient magics. Someone had placed wards upon the stones we walked through - powerful magical defenses to do grievous harm to spirits or creatures of the Nevernever. And if that wasn't enough there was a massive cannon facing us that seemed to have been taken from a Goa'uld warship. Olympian guardsmen stood around it, watching us with predatory interest. They allowed us to pass, Heracles sticking his hand into yet another statue's mouth.
This one didn't take his blood. Instead I felt a rush of magical energy as it consumed something. I looked to Bob in curiosity. His eye lights flickered before he confirmed my suspicion. "It took a bit of his life force - his soul. Not enough that it won't grow back but you can't fake your soul."
Heracles pulled back his hand, shaking it in apparent pain as another bulkhead lifted. We then came face to face with a creature I'd never actually expected to see. The massive sphynx barely fit into the room it was in, it's naked female torso clashing with its wings and leonine body. The creature's mouth had been sewn shut and its' eyes had been replaced with glimmering orbs of crystal. It leaned down to sniff us, purring angrily. I noted that it's body seemed to have been injured lately and its wounded bodyparts had been replaced with Goa'uld cybernetics rather than waiting for it to heal naturally.
"What did that?" I blanched at the two story, cybernetic monstrosity before me. "How? What could have gotten past everything else?"
"Nothing should have been able to. Something did. Something followed Zeus into his inner sanctum, not managing to trip any alarms till the ninth passage. I found the Sphinx here, on the verge of death and the guards on the cannon ripped to shreds." He pointed to the delirious seeming monstrosity as it towered over us, looking at us with dead, crystalline eyes.
"Why is its mouth sewn shut?" Asked Muminah. "Can it not speak?"
"I dare not free it to talk." Heracles shuddered. "It remembers the time before the Folly and Fall. It remembers names that cannot be said aloud."
"Are you kidding me? I have a freaking witness and she can't speak because we're worried that she's going to summon an eldritch abomination?" I waved at the cybernetic sphynx. "Why even have her here then?"
"Because it remembers the creatures that the rest of us have forgotten on sight. It could defeat an entire army by itself if it were allowed to roam free." Heracles replied, looking sadly at the creature. He raised his wrist, prodding a bracer as he did so. The creature hissed in pain and seemed to dissolve into sand, melting into the floor. "Come, it has been dismissed. It will not attempt to stop us."
He opened the door to the tenth passage by touching a series of symbols on it. He nodded at them, "There are ten thousand riddles to open this door. One must be able to know where to look on the door to find the question, then know the exact answer to open it. If one answers incorrectly the Sphynx is given free reign to slaughter you."
The door opened into a corridor that glowed with a hideous glow that chilled me to the bone. A forcefield was the only barrier between us and a floor, walls and ceiling made of pure deathstone. Someone had made a mordite mosaic.
Against my better judgement we crossed the forcefield after the First-prime of Zeus. Even Bob seemed unsettled by that much deathstone. I could survive mordite without much bother, but as I didn't want that to be public knowledge I made a show of seeming bothered by the deathstone. Only Muminah was unbothered by it, her faith in me greater than her fear of death.
We reached the last door, a featureless slab of marble and Heracles waved to it. "This is the final door."
We waited several moments before I realized what he was implying. "Even you don't know how to open this one, do you?"
"No." The first prime of Zeus nodded. "Only Zeus, Poseidon and Hades have that knowledge."
"I mean, not to belabor the obvious, but Zeus does clone himself. Couldn't one of his clones open the door?" I waved at the slab. "I can't imagine the clones are thrilled if they become second banana."
"No, Lord Warden, every time a new Zeus becomes King of the Gods the three brothers change the key to enter this room." Heracles shook his head. "Zeus shares it with none of his peers, not even his beloved son."
"You could be lying to me." I replied, calmly. "It is not lost on me that you're one of the suspects who'd be in a prime position to kill your employer."
"I could no more betray him than betray my own hand." He turned around, pointing to a raised lump at the base of his skull. "When Zeus clones me after one of me dies he puts in an implant that reads my thoughts. If I were to try to betray him I would die in an instant and another Heracles would replace me before my body hit the ground."
"A wise course of action." Ul'tak gave me a pointed look. "Perhaps my own Lord could benefit from the addition of such loyalty measures."
"Ul'tak, now is not the time to discuss the ritual." I glared at him before looking at Enlil. "We will of course be verifying that this is true."
Enlil nodded once but judging by his expression, he seemed to find Heracles' alabi credible. That was actually something of a relief. I didn't want to have to kill Heracles. I still kinda thought of the guy as a hero even if I knew some of the horrible things he'd done on Zeus' behalf. Plus I didn't know if I could make it out without his help. That would definitely suck.
There was a long pause before I asked, "Uh… so what are we waiting for?"
"That," Heracles intoned before the door opened and a naked woman scurried out from the space. She was holding a bag full of coins and quite entirely naked. There were tears in her eyes as she reached the center of the room and there was a sudden whoosh of rings appearing from its center and heading upwards as she ran past the mordite and into the Sphynx room.
Enlil groaned in incredulity. "There are ring devices down here? Why bother even having precautions if you have a teleporter?"
"They only go one way - their purpose is to allow Zeus dalliances a fast exit when he grows tired of them." Heracles walked through the open door as loud fleshy sounds echoed out from Zeus inner sanctum. I would hesitate to call the noises I heard to be pleasure.
Even without the sight I wasn't going to be able to unsee what was going on in the private quarters of the God King of Olympus. The myths of Zeus tastes hadn't been exaggerated in the slightest. Sandwiched between two buxom women was an oversized, plump Swan that was honking loudly as it flapped its wings animatedly between them. It's eyes glowed with the tint of the Goa'uld as it looked into the face of its abandoned clone body as the barely sentient host body clapped animatedly watching the unholy coupling happening on top of a table full of food.
"That's… much even for me, Boss." Bob intoned in bemusement as the trio seemed to reach their final rictus of rapture, pulling themselves apart and demonstrating that both the Swan and one of the women seemed to have been surgically altered have anatomy one generally didn't associate with either women or swans. The swan looked up at us and promptly ejected a Goa'uld serpent from it's throat, vomiting the symbiote across the room and towards Zeus' human host.
The King of the Sky took a non-traditional route into his host as he slithered up the leg of the drooling clone and up its toga. There was a decidedly unpleasant squelch before the Zeus demonstrated that his clothing had not been properly designed to conceal his modesty as he stood up, leering in my direction as he tossed a coin purse to the woman lying face down on the table. She grasped the purse and rushed out the door, seemingly too ashamed to worry if she was forcing her way past Goa'uld System Lord.
Zeus kissed the remaining… woman? Yes… woman I guess, before placing her on a circular pad that glowed with blue energy, seemingly freezing her in time. He then corralled the swan upon another platform, freezing it as well. Sheets lowered over both pillars, suddenly giving the existing sheets lining the walls deeply disturbing implications.
"Lord Warden," Spoke Zeus, his face upturned in a paternal smile that did not match the debauchery he had just been engaging in. "Welcome to my home."
