Chapter 29: Cancer I
After they both calmed down, Alex and Jen kept walking through the corridor under the merciless sunlight. As they walked, the sun got brighter and hotter, which led them to think it must have been around noon.
Alex was dead silent, he barely opened his mouth, and when he did it was to let out an exhausted sigh. Jen threw sideways looks at him every now and then, but she was so hot and tired she didn't really want to start a conversation she knew he wouldn't follow, so she just let him reflex on whatever it was that was keeping his mind occupied.
The sun was at it's highest point, filling every inch of the corridor with it's light and –most importantly- its unbearable heat.
Alex stopped walking and lay against one of the walls, breathing heavily. Jen stopped and lay against the wall next to him.
"You ok?" she asked.
"It's too hot," he said, summoning water from his glove, the last bottle left. "Damn! I have to economize,"
Jen checked her glove. "Me too, I only have two bottles left and I don't think this corridor will end up any time soon," she said.
"How long do you think we've walked?" he asked, throwing glances at both directions of the corridor.
"I don't know, but it's been at least three miles," she took several deep breaths, "Unless I way too out of shape,"
"No, you're fine," he said distractedly. "Remember the heat also has an influence on the runner's resistance," He hadn't even looked at her, and was talking to her in second plane, distractedly, still thinking about something else.
Jen, after drinking a couple of sips of water, put her hand on his shoulder. "Baby, are you ok? You've been distracted,"
He finally looked at her, and it was as if he was seeing her for the very first time. For a few seconds he couldn't match her face to a person. "I'm fine," he said simply, still staring at her. Finally the weird sensation of not knowing her went away, and he grabbed her hand. "I just…I just need to think,"
"Ok," she said with a smile. "Think away," with that, she kissed his cheek and moved away from the wall, to keep walking. Still looking distracted, he followed her silently.
After a few minutes later, or maybe hours they had lost track of time completely; they were blinded by flares. The bright sunlight was reflecting on a water surface that had some very small, barely there waves. The Drakes stood at the border of the water and looked at each other.
"Now what?" Jen asked, still seeing bright light dots in front of her eyes.
"I don't know," Alex said, looking around. He closed his eyes at the hurting light that reflected from the water surface, and then pressed his index finger behind his ear and summoned his shades. "Much better," he admitted. Jen, feeling a little stupid, followed his lead. Alex looked around, trying to find something that indicated how to go on. He felt a tug on his shirt and looked at Jen, who was kneeling next to him.
"Look at this," she said. He kneeled too and was able to see a ludicrously small inscription on the floor that said: "Demand Helios for the goblet." as Jen read.
"Goblet?" he repeated. "What goblet?" He said standing up.
She stood up as well. "Do you remember what Tao said about the task of the Cattle of Geryon?"
"Not really," Alex said, again looking away from her.
"He said Heracles shot an arrow at Helios because the heat was unbearable and the God begged him to stop, so Heracles demanded to borrow his Golden Goblet, which the God obliged. And let's face it, the heat is unbearable,"
"But there are no arrows here, and what good is it going to do for us to shoot an arrow at the sun? I bet Helios is not exactly going to let us borrow his golden goblet,"
"You have think symbolically!" She said cheerfully. She began fumbling with her glove. "We don't have arrows, but we do have this," she said, showing him a small hand blaster she had summoned from her glove.
"You plan to fire a laser blaster at the sun?" he asked trying, and failing, to hide a smile.
"Well, of course!" she said, aiming upwards and shooting several times.
Of course, nothing happened. "There, you wasted five perfectly good shots,"
"Do you have a better idea?" she asked angrily.
"No," he admitted, looking at the water distractedly again.
Jen began to play with her scanner just for the sake of it. After a few minutes she sucked in a sharp breath. "I don't believe it!" she said.
"What?" Alex said, throwing her a quick glance over his shoulder.
"They tricked us twice with the same trick!"
"What do you mean?"
She aimed her blaster, this time at what seemed to be an specific direction. She aimed at where the ball of the sun, the big spot that's the brightest of the sky, was. Much to Alex's surprise, something did happen this time when she shot four times.
With a loud splatter a golden boat, big enough for both of them, fell in front of them directly from the sky, as far as Alex could tell.
"Ok, where did that come from?" He asked, looking at the vehicle and shaking off the water from his clothes, for both of them had been soaked.
"I'm not sure, it was held up by four ropes, the sun hurt our eyes and forced us to close them, so we couldn't see it. Like the bars from Gemini," she reminded him.
"Oh, I see," He said, moving closer to the ship.
Inside the boat- a small boat painted gold just to keep the theatric feeling; there were two rows and enough space for both of them.
"Well, I guess we have to row to the other side" he guessed, entering . Jen got on board as well and sat, ready to start rowing.
"Where to?" she asked.
"Let's keep the same direction, and see where it takes us," he suggested.
"As good as anything," she said.
"Ready?"
"Yep,"
"Let's go," they began rowing, keeping a slow but powerful rhythm. Jen kept the count and led, while Alex simply took advantage of the monotone physical activity to continue his mute meditation.
Jen kept the rhythm steady and rowed slowly from the brightly lit water, slowly into a darker fresher environment, until they could see the other end of the pond. "Heads up, we are almost there," she said.
He snapped out of his thinking and helped her get as close as possible. They both got out of the ship, not without getting even more wet.
The harbor, if it could be called that, was made of a reddish stone, definitely not marble, but highly polished as well. It was a large squared area that ended only a few yards away in a large wall with a small hole, about the size of a door, from which a trembling multicolored light was coming out of. Over this hole there was a huge and very detailed engraving of a very ferocious looking two-headed dog: Orhtrus, the watch dog of Geryon's Cattle.
Alex pointed down at the floor, near the place where they had gotten out of the ship, where an inscription, made in golden letter over the red stone read: "Island of Erytheia."
When Jen and Alex walked closer to the wall, they could read another inscription in the red stone: "Orthrus, The two-headed Watch-Dog."
Jen looked up at the imposing and fear-inspiring dog, who's two heads were baring their teeth and his eyes were contracted in angry slits. A shiver ran down her body a the sigh of the terrifying engraving, and Alex grabbed her arms softly and indicated the door with his chin.
"We have to keep going," he said simply.
"I know,"
They both walked towards the door and the reason of the trembling multicolored light was explained at once. The floor was made of several different sized tiles that lit up in different colored patterns that changed rapidly in front of their eyes.
Alex, who had already removed his sunglasses, stared at them for a minute. Jen looked around for a clue on what to do next, but found nothing. It was Alex who spotted something interesting. "The patterns are repeating themselves," he muttered.
"What?" she asked, joining him at the door.
"The patterns of lit tiles, there are about twelve, they are repeating themselves," he explained. Jen stared at the patterns as well.
"There!" She said suddenly. "The red ones make a continuous path from here to the other side of the room," she pointed out to the opposite wall, that was about five yards away and had an opening as well.
Alex waited for the patterns to repeat themselves and nodded in agreement when he proved with his own eyes the red patterns indeed made the continuous path. Then he continued to stare at the lights, almost falling in what seemed to be a trance.
"Should we take it?" Jen asked next to him, snapping him out.
"Yes, I don't see why not," he said, moving forward, but Jen grabbed him by the arm and pushed him against the wall.
"Alex, I know you need to think, but you need to focus on the matter at hand, or we could both get hurt," she scolded.
"I'm sorry, Jennifer," he muttered, looking at the floor.
"Look, I don't know what is wrong with you, but you are taking things to the extreme. If you focus on the work, you focus on that and do nothing else. But if you can let your mind wander, then you wander around no matter what. You need to find an equilibrium, and for now, it's not about being sorry, Alexander, it's about taking action. We have to get through this and it requires all of our attention, so snap out of it and leave those thoughts you have to do for when you have nothing more important to do,"
He threw her a sad smile. "Look who's the boss now?" he joked, kissing her cheek. "Ok, so the red pattern goes to the other side, let's follow it," he said.
He waited to see which was the first red tile and put his foot in it. But when he supported all his weight in it, it gave away under his foot and his leg was submerged in a rather cool liquid. With the help of Jen he pulled his leg out and looked at the black hole, but nothing could be seen.
He moved towards Jen, who was still standing at the door and both looked at the room.
"What happened?" Alex asked.
"The colors of the patterns have changed. The red ones no longer mark the right path," she answered, not taking her eyes away from the floor. "Now it's the blue ones," she put both feet on the first blue tile and it held her weight perfectly fine. "We can't use the colors as guides, we have to learn the path by heart."
"Ok, let's do this," he said. "We can't both fit in the tiles at once, you go ahead, I'll follow you," he instructed.
"Are you letting me lead?" she asked, looking at him over her shoulder.
"You can do it," he said simply. "Go on,"
Paying careful attention at the changing patterns on the floor, and doing her best for not getting dizzy or going blind, Jen led her husband through the room of the lit tiles. Some tiles were so small she had to stand on one leg only, in others both could have stood at once, although uncomfortably. They moved faster after Jen learned the path and began to follow it without looking at the floor, although she threw glances at the lights for confirmation every now and then.
Finally she stood at the last tile and jumped out of the room, closely followed by her husband. The room where they were now was incredibly large and it was dark, except for the small square of light that entered from the previous room.
"what now?" Jen asked, and both immediately had to cover their ears for the acoustic and the echo were unbearable.
"what is this?" Alex muttered in the lowest voice he could, the acoustic of the room made it sound as if he had yelled, and the echo repeated it a dozen times.
Suddenly, the light from the previous room became less and less, a door was sliding the room where they were in shut.
They both stayed quiet, close to each other, Jen grabbed Alex's hand in fear and he drew her closer to him, holding her tight against his chest.
Then, a low light began to glow in the middle of the room and began to get brighter.
When it was bright enough, they could see a statue Geryon, the three-bodied giant, with its triple war equipment, in the middle of the room, looking fiercely at three different directions.
Then without a previous warning, it began to fall apart, with a rumble that grew, louder and louder in the darkened room. Between the acoustic and the echo, the grumble of the statue falling apart and the pieces hitting the floor grew to be as loud as the motor of an airplane.
So loud, Jen and Alex could take it and, as much as they tried to protect their ears, they were both knocked unconscious by it.
When Alex woke up, and the first thing he noticed was that the noise was over and the room was silent again. This was good news because his head was killing him, a terrible migraine making it throb painfully.
He also had a swollen spot were he had hit the floor, and he barely could open his eyes without causing more pain.
He felt a hand on his and opened his eyes the tiniest bit for the briefest of seconds to see Jen looking at him, looking just as pained. She turned to look at the pieces of the statue, and he saw a small thread of blood running down from her ear.
"Jen, your ear is bleeding," he said, and he felt the migraine disappear magically when he realized he couldn't hear his own voice, but a meaningless hum.
He was deaf.
To be continued…
