And Now He Writes To Heaven

by Mary Crawford

Hercules and Iolaus must defeat a monster that has frightened off an entire village. But first they have to find it...

And now he writes to heaven for his redress:
See, here's to Jove, and this to Mercury;
This to Apollo; this to the god of war;
Sweet scrolls to fly about the streets of Rome! (Titus Andronicus, Act IV, scene IV)

Iolaus woke because a feather was tickling his nose. "Gerroff, Herc," he muttered, blowing out his breath to dislodge the feather and cursing Hercules' ideas of appropriate early morning behavior. If that feather moved any lower, violence would definitely result. He hadn't slept all that well to begin with; Phrakis' barn was draughty, and the wind had risen during the night.

Now his chin was being tickled by what felt like a whole bunch of feathers.

"Yaaagh!"

Iolaus launched himself in the direction of his attacker - who squawked in a register even a demigod couldn't attain. His eyes open wide now, Iolaus stared at the befuddled chicken he'd just dislodged from his chest. The chicken stared back defiantly. For a moment the name Discord crossed his mind, but the chicken's beady stare just didn't have that sulking menace he associated with the goddess.

Iolaus shook his head at himself, glad Hercules hadn't seen this somewhat less than heroic encounter, and began to pull on his leather pants. It was still pretty early, but he didn't think he could get back to sleep before Hercules came to drag him out of bed. In any case his stomach was growling.

Carrying his vest in one hand, he stepped outside Phrakis' ramshackle barn. The morning was drizzly and overcast, the air chilly enough to raise the hair on his arms, and only the lower slopes of mount Kerkes' east side were visible. The pine forest all around him looked even darker than yesterday; it seemed to be looming on the edge of the farmyard as if it resented all signs of human habitation. Iolaus found himself eyeing his surroundings carefully, sniffing the air and checking for tracks on the muddy ground, but all he discovered were chicken scratches and a very familiar boot-print.

The water in the rain barrel was just this side of frozen, and he yelped as he splashed handfuls of it on his face and chest. Sometimes he really missed the baths of Corinth, especially the huge sunken limestone bath in Iphicles' palace. Now that was a civilized way to wake up - floating in hot water glimmering with fragrant oils, smooth stone caressing your back, and listening to the clash of dishes that signaled the preparation of a royal breakfast.

Shivering, he ducked under the low-hanging eaves and inside the farmhouse, where he barreled straight through to the fireplace and shook himself like a dog to get rid of the droplets clinging to his hair and face.

"Good morning to you too," an amused voice said behind him. Iolaus shrugged on his vest at last and turned around to let the fire warm him from behind. He bent a baleful gaze on Hercules, who gave him that utterly calm look that meant he was grinning on the inside. The demigod was seated at the rough-hewn table, slicing a wheel of dark bread that looked hard enough to use as a discus.

"Is Phrakis up yet?" Iolaus asked, looking around the room and seeing no trace of their host.

"He went out to get water for tea."

"And you let him?" Iolaus stared at Hercules, who paused for a moment, then shrugged and continued his assault upon the bread.

"I didn't want to injure his pride. Besides, even an old man can carry a bucket."

"I guess. Hope he doesn't fall into the well, though."

As far as Iolaus was concerned, it was nothing short of a miracle that Phrakis had survived a whole month on his own on this desolate farm after the last of his neighbors in the small valley had sought a home elsewhere. The old man was nearly blind and didn't seem to be quite all there at times, which made it even more reprehensible that the rest of the villagers hadn't been charitable enough to take him away with them.

Hercules and Iolaus had stumbled upon Phrakis by accident. They had been following an old trade route that had fallen into disuse, intending to climb up mount Kerkes to Saddle Pass and then onward to Thessaly, and Iolaus had been sidetracked by a promising-looking deer trail which led them right into a settlement that had clearly been abandoned; a dozen empty farmhouses with gaping holes in the roof, fences that had rotted through, vegetable plots covered in bramble bushes and stranglevine. They had stopped to see if there was a still functioning well, and found out that the settlement wasn't completely deserted when Phrakis popped up from behind a crumbling wall and threw a rock at Hercules' head. Hercules had caught the rock, of course, and once Iolaus had removed his sword from the vicinity of Phrakis' throat they had managed a fairly peaceful exchange of information in which it was established that Iolaus and Hercules were not bandits come to ransack the place, nor was Phrakis a crazed hermit intent on stoning the passers-by.

Hercules handed him a plate stacked with jagged slices of bread. "Here, could you toast these? I think that's the only thing that's going to make this bread edible."

"For you, maybe," Iolaus said and grabbed a rusty toasting fork. The bread was pretty stale, he had to admit, but he prided himself on a good set of molars and attacked the first slice while he set to work toasting the rest. When he'd crunched his way through the piece of bread, he became aware that Hercules was talking to him.

"...so that's what I think we should do," Hercules finished, and looked at him expectantly.

"Uh, Herc? I didn't quite catch that."

"Which part?"

Iolaus tried a scapegrace smile. "All of it?"

Hercules gave him a look that said, "Could you try and make it easy for once?" which Iolaus immediately volleyed back with his best "Why are you picking on me?" expression. Sighing, Hercules got up, retrieved a stone jar of honey from Phrakis' larder and began smearing the toast. Iolaus sat down on the wooden bench in front of the fireplace, watching Hercules cover every inch of the slice of toast with honey with careful, determined scrapes of his knife, making sure the layer was even enough before moving on to the next slice. After three slices, Iolaus found his patience unraveling faster than Penelope's tapestry.

"Okay, tell me what you were saying already."

In response, Hercules reached for a fourth slice of toast. Iolaus sighed and conceded - for now. "Please?"

Hercules opened his mouth and closed it again when Phrakis came in, carrying a sloshing bucket and wheezing.

"Smells like rain today, boys," the old man said, carefully setting down the bucket near the fireplace. He straightened slowly, pressing a hand against his back. "Still, you're not made of sugar. I'm sure you'll manage the climb up to Saddle Pass just fine."

Iolaus said cautiously, "Perhaps we could help you with a few chores before we leave?" He understood Hercules' point about not injuring an old man's pride, but he was damned if he was going to walk away and leave someone old enough to be his grandfather to survive the coming winter alone, on nothing more than a bunch of chickens, half a sack of flour, one elderly goat and a small plot full of disagreeable-looking cabbages.

"Oh, yes, I suppose so. Yes, of course..." Phrakis gazed blankly at Iolaus for a moment, his milky right eye fixed on nothing at all, then shuffled toward the back of the room and began rummaging in a cupboard. Iolaus stared after him, then rolled his eyes at Hercules. In response, Hercules ate his toast at him, even going so far as to lick a smear of honey off his forefinger with blatant enjoyment. Iolaus' stomach rumbled.

"You were saying?" Iolaus said pointedly.

Hercules looked up, eyes guileless. "Oh, that I thought we should do some chores for Phrakis before we leave. Why?"

Growling in mock anger, Iolaus reached over and slid the plate of toast out from under Hercules like a conjurer whisking away a tablecloth. All Hercules said was, "Leave something for our host, will you?"

By the time Phrakis had found three uncracked tea cups, Iolaus had poured water into the copper kettle, hung it over the fire, washed out the teapot, sliced up a chunk of ham from Phrakis' near-empty larder, picked a handful of likely-looking herbs and flowers and flung them into the teapot and consumed three slices of toast. All this activity hadn't settled him down, however - he still felt slightly skittish, and Phrakis' slowness and vagueness weren't helping.

"So," Hercules began once Phrakis had joined them at the table and started munching on the ham, "Why did your neighbors leave? Did they tell you anything?"

Phrakis shook his head, spraying bits of ham over the table. "I told you, that whole monster business is just stuff and nonsense. None of my chickens ever got et."

Iolaus stared at him, then glanced over at Hercules, insensibly cheered to find that the demigod looked slightly surprised. "Uh, Phrakis? You never told us anything about a monster."

Phrakis chewed on, unperturbed. "Nothing to tell. Stuff and nonsense, like I said."

"Ah. I see." Iolaus got up to pour boiling water from the kettle into the teapot, taking deep breaths to try and keep his own temper from boiling over.

"So they left because they were afraid of a monster?" Hercules continued patiently. "Didn't they ask you to come with them?"

Iolaus carried the heavy teapot back to the table, watching Phrakis from the corner of his eye. The old man blinked a couple of times, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "I told them, this is the farm my grandfather built and I'm not leaving it except on a bier. I was born here, and I'm damn well going to die here."

If the monster's still around, then you might get your wish quicker than you think. Iolaus demolished another slice of toast and then poured out the herb tea. Phrakis curved his wrinkled hands around his black-glazed teacup, clearly grateful for the warmth. Watching him, Iolaus made a mental note to chop a stack of wood in the near future.

"Do you remember what your neighbors told you about this monster?" Hercules asked.

Phrakis' bristly brows drew down. "Don't patronize me, young man. Of course I do." When Hercules glanced his way, Iolaus hid his grin just in time and gave him one of his best bland looks instead. Neither of them said anything, hoping to draw Phrakis out by their silence. Just when Iolaus thought it wasn't going to work, Phrakis continued, "Thrasimachos claimed it came in the night to steal livestock, that it breathed fire. And Nikios showed me some scorch marks on his barn, I remember. Pah! That was right after a big thunderstorm, could've been lightning. Could've been his boys playing with flint and steel, too. Halfwits, the lot of them."

"You didn't get on well with your neighbors?" Iolaus asked casually, slipping more ham onto his plate.

"You try living in each other's pockets all your life," Phrakis said, slurping his tea. "See how you like it."

Iolaus didn't try to hide his grin this time when Hercules' eyes met his. "I know what you mean - terrible, isn't it? Ow!"

Phrakis turned to him, frowning. "What's the matter?"

"Oh, nothing," Iolaus answered, vowing to pay Hercules back later and wiggling his abused foot under the table to make sure nothing was broken. "Hey, those scorch marks - are they still there?"

Phrakis led them along an overgrown path to Nikios' abandoned sheep farm, then ambled back to feed the chickens. Iolaus spent some time studying the faint black marks running along the rotting planks, but they were wholly inconclusive. So were the even fainter depressions he found under the spreading fig tree at the south end of the settlement.

"Whatever lay down here, it was big," he told Hercules, measuring the print with outstretched hands. "But the details are washed out. Might be bear, except that bears always use the same trails and I've seen no bear tracks here at all. It could even be a mountain lion - a really big one."

"That also breathes fire," Hercules added, deadpan.

Iolaus straightened, wiping his muddy hands on his pants. "Yeah, well. Phrakis doesn't seem to think much of that idea either, and right now I'm inclined to believe him."

Hercules nodded pensively. "I don't think we got the whole of the story, though. For one thing, I still can't believe his neighbors would just leave him here."

"A nice, sweet-tempered, easygoing old man like him, you mean?" Iolaus grinned up at Hercules as they walked back toward the well, and Hercules dropped an arm around his shoulders, shaking him gently.

"Don't tell me - you're going to be as bad as he is when you get old."

"If," Iolaus thought, knowing better than to even think of saying that out loud. He wasn't particularly worried, but he liked to think of himself as a realist, whereas Hercules - well, Hercules would do his utmost to change a reality that he didn't agree with. Maybe that was one definition of an optimist?

For a moment he pictured himself in Phrakis' place, old and worn out, and then he wondered if the time would ever come when he'd say no to Hercules' efforts to get him back from the dead.

Hercules' arm tightened about his shoulders as they neared Phrakis' farm. "You all right?"

"Yeah, sure."

Hercules looked down at him, saying nothing.

Iolaus sighed. Busted. "It's just this place, I think. It's a beautiful valley, but those empty farms-"

Hercules nodded. "I know. I don't see how Phrakis can live here, either."

Iolaus knew Hercules had to be thinking of his farmhouse near Thebes, which had stood just as empty after the deaths of Deianeira and the children; Hercules had torn it down with his bare hands and then set fire to it. Iolaus couldn't blame him. He'd tried to live on his own small farm after Ania and his sons died, but he hadn't been able to stick it out for long.

Time to change the subject before he depressed himself even further. "Hey, you know who Phrakis reminds me of?"

"Who?"

"Zeus."

Hercules stopped walking, dropped his arm from around Iolaus' shoulders and turned to stare at him.

"Yeah, well, not that Zeus is that bad-tempered or anything," Iolaus added hastily, throwing a quick glance at the overcast sky. "See?" he added when no bolt of lightning came hurtling down. Hercules snorted.

"No, what I mean is, I think he does that same thing that Zeus does. Or did. Haven't seen him recently."

Hercules was still staring at him. "What thing?"

Iolaus ran his left hand through his hair, trying to put words to his unease. "You know. That thing where he acts all doddery, like an old man who's a couple pips short of a pomegranate, to try and make you forget that he's the king of the gods. I keep thinking Phrakis is only vague and grumpy when he wants to be."

"I see what you mean," Hercules said, frowning. Iolaus had been rather hoping that he would say something along the lines of "I think you're overreacting," which would have been much more reassuring. If also a bit patronizing, Iolaus reflected, biting down on a grin.

"You think he's hiding something?" Hercules was saying.

"Maybe."

Hercules' frown grew more pronounced. "I think I want to have another look at those farms. You go on ahead and keep an eye on Phrakis. And-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. Don't eat all the ham."

Iolaus found five eggs in various places around the yard, and then discovered two more under the straw that had served as his bed - apparently Phrakis had never heard of chicken coops. With those, the last of the bread and a few more slices of the rapidly diminishing ham, he had managed to produce a reasonable lunch.

Phrakis was munching on a slice of ham again as Hercules came in, saying indistinctly, "Are you boys sure you don't want any chicken? Be no trouble."

"No, Phrakis, that's all right," Iolaus answered him. "Those chickens are for eggs, not for eating."

Hercules sat down and put away three pieces of eggy toast in rapid succession, then laid down his knife and swept some crumbs off the table. Iolaus just waited, recognizing the signs.

"I had a look around just now," Hercules began. "It looks like your neighbors didn't take their furniture. I saw a camphor chest that must be quite valuable."

When Phrakis didn't respond, Hercules added pointedly, "Seems like they were in a hurry."

"Idiots," Phrakis said, cracking pieces of eggshell between his gnarled fingers. "They just did what Thrasimachos said. Go go go, before the monster comes. Bah. If I were a young man, I'd give him what for, the coward."

"Who is this Thrasimachos?" Iolaus wanted to know. "Your village elder?"

Phrakis drew up his brows. "Are you blind? I'm the elder. Look at me, boy, I'm as old as the hills. You think I'm going to take orders from some little squirt in a white robe?"

Iolaus' jaw clenched at the 'little squirt', then relaxed again at the rest of the description. "So Thrasimachos is a priest, then? From the temple up on the mountain?" They'd seen the glint of white, high up on the ridge; the mountainside hereabouts was dotted with temples and shrines, some of them abandoned, some cared for by solitary priests, usually either old men or women who'd served at a larger temple and had come to enjoy a bit of peace and quiet or true religious fanatics. I wish we'd meet more of the former and less of the latter.

Phrakis sighed gustily. "I just said so, didn't I?"

Iolaus stood up, dusting crumbs off his hands. "Right. I'm going to go chop some wood." The look he shot at Hercules said, "He's all yours."

There was something satisfying about chopping wood, Iolaus found, something that reminded him of his studies in the East. If he positioned the log just right on the stump and hit it in exactly the right place, the log split cleanly down the middle with a satisfying thwock . If he got distracted for some reason, the split would be uneven or his axehead would stick in the stump. It was a matter of focus and timing more than strength. The axe fell by itself, compelled like an arrow loosed from a bow; the skill lay in directing the blow as it fell.

The sun still hid behind the clouds, but Iolaus had worked up a good sweat by the time he'd chopped his first tree into firewood. He'd hung his vest over a convenient pine branch and was just debating whether to start on another tree or go throw a bucket of water over his head when he saw Hercules making his careful way down from the roof.

"You all done?" Iolaus asked.

"Uh-huh."

"See anything while you were having fun up there?"

Hercules raised an eyebrow, but Iolaus just grinned. Payback time. He'd put the idea that the sagging straw roof needed fixing in Phrakis' mind well before lunch, knowing perfectly well that Hercules hated mending roofs, even though he'd become quite good at it after all the tavern roofs he'd demolished.

"No, not really," Hercules admitted, folding his arms. Iolaus could tell from his stance that he was dissatisfied. Herc hates waiting for something to happen, too.

"Guess it's safe to go hunting, then," Iolaus said, looking up at the sky again. It was later than he'd thought. The clouds were getting heavier and the wind was increasing; he'd have to head into the forest soon if he wanted to stay ahead of the rain. Hercules followed his gaze and his mouth drew down, but all he said was, "What were you thinking of? Deer?"

"Well, yeah, a deer would be great, but I think I'll have a better chance in the morning, once the weather clears up. I'll set a couple of traps, though. In the meantime, I'll see if I can get some birds, or rabbit. Even squirrel if I have to," he added, laughing at the shudder this produced. "I know. But Phrakis' larder is running empty."

Hercules nodded. "He didn't eat any of the bread, though."

"Yeah, I noticed. Probably his teeth aren't up to it. We'd better make some soup or stew tonight."

Iolaus expected some wry comment about his over-fondness for spices, but all Hercules said was "Maybe," before he rubbed his neck and looked up at the darkening sky again. Recognizing the signs, Iolaus quickly shrugged on his vest, lifted the axe over his shoulder and began to walk back toward the farmhouse, but not so fast that he could pretend to be out of earshot when Hercules called his name, as Iolaus knew he would.

"Iolaus!"

He turned. "Hmm?"

Hercules didn't say anything for a moment, then sighed. "Just...come back before dark?"

Iolaus considered this, then nodded. He appreciated all the things Hercules hadn't said, but he could still hear every word, so it really didn't make that much difference except that he couldn't get on Herc's case about it. Be careful. Be safe. Don't get eaten.

"I will. Here." He walked back and handed Hercules the axe. "You know what Alcmene used to say."

Hercules hefted the axe and absently swung it in a circle as if it were a bull-roarer. Iolaus prudently took a step back.

"Work cures all ills?" Hercules said, smiling a little.

"Something like that."

"Funny you've still got your health, then."

Iolaus chuckled, glad to see the smile reach Hercules' eyes at last, and then they parted ways. Taking his bow, quiver and leather sack from under the eaves of the farmhouse, Iolaus looked in the door to check on Phrakis, but the old man sat huddled before the fire, fast asleep.

He walked into the forest without looking back, but he was absolutely sure that Hercules' gaze followed his every step. It was comforting, in a way, although he'd never tell Hercules that. It would only encourage him.

Iolaus moved between the pines like a ghost. He'd bagged one pheasant when it whirred from a gorse-bush to his left in the usual suicidal rush, and he was on the prowl for more. One pheasant would hardly make a meal for three. He stopped next to a blueberry bush and picked a handful, fixing its location in his mind so he could come back and fill a bucket later. The berries were ripe and juicy. While he was licking his fingers to get rid of the purple stains, he heard a rustle in the thorn thicket to his right. He unshouldered his bow, quickly strung it and nocked an arrow, then stood waiting motionlessly, alert to the least sound or movement.

When nothing moved, he picked up a pine cone and threw it into the thicket. Another, louder rustle resulted, and then a second pheasant flushed, clucking loudly in alarm. Iolaus' first shot missed, but he managed to nock another arrow in time. His second shot hit the target, and he watched with satisfaction as the bird plummeted back down. His satisfaction changed into annoyance when the hurtling shape disappeared from view behind the thornbushes, especially once he discovered that there was no way to reach the other side of the bushes without actually crawling into them - they had grown over an old fence still dimly visible amid a mass of evil-looking thorns, and stretched away to both west and east.

Iolaus weighed his options. The bushes grew close together, although there was some room among the roots, and they had stiff pointed leaves as well as thorns. On the other hand, the pheasant had been a full-grown bird, plump and heavy, and he wanted his arrow back.

Swearing, Iolaus stowed his bow and quiver under a drift of pine needles, dropped to his belly and began to crawl forward. The bushes didn't branch out until about two handsbreadths above the trunk, so he had some room to manoeuver, but not enough to lift his head and actually see where the bird had landed or where he was going.

So it came as some surprise when he pushed his head and shoulders through a particularly narrow space and found himself in the free air, hanging over a seven foot drop. He tried to turn round, but that was impossible in the narrow space, so he lay very still and looked down instead.

Beneath him ran a narrow canyon, undoubtedly a riverbed, though he couldn't see any water glinting beneath the jumble of boulders that formed the canyon floor. Further down he could see a mound of sticks and rags, probably driftwood from the spring floods, and another clump of thornbushes. Twisting his head this way and that to get more of a view without launching himself headfirst down the cliff, Iolaus finally spotted his pheasant. It had fallen between two large boulders on his right, but part of one wing and the fletch of his arrow were still visible.

Iolaus pushed forward again until he had to hook his feet in the roots of a bush to keep from falling, then grabbed a sturdy branch with each hand, cursing when a thorn dug into his right thumb, and let his upper body fall forward until he was supporting most of his weight on his arms, dangling above the canyon. Then he unhooked his feet, carefully drew his legs out from under the thorn bushes and let gravity assist him in a forward roll.

He landed on his feet, but stumbled when the boulder he'd landed on shifted beneath him. Steadying himself with one hand against the cliff, he glanced around quickly, knowing how visible and vulnerable he was in such an enclosed place and on such uncertain footing. Nothing moved, and he could hear only the usual forest sounds: a sparrow's chatter, wind rustling through pine needles, the cough of a mountain lion far into the distance.

Iolaus clambered over the boulders until he reached the pheasant. It was still warm. He tugged his arrow out, unshouldered his sack and dropped the pheasant in to join the first. He didn't really look at what he was doing. Something was nagging at the edges of his mind, and he had learned not to ignore such hints over the years. There was something about that heap of driftwood further down...

He was moving almost before he'd finished the thought, climbing over huge jagged rocks and sliding down the other side, almost smashing his ankle when two boulders slid suddenly together, scrambling over a large shelf and then coming to a dead stop before the heap of driftwood.

Not driftwood. Bones. Human bones. And the river hadn't flushed them from some graveyard, either - they were stacked high in the middle of what would be a raging torrent in spring, with nothing to hold them there.

Iolaus didn't touch the bones. Instead, his heart hammering, he crouched down to make himself as small as possible, his back against the shelf of rock, and waited. When nothing came roaring out of the canyon, he began to count. Seven arm bones were visible in the heap, three pelvic bones, a skull, another skull, twelve leg bones, ribs. And there was another, smaller heap of bones further down, along with scraps of cloth and leather. Enough for at least twelve people - which would be just about the size of Phrakis' village.

Iolaus took a cautious, crouching step forward, then another. Iridescent blue beetles scuttled away as he knelt beside the dead. The bones were still fairly white, with only a few scraps of flesh remaining. Some of them were scorched at the edges. It was impossible to tell exactly how old they were, but Phrakis had said that his neighbors left a month ago. Looks like they didn't go far , he reflected grimly as he studied the ground. Small animal tracks were all over the place - rats, various birds of prey, a wildcat. Nothing large enough to have done more than gnaw at a prey that was already dead.

With a whispered apology to its owner, Iolaus picked up a thigh bone. Deep grooves marked the knob of the bone, where teeth had clamped down and torn the flesh away; long, sharp, triangular teeth, set closely together in a huge gaping jaw as big and strong as Graegus'. Too narrow for a hydra, too big for a ghidra, too strong for a cockatrice - it didn't seem to be anything they'd faced before. This was a monster as clever as a man, or at least clever enough to hide its tracks and bury the remains of its prey in a hidden place.

Sighing, Iolaus carefully laid down the thigh bone, then rubbed at his neck with his other hand. Yes, so he's half blind, but how could Phrakis not have known about this? And why didn't the monster eat him?

Phrakis had told them that the villagers had left to seek homes elsewhere. Either that was a lie, or the monster had caught these people on the road and dragged their bodies back to the forest to devour at its leisure, while Phrakis puttered around feeding his chickens in perfect innocence.

It was a disturbing idea, but there were other possible explanations that were even worse. The creature could have been used by someone, as Graegus had been. Phrakis said he didn't get along with his neighbors. Was it more than that? Did he make some kind of deal? Did he trap them somehow, set the monster on them? Sickened by the picture this conjured up, Iolaus straightened and ran a hand through his hair. The pathetic heap of bones at his feet only fueled his sick anger. The longer he stared at it, the more he wanted to go after the monster right now, or at least head deeper into the canyon and scout around for tracks. But he didn't have his sword with him, and he knew he had to get back and warn Hercules. Besides, all they could be sure of was that there definitely was a monster - it might no longer be in the vicinity. In fact, the more he thought about it, the likelier it seemed that it had changed territories in search of fresh meat, or it would have starved to death by now. They'd probably have to track the thing halfway up the mountain.

Well, one thing's for sure. I'm not doing that until after dinner.

Hercules had felled another tree, chopped it into firewood and stacked the lot under the eaves of the farmhouse; after that he'd drawn more water from the well, hammered a loose floorboard into place and milked the protesting goat. It was getting close to sundown, a drizzly rain was falling and he was running out of chores. Phrakis was no help at all - he just sat by the fire, warming his hands and grumbling at Hercules not to make so much noise, had he been brought up by a bear? He kept coughing in between grumbles, which was another worry.

Finally, Hercules had decided to start dinner, even though he didn't know what Iolaus would be bringing to the table. He had dug out the most edible-looking of the cabbages and was busily chopping them up, hoping they would add something to the promised stew - flavor if not appetizing color. Phrakis' one knife was so old, blunt and rusty that he was tempted to grab Iolaus' sword from the barn instead, since that was always kept very sharp indeed. He had to smile as he imagined what Iolaus would have to say about that, but then the unwelcome thought intruded that Iolaus really should have taken his sword, even if it was unwieldy in the hunt, and that brought back the other, even more unwelcome thoughts that he'd been trying so hard to stave off.

His concern for his friend wasn't something he was proud of. Hercules trusted Iolaus more than any other man alive, and he knew damn well that his friend could take care of himself - could hold his own in a fight, a flirt, a battle of wits or a trade negotiation, in almost anything except matters of manure and farming, in fact - but he'd had Iolaus' mortality brought home to him so brutally, so many times, that his imagination tended to stray into dark places whenever he had to see Iolaus go off into danger.

As he turned to gather up the slices of cabbage and throw them into the copper kettle, the door slammed open and Iolaus stormed in as precipitously as he had that morning. He looked much more awake this time around, though. In fact, he looked downright murderous. Their eyes met as Iolaus unshouldered his bow and quiver, then upended his sack, shaking out two fat pheasants on the kitchen table. Iolaus took a deep breath, visibly calming himself, and turned to Phrakis, who had gotten up from his fireside chair and was making his way toward the table, looking at the birds with hungry eyes.

"I found your neighbors," Iolaus said, and Phrakis halted. His head came up as fast as a snapping turtle's.

"What? Where-"

"In the ravine halfway up the mountain to the northeast, behind a thorn hedge," Iolaus answered, his jaw set in a grim line, his eyes blazing. "It's bad news, Phrakis. They're dead."

Phrakis drew a hand to his mouth and gave a keening cry, then stumbled back and collapsed into his chair, his shoulders shaking.

Hercules put down the rusty knife carefully. "Dead how?"

"Eaten." The stark word sounded loud in the small room.

"I didn't know," Phrakis cried out in a high, thin voice. "Apollo help me, I didn't know. I thought they were safe. He said so."

Hercules stepped closer to him, towering over him in a conscious attempt to intimidate him. "Who said so?"

Phrakis wrung his shaking hands, staring past Hercules' shoulder. "He said the others would be safe. That was the deal. If I stayed behind, the others would make it."

A window opened in Hercules' mind. "You said 'Apollo help me.' But you're a farmer, shouldn't you be sacrificing to Demeter?" Behind Phrakis' shaking form, he saw Iolaus circling around as quiet as a cat to stand at Phrakis' back. "Did Thrasimachos threaten you all with the monster, so you'd change your allegiance to Apollo?"

This time, Phrakis' silence spoke volumes.

"He did, didn't he. And you said yes, and the others refused. That's why you're still here and unharmed. Right?"

All Phrakis said in reply was, "He promised. He promised." He rocked back and forth, clasping his knees with his long bony hands.

"What did Thrasimachos promise you, exactly?" Iolaus said in a deceptively soft voice.

Phrakis didn't turn his head. "That I'd be safe. Safe from the monster."

"And the others?" Hercules prompted.

"He said they could go. The monster was supposed to scare them away, not - not kill them," Phrakis added in a whisper.

"So you let this priest set a monster on your neighbors?" Iolaus stepped closer, his hands on his hips. "What could you possibly have to gain?"

"My life, and theirs," Phrakis whispered, coughing, looking at the floor. "He said that if they didn't flee before the monster, he'd ask Apollo to bring down a plague on our heads. Believe me, it was the best deal I could make. I'm the eldest, they had to do what I said." He drew a deep, shuddering breath, then went into another coughing fit. "The monster wasn't supposed to hurt them," he added when he could speak again.

"I think I need to have a talk with this Thrasimachos," Hercules said, trading a glance with Iolaus. He stepped past Phrakis, to find his way blocked by Iolaus, who managed to stare him down despite being a head or so shorter.

"The monster doesn't leave tracks," Iolaus said. "Or it hides them. I'm still not sure about the fire breathing, but it has a jaw the size of Graegus'. And as far as we know, it last ate a month ago. So." Iolaus drew in a deep breath. "We've got an unknown and lethal monster, a murderous priest, and the possibility that Apollo will join in just when things really start to heat up."

Hercules lifted a brow. "Does that mean you won't wait dinner?"

It never ceased to amaze Hercules that even though they'd known each other all their lives, Iolaus could still come up with swearwords he'd never heard before. He laid a cautious hand on Iolaus' shoulder, understanding his friend's frustration. This time it wasn't a matter of 'You take the head, I'll take the tail' - if Apollo was involved in this, Hercules needed to get up there and deal with him, but whether Phrakis had consciously betrayed his neighbors or not, he was still a sick old man who couldn't be left alone if there was any chance that the monster would return. And if the man had been partly to blame for the villagers' deaths, he needed to be kept under guard until they could bring both him and Thrasimachos to justice.

Finally he felt the tension in Iolaus' shoulder ease slightly under his hand. "Okay. I'll make dinner, you take care of the priest." Iolaus tilted his head to look up at him, his eyes glinting with sudden humor. "And try not to get carried away."

Keeping back a huge sigh of relief, Hercules summoned up indignation as best he could. "When do I ever get carried away?"

"Well, you do have kind of a bad track record when it comes to priests and temples..."

Not dignifying this with an answer - mostly because it was true - Hercules gripped his forearm once, tightly, then went out the door without further ceremony.

The old trail to Saddle Pass zigzagged back and forth along the wooded slope of mount Kerkes, to make the steep climb a little easier for the merchant caravans that had once used it; this also meant that it took that much longer to climb it, and the increasing rain had turned the packed earth into mud. Hercules took the climb at his usual speed. He slipped only once, managing to catch himself with one hand against a pine trunk, but even so night's shadow had already fallen over the lower flanks of the mountain by the time he got above the treeline. Far up ahead, the temple gleamed red in the light of the setting sun.

Here, the path grew stonier, winding over the ridged spine of the mountain, with a steep drop on either side. The wind had picked up, buffeting Hercules with invisible blows, and rain blew in his face as he trudged on, pausing every now and then to look for the white flints that distinguished the trade route from the goat tracks leading off to the left and right.

By the time he'd reached the temple, the sun had set below the western hills. Hercules stood at the edge of the clearing for a moment, shaking his wet hair out of his face and waiting to see if the priest would show himself. A cricket chirped somewhere in the pine forest far below, the sound carrying upwards; otherwise, all was quiet. The temple was small, painted in white and blue, with the sun that was one of Apollo's emblems prominent above the steps that led to the entrance, although it was hard to make out the details in the twilight.

Hercules loped up the shallow steps and pushed against the wooden doors. They opened at a touch, giving way to the darkened inner temple. Stepping quickly inside and to the left to avoid framing himself in the doorway, Hercules let his eyes adjust to the gloom. He could make out the central altar, and a motionless shape that lay huddled against it.

There were unlit torches in brackets on the wall. Lighting one with a quick clash of his gauntlets, he lifted it high and stepped closer to the altar. A man lay slumped against it, clad in the robes of a priest. At the sight of him, Hercules felt some of his pre-battle tension fade away; this man would never move again. The priest's head rested against the altar rim, his left arm stretched along the edge, still clutching a rolled-up scroll; his other arm was pressed against his side, where a river of red had run down and stained the marble floor. Kneeling next to the dead priest, Hercules held the torch closer. The corpse had been well preserved, either by Apollo's grace or by the cool dry air inside the temple. The wound in the man's side looked jagged and brutal; both cloth and flesh had been ripped away.

So the monster killed him. Did he call it up with Apollo's help and fail, at the last, to control it? Did it turn on him? Hercules scratched his chin with his free hand. So how come he wasn't eaten like the others?

Picturing the sequence of events in his mind's eye, he saw the wounded priest drag himself back to the sanctuary of the temple - when he lifted the torch high again, he saw the bloody hand prints on the walls - and sink down against the altar to implore Apollo...no, to write a scroll, Hercules realized as his eyes came to rest on the stylus which had rolled off the altar to lodge near the south wall. A plea to Apollo? If so, it must have gone unanswered, at least as far as the priest's life was concerned; he must have died soon afterwards. Which was typical of Apollo, really, but didn't answer the question of why he'd set the monster loose in the first place. That was something more in Hera's line; she always coveted more temples, more worshippers, whereas Apollo cared more about quality - long paeans sung in his name, plays performed by the finest actors, elaborate rites and so on - than quantity. He was much more of a hands-off kind of god, unless there were beautiful maidens involved, in which case he tended to become very hands-on indeed.

Hercules stood up and reached out a hand toward the scroll. It slid out of the priest's hand easily enough. He stuck the torch back in its bracket and unrolled the first part of the scroll.

After reading the first few words, his breath huffed out in surprise as his view of the situation tilted sideways. The dead priest - Thrasimachos - hadn't called up the monster. On the contrary, he'd spent all his time beseeching Apollo to help his people combat it. Nor was there any hint that the villagers and the priest had been at loggerheads; the scroll spoke of offerings made by the whole village. The priest's scrawl grew increasingly agitated - apparently, the scroll recorded his attempts to get help from his god over some time, while the monster snatched villager after villager, and the pleas for help eventually changed into accusations and finally into invective. Hercules' respect for the dead man shot up when he read that part of the scroll; Thrasimachos had had a vocabulary to rival Iolaus', and courage to match. Not many priests would dare confront their god like that, and Hercules found the impassioned tone of the hurriedly scrawled words completely convincing. Evidently, when Thrasimachos had gotten no answer from the god, he'd gone down to face the monster, armed with nothing but his faith. It hadn't worked, of course, but Thrasimachos had somehow managed to drag himself back to the temple and had pleaded with Apollo one last time.

Hercules unrolled the scroll further, trying to decipher the dying man's last words:

"...do not let it destroy other villages, let it cease its death-dealing, o Apollo, or I shall call you oathbreaker even in ..."

The writing stopped there, trailing off into a wavering line, but the missing word wasn't hard to supply. Yet that wasn't the end of the scroll. Below that, there was writing in another, much more elaborate hand. So elaborate, in fact, that Hercules couldn't read a word of it, but the words glowed with a bright yellow light, like the afternoon sun. A spell, it has to be, a ward of some kind. That would explain why the priest hadn't been eaten. Yeah, that's Apollo all right. A day late and a dinar short.

As he stared down at the words of the spell, trying vainly to decipher them, the light emanating from the letters grew suddenly brighter.

That can't be good. Hercules dropped the spell on the altar and sprang backwards.

The flash was so bright he had to close his eyes, and when he re-opened them he didn't see anything for several moments except the burning afterimage. Gradually the blackness rolled back and the altar and the dead priest came into view again. There was nothing left of the scroll but a faint smattering of dust on the white marble of the altar.

Hercules swore under his breath. Whatever the spell had been, the sinking feeling in his belly told him that he had probably just undone it. Which would mean that if the spell had held the monster quiescent, or sent it away, it was the worst thing he could have done. This just hasn't been my day. I should've known when Phrakis asked me to mend the roof.

Iolaus had asked Phrakis to pluck the pheasants, but the old man turned out to be terrible at the task and kept breaking the feathers and leaving the pins stuck in the skin, so Iolaus let him sit by the fire instead, feeling not a little like a bully. He almost began to explain that he didn't want to touch food, not after having touched the bones of the dead, but in the end he let it pass. It was nothing but superstition anyway. Even so, he'd washed his hands very carefully before he began plucking the birds, sitting down at the kitchen table with his back to the wall.

Once the pheasants were simmering in the kettle along with the cabbage, some wild onions and a handful of herbs, Iolaus swept the feathers into a corner. "You got a pillow that needs stuffing?" he asked Phrakis, but the old man just coughed and shook his head, so he left it for the moment.

The light had faded from the window and twilight was setting in. Hercules would probably have half an hour more of sunlight, higher up. Iolaus turned away from the window to find Phrakis watching him steadily.

"He's probably still climbing," Phrakis said. "It's an old mule path, and it whips back and forth a lot."

"Yeah. Probably." Iolaus' nerves were on edge. He didn't want to be brutally unkind to the old man, but the ravine full of dead kept intruding into his thoughts, and the mere possibility that this man had been the cause of that was enough to raise his hackles. And he didn't want to talk about Hercules' progress in any case; he didn't want to be reminded of everything that could go wrong without someone out there to watch his back.

Bending over the kettle, he stirred the stew again with a long wooden ladle. It'd be quite a while before the meat was tender enough to fall off the bone. He got the heel of the dark wheel of bread from an upper shelf and began crumbling it up into the stew to thicken it, but then he saw that the fire was dying down beneath the kettle and the stew was barely bubbling.

"I'm just going to get some more wood," he said to Phrakis, motioning to the small heap of sticks that still lay by the hearth. "You throw that lot on, and I'll get some logs from the stack." He shut the door behind him quickly, not waiting for a response. If Phrakis tried to get out, tried to send a signal of some kind, he'd know about it, but he had to get out of there for just a few breaths.

Outside, standing under the eaves to keep out of the rain, he craned his neck for a view of the trade route winding up the mountain ridge, but of course could see no glimpse of Hercules. The temple high above was a white fleck against the darkling sky. He gathered an armful of the firewood he'd chopped that afternoon and walked toward the door, glancing in the window to check up on Phrakis. The old man was standing near the hearth, feeding bits of wood into the fire. There was something odd about his stance, though - his shoulders seemed more hunched than before, and his back was turned to the window. Iolaus stepped back into the rain for a moment to look at the chimney, but there was nothing wrong with the thin, arrow-straight trail of smoke.

He opened the door noiselessly, helped by the oiling that Hercules had given the hinges that morning, and loped forward to crane over Phrakis' shoulder. The old man turned his head to meet his eyes with his distant, milky gaze; he seemed completely unstartled and kept dropping pine cones and branches into the fire. Huh. Either he has really good hearing or he's just out to sea again. Iolaus stepped forward and around Phrakis, dropped his armful of wood on the hearthstone, picked up the log that looked driest and turned to build up the fire.

He acted on instinct, moving so fast that only afterwards could he place the events in order. First came the sudden acrid smell of singed hair and the wash of heat near his hand. Then the rage boiling up in him. And, finally, the realization.

Phrakis had thrown his bow on the fire.

"What's wrong?" Phrakis was saying in a quavering voice, "Did you hurt your hand?" but Iolaus barely heard him. He dropped the blackened bow on the floor, breathing in deep breaths to calm his racing heartbeat as he inspected it. The bow might be salvageable, but the tips looked charred through and of course the string had burned away. Jason had made that bow for him, from the yew tree that grew near Alcmene's house.

Phrakis looked on, breathing thinly, his eyes wide and round as a kitten's and about as full of understanding.

"What are you doing?"

You can't break his neck , Iolaus reminded himself. Well, actually you can, he's old and his bones are brittle and...no, don't go there. He's old, he's half blind, he doesn't know what he's doing. I hope.

"That was my bow," Iolaus said at last, controlling his voice with an iron effort.

Phrakis' mouth fell open. "Your bow?" He looked down at the remains of the bow on the floor, then back up again into Iolaus' face. "Well, why did you leave it right next to the kindling then?"

It was Iolaus' turn to stare. I can't believe I ever felt any sympathy for this guy. Autolycus could take lessons in obnoxiousness from him .

"Right, that's it. Sit down, be quiet, and don't move until Hercules gets back."

Muttering under his breath about the manners of youth today, Phrakis nonetheless obeyed him and lowered himself on his favorite chair by the fire.

Iolaus stepped away from him and held up his right hand so the firelight flickered over it. The fine hairs on the back of his hand were singed, and the skin was reddened, but it didn't hurt all that much; his hands were well callused, and apparently he'd had sense enough not to reach into the hottest part of the fire.

Swearing to himself at the loss of the bow, he looked around and saw that his quiver still stood where he'd left it, against the wall near the hearth. The arrows were half-decent weapons in their own right, with their sharp hunting broadheads, but of course not as effective as a dagger. Still, that Phrakis hadn't thrown them on the fire as well seemed to speak for his innocence. Now why don't I believe that?

He took a quick look out the window, but all he could see was rain. Whatever's going on up there, I hope Herc's doing better than I am.

Hercules looked again at the dead priest, shaking his head. Thrasimachos, I'm sorry. But I'll try and make it up to you. And preferably beat some sense into your idiot god's head at the same time.

Normally, Apollo wouldn't care less whether Hercules wanted to see him. There were only a very few gods that would come at his call - Aphrodite, Hades, Ares only if he wanted to gloat - and Apollo wasn't one of them; the last time they'd seen each other, Apollo had been throwing fireballs at his head to distract him while Hera made her annual attempt to take over Olympus.

But now Hercules had destroyed Apollo's spell, which held an infinitesimal part of his power; Apollo must have felt that, must have had some part of his attention focused on this temple already. And few gods could resist a direct challenge.

He drew a breath until it strained his lungs, then let it out in a yell. "Apollo!"

No answer. He yelled again, and was considering kicking a hole in the altar to add a certain emphasis when the air above the altar began to shimmer.

"Hercules! Come to worship at my altar?"

Despite himself, Hercules squinted a little. All that gold and glitter combined with the usual divine radiance made Apollo hard to look at. Or is it that fatuous grin of his? He was glad to see that the god hadn't brought his glider toy this time, though. Instead of floating in midair, Apollo lounged on his own altar like a prince on a dinner couch, one leg swinging negligently just inches from Thrasimachos' gray face. The sight set Hercules' teeth on edge.

"Doesn't look like you have much to offer to your worshipers," he said, trying to keep a lid on his temper.

Apollo's eyes opened wide in a display of injured innocence.

"Why, Hercules, I'm generous! I dealt with the monster, didn't I? It's not my fault that you messed things up again, although I do find it very entertaining. I know you're not much for the arts, but you have heard of dramatic irony, right?"

There was only one thing worse than Apollo's grin, and that was his laugh. Hercules took a step forward, his fingers itching.

"Those villagers put their trust in you. If you wanted to help, you could have done something earlier. Something more permanent." He took another step forward.

Apollo yawned, waving a hand dismissively. "Don't be a drag, little brother. I'm a busy god, you know. Besides, if you'd gotten here earlier, you could've done your little hero gig and none of the villagers would've died. They sent for you, you know."

That brought Hercules up short. "They sent for me?"

"That's right. The priest sent his son to Thebes for help. Gorgeous young man, great legs. Good runner. He never came back, though. Very sad."

Apollo's eyes gleamed as Hercules' hands clenched into fists. "What did you do to him?"

"Me?" The innocent look was back, complete with pout. "Why do you keep casting me as the bad guy here? There's a monster out there, you know. Thanks to you, I might add. Probably snacking on that little blond bedwarmer of yours as we speak, have you thought of that? Whoa, wait-"

Smiling ferociously, Hercules wove his fingers even tighter around the god's throat, lifting him half off the altar, and Apollo's voice cut off in a squeak.

"I think you want to take that back," Hercules said conversationally, and he could feel the tension in Apollo's neck increase as he tried to nod. It was as he'd suspected; unlike Ares, Apollo didn't have much in the way of physical courage - he depended on his divine powers and the toys Hephaestus had made him, and Hercules' attack had thrown him off balance. A lifetime of fighting various gods had left Hercules with an excellent understanding of how their minds worked. With any of the gods, even Zeus, it was always about control.

"Call off your monster," he said. When Apollo didn't answer, he yanked his head back by his golden hair with one hand, keeping the other wrapped tightly around his throat. "Did you hear me?"

Apollo squeaked, and Hercules realized that he probably needed a little air to reply. Or rather, he's forgotten for the moment that he doesn't actually need to breathe. Good.

He opened his hands just a little, and Apollo gulped in a breath. "Not - my - monster," he got out.

Hercules frowned. "Really."

This time, Apollo's beseeching look actually seemed genuine, and in response Hercules gave him a bit more space.

"Tell me."

"The monster's been here for ages," Apollo said, somewhat croakily. "It hibernates in the mountains and comes out every now and then to feed. I had nothing to do with it. I just answered a prayer, that's all."

He let go of Apollo, watching as the god dropped back down to the altar, hands flying to his bruised throat. He was inclined to believe him, since it fit with his initial thought that Apollo didn't usually get involved with monsters at all. If he wanted to punish people, he tended to rain arrows of plague down on them.

Apollo slid off the altar, took a deep breath and winced, then looked surprised at the sensation of pain. Hercules could see the moment when he regained full possession of himself. Uh-oh.

With a twitch of Apollo's left hand, the bruises vanished; in his other hand, something grew brighter and brighter. Hercules didn't need to look to know what it was; he threw himself into a backward roll, out the door and down the steps of the temple, as the ball of divine fire screamed over his head.

"I can't believe you did that," Apollo yelled. Hercules got to his feet just in time to straight-arm Apollo as he came out of the temple, another fireball in hand. The god recoiled from the blow - it would have broken the neck of any mortal - but only for a heartbeat. "You really are a bastard, aren't you?"

Hercules tended to respond to that particular slur about as well as Iolaus did to being called 'little'. Ducking the second fireball by a very narrow margin, he slammed his clubbed fists into Apollo's stomach, then, as the god 'oof'-ed in surprise and bent double, hip-butted him into the temple wall and jumped back just in time to avoid another blast of fire aimed his way, although he felt the heat of it near his head.

"Look what you did to my temple!" Apollo flicked a hand and the dented wall looked immaculate again, much to Hercules' irritation.

"Oh, I can do a lot more than that." Casually, Hercules picked up a boulder and tossed it from hand to hand. Apollo made a move as if to launch another fireball, met Hercules' gaze and stopped. He stepped away from the temple wall instead, tugging casually at his gold vest to make it settle into place.

"These people died because they trusted you," Hercules began anew, tossing the boulder aside. Iolaus did tell me not to get carried away. "The least you can do is make that warding spell permanent, whatever it is."

"What's the point?" Apollo threw back, brushing a flake of plaster off his shoulder with a disdainful look. "They're all dead, aren't they? I'm not in the restoration business."

"Phrakis is still alive," Hercules pointed out.

Apollo stared at him. "You mean you...?"

The god didn't finish his sentence. Slowly, his lips curled into a grin that stretched wider and wider.

"Oh, I'm going to enjoy this. Pity I can't hang around to watch", he said, in the superior tone Hercules knew and loathed, "but I've got an appointment with the Pythia. See you around, little bro..."

A flash, and he was gone, but an echo of his laughing voice lingered: "...or not, as the case may be."

Hercules swore, slamming his flat hand into the temple wall in frustration and denting the wall once again, then stepped back into the temple to get a torch. When he came outside he stood in the doorway for a moment, looking over the mountain ridge and into the valley below.

The rain had stopped, and the first stars were coming out above the mountain ridge. Somewhere far below, in some forest streamlet, a frog was making loud bre-ke-ke noises. He couldn't see Phrakis' farmhouse from up here, it lay hidden behind the flank of the mountain, but a faint purple plume of woodsmoke rose from the valley, as straight as a reed in the still air.

It was the very picture of peace and quiet, but it did nothing to improve Hercules' mood or lessen the tumult in his mind. He had gone up the hill certain that he was walking into a trap, that the priest would throw lightning at him or would turn into Apollo, or that the monster would be waiting for him on the next ridge. Well, he'd been about half right. Apollo had thrown fire at him, and it had been a trap, but set by Phrakis.

Phrakis, who hadn't been hurt or eaten, who had spun a web of lies so fine Athena couldn't have faulted the thread, all to get him up here to undo the spell and slay Thrasimachos if necessary. Phrakis, who didn't have that aura of power that was unmistakable to a demigod, yet who had somehow reminded Iolaus of Zeus incarnate.

Phrakis, who was down there with Iolaus.

By the time the worst possible conclusion had blossomed in his mind, he was already running down the steep path, holding the torch high to light his way and sliding down the scree on every hairpin turn, hoping against hope that he would make it in time.

Just as the stew began to bubble in its pot, Iolaus caught a glimpse of movement in the corner of his eye and turned his head to look at the temple again through the window.

The flash almost blinded him; it was like someone had placed a giant mirror on top of the temple roof and angled it to catch the sun, except that the sun had already gone down.

"Ah," Phrakis said just behind him, in a tone of deep satisfaction.

Iolaus whirled around. "What was that?" His gut feeling told him that it couldn't be anything good.

"Come and see," Phrakis said, and dodged past Iolaus with a speed so much greater than any he'd ever shown before that Iolaus only managed to catch one of his ragged sleeves, which tore off as Phrakis sped out the door.

Iolaus swore and dived after him, but as soon as he got outside it became evident that Phrakis wasn't running away. The old man stood in the yard, chickens squawking around his feet, staring up at the temple. Iolaus remained in the doorway, watching him warily.

Suddenly Phrakis cried out. His arms shot out to either side as if he were a puppet on a string; he threw his head back and yelled, the cry growing steadily louder, as his body shook and his hands twitched madly. The ragged black robe he wore whipped this way and that in a nonexistent wind, and then tore open as Phrakis began to change. His shoulders drew together and then spread out, his arms elongated, claws grew out of his fingers, his legs bent and twisted, and within the spate of a few heartbeats Phrakis was gone and a creature that looked like a cross between a giant scorpion and a hydra loomed over Iolaus like a nightmare come to life.

Iolaus almost wanted to laugh. So much for being nice to annoying old men. This particular old man now had a scaly black-and-grey hide that looked mottled and scuffed, a long tail as narrow as a whip, and a long neck with a huge many-toothed mouth at the end of it. The monster looked back at him with slitted yellow eyes as if measuring him; Iolaus found that he could still recognize Phrakis in that look.

"At last," the monster said then, and Phrakis' voice came from the narrow jaw. It swished its long, scaly tail back and forth experimentally, while Iolaus moved to stand with his back against the wall of the farmhouse, thinking, Now I really hope that Hercules is doing better than I am.

He cast a quick glance up at the trail that led toward the temple while Phrakis was still inspecting his claws, but saw no glimpse of yellow. Then he didn't have time to worry about Hercules anymore, as Phrakis turned his wedge-shaped head, fixed a baleful gaze on him, inhaled and spat out a thin streamer of blue fire in his direction. Ah. So it does breathe fire. How nice.

Iolaus rolled frantically as the fire hit the house just behind him; to his amazement, the burst of fire was so hot and so narrowly controlled that it burnt a very neat hole in the stone wall instead of setting the roof in a blaze. And that's why we found so few burn marks, I guess. Glad we got that settled. He came up just past the corner of the house, then rolled again, backwards this time, as Phrakis' head snaked forward. Teeth gnashed just behind his ankles.

"Is this how you treat all your guests?" Iolaus asked, ducking behind the stone housing of the well. Phrakis' tail smashed down over the top of the well, reducing it to rubble, and Iolaus barely managed to throw himself to the side; a few of the stones crashed down on his shoulder and left arm, which started to throb immediately.

"Is this how you treat someone you've broken bread with?" Phrakis retorted.

"You didn't eat the bread," Iolaus pointed out, scrambling upright again and reaching with his right hand for the knife that hung at the back of his belt. Phrakis had to know it was there; he'd seen him gut the pheasants with it. Then again, with scales like those, he might not consider it a threat as much as the bow. It'll have to be the eye. When he looked human, his right eye was the bad one. Might be just in that shape, but...

"True," Phrakis agreed, avoiding a kick to his head with slithery ease. "But that's because I'm a humanitarian."

"And that means that you're full of loving kindness?" Iolaus asked, thinking, Yeah, right. Just turn your head a little. Just a little.

"It means I eat humans," Phrakis said, and turned his head to fix Iolaus with his gaze again, like a cobra mesmerizing a mouse.

Iolaus focused all his will, sent up a quick prayer to Artemis, and threw. The knife flew true from his hand and up towards Phrakis' head; Phrakis jerked away faster than a human could, but not fast enough. The blade struck his left eye, and he bellowed in pain and rage; but Iolaus saw to his chagrin that the angle wasn't right, and the point hadn't reached the brain. As Phrakis whipped his head from side to side, he managed to dislodge the knife and fling it far into the forest.

Iolaus cursed, but kept his attention on Phrakis, knowing that he couldn't afford to turn his back and go looking for the knife. The wound was bleeding green into Phrakis' left eye, blinding him on that side, and Phrakis now turned his other eye on Iolaus. Behind Phrakis, the pine forest was dark and still, the slope of the mountain all but indistinguishable from the night sky. The rain had stopped, but the trail would be slippery and hard to navigate in the dark.

"Looking for your partner?" Phrakis jeered. "He won't be back. That's a strong spell - kill any man that touches it. Didn't you see the flash? That would be him, being burnt to ashes."

"He's not any man," Iolaus got out before somersaulting over another lightning-fast strike from Phrakis' jaws. He couldn't let his anger rule him, or his fear. "He's the son of Zeus, and he'll be back to kick your ass."

Phrakis spat a flower of blue fire at him, and he dived under it. "Oh, he's a son of Zeus all right," Phrakis said conversationally while Iolaus kept rolling until he reached the crumbling stone fence that hemmed in the farmyard, then dived behind it, desperate for cover. "Heroic, foolhardy, can never leave well enough alone - that's why I sent him up there. I had a farmer here two weeks ago, looking for a stray sheep, but he wouldn't go up to the temple, oh no, not even to make an offering for a sick old man. Said he had a bad leg and there were monsters in the woods. Hah."

With the "Hah" a bellow of flame burst from his mouth, searing the wall and stabbing through the cracks, but Iolaus had been expecting it and rolled to the side, which unfortunately meant he was back in the open. Got to keep him talking - I don't think he can talk and spit fire at the same time.

"What did you -" he jabbed at an outstretched foreleg with a shard of rock, but it didn't even damage the scales - "do with him?"

"Who, the farmer?" Phrakis swiped at Iolaus with the threatened foreleg, lazily, like a cat; he flattened himself to the ground, but the blow was too low, and he felt claws pierce his vest and score his back before he managed to roll away and get back to his feet. "Clubbed him over the head with the poker and ate him. He was old, stringy. Not much to him." Phrakis' yellow eyes slitted, and his massive shoulders bunched. "Not much to you either, come to that, but I bet you'll make a better meal. Lean meat, but juicy."

Uh-oh. I shouldn't have reminded him that he was hungry. Iolaus barely managed to dodge as Phrakis sprang forward, and even so he nearly fetched up head-first into the olive tree that grew near the barn. I think I'm getting tired of this. He felt bruised all over, blood trickled down his back from the claw marks, he hadn't had any dinner yet and there was still no sign of Hercules.

Despite what the demigod might have to say on the subject, Iolaus did know how to pick his battles. Facing a fast, clever, flame-spewing monster alone, armed with nothing but his wits, in a yard the size of a footbath was not his idea of strategy at its finest. He knew what to do about it, too - if he slipped into the forest and Phrakis followed him, the creature would be hemmed in, impeded by his size, and Iolaus would have trees to leap from or take cover behind. The trouble was that it was equally likely that Phrakis would give up on him for the nonce and head up the mountain trail after Hercules instead, and that just wasn't acceptable. Hercules evidently had enough to deal with up there already.

The only other thing he could do to - well, not even the odds, but improve them at least - was to get a weapon. His bow and knife were lost, but his sword still lay in the barn next to their travel packs. He wasn't sure whether Phrakis knew that it was there or not.

"Why didn't you go up there yourself?" he asked, stalling for time.

"Damn spell had me sitting here for weeks, hoarding my food like a miser, eating eggs and cured meat," - Phrakis spat a lick of blue fire that set the olive tree in a blaze, wrinkling his long lips in disgust - "waiting for the priest to come and finish me off. I couldn't get out of this damned village any more than I could change back. I kept trying, but something kept pushing me back, and I knew it had to be that damn priest and his cursed god."

"How come you can still talk?" Iolaus asked. He didn't really care, but he had to occupy Phrakis' attention while he edged slowly towards the door of the barn, behind him and to his left. "The Hydra was a shapechanger too, but she couldn't talk after she changed."

"The Hydra? You mean Typhon's kid?" Distracted, Phrakis tilted his head to the side, looking almost benevolent for a moment. "I remember her. Not too bright, but a great dancer."

Iolaus had to bite back a laugh, although there was nothing funny about his situation. He moved just a little further back until his back hit the door, groping with one hand for the latch.

Phrakis' head whipped round. "And you killed her, didn't you? You and the dead demigod up there."

"Yeah," Iolaus said, trying hard not to react to those last words. While he wouldn't take Phrakis' word for anything, it was clear that something had happened up there on the mountain to set Phrakis free, something that Hercules hadn't been able to prevent. That was as far as his imagination was willing to go. His groping fingers found the latch. "We killed her. It was easy."

Phrakis roared as Iolaus whipped the door open and dived into the barn.

"That's because she was just a kid!" he heard Phrakis yell as he stumbled through the musty, straw-smelling dark, kicking aside blankets and squawking chickens, groping frantically for his sword. "I've had people like you for breakfast. By the dozen!"

"Yeah, yeah, heard it before," Iolaus muttered, then whooped as he felt cold steel under his hand. Outside he heard Phrakis draw in a great whooshing breath, and he had a sudden flashback to a memorable encounter with Callisto. He grabbed his sword and dived for the back just as a huge ball of fire blew down the door of the barn.

Below the treeline it was much darker, and Hercules had had to douse the torch for fear that the stray sparks trailing behind him as he ran would set off a forest fire. He could barely see where he was going, and he'd actually lost the path twice, but he'd solved that problem by taking a drastic shortcut straight downhill, leaping and sliding down on the scree. He was making better time going down than he had coming up, but that didn't lessen his worry.

Phrakis was the key. Either the monster was somehow under his control, or, and this was the thought that really troubled him, Phrakis was the monster. It was hideously plausible, and it would explain Apollo's gleeful reaction. They'd dealt with shapeshifters before, albeit not ones that could mimic a human so convincingly for so long, and none as clever as Phrakis. He couldn't get the image out of his head of Phrakis quietly changing into some hideous creature behind Iolaus' back, opening his jaws and...

No. Stop it. Iolaus wouldn't turn his back on Phrakis anyway.

The path was leveling out, and ahead he could see light glimmering through the trees - a small, steady glow to his right that had to be the light from the farmhouse window. Further ahead to his left something flashed blue and disappeared, then flashed again, and he could hear Iolaus yelling something, which relieved his mind, if only by a little. He picked up his speed another notch but moved off the path, zigging from tree to tree to make sure that whatever Iolaus was fighting wouldn't see him coming.

He reached the edge of the clearing, still hidden behind the knotted trunk of an olive tree, and saw Iolaus standing right in front of the barn, unarmed and facing down a black-scaled serpent the size of a hydra with nothing but words. When he heard Phrakis' voice come out of the creature, yelling something at Iolaus, Hercules knew that his worst assumption had been true. He saw Iolaus slam open the door and dive into the barn, and moved soundlessly into the clearing at the very moment when Phrakis inhaled and blew out a long whooshing billow of blue fire in the direction of the barn, which went up like a haystack.

"No!"

Hercules abandoned caution and went for Phrakis at a dead run, knowing that if Iolaus were to have any chance at all - presuming he's still alive in the first place, the treacherous voice in the back of his head muttered - he'd have to distract the monster, and fast.

Phrakis' wedge-shaped head whipped around to meet him, jaws gaping wide, and he saw that the left eye was green with caked-over blood. "Come to join the barbecue?" Phrakis jeered.

In response, Hercules feinted left, dodged right as Phrakis' head struck at him and then launched himself at the monster's back.

The scales were cold and hard under his feet, and he could feel Phrakis' shoulders bunching as he prepared to shake Hercules off. He punched the spot between those shoulders with all his strength even as he struggled to keep his balance, hoping to break Phrakis' backbone, but his fist only cracked the tough scales.

Just as Phrakis swung himself around to shake him off, Hercules jumped, gaining momentum from Phrakis to land some distance away.

Again he feinted, but this time Phrakis didn't fall for it and the head struck at him fast as an eagle swooping down, so fast that he had to throw himself into a backward roll to avoid the gnashing teeth. He expected a fireball to hit him before he could get back to his feet, but instead he heard "Hey ugly! Dinner's over here!"

When he got up, Phrakis' head was turned away from him, spitting fire at Iolaus - a somewhat singed-looking but whole Iolaus, who was practically dancing between the olive trees that bordered the farmyard, calling out gleefully every time Phrakis missed him and set another tree on fire. He had his left arm behind his back, but Hercules could tell from his stance that he wasn't hiding an injury but something else.

Of course. He needed to get his sword from the barn.

Hercules grinned. For the first time that night, things were looking up. He knelt down to where Phrakis' long narrow tail lay coiled near his feet, sank his hands into the coils up to his wrists, took a good hold and pulled.

It wasn't easy - Phrakis was as heavy as Typhon - but Hercules managed to drag it backwards even as it struggled, his muscles burning with the strain.

Phrakis' head whipped round to deal with this new enemy, and past Phrakis' shoulder he saw Iolaus leap forward on Phrakis' blind side, brandishing the sword he'd pulled from behind his back. He had time to think I hope Phrakis isn't really related to the Hydra as Iolaus swung the sword around with all his strength.

The head fell to the ground with a resounding thump. Hercules and Iolaus exchanged a speaking look as Phrakis' headless body fell over and shuddered in its death throes, then backed away without further discussion, both keeping their attention fixed on the stump of Phrakis' neck which now lay leaking green blood into the dust.

Iolaus circled around behind the charred remains of the barn and joined him, still staring at the monster.

"Well, it looks dead," he said, bumping gently into Hercules' side.

"Yeah, I know. But maybe it's just waiting for us to turn our backs," Hercules answered him distractedly, slinging an arm about his friend's shoulders and still focusing on the stump in case it started sprouting new heads.

Iolaus glanced up at him. "You don't."

"Don't what?"

"Look dead." Hercules raised his eyebrows, but Iolaus just grinned. "Never mind. I'm glad to see you."

Hercules nodded, and they stood in silence for a few moments longer, still watching the headless monster, which had stopped quivering by now and looked like something only Echidna could love.

"Okay, it's dead," Iolaus pronounced at last, and Hercules concurred.

"We're going to have to bury that," he said, sniffing. "It smells terrible already, if we leave it like this it'll attract predators."

"So? It's not like I'm planning to settle down here," Iolaus said, moving away from under his arm to kick the monster's flank.

"Iolaus, don't!-" Hercules began, then sighed. "Oh, never mind. And we don't want predators sniffing around because we still have to bury the villagers' bones, too."

"Oh, yeah, right, I forgot. We'll deal with that later, can we eat now? Damn, I hope the stew isn't burnt," Iolaus said, shaking his head.

Hercules stared at him.

"What? I'm hungry."

Now there's a surprise. Hercules raised his eyebrows. "I can't believe you're actually proposing that we sit down inside the monster's house and eat the monster's dinner."

Iolaus cast his eyes skyward as if asking Zeus for strength, or possibly a handy lightning bolt. "Phrakis wasn't planning to eat that, he was going to eat us. And for your information, I made that dinner, he didn't."

"Another reason not to eat it," Hercules murmured, grinning as Iolaus swiped at him with his sword - a swipe carefully calculated to stir the hairs on his arm but not actually touch him.

"And it's not as if it's his house, either," Iolaus went on, actually beginning to pace in the yard. Clearly, he hadn't worked off all the adrenaline from the fight yet; Hercules had a suspicion that Iolaus would find a way to have an argument all by himself if Hercules should happen to walk off. "He just moved in here after he ate the former occupants. I think. Hey, where are you going?"

Hercules looked back at him, already half inside the farmhouse. "Where do you think?"

With a growl, Iolaus followed him in, swinging the sword up over his shoulder.

They didn't talk again until Iolaus had emptied his first bowl of stew; Hercules knew better than to come between Iolaus and a long-awaited meal. Besides, he'd been hungry too, and luckily the long simmer hadn't done the pheasants any harm; the meat practically melted off the bone, and the wild onions had turned sweet and translucent.

Iolaus wiped his mouth, dumped another pheasant bone on the growing heap beside his bowl, and sighed. "I needed that. You ready for seconds?"

Hercules shook his head and stood up. "Got something else to do first."

"Herc?" Iolaus didn't quite seem to grasp his intention, although he didn't resist when Hercules came to stand over him and tugged his vest off his shoulders. "How about we do this after dinner?"

Hercules threw him a look. "Iolaus, you may not have noticed, but your back is bleeding."

"Oh," Iolaus said intelligently and subsided, peeking over his shoulder as Hercules inspected the claw marks that scored his back.

When Hercules had wiped away some of the blood, he could see that the wounds were long but fairly shallow and bleeding cleanly. The skin around them didn't look inflamed, although some dirt had gotten into the wounds from all the rolling around Iolaus had been doing.

"Looks OK," Hercules finally pronounced as he rinsed his hands in the water bucket, trying not to sound too relieved for the sake of Iolaus' dignity. "We'll need to clean this up, though, or it'll fester." Apart from the claw marks, there were bruises all over Iolaus' left arm and something that looked like a blister on his right hand, but he decided to leave that until later, remembering Cheiron's lessons about picking one's battles.

"After dinner," Iolaus said in the tone of a general ordering his servants to bring him his armour. "And you could use something to put on those burns, too."

"What burns?"

Iolaus turned around with an incredulous look, shrugged his vest back on and stared pointedly at Hercules. Since Hercules couldn't actually see what Iolaus was looking at, Iolaus reached out and touched the left side of his neck gingerly.

"Ow!"

" Those burns. How did you get them, anyway? Phrakis didn't touch you."

Hercules shrugged. "I tried to talk some sense into Apollo."

Iolaus tilted his head to the side. "What exactly happened up there?"

Hercules told him, glad that Iolaus didn't interrupt - he was still sick at heart at the thought of the priest, who had spent his life vainly to protect his people, and at the idea that he had let himself be suckered into setting the monster free again.

"Well," Iolaus said at last, "I'm not exactly proud of what happened here, either." He explained how he had lost his bow, making a short tale of it for once. Hercules winced in sympathy, knowing how much Iolaus had prized that bow, and decided to change the subject.

"I saw that you'd managed to hit Phrakis in the eye. That was a good hit, especially without your bow-"

"Nope, belt knife. Which is gone, too. Well, it's in the woods somewhere."

"We can look for it tomorrow," Hercules said and got up to inspect Phrakis' larder. "We've still got some honey left. Honey's good for burns, and it probably won't do any harm to put some on your back either before we bandage it."

"Probably won't do any harm? Is that supposed to reassure me?"

"I don't know, do you need to be reassured?"

Iolaus didn't bother to answer, choosing to inhale his second helping of stew instead as Hercules smiled.

Once the moon had risen they walked around the settlement, trying to decide where to sleep for the night now that the barn and their blankets had burnt to ashes. Hercules had drawn the line at actually sleeping in the monster's bed, and Iolaus was holding out for a nice springy heap of pine needles, but finally they settled for another barn which still had a dozen horse blankets stacked in one corner.

Dozing off under the rough blankets, Hercules barely heard Iolaus' muttered words until a fist thumped his shoulder. "Mmmhuh?"

"I said, one thing's for sure - I'm not being nice and polite to annoying old men ever again."

"Not even Zeus?"

There was a silence. Outside, in the distance, thunder rolled.

"Okay, I'll make an exception," Iolaus said. "But only because he's your dad."

end