Five Hundred and Two years.
It all came into focus once more as she stood looking at the memorials to those lost in the cave Hades would watch the proceedings from. "See, you've gotta be seen leaving the gorge so people will testify they saw you."
Megara blurred his words out as she focused on the memorial carvings of her brother Haemon and her cousin Antigone. They would have told her never to sell her soul in the first place, but they hadn't been there when she panicked. She'd lost them, and what remained had not been enough to sustain her. Back when she thought she couldn't bear to lose the one person left to her… she ought to have been grateful for the chance at freedom. Why hadn't she taken it? With nobody left to care for, who could weigh her down? How had she been such an idiot? Now she had another five hundred and two years of servitude stretched out before her, and for what?
There had to be some way to make Hercules leave her alone with Nessus, right? How was she supposed to endure another five hundred years doing whatever Hades wanted? Would it have been so bad if Nessus wanted… Yes, actually. It would have been the worst thing. She could whittle down past those two years again. She'd done it before. This was annoying, it was even infuriating, and it made her want to scream into a dark corner.
But there was no time for that.
Pain and Panic were transforming into multiple iterations of innocent children, looking for Hades's approval. But they'd settled on the perfect appearances, and now those wide lamplight eyes had targeted Megara again.
"You could always visit them," Hades remarked.
Megara shuddered at the thought. "They don't remember me. Remember, you dunked them into the Lethe because they wouldn't stop schmoozing?"
"Oh, yeah. Gross. Shades are already annoying, but those two? Yeesh! We're all better off, though, don't you think? You got in a big fight with them that last day, didn't you?"
Why couldn't someone dunk Megara into the Lethe? There was nothing she wanted to remember, and she could imagine being happier if she could only invent a history for herself to replace the one she'd been saddled with.
"Let's focus on the mission."
"That's what I like to hear!" Hades rubbed his hands together, but the malicious lamplight gleam never left his eyes. He knew the daggers he was twisting in her heart, and he enjoyed knowing that he'd reopened old wounds.
Her pain had briefly distracted from her guilt, but realizing it was a tactic to keep her in line only hammered that into a stronger impression on her mind. As much as she wanted to assert how fake Hercules's innocent farm boy act was, she had to admit that if it wasn't an act, this ruse was an elaborate form of murder.
And she was the murder weapon.
"He's starting his hero career, so he's going to want attention," Hades was saying while she half-listened. "You'll need to search the entire Agora. The more noise you make, the more likely it is he'll come find you. That's why he found you in the first place, right?"
Megara wished she hadn't told him Hercules's name and she could get back to taking potshots at him from across the strategy table. This was making her ill.
"About that." Megara put her hand up for the god's attention. "The thing that went wrong this time was the centaur was too much of a man. Nessus stopped listening to me before Hercules ever turned up. After I do this for you, we need to talk terms. The horny monsters won't even hear your pitch from me, so I'm swearing off man-handling from now on. Hercules will be the last one."
Hades made several unpleasant faces, but he folded his hands. "I accept your terms. Female monsters and ones with incompatible organs. You've got a deal."
Some of the disquiet in Megara's heart receded, but there remained the fact that to win her terms, she had to lead an impetuous young idiot to his doom.
She had the entire walk to the Harmonian Agora to think about it. Her sandals were not enough to shield her feet from the ache as she wandered through the gates of Thebes, gray and miserable like the color of her psyche. When her ancestors built those walls, had they been shiny and bright, like the innocence of Hercules's smile?
Megara kicked a loose stone in the road. Pathetic thoughts like that belonged in the past before she understood the true horrors of the cosmos. She dragged her feet on the way back into the city, head down and fists clenched. Too soon, the Theban shadows embraced their princess.
As usual, the citizens eyed one another with suspicion commingled with disdain. It was easy to slip unnoticed through the streets, as nobody cared who she was, provided she stayed out of the way. There was little difference between a Theban road and the River Styx. Both were full of lifeless souls, all aimlessly following the current.
Swallowed in the hustle of the damned, Megara wondered how long it would take her to find the son of Zeus. He was uncommonly tall, but unless he was flying his stallion across the cityscape, he could still vanish into the many city centers. They could wander the same city for weeks without ever crossing paths.
Not that Hades was likely to call it square if she couldn't find his nephew for him. There had to be so many ways to excuse a failure, but as long as Hades wasn't getting his own hands dirty, he could dump all the blame on a minion.
Megara leaned against a column to get her bearings, watching a busy intersection. If it were up to her, she'd wait this whole thing out, and wait for time to run out. It would be just too bad if they could never find Hercules and release the Hydra. The one downside to that scenario was an early trip to Tartarus with her name on it. If she, as Hades' scapegoat, outlived her usefulness, there was no doubt how he'd remedy the situation.
Someone bumped into Megara so hard that she stumbled down the steps toward the road. Brooding might be a Theban pastime, but politeness wasn't anywhere near as common. She stabilized herself on the pedestal of an old statue of Dionysus. It was old enough that it hadn't been swapped out for the god's new persona. He still wore a leopard skin and smirked out into the street with a cupful of wine in one hand and a comedic theater mask in the other.
"You didn't plan for me to use your gifts for this, did you?" she asked her city's patron. "All I do is act, now. There's no time to play the role of myself anymore. You wanted it to be an escape from daily life, not daily life itself."
No answer. Not that she'd expected one. The only god who had any time for her was the one who'd chipped her jaw that morning. She had to keep moving unless she wanted him to give him another excuse.
The most intuitive thing she could think to do was keep to the porticos of temples and look down at the streets. It couldn't be that difficult to catch sight of someone so distinctive, as long as there wasn't a crowd in the way. There was no telling how long it would take to sweep the whole metropolis, but eventually, if he was in the city, he'd make enough noise to leave a trace.
As she crept along the outskirts of the agora, she noticed a few doomsayers telling everyone what they already knew. Then there were the foreigners who'd come to the big city only to realize that they never should've passed the gates. Many of the temporary structures were burnt, or in the process of being rebuilt. Another disaster. Typical.
A commotion and a familiar voice distracted from brooding over the many tragedies of her people.
"Wait!" he was calling, desperate for approval. He seemed like such a child, Megara couldn't imagine him any older than fifteen. Except for when she looked at that body… Well, if he wanted to put on a show, it was time for the curtain to rise.
Megara threw herself into the crowd, calling for help.
All proper Thebans, hardened by years of hardship, gave her no more than a glance. She could tell the fresh ones by their stunned expressions as they turned their whole bodies to look in her direction. Still, none of them were dumb enough to get involved. In the guise of a concerned citizen–the only concerned citizen–she drew more attention than a muscle-bound ginger with a flying horse.
True to type, Hercules wandered out of the shadows, eyes riveted to her.
"Hercules, thank goodness!" she cried, hurling herself across the square and drawing all the attention her frenzy generated to him. Feigning that she was out of breath, she collapsed against his chest.
"What's wrong?" his hands hovered near her, but she pulled back before he could do more than that.
"Two little boys! They were playing in the gorge! There was this rockslide, a terrible rockslide!" Pause for effect. "They're trapped!"
Everyone in the square drifted toward the pair of them. Numb they may be, but fiends for drama they certainly were.
"Kids? Trapped?" Hercules spun about to celebrate with his pet satyr. "Phil, this is great!" he exclaimed.
Megara folded her arms, raising her defiant chin at the supposed hero. "You're really choked up about this, aren't ya?" Not that she was any better, using his stupidity against him like this, but he held himself to actual standards!
"Come on!" The clout-chasing glory hog seized her by the arm and lifted her onto the flying horse's back.
"Wait" This wasn't part of the plan! She was meant to be off the hook by now! "You don't under–" She was on the back of his horse! She was on the back of his flying horse! "I have a terrible–" Pegasus reared back, forcing her to cling to Hercules and catch her breath. "Terrible fear of heights!" She screamed, to no avail. The streets of Thebes shrank below them, with its towering agora temples and massive byways.
Megara's head spun, to say nothing of her stomach.
They were airborne. All she could do was cling to Hercules, the sole anchor point to reality. His horse corkscrewed through the air, but somehow he remained a fixed point no matter how he flew.
Pegasus was doing this on purpose. It was a punishment for some unspoken offense.
"I think I saw the gorge on the way in!" Hercules said. "We'll be there soon!"
Megara pressed her face into his back to restrain her nausea. At least if she couldn't see everything, maybe she'd forget how high up they were, or the loops and rolls Pegasus was forcing her through.
Just when she thought she'd faint, they touched down on terra firma.
Hercules hopped off Pegasus, leaving Megara without her anchor. He was examining the gorge for signs of the children, but he heard her groaning. "Are you all right?"
No, but she had her pride.
"I'll be fine, just get me down before I ruin the upholstery."
How in Hades would she get down?
Pegasus answered her question with a sharp bucking motion that sent her into Hercules's arms.
"I'm sorry for him," Hercules said, gazing down at her with his lashes hanging low over his eyes. Did they have to sparkle like a pair of sapphires in the sun? That wasn't fair. "He's used to flying with my friends and me, and we've gotten used to his playfulness."
"Your demon horse tried to kill me. Put me down."
"He's not…" Hercules winced. "I'm so used to it I didn't even notice…" Gingerly, he put her down. "I'm sorry, Meg. I didn't mean to let him…" He smoothed her hair, trying to make up for the mess she must be by now.
Megara jerked back from him, and covered her hair with both arms crossed over her head. "Just–"
Two voices called from the gorge below.
"You'll be safe here," Hercules promised her.
Yeah right. "Thanks."
Hercules brightened. Of course, he'd been in Thebes long enough that he'd probably been through the worst rudeness of his life. "I'll see you again soon," he promised, then slid down the stone slopes toward his doom.
Pegasus huffed at Megara to get out of his space, and she was all too happy to. There was no way she'd stick around here if she could help it. She didn't want to see the horse or his master when they faced what was coming to them. As she climbed higher into the mountains, toward the mausoleum of her ancestors, she knew there was no escape from what was to come.