Tyrant: King of the Bosporus by Christian Cameron

Author:Christian Cameron [Cameron, Christian]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2011-02-03T00:00:00+00:00

ALEXANDRIA, WINTER, 311–310 BC

Herakles stood naked except for his lion skin, towering over Satyrus’s supine form. At a distance, Satyrus regretted his own death, and his spirit hung over the room, watching the hero-god standing beside his body.

Thanatos entered from the floor, striding into the room as if climbing invisible steps from Hades below.

‘Mine,’ he said.

‘No,’ Herakles said.

‘Mine!’ Death hissed, and his voice was the voice of every creature of the underworld, and the stench of death and the flat smell of old earth accompanied him. His garments were of rotted linen, and his crown was gold so long buried as to have a patina.

Herakles stood between Death and the bed. ‘No,’ he said, and crossed his mighty arms.

‘Ten times over!’ Death hissed. ‘Am I some demi-mortal, to be treated so?’

‘Begone,’ Herakles said.

Thanatos was no coward. ‘Bah,’ he spat, and sand dribbled from his mouth. ‘Let me see how much of you remains mortal, little godling.’

Herakles shrugged. ‘I have tried your strength, Uncle.’

Thanatos struck suddenly, with a sword shaped like a sickle, the kepesh of Aegypt. Herakles caught the wrist of the hand that held the sword and lifted the god and his sword clear of the floor and walked out of the room, on to the balcony over the sea.

‘Cool your head in the kingdom of your brother, Poseidon,’ Herakles said.

‘I took your father in his moment of triumph, boy! And I’ll do the same to you!’ Thanatos said, and his dreadful eyes crossed with Satyrus’s and he knew that was meant for him.

And then Herakles turned and threw the god of death over the balcony.

There was no splash.

And in the way of dreams, Herakles led him along the river many parasangs, until they came to a temple, and Herakles led him to the altar – but it was no altar, and an old man, supported by two brawny apprentices, was forging iron on an anvil, and the scene was lit in the red of the forge, and as Satyrus watched, the bent blade was quenched, and Satyrus smiled in his dream, and then he was being pulled by the hand through the tangled ways of the night market, passing whores and rag-pickers and basket-weavers, passing a baker who did his business at night for the greater profit, and a man who sold stolen goods, and a woman who claimed her mother was Moira, goddess of fate, and that she could see the future. Herakles walked past them all, and none of them saw him, except the daughter of Moira, who raised her eyes from a fraudulent fortune and drew her stole over her head in terror.

They entered a tavern, and men moved out of the way of the god of heroes without knowing that they did so, stepping aside at a movement in the corner of the eye, and Satyrus moved in his wake. He could smell the sour wine, and smell also the tang of the poppy juice that the innkeeper kept in a glass bottle – real temple glass, worth its weight in gold.

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