“Gus…”
“You risked your life to come get me. And I know you would do anything to get Fiona back. Let me take some of the risk for a change. I owe it to you, and I owe it to her. If I had done a better job of watching over her, none of this would have happened.”
Pierce started to protest but she silenced him with a quick kiss on the lips.
“So it’s settled,” she said, as she pulled back. “Liam, let’s get moving.”
48
In the course of her language studies, Fiona had become intimately familiar with the Land of the Dead, as imagined by countless Greek and Roman poets, and later figures such as Dante and Milton. There was a fantastical quality to each and every depiction. The poets were not trying to describe something real, but rather the stuff of nightmares. She never would have believed that a place like what was described in those works could actually exist on the surface of the Earth.
And this was only the doorstep of Hell.
Ignoring the warning signs—some of which were printed with the explicit message ‘Danger. Thermal Area. Boiling Water. Unstable Ground. Do Not Enter’ and others that simply depicted cartoon hikers being scalded alive in a steam eruption—Tyndareus, completely encased in his exosuit, led the small group out across the desolate hard pan. The servo motors in the exosuit made faint whirring noises as he moved, but the sound was mostly drowned out by the loud crunch of metal shod feet on the gritty earth. Each step stirred up a cloud of what looked like powdery snow but was actually sulfur dust.
After breaking through a thin crust of ground and sinking knee-deep into the boiling liquid concealed beneath, Tyndareus was a little more tentative about the path he chose, but at no time did he appear daunted by the hostile environment. Safe within the closed environment of the suit, breathing a self-contained air supply, there was not much for him to worry about. With Rohn dragging her along, Fiona had little choice about where to tread, but whenever possible, she tried to follow in Tyndareus’s actual footsteps. If the ground could support the weight of the exosuit, then it could hold her up.
The danger of the ground giving way, however, was only one example of the weird unearthliness of the place. Steam rose from holes and cracks in the ground, then settled to form an eerie fog. There were small pools of water—some clear and dangerously inviting, other exhibiting jeweled hues of red, blue, green and yellow—and lakes of bubbling mud.
The foul air and pervasive heat sapped her energy. Five minutes into the trek, she was ready for a break, but the only thing worse than walking through the hellscape was standing still in it. She looked over her shoulder and located Nurse Wretched. The sneering woman looked even less happy about the situation than Fiona felt, which actually made Fiona feel a little better.
“Hey,” she called out. “Got any water?”
The woman made a face that was even uglier than usual, and gestured to a nearby pool. “Drink up!”
Fiona was about to respond in kind when Rohn jerked her attention forward again. He held out a bottle of water and a Nature Valley granola bar. She muttered her thanks and stuffed the latter item into a back pocket. Then, with some difficulty, since Rohn had not released her left wrist, she got the bottle open and took a lukewarm sip.
Better, but not much.
They arrived at the rock with the Herculean symbol a few minutes later. At Tyndareus’s behest, Fiona examined the inscription, but there was not much to say about it. She stared up at the reflective visor of the exosuit and shrugged. “I told you what it means,” she said. “You won’t find anything.”
The mirrored visage stared back at her. “Your attempts to deceive me are ill-advised, child.”
“I’m not trying to deceive you,” she said, making no effort to hold back her growing frustration. “I just want to get out of here. I’m hot and thirsty, and I have to pee. This is a waste of time.”
Tyndareus continued to regard her for a few more seconds then turned away. “Keep looking. There will be more markers like this.”