They decided to keep to their plan to take the Langadha Pass, and a few hours later they skirted the town of Kalamata, pausing only to get gas—after a negotiation that went considerably more smoothly with Diana doing the talking—before they joined up with the road heading east through the hills.
It didn’t take long to realize why locals didn’t use this particular route. It clung to the cliff in a narrow ribbon, bracketed on one side by unforgiving gray rock and on the other by a steep plunge into a tree-choked ravine.
Alia tried to control her nausea as they snaked around another hairpin turn. The road shrank to a single lane in some sections, with no way to see who might be coming the opposite direction or how fast. Even when there were two lanes, they were so cramped that whenever another car sped by, the Fiat shuddered. Alia told herself it was just because of the change in pressure between the two vehicles, but attaching Bernoulli’s principle to the shaking didn’t make her feel any less like they were one careless driver away from a crash that would smash them into the side of the mountain or send them sailing into nothingness.
“This is an ancient road,” said Diana, looking past Alia out the window. “Telemachus traveled it by chariot when he rode from Nestor’s palace to meet Menelaus in Sparta.”
“Menelaus? As in Helen’s husband?” asked Alia.
“I bet Telemachus didn’t get stuck behind a tour bus,” growled Nim, laying on the horn.
“Hey,” said Jason. “We’re trying not to attract attention, remember?”
“Don’t worry,” said Nim, punctuating every word with a horn blast. “No. One. Is. Paying. Attention. To. Me.”
Eventually, the bus found a place to pull to the side and Nim zoomed by as Alia clenched Diana’s arm and squeezed her eyes shut.
“Nim,” she gasped, “I realize we’re fleeing for our lives, but that’s not going to matter if we don’t actually survive this drive.”
“It’s fine!” said Nim, taking another turn with such enthusiasm everyone in the car slid hard to the left.
They’d had to sacrifice the car’s air conditioning to the climb up the hill, and now that they were free of the bus’s exhaust fumes, Alia tilted her head out the open window and breathed deeply.
The part of her brain that wasn’t preoccupied with trying not to vomit could appreciate the beauty of this place, the dense clouds of pine, the jagged peaks and twisting spires of the pass. There were places where the rock hung low over the road like a wave frozen just before it broke, others where the road narrowed and the car passed through a slender, rough-hewn furrow in the stone. Whoever had cut through the rock had left little room on either side. Alia felt like the Fiat was caught in some monster’s gullet, and that at any minute the beast might clear its throat.
They flew past a sign and Jason said, “That was the Kaiadas pit.”
“The what now?” said Alia.
“It’s where the Spartans dropped their enemies so no one would find them. It’s supposed to be bottomless.”
“Yeah, and their kids, too,” said Theo. “If the babies weren’t up to snuff.”
“That’s awful,” said Alia.
“It was a martial culture,” Jason said. “They had different priorities.”
Theo flicked Jason’s ear. “So you’re saying it was okay for them to dump anyone who wasn’t a perfect physical specimen like yourself?”
“I’m just saying it was a different time.”
Nim shuddered. “A barbaric time.”
“Is the world we live in so much better?” said Jason.
“Flush toilets,” offered Nim.
“Antibiotics,” said Alia.
“Smartphones,” said Theo.
“But that’s what I mean,” said Jason. “Antibiotics have created new strains of super bacteria. People are so dependent on their phones that they don’t bother learning anything for themselves anymore.”
Alia leaned forward and swatted Jason’s arm. “I cannot believe you’re talking smack about science.”
Jason held up his hands defensively. “I’m not! I’m just saying all those things that make our lives so convenient have a price. Think about the way technology has changed modern warfare. How much courage do you need to launch an air strike from behind a computer screen?”
“It’s true,” said Diana. “You’re efficient killers.”
“Sure,” said Alia, thinking of all the advances her parents had made at Keralis Labs, even the things they’d been working toward with Project Second Born. “But we’re also efficient healers.”
“And that has a cost, too,” said Jason. “Every generation is weaker than the last. Unable to adapt and thrive without being propped up by vaccines, gene therapy.”
Theo kicked the back of Jason’s seat. “Jesus, Jason, you’re sounding more Spartan by the second.”
“It’s just biology,” Jason said. “I’m not saying it’s good or bad.”
Theo slumped back in his seat. “Yeah, well, all I know is I would have been the first one over the cliff. The Spartans probably weren’t big on scrawny nerd babies in a martial culture.”
“It’s a myth,” said Diana.
Alia wasn’t sure what that meant anymore. “You mean like Warbringers and battle gods?”
“No, I mean, one of the most famous Spartan poets was blind from birth. They had a king with a clubfoot. They knew there was more to being a warrior than strength. All that stuff about leaving babies to die was Athenian propaganda.”
“Hey,” said Nim. “Do you know what the Spartans said when the Persians demanded they lay down their arms and surrender?”
“No,” said Theo. “But I bet it was followed by a lot of yelling and a slow-motion fight scene.”
“Molon labe,” said Jason.
“?‘Come and get them,’?” murmured Diana.
“Ha!” said Theo. “Someone knows more than the know-it-all.”
Nim hurtled them past the next turn. “Theo, I’m pretty sure we have time to detour to that bottomless pit.”
Come and get them. Alia wondered if Diana thought they might be facing a battle today. Was she afraid? Or was she like a concert violinist looking forward to a chance to play?
“Alia,” said Theo, ignoring Nim, “what’s the first thing you want to do once you’re purged of all your Warbringer-ness?”
Alia opened her mouth, then hesitated. In all the terror and desperation to get to the spring, she hadn’t really thought about what might come after. “Do you think I’ll feel different?” she asked Diana.
“I don’t know,” Diana said, “but I think the world will.”
Theo laughed. “You mean we’re all going to join hands and sing folk songs?”
“That sounds unpleasant,” said Diana.
“Come on!” said Theo. “Peace, love, the Age of Asparagus.”
“Aquarius,” corrected Nim.
“Is this really what you think peace is?” Diana said, clearly amused. “It sounds like a bad one-act play.”
“No, no, no,” said Theo. “It’s definitely a musical.”
“Oh God,” groaned Nim.
“When the mooooon is in the something something,” crooned Theo.
Nim gripped the steering wheel. “Theo, shut up.”
“And Jooopiter is wearing paaaants—”
“Theo!” snarled Nim. “Shut up. There’s something behind us.”
Alia craned her neck to see out the back window. There was a truck there, flashing its brights. “Maybe he just wants to get by.”
But at that moment the truck accelerated, its bumper kissing the back of the Fiat, sending the little car lurching forward as they all screamed.
Alia looked back again, and through the window she saw the driver’s hollow black eyes, his lips pulled back in a rictus grin, his monstrous face framed by a lion’s helm. The truck flickered, and Alia saw the shape of a chariot drawn by four massive horses, their eyes red as blood, their huge hooves sparking against the asphalt. Fear flooded through her. She needed to get out of this car.
Diana grabbed her hand, keeping it from the door handle.
“Don’t give in to the fear. It’s Deimos,” she said, keeping her voice low, steady, though Alia could see her pupils had dilated and a sheen of sweat had broken out on her brow. “God of terror. Phobos’s twin. Nim, you have to slow down.”
The driver laid on his horn, the sound too loud, filling Alia’s ears. In it she heard the trumpets of war, the screams of the dying.