Hercules and the Geek of Greece (3 page)

The queen turned back to him.

“So, my old friend,” she said to Hercules, “are you up for this?”

Hercules was still wondering if he was sleeping. All of this seemed so—well, dreamlike.

“Like he said before,” Brooma answered for him, “he will be honored to go. And I will be honored to go along with him.

The queen smiled broadly for the first time.

“Splendid!” she cried.

“Splendid!” the wizard Xinx cried.

“Splendid!” Brooma cried.

“Oh, brother,” Hercules said. “If there's any way I'm dreaming all this, please let me wake up now.”

With the snap of his fingers, the wizard Xinx conjured up a map of the route Hercules was to take to Castletop.

Hercules' heart sank to his feet when he saw it. The map indicated he would have to travel the Road of Rudes, the never-ending roadway that wound around the world several times over. Many parts of it were said to be haunted, especially up here in the northern part of the world, and most especially at night.

“The road to Castletop is mostly through forests and thick woods,” Xinx told Hercules. “You must travel it only when it is daytime and be safely hidden away, off the road, every hour of the night. Terrible things can happen on the road when it's dark. Things that even someone like you, the son of a god, might quake at.”

“Gee,” Hercules told him, “thanks for the pep talk.”

Map in hand, Hercules was then escorted by the queen to her royal stables. It was here that Xumonia's finest steed was kept.

His name was XL, and there was no finer horse in the Kingdom of Zim. He was tall, white, with a mighty head and a long, flowing mane.

Everyone in the kingdom knew of XL. He'd carried many of the queen's best warriors into battle before Xumonia had decided to make him her own. Now the queen allowed Hercules to go inside his royal stall and pet him, something only the queen was normally allowed to do.

But why was Hercules being afforded this privilege?

You are about to be pleasantly surprised,
Hercules heard Brooma's voice whisper in his ear.

“I would never ask anyone to undertake such a dangerous quest without giving them the best thing that I have,” the queen said, patting the mighty steed herself. “That's why I want you to take XL on your journey. Is that all right with you?”

Hercules just stared back at her. XL was probably the most valuable warhorse in the realm. He was literally worth his weight in gold. A beautiful animal such as he was better off in safe quarters—and certainly not on the Road of Rudes.

“Take XL?” Hercules finally replied. “I don't know. I mean, I can't. I shouldn't. I mean,
you
shouldn't really—”

Xumonia put her finger to Hercules' lips and stopped him from stammering.

“I know I can trust you with XL,” she said, giving Hercules his reins. “Just as I know I can trust him to get you where you are going and back safely again.”

Hercules looked at the golden reins and then back up at the queen.

“My lady, I don't know what to say. . . .”

Xumonia smiled sadly.

“Just say you'll do your best,” the aging queen replied. “That's all I can ask for.”

“I will, my lady,” Hercules said with a bow. “I promise, I will.”

There would be no send-off for Hercules. By the queen's orders, he was to leave one hour before sunrise on the very next day.

He ate a breakfast of fruit and water and wrapped his heavy cloak into his bedroll. Now that the sun was rising, the air began to warm up a little. But Hercules wondered just how long it would take to rid his bones of their very deep chill.

Finally, it was time to leave.

Hercules went to the royal stable where XL was waiting with a full pack of provisions. Hercules patted the horse and the massive animal snorted softly.

“Between the two of us,” Hercules told him, “let's try to make this a quick journey. Okay?”

The horse snorted again and began nodding his head. He knew exactly what Hercules was talking about.

Hercules checked his provisions bag—sweetcakes and honey for him, water and oats for XL—and then made sure they were strapped securely across the horse's back. Then he put the golden reins on XL and led him out of the stable to the entrance to the great hall itself.

Once here, he consulted his map again and looked to the east. The sun was just coming up. To the west, the direction he had to go, it was still very dark. He took a moment to clear his head, and then gave XL's reins a slight pull.

“The longest journey begins with the first step,” he murmured.

But just as they were about to take that first step, Queen Xumonia suddenly appeared. She glided out of the great hall, looking even more frail and ill than before. A circle of guards surrounded her, several of which had to help her walk.

Slowly she made her way over to Hercules.

“There is one more thing I must ask of you,” the queen said.

“Yes, my lady?” Hercules answered.

“I want someone else to go with you,” she said. “Someone who will benefit from this trip, and possibly aid you in it.”

Hercules' heart made a slight leap. Perhaps Xumonia was going to assign a squad of her palace guardsmen to go with him, soldiers who were good with a sword and a map. Though he could certainly handle himself, Hercules wouldn't have minded if some real soldiers were coming along on this dangerous quest.

But as it turned out, nothing could be further from the truth.

The queen weakly clapped her hands and two servants appeared. Between them was a small boy weighed down by a heavy knapsack and a pair of bulging spectacles. He seemed to be sniffling and coughing and sneezing all at the same time.

Hercules took one look at him and groaned. He recognized him right away.

It was Geekus. The teenage human disaster who just also happened to be the nephew of the queen.

He had grown barely an inch since the last time Hercules had seen him, even though that was several years before. And just like then, he looked unkempt, nervous, hair in disarray.

Was the queen serious? Did she really want Hercules to drag Geekus along on this quest?

“My lady, this will be a very dangerous journey,” Hercules started, “do you really think—”

“That my nephew will be able to help you?” the queen interrupted weakly. “My answer is . . . yes.”

“But he . . .” Hercules began to protest.

The queen came up close to him. Her voice was very faint.

“He needs to become a man, Hercules,” she told him in a whisper. “Because if I should, well, pass on to the other side, he will become the ruler of the kingdom.”

Hercules was shocked to hear this.

King Geekus?
No way!

“Does
he
know that, my lady?” Hercules asked her.

The queen solemnly shook her head no.

“It's best he doesn't,” she said.

With that; Geekus was brought forward. But after two steps, he tripped and landed flat on his face. The guards helped him up, and helped him retrieve his glasses. But he clumsily put them on upside down and when he took another step forward, he tripped over his own feet again.

There were not enough gold dinars in the kingdom worth this, both guards thought as they hauled Geekus to his feet again. They practically carried him the rest of the way this time, depositing him with a thump in front of Hercules.

Hercules looked at him. His nose was a torrent of goo, his hands dirty and shaking. The boy didn't look too crazy about this idea, either.

Hercules was about to ask the queen to reconsider when Xumonia began coughing and breathing heavily again. She looked so ill and so old now, it was frightening.

“You must go now, Hercules,” she said in a raspy voice. “I really don't have much more time. The gods be with you. . . .”

A second later, the queen fainted into the arms of her guards. The royal doctor was called to revive her.

At that moment, Xinx, the queen's wizard, suddenly materialized next to Hercules.

“Remember, Hercules,” he said, “you have to retrieve the Crown of Xas and return it here by the next full moon. That is four days from now. Two days' journey out to Castletop and two back. So please—hurry!”

“I will!” Hercules said.

With that, he saluted the queen, who had recovered a little, and pulled on XL's reins again. Finally, they were off. Across the drawbridge, over the moat and up the small hill nearby, Hercules was leading XL with Geekus running and wheezing right alongside him.

They made the top of the hill in just a few minutes, and from the crest, Hercules could see the Road of Rudes stretched out for miles and miles before him. It looked very dark and very foreboding. There was no sense kidding himself here. This was going to be a very unpleasant journey.

“The gods be with me,” he whispered to himself.

Oh, we are with you,
he heard Brooma's voice say on the wind.
Though I think this Geekus kid will be a real drag.

Hercules almost laughed.

“For once,” he replied to the wacky goddess, “I have to agree with you!”

There was great rejoicing going on inside the Amazon fortress at Castletop.

Hundreds of the female warriors were gathered in the great chamber of the fort. Many jugs of wine were being passed among them. Whole cows were being cooked over gigantic barbecues. Trumpets blared nonstop. Huge fires that had been lit in the outside courtyard were lighting up the dark morning sky. The mile-high castle had not seen a celebration like this in hundreds of years.

The Crown of Xas was now in their possession, and for that reason, the Amazons planned to party on for days. Their theft had gone off perfectly. They had been planning it for years. Now the most powerful, most valuable possession of the Kingdom of Zim was sitting in the huge vault in the center of Castletop.

And for Stuka, the queen of the Amazons, this meant nothing less than a chance at immortal life.

But Stuka was not happy. She was sitting on her throne, looking down on the celebration of her female warriors, a huge leg bone of meat in one hand and an enormous cup of wine in the other. She was surrounded by her circle of wizards. They looked as worried as she did.

Stuka's bad mood stemmed from a troubling report she'd just received from the sorcerers. According to their seeing ball, a small group of “special warriors” had left Xumonia's castle earlier that morning and appeared to be heading toward Castletop. Just who these special warriors were the wizards could not tell. They might be mercenaries hired from another kingdom, they had theorized, or perhaps a secret military unit Zim had been preparing for just such an occasion.

Stuka had known all along that Xumonia would not give up the Crown of Xas without a fight—that's why the Amazons had planned the crown's theft while the army of Zim had been away at battle. And while Stuka assumed all along that her stepsister would call back some of her soldiers to retrieve the crown, such an act might take several weeks, or even a month. And without the crown, Xumonia would not last that long.

But now, with word that some special warriors were coming much earlier than expected, Stuka's concern had deepened.

She took a huge bite of meat, washing it down with a deep gulp of wine. The fact that her fortress was sitting atop a mile-high mushroom-shaped tower of rock and earth was the Amazons' best defense. No army had ever successfully attacked the Castletop simply because it was almost impossible to get to. It took nearly a half day's journey for the Amazons themselves to get to the bottom—and then another day's climb up the sheer cliffs and into the forest beyond. And this only after crossing the raging river that surrounded the place.

But still, Stuka knew that Xumonia probably picked these mysterious special warriors very well. They were no doubt well trained and extremely loyal-and probably handsomely paid, to boot.

So the Amazons had to be prepared for them. And that's what Stuka was discussing at the moment with her circle of wizards. How could they best prevent the special warriors from Zim from reaching Castletop?

“We can make their journey here most miserable,” one of the wizards was telling Stuka. “We can make the trip so painful, they will probably turn around and run back home before they've even made it halfway!”

Stuka listened closely to her wizards. She didn't always believe what they said, but she knew they could do some amazing things.

“How would you accomplish that?” she asked, biting off a huge mouthful of meat from the cow's leg.

“We can make the forest even more haunted than it already is,” one wizard told her. “We can conjure up very scary things—ghosts, horror plants, demons. Things that will make even the bravest soldier run away.”

“That's good,” Stuka told them between bites of a cow's eyeball. “What else?”

“We can do simple things like block the road, too,” another wizard said. “With one enchantment, we can put so many rocks and tree trunks across the road, it will take an entire army days to remove them.”

“Again, very good!” Stuka said, wiping her greasy mouth with her greasy hand.

“And then, of course,” a third wizard whispered in her ear, “we always have our secret weapon. . . .”

Stuka thought about that for a moment—and smiled. Yes, they had their own secret weapon, something more frightening than haunted forests and roadblocks.

She took a huge gulp of wine and suddenly felt much, much better.

Let Xumonia send her special warriors to get back the crown.

With everything that would stand in their way, the chances of their success would be less than zero.

Hercules had traveled the Road of Rudes before.

As a boy he'd journeyed all over the realm and he'd used the road to get to many of these places.

His memories of the road were mostly fond ones—long rolling valleys, pleasant hills, trees and flowers everywhere.

But the road went many places in many directions, and the piece of it that connected Zim to Zum went through some of the darkest, most forbidding regions in the world. Again, Hercules knew that the quicker he made this journey, the better.

He'd decided early on simply to ignore Geekus—maybe that way he would get the hint and turn around and go back to Zim, where he'd be infinitely safer. The queen might not be as mad as she would be if Hercules simply told Geekus to go home—or moved so fast that Geekus could just never keep up.

Still, through the first six hours of the trip, they had been forced to stop no less than ten times, all of them because some small calamity had befallen Geekus. He'd dropped his eyeglasses three times, had lost one of his ugly sandals four times. He'd sneezed so loud once that it knocked him off his feet and startled XL to the point of bolting, and he'd simply tripped over his own feet twice.

So those first few hours were not very pleasant. Sure, the road was level and the woods airy. It was an unusually warm spring day, and Hercules would have at least liked to enjoy the sun on his face. But Geekus was like an anchor, constantly dragging them to a stop whenever they got a good speed up.

Hercules knew this was not a good situation, especially since he had such little time to get to Castletop.

Even XL seemed to be upset at the boy. But he also made sure he never went too fast for Geekus. Whenever he sensed that the boy was falling behind, he would slow down and allow him to catch up. XL was a smart horse. He knew it was up to him to protect Geekus as well.

The day wore on, and by the time noon had arrived, Hercules determined that they'd already traveled a good portion of the trip, despite Geekus's dallying. Maybe they
could
make the Kingdom of Zum in just a couple of days, Hercules thought, and somehow get the crown back and returned to Xumonia in plenty of time before the next full moon.

But then again, maybe not. . . .

They stopped for lunch just as the sun was overhead. Hercules unraveled XL from his golden reins. The steed took a drink of water from a nearby stream, then wandered away to graze. Hercules had conditioned himself not to eat much on the trip, so he dined on an apple picked from a nearby tree.

Geekus, on the other hand, had produced an enormous meal from his backpack. Bread, jam, a fish burger, two pears, an apple, and a bag of pine nuts. The boy gobbled all this down in less time than it took Hercules to eat his apple.

Hercules watched him as he ate, sitting under a tree some forty feet away. He was sure that the girls in the nearby villages didn't even acknowledge Geekus's existence, even though he was the queen's nephew. His sniffling, runny nose, thick eye specs, and his absolutely stupid way of dressing was probably too much for even the most generous girls to be friends with him.

Hercules wondered what it would have been like if the poor kid had turned out to be handsome. He would have been by far the most popular kid in the land.

Looks shouldn't be everything,
Hercules thought.

Now, as he watched Geekus stuff his face, lost in a world of his own, Hercules was surprised by something: he would have thought that Geekus would have talked his ear off already. But in amongst the tripping episodes, the dropped glasses, and the sniffles and wheezes, the fact was, he hadn't said a word to Hercules the entire journey. And in some small way, this made Hercules have a small measure of respect for him.

Very small.

Hercules signaled it was time to go by packing up his bags. Geekus silently packed his own belongings and waited for Hercules to rein XL.

Then they started off again.

Still, not a word passed between them.

Now the road began to twist through some of the deepest forests in the land.

The forest became so dark at one point that Hercules could barely see his hand in front of him. He had to lead XL inch by inch, and did so very carefully. If the magnificent steed stumbled or got hurt, then they'd all be in big trouble.

It was so dark, in fact, that when they came to the roadblock, Hercules nearly walked right into it!

They'd just passed over a shallow stream and turned a bend when they first saw it. It was made of tree trunks, mud, and stone, and looked like it had been blocking this part of the road for years.

“Oh, this is just great!” Hercules murmured when he first realized what it was.

The blockade had been well-placed. To the right was a sheer cliff, straight up. To the left, a steep drop straight down into an even darker part of the forest.

There was no way to go around the roadblock. And because it was so high and covered with jagged stones and metal, there was no way they could climb over it, either.

“By the gods, we spent a whole day getting here, and now this,” Hercules exclaimed. “It's impossible.”

“No, it isn't,” Geekus said quietly.

Hercules spun around. Was the kid actually speaking to him?

“It isn't?” Hercules asked him sternly.

“No,” Geekus stated.

“Well?” Hercules asked, getting into his face. “What can
you
do about it?”

Geekus took a few steps back and studied the roadblock for a moment. He pulled on his chin in thought.

“Let's see,” he murmured. “It's about thirty-five feet high, don't you think? Maybe thirty paces wide?”

Hercules just rolled his eyes and plopped to the ground.

“Oh, brother!” he groaned.

Geekus did the rest of his figuring silently. Then he came up to Hercules and took off his travel bag and gave it to him.

“I'll be right back!” he said.

With that, he disappeared around the bend and splashed across the stream.

Hercules just shook his head and sank farther to the ground.

“How did I ever get mixed up with such a birdbrain?” he said to himself.

Geekus came back about ten minutes later.

In his hands he had an assortment of roots, dried leaves, tree bark, and a couple of powdery stones.

“May I use your canteen?” he asked Hercules.

“What do you need my canteen for?” Hercules replied sternly. “What's the matter with your canteen? And what is all that stuff?”

Geekus dropped everything at his feet.

“Potash. Sulfur. Ginger root,” he said. “My canteen is brand new—and I really don't want to . . .”

Hercules was looking at the mess at his feet, and really didn't hear Geekus. The boy snatched his canteen, casually emptied it out, and began putting sulfur into it, all before Hercules could stop him.

“Do you know how to make fire?” he asked Herc.

“Of course I do!” Hercules replied harshly. “Please tell me why you are ruining my canteen.”

“Make some fire,” Geekus said. “And you'll see. . . .”

Hercules was so mad, he just got up, fond some flint, and made some fire. Meanwhile, Geekus stayed hunched over the ground, mixing up the things he'd found and stuffing the contents into Hercules' canteen.

Finally he got up, dusted himself off, and walked over to Hercules' fire. He was holding the stuffed canteen, which now had a piece of cloth running out of the top.

“You'd better go back down the road a bit,” he told Hercules.

“Why? What are you doing?”

“We want this roadblock out of the way, right?” Geekus asked.

Hercules nodded—though he was still miffed.

“Then go around the bend, please,” he told him.

Hercules almost laughed in his face. Man, what a nerd!

“Okay,” he said. “I'll go around the bend. In fact, I'll go all the way back to Zim!”

“Just around the bend will be far enough,” Geekus said, hardly paying attention to him.

Hercules took XL's rein and stalked off across the stream.

But just as they reached the other side, he heard a terrific
boom!

It was so loud, it nearly knocked Hercules into the water. He spun around and looked back from where he'd just come. There was a cloud of ugly black smoke rising above the treetops.

“Geekus?!” he cried out.

But there was no reply.

He started running, XL close on his heels. Through the stream and up the other bank, the smoke got thicker and the smell got very, very stinky.

He came around the bend and here he found Geekus. He was stumbling a bit, his face and hands covered with soot. His glasses were half off his face, and one of his squirrel-bladder sandals was deflated.

But he was all right. And the roadblock? Well, the roadblock was gone. All that was left of it was a bunch of smoldering rocks, tree limbs, and mudcakes.

Hercules couldn't believe it. It was as if some great lightning bolt—from the hand of a very powerful god—had blown the roadblock away.

Hercules knew of no other way that it could have happened.

But Geekus did. He'd made a bomb. A very powerful bomb. And it had blown the roadblock to smithereens.

“It wasn't supposed to be that big!” he mumbled, fixing his eye specs. “I think I used too much sulfur. Yes, that was it. Too much sulfur. . . .”