Queen of Kings - Maria Dahvana Headley [128]
“Are you certain?” he asked.
“We are here,” she said.
“Yes. Ready yourself.” He hesitated for a moment before putting his hand on the door and opening it.
Then, the only sound in the world was the sound of a creature unspeakably enormous, hissing and spitting in the darkness.
“We must not stop here!” yelled Antony, grabbing her by the hand, nearly snatching her off her feet, but the creature had already sensed them. Cleopatra felt something pass behind her ankles, and suddenly she knew. It was all around them. Antony drew his sword.
“Run when I tell you to run. The door to the throne room is on the other side of this.”
She could hear its coils rattling across the stone, endless looping lengths.
“A serpent,” she whispered.
“No longer,” said Antony. “A shade.”
It whipped toward her face and Antony shouted and slashed at it, but his sword went through its body. All Cleopatra could see were eyes, hundreds of them, glittering in the dark.
“Cut off one head, and two grow in its place,” she murmured. “The Hydra.”
“It has died a thousand times,” said Antony. “Each time one of its heads was cut off, it went to Hades. Now all of its dead selves are here, guarding the doorway to the gods. Only one of the heads is immortal, still living.”
He lashed out, slicing at another striking head. Cleopatra readied herself to run, but then something changed.
The monster was no serpent.
“Stop!” Cleopatra screamed.
It was Selene’s face, appearing out of the dark, her eyes shining, her cheeks rosy. Her child.
Cleopatra took a step forward, and as she did so, Antony’s sword slashed forward across Selene’s face, leaving a long wound.
Cleopatra tore Antony’s sword from his hands and, in moments, had him on his knees.
“How dare you—”
Selene’s mouth opened, wide and shocked, and Cleopatra reached for her.
Selene hissed.
Antony looked up at her, his eyes sad. His skin was nearly transparent now. She could see the wall through his heart.
“We have to go through the beast,” Antony said, and stood, reaching out his hand for his sword. Cleopatra found that she could not let go of it.
Hissing and spitting came from the dark behind her. Cleopatra’s head spun to the side to track the Hydra’s location, and when she turned back again, there were two Antonys.
“Don’t trust him,” Antony said.
“No,” Antony said. “Don’t trust him.”
She still held the sword. The coils of the Hydra slipped past her calves. The invisible areas behind the serpent sparked with intelligence, with evil, and she heard the shifting of the monster’s bones. Her two husbands looked pleadingly at her. One of them stood.
“Follow me,” he said, but she would not. “You know me. I am yours.”
“What are the words?” she asked, her voice scarcely loud enough to be heard. She took a step toward him. He was her husband, surely. His face filled with love for her.
“Te teneo,” said the other Antony.
The false Antony before her hissed, darting forward, venom dripping from his jaws, his mouth open for Antony’s throat. Cleopatra lunged forward and threw herself upon the serpent. A scalding drop of something landed on her arm, and she gasped at the sensation, a blistering fire that did not go out but spread, and lit her fingers like torches.
She screamed in agony, and her husband grabbed her and pulled her from the serpent’s clutches, heaving open the door that led to the lords of Hades, a door gilded with dark metal, glowing with moonstones and black diamonds.
Silence closed around them, a sense of tremendous space, as though they had stepped behind a waterfall and into a cavern. Cleopatra put her hand out and felt Antony beside her.
Only then did she open her eyes.
Their thrones were as tall as buildings, and their robes held the night sky in their folds. In the apex of the chamber’s ceiling, a crescent moon glowed feebly. Cleopatra looked up, shuddering with the pain of the Hydra’s venom.
Persephone’s stony features danced with shadows. She was lit with the cold light of a phosphorescent sea, but her lips were those of a young and beautiful