The Antiheroes: The world needed heroes...It got them instead. Read online

  “Well, shit,” Dannen muttered because, honestly, given the circumstances, there didn’t seem much point of saying anything else.

  “Stop there, criminal!” one of the men shouted.

  Dannen took a bit of issue with being called a criminal. Oh, he’d been called worse, but it wasn’t so much what the guard had said as the way he’d said it, in a rude tone Dannen would have liked to have stopped and discussed with him. Assuming, of course, that the man in question hadn’t been flanked by three other guys who, though they hadn’t spoken yet, just looked like assholes. And there was the sword he held, of course, and who was to say? He might be the one city guardsman in the world who actually knew how to use the damned thing. So, Dannen did what any sane man would do.

  He ran. Or, at least, he tried to.

  It didn’t take him long to find three possible avenues of escape. Three options, which wasn’t so bad. What was, though, was the city guardsmen standing in all of them. Damned inconsiderate, but not as inconsiderate as they had a mind to be judging by the sharp looks and sharper swords aimed in his direction.

  There was a shop entrance a few feet away, turned out when he looked at the sign that it was a brothel which went a long way toward explaining the topless women hanging out of the windows shouting encouragement into the street—though whether at him or the guards he didn’t know, wasn’t sure they knew, come to that. Would have been a happy enough turn of luck to find his wild ramblings bringing him so close to a brothel if there wasn’t the whole getting executed thing to worry about. Not exactly spoiled for choice, Dannen charged toward the brothel.

  He barged through the door, some part of his mind—the dumb part, of which he’d always had more than his fair share—thought it would surely have to be locked. It was this part which took over just for long enough to decide him that charging the wooden portal would be the best way in, that convinced him that only a fool would stop and try the latch. Well, turned out that the brothel—like every other brothel ever—was still open. This, of course, meant that Dannen’s heroic ramming of the door quickly turned into him stumbling as it swung easily aside, and then he wasn’t stumbling at all but falling, falling, fallen on an ass that was, thank you gods one and all, quite bare.

  By happy chance—or the gods’ cruelty, and wasn’t it really just one and the same?—he fell in what he hoped was spilled ale. No time to check, though, as he could hear the guards rushing the door from outside, could see them too since his blow to it had knocked it off one of its hinges, though it had to be said that he thought the door had still gotten the better of the exchange.

  He was up in a moment, one hand tugging his trousers back up to his waist, the other pushing away a shirtless fat man who had decided—the world really was full of fools—that a half-naked man being chased by a dozen city guardsmen was something he just had to investigate.

  Dannen gave him a good shove, and the fat man let out a squawk, tumbling over a chair and a very pissed-off prostitute. Dannen wanted to take a minute, tell the man only a fool would come up and try to have a conversation with a clear fugitive when there was a woman, bought and paid for, that would prove far better company, but he didn’t have the time.

  The guards were only seconds away now, so he charged for the stairs leading to the brothel’s second—and no doubt far more entertaining—floor. He took the steps two at a time, the shouts of the angry prostitute ringing behind him.

  He reached the second-floor landing and sprinted past rooms and some women plying their trade right there in the hall, like maybe there was a shortage of space. They screamed as he passed, though whether those screams were screams of fear or the sort of screams the men who came to places like this enjoyed paying for, Dannen didn’t know and didn’t have time to find out. He ran to the end of the hall, hoping for a window he might dive out of, but since he was just about as far from an acrobat as you could get and still be breathing, it was likely that diving out of one would just be dying on his own terms instead of the guards’.

  Of course, there wasn’t one, so he didn’t have the chance either way and was left with the options of diving at the wall, at the guards behind him, or walking—by the gods walking not charging—through the closed door to his left. He glanced back and saw the guards gaining the second-floor landing.

  Well, there was still the off-chance he might stumble in on a free show, a nice image to take with him to the guillotine. But as he entered the room, slamming the door shut behind him, he saw it was empty. Dannen turned back to the door, setting the latch. Not that it would make much difference, of course. The latch was a weak, frail thing that seemed ready to give way to a stern look, and he figured a good kick from one of the guardsmen would do for it easily enough.

  He looked around, hoping for something he might use, though unless there was an army hiding under the bed—or an ogre, he wasn’t picky—he was probably well and truly screwed. Screwed in a brothel. There was a song there, maybe, but not one he’d be around to sing, so there was no real point worrying about it.

  There was a wardrobe sitting in the corner of the room, though why the rooms of a brothel would need one he couldn’t imagine. It seemed to him that they were in the business of taking clothes off and part of the charm was that those clothes, when they were taken off, ended up scattered about the floor or draped on the bed posts, not hung up neatly in a closet.

  He considered hiding in it, anyway, hoping all the guards would be struck dumb by the time they made it to his room, maybe would overlook him altogether, but decided against it. For one, what little chances he had would be non-existent if they came on him hiding in a closet. And perhaps more importantly, if he was going to die, he’d just as soon keep what little dignity was left to him.

  Alright then, he told himself as he heard the guards shouting, clearing the room next to his own, alright. He was at peace about dying mostly. The gods knew he’d earned his death more than a few times. It was coming, that was all. It had been coming for a long time now. He just wished he knew what he’d done the night before. Likely, he’d done far worse on any number of occasions and either by luck or blind chance had walked away without a scratch, but then a man couldn’t count on luck or chance forever.

  A door creaked open, and he spun, expecting to see the guards pouring into the room from the hallway. But the door to the hallway was still closed. Then there was another creak, and he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. One of the guards must have made it inside somehow, been waiting for him in the closet. It ought to have been impossible, but then Dannen had traveled the world a lot in his younger years, and he’d seen men killed by creatures and things most people thought were impossible myths more than a few times. How they would have known he’d come here he couldn’t guess, and there wasn’t time to think about it anyway. He spun, raising his fists, but the figure he saw stepping calmly out of the closet wasn’t one of the guards.

  The first thing he noticed about the man was that he was a man. The second, though, was far more interesting. The stranger was glowing. A golden glow that was accompanied by a melodic humming filling the air as if someone were playing the harp. The figure was smiling, but Dannen could make out little else before the glow began to intensify, and he was forced to raise a hand, shielding his eyes.

  The figure waved a golden-limned hand and for a brief, terrifying moment, Dannen felt the air grow thick all around him, so thick he felt as if he’d be crushed. A moment later, there was a pop in the air and the incredible pressure vanished as quickly as it had come. But things felt…different, somehow. At first, Dannen couldn’t figure out what had changed, but then he knew.

  He could still hear the soldiers shouting, but now those shouts sounded as if they came from far away, sounded, too, as if they were in a language he did not know. After a moment, Dannen realized that it wasn’t a different language after all. Instead, the guards seemed to be shouting in slow motion, their words coming out so slowly as to be near incomprehensible.

&n
bsp; Dannen thought probably he was having a fit. He’d heard of such things before, usually when someone had suffered a terrible blow to the head or was under an extreme amount of stress. He didn’t remember suffering such a blow, but considering that he didn’t remember anything of the last eight hours or so, that didn’t mean a whole lot. As for stress, well, if imminent death didn’t cause a man anxiety, he was dead already.

  “Ah, Dannen Ateran,” the figure said. His voice, at least, sounded normal, perhaps even amused, which might have been explained by Dannen’s appearance. “Or should I call you the Bloody Butcher?”

  Dannen didn’t know how most people would react to a glowing figure emerging from an empty closet, accompanied by an unexplainable hum and smirking like he knew a thousand things no one else could hope to know. Maybe, most people would have wanted to run or beg for their lives. Dannen, though, didn’t want either of those things. What he wanted, more than anything, was to punch the figure in the face, to wipe some of the smugness off his expression.

  “Seems a bit creepy, doesn’t it?” he asked instead. “A grown man hanging out in a brothel closet?” He glanced over the man’s shoulder at the small closet. “Couldn’t have been comfortable.”

  The man looked back at the closet and gave a soft grunt. “Ah. I hadn’t realized.” He turned back to Dannen, watching him, the arrogant smile back in place. Begging for a punching, this one. “Though, you are wrong, Dannen.”

  “You’re right,” Dannen said. “Not just a bit creepy. Damned creepy.”

  The man rolled his eyes, not amused. “That is not what I mean. I am not a grown man, Dannen. In fact, I’m not a man at all.”

  Dannen squinted. “Huh. Sure, sort of feminine features…yeah, I can see it. A woman, then, though the gods could have been a bit kinder when they made you.”

  “What?” the figure asked, the hum and the glow faltering. “No, wait. No, I’m not a woman. I’m a man or—” He trailed off, and it was Dannen’s turn to smirk. The figure took a slow, deep breath as if to gather his patience. “What I mean, Dannen Ateran,” he intoned, reassuming the sonorous, officious tone he’d used when he first spoke, “is that I am no man. I am a god.”

  Dannen grunted, thinking the guards must have caught him after all. Maybe he’d knocked himself unconscious, probably when slamming into the brothel door like a damned fool, and the figure before him was nothing more than a figment of his mind as it expired. “A god who spends his time hiding out in closets then?” Dannen said, figuring that if he was dying he might as well have a little bit of fun. “No wonder the world’s screwed up.”

  The figure sputtered, and this time the hum and glow didn’t falter, they vanished altogether. “I’ll have you know, Dannen, that I am indeed a god and—” He cut off abruptly, letting out a squawk as Dannen poked him in the nose. “Excuse me?” the figure said in a shocked voice.

  Dannen grunted. “Feel awfully real for a figment of my imagination.” He shrugged. “Well. I’ve heard healers say that a man’s mind is what makes him feel, so I suppose it isn’t completely unreasonable to imagine you’d feel real. Anyhow,” he went on, glancing around the room, “if this is the land of the dead, and you’re to be my company, I was more of a bastard than I realized.”

  The figure pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head in frustration. “It’ll be easy, they said,” he murmured, “it’s your turn, they said. That bastard Hephaestus has got a lot of answering to do.”

  “Hephaestus,” Dannen said, frowning. “That name sounds familiar.” Then it hit him, and he laughed. “You mean the Hephaestus? As in the God of Smiths?”

  “God of some other things, too,” the figure muttered, then paused before he could say more, dismissing whatever he’d planned to say with a wave of his hand. “That is a matter that might be dealt with later. For now, let us get back to business.” He closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath, as if gathering himself. When he opened them again, the soft, golden nimbus of light had returned, as had that damned humming. Dannen decided if he had to listen to that for the rest of his afterlife, he’d likely go insane before the week was out. Not that he was all that certain the afterlife had weeks as such. It was a new thing, being dead.

  “Dannen Ateran,” the stranger said in that deep, resonant voice that reminded Dannen of the officious priests who sometimes took it on themselves to stand on street corners and tell all the heathens of the city—a population that generally included everyone but themselves—just how heathen they were. “Son of Fildius and Margaret, I am Perandius, and I have come to summon you to your duties for—”

  “Why are you talking like that?” Dannen interrupted.

  The figure frowned. “Talking like what?”

  “Come on, you know what I mean,” Dannen said. “Why are you talking like you’re some messenger reading a king’s proclamation for an entire city? Gods, man, it’s just you and me here.”

  The figure’s mouth opened and closed several times as if he was having difficulty figuring out what to say. Then, finally, he scowled. “It may surprise you to know most mortals like it when I talk that way.”

  Dannen gave the stranger a dubious look. “Tell you that, did they?”

  The stranger shifted, clearly uncomfortable. “Well, no…not as such but…” He shook his head, clearly frustrated. “You know, I am accustomed to getting considerably more respect than this. Awe, you might even say.”

  “You keep talking like that,” Dannen said, “I’m going to consider awing myself into that wall a few times, see if I can’t respectfully knock myself out.”

  The figure studied him thoughtfully. “You really are a bit of a bastard, aren’t you?” he said dryly.

  Dannen grunted. “Been called worse by worse, though to be fair, none of the ones saying it were ever hiding in closets, at least to my recollection.”

  The stranger’s face turned red, and he pinched the bridge of his nose again. “Very well, I will speak normally. Even if it does ruin the experience,” he finished, muttering the last.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it,” Dannen said. “You ask me, the experience is well and truly ruined already. I would’ve thought that the one thing dying had going for it was some damned peace for a change.”

  “Yes,” the figure said sourly, “at any rate, best get on with it. You, Dannen Ataran, have been called to service, enacting the vow you accepted when you came of age to defend the world against its enemies, should the need arise. Will you answer these summons and, thereby, fulfill your vow?”

  The figure was looking at him expectantly, and Dannen grunted. “You know, I haven’t been having much luck with vows lately. Anyway, what is this? Some sort of joke? Pretty sure if I made a vow to defend the world I’d remember it.”

  The stranger took a slow, deep breath. “I assure you; it is no joke.” He produced a scroll, seemingly from thin air, and held it up in front of Dannen. There was a bunch of writing in a tight hand telling him the author could do with a few drinks to loosen up a bit, too much writing by far for Dannen to spend time reading it, though he did notice the signature at the bottom. His signature and written in his own hand, or at least it appeared to be.

  “Well, that’s a damned fine trick,” he said. “Someone’s forged my signature, eh? Well. It’s a wonder the sorts of things people get up to. You know, I saw a man once, this fella, he filed all his teeth down to a bunch of sharp points, opened his mouth he looked like a damn shark. Must have made it a trial to kiss a girl…” He trailed off, thinking on that. “Then again, I doubt he had to worry about that much, come to it. Seems like the sort of problem that solves itself.”

  “Err…nevertheless,” the figure said after a moment, “the vow was made, and you are, by your own hand, bound. I, Perandius, Messenger of the Gods, have spoken. Now, will you accompany me?” He gestured toward the closet and suddenly it wasn’t a closet anymore. Instead of the rack for clothes that had been there a moment ago, now there was a shining golden oval portal, flut
tering and shifting as if it were swayed by some unfelt breeze.

  Dannen peered at the circle, thinking that dying, if nothing else, was interesting. “What in the name of the gods is that?”

  “Which?”

  “What’s that?” Dannen asked.

  “Which god?”

  He frowned. “What I mean is, what is that big glowing circle?”

  “That, Dannen Ateran,” the figure began in that resonant voice then seemed to give it up. “Well. It’s a portal to the land of the gods. We’re supposed to walk through it now.”

  Dannen frowned. “And if I don’t?”

  The figure gave him a smug look and shrugged. “Well. I suppose you can always take your chances with the guards. In my presence, their progress has been…slowed somewhat, but I am leaving and, when I do, they will return to their normal speed. A speed that, in moments, will bring them here to this room in which you have sought shelter.”

  “I see,” Dannen said. “They got ale there?”

  The smug look slowly faded from the stranger’s face. “What?”

  “In that land of the gods you’re talking about? They got any ale? Come to that, can a dead man even get drunk?”

  The figure let out an angry hiss. “You’re not d—you know what? Never mind. Follow or do not—it’s up to you. I, Perandius, have spoken.” Then, with that, the figure turned and started toward the golden portal.

  “So, you mean to tell me,” Dannen said, “that you’re Perandius? As in, Messenger of the Gods, Communicator of Their Will and all that?”

  The figure turned back at the edge of the portal, looking over his shoulder. “That is correct, Dannen Ateran,” he said in a formal voice.

  “Dannen’s fine. No need to go saying my whole name all the time. Anyhow, if you’re telling the truth, where are your wings?”