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  After placing his feet to either side and pulling with all his might did not bring forth the trident, Kratos released it and continued to explore. The altar to Poseidon consisted of more than the huge sigil and the embedded trident. To the right stood a stone platform. Kratos judged its size and walked the perimeter of the room, finding a box hidden behind a column that would fit the outline of the stone platform perfectly.

  Kratos went to the far side of the box, bent down, and pushed. The box slid easily across the floor, faster and faster toward the stone platform by the altar. With a final shove, he sent the box skittering onto the stone platform. Once on the platform, a brilliant yellow light bathed the box for a moment, then its weight caused the floor to sink beneath it.

  Kratos went to the trident and grasped it again. He pulled slowly, and this time it slid from the stone, as if it were nothing more than a knife thrust into a wheel of cheese. Kratos triumphantly held the trident aloft and stared at it for a moment, then slid it behind his back, where it magically reposed with the other gifts he had received from the gods. He lifted his right hand and looked at the white scar. Zeus had blessed him. His eyes rose to the shrine to Poseidon, but Kratos had no feeling that drawing the trident from the stone had been another gift from the God of the Ocean.

  “Thank you, Lord Zeus,” he said. In a softer voice yet, he added, “Thank you, Lady Athena.” But he wondered if thanks were truly in order. So much lay ahead of him. He stretched aching muscles, tensed them all, and then relaxed to prepare himself for the next challenge, whatever it might be.

  He went to the circular stone wheel holding Poseidon’s sigil and pressed his hands against it. No amount of effort budged it. He swung the Blades of Chaos, but they bounced harmlessly off it, sending fat blue sparks dancing into the chamber around him. Just as he began to wonder if the gods favored him in the least, he reached back and drew forth the trident. At eye level he saw three small holes. Leaning forward, he shoved the trident prongs deep into the exactly spaced holes.

  The huge portal opened easily. He withdrew the trident, and the portal immediately began to close. He ducked under the ponderous weight and ran forward to the rim of a circular pool behind the door. Nowhere else in the tiny room did he see an exit, and without returning to be certain, Kratos knew the door would not open from this side. Every way in Pandora’s temple became only one way: forward.

  This time it had to be down into the crystalline water of the pool. He knelt first and washed off the blood he had accumulated from his many fights, grimly pleased that much of it was not his own. He stretched and flexed again to judge his full fighting capability. Many were the times he had gone into battle in worse condition. But one thing worried him as he thrust his head beneath the surface of the water, striving to find the bottom of the well. No man could hold his breath long enough to reach the seemingly limitless bottom. All he could do was explore to the limits of his lung capacity, then assess his situation.

  He sucked in a huge draft of air, then plunged into the bracingly cold water. Downward he swam, powerful strokes carrying him deeper and deeper. A faint light glowed all around, permitting him to see that the sides of the well were etched with the curious arcane symbols he had seen throughout his journey thus far. Again he wondered whether, if he could decipher them, he could find an easier way through the traps to the chamber holding Pandora’s Box.

  He swam deeper still until he found a huge tunnel curving away from his position at the bottom of the well. His lungs were beginning to burn a little. He let out a few bubbles that built at his nostrils, burst forth, and raced toward the distant surface. Kratos tried to estimate his chances of going on with his lungs increasingly on fire from lack of air. This was a decision to be made while gratefully breathing the air above. He turned and began to rise, only to see iron bars moving from the sides of the well, crossing its diameter entirely. He kicked powerfully, trying to get past the bars before they trapped him underwater.

  He failed. By the time he reached the bars, they had secured themselves on both sides of the well, leaving only small squares of opening between them. He strained, reached high. His hand broke through the surface of the water-but this did him no good. He breathed through his nose, not his fingertips! Straining, he applied his shoulder to the bars, but they refused to yield. Kratos moved to grasp the rim of the well to give him more leverage. Again he failed. The iron bars were impervious to his strength.

  His lungs felt like bladders ready to burst now. He let out more bubbles and watched as they mockingly burst just above his head. The bars had been cruelly placed to allow a swimmer the promise of safety-and then deny it by mere inches.

  Reaching behind him for the Blades of Chaos caused him to spin about in the water. More bubbles released from his lungs, doing nothing to ease the building pressure he felt. His vision dimmed, and a roar of the ocean sounded now in his ears.

  The roar of the ocean. The God of the Sea. Poseidon.

  Poseidon’s trident!

  Close to succumbing and sucking water into his lungs, Kratos fumbled about over his shoulder until his fingers felt the cool haft of the trident. He drew it, thinking to use it against the iron bars. His breath exploded from his lungs, and death rushed inward in the form of water intended to drown him.

  He felt the liquid assault of the clear water through his lungs-and the discomfort he had felt vanished. His eyesight returned, possibly sharper than before and unblurred by the refracting water. He felt his lungs moving rhythmically, taking in and expelling water as if he were a fish. Or the God of the Sea himself.

  The trident had allowed him to become a denizen of the underwater kingdom. He shoved and pushed and tried to move the bars from their position, to no avail. As it had been with other portals, once closed he could never return, but with Poseidon’s trident in hand, he knew how to proceed. Spinning in the water so he headed downward, Kratos kicked powerfully and swam back to the bottom, then followed the curving flooded tunnel as easily as if his sandals worked against solid ground.

  Strong strokes carried him along until he came to another well. He paused at the bottom, looking upward. A quick scissors kick sent him rocketing upward. He exploded from the water and landed on a tiled floor surrounding the well. Getting to his feet, he worried that he would suffocate in the air now that his lungs had become adapted to breathing water. As he slid the trident behind him, he coughed, brought up a gobbet of water, and then drew a regular breath again.

  “Is that what it’s like to be a god?” Kratos wondered aloud. He was not sure he wanted to use the trident again, but he knew he had no choice if that was necessary to attain his goal. This chamber was small, hardly more than an anteroom. He made his way to the far side of the chamber, where a narrow crevice opened to a long slide downward. Kratos heard strange, almost chirping noises mixed with gurgling echo up from the water below. A quick test of the sloping floor confirmed his suspicion. If he stepped onto this incline, the slimy surface would make return to this chamber impossible. This was no different from any other passage inside the temple.

  But the sounds? They both drew him and repelled him. No Siren sound, these. Something else awaited him.

  Kratos stepped forward and his feet shot from under him. He landed hard, then straightened his body as he plummeted downward feetfirst. He hit the water and was completely engulfed once more.

  The hunting cry of the naiads filled his ears. Then they attacked.

  TWENTY-THREE

  THEY WERE AS TRANSPARENT as jellyfish and moved with the same easy sinuous grace through the water. Kratos gripped the trident and prepared himself for the naiads to attack. Every undulation carried the inner-glowing creatures in a wide circle about him, just beyond his reach. One swam gracefully nearer and beckoned to him. Kratos started to stab out with the trident but held back, not sure what the naiad’s threat might be, since it did not seem to be armed. Still, like a jellyfish, it might have stingers that delivered painful, if not instantly fatal, poison.
/>   Their song filled his ears. He could not help comparing it to the song of the desert Siren and noticing how different it sounded. The naiad closest swam a little closer, a long-fingered hand reaching to him. All his training, the years as Ares’s killer, the years of service he had given to the gods, everything in his being bespoke death and blood. A simple thrust with the trident would end this lovely creature’s life.

  Kratos lowered the trident and held out a hand to the naiad, which drifted nearby. In spite of the slender, almost formless streamlined body perfectly adapted to an underwater existence, he saw faint, seductive curves that suggested the naiad was female. He lowered the trident still more and reached out. Their fingers brushed. Kratos jerked back as if stabbed, but there was no pain-only pain in his mind and memory. The touch had been feathery and beguiling, not in the least hurtful.

  The naiad held out her arms. Pushing aside his innate distrust, Kratos stripped away his heavy bronze-plate armor and took the elegant creature in his arms so their bodies pressed together intimately. He kissed her, and deep within his mind he heard, You are come at last. Free us from this watery prison and let us swim free in the oceans once again.

  “How?”

  Remove Pandora’s Box from the temple and we will be free. We will swim the seas once more and honor you as our savior if you do this.

  Kratos laughed. The sound of laughter underwater came strange and oddly musical to his ears. It pleased the naiad, who smiled and fitted her body closer still against his.

  They kissed again, and within his mind he heard, Press the lever, mount the stairs, but not to the top. Jump into the water to your left and you will be able to free us.

  “What more?” Kratos kissed the naiad again and felt both a carnal stimulation and a curious peace settle upon him. He could remain forever in this underwater world with them-with her.

  To the center of the Rings of Pandora, swim once more and enter Hades. The naiad shivered in his embrace as she communicated these words to him, then she gave a flip of her tail and jetted away. No matter how the trident aided him underwater, no matter how strong he was, Kratos knew he could never overtake the rapidly disappearing naiad. He lacked the grace-and this was not his world.

  Remaining here with the naiad was not his quest.

  “What’s your name? Tell me your name!” His words burbled and bubbled, but no answer floated back on the current to him. Again, he found himself alone. Alone.

  With powerful kicks that now seemed puny compared to the naiad’s, he swam along until he located the mouth of a well above. He broke through the surface and saw an immense statue honoring Poseidon’s wife high above, but more than this, the lever on a pedestal at the other side of the room drew his attention. The naiad had told him of stairs, but he saw none. The lever might provide the answer to this lack. He went to it, applied a considerable amount of pressure, and marveled at how different it felt to work in air again, rather than fighting against or using the eternal resistance of water all around his body. The lever snapped over, and a deafening rattling sound filled the immense chamber. Steps of the finest jade rose from the middle of the room and led up directly to the statue, the shrine to Amphitrite.

  Kratos vaulted over the pool and ran up the steps, then slowed and glanced to the left of the stairs, into the water. The naiad had told him to jump into the pool at this point. Kratos licked his lips, tasted salt and the memory of the naiad’s lips. It had been so long, so very long, since he had trusted anyone. Why should he believe an undersea creature who might be ordered to lead him to his ruination?

  He dived and cleanly cut the water to the left, not bothering to use the trident. Several quick strokes took him to the side of the pool and a cage there. Without hesitation he swam into it, only to have it clatter and clank around him and begin an upward climb that quickly brought him above water once again. The room looked familiar, and as he stared through an open portal, the heavy stone roller in the circular corridor rumbled past. The naiad had said to return to the Rings of Pandora. That could only mean the annular corridor. Kratos offered a quiet thanks to the naiad.

  Kratos was immediately trapped once again in front of the roller, which spun about and threatened to crush the life from his bones. He ran lightly ahead of it, found the steps upward, and this time when he came to the top looked not across the corridor but down into the watery core. Before he had seen no bottom to this well, and that had prompted him to go in the opposite direction, but now he possessed Poseidon’s trident.

  And he had been told by the naiad to dive. Taking the trident in hand, he submerged himself in the water and let the strong current sweep him ever downward to reach a door marked with a skull. Pounding fiercely on it produced no result. Kratos pushed away and swam some distance into a crossing channel, hunting for a different path forward. He soon found himself at the bottom of a new well. The light above flickered and danced as if the fires of Hades burned there.

  Again the naiad had given him the truth. Now Kratos added one more reason for securing Pandora’s Box to stopping the destruction of Athens and killing the God of War. He would free the naiad and all her sisters so they could swim unfettered in the seas again after a millennium of imprisonment.

  He kicked twice and shot out of the pool, caught himself on the edge, and turned to the opening through which came the heat and intense light of lava dripping from stone spouts high above into troughs. Kratos went to the portal and quickly assessed everything in the immense room. The ceiling arched more than a hundred feet above, with the lava drains pouring out their heated, noxious molten rock to splatter twenty feet over his head. At his far left towered a statue honoring Lord Hades, but to the right he saw a more curious device: A ballista had been mounted under a catwalk. Kratos found a ladder, mounted, and walked to a firing lever. On impulse, he threw the lever, felt the catwalk quake beneath his feet, and then a huge fireball exploded outward to crash into the center of the statue.

  Kratos grabbed for his weapons when he saw a brightly lit spinning circle appear on the floor at the base of the statue. The glyphs that had vexed him since entering Pandora’s temple pulsed with blue light-and moving out into the vast arena between the catwalk and the spinning circle came four Centaurs, each armed with a spear.

  The Blades of Chaos were comfortable in his hands, but he instinctively knew a more potent weapon would be required. The Blade of Artemis whispered out and blazed in his grip. With a long jump, he landed in a crouch near the Centaurs. Kratos reacted instantly to their attack, swinging the Blade of Artemis and cutting the legs of the leading Centaur from under it. A swift circular motion lopped off the Centaur’s head-and caused a blazing blue flame to erupt at one of the cardinal points in the circular pattern on the floor.

  He somersaulted, rolled to the side, and still barely managed to evade another of the Hades-spawned creatures. He came to his feet, swinging the weapon Artemis had granted him with powerful slashes that kept the remaining three Centaurs at bay. But this was not the way of the Ghost of Sparta. To defend was to die. He attacked. With a mad cry, Kratos rushed forth, every cut of the blade exact and dangerous. He brought down another man-horse, jumped atop its fallen body, and rammed the sword blade down its throat. A new, different speck of light blazed on the circular pattern, the second antipodal to the first.

  The two remaining Centaurs proved warier-or less confident-than their now-dead companions, but this caution did not save them from Kratos’s swinging, thrusting, slashing blade of magical blue fire. When he had sent the two remaining Centaurs back to Hades and illuminated the final spots on the rotating ring on the floor, he heard a rumbling noise. Stone doors parted to reveal yet another corridor illuminated in the red-orange light of hell.

  A sense of urgency drove him now. He ran to the doors and through them, not bothering to look behind as they crashed shut. The tunnel was narrow, and he quickly found yet more of the Architect’s devices: Trapdoors in the floor began opening to show pits of sulfurous lava before snappin
g closed again. He jumped these traps, only to find himself almost impaled by darts exploding from the walls.

  Kratos laughed without humor. He had endured far worse to reach this point. He would not be denied Pandora’s Box. He would kill the God of War and forever have his nightmares erased by the gods.

  He ran along the winding corridors, slaying wraiths and cursed legionnaires, hardly slowing in his headlong rush. In his gut he knew his mission was almost over. Only one more room, one more adversary to kill-and Pandora’s Box would be his prize.

  The corridor opened onto a catwalk halfway up the distance to the vaulted ceiling, allowing him to peer back at where he had fired the ballista into the statue’s chest. But Kratos looked straight down and saw rising from the lava pit, a head-a horned head. Next came shoulders and crossed arms forged from a dull black metal. He held the Blades of Chaos in his grip, but Kratos released them as the new statue of Lord Hades rose until a walkway jutting from around its neck came level with where he stood. Kratos gathered his strength and jumped as hard as he could-and barely caught the edge of the statue’s shoulder. He kicked, then kicked harder and rocked up, rolling onto the walkway.

  A handle protruded from the side of the neck. Like a sailor turning a windlass, Kratos put his back into it and pushed the spar about, turning the statue’s head slowly. As it rotated, its mouth opened and a beam of eye-dazzling yellow light stabbed forth. Kratos saw that the beam hit the side of the huge room without effect. He pushed harder on the handle, turning the head about until the beam shone fully on the burned statue at the far end of the chamber.