Aftermath

"You know, you could have given me a hint," Moira said. She kicked a pine branch away from the path.

Iolaus stared at her, then had to shake off yet another lotus-addled cultist who tried to embrace him. "For a reporter, you could be a bit more observant. You didn't even notice that Karkis was listening to every word I said."

"Well, you looked so weird you distracted me," Moira said, undaunted, and Iolaus rolled his eyes. It was only an hour after their succesful escape from the collapsing underground city, and already their truce was fraying at the edges.

They were headed back towards Regina's village, along a narrow path that cut through the wooded hills, with twenty-odd cultists in tow. Some of the clearer-headed ones had already departed for their own villages, and what they had left were those who were still heavily in the thrall of the lotus leaf. Iolaus had stationed Salmoneus and Regina at the rear of their little procession, to make sure no stragglers were left behind, and put himself and Moira at the front. He was already beginning to regret that decision.

"Besides, I did give you a hint," he said, remembering. He should have realized that she would not pick up on it; he had gotten too used to having a partner at his side who could read him like a scroll, even if the scroll was held upside down.

Moira frowned fiercely. "What? When?"

In front of them, the forest path opened up into a small grassy clearing. The scattered sunlight on the grass was bright enough to make Iolaus wince and rub at his eyes. He had no real idea how long he had spent in front of that fan, but he was still feeling the aftereffects.

Come to think of it, he did not know how much time they had spent underground either, but judging from the empty feel of his stomach, he had missed at least three meals since that first dinner where Karkis had tried to feed them his lotus-drugged dessert. He had not slept at all; Karkis and his goons had made sure of that. It was a relief to be out in the sun again and to breathe fresh air that did not smell of incense and fungi, but he would happily give all Karkis' gold for a meal, a bed, and a hot bath to take the edge off his bruises and the ache in his stiffening shoulders and back.

He looked back over his shoulder to check on the straggling line of cultists behind him, then turned to Moira again.

"Remember, I told you that keeping in touch with our true selves was like sitting in a cave-"

Moira gave him a disgusted look. "Yeah, I remember. You gave me some gobbledygook just like the others did."

"-and that what we see before us are but shadows, and what is behind us is the truth," Iolaus finished. He paused. "Don't you see? I was trying to tell you that what you were seeing wasn't the real me."

He had the infinite satisfaction of seeing Moira lost for words.

"Here, you stay up front - I'm going to do a quick headcount." He made his getaway before Moira had quite recovered and took up a position at the edge of the clearing to watch the cultists pass by. Some of them still seemed very dazed and kept wandering off to look at the sky or commune with a bush, but Salmoneus and Regina were doing a good job of keeping them in line. He spotted Lorel walking next to her sister Aurora and one of the older cultists, still decked out in all her jewelry, and gave her a quick smile. He was pleased to see her smile back and nod her head at him, looking much more animated and much less like a living statue.

The last cultists passed him by, and then Salmoneus and Regina brought up the rear. Salmoneus looked at him quizzically. "You all right?"

Iolaus nodded. "Yeah, I'm just keeping a look out. I can't hear anything over the noise we're making ourselves, but-"

A yell from up front interrupted him. "Iolaus!" He whipped round as he recognized Moira's voice. "Oh, great." Bandits came running out of the pine forest on the other side of the clearing, yelling and screaming. Six, ten, a dozen in all. It should have been no contest, with those odds, but most of the cultists could not defend themselves, even if they could be brought to recognize the bandits as enemies rather than as potential new friends.

"Keep them together," Iolaus yelled to Salmoneus and Regina. "Get everyone who can't fight out of here!"

He threw himself toward the center of the clearing, where the fighting had begun in earnest, just in time to kick a bandit in the head who had a sword aimed at Aurora's back. The man's head snapped back, long brown braids flying, and he crashed to the ground. Iolaus stared at the man for a heartbeat, recognizing him from the attack in the temple earlier.

"Don't you guys know when to give up?" he muttered.

Another bandit ran towards him, yelling his head off, and he grinned and launched himself at the man feet-first. The guy went down like a felled tree, but two others stepped in immediately, trying to crowd him. He overwhelmed the shorter bandit on the left with a flurry of punches, kicking out to the right at the same time and catching the other neatly in the groin, then threw himself into a backward roll to gain some breathing space and get an idea of their position.

It wasn't looking good. Several of the cultists had escaped their shepherds and wandered back into the fight, despite Moira's attempts to push them back toward the trail. She had Aurora at her back, gamely cracking heads with a tree branch, but they were outnumbered and outmatched. Iolaus let out a loud warrior cry and launched himself at the knot of bandits, hoping to draw them away and let the cultists gain a head start.

Unfortunately, the cultists were not co-operating with his plan. One of the women bumped into him aimlessly; he shoved her aside, but she just bent back, limber as a dancer, and clasped her arms around his neck, hanging on him with all her weight and crooning nonsensical phrases in his ear.

Seeing this, three of the bandits closed in on them, grinning like wolves. Iolaus waited them out and then pivoted from the hip, flinging the woman's legs towards the bandits. One ducked, two went down for the count, but then the woman slid abruptly from his back and slipped between him and the remaining bandit, opening her arms wide.

"Peace and love, brother..."

Iolaus yelled as he saw the bandit raise a dagger, ready to plunge it into the woman's unprotected back; he was too close behind her for a kick, so he ducked into the bandit's reach instead and knocked the dagger upward. The man cried out as Iolaus applied a vicious hold to his wrist and hand, and the dagger dropped. The woman turned to stare at him, wide-eyed. Behind her, Iolaus saw to his horror that Lorel had gotten separated from Moira, Aurora and the rest of the cultists and that two bandits were converging on her, reaching for her bangle-covered arms as a third bandit drew his sword.

Time slowed. Iolaus threw the woman aside and punched the bandit in the face, then vaulted over the falling body with a yell, but there were still more cultists in his way. He could not even see Lorel any more through the mass of silk-clad bodies milling around in panic and confusion.

He heard a shriek, and his heart turned over; but then there was another, very familiar sound, the sound of snapping tree branches and startled bird squawks, and he drew in a deep, relieved breath.

Pushing through the crowd at last, he put on an expression of elaborate unconcern and ambled up to Hercules just as he sent the last bandit hurtling away through the tree tops with one well-aimed punch.

"What kept you?" Iolaus asked, winking at Lorel, who looked scared but otherwise unhurt.

Hercules glanced down at him, already grinning in welcome, then did a truly classic doubletake and looked him up and down, from the glittering beads on his forehead to brightly dyed silks to sandals and back again.

"...Iolaus?"

Iolaus looked down at himself, pretending to be startled, then back at his friend again. "Who were you expecting, the Butcher of Thessaly?"

Their troubles were not over when they had reached Regina's village. Iolaus stood under the eaves of one of the biggest houses in Argithea and tried to keep from throttling the owner, a village elder named Eurotes, who had opened proceedings by telling him in peremptory tones to get those staring idiots back to their proper homes. Hercules would probably have gotten a different response, but he had left to bring back the healer who lived in the next village for the cultists who had gotten wounded during the fight; the man was said to be skilled, but so old that he could not make the journey by himself.

Iolaus could have used Moira's take-no-prisoners attitude, too, but she was nowhere to be found, and he suspected that she had followed Hercules; she had joked earlier about interviewing him for one of her stories. He had tried to warn her off, but he knew how stubborn she could be.

"Look," Eurotes said in a tone so reasonable that it instantly set Iolaus' teeth on edge, "These people can't stay here. For one thing, Argithea isn't big enough to house so many strangers, and for another -"

"They aren't strangers," Iolaus cut in instantly. "Regina, Aurora and Lorel all come from here, and most of the others are from one or two valleys over. They are your neighbours, and your neighbours' children. Just let them sleep here tonight, and by tomorrow they'll remember who they are and where they came from."

"I doubt you'll find beds for half of them," Eurotes said. It was clear that he thought this was Iolaus' problem, and that he was not volunteering any room in his house.

"Fine," Iolaus snarled, and walked off rapidly so he wouldn't let go of his tenuous hold upon his temper and hit Eurotes in the teeth, which would probably hurt him more than it would Eurotes; his left shoulder had stiffened up entirely, and his back hurt like Tartarus. He suspected he had sprained his shoulder by hanging on that contraption of pulleys and counterweights, but it was impossible to sort out that particular pain from the general ache of bruises and scrapes.

When he entered the village square, he found that Regina and Aurora had successfully commandeered the village women and were organizing a huge cookoff in the middle of the square. Already the first platters were being carried out to the cultists, who sat waiting patiently upon the benches around the fountain, and he could smell roast chicken, garlic, wild onions, saffron...

Iolaus' mouth watered, and he decided that perhaps things were looking up after all.

"Look, why don't you go back and talk to those cultists instead?" Hercules said as politely as he could manage. "I'm sure they will have some interesting stories to tell."

He carried the ancient healer upon his back, the man's bony knees digging painfully into Hercules' sides. It had taken him more than an hour to get to the neighbouring village and locate the man, and all that time Moira had questioned him about what she called his 'celebrated journeys'. He had managed to get the gist of what had happened in the underground city from her, but it was frustrating that she knew so little about what had gone on between Iolaus and Karkis. What she had told him of that so-called re-education room made his spine crawl. She had been in there only briefly, and thanks to Iolaus nothing worse had happened to her than being force-fed lotus leaf; Iolaus had been in there for hours and hours.

Hercules remembered Karkis' previous career all too well. He had been one of the worst warlords Iolaus and he had ever had to deal with, a predator with a taste for power and other people's pain. All of his lieutenants had been killed in the siege of his stronghold, but Karkis had manage to disguise himself and escape. At least this time he had paid the price, Hercules reflected grimly.

Moira threw her hands upwards. "See, that's the problem, they won't remember anything. By the time the lotus wears off, they'll be useless." She caught his look and amended, "Well, for my story, I mean." Her eyes brightened. "But I've already gotten some good quotes from Aurora and Regina, and I'm going to do a feature on Lorel later. I'm thinking of calling it "Trapped in the Caves of Pleasure: My Life as a Living God".

Hercules rolled his eyes and hoisted the healer's spare frame higher on his shoulders. The sun was setting over the hills, and he wanted to be back in Argithea before dark.

"You should do a feature on Iolaus instead," he suggested when Moira began asking him about the Hydra again. "From what you've told me, he's definitely the hero of the story."

She looked up at him and shook back her curls. "Yeah, but my audience would never go for it. People don't want to read about the heroic adventures of somebody they've never heard of, and by tomorrow, not even the cultists will remember him."

Her tone was light, but Hercules winced, unable to take her comments in good humor. It was all too true. Iolaus was only a mortal, only a man who did not have any divine gifts of strength or endurance; somehow, that meant that the bards and writers ignored even his most daring feats in favor of some outlandish tale about someone like Perseus, who could barely buckle his own flying sandals. Iolaus had stopped complaining about it a long time ago, and Hercules thought he genuinely did not notice it much anymore; it was the way the world was, and Iolaus was too much of a realist not to see it. Hercules, on the other hand, had never been able to ignore injustice, and it stung him still.

By the time Hercules had managed to convince Moira to stay with the healer and help bandage the wounded, night had fallen. Argithea was dark and muddy, and there was only an occasional candle in a window to light his way. Eventually, he tracked Iolaus down by following the sound of an argument. He was standing with his back to Hercules in an alleyway next to the village square, arguing with his cousin Regina, their voices echoing off the stone walls.

"Iolaus, will you quit already?" Regina was saying in exasperation. "You've done enough. Go get some sleep or another meal or something."

Iolaus planted his hands firmly on his hips. "No. Teireas and Alcea don't have a place to sleep yet, we need to-"

"We'll take care of it," Regina said firmly. She looked past him, caught Hercules' eye and gave Iolaus a not so gentle shove in Hercules' direction. "Aurora and Salmoneus are putting down straw pallets in the threshing barn, we can sleep the rest in there."

"Yes, but did you-" Iolaus began, swaying slightly and then catching his balance.

Regina crossed her arms. "Iolaus, seriously, I'm warning you-" He swayed again, and Hercules clasped his right shoulder, steadying him from behind. Iolaus leaned into him easily, not even looking around.

"Do we have a place to sleep?" Hercules inquired mildly.

Iolaus turned a little in his grip to look at him over his shoulder. "Yeah, we do. Regina's great aunt said we could take her hayloft, everywhere else is full up."

Hercules nodded. He saw Iolaus look back toward Regina again, clearly preparing for yet another round, and quickly added, "Show me where that is? I don't know my way around here yet."

Iolaus ran a hand through his hair, distracted. "Yeah, I guess. Regina, are you sure-"

"Iolaus, if you don't go away right now I'll scream."

"Oooh-kay. I guess that's a yes." Iolaus moved back toward the square, pushing Hercules before him and muttering, "That is one stubborn woman."

"Yes, I could tell she was family," Hercules said, and grinned as Iolaus punched him lightly in the back.

"You know," Iolaus said as they entered Regina's great aunt's barn, laden with blankets, a lantern, Hercules' travel pack and a bucket full of steaming hot water, "I'm not entirely sure if I can make it up there."

The hayloft had been built over the dairy barn in the traditional style, and the only access to it was by a tall wooden ladder. Hercules looked at Iolaus narrowly; that kind of admission was extremely unusual for him.

"Are you all right?"

Iolaus made a face. "Yeah, I'm fine." That answer was more in the line of Hercules' expectations, if not actually very helpful. "It's just my shoulder, I think it got wrenched or something. Can't move it much." He tried to roll his left shoulder, as if to demonstrate, and added, "Ouch."

"Well, stop trying to move it then," Hercules muttered, holding his lantern high as he tried to make out more of the shadowy interior of the barn. It looked empty except for some butter churns and an old rusty plow stuck in a corner. He set down the bucket, hung his lantern from a hook on the hayloft's beams overhead and spread the most ragged blanket out on the stone floor, motioning to Iolaus, who lifted an eyebrow.

"If you're suggesting that I sleep on that..."

His tone was affectionate rather than annoyed, and Hercules shook his head at him. "No, I just want to take a look at your shoulder and that scrape upon your temple."

Letting out a martyred sigh, Iolaus sat down upon the blanket, instinctively sinking into a tailor's crosslegged seat. Hercules had to work hard not to grin at the incongruousness of it; sitting there in that posture, clad in soft silk and glittering beads, his hair a wild nimbus around his head, Iolaus looked both like a street urchin and a sultan's favorite.

Iolaus looked up at him suspiciously. "What?"

"Nothing," Hercules said. He knelt behind Iolaus and pushed the silk shirt off his shoulders, then sucked in his breath. Iolaus' back and shoulders were swollen with bruises, some of them already turning a purplish black. He touched Iolaus' left shoulder tentatively, and when Iolaus did not make a sound, he felt around the contours of his shoulder blade carefully, trying to avoid the worst of the bruises.

"I don't think anything's broken," he said, and saw Iolaus nod.

"No, it doesn't feel that way. Just strained."

Hercules moved in front of Iolaus to take a close look at the scrape upon his temple. "What happened?" he asked softly.

Iolaus let out a breath. "Well, it's a long story." He looked very tired, his eyes red with lack of sleep, and Hercules hated to push him, but he knew he needed to ask now if he wanted answers.

"Moira told me some of it," Hercules said, tearing a long strip off the ragged blanket and bending to dip it into the bucket of hot water. He wiped away the dried blood from Iolaus' face. "Karkis tried to convert you, but you resisted, she said."

Iolaus grinned tiredly. "That's what she says now. I fooled her too, you know."

Hercules knew there was something he had missed, even though he could see no other injuries; something was teasing at his memory. Ah. When Iolaus had strolled up to him in the forest looking like one of Aphrodite's temple dancers, he had been too surprised to pay attention, but he remembered now that Iolaus had winced as he gripped his forearm in greeting. His right forearm.

He sat back upon his heels; Iolaus followed his gaze, looking down at himself with a puzzled air. "What?"

Iolaus had lost his gauntlets along with the rest of his usual clothes, but strips of silk were wrapped around his wrists, tied with leather laces.

"Let me see."

Hercules reached for his right arm and Iolaus let him, looking up at him indulgently, as if he had no idea what Hercules was doing but was willing to go along with it anyway.

The leather laces came undone easily, and Hercules unwound the silk and dropped it on the blanket. Iolaus hissed between his teeth as his wrist came in contact with the air, and Hercules could see why; it was red and swollen, the skin rubbed raw.

"Oh, thanks, Herc," Iolaus said wryly. "It hurt much less when I couldn't see it."

"Sorry." Nonetheless, Hercules unwrapped his other wrist, which looked just as raw.

"What did Karkis do to you?" His voice sounded harsh to his own ears, but Iolaus took it in stride.

"It wasn't that bad, Herc." Iolaus did not give him the wide-eyed, innocent look; he just looked tired, which made it easier to believe him. "It just...took a while to convince him."

That was probably as much reassurance as he was going to get, Hercules reflected with a sigh. He dug in his pack and found the aloe salve they used for contusions and ghidra burns; it would have to do. He covered Iolaus' wrists in the stuff, then carefully tied the silk back on.

Iolaus gave him a look. "Ran out of bandages again, huh?"

Hercules grimaced. "Moira requisitioned them, actually."

Iolaus chuckled, then fell silent as Hercules moved around to kneel behind him and picked up the scrap of blanket again. He gently wiped the dust and sweat off his bruised back with the steaming cloth; at his third stroke Iolaus made a small noise and leaned back against him.

"You like that, huh?" Hercules asked, smiling to himself. He dunked the scrap of blanket in the hot water again, wrung it out and then draped it over Iolaus' shoulders to let him soak up the heat a little.

Iolaus hummed in his throat. "Yeah - feels good..." After a while, Hercules lifted the cloth and rubbed some of the aloe into the bruises, careful not to press too hard. It seemed to work; Iolaus' eyes closed and his head tipped back against Hercules' shoulder with a contented sigh.

He looked half asleep already. Hercules looked down at him, then up at the rickety ladder that led to the hayloft.

Iolaus' left eye opened a fraction. "Herc?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't even think about it."

Hercules lifted his eyebrows. "I thought you said you didn't want to sleep down here?"

Iolaus growled at him, but even the growl sounded tired, and Hercules relented. He slid the silk wrap back over Iolaus' shoulders and stood up, then caught Iolaus under the arms and hauled him up too. "Come on, my friend."

Iolaus walked slowly to the ladder, then stood at the bottom of it looking up at the hayloft as if he had never seen such a thing before, swaying gently on his feet. For a moment Hercules could see how he must have looked to Moira, playing the part of a peace-loving cultist. He set Iolaus' foot upon the first rung and pushed him upwards, and very slowly Iolaus began to climb, using his right hand only.

It took a while, but at last they made it to the top of the hayloft, stacked high with sweet-smelling hay. Iolaus staggered and then just let himself fall into the hay with a sigh. Hercules spread out the remaining blankets and sat down upon them to take off his boots. He had taken the lantern up with him and hung it from the top of the ladder in case either of them needed to go out again, but right now it did not look as though Iolaus would bother to wake for anything less than incoming harpies.

"Iolaus?"

"Mrph?"

"Come on, the blankets are over here. And you could take off your sandals."

"Yes, mom."

A brief tussle ensued, but a suppressed gasp of pain from Iolaus quickly put a stop to that. Hercules blew out the lantern's candle and then lay back to wrap the blankets more securely about them both.

"Stop fussing, Herc," Iolaus chided him gently in the darkness.

Hercules blew out a long breath and tried again, knowing he would be unable to sleep if he did not get some answer. "Tell me what happened, when Karkis tried to convert you. Your shoulder, did he-?"

Soft curls brushed his shoulder as Iolaus shook his head. "No, that was me, trying to keep the city from collapsing. What Karkis did was...subtler."

Hercules frowned, trying to keep the worry out of his voice. "Subtler," he repeated.

"Yeah. He tried to bend your mind, not your body." Iolaus yawned. "Whirling lights, voices, no sleep, this weird thing he put on my head...Did I mention the no sleep part?" He yawned again. "Anyway, he thought he was the only one who had ever learned anything useful in the East, apparently."

His voice trailed off, and he settled deeper into the blankets, shoving at Hercules as though he was a pillow that needed to be plumped into shape. Hercules let him, reassured more by his tone than by the explanation itself.

The last thing he heard before Iolaus' breathing slowed into sleep was his muttered, "Hah. Showed him."

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