Storming Paradise Read Online Free PDF Page A

past strumming lyre players and tables that seemed to still have enough food on them to feed an army, stepping over the fallen drunks who had already gone to sleep in the street, and past the huddled gamblers who were locked in games of chance involving painted stones whose sides made them fall in different ways, creating new combinations with every throw.
    There is a kind of homing instinct that kicks in at these moments, Iolaus realized. Too tired to party further, he followed that instinct as it drew him down the length of the street—a street that seemed almost unfeasibly long at that moment—and out into the village square from which he suspected he could find an inn or perhaps a storage shed in which to bed down for a few hours’ sleep.
    As he exited the street, Iolaus heard a cry.
    â€œIolaus! Wait!” It was Hercules, waving to Iolaus from a few dozen feet along the street, where the party remained in full swing.
    Iolaus stopped, his head suddenly heavy, his footsteps graceless, as Hercules hurried along the street towards him.
    â€œWhere are you going?” Hercules asked. “There’s a group at the far end, by the boar, that are just starting on songs about my father. You must hear them, they are hilarious.”
    Iolaus gave Hercules an up from under look where his head felt too heavy to lift. “Need sleep,” he slurred.
    â€œâ€˜Sleep’?!” Hercules repeated the word as if it were a curse. “Come on, my friend—while the wine still flows—”
    Iolaus rested a hand on one of Hercules’ impressive biceps, as much to steady himself as to halt his friend’s speech. “Hercules,” he said, slowly. “I am tired and . . . and I am also . . . tired. I need sleep, not songs.”
    Hercules shook his head and tsked. “Listen to you. Where’s your sense of fun?” he challenged.
    â€œAsleep already, prob’ly,” Iolaus slurred in reply.
    Hercules glared at him, shaking his head in incredulity while the street party continued behind him. “I never thought I would say this, Iolaus, but you are a party pooper.”
    â€œI am no such thing,” Iolaus retorted, weaving in place as he tried to look at Hercules through heavily lidded eyes. “I poop on no parties. Except political parties, because they always want to build a labyrinth or a temple to some god who insists on awkward tributes.”
    Hercules shook his head in disappointment, and to Iolaus it seemed that he was shaking his head so hard that the ground itself shook.
    â€œYou cut that out,” Iolaus said. “I’m having enough trouble standing here as it is.”
    Hercules stopped shaking his head. But the ground did not stop shaking with him. “Wait,” he said. “Do you feel that?”
    Iolaus did the kind of slow blink that seemed almost as if he had gone to sleep in the middle of it. But when he opened his eyes, the ground was still shaking, and he could see loose dirt and pebbles dancing on its surface where the first rays of dawn sunlight struck the street. “Izzat . . . ?” he asked, and tried again, making more effort to form the words. “Is that . . . an earthquake?”
    Hercules was alert, looking all around them for the source of the sudden disruption. “It’s something, but I don’t know what it is. Monster maybe?”
    â€œThat griffin coulda—?” Iolaus began.
    But his words were cut short when the street hosting the party began to shake harder, plates and goblets and painted game pieces tiles dropping from tables, the bunting shaking and falling, dropping away from where it had been hitched against the sides of the buildings.
    Then, with a rumbling shake, the street began to descend. It was being swallowed by the earth.

Chapter 4
    Iolaus looked down at the ground. Dust was being churned up as the street sank into the ground, as if a great, shifting tectonic plate was located right