Storming Paradise by Rik Hoskin

traveling balladeer looked hopefully at Hercules and Iolaus as they approached. “A song about a lost love, or a found one? About the perils of challenging the gods, or the triumphs?” he asked. “I take requests and it will surely brighten your journey.”
    Hercules shook his head. “We have no money,” he told the balladeer, “so your services would be wasted.”
    The man pulled a face and lowered his lyre. “Ah well, I appreciate your honesty, if not your custom,” he said and he continued on his way in the opposite direction to Hercules and Iolaus. As he passed them, Hercules spoke up.
    â€œI fear there’s nothing for you that way, minstrel,” he said.
    The traveling singer halted and turned, his brows furrowing. “I was told there is a fishing village—” he began, confused.
    â€œThere is, but sadly it’s been abandoned,” Hercules told him.
    A look of growing consternation appeared on the balladeer’s face. “Is there some plague doing the rounds that I’ve not heard of?” he muttered, shaking his head. “Or perhaps a curse? This would be the third village I’ve known that’s been abandoned.”
    Hercules and Iolaus started. “Did you say—?” Iolaus began.
    â€œThird?” Hercules finished.
    â€œYes,” the musician confirmed. “I happened upon one not three days ago in that direction—” and he pointed vaguely behind him, “and before then, on an island to the east, two weeks prior.” He sighed. “I tell you, it does not make it easy to make an honest living when one’s audience has packed up the whole town and left.”
    â€œWhere did you say these villages were?” Hercules asked. “Would you describe them for us?”
    The balladeer nodded, and then a bright smile crossed his lips. “Would you like me to explain in the form of a song?”
    It was Hercules’ and Iolaus’ turn to sigh then. “If you must,” Hercules said, “but please don’t leave out any details.”
    The balladeer plucked at his lyre and began his song. “’
Twas a bright and sunny morning when the stranger came to town . . .”
    The best that could be said about the balladeer’s song was that it was inoffensive. The puns were admittedly dreadful and the rhymes occasionally left something to be desired. But by the end of the impromptu recital, Hercules and Iolaus had a clearer idea of what the singer had discovered. Added to their own discoveries, it made for a worrying scenario.
    It was clear that the party street, as they had come to think of it, had appeared in a number of locations throughout the nearby islands. While the balladeer had only discovered two empty villages, he had happened upon one of those shortly after dawn and had heard the strains of music and laughter just before arriving in what had proved to be a silent, abandoned village. Which, as he sang, “made as much sense as a hat made of grapes” (rhyming with the promised “merry japes” of the preceding line).
    Joined by the balladeer, who had wisely decided to make his way back the way that he had come, Hercules and Iolaus discussed what it could all mean.
    â€œThis whole tale reeks of the supernatural,” Hercules complained. “The use of a snare—the party—to trap unsuspecting people. Sailors have recited similar stories for years, with the harpies, the sirens and so on, all magical creatures hoping to lure the unwary.”
    A few steps behind them, the balladeer perked up. “Did you say sirens?” he asked. “I know a song about—”
    â€œNot now!” Iolaus instructed. Then, turning back to Hercules, he put the scant information they had together. “You think this isn’t so much Main Street as
Pain Street
?”
    â€œThat’s what our musician friend here infers,” Hercules said solemnly.
    Iolaus