The Korinniad

by A. K. Caggiano

  When the cart touched down, they piled out onto the bank of a slowly moving river. It looked like any normal place, swathed in the darkness of the night that the gods had come together to elongate to provide for their travel, and yet Korinna was loath to take another step away from the cart. “Where are we exactly?”

  “Better you don’t know.” Hermes placed a hand on one of the rams to calm it.

  Korinna read the same anxiety in the god’s eyes as what swam around in Nikeros’s. If she’d happened upon this place by accident, she knew she would flee. Something here was telling her to go away.

  The god tipped his staff toward the river. “All waters can lead to the Underworld, but this is the simplest way. Well,” he chuckled darkly, “second simplest. Cross the river, and on its other side you will find Hades.” The snake who had wrapped itself around the staff, waved its tail at her.

  Beyond the placid waters, there was a thicket of trees, dark and wild, but not so different from where they stood. There were no grand gates, no unearthly beasts, not even a skeletal guard to welcome them. She pouted. “Are you sure about that?”

  Hermes glowered. “If you would prefer, I can send you the other way.”

  Before Korinna could assure the god she did not, in fact, want to be struck dead, there was a splash from the river, and they turned to see Princess Phille wading in clumsily. Korinna called after her to wait, but the princess just kept going. She hurried to the water’s edge and dipped in a foot. Nothing remarkable reflected back from the depths, there was only that vague sense of wrongness about the place, but with a deep breath, she slid in herself down the steep bank.

  The water quickly rose to her chest, her feet sinking into the spongy bottom. Behind her, she could hear the others wading out, little yelps about the cold amongst the splashes, and could just barely make out the back of the princess’s head as she swam along before her. She looked too far off for how narrow the river had initially appeared. Korinna stroked her arms to try and catch up, her feet no longer finding the river’s floor, but Phille’s head disappeared in the darkness ahead. In fact, everything ahead of her seemed to disappear.

  Korinna turned back to find the others, but they too were gone, as was Hermes, the cart, and the shore. Even the sounds of her companions moving through the water had gone. All the sounds had gone. Korinna pulled her arms through the black water, but still: nothing. The chill too was gone, in the air and from the water. She tried to swim on, her movements slow and exhausting, her body heavy and weightless at the same time. Which way was forward, she could no longer tell; there was only blackness spread out in every direction.

  She wasn’t moving anymore but being moved. Suspended, her limbs were burdensome and unwieldy, but there was a sense of movement around her, shadows that shifted like she was floating by them. Below her, she could sense something, huge and stagnant as she passed over it, and her dim vision could just make out the long, skeletal tail of a creature long since dead.

  And then, sand. Korinna pried her lips apart, gritty and dry, and her mouth was filled with a salty, unpleasant crunch. She pushed herself up and wiped at her face, the smell of the ocean and rotten eggs waking her fully. Sand, stark black in color and twinkling like it held within it tiny stars, fell from her face and hands.

  This was not the shore she had just been on.

  Nikeros’s form was rising up from the beach as well, rubbing the back of his neck. She tried to go to him but caught her foot on another form sprawled out in the sand. With a huff, she climbed over the body and started to shake it, trying to rouse Calix from his sleep, then recoiled when she saw the blond man was not the prince at all but a complete stranger.

  “They’ll wake when it’s their turn,” Nikeros told her as he made his way over. His eyes were searching the shore, and she followed to where they looked. The sands were dotted with bodies, peacefully slumbering all over the beach. At least, that was how she liked to imagine it.

  Princess Phille was again already up on her feet, and though she staggered, she was headed again for the water.

  “Stop!” Nikeros sprinted across the beach and grabbed her just before she was about to wade in, “Do not touch that under any circumstances.” He turned back to the wobbling forms of the suitors who were following Korinna to the shore. “Do you hear that? The water will kill you. Actually kill you, I mean, by separating your soul from your body. Do you understand?” He spoke slowly and loudly as if they were all dense, pointing down at the black waves lapping thickly up against the black sands.

  The three were scratching their heads with bleary eyes and long faces. He was perfectly justified.

  “Who is this guy?” Calix tugged his head toward Nikeros, not bothering to look at him.

  “That’s Niko,” Korinna said as if he should have known. “You met him on the island. He’s actually an Erote, the one who shot all of you.”

  The three glanced at him sidelong.

  “So, how do we cross?” Phille’s voice was taut as she looked longingly across the water.

  “Yoohoo!”

  The voice was hollow and far off. The black sands against the black water under a black sky painted a landscape that made it easy enough to find the single lantern glowing at the edge of the water. A gray mist shimmered just above the ground, parting for them as they went toward the light shining warmly against the coldness of the world around it. It seemed to go on forever, the shore, and the six tramped through the sand and around sleeping bodies until the lone dock jutting out into the sea became clear. A boat was tied there, bobbing gently, from its tail a gas lamp hanging on a post. Inside sat a figure, cloaked in a ragged gray hood.

  The being beneath was completely immersed in shadow, and they only knew it was alive when it slowly turned toward them and lifted up an arm, extending a hand. Korinna froze as the hand clutched the edge of the hood. She was terrified, holding her breath at the horror they were about to see, but couldn’t look away.

  “Well, hey there, dearies!” The hood fell back to reveal a pale, round face, cheeks plump, her hair in pointed spikes haloing all over her head save for the front where a gentle fall of yellow hair swooped down over one eye. “My name’s Charon, and I’m delighted to be your ferryperson today.”

  Wait, wait, this is the ferryman of the dead?

  Yeah, of course. Who else is gonna get them across Styx?

  You know it’s pronounced “Ky-rawn,” right?

  No, I’m pretty sure it’s pronounced “Sharon.”

  CHAPTER XXIX

  “Well, there are quite a few of you, aren’t there? And some of you are mighty big uns, huh?” The woman in the boat giggled to herself. “Well, that’s just fine though, isn’t it? I’ll be your guide across this big ole River Styx to deliver you unto your eternal resting place, doncha know?”

  They cast weary glances at one another.

  “Now, it’s usually a pretty darn big shock for folks when they toddle on down to my dock to find out that they’re,”—she cleared her throat, looked around conspiratorially, then leaned toward them and whispered as if there could be anyone else around—“when they find out they’re dead.” Then Charon erupted into a loud voice again and clapped her chubby hands together, “But, that’s no reason to be all down and out! Now tell me, what befell such a strapping and lively looking group of youngsters like yourselves? Another plague being passed around? Oh! Or is it something a little more,”—she pointed to their crotches—“southward?”

  “No, no, no.” Princess Phille stepped out in front of them. “We’re not dead, we just really need to see Hades and—”

  “Not dead?” Charon’s smile fell away. “So, ya, I’m not too sure you folks are aware of the rules, but I’m not supposed to be ferrying any live bodies across here. It’s sort of my only job.”

  Nikeros sighed, “Is there another way across?”

  “Well.” The woman bobbed her head from side to side and the whole boat bobbed with her. “You could take a stab at swimming it
.”

  “Won’t that kill us?” Erepho asked darkly.

  “So, ya, that would definitely kill you.” She nodded enthusiastically. “But then I could take you all across, doncha know! Bit of a win-win there, if I do say so myself.”

  Korinna slapped her forehead. “No, that won’t exactly work.” She turned her back on the ferrywoman and lowered her voice to the others, “Okay, guys, what do we do? There are six of us, we should be able to figure this out.”

  “He’s got wings.” Phille pointed to Nikeros. “Fly us across one by one.”

  Nervous, the Erote looked over Andreas’s massive size. “I appreciate your faith in me.” The water went on forever, a gentle mist floating above it, separating sky from sea. “But even if I could manage, I have no idea where to go.”

  “We can overpower her,” Andreas insisted, “Just take the boat across ourselves.”

  “Still, we don’t know where to go. We could be adrift forever.”

  “Maybe we could seduce her.” Erepho pulled his kithara over his shoulder and strummed. “Some sweet words, and she should be like wet clay in our hands.”

  Korinna raised a lip at the idea, doubting it would work, then popped her head up from the group. Someone was missing.

  She turned and saw Calix shaking hands with Charon then tossing her a bag of gold. “All right then, everybody, come on in!”

  Impressed, Korinna stepped into the boat, taking his hand for stability. “Good thinking.”

  “Anyone can be bought.” He winked at her, and she tried to hide her distaste.

  “Okay is everybody buckled up?” Charon leaned over the others to make sure they fit into the tiny vessel, and they did only just, with the far end sinking down under Andreas’s great bulk. “Anyone need to take a tinkle before we go?”

  The group stared back at her.

  “I said,” Charon repeated, “Anyone need to take a tinkle before we go?”

  “No!” They answered in unison.

  “Well, all righty then. And we’re off!”

  They were floating aimlessly in a sea of black, the water like a great sheet rippling in the breeze. When Korinna asked Charon how she knew where she was going, the chubby, little woman giggled and told her, “Well, I suppose the boat just knows the way,” despite that she would use her oar to redirect them here and there.

  Relief set in when grasses began to poke up from the water and the way before them appeared boggy, tinged with green and brown. Bubbles rose to the surface, and when they popped they released a sort of noxious, sulfuric smell. Korinna tried to not look too hard into the water, feeling like the pale shimmering she could catch every now and then was staring back.

  They came to a shallow place that Charon had to traverse more aggressively. Patchy hills of muddy earth sprouted otherworldly plants with long tendrils that curled like fingers and blue-black flowers with spots like faces. Finally, the boat ceased to move in the muck, and Charon turned to them with a smile. “Well, here we are!”

  Here didn’t seem much different than anywhere they’d already been. There was no dock, just a steep bank that crested higher than any of them could see over. They cast doubtful stares at one another, waiting for someone else to take the first step.

  “Go on now,” Charon directed them cheerfully, “just because I’ve got an eternity doesn’t mean we can take all day, doncha know?”

  Korinna was first to heave herself out of the boat and scuttle up the bank. When she reached the top, she could see it: a gate rising up from the muck and mud, starkly white against the black sky. She was lost in its intricacy, the way it appeared mottled together by thousands of smaller pieces, and how the fence running off of it stretched into oblivion on both sides. Stepping up to the gate, she inspected the white railing, jagged and asymmetrical, reaching far above her so that it made her stomach flop when she gazed up. She reached out to touch it, then pulled back. Bones, millions of them, and they went on forever.

  Quickly, Korinna turned back and stepped up to the edge to look down at Charon. The others were cresting the bank, and the ferrywoman was struggling to push herself out of the muck. “What’s beyond this gate?”

  “Oh, so, ya, that’d be the Room of Judgment just past there,” she huffed as she pushed her ore hard against the bank, the boat finally popping free with a wet slosh.

  “We need to get to Hades, though,” Korinna called.

  “Well, honey, you’re already here!” She blew out a long breath, settling into the boat.

  “I mean the god, Hades. Is he inside?”

  “Oh, no, no.” Charon was floating away now. “The palace is, well, I’m not really sure where it’s at! I just get you from there to here. Now you go on inside, they’re waiting for you.”

  “They?”—she looked back through the gate to see a structure in the shadows beyond—“Who’s they?” But when she turned, the boat’s lantern was but a speck out on the water, and Charon was gone.

  “The Room of Judgment.” Nikeros swallowed. “Where your life’s deeds are measured in preparation for eternity.”

  “It can’t be all that bad.” Andreas pushed ahead of them and through the gate, Phille just behind. The bones gave a hollow rattle as the massive entry swung open easily at his hand. “If you have lived a courageous and virtuous life, there is nothing to fear.”

  Perhaps he wasn’t wrong, but the rest hesitated to follow.

  There were two large doors set into a slate black wall just beyond the gate. Andreas reached out for them, but Calix jumped between the soldier and the doors to stop him. “Hang on there, fella. What say we just, you know, pass this up?”

  Korinna raised a brow at him, but Nikeros spoke, “Afraid?”

  “No!” the prince sneered, crossing his arms and lifting his nose into the air, “It just seems like a waste of time. I’m sure my sister is much more concerned with finding her betrothed than…whatever this is going to be.”

  “The weight of your heart, some call it.” Nikeros leaned toward him, his own arms crossed. “Worried about how heavy yours might end up?”

  “I really don’t know if we can go around,” Phille said meekly, lurking at the edge of the structure, “There’s just more darkness back there.”

  But the boys weren’t listening. “Of course not!” Calix shot back, “I’m just looking out for everyone else.”

  “Right. That’s super consistent.” Nikeros rolled his eyes.

  Andreas put a hand on his own chest, visibly weighing himself against the rest of them, and Erepho scratched his chin as if trying to remember something far off. “You know,” the bard began, “He has a point. Some of us might not be worthy.”

  “Is that an admission of guilt?” Calix grinned. The idiot didn’t know when he was ahead.

  “Violence,”—Erepho pointed at the soldier, then the prince—“And greed.”

  “Says Narcissus’s reflection,” the demigod murmured.

  Oh, no, thought Korinna, Now Niko’s going stupid too.

  “Deception,” Erepho poked Nikeros in the chest, hard.

  Before Nikeros could say another word or before Korinna could yell at them to calm down, the tall, smooth door behind Calix swung open. The prince visibly shivered at the draft at his back, and behind him, Phille’s form disappeared into the dark.

  CHAPTER XXX

  A shiver ran down Korinna’s spine, and she pressed herself a little closer to the figure at her side, though she wasn’t sure who it was. They had piled into the building and what little gray-green light that had existed beyond was shut out as the door swung closed behind them. The lapping waters of the shore had been blocked out as well, and a resonant silence filled the space. No one moved.

  “One mortal, poised on the brink of eternity,” a voice boomed into the space, “Do they have what it takes to get to the fields of everlasting life, or will they languish in the endless suffering that is torment itself? Tonight, we find out. Welcome to the Room. Of. Judgment!”

  Flames burst to
life along curved, black stone walls, bright and warm in copper braziers on either side of the newly illuminated room. The far half of the space was still shrouded in darkness, but there was a presence there, something large and looming. From the shadows, a figure emerged, slim and tall, with pale skin and a freakishly wide smile stretched across an already taut jaw. The man had sunken eyes and black hair but was dressed sharply in a form-fitting tunic, feathers jutting off from the shoulders making him appear that much more angular.

  “Hey, how are ya, I’m—whoa!” He paused, pointing the staff he carried, skinny and ivory and capped with a black flame, at the group. “You are not one mortal, poised on the brink of eternity. Not at all.”

  They looked at one another, and Korinna stepped forward. “No, we’re not. Sorry, it’s just—”

  The man held up a single, knobby finger, shushing her, then wiggled it around at them. “This is not how things go around here.”

  “I can imagine.” Korinna offered him a half smile. “It’s just that we’re trying to get to Hades, the god, and—”

  “Oh, no one gets to Hades.” The figure shook his head, and it looked as though it might pop right off his neck.

  Korinna pinched her nose. “I thought you might say that. Listen, we’re not actually—”

  “Ah!” the man chuckled, “It’s not really my job to figure these things out, so let’s just get to it, shall we?”

  “No, wait, I—”

  The man’s voice boomed through the room again as he spun toward the ominous shadows, dragging each word out with a joyous refrain, “Mortal—er, uh—Mortals, welcome to the rest of your life, and by life, I do mean death. I’m your host, Thanatos, and yes, I’m aware that rhymes. Now fall to your knees in awe as I introduce to you the first of Hellas’s favorite triumvirate!”

  A bright pillar of light shot down from the blackness of the ceiling and illuminated a single spot in the shadows. There, a man sat in a high-backed throne, his arms folded in front of him. He was aged, with white flecks in his full beard, but his dark eyes pierced them with a knowing look.