by Dan H Kind
Chapter 26
The Three-Headed Demon Dog
During the long voyage across the Stygian Marsh, Jack, Stephone, and Becky sat wordless on the uncomfortable bench and watched the foul, dismal swamp sludge on by. Charon avoided every obstacle. He and Tom Sawyer spoke of nothing but boats and boating the entire trip across the water, if it could be called that; it was more like stinking evil ooze. Eventually, great crags that jutted from the landscape like the rotting black teeth of a buried Titan appeared in the distance, growing larger in their vision as they approached the far shore, now just visible in the gas-lit distance.
“Hey, Steph,” said Jack. “We don't have to cross those mountains, do we? You can't even see their peaks—they're lost somewhere up in the clouds!”
She shook her head. “The Titanic Peaks are impassable. They divide Elysium from the rest of the Underworld. We are landing at their outskirts, near the Asphodel Meadows. When we depart the ferry, we'll follow Judgment Road—hell's own Main Street—to the Black Courthouse. Once we make it past, we should reach the Unseen Palace by midnight, Earth-time, if we don't run into any trouble.”
Jack pondered this last statement. “And do you expect trouble?”
“No, not really. We should be okay if we can get past the Courthouse without being observed by Tisiphone, who sits atop an adamantine pillar guarding the entrance to Tartarus.” A ghost of a smile creased her lips. “But I've got a plan to get us by that heartless old Fury undetected.”
She sounded pretty confident, but Jack was far from convinced that nothing would go awry. First off, an encounter with a Fury was not something that even came close to making his Bucket List. And just how was she planning on getting them by this Courthouse undetected? He pried her a bit, but she refused to say more on the subject.
Questions swirling within his mind, Jack sank into sullen silence and stared unseeing at the screaming, weeping, blubbering Marsh.
The black ferry floated into dock, Charon tied off his vessel, and Team Myth jumped out. Herby remained on board, sitting on Charon's hairy palm, reluctant to depart her bestest-friend-in-all-the-Worlds after such a short visit.
“Thank you for taking us across, Charon,” said Stephone. “I owe you one.”
Jack and Becky also murmured their thanks. Tom shook Charon's free hand and said, “Nice talking to you, Mister Charon. Always good to meet another river-man.”
“Indeed,” said the Ferryman of the Dead. “Let me know when you and your friends would like to come down here and do a little river-riding. I haven't asked for a vacation in years, and I think I'm owed one by now. That darn Hade—”
“Shhhhhhh!” came flying in from all corners.
Charon peered at them sheepishly from behind his tusks. “Oh. Right. I mean, that darn Unseen One owes me one helluva vacation by now. The shades can just hang out on the far shore until I get back, for all I care.” He turned to Tom and grinned (Jack quivered with revulsion.) “After all, it'll be fun as hell, don't you think?”
“Boy, I sure do!” said Tom, laughing. “As soon as this whole end-of-the-world baloney is over and Sid's rescued, we'll head on down here for a li'l Underworld river-riding adventure! I can hardly wait for my chance at those arms!” He smacked the air with an invisible staff. “Whacka! Thwacka!”
Charon chuckled at Tom's antics, then turned to Stephone. “Is there anything else I can help you with, my Queen? You wouldn't by chance need a dog-sitter for the next day or so?” He clutched his beloved Herby closer to his breast.
Stephone smiled an understanding smile. “Sorry, Charon. Herby's with us for this one. We might need her help later.” Jack wondered to himself just what help a seven-pound dog perhaps the size of a large rat could be against the razor-toothed beasties and sharp-clawed baddies that populated Hades, but decided to keep his mouth shut.
Charon nodded. “Well, it was worth a shot.” He mumbled some last sweet nothings to Herby, gave her a handful more breakfast-shaped dog-biscuits, and then handed the sleeve Pekingese to Stephone. “You'd better come visit me after all this is over, Persephone, or I will be sorely disappointed. As you said, you now owe me one.”
“I will, Charon. Or maybe you can come visit me on Earth.”
“Very well,” said the Boatman of the Dead. He bowed to each of Team Myth in turn and, finally, to his Queen. “I wish you luck in your mission, but do be careful.” His beady black eyes went worried. “Now, are you sure you don't want me to come along?”
Stephone refused the Ferryman's offer on the grounds that their party was already large enough to attract undue attention, and someone was sure to notice if Charon was derelict in his duties. They waved their last goodbyes, and Team Myth started inland, trekking down Judgment Road, an old cart-path carved into the wastes.
As there had been no shades with them on their ride across the Marsh, the landscape was clear of the depressing specters. To their right, endless fields of asphodel with long stalks and glowing milky white flowers stretched into the distance, blanketing the rolling hills of ash that led to the Titanic Peaks. Asphodel also covered the flatlands to their left, and lined the roadway ahead. Judgment Road itself was the only place not populated with incandescent blooms. The scenery reminded Jack of those vast fields filled with poppies that Dorothy and company got wasted off in The Wizard of Oz.
The companions soon began seeing foggy, ghost-like beings milling about the asphodel in small groups or alone, plucking the flowers and shoving them into their incorporeal mouths.
“What are those things?” asked Jack. “It's weird, I can see right through them, but they seem to have more form than the black-fog guys.”
“We are passing through the Asphodel Meadows, the ancient Greek version of Limbo,” answered Stephone, resident expert on Hades. “If a person lived a neutral life, they are sent here. After Judgment the deceased is forced to drink of the water of the Lethe, the River of Forgetfulness, which erases their memories.” She pointed out a group of translucent specters. “See how they wander about, doing nothing but eating asphodel, the food of the dead? Well, this is it for them for the rest of Time.”
The whitish ghosts stared off into the distance or up into the roiling sky with vacant expressions on their spectral faces, every now and again plucking a flower with a wispy ghost-arm and munching away.
“Looks pretty miserable for those guys,” said Jack to break the uncomfortable silence. “Hey, at least in Tartarus it might stay interesting, what with all the torture and everything. But this here looks downright boring. And I despise boring.”
“Indeed,” said Stephone, a sad, distant look in her eyes. “Limbo is the In-Between, a realm of utter neutrality, and thus quite boring.”
They trekked down Judgment Road a ways, and there issued a deafening roar from the vicinity of a small rise to their right. Jack, Tom, and Becky all jumped at the horrible sound, and Herby leaped from Stephone's sleeve to the dusty road, barking. Then the pup took off like a bolt, running towards the terrible cry, which had sounded quite a bit like impending death.
“Wh-what the hell was that?” asked Jack. His voice went unheard as the ground bellowed as if the road was about to split open and swallow them whole. A dark figure straight out of a nightmare materialized atop the distant hill and began running towards Team Myth at full speed.
When the behemoth's features materialized, Jack really wished they hadn't. The slathering beast had three fang-filled dog's heads complete with manes of writhing snakes, the spiked tail of a dragon, and sharp claws the size of trees. This could be none other than Cerberus, the infamous hellhound, double-checking that all who crossed the Stygian Marsh were truly deceased.
And Team Myth was very much alive.
“Unholy frickin' hell!” yelled Jack. “He's gonna run us over! But Herby's going down first!” A heroic energy surged up in his breast, and he dashed for the Pekingese.
Herby stopped fifty feet from the companions and jumped up and down, staring at the drooling, multi-h
eaded monstrosity that would be upon them in seconds.
“No, Jack! You don't understand!” cried Stephone.
The warning fell on deaf ears, for Jack was concentrating on nothing but saving the little dog's life. He reached Herby a scant few moments before Cerberus, scooped her up, and held her protectively to his chest.
And then Herby the toy Pekingese began to . . . change. In an instant, she was too large for Jack to hold; she seemed to gain hundreds of pounds all at once.
Jack dropped the suddenly heavy dog, jumped back with a yelp, tripped over his own feet, and fell among the asphodel. He scampered backwards like a crab, looking on in terror as Herby's shoulders sprouted stumps that looked like they had teeth. These blemishes soon evolved into misshapen dog-heads, writhing and snarling. Spikes of white bone grew outwards from her once-stubby tail, which congealed over with black scales. Thick sinews formed around her neck, which transformed into hissing, snapping pythons.
Jack jumped to his feet and turned to flee—and ran right into Tom Sawyer, which sent them both sprawling among the shimmering asphodel. Stephone and Becky were also there, and Cerberus would soon be upon them. Jack heard a pair of earth-shaking bellows behind him, and he closed his eyes and awaited the huge jaws to close over his fragile form. Awaited the drool-filled end . . .
The end, however, did not come as expected.
Surprised, Jack looked up from the mishmash of knees, elbows, and limbs that constituted himself and Tom Sawyer and observed two identical (the one difference was, ah, hugely obvious) three-headed demon dogs. The mansion-sized pups were sniffing each others' asses, Godzilla tails wagging. One of them farted, and the ground shook; Jack nearly choked on the fumes from the lethal blast. With some trouble, he extricated himself from Tom Sawyer, got to his feet, and helped the kid up.
“S'okay,” mumbled Tom. “De're brother 'n sister.” He groaned and clutched his belly. “Sheesh, Mister Whiskey, is your head made of steel?”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” muttered Jack, rubbing his own aching skull. “I've always been a bit hardheaded. I guess it comes with being a Trickster.” He blinked dust-clogged eyes at the pair of hellhounds. “So those two . . . whatever-they-ares are related?”
“That's right, Jack,” said Stephone, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I should have explained the situation to you earlier. If I had known you were going to try to be a hero when there was no need for a rescue, I would have. But nonetheless it was a valiant gesture.” She smiled at him, and it made Jack's heart turn to liquid in his chest and course through his veins like the Stuff of Life.
“Oh, it was nothing,” said Jack, trying his best to keep the sarcasm from marring his voice.
“Cerby and Herby came from the same litter,” explained Stephone. “But Cerby is much more well-known. I insisted that I be allowed to raise his sister, Herberus, and the Unseen One said okay. Sadly, it's probably the nicest thing he's ever done.”
“Herberus, you say?” said Jack. “Wow, that's a new one.” He thought for a moment. “So why did we not ride . . . Herberus . . . from the Grove to the Elm?”
“Jack, Herby is probably one of the least well-known mythos clinging to existence. Her ken is tenuous, to say the least. But she can help out in a jam.”
“So why did she blow up like a balloon when she saw . . . Cerby . . . there?”
“She got overexcited when she saw her brother.” Stephone shrugged. “Let the poor dog have her fun.”
The two monster dogs soon grew tired of sniffing butthole and proceeded to roughhouse. They played a safe distance away from the much smaller companions, snarling and biting, scratching with tree-trunk claws, slapping with serpent tails, crushing asphodel by the hundreds. An outside observer might have thought the two beasts were in a fight to the death.
Stephone let the Hounds of Hades cavort. “Cerby guards the Asphodel Meadows. Every now and again a shade will escape Tartarus and run around causing havoc among the denizens of the Underworld, or some living joker will come down here to try to bring back his deceased wife who hated his guts anyway. Honestly, you'd be surprised at how often those kinds of things happen. It is Cerberus's duty to corral these Stygian lawbreakers.”
After a bit of playtime, Stephone whistled between her teeth. “Herberus! Cerberus! Down!”
The two hellhounds stopped their doggie-games and began to shrink. Herberus reverted to a single-headed toy Pekingese while Cerberus reduced to the size of a double-wide trailer but remained a slavering hellhound.
Stephone turned to her companions. “You guys ready? Cerby can take us pretty close to the Courthouse. He runs like Atalanta on meth.”
Jack sighed. “Three-headed demon-dog it is. After all, it can't be worse than almost being enchanted by the River of Sorrow, or dangling by your fingertips from the limb of a Greek god thousands of feet in the air, or crossing a burning Marsh with dead arms covered with peering eyes and blabbering mouths sticking up all over the place.”
Stephone whistled, and Cerberus brought his belly to the ground so the companions could clamber onto his back, behind the middle head. It was comfortable on his scaly hide—that is, if you could call sitting on the back of a hellhound while looking directly into a writhing mass of pythons that hissed at you and stared at you with beady little serpent eyes in a menacing way comfortable.
“Hang onto the snakes, Jack,” said Stephone. “They won't bite.”
“How did I know you were going to say that? I must have attained psychic abilities somewhere along the journey. Is that a standard power for a Trickster?” He grabbed ahold of a pair of snakes with two jittery hands, and Cerberus took off down Judgment Road.
After a while the asphodel thinned out, and they began passing scores of unjudged shades, all staying within the boundaries of the road, plodding onward, ever onward, drawn to Judgment like moths to fluorescence. Cerby ran through the shades as if they weren't there, dispersing them into the non-atmosphere to reform after his passing.
To their right squatted the ever-present Titanic Peaks, through whose bulk nothing could be seen. To their left raged the Phlegethon. The horizon that way burned and burned, the flames reaching upwards in a vain attempt to touch the land of the living above. The shoreline for hundreds of feet around the banks of the River of Fire was charred earth, all living things long ago toasted away, immolated whether they liked it or not.
After an indeterminable amount of time, Cerberus skidded to a halt. The shades flowed around the demon-dog, a canine stone in a river of unjudged souls, as Team Myth dismounted. The snakes Jack had been holding onto gave him a departing hiss and baring of fangs. Cerberus sat down on his haunches and proceeded to pant and drool. Jowls flapped when he shook his heads, and a huge of dollop of yellowish slobber landed on Jack and dripped down his face. He wiped off his forehead, looked down at his slimed hand in horror, and smeared the phlegm on the demon-dog's rugged toenail.
Cerberus bent and nuzzled Stephone's sleeve with one of his heads, roared goodbye from three throats, and lumbered back down Judgment Road.
Shades flowing past them, Stephone faced her companions. “Just ahead is the Stygian Courthouse, where the shades of the dead are Judged. The left fork is Tartarus Trail, but we are going right, down Elysium Drive. To do this, we must pass by the Courthouse. Discreetly.” She pointed ahead. “When we crest that hill, we will be within full view of Tisiphone, who sits atop an adamantine pillar at the gates of Tartarus, watching all that transpires at the Courthouse and beyond. We cannot appear as we are, or we will be spotted.”
Jack, Tom, and Becky had no clue as to how to resolve this dilemma, so they remained silent, watching Stephone. She peered at them expectantly.
“So, are we ready, then?”
“Ready for what?” asked Jack, Tom, and Becky in unison.
The Iron Queen's smile was ice. “Ready to die, of course.”