Voyages in the Underworld of Orpheus Black

by Marcus Sedgwick

  And then, for a brief second, I saw them: a young couple, faint, like a projection in a room that’s too bright, the man’s arm around the woman’s shoulder, and her white dress blowing in a breeze. Just as in the photograph. Agatha ran towards them, and they opened their arms to her — and they all disappeared.

  And I cried.

  Passed out, I think. No idea how long.

  Clearly I’m cracked.

  Broken.

  And too tired to write more.

  If I, Orpheus, have a thousand names,

  then Hades has a thousand more.

  Hades, Lord Shade, Lord of the Underworld,

  ruler of the land of the dead.

  Irkalla, Osiris, Thanatos, Hel,

  Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub.

  Pluto. Baron Samedi.

  Batara Kala,

  Kalma, Kali, Mot.

  Or, as Harry would have it, Old Jimmy.

  His story is even older than mine.

  Many believe him evil,

  but of that I cannot say,

  I only know that when I came before him,

  my skin painted white,

  my lyre in my hand and a song on my lips,

  I had him stand still.

  Stopped him from speaking.

  I, Orpheus, charmed Death himself,

  and, for a moment, made him weep.

  I sang not so much of Eurydice;

  I sang of the world above.

  I sang of the light that comes with dawn,

  of rose-red sunshine piercing the mist.

  Of how the birds begin to sing

  when sunlight breaks the night.

  I sang of the dew on the mountainside,

  of salmon in the river;

  of apples falling from the bough,

  of the silver light of winter.

  I sang of the touch of gentlest breeze,

  of the beat of goose on the wing;

  I sang of wine,

  and other things equally divine.

  I sang not so much of Eurydice, but of what she’d left behind, and when my song was over, I opened my eyes and found Eurydice standing there; and then Hades spoke the only words I needed him to.

  Go, he said. Go, and don’t look back.

  Lead her from this place, and don’t look back until you are both safe away.

  We fled.

  Hades-Jimmy in his lair,

  sits upon a terrible chair; a throne of bone.

  A seat composed of the souls he’s sifted;

  those he’s taken away.

  Before Jimmy, Harry sees some kind of table,

  a vast and ranging desk,

  with lights and dials and knobs and switches;

  and things like television screens,

  glowing green.

  It is from this desk that the humming comes.

  That appalling hum, like the sound of the Earth shaking,

  like the Earth is quaking from insentient fear.

  Jimmy? says Harry, drawing near;

  but the Lord of the Dead seems not to hear.

  All his attention is trained on the desk,

  which he scrutinizes, incessantly.

  His eyes are fixed upon a screen

  that speaks a language Harry doesn’t know.

  Then Harry sees Hades’ hand hovering,

  above a certain switch, a button,

  over which his finger trembles; hesitating.

  The humming sound is too much to bear.

  Harry shoves his hands to his head.

  Jimmy! he shouts. What is this machine?

  What does it mean?

  He shouts twice, and twice more,

  and now Hades appears to hear;

  turns his face to Harry.

  This? he says. This?

  This is the ultimate machine of war;

  this is what it’s all been for.

  All the killing, all the bleeding,

  this is where it’s all been leading.

  The rock, the club, the knife of stone:

  as clumsy as that hefted bone.

  Artless, they seemed, simplistic, and yet

  you had no idea then, I’ll bet,

  of where they’d lead,

  but this is it:

  the very end of everything.

  Hades explains to Harry just what he’s looking at. The cleverest machine of war,

  the cleverest machine by far. Such an idea! What killing conceit! To make a machine to manage the fighting; give control of warfare to machines themselves.

  It is not activated.

  But all Hades has to do is depress that switch,

  lower his forefinger and it will come to life,

  take control of the war machines,

  use them and guide them,

  deploy them at will.

  Man himself will no longer kill.

  It will all be done by this final machine,

  this very final machine.

  Harry stares, as do I,

  as the Lord of the Dead hesitates.

  As even Hades,

  who has welcomed the dead to his domain for eons,

  hesitates.

  As Hades,

  for whom death itself is life,

  hesitates.

  And as Hades hesitates, his finger hovering,

  he whispers something that’s hard to hear,

  so Harry steps closer, and cups his ear

  to catch the thoughts in Hades’ head.

  Once I press the switch,

  once I start the attack,

  well, then, my boy,

  there’s no way back.

  When I visited Hades, I charmed him with my song, but Harry’s got things of different worth. He begs Hades for information; and after all, this Lord of the Underworld is well connected.

  I gasp as Harry offers his tribute of five glass eyes,

  five blue glass eyes; and Hades, for a moment, smiles.

  That way, he says. Go. But don’t look back.

  Harry scrambles away down the tunnel.

  Hades hesitates still, his finger hovering

  above the switch of this doomsday machine.

  The hum rumbles on, far underground,

  a genuinely disturbing sound.

  If you listen carefully, some might say

  you can hear it still,

  now, today.

  [untitled journal entry]

  Ellis.

  I remember.

  The dance in Knighton. When the girl I loved with the dimpled cheek (that’s who that nurse Eunice reminded me of!) succumbed to E’s charm (uniform?) rather than mine. Watched her kiss him hard under the blossoms outside the hall. I was glad for him; jealous as anything. An idiot.

  I remember:

  How that year and a half between us seemed to grow into more. How he took the role of adult to my lingering childishness. Started to act and talk like Father. Him the responsible one, me the prodigal. We tell the stories so we end up playing the parts. Trapped in the bloody drama of it all. Forgetting how just to be.

  I remember:

  My stupidity. The daft things I said to him. My stubbornness.

  But I also remember when we delighted in each other’s talents.

  I remember the hill walks and stream charming. The days when we made up stories — weird, mad adventures — and it felt like the sparrows in the garden flew rings around us.

  The joy and fights and wild games of springtime.

  I remember being together.

  Old Jimmy woke me and gave me some food, a dram of gin. Hurricane lamp. Showed me the way into this ancient sewer or whatever it is, and I started to crawl.

  Exhausted now. Soaked through.

  Writing with this blunt pencil by the last bit of flashlight beam. Been crawling for ages. Have to keep going if there’s any chance Ellis is alive.

  Sound of water ahead. Keep going.

  Where am I going?

  Where the hell are we going?

  Memory: A cou
ple of months ago — firefighting near Archway. Top of a ladder, all hell breaking loose around me, the hose kicking in my hands like a writhing python as the pressure came and went and came again. People have been known to be whisked six feet sideways off a ladder. So: focusing on my task, working out the collapse zone, flashpoints — and then suddenly no water at all. The air full of AAA and tracer, the blimps, a hundred fires burning, it seemed, across the city.

  And then I saw it. Bright in a searchlight, a V-2 hurtling down. My blink freezing it perfectly in the dark air. A split second to impact, then, trailing it, the sonic boom and roar of the engine. Unbelievable what we are doing. Beyond belief. If I live through this, I shall have to work as hard as I can to create Warriors of the Machine; have to try and add my voice.

  My voice?

  Too late . . . ?

  Been going ages. The sound of the water loud now, deafening. Still the occasional impact overhead. How deep am I?

  Hope this journal survives if I don’t.

  Feel light, though. As if all the effort is leaving me. Feel like I could do anything. No me and no you. Just a bond.

  Love.

  Last eyeball is for Ellis.

  A kind of subterranean river flowing past me. A few yards beyond, it drops into a pit. God knows how deep. Thunderous roar from the depths. And across the falling water I can see a ruined underground space: debris, beams, rubble, bright light, so bright, streaming down. Like sunlight. Morning light.

  I think I can see a way across.

  Someone lying there.

  When you follow a path to find yourself,

  mistakes are inevitable.

  That’s another thing I’ve learned

  as the years have cycled;

  another thing I didn’t know when I first set foot in Hell.

  Eurydice.

  The story of my love for her is without equal;

  a tale of great fame.

  But just as great is the fame of my mistake.

  She followed me back out of Hell,

  past Tantalus and Sisyphus,

  and Cerberus, that drooling beast,

  across the Styx in Charon’s boat,

  heading back towards the light.

  I reached the mouth of the cave,

  felt sunshine on my face,

  and . . .

  I turned.

  I looked.

  She looked back at me, still in the realm of the dark.

  She had not yet left Hell.

  Now she would never leave.

  That is the story of my mistake;

  and so very many people know it.

  But they don’t know the look that was upon her face

  as she faded.

  What do you think it was?

  Anger?

  No.

  Recrimination? Fear?

  No.

  Betrayal, sadness, or perhaps loss?

  No.

  Acceptance mixed with understanding,

  that’s what it was.

  A slight smile.

  She understood.

  For her, she’d begun to live in the land of the dead.

  Too late now to return to the light.

  Too bright now, too much joy;

  time instead to learn what decaying means.

  For me, she knew something that I did not yet know:

  something it would take me years to learn.

  They call me psychopomp, a guider of souls,

  but it was Eurydice who guided me first.

  Who was she really?

  Why did she go?

  Why did she lead me below?

  As she drifted back,

  that hint of a smile on her face,

  so enigmatic.

  It took me years to realize what she already knew:

  I did not go after death to find her;

  I went after her to find death.

  That is my story, my true story.

  Even greater than my story of love:

  my search for the understanding of death.

  So when I lost her, that second time,

  standing in the mouth of the cave.

  Well, it was no failure,

  no mistake.

  It was simply what had to be,

  as Eurydice continued a process,

  that led me, in time, to me.

  As Eurydice, so Agatha,

  who has now performed mystical transformation upon Harry.

  Here in the deepest bowel of London’s underbelly,

  this is not a place of wonder and fame;

  this is a place of forgotten emotions

  that no one wants to glorify.

  No warriors here,

  no heroes;

  just Harry crawling with his brother on his back.

  These are the final words of my song.

  It didn’t take long

  to tell you of Harry, Orpheus Black,

  who crawled into Hell,

  and returned.

  His brother on his back.

  Step by weary step Harry came; carrying Ellis in a fireman’s lift; and yet it was not the brother he knew from six days before. Ellis had lain in darkness for six days: no food, dripping water all there was to drink, till he had passed from consciousness, passed from this world so nearly to the next.

  There was plenty of time for him to think,

  plenty of time for him to dream;

  so now, as he’s hoisted on Harry’s back,

  things are not, perhaps, what they seem.

  Transformation occurring,

  love redeeming,

  understanding flows from one to the other;

  and Ellis begins to understand

  how he’s misunderstood his brother.

  Harry takes almost half a day

  to bring Ellis back to the light.

  Along the way, transformation occurs.

  As Ellis lay in the dark,

  there was plenty of time for me to whisper into his ear:

  stop, Ellis; listen, Ellis;

  understand your brother!

  Remember who you truly are;

  live your own life, and no other.

  So Ellis is reborn, from darkness.

  So Harry feels his load lighten as they approach the surface.

  So the gap between them closes.

  Harry sets Ellis on the broken ground,

  lies down beside him.

  I close my eyes,

  my inner gaze moves from brother to brother,

  and as Harry finally slips away, I know

  it’s time for me to go, to help another.

  It’s time for me to sing my song

  to someone else’s ear;

  time to share the gifts I’ve gained

  as musician, poet, seer.

  The journey has been dark at times,

  I can’t deny the pain,

  the broken shells of understanding

  you lose so you may gain.

  And people think I went alone,

  when I journeyed underground;

  that I made my way unaided

  as I ventured deeper down.

  In fact, the very opposite

  would be closer to the truth,

  for at my heels came a crowd

  of people seeking proof.

  Writers, poets, philosophers,

  some timid and some brave,

  makers of moving images,

  musicians both wild and grave.

  Painters by the score there were,

  artists with sight and sound;

  a giant host of pilgrims

  came to witness what I found.

  And what was that, what did I find,

  when I ventured into Hell?

  A little bit about death, of course,

  but a lot about life, as well.

  So.

  Now.

  It’s time.

  We’re done, and

  along with all the talk of death,

  the anguish, and the s
huddered breath,

  were words of understanding too

  which may transform you into you.

  So when at last my journey’s done,

  and I absent myself from strife,

  I hope you know what I know now:

  my song was not of death,

  but life.

  Our thanks as ever to our families, whose love and support makes writing possible. At Walker Books we are grateful for the enthusiasm and attention to detail of Lizzie Sitton, Gill Evans, Maria Soler Canton, and Ben Norland. And, of course, heartfelt thanks to Alexis Deacon for bringing Harry’s vision so wonderfully to life.

  Unlike the father of the brothers in this book, our father was a Quaker and conscientious objector. His registration card and tribunal letter are the basis for Harry’s documents . . .

  M. S. & J. S.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Julian Sedgwick and Marcus Sedgwick

  Illustrations copyright © 2019 by Alexis Deacon

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  First U.S. electronic edition 2019

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number pending

  The illustrations were done in acrylic ink, watercolor, charcoal, and gouache.

  Walker Books

  a division of

  Candlewick Press

  99 Dover Street

  Somerville, Massachusetts 02144

  www.walkerbooksus.com