Uninvited (Etudes in C# Book 3)

by Jamie Wyman

  She wasn’t the last such creature we saw. More of them shuffled into our path with eerie gaits disjointed from normal time. Wisps of smoke lingered after them like memories, fragments of their essence struggling to catch up with the rest.

  I stayed close to Malcolm, his warmth a physical reminder of reality. We said nothing to each other. His breathing, shallow and quick, spoke of fear. After what could have easily been seconds or hours, we reached the scorched Joshua tree. I turned back, seeking to signal Hephaestus that we had made it, but when I looked, the haze had swept over our path. The way back was shut.

  “No way out but through,” I murmured.

  With a light swat to my arm, Mal said, “I hope you can swim.”

  Returning my attention to the gnarled, torched tree, I reeled at the abrupt shift of the landscape. Here, it was clear, and the overcast sky gave no hint of night or day. A wan, greenish light illuminated the blackened earth, and jagged, glassy rocks littered the ground and sloped down to the bank of a river. Only this river was like none I’d ever seen. It didn’t seem to be made of water but black fire. The flame-like tongues lapped at the shore with an eerie, crackling ripple. Reflections of the silver sky glinted off the dancing surface.

  With a gasp, I suddenly realized where we must be. “Styx,” I breathed.

  “Never liked them, really,” Mal said. “Don’t favor classic rock.”

  I winced, physically wounded by his ignorance. “The river, Mal. It’s the River Styx. We have to cross it to get to Hades.”

  Gazing across the river, however, it looked like this would be an Olympic feat. The Styx flowed for miles in every direction. I couldn’t make out the opposite shore, only a line of mist. Far beyond, mountains cut the horizon with black spines.

  “So how do we get there?” I asked no one in particular.

  As if in answer, the sound of the river changed. A low, rhythmic whoosh was now punctuated by the tinkle of a bell. From the fog emerged a gondola dark as cinders. A lone, shadowy figure stood at the prow. He lifted a long staff with a broad, leaflike blade at the end, then dipped it back into the river. The motion of his oar brought on that deep whoosh.

  “Excellent,” Mal said. “Let’s ask ’im for a ride.”

  I shook my head. Unlike Mal, I remembered the myths and legends that went along with the River Styx. Though some diverged here and there in the details, the basic gist of Charon the Ferryman remained the same. “He’ll expect payment,” I warned.

  Malcolm patted down his pockets. “I’m skint. You got any change?”

  “I don’t think he wants money.” Just in case, I did a quick check of my own pockets. As my fingers searched at my hips, they fell over the silver poker chip. “Hey!” I called, having an eureka moment. “We don’t need him. We can use this.”

  “Wha’s that?”

  “Marius’s tacky-as-hell necklace. I repurposed it.”

  Without waiting for Mal to agree, I grabbed his arm and held up the poker chip. I had no earthly clue how to activate the spell so I had to wing it. I focused on what I could see of the far shore and gave a whisper of will into the chip.

  “Step on three,” I said.

  We counted together and put one foot in front of the other. In a breath, we stopped. We hadn’t moved an inch.

  “Maybe I have to do something else to get us across?”

  “Don’t ask me, love. I’ve never been for all that hocus-pocus shite. That’s Marius’s area of expertise.” As he said his brother’s name, Mal’s face fell. He looked around the desolate shore, and the full weight of our situation settled over his shoulders. He might not have been well versed in all the myths, he might have been shit when dealing with magic, and he might have had terrible aim, but Malcolm knew in that instant that he was on the border of life and death. His brother was in the other country, and we—together—had to bring him out.

  I saw this change happen in an instant. When Mal’s eyes refocused, his jaw tightened with resolve.

  “Maybe you need to think of Marius. Like we did in the room, right?” he asked.

  I nodded. I offered my left hand—the hand holding the chip—to Mal. His palm was clammy and cool against mine. Our fingers laced together, the satyr squeezed his eyes shut.

  “Blood calls to blood,” I heard him whisper. Over and over like a mantra, he repeated these four words as fervently as any prayer.

  Images of Marius came in fits and starts, jerking my attention here and there. I guess the Otherworld has bad reception because in the channel-surfing barrage of information, I saw moments from our shared past. Times running through Vegas on this whim or that. A dance shared in a room full of gods. A Christmas spent in Belize. The day we met. I also saw flashes of what must have been his days with Malcolm. Younger versions of the satyrs I knew drinking together, sparring. Laughing. There was always laughing in Mal’s memories.

  I poured more power into the chip and, without speaking to Mal, took the step.

  Again, we hit some sort of barrier. While there was no physical evidence of it, something kept us from reaching the other shore.

  Opening my eyes, I saw him palming the air in front of us, seeking the invisible wall.

  “What do you reckon?” he asked.

  I shook my head in response. I tried again only to be stopped again, like there was some kind of force field. There was no sound, no actual impact, but as I raised my foot something kept me from taking the step.

  I let go of Mal’s hand and moved back from him. “Try walking into the river,” I said.

  Mal shrugged but went along with it. He slid his shoe over the jagged rocks. Though the effort and strain shone in his face, Mal was stuck, too. We could go no farther.

  Tsk, tsk.

  I jumped—and possibly flailed a little—at the sudden sound, looking up just as the Ferryman’s gondola slid up onto the shore. The loose stones ground beneath the weight of the boat, and with a thick squelch, he buried his oar in the earth.

  Apparently Charon was the only way across this damned river.

  He wore a tattered robe that had probably been dark as midnight. Now, though, it was a faded reminder of its former self. His face was hidden in the deep folds of the cloak’s hood. Charon raised a skeletal hand and twitched his index finger in admonishment.

  Mal nudged me with his elbow. “Go on. Say somethin’.”

  I sidestepped, moving as close to the gondola as I dared. “I’m Catherine Sharp,” I said, voice echoing queerly. “We seek passage to Hades.”

  Charon’s hood tilted. “Do we?”

  I’d expected a ghastly whisper, but the Ferryman’s voice rang with gentle familiarity.

  “Yes.”

  “I know you,” Charon said. “As does my master. He is expecting you, mage.”

  I swallowed the knot of fear that had surged into my throat, bilious and sour. “Is he?”

  “Indeed.”

  “So you’ll take us?”

  He stretched out his hand, bones clattering as he opened his fingers. “Cross my palm, for payment is due.”

  I looked at the poker chip. Of all the things I had, this was the only thing I could part with. Besides, if I was being honest, the idea of using Godspeed again gave me the heebie-jeebies. The chip fell into Charon’s hand with a light clatter of silver against bone. With a magician’s flourish, he did away with the chip and gestured that I should board the gondola.

  When Mal went to follow, Charon stopped him with the staff of his oar. “Payment is due.”

  Mal tried to contain his panic. “I…I don’t have anything to offer.”

  “No coin? No trinket?”

  The satyr shook his head. “Nothing.”

  Charon wrenched the oar up from the rocky shore. With a nudge, the gondola floated out from the bank, carrying me away from Malcolm.

  “Wait,” he cried. “Stop! I need to go with her!”

  Malcolm’s protests were absorbed by the dark hood. Charon didn’t care.

  Try as he migh
t, Mal could not charge after the boat. He flailed along the riverbank, held at bay by whatever invisible magic worked there. When he gave up, he was almost in tears. He yelled to me, voice ragged. “Cat! Bring him back! You grab that no-good bastard brother of mine and bring him back!”

  “I will,” I called.

  “Be gone,” Charon hissed. “Back to the world that spawned you.”

  Malcolm winked out of sight, and I stared up at the Ferryman. He turned his back to the shore and began to row. I gazed across the River Styx and saw the eerie peaks of Hades, realm of the dead. As Charon parted the black-flame river, we came nearer. One slow stroke at a time.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Road to Somewhere”

  “Back on my barge so soon?” Charon asked.

  “I’m not dead, and I don’t plan on staying in Hades any longer than I did last time.”

  “I did not deliver you to Hades, Catherine Sharp, but to another shore entirely.”

  Confused, I shifted in my seat to face him. Anticipating my question, he said, “There are more realms than there are stories in the greatest of libraries, child. I took you to the one that suited you best.”

  The Ferryman’s voice was warm and familiar. The subtlest notes of nostalgia played in his throaty purr and reminded me of pipe smoke and peppermint. “You sound like my grandfather,” I said. “I mean, you don’t use the same words he would have, but your voice is similar.”

  “Charles Sharp. Airman. Carpenter. With a love for tobacco he pretended to hide from his wife, Phyllis.”

  Eyes wide as the full moon, I gaped. “How did you…?”

  “I ferried them both. Not so long ago.”

  “Is that why you sound like him?”

  He gave a light shake to his head. Though I couldn’t see through the inky shadows of his hood, I sensed his smile. “Some require incentive to cross over. Others seek comfort. I take on the aspect of that which will aid them most in making this final journey.”

  Suddenly I understood all the stories about being met on the other side by those you’ve loved and lost.

  “So you can mimic anyone?”

  “Anyone who has passed through the veil. I remember them all.”

  “Trippy.”

  I turned in my seat and once more faced our destination. Charon’s oar dipped into the black river, eliciting that low whoosh with every languid stroke. For all the speed he’d shown in getting to Mal and me, it seemed this circuit was particularly slow. I fidgeted, knees bouncing and fingers twisting around one another.

  “So,” I said uneasily, “I feel like I’m on one of the gondolas at the Venetian. I mean, there’s no music. And it’s a little less cheerful here, but I suppose beggars can’t be choosers.”

  Charon gave a chuff of laughter. Then he did something that shocked the hell out of me. The Ferryman began to sing. He’d abandoned my grandfather’s voice and slipped into a sweet tenor. I knew that voice, too. Long since murdered, but this voice served as the soundtrack of my life and millions of others. John Lennon.

  As he sang, the boat rocked me into a gentle reverie. Absent friends, but in memory still bright. Before I knew it, I was singing with Charon. I don’t sing willingly, but at that moment, it was the only thing to do. Didn’t matter if I was off-key or fudging the words. I sang. And with each word, I thought of those who’d died too soon. Then those I would leave behind if this whole thing went to shit. My parents and sister. Mrs. M. Karma. Flynn.

  “In my life,” I finished the song, “I love you more.”

  The last notes disappeared in the vast expanse around us.

  “Wow,” I remarked. “Thanks for that. I’ve never done a duet with a Beatle.”

  “My pleasure,” he said.

  I pondered Charon’s parroting skills, what it might mean in terms of my current situation. “Wait…you said can mimic anyone you’ve ferried, right?” I began, letting the question dangle between us.

  When he spoke, his voice had changed to something unknown to me—cold, low, and dripping with disdain. “I do not take requests.”

  “I was just wondering if you could confirm something for me.”

  “I will not tell you if Elvis has died so that you might go back to your world and tell all. Not that you would be believed.”

  I giggled. “Nothing like that. I have a…a friend. Someone I’m looking for in Hades. Can you tell me if he’s there? For certain?”

  He piloted the boat quietly, the darkness of him aimed at the far shore. From within the depths of his hood, he hissed, “Yes, I can. But I will not. I am not a plaything, Catherine Sharp. Nor am I a dousing rod to point you in the direction of that which you seek so desperately. If you wish to hear that voice again, you must find its keeper and coax it out. I’ll not give in to your masturbatory desires.”

  “Hey, I didn’t say anything about masturbation.”

  Charon snarled. “You already know the answer to your question. You do not wish to confirm anything, mortal. You are merely looking for a way to bolster yourself, to feel that your hope is justified. I will not be party to this.”

  I nodded. “Fair enough.”

  Was he right? Was this just a way for me to make myself feel good and useful after all the mistakes I’d made?

  We passed the rest of the ride in silence, floating into the mist. The fog clung to my skin, gray and cool like the early morning in autumn, and within a few moments, my hair was damp. As the barge scraped up on the sandy bank, I stood.

  “Catherine Sharp,” Charon said in his own voice. “Be ye warned before you step onto the shore of Hades. Drink nothing, no matter how much you thirst. Eat of no tree or plate put before you. For if you do, your soul is my lord’s to keep.”

  “My soul already has a lord,” I snarked.

  “All the worse for you, then. Partaking of Hades’s culinary hospitality will yoke you to this place, and you will never again be allowed to pass back to the realm of the living. Mark you my meaning?”

  “Don’t eat or drink anything or else I can’t leave. Got it. I don’t suppose you could clue me in as to where I might find the big man himself, could you?”

  “I could.”

  “But you won’t, will you?”

  “There is no need. He awaits your audience in his throne room. The path will make itself known.”

  For lack of anything better to say or do, I nodded. “Thanks.”

  I hiked a leg over the side of the boat and climbed out. My feet sank into the sand, which was inexplicably moist considering the river didn’t appear to be actual liquid. The soft squish of my Chucks on the earth reminded me of the beach…of Marius.

  Good, I thought. Stay focused on him. Find him.

  “And one other thing, Catherine Sharp.” When I turned to listen, Charon continued. “I will ferry you to the final shore but one more time, and from that journey you will not return.”

  Chills coursed through me. Before I could respond, Charon whipped back his hood. My face stared back at me. My reflection’s eyes twinkled with a haunted glee that was evident in the smirk she wore.

  With my borrowed voice, Charon said, “Use wisely what is left of your life.”

  Unable to take my eyes off…well…me, I staggered back. Charon’s skeletal fingers wiggled in a mercurial farewell before he once more shoved away from the shore. I watched as the black gondola retreated into the mist. The Ferryman smiled at me until the fog swallowed him. Only then did I put my back to him and focus on Hades itself.

  I stood inside a crescent of mountains. To my right, far in the distance, verdant peaks rose to touch the bright sky. Shafts of golden light rained down upon the green mountains. I looked up at the sky but couldn’t find a sun. Did Hades have a sun? I shook the thought away and scanned my surroundings. The landscape to my left resembled the wastes of Mordor. Black, jagged crags stretched to the horizon like the fossilized spine of a ginormous beast. No sunlight there. Only red clouds and a sickly, sulfuric haze around the tallest peaks. />
  Ahead of me, the mountains paled, and the world lay under a gray, dusty pall. A city had been carved into the rock, mimicking the elegant architecture of the Greeks with columns and caryatids. Steady, perfect geometry with little embellishment. Rising above it all was a tower. Thousands of feet high, it resembled an overturned goblet. And at the center of the flat expanse that served as its top, a green fire blazed.

  Perhaps if I’d seen it without the other two “countries” so clearly visible, I’d have appreciated this middle ground for its stark beauty or simplicity. Instead, I had trouble wrapping my mind around it. Beside the lush, green scenery, the city resembled a relic like Pompeii. However, when compared to the dark, beastly spine to my right, Hades proper seemed downright cheerful.

  Though I was certain I had to head to the tower, the mountains didn’t part and give me a straight line to follow. Then, just as Charon had predicted, a path made itself clear. Emerald mist hovered over the sand, twisting a road into the city. I followed it, the mist swirling around my ankles as I wound my way through the stone structures.

  It’s not that I expected a parade or anything, but no one greeted me in the city. In fact, I saw no one on my trip from the river to the tower. Not so much as a ghost in the shadows. I heard them, their voices breaking the silence with the occasional burst of crow-like laughter.

  I walked for what seemed like an eternity. My Chucks were about as useful as tissue paper when walking on the jagged rocks, and the air was dry as Phoenix in June. You could’ve started a brushfire in my mouth. I swallowed ash and tasted blood on my cracked lips.

  Step after step, mile after mile, I trudged to the tower with one thing urging me on: Marius. I might be parched and exhausted, but he was at the end of this walk. I had to bring him home, and once I did, we could drink ourselves into oblivion.