by Diana Tyler
He reached the lake edge and shouted, “Chloe, let’s go!”
Chloe and the man she was with both spun around.
Damian gave a relieved sigh when she saw she was unharmed; in fact, she seemed perfectly calm, but he had to obey his gut. “I’m not asking questions,” he said. “I really don’t care. We have to go home now.” His heart was racing, and it wasn’t from running; he wanted to get out of there and pretend the day was nothing but a bad dream.
“No, you have to go, Damian,” Chloe answered. “I’m staying here.”
The strange man beside her turned and gave him a curt, dismissive nod.
Just then, a column of mist appeared on the surface of the lake where the water met the sandbar, rose to the height of the olive tree, then froze. It looked like nothing more than a vertical patch of fog at first, but Damian knew it was something more; he’d already seen it in his vision.
“Chloe, come on.” He took a deep breath and threw back his shoulders, ready to grab her and haul her off against her will if necessary. “What are you doing?”
She was ignoring him now, her gaze fixed on the mist, which was now aglow with glittering specks of platinum and bronze. The man reached out his hand and rubbed her back, then drew her closer to him.
“There’s a woman inside it, Chloe. Do you see her?” Damian shouted as he clenched his fists, nails digging into his palms. Maybe if he could prove his clairvoyance, his own unwanted strangeness, she’d listen to him.
The man jerked his head toward Damian. “Everything will be fine, Damian. Listen to your sister and leave it alone.” He took off his backpack and set it on the ground, and Damian could sense that was his way of warning him to back off.
“She’s beautiful…” Chloe said.
Damian’s eyes jumped to the fog as its hazy edges fell away, carving out the silver silhouette of a woman. “Chloe!” Damian shouted. “Look at me!”
As a long, luminous arm reached out of the metallic cloud toward Chloe, the man bent down, unzipped his backpack, and pulled out a small, stringed instrument. He faced Damian with a soft, inviting smile, and began to strum.
Too confused to speak, Damian stood silent as the music trickled toward him, each note sweeter than the last. He finally took a step forward, but both knees collapsed beneath him. All his muscles tensed, and then relaxed into useless noodles as he rolled onto his side. His ear pressed against the damp earth; he could hear his heartbeat slowing. His eyelids felt like bricks as he fought to keep them open.
The last thing he saw was Chloe joining hands with the woman, and stepping into the mist.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
HADES
Just as when she’d dived into the sump in Psychro Cave, Chloe felt nothing—no heat, no wind, no sense of time—as she moved from one realm to the next. She had, it seemed, simply stepped into the cloud with one foot, and with the other, landed seamlessly on solid ground. Although this time she had traveled from light to darkness instead of the other way around, and her eyes were taking their time adjusting from the luminosity of the mist.
As she listened to the echoes of dripping water, she was sure she was in another cave. It wasn’t the least bit chilly, but it was unbearably humid.
When her vision returned, she saw Iris standing before her, still glowing with what looked to Chloe like starlight pulsing around her silver robes. Iris’s long pewter hair curled up toward her naked shoulders, as though she were suspended in water. In fact, her sandaled feet were levitating half a foot above the ground and softly fluttered back and forth, sending small strings of bubbles, like ocean pearls, into the air.
Iris’s eyes, oval-shaped and violet, were the only features that were clearly defined. The rest of her face was blurred by a mask of light that Chloe found almost too bright to look at. Was this what all the dead looked like? Why had Acacius looked so different after his Coronation?
These questions and dozens more raced through Chloe’s mind. She would know the answers soon enough. That’s why she was here.
Iris floated down to Chloe and stood at her side as the sound of an oar sliced through water.
“Where’s Orpheus?” Chloe asked Iris, but her purple eyes just stared ahead into the darkness.
“Aspádzomai!” shouted a man’s voice, the steady rhythm of the oar growing closer. “Do an old man a favor and light up the river, will you?”
Iris lifted off the ground and raised her hands overhead, pressing her palms together. Then, with a whoosh of sound and a streak of light, she swung back her arms. Then she lunged forward. Her arms went rigid and her extended fingertips pushed a giant ball of fire toward the voice.
After a few seconds, the ball broke apart into smaller spheres. Then, one by one, they rushed to the dripstones above and the crystals below and stuck to them like miniature lanterns fixed to a wall.
“Thank you, goddess,” the man said as the form of his torso and small boat sailed into view. “This is the one?”
Iris settled back down to the floor of the cave and placed her hand on Chloe’s shoulder. Turning to her, she whispered, “It is time for us to part.”
“Wait, what?” Chloe said, as Iris floated like a specter toward a foamy halo of light at the other end of the cave. “Iris!” She watched as Iris disappeared into the ring.
The man in the boat let out an abrupt guffaw.
“What’s so funny?” Chloe asked him as she started after Iris.
She only went a few feet before she collided with an icy, invisible wall. As she rubbed her nose and forehead, the wall began to move outward, slowly pushing her toward the water. Pressing against it did nothing to impede it. Racing to one end to slide around it proved futile, too, as blasts of freezing air shot out of a crevice at breakneck speed, causing her cheeks to flap and eyes to water. She strained to step forward, but it was no use.
She retreated back to the center of the cave, and before long her heels were hanging over the water. It only took a slight tug from the man for her to fall in.
“I can’t swim!” Chloe shouted, as her arms thrashed and beat desperately against the water. She reached out to the man, but saw not a hint of compassion in his steel-gray eyes. “Please help me!” she screamed, as briny water spilled into her mouth.
“I didn’t know the Vessel could be so dumb,” the man grumbled as he extended his oar to her.
She latched onto it and climbed into the boat, coughing and shivering while the man chuckled and dropped the oar’s blade back into the water.
“The river is only five feet deep.” He stroked his long, hoary beard, then balled up a blanket beside him. “For the dainty Vessel,” he said, throwing it at her.
She quickly dried herself as well as she could, and wrung out her socks. Then, with teeth chattering, she said, “Who are you? And where are Orpheus and Iris?”
“I hate to be the one to tell you this,” he said, as his lips curved up into a toothless smile, “but you’ve been made a fool.” He stood, plunged the oar into the water, and pushed off from the riverbed. “You mustn’t feel too bad about it. Immortals have an unfair advantage, what with all their tricks and centuries of experience.”
Bracing herself on the wooden rail, Chloe rose and considered jumping back into the water. There had to be a way out of this situation.
“Ah-ah-ah,” the man warned as he began rowing backwards, turning the boat. He pointed at the river as a row of red fins pierced the surface, followed by a black, fan-like tail. “It seems the woman you call Iris has sent her pet to serve as your guardian.” The fish, or serpent, or whatever it was, circled the boat, its long silver body forming a fence around it. “Not that you could escape even if Cetus were absent. It’s impossible for humans to ascend to Petros without the aid of an immortal.”
“Why?” she asked, then moved to the center of the boat and hugged her knees to her chest. It actually made her feel a little safer.
“You have no idea where you are, do you?”
Chloe just stared at
him, then flinched as the creature’s tail pounded the water.
“You’re in Hades, girl. I’m Charon, ferryman to all the cursed shades who have crossed the threshold upon which you find yourself.”
His words echoed as they passed under a low archway and entered a narrow stream or tributary of some kind, every inch of it lit by walls of fiery magma. Chloe could see nothing—nothing but the monster swimming nearby, its sharp fins bobbing in and out of the water as its tail swished and whipped violently against the boat.
“I must say that it’s good to be at the helm again,” Charon continued. “It’s been weeks since my last crossing.” He looked at her with curiosity and scratched his chin. “And I can’t remember the last time I ferried someone as young as you.”
Tears welled in Chloe’s eyes. Her breaths became short and shallow. The tip of her nose burned as she fought the impulse to cry. “Are my parents here? They died eight years ago. Their names are Damara and Nicholas.”
She scooted toward him and waited until he acknowledged her with a sideways glace, a glance that gave her the answer, whether he wanted it to or not. “Take me to them, Charon, please!” But he hung his head and shook it slowly. “I’m not the Vessel, I promise. Listen to me. I don’t even know what the Vessel is.”
“Don’t look to me for pity, girl,” he rasped. “The only vessel I know is the one I’m sitting in. I only do as I’m told. I learned to cooperate with the Fates a long, long time ago.” He leaned forward, stopping mere inches from her face. “And you should do the same.”
Chloe stared at the infinite blackness above as tears slipped out of her eyes. Where are you, Carya?
Damian jolted awake as ice water splashed across his face. He opened his eyes to see Ethan and the other man from the lake kneeling over the couch he was lying on, their own faces moist and smudged with dirt.
“What happened?” He looked around and saw that he was in a strange house. He could hear the spurting and crackling of coffee brewing in another room. “Where’s Chloe?”
“Orpheus charmed you to sleep,” said the man. “I’m Katsaros. We met earlier.”
“I remember,” Damian said as he tentatively shook the man’s hand. “Thanks for your help earlier.” He rolled his eyes and swung his legs around to a sitting position.
“We had to keep our distance, Damian,” said Ethan. “Or we would’ve been affected, too.”
Katsaros lowered his head and peered over his glasses. “I told you to stay put.”
Damian shook his head back and forth, as if rattling his mind would bring clarity. “So you know about this stuff? You’re friends with this guy?” He looked to Katsaros. “Who are you, anyway?”
“I’m learning as I go,” Ethan said, then stood and handed Damian a plate of cheese and sliced apples from the coffee table.
“I’m not hungry.”
Ethan shrugged and took the plate for himself as Katsaros sat on the couch. “We’re here to help your sister, Damian,” said Ethan. “We’re on the same side.”
“What are you talking about? Has everyone lost their minds?” Damian sprang off the sofa and drew back the curtain behind it. His jaw hung agape as he saw, centered high in the midnight-blue sky, the biggest, brightest rainbow he’d ever seen. He looked down at his watch: 4:16 a.m.
“The meteorologists say it’s called a Moonbow,” Ethan said. “Apparently it’s only the second one in recorded history. The first was three nights ago.”
Damian brushed sand out of his hair. “And?”
“Damian, there’s one thing you must realize about your world,” said Katsaros, his hands folded neatly on his dirty lap. “It’s ruled and run by liars.”
“What does that have to do with a stupid rainbow?” Damian asked, giving the Moonbow one more glance before closing the curtain and plopping back onto the couch.
Damian waited for Katsaros to offer an answer, but he remained silent and looked to Ethan, who was fiddling with something in his coat pocket. A few seconds later, he produced a tan leather pouch and loosened its drawstrings.
“Damian, I know you don’t know me that well, or Katsaros, but you just have to trust us,” Ethan said as he leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees.
As if anticipating Damian’s next question, Ethan looked at the portly stranger with equal parts reverence and bafflement, as if he still wasn’t sure what to make of him. “I trust Katsaros,” he said, turning back to Damian, “because he’s the only one who’s been able to explain things that haven’t made sense to me my whole life.” He let out an easy breath as he upended the pouch and let a thin gold chain fall into his hand.
“Like what?” Damian asked.
“For one, he knew who the guy with the lyre was, the instrument that sedated you. He’s an ancient musician who’s been recruited by Apollo to lure your sister to Hades, in case you’re curious. For two, Katsaros told me what this means.” Ethan shook the jasper necklace out of the bag and handed it to Damian.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Damian said, letting the necklace hang from his forefinger. “Did you just say Chloe’s been taken to Hades?”
“I should probably jump in here, Ethan, if you don’t mind,” Katsaros said.
Ethan sat back in his chair and nodded for Katsaros to continue.
“There’s far more to your world than anyone could possibly fathom.” Katsaros took a sip from a delicate teacup that looked like it might shatter inside his large, puffy hand. Although it was never intended to be this way.” He looked into the teacup and shook his head. “No, no this won’t do,” he muttered, then set the teacup on the end table and tapped his goatee. “There’s no time for a history lesson.”
“But Hades exists?” asked Damian. His brain had stopped registering words after the phrase “lure your sister to Hades” had stampeded through it.
“Oh yes, I’m afraid so,” Katsaros said, a smile spreading across his eyes, “ but so does heaven.”
“How do you know?” Damian asked. He noticed that Ethan was smiling, too, clearly convinced that this man wasn’t stark raving mad.
“Because I know. I have friends who have been there.” Katsaros said it so casually that Damian wondered if they were talking about the same heaven. Katsaros’s brow wrinkled with no-nonsense sincerity. “Your questions will be answered in due course, Damian. I give you my word. But time, though it is an obsolete dimension in heaven, is running away from us.” He reached up and pulled back the curtain; instantly, his face and arm were splashed with the lustrous colors of the Moonbow.
“Wow,” Ethan and Damian said in unison as they watched the colors slowly undulate back and forth like sunlight reflecting off a swimming pool.
Katsaros closed the curtain, though a diaphanous streak of ruby-colored light still lingered on the tips of his fingers. “The stone,” he said, pointing to it. “It represents the precious blood of a deity who sacrificed his life to save Petros. It was handed down through the generations, for thousands of years. It belongs to you, Damian. And to Chloe.”
Damian placed the red rock on his knee and stared at it blankly, waiting for his gut instinct to set off his alarms and bring him to reason. Waiting for common sense to kick in and send him straight to the authorities to turn this man in for paráxeno theáseis. Waiting to stop wasting his time.
But he couldn’t. Despite himself, he refused to just walk away. How could he run back to “normal” after learning that normal was all a sham? And if Katsaros was crazy he wanted to find out firsthand.
Damian grabbed the rock and squeezed it in his fist. “Will this help me get my sister back?”
“That,” Katsaros said, “is up to you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
VESSELS
Chloe’s eyes flew open as the reverberations of a booming bark rocked the boat like a gale-force wind.
Charon stood above her and planted his oar in the riverbed. “Sweet dreams?” he grinned, his brown teeth almost black in the shadows.
Chloe pushed
herself back into the corner and shuddered as the sea monster’s dorsal fin made a threatening pass, then slid into a cleft in the only part of the wall not glowing red with lava. She was glad the thing never showed its head; her nightmares had enough material to haunt her for the rest of her life…or the rest of her death.
“So,” Chloe began, not believing she was actually asking this question, “am I still alive?”
When the ferryman didn’t answer, she turned, following his eyes, and made out a mossy haze fifty yards ahead, and within it, a three-headed dog the size of an elephant, stalking back and forth, the thunderous barks growing louder and more frequent as they drew closer.
If I’m still alive, I won’t be for long. But what could she do? She was trapped, lost in the bowels of Petros with a shark-like python beside her, a ferocious hound up ahead, and a heartless old man who would have no qualms about feeding her to either one of them.
“You still got a heartbeat?” Charon asked.
Chloe pressed two fingers to her wrist and nodded.
“Your body’s still warm?”
Beads of sweat were rolling from the nape of her neck to the small of her back. Who wouldn’t be warm in this place? “I’m burning up,” she said, fanning her face with both hands.
“Then you’re not dead.” Charon waved toward the shore. “Cerberus, my handsome friend. Save an old man’s shoulders, will you, and bring us in?” He sat down and rested the oar across his lap. “Do you like hounds, girl?”
Chloe winced as she heard the splash of the dog’s giant paws stomping into the water. “Please don’t do this,” she whispered, her voice trembling.
“Do what?” said Charon, tightly wrapping his cloak around him.
“Please don’t kill me.”
Chloe could hear Cerberus grunting and snorting as he neared the boat. With three heads, at least it would be over quickly.
Charon threw his head back and laughed. “You’re the Vessel, girl. I couldn’t kill you if I wanted to. Neither could that old cur.”