“Valentina.” A great and powerful voice spoke my name making me shudder slightly. It wasn’t a kind voice, or an angry one; it was a voice that commanded attention with each word, his syllables laced with his demand of power. Of this realm, he was the Almighty...
Then I knew what was happening. Why had it taken me this long to think of it? I was still in the closet; I was still at my Uncle Adam's. In my delusion of grief and loneliness I had concocted this world of Gods and Goddesses, a life of blasphemy and now God was speaking to me. He had come to punish me for straying from his flock. My heartbeat quickened as I turned my head to the sky, closing my eyes and waiting for my punishment. Surely anything else he demanded of me would not be worse than navigating this strange and frightening place.
"Valentina, you have descended into the Underworld and seek judgment." Yes, judgment. But I wasn't in the Underworld; this was a fantasy - right? "For thousands of years we have judged the souls of those who have entered this forgotten place, only letting the worthy enter Elysium while condemning the rest to their punishment in Hades. But you, Valentina, you are not a soul that is to be judged. You do not belong here nor do you belong with the world of the living. You have entered the Underworld unlawfully and in your time here you have disrupted the natural order of things." What was he talking about? "I must converse with my brothers over your punishment."
More voices spoke then, whispering to each other in a foreign tongue. It made me uneasy not knowing what they were saying except for when they repeated my name. Each time they did say it, it echoed around me like a curse word - Valentina, Valentina, Valentina... In those few awful seconds I came to hate my own name, dreading the sound of it.
"I don't understand!" I said finally, pulling myself away from the drowning confusion I felt. "Who are you? What do you mean I disrupted the natural order? I was brought down here by Hades and trapped." Trapped, Trapped, Trapped.... The whispering stopped for what felt like an eternity before it started up again in a fury, they whispered quickly and with growing excitement.
I pushed against the wall where the voices were coming from, a door suddenly forming under my hands and I stumbled into another room. It was cavernous just like all the rest but around me hung thousands of candles in mid air by nothing at all. Their light illuminated the three wise men that stood on a pedestal, staring at me in shock and horror. I had broken into their sanctuary.
In front of them sat a great book, flipped open to a page where one of them had been furiously scribbling. Intruder, Intruder, Intruder...
"No." I said firmly, "you're going to explain to me where I am, what and who you are and then you're going to tell me where I go to get out of here." Enough was enough; if this wasn’t a fantasy and it was still real life, if I was supposed to be Persephone's vessel then they were going to treat me like their Princess. If this was a real place and I really did rule this realm then these wise men were my subjects and I was not theirs, not for their bogus judgment.
The men stared at me with fascination, a grisly smile twisting their features at the exact same time. In another life I might've been scared of them but my growing frustration, confusion and anger with my situation had long since swallowed any of those other, weaker, emotions. I could no longer afford to be the damsel in distress, it would no sooner lead me out of here than it would give me the answers I rightly deserved.
"You are in the Underworld." The one with the Godly voice said, the man in the middle. He smiled at me, his teeth were rotted but refusing to fall out. "At the point where the four rivers meet."
"I know I’m in the Underworld. What rivers?"
"Phlegethon." Said one.
"Acheron." Said another.
"Cocytus." Said the third, their voices echoing the names around me unnervingly and then: “Styx.” They said together.
The Unbreakable Oath, Woe, Lamentation, Fire... The words echoed around me, folding around my body like a blanket and squeezing. So this place was purgatory, or at least as I imagined purgatory would be.
"Who are you then?"
"We are the judges." Judges. I had figured that much out for myself.
"Judges of what?"
"We judge the quality of souls."
"And you think I have a dark soul?" I said with disbelief. I didn't want to sound arrogant but I knew that my life up until this moment had been pretty white, a blank slate with barely a scratch and yet they wanted me to believe I deserved punishment of some kind.
"There is a darkness." They whispered like a hiss, "it taints you."
"Perhaps because I am the Princess of the Underworld." I offered the suggestion and they stared at me as though if they could laugh they would've been. "So who are you to judge me?" I tried again, commanding myself to my full height in an attempt to appear regal to them.
"Rhadamanthus."
"Minos."
"Aeacus." I was definitely not going to remember these names if they turned out to be important.
I sighed, crossing my arms over my chest, "that was not the answer I was looking for."
"You are not Persephone."
"Yes, I am." I said quickly, trying to hide my brief moment of doubt. I was struck suddenly by the horrific thought that something had happened to my Goddess in all this. I certainly hadn't heard from her since I had left the apartment. I stared up at the men, refusing to let them see my worry. Even if she was gone, it was no doubt in my best interest to maintain my stance if I was going to get out of here.
They had stopped looking at me, querying the book in front of them for something. In fact as I stood there waiting for them to retort, it almost seemed like they had completely forgotten I was there at all. Finally I cleared my throat, interrupting their dialogue.
"Where am I supposed to go now?" Minos, the man in the middle, grinned again and at his sides his two brothers did the same. It made me turn cold, shivering under the temperature change and the dampness that was finally settling into my bones.
"Where indeed..." All three whispered. I suddenly had a bad feeling that I had asked the wrong question, or at least should've attempted to be a little clearer.
"There." They said, a tone of finality as they all pointed toward the wall to my left. I turned to watch as another door carved itself into the rock and created an exit for me. When I turned back to ask them another question all three were gone.
"Well, okay then..." I took another brave, deep breath and resolved that the worse thing that could possibly happen at this point was I would just get more lost in this place. Not that it mattered much because my plans to make my way back to Cerberus had been shot the moment the judges had placed me in the stone prison. "Down it is." I finally said, moving to the door and bracing myself on the threshold as I peered down the steps. How much further downwards could this place get? Surely I was no longer on Earth but in another realm entirely. Maybe I was going to end up on the other side of the planet soon. Probably in an ocean with my luck, surrounded by sharks.
I hated sharks.
I went through another round of mentally preparing myself for the descent before gripping the wall and helped myself start down the slick, dark stairs. I could've just as easily closed my eyes for all I could see as I climbed downwards. There was no sounds as I walked, in fact, even my own footfalls seemed to be swallowed by the darkness and sound ceased to exist. Save one: the voices of the judges followed me whispering one word over and over again.
Tartarus, Tartarus, Tartarus...
Thankfully the staircase was a shorter walk than the one down to the judges had been but I was confused when I reached the bottom. There was no where else to go; there was just a hole in the ground and a broken grate covering it.
"Is this a joke?" I called out to the judges, crouching down to finger the iron bars before straightening up. There was no other indication for me of what this place was or what it was supposed to be. I guess I could've jumped down into the hole and seen what was down there but there was no visible ladder or any way to get out and
I didn't want to chance going down there and finding myself stuck at the bottom.
"Great." This was such a waste of time; I turned around to go back up the stairs when they stopped suddenly about five steps up with nothing beyond them but a stonewall. "Oh, come on! Not this again..."
I glanced back behind me and took a deep breath, closing my eyes before making my way down to the grate again. "Fine. It's not like I can go anywhere else then, can I?" I grabbed the bars and carefully began shifting myself around trying to make it easier to slip my body down into the hole.
As soon as I let go to let myself fall it was almost as if I hit the mat of a trampoline and my body bounced back out of the hole. Flying in an arch, I twisted around to see where I was about to land screaming in horror as I saw a wall descend upon me as I flew. I held out my hands hoping be able to catch something or propel myself off the wall when we collided. But as I went into the wall it gave way under my form and I was sucked right through, launched further into the stone.
Being pulled through the rock but not feeling it was the strangest sensation. My mind expected to feel the impact and the scratching of the jagged edges. There was nothing to be felt except the wind gushing past me as I continued to fly through the stone.
I came out on the other side and was strewn onto the floor in a heap at the feet of the judges.
"Valentina." One of them said in surprise, echoed then by the other two. Apparently that was not the effect any of us were expecting from the pit. Tartarus, Tartarus, Tartarus... They repeated as if I was just going to brush myself off and try again. I stared up at them from where I was laying on my back, white patches of pain in front of my eyes.
"What happened?" One of them asked me and I had half a mind to point out that I was expecting the same answer from them. But if neither of us knew then what had gone wrong? I shrugged, closing my eyes as a wave of dizziness hit me.
"You were meant to descend into Tartarus."
"What is Tartarus?" They muttered to themselves in that foreign tongue again as I finally opened my eyes and helped myself up. My body felt weak from my flight. The dizziness doubled when I stood up and I held my head to keep the room from spinning.
None of them spoke again to me for a long time as they conversed amongst themselves. I grew bored quickly of their argument and looked toward the wall where the door had been. Of course, like everything else here, it was gone again. Well, at least I didn't have to use the trampoline pit again.
"Can someone please tell me what is going on, what Tartarus is and why I couldn't enter it?" I was fairly certain I didn't want to know what Tartarus was, but they were pretty adamant that I was supposed to go down into it. My questions went unanswered though as the judges finally shook their head in bewilderment and descended from their pedestal in a line, gliding over the floor toward the stone wall at the back.
They'd left their book on the stand so I took this opportunity to move quickly up to it, expecting to see some kind of explanation in its pages. But much like Hades' book the writing disappeared when I looked down at it, replacing itself with new text.
It was my name, written over and over again.
Chapter Eighteen
I flipped maniacally through the pages, hoping that eventually there wouldn't be a page with my name on it before growing annoyed and slamming the book shut. There was a loud scream that made me jump as I turned around, looking over my shoulder for the source of the noise before looking back down at the book.
I reluctantly opened it again, greeted with the sound of thankful murmurs. In bewilderment, I looked down at the pages that remained blank this time. Senseless noises still bubbled from it but nothing happened. It wasn’t alive, I thought ferociously but still little whispers crept from the pages. A mixed sense of horror and fascination spread through me before I touched the pages again gently. The book didn’t say anything else although I knew there was something strange and magical about it.
Heaving a sigh and stepping away from the podium I turned toward the wall the judges had left through. It had reverted back into being nothing more than a rocky surface and they were probably long gone. However, if there was a door there I decided it was going to make itself known to me.
Reaching the stone I set my hand against it and pushed. I have to admit I didn't expect it to work, pulling back in surprise as the door swung open. I marvelled at my power. It didn't last long though as I forced myself to walk through and into this new dark hallway. I had no where else to go for now, save try to follow the judges into the darkness. I simply hated imagining descending into the unknown once more with Gods knew what waiting for me at the bottom. I paused for a second peering thoughtfully into the shadows when I decided to try something else.
Clapping my hands, I said loudly: "light." Floating candles suddenly illuminated the hallway and I grinned to myself. "So you are still there." I whispered to myself, knowing she could hear me. "I could use you right about now if you’re not busy." But that wasn't true and Persephone knew it. We were uniting. Slowly but surely we were becoming one. I wouldn't hear her anymore because I was her. My thoughts and ideas were hers.
I smiled to myself, feeling a confidence surge in my chest as I made my way down the path that had been lit up. I expected to hear the whispers of the judges at the end. Or at least their breathing as they had done before but I was alone. I felt the loneliness following me as I trailed through the passage and stopped outside of three wooden doors.
This was something I recognised, even without a frog or toad somewhere telling me one door would take me where I wanted and one door would bring my death, but what about the third door? I stared between the three; trying to figure out which one I was going to choose, looking for some kind of sign of which one I needed.
Cerberus had three heads; he always bumped me with the left one first. So I decided then that this was a sign, moving toward the left hand door and pushing it open before I had time to change my own mind. Second guessing in these situations always led to trouble.
The room was bright, at least brighter than the last had been. And this time it wasn't due to candles but natural light. My heart skipped a beat at the prospect of having found freedom. When I turned to the light source I let out a very disappointed breath when I saw it was natural light but it wasn't all that natural. A rudimentary window had been carved in the far wall of the room, reflecting not what lay beyond the cavern but a mother lying in a hospital bed holding her newborn child, still covered in blood and placenta.
I still smiled at the scene, taking pleasure in the woman's happiness even though I didn't know her. She looked up at her husband and grinned proudly at him, "we'll call him Henry, after your father." The father smiled, nodding his head and leaned down to kiss both mother and child on the forehead.
"Henry Phillippi!" A woman crooned from behind me, making me start in surprise. Before me were three women standing on a similar pedestal to that of the judges. One was next to a spinning wheel, like in the fairy tales, winding it quicker and quicker while the one beside her pulled the spun thread. The last one reached out with a pair of gilded scissors and cut the thread from the bundle.
I turned around to ask the significance of the babe when frantic voice filled the room: ”why isn't he crying?!" I turned back to the window, seeing a different woman craning over the nurses and family members blocking her view, trying to see her child. She spoke again and I noted it wasn't actually in English but then, milliseconds later I understood, "what's wrong? Is he okay? Is Mikel okay?"
"Mikel Zakharov." I turned quickly to the women, watching the first spin the thread, the second barely pull it and the third cut it off that I couldn’t tell if she had even gotten any thread.
I glanced back at the screen to see what had happened but it had already changed. I frowned to myself and moved toward the women.
"Hello?" They stopped what they were doing, all frozen in time as they turned to stare at me. I stared in horror as I took them each in: they had holes in th
eir forehead and only the furtherest one – the one with the scissors – had an eye set in the socket. They seemed bewildered that I was there, and then they seemed perplexed like I had asked something from them. I tried again, "hello?"
"Valentina MacMillan." The spinner spun the thread and the measurer measured finally the cutter stepped up to do her job and I held up my hand.
"Stop, I don't want to know." I had a feeling whatever they did here was important, consequential and if my being here changed anything that had been predetermined I didn't want to risk it.
"Griffin Kovalevsky." But this time I watched as she spun the thread, the measurer measured, and the cutter cut. She held up the string and it certainly looked shorter than the other one she had done, even mine, which she had begun to pull. The cutter held it out it out to me and I approached them with caution, holding my hand out to accept it.
It was a fine gold thread that slipped between my fingers before I caught it in the last second. It held an importance I could tell but of what I didn't know. The old women were all looking down at me expectantly like I was supposed to give them something or at least go away satisfied, but I didn't understand. What were these threads they were creating?
"So, you know my name... Can I know yours?"
"Klotho."
"Lakhesis."
"Aisa."
Each one after another answered me and I nodded, noting that these names too would be easily forgotten. What I didn't understand though was why these women, who obviously dealt more in life than death, would live in the Underworld. Were they hidden away here because they were old and ugly? Or was there something more nefarious going on here than what I could surmise?
"Nice to meet you." I said as politely as I could manage before throwing in a smile for good luck, "would you mind... explaining..." I held up the small thread in my fingers to them, twirling it between my digits before dropping it back to my side.
Gods Save the Princess (Grace of Gods Book 2) Page 16