by Ramy Vance
Or maybe it was simply the absolute and complete grief I felt at losing her.
Whatever it was, I welcomed the peace that would come with finally ending at dawn.
I closed my eyes and waited for the light of the morning to wash over me, but instead of feeling its warm light followed by the destruction of fire, my body was shaded.
Opening my eyes, I saw a two-meter-high wall towering over me, blocking the sun’s rays from touching my flesh.
“Nani sugu?” the wall asked. “What are you doing?”
6 - THREE DEAD GODS
PART I
A BEGINNING OF SORTS
Charon used to be the Ferryman of the Dead, guiding departed souls from the land of the living to whatever heaven or hell their worship condemned them to. But that was when the universe still had heavens and hells, when the world still had gods and souls that still needed ferrying.
So much has changed since then, and Charon no longer guides the dead. He is, however, still a ferryman (for even the gods’ departure cannot change everything). But instead of helping lost souls find their final destination, he ferries living humans from the shores of a human settlement to the beach of a nearby island where the mortals engage in something called a “picnic.”
His new occupation was not assigned to him, but something he stumbled upon.
For you see, when the gods left with their final message echoing in his head—“Thank you for believing in us, but it’s not enough. We’re leaving. Good luck”—Charon had just completed his latest ferry and was paddling downstream on the river Styx.
As soon as the gods’ words ceased, the normally calm river unsettled as a strong current began pulling his boat toward a single portal in the middle. His ferry flew through the hole (with him still on board—thank the GoneGods for small miracles) where he found himself on a lake he would later learn was called Lake Kashawigamog.
And so this is where Charon—the psychophomb, the Ferryman of the Dead, the now mortal boatsman—found himself the day everything he knew was taken away. On Lake Kashawigamog, with its little island where the humans needed ferrying so that they could picnic.
↔
When Charon ferried the dead, his fee was two copper coins—one for each eye. So when he started his new enterprise, he charged the humans the same two copper coins he always had. Two pennies to be ferried to the island, which by his estimation was a fair price.
The humans seemed to agree, were pleased by his fee.
He continued with this price for many months, until one particularly chatty human pointed out that in the world of the living, two pennies were of little value. Now Charon’s fee has grown a hundredfold … to two dollars.
At first, he worried that such an inflated price would deter the humans from using his services. But his worries were ill-founded, for the humans still gladly paid his fee.
↔
This is Charon’s new lot in life—in his mortal life—and the old ferryman has adapted to it admirably. He enjoys the dialogs he has with these living humans during their short voyages. They are so filled with joy at the prospect of a pleasant day spent, and many are curious about his past, asking questions about the heavens and hells, about the gods, about what life was like when immortal beings were still immortal.
The chit-chat he has with living humans is so much more pleasant than his conversations with the souls he once ferried. Those conversations overflowed with concern: What is heaven like? Does hell hurt? Is it really forever?
Then there were those souls of ill-repute, the ones of power and greed who had opted for a life of luxury and an eternity in Hell. They would always try to bribe or threaten the ferryman, insisting that he divert his path to another, more pleasant plane. Their incessant prattle would last until the moment that RE or Maalik or Leviathan, or whichever other gatekeeper of Hell, finally took them away.
And, lest he forget, Charon had ferried the cowardly souls who jumped overboard in an attempt to swim away or drown rather than go to Hell. Foolish souls; one could not swim the currents of River Hubur, Sarasvati River, River Malvam or the River Styx without a ferry such as Charon’s. And as for drowning? A soul cannot die twice.
“Like herding cats,” suggests one particularly conversational human whom Charon has grown to like quite a lot.
“I know not what you mean,” Charon says, looking at the human who rides his ferry several times a day, every day. It is evident that this human cares little for picnicking. He carries a hunger for knowledge, and given the number of times he has ridden in Charon’s ferry, this human’s hunger will never be sated.
“You know—cats. They don’t listen, they’re in it for themselves, not really team players.”
Charon considers this as he guides his ferry across the calm waters of the lake. Certainly, the Egyptian god Seth was a being filled with wrath, but even he was always willing to work with the other Egyptian gods. And as for Bastet … well, Bastet was a difficult being who cared little for others. But then again, so many gods were like that, and Charon cannot say that Bastet’s greed was typical of just cat deities.
“I do not have enough knowledge to agree or disagree with you, Mr. Tushman,” Charon finally says. “And as usual, I find your question puzzling.”
“For the millionth time, call me Larry. And fine, forget the cat analogy. You still didn’t answer my questions. Who were you ferrying the day the gods left? Who was that last soul to squeak into Heaven—”
“Hell. Tartarus, to be exact,” Charon corrects him as he sets his oar into the water.
“Fine—Hell. Who was he? Or she? How did that last ferry go before they … you know.” Larry makes a whistling sound as he flutters his hands, mimicking a bird flying away.
“As I told you many times before, I cannot reveal the name of the last soul I ferried into Hell that day. To do so would break a sacred oath taken long before birds grew wings with which to fly.”
Larry waves a dismissive hand. “I know, I know. Client-attorney privileges—I get it. I just figured the statute of limitations might have expired or something. I mean, so many of the rules have changed, and …”
“The rules have changed, but I have not, Mr. Tushman.” Charon looks at the tiny island he is currently navigating toward. “Well, I have not changed as much as most.”
“OK, one last question—”
“Mr. Tushman, correct yourself. Lying was the most common trait possessed by the souls I once ferried to Hell.”
“It’s a figure of speech, not a lie,” Larry says.
“Figures within speech are poor representations of the truth.”
“Fine, fine. One last question today.”
Charon nods in approval.
“What do you think would have happened if the gods left while that soul was still on your boat?”
Charon pauses, his oar still in the water. He has never considered this before. A human soul is a complex construction; of all the energies ever created, nothing is more powerful than a soul.
But with great power comes great limitations. For one thing, a soul needs to be contained … it cannot exist in the ether, but must be tethered to a plane of existence capable of containing it.
That is designed to contain it.
Which is the very definition of Heaven or Hell: a plane of existence capable of holding a human soul.
“I suppose he would have dissipated to nothing. Faded away as his energy was absorbed into the only fabric of existence that remains: Earth. For that is what happens to the human souls now, once they are freed from their mortal coils. They dissipate into nothing. It is the only thing left for the human soul to do.”
“Bleak,” Larry says. “And also, that last soul was a he. Good to know.”
Charon lifts a curious eyebrow.
“You mentioned that the last soul was a ‘he.’ In other words, you let a clue drop, narrowing down my search by fifty percent. I’m now that much closer to figuring out who that last soul to get in belonged to.” Larr
y gives the ferryman a maniacal grin.
“Mr. Tushman, I ferried thousands of souls on that last day,” Charon says. He is giving this persistent human more knowledge than what was once permissible—but as the human pointed out, the rules have changed. “That is the essence of my being: to be with all departed souls at all times. Back when the gods existed and my power was unlimited—and such a feat was possible—I could be, as you humans put it, in more than one place at once, with more than one soul at once, ferrying them all in tandem.”
“How is that even possible?” Larry asks as he mulls over the power required to do such a thing.
Charon tilts his head. “Are you really going to risk your eternal soul for another question?”
Larry shrugs. “It’s not like there’s a Hell to be ferried to. So yeah, I think I’ll risk it.”
“It was my nature that allowed me to be with many souls at once.”
“Cool, like in Multiplicity.”
Charon tilts his head farther.
“Michael Keaton movie. Not very good. You didn’t miss much,” Larry says before his eyebrows furl in thought.
Charon knows what’s coming … another question.
“You used the word ‘nature’ to describe how you could be with multiple souls at once. That’s a very specific word to use. I mean, all living things have aspects that are their nature, but what you did was magical, and …” Larry’s words trail off as he considers his question. “I guess what I’m asking is, what’s the difference between nature and magic?”
Charon gives this AlwaysMortal an approving nod; he is sharper than most. “Magic is a force of will. Nature is what happens without my active participation. It was my nature to sense the newly departed souls on Earth that needed ferrying.”
“And what about now? Does your nature still work?”
“Do you ask if I still feel the departure of souls that need ferrying?”
Larry nods.
“I do. I hear the cries of every soul who leaves this mortal plane, searching for their next place of being. But despite their cries, there is nothing I can do for them,” Charon says with a heavy sigh. “There is nowhere I can ferry them to.”
↔
And so Charon ferries living humans as he feels the dead depart. This continues for four long years, until one day Charon feels the cry of a soul that demands something he has never felt before.
This soul does not cry to be ferried to the afterlife.
This soul demands to be ferried back to Earth. Back to the mortal coil that once hosted its vast and unfathomable energy.
THREE DEAD GODS. THREE DEAD GODS
SEE HOW THEY RESURRECT …
“T his is all because of me?” I asked as I stood—well, not really stood, more like floated—in an impossibly dark room. And by dark, I don’t mean that the lights were off, or even the kind of darkness you’d find in a coffin buried six feet under. I’ve been in both, and even in those situations you got the sense that something surrounded you—that light had, at one point, existed in that space.
This place felt as though it had never seen light and had no concept of what light could be. It was like being in the total absence of anything, and I was standing nowhere, in nothing.
Given that I was dealing with dead gods, my feeling probably wasn’t far off.
“Yes. You have saved us,” said the feminine voice. From what I knew about the dead gods, she would be Izanami, the Japanese goddess of creation who died not long after the world was created. “Because of your soul and the soul of one other, we can be free once again. For that we shall be forever in your debt.”
Wonderful—three newly freed, maniacal gods in my debt. That was an obligation I wanted about as much as a tanuki’s cojones to the face.
“Tell us, Katrina Darling, how shall we reward you? Perhaps you would like to rule the world?” said the deepest of the three.
“For us, of course,” the three voices said.
“Or riches,” said Izanami.
“Or power,” said the many voices.
“I don’t want any of those things,” I said, trying to orientate myself. I looked behind me, but there was nothing to see other than the doorway I just walked through. It was illuminated by the light inside and hung open, revealing the museum’s corridors that I had traversed to get to this place. “And might I ask who you are?”
None of the three voices answered.
“OK,” I said, “you want to keep me in the dark, both figuratively and literally. I get it. Still, I learned a bit about you guys from Kenji, and—”
“Nurikabe traitor,” the multi-voice creature hissed.
“—and I’m going to say the guy who sounds like everyone I’ve ever known—as in, ever—is Quetzalcoatl. I’m basing this on the part of your legend that mentions your death, when you were turned into a flock of birds. As in plural. The female voice is Izanami, but that was easy: she’s the only girl here. Besides me, of course.”
“How perceptive,” boomed a male voice so deep it made James Earl Jones sound like a prepubescent kid. “Tell me, mortal without a soul, who am I?”
“Baldr,” I said, “is that you?” I said it in the same tone one might use when hearing a long-lost friend’s voice over the phone.
“Indeed. Indeed,” he said between chortles of booming, thunderous laughter.
I tried to edge toward the doorway, but despite all my efforts, all I managed was to move my arms and legs without actually getting anywhere. The door was no closer, and I was beginning to feel like I was in one of those stress dreams where as hard as you might try, you never seem to get anywhere.
“You don’t want any of those things, you say?” Baldr asked. “Then what is it that you do want?”
“My soul back,” I said, turning my head in an effort to sense where the voice was coming from. No good; in a place where light had never existed, where I floated through space, the three gods’ voices boomed around me like a thunderstorm.
“Ahh, that is the one thing we cannot grant you,” the three voices said in unison.
“Why?” I asked. “If you’re so grateful, then certainly I can have my soul back, can’t I? I mean, by your own admission, you owe me.”
“We do. But perhaps a more accurate statement is that we are in your debt for giving us your soul,” said Izanami.
“Your soul and one other’s,” echoed Quetzalcoatl’s flock of voices.
“Alright,” I said, “I need you guys to spell this out for me.”
“Death has different rules for different creatures,” Izanami said. “When one of our creations dies, it becomes a spirit that may or may not continue to be.”
I didn’t miss that Izanami had referred to me—and the rest of humanity—as an “it.” This didn’t bode well for our continued negotiations.
“When a god dies, it presents merely a temporary limitation,” boomed Baldr. “But when a human dies? Well, that is something special indeed.”
As he spoke, I could feel my body rotating as if I was slowly spinning … not around, but upside down. I looked back at the door—my only point of reference in this otherwise empty space—and saw that I had, indeed, flipped upside down. Not that “upside down” was a thing in a place with no floors, walls, or ceilings.
My slow rotation should have been disorientating, but it wasn’t. Since my feet weren’t attached to anything, it didn’t actually feel like I was moving at all in this void.
Except that this place wasn’t a void. Not exactly. If it was, I wouldn’t be moving at all. Well, not without something propelling me, like a current or a breeze. Something, anything to push me along and actually cause me to rotate. This hall (room? cave? I’m going to go with cave … that feels like the right word for big, dark and scary) was being affected by something that was causing me to move.
“Before the gods left,” Izanami said, “death for those with souls was, in truth, the gift of everlasting life. Their souls would travel far, entering whatever heaven or hell th
eir faith and gods dictated.”
“But that was then,” Quetzalcoatl said. “Now that those fickle, uncaring creators have abandoned their constructions for worlds unknown, death for humans is the final moment of everything.”
“What a waste,” Baldr said.
“A waste, for it is souls that power the gods’ domains.”
“It is the human soul that grants us our magic.”
“Gives us strength.”
“And it is your soul—”
“—and one other’s—”
“—and one other’s which have given us enough strength to rise once again,” Quetzalcoatl hissed.
↔
THE CAVE FELL SILENT.
“Let me get this straight. My soul is … what? Your guys’ battery?”
“If you mean ‘well of power,’ then yes.”
“And you guys tried to kill me. Why?”
“To uncomplicate matters,” Baldr said in a way-too-jovial tone, given that he was talking about my death. “After all, the body must die for the soul to be free.”
“But your bodies don’t die and your souls are free.”
“An exception,” Izanami said.
“An anomaly,” agreed Quetzalcoatl.
“A vampire,” I said. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of us.”
The three dead gods didn’t say anything and I was beginning to think that they actually hadn’t heard of vampires before. Like we were some sort of supernatural being that came into existence after these guys died.
If these guys died long enough ago, that was certainly possible.
Which made me wonder when vampires first came into existence. But that wasn’t something I could think about now.
“You want to reward me for donating my soul? And that reward will take the form of an empire that I can rule over? That sounds like a lot of work. I’m more of a spa girl, myself.”
“Then slaves?” Quetzalcoatl said.
“Or pleasures of the flesh?” Izanami offered.
“Or simple, forever-lasting joy?” Baldr boomed.