Disenchantment 45

*****

 

 

 

 

When Mattie and Nannette began to fade, Mark was nearly heartbroken, but Nannette’s words rang in his ears: Help your friend first. Despite the sadness that etched its way through his soul, he fell back on the fact that they were still near him, still close, still somehow in this terrible and wonderful place. Yes, Mark would help Oren first.

 

When the four of them travelled, in the most bizarre and horrible way imaginable via Thanatos, to what he assumed to be the center hub of the mystical place and met the dark god, he couldn’t help but be horrified. The very presence of the being made him want to run, or at a minimum, avert his eyes, but he didn’t. It was difficult to look at the deity directly in the eyes, but he slightly shifted his gaze and concentrated on the god’s chin instead, almost eye contact, perhaps some semblance of self-respect instead of abject subservience or fear.

 

All around were other things, their silhouettes moving in front of the flames, some of them actually in the flames or on the other side of them. Some of the creatures were so foul and alien that they made Epiales seem normal by comparison. Things writhed and squirmed and even seemed to crackle and hiss. Mark couldn’t put into English or human words what some of them looked like, something out of a nightmare’s nightmare, almost beyond comprehension itself, Lovecraftian and alien, which was another reason, after a few moments, that he concentrated on the chin of Hades himself.

 

Hades did strike fear into him, and he assumed the others. His presence alone could conquer an army. His huge muscular form towered over all else in the vicinity, all black, blacker than coal and a thousand starless nights. He wore a golden breastplate but no other weapons nor armor were about, although Mark could easily imagine him wielding some magnificent two handed weapon like an axe or a war hammer. The pure white cloth of his robes greatly contrasted with his blackest of black skin. He was bearded and his hair was also long, flowing out behind him, just as his beard seemed to writhe in front of him. Statuesque, formidable, terrifying. He truly was the god of the underworld.

 

“Welcome,” the voice boomed out into the underworld. “Please come forward.” The god’s voice was deep, dark, and boisterous, a soul-crushing sound that seemed to reverberate in the very air itself. “We have been expecting you.”

 

Mark noticed the second throne, the woman on it. She seemed so tiny next to Hades and would have been completely insignificant, save the silvery throne that seemed to give her some importance, some sort of implied weight in the strange place. He couldn’t tell from his distance away, but assumed that it was Persephone, Oren’s Persephone, just due to her namesake, but he wasn’t completely sure.

 

The four men made their way forward until they got within forty feet of the dais, led by Oren that time instead of the usual Hornblende. Yes, it was Persephone on the smaller throne. Oren seemed about to speak, but perhaps not sure what he wanted to say or how to address the god.

 

Instead, Floyd, who almost couldn’t hide his excitement, spoke: “Hades, lord of the underworld, Dark Zeus, I am your servant.” Mark certainly considered it an odd thing to say.

 

Hades ignored the man, and instead focused on Oren. “Oren Phileus, it is not often we get a mortal bard to grace us with his presence. Your voice is renowned down here, but your courage is lacking. I would very much like to see if we can remedy that.”

 

“My courage?” asked Oren. “I came down to Hell to get my wife. I think that shows plenty of courage.”

 

“You contemporary humans and all your Heaven and Hell nonsense.” Hades shook his head with exasperation. “Zeus might very well be right about his culling. This place is the Underworld, Hades itself if you will, but not Hell. The world is not good and evil, black and white, and neither is the afterlife.”

 

“The fires? The demons? It seems the very depiction of Hell that a child would even recognize.”

 

“Alien? Unrecognizable? Different? Are these things synonymous with Hell in your mind, mortal fool? When you meet others of different cultures to your own, are they evil to you because they are not the same as you?”

 

“I have courage, though,” stated Oren. Mark wasn’t sure if he ignored the question posed by Hades or he prematurely uttered another denial to a statement by the god to just get it out quickly, maybe before he lost his nerve and actually contradicted what he wanted to say.

 

“Courage? You seem willing to risk or even give your mortal life or subject yourself to bodily harm for the mortal woman who was once one you called wife, but you lack courage in other areas. Both your pride and your insecurity are not allowing you to reach your full potential. You are merely good when it appears that the Fates have decided that you need be great at your art.”

 

“The Fates?” asked Oren.

 

Floyd interjected: “Goddesses that decide the amount of time you will live when born, amongst other things.”

 

“Silence!” yelled Hades without breaking his composure. He then slowly shifted his eyes to look at Floyd. “I will speak to you momentarily.”

 

“I want my wife,” said Oren. He then looked at Perry. “Baby, I came to get you, to bring you back home with me.”

 

“What makes you think I would suffer that?” asked Hades. “You may speak to her when I am done with you. I rule this place. Your appeals belong to my ears alone until I allow then to fall upon others, if I choose. I believe you do not comprehend the entire situation or the etiquette you are lacking.”

 

“Please,” said Oren, “I need her back. I’ll do anything.”

 

“Good,” said the god of the underworld. “Here we are now, entertain us.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“You are a bard. Sing. I want a song or two. I think my court and my wife would also like to hear this.”

 

“Why? Surely you don’t need a mortal to sing for you. You must have all sorts of talent with other gods. You are better than us at everything, right?”

 

“Wrong. We are better than you at creating physical things, or we were. We made you. This thing you call art. It is only for mortals. We can’t do it, and once your physical body is gone and you are finally here amongst us, you will no longer be able to do it as well. Athena, out of all of us, tried. Even a mortal woman was better than her. This beauty is reserved only for mortals while they have physical bodies. Once their lives end, their ability to create any art ends with it.”

 

“You can’t sing. You can’t create poetry?”

 

“We can. We cannot do it as well as you. What we all of us create is merely a substandard version of what seems to come so naturally to some of you. There are no epic poems written by the gods. Once those like Homer and Orpheus lose their mortality, they can no longer do it as well. Prometheus and Epimetheus created mortal life, but could not create the same things their creations could. Your finite nature gives you this ability that we cannot do, just replicate poorly.

 

“We have nothing to lose and all power at our very whims. This also disallows us to be as technologically advanced as your kind has become. Our powers make technological advancements obsolete. Still, there is not one of us that hasn’t marveled at what you have been able to create over the years. It is a mortal’s game, not for us immortals who really don’t need televisions or computers or motorized vehicles. Your science and your art, they elude us. We can copy these devices, but not create them.”

 

“How can I sing for you? Play? I have no instruments here. Even if I did, I can’t play them all at once.”

 

“Allow me to help you with that,” said Hades, raising his right arm up over his head in a clenched fist. “Think of how you want the sounds to be and they will be.”

 

“The sounds? The instruments you mean? I can just imagine them?”

 

“Yes, give it a try.”

 

“I can’t imagine them all at once, bass, drums, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, vocals?”

 

“I believe those are the words of a lesser man. Give it a try before you throw out falsities.”

 

Then Oren did. He started with the introduction to Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train,” on guitar, switched to a drum solo Mark didn’t recognize, then some bass lines from Judas Priest’s “Breaking the Law,” and back to Iron Maiden’s drum introduction to “Run to the Hills.” The sounds exploded out of the air much to Mark’s amazement, and they sounded good, crisp and perfect.

 

“Combine the instruments you need for the song you choose,” said Hades.

 

Oren started concentrating on one song, picking The Doors’ “Break on Through.” The instruments wouldn’t line up at first, started with guitar, and trying to add drums and keyboard, they didn’t mesh. Oren slowly went back and started guitar, then drums, then keyboard, better. His third attempt nailed it, harmony. “That was easy,” said Oren.

 

“I am not sure that you are aware of this, but many men would never be able to do that. Of those that could eventually do it, very few, dare I say highly minimal, would be able to learn that as quickly as you did.” Hades smiled, the most benevolence he had shown and still Mark didn’t get the impression of any sort of warmth from the deity.

 

“I want Mark to play with me,” said Oren.

 

“He is not of the same ability as you,” said Hades, glancing at Mark as though he were some trivial, mediocre nuisance.

 

“Maybe, but I still want him playing rhythm.”

 

“Very well,” said Hades. Out of thin air he produced a guitar. Mark didn’t recognize it as any brand or model that he was familiar with. A humanoid grabbed the guitar out of the air where it was floating and scurried over to Mark, depositing at his feet.

 

Mark had always been comfortable with rhythm guitar and had never been comfortable with lead. It also reflected his personality to be in the background, not up front with all the attention. A vital, yet often overlooked aspect of music was the rhythm guitarist, without whom the other musicians could fall out of tune and timing. The drums kept rhythm too, but if ever there were two guitarists to a band, rhythm was a great plus.

 

Hades looked directly at him. “Imagine the sounds you require as you play, and they will then be.”

 

Mark looked over the guitar, it was beautiful, black, glossy. Mark was about to start tuning when Hades shook his head. Mark understood that that meant his action was unnecessary. This instrument didn’t need to be tuned, as it was mostly played in one’s mind. “I’m a bit rusty,” he said to Oren.

 

“Rusty doesn’t matter,” spoke Hades. “Consider that a prop. If you had your friend’s talent to think music, you wouldn’t even need that.”

 

“It’ll be all right, man,” said Oren.

 

Mark believed him.

 

Hades smiled again, an almost ghastly looking expression on the dark god’s face. “Treat us to some music!”

 

“What are we going to play?” asked Mark.

 

“We’ll play what we always ended the show with, back in the day.”

 

Mark nodded, strumming the guitar to get a feel for it, even though he realized it was just a prop and that he would actually be creating music with his thoughts. The guitar felt good in his grip.

 

Oren began, no guitar in his hand, but taking lead, the familiar song in E.

 

[Here I have removed about three quarters of a page that includes song lyrics mixed a little bit with what Mark is thinking. It is AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” that they play. ABC Tales asked me to remove some Metallica lyrics from a section of this in the past, so I will just upload this one with this section removed.]

 

They sounded great. Mark felt great. He had not felt that good about music in such a long time. When the song finished, Oren seemed to be feeling good too as he immediately went into “Back in Black,” then “TNT,” “Let there be Rock,” “Dirty Deeds,” and “Highway to Hell.” and even going outside his normal list of songs to do “Welcome to the Jungle,” by Guns n’ Roses. Mark kept up with him all the while adding his supporting rhythm.

 

He smiled at Oren who occasionally smiled back. It was good to do something like this, at least one more time. At one point Mark glanced into the fires to see the undead and immortals alike dancing in the flames. Even the dead enjoyed rock.

 

Despite his surroundings, despite the unrelenting mess that his mortal life had become recently, Mark smiled. He felt something that he had not experienced in a long time: contentment. He had had fun playing with his old friend.