Disenchantment 41

*****

 

 

 

 

I should have thought of that sooner. Thanatos had told me the last time that I was there that Epiales didn’t like the sound of the rushing river, moving water and that he turned it off. I should have been more prepared. I was just so caught up in finding you that it didn’t occur to me.

 

I didn’t even see the creature until Hornblende fired the first time. At that point, it was already on top of us. All I could do was grab Mark and pull him aside. I noticed that Floyd also got himself out of the way. Hornblende stood his ground and fired the rest of his clip into Epiales. The guy is a trained police officer and seems to know his shit. I don’t think he missed. Whether he missed or not, he didn’t slow it down at all and the thing ploughed into him, sending him flying through the air.

 

Epiales quickly flew past us and continued up the trail, before turning around again to glare at us. For a few tense moments, I had no idea what he was going to do. Where was Thanatos? Thanatos had stopped him last time but was nowhere to be seen. The monster stood there, motionless, his arms at his sides, and some horrific thing moving and gyrating and thrashing beneath his grotesque skin. I am guessing this only lasted about a minute. None of us said a thing.

 

Finally, the creature turned around into the dark, surreal world and continued on his way back the way we had come. His pace had slowed greatly compared to how he had rushed us, yet soon he disappeared into the darkness.

 

“What the fuck?” asked Mark.

 

“That was Epiales?” asked Floyd.

 

“Where’s he going?” Mark asked, almost under his breath.

 

“Out into the night, out into the mortal world. I suppose to cause nightmares to those who are still sleeping, to those who are left.” Floyd spoke solemnly, not at all as excited as he had appeared earlier.

 

“Isn’t it always night somewhere?” asked Mark. It doesn’t make sense that he leaves the underworld at our night.”

 

“The cop. Is Hornblende okay?” I asked.

 

We all looked around, and it didn’t take long. There was a shape on the ground, and as Mark shined his light on it, Hornblende began moving. He grunted and got himself into a sitting position.

 

“Hey man, are you okay?” asked Mark.

 

“No. No, I’m not. Help me stand up, Nicastro.” He said it like a man used to giving orders and used to being obeyed. We didn’t have an official leader for our small expedition, but if we had, we would have probably chosen Hornblende. He had a certain way about him, a calm control, and he was definitely much more of a natural leader than the rest of us. I would have followed him, so long as he kept bringing me closer to you.

 

Mark went over to him and started to grab him by the right arm. “No, the other arm,” he said. Mark then grabbed his left arm and helped him to his feet.

 

“Are you okay?” Mark repeated.

 

“Nope,” came the reply. “I think that he cracked my ribs. And I absolutely know that he broke my wrist.”

 

“You can keep going, right?” I asked.

 

“My legs are fine. Thanks for the sympathy, Phileus. You’re an understanding man.”

 

“Maybe we should rest a bit?” asked Mark.

 

“I’m fine...enough. That bastard took my gun, ripped it right out of my hand.” That didn’t seem to slow the man down much as he clearly had a revolver on his hip and as he had stated prior: his legs were certainly still working well enough. “Nicastro, get my flashlight. Also, you’ll take point.”

 

Mark shrugged his shoulders and walked over to where the flashlight was, then returned it to Hornblende. “What do we do now?”

 

“Floyd?” I asked.

 

“I guess we go back to the river and wait for Charon.”

 

“Wait for him?” I asked.

 

“Maybe look for him? I don’t understand the geography of the place, just the mythology. Didn’t you say that Thanatos was supposed to be here? That he wanted you to answer his question about life?”

 

“Well, I said I’d answer it. He didn’t exactly promise to be in a particular place. He just told me to come on a certain night, and if you remember, we had a bit of trouble deciding what was the correct night.”

 

We walked back to the river, to the black flowing waters. “Have you touched it, asked Floyd.

 

Before I could answer him, he knelt down next to the black liquid and stuck his hand in. It’s certainly something I wouldn’t have done. We all remained quiet and Mark shined the light on him as he did it. The water, or material, didn’t move exactly like ordinary water. It reminded me of mercury as it kind of seemed to want to cling together. However, it was also different from mercury as it would not separate. Not the tiniest droplet would leave the mass of the larger whole. Floyd stood up and the handful of blackness came with him, yet still stretched back down into the River Styx.

 

“She’s a living goddess,” he said. A slow smile crept across his face. “Hey...um...Hornblende, I don’t know your first name.”

 

“My name’s Hornblende. My first name is Detective.” It had seemed that way since he had first joined us, the cop didn’t like Floyd. However, in fairness, it didn’t really seem that the man liked anybody very much.

 

“I think you should touch the water.”

 

The cop looked at both Mark and I, then back at Floyd. “Yeah, that ain’t going to happen. That’s not water.”

 

“It’s making me feel better. Look!” The black substance slowly began to weave its way up Floyd’s arm, wrapping itself around it like an ascending snake. “It feels...good.”

 

“It doesn’t look good,” replied Hornblende.

 

The black material stopped, and then fell limply back into the larger river, still not ever separating, never allowing pieces of itself to dislodge from the whole. The river kept on flowing and soflty gurgling.

 

“It feels good, Detective. It might make you feel better. I think it might heal you.”

 

“I don’t know about that.”

 

“Achilles was dipped in the River Styx, as a child, which made him immortal everywhere except his ankle that was covered.”

 

Hornblende just glared at Floyd for a time, then knelt down next to the water-like substance. “Nicastro, Phileus, what do you two think?”

 

Mark shrugged his shoulders, so the detective turned to me. “We brought Floyd along for a reason.”

 

He hesitated, mumbling something under his breath that sounded like: fine. Then he slowly lowered his hand into the murk.

 

After several seconds, the blackness crept up his arm a few inches, on all sides. It almost seemed to be reading Hornblende, analyzing him in a way, deciding what to do, After another brief time it receded back into itself.

 

Hornblende stood back up again and slowly smiled. “The pain is fading.”

 

Floyd seemed terribly excited at the news. Then he looked at Mark and me. “You two should do it too.”

 

“Fuck that shit,” said Mark. I also declined.

 

There was more conversation, a few jokes about “Mr. Roboto” and “Come Sail Away,” from Mark. Hornblende couldn’t wipe the grin from his face which seemed unusual and contradicting to his normal stoicism, but we mostly waited, and waited, and waited. Time seemed to stop and none of our phones or more complex electronic devices seemed to be working as well as the flashlights. If they did come on, they were full of strange symbols and then would immediately shut off again, but they usually wouldn’t even power on. The last time I was there, I had used the flashlight function of the phone, but not much else. I was also farther than I had come at that point.

 

We had noticed the trail leading farther left, not sure of the actual compass direction or if there was even a compass direction in existence in the strange place. After a time, Floyd suggested we follow the trail, as nothing else seemed to be happening at that spot, and we could only hear the soothing Styx melodically running; we decided to do just that.

 

The trail was barely perceptible, a slight discoloring of the earth, and an indication that a top-level of presumably soil had been worn away by others having travelled upon it. We wouldn’t have seen it without the use of flashlights, although the atmosphere was slightly aglow. Without the flashlights, we could see... somewhat. However, there was no visible light source, almost as if the air itself was casting some sort of illumination.

 

After a time, we came to a bridge, a way to cross the river. It looked to be made of stone, white marble. It seemed quite solid and secure. “I thought there was supposed to be some sort of boatman,” said Mark.

 

“Charon, the bearer of lost souls, but different versions of the myths say different things. The River Styx is actually outside the realm of Hades. The River Acheron, according to some versions, is where Charon awaits.” Floyd seemed absolutely delighted again, as though the encounter with Epiales had never happened.

 

So we crossed, the pattering of our feet on the bridge drowned out by the River Styx below us. The trail continued onward, and soon stones were becoming evident on the sides of the path, making the path much easier to see, as none were on the trail proper. The smaller rocks got bigger in size as we continued. This was definitely the farthest I had ventured into Hell. According to Floyd, last time I hadn’t even gone to the underworld, just the outskirts apparently.

 

Soon the trail was highly visible as it cut through all the rocks. Small stones had slowly become larger boulders the farther along we went, some of them as large as small houses, all seemed to be the whitest of marble. After a time, Styx was no longer audible and we walked in silence.

 

In time the boulders became smaller rocks again, then splintered down into pebbles, the seeming marble farm getting left behind us as we continued onward into Hell. Faintly at first, then louder as we progressed, we could hear running water again. It was different than Styx, louder and more violent.

 

“This must be Acheron that we’re coming up on,” said Floyd.

 

“Who is Acheron?” asked Hornblende.

 

Floyd replied: “Acheron is the river of pain or the river of woe, depending on the version. Acheron is the god of the lake of fire. Charon, the ferryman, is his personal daimon. Charon is the only way to make your way across this river.”

 

As we got closer we saw the literal red of the river. The sounds it made were also not natural. From a distance, it sounded like the rapids of a river, water slamming against stone or slapping up against itself. Up close, it almost sounded like stone grating rhythmically against stone, unpleasant and jarring, not at all what one might call natural.

 

“That doesn’t look like water,” said Mark.

 

I shook my head. It certainly didn’t. The liquid glowed a crimson red, and it seemed to flow violently, but was also much thicker than water, a sludge. It also bubbled up and gurgled and frothed in a manner I could best describe as disgusting.

 

None of us this time, not even Floyd, flirted with the idea of touching what lay beyond those banks.

 

After turning off his flashlight, Hornblende said to Mark, “Conserve the batteries, Nicastro. We don’t know how long we will need them.”

 

“Yeah...okay.” Mark turned off the flashlight and the glow of the river was so much that the loss of electric light could not even be discerned unless you were looking directly at it when it was shut off, which I happened to be.

 

“Now what?” asked Hornblende.

 

“There’s your now what,” said Floyd, pointing out into the crimson river.

 

In the not-too-far-off distance, came a vessel. It looked simple enough, almost flat, with a slight lip, to perhaps not allow the lava-like river into the boat. It wasn’t curved up and shaped like a typical rowboat but was indeed more of a flat ferry.

 

Standing in the middle was a robed figure, not as tall as Thanatos, but similarly built. The figure held an oar in his hand, but being directly in the center of the roughly ten-foot by ten-foot ferry, he wasn’t using it to paddle. The boat seemed to come forward of its own volition and we hadn’t long to wait.

 

Within moments the ferryman had arrived. Upon closer examination, the man/god/daimon definitely looked smaller than Thanatos. He also seemed less concerned with people seeing beneath his robes. The palest of white hands jutted out of the sleeves. Pale would actually be an understatement. They were the purest white I had ever seen, such saturation that they were almost glowing. His face was underneath his dark hood, but there was a strong white there as well even if I couldn’t make out all of his features.

 

“Charon,” said Floyd softly.

 

“Here,” I said offering Charon four of the five coins I had.

 

Charon spoke, and when he did his voice was not what I expected, soft and almost beautiful: “Coinage pays for the dead, Oren Phileus. When the living wish to cross, they must pay with a life.”