Medusa: Fate's Game Ch. 14

"I am but a humble servant, Fate's Child. If you wish for answers, then ask Athena herself."

"Then you'll let us pass?" she said.

Slowly, Charon shook his head. "No. You are not welcome here, Fate's Children. Only the dead, or beings of the soul rivers may enter. Your audacity and arrogance intrigues me, but you will not enter the underworld."

Darian stepped forward toward the skull towering over him, and relaxed his arms at his sides.

"Then stop me."

Charon looked down at him, the green glow of his skull eyes pouring over the deck until the little green lanterns their vessel sported may as well have not existed.

"You dare, Bellerophontes? You are—"

"Get out... of my way, Charon."

The undead released a slow breath. Odd for a skeleton, but it rumbled its displeasure nonetheless, and its rotten breath flowed over the two of them until Otrera started coughing.

"You risk the wrath of beings beyond your understanding, Fate's Child."

Darian grit his teeth and tightened his hands into fists. "Let the ship pass."

"... how much are you willing to sacrifice to bring back your loved one, Bellerophontes?"

"You try my patience." Darian stepped toward the giant skull hovering near him, and it recoiled as he raised a hand. "Athena has brought this upon you all. And if I have to destroy you, her, and the gates of the underworld to set things right, so be it."

Charon lowered his head, and pulled away to look down upon them from further. "You may find it comes to that, Fate's Child. Beware the power your wield, or you will bring doom upon us all. It is Moros's way. Worlds have fallen to him, and left the Moirai and the gods starving."

"Starving?"

Charon shook his head, let go of the pillars that supported his enormous size, and started to sink into the river of blood and corpses.

"I pray Moros's avatar is not the bringer of yet... another... apocalypse."

Otrera and Darian both stepped toward the railing, and looked down at the river Styx as Charon sank into its depths once more. Slowly, the massive skeleton disappeared under the bodies, giant fingers drifting underneath and dragging the crying dead down with him.

"Is it just me," Otrera said, "or... did he just suggest... there's been a world before ours? And that, umm... Moros destroyed it?"

"He also said it left them starving."

"Yeah, why would Charon tell you that? Why would he give you that information?"

Darian took a deep breath and leaned out over the bow of the ship once more. "Guessing he hopes I'll show mercy."

"Oh..."

Mercy, for the gods. Mercy for Zeus, for casting him down. Mercy for the other Moirai for manipulating him. Mercy for Poseidon, for raping Medusa. Mercy for Athena, for ruining her life and her death.

He looked down at his hand again, and squeezed the fist before opening it. Mercy was in short supply.

The ship pressed on, down the river Styx, and the two Fate's Children looked to the bone pillars that lined it. The wailing cry of the endless corpses became white noise, the background of their journey. And as they grew closer to shining lights ahead, the cries of the river started to fade away.

"Be careful," the Amazon said at last. "I know you want revenge, but killing a god, killing the Fates? You might—"

"Start something catastrophic." He nodded, and reached up to touch the mask hooked to his flesh. "I know."

Ahead, the river of blood beneath them turned to blackness. No more corpses, no more blood, instead, a deep glow of blue, purple, navy, and red mixed together in flowing streaks. Like drops of oil in water. Darian looked down, and squeezed the railing tighter. Faces in the river.

Before them, the massive gates awaited. The endless black above and around became walls of solid rock, black, with dangling lanterns of bone. A running motif in the underworld, except these bore blue flames, some maroon, some red. But by far, oppressing navy washed away the green lights of their ship as the river took them between canyons of rock. A cave, size beyond understanding surrounded them, with jagged onyx jutting out of the black water.

The faces in the dark liquid had closed eyes, and they were drifting into the gate of Hades. The faces rose up above them, around them, bled into the colors, and the colors flowed with the non-existent wind. Like wisps of dandelions, the faces swirled around in the air, for miles and miles, until they poured down and into the gates before the two of them.

The gates of the underworld. Tall, metal, tipped with sharp barbs, and bars as thick as temple pillars. The wall of bars ran from one side of the cave's entrance to the other, and high enough that Charon would have had trouble climbing over the fence. The drifting faces — souls, Darian figured — drifted through the bars near the center of the great barrier, where the face of the gate stood.

The river of souls ceased, stopped against a dock of black stone, and the boat settled against it. No need for the smaller boat, the two Fate's Children tossed down the rope ladder, climbed down, and landed upon the black rock before the underworld.

"Gods," Otrera said. She held out her hand, and the drifting faces along the streams of color passed over it, around her fingers, over her shoulders, before moving onto the gate before them.

The gate of the great barrier stood as wide and tall as a city all its own, with three enormous faces carved of a metal he could not guess. Dog faces. High above them, the faces of Cerberus stared down at them, eyes alight with blue fire. Its mouths were open, the base of the gate made for its paws, and each claw was a sharp thing stabbing into the ground.

Beyond the gate, was the underworld. In the distance, the cave's floor glowed with a host of colors, but again mostly the depressing navy that coated everything. Structures lay far off, too far for him to tell what they were, but unless his eyes were playing tricks on him — a real possibility given the locale — the structures looked like three giant people of black stone, with mountains growing out of them, and a beam of light standing vertical between them. Other structures stood by the three giants, but from so far, he could only barely make out more of the hanging blue flames, and what looked like temples.

"I um... don't think we'll be able to open this." Otrera stepped closer to the high gate, and stared up at the mighty dog beast, and its three heads of fangs. The faces didn't protrude so much as they were squashed against the tall gate bars, to fit the architecture of the great barrier. "I guess Cerberus really does guard the entrance. We're not going to be able to get this gate open with its claws down. Not that we'd be able to push it open even if they weren't. Besides! Look at these bars, there's a good six feet between them."

She reached out for the empty space, but Darian snapped a hand out and grabbed her wrist.

"Don't." Shaking his head, he reached out, and touched the empty space between the bars.

His finger incinerated. A flash of pain, and he pulled his hand away to stare at the missing finger. But as the pain hit him, it fled as quickly. Bone, flesh, skin, they warped over themselves, extending from the removed digit, and rebuilt the finger in a matter of seconds.

Otrera blinked at him. "Whoa."

The souls continued to move through the gate, around where the metal-like material formed the giant dog's paws. She was right, they wouldn't be able to open the gate. As if it were taunting them, Cerberus's three mouths were open, fangs exposed, and the beast stared down at him with six eyes.

The Amazon stepped around him and looked around at the cave walls that surrounded them. Cave wasn't accurate; Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and other cities would have fit into the cavern twice over, together. The walls were far enough they were almost lost to darkness, but for the massive fires that dangled from their rocky curves. The ceiling too was high enough to be almost beyond visible, except for the thousands of hanging stalactites, each the size of Charon's ship, each holding a dangling arrangement of spiked hooks, holding braziers of the same blue flame.

The decorator needed to be fired.

"Surprised no one has come to greet us. Figured we'd be fighting Cerberus, and Eurynomos, and gods knows what else." Otrera walked back over to him and looked the colossal gateway up and down. "And I guess this gate only blocks the living." Eyes drifted over the souls that floated past them.

"Someone will come, and when they do, I want you to stay out of it."

"Stay out of it? Are you serious?"

"Yes. I let you come because I... I need someone to stop me if I... Just stay back when the fighting starts."

When the fighting starts. He said it like he knew how that would go. But, as he looked down at his palms again, he knew it'd go his way.

Deep breath. Let the mayhem begin. He stepped toward the gate until Cerberus's vast mouths hung directly over his head; if they could drool, he'd be covered in it. But the metal dog was silent, and Darian pointed his palms upward toward its jaws.

His hands started to shake. The eyes and mouth of his mask glowed brighter, buried the immediate surroundings in white, and forced Otrera to raise a hand to her forehead, blocking some of the brightness. She stepped back when the noises started, deep bellows that shook the ground around them, and then the gate, and then the cave itself. The soul water behind them started to churn, and splash black water up onto the stone.

The souls that drifted by stopped, and turned to him. Their eyes opened, wide, and many started to change color to a deep, dark blue, almost black, as they stared at him.

All dispersed when the gate smashed inward. From the top of the gate, hundreds and hundreds of feet above their heads, the bars bent in for a single moment before the effect tore down through the rest of the gate with explosive, cascading force. Crashing down from the top to the base where Cerberus's claws dug into the stone, the gate shredded the cavern floor and flew inward. Otrera jumped back and covered her ears, but Darian stared ahead at the onslaught, at the burst of force as the gates of the underworld exploded inward, and the mighty barrier slid across stone. Each of the grand pillars that comprised the gate, each a temple pillar in width, each hundreds of feet tall, flew across the air before crashing and tearing into the floor, unleashing a tearing sound of metal and impact.

To see such a massive structure crumble was something he'd never known. Just as Charon and the sea creature moved in slow, laborious movements, the bars of the gate, the bits of Cerberus's body, they all fell to the ground in what appeared to be a slowing of time. But as the bars finally landed, the erupting earthquake that shook the whole of the cavern proved time continued to pass normally. As bits of the gate crashed and bent, tore up more of the cavern floor, it took several long moments for the colossal array of metal to finally stop.

"Darian! Gods, I..." Otrera got up, stood beside him, and covered her gaping mouth with her palm. The gate wasn't just opened, it was decimated. Hinges the size of homes, dozens of them, were ripped open. Cerberus, cracked in half, lay before them, claws torn from its paws, and pieces of its faces scattered over the stone floor. The gate had opened for a split moment, before its hinges had given way, and enough metal to crush a city lay destroyed.

Darian squeezed his fist tighter, and looked at it as the glowing white of his eyes, of the mask's eyes, faded away. Such a small part, such a fraction of what the mask was doing to him, and it had rendered the gate of the underworld, Cerberus, nothing more than ruin.

No one was going to stop him.

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~~Otrera~~

She had no idea how she'd be able to stop him.

Darian, Bellerophontes, Moros, stepped into the underworld. Otrera followed behind, careful to avoid the ditches cut into the stone by Cerberus's claws. One of his paws was the size of a temple, but Darian had smashed the whole of the beast, and the gate all together, into pieces. What could she do to stop him, if she had to, like he'd asked? What could she possibly do?

She followed, the only thing she could do, and stayed behind him as the avatar of doom walked into Hades. Just yesterday, she was leading a mob of citizens against a vile sorceress, and she'd thought that'd been too ridiculous to be true. Now? She trembled with every step, and kept her bow ready. The bow might help, magical and all, but she doubted it.

The rivers of souls drifted down to run along the cavern floor, guided by waypoints of white flame lanterns. After a certain distance, the rivers of faces fell into canyons, and became proper rivers that poured through the cavern. They changed color sometimes, and sometimes some of them would crawl out of the river and back onto the flat cave floor.

"Living..." One of the souls said, before it — he — fell back into the river.

"Alive. Alive."

"Still alive."

"Please... I want to be... alive."

"My son! Please, you have to find my son, tell him..."

"My wife, tell her I—"

"I want life! Give me life!"

Souls splashed against the riverbanks, and the rivers ran parallel toward the three colossal stone statues in the distance, and the pillar of light they circled. A good long walk, with souls hounding them. Wonderful.

But Darian waved a hand, palm down, toward the rivers. The souls shrieked, and fled back into their waters.

"You um... you're taking to this avatar of doom thing pretty easily," she said.

"I know."

He knew. Well that was good. Made things easier if she had to start yelling at him for destroying everything and everyone.

The rivers of souls converged, far ahead of them, but in such number she could see what was happening from miles away. A vortex. A maelstrom? A tornado of some sort lay at the center of the place, made of the soul rivers that they followed. It changed colors as it went deeper into the cavern, into something beneath them, but also rose high, until the tornado of souls pierced the cavern ceiling. As they drew closer, they could see the cavern ceiling as its center was hollowed out, and a giant tunnel had been carved going upward. Souls of a brighter color went up, souls of a darker color went down.

Before Darian and Otrera, a great city came into view. Sort of a city. It was hard to understand what she was looking at, but enormous buildings, temples, and platforms were carved into the stalactites and stalagmites. Some seemed like they were added onto the titanic stone pillars, but that couldn't be possible. The temples, the domed roofs, the pillars within, they were all so much... bigger than needed. Not big enough for that Charon fellow, but big nonetheless. And many of the buildings and platforms were at different levels, with no bridge to connect them. Souls drifted around them, through them as they went up or down the tornado in a slow drift. It didn't seem like the souls got to stay in the weird city, but sort of pass through it as they either bled down into whatever was underneath the tornado, or went up above.

And the three giant statues stood around the great vortex of souls, motionless. Each as big as Charon, the judges were as lifeless as Cerberus, but the souls changed color as they neared them, and altered their course in compliance.

Big, bright lights circled the tornado, each a different color. They latched onto the tornado with tendril arms of light, and like an octopus, the odd things held on. They... sucked on the tornado, as far as Otrera could tell, as the souls drifted past them.

"W... what... what are those? I—"

Shrieks in the sky drew their eyes, and they both stopped as flapping wings started to emerge from behind the blue fire above. Women, beautiful, with great white wings started to descend over them, each armed with a sword and shield identical to Darian's. See-through white robes, and for a split moment, Otrera smiled at the sight of their figures.

But as they came closer, she frowned in disgust. Beautiful bodies, but horribly ugly, withered faces. And as they landed, beautiful ankles within glorious sandals of black and silver, she recoiled. They had snake hair like Medusa, but their snakes were dead.

There were twelve of them, and they were all frowning.

Three of them stepped forward, with masks dangling from silver thread. Moirai masks, all similar to the one Darian was wearing. She was meeting the Fates.

She readied an arrow. Darian's advice be damned, she knew the bow was magical, Fate enchanted by a sorceress. Maybe it could take out one of these Erinyes. Maybe.

"Moros... how dare you... Only you could have released our two servants."

"You have found a vessel! How? Bellerophontes... should not be suitable!"

They didn't know? They were the Fates, shouldn't they know everything? No wonder Chimera thought so lowly of these things.

The masks drifted free of the grip of the Erinyes, hovering. Black robes fell from their black masks, and carried the masks upward until they stood ten feet tall. Bits of black mist leaked from where the Fates walked, robes flowing over the rock beneath them as they moved. The Erinyes got to a knee, stabbed the tips of their swords into the ground, and held onto the grip as the Fates moved past them.

Otrera nocked her arrow, and pointed it at the ancient entities of legend. They ignored her, and circled the two of them, ten-foot-tall robed things, with their lifeless masks staring at her, at Darian.

"Please brother, reconsider your madness! We will not survive another apocalypse. We will starve. You still starve!"

Darian growled, and swiped his hand to the side.

"I am not Moros."

The three entities jumped back, and hissed as serpents would. The Erinyes responded in kind, and the dozen of them leapt toward Darian.

Otrera could still remember the horror stories her parents liked to scare her with, about the horrible things the Erinyes did to people who betrayed their parents. The sort of ghost stories to tell around a campfire. Everyone knew of the deadly power of the Erinyes.

Darian waved a hand, and the dozen monsters, cthonic creatures of vengeance, exploded.

Feathers fell around them, bloodied. Bits of snake and skull and robe landed next to them, and coated everything in blood. Something about blood, heavier, thicker than water, warm, made the contrast of the cold, dead underworld almost poetic. But the blood melted away, drawn into the stone where it faded and sank into the cracks of onyx.

"Bellerophontes!" The Fates had a woman's voice, but layered with gargled rumbling. They backed away further, and their black, shadowy limbs raised from their heavy robes, many folds of the black fabric falling down over their arms as they waved them in what seemed like panic. Hard to tell, with the masks they wore showing no expression. But it did seem like they were cowering.

"You... you captured... Moros?" one said.

"Impossible. A Fate's Child... just a human! A—"

"Sister, we did bestow him with the power."

"A fraction! Insignificant!"

Otrera blinked and looked at the man next to her. First Charon, now the Fates. These all powerful ancient entities were very verbose. Or did they just think humans were too stupid to extrapolate from a bit of information?

Darian stepped toward them, over the feathers and bits of the Erinyes, and pointed his palm at the three sisters. "You... you knew what Athena would do once she found out. You knew... you die."