Chapter 57
He was the firstborn of the Titans, the eldest brother. Yet, he ruled the realm of the dead. Compared to his youngest brother, Zeus, the flashy King of the Gods, he always seemed… overshadowed. A bit shabby, in the cosmic sense. In the stories that featured him, he usually played the villain, the kidnapper, the gloomy uncle no one wanted to visit. He was an omen of misfortune. Normal people didn't like him. Who likes a reminder of death? To meet him was, quite literally, to meet your end.
"So this… is the Underworld?" Cyd exhaled, his breath forming a small, fleeting cloud in the chill, stagnant air. "Getting here was… a journey."
That was an understatement. From every possible angle, it had been a nightmare. Shaking Atalanta's relentless pursuit alone had taken everything he had. He'd had to mask his scent using herbs blessed by Hermes, meticulously erase his trail over miles of rocky terrain, and at one point, he'd even used Demeter's blessing to warp an entire forest's growth, creating a labyrinth of thorns and shifting paths to delay her. It had felt less like a heroic quest and more like fleeing a very determined, very angry natural disaster.
But he'd done it. Through sheer stubbornness and a lot of sneaking, he'd finally found one of the hidden entrances to the land of the dead.
Hooray.
Wait. Why am I feeling accomplished about successfully reaching Hell? Have I finally lost it?
He rubbed at his eyes, which were suspiciously dry, and stepped forward. Before him stretched a riverbank shrouded in a thick, grey mist that swallowed all sight and sound. The fabled River Acheron, or maybe Styx—it was hard to tell in this soulless gloom.
"The ferryman… isn't here yet?" Cyd muttered, sniffing the air. It smelled of wet stone, deep earth, and something else—a profound, cellular rot that had nothing to do with disease and everything to do with absolute cessation. No wonder Demeter had been so adamant her daughter Persephone would hate it here. Anything alive would. The place didn't just feel dead; it felt anti-alive.
But… thinking about it, doesn't it kind of suck for Hades? Stuck down here forever while his brothers get the sky and the sea. He's the eldest…
Splish-splosh. Clunk.
The sound of oars dipping into thick, slow-moving water pulled him from his thoughts.
"My, my~ Looks like we have a special guest today~"
A simple wooden skiff materialized from the mist. The figure poling it was shrouded in a tattered black cloak. A low, rasping chuckle echoed across the water.
"Why is everyone into black cloaks these days?" Cyd whispered to Medusa, who stood silently beside him, her small hand tucked in his.
"He is not a person. I am also not a person," Medusa replied with her usual blunt, factual tone.
"I can hear you!" the ferryman snapped, smacking the surface of the water with his oar in annoyance.
"Please take us across," Cyd said, starting to rummage in the pouch at his belt. Hephaestus, pragmatic as ever, had provided "travel expenses."
"Hah? The two of you are alive. I don't ferry the living. Come back when you're dead," the ferryman said, waving a dismissive, skeletal hand.
"This is for the fare…" Cyd pulled out a small leather bag. He loosened the drawstring, and the glint of gold coins within seemed absurdly bright in the monochrome gloom. They couldn't actually illuminate the Underworld, of course, but they did a fine job of illuminating a certain greedy individual's priorities.
"Right this way, sir! Watch your step!"
The ferryman moved with shocking speed. He leapt from the skiff, landed on the murky bank with a squelch, and produced a warped plank of wood from seemingly nowhere, laying it like a gangway between shore and boat.
"..."
"I thought you didn't take the living," Cyd said flatly.
"Even a ferryman's got to eat. Well, metaphorically. Business has been slow lately—too many paupers. Guiding… enterprising heroes like yourself is a nice side hustle." The ferryman rubbed his bony fingers together.
"What use is gold even down here?" Cyd rolled his eyes, scooped Medusa into his arms, and stepped onto the rickety boat.
"Dunno if I technically count as 'alive' anymore, but…" The ferryman snatched the proffered bag and tucked it into his robes with a practiced motion. "Gold is still gold. It has a certain… weight to it."
"So you're greedy whether you're dead or alive. Good to know." Cyd settled on the narrow bench, holding Medusa in his lap.
"It's tradition," the ferryman said with a bony shrug that made his cloak ripple. He jumped back into the stern. "Looks like a light load today, and all in one trip! Makes for an easy shift~"
Cyd's brow furrowed. "Light load?"
"Oh? Can't you see them, sir?" The ferryman reached up and pushed back his hood. A skull, polished smooth and stained by time, was revealed. In the empty sockets, twin pinpricks of cold, blue fire flickered. His jawbone clacked as he spoke. "You were standing right in the middle of them just now."
Cyd froze. Slowly, like a rusty hinge turning, he looked back at the receding shore. The thick mist that had obscured everything was thinning, pulled aside by some unseen current.
The bank was crowded.
Not with rocks or shadows, but with figures. Translucent, shapeless, yet undeniably human in form. They were packed together, a silent, writhing mass of grey. Pale, spectral hands reached out towards the departing boat, fingers clutching at empty air. Dozens—no, hundreds—of empty faces turned towards him.
He had been standing right in the middle of that.
A cold, visceral revulsion shot through Cyd's stomach. He clapped a hand over his mouth. Medusa, sensing his discomfort, tilted her head and gently patted his arm.
"Oho~ Your face is quite the picture, sir! Though, the only real difference between you and them is a heartbeat," the ferryman cackled, his oar dipping rhythmically into the dark water. "Had a hero come through not long ago. Didn't even blink. Just said, 'Makes sense. I think I recognize a few faces.' Now that was a proper customer."
"You have a funny way of treating your 'sir,'" Cyd grumbled, forcing his eyes away from the horrific shore.
"Meh. I'm the only one who can pole this boat. Who's the 'sir' depends on my mood," the ferryman said, tapping his oar against the hull. "Plenty of folks at the bottom of this river thought they were the 'sir,' too."
Ping.
A single gold coin, flicked with expert precision, arced through the air and landed with a sharp clink right in the center of the ferryman's skull, resting in a slight depression.
"Will a foot massage suffice, my lord? I'm told I have a divine touch."
"Just… pole the boat. Quietly." Cyd massaged his temples. "Otherwise, I'm going to start thinking the creepy background noise is you."
Maybe it was just the stress of his first trip to the Underworld, but he kept hearing things—faint, fragmented sobs, whispers that seemed to come from the water itself.
"That's no hallucination, sir~" The blue flames in the ferryman's eye sockets flared brightly for a second. "This is a river you don't come back up from. The dead can't die again. They just sink. And sink. And sink."
"Hey," Cyd said, his voice turning sharp. "How do they end up down there?"
"Fare's short," the ferryman said with another bony shrug. "They only paid enough to get to the river. So I only take them to the river. No coin for the crossing? Over the side they go."
"If they didn't have enough, why take them on board at all?" Cyd felt a familiar, cold anger stir. He was no saint, but the casual cruelty of it was vile.
"End result's the same," the ferryman hummed, a tuneless, grating sound. "Waiting forever on the shore with empty hands, or sinking forever in the river. I never forced anyone onto my boat. They all climbed on with their own hopeful little dreams."
"But you never warned them either, did you?" Cyd glared at the water's surface. Now that he looked, he could see them—faces contorted in silent screams, hands clawing upwards, all slowly being pulled down into the lightless depths by an inexorable current.
"I'm a ferryman, not a counselor. And besides…" The ferryman's jaw clacked in what might have been a smile. "You think they'd have listened? 'Oh, I have a single coin, but that poor soul has none, I'll stay behind?' Please. The ones with coin push to the front every time."
"Listening to you makes me feel better about one thing," Cyd said dryly, propping his chin on his hand. "When I die, I'm stuffing my shroud with gold. Don't want you tossing me overboard halfway."
"Worry not, esteemed patron! You have paid the premium fare. Next time, I'll even give you a discount!" The ferryman gave a thumbs-up with a fleshless hand. "My memory's not so great, though, so try to die soon."
"..."
"How much gold would it take for you to jump off this boat right now?"
The ferryman's laughter, a sound like stones grinding together, was the only reply as the skiff slid deeper into the heart of the mist, leaving the wailing shore behind.