“I don’t know what I am,” I told the lilin. Wasn’t about to share any of my past with her. Who knew what having knowledge did down here? For all I knew, pieces of information could be like fodder to some. I rolled over and crawled to the ledge, getting my first good look at this realm.
Wavy brown landscape stretched out far, and it looked like it had been under water at some point because there were ridges that meandered toward a wide river. It could have been pretty—maybe if there’d been sunlight—but what lay above was nothing but a murky wall of gray mist. The land below held no green, though gnarly dead-looking trees did dot the landscape. The rest was dirt and rock, with lots of scary shadowed areas. Jagged stone walls showed in the distance through the mist rising off the river.
In the opposite direction, I had to narrow my eyes, but that part of this world looked dark and blistered—like fire had recently burned through. Anything that looked like fire was going to be in the opposite direction from where I wanted to go. I shivered. Stupid fire elementals.
“We’ll be going that way.” I pointed toward the stone walls. “Are we still on Earth?”
“We are and we aren’t,” Phro answered.
“Are we back to being cryptic now?” I lifted an eyebrow.
“We’re back to being clueless. Bergdis, I have not been in this part of the underworld before.”
One spot of yellow, daffodil bright and garish amongst this landscape of ash, caught my eye. “Is that fruit?” My stomach grumbled.
She squinted in the direction I pointed. “If it is, you can’t eat it. Don’t eat or drink anything down here. Remember what happened to Persephone? She ate a few pomegranate seeds and had to spend part of the rest of her life here. Eat enough food or drink enough water and you are a permanent resident.”
“Phro, Nikolos has been here months. I’m sure he’s eaten.” I stared hard at her.
I felt another tug on my chest and I briefly closed my eyes and cursed under my breath. Should have realized the lilin was being awfully quiet. She crawled toward me, her pouty lips in an inelegant snarl, her eyes bleeding to black. Her power hit stronger than before, like a slug to the chest. I gasped and raised my hand to my throat as I felt energy being pulled from inside me.
“I’m so hungry,” she breathed before making the very big mistake of crawling in front of me.
I pushed away the instant weakness she’d given me, hauled off and punched her in the nose again.
Blood flew from her nostrils as she gasped and flew backward. Her yell of anger became one of terror as she fell. And fell. And fell.
The screaming broke off and I scrambled closer to the edge and looked down to find her sprawled on the ground, one of her legs bent at an angle that made me wince. A cloud of dirt had been kicked up around her and I saw something crawling along the edge of it.
“I think we’re going to have to get down there fast. It’s either that or we lose our bargaining chip because you see that thing?”
Phro leaned over and squinted again before she shuddered. “The demon scavenger. I’ve heard about him. Eurynomus. He’ll wait until she dies before he starts eating her.”
“Ew. Okay, so, let’s figure out how we’re getting down. Think these notches are supposed to be footholds?”
“You try them first,” Phro suggested.
I chuckled and hit her with my shoulder. “You are like the worst protector ever.”
“Hey, I never signed on for any of this.”
“Yeah, I know.” I looked at her disheveled, tangled hair, her pale shivering form and had to smile. “Yet you came right in here with me, didn’t you?”
She didn’t meet my eyes. “I have my moments of stupid just like anyone else.”
A massive, dark shadow floated over the entire area and I looked up at the thick, swirling mist of gray above us. As I watched, some of the gray separated and floated close. “It’s a ghost,” I murmured. “So that isn’t a sky, it’s a cluster of…of…” I swallowed the lump in my throat, gaze glued to the thing that had spotted us and now flew our way.
“It’s a mass of the dead,” Phro said in a tight voice. “And I think I know what kind of dead.”
It floated close, stared with wide, white eyes, its mouth open in a silent scream. Lines bracketed its lips and wide cheekbones stretched translucent skin over an otherwise emaciated face. Shredded pants and shirt of gray fluttered around its equally skeletal body.
Phro shuddered, stared back at the creature floating in front of us. “The world of the condemned. I want out of here.” She sat back and hugged her arms around her waist.
“Me too, Goddess, me too.” More gray bodies floated toward us. Any clothes not shredded away barely hung on their thin frames. Their upper bodies could be either male or female—they were more unfortunate than me in the breast department. Their lower bodies were mostly nude and didn’t seem to have parts from either gender.
“Guess you guys don’t have a lot of fun here, huh?”
Without expressions or even pupils, it was hard to figure out what they wanted. They almost seemed like a herd of curious animals just coming over to check out the new creatures. “Phro, I don’t understand. You and Fred always told me that all souls reincarnate to learn many life lessons, that none are truly condemned.”
“Yeah, well it was better that you not know about this place. These are all creatures that have done the unforgivable or some the gods have trapped here. These?” She pointed at the group that grew thicker by the second. “They were bloodthirsty cannibals who decimated an entire world. My father put them here…condemned to starve for all eternity.”
Shuddering, I looked away from the toothless, gaping mouths. “Can they hurt us?”
“I don’t think so,” she murmured. “But we should go ahead and try out your footholds. Get to lower ground.”
“You just got your legs back. Think you can do this?”
“I’ll be fine.” Her nose went up and I felt like cheering because, right then, she seemed like my Phro. Haughty, annoying, and a part of my real world I desperately missed in this moment. I smiled at her.
She narrowed her eyes, suspicious.
I chuckled and turned to press my foot on one of the notches beside our ledge. “It’s pretty solid. I think we can use them to get down. Just follow me and use the ones I do, okay?” Yes, there was a true irony in me being the protective part of a goddess and half goddess half human duo.
Wall climbing had never been a sport I enjoyed, so it was slow, slow going for our trip down. The one time I slipped, I had to stand with my body pressed to the stone for a good long minute before I gathered the courage to continue. Phro moved even slower than I did, her legs wobbly. Lots of curse words floated my way.
I reached the ground and sat for a minute, breathing hard and watching Phro stretch her long legs to reach the same notches. She was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved white top. The shirt was no longer white, but a dirty, black-streaked brown. At least she’d pictured herself in comfy clothes and tennis shoes before diving into the portal. I tugged at the heavy, damp hood and wished I’d had a chance to change before jumping into that portal.
When Phro got close enough to the ground, I stopped watching and got up to walk to the lilin. The scavenger demon hissed and kept away, his bobbing head peeking out of the shadows every now and then. He looked at me with curiosity and I returned the perusal, working hard not to grimace at his thin black lips, two holes for a nose and beady eyes that sat so far back in his head it looked like his skull could pick any moment to just grow over them.
When the lilin groaned, he frowned and scurried away from us.
I hauled her off the ground before throwing her over my shoulder. She cried out then went still. Her lower leg flopped once in a way a properly attached leg wouldn’t and I gagged. I walked back to Phro who had sat on the ground, her back resting against a thick, dead tree trunk. She had her eyes closed, one palm lying face up on the ground beside her. Dirt clung to every wet surface of her clothes. The fact she wasn’t trying to brush it off or wash it off let me know we weren’t going anywhere yet. She needed to rest and frankly, so did I.
I set the lilin down next to her. “Why don’t you try to sleep? I’ll keep watch.”
She cracked one eye. “We can’t just sleep out in the open here. We’ve managed to come across non-dangerous creatures so far, but trust me, that’s going to be rare.”
“You think you can walk then?”
She nodded. “We’ll walk until we find something that looks a little safer.”
I didn’t think we’d find anything like that here, but I kept that to myself. After picking up the lilin, I turned and strode toward the huge rock wall I’d seen from the ledge. Something had been carved at the bottom. Turning my head, I saw that quite a few of the spirits followed us and I thought of a group of prairie dogs I’d seen in a zoo once. They’d followed along the fence when I’d walked on the other side. I guess not a lot happened here to keep the ghosts occupied.
The lilin grunted, started wiggling and actually tried to feed again. Without hesitating,
I walked by a tree and slammed her head into it. Cruel, I know, but the thing had killed people and decimated forests in my world. She deserved some pain.
We walked for what felt like an hour before reaching another rock wall that seemed to stretch into the sky. Dead tree trunks twisted together at its base and I squinted, spying a clearing in the center of them. I pointed. “There’s a good place to rest.”
Phro trudged that way, squeezed through the narrow opening and plopped onto the ground. “That’s it for me,” she said.
A shadow crossed over her and I looked up to find masses of those spirits hovering over our heads. A sense of foreboding made me set the lilin down again. I pulled out my knife just as I heard a horrible racket. Thunderous crashes that sounded like they were coming our way. I moved away from the trees and around a rocky corner and saw a boulder rolling and bouncing down a huge hill. It came to rest at the bottom. Squinting, I stared up the side of the mountain, my mouth dropping open because I knew exactly who that tiny figure at the top was.
I’d read the story of Sisyphus. The son of a king who had tricked the gods and escaped this world, only to be sent back to live eternity in punishment. He was already making his way down the mountain to where he’d push that boulder all the way up it again.
I walked back to the trees and dragged the lilin inside them. Phro was out. I settled in to keep watch, trying to ignore the plethora of emotions tearing me up. Exhaustion, worry over my friends back in my world, and the absolute and utter fear that I’d made the biggest mistake of my life and would be stuck in this world forever.
Chapter Fourteen
Mist swirled off the river in thick waves that crawled over the land like it was alive. The air here felt heavy and a few times I thought I might keel over because it drained my already exhausted body. I should have tried to sleep when Phro passed out. Instead, afraid, I’d pulled strong vines off nearby trees and tied up the lilin. We’d left her in that stand of trees, her swollen, bloody face showing such terror I actually hesitated. Then I dredged up the memory of all those young people in the audience and the spirits of the dead teenagers.
She deserved anything that came her way, hungry or not.
It was still hard to walk away and leave someone that vulnerable.
“You need to harden yourself, Bergdis.”
It took a lot of my concentration to keep from limping. My leg and my arm were on fire and I felt like Harry Freakin’ Potter, with his damned scar that reacted whenever the bad guy was near. I kept looking around for dweller demons. I couldn’t astral project and snap their spirit heads off here.
“Bergdis!” Phro snapped.
“Don’t call me that.”
“It is your given name and it’s a strong name that has meaning. Your mother was a true warrior and I’m damned sick of you being ashamed of the name she bestowed upon you.” She took a deep breath and yelled, “Bergdis!”
And it was like she let out a spirit mating call. Hundreds of them gathered—the ones that had been following us, and new ones. They milled about me and through me. Gasping, I shut my eyes and tried to peel dimensions and it was like trying to peel an unripe avocado. The layers were stuck, refused to budge. But as I turned in a circle, trying to evade some of the creepier ghosts, I saw the shimmery outline of my cord behind me.
I did fall to my knees then.
We weren’t stuck here forever.
Dizziness kept me grounded for a few seconds and I had to swallow several times before I could speak. I looked up at the goddess. “Phro, I can see my cord.”
“Thank the gods.” She shooed some of the spirits away. I could tell she was still slightly afraid of them because she made sure not to let her hands get too close.
I closed my eyes, not even bothered any longer by the ghosts because this new realization chased away a cloying panic I hadn’t even realized I carried. My fear of being here, my worry over getting to Nikolos in time—these things had sort of obscured the panic. The relief made my legs feel too loose to stand on.
But this, after all, was about getting to Nikolos.
Renewed determination flooded me and I stood and growled at the spirits around me until they backed off.