Lyre (23 page)

‘Remember when we were young

                                                        You caught my heart and made me strong

                                                        You fought the ocean and the waves for me

                                                        And in return I did you wrong.’

Something in the air changed.  He opened one eye and realised Hera had frozen on the spot.  Emboldened by the simple fact that she was still in the room, he continued.

‘You made me laugh and made me smile

                                                        Your jet black hair and lack of guile

                                                        You made me see what life could be

                                                        And in return I did you wrong.

                                                        Now that the years had swept past

                                                        I’ve realised the truth at last

                                                        You gave the whole wide world to me

                                                        And in return I did you wrong.

                                                        Remember when we had hope

                                                        Because now I know that I can’t cope

                                                        Unless you will let yourself see

                                                        Just what it is you mean to me.’

Oz choked on the final word.  Hera’s back was still to him but he didn’t even notice.  His knees buckled underneath him and he fell to the floor, covering his face with his hands.  He didn’t see the way her shoulders shook when she finally spoke.

‘You sing beautifully.’  She drew in a breath.  ‘I shall speak to Zeus on your behalf.’  Then she swept out of the room, leaving him alone.

Standing in front of the innocuous looking cave, Oz felt the stirrings of hope for the first time since he’d laid eyes on Yuri’s cold corpse.  Hera had come through.  Now, as long as he could do with Hades what he’d done with her, things might just turn out alright.  Despite the darkness within, he didn’t feel scared.  It was do or die.  Either way he’d see Yuri again.

He inhaled one final breath of fresh air into his lungs before plunging into the cave’s depths.  Hera had warned him that she could only take him to the entrance; what happened after that was up to him.  But he feared neither death nor this place, a fact that solidified when he realised that once inside he wouldn’t be fumbling around in darkness.  The entire area was lit by a welcoming glow of soft blue light.  Something deep inside him relaxed and he felt infused by an odd soothing sensation that was entirely at odds with his reasons for being at the entrance to the Underworld itself.  It occurred to him that this was deliberate.  No doubt all newly dead souls were confronted with the same enveloping aura.  Anyone who’d undergone a violent and shocking death would need it, otherwise they’d simply refuse to go any further.  He pulled his shoulders back and looked ahead.  He didn’t need any such encouragement, welcome though it might be.

Making sure he didn’t stray from the well worn path, Oz picked his way deeper inside.  From time to time, he caught flickering images in his periphery vision but, whenever he tried to look at them directly, they slid away into nothingness.  He battened down the temptation to run – after all, he might need to conserve his strength – and simply continued walking. 

He didn’t seem to have gone very far when he spotted something up ahead.  Frowning, he stared at it until it made sense.  It was a long section of rope, snaking up and down a vast area for as far as his eyes could see.  It reminded him of the queues set up outside Orpheus’s concerts although there didn’t appear to be anyone queueing up here.  He focused ahead so that he wasn’t staring directly at the empty lines.  When he caught the flickers again, he understood what was going on.  Oz left the path.

With only being able to see the waiting souls out of the corner of his eye, it was difficult to judge where to start.  He entered the first section of rope and gingerly stepped forward.  It wasn’t until he felt a brush of ice against his skin that he stopped, rocking backwards.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered.

If the invisible soul in front of him heard his apology, it didn’t react.  Oz licked his lips and tried to relax.  It was possible he could be in for a long wait.  He strained his ears.  He couldn’t hear anything; the entire place was as silent as a graveyard.  Then he smiled humourlessly.  Of course it was.  A frisson of cold ran down his spine and he realised he was no longer the last person in the line.  Unsure whether that was a good thing or not, he shuffled forward but he barely made it an inch before he felt the cold touch on his face again.  Sandwiched in between the two frigid souls, and unable to so much as sway in either direction without touching them, he simply clenched and unclenched his fists, over and over again.  I’m coming, Yuri, he thought silently, just hang on.

*

Thirty minutes later, he’d had enough.  He’d managed to move forward in the line by about three metres but he was shivering uncontrollably from coming into repeated contact with the souls on either side and, considering he couldn’t see the end of the roped lines, he currently estimated it could take him weeks to get anywhere.  Oz simply wasn’t about to wait that long.

‘So, guys,’ he said conversationally, ‘or girls.  I’m going to leave you behind and skip the queue.  I know it’s bad but you’ve got the rest of eternity stretching out in front of you.  It’s not like you have anything better to do with your time.  I don’t quite have that luxury.’

Unsurprisingly, there was no response.  None that he heard anyway.  Oz shrugged, ignoring the trickle of guilt he felt at what was such a typically un-British action, and ducked underneath the rope to rejoin the path.  He took a few tentative steps forward.  Nothing barred his way.  With his skin already warming back up again, he shot an apologetic glance towards the ropes and started walking.  For a long time, he avoided looking again at the lines but when it occurred to him that Yuri’s soul might well be somewhere there, he found he couldn’t stop anxiously scanning them.  It was a futile effort; he couldn’t make out any shapes enough to recognise their facial features, even when he used the very edge of his vision.  He couldn’t prevent himself though.  At least, if nothing else, when he’d been moving for what had to already have been twenty minutes and there was still no end in sight to the ropes, he knew he’d made the right decision to leave the queue.  He’d just have to hope that whoever – or whatever – was up ahead thought the same.

In fact, it was at least three hours before anything changed.  Despite a brisk, steady pace, Oz had been starting to think he was stuck in a bizarre time loop that was never going to end when he finally realised that the surrounding blue light was changing.  It was no longer simply blue; there was a tinge of green.  Hoping that green might mean the same down here as it did in the real world, he felt his heart rate quicken.  And when the silence was finally broken by the soft sound of lapping water, he knew he really was getting somewhere.

Moving faster, he kept his senses alert.  Medusa had warned him that the Underworld contained all manner of danger designed to keep the living out.  So far the only danger had been from slight hypothermia and monotony but that didn’t mean he was about to discard her words.  He told himself to stay calm and that there was probably a long way still to go.  For good measure, he reached into the backpack he was carrying and pulled out a bottle of water, taking a swig to wet his tongue while he paused and tried not to get overly excited.  Then he kept going, breathing in sharply when he spied a figure standing at the far end of the vast cavern.

Oz swung his head from side to side, attempting to determine if what he was seeing was another soul.  Whoever it was, however, they seemed too substantial to be anything similar to what he’d already come across.  When he got closer and worked out that the waiting figure was a man, he sent a quick prayer of gratitude to Medusa.  This could only be Charon, which meant he was approaching the Styx and the actual Underworld rather than simply the waiting room.

Raising a hand in greeting, Oz called out.  ‘Hello!’  Charon folded his arms.  Oz got closer and did his best to smile.  ‘Sorry,’ he apologised.  ‘I shouldn’t have skipped the queue but I thought it might take a long time and I figured they can afford to wait longer than I can.’

The boatman sniffed.  ‘I wouldn’t worry about that. 
They
don’t care.’

Oz looked him over.  He was wearing a very tattered t-shirt with The Grateful Dead emblazoned across its front.  ‘You like music?’ he asked hopefully.

‘Not really,’ Charon dead-panned.  ‘This was a gift.  I wouldn’t wear it but I don’t get many opportunities to hang out in shopping malls.  This is a twenty four hour gig.  There’s not any time off.’

Unsure how to respond, Oz attempted to appear sympathetic.  ‘That’s too bad.’

‘You’re a musician?’

‘I have a band.’

‘Fabulous.’  He said it in a tone that conveyed the exact opposite.  ‘Why aren’t you with them instead of here?’

‘I…’

Charon interrupted.  ‘Let me guess.  Your wife or girlfriend or lover or child has died.  You’re here because you think you can bring them back.’

Oz brightened and nodded.  ‘Yes.  Her name is…’

‘Please.  I really don’t care.  You’re wasting your time.’

‘No,’ Oz said quietly.  ‘I’m not.’

Charon tutted.  ‘Did you hear the part I said about no days off?  I’ve been here since time began.  I’ve seen it all.  And what I’ve never ever seen is someone pass through the gates to the Underworld and return safely with the person they love.  It ain’t gonna happen.  You should give up now.’

Oz met his eyes, hoping he’d be able to see the determination there.  ‘There’s a first time for everything.’

‘No,’ Charon said.  ‘There’s not.  You lifers are all the same.’

Oz had a pretty good idea what a ‘lifer’ was.  Trying not to let Charon’s words get to him – after all he’d already been well warned as to the likelihood of failure – he straightened his shoulders.  ‘I want to cross the Styx,’ he said with a touch of defiance.

Charon sighed.  ‘Show me the money then.’

Oz dug into his pocket and drew out the coin Medusa had given him.  The boatman took it, biting down on its edge then magicking it away.  Then he gestured towards a small boat that looked as if it had seen better days.  Oz stared doubtfully at the dark depths of the river.  As if sensing his presence, the surface rippled and a long scaled body appeared before sinking soundlessly down again.  Oz took a step backwards.

‘You can still change your mind.’

‘No, thanks.’ 

He steadied himself on the boat’s edge and clambered in, feeling awkward and clumsy.  The wooden planks creaked menacingly and the vessel shifted under his weight.  The water on either side was black and viscous, more like oil in fact than water.  Oz kept his hands well away from the boat’s edges as Charon joined him, sitting himself in the centre and starting to row.

The need to break the silence overwhelmed him.  ‘You must be quite strong if you’ve been rowing for all eternity,’ he commented.

Sniffing, Charon rowed faster although Oz caught sight of a tiny smile playing around his lips.  Despite his own desperate situation, he felt a flicker of sympathy.  He may have been engulfed in misery but he didn’t have a monopoly on it. 

Regardless of the long queue of souls waiting to make this very same journey, it took very little time to cross the inky waters of the Styx.  It wasn’t long before Oz was disembarking, shakily gripping the edge of the wooden pier to avoid tipping into the river as he did so.  Charon immediately grunted, making an impatient move to return to the opposite bank.

‘Wait!’  Oz pulled off his backpack and started rooting around.  Quickly finding what he was looking for, he took out a baseball cap, one of the many merchandise items linked to Orpheus, and tossed it to the boatmen. 

Charon caught it deftly, then frowned as if confused.

‘It’s a gift,’ Oz explained.  ‘As you don’t have time to go shopping.’  Belatedly, he realised the gesture may actually be insulting.  The Styx’s gatekeeper hardly had cause to require a hat to keep the sun off his face.  For all Oz knew, he’d never even seen the sun. 

Charon’s face, however, broke out in a wreath of unexpected smiles.  He rammed the cap onto his head, adjusting it before looking back up.  ‘How does it look?’

‘Great,’ Oz lied.  ‘You don’t have to wear it if you don’t want to though.’

‘It’s wonderful.’  The boatman was clearly touched.  He doffed the tip in gratitude.  ‘Cerberus is through that door.  It won’t be easy getting past him.  You can…’

Oz shook his head.  ‘It’s okay.  I have a plan.’

‘Then good luck.’  The sentiment was sincere.

Watching as he rowed his way back across, it occurred to Oz what a difference small gestures could make.  Because of the busy schedule that Orpheus followed, he’d not been able to create any time for charity work.  He made himself a promise that, when he returned with Yuri, he’d do more to make a difference in the world.  It might not help Charon but it could still help others.  With his first genuinely positive thought in days, Oz turned his back on the Styx.  It was time to face the dog.

He had been hoping that Cerberus would be asleep, allowing him to simply tiptoe past.  He wasn’t that lucky, however.  The three-headed beast was glaring at him as soon as he approached it in the next cavern.  The gate he required was behind it - and it appeared firmly closed.  Oz kept well back, eyeing the dog as it returned the favour.  He’d already faced Medusa with her halo of snakes, and he’d seen the truth of Pan’s body for himself.  But despite the forewarning he’d received about Cerberus, he was still taken aback by not only its size but also its shape.  Oz glanced from head to head to head.  Each one was identical, with glowing red eyes, long snout and vicious looking fangs.  The dog’s body was huge, covered in dark fur and rippling with bunched muscles.  Even if the danger Cerberus posed hadn’t already been impressed upon him, he’d have been well aware of it.

The first head snarled, revealing a bright red tongue and a cavernous mouth.

‘Good doggie,’ Oz said softly.  Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect to the one he’d intended.  Now all three heads were snapping and snarling in his direction.  Judging by the angle of its hindquarters, Cerberus was getting ready to pounce.

Oz took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The he launched into song.  ‘’Dogs are a man’s best friend. Woof, woof, woof!  Dogs are a means to an end!’

Each head growled.  Cerberus’s far right leg pawed at the ground, lethal looking claws scratching against the solid surface.  Oz swallowed.

‘Not Loho Boys fans then,’ he murmured. ‘When in doubt go with the classics.’

Wasting no more time, he switched tactics, beginning to click his teeth and hum a different tune.  He beat out a rhythm on his jean clad thighs, doing what he could to ignore the looming danger right in front of him.  ‘’Hey dog!  Hey funky dog!  Woof!’’ he sang, swinging his head from side to side and avoiding looking any of the heads in the eyes.  ‘’You can bark to me!  Woof!  You can come to me!  Loneliness ain’t my friend when you’re by my side!’