29. The Condemned
29
The Condemned
Calliste
Odd was precisely the word.
It wasn’t falling. But her head swirled violently, as if she were about to faint.
She set her teeth, waiting for the disorienting strangeness of crossing into another dimension to pass. The dizziness distracted her from everything else until the swirling had stopped.
Her skin shivered at the chill in the air, which smelled like damp earth.
She blinked at the desert-like landscape before her, bathed in a cold, off-gray light of pearly haze. Its shifting veils blurred out the view of the barren surroundings.
There was no sky above, just ripped sheets of mists, blocking any sight of what was beyond.
No landmarks, either. Unsettled, she searched further and eventually spotted a tree on the distant horizon, wavering in the strange light.
She glanced at Hypnos’ pale reflection beside her. “You called those creatures the Condemned. Do you mean they’re the souls of the dead, traveling to the Underworld?”
“Yes. All the Shades have a path they must follow. They pass by Cerberus, who only allows Shades into the Underworld. Then they travel through the Everlasting Enclave to collect the essence of their life and then arrive at the shore of Styx and board Charon’s ferry.”
“But you also called them… the Condemned. What does that mean?”
“The Condemned are different.” As Hypnos turned his head to cast her a sideways glance, the poppies in his crown gleamed red like rubies—the only hint of color in the colorless space around them. “If their family did not properly bury them or neglected to place a coin in their mouth, or worse, if they were not buried at all, they go through the Everlasting Enclave, but cannot cross Styx.”
“What happens to them?”
Hypnos sighed. “They try to leave the Underworld and find their way back to their family to ask for a proper burial. But Cerberus will not let them leave, so they wail at the borders of the Underworld. Sometimes, the Priests of Hades can intervene and help them. Other times, I carry their pleas to their families. But otherwise…”
Calliste swallowed. “They’re… condemned?”
“And they need to be destroyed in the Void.”
“So those phantoms I saw could be the Condemned?”
Hypnos nodded. “Yes, though I still don’t understand why they weren’t there when I looked. Unless they were hiding somewhere, which is… worrying. They shouldn’t be able to hide away from me.”
Her eyes fixed on the faraway tree, she took a deep breath. She couldn’t make out the phantoms in the distance, so instead she watched the orb of light shining between the branches. “When I first saw them, they seemed to be smothering the tree.”
“They probably try to keep it here, in the Roots. But the Condemned alone wouldn’t be able to do it. So we proceed with caution.”
“My sphere has vanished,” she said, noticing.
“You must have collapsed it when we crossed the dimensions,” Dream said casually. “Try again.”
To summon her power was easy—she was used to doing it as a healer. But shaping it into what she needed was a challenge. Once it surged from the pendant again, it took some mental effort to mold it into an orb. It rose above her head, formed into a thin, green-tinted sphere that hovered around her at a perfect two-step distance as she moved. She glanced at Hypnos through it.
“You continue to amaze me,” he said with a disarming smile.
She smiled, breathing in amazement, and pressed on, but walking this realm required adjustments. The surface resembled a frosted-over lake on a starry night: black, glossy, and sparkling with white pinpricks, even if there were no stars above their heads. It felt like crossing an invisible bridge across the night-time sky. The thought made her dizzy.
“What is it?” Hypnos asked.
“This… sand.” She watched the reflection of her orb as she walked inside it. It formed a perfect sphere. “It feels like glass, but it’s not slippery at all. It seems like… it’s hard to explain.”
“Like the nighttime sky?”
“Yes.”
“We’re nearing Erebus, Calliste,” Hypnos said, his luminous form gliding beside hers like a resplendent ghost with azure wings. “And Erebus is endless, boundless, and, for the lack of a better word, fickle. Don’t expect anything here to make sense.”
“So the tree is in a dimension where anything is possible?”
“Which is why neither my brother nor I can use our powers here. Erebus is best left undisturbed, for beneath it lies Chaos—a force we don’t want to stir.”
“Chaos?” She remembered the teachings from her childhood. “You mean the primordial Chaos?”
“She who birthed the first gods,” he replied with reverence. “And now she sleeps. If she ever awakens, everything we know will cease to exist.”
As he spoke, she noticed the image of the tree wavering, almost like a mirage in the desert. With each step she took, the ground transformed again—now into frosty blue-black sand, speckled with glistening, pearly-white shards.
Her reflection disappeared. She was suddenly standing just a few paces away from the tree. She blinked.
“I forgot about it,” Hypnos said quietly. “The tree seems to be in its own dimension. It looks like we’ve just entered it.” Then he stared ahead with a deep frown.
The phantoms swarmed around the tree, their grotesque, elongated arms winding around its trunk.
“Infinitely interesting,” Dream muttered. “They really are here. And they are the Condemned, only degenerated.”
“How?”
“The Shades usually carry their memories with them. But these creatures here are utterly unreadable. Fragmented, like hornets’ buzzing.”
“That’s the noise I kept hearing from them.”
Hypnos stood still. “It’s so unusual for these aberrations to act like this. They’re just twisted human Shades. I can see no way for them to unify their efforts like this unless my brother is right: someone is meddling.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s likely that there is someone behind all this, a god or a monster, who’s holding this tree hostage, knowing of the consequences.”
Chill whipped across her back. “Disrupting destiny?”
Hypnos’ scowl deepened as he looked at the Condemned. “Yes. Be careful with them until you know what you’re dealing with. I cannot aid you in any other way than to pull you back into the mortal realm.”
She nodded and stepped forward, her body tense as she assessed them.
At first, they paid her no attention, all of their focus on the tree. But as she crossed an invisible line, their faceless heads snapped to her once again. They wavered, and the green specks of light trapped in their chests began to glow, illuminating their watery, semi-transparent bodies.
A shiver ran down her spine. The orb is protecting me. She steeled herself and took another step.
One Condemned slowly unwound its root-like limbs from the tree until they dangled by its sides and floated closer. Its gelatinous body glowed from within. The buzz grew louder as its root-like arm split into smaller tendrils, probing against her protection and spreading like a spiderweb against the sphere.
Calliste recoiled, blinking from an onslaught of unfamiliar images. They came so rapidly, one after the other, that she couldn’t make sense of what they were showing. She backed away from the specter.
The phantom also retreated, its root-like arms hanging at its sides, motionless.
“Calliste?”
“I’m… fine.” Her breath was erratic. “I just saw… a lot of images that were too indistinct to make sense of.”
“The remnants of their mortal memories, most likely.” Hypnos watched her. “You look pale. Your body will take the toll of this trip. Do you want to go back?”
“Not yet. I need to…” She exhaled and glanced at the sand under her feet. “I need to get to this tree somehow.”
The Condemned in front of her was disconcertingly still, then it slowly turned around and walked to the tree.
So they consider me dangerous if I cross a certain line. If I can’t get closer… She glanced down. She was only a couple of steps from the tree. Might be enough. “Can you see where the roots go? Am I close to one?”
Hypnos glanced at where she stood. “Under your left foot.”
Keeping her eyes on the Condemned, she knelt down and started digging in the earth until she felt the slick root. It was still a guess, but the best one she could make.
She focused on drawing the power and channeling it to the root, but nothing was happening. She swallowed, thinking hard. The only other manifestation of her power was the orb. Is it consuming so much energy that I’m unable to keep the orb and channel the power?
There was only one way of finding out.
“Get ready to pull me back,” she whispered to Hypnos. “I’ll have to collapse my protection and send whatever I have to the root of the tree. Maybe it will work.” She shot him a quick glance. “What are the consequences of the Condemned touching me?”
Hypnos narrowed his eyes. “Hard to say. Their energy is unsettling and might be deadly for you. Run if you must. I’ll pull you as quickly as I can, but remember that I have to leave this realm first and return to your physical body to do it.”
She nodded and let the power surrounding her fall away, her eyes narrowed on the Condemned.
They seemed to be ignoring her.
She took a deep breath and drew on her power again.
It rushed to her, raw and barely controllable. The difference was almost tangible: where previously her power poured from her like water, now it seemed a roaring fire. She clasped her hand on the root and imagined a purifying fire consuming the traces of the Condemned.
What happened after that surprised even her.
The Condemned jumped back from the tree, as if it burned them, shrilling a high-pitched buzz as the tree lit up from inside. For a moment, it stood incandescent.
Then it dimmed.
And then, the Condemned were upon her, suddenly moving faster than she could track them.
She glanced at the tree for the last time before turning around and fleeing, her legs sinking into crumbly sand. She struggled for a moment, then pushed on until her feet found purchase as she crossed onto the hard ground. “Hypnos!”
The Condemned were closing in.
She drew on her power again, frantically trying to shape it into an obstacle of some sort. She swiped around and let it rush out of her hands again.
Green light tumbled out and roared in front of her in a huge column of swirling fire. Shocked, she watched it swirl and roar until it smashed into one of the Condemned chasing her, engulfing it. The other Condemned stopped, backing away.
The shriek of the one trapped in her green fire was ear-splitting.
“Hypnos, hurry!” she screamed before she felt the pull and the Roots blurred away.
***
When she opened her eyes, she was back in the prince’s room, crumpled in the armchair. The first, shy line of dawn light slowly split the horizon, casting brilliant pink light everywhere.
Beside her stood Hypnos. “Just in time.” He grinned.
“Too close for comfort.”
“I’ll work on that part.” He pushed his hair back over his shoulder.
Her eyes went to the prince’s. He was still asleep, but his color seemed better. Elated, she tried to rise to check his temperature, but her body refused to move.
“Best wait till someone comes in,” Dream said.
Incredulous, she tried to move again and couldn’t lift a finger. She shot Hypnos a startled glance. “Why?”
“Look at your pendant.”
It was ashen, the green tint sucked out completely.
“You’ve spent all your natural energy to channel Epione’s powers. Rest, and it will replenish.”
Calliste glanced at the prince, trying not to give in to a shy hope yet hopeful all the same. “When will he wake?”
Hypnos’ luminous eyes narrowed at the little figure. “He won’t wake until we get rid of the Condemned. They still control the curse.”
“One ran into the fire…”
“I know. But I won’t be able to see what happened to that creature until you go there again.”
“I hope the energy I channeled to the root helped.”
“It looks promising.” Hypnos glanced at the prince, then spread his wings. “Time for me to go.” The rosiness of the dawn light slid on him, bringing out his casual perfection. The light cherished him, dancing in his eyes, brushing on his sensual lips, highlighting his golden hair and picking out the best angles of his muscular body. His short, white tunic shone like silver, and the poppy wreath on his head blazed like alight rubies. “Rest. Come back for you tonight?” he asked.
She rested her head against the back of the armchair. “Yes.”
He smiled and faded away.