21. The Far Reach of Love
Chapter 21
The Far Reach of Love
“ H ow did you know that would work?” Lerna asked me now the danger was over.
Relief had set in with the knowledge that we couldn’t be followed. It gave me time to take in our new surroundings, a sight that was vastly different to where we had just come from.
“I don’t know how, just a feeling I guess,” I told her as I continued to map out the place.
It seemed there was only one path for us to take. My training snapped back into place, because trekking through the unknown was what I did best. Although when training to become a park ranger, we never covered the part about Hellish new realms and how to survive them.
The place looked more like I had just stepped back in time to ancient Greece. It was like a deserted town built up from inside the hallowed rock of the mountain. With its temple style buildings that were constructed on different levels, along the winding path that snaked through the enormous cavern.
Buildings were minus any walls and constructed of only pillars holding triangular roofs that were decorated with Greek symbols. Of course, had Amelia been here in my place she would have known what each meant, once again making me miss my cousin. A sister to me that I had always trusted in. But I had to admit that after what Argus had said to me, I couldn’t help but feel as if there was far more that my actual sister Lerna was keeping from me.
Instead of asking, I decided to focus on the whole reason she had risked coming here in the first place.
“Did you reach him… did you reach Jared?” I asked, finding her looking off to the distance as if she was trying to weigh up our options here. Which was when I gently shook her out of it again by grabbing her arm and calling her name,
“Lerna, did you hear me?”
“Yes, no… look, I don’t know what we do next,” she said, shrugging from my hold and limping off toward the only path that we were faced with taking. That was unless we fancied trying our hand at rock climbing, something Lerna didn’t exactly look up to doing right now, not with her foot still being the way it was.
“That’s not what I asked,” I reminded her, making her sigh before admitting,
“No… I didn’t reach him.”
I gasped before asking, “Why not?”
Of course, I did so knowing I wasn’t going to get any answer that I would want to hear.
“Because he wasn’t anywhere I could reach him, that’s why.”
I frowned at this, stopping dead as I let that information sink in before jerking out of it and catching up with her. Something that wasn’t hard to do considering she was still limping.
“What do you mean?”
“He is no longer in the mortal realm,” she told me, making me ask,
“So, he is coming for me?”
The sinking of her shoulders should have been answer enough but she turned to face me anyway, her expression bleak as she admitted,
“You don’t understand, Ella… he is not in any realm I can reach.”
I swallowed hard, shaking my head in denial as I stammered out,
“I… I don’t understand.”
She placed her hands at my shoulder and explained it to me.
“He isn’t here, he wasn’t back there, and nor was he on Earth’s plane. He is… I don’t know where he is.”
I frowned again at this, feeling the panic start to rise because this plan, it all relied on that fact that I knew Jared would come for me. But if he wasn’t here and he wasn’t home, then where could he be?
“Come on, we can’t stay here,” Lerna said, and I didn’t ask why.
In fact, I didn’t ask anything for the longest time, instead following her through the abandoned town. When I saw her struggling, it was enough to jar me out of my hopelessness. So, I caught up with her and put her arm around my shoulders once more.
“I am sorry,” she said, making me return in kind,
“So am I.”
Lerna sighed before asking, “Why did you come?”
“You know why,” I replied in a dejected tone, deciding to change the subject because there was no sense in playing the ‘told you so’ or ‘what if’ game.
“What is this place?” I asked as the mountain seemed to open up, and the entrance to the mammoth cave could be seen like someone had taken a giant slice out of it. The strange grey-blue sky that was minus a sun or clouds was seen beyond. Like a gloomy blanket had been tossed over this place by colossal gods who didn’t think that beautiful fluffy white clouds and a bright summer’s day was something to offer the dead.
Instead, it was like someone had picked up a forgotten city of ancient Greece and dropped it down here as nothing more than a cruel reminder of what death takes away. As for the land, this was simply an extension of what had been inside the cavern. The continuation of the town built up on uneven white rocks. The empty temples scattered either side the winding path, and a route we had no choice but to continue to follow.
“These are the houses of judgement,” she told me, making me frown because like I said, each one was empty. And one look at my face must have prompted her to say,
“Look, those symbols, they each represent the judges of the dead…” She pointed to one that was coming up, only this time it was different because we would have no choice but to walk straight through, like some bridge overhead that went to nowhere.
This was when she told me,
“This is the symbol for Rhadamanthus, the first judge. Then will come Aeacus and finally, Minos, the chief judge and the one who makes the final decisions.” I didn’t like the sound of that.
“So, what happens to the souls that pass through these temples?” I asked because I could see the first coming up and well, I wasn’t exactly all that fired up to walk under its arched roof.
“Walking through judges the worth of your soul and determines where in the Underworld you will reside for the rest of your eternal life.”
I gulped at that.
“No pressure then,” I joked nervously.
“We have nothing to fear, for we will not be judged,” she told me assuredly, prompting me to ask,
“How come?”
“We will be recognized as having the blood of Hades, and because of that, no being dead or alive can judge us, for technically we are above them.”
I swallowed hard again, because she didn’t exactly make it sound like a good thing. Which was why I questioned,
“Why don’t you sound happy about that?”
“Because knowledge of who we are will only put a bounty on our heads, as let’s just say that not everyone in this realm will be happy to hear of our existence.”
I didn’t press anymore but instead stopped her before we could step through the first temple and said,
“Then I suggest I try and create another portal home.”
To which she covered my hands and warned,
“No, you can’t!”
“Why not?” I asked, frowning at the panic in her voice.
“For the same reasons why you shouldn’t have come to rescue me.”
“Lerna…” I said her name in frustration, causing her to interrupt me with the reality of our situation.
“Garmr found you, which tells us that wherever your portal leads you to, he too has the means to follow it. Therefore, we cannot risk it.”
“Then what do we do?” I asked after releasing a heavy weighted sigh, because she was right. He had known.
“We must get to the river Arceron, find a boat, and take the long way back home, it is the only way for us to return without him knowing,” she suggested, making me shrug my shoulders and admit,
“To be fair, that does sound like a good plan.”
“That is if we don’t die first,” she added, and I baulked.
“Now why did you have to go and say that?”
“Come on, let’s try and find this river of woe.”
I grimaced at that and observed dryly, “Okay, so not exactly the description I would have used to sell it to me.”
She smirked, the first hint of a smile I had seen since this rescue plan of mine.
After this, we continued to walk, but it was tough going because Lerna’s foot wasn’t getting any better, not when she had to continue to bare weight on it. Of course, I helped her as much as I could, but the moment we had any steps to walk down, it became even slower. A few times I had tried talking to her about things, but then she would cry out in pain or wince, and I would feel guilty continuing what I knew was a difficult conversation for her.
In the end, both of us needed to stop, finding an abandoned building that looked to have once stored some kind of strange bluish colored hay. Not that I cared what it had stored, just so long as it didn’t have shit on the floor and was dry, I could have slept anywhere. I didn’t know how long we had been traveling for; I only knew that it didn’t feel as if we had covered that much distance.
“Let’s try and get some rest,” she said as we approached the building, as if reading my mind, and I wasn’t the only one who looked done in.
“But what if someone comes?” I asked, looking around and feeling less safe now that we were out in the open without the mountain surrounding us.
“Can you summon your souls to stand guard?”
“Good idea,” I said, and now that I wasn’t faced with my greatest fear, I managed to summon them with ease. This at least meant that someone would think twice about getting too close or if it was a real threat, we would have someone here to alert us to the danger. Although at this rate, I wasn’t sure I would ever wake up. I swear that Evergreen’s high school brass band could have played through our measly camp, and I would have just sleep right through it. I didn’t know if it was because I was pregnant or what, I just knew that I felt close to passing out, I was that tired.
However, the second I curled up on the floor and closed my eyes, the next time I opened them again, the very last person I expected to see was facing me.
And for once it wasn’t an enemy but instead the one person in the whole world I wanted to see more than any other…
It was Jared.