Chapter 5 The Mines of Taenarum
As they entered the mine, Danae kept her hand on Hylas’ neck, drawing comfort from his warmth in the cold darkness.
‘It’s all right,’ she whispered, attempting to soothe herself as much as the horse.
Her skin prickled as they stepped further into the murky depths of the cavern, the light behind them dwindling, replaced by the fire of Orpheus’ torch.
The air grew increasingly dank and stale, trapped by the tightly packed walls of earth.
The torchlight illuminated the remains of several campfires scattered about the abandoned mining equipment.
Travellers perhaps, desperate for shelter, or local children daring each other to prove who could last the longest before the ghostlike shadows sent them fleeing for home.
In their youth that was just the sort of thing Danae’s brothers, Calix and Santos, would have done.
The spacious cavern narrowed at the rear, funnelling into a passageway just large enough for Danae and Orpheus to walk beside Hylas.
There were track marks on the floor, an abandoned cart lay turned on its side, and gleaming chunks of green marble spilled across the ground.
The locals must have truly feared what lay ahead if they had left this much valuable stone to gather dust.
Danae caught sight of a roughly daubed mark across the passage’s lintel that looked as though it had been hastily scrawled. The all-seeing eye of the Twelve. A desperate attempt to protect the town of Taenarum from the horrors the locals feared had been set loose inside the mine.
The air grew colder as the passageway sloped downwards. The walls here were made of sheer rock, rather than packed earth, and they glistened with silvery condensation tracks – the supposed tears the local lad, Georgios, had spoken of.
Hylas huffed out a misted breath, his tail flicking his flanks. Danae glanced back over her shoulder, her neck twinging from continually checking the length of tunnel in their wake. Every few yards she imagined red eyes looming out of the darkness.
‘Do you think there’s any truth to it? What the locals believe about this place?’ asked Orpheus.
‘That it’s haunted?’ Her own voice sounded strange, distorted by the blood thrumming in her ears. ‘It’s not the dead I’m worried about.’
The torch trembled in Orpheus’ hand. ‘I pray Hades will be merciful. I would give anything to bring Eurydice back home, even if it means taking her place.’
Danae remained silent. She had grown up believing, like everyone else, that there was an uneasy alliance between Olympus and the Underworld.
It was said, at the birth of the world, Hades was begrudgingly forced to rule over the land of the dead while Zeus gave their other brother, Poseidon, dominion over the seas.
Even if the tales were false, like so much of what she’d been told, he was still one of the Twelve and the younger brother of Zeus, King of the Gods.
The deity whose reign she was destined to destroy. She must avoid Hades at all costs.
‘Do you think he will look kindly on us because you are his niece?’ continued Orpheus.
‘What?’
‘Poseidon is your father, is he not?’
The lie she had told aboard the Argo. She cursed silently to herself. Try as she might to fit effortlessly into her old disguise, she could not help bursting the seams and tearing the fabric.
‘Of course, but I do not count on Hades’ favour. We should tread carefully. Hades might be angry that we have entered his kingdom uninvited. If we can, we should avoid him altogether.’
Orpheus shook his head. ‘He is the only one who can give me my Eurydice back – I must petition him. Besides, they say Persephone, his wife, is a sweet, caring goddess, I know I can convince her to take pity on our plight; me a mourning husband, you a loyal sister …’
When Danae did not reply, he continued, ‘Do you think the stories are true about the creature that guards the entrance to the Underworld? I’ve heard Kerberos is a monstrosity, more terrible than anything Heracles ever faced and –’
‘Orpheus, be quiet.’ An ache throbbed behind Danae’s eyes.
They continued in silence, save for the clip-clop of Hylas’ hooves and the trickling water running down the walls.
Suddenly, Orpheus stopped. ‘Look there,’ he breathed.
Danae crept forward into the pool of firelight and crouched to investigate what lay across their path. It was a skeleton, the flesh almost entirely wasted, just a wisp of hair and an old grey tunic clinging to mouldering bones.
She pointed to the corpse’s shattered legs. ‘Probably broken by the collapsing shaft.’ Or something else, she thought, but did not voice it. Marks stretched from the body into the blackness of the tunnel. ‘They tried to drag themself out,’ she murmured.
‘Gods …’ Orpheus paled.
‘Come on.’ Danae walked past the body, gesturing for him to follow. The musician picked his way around the bones. When the sound of hooves did not follow, she called, ‘Hylas.’
The horse wouldn’t move.
‘Hylas, come here.’
The horse sniffed at the body and tossed his head. Danae sighed, walked back to the corpse and moved the bones to the side of the passage.
‘What are you doing?’ Orpheus looked horrified. ‘You can’t just shove them aside, what if their ghost takes offence?’
Danae dusted the dirt from her hands. ‘They’ve been left here to rot. I doubt they’ll care about being moved a foot.’
‘Wouldn’t you care if someone treated your sister’s remains like that?’
A surge of rage burned her throat, but as she opened her mouth to voice it, Hylas trotted towards them and nibbled Orpheus’ ear. The musician smiled and patted his neck. As Danae watched them, her anger cooled.
‘Aren’t you at least going to say the funeral rites?’ prompted Orpheus.
Of course, she was supposed to be a seer.
She huffed a breath through her nose, then swiftly intoned, ‘May the Twelve see you and know you, may the Keres spread their wings over you as you walk the path of judgement. May your soul find peace across the final river.’ Finally, she touched her finger to her forehead.
Once the ritual was performed, Hylas stalked ahead as though nothing had happened. She shook her head. Sometimes it seemed like the winged horse riled her for sheer enjoyment.
The tunnel continued to descend, the torchlight licking up its gleaming walls until the orange glow spilled over a ledge.
‘This is where the shaft must have collapsed,’ said Orpheus, peering into the darkness.
They stood on the edge of a vast ravine. Veins of green marble snaked through walls of solid rock, falling away into the blackness below. The remains of a wooden platform with a rope pulley system clung to the ledge, the rest of the contraption lost to the ravine.
‘What do you think, Hylas? Can you take us down?’
The horse eyed them both, then lowered his head.
Danae helped Orpheus climb onto Hylas’ back, his legs behind the horse’s wing joints, then she swung herself up in front.
She gave Hylas’ neck a last smooth before winding her fingers through his mane and whispering, ‘Go slow, we can’t lose the light.
’ She looked back at the musician. ‘Hold on to me. Flying can be a shock the first time.’
Orpheus wrapped his free arm around her waist.
To his credit, he only let out a small gasp as they soared into the air.
Danae had grown to love the motion of Hylas’ body in flight.
It reminded her of being at sea. In the past year, between the bouts of running, stealing and life-thread training, on a cloudy day, she’d urge the winged horse higher and higher until they broke through the barrier of mist into the boundless sky beyond.
It was like being suspended in a vast ocean of air.
There was only stillness beyond the clouds, in that never-ending blue.
And when the sun rose in the east and spilt its light across the white carpet beneath, the whole world looked golden.
Up there she felt detached from the earth below. All the pain, the fear, the longing.
The torch stuttered as Hylas flapped his wings.
‘Easy now,’ Danae called as they jolted down past the marble-threaded rock.
A bitter coldness enveloped them, the air so oppressive it felt as though it had not been disturbed for several lifetimes.
Hylas took them lower and lower and still she could not see the bottom.
She began to wonder if there was an end at all, if the poor miners who’d been caught in the collapse were still falling endlessly into the darkness.
‘Look, below on the far wall!’ shouted Orpheus.
She peered down, her eyes raking across the rock until she spotted a horizontal split, just wide enough for Hylas to alight.
The horse landed on the ledge and once she and Orpheus had dismounted, Danae took in their surroundings.
The cleft in the stone gave way to another passage, similar in size to the first, yet here the walls were smooth and rippled like a seabed, as though they had been worn down by the elements, rather than chiselled by man.
They did not have to go far before encountering their first challenge. A fork in their path. The passage was revealed to be part of a series of natural tunnels that burrowed into the rock bed, splitting into a labyrinth.
‘Which way?’ asked Orpheus.
As Danae gazed at the passages, she glimpsed a dash of movement in the one on the left. She grabbed the torch from Orpheus and ran a few steps into the tunnel. The undulations in the stone threw pitted shadows along its length, but the passage appeared empty.
‘Did you see that?’
‘No.’
‘There was movement, I saw something …’
‘There’s nothing there, Daeira,’ he pressed, then repeated, ‘Which way do we go?’
She turned slowly to look at him. Orpheus’ face was drawn in the flame light. Unease crawled up her spine. Was he deceiving her?
‘How did you discover there was an entrance to the Underworld in Taenarum?’