Chapter 17 A Step into the Mist
Danae pushed past Charon and ran towards the voices. Behind her, the ferryman sounded what might have been a warning, his staff-light chasing her heels.
She skidded to a halt as she turned round a bend in the passage, Charon’s light throwing the scene ahead into sharp relief.
Encircled by shades stood a knife-wielding woman dressed in battered silver armour, a bow and quiver of arrows slung across her chest, back-to-back with a flame-haired man, his sword raised before him.
Atalanta and Telamon, Heracles’ faithful companions who’d travelled with Danae aboard the Argo.
They froze when they caught sight of her.
‘You,’ hissed Atalanta, her expression torn between surprise and fury.
Like a river bursting its banks, a surge of feeling flooded Danae’s chest. She had never been more relieved to see two people who looked like they wanted to kill her.
‘Call the shades off!’ Danae urged Charon. ‘These two are friends.’
The ferryman swiftly raised his staff, driving its end into the ground, beating a frantic tapping against the rock. The shades cringed back. Charon then signed an instruction and the shades’ shimmering bodies vanished as they melted into the shadows.
For an agonizing moment no one spoke. All four of them stood so still, they might have been figures in a painted fresco, the air thick with the weight of all that had passed since they last saw one another.
‘So,’ Telamon’s lip curled, ‘you abandoned us for Hades.’
Danae’s mouth dried. She had left them both, along with Heracles, asleep in the Argonauts’ camp while she scaled the Caucasus Mountains in search of Prometheus.
‘No, I’m a captive, look,’ the words tripped over her tongue as her hands flew to the collar. She took a step towards them. Telamon did not lower his sword, eyes sliding over her to settle on Charon.
‘The ferryman’s on our side,’ Danae added quickly. ‘He helped me escape.’
‘We are not on the same side,’ growled Atalanta.
Like feeling prickling back into a numb limb, the urgency of their situation returned to the forefront of Danae’s mind.
‘Hades has Heracles imprisoned in the depths of Tartarus. We have to save him.’
Charon laid a hand on Danae’s arm, his crimson eyes pleading as he shook his head. She shoved him off.
‘Why do you think we’re here?’ said Telamon.
Atalanta’s dark eyes burned beneath her scowl. ‘Why are you here? To do Hades’ bidding?’
‘I told you, I’m a prisoner. I came to the Underworld to find my sister, but Hades, he …’ her chest tightened, and she suddenly found it difficult to breathe.
‘Forgive us if we don’t believe a word that passes your lips,’ said Telamon, his voice full of a cold disdain that sounded alien from his tongue. He turned to Atalanta, ‘Come on, we’ll find our own way.’
But Atalanta did not move. She stared at Danae as though if she glared hard enough, she might be able to burn straight through her.
‘Why did you leave?’
‘I …’ she tried to find the words, but where could she even begin?
As she recalled the night she’d left the Argonauts a year earlier in the forest outside the city of Colchis, shame roiled in her stomach.
She pictured the blood trickling between Dolos’ eyes, Heracles’ lion hide propped on the stake outside his tent, the image the omphalos shard had shown her of a lone figure climbing the Caucasus Mountains.
The omphalos shard. Hades had it, along with Hylas and her other possessions that had been stowed in the horse’s saddle bag, probably somewhere in his palace.
The barge journey to Tartarus felt as though it had taken an age – even if Charon could guide her, it would take too long to go searching for it.
‘There’s no time to explain, but I will if we get out of here, I promise. Just know that if I could have done things differently, I would have.’
Atalanta’s knife clattered to the ground. In two heartbeats she crossed the space between them, her fist slamming into Danae’s jaw.
‘Atalanta!’ called Telamon. ‘Remember what she can do!’
Pain blossomed across Danae’s face as she hit the floor, but she stayed limp as Atalanta rained down blows upon her.
‘Fight back, gods damn you!’
The onslaught ended as Charon dragged Atalanta away. The warrior shoved him off, panting, gaze still fixed on Danae.
‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ she spat in between breaths.
‘The collar,’ Danae winced as she pushed herself to her feet. ‘It cuts me off from my powers.’
Charon made an urgent motion with his hands, gesturing to the passage ahead with his staff.
‘Atalanta,’ said Telamon, taking a couple of steps in the other direction. ‘Come on.’
Neither woman moved.
‘I left because of Dolos,’ said Danae.
At her admission Telamon grew still.
‘You know what really happened to him, don’t you?’ growled Atalanta.
Danae drew a breath. ‘I followed Dolos the night I left. I discovered him meeting with a shade in the forest. I killed it, thinking it was going to attack him, but it was bringing him Heracles’ medicine from Olympus.
He revealed that Heracles isn’t a demi-god.
Not in the way we think. His strength comes from that blue potion Dolos fed him under Zeus’ instruction.
I left the bag of strength elixir by his tent because Dolos told me that without it he’d be dead within a year.
’ Her pulse raced at a sickening speed, but she forced herself to continue.
‘Dolos stabbed me to prevent me telling Heracles and I … I killed him.’
She felt giddy. It was liberating, after all this time, to finally tell the truth.
‘You killed him,’ repeated Atalanta, her voice low and dangerous.
Danae held her gaze. ‘It was self-defence.’
‘If any of that is true,’ said Telamon, ‘why didn’t you return to camp and tell us? Why steal Heracles’ lion hide and flee?’
Because I am prophesied to destroy Zeus, because I saw a vision of myself alone climbing the Caucasus Mountains, because I am a Titan. Whatever that means.
‘I didn’t know if I could trust you.’
Atalanta stooped to retrieve her knife. ‘I’ve heard enough.’
‘I know where Heracles is. The Missing too. We can save them.’
Atalanta advanced, her blade raised. ‘Liar.’
‘Wait.’ Telamon stared at Danae. ‘If she can take us to Heracles we should go with her.’
The warrior spun to face him. ‘You believe her now?’
‘No … I don’t know,’ he ran a hand through his flame-red hair, ‘but what choice do we have? The Underworld is vast, it took us long enough just to find this place.’
‘She murdered Dolos!’
‘I have ears!’ A muscle pulsed in Telamon’s jaw. ‘But it makes sense … the strength elixir. Atalanta, Heracles hasn’t been the same since he had the last of that potion. For months now he’s been growing weaker every day.’
‘I will not put my life in her hands.’
‘Gods damn you, woman, there is more at stake here than your pride.’
Danae’s head snapped between them as they argued, her heart beating in her throat. Then the pair fell silent and glared at each other, the battle continuing without words. Finally, Atalanta loosed a grunt of frustration and kicked the rock wall of the passage.
‘Fine,’ she pointed her knife at Danae. ‘Take us to Heracles, but if you so much as think about betraying us, I will slit your throat.’
Danae almost smiled. After everything she’d been through, being threatened by the warrior was strangely comforting.
She turned to Charon. ‘We have to go back.’
The ferryman shook his head.
‘I’m going with them, whether you come with us or not. If you really want to help me become the light, show us the way.’
Charon gazed at her, crimson eyes pleading beneath his hood. Danae remained defiant. The ferryman’s shoulders sagged, and he turned back the way they had come, raising his staff to illuminate the gloom.
‘There’s something you should know,’ said Danae as they hurried back down the labyrinthine tunnels.
‘Down in the depths of Tartarus, Hades tasked me with killing Heracles. I stabbed Hades instead, and while he healed himself, Charon and I escaped. I imagine he will be angry.’ Her blood chilled at the thought.
‘Perfect,’ grunted Atalanta.
‘How is Heracles? Is he injured?’ asked Telamon, his sword flashing in the crystal staff light.
‘He’s not in a good way.’ After a breath she added, ‘I really am sorry –’
‘Not now,’ Telamon cut across her. ‘Since you failed to kill Heracles, will Hades have harmed him?’
‘I don’t know …’ The hero’s gaunt face blazed in her mind, blank with resignation as she raised Hades’ knife above her head. ‘It wasn’t really about Heracles … it was a test.’
‘Where are Heracles and the Missing being held?’ asked Atalanta.
‘A cell at the end of this passage. You should know, Tartarus is not like the stories. It’s a mine.
Hades has creatures working down there, giants and shades …
’ Danae wondered how much to reveal. How much they’d believe.
‘They’re not what they seem either. Shades are mortals, taken from the Missing.
Hades replaces their skins with that of an Underworld lizard that can make itself invisible in its surroundings, then they’re tortured until –’
‘I think I hit her too hard,’ said Atalanta.
Before Danae could argue, a terrible stench wafted through the tunnel. She gagged.
‘What the fuck is that?’ asked Telamon.
Immediately the ferryman gestured for them to be quiet and draw back towards the rock walls of the passage. Then he hid the glowing end of his staff beneath his cloak.
As darkness descended, another wave of putrid air hit them. Danae fought the urge to wretch again, bile stinging her throat. Her heart thudded against her ribs as she strained to listen.
From somewhere far away, she thought she could hear a high, cold laugh.
Then, much nearer, something growled.
Breath, warm and ripe with the tang of rotting flesh, raised the hairs on her neck. Whatever it was had scented them.
Coming to the same realization, Charon unleashed his staff, casting light on the passage.
A creature hovered above them. It had the wings of an engorged bat, the body of a lion with blood-red fur, and, like Kerberos, a curved scorpion’s tail.
Its face resembled that of a man stretched over the skull of giant cat, slashed ear to ear with a hideously wide mouth, its blood-stained lips peeled back to reveal three sets of knife-sharp teeth.
‘Manticore,’ breathed Telamon.
Another creature of legend. Another of Hades’ monstrous creations.
Charon jabbed his staff at the manticore, yet unlike the beasts on the Asphodel Meadows it did not recoil. The ferryman faltered and tried again. The beast roared at him, blowing the hood from Charon’s patchwork head.
‘Oh gods,’ breathed Danae.
The manticore landed before them, its claws scraping across the rocks, spittle dangling from its jaw.
‘Use your power,’ hissed Telamon between his teeth.
‘I can’t, remember?’ Danae called back.
The creature’s eyes narrowed. Then it leapt forward, chomping Charon’s staff between its jaws. The wood splintered, the crystal orb rolling away down the passage.
They clung to the tunnel walls as the manticore sprung at them, its claws screeching on the rock as they sprinted doggedly after the glowing end of Charon’s staff.
Danae’s bruised ribs screamed in protest as she sucked in breath, forcing her body to move faster and faster.
The stone passage shook beneath their feet as the manticore pursued them; every moment Danae expected the sudden agony of claws scraping down her back.
Then suddenly it stopped. There was no pounding of claws on the rock, no rancid breath billowing behind them. Nothing.
The four slowed, huddling together as they panted.
‘Where did it go?’ asked Telamon.
Danae grabbed the light crystal from where it had rolled into a nearby crevice. Holding it aloft, she took a step towards the darkness.
Like a lion springing from long grass, the manticore lurched from around the bend, its dark wings beating the stagnant air. There was nowhere to go. Danae flung her arms over her head, the crystal clattering at her feet.
But the death blow did not come.
She looked up to see a streak of white crash into the manticore, knocking it into the tunnel wall.
‘Hylas!’ Danae shouted, as the winged horse bore down on the creature, pummelling the beast with its hooves. A broken rope tether dangled from one of its forelegs.
In a heartbeat, Atalanta had drawn her bow and was sending arrows into the soft flesh beneath the manticore’s jaw. Then Telamon ran forward, launched himself onto its back and buried his sword in its skull. He twisted the blade until the beast stopped twitching and fell still.
Danae ran to where the flying horse had landed. She flung her arms around his neck and buried her face in his coat. He was missing his saddle bag, with all her belongings and the omphalos shard, but in that moment she did not care.
‘Thank you,’ she breathed. ‘Thank you.’
Atalanta approached, arms folded across her chest. ‘Hylas?’
Danae straightened up, too overjoyed to feel embarrassment, a protective hand smoothing the horse’s neck. ‘He’s been a loyal friend, just like his namesake was.’
Atalanta’s gaze softened at the mention of their old companion and fellow Argonaut. A man who had saved Danae’s life more than once and had sacrificed his own to carry her to safety when fleeing the murderous six-armed Earthborn on the Doliones shore.
‘You and this Hylas have a lot in common,’ said Danae as she removed the dangling tether from the horse’s leg.
The warrior raised an eyebrow. ‘Me and a flying horse?’
‘He has a fondness for undiluted wine. Although his tastes are a little finer than yours.’
Atalanta’s scowl returned. Just for a moment, Danae thought she saw a spark of amusement, a glint of their old connection beneath the disdain etched on the warrior’s face.
‘One of Hades’ creations?’ Telamon yanked his sword from the manticore’s body and wiped it on its crimson fur.
‘I think so,’ said Danae, staring at its ruddy face, so human save for its terrible jaws.
Telamon looked grim. ‘It would be wishful thinking to hope we won’t meet other creatures like this. We must keep alert. Which way now?’
Charon stooped down and retrieved the glowing crystal, holding it aloft by the shattered end of his staff. Pulling his hood back over his head, he signalled down the right-hand tunnel.
‘You came back,’ Danae whispered to Hylas as they hurried after the ferryman.
The winged horse huffed a breath through his nose, then gently nipped her ear.
Despite her surroundings, despite walking back into a nightmare to confront one of the Twelve, Danae smiled.
She was no longer alone.