Chapter 18 A Life for a Life
Dust swirled through the rock passage, hazing the light from Charon’s crystal.
Danae lay a hand on the ferryman’s shoulder. ‘We’re close, aren’t we?’
Charon nodded, trembling beneath her touch.
‘You’re afraid?’
He shook his head, but his crimson eyes betrayed him.
Danae’s own heart fluttered as they turned a corner to find the tunnel ahead narrowed by fallen rocks: the wreckage of their escape.
She looked at Hylas, then back at the sliver of passage squeezed by the rubble.
Her heart sank. ‘The way ahead is too narrow for you. Turn back, fly out of here.’
Hylas nibbled her ear.
‘I’ll find you. I promise.’ Despite the certainty in her voice, she felt as though she might crumble as she smoothed his coat, then stepped away from the ice-white horse. ‘Go on.’
Hylas blinked, then tossed his mane and turned back the way they had come. Danae swallowed the lump in her throat at the sound of his hooves echoing down the passage.
‘We need to hide the light,’ said Telamon. ‘Or Hades will see us coming.’
Danae nodded.
Carefully, Charon once more wrapped his crystal in the folds of his cloak and moved towards the narrowed passage.
Feeling their way in the darkness, the others followed, easing their bodies between the cavern wall and heap of fallen rocks.
As they pressed on, the tunnel narrowed until the rubble blocked their path.
Scrabbling in the blackness, they heaved the stones as silently as their straining limbs and lungs would allow, until finally the opening was large enough to squeeze through.
Hello, little Titan.
Danae froze. ‘Stop,’ she whispered. ‘Did you hear that?’
‘What?’ breathed Atalanta.
‘That voice.’
‘I heard nothing,’ replied Telamon.
They carried on clambering around the rocks, Danae’s limbs heavy with dread.
She blinked as they emerged on the other side of the rubble, the passage lit by a dim orange glow bleeding from the braziers illuminating the pit of Tartarus.
Wide, terrified eyes glinted at them from the clefts of what once had been the Missing’s cave. Debris was strewn across the ground, as though Hades had blasted his way out of the collapsed cell. Six bodies lay on the floor, not a mark on them, but clearly dead.
The God of the Underworld was nowhere to be seen. Danae took no comfort from Hades’ absence. Surely he would have pursued her if he thought there was a chance she might escape?
‘Heracles?’ Telamon crept forward.
‘Gone,’ rasped a voice behind them.
A woman crept from the shadows, dressed in the ragged remains of a peplos. She was undernourished, like the rest of the Missing, her age indeterminate under the layers of grime encrusting her skin.
‘He took the hero.’
‘Hades?’ whispered Danae.
The woman nodded, pointing down the passage towards the belly of Tartarus.
Atalanta and Telamon immediately set off, following her direction.
‘Wait,’ hissed Danae.
They paused and looked back.
‘We can’t leave them.’
Telamon ran a hand through his flame-red hair. ‘There’s forty-odd people, we’ll never get everyone out.’
‘We came for Heracles,’ said Atalanta.
Danae drew herself up. ‘What would he do?’
The two companions looked at one another.
Telamon sighed. ‘You’d better have a plan.’
Danae chewed her lip. ‘There might be a way to save everyone. If I can create a distraction to draw out Hades, you can grab Heracles and lead him and the others out of Tartarus.’ She turned to the Missing. ‘You all need to come with us.’
The woman who’d spoken and a couple of other people moved towards them; the rest remained cowering in the cave.
Danae clenched and flexed her hands. They didn’t have time for this. Every moment they waited might be Heracles’ last. ‘If you come with us now, you might die, or you might live to see the sky again. If you stay here, you will perish in this mine. The choice is yours.’
The Missing gazed at one another, then slowly, like anemones appearing from their shells, they emerged into the passage.
Danae, Telamon, Atalanta and Charon led the way, creeping towards the cavernous heart of Tartarus. When they neared the end of the tunnel, Danae gestured for the Missing to linger behind them as she, Atalanta and Telamon peered around the corner.
‘Fuck,’ breathed Atalanta as she took in the vast mine above them and the hulking forms of giants moving across the walkways between the caves. ‘Those things are huge.’
‘You’ve fought a giant before, haven’t you?’ asked Danae.
Atalanta shook her head slowly. ‘Geryon was a mouse compared to these.’
‘There are more Missing working in the caves above. If we can make it up to the top entrance, there,’ Danae pointed past the walkways snaking up the sides of the mine to the platform where Hades first led her into Tartarus, ‘we can free more people on our way out.’
‘Anything else we should know?’ asked Telamon.
‘Ah, yes,’ said Danae. ‘Hades has a dragon imprisoned beneath that …’ Her tongue stilled as an icy wave of horror sluiced through her body.
Someone was lying across Typhon’s grate, their limbs bound to the iron bars.
Heracles.
‘No, no, no!’ Without thinking, Danae drew Charon’s knife and pelted towards the grate. Heracles appeared to be unharmed, but if the dragon breathed its steam before she freed the hero, he would be roasted.
She fell to her knees, sweat stinging her eyes as she slashed at his bindings.
Heracles appeared to be unconscious. She was surprised to find he was tied with roots severed from the walls, grey and dull without their pulsing light, but easy to break.
With a grunt of effort, she pulled his limp frame away from the iron grate, just before a billow of steam erupted from below.
She collapsed, gasping as the hot air seared her lungs. Atalanta and Telamon hurried to her side, Telamon scooping his arm around Heracles’ torso.
‘No,’ Danae croaked, ‘stay back …’
‘What do we have here?’
Her head snapped round.
Above them, standing on one of the lower stone walkways, was Hades. A golden gauntlet gleamed on his right hand, bright against the midnight dark of his robe.
Fear, raw and immobilizing, spread through Danae’s limbs.
Telamon crouched low, curling his torso over Heracles. Atalanta twitched her hand towards her bow, and with a lazy flick of his wrist Hades hurled her into the cavern wall, her armour clanging against the stone. She did not get up.
Danae forced herself to stagger to her feet.
‘It’s me you want. Leave them be.’
Hades descended the stairs, his obsidian robe rippling like a poisoned stream.
‘Like you let my wife, Persephone, be?’ His voice was calm, but his pale eyes burned with white-hot fury.
‘I …’
In a heartbeat, Telamon twisted, flinging his sword straight at Hades.
The Lord of the Underworld reached out his gauntleted hand and turned his fingers.
The blade halted mid-air, crumpling in on itself, then plummeted to the floor below.
With another flick, Hades threw Telamon across the cavern to crash into a barrow of gems.
In the commotion, shades had emerged from their caves and clustered to the walkways, peering down at the scene unfolding below. Danae dared not look towards the passage where Charon and the Missing hid, praying with all her soul they remained out of Hades’ sight.
Suddenly, she was hoisted from the ground, held by a vice of life-threads she could not see.
‘You murdered my wife.’
Danae gasped, the invisible rope around her ribs squeezing the air from her lungs. Hades stepped down onto the cavern floor, his chest heaving, his grey eyes full of wild anger. It was the most human she’d ever seen him look.
‘I see now how deeply your mortal sensibilities cripple you,’ said Hades.
‘You will never be free of them while you live in this form.’ He paced across the space between them, reached up and closed his gauntleted hand around her throat.
An intense dragging sensation ripped through her, as though her organs were being torn out through her skin.
So, this was how it felt to have the life-threads drained from one’s body.
‘Don’t worry, little Titan,’ he whispered, ‘I will cut you a new one.’
Suddenly, Hades’ grip slackened, and she crumpled to the floor as Charon leapt at the god from behind and brought him crashing to the ground.
The ferryman straddled his master, the knife Danae had dropped gleaming in his hand as he stabbed Hades again and again.
Danae crawled towards them, knowing once the shock wore off, Hades would kill Charon in a heartbeat.
Then a bone-rumbling crash shook the vast cavern.
Both slick with blood, Hades and Charon paused their tussle, as the iron grate to the dragon’s pit shuddered, rising out of its open locks.
‘No,’ Hades moaned, eyes wide and dancing with brazier light.
The ferryman grinned, reached below his cloak and jangled his keys.
Danae gasped as the dragon’s head bashed against the metal, momentarily lifting it off its hinges.
Hades was on all fours, his gauntleted hand stretched towards the grate. Danae knew he was manipulating a stream of life-threads in an attempt to contain his prisoner.
There was a crack so loud it sounded like the breaking of the world.
Even with Hades’ life-threads holding down the grate, the dragon’s next attempt to break free ripped the iron cage from its hinges and sent it smashing into the cavern wall.
Danae stared in slack-jawed amazement as a head the size of a ship reared from the pit.
Wreathed in steam, water sluiced from its great emerald snout.
A ridge of obsidian horns ran like a small mountain range down its nose and up between its eyes: two umber orbs glowing like the heart of a forge.
Then it opened its jaws to reveal a mouth packed with teeth the length of Danae’s legs, each wickedly sharp, and she was blasted with a gust of heat from the great furnace of its belly.
She crawled towards the ferryman, lying prone on the ground.
‘We have to move,’ she rasped, ‘Charon.’
It was then she saw the knife protruding from his chest.
‘No … please.’
Blood poured from the wound, his life seeping into the charcoal fabric of his cloak.
‘Come on, we have to go.’ She tried to drag him, but Hades had drained what little strength she had.
Charon took hold of her fingers and squeezed them tight. With a shaking hand he touched his chest, then pressed his palm to hers.
His crimson eyes swirled into a blur as tears flooded her vision. She felt his arm grow limp, then his breath stilled.
‘I will be the light,’ she whispered, ‘I promise.’
Across the cavern, Telamon had Heracles slung over his shoulders and was leading the Missing up one of the stone staircases. Danae looked back at the grate to see Typhon rising out of its watery prison, the dragon’s taloned front legs clawing the edge, its great wings straining against the walls.
Hades cowered before it, arm still outstretched.
Suddenly, Danae was yanked backwards by a rough pair of hands and dragged away from the pit. Atalanta hurled her against the cave wall and shielded her with her armoured torso.
Then came the blaze.
Danae was forced to hide her face as flames roared from Typhon’s throat.
The fire was so hot and bright, it felt as though the sun itself had emerged in the deepest realm of the world.
Then the blaze darkened. She lowered her arms and through the lights bursting across her vision stared at the blackened rock floor, her gaze settling on a charred mound of scorched flesh and bone.
The smouldering remains of a man who had thought himself a god.