CHAPTER FOUR
"Journey Down Below"
The stories were far from the truth. Tao couldn't believe that the tales of the dark underworld, full of torture and burning souls, had been so greatly over-exaggerated. She had half expected to wake up in fire. Instead, she was sat patiently, waiting in the kingdom of death himself.
"How long do I have to be here?" Tao addressed Sidius, whose dark aura didn't seem to affect her in the way it was clearly intended to.
"Your case is unusual, Tao-Lee Montgomery. I'm afraid only Anubis can answer that. Or Hades, if you prefer the Greek name." Sidius replied.
Tao sat in silence, her thoughts reeling.
She had met Death. A god with eyes that were a pool of wisdom and authority so absolute it bordered on something else entirely.
For the first time in her life, Tao felt genuinely lost. Her fear was long gone.
She had quickly accepted her fate, finding no reason to dwell on something she could not change.
What remained was simply the question of what came next.
"Come. He requests your presence," Sidius said.
Tao felt something she wasn't entirely familiar with as they set off. Nervous wasn't quite the right word. She didn't get nervous. But being in the presence of the ruler of the underworld carried a weight that even she was not entirely immune to.
Their steps echoed through the eerily silent Netherworld.
Tao had imagined the underworld to be filled with souls screaming from the pains of torture, the air thick with sulphur, the ground hot underfoot.
Instead the walls were coated with gold-infused paint that caught the light in warm, amber waves, and the air carried the faint sweetness of dahlias.
"Surprised?" Sidius questioned. The one thing that never got old was the astonished look that filled the faces of newly arrived humans.
Tao looked through the hallway that was lit by a chandelier clearly meant for a king's court. The sterile clean floor reflected the light back up at them as they walked. "Underwhelmed might be more accurate," she said. "I expected considerably more drama."
They walked through many corridors, their steps the only sound to be heard, the silence between them a comfortable one now. Then Sidius stopped before an imposing door. "Anubis awaits," he said, and left Tao standing there alone.
Tao pushed the door open. Her eyes widened at the sight before her.
The door had led her to a luminescent garden.
The garden of the Netherworld, which, if you believed in Greek mythology, was the garden of Persephone.
It was a sight to behold. Its blossomed flowers shone like crystals under a full moon that hung too large, and too close in a sky, too perfectly dark to be natural.
Tao found herself enchanted by it, genuinely and completely, in a way she hadn't expected.
"Tao," Death bellowed, his baritone voice sending shivers down her spine, the power in his tone almost intimidating.
"Where is this?" Tao asked.
"The garden of the Netherworld," Death replied, moving through the flowers with ease.
The flowers cast a soft, ethereal glow around the meadow and the air felt lighter here, calmer, as though the usual weight of things had been gently lifted. "I had thought it would be fitting for this conversation," he continued.
Tao sensed the hidden intention in his words and knew there was more to the ruler of the underworld than he was letting on. He spoke in layers. She could appreciate that. She did the same.
"Tao-Lee Montgomery," he rasped.
She drew her eyes from the flowers. The moment of peace fled as she looked into the foreboding eyes of Death.
"I have always found the actions of humans to be a dirty gamble played by fate," he mused.
"Your ancestors stood at a crossroads, a pact made with water and solidified by blood.
A covenant: a life bound to the underworld, in exchange for fame and power.
The stamp was the blood of the first Montgomery. "
Her father had always joked about the beginnings of the Montgomery family fortune, dismissing the old stories with the easy laughter, as he had come to believe he had built enough real success that the myths no longer felt necessary.
They were simply lost to time. "How does this affect me?
" Tao asked, her voice as even as she could make it.
"The fates are often very tricky. Your fate intertwines with the mystery of your own death, and the answer lies only in your own hands," Death replied, watching her carefully.
Tao's heart raced. "So what happens to me?"
"Your place depends on your actions," he replied simply.
Tao felt lost, a feeling she had begun to despise since she had gotten here. The uncertainty of her final resting place and getting there was bothering her. She knew actions and consequences. She could work with that. But fate as a concept had always been too abstract for her to grab hold of.
"Sidius will guide you," Hades said, moving slowly toward the gold gates of the garden.
"Are you ready to explore?" Sidius said from directly behind her, and Tao jumped slightly.
For a large man, Sidius was extraordinarily stealthy she had come to note.
Tao nodded and followed Sidius out of the garden. She was a queen of chaos, and it wasn't hard for her to notice the whispers and mumbles of the souls they passed along the way, watching her with expressions that ranged from curious to something considerably less friendly.
"Am I missing something?" Tao asked, her eyes lighting up, wanting to understand the origin of the emotions behind those eyes.
"Nothing to be bothered by. Any great kingdom is plagued by revolution," Sidius replied, his face unbothered.
"I thought Death was uncontested." The irony, Tao thought.
"Torment and peace are placed on balance. Whispers of an uprising are always expected. It is the nature of this plane." He paused and glanced at her sideways. "You may unknowingly find yourself wisped into it. I say this purely as information."
Tao heard the warning loud and clear. She had to focus on her own journey first. The politics of the underworld were a secondary concern, though she found herself filing away the details as they might be of use later.
"Where are we going?" Tao asked.
"River Styx," Sidius answered.
Tao's curiosity was immediately piqued. She had taken a genuine interest in Greek mythology after spending a full summer in Greece, becoming enticed by the legends of Hades and his realm in a way that felt almost prophetic now.
"Will I see Charon?" she asked, eyes bright with excitement.
"Charon?" Sidius asked, his face furrowing in genuine confusion.
"Yes. The ferryman who takes souls to Hades," Tao replied.
Sidius chuckled. "But you have already seen Hades. Am I Charon?" The smile on his face doing nothing to hide his amusement.
Just when she thought she had seen enough of what the Netherworld had to offer, it still managed to surprise her.
They reached the riverbank, and Tao gasped.
This could not be the river of misery she had read about, the one filled with suffering souls loitering at the water's edge, weeping for the lives they had left behind.
The river before her shimmered with an eerie, beguiling beauty, its light calling unto her in a way that felt almost physical, almost like a voice.
"River Styx," Sidius said, his voice carrying a quiet pride. "The river of transition and rebirth."
"Rebirth?" Tao asked.
"When your fate has been determined, the river creates a path leading you to your true destination," Sidius explained.
Tao's feet drew closer to the water without her fully deciding to move them. Her heart throbbed loudly in her chest, the mesmerising glow of the water and its soft whispers reaching for something deep inside her.
"Don't be blinded by its beauty," Sidius warned, his voice sharpening. "If your path isn't cleared, the river will take your soul to a land of torment. I should have mentioned that before you came quite so close."
Tao froze, her toes a few inches from dipping into the water. "You should have led with that," she hissed, stepping carefully back.
Sidius smiled. Just like Anubis, he was finding Tao to be interesting. A soul almost without fear, or if she feared, one who hid it perfectly. That was rarer than most would imagine.
"We had better get back. The ferryman will be returning for duty," Sidius said.
"I thought you said you weren't Charon," Tao replied.
"I have my days," Sidius quipped.
The two walked back in silence. Tao was lost in thought, turning over everything she had been told. Her family's pact had kept her in a strange middle, and again she was left to figure a way forward largely on her own. The Netherworld was restless and her time was not unlimited.
"Your journey has begun, Tao. You must first be willing to learn. Then you will understand," Sidius spoke as he left her at the entrance to her quarters.
He left her to her devices. The Netherworld was revolting in its quiet, building way, and time was beginning to matter.