Chapter 22 Persephone
Persephone
We chased the green light out of the mountain and found ourselves flying through a high-sided gulley, the Styx and the Acheron flowing side-by-side below us.
“Incoming!” called Morpheus, and I squinted to see the red light fast approaching, Minthe's chariot behind it.
She was on her way to Olethros, which meant she had her first gem too. Shit.
My vines sprang from my palms, ready, and Hecate raised her hands, her eyes turning milky, as the red chariot got closer.
The lights neared each other, forcing our chariots within striking distance of one another.
The flails on the side of ours leaped to life, whirling fast on their chains, stretching beyond the spikes.
But the red bags on the end on the ropes on Minthe's chariot rose too, and as a crossbow bolt whizzed by my head, the mountains around us rumbled.
Minthe's eyes caught mine as she raised her arms, and rocks exploded from the bags.
I threw myself down, below the side of the chariot, yelling for Morpheus to do the same.
He did, as a wall of blue light burst from Hecate, stopping about half of the rain of sharp stones from landing in the chariot.
But the rest got through, and the chariot began to tip forward in a nose dive toward the ground.
“Morpheus!” I shrieked, and the chariot leveled sharply, tipping me onto my ass. My heart leaped into my mouth as I lost my grip, but my vines instinctively coiled around the wooden edge of the chariot and steadied me.
“They're past,” called Hecate, and I got quickly to my feet.
“Are you hurt?” I asked as Morpheus pushed himself up.
“A little,” he said, and a trickle of blood that shone a weird silver color ran down his temple. “But it'll heal. I need to concentrate.”
“OK,” I said, and turned to watch Minthe's chariot get smaller as they approached Olethros' cave. “Well, I'd say they won that encounter.”
Morpheus did a perfect job of weaving between the geysers of glowing liquid that the rivers shot up at us as we raced after the green light, and eventually we moved up out of the ravine.
My breath caught as wind rushed over us, the view of the sprawling rock landscape covered in glowing streams truly magnificent in its own other-worldly way.
The green light darted off toward another steep incline, and we zipped after it, until it reached a long, flattened ledge in the rock. It slowed abruptly, and my pulse quickened. Had we reached the second dog?
“Fonax is the ancient word for bloodthirsty, Persy, you need to be really careful. He doesn't look as bad as Olethros, but trust me, he's worse.” I nodded at Hecate as we moved lower, toward the ledge.
“If Minthe could handle him, so can I,” I said determinedly.
But when Fonax came into view, pacing the ledge with predatory grace, my insides skittered. He was a smoky gray color, broad, and much smaller than the last hound, probably waist high on me.
He paused, sniffing the air as we neared him and I noticed that his short snout was dripping with something red, and his eyes were gleaming scarlet. Then he growled deep in his throat, and I saw his blood red teeth as he bared them in our direction.
“What do you mean, he doesn't look as bad as Olethros? He looks just as bad!” I exclaimed.
“He's smaller, and not on fire,” she protested.
“He has red eyes and teeth. That's pretty fucking creepy.”
“This is a race, ladies,” called Morpheus, interrupting us. I clenched my jaw, and scanned for anything at all on the ledge that might be hiding a gem. I spotted a large iron ring on the ground, and could just make out what looked like a trapdoor beneath it.
Deciding to deploy the same tactic as before, I asked Morpheus to get us as close to the trapdoor in the ledge as he safely could. Fonax started barking as we approached, and waves of icy fear slammed into me.
Hades had said his dogs could instill fear in people, I remembered. But if they were like him, I could block it out with my power. I focused, using my healing magic to create a shield around my head, blocking the visions I knew would come if I didn't protect myself.
Confident it was working, I snaked my vines out, then flung one as far from the trapdoor as I could.
Fonax raced after it, and I sent the vine from my right hand to the iron ring on the trapdoor. I held my breath as I jumped the ten feet from the chariot to the ground, and landed hard on one leg, failing to use my vine properly to slow the jump.
I cried out as my ankle twisted and I fell.
The shout was all Fonax needed to realize I'd tricked him.
He spun, turning a hundred and eighty degrees in a heartbeat, and raced toward me.
I yanked as hard as I could on the vine on the trapdoor, both trying to open it and pull myself to my feet.
It creaked but didn't open, and I stumbled toward it, crying out again when I put weight on my left leg.
“Open! Fucking open!” I forced my power into the green vine, desperately pulling on it as the hound got closer, his gleaming red eyes terrifying.
With a lurch the trapdoor finally gave way, and I threw myself into the dark space without a moment’s hesitation, tugging the door shut behind me with the vine. Nothing down there could be worse than Fonax reaching me.
As the trapdoor closed above me it severed the vine that was attached, and I tumbled through the darkness until I landed on something relatively soft.
Panic rose in my chest as I rolled, struggling to right myself. I had no idea what I was on top of and the thought was nauseating.
Dirt. I moved my hands around hesitantly as I came to a stop on my ass, and was pretty sure I was sitting on piles of sandy dirt. I paused as my fingers skimmed something solid. I needed light.
Cautiously, I sent a gold vine from my palm, hoping the glow it gave off would be enough to see by.
It was, just. I was in a small, dirt-filled space, the ceiling not much taller than I would be, standing up.
I moved the vine down and saw that I had run my hand over a broken doll.
As I looked, I saw more bits of junk, half buried in the sand.
I immediately began to dig, searching for anything green in the dim golden light.
Another volley of barking began above me, making me jump in surprise, then a fierce scratching sound began. Fonax was trying to get through the trapdoor.
I dug faster, sending my power to my ankle to try to heal it. As soon as the power flowed to my leg, waves of fear crashed into me, flames and screams rushing into my mind. Corpses, the bodies of those I had killed...
My hands stilled in the dirt as the scratching got louder, and sweat broke out across my forehead as terror began to claw its way up my chest.
I forced my healing magic back to my head, abandoning healing my ankle. Slowly the screams died away, and my pulse slowed slightly.
Breathing hard, I flexed my shaking hands, trying to block out the frantic scratching and barking. If my healing power could only protect me from the fear or heal my ankle, not both, then I would have to make do with my busted ankle. The fear would cripple me.
I rolled onto my knees, and resumed digging in the dirt, tossing ancient crap out of the way, and seeing nothing green.
The scratching overhead stopped abruptly, and an ominous creak replaced it. I paused, glancing up at where the trapdoor was. A resounding crack made me gasp in shock, then a slither of light streamed through the wood.
“Shit,” I said, and turned back to the dirt, moving as fast as I could on my hands and knees, my glowing vine close to the ground. “Come on, come on, come on,” I muttered frantically, trying to ignore the thought that was repeating itself over and over in my head.
Even if I found the damned gem, I had no fucking idea how to get back out of the trapdoor and past the hound.
By the time the time I found the green stone, embedded in a ring barely big enough to fit on my finger, most of the trapdoor was in shreds. I staggered to my feet as I shoved the ring on my pointer finger, my ankle wobbly and sore, but not agonizing.
Sweat was rolling down my back, and my mind racing with bad ideas. I had no way of getting past Fonax and out of this space. Claustrophobia added to my growing panic, the low ceiling and dark gloom closing in on me.
A crack louder than any of the previous drew my attention to the trapdoor, and my heart almost stopped in my chest as a large piece of wood dropped into the space, followed immediately by Fonax.
He was glowing, the same red as his eyes and teeth. His ears were back, his shoulders hunched, and his lethal gaze fixed on me.
“H-h-h-hello,” I stuttered, holding my hands out.
“Who's a good boy?” I said. He snarled, dark liquid dripping from his teeth.
I tried to reach out with my mind, like I did to talk to Skop, but there was nothing there.
“You don't want to eat me, Fonax. Your master will be super pissed with you if you do that,” I whispered, as the hound stalked closer.
My gold vines were turning black as they swirled about me, preparing for a fight.
Fonax pounced. Fortunately for me he couldn't get much height in the cramped space, and my vines hit him square in the chest. I wasn't filled with enough hatred or anger for them to go through him, like they had Eurynomos, but they knocked him off course, and began to coil around his front legs and chest.
He snarled and growled as he fought to get free of them, his powerful body pushing me backward in the dirt as I fought to cling on.
He stopped fighting for a split second, then seemed to throw everything he had into lunging for me.
My vines only just held him back as his teeth snapped at my midriff.
“Oh no you don't,” I said, and felt his power start to flow down the vines, into me.
Dark black tattoos began to spread across his fur, and he yelped and struggled.
Unlike before, when I'd used my black vines, I seemed to have more control over the flow of power.
I wasn't immediately rushed by the hell-hound's dark energy.
“I'm sorry, Fonax, but I have to win this,” I told him, edging my way around him, toward the trapdoor. “I'm just going to take enough of your power that I can escape.”
But as the dog’s bloodthirsty energy flowed into me, the more I felt like taking all of it. I would need it after all, to get past Cerberus. More power couldn't be a bad thing, could it? I felt Fonax stop fighting, and looked into his angry red eyes.
No. That was the Underworld talking, not me. I didn't need his dark, vicious power. I had my own.
Slowly, I released one vine, whipping it back to me and sending it up, out of the trapdoor. I felt it coil round something solid, a rock, I guessed, and tugged on it. It held. “I'm going to leave now,” I said, feeling powerful. I felt like I could conquer the world, let alone one dog.
Kill. Blood, death, kill.
The words ricocheted through my skull, and I shook my head. That's Fonax, the bloodthirsty hell-hound, not you, I told myself firmly.
“Stay there,” I said aloud, and let the other vine disintegrate. He didn't have enough power to come after me, I was sure.
I was wrong.
The second my vine vanished, he went for me, closing the gap between us in a heartbeat. His jaws clamped onto my thigh and I screamed, the same white-hot pain I'd felt from Olethros searing through me.
I yanked on the vine, and my feet left the floor, tearing my leg from Fonax's mouth, and leaving a chunk of my flesh between his jaws.
Rage blurred my vision, the voice in my head now louder than my own thoughts.
Kill! Burn! Blood!
I burst up through the hole where the trapdoor had been, my vine dragging me along the rocks, the pain interrupting the fury flooding through me.
“Persy!” yelled Hecate, and I rolled to see the chariot just a few feet from me, by the ledge.
But I didn't want to get back on the chariot. Now I had a score to settle, with an ungrateful, murderous hell-hound. I pushed myself onto my knees, dimly aware of the massive amount of blood pouring from my thigh.
“Persy, stop the bleeding, now!”
I ignored her, crawling back towards the trapdoor.
“Persephone, what are you doing? Get back on the chariot!” Morpheus shouted. But fury had taken over, Fonax's bloodthirsty Underworld magic coursing through my body.
“Persy, if you don't stop the bleeding, you will die, and Hades needs you!” Hecate's words finally pierced the fog. Hades. Hades and Minthe and... The race. The Trials.
I turned, the pain penetrating through the rage, obliterating all other thoughts.
Heal. I had to heal myself. Fonax was trapped in the space under the trapdoor, and I'd taken most of his power, so when I sent my magic at my leg, no crippling torrents of fear hit me.
Slowly, painfully, the wound began to close.
“Persephone, you have to get back on the chariot, we can't lose this much time,” Morpheus said, his voice calmer. I looked sideways, my head swimming, and saw that he had pulled the chariot up alongside the ledge.
“OK,” I stammered, dragging myself up onto my feet. I limped to the ledge, each step agony, still sending as much power as I could to my thigh, and Hecate pulled me onto the wood.
“Tell me you got the gem,” she said, wincing at my leg as I propped my back against the side of the chariot. I felt it lurch into motion as I held up my hand to her, showing her the ring.
“Yeah. I got the gem.”