by Dan H Kind
Chapter 28
Death . . .
“Ready to die?! No, I'm not ready to die, thanks so much for asking!”
“Jack, you're a Trickster,” said Stephone. “You die all the time and then come back to life. You cannot be destroyed unless you are forgotten by everybody in existence or use up your ken.”
“I . . . know that,” said Jack. “You just caught me off guard, that's all.”
“But what d'you mean die, Stephone?” asked Tom.
“I will touch you, and you will die. I am a goddess of death and renewal. It is well within my ken. Since we're already here in the Underworld, you'll end up here, if you wish to.”
“So we just have to”—Jack gulped—“die and think happy thoughts about this place, and we'll end up here afterwards?”
“That's right. If you die when you're not consciously thinking about an afterlife destination, you manifest in your default Underworld or on your own World of Myth. That's how the system works, of course.”
The group remained silent, uncertain.
An austere smile painted Stephone's face. “I will reanimate us once we are a good ways down Elysium Drive, out of view of the Courthouse.” She held out her hand, which began to exude a deep purple light, and beckoned. “Come on, Jack. You go first.”
Jack gulped, swallowing down his fear. Thinking of boring, depressing Hades, he reached out with trembling hand, gripped Stephone's outstretched palm—and died.
His first thought was: It sure is strange, being dead.
His second thought was: To be without substance, to be without form, to be without life.
Instead of the usual nauseating pink, Hades was imbued in a purplish twilight where everything was twisting and funneling with shadows and nothing could be focused on for long. The faces of darklings leered at him from waves the color of midnight. All was visible in flashes of black energy, riptides of shadow, and those shifty, macabre faces. All was crafted of the substance of nightmares, the firmament of fear.
He looked at his companions, and he knew they had names, but it was tough to hold things like that in
(Who am I?)
what now passed for
(Where am I? What is this place?)
his mind. What was it they were supposed to
(Am I . . . dead?)
do again? He couldn't remember. Then the three solid forms were gone, and there were beings
(Shades)
like him
(Shades of the dead)
in their place. He felt a touch
(breeze)
on his arm
(essence)
and a shock of familiarity shot through his
(nothingness)
mind. This was
(Stephone)
his good friend. There were also two
(Tom)
(Becky)
other friends.
They
(Shades)
joined and swam through one another
(Shades of the Dead)
and suddenly he
(I am Jack.)
regained a modicum of sense.
They must move.
They must follow Judgment Road and take a left.
(Or was it a right?)
He tried to ask a question, but he
(Trickster)
could find no voice with which to speak. A stream of smog puffed out of formlessness and dissipated into the non-atmosphere of Hades.
(Think, Jack, think! Don't try to speak.)
(Is that you, Steph? What in Earthmaker's going on? I feel like I'm a thousand and one different people!)
(We'll be fine as long as we keep touching, as long as we keep swimming through one another's essences. Keep close when we pass by other shades. When we get to the Courthouse, we might have to go through some of them. It'll be strange—it always is, the first time—but you'll be okay as long as you stay with me! Okay?)
He tried to nod, but all it did was shoot a stream of shadow from the glob of darkness
(Shade)
that he
(Shade of the Dead)
had become. He
(Trickster)
felt the others' departed spirits swimming through him, leading him
(Trickster, the One Thousand and One Tricksters)
down the road
(Jack. I am Jack.)
to Judgment.
(And I'm with you, Steph.)
Shade-Stephone clung to the others' departed spirits with her own deceased soul. The black Courthouse peeked into view ahead, and the massive adamantine gates of Tartarus appeared in the distance to the left. The gates were the only way in or out of Tartarus, as the wall of flame that was the Phlegethon sealed off the pit of tortured souls from the rest of the Underworld. Fronting the entranceway was a tall, slender, twisted spiral pillar, also made of the obsidian-like metal formed over eons in the burning pit of Tartarus. Tisiphone sat atop this watchtower, making damn sure that everybody going to hell was supposed to be going to hell. She wore a glaring white dress, and her long silver hair flowed behind her as if she was submerged in water.
Shade-Stephone looked away from Tartarus with what passed for a grimace. There were fireproof speakers that looked like boulders stashed deep within the Phlegethon that amplified the sounds of torture from within so that everybody for miles around could hear the horrible screams, the clanking of chains, and the cracking of whips. She knew it was all a show, that they merely had a CD on repeat in some control room within the depths of the place, but the noises were still unsettling.
Shade-Stephone sharpened her mind to an focused point and moved forward. If the Iron Queen of Hades had still possessed a face, it would have worn a sober, determined expression.
It soon became easier to concentrate, easier to hold a thought within the mind. Before, the thoughts that had come had been like the dreams of thoughts, forgotten upon constant awakening. He hazily recalled having more substance as a shade in other Spirit Worlds. Those other death-times he had been able to remain more in control of his mind, better able to concentrate. Being dead in Hades, everything was dark and indistinct and confusing, with an eerie hint of deep purple.
Shade-Jack could feel the shades of Team Myth around him like extra, invisible limbs. He could actually sense their thoughts. Thank the gods the others were there. He had the feeling that without them, he would dissipate into the non-air of the Underworld and be no more, despite the fact that he was a mythological being and could not die per se.
The Stygian Courthouse loomed ahead, its massive entrance pillars grim and foreboding. The red liquid that flowed in the courtyard fountain fronting the building looked suspiciously like the blood of the innocent. Beyond the Courthouse lay a stretch of typical Hadean wasteland that soon gave way to a wide river: the Styx, which marked the border of the Underworld, circling Hades like a snake biting its own tail. After that there was . . . nothing. A blank gray slate. Past the River of Hatred, Hades dropped off into oblivion, merging with the sky-abyss beyond.
Shade-Jack gulped when he observed this, the literal end of the World, and wondered how the water of the Styx did not fall off the edge and into the emptiness.
(All right, guys,) came the voice of shade-Stephone. (Stay close. We're almost to the Courthouse, so we're gonna have to pass through some shades, and it's gonna be a little weird. Just hold onto me and the others, and you'll be okay. We are going to creep around the side of the Courthouse to Elysium Drive.)
The shades grew thicker ahead, a veritable sea of souls stretching across Judgment Road, which widened leading up to the Courthouse courtyard. Shade-Jack braced himself for impact with the shades, not expecting anything in particular—but what happened was like nothing he had ever experienced.
As they passed through each shade, that particular deceased spirit became a part of the mythical quartet that had in life been Whiskey Jack, Persephone, Tom Sawyer, and Becky Thatcher. He could hear the distinct thoughts of these outsiders; rand
om snippets of deeds committed
(. . . better than the life she would have lived. I cannot end up in hell for sparing my baby, my precious, precious baby, from . . .)
flitted across his mind, overriding his own
(. . . was there, yes, but I had no hand in it. Sure, I laughed, but now I regret it. I've regretted it every day of my life. Their screams haunted me until my dying day. Even after death, their screams haunt . . .)
inner shade-monologue. It was as if each shade was poring over its own mental storehouse of memories, getting ready to plead its case before the
(. . . was drowning, and everybody was just sitting there on the beach, wide-eyed and slack-jawed or freaking out and screaming. But I dove into the water and swam out past the breakers, and . . .)
Judges. Some whispered, some screamed, some sobbed, some muttered, some
(. . . think I was good, but I'm really not sure. How do you define goodness? The concept is rather . . .)
prayed. The cacophony of the dead rang through his mind
( . . . called me terrible names! And she wanted it, the little fucking whore! So what if she was only . . .)
like a million terrible
(. . . say? What should I say? What should I . . .)
gongs and it would not
(. . . madness. It was . . .)
abate. The voices careening off the walls of Jack's shade-mind grew louder and louder as more and more shades joined the mind-pool of the departed. The whisper of the jabbering ghosts, the sibilant dead, drowned out even the screams coming from Tartarus—and were terrible, oh so terrible to hear!
(Jack, stay with us!)
He could no longer hear himself think, and he was once again losing a grip on who he was and what he was doing here. Losing a grip on things. If he had had hands, he would have put them to his ears. If he had had a mouth, he would have screamed.
(JACK!)
He did not hear the voice calling his name over the babel of confessing shades; the noise drowned out all of
(. . . NOT SENDING ME TO HELL! OH NO YOU'RE NOT, YOU MISERABLE . . .)
existence. If he had had legs to run with, he would have run.
When he heard
(Wah! Wah! Wah!)
the babies crying, the shades of
(. . . mommy? Why did you leave me here in . . .)
whimpering toddlers, he could take it no more, so he
(. . . madness. It was . . .)
let go.
Stephone lost her grip on Jack, and like mist he was gone, doing what for a shade was the equivalent of a living being “running like hell to anywhere but here.”
The Iron Queen grasped Tom and Becky's spirits tight within her own and plowed into writhing, babbling shadow after Jack.
