Angel Falls

by Michael Paul Gonzalez

  Phaleg’s halo began to flash again, the connection was disappearing.

  “I can’t stay much longer,” he said. “I need you in here before Yaotl arrives if I’m to have any hope. Lenny…I’m so, so sorry that you’re in this state.” Phaleg whispered. The cavern grew darker as he faded away.

  Samedi stood for a moment, arms outstretched. “I just had an angel in mah pants?”

  I nodded.

  “Ain’t what I t’ought dat would feel like,” His hands went to his belt. “Someone holdin’ my bottle, den?”

  I nodded to Monkey and he tossed me the bottle, I handed it back.

  “Just keeping it safe,” I replied.

  Might as well let him get it across safe before we have to steal it back. We continued our walk, the floor glistening in the low light. Slowly, the checkerboard pattern on the ground faded, blotching out until it was an undulating mass of shining black diamonds. It felt like we were wading in a field of sharp static and each step became decidedly crunchier.

  “Look at all da bebettes down’ere,” Samedi said.

  We were in the midst of a stampede of beetles, all of them racing down the hallway and towards a fork in the road.

  “They’re in a hurry to get somewhere,” Monkey muttered.

  “Where you tink they go? Don’ matter. Should axe what dey runnin’ from bag daer,” Samedi said.

  I nodded at Monkey. “Go check it out.”

  He scampered away behind us, bounding along the walls as much as possible to avoid crushing the beetles. Goliath was having a harder time keeping his footing. Each step with his massive foot crushed a gallon of bug juice beneath him.

  “They’re all going left. Which way are we going?”

  Samedi held up a finger and walked to the wall. He reached deep into an alcove and withdrew a small bottle. He pulled the cork with his teeth and downed the entire contents in one smooth motion. As he swallowed, still keeping that finger raised for our silence, we waited, the endless tide of insects pinpricking their way across our feet and ankles. He brought the now-empty bottle down and took a deep breath, then uttered a small succession of belches. He tossed it down the right side of the hall, and we waited to hear it hit and shatter. Instead, the bottle made it about ten feet down the hall and slowly came to a stop in the air, gently lowering to the ground.

  “Dat way’s swimmin’, dis ways tres bebettes. Y’want de swim, truss me.”

  Monkey arrived with a status report. “Nothing back there but 500 miles of bugs. I’m starting to think they’re coming from the desert, flooding into the Under/Under.”

  “Which means…” I said, hoping not to hear what I knew I would.

  “Whatever they’re running from is up there, it’s big, and it’s real.”

  As if on cue, a blood-curdling three-octave wail bellowed down the hallway, reverberating through my spine and making my teeth vibrate.

  “Whatever made that noise, I didn’t see it while I was back there,” Monkey said.

  The noise came again, choppy this time, a steely triple note, desperate and hunting. I approached the opening on the right side where the bottle still hung suspended in the air, slowly turning. I reached a hand towards it and the surface of the air rippled. It felt like lukewarm water in there, only not wet. This should have been the source of the river, but there was no water. A shape began to coalesce from the darkness down the hall: a man, roughly my height, with a cowl like Raven’s head. He was wearing leather pants, and a spear was strapped across his back.

  He glided through the air towards us, almost as if rising out of deep water. He hovered before me next to the bottle, grasped it, then shook his head and extended a hand down the hallway behind him.

  “It’s easier if you jump in,” he said. “You walk, and there’s a chance you’ll tumble onto your face as you cross the threshold.” His voice was like gravel at the bottom of a streambed, silt and ripples and little more.

  “Allons-y!” Samedi bellowed as he jumped in. “Hooooo-eee! Dis here d’only way t’go…”

  He spun upside down before us. I shrugged at the others and leapt in, they followed suit. It was a strange sensation, like resting on a bed of static-filled air, and swimming.

  “Have we met before?” I asked the hooded figure.

  The noise returned, louder, a siren that bordered on a howl.

  “Better if we walk and talk, don’t you think?” he replied.

  “Forgive me if I’m not entirely trusting of a stranger,” I said.

  “It’s been one of those days.”

  “What’s happening up there?” he asked.

  “No worries. The end of everything,” I said.

  “Or the beginning of something else,” he replied.

  “Not if we can help it.”

  “Nothing can be helped. There’s only what happened, what’s happening now, and what’s going to happen.”

  “What about what almost happened?” Monkey asked.

  “Almost happened when?” Goliath asked.

  “Nothing almost happens. It does or it doesn’t. You’re here or there. There’s no in-between.”

  “Aren’t we in-between now?” asked Monkey.

  “You’re here now. You’ll be there soon. And I’ll be all too happy to help you. The journey across is long, but I can shorten it for you for a mere pittance.”

  “How?”

  We continued to drift as a low rumbling filled the hall and the floor slowly rose to meet us. The checkerboard pattern softened and cracked, turning from a solid marble into a silty mess that slowly sloughed its way to the sides of the hall. A musty smell began to permeate everything around us, and a faint glow emanated from beneath our guide’s hood. I noticed that he was issuing a rare funk of his own. He didn’t smell like death exactly, more like Death’s angry sister.[32] As our feet made blessed contact again with the floor, he launched into a sales pitch.

  “I’ll guide you across quickly. It’s what I do, and, times being as they are, or soon, aren’t, I’m trying my best to put away a nest egg for any unforeseen inevitability. I work for tips, you understand, and…”

  “Charon?” I asked.

  “You’ve heard of me!” he said. “Whatever you started up there, it’s really making things tough on my income. Acheron’s gone. Styx is dry. This muck you’re sinking into is all that’s left. I’ve been sending people up the riverbank for the past few cycles. Souls can’t walk the river. They have to walk the bank, that’s the way it was, the way it is. Until today, that is. Not a single soul has passed by. Every once in a while an Existential Tide pushes through and everything floats. But no water. Can’t use my boat. What good’s a ferryman without his boat, you might ask?”

  “I thought fairies didn’t like water all that much,” Goliath interjected.

  “You, however, are in for a treat! Being that you’re not mortal, I am going to get you across the bogs, safe and sound, and faster than you can imagine. I know it’ll certainly make the lady with you happy, and can any of us put a price on happiness? You simply can’t make this journey without me!”

  “I—” I said.

  We all involuntarily dropped to our knees as the noise returned like a punch to the kidneys. Three notes, an octave apart, in succession, sung by a chorus of demons and echoing for what felt like eternity.

  “I’ve learned to time the Tides, for starters,” Charon said. “And further, I happen to know where the land is most solid, and where the muckiest bits of muck are to avoid. And lastly, that sounded a lot closer, don’t you think? You shouldn’t be asking yourself if you can afford to take this journey with me. You should be asking yourself if you can afford not to!” He beamed a hideous salesman’s smile at us.

  “I’ve got a pretty good sense of things down here, you know,” I said.

  My stomach did a flip as an Existential Tide pushed through the cavern. We were all surreptitiously tossed into the air, hovering for a bit before getting caught in the flow and pulled along the cavern.
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  “Oh for the love of…hrrrp,” Monkey said, vomiting a bit. He clapped his hands over his mouth and swallowed hard.

  “Let it go, man,” I said. “You’ll feel better.”

  He shook his head viciously, tears streaming from his eyes. He gulped twice, hard, and inhaled deeply. “Don’t feel so good…”

  Goliath plucked him out of the air and planted him on his shoulder.

  “Didn’t see that one coming at all, did you?” Charon asked.

  “Oh, ‘dis ain’t no good t’all,” Samedi slurred. “I’ma meetchall on d’udder side. Y’all have fun on yah ronday now, heah?” His body sucked upwards into his top hat until only one groping arm stuck out. The hand gripped the brim of the hat and flung it farther down the hall, out of sight.

  “Shit! We need that bottle!” I scrambled at the air, trying to propel myself down the hall.

  “Swimming does nothing in an Existential Tide,” Charon said. “It will settle in a few more seconds.”

  “Existential Tide?” Eve asked.

  “There’s a bit of a drought of souls at the moment. Theirs is the essence that creates the waters of Acheron and Styx, and even the rejuvenating fountains of the two springs Lethe and Mnemosyne in Hades. Nobody’s coming through. Times are tough, you understand, and I work for—”

  “…tips, yes yes, we heard.” I cut him off. “How frequently does this happen?”

  “Oh, I know when the next Tide is due. Eighteen percent is all I ask…”

  “Eighteen percent of what?” Eve asked. “What’s the customary fee?”

  I tried to stomp a foot, but only ended up spinning in the air.

  “I’m not going to pay you for walking next to us. Not all jobs deserve tips, you know. Is there no such thing as professional courtesy anymore? We’re in the same industry! Your future income depends expressly on getting us to the other side. And obviously, whatever ’s making that noise scares the shit out of you as much as us! If you love your job…”

  “And if you really needed to get across the bogs of Acheron so badly, it would be worth something to you, surely?” He paused and extended a bony hand towards me, palm up.

  A smattering of beetles tumbled by in the air as the Existential Tide ebbed and we slowly lowered to the floor again. Monkey had his hands on his knees, he’d broken into a cold sweat.

  “Pay…the…man,” Monkey gasped. “It’s–hrrp–in your best–huuurgh…interest if you…”

  “Just puke and you’ll feel better!”

  Monkey shook his head viciously. “Pay him now!”

  I looked at my compatriots. I patted my pockets. “Any of you have any change? Anything at all of value?”

  They all stared at me blankly. Money was such an Earthly concept.

  “Okay, so…you take credit?” I asked.

  “Coins are preferred, but any kind of metal would do, really. Being that all of you are, in your own way, incredible gods, the value of your conveyance is nigh-infinite. But as I am a professional,” he glared at me, “I think, with my preferred deity discount, we could create a package for you for…that sword?” he pointed at Goliath’s hip.

  Goliath seized the handle of Hellsinger, his knuckles white. “No way, pal. I just had this thing reforged back at Copperopolis. It’s one of a kind.”

  One of the things I hate about dealing with higher beings down here is all of the back-and-forth, quid-pro-quo mentality of commerce. Nobody does anything just for nicey-nice anymore. Maybe I’m just so used to getting my way that I can’t grasp this barter concept, but still.

  “You want this, I’ll give it to ya the hard way,” Goliath bellowed.

  “I’m sure we could arrange some kind of payment on the other side,” I tried. “Honestly, we’ll be that much closer to Heaven, and I still have a pretty good amount in the bank up there.”

  “I wouldn’t be a good ferryman if I transported thieves, liars, and swindlers across the Vast Chasm without taking payment in advance now, would I?”

  “What’s all this damn talk of fairies?” Goliath shouted. “They don’t care about coins and metal, let alone weapons! And anyway, yer way too tall ta be a fairy! Let me chop him, Morningstar, please. Just one clean hack, and I’ll—”

  I put a hand on Goliath’s chest to stay him.

  “Tide’s coming again in two minutes,” Charon said. “And if you’re wondering if there’s a way to keep your orientation, there is. And I’ll tell you what it is. Metal. I have need of that weapon.” He threw a nervous glance around the room.

  The noise came again, clearer this time, distinct notes this time in triplicate: Hi-yi-yi-yaaar !

  Charon’s eyes flared red and he began to shake. “We haven’t much more time!”

  “What’s following us?” I asked. “You know something that you’re not telling us!”

  “Please. Just pay me and let’s be on our—”

  Hi-yi-yi-yaaroooo-rooo-roooooooooo!

  The noise was like knives ripping through my skull. The stench of the bog was overpowering, permeating everything like wet dog. The horrid smell saved us, I think. I hoped the being making the offensive odor remembered me, because I sensed the bargaining had just turned in my favor.

  Charon looked torn. He wanted to run. He wanted to grab the sword from Goliath’s hand. He looked like either decision would bring swift and certain pain to him. Eve and Monkey looked imploringly at Goliath and I, waiting for us to relent and give Charon his payment.

  “No,” I said. “You never ask for anything other than money. You expecting trouble down here?”

  “I need it. Please,” he said. He looked ready to jump out of his skin.

  “Aww, come on- huuurpph !” Monkey slurred, choking back another wave of nausea.

  “Is the bottom of the Styx still lined with bones of lost souls?” I asked. “Answer quickly, this is important.”

  Charon nodded, his head on a swivel, snapping around on the lookout for impending horror.

  “I need bones,” I said. “Preferably a skull and something to hit it with. Hurry!”

  I dropped to my knees and plunged a hand into the muddy floor. I hoped we’d be able to find something before the next tide hit.

  Pushing into the silt with my good hand, I felt different layers, each affecting my mood. Rough pebbles, smooth silt, cold clay, each imbued with the emotional hunger of those who’d been consumed by the waters of the Styx. When I got elbow- deep, I started to feel the difference. Shapes were growing larger. Some of them were moving.

  I felt the remnants of people sliding towards me, stray hands caressing my arms, the occasional cold lump of lip or tongue wrapping around my fingers. A little deeper and I’d have it. My index finger hit the back of a small cup-shape, not much larger than a thimble. I shifted my wrist and probed with my other fingers and thumb until I had a grip like a bowling ball, then pulled my arm free of the muck. A child’s skull, no older than a year or two, I’d guess. The jaw was missing, but the bones were polished shiny and clean like a tumbled rock.

  “Found one!” Goliath rumbled.

  I turned to see him grasping a femur, still connected to a half- digested and mostly living body. It was caked in mud, and thrashing voicelessly like a fish on a hook.

  “A bit more than I need, really,” I said.

  Goliath gripped the femur hard and twisted, popping it free from the body, which flopped to the ground. He discreetly pushed on the corpse with his heel, mashing it back down into the mud. I held a hand up and he tossed the bone to me.

  “Observe,” I said. “A child can’t forget his first best friend. Let’s hope the opposite holds true.”

  I rammed the femur through the roof of the skull’s mouth so that it rattled around on the end of the bone like a demented maraca.

  “Roo-roo!” I shouted, waving the bones around and creating as much noise as I could.

  There was a shift in the air, an electricity that only comes when an apex predator turns its attention solely towards you. The hallwa
y grew darker as a large shape filled it. There were eyes in that darkness, three pair, glowing orange and yellow and green.

  The yellow pair of eyes was closest to the ground, squinting a little too angrily. The other eyes were all rapt on my makeshift rattle. I shook it gently, moving it a bit to my right, then my left. The eyes all followed, the creature shifted back and whined in a register so high it felt like needles scratching my brain.

  “You want it?” I asked, dropping into a deeper, rougher voice reserved exclusively for these sorts of things. I lowered the skull to the ground and all three sets of eyes followed suit, until they were just barely above the floor.

  “Everybody,” I murmured, “get low and hope this works.”

  “Go get it!” I shouted, tossing the bone backwards over my head down the hallway. The rush of air was instantaneous. The creature barreled towards us, then leapt as it drew close, over our heads and down the hall.

  “What the hell was…?” Monkey asked.

  “Bring it!” I shouted. “Bring it back!”

  There was a scampering in the darkness that sounded much like an elephant-sized puppy scrambling through the mud. It bounded back towards us, a low thunderous rumble vibrating the mud beneath us.

  “Get it away! Get it away!” Charon screamed.

  It slid to a halt in front of me, fifteen feet tall, all muscle and fang and bad intention. The area around us was bathed in the strange strobe light of its eyes. All three heads exhaled hot steam through their noses at me simultaneously. All was silent for ten painful seconds.

  I extended a hand for the bone rattle.

  All three heads snapped and snarled at each other for possession of the femur until the head on the right got a firm enough grip, worrying it in the air a bit before lowering it gently down and spitting it at my feet.

  “Who’s a good boy?” I asked.

  The creature was on me in an instant, pinning me deep into the mud with its massive forepaws. Eve let out a deafening scream. Goliath staggered back, fumbling to draw his sword. All three heads lunged for my face, and I did the only thing one can do in that situation. I blew kisses at it.