“That can’t be true.”
The chained being nodded. “He is correct. Not even the gods themselves could remove it now.”
Storgen lowered his eyes. “I knew it. Somehow…I just knew it.”
Storgen swam away, settling atop an ethereal form of a wastebin. He sat there in silence for some time, until Philiastra could bear it no longer. She swam over and hugged him from behind. “I’m so sorry.”
“Hm?” He looked back and faked a smile. “Ah, what are you kidding? Something like this isn’t going to bother me. If anything, this is a time saver.”
“A time saver?”
“Yeah, I mean, most humans spend a ton of their time winning the love of the gods. I mean, just think of how much more free time I’ll have, now that I know I can never earn it.”
Philiastra looked sad. “I wish you wouldn’t hide your pain.”
“What else can I do?” he whispered.
“Why would Sirend waste so much of his original power cursing a mortal?” Philiastra inquired as they swam back.
“Because he is vengeful and petty,” the lump of chains responded. “But he was not always that way. The divorce from Reinala left him cold and bitter.”
“You have something against Sirend?”
“Of course I do. Sirend is the one who imprisoned me here.”
Philiastra tilted her head. “Who are you?”
The chains slumped down in exhaustion. “I was once Elpida.”
Philiastra’s mouth fell open. “The Elemental of Hope.”
It nodded. “I was defeated by the gods and cast down many eons ago. Hope was sealed away from the world, and bureaucracy was put in its place. Here, surrounded by despair, I would cherish your memory of defiance against my jailer. If you will give me that moment, I will accept it as payment for you and all your group of friends.”
Erolina and Philiastra looked at each other. “We are NOT friends.”
Storgen tried to push past his pain and focus. “So, I give up a memory I can’t remember, and you’ll let us pass?”
“Yes. My ferry will take you anywhere you want to go, to any level of the underworld.”
“This isn’t going to be one of those things where it scrambles my brain, or changes my fate, is it?”
Pops perked up. “Is this going to curse him with a superpower? Because that would be awesome.”
Erolina and Philiastra groaned.
“What? Some of the best superpowers start out as curses. Haven’t you ever read To Taxídi Tis Nýchtas?”
No one cares about your fanfiction, Pops.”
“There will be no side effects,” the chained elemental pressed eagerly.
Pops frowned. “Awwww.”
Philiastra was unconvinced. “Can we really trust a denizen of the underworld?”
Storgen swam closer. “I’ve made worse deals.”
Elpida reached out with chained hands and delicately touched his forehead. When she withdrew, a single glowing point of light came with her. Like a dew drop of sunlight, she encased it in stone, and attached it to the necklace she wore.
Storgen whipped back screaming, clutching his head as if he meant to tear it open.
“Storge, are you all right?” Philiastra called out as she caught him.”
“Do I look all right?” he barked back, waves of rippling agony emanating from him like a rock thrown into a pond. Storgen’s body twisted and writhed, every muscle tensing and cramping. Shooting pains rioted chaotically through his body, stabbing his brain and strangling his thoughts. Cold, pounding, ringing, every sense overwhelmed with a concordant chill, as if he had been completely submerged in ice water.
“What’s wrong?” Philiastra asked in panic.
Storgen covered his face. His eyes felt like they would burst. “I feel like I’m dying.”
The being of chains coddled her new treasure. “You are all dying, just at different speeds.”
Philiastra threw it a venomous glance. “You lied. You said there would be no side effects.”
“Hope does not lie. I said there would be no side effects. This is a direct effect, not a side effect.”
Storgen began to quiet, his soul acclimating to the new level of pain. Philiastra helped steady him, his breathing beginning to steady.
“It’s gone,” he mouthed through quivering lips.
“What’s gone?”
Storgen pulled his hands away, blood dripping out from his eyes. “It feels like there’s a hole in my chest. Something’s gone, but I don’t know what it was.”
“Thank you,” the imprisoned elemental said sincerely, “I will treasure this always.”
“You treacherous witch!” Philiastra screamed.
Storgen grabbed her shoulder. “It’s all right, let’s just…let’s just get on the ferry.”
* * *
Agaprei watched as the island of Kólasi grew more distant on the horizon, the fishing ships diving in and out of the ring of mist looking like tiny tadpoles. She leaned back against the railing, the thrumming beats of their dragon’s wings whipping up her lavender hair as they rode on the howdah strapped to its back.
Kaia danced around, happily unwrapping each gift they had received from the ailuros and examining it. “Oh wow, look at this! A vial of unicorn tears.”
She spun around and held up the vial, the liquid contents glowing with a holy light.
“Careful with that,” Agaprei scolded, snatching it away.
“How much do you think we could sell this for?”
“Unicorn tears can purify any wound. There’s no better antiseptic in Agadis or Erotan. Even a few drops would be worth hundreds of thousands of pennigs.”
“Woo Hoo! We’re going to be rich.” Kaia’s eyes went wide with greed. “I’m going to have my own island. A sleek tropical island like the one where we grew up, with a cove filled with jellyfish and lots of big oily men to massage my feet and feed me chocolate.”
“I’m not sure how Orrin would feel about that.”
“Stop saying that! I don’t like him!”
“We’re not selling this,” Agaprei said, storing it away in her pack. “These gifts are for our Godmother.”
“Yeah, but she doesn’t have to know. I mean, she has so many, right? Surely she won’t miss a couple.”
Agaprei gave her sister a scolding look.
Kaia deflated to her haunches. “Fine…be a sour note, I mean it’s not like you care about whether or not I have any fun.”
“You and I have very different views about what it means to have fun,” Agaprei noted, pulling out a stack of contracts.
Kaia gnawed on a fingernail. “Clearly.”
“The idea of letting a man touch me honestly makes me want to throw up.”
Agaprei checked over each scroll, making sure that each clan chieftain had filled out the forms correctly.
Kaia yawned. “You’ve checked those three times already.”
“Never a bad idea to quadruple check.”
“Come on, you did great, sis. The ailuros agreed to everything. What’s more, the human’s festival was a big old steaming pile of failure. Didn’t you hear? Will you stop acting like something terrible is about to happen?”
Agaprei held the papers tightly. “I just can’t shake this feeling. Like I missed something.”
She tucked a strand of lavender hair behind her elegantly pointed ear. “Or like there was something I was supposed to do, but didn’t, or someone I was supposed to meet.”
She watched as the island grew smaller and smaller on the horizon.
* * *
Erolina was strangely silent as she sat in the ferry, sailing across the spectral sea. She looked out into the distance, clearly bothered by something.
Storgen leaned his head back against the railing, nursing a monstrous headache. “Hey, are you all right?”
She reached up and scratched her neck. The skin was getting raw from repeated irritation. “I’m fine, I’m just... really thirsty right now.”
Storgen peeked over the side. “Yeah. I wouldn’t suggest drinking that.”
She looked at him with a strange expression. Her red eyes quavering. “Storgen, I…”
“What?”
She bit her lip. “Back at the hotel on Kólasi, in the lobby, I saw…”
“Saw what?”
She scratched her neck. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
She turned her back to him, touching her locket.
“Erolina, what is…?”
“Just leave me alone!”
“All those flavors to choose from, and yet you choose to be salty.”
She said nothing.
Storgen decided not to press the matter further. He felt like his brain had been turned inside out. He sat there in silence, absentmindedly tracing his fingers over the scars on his arms.
“Hey, can we talk?” Philiastra asked, swimming over and settling next to him.
“No offense, Phili, but I’m not really in a talkative mood.”
“I know, but I’ve been wanting to talk to you for three days, and I feel like I’m going to burst if I don’t get the chance.”
She tapped the tips of her fingers together. “Do you remember when you asked me if we could be more than friends?”
“Yeah.”
“I…I lied to you. I lied to myself. The truth is you’ve been more than a friend to me for a long time, and I’d like to be more than a friend to you as well.”
Storgen looked around at the sea of black tar, ghastly faces moaning along the surface.
“Kind of a strange place for a confession, don’t you think?”
She slugged him in the arm. “Well, you disappeared, you big dummy.”
He rubbed his arm in thought. “I think I get it now, that’s why you were being all flirty at the party.”
“Yes, you big stupid head.”
“I kinda thought you were coming on to me.”
“You think?! I practically threw myself at you.”
“It was subtle, but yes I did notice.”
“No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t subtle at all. It was so blatant a blind man could have seen it. If you knew I was flirting, then why didn’t you acknowledge it?”
“I don’t know. I thought it was a weird test or something.”
“A test?!”
“You told me that you only thought of me as a brother.”
“I just told you that wasn’t true.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t know that at the time, now did I?”
“Why would you think I would test you?”
“I don’t know, girls don’t make any sense to me.”
She waited patiently for him to say more, but he didn’t. At the front of the ferry, Pops snored loudly while Gáta sat on his chest.
Philiastra fiddled with her fingers and leaned in apprehensively. “So…what do you think?”
Storgen tried to snap himself back to the present. “What do I think about what?”
“Do you feel that way about me as well?”
“Phili, can we talk about this later? We’re kind of in the middle of something right now.”
“No, if we don’t do it now, you’ll just disappear again.”
“You’re right, I should just stay put when I’m getting stabbed and attacked by tigers.”
“Hey, I’m sorry I lost my temper back at the acropolis, okay? But when a girl confesses her feelings to you without knowing how you feel in return, she’s taking a really big risk. You don’t just leave her unanswered.”
Storgen took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. “Okay, you’re right. Look, the truth is, I kinda knew you felt that way about me for a while, but I tried to just ignore it.”
“Oh, so instead of just being oblivious, you were intentionally ignoring my feelings?”
“What? Why do you have to take it that way? You interpret everything like I’m the villain here. Like everything that bugs you is done on purpose with the goal of getting under your skin.”
“I’m sorry, okay? This is really hard for me. I spent the last hour working myself up to bring this up with you, and this isn’t how I thought you’d react, and I’m super nervous. Give me a break.”
“So, how did you think I’d react?”
“I dunno, I thought you’d take me in your arms, and there would be flowers and sparkles and stuff as you looked deeply into my eyes and kissed me again.”
Storgen chuckled. For the first time since talking to Elpida he started to feel a little more like himself again. “I imagine it was pretty hard to admit how you felt.”
“You have no idea. I practiced it like a thousand times. How’d I do?”
“It was good.”
“Really? ‘Cause I had another version where I read you like a poem I wrote, and…”
“No, no it was perfect. It was heartfelt. You did a great job.”
She could feel her cheeks blushing. “Thanks.”
“I actually think it was very brave of you. I don’t think I could have done that in your position.”
He lost himself in thought for a moment. “You were really pretty at the party, Phili, you know that?”
She could feel her whole face blushing. “Thanks again.”
He looked at her with his beautiful deep eyes. “But I like you better when you’re like this. This is the real you.”
She felt a mixture of joy and fear. “But, you said ‘like,’ is that all, or is there more than that?”
The Ferry lurched as it ran up upon a beach.
“We’ll talk later.”
Storgen roused Pops and swam out onto the shore.
Philiastra banged her hand on the side of the ferry. “Blast!”
Here, there were perfectly shaped slabs of obsidian glass growing out of the ground, each polished to a high shine, and depicting intricately carved pictographs.
“This must be the Shores of Memory. Hey, I recognize this one. This is Sirend waging war on the Cyclops tribe.”
He swam straight through it as if he were a ghost, and stopped before another, and then another. “Look over here, this is the whole history of the underworld.”
He paused before one. “And here, this is Sirend and Fovos creating an alliance to attack the Fates.”
Storgen winced as something stung inside his head.
Pops swam up and looked at the beautiful depiction. “Fovos demanded payment for the loyalty of his hosts. He asked Sirend for the hand of Estia, Sirend’s niece. It was customary in those days to seal an alliance with marriage, and although her mother, Desmas, objected, Sirend agreed, and Estia and Fovos were wed.”
Storgen grabbed his head. It felt like a spike was being driven inside.
“Are you all right?” Philiastra asked as she swam up.
“Yeah, it’s just…I feel like I know this story.”
“Everyone knows this story. When the war on the Fates failed, Desmas demanded that her daughter be freed from the underworld, but she had been wed to Fovos legally and lawfully, and Sirend refused to break his oath to Fovos. In her wrath, Desmas, goddess of all woods, cursed the forests of the world so that any human who entered them would die.”
They moved over to the next depiction. “Humans lived mostly in the forests at that time, and the death toll was catastrophic. Faced with overwhelming pressure from the other gods, and the relentless prayers of the remaining humans, Sirend relented, and Reinala’s nephew, Tharros, was dispatched to the underworld, where he freed Estia and returned her to the heavens.”
Storgen felt like his head might burst.
Philiastra reached up and sadly touched the carving of the cursed woods. “That should have ended it, but Desmas had used up too much of her original strength, and so she no longer had the power to remove the curse on her forests, so it remains to this day.”
“Just like me,” Storgen said sadly.
“But why would she curse the forests if she knew she wouldn’t have enough strength to remove the curse later?”
&nbs
p; “Desmas is no fool. When she cast the curse she had enough strength to remove it. But when the time came to remove the curse she had already spent it.”
“On what?”
Philiastra shook her head. “No one knows, it’s a mystery.”
Philiastra continued reading. “…Fovos declared war against the heavens for betraying him, and so began the long war of Strife, which ended with Sirend and Reinala parting ways, and Fovos being imprisoned in the lowest level of the underworld.”
“Are you all right, lad?” Pops asked. “I told you it was a bad idea to let that chain thing play with your head.”
“Says the old man wearing a cursed gauntlet,” Erolina said coldly as she swam near.
“I feel like my mind is leaking,” Storgen grunted, his head burning within. “This feels so familiar. I feel like I was there.”
“That’s impossible.”
Pops grabbed him. “Come on, this clearly isn’t good for you, lad. Let’s get away from these cursed things.”
* * *
Ambera stepped into Sirend’s office as the doors closed behind her. The only light came from her floating hair as she stood in the darkness.
She could hear the cyclops guards on either side of her breathing, but she could not see them. The limited light played shadows on the rows of statues along each wall, giving them the effect of hideous gargoyles.
At the far end, water splashed as sharks swam around in the two floating spheres above Sirend’s desk.
Two beady eyes opened in the dark, and deep blue skin began to ripple like seawaters.
“Come,” Sired said gravely.
Ambera let out a little squeak of fright, and walked up the slight incline towards the elder god.
“You know why you’re here, don’t you?”
She flinched. “I…have a pretty good idea.”
“After we spoke last time, you changed the rules of the game. You exceeded your authority, and crushed every duelist court law beneath your feet, you smashed through protocol like a raging bull in a vase shop.”
She squinted. “I know.”
He smiled brightly. “I have never been more proud of you.”
She cracked an eyelid open. “You are?”
“Absolutely. You understood that I was working you, and you fed off the energy. You threw yourself into your work with three times the enthusiasm you had before. Oh, I was right to give you such an important post in my pantheon. I can’t tell you how many other gods would have pouted and railed and had a big old tantrum about being dressed-down by an elder god.”
Ambrosia Page 55
