by Luke Romyn
The huge warrior charged directly at Wes, who leaped nimbly out of the way, whipping his left leg around to lash his shin into the back of Heracles's thigh as he passed. The resulting thud sounded just like a baseball bat connecting with a round of ham, and Heracles roared with pain before swinging blindly backward with his right fist, connecting solidly with Wes's cheek, flinging him through the air like a discarded rag doll.
Heracles turned, murder glinting within his eyes. But before the enormous man could reach the stunned Wes, Talbot stepped in front of him, barring his path.
"Stop!" commanded Talbot with an authority he didn't feel. "Heracles, this is exactly what you warned us of. You're not acting rationally."
Some semblance of sanity attempted to reassert itself, but Heracles's gaze shifted beyond Talbot, and he spied Wes once more. "He mocks me at every turn," spat the giant warrior. "I will tolerate it no longer!"
"Then you'll have to go through me," said Talbot softly.
The warrior looked down on Talbot curiously. "You would die for him?" he asked, gesturing toward Wes.
"Yes," Talbot replied with a confidence he didn't feel. "Now the question is; are you willing to kill me to get to him? Are you prepared to snuff out the only hope of closing this damn Syrpeas Gate in order to avenge some perceived insult? Think about it Heracles, why are you so angry?"
"He-he mocks me," responded the warrior, though his voice held much less conviction now.
"It's just his way of dealing with fear; you must understand that. Think logically, why are you suddenly so prepared to kill him when you weren't before?"
Heracles paused, Talbot's hand upon his chest as though he had some chance of stopping the warrior should he choose to attack Wes once more. Wes, on the other hand, now sat watching the exchange, all signs of anger washed from his face.
"I-I am being confused by the aura of the Styx, just as I warned you. The power of its water is stronger than I remember, and I have succumbed without knowing," said Heracles finally, his features easing from the murderous rage he had displayed only moments before. "I am sorry, Talbot. And to you Wes, I owe the deepest of apologies."
Wes rose to his feet. "Yeah, well let's not get all weepy over it. Don't worry about it, mate." He reached up and patted Heracles on the shoulder. "You're a good bloke, Hercules. Sorry I messed with you so much."
Heracles nodded, ignoring the continued mispronunciation of his name, or perhaps he no longer cared, Talbot didn't know. Wes looked toward him.
"And you," said the commando, pointing an accusing finger at Talbot. "Don't ever try to stick up for me again. I'm supposed to be the one protecting you, remember? If you get stomped on by someone while looking out for me, how the hell will I ever show my face around town again, eh?"
"I have no idea," said Talbot, grinning.
"Well, that's fucking right. The shame of being saved by a little sissy bookworm like you would just about do me in, mate."
"I have almost no idea what you just said," said Talbot. "But I'm going to take it as a compliment."
Wes grinned, slapping him on the shoulder.
"Kharon comes nigh," interrupted Heracles, pointing out over the river.
Through the gloom of the ebony waves and the haze surrounding it like a reverse aura, Talbot saw a figure rapidly approaching across the dead water. He was tall, possibly as tall as Heracles. But whereas Heracles was huge and muscled, this figure appeared almost skeletal. As the boat drew closer and the features of the Ferryman became more distinguishable, Talbot was unable to hold back a gasp.
The thing which emerged through the gloom was hideous. A misshapen skull sat atop narrow, sloping shoulders. Thin wisps of gray cloth barely covered the nakedness beneath, and dripping sores ran with viscous-looking pus. Looking back up at its head, Talbot swallowed heavily, forcing himself to stare at its features. He had noticed the misshapen skull, but the face it held was so far beyond hideous that Talbot's brain was barely able to register it.
"Well hello Mr. Potato Head," muttered Wes. Talbot found himself agreeing, but it was the most demented version of Mr. Potato Head ever imagined. More like Mr. Potato Head assembled by a crack addict.
"I never dreamed I'd see the day," said the splintered and broken voice of Kharon. "The great Heracles comes here yet again. I thought you would have learned your lesson."
"We need passage, Kharon," replied Heracles. "What is your price?"
A thin line of yellow drool oozed from the corner of Kharon's torn gash of a mouth. "My usual price is one obolos coin per traveler, but for you I shall require something more. How about the soul of one of your children?" The creature cackled hollowly. "Oh that's right, you already killed them."
Heracles appeared ready to attack Kharon, but restrained himself with obvious difficulty. "Name your price, and take us across. Or is your price to bore us to death?" said the huge warrior from between gritted teeth.
The Ferryman clapped slowly, theatrically. "So you have learned from our last encounter, Heracles. I didn't think that was possible. My price is the same now as it was the last time you came; the price you refused."
"I will not -" began Heracles, but then looked down at Talbot. "Is there no other way?" he asked.
"That is my price," replied Kharon maliciously.
Heracles's gritted his teeth. "Then I shall pay it." Something in his tone sounded like defeat, but Talbot couldn't be sure.
All three clambered aboard Kharon's boat - a simple skiff, perhaps thirty feet in length, which the Ferryman drove through the waves with a long pole. Talbot and Wes sat in bench seats toward the front of the skiff, whereas Heracles stood talking with Kharon at the rear. Talbot heard the Ferryman say, "The payment comes first, you know this." Heracles nodded, saying something inaudible before moving forward to where they sat.
"You will be alone beyond this point. Kharon's price is high, and I will be unable to aid you further," Talbot moved to argue, but Heracles raised a hand, stalling him. "Wes, I now know you are the best of men, and along with Chiron's sword you will be more than capable of protecting Talbot for the rest of the journey."
He pointed ahead. "Those two peaks mark passage through to a broad valley, in the middle of which lies Hades's main citadel. You must not believe what he tells you; the man is a snake. He will try to manipulate you to his own ends. He cares nothing for you or the universe. There is power to be had beyond the gate to Tartarus, and he will try to use you to get it. I warn you again; do not trust Hades!"
Without further farewell, Heracles turned and strode back to Kharon. "I am ready," he said.
Kharon nodded, leaning in close to the huge warrior. It took Talbot a moment to realize what was happening, thinking perhaps the Ferryman was moving to kiss the Olympian. But Kharon opened his hideously deformed mouth wide, even as his scabrous arms enveloped Heracles. The mouth opened wider....
Wider....
Closer....
And then Kharon's jaw cracked impossibly wide, and his arms snapped tight like a bear-trap, pulling Heracles close. So close, in fact, that his head disappeared completely within Kharon's gaping maw, which locked tight upon the connection.
Talbot was sure he heard a scream. He moved to intervene, but Wes beat him to it, leaping high and bringing the sword of Chiron down in a sweeping arc -
But the blade passed completely through Kharon without pause. Wes barely managed to avoid slicing into his own leg with the deadly sword, and as he recovered they both looked up to see the two bodies - Kharon and Heracles - had begun to merge.
Like two mannequins placed in an industrial furnace, the two bodies melted together, combining into something new... something else.
Within moments, the two had become one, and the new creature tore aside the rags it had been wearing, revealing Heracles's simplistic apparel beneath. Healthy, disease-free skin radiated from where the pus-laden leather had been. The hideous, misshapen features of a nightmare now shone with the glaring gaze of -
Heracles!
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Talbot moved to rush forward, but something stopped him. Some deep, primitive instinct told him this was not the man who had so recently befriended him. "Who are you?" he demanded.
"I am Kharon," said the voice of Heracles. "The price I demanded from your companion was his life. He is still here, within me, but his power now sustains me. This is how I survive throughout the eons, but that is immaterial. We must get moving. Along with consuming his strength, I also absorbed his knowledge and memories. I know of your mission and the importance of speed." Kharon hefted his pole and began swiftly navigating their way across the water.
"You motherfucker! You ate him?" demanded Wes.
"Not in the truest sense of the word," replied Kharon, Heracles's muscles flexing beneath the loose cotton shirt as he pushed through the waves with his long pole. "He exists within me, as do many others. He gave his life freely, I did not murder him. If I had, the transfer would not have succeeded.
"I am a being of energy, but in order to survive I must merge with a corporeal host, such as Heracles. He is then bound to me eternally, and his life will allow me to continue with mine." The Ferryman never ceased pushing the skiff.
"And what do you do when you run out of victims?" asked Talbot.
"I die," replied Kharon simply. "But that has not happened yet, and I am able to survive for quite some time between my times of merging."
The whole situation frustrated Talbot beyond measure, but he could see no way around it. Heracles had obviously agreed to the merging, knowing what it entailed. He looked at Wes. The commando was staring malevolently at Kharon, but when he saw Talbot looking at him he merely shrugged. There was nothing they could do, Heracles was effectively gone. The thought saddened Talbot, but not in the same way something like that normally would have. The atmosphere seemed to leech his sorrow away.
Perhaps this was another side-effect of the river; while your hatred grew, all other emotions were drained away, leaving a deep sense of melancholy, if no rage remained. Talbot looked around. They were already half way across the dark river. He attempted to look into its depths, but found himself unable to see beyond the inky surface. "Why do you do this?" he asked Kharon. "I mean the Ferryman thing. Why do you do it?"
"This is what I am charged with doing," replied Kharon, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "In this way I am able to protect the dominion of Lord Hades."
"Protect him from what?"
"From his enemies. From those who would seek to take his realm from him. He is a wonderful ruler in this land, and we will never allow him to be taken from us," said the Ferryman.
"How do you protect him by charging people to cross?" asked Talbot.
"This river, Styx, is unable to be crossed by any other craft than the one we now travel in. The liquid within the river is toxic to everything apart from my kind. A single drop is more potent that the most lethal poison and can burn through any material other than this vessel. The obolos coin I charge for passage is not a coin at all - it is a part of their spirit, or soul. While not as complete as an entire merging, the obolos gives me an impression of the passenger - including their intents and purposes. If they mean harm, I will know, and the passenger will be consumed by the Styx."
"What about us?" asked Wes. We didn't give you an obo-whatever. How do you know our intentions?"
"I know the intentions of your companion, and they were to aid you to protect all realms - including this one. Your intents are not directed toward my master, and if anything, they are likely to help this realm. Thus, you have been granted passage. If you can offer any argument to the contrary, however -"
"NO!" interjected Talbot. "No arguments. That's exactly what we're doing."
"Where do we go once we get to shore?" asked Wes.
"You will see the gates of Hades in the pass between the two mountains yonder," Kharon pointed at the twin craggy cliffs they had been aiming for ever since arriving in Hades. "You must go through the gates."
"What about Cerberus?" asked Talbot. Heracles had told him Cerberus was a beast from Tartarus, but something within Talbot still feared the three-headed dog was somehow still a part of Hades.
"Cerberus?" said Kharon, his brow furrowed in confusion, as well as something akin to fear. "Cerberus was expelled from this dominion during the wars between the realms. He is back in Tartarus, hopefully never to return."
"Why do you say that?" asked Talbot. What was it about Cerberus that could produce fear in one such as Kharon?
"That beast is more than just one of the creatures of the pit. It tore apart most of my kind before the Olympians were able to band together and herd it back through the rift into Tartarus with their glowing weapons - weapons such as the one your companion carries, as well as the sword Heracles carried."
Talbot glanced around in shock. "What happened to Heracles's sword?"
Kharon stared at him, and Talbot saw past the features of Heracles, into the depths of a being so far beyond his concept of life that he felt instantly daunted. "The weapon was absorbed along with your companion," said Kharon emotionlessly. "It will provide much sustenance throughout the centuries."
Talbot shuddered, trying to escape the sensation that the thing before him had reached inside and run a cold tongue along his soul. It reminded him of someone scraping their fingernails down a chalk board, only the sensation was a hundred times worse. He looked around, wondering if he could throw up into the black sludge surrounding the boat without any of the viscous liquid splashing back on him -
"Don't you dare vomit!" barked Wes. "That'll dehydrate you, and we're on short rations for water already, even without Gigantor slowing us down."
Talbot swallowed back the bile rising in his throat and concentrated on settling his stomach. "What are you, Kharon?" he croaked, not looking at the Ferryman.
The Ferryman seemed to think about the question as he poled his craft methodically through the black, oily filth of the Styx.
"My race was here when the universe was born." His voice was deep and full of trapped emotion. "We are virtually immortal, and travelled through the many dimensions looking for one free from the torment of emotion or physical pain. Along the way many of my kind went their own way, choosing to follow paths separate to what the rest of us believed. Some came to your world, passing themselves off as beings of supernatural origin - which I suppose they were.
"Many of your stories about creatures of horrific nature can be linked back to some of the more renegade members of my kind," Kharon continued. "I believe they are known as such things as werewolves, vampires and other monsters. Opposing them are the more benevolent members of my race who believe we should not just take our sustenance without giving back. They have found a way to achieve what they require by feeding on the stronger emotions of humans. Love, happiness and caring feed them in much the same way as absorbing the physical substance fuels the others."
"So what are these guys, fucking angels or something?" asked Wes.
"Yes, I believe that is one thing they have been called. They aid humanity in order to feed on the joyful emanations they produce. It is a much more difficult way of feeding, and requires huge amounts of people, but they feel the effort required is worth the end result."
"Which is?" asked Talbot.
"Not killing the host, like our renegade brethren do," replied Kharon, the pole not missing a stroke. "And they avoid being hunted by your kind."
"What difference does that make if you're invulnerable?" asked Wes, his eyes narrowed. "How can our kind hunt you?"
"We can be hurt, even killed if the being hunting us knows how. The creature Cerberus is well versed in the destruction of my kind," said Kharon, his haunting eyes fixed ahead, unblinking. "Your people in particular are ingenious when it comes to killing. They found ways to hurt us you have thankfully not heard of."
"What? A wooden stake through the heart? Silver bullets?" asked Wes incredulously.
Kharon grinned humorlessly. "Nothing so simple, I'm afra
id. And before you ask, I'm not going to tell you," he said to Wes, whose expression abruptly dropped.
"The rest of my kind came here," continued Kharon, ignoring Wes's brooding look. "Here we found a world with life which did not require what you would consider murder. We developed a way - much as you have just witnessed - of absorbing a life force completely. This way the creature we absorbed did not die in the strictest sense of the word; rather it lives on within us."
"Still sounds like murder to me," muttered Wes. Talbot nudged him and gave a warning glance. It wouldn't do to upset the one creature in this realm that seemed to be helping them. He understood Wes's misgivings after Kharon had devoured Heracles, but their mission had a much larger goal. If they died trying to avenge someone who had given his life freely, they were even more foolish than if they trusted Kharon. At the moment they were heading the way they needed to, and that was enough for Talbot.
Kharon shrugged. "You eat meat. Would you not think it more merciful if that meat were not subjected to horrendous treatment before being consumed by you? Would not the joining of two beings, with you in control, seem much more blissful in comparison?"
Wes opened his mouth, but he had no response, and quickly shut it. What Kharon described was inarguable. Talbot moved to say something, but the skiff suddenly juddered as it skidded up onto shore. He'd been so entranced with the conversation, he'd forgotten to pay attention to their surroundings. They were now on the far bank of the river Styx, one step closer to Hades - and one step closer to what lay beyond Hades: Tartarus.
"I can go no further," said Kharon. "My duty to my liege is here, but from the memories of Heracles I know that the task ahead of you is momentous, so I leave you with this advice: When your path seems fractured, return to the beginning of your trail, and your answer will become clear once more."
Wes and Talbot sat in the beached skiff for a moment, absorbing the words and trying to discern their meaning.
