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- 10/25/2017
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Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
Rivers of the Dead - 34. 4-3 - Illumination
Light came from somewhere. It was one thing Caleb hadn’t reasoned out yet. There was no sun in The Underworld, yet there appeared to be a sky. Light radiated down from it, but the source was something beyond his understanding. At the moment, the sky’s color was muted, like at the horizon opposite the sun at dusk or dawn, and dark clouds hung overhead, obscuring most of it. Despite this, the Stygian water shone, reflecting what little light there was, making it seem as if they floated on a sea of obsidian.
Orpheus had remained strangely silent during the first leg of their voyage. Caleb risked a glance at him every now and then, and the psychopomp seemed strangely preoccupied, as if he was rehearsing what to say when he arrived at their destination. Charlie moved the boat along with quiet dedication, solemnly watching the waters and not the boat’s occupants. This left Caleb alone with his thoughts, and he caught himself staring into the dark waters around him.
The longer his thoughts wandered, however, the more he thought about why he’d come all this way. Ethan’s face appeared in his thoughts, not the face he’d beheld at the Cocytus, but his real flesh. Caleb could picture him wandering in the darkness before The Warden, looking for some sign of direction.
His wandering mind produced an image of Ethan's face in the black water, and Caleb spoke to it, calling out to it softly. “Ethan . . .” he whispered, caressing the name. He tasted the name, savoring it, thinking for a moment he could touch Ethan’s soul if he tried hard enough.
“I’m coming for you, Ethan . . .” Caleb said softly, letting the water pull at him. The waters seemed to suck him down, and Ethan’s face started to withdraw.
“Come back to me,” Caleb urged the image, but it was fleeing from him, sinking down into the depths where he could see it no longer. “Ethan, I’m coming for you!” Caleb shouted, willing the water to carry his message to his lover.
“What the hell are you going on about?” Orpheus asked. Caleb looked up to see Orpheus staring at him.
“Sorry,” Caleb muttered. “I must’ve been dreaming.”
Orpheus nodded in understanding. “Oh, did I neglect to mention—”
“Probably,” Caleb replied, grinning.
Orpheus rolled his eyes. “The Mnemosyne is stronger the deeper into the Underworld you travel. You’re probably seeing visions. They’ll be powered by the Styx as well, as the waters of the two rivers mix.”
“I still haven’t seen the Mnemosyne,” Caleb observed.
“And you likely won’t,” Orpheus said pointedly. “Unlike the others, it usually doesn’t manifest itself physically. It’s all around us. It’s in the air we breathe, should we choose to inhale it.”
Caleb nodded and changed the subject. “How long until we reach the seat of The Ruler?”
“How anxious are you to meet The Ruler?” Orpheus asked.
Caleb shrugged. “Pretty anxious.”
“Pretty long then,” Orpheus replied.
Caleb gestured out to the water and the ominous clouds hanging overhead. “This isn’t exactly my idea of a pleasurable vacation.”
“Do you fear the Styx, Caleb?” Orpheus asked, his head tilting to the side inquisitively. “Do you fear Hate itself?”
“Yes. I suppose I do,” Caleb answered honestly. “I’d rather we were floating on a river of Love.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Orpheus replied confidently.
“Why do you say that?” Caleb asked.
“Do you want to know what creates the rivers, Caleb?”
“Yes.”
“It’s the negative emotions of those who have died, leeched out of them,” Orpheus explained. “All the sadness that ever was bleeds out of the dead, creating the Acheron. All the despair creates the Cocytus. All the vitriol, the evil deeds, the pain and suffering humans seek to inflict upon each other, creates the Phlegethon. The Styx? It is created by all the Hate purged from souls as they commit their souls to oblivion. And you know why that happens?”
“Why?”
Orpheus reached down to let his hand run through the Styx, sifting through his fingers. “I don’t know, not for sure, but I have a theory. It happens so that when a new person is born, they are purged of all the evil within them, so that they reenter the world as a being of love and innocence.”
“Imagine then, if we were floating on a river of love, how the world would be?” Orpheus said, lifting his hand back out of the water. His fingers had been devoured to the bone, but his flesh regenerated over the next few seconds. “What if love were purged from the soul instead of hate? What kind of life would the living have, if all this Hate were let out into the world without Love to stop it, because Love flowed here? No, The Underworld is the province of Hate. We keep it, that the world need not suffer even more than it already has, but yet people still dig. They dig and they dig and they dig, eager to find the source of power which drives the soul. Some find the other rivers, but most find the Styx, because Hate is the most plentiful power source, even if Love can dispel it.”
Caleb let the words sink in as he reached out to the primal feeling he’d felt at the shore. He knew in his heart that Orpheus spoke the truth, as innately as he understood the need for humility. He let his gaze return to the water, and realized that he no longer feared it. Just as Orpheus had moments before, Caleb let his fingers glide into the water. He touched hate as he had never touched it before, but it was around him, not in him. Hatred of others, hatred of self, both concepts were one, and both were apart from him, yet they burned him on contact. He lifted his hand from the water, amazed to see that his flesh, too, had been destroyed. But, just as had happened to Orpheus, the flesh returned within seconds.
“What powers the Lethe?” Caleb asked, returning his hand to his naked thigh.
“Unrealized dreams and expectations. Disappointment. Fear. Stagnation and fear of change.” Orpheus looked up, his eyes hard. “Only those dissatisfied can feed her waters. It’s the desire to escape our reality, because it doesn’t match what we wish it to be. This is why even paradise becomes unbearable, when one endures it long enough.”
“And the Mnemosyne?” Caleb asked.
“Is powered by Madness,” Orpheus answered.
Caleb smiled slyly. “Which explains you, I suppose.”
“Yes. I guess it does,” Orpheus replied, chuckling. “Always questioning, always seeking, driving one's self mad with endless curiosity of mysteries beyond the mortal mind. The Mnemosyne is the great ‘Why’. Not why in the sense of despair, but in the sense of dread, of pure, existential terror.”
“And yet you drink from it,” Caleb observed.
“As deeply as I can, as often as I can,” Orpheus conceded with a nod. “It brings answers, though it always creates more questions. It never quite satisfies, but it’s the only thing which comes close.” He gave Caleb a knowing look. “You’ve tasted it, you know of its pleasures.”
“I have, and I can see how it would be intoxicating. But I d—” Caleb’s world became black, and he slumped forward into an unconscious stupor, cutting his words off in the process.
The last thing he heard before fading completely was Orpheus calling his name.
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Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
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