The Immortal Game (book 1) (29 page)

“Lucky for us he has a good nose,” she laughed, still giddy from adrenaline and from not being dead. “You might want to brush up on your piping skills.”

Ares smirked. “I’ve never been musical. Who would have thought it was that hard?”

They could joke, but only because Athena had, either through foresight or luck, managed to distract Cerberus with her baking. They would miss the food, but Ruby had Artemis’s bow and Ares had his sword. They still had several skins of water, Eros’s torch, the winged sandals, and Pan’s pipes. The coins were gone, either eaten by the giant dog or lost, but she and Ares were already across the river. They had already paid Charon.

Ares handed her one of the skins of water. “Don’t drink too much. We need to ration it.”

She took small sips of the water and looked around Hades proper. They were in a space so large she couldn’t call it a cavern. The ambient light was brighter here and it was a little warmer, almost sunny feeling. The dark grey walls were far away from the gate, she could barely make them out. One wall, opposite the Adamantine Gate, was darker than the others.

“Hades’s Palace,” Ares explained when she asked.

In the massive space between the gate and the palace, shades wandered around, standing and talking, or sitting on stone benches. Many held small plates piled with food. It reminded Ruby of a garden party, but with millions of guests. Ares was right. It wasn’t scary. The dead seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Ares put the water skin in his pack and slung it on his back.

Ruby did the same with her quiver of arrows and her bow.

As they walked into the crowd she saw shades playing lawn games and heard groups of people laughing. The shades were dressed in clothes from throughout time. She wished there was time to sit with some of these people and ask them about their lives. She caught snippets of conversation, but Ares was moving too fast for her to catch more than a few words.

“How can I understand what everyone is saying?” she asked.

“There’s only one language in the immortal realms. It sounds like the language you already know, or the one you prefer the most. Even on Olympus the gods can choose to hear a different language than the one you’re speaking.”

Ruby was stunned. She had never heard that before. “What language do you hear?”

“English,” he said. “Well, at least since I’ve known you.”

She smiled, though Ares was ahead of her and couldn’t see.

She scanned the nearby crowds. “Where’s John?”

“He stopped at the first buffet table we passed.”

She glanced to where a group of shades was huddled around a long table of food. She didn’t see him there, but buffet tables in Hades were like raindrops in Portland—there were plenty.

“What now?” she asked, focusing again on their task.

“We find Persephone,” he said, as though it were the easiest thing in the world.

Beyond the large swaths of shades milling about, Ruby saw green fields covered in yellow and white flowers, and farther on there were trees. The air wasn’t as sweet-smelling as on Olympus, but it was pleasant, like grass and late-afternoon rain.

Ares moved into the crowd. Many shades had special items from the upper world: ceremonial weaponry, fishing rods, musical instruments. One woman cradled a ceramic pig in her arms. Ruby’s bow and arrows and Ares’s sword did not stand out.

“Is this it?” she asked. “Is this all of Hades?”

“We’re in the Fields of Asphodel, where most shades spend their eternity.”

“The righteous go to The Elysian Plains and the evil shades go to Tartarus,” she said, to remind herself of what Ares had told her as they walked down to the Underworld.

“Will I see my father or my mother?” she asked, at the same moment she thought it. Fear gripped her, followed by a deep longing to see them. She could meet her mother!

Ares turned to face her. He was silent and looked from her to the crowd and back again. “They’re here,” he finally said. “But they won’t know that you are. Shades sense when a family member dies, they feel it. But you haven’t died, so they won’t know.”

She tensed and scanned the crowd. They could be right in front of her.

“Your father was a war hero. He undoubtedly went on to the Elysian Plains. He would have had the option of taking your mother with him. If he didn’t, and she’s here, you will need to avoid her. If she sees you, she’ll know you’re mortal.”

To her surprise Ruby felt relief. She missed her father, and she wanted to know her mother, but not like this. Not here. Not now.

They passed small gardens as they walked, filled with daffodils, fragrant lilies. She looked to the far wall again, now closer. Unlike the three dark grey walls of Hades that she thought were granite, the far wall was black and shiny, like cut glass. Two huge flags hung off the top, near the rocky ceiling. One was black and fully raised. The other was white and stood at half-staff. Both hung limp in the windless air.

“Why the flags?” she asked.

“Black for Hades. White for Persephone,” he said over his shoulder. “Persephone’s flag stays at half-staff for the part of the year that she is on Olympus.”

“Do the shades think she’s gone to Olympus?” Ruby asked and glanced again at the half-lowered flag.

“Let’s find out.” He approached a large group of men sitting in faded recliners arranged in a loose semi-circle around a man and a boy throwing a football between them. The man throwing looked like he was in his late sixties or early seventies. The boy had close-cropped blond hair and was about ten or twelve. They both wore blue football jerseys with a horseshoe on the front. They were the same number, nineteen.

The men in recliners watched and talked. The youngest looked like he might be forty. The oldest was at least in his eighties. They were all eating chips and drinking beer.
Guy heaven
.

“… Sully tackled the wrong guy,” one of the men said. The group erupted in laughter.

Ares smiled, as though he was part of the joke. There was a pause when the laughter died down. “Where’s Persephone?” he casually asked. “I just got here and I want to see a real goddess.”

All heads swung his way and the football landed in the tall man’s hands with a thwack. A brawny man dressed in a kilt, with a soccer ball in his lap, spoke up. “She’s gone, man,” he said in a thick Scottish accent. “Disappeared. No one knows.”

Ruby heard the blood rush loud in her ears. Had Hades hidden her somewhere else? Had they spent all this time getting here only to find out that she wasn’t even in the Underworld?

“Hades is holed up in his palace, heartsick,” the big football thrower said. Ruby looked from one number nineteen to the other, the little boy. His eyes were downcast, as though he felt pity for the god of the underworld.

“Oh,” Ares said in a disappointed tone. “Well, thanks.”

He walked away and Ruby followed behind. “She’s not here?”

“I’m surprised they know she’s gone. I don’t think they could tell if she’s still in the Underworld or not. They only know what Hades tells them.”

“So, how do we find her?” Ruby scanned the crowd.

“We ask him,” Ares said, his voice stony.

“Who?” she asked tentatively, afraid she already knew the answer.

“Hades. He knows where she is.”

Ruby recognized that hard look of determination in his eyes. He was heading to that place where there was no stopping him. In this context it scared her. He turned from her and headed in a straight line toward Hades’s palace.

As they got closer Ruby could make out the features of the palace: spires, balconies, and parapets. It looked like the front of a medieval castle, but instead of layered bricks it was carved glass. There was one wide arched entrance in the face of the enormous black building.

She heard the murmur of moving water mix with the chatter of the shades around them. A river came into view. The river was not wide like the Styx. She could throw a stone across it. The water seemed normal. It was clear and not thick. There was a footbridge up the bank that led to the palace entrance. Ares headed for it.

“Wait.”

“What?” He blinked when he looked at her, as if just now remembering that she was with him.

“What are we going to do once we cross over that bridge? What are we going to do when we see Hades? What is our
plan
?”

“I don’t know.” He looked around. “We get him to hand over Persephone.”

“I know that sort of thing works for you,” she said. “But I need to know why we’re crossing this bridge. What’s over there? What’s inside the palace? Cerberus’s puppies? Or worse?”

“I don’t know what’s in the palace.” He took her hand. His strength and courage flowed into her. “I trust my instincts.”

She nodded.

The palace was no more than twenty feet before them. Ruby looked up, but from this perspective the top of the palace was lost to infinity. She could barely see the two flags jutting out, black and white.

Shades crossed over the short bridge with them. They didn’t mill around, like in the garden party, but went right into the palace with determination in their serious eyes. She was heartened by their lack of fear, but then she remembered that the dead had much less to worry about in this place than she did.

As if to punctuate the thought a scream came from beyond the arched entrance. Ruby’s eyes flew to Ares. He scanned the area, his hand halfway to his sword. Ruby’s heart beat wildly and her stomach tensed. She thought of the Brigand, and her bow. She reached for it, but Ares put a hand out to stop her.

He relaxed his stance and nodded to the shades around them. None of them had so much as looked up at the sound.

“What was it?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

They walked toward the entrance behind a line of shades. Ruby stopped at the black wall of the palace and touched its cool surface. Now that she was closer she could see that it was slightly rippled. Not glass. Obsidian.

She pictured Hades, thin and gaunt, his black hair greasy. He was the guy you didn’t want to share a seat with on the bus, the one that made you want to cross the street when you saw him coming. She felt sorry for Persephone, living in a black palace against her will with Hades for a husband and screams of terror ringing in the air. If they didn’t have to save Persephone for the world and for themselves, surely they had to save her for her own sake.

Ares and Ruby passed through the archway and found themselves in a courtyard. In the middle sat three men on a dais, each in an ornate golden chair. A long line of shades stood before them, waiting.

Ruby was confused. Where were the torture devices, the monsters? Where was the source of the screams?
Where was Hades
?

She looked at the three men on their stage. The one in the middle sat in a chair raised higher above the others. He was older too, with gray hair, and deep lines drawn down with the loose skin of his face. He wore a large gold crown on his head.

The man to his right was handsome and vibrant-looking with black hair and a trimmed beard. He too wore a crown, an unadorned thin circlet of gold.

The last man’s crown was platinum, like his hair. His was ornate, etched with scrolls and vines. His elbows rested on the arms of his chair. It was a throne, Ruby realized.

“Didn’t I tell you I’d go to the gates of hell for you?” Ares said. It sounded like a joke, but his tone was grim.

“Didn’t we pass the gate to hell a while back?” Her retort was hollow in her ears. Whatever this place was, it was serious.

“That’s it.” He nodded beyond the men. “That’s the gate to Tartarus.”

A black iron door was set into the obsidian at the back of the courtyard. There was a gruesome sculpture of a hanged man on its front. The man’s head was nearly detached from his body by the noose he dangled from. The pain was evident on his face even from this distance. Iron crows pecked at his body from all directions. Metal rats chewed at his metal toes.

Ruby could now easily tell Hephaestus’s work. She was fascinated by his ability to turn iron into something so grisly it made you feel sorry for the metal itself.

On the right side of the same wall was a gate opposite the entrance to Tartarus in every way. This one was golden, carved with a man in armor, a shield in one hand and a sword in the other. Rays of light emanated from him, golden threads stretching to the edges of the door. The soldier looked as though he might jump from the gate and rush into battle in all his golden glory.

There was an open corridor in the middle, between the two gates. Through it Ruby saw the same light that permeated all of Hades and more of the black palace walls.

“Where are we?” she whispered to Ares.

“This is where shades are judged. The three kings decide. The golden gate leads to the Elysian Plains. The black gate leads to Tartarus.”

Now she understood the screams. They weren’t the sounds of people being tortured or threatened. They were the sounds of people hearing their own eternal fate. The sound of souls being condemned to hell.

“The kings were alive once,” Ares said. “The sons of Zeus and mortal women. Rulers of ancient cities long ago destroyed.” He nodded at the black-haired king on the left, “Rhadamanthus.” He motioned to the blond king on the right, “Aeacus.” Lastly he pointed to the king in the middle. “Minos, though I’ve heard that most shades call him St. Peter; a reference from newer times.”

Ruby smiled at the joke. “They’re your brothers?” she asked, surprised to find yet another branch in his gnarled family tree.

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “I guess.”

A black man wearing a dark suit and holding a bible stood before the three kings. He looked back and forth between them. This obviously wasn’t what he had expected. The kings looked at him for a quiet minute. The man stood straight and tall.

First the dark-haired king, Rhadamanthus, spoke in a voice that didn’t carry beyond the group of waiting shades. “A good man. A shepherd of the people. A fighter for rights.”

Aeacus nodded in agreement. His decorative crown dipped with the movement. “True to his convictions. Fearless.”

Minos, the raised king in the middle, St. Peter, spoke last. “Elysian Plains.”