louisehourcade TUChapter 2. Ferryman
TUChapter 2. Ferryman
TU2. Ferryman
The absence of light obscured her vision, but as the gathering orbs pooled together, their faint luminescence revealed a small slope resembling a shoreline.
There! Aurora quickened her pace. The patterns of the dead grew even more erratic; some rolled mindlessly into the river, while other orbs queued along the bank of the vast waterway.
She stood about a dozen strides from the shoreline, her awed gaze studying the ripples of the ebbing and flowing waves. The sluggish liquid appeared ethereal and translucent, its sparkling light mimicking a night sky — something the underworld supposedly never possessed.
Upon closer inspection, the crested edges of the waves gleamed and contorted into strange, ominous shapes. Horrified faces warped by deep-seated hatred.
Even in the absence of ambient sound, their screams of agony and malice echoed through the centre of her mind. Some sort of telepathy or soul-to-soul communication, she deduced.
Aurora’s boots scraped against the thick sand. "How awful… how pitiful," she remarked.
It must be the river of hatred, the Styx.
To her understanding, these were the souls who had decided to join the Styx, becoming one with the tormenting waves. It was likely a manifestation of falling into another layer of reality, stripping them of their senses of selves. It was the true essence of non-existence, returning to the primordial chaos. The origin.
But what of the waiting orbs? They were eager to form a line, however ununiform, assembling into a state of waiting. These souls must have retained some sheer will to live. No, not to live. To exist, even after their overworld bodies had perished and turned to ash. Their will remained, continuing into the underworld.
A sudden realisation struck her. Aurora must have sent many of them here during her battles and conquests. Could some of the enemies she had defeated be here? Or had they already decided to rejoin the river, forever dissolving into chaos? That was a daunting thought she didn’t need right now. Before her mind could spiral further out of control, a tightness gripped her chest, causing a hitch in her passive Iasis. She knew a cosmic weight demanded her attention.
A black feather, emitting a simmering spark, floated into her peripheral vision.
How? How could one define physics here? Aurora gasped. Her shoulders tensed, and she immediately shifted into a defensive stance.
A divine figure, tall and graceful, descended from above. His feet flared, drilling through the air with a tar-like mist. His black wings spread behind him, majestic and wild.
The god wore an intricate black cloak bearing an ancient design Aurora had never seen across any of the seven continents, the work of a lost mastercraft artisan. His long, meticulous face was partially obstructed by a golden upper mask resembling a skull.
"Welcome to the Forsaken Shore, Astral Empress of mortal kind, the Pinnacle of Arcana, the Wielder of Thanatos," the being announced. His timbre was rich, his tone unnervingly calm as his feet touched down onto the beach. The imprints of his boots burst into purple flames, creating a trailing path as he drifted closer, his wings gathering like a prideful crown.
"I…" Aurora’s words failed her tongue. "I thought you were just an essence… or an echo of the god, Thanatos."
A devilishly handsome smile graced his visible features. "Echo or not, I am the god of death, the embodiment of all demise. The universe dictated that I am the word that brings the end of all words, just as Allmother Gaia is the word that brings the beginning of all lives."
His wavy dark hair peeked out from beneath his hood, drifting despite the absolute absence of wind.
Aurora narrowed her eyes, partially blinded by scepticism. She couldn't wrap her head around all this metaphysical talk; there was no subjective truth from which to draw a solid conclusion. Perhaps there never was one to begin with. This was far from her domain, and it wasn’t her reality. But one thing was certain. This Thanatos surely loved to monologue. She decided to let him spout a little more to learn her groundings.
"...Still, I am the very one you have been wielding for centuries."
"Very well, Thanatos… Does this mean you are still my ally?" Aurora asked, her tone more rigid than she intended. Her brow twitched slightly at the uncertainty.
Standing almost two metres tall in all his glory, Thanatos conceded. "Of course." He bent forward, bringing his face to her eye level. "You seem unfazed by my true manifestation," he noted, sounding genuinely surprised.
"Well, you don't appear to be as hideous as they depicted you in the paintings of the Renaissance."
"Bah," Thanatos groaned in displeasure. He flicked his wrist in the air in a dismissive gesture, a golden ring clicking and chiming with the movement.
"You actually appear quite youthful and gorgeous, even underneath that mask of yours."
"Hmm… Must you speak so highly of me?" The god was clearly flattered, pinching his angular chin.
Aurora frowned at how lifelike the god was. It became clear to her that Gaia truly did create mortal kind in the afterimages of the divine entities. Animori for their shapeshifting abilities, humans for their appearance and likeness, and elves for their luscious, everlasting lives.
Each race represented and captured a specific aspect of the gods. By Gaia’s design, no singular mortal kind could possess every aspect, preventing them from becoming gods themselves.
Seeing Thanatos’s gaze grow distant as he stared into the endless river, Aurora cleared her throat. "So—Thanatos, pray tell, where are we?"
"Have I not told you already? This is the Forsaken Shore, the first bedrock where the souls of the dead fall dimensionally and sediment." He gestured his palm at the relentless souls crowding the riverbank, stretching far and wide.
"Hmm," Aurora hummed softly, analysing his words. "Then my initial thought was correct. This is the River Styx?"
"Yes, the river that separates those with will from those who have lost it," Thanatos explained in a low, smooth tone, gesturing to the souls that plunged themselves into the waves and disappeared.
"Then how do we proceed from here?" Aurora asked.
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A low, rich chuckle escaped Thanatos’s lips.
A sudden heat and a disturbance in the thin air drew her attention. Like a miniature sun, a cross-shaped light flashed at the edge of the horizon. For the first time, a glowing light illuminated the deep purple clouds, painting a curtain of beautiful, dancing light across the sky.
"Like the aurora… No pun intended." Thanatos murmured in awe, absorbing the spectacular scene. "
From the middle of the blinding whiteness, the shadow of a massive battlecruiser drifted into view, its rumbling engines echoing into the vast cavernous space.
"Incredible…" Aurora’s jaw dropped at the flying monstrosity.
The ferry was no wooden boat guided by a simple oar. It was far more advanced. The gothic vessel, roughly the size of a small battlecruiser in the Overworld, hovered in the air. Its massive thrusters flared red, creating streaks of light and plumes of exhaust. The longitudinal section of the hull was dotted with multiple artilleries, their nozzles sticking out from rows of armoured windows.
It made no sense to her how this thing managed to thrust its ten thousand tonnes of weight into the air.
As the battlecruiser initiated its landing protocol, its flank parked right at the edge of the shore. A ten-metre hatch door hissed open, metal mechanisms grinding as it lowered. Blinding light escaped from the chamber within.
"Charon isn't a ferryman with a stick?" Aurora asked, unable to pry her eyes from the lowering metallic hull.
"Heheh… You really need to update your mythology," Thanatos chuckled. "Aeons ago, you would be correct. But now, with millions of souls flushing into the underworld daily, the demand for passage to the Stygian Marsh has become exceedingly high."
"Even in death, we can’t fully escape economic laws, can we?" she smiled.
"Absolutely," Thanatos nodded.
With a massive clank, the metallic gangplank slammed down, kicking up dust into the low atmosphere. A female figure with a tail cast a long, distorted shadow as she limped into the centre of the ramp.
"Greetings, passing souls!" a vibrant female voice boomed.
Aurora could clearly see her wagging tail and perked ears.
"It’s time to board the ship! Make sure you have your coins ready!"
The overly enthusiastic tone threw Aurora off balance. She certainly didn't expect a cheetah Wildren with a vivacious personality to be the fearsome Charon. The girl wore simple, modest clothing — a white chiton dress accented with silver accessories. Her amber eyes shone as vibrantly as the afternoon sun.
"I guess my knowledge of mythos truly does need some updating," Aurora sighed to herself, to which Thanatos chuckled with amusement.
The waiting souls began to board the battlecruiser in two barely uniform rows. Strangely enough, as they crossed the threshold of the entrance, their orb-like forms materialised into translucent, humanoid figures clad in the clothes they died in. Each one seemed to have a coin materialise in their hand to give to the jovial attendant.
"I have some coin," Aurora said. She presented a solid gold piece etched with her glorious image, a coveted denomination of the Osten Empire worth a hundred thousand credits.
"Empress… your mortal currency holds no value here."
Aurora frowned. "Then what are those?"
"Their experience, knowledge, and labour. Those are the true commodities of the Underworld," Thanatos lectured casually.
Their gloomy, buzzing murmurs disappeared as the dead stepped inside. The noise grew louder as Aurora reached her turn in the line. Behind her, Thanatos decided to levitate to avoid blistering the ground into purple flames in his tracks. It was an annoying side effect of his power. Aurora hypothesised that death was simply designed to leave its mark everywhere it went.
"Oh~Oh!" The cheetah girl gasped, taking in Aurora’s gleaming armour and her Ventiff’s cloak. "Wait… You are not dead!"
Aurora eyed Thanatos, giving him a flat look that screamed, What now?
"Whaa!" A shriek escaped the Wildren's throat. "You~you~you—" she stammered, staring up at the towering god, her lips flapping up and down without sound.
"Ah. It is my absolute honour to board such a lavish and gorgeous ferry," Thanatos said in a serene tone, nodding slightly.
"The God of Death! My~my~my lord!" the girl stuttered, dropping to her knees immediately. Her dirty blonde ears lay flat against her head in pure submission.
"Shall we go?" Thanatos cocked his head toward Aurora, flashing a victorious smile.
Just as Aurora was about to take a step onto the deck—
"A~apologies, my lord, but I can’t let your living companion embark onto this ferry!" the attendant snapped loudly, fully expecting her head to soon find itself separated from her neck. But rules were rules, and she couldn't break them.
"Why not? Just this once?" Thanatos cajoled; there was a dark charm in the way he said it.
"It’s forbidden, my lord! Forbidden!" she repeated, her voice strained with desperation.
"Hear me, Charon," Aurora uttered, her tone firm and authoritative.
"Charon?" The cheetah Wildren looked confused, tilting her head.
Aurora continued, "I must cross over to the Stygian Marsh and onward to the realm of the dark, Erebus, where the Temple of Hades is located. It is heaven's will that I have an audience with your lord, the Lord of the Underworld."
Waving her hands frantically, the cheetah Wildren didn’t seem willing to concede. Loud noises and murmurs of distress began to ring out from the bottlenecked entrance, rising in volume until the sharp crack of a staff's butt erupting against the metal deck silenced everyone in place.
"Well," a white-bearded man in stylish clothing cleared his throat. "What is the commotion, Tachyon?"
His voice carried the dignified roar of power, spooking the cheetah girl so badly she jumped like a startled house kitten.
"Charon!" Tachyon bolted to his feet, hands clasping together in a begging motion. "It’s Lord Thanatos and his living companion, sir!"
The old man’s golden eyes fixated on Aurora’s silver gaze with intense scrutiny. His long staff tapped rhythmically against the metal deck as he strode closer.
"I figured… This Tachyon girl could not be Charon," Aurora mumbled to herself, stepping toward the man. Her movements were just as unyielding as his gaze. The tension in the atmosphere rose up to the ceiling of the deck, pressing down like a suffocating, ethereal weight.
After a full minute of staring, the man was the first to break contact. He sighed. "Charon is nothing but a title. A long time ago, I was called Aeacus, and this is my stewardess, Tachyon."
He introduced them with a respectful hand gesture. He wore a light blue uniform topped with a dark, pull-down hood. It was stylish, yet ancient. The three-metre staff in his hand was etched with Hellenic glyphs that glowed, letting out a soft arcane chime. Aurora quickly deduced that this staff used to be the original paddling oar.
"I'm not a stewardess!" Tachyon snapped softly, her eyes darting wildly. "I'm the chief engineer of this ferry!"
Tachyon. The particle that challenged the speed of light? Aurora squinted at the poor girl’s limping legs. With those severe, slit-like scars across both of her thighs, Tachyon couldn't even run faster than an average human. Such irony.
"Very well. I am Aurora Vere Borealis," Aurora announced, displaying the more civil side of her diplomacy. She was still new to this realm; it was best to play along and observe the natives. She wasn't sure if these people were hostile toward her or if they already knew the reason for her arrival.
But the wicked grin that slowly formed on Aeacus’s face told her that the old man knew far more than he let on.
"I know exactly who you are, Empress…" Charon Aeacus’s gaze drifted to Thanatos, “My Lord of Death.” He bowed in deep reverence.
In her peripheral vision, Aurora could see Thanatos puffing up his chest with swelling pride. He was much more revered here than he ever was as a sword in her palm.
As Aeacus slowly raised his head, he glanced at the piling orbs at the entrance. "Tachyon, continue with the admissions." He then turned back to Aurora. "Empress, if you may, please allow me to invite you to the captain's deck for a more private discussion."
"It is my pleasure, Charon," Aurora nodded, adjusting her cloak so it cascaded properly behind her.
With a final tap of his staff, Aeacus led them past the vast hall, which was already filling with the souls of the dead loitering around, eagerly awaiting the battlecruiser to transport them to the other side of the river.