Passage
“How long have we been travelling, Ferryman?”
The Ferryman answered, as ever. “The river is long and winding, child.”
How many times had she asked the same question? How many times had he given the same answer? Neither the Ferryman nor the river would say.
Elspeth moved the haft of her spear aside and shifted forward, the boat creaking a complaint as it rocked beneath her. She leaned over the bow to look into the serenely flowing water. A face peered back at her through the swirling emerald sheen of the river’s surface. It was a woman’s face. A curtain of dark hair tumbled from beneath her hood. A simple golden circlet framed a young face etched by toil. Elspeth looked into her eyes and the face softened, smiling in recognition. It was her own face. She had forgotten for a moment.
Little waves off the boat rippled and distorted her reflection. How easily the water warped the image and carried it away. How gently the river tumbled grains of silt, inch by inch, down the river where all things must go. How much had been washed away over the eons? To think of it. Elspeth smiled again.
The boat was now slowly passing a ring of crumbling sculptures standing half-steeped in the mud of the near shore. “Ferryman, who were the statues meant to be?” Their faces, pale white smudges in the murk, had been crudely shorn, their top halves missing. The remaining features were worn smooth.
“Who can say?” the Ferryman replied. “They sought to etch the memory of their life in the stone. But it is the nature of both memory and stone to wear away.”
The boat passed closer, and Elspeth eyed the nearest statue. Whatever skill its artist possessed was largely hidden now, the details completely smoothed over. Elspeth couldn’t even tell if the figure was intended to be a man or a woman. Yet she could see the regal pride in the figure’s posture, chest puffed, neck tall, one knee thrust forward into the mud. Her gaze followed the statue’s arm down to its amorphous hand resting on the hilt of a stone sword. At this her brow furrowed, and she turned to regard the pieces of her own broken weapon, the spear.
“Foolishness,” said Elspeth.
“To cling to memory? Yes,” replied the Ferryman.
“To cling to war.” Elspeth held the fragments of the spear. Felt the weight of dead metal. Felt the familiar grain of the oak rasping against her grip. She turned to address the Ferryman. Tall and gaunt, he slowly but tirelessly urged the boat forward with a gnarled staff. With each stroke of the staff, the shadows of his tattered robes seemed to fill with twinkling starstuff. A long shroud completely covered his face, yet Elspeth could feel his gaze meeting hers.
“Is it true,” she asked him, “That the river will carry away every memory?”
“What memory could be strong enough to survive its passage?” he answered.
She smiled. “Good. I surrender them willingly.” Meeting his sightless gaze, she held the pieces of the spear over the edge of the boat and dropped them into the river. With hardly a splash they vanished into the murk. “Let the river take them all.”
Time passed. It coursed by patiently, quietly, relentlessly, swirling in gentle eddies. Elspeth asked her questions. The Ferryman would answer. She would forget and ask again. He would answer. Patiently.
The memories were fading. Elspeth could feel them going. There was a woman whose name was Mother. Elspeth remembered her kindness but not her words anymore. In her mind’s eye, Mother’s face was worn smooth, carelines dissolved away into peaceful nothing.
But there was something. The memory hadn’t dissolved completely. Mother had held a strip of white cloth that day, stained with red (so bright in the morning light!). There were sounds. Elspeth could hear them, clearly. Screaming metal. Liquid splash. Ripping.
Elspeth’s head snapped up as she gasped. Had she been dreaming? Were dreams even possible in this place? Had it been real? Behind her the Ferryman stirred, but she hardly noticed.
She cast her eyes out wildly across the banks of the river. She swore she could hear something out there. It had felt so real. Was it the memory? That couldn’t be, the memories were supposed to fade. And then she saw—pale figures in the mist.
“Ferryman, who are they?” Her voice was urgent.
The Ferryman’s reply was as calm as ever. “They are those that were before.” But there was something different. A smile in the Ferryman’s voice.
Elspeth peered into the fog, and as the boat neared, the mist parted revealing statues once again. Many statues. An army of statues, stretching out into the bleak country beyond the shore. The tops of their heads were once again removed, but otherwise, unlike before, they were pristine.
They were soldiers, locked in combat, weapons in hand, piercing, falling. They were children, fleeing, screaming, bewildered at the madness around them. They were mothers, fathers, grasping, pleading. They were corpses, fallen, torn, vacant. They were monsters, ripping, tearing, feasting. The green light of the river reflected off of the polished surfaces of their stone flesh. Every vein, every hair, every bead of sweat and blood. They looked painfully real. Elspeth remembered them all. Each one she had once seen with her waking eyes. These were scenes from her life.
The half-headed sculptures seemed to smile at her.
“Ferryman, what is this?” Elspeth shouted. She turned to face him.
With glee, the Ferryman answered, “Elspeth, what memories could be strong enough to survive the passage of the river?”
Elspeth’s eyes bulged. “Who are you?” She lunged forward and tore the shroud from his face.
The tattered cloth seemed to fall slowly, as though through water. Beneath it, pale gray untouched skin. Blue lips curling into a thin smile. There were no eyes, no nose. The upper half of the pretender’s face dissolved away into inky black smoke, coalescing into jagged obsidian horns that framed nothingness where a face should have been.
Elspeth looked into the smoke billowing out from the faceless nothing. She clenched her fists. “I have heard of you, Ashiok.”
“And I have learned much of you, Elspeth, chosen of the Sun.” It was not one voice, now, but a chorus, echoing up through that maddening void.
Elspeth spat at the name of the Sun. “I do not serve him anymore. What is this place?”
Ashiok’s blackened talons still grasped the Ferryman’s gnarled staff. They made a wide sweeping gesture with it to the faintly glowing river and the desolation beyond. “It is precisely what you believe it is. The Underworld.”
“And where are you taking me?”
“The Sun God has employed me to deliver you to your nightmare.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Elspeth turned and dove from the side of the boat into the river. The cold of the water pierced her like a blade. Beneath the surface Elspeth let out a choked scream as the memory of her death returned. Her chest filled with the searing frigid pain of the spear once again. She had given everything for the Sun and for his people. In recompense, he had killed her. And apparently he wasn’t done.
Elspeth emerged onto the bank, chill steam boiling off of her. As she rose, maddeningly, Ashiok stood before her, amidst the faceless statues. Elspeth rose to her feet.
“I do not fear you.”
“I know.”
“I will fight you.”
“I know this too.”
Elspeth charged forward, reaching out her hands for her captor. Ashiok raised the staff to ward off the blow, and Elspeth instantly seized it, wrenching it easily from them. The black smoke rolled like a waterfall from Ashiok as they fell to the ground, laughing. Elspeth raised the staff to strike, and something stopped her.
She turned, and saw a half-headed statue of her mother, billowing nightmarish fumes, stone hand stopping the staff. “Elspeth, help me.”
Elspeth staggered back from her. All around, statues cracked into motion, thick black smoke pouring from them. There were hundreds. “Please. Elspeth. Help us. Gods, please.”
“No,” whispered Elspeth. “I can’t anymore. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. There’s nothing left.” She crawled back away from them, her hands sinking into the mud. They towered above her, faceless, reaching for her. She shook her head. She couldn’t breathe. Everything seemed to stop.
Then the monsters awoke. Stone behemoths cracked and stretched their mouths, polished teeth glistening. The figures of her friends, her family, her blood, began to scream in terror.
There was no thought. Elspeth planted the staff into the ground and pulled herself up with it. All doubt vanished. She charged forward once more, rushing to put herself between the monsters and her people. A shout of defiance sounded above the din of the creatures cracking to life. She planted a foot on a fallen pillar and leapt, thrusting the staff forward to strike the nearest beast.
In her grip, the staff warped and layers of it evaporated to twisting black smoke, reforming itself in her grasp. She pierced the horror through the back of its throat. Instantly it crumbled to dust. A deep hush fell like snow over the desolation as all the statues noiselessly dissolved.
Elspeth stood alone. In her hands was her spear, reforged from nightmare.
From the black mist, Ashiok calmly emerged.
“Why are you doing this?” Elspeth asked, voice shaking.
“I am only obeying my nature. As must you.” Ashiok reached out a single talon and parted the black mist like a curtain. Sunlight, blindingly bright, poured from the gap. “I could no more easily cast aside my nature than you could cast aside your spear.”
Elspeth looked at the weapon in her hand. It felt familiar. She hated it.
From the other side of the portal, she heard the sounds of battle. Cries of the innocent. Her work was not over.
“How many times have we done this? How many more?” she asked.
As she walked through the portal, Ashiok smiled. “The river is long and winding, child.”
written by Volfmyr