On the bank of the Styx,
The ground pulsed with glowing inscriptions, before a dark, swirling vortex appeared, and four figures were expelled from it one after another.
"Cough, cough..."
Accompanied by a bout of coughing, the unconscious Thetis gradually woke up, as she looked around at her surroundings, then turned her gaze to Lorne beside her, bewilderment rising in her eyes.
"The Cornucopia
(Horn of Abundance)?"
Hearing Thetis murmur the name, Lorne glanced past the golden bough in his hand and looked down.
There, resting quietly on the ground, was a curved ram's horn the color of gold, engraved all over with spell-script.
A dense, vibrant energy of life poured outward from it, driving back the death energy in the surrounding air.
Thetis stared at the horn, which looked very much like the genuine article, and could not hold back her next question.
"She gave it to you?"
"Apparently so."
Lorne nodded on instinct, then looking at the increasingly peculiar look spreading across Thetis's face and realizing she had almost certainly jumped to the wrong conclusion, he moved quickly to set the record straight.
"It is not what you are thinking.
She seems to have simply mistaken me for a relative of hers and expressed a hope that I would come spend time with her when I could."
As he spoke, Lorne told the sea goddess everything that had happened between him and Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, during the time Thetis had been unconscious, leaving nothing out.
The experiences they had shared, coming close to death more than once, had given him complete trust in this companion.
And besides, inside the queen's garden, Thetis had offered to stay behind as a hostage so that he could leave safely.
For every reason that mattered, there was nothing he should be concealing from Thetis.
Having heard Lorne's account,
Thetis furrowed her brow with a serious expression and offered her honest counsel.
"I also think Persephone's concerns are well-founded. You would be wise to keep your distance from that woman."
"If I had a choice, of course I would rather not get entangled with her. But what choice do I have?"
Lorne pointed at the Wheel of Hecate on his chest and gave a helpless, wry smile.
He could confirm by now that the goddess of the underworld moon, as the hidden hand pulling the strings, still had other aims entirely.
Even if he used the Possibility he had inherited to bring down Olympos, he might still not be the final victor.
More likely, he would end up as bait for the mantis once it had caught the cicada.
But at present, he had no way to free himself from Hecate's grip, nor the ability to shake Olympos to its foundations.
For now, he could only negotiate with the tiger for its skin and borrow strength against strength.
Still, this journey through the underworld had brought him a few considerable and unexpected gains.
The underworld was not a single unified block.
Hecate's hold over it was not nearly as thorough as he had imagined.
Persephone, too, harbored no small resentment toward her own godmother, born from the grief of losing a child.
And beyond that...
Lorne looked down at the Cornucopia in his palm, pouring out its rich, living energy, and felt a surge of heat in his eyes.
With this divine artifact of the harvest god in hand, he could not only move freely through the death-saturated underworld to visit his newly adopted mother figure, the queen of the underworld.
Even the path toward his Seventh Avatar seemed to have opened up before him.
All that, in exchange for a single sentence.
It seemed he would need to make more visits to the underworld in the future.
Of course, hollow flattery aimed at getting what he wanted would only earn the queen's contempt.
Only sincerity was the ultimate weapon.
And even though, he was not some pure-hearted person, from what he saw, that woman, it seemed, was genuinely worth that one word. Mother.
As he thought of the way Persephone had shielded and helped him, Lorne turned his head to glance at the flower garden wrapped in heavy clouds in the distance, and whispered under his breath.
'Do not worry. I will come back.'
The Cornucopia pulsed with living vitality. Sisyphus on the ground shook his dizzy head and came to, staring blankly around him.
"We made it out? Where are we?"
"The crossing of the Styx. Time to go home."
Lorne replied in a low voice, reached into his robe, and cast the golden bough Persephone had given him into the river.
Instantly, rings of golden ripples spread across the water, and a battered old ferry emerged from the dense grey mist with a splash and a creak.
"Charon!"
Catching sight of that bark-dry old face at the prow, creased with deep-cut lines, Sisyphus exploded with fury.
"So you have the nerve to show yourself! You sold us out just a moment ago and now here you are!"
"How was I supposed to know you had connections like that?"
Charon fished the golden bough out of the river, his own face wearing an aggrieved expression.
"If you had told me you had that great lady as your backer, none of this would have happened. Because of you, I was chased by Hypnos and even got a thorough beating..."
"What backer?"
Sisyphus blinked, opening his mouth on instinct to ask.
Lorne had no desire to reveal the nature of his relationship with Persephone.
He gave a dry cough and cut off Sisyphus's question cleanly.
"Less talking. Pay the man."
Faced with his overbearing companion, the thoroughly confused Sisyphus could only swallow his protests, pull a pouch of Zeus's gold from his robe, and toss it onto the boat.
The ferryman of the Styx caught a whiff of the powerful faith-energy saturating each gold coin and his expression brightened at once, as he waved them aboard with great enthusiasm.
This was the finest kind of thing, consecrated inside a great temple and blessed with night and day of prayers.
It would keep him well-fed for some time.
The people of Hellas feared death so deeply that even sleep, for its connection to death, was considered an ill omen.
As a result, the gods of the underworld, associated with death and suffering, received almost no offerings to speak of.
But things like these, carrying the vitality of life and pure, undiluted faith, were to the gods of the underworld what a craving is to an addict.
For Charon, who lacked a fixed divine domain, this was especially true.
This trip had not only earned him goodwill from the queen of the underworld herself, but had also landed him a fine haul of this premium offering to enjoy—a truly profitable deal!
The old and worldly ferryman immediately understood Lorne's meaning, wisely ceasing the conversation about the Queen and focusing entirely on punting the boat forward.
The ferry moved along the river without a single obstruction.
Before long, the four of them arrived at a certain boundary of the underworld.
Following the map's guidance,
Lorne signaled Charon to bring the boat to shore, then led the other three off the vessel.
To prevent this hidden passage from being exposed, he dismissed the ferryman without ceremony.
"That will do. You are no longer needed. Go back."
Charon took no offense.
The bark-dry creases of his old face rearranged themselves into something close to a fawning smile.
"Of course, of course. Safe travels to you all. Whenever you have need, simply stand at the crossing and call my name. I give you my word I will come at once!"
Watching Charon's abrupt shift to such a humble manner, Sisyphus's eyes lit up, and he stepped forward.
"Then I suppose that means we are square between us?"
"Square my foot! Thirty times over, you rotten scoundrel! I lost an entire boat because of you. You owe me more, not less! Otherwise, the next time I get my hands on you, I will tie you to a long pole and use you as a fishing float!"
The lean, wizened old figure wheeled on him immediately. He spat at Sisyphus's feet and bared his teeth with a threatening snarl, fierce divine pressure rolling off him in waves, his eyes burning with a ferocious light.
Sisyphus, struggling to breathe under the weight of it, nodded his head frantically like a pecking bird.
Only after he had watched Charon pole away into the distance did he dare turn toward the misty river and let loose.
"You miserable old fossil! What gives you the right! More money, more money, money my foot! Drop dead in that river with your coins one day, see if I care!"
"Are we moving or not?"
"Moving, moving! Old friend, wait for me! Scouting ahead is rough work, you should not be doing it, let me handle that!"
Hearing the impatient voice behind him, Sisyphus immediately switched to the same fawning expression Charon had been wearing moments before and scrambled frantically to catch up, terrified of being left behind by Lorne and Thetis.
He had no idea what was going on, but one thing was certain.
These two were the big legs to hold onto, and as long as he held on tightly, he was sure to make it out of the underworld alive.
After navigating by the map for a short while, the four arrived quickly at the entrance of the cavern.
"Woof?"
At the same moment, from deep within that mist-shrouded cavern, three enormous heads pushed forward, blinking eyes full of intelligence, staring with open curiosity at the four intruders who had shown up at their front door.
(End of Chapter)