Chapter 16

~~Medusa~~

Never in a million years did she expect to be looking at the face of Poseidon once more.

She stared down at the struggling god, at his handsome face. He looked like an older man, but one with all the qualities of attraction, of a man who was powerful and confident, still virile with a touch of age on his face and hair. Tall and broad-shouldered like his brothers too, muscular, with gray hair lined with bits of black and white.

Black lightning continued to erupt around them, even as the shaking ground split and ruptured. More of the black rock beneath the underworld bore up through the cavern floor, cut through it, shattered stalagmites and the buildings they supported. The great hanging braziers of blue frame crashed into the ground, and only upon their landing did Medusa realize how massive their were; each brazier was the size of a home, and each rolled or shattered with the impact to cast the remains of blue fire and black soot upon the rocks.

She looked at Hades, Zeus, and Darian. Her love was shaking with rage, the way he had so long ago when he’d sunk his shield into a tree. He was crushing Zeus underfoot, while Hades struggled with invisible forces, the same as Poseidon did before her. And as the three gods suffered, the black lightning continued to crash down around them from the growing clouds of obsidian overhead. Hera, Demeter, and Hestia cried out threats and battle roars, but the great goddesses could not approach as a torrent of force ripped outward from Darian, shredded the stone floor around him, and split open the skin of the gods. More liquid silver gushed over the rocks. Darian’s outburst ... no, Moros’s outburst left Otrera and Medusa unharmed, untouched, despite standing only several feet away from him. The black lightning crashed around them, split the rocks beneath them, and sent shards across the cavern for miles in all directions, but none of it struck the two women.

She had a moment then, to look into the eyes of the thing who had raped her.

“Poseidon,” she said.

In the chaos of it all, her soft voice didn’t make it past her own ears. Or at least she figured, but Poseidon managed to open his eyes and look at her. And he looked at her with a moment’s panic, a moment’s snarl, a moment’s lust, and a moment’s recollection, before pain took him once more.

For a second, she smiled. He deserved pain. To use her so, to violate her so, to abuse her faithfulness to the gods, to abuse her naivety and innocence, to abuse her ... abuse her at all! He deserved punishment.

But, as Poseidon groaned with the agony of whatever Darian was doing to him, as he cried out when the lightning burned his flesh and invisible forces tore his skin, her hate melted away. She couldn’t hold onto it anymore. A hundred years she lived with it, tried to hold onto it, to use it as some sort of anchor; but she’d cut that rope a long time ago.

It wasn’t an anchor, it was a noose.

The sight of the man, god, screaming in torment as Moros did ... whatever it was he was doing to them, made her insides flip. Just like the men she killed in self defense, seeing them die filled her with the same gut wrenching pain, the same cold chill that went into her tail. Into her toes this time, but it was still the same, the same disgust. No satisfaction, none of that warm glow she’d once imagined revenge would give her, so long ago. Just abhorrence and sadness.

She shook her head, and looked over at Darian again. He was grinding his heel down against Zeus’s chest, and the god was coughing up silver over his lips between gargled screams.

“How dare your kind think it acceptable to rape, murder, or judge us? I don’t care if you do raise the sun, bring the seasons, bring the fish and deer and crops. We are not your slaves. We are not yours to do with as you like,” Moros said. And it was Moros. So little of Darian’s voice was coming through anymore, buried in the ear-splitting rasps and roars of the mask. The words were his, but as more of the white mist dripped from his eyes, so too it came out of the mask’s mouth, until Darian seemed less a man, more a demon.

“Tonight,” he said, “I’m killing gods.”

Zeus was at his mercy. Moros forced his heel down into him as if the little warrior had increased in weight a thousand fold. The snap of bones was loud enough to pierce through the thunder of the black storm that continued to grow overhead.

Otrera was trying to reach Darian, bless her soul. But every attempt to get near, every step, Otrera was halted by the winds pushing at her and sending her back onto her hands. At least she wasn’t being shot out of the sky, as more of the gods and goddesses were. When Medusa looked up, she winced and held her hands to her mouth as one of the bolts of crackling black struck a god, a young one, and sent them falling to the city floor. And another. The gods did their best to evade the growing storm, but the lightning strikes grew more numerous, louder, and many started to strike out against the city buildings. Stones rained down over everything, and as they plummeted from the cavern heights, they struck the panicking, fleeing swarms of gods and other creatures.

She didn’t want this.

Poseidon looked like he was going to die. Why his human illusion was so visceral, so lifelike, she didn’t understand. But veins in his forehead bulged, and his eyes were bloodshot with lines of silver as the man struggled with whatever Darian was doing to him. He gargled and tried to cry out, but it sounded like no more than a choked whimper.

“Darian,” she said. He didn’t respond. “Darian.”

Again the man didn’t respond. He ground his heel against the king of the gods, and pointed a palm down at the man’s head.

“We’d be better off ... struggling to survive ... than living under your feet!”

“Darian!”

He raised his head and turned his masked face to her. Like staring into the eyes of the end of everything.

“What?”

“Let him go! Let them all go!” She had to scream to get her voice over the vortex of destruction around them. She and Otrera remained unharmed by it, but only just, with shards of rock and whips of the black death coming within inches of them.

“They deserve death, Medusa! They deserve agony, justice. We have to—”

She frowned at Moros. Her Darian. She glared at him, grit her teeth, and pointed a finger at Zeus.

“Now!” Her voice cut through the destruction around her like a banshee shriek, and she glared at Darian with furrowed brow and eyes of glaring stone.

His body jerked. He stood up straight, took his foot off of Zeus, and looked at her with arms dangling at his sides.

And everything went silent. The clouds above dispersed like wisps of fog against a strong wind. The black lightning that ripped and tore the underworld asunder ceased and vanished. The mist that poured from Darian’s face did as well, and as the man took deep, heavy breaths, she could see the hardness of his body fade along with the maelstrom of earthquakes beneath his feet.

The three gods started breathing normally again. Zeus forced himself away from Darian, hand against the stone to push himself back toward his kin, but Medusa could see his motions were a struggle. Like watching a man with broken legs try and push himself away from the lion mauling him. He left a silver trail along the stone as he did.

Hades and Poseidon were better off, at least. They got to their knees, coughed splattering silver over the floor, and trembled with what must have been searing pain in their bones. Medusa stared down at Poseidon, and when he looked up at her with raised brow, she sighed.

“ ... why?” he said between fits of coughing.

Again she shook her head, and looked down at the man who violated her.

“Just ... enough, enough of all this. There is nothing we can say or do to change you, to change the gods, the Moirai, nothing. But please, enough of this pain. Enough of this misery.”

She looked up to the gods above them, around them, to the Moirai who had thrown their unusual bodies of cloak and shadow to the cave floor. She looked to the younglings and their gold masks, to the older gods and the weapons they wielded, to the other creatures that crawled out of the wreckage of their city. It didn’t look like any of the gods had died, as the ones struck by Darian’s lightning managed to get up. Bleeding, shaking, coughing, but up.

She looked to Hera and her two sisters, and sighed. The wife of Zeus approached her, golden mask still upon her face, and scepter in her hand.

“You have defied our home, we should—”

“Home? Defied?” Otrera stomped up beside Medusa, and glared up at the tall goddess. Fearless, and pissed. “Athena betrayed her, ruined her life, tried to damn her to Tartarus for a millennium, and you—”

Medusa held up a hand, and stared into the eyes of Hera. The goddess was tall like her, and stood with all the bravado and pride of a goddess of her stature of course. Even with her mask covering her face, Medusa could feel the contempt pour from her. But perhaps the goddess wouldn’t be blinded by it.

“I am sorry it escalated like this,” Medusa said. “We won’t allow you to kill us, but all we want to do is leave.” She looked Darian’s way, and frowned at the love of her life. “All we want is to be left alone, and to be treated fairly when we die.”

Hera looked to her husband, and at the man who had nearly killed him. Poor Darian was looking down at the floor, and his body had gone limp. His arms dangled, and his shoulders had slumped forward. He turned his head enough to catch her in the white glowing eyes of his mask, but he turned away once she returned the gaze, and sighed, as if a heavy stone was tied around his neck.

Past Hera, Demeter and Hestia approached their brethren as well, one for Hades, one for Poseidon, while Hera stood beside her injured husband. Past them, it was a graveyard of destruction. Medusa could not tell if anyone had been killed in the chaos, if beings of the underworld could even be killed by something like a falling rock. But the damage was real, and the city within a mile around them in all directions was shattered. The colossal protrusions of stone from the ceiling and cave floor that once held temples and homes were ruined, crumbled or gone, and the buildings they carried with them.

Many of the gods looked injured. They limped around to the fallen, helped pick them up and their weapons, and many tried to stand up and approach Darian once more. But as they got near, rather than cross the final hundred feet to reach him, they stayed at a distance. And as they watched the Moirai of doom, many started to remove their masks, exposing wide eyes and dropped jaws. None seemed to care about the broken homes; perhaps they weren’t a concern to beings in the realm of the dead. But they cared about their wounded, as even the Erinyes helped and were helped by the masked army of men, women, and children.

“They should be killed!” Athena emerged from the crowd and marched down the crater toward Zeus. “Father, we can—”

Hera turned to Athena, and slapped her.

The crowd gasped.

“Hera! How dare—”

“Silence, idiot child.” Without removing her mask, Hera stepped over to Zeus, looked down at him, but offered him no aid. “Your daughter is a stupid thing. She will never learn wisdom. Your resonance has failed.”

Medusa thought the crowd was quiet when she’d stopped Darian. She could hear a needle drop in the silence that filled the cavern now as Hera stared at the wounded Athena, and the woman’s father. Zeus turned away with a scowl, and tried to get up, but fell onto his back with a stressed groan of pain.

But where Zeus looked pained, and perhaps humiliated, Athena looked destroyed.

“I ... I will...” Athena looked to Darian, to Hera, and then to Medusa. She wasn’t wearing her mask, and when their eyes met, Medusa tried to give her a sympathetic smile. But Athena would have none of it, and looked away with head hanging and shoulders down, like Darian’s.

Soon, Hades and Poseidon were back on their feet, standing with their sisters, and they all looked at her. Not Darian, not Otrera, but Medusa, and they glanced between them as they did.

“We would have killed you,” Hera said, “and yet you ask Moros to stop.” The goddess growled, a deep sound that filled the air around them. How quickly gods changed moods. Fickle. “A woman’s prerogative?” Goddess of women indeed.

“No! Why don’t any of you understand? This fighting, this misery, it only creates more! It doesn’t ... resolve ... Please, step aside.” None of them understood how self defeating it all was, and wasted words only hurt to speak. She frowned at Hera, wife of the king of gods, and turned away as she walked toward Darian. Hera didn’t matter, Zeus didn’t matter, Poseidon and Athena didn’t matter. All that mattered was the silly man she had to save.

Darian didn’t react when she touched him, and as her hand gripped his shoulder, she felt the sweat and cold shivering of his skin and muscles.

She pulled at him, slipped her arm around him further until she was pulling the small man into the nook of her arm, and she started walking. Only a few steps forward though, and a loud stomp forced her to stop and look back.

Otrera stood before the gods, goddesses, and she glowered at each of them.

“One day, there will be a war between the humans and gods, or whatever you really are.” She threw her fingers at them with an encompassing wave. “One day, people will refuse to let you control their lives anymore, decide it’s time to break free of their chains and take down their oppressors. One day, after they’ve ripped down your temples and statues, people will march upon Olympus, and they will burn your world to the ground. With sorcery, with fire, with swords and blood, people will not only break free of you, they will demand revenge. When the world no longer needs you, every soul will rise up and destroy you all.” Otrera marched up to six gods before her, and stared at each one of them in turn. “And the only people who will dare lift a finger to stop the slaughter, are people like her.” She nodded Medusa’s way, before she threw a glance up the crater toward one of the gods.

Ares. He looked like a Spartan, muscled, standing tall with a long, dark beard and short dark hair. Young, but not too young, with big shoulders, a menacing frown, and red eyes. A spear and shield in hand, he looked ready to take on anything in a fight. And yet, he hadn’t got close to Darian. From what Medusa could see, he hadn’t even tried once the black lightning started.

So much for Otrera’s idol, her god. And as the queen glared at her once praised lord, she stood tall, proud, and dismissed him and his kin with a wave of her hand.

“After this,” the Amazon said, “after the lot of you just tried to kill us? After we spared Athena, you pulled this? I say Medusa should let Darian—Moros kill every last one of you. Humans will figure out how to survive, one way or another, without you. The only reason you get to live now, is because of her. The only reason you might survive the coming storm, is because of people like her. Remember that.”

With a huff and puff, Otrera straightened her shoulders, and the little woman marched past them all, while also not avoiding the opportunity to drive her shoulder into Poseidon’s side as she did, hard enough to knock him back down onto his knees.

Medusa smiled at the little queen, and started walking again. Otrera had such a way with words. ‘Cutting through the bullshit’ she’d say, and Medusa nodded to herself as she cast tiny glances the Amazon’s way.

And more glances to the enormous crowd of gods that surrounded them. They all stayed their hands, and either helped their wounded, or stared at the three humans walking out of the underworld. Thousands of faces, most of them hovering, many with weapons at the ready once more, looked upon the three of them as if they were slayers of gods. True fear, she imagined; had the gods ever feared death? Only in the presence of Moros, she imagined. And she was walking Moros out of the underworld.

She looked down at her man, and again she felt him slump, his arms dangle, his head hang, and his weight struggle to move. She’d yelled at him. Her poor Darian.

It was more than that though, she was sure. No way yelling at him had rendered him so defeated. The mask had to be removed, and quickly, but they had to get out first.

It was a long walk to the gates of the underworld. Miles. Out of the crater, past the three judges, and along the ripped and torn black rock. Past the destroyed temples and spikes, past the fallen braziers of blue fire, no longer lit, and past the injured. Giant, metal pillars lay across the cavern floor, and bits of statue she could not understand. Were those fangs?

“Darian smashed the gates in,” Otrera said. She came up beside the two, and offered Darian a tap on the shoulder. “Higher than the cliffs of Aethiopia, broke like twigs.”

And it was true. She stood over the remains of a shattered Cerberus, size beyond comprehension, and gazed out over the gates of the underworld, and the great barrier walls that once held them.

“You ... did this?” she said.

“ ... yeah.”

He really could have destroyed the underworld if he’d wanted to. She shivered at the thought, and hugged her love close as the three continued past the wreckage, and onto the black stone of the dock. Charon’s ship awaited them.

~~Darian~~

He owed Gallea one. His instructions must have included having the ship wait for them. And sure enough, when the three of them boarded the vessel, the undead beneath them began to row the ship back into the red river and green fires of Styx.

But he couldn’t take his eyes of the destruction that lay behind them. Leaning over the stern, he looked out to the destroyed gate and the souls that flowed through where it once was. In the distance, the ruins of the city were just hazy blurs with blue fire scattered. The pillar of light was barely visible as more than a subtle glow, and the host of gods and otherworldly creatures were well beyond view.

“They really let us go,” he said.

“Well you had them by the balls.” The Amazon joined him, leaned out over the boat with him like before, and smirked at him. “I really was going to let you kill them by the end of it. Sorry I couldn’t be a better Medusa for you.”

“Oh?” Medusa came up to stand beside them as well; the stern had more than enough room for the three of them.

Darian looked away from her. He didn’t want to, didn’t try to, but every time he managed to catch her in his gaze, he found himself looking away.

And she caught it. She got on the other side of him, reached out for his mask, and yanked his head around to face her with a painful jerk. No choice but to look at her.

So fucking beautiful. As he stared at her, the memories blurred her face in a haze of images, of boiling eyes, sizzling flesh, blood and other colors of fluid oozing out of her ears and pores.

She shook him by the jaw, hard, and he blinked several times inside his mask.

“It. Wasn’t. Your. Fault.”

Again, her voice cut through the noise, cut through the black burying his thoughts and pulling him into the mask. Since when could she be so forceful, with words ripping through and opening up barriers? And reading his mind only added to the shock of his sweet, soft Medusa grabbing his chin and forcing him to look at her.

“Why did you put on the mask?” she said, and her steel fingers on his chin lowered to rest upon his shoulder.

“Moros ... talked to me. Said I could be with you, if I put it on.” He forced himself to keep looking at her, knowing full well she could only see the face of the monster he was wearing. And knowing full well his words painted his actions in a brutal, but truthful light. He’d been a selfish child.

“What changed?”

“Well, he ... he knew what Athena was doing, and ... and then he said he was going to use my body to unleash havoc. I couldn’t let him ... and I had to get you out. So I ... took over...”

Medusa blinked at him, and spent a moment looking him up and down. “You ... defeated Moros?”

“Up here.” He raised a hand to point at his temple. “It’s not what he thought. It’s...” It’s just a pile of pain and hatred. But he couldn’t say that, not after everything they’d just seen, not after they finally managed to make things go right for once.

He didn’t have to say it of course. Even with the mask on, Medusa could read him, and she slipped her arm around his shoulders to hug him with the one arm, snug into its nook.

Back on the river Styx. The three of them kept an eye on the destroyed gates of the underworld, but nothing came after them. And after a while, the three drifted away from the back of the ship and instead stood at the bow, leaning on the railing of the massive, sluggish vessel. Green fires hanging from giant white rib bones that were the river’s guide, and an endless stream of blood and corpses. Screaming corpses at that. It was not exactly the most uplifting way to leave behind a completed journey, but then, that’s why tales normally skipped the returning part of the story. Normally.

“I came from this?” Medusa said.

Otrera touched the woman’s shoulder before looking down over the edge. “You don’t remember?”

“Not well. Before I was pulled into the Asphodel Meadows, it’s all just blurs of color and ... something that ... vibrated, I guess? Something that pulsated and vibrated like ... like something with life, and it was everything and it was all I could feel.”

Darian nodded and stared out ahead into the river. “The gods and Fates mentioned something about resonance. And ... I don’t know. Something beyond the living, I guess.” He could see, feel the resonance they talked about. Like droplets on calm water.

“I guess,” she said. “I—oh!”

The three of them stood up straight as a rising dome of white started to lift from the river. Charon, no doubt, wanting to say his piece before they left. And while Otrera and Darian had already seen the grand display of the colossal skeleton, Medusa had not, and her jaw dropped as she stared up at the rising monstrosity of bone and blood.

She outright squealed and jumped back when Charon turned his skull to face them. His eyes still glowed with the green fires of his undead kin, the same green fire of the braziers that hung from above. His breath was still vile, and his bones still rained corpses that were lodged or draped over his many ribs. Only one of his arms had managed to break free of the weight of Styx, and its titanic hand grasped one of the bone pillars about him.

For such a large creature to turn was a slow process, and Darian had to keep from chuckling at how it took Charon a whole ten seconds to drag his giant form through the sludge of dead and blood, and face them.

“I see you are successful,” he said. “And ... I still hear all the strings. No one has been silenced.” The colossal skeleton leaned in closer, and clicked a couple of its teeth from side to side. “I did not appreciate Athena overruling me.”

“Yeah well, she’s still alive.” Darian grumbled a little, but didn’t break eye contact with the entity. “Like you said, I didn’t kill any of them.”

“No.” Charon chuckled, and from so close, it sounded more like rumbling groan of a hundred dead, with the unnatural tones vibrating the air and ship. “But the damage you have done will take time to repair, if they pursue such. The gates have served little purpose for a millennium. Perhaps they will leave them unbuilt.”

“W-What happened a millennium ago?” Medusa said. She adapted quickly, and Darian smirked at her from behind his mask. Otrera shivered a little, but Medusa stood her ground and stared up at the enormous skull with wide eyes and parted mouth. Shocked, or in awe?

But Charon didn’t answer her. He leaned in closer, and Medusa stared up at him as her arms fell to her side. Terrifying. Darian frowned, and raised a hand, forcing Charon to stop and look down at him.

“Why do you block us?” Darian said.

“I wish to look upon you,” the great skeleton said. “In futures far and unknown, I may see you again, and I would like to ask ... how fairs the children of the world.”

Children of the world? Darian tilted his head to the side, and looked back at his two friends. They shrugged at him.

Otrera stepped up beside him, and chewed on a few words before getting them out. “Futures far?”

Charon laughed, and he drifted away from the ship, hand upon the bone pillar for an anchor to push himself against. “And when you do ... finally swim these rivers ... I look forward ... to chatting ... once more.”

The three of them stared down over the bow of the ship as the colossal skull dipped under the red river. Huge as he was, the sinking skeleton caused the stream to stir and churn, the corpses to crash as waves over his disappearing bones, and for splashing red to wash over the railings of the ship to soak the deck in blood. The blood didn’t stay, but bled back into the river, as if called by it.

Medusa stared down at the blood river for some time before looking at Darian with raised brow. “You made interesting friends.”

The ship emerged from the sea into the daylight with a subtle tilt and gentle unfolding of water over the deck. The sun was starting to set; they’d been gone a whole day. Elbows on the railing, he leaned over it and stared out at the horizon. A single day to make enemies of the gods, the Fates, and a host of demonic creatures undoubtedly affected by the destruction. All to save Medusa.

Worth it. He smiled at her, knowing she couldn’t see because of the mask, but he smiled anyway as she leaned out over the railing as well. Still a bit see-through, but damn she was beautiful. Her long brown hair fell over her shoulders and down her tall body, and her bronze eyes looked to him with a sparkle caught from the sun.

Or at least it did for a moment, but slightly see-through became mostly see-through, and Otrera yelped as she looked to the ghost woman.

“Medusa, you’re ... oh, good, it stopped. Thought you were going to disappear.”

“What? What happened, I—oh.” She raised a hand and looked at it. It moved as a wisp in the air, almost like she were made of fog, and she reached out to touch Otrera’s outreached fingers. They passed through each other. “I ... guess I’m a ghost.”

Darian nodded. “You won’t be able to touch anything from the living world until I get you back in your anchor ... your body.”

“But ... I’m standing on a ship!”

“Charon’s ship.”

“That makes sense.” She nodded and reached out for him. Maybe as a reflex, maybe to test her new ghostly body, but she blinked when her fingers hit him. “I can touch you though!”

“Because of the mask.”

“Right. That mask is ... we...”

We have to get it off. He nodded and stared back out to the horizon, at the beautiful sun setting over the waves, at the gentle tide as they neared Aethiopia once more.

He wasn’t sure taking it off was a good idea.

The trip back to shore went smoothly. He kept looking around, trying to spot any of the weird flows of color that he noticed from the godly entities in the underworld. Or the colors of anything from that realm. But, back in the land of the living, the mask could no longer see the odd hues of blue and red and yellow, green and purple, and others that radiated from the gods, the Moirai, and the dead. He could still see Medusa’s ghostly body though, and so could Otrera.

Which meant things got very strange, very quickly, once they were back on the shore. The ship took them to the city bay this time, past the tall seacliff of the acropolis, past the colossal sea creature, and toward the docks. The three of them stared at the odd creature of limbs, claws and octopus-like limbs, and the shadow the statue cast over the water.

“Can’t believe I did that,” Medusa said.

“Saved the whole damn city.” Otrera hopped up onto the railing, and winked at Medusa. “You should have seen how sad people were when they heard you died.”

“People ... were sad I died?”

The queen rolled her eyes. “Yes, they were sad. You made an impression, then you did this.” With a groan, she gestured toward the enormous statue the ship was coasting past. “And you’re the one that got the ball rolling on the battle. They pretty much blame you for freeing them.”

“But ... I just—”

“Medusa.” Otrera marched up to her, looked the ghost woman in the eyes, and gave her a glare ready to slap her if she could. “You’re the one that saved Sophia and her kid. You’re the one that pushed for launching the assault when you did, saving Rhea. You’re the one that took out the sea creature. So don’t be a fucking idiot. You saved them. Accept it.”

Cutting to the chase, the Amazon found the truth and jammed it down Medusa’s throat whether she wanted it or not, whether she could accept it or not. Darian would have to thank her later. He’d never be able to be so aggressive with her.

Medusa stared at the Amazon, then back up at the statue, and then back to the city. As they got closer, they could see the shifting crowds of people, many dealing with the destroyed bridge. Fixing the colossal bridge was a waste of time, for now at least, but they worked to move the debris out of the way to clear the main road. Many were treating the wounded, or dealing with the dead. More were dealing with the grotesque mess of bones; Andromeda’s army made quite a mess when it ceased to respond to her commands. There were bones everywhere, and weapons, and someone had to get rid of them.