Anne Ursu - The Shadow Thieves

Zee closed his eyes and exhaled, getting his mind back. It's okay, he told himself. He could follow behind them, no one would notice. It would be better this way; he could stay out of range of Philonecron's brain waves, or whatever they were. He would just wait a few minutes, then sneak over the bridge and follow them all the way to Hades.

"Oh, and Zero?" Philonecron's head popped back in. "If you need anything, I'll leave Beta and Theta to watch over you." He smiled. "They'll be right outside the cave!"

The two Footmen turned and stared at Zee ominously. Philonecron waved and left.

Zee kicked the dirt and put his head in his hands.

AS SOON AS THEY LANDED ON THE OTHER BANK OF THE Styx, Charlotte hurried out of Charon's boat. To Charlotte, Charon seemed like the type who might change his mind, and she was out of Fruit Roll-Ups. She scurried up the bank without looking back-because Charlotte knew of two good rules for navigating the Underworld: 1. Don't Eat the Food and 2. Don't Look Back.

As she was crawling up the bank, Charon shouted after her in his grim, grizzly voice, "Give my love to Cerberus!"

Charlotte shuddered. She had forgotten entirely about Cerberus. The Hound of Hades, the three-headed watchdog of the Underworld, who permitted the Dead to enter but never let them leave.

So when she heard a very canine growling and bounding heading toward her, she panicked. Quickly she ran through everything she knew about Cerberus – Heracles kidnapped the dog after a great struggle, Orpheus sang him to sleep, and Aeneas drugged him. And Charlotte? What did Charlotte do?

Charlotte squeezed her eyes shut and pretended she was invisible. It wasn't the best plan, but it was the best she could do on short notice.

It did not work. The strange, feral noises moved closer, and she cringed, took a deep breath, and opened her eyes.

Before her was a cub-size three-headed dog with three pairs of sad brown eyes that were looking at her plaintively. He was brown, black, and white, with floppy ears and a mass of shiny fur. He cocked his heads. Charlotte cocked hers.

"Why, you're cute!" Charlotte said. "Even with the three heads!"

The dog tipped his heads the other way.

"You're a good doggy!"

The dog wagged his serpent-like tail.

"Good doggy!" she cooed, reaching over and rubbing him under one of his right ears.

Cerberus rolled over on his back, and Charlotte sat down and gave him a good, long scratch.

"Well," she whispered, "I'd like to stay here and scratch you, but I have to save the world." She stood up, and so did Cerberus. He gave her a fond bark, then headed off down the bank.

She sighed and turned to survey the world ahead of her. Before her was an endless, grim, rocky, reddish gray plain, punctuated with little lakes and small, steaming pits here and there. And of course, the Dead were everywhere, innumerable Dead, like stars in the sky, sand on the beach. They stretched off with the horizon, becoming specks of light, becoming fog. They were right next to her, phantoms of light, hovering, still and aimless, against the dark landscape.

It all seemed to stretch on forever. There were rocky hills on the very distant horizon that seemed to mirror the place she had just come from. In front of the hills she could see a great, black, prison-like wall. A permanent black cloud hung over it, and she could just make out winged beasts flying in and out of the smoke. Suddenly she took a step back-that was Tartarus, the place of punishment, an endless pit in the ground where history's greatest sinners met their fate. And where Philonecron wanted to send the Dead.

Charlotte looked quickly away.

To the right the view was much less ominous. On the other side of the horizon, rising out of the plain, was a great city. She saw a jumble of spires and buildings and towers, and in the center of it all, soaring up over the Kingdom, were the looming black domes of the Palace.

"Well," Charlotte muttered, stepping forward, "follow the yellow brick road."

Sensing the presence of Charlotte, the Dead began to stir. From the crowd around her distinct groupings began to form-little circles of Dead huddling together. It was as if they were whispering to one another, yet no sound came from them. Charlotte looked straight ahead and kept walking. Finally about a dozen broke off from the groups and floated up to Charlotte, resting right in front of her eyes. She stopped.

"Hi," she said weakly.

They nodded their heads, a bow. Charlotte noticed that when she looked at them directly, all she saw was shape and light, but when she looked away, looked at them out of the corner of her eye, she could almost see the imprint of the long-gone faces of the people they once were.

"I'm, um, going to see Hades," she told them. "I need to warn him. There's a man, an evil man…" She paused, chewing on her lips. "Can you help me?"

The Dead did not answer, they simply watched her.

"This man, he's very nasty. He wants to overthrow Hades…"

Still they did not move. Charlotte, remembering what Mr. Metos had said about the Lord of the Dead, wondered if perhaps they thought overthrowing Hades was not such a bad idea.

"He has my cousin. He wants to throw the Dead in Tartarus!" She gestured to the gigantic, smoking pit to the left, and the Dead shrank back abruptly.

"I-I need to warn Hades. Can you take me to the City?" She pointed to the towers ahead. But again the Dead stepped back. Charlotte didn't understand. "You should come to the City with me. This is so grim. It looks much nicer there."

She pointed again, and as one, the group of Dead hurried away.

"Oooo-kay," Charlotte breathed.

She moved on, cutting a swath through the oceans of Dead. She had to step carefully; the plain was littered with small rocks, and she could just see herself twisting her ankle. That would be great.

The landscape was awful. It smelled like Harpy, it was treacherous, and it was deathly boring, like one of those long car trips through states that never end. At least in Tartarus something happened.

She moved on, slowly, carefully, the Dead falling in line behind her. One by one they joined her- they kept their distance, but she could sense a growing column of them weaving behind her as she walked-not leading her, but following.

They are drawn to Life, Charlotte thought sadly.

There weren't just Dead, of course. On the ground scurried those fist-size spiders, while cobra-size nine-headed Hydras slithered after them. In the air flew gaggles of black birds of the type that had brought the note to Charlotte and Zee, and in the background she could hear the sound of the Harpies singing, their voices magnified by the great silence of the Dead. The very sound of those voices made Charlotte shudder.

But singing wasn't all they did. They kept flying right over the Dead, shouting insults at them, and the Dead cowered in their path. Off to the right one of them buzzed directly into a crowd of Dead, cackling as it chased them away. Next to Charlotte, another hovered right over a group of Dead and threw a ball of purple green slime at them, screeching, "Here's a present for you!"

Charlotte did not want to think what that was. She looked up and shouted, "Now, that's just mean!"

The Harpy turned to her. "Carrot top! Big mouth!"

"Smelly old hag!" Charlotte yelled.

"Underachiever!" the Harpy yelled back.

An ear-shattering screech sounded from the air, and in swooped another gigantic flying creature-not a Harpy, but a Griffin, with head and wings of an eagle, body of a lion, and scaly tail of a snake. The Griffin soared into the Harpy's path and lunged at it, and the Harpy lunged back.

"Lion butt!" screamed the Harpy.