Dennis McKiernan - Once upon a Spring morn

Celeste growled, but said nought.

Roel held his lantern on high, and it shone upon a sarcophagus, and on the lid a carved black jackal with golden eyes and golden ears and a golden collar reclined on its stomach, its head held up, as if alert, as if it, too, was a guardian.

“It is my sarcophage, ” said Celeste, “or so it was in my dream.”

“I remember,” said Roel.

“Oh, Roel, look.”

Standing in ranks beyond the sarcophagus were the mummified remains of perhaps a hundred people.

“The servants,” gritted Roel. “How sad their lives were taken for this.”

Celeste looked away. “Perhaps they, too, are assured of a place in the afterlife.”

“Afterlife or no, Celeste, still it was needless sacrifice.” They paced onward, their boots ringing on marble, the horses’ hooves clattering with echoes resounding all

’round. “What I am wondering,” said Roel, “is how do we get to the underworld?”

“Surely the Sphinx did not betray us and sentence us to a lingering death.”

Roel did not reply, and on they trod.

“Look, cherie, ahead, a dark wall of some sort.” Up three steps and on a broad dais stood two marble statues: one carved to look like a man with the head of a falcon, the other a man with a jackal’s head. An ebon darkness shimmered between.

“Mayhap it is a crossing,” said Celeste.

“You mean like a twilight wall?”

“Oui.”

Roel sighed and said, “Then I think we need go di shy;

rectly through, for it seems there is no other way out.”

“You propose we use no rope?”

“Oui.”

Celeste grinned. “Then let us have at it.” Up the steps they trod, the horses clattering after, but the moment their feet touched the dais, a man with the head of an ibis emerged from the black wall, and he held his hand out as if to halt them.

Roel paused, his grip on the hilt of Coeur d’Acier.

But then he released his hold and bowed and said, “My lord.”

Celeste curtseyed.

“I am Thoth, Lord of Wisdom, and I am here to test your worthiness to enter the realm of Lord Osiris.

Hence-” Of a sudden he started in surprise. “By the thrice-named gods, you are of the living! You cannot enter Duat.”

“We do not wish to enter Duat, My Lord Thoth,” said Roel, “but the domain of Lord Hades instead.”

“Hades?”

“Oui.”

“Who sent you this way to reach that netherworld?”

“Lord Abulhol, My Lord Thoth.”

“Ever the meddler,” growled Thoth. The guardian god of the way to Duat sighed and said, “Even so, he must have had a good reason. What is it you hope to find there?”

“We seek the Hall of Heroes in the Elysian Fields, for within that hall is a black portal leading to the City of the Dead, and within that city is a gray arrow, and that is what we seek.”

“And what do you hope to do with that arrow?”

“My lord, we do not know. Yet without it our quest will fail, or so said Lady Doom.”

“Urd?”

“Oui.”

“Then you must use this gate. Nevertheless, I cannot let you pass unless I find you worthy. And to do so and since you are yet living, I will examine but two of the seven parts of your souls: your Akhu -that part of your spirit containing your intellect and will and intentions. I will also examine your Ab -your heart-which holds the source of good and evil within a person, for moral awareness resides therein as well as the center of thought.”

Roel cocked an eyebrow, and Thoth said, “I see you are skeptical.”

“Lord Thoth, I believe my moral awareness and center of thought does not reside in my breast.”

“Indeed it does not,” said Thoth. “But the closest I can come to translating the word ‘Ab’ into your tongue is to name it your heart.”

At Roel’s side Celeste was nodding in agreement, and Thoth looked at her, and though his mouth was that of an inflexible ibis beak, somehow he conveyed a smile through his eyes.

“Then judge away, my lord,” said Roel.

Thoth held out his hands wide with palms upraised and said, “I call upon the goddess Ma’at to aid me.” A golden glow suffused throughout Thoth’s form, and then with his keen ibis eyes he stared at Celeste. Long moments he studied her, and then he turned to Roel.

“Oh, my son, there are many dark deeds in your past, yet they are exemplary endeavors of honorable warriorkind, and your Akhu and Ab remain unstained.” Thoth turned and faced the dark gateway and called out, “By my wisdom and the judgment of Ma’at, I declare these beings worthy to pass through the gate to Erebus, for that is the realm of Lord Hades.” In that moment the golden glow vanished from Thoth’s form. He turned to Celeste and Roel and said,

“These things I do advise: each of you place a small coin in your mouth, for you will need it. Do not drink the waters of the rivers in Erebus, for one bestows the rancor of hate, another the oblivion of forgetfulness, still another the torment of sadness, and yet another the misery of lamentation, and one is a river of fire. Too, do not visit the Palace of Hades, for he will summarily eject you.”

“Thank you, My Lord Thoth,” said Roel.

Thoth waved a negligent hand and said, “Now go, for that netherworld awaits you,” and then he vanished.

Celeste rummaged through a pouch at her belt, and she withdrew two small copper coins. She handed one to Roel and placed the other in her mouth. Roel followed suit, and then he nodded to her, and she nodded back, and together and leading their horses, they stepped through the wall of black.

Erebus

They found themselves under a leaden sky and among sobbing women and moaning men and weeping children all standing on a bare slope leading down to a dark river, where a long and broad, gray stone quay jutted out into the ebon water.

In spite of the coin tucked in her cheek, and though she did not speak the mother language of those who come to Erebus, still Celeste had some hope of being understood, for it is said that the dead speak all tongues.

She stopped at the side of a woman and asked, “Why do you lament?”

With tears running down her face, the woman turned to Celeste and said, “Many here grieve for they are the shades of the unburied-those who died at sea or in remote fastnesses or in faraway lands, and no coins were placed in their mouths. Others of us grieve for, although we were buried, our kindred were too poor to yield up the least obolus , a mere sixth of a drachma. Hence all of us are lost souls who cannot pay Charon his fee to ferry us across the Acheron and through the Dismal Marsh and over the Styx beyond, and so we will never reach Erebus to mingle with our kindred, and none of us will ever drink of the Lethe in order to be reborn.”

Ah, so that’s what the coin is for: a ferryman’s fee.

Celeste looked about, wondering how to help, yet there were so very many shades without even a sou.

“Come, Celeste,” said Roel, “I see a boat approaching.” And so down to the jetty they went, leading the horses after, and when they reached the gray pier, although they could step onto the stone, their horses could not.

“What th-?” asked Roel, puzzled, for although the animals were willing, it seemed they could not place a single hoof on the quay.

“Ah,” said Celeste, enlightened, and she took four small coins from her purse and tucked one each into the tack of the four animals, and onto the dock she led them.

In the distance across the torpid dark water they could see the ferry approaching, and Roel said, “It seems too small to hold us and the horses, too. Yet we must reach the other side, but I care not to leave the animals behind.”