Chapter 19
Fay kept several small demons in the shadows, trailing them. It felt good having them around, safe even. Funny as that might be. It was also a way to keep eyes out, see if anything came up behind them. Motep didn’t like it, said he found it unsettling having demons so close. It grated on his instincts, jarring, and he couldn’t understand how it was so calming to Fay. She ignored him.
The road they were on finally emerged from the forest to the edge of a ruined town. Low stone buildings stretched out before them, half destroyed, missing walls, doors, sections of roof. Debris littered the roads that intersected the buildings, echoes of a war. Only, there were no bodies, no blood even, and the air stinking of ash.
Motep lifted his nose up, sniffing the air. “I don’t smell anyone, demons or otherwise.” He looked around, wary but curious. “What is this place? A memory? A…cell?”
She scanned the ruins, wondering the same. If it was a cell, who lurked within that even Motep’s sharpened hound senses couldn’t sense? She tried to sense if there was anything demon like but, like Motep said, there was nothing.
“Let’s just get through, see if we can find anything that might point the way to Andromeda. If this a sign of her war with Eris, then maybe we’re on the right path,” she said quietly.
“And maybe we’re just hopelessly lost?” Motep offered.
She scowled. Hell, she knew she was lost and that, really, she was just stumbling around, praying she’d find something – or Andromeda would just find her already. At the same time, however, in the brief time she’d spent in Tartarus, she’d had more of her questions answered. She didn’t expect Motep to understand that, to see what the visions and meeting Eris, hearing what she said. He was a hound, loyal to Hades…and she wasn’t.
“If Andromeda was so intent on you, why has she not come to you? Shown you the way?” He pushed. “Perhaps she has just tricked you and now you’re here, abandoned you to this hell.”
“If you really believe then you’re thinking too small,” she said automatically, sounding in her own mind at least, like Andromeda. “Why scheme and plot, just to toy with one stupid little mortal? Nothing she has done up to this point has been pointless.”
Motep wasn’t entirely convinced but she wasn’t about to fret over it. She let him wander beside her, silent, stewing on a myriad of things. Likely what he’d do once he found the squad again, if he’d tell them all that he’d learnt about Fay. As much as she was loathed to admit it, she knew her path would intersect with the squad again.
Ahead, the road forked. They lingered there for a moment, looking at each direction, searching for a sign. Fay stepped forward and shut her eyes, trying to feel for anything, to see if anything called out. Even the demons nearby lingered closely, restless but hinting at no nearby dangers. The fact that Eris hadn’t attack them again was unsettling to say the least.
She opened her eyes and started to turn to Motep, deciding to just pick a random direction and pray something good happened, when her gaze caught something. A flash of movement. A hound that, as it appeared on the street again, shifted mid-stride into a man. Cerberus. Fay’s breath caught in her chest as she took an involuntary step towards him. Motep called her name but she didn’t pay any attention to him. Cerberus started to turn to her, like he sensed her, but a shout called out across the village, snapping his attention away. He took a step towards it but dissolved like smoke.
“This way,” she mumbled, walking towards the direction where Cerberus stood.
Motep hurried after her. “What did you see?”
“Cerberus,” she said, without thinking.
“The first hellhound?” He asked sceptically.
“Yes.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I don’t need you to believe me,” she snapped.
He shrank back at her biting tone. She felt a stab of guilt. Hell, had their positions been reversed, she might’ve said the same thing. It seemed with unsettling clarity that so much was falling into place around her, stories revealed to fill in the gaps of what she knew. It made her feel like Andromeda really had spent all the time orchestrating everything; ensuring that the past wasn’t forgotten, stories were known, betrayals exposed. It also left a strange feeling within her, uneasy because it meant all she knew was dependant on what Andromeda told her. Someone that could just as easily be lying the whole time. After all, Andromeda made it known her whole agenda was the most important thing, everything else be damned.
“I’m sorry,” she said after a pause, then set off again.
Around them whispers started to stir through the village. Sometimes, she caught snatches of Cerberus’s voice; a plea, a gentle whisper like that of a lover, punctured by a random shout – wordless, really, sounding like the crack of thunder.
She tried to focus on them but they slipped through her mind, like water through fingers. As she shot a look at Motep she found him with a similar expression, like he was trying to figure out what he was actually hearing.
“I never asked but are there any stories about what happened to him? I always assumed he was a made-up story from the humans but clearly I was wrong,” said Fay as a mist-like hellhound ran past them, then turned right down a nearby street.
Motep didn’t stop her when she followed.
“He was before all of us. All I know was that he betrayed Hades during the time before man. How man even came to know of him, I don’t know but that’s all any of us know. It simply became something none of us talked about.”
Had Andromeda somehow ensured the memory of Cerberus lived on? And to what purpose? She’d learnt of the world through him and began to plan to join him. Zeus had been her way in. A tragic story started to unfurl in Fay’s mind. One of an ancient entity, born to a world of darkness, whom fell for an Immortal Hellhound. When she wanted to join him, she’d made a deal with Zeus, whom had betrayed her. He’d done more than that though. He had stolen something from her, something she was willing to start a war over.
What had she said to Cerberus again? That was right, her family had wanted to cross over too. Was that what Zeus had stolen? Andromeda’s ancient family? Fay frowned. Even knowing that she felt there was still more going on. There was Eris, after all. All Fay knew of Andromeda and Eris was that the latter had resurrected Abe, cursed him to be Immortal so he’d outlive Andromeda. Or something to that effect.
“Andromeda was an ancient goddess that lived in some dark void. She saw him through a portal and I think they fell in love. The first tragic love affair, I suppose,” she said quietly. “Maybe that was the great betrayal – that he loved her and when Zeus betrayed her, he was a loose end. Someone to be silenced. What better place to do that, than here?”
“Andromeda is here, though. If they were so in love, why aren’t they together?”
“Because if they sent them both here, then they’d be together. My guess, is that after Andromeda did whatever she did to herself after Zeus betrayed her, that they did something horrible to Cerberus so that, even if they were reunited, they couldn’t be together. An eternal punishment,” she said quietly. “It was like they were afraid of what they’d do if they were together.”
“They’d be the greatest threat to the Gods,” said Motep. When Fay gave him a questioning look he opened his mouth, went to speak but an explosion ripped through the air.
The ground trembled violently beneath her feet, then twice more before the air stilled. A shout burst through the air.
“Andromeda!”
Cerberus calling out for his beloved.
She was off before Motep could stop her. Down the street, then into a clearing. She stopped. In the middle of the village square stood two unmistakeable figures. Cerberus, clad in all his resplendent war armour, and on the opposite side of the square, Eris. She wore a short black dress, an armoured chest, a silver sword in her hand. It wasn’t like before. There was nothing ghost-like about her…and the power rolling off her, in thick, smothering waves.
“She’s not coming to you,” snarled Eris. “You were a means to an end for her. A way to claim this world for her own -to claim every world for herself.”
“Liar!”
Eris pointed her sword at him with a wicked grin. “Come on, little beast. Whilst you’re sane, come fight me!”
Cerberus burst forward with the speed of a God, a blur of shadow and crackling energy. Eris matched his speed, leaping clear of the arc of his blade. She wasted no time, came straight at him, and they swept through in an ancient dance. He came at her, parrying off her blows, lunging at every chance, only to be deflected off. For a hellhound he held his own against a Goddess, like he was her match, a God even in his own right.
Motep grabbed Fay’s arm, leant in close. “We have to go. Whilst she’s distracted.”
But something trapped Fay to the stop. No matter how much she tried to move, to act, something bound her. Even her tongue refused to obey her. It was Cerberus. Something about seeing him in that armour, about hearing his stubborn refusal to believe Andromeda’s betrayal. It struck her chest like blade to the chest. She swallowed hard as suddenly Eris swept her foot beneath Cerberus, tripping him up. He fell to the ground. She was on him a flash, swinging her blade.
A scream tore from Fay’s throat, her hand shooting outwards – and Eris froze.
“NO!”
Then, both Cerberus and Eris looked at Fay. The Goddess stared at Fay with shock, at first, then fury. She plunged the sword into Cerberus’s chest. Fay shot forward, propelled by a surge of energy, shadow magic trailing her wake like a wave. Eris stepped away from Cerberus – and held out a hand.
Fay stopped dead, a hand curled around her throat. The energy rushed out from her, leaving her cold, hanging in the air, staring into the eyes of Eris.
“Oh, Andromeda, I told you that you couldn’t protect her from me – and she even came to me!” Eris shouted to the sky with a mocking trill of laughter.
“Fay!” Motep shouted.
Eris raised a hand, and in the corner of Fay’s gaze saw him fly through the air, crashing into a nearby wall. She twisted to see if he was okay, to call out, but she was stuck…and Eris’s grip tightened on her throat, squeezing the air from her throat. Fay let out a strangled noise, drawing Eris’s attention back to her. Her face twisted into a look of disgust as she drew Fay close.
“You are nothing but a shadow little hound. Without her, you are nothing – without each other, you are both nothing.”
A voice rose up inside of her, one not her own but one she knew equally well; softly, at first, like the first breeze of an oncoming storm; then, a raging word, yelled in defiance of the universe itself, timeless and ancient. The voice fused with her own as she returned the Goddess’s ancient stare. Like the times she’d stared down Hades, like every time when someone told her she was nothing, she found a strength – a power that she realised had been there the whole time.
A power that wasn’t going to be bound.
“I am more,” she said, her own voice a multitude of voices. “I am more.”
For a split-second fear flashed in Eris’s eyes. She squeezed her grip tighter, choking out the air – and her grip on the power was severed. Darkness rushed her vision as she vaguely felt herself fall, hit the ground as if she were a broken doll. Her head lolled to the side, saw Cerberus staring back at her, smiling, his eyes shining. He was crying but it was as though all the world’s joy lit a fire within him.
“You kept your promise,” he said hoarsely, then pain twisted his face, closing his eyes for a second. He forced them open. “I cannot wait to see you again – whole and real.”
He faded before her eyes and a scream that wasn’t her own tore from her throat as she felt the final draw of darkness.
A light exploded from within her. She cried out, filled with a brief surge of energy, and tried to move. Something sharp surged into her chest – she screamed again. A figure loomed over her. Eris. Eyes black as hell, cold as death. A sword in her hands, buried in Fay’s chest. She moved her lips to speak but a force slammed into Eris, sending her flying backwards, out of view. Shouts resounded around Fay, a cacophony of noise and smoke that swirled above her, leaving her blind. She choked, spluttering on the smoky air, and rolled to the side, her gaze falling to a thinning in the smoke. There she saw two figures staring at each other at the far end of the square, in a world all their own, oblivious to the madness around her.
Ben.
Amon.
Two men that stared at each other. Then, Ben reached out, pale and as his hand reached for Amon, the latter dissolved into smoke. Ben stepped forward, a cry tearing out from his throat. Fay stretched out a hand towards him, a soundless plea in her throat, begging her to see him. He didn’t hear her as something caught his attention away from her and he was off, running into the smoke. As quickly as he had appeared, he was gone.
She kept trying to say his name when someone was grabbing her, scooping her up. Startled, she tried to struggle and twisted to see who it was.
Remus. He didn’t look happy.
“You have quite a bit to explain, little hound.”
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