Indigo Eyes

Chapter 8

Their first problem was solved easily enough. The security guard who turned out to be Charon, the ferryman of the dead, was bribed to take them to Hades' palace with the drachmas Percy had swiped from Crusty. He was hardly paid these days, so the promise to talk to Hades about a pay raise was also more of a reason for him to ferry them across, the elevator he led them down turning into a wooden barge while Charon's Italian suit was replaced by a long black robe. And then they saw the river.

It was dark and oily, swirling with bones, dead fish and other stranger things - plastic dolls, crushed carnations, soggy diplomas with gilt edges.

"It's worse than I imagined," Cressida said, having imagined what some of her dreams and hopes looked like in the river after she'd heard the story of the Styx.

"What?" Percy wondered.

"The River Styx," Annabeth murmured. "It's so..."

"Polluted," Charon finished. "For thousands of years, you humans have been throwing in everything as you come across – hopes, dreams, wishes that never came true. Irresponsible waste management, if you ask me."

Mist curled off the filthy water. Above them, almost lost in the gloom, was a ceiling of stalactites. Ahead, the far shore glimmered with greenish light, the colour of poison.

Annabeth was the first to grab Cressida's hand, fear creeping up on all of them as Grover latched on to Annabeth's other free hand and Cressida then turned to Percy. And she definitely didn't have to get into his head to know that he was beginning to panic as well. She offered him her hand and he gladly took it, glad for the reassurance of someone alive to be embarrassed by holding her hand. He was even more relieved when he heard her muttering in Ancient Greek, catching her saying her father's name a few times. She was praying as he was in his head, though he didn't know if either of their fathers would be able to help them now, they were in Hades' territory.

The shoreline of the Underworld came into view. Craggy rocks and black volcanic sand stretched inland about fifty metres to the base of a high stone wall, which marched off in either direction as far as we could see. A sound came from somewhere nearby in the green gloom, echoing off the stones – the howl of a large animal.

"Old Three-Face is hungry," Charon said. His smile turned skeletal in the greenish light. "Bad luck for you, godlings."

The bottom of our boat slid onto the black sand. The dead began to disembark. A woman holding a little girl's hand. An old man and an old woman hobbling along arm in arm. A boy no older than they were, shuffling silently along in his grey robe.

Charon said, "I'd wish you luck, mate, but there isn't any down here. Mind you, don't forget to mention my pay raise." He counted our golden coins into his pouch, then took up his pole. He warbled something that sounded like a Barry Manilow song as he ferried the empty barge back across the river.

They then began following the spirits up a well-worn path.

There were three separate entrances under one huge black archway that said: YOU ARE NOW ENTERING EREBUS. Each entrance had a passthrough metal detector mounted with security cameras. Beyond this were toll booths manned by black-robed ghouls like Charon.

The dead queued up in the three lines, two marked: ATTENDANT ON DUTY, and one marked: EZ DEATH. The EZ DEATH line was moving right along. The other two were crawling.

"What do you figure?" Percy asked Annabeth.

"The fast line must go straight to Asphodel. No contest," Annabeth answered. "They don't want to risk judgement from the court because it might go against them."

"There's a court for dead people?" Percy questioned.

"Yeah. There are three judges. They switch them around every few millennia," Cressida informed him. "If you go that way, you go to one of two places. Think of it like Santa's list," she said, giving him a simpler analogy. "If you're good, you go to the Field of Elysium. If you're bad, you get sent to the Fields of Punishment. Which is everything it sounds like."