CHAPTER FIVE: A maestro by morning

CHAPTER FIVE: A maestro by morning

It was agreed that Nyx would escort Nika to Orpheus’ dwelling the following nightfall, for her mother’s schedule for tonight had already been set. Nika, for once, was more than happy to accept the offer, for she did not want to go to the caves alone.

The memories of the screams of insanity down there still haunted her.

The caves were where those the gods wanted to make an example of were found. After cheating death twice, King Sisyphus was forced to push a boulder up a hill that never quite reached the top before it rolled back down, only for the king to start pushing it all over again. Tantalus was imprisoned in a cave with a pool of water and a fruit tree, neither of which he could eat or drink from – thereby eternally hungry and thirsty. Then there were the Danaïdes who had murdered their husbands. They were forced to carry water in a jug to fill the bath that would wash off their sins. A shame, then, that the jugs had cracks and the water never made it to the bath.

Nika had experienced her first tour of the caves beside her mother when she was a brand-new, fresh-eyed deity, believing that her role was to restore good in the world. To learn that these were the curses put upon Souls … no, she had not wanted to play in the land of madness. Her mother had always tried to tell her that madness was essential. That without it, one couldn’t appreciate logic – ‘logos’, she’d called it, still fluently speaking the language of the ancients – or reasoning. Nika disagreed. She’d not wanted to become the curse lackey that placed such a burden just because some god felt slighted.

So, after a surprisingly sound sleep in her childhood bed, Nika decided to spend the day in her old neighbourhood while she waited for nightfall.

Her parents home, castle really, sat on top of one of the crags that overlooked the spider-like district of Tartarus, each road leading out from the centre of the mountainous rock. It cast a shadow across the tarred streets, which was appropriate for her mother and father, given their titles. They were treated like royalty here. Even Hades tended to leave Tartarus to them, not wanting to piss off the primordials who had been around longer than his existence.

Making her way down the jagged footpath, Nika went exploring all her old local haunts. There was the old carriageworks building, where craftsmen welded the palladium that was mined out of the depths of Tartarus. Then there were the market stalls behind the carriageworks, where said items were traded on the black market. There were the mines themselves, though those were no fun. And, of course, there were the usual shops, cafes, and eateries that Nika had grown up with; Asclepius’ Apothecary, Hecate’s Witchcraft Herbs & Tinctures, and Aristaeus’ Butchery, to name a few.

By the time she returned to the family home, her mother was ready and waiting for her, and dusk began to fall around them. As was Nyx’s way, she would not leave the house before another of her daughters – Hemera, Goddess of Day – returned.

As such, Nika hadn’t met her much older sister until she’d left Tartarus in the bright daylight. Hemera, like Nika, had a … complicated relationship with their mother. Being gifted a task that literally kept you apart forever from the one who was supposed to love you unconditionally could do that, Nika supposed.

“Nika, there you are. Come, we must go now.”

“Now? It’s still dusk.”

“Your father’s gone to cover the land in darkness. Surely you saw him on your way back in? By the time you tidy yourself up, I’ll be ready to take my leave on the Underworld. Now go, hurry.”

“Mother, I’m ready. We can leave now.”

“You are windswept and have little to no make up on. Is that how you wish to make an impression on a Soul whose business you wish to gain? Go and make yourself presentable. I will not tell you twice, Nika.”

Nika clenched her jaw shut and marched back up the spiral staircase.

Five minutes later, Nika had applied kohl to her eyes and lipstick – a female’s armour, her mother called it. Then Nyx swept them out the front door and into a weightless smog in the darkness. Night incarnate – that was her mother. A primordial who could take any form she pleased because she had been one of the originals birthed from Chaos itself. As such, Nika and her mother did not have to climb down the rockface in Tartarus that sat above the caves, but rather swept into a cavern where Orpheus lived.

There was no door to the cavern, just a deep chamber of space. In the middle sat a small square table, just large enough to seat four at a push, where Opheus sat with – to Nika’s surprise – Eurydice. On the left side of the cavern, there was a small double bed pressed up against the wall with a quilted blanket and pillows neatly fluffed. To the right, where the rock seemed to have formed a half-wall, was a chamber pot and washing features.

There was no modern plumbing in this part of Tartarus. Nika had forgotten that.

On the table where Orpheus and his wife sat were strewn papers Oprheus had been scribbling on when Nika and her mother had arrived. Only the glow of the flickering oil lamp allowed Nika a glimpse at what was on those papers; music notes.

Upon Nyx materialising in the entranceway of their cavern in her ‘mortal’ form, both Orpheus and Eurydice had stood from their chairs and dropped into such deep bows that their faces were no more than inches from the cavern floor.

“My Goddess of the Night, to what do we owe the pleasure?” Orpheus said, his deep voice more gravelly than Nika had expected.

“My daughter seeks to ask a favour of you.”

Both sets of eyes landed on Nika.

“Perhaps we could discuss it over refreshments?” Nika asked.

“Of course,” Orpheus nodded, while Eurydice was already walking to a small cavern shelf to grab fresh cups.

“I have duties to perform. I take it this will not take long to sort?” Nyx turned and looked down at Nika as she asked. The fact that she even had to look down at Nika, who stood over six feet tall, said a lot about the space her mother inhabited. Not just physically, either. She soaked up the air of the place her presence was in until it made it difficult to breathe.

Nika shook her head.

“Good, then I shall return for you in one hour.”

With that, Nyx swept out of there, leaving Nika to deal with two puzzled faces.

“I suppose I have some explaining to do.”

***

When all was said and done, it only took Nika twenty minutes to explain everything that had happened in the past year. From her pub losing the Hades cook-off, Rae joining the team with the prize tokens, Garth deciding he no longer wanted to pay the libation tax he’d always done or rely on the cook-off again as he always had, and why they were now in desperate need of help.

“And this pub, this is your pub?” Orpheus asked her.

“No, well, yes. I don’t own it … but it’s just as much mine. At least it feels like mine. I’ve put my blood, sweat and tears into that place. I don’t want to see it go into ruin.”

“It’s a beautifully sad story, Nika,” Orpheus said, having learnt her name when they first sat, “but I fail to see how I can be of assistance.”

“Well, I thought, perhaps if you were willing to come and play at the Watering Hole? It would be the event of the millenia, greater even than the festival last year …”

Already, Orpheus was shaking his head.

“I will not leave here.”

Nika barely stopped her heart from free-falling into her stomach, her one plan, her one hope, disappearing right in front of her.

“Why not?” she demanded.

A gentle hand rested on hers, and Nika turned to face Eurydice. “Because we are not supposed to be together. I am supposed to be in the fields of Elysium and Orpheus was sent here.”

“I thought you were supposed to be in Elysium. Why are you here?” Nika gestured to the space around them, her scowl clearly indicating that the cavern was little better than squalor.

Eurydice smiled at her, as if Nika was still a newborn who had much to learn about the world. “Because I love my Orpheus, and I have already lost one lifetime with him. I would not choose to lose another one. Besides … I’m not that fond of fields anymore. Grass snakes,” Eurydice shrugged.

“You crossed the Phlegethon to get here?” Nika was stunned.

Eurydice smiled that soft smile of hers again. “There is not much I would not do for my Orpheus.”

“And, so you see, we cannot risk leaving,” Orpheus said. “For I would not have my Eurydice taken from me a third time if Hades remained mad at me. That is a fate worse than torture or squalor.”

He sent Nika a rue smile.

Nika bit her lip thinking. “What if you playing at the Watering Hole would allow you to roam freely again, wherever you wished, in the Underworld? Would you consider it then?”

The two lovers looked at one another – a shared look that held an entire conversation without saying a word out loud.

Eventually, Orpheus answered her.

“We would,” said Orpheus carefully, “but again young one, it is no use. The golden lyre Apollo gifted me with, and taught me to play, has long since been cast in the stars by the Muses.”

“If I were to get you another lyre?”

Orpheus shook his head again. “There is no lyre like that one.”

When Nika scoffed, he continued.

“How do you think I – a mortal man – gained such a reputation for my sound and song?”

“Talent?”

“Talent will get you so far, yes. But being gifted by the gods … well, the gifts they give you become part of the story that makes it legendary. I’m afraid you’ve rather wasted your time in coming all this way. You could get any musician to play as well as I without it.”

Still, Nika would not be thwarted.

“If I get you your lyre, the one the Muses cast in the stars, and I could find a way to make sure that you were allowed to roam freely thereafter together … would you come and play for us?”

“Yes,” Orpheus agreed. “For someone who would clearly do anything for that which she loves, as my Eurydice did for me, I would.”