Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

CLIO

The first thing Clio noticed about the Underworld was the smell. The crisp air carried so many unfamiliar scents. It wasn't a disagreeable odor, just… alien.

The blindfold completely blocked her vision, and she resented it more with every passing minute. She was in the Underworld—one of few Overworlders to visit it and possibly the first nymph to ever visit—and she wanted to see it already. Her fear was long gone, replaced with burning curiosity.

Their guides loaded Clio, Kassia, and Eryx onto a cart pulled by some sort of hooved animal she could hear clopping along a dirt road. In the Overworld, modern Earth technologies were almost entirely shunned. Her home realm was one of lush, beautiful wilderness, and there was no place in it for smoke-belching power generators, concrete jungles, or loud, stinking gasoline engines. Overworlders managed just fine with magic, and judging by the animal-drawn cart and fresh, clean air, the Underworld was the same.

She, Kassia, and Eryx didn't speak as the cart rattled along. Clio kept her face tilted up as she sorted through the different scents. She could definitely smell plant life, and the prospect of discovering new species that no nymph had ever seen before was exciting.

She could do this. It was an adventure, like Eryx had said. An experience of a lifetime. She just had to make sure she survived it.

Around the time she began thinking an hour had definitely passed, the cart rolled to a stop. An animal grunted noisily.

"You can remove your blindfolds."

Clio yanked at the ties and pulled the fabric off her eyes. Disappointment stabbed her. Aside from the red spells cast by their guides to illuminate the road, it was too dark to see anything. Then she looked past the heads of the two horselike creatures pulling their cart and saw the lights.

It had to be a valley, though she couldn't see its shape. Far below in the distance, a thousand eerie scarlet beacons burned in the darkness, revealing the shapes of buildings and streets. A minority of the glowing spots were orange, blue, or purple, and the dominating crimson shade cast a bloody haze over Asphodel.

The driver of the cart snapped the reins. As they rolled forward, Clio peered at the beast Sithon was riding. It looked like a gray-spotted horse—until it turned its head toward her and bared its sharp fangs. She jerked back and resolved to stare straight ahead.

The cart rolled down a winding road into the valley where Asphodel was nestled. More red lights awaited them, floating a dozen feet above the ground and illuminating shadowed figures grouped by the road. Beyond them was a bridge with a huge stone archway on the far side.

The cart slowed to a stop as it reached the dark silhouettes. She expected soldiers, but these… men… sent a visceral shudder deep through her body.

Long black cloaks wrapped their lean bodies, and deep hoods cast impenetrable shadows over their faces. They carried curved sabers, the wide blades gleaming in the scarlet light. With eerie, gliding steps, the six daemons circled the cart.

Clio huddled in her seat. Reapers. They had to be reapers. Unlike Sithon and the other guides, they weren't in glamour.

"State your business," a soldier ordered. His dry, inflectionless voice sent another shudder through Clio. The reaper glanced toward her, and his cloak shifted to reveal the glint of a blood-red eye.

Sithon wordlessly pulled a folded paper out of his coat. The soldier reached up and took the document with a pale, gaunt hand with waxy skin and horned ridges running along the protruding bones.

He tilted the page toward the hovering crimson lights, then handed it back to Sithon. "Very well. Continue on."

Sithon nodded, and the soldiers moved aside. The cart rolled forward again. As the thud of hooves on dirt changed to the clack of stone, Clio leaned over the side of the cart to peer down. Darkness filled the rocky gorge, and she couldn't guess how deep it was.

A strange thundering came from above them. With a harsh, bloodcurdling shriek, a huge shadow plunged into the circle of light around their cart, its giant feathered wings flaring wide.

The horse-beasts snorted and one reared, almost throwing its rider. The monstrous winged creature swept by, banked sharply, and dove again. An orb of fiery red light appeared in Sithon's hand, and he hurled it at the giant bird.

The attack exploded against the creature's underbelly. The bird wheeled away, and the beat of its wings faded into the distance.

Calming his mount, Sithon twisted in his saddle and shouted, "Next time, get off your asses, would you?"

The nearest guard called back, "It was just one. We chased off the rest of the flock earlier."

The rest of the flock ? Clio shrank down in the cart, no longer interested in looking over the edge.

"Lazy," Sithon muttered, then kicked his mount back into motion. The cart rolled after him, continuing across the wide arching bridge.

"What was that?" Eryx asked their driver.

"A roc," the demon replied curtly. "That one was trying to spook a deinos "—he nodded at the horse-beasts—"off the bridge for an easy meal."

No railings or barricades protected the bridge's travelers from a lethal fall to the bottom of the gorge. What a fun place to get attacked by flying predators.

"Are the rocs intelligent, then?" Eryx asked, sounding curious instead of petrified. "What do you?—"

"Quiet down," Sithon snapped irritably.

They reached the far side of the bridge, and Clio tipped her head back, taking in the arch that spanned the road. Twelve-foot walls of colossal stone, interspersed with tall watch towers, formed a protective barrier around the infamous estate town, and the archway was the only entrance Clio could see.

Another troop of cloaked reaper soldiers checked their guide's paper before allowing them to pass beneath the arch.

Finally, they had entered Asphodel.

A spacious cobblestone boulevard stretched ahead of them, lined with streetlamps that emitted steady red light and tall trees with thin trunks and round clusters of maroon leaves at the tops.

From the bordering trees, buildings peeked out. Stone bricks in shades of dark gray filled the spaces between the timber frames, and wooden shutters decorated the small but numerous windows on each structure. Their steep roofs were covered in matching stone tiles, with gables that swept upward at the peaks.

It was beautiful but eerie, with deep, clinging shadows teasing across the periphery of the lights.

They rolled down the boulevard before reaching a broad circle with a fountain in the center. Across the circle was another arched gateway leading to a courtyard. At the far end of the courtyard was?—

"The Hades residence," Sithon informed them.

Clio quirked her mouth disbelievingly. "Residence" was a gross understatement. It was a palace. Constructed in the same timber and stone style as the other buildings, it elevated its presence with towering main doors, beautifully carved wooden embellishments, multi-story glass windows, balconies, archways, and connected wings she could see from the street. Every inch was decadently enhanced with carvings and precision craftsmanship. Definitely a palace.

Sithon turned left, leading them away from the residence. The lamps disappeared and the darkness pressed in, making the narrow street feel claustrophobic. Two- and three-story buildings leaned over them. Was it just her imagination, or were there humanlike shadows moving in the dark alleys that intersected their route?

The thought had scarcely popped into her head before a creature ambled out of a gap between buildings. Stubby legs supported a broad torso with long arms that it used to brace itself against the ground in a rolling, gorilla-like gait. But its face looked like a squashed goat's, and a pair of sharp horns protruded from the top of its head.

It lumbered into the middle of the street and stopped, nostrils flaring as it gazed at the cart with slitted purple eyes. Then it grinned, displaying long fangs.

"Fresh meat, reaper?" It raised its head, snorting in a deep inhalation. "Those are no Underworlders."

"Get out of the way," Sithon ordered coldly.

It barked a deep laugh and meandered into another alley. Sithon urged his mount forward and the cart rolled after him. Clio glanced back as they passed, and the creature met her stare, its forked tongue extending from its fangs. She shuddered.

"Was that a daemon?" she whispered to Kassia. "Or a monster?"

"A daemon," the cart driver answered. "Not the kind that visits Earth."

She could see why. Human tolerance for daemons would dry up in all of five minutes if people saw creatures like that wandering around in broad daylight.

Their group crossed a short bridge over a canal, and the buildings changed again. She was reminded of the industrial district of a human city—large, rectangular structures with few windows, concrete facades, and minimal plant life.

The cart rolled around a sharp bend, and she knew they had reached their destination. A small courtyard preceded the largest building she'd seen besides the Hades residence: bulky, gray, and several stories tall with a flat roof. White light shone through the windows of double doors in a recessed entryway. There were no signs, no logo or name, but she knew what it was: Chrysalis.

The cart stopped in the courtyard.

"This is as far as I take you," Sithon said. "They'll summon me when you are ready to return to Earth."

Rising stiffly, Clio climbed from the cart and dropped onto the cobblestone road. She stared at her boots. Her feet were resting on the foreign ground of a different realm. Kassia hopped down, her face ghostly pale in the light from the building's windows, and Eryx joined them. They clustered together, silenced by the shared realization that they were stranded in an alien world at their enemies' mercy.

With a snap of the reins, the driver steered the cart away, and the two mounted guides trotted after him. Clio carefully arranged her clothes and adjusted her mask, then looked questioningly at Kassia and Eryx. Their chins dipped with affirmative nods.

They'd made it to Chrysalis. Now the hard part began.