The Ferryman, Excerpt

There is a river that runs far beneath the earth. It winds its way deeper and deeper the caverns carved by powerful hands. It begins in darkness and ends beneath glitter gems in the halls of death.

On this river there is a boat. It is long and thin and it cuts through the water like a knife would in skilled hands. It is far too long for a mortal man to pilot down the rushes current and back again. But its ferryman is no mortal.

To the passengers he looks skeletal, but that is because shades of the dead see through reality to hidden truths. To living eyes, Charon is a man of rounded features, dark in every way. He seems young in this view because despite the length of his service, he has far more years on the river ahead of him than behind. To the shades’ sight, Charon’s soft parts have been worn away leaving nothing but bleached bone.

Charon has long been worn thin. He has watched too many souls weep over the prow and wondered too long how the river does not flood the world with their grief. He carries the anguish of ever child shade too young to understand where they are. He knows that no hero who bargains passage on the river ever got their happy ending with whoever their dead loved one is. Charon’s world is one of loss and it has long since chilled what warmth flowed in his ichor.

So to the dead, Charon is bones, wrapped in a cloak, taking their coins and watching them lament. To heroes he is a monster, an obstacle, shadowed under a hood. And too his fellow gods, well, Charon is irrelevant mostly. Gods have no reason to see the Ferryman. They do not die and require no ferry.

At least, most never do.

The world changes, even for the divine. There was a time, of course, before Hades ruled beneath the Earth and the Ferryman ferried. Then the Olympians rose and rearranged it all. That’s what it takes to change world of a god: New gods.

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Charon did not expect anything to change. The world seemed settled, though how could he know truly? He rarely got word of the gods because the laments of shade don’t typically include updates on divine gossip. 

So Charon was surprised when above his head the ground split open and through the opening came Hades’ chariot. It flew above the boat toward the depths. Charon strained to see Hades or any passenger within the chariot, but the angle and distance foiled his attempt. The chasm above closed as quickly as it opened. Hades’ steeds outpaced the boat on the river and the chariot quickly disappeared from sight. Charon watched the cavern ahead for its return, but it never materialized again. Charon shrugged and carried on ferrying.

Then something changed over the next months. The shades boarding Charon’s boat increased in number, all of them thinner and thinner. Their laments were filled with talk of unbearable cold and gnawing hunger. It didn’t occur to Charon that it was related to his sighting of the chariot, but he noted the change and the chill that settled in his bones with each shivering soul. 

Back and forth Charon went, taking on the starved remains of the mortals at the top of the river and letting them off in the glowing docks of Hades’ domain. Charon tried to move as quick as he could on the downward leg. He hurried the souls off onto the longer dock each time. Then, alone on the river, Charon would slowly make his way back. He lingered in the silence of an empty boat as long as he could each time. The surface-ward leg always was a break from the weeping of souls and Charon never lingered at the lower dock as he hurried to get away from the mortal souls waiting to enter the fields.  

Then one time, as he rushed the wispy, frozen souls off the ferry beneath the glittering gems of Hades, a voice called out to him. 

“Charon.”

In an instant, Charon bundled his cloak around him further and turned to attend to the lord under the Earth.

“My lord, what—“

Charon’s words failed him as he saw that Hades had not come to the docks alone. A goddess stood at his side, dressed in finery and gems threaded through her golden hair. She was powerful, but must younger than the gods Charon knew. Her birth must have been after he took his place on the boat.

“You will take my wife to the surface, Ferryman. In six months time, she will return and you will bring her back here. You will treat my queen with the respect she deserves I am sure.”

Charon nodded and bowed, gesturing for the Queen of the Dead to board his boat. He kept his eyes averted as the two deities said their goodbyes, but he heard Hades’ last soft words.

“Farewell, my dear Persephone.”

Charon heard no response from the goddess, just a long pause before her weight settled onto the boat. The vessel rocked in a way Charon was unused to. The shades have no weight to jostle the boat. 

Charon glanced up to be certain Persephone was seated safely. Then he glanced to Hades, but the god had already turned his back. Charon pushed off from the dock slowly. He watched Hades walk away and knew Persephone was watching, too.