The Basement by Mark Lawrence	Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion

Slowly, emerging from the murk, a gigantic iron gate revealed itself. The gate hinged on two solid pillars of unbreakable adamant. Stretching out to either side of the gate lying along the shore was an ancient bronze wall, its top fading into the shadows above.

The iron gates held scenes of famous Greek battles: the Pelopennesian wars, Troy, Athens, the Persian Wars, and the Spartans at Thermopylae. Harpies, Cyclopes, Titans, Heroes, Gods, and monsters appeared on the bronze walls.

“The history of our people,” Apollo said, “continues to be written as we speak.” Jason noticed modern images gradually appearing on empty sections of the wall. “Life is a never-ending tale.”

Charon’s skiff grated on the sullied scree. Jason and Apollo stepped out. Without a word, Charon poled the skiff back out into the mist and faded away. Jason and Apollo entered the gate.

Just on the other side of the massive door was Cerberus, a huge, three-headed dog with a dragon’s tail. The beast was the size of a bus, each head as large as a small car, each mouth large enough to swallow Jason whole.

“You must greet the beast,” Apollo said.

Numbly, Jason approached, fully resigned to being torn to shreds.

He was already dead, wasn’t he? Would it hurt? Probably not, he decided. The dead don’t feel. His life was over.

Cerberus’ breath stank of burning sulfur. His teeth were as bronze swords. However, Cerberus simply sniffed him in order to recognize him again, should he attempt to leave. Cerberus allowed souls in... but not out.

Uncle Apollo patted Cerberus’s nose, “Good boy.”

Jason simply accepted the fact that if he wasn’t dead, or dreaming, for some reason, he had gone insane. His knees began to buckle.

Uncle Apollo grabbed his elbow. “Let’s stop and rest here for a moment,” he said, indicating an ancient leafy tree.

Jason sat and drew his hand across what passed for grass in this place. He tore some up and put it to his nose. It smelled like mold, mushrooms, and things long dead, corpse dust. What had he done to himself? What had he done to his family?

“Do you know what kind of tree this is?” Uncle Apollo asked.

Jason glanced up, “An elm.”

“Very good,” said Uncle Apollo. “This is The Elm to Which False Dreams Cling. Look carefully.”

Apollo plucked a low hanging leaf, and handed it to him. There was an image on the leaf like a miniature movie.

Jason giggled hysterically, “Hell’s little iPod.”

Jason saw himself in the company of the rich and powerful, surrounded by beautiful, fabulously wealthy men and women. “False Dreams?” he asked.

Again, Uncle Apollo didn’t reply as the leaf crumbled away between Jason’s fingers.

Jason plucked a leaf from a bit higher in the tree. There was Amy: as teenager, graduating college, married, children, and a grandmother. Jason was in none of the images.

Desperately, Jason snatched a final leaf, as high up as he could reach. There was Barbara, playing with the grandchildren, growing old, and dying alone. Tears streamed down his face as the leaves crumbled into bitter dust.

How does a corpse cry?

* * *

“What do you have there, Honey?” Barbara asked her daughter.

“It’s Daddy in a boat,” Amy said, and showed Barbara the almost completed picture. Amy had drawn it with black and brown crayons. It was an old man, pushing a small boat with a pole with a stick figure sitting in it.

She misses her Daddy so much, Barbara thought. It’s such a grim picture. Coloring is the only way Amy can express what she’s feeling.

“That’s nice, Dear,” Barbara said. “Why don’t you draw me another one?” Maybe it will help.

“Okay, Mommy,” Amy said.

* * *

“Let’s move on,” Uncle Apollo said.

Jason led the way through low hills on a narrow, twisting trail. Ghostly forms went before and after them, the spirits of the dead. They ignored Jason as if he had no existence.

Am I the shadow, or are they? he wondered.

Finally, Jason and Apollo emerged on a low bluff over-looking a broad plain. Men and women in classic Greek dress crowded the plain, crying and screaming, as they rent their clothing and hair.

“The Valley of Mourning,” Apollo said. “It lies beside the river Cocytus. Cocytus is also known as The River of Lamentation, the river of tears.”

“What are they mourning?”

“Missed opportunities and unrequited love.”

“Opportunities?” Jason said.

“Yes,” Uncle Apollo said. “An opportunity to be a bit more loving, a little more patient, to help a friend, to comfort an enemy: opportunities.”

“I don’t understand,” Jason said.

Apollo looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, “There is a way for you out of this place, but only you can find it. Think about what you have just seen.”

After a while, Jason and Apollo took a path around the plain and hiked back up into the hills, leaving the mourning crowd behind.

* * *

They halted in a small valley. There was a fork in the road: one going right, the other left. At the head of the fork sat three Kings on three rock thrones, conferring: Aeacus, former king of Aegina, Minos, former king of Crete, and Rhadamanthos, brother of Minos.

Before them stood a Greek warrior in full battle dress with a red cape, a red roach of horsehair running side-to-side on his bronze helm, bronze greaves, a short sword, and a round shield marked with the Greek letter ‘lambda’.

The warrior made no statement and gave no argument. He was a warrior. He had chosen his lot with a clear eye and a peaceful heart. There were no regrets.

“He is a Spartan hoplite,” Uncle Apollo said. “the greatest of them all, King Leonidas.”

King Minos pointed to the right.

“Ah, a good man,” said Apollo. “He fought with honor to defend his family and home, without regard for himself. They are directing him to the Elysium Fields, a place of great happiness and joy. After a period of rest, he shall drink from Lethe, the River of Oblivion, shed his memories, and return to Earth as a new born babe again.”

“What is to the left?” Jason asked.

“Tartarus and Erebus.”

“The Abyss?”

“Yes,” said Apollo. “You shall see them for yourself.”

* * *

Uncle Apollo and Jason stood upon a rocky pinnacle, overhanging a deep chasm in the Earth, Tartarus. Absolute blackness lay below, Erebus. Three iron walls enclosed Tartarus, around which flowed the flaming lava and crashing rocks of Pyriphlegethon, the River of Fire.

“I must leave you now,” said Apollo. “However, before I leave, take this token. It is your final clue.”

Apollo put a small bronze coin in Jason’s hand, and vanished.

Jason heard musical laughter and looked up. There floated a being of quicksilver in the shape of a beautiful, slender, young man, with winged feet and a winged helm. “Uncle Apollo?”

The being laughed again, “Call me what you will, but I am known as Hermes among the Gods. My task here is done. I have others to escort to Hades. Farewell my friend.”

And, lightning quick, Hermes was gone. Jason was alone.

“Apollo... Hermes!” Jason screamed. “Whoever you are! Where are you? Help me... please... come back and help me!” Jason thought he heard a brief, tinkling laugh, then nothing.

Only the roaring flames of the Pyriphlegethon with its crashing boulders, and the cries of the damned echoing from the depths of Tartarus remained.

* * *

“Mommy!”

“What is it Amy?” Barbara asked.

“I need another piece of paper.”

“Another one?” Barbara said. “It’s almost suppertime. Why don’t you put your crayons away, and come help me set the table?” Amy had been drawing all afternoon.

“Please, Mommy, just one more. Daddy’s in trouble. He’s in a very dark place, and I’ve got to make him a ladder so he can get out.”

This is not going well, Barbara mused. Well, I’ll let her continue until supper.

“All right then,” she said. “One more piece, then it’s time to eat; Okay?”

“Okay, Mommy,” said Amy. “Thanks.”

* * *

A gradual, profound lassitude overcame Jason as he sat quietly on the barren peak. He looked at the small bronze coin in his hand. On it was a depiction of Eros, the Greek God of Love.

Jason was sitting on the Rock of the Damned. He felt as if he were melting, blending, fading into the coal-black rock, but there was no reason to care. Touching his hand to its rough, cold surface, Jason could sense the countless others who had disappeared into it. Yet something was keeping him barely alive, or was it barely dead?

Jason sat on the summit, halfway between Tartarus on his left, and the Elysian Fields on his right, contemplating.

I’ve made some mistakes, he admitted, and some bad choices. Just look where I am, halfway between Heaven and Hell. Perhaps this is where I belong.

He looked again at the coin in his hand, engraved with the symbol of love. He thought about that scared little boy, whose only goal in life was to make money... out of fear. His fear of being lost... but he was lost, wasn’t he? And money was of no consequence whatsoever. What was left?

The earth rumbled, something cracked and snapped. The smell of sulfur, burning hair, and burning flesh filled the air. Pyriphlegethon was becoming more active now, rumbling, gnashing, and clashing in the distance. The Rock of the Damned was quaking, as if attempting to devour him.

Jason thought about his wife and daughter. He had not been kind to them, and now regretted it dearly. If he could but see them just one last time... and then, like a flower opening to the warmth of the sun... Jason’s heart opened. This was all about love.

Without love, they were all wraiths. Even the Gods were but shadows on the wall if they had not love. Jason flipped the coin in his hand and caught it. He smiled, and for the first time during this whole adventure, felt alive.

“All right, Zeus, Christos, God, Hermes, or whatever it is you call yourself,” Jason said into the fetid gloom. “Maybe I do deserve this... maybe I’ve earned it.

“Do with me, as you will. Nevertheless, the one thing you can’t change is my love for my family. No matter what happens to me, I will love my wife and daughter until the end of time... and beyond that!”

To Jason’s everlasting amazement, a slender beam of golden yellow sunlight lanced down through a crack in the overcast. Ordinary sunlight was dazzling in the perpetual gloom.

Illuminated by this single beam, a simple knotted rope ladder dropped from the clouds above. Jason grabbed hold and starting climbing with all of his strength. He would return to his family or die trying.

* * *

Jason awoke in the cellar. He must have passed out. He was having difficulty breathing, suffering massive chest pain. It felt as if an elephant was sitting on his chest.

“No, it can’t be,” he said. “I’m only thirty-eight. I must have just fallen and strained myself, but boy, this really, really hurts.”

He looked up the stairs; the cellar door was partially open, casting a triangle of light, a promise of life. He was too weak to climb, but he still had his cell phone. He pulled it out and dialed 911. They answered.

Jason was surprised to see that the sheets had covered piles of boxes. They were not at all the statues he had imagined they were.

Something was in his left hand. It was an ancient Greek coin with a worn engraving of Eros. Did he grab it from the floor when he fell? Or... the alternative was unthinkable. He slipped the coin into his pocket. Was someone laughing?

Jason was having trouble breathing, his heart fluttering in his chest like a startled bird. He began to fade in and out of consciousness.

They’d better hurry, he thought.

* * *

“Jason, are you awake?”

He opened his eyes. He was in the Cardiac Step-down Unit in Hartford Hospital. Several days had passed. It was Barbara’s voice.

He grabbed her hand. She was real, flesh and blood. Real sunlight streamed in through the window.

“Barbara, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I was such a jerk,” he said.

“We’ll talk about that later,” she said. “But Amy’s here now and she wants to give you something. Do you want to see her?”

“Oh, yes, please,” he said, and propped himself up in bed. Amy came running into the room, a sheet of paper in her hand, and jumped up on his bed.

“Daddy, Daddy, you’re home! I knew that you’d come back. Here I drew this for you.” She handed him a drawing; a black scrawl of clouds at the top, a big yellow ray coming down, and a brown rope ladder dangling from above.

Jason drew her to him, hugged her, holding her close.

“Thank you, Honey,” he sobbed. “Thank you so much. I will keep this forever; forever and ever and ever.”

Copyright © 2008 by Mark Lawrence

Open Challenge 285...