The Reaper

part iv

        

part iv

It was cold in Tartarus.

It wasn't a pleasant coolness or even a bone-numbing frostiness. It was the kind of cold that scurried in through your mouth and nose and eyes sockets and stroked at your insides like a knife across jelly. The cold felt sentient. It felt angry.

The echoes of heavy, purposeful footfall bellowed through Tartarus.  The sound of shoes slapping the wet ground rang through the damp, winding labyrinth, and settled within its mould and its rot. Tartarus was groaning. Tartarus was always groaning.

A patch of darkness shifted in the east arm of Tartarus. It picked itself up and brushed itself off, existing somehow at exactly the same frequency of Tartarus' never-ending howls.

"What brings you to my prison?" asked the darkness. Its voice was a low, gravelly rumble, somehow both daunting and incredibly critical.

Hades' hand reached instinctively for the squirrel-shaped stressball he kept in his right trouser pocket. "Cerberus," he said politely. "It's been a long time."

"Time," growled Cerberus. The walls grumbled with his voice. "We do not deal in time down here."

"Yes," he sighed curtly. "And clearly you don't deal with my interns either. Did you not get my memo?"

As Cerberus breathed, the mosaics of mildew and decay plastered on each wall of the sprawling prison breathing with him. It was a pained, angry sound.

Hades glanced up at the ceiling. It was oozing something black, which had been dripping onto the toe of his Italian brogues. With a little cry of disgust, he skipped to the side.

"Do you ever clean this place?" demanded Hades, his voice cracking with queasiness.

Cerberus smiled. "I do not deal in cleanliness."

"Alright, but I mean I think you should start exploring supplementary interests or something. Recreationally." He adjusted his lapels primly. "I mean, invest in a light source. Some nice skylights or something. Where even are you?"

The darkness shifted and a gaunt man stepped out from it. Still, tendrils of shade clung to him like infants gripping their father.

"Where am I not?" he smiled. It was a slow, calculating smile.

Hades began to massage his temples. "Look, I know you think you're being smart, but you're giving me a stress migraine."

"Did you come to my prison to complain about its conditions?" asked Cerberus, and his voice echoed through every black, decayed surface in the vast yet stifling prison. "It is a place of punishment." He smiled again. "I deal in punishment. I deal in security."

"I know you deal in security," Hades snapped, his voice tense from all the dust caking his airways. It was impossible to breathe down here without inhaling an archaeological dig's worth of dirt. The whole place smelled like rusted iron and rot. "You're the head of security."

Cerberus sighed, and Tartarus trembled.

"You know, I always get surprised when I see you and you only have one head," Hades remarked. "See, I'm always expecting three or more."

"I have many heads," he asserted, and then he paused. "And many bodies."

"Thank heavens that ended up where it did," Hades sighed, smoothing down his tie. "Anyway, I have a job for you."

Cerberus shifted. "I am doing my job. I am guarding your underworld. I have heads at the entrance. I have heads at the Asphodel Meadows. I have heads at Eribus and Lethe and Acheron and Phlegethon and Styx. I have heads everywhere."