Solstice

The giant of a man nods and turns back to the boulder.

I motion at the rock even though he’s not looking at me. “Why are you doing that?”

“Somebody needs to. And seeing as I’ve been unfairly accused and left in this place of eternal damnation, I find it’s my job.”

“Unfairly accused?”

He gives a giant shove, pushing the boulder a good two feet ahead. And he’s fast; he moves up before it can slip even an inch. “Accused of killing innocent people. Travelers and guests to my house.”

He’s got the boulder moving at such a clip, I’m having a hard time keeping up. “And did you?” He’s almost jogging behind it.

Out comes another laugh, though, at this point, I notice it’s missing most of its humor. “Of course not!”

“So you didn’t kill anyone?”

He turns to me, and shakes his head, sending sweat flying in all directions, some landing on my arms and chest. I notice his naked parts shake when he does this, and I avert my eyes, looking instead at the rock. But he catches me looking and smiles.

“What is this? A trial?”

I don’t answer. I’m certainly not going to apologize for asking.

“Fine. Yes. I killed many, many people. But every single one of them was trying to kill me first. Or cheat me. Or rape my wife. And so I killed them all.” The man turns to me and licks his lips, and his private parts seem to grow in size. “And might I just say I enjoyed it immensely.”

My face freezes, and I know without a shadow of a doubt this man belongs right where he is. Here in Tartarus. Spores of evil coat him. I’m ready to leave him, and a weight lifts off me when I see we’re only steps away from the top.

His melodic voice sings to me. “I don’t believe I caught your name.”

I shake my head. “No, you didn’t.” I don’t want to give this monster my name.

“I’m Sisyphus.” And with a final push, the boulder crests over the top of a ridge, hitting a plateau. Sisyphus moves it around, making sure it’s resting perfectly on flat rocks. He bends down, propping it in place with some smaller rocks to keep it from moving. And then he turns to me, and when he opens his mouth, I smell his breath —foul like he’s been feasting on the bodies of his victims. He narrows his eyes, and my skin begins to crawl.

Every part of me wants to run away. But I know I need to finish this.

Sisyphus licks his teeth and smiles. “I know who you are.” The melody has vanished from his voice.

He takes a step toward me, and I take a step backward.

“You do?”

Sisyphus nods. “Uh huh. Even in your disguise. You can’t fool me. And I know why you’re here.”

“Why?” My throat’s so dry I can barely squeak it out.

“You’re checking in for him. I knew you’d come. Aeacus said you wouldn’t. Said he’d be lord forever. And maybe that’s your biggest mistake. You never should have come.”

He takes another step toward me, but my head shifts at a sound. I look past his broad shoulder and see the boulder rock on its pedestal. Sisyphus hears it, too, and turns, but too late. The boulder moves again, shifting around the rocks underneath it. Sisyphus lunges backward, throwing his arms out, but the momentum can’t be stopped. His fingernails bend backward as the boulder pulls out from underneath his grip. And then it begins to tumble, picking up speed, until it’s a blur on the side of the mountain.

“No!” Sisyphus doesn’t even look my way a final time. He’s off and running so fast, he blurs into the mountainside, and I’m left alone on the plateau with the dark castle ahead.

Chapter 34 Aeacus

When the slick naked form of Sisyphus disappears, I expect to be able to breathe again. But as I face the dark castle, my chest tightens so ferociously, I can’t force air into my lungs.

“Come inside.”

“Come to us.”

“We’ve missed you.”

The voices again. But they aren’t in my head this time. They’re seeping out of the walls of the castle, as if a chorus of dead souls has been used to form the stones.

I want to turn and run, but I need to go in. Sisyphus said he knows who I am. And I want to know. Need to know. My answers are only footsteps away. I lift my right foot, forcing the knee to bend, and plant it in front of me. Dust lifts from the ground, swirling at my feet and then growing until I’m standing amid a nebula of dead ground. I lift my left leg and plant it ahead of the right. My feet feel like stones. The dust engulfs me. And all my senses are screaming at me to not go inside.

“Yes. Come closer.”

The voices pull at me, and I am a slave to my own curiosity and to their promises.

“We have answers.”

“We’ve missed you.”

Overhead, thunder booms, and purple lightning hits a high tower, electrifying it for a moment—outlining it against the stormy orange sky. The castle holds in the electricity as the stones sizzle, unwilling to let it go, but finally the outline of the building disappears, and the tower remains unscathed.

One step at a time, I make my way forward. I’m almost there when a skeleton hand reaches out of the ground. It doesn’t grab for me but instead beckons with a long, bony finger. Drawing me forward. Another one comes up beside it, and then another off to the left and closer to the thick doors. All around me, I see the bony hands, palms up, fingers curling inward, making me move. They stay out of my way, and soon I’m at the side of a moat, and a drawbridge slams to the ground.

I jump back but only for a second. Once the dust settles, I set my feet on the wooden planks, my legs trembling under me.

Never leave us.

You belong with us.

The voices come from every part of the castle. The stone walls. The wooden drawbridge. The cobblestones up ahead. I close my eyes, trying not to think about Minos and the dead phoenix, and I remind myself—they’ll tell me what I want to know. What I need to know. And then I’m out on the cobblestones, and the drawbridge rises behind me.

I stand in the middle of a gravel courtyard with only the smell of death to keep me company. Fountains sit in the four corners, but they’re dry and cracked like the fountains in my world above ground. I think of Sisyphus. Of him gripping his penis and of his melodic voice. And then there were his words. I know who you are.

“Who am I?”

I don’t realize I’ve said it aloud until I hear the echoes of my whisper all around me.

Who am I? Who am I?

It taunts me as it mixes in with the other voices. It blends into their chorus. I put my hands over my ears to hold out the noise, and then another voice takes over. One which drowns out the rest.

“Come join us. We will show you.”

To the left, a carved wooden door gapes open. Yellow light pours out from inside, and I know I need to go there. I steel myself against my fears, and walk across the gravel toward it.

I shield my eyes when I walk in, but the door slams, and the blinding yellow light extinguishes. I’m left standing in a room with just enough light from the torches on the walls to see a long wooden table ahead of me and three men seated around it. My eyes move from one to the next, trying to figure out what I’ve gotten myself into. But before I can take them all in, the man at the head of the table stands up.

He’s got a close-cut dark beard, and on top of his thick curly brown hair sits a golden crown covered in