The Gatekeeper's Sons

Chapter 16

After leaving Therese safely at her door, Than went to her room and, in invisible mode, conversed with the hamster and the tortoise.

"I love her," he said in each of their tongues. "And she's hurt. Please comfort her. Can you please?"

"If she picks me up!" The hamster said, as he ran round and round. "Good human! Good human! I've known others, and she's good! If she picks me up, I'll lick her with my tongue!"

Than turned to the tortoise, which now said, "She's loving and tender. So gentle and loyal. I try as best as I can to let her know I love her, too."

A noise came, and then Therese entered. Than softly thanked the animals, and listened as the tortoise said a bit more. Then Than took his leave.

He soared down past the abyss, past Cerberus and the gate and down to his father's chamber in such a state of fury that the bats swirled down from their perch and made their escape into the cold night earlier than was usual. Although Hades must have foreseen his son's arrival, he still showed surprise at his son's rage, the son whom he was used to seeing as the more temperate of his two boys. A tinge of guilt ran through Than as he told himself to show more control.

His sister Alecto stood in the shadows beside their father. Her fire-red hair stood up in a Mohawk and contrasted with her deep black, beautiful eyes. A choker of black stones adorned her neck and similar stones served as buttons in her leather jacket and tight leather pants and high-heeled boots.

"Thanatos?" Hades asked. "Alecto was just apprising me of her progress in a number of the Furies' pursuits, including the killer of your girlfriend's parents. But something tells me you are not here for a report."

"Have you found him?" he asked his sister.

She shook her head.

"Why are you here?" Hades asked Than.

Than tried to think how to put his sorrow and his shame and his desperation into words, but no words seemed to fit the caged and raw emotion he had never before felt. Finally, seeing his father was in a patient mood, Than swallowed and said, with more control and less rage than he felt, "I used to envy the humans their short lives. Their deaths make their lives more meaningful."

"You no longer think it now?"

"I still think it, Father. Death is better than immortality, a yoke only we gods must bear."

"I can't see your thoughts, son. You must speak them."

"Death is good for those who die, but not for those left behind. Why haven't I understood before tonight the depth of that pain? If a horse could raise so much anguish in my mortal heart, I can only imagine what the loss of a parent or child would do. Father, I've ignored countless prayers from billions of souls because I felt there was nothing I could do; but I'm a god. Surely there is something?"

Hades looked down his thin nose at Than. He scratched at his beard and, Than could see, stifled a smile.

"Are you laughing at me?" Than said, moving dangerously close to his father.

Alecto stepped back, further into the shadows.

"Not at you. At the whole cosmos."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Than asked.

"Son, nothing is free. Everything comes with a cost. As you have said, the mortal creatures of the world, at least the good ones, are fortunate that their lives end and their souls spend the rest of eternity in near oblivion; unlike we who must endure our mundane tasks forever. You said yourself that the brevity of their conscious lives makes their journey more meaningful than ours. We are like caged hamsters in a wheel, spinning, spinning, spinning. Humans have but one spin, one go, one bright moment and then the flame goes out.

"The advantage of mortality is clear to us, but not to them, and that is why those left behind suffer. They miss the company of their loved ones, but it is the feeling that the deceased no longer exist that hurts the most. This is the cost mortals must pay. Let me put it to you this way: Mortality is better than immortality, but only the immortal have the ability to see this, and there lies both the irony and the cost of human happiness."

Than shook his head. "So there really is nothing then? Nothing we can do to ease that cost?"

"If there is a way we gods can ease that burden, it is by inspiring this understanding into the human heart. I don't know if it is possible, though. They have such limited minds."

Than sat at the foot of his father's throne on the hard, cold rock awash with defeat.

Hades asked, "A horse's death has brought you to me in fits?"

Than looked up, ashamed. "Hip winked at me as he took the soul of the creature, completely ignorant of the pain we were feeling. How many times have I been so calloused as that?"

"Never. You and your brother are very unlike each other, as I am to mine."

"It wasn't the horse's death that hurt so much as the pain I could feel in the humans left behind. That and the overwhelming feeling of helplessness. And also the rage that I, a god, could do nothing."

Hades smiled. "I am familiar with the feeling. I suppose it is good that gods are humbled now and then."

Than said nothing.

"How goes it with the girl?" Hades asked.

Than, used to being honest for so many centuries, could not find it in his heart to lie. He glanced at Alecto, unsure if he wanted her to hear, but went on and said, "I love her, but I'm having second thoughts about teaching her to love me."

Hades lifted a brow. "You find her unworthy?"

"No. Just the opposite."

"I find that insulting and despicable. Don't weary me this way."

Than stood up. "You don't understand me because I can hardly explain myself. What I'm trying to say is that she loves the Upperworld and its inhabitants more than most humans, and I worry I would make her into a despondent wife down here."

"There is no other kind of wife down here," Hades said. "Remember that."