Raging Seas [pjo au] || 1

δεκατέσσερα

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
( LEARNING OF THE TRUTH )

PICTURE THIS: THE MOST famous musician performing in front of the largest crowd ever, everyone packed in a huge stadium.

Now, times the size of that stadium by a million, or even a billion. But there are no lights; the electricity went off, and with no noise on stage, there are only the murmurs of the crowd. Tragedy has happened backstage, and millions or billions of people are waiting for a concert doomed to never begin.

That was what the Fields of Asphodel looked like. Because of eons of being trampled by the dead's feet, the black grass laid flattened. As if they were in a swamp, humid wind blew through the air. The black trees Kali knew as poplars grew in clumps here and there.

The cavern ceiling was so high above them it might have been a bank of storm clouds if not for the stalactites. They glowed a faint gray and looked wickedly pointed. Some were impaled into the ground, having fallen from up above; they dotted the black grass in various spots. The dead didn't have to worry about being stabbed and flattened simultaneously by the stalactites. Kali, Percy, Annabeth, and Grocer didn't have that luxury. It made her more nervous.

The four of them did their best to blend in with the crowd while keeping an eye out for security ghouls at the same time. Kali didn't bother to look for anyone familiar; there were too many to count, and would be a lost cause. Besides, they were hard to look at. Their faces shimmered. Repeatedly they came up to them and spoke, but their voices were like chatter, like bats twittering. The moment they realized Kali and them didn't understand what they were saying, the dead frowned and left.

It was depressing. Not scary.

It made her tear up in sympathy.

They crept along, following the line of new arrivals that snaked from the main gates toward a black-tented pavilion. There was a banner on it that read:

JUDGMENTS FOR ELYSIUM AND ETERNAL DAMNATION
Welcome, Newly Deceased!

Out the back of the tent came two lines, much smaller than the main one.

At the left, security ghouls flanked the spirits, and marched down a rocky path toward the Field of Punishment. It glowed and smoked in the distance, a vast, cracked wasteland with rivers of lava and minefields and miles of barbed wire separating various torture areas. Even with how far away Kali was, she could see people being chased by hellhounds, burned at the stake, forced to run naked through patches of cacti, or listen to opera music. There were worse things, too. Things that would be seared into her mind forever. And then there was an ant-sized figure of Sisyphus in the distance, struggling to push a boulder to the top of a hill.

As for the right side, it was much, much better. The line led down toward a small valley surrounded by walls – a gated community, which seemed to be the only happy part of the Underworld. Neighborhoods of beautiful houses from every time period in history were beyond the gate. Silver and gold flowers bloomed on lawns. Grass rippled in colors of the rainbow. Laughter and the smell of barbecue made its way over.

Elysium.

In the middle of the valley was a glittering blue lake, with three small islands like a vacation resort in the Bahamas. The Isles of the Blest, for people who had chosen to be reborn three times, and three times achieved Elysium.