Angel's Ride

Part 6

The terrain surrounding this wide waterway began to morph into a brighter, cooler world. The distant banks of the river and rolling hills beyond them were sprinkled with the vegetation of olive trees and tall, elegant Cypress. While impressed with the minute details of this virtual Mediterranean world-a flock of lazy sheep grazed on the nearest bank-I was still shocked and confused as to what I had only moments before seen as some sort of secret communication between Angel and the bearded man. He had seemed so out of place, ostensibly working behind the illusions of the ride. I had little time to think about this when there exploded off to the left of the ship's bow, an eruption of water high into the air.

Emerging out of the river in a plume of spray was the nine-headed sea creature Scylla, in all her grotesque and mythological glory. The enormous beast rose quickly and approached us, squealing from each serpent head with high pitched and discordant screams. It moved its heads menacingly nearer to our ship's low railing, exposing sets of gray teeth and blinking her nine glutinous pairs of yellow eyes. The creature's muscular necks carried its fetid terror over the top of the mast and square sail, then down like a striking snake to the passengers.

Many of these terrified travelers reeled backwards in their panic, and like Angel and myself, they slid down off their benches onto the deck for protection. As our warship rolled in the current and yawed from the large waves created by Scylla's disturbance, one man toward the bow was seen by everyone to be lifted off the deck in one of the creature's gaping mouths. He was carried, arms and legs flailing, over the side of the ship and then pulled silently down into the cobalt blue water. The passengers were still screaming and some sobbing when the river eventually calmed. The serpent, along with our fellow adventurer, did not return. Amid the resulting hysteria and shouts for assistance, were also heard a few sounds of laughter on board, as some of the more brazen passengers readjusted their emotions to the fact that this was, after all, an amusement park-however horrible what they had just witnessed, appeared.

As passengers began to re-enter their comfort zone and return to their seats, Angel and I looked once again into each other's faces. I could see she was still nervous and steeped in some perplexing secret. I could sense this in her empty, lifeless touch when I tried to hold her hand, and by the fact that those wonderful gray eyes of hers now evaded mine. I looked out across the river to both banks in the distance. They had already evolved into more vertical cliffs and jagged rocks. We were undoubtedly ramping up in speed again. Ahead, I watched the two other ships moving in single file which, with ours, formed a caravan of majestic vessels, their sails billowing and drawn tight with ropes whistling in the volatile air.

Soon the once painterly sky began to darken from its azure blue into a rarefied iridescence, as if now becoming dusk. There was a thick mist ahead and I could make out a fork in the watercourse where it narrowed into two distinct passageways. Each of ships before us navigated into the left of these channels. A heavy white steam or fog was rising above the opposite passage as we approached the nexus of the two lanes. It did not appear we were going to follow the two other triremes, which by then had cleanly healed over to avoid the steaming right fork before us. Angel remained silent and began to grip the hand railing, as if anticipating some impending event which she seemed strangely aware of as we proceeded to the right. I turned to her and held her shoulders. Her body was rigid, her gaze transfixed forward.

"What is it?" I shouted. "What's going to happen to us?"

She had become frighteningly distant. I could hear a thunderous roar ahead as we began to enter this steaming fork of the River Styx.

"It's the waterfall, isn't it, Angel? The cataract you spoke of. . ."

I had to shout over the sound of casscading water directly in our path. The vaporous atmosphere of mist signaled what lay ahead. It was undoubtedly the 'death drop' she had alluded to so often in our lovemaking. The roar of the falls became intolerable. I looked back towards the calmer waters as a powerful instinct to escape consumed me. I could see in the other passengers a dull preparation for some unknown event-which I had strong foreknowledge of.