Hectate's magic crackled around me. Was I being foolhardy? Was I dashing in where angels fear to tread? Probably. Was Hectate's agenda one I could trust? Frankly I didn't know, if I was honest I had very mixed feelings about the gods of Olympus mainly because of the mixed messages their choices and actions sent. However the enemy of my enemy is my friend, or as Churchill colourfully said "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons." Of course the invader of moment, the interloper into Hades realm was me, and come hell or high water I meant to bring Diana back to the land of the living.

As the mystical beat of the portal Hectate's magic cast around me slowed, the twirling kaleidoscope of colours faded to grey. I now felt ground under my feet, as the portal closes it is like having the wind knocked out of me, and I collapse stunned to my knees. The pebble sand is harsh beneath me, hard, sharp and painful.

Pain is something I get to feel infrequently. I've been hurt enough times to know I don't like it. Doomsday beat me to a very real approximation of death. Here and now in this other place it is as Hectate predicted, I am mortal. Perhaps this is a pure magic realm. It's an about turn, because in the world of the dead, a realm of spirit, apparently Superman is just a man. I suppose that is price of my hubris, my presumption that I could cross over alive into deaths realm.

I catch my breath, and rise. Beyond the sharp sand and rocks a turbulent river flows, a churning morass of dark water lit with silver white froth as it crashes together like writing serpents. Above me the sky glitters with golden stars, and ruby, emerald and sapphire planets, the darkness kisses the desert beyond the river, and between is an expanse of lifeless rock and sands, coloured from red to brown through to pink and white.

I leap forward, and find the limit of my strength and it is very human.

The river is broad and wide as it is rapid and angry. Jutting out into the dark waters is a jetty, beside this a boat is moored, and standing with this is a rough unkempt Athenian seaman dressed in deep earth red, a wide belt around his middle. His beard is dirty and long, his face gaunt and lined, aged but not ancient. In his right hand Charon the Syx's ferry man holds a punting pole, with which he propels the boat, as I approach Charon he extends his left hand.

"Lonely I stand beside this river." His fingers twitch to encourage me to give up my coin. "And then comes a mortal alive and not dead seeking to enter the world of the dead." Charon's eyes burn like hollow furnaces of fire.

My own fingers press the Obol to my palm. I am fearful and almost unwilling to give it up, something deep within me does not want to cross the river, perhaps it is simply I want to live. I give up the coin into his calloused hand, Charon grasps it and where it goes I can't tell, he extends his empty hand like a magicians reveal at the end of his trick, but the ferry man simply bids me enter his boat.

I step in the wooden craft, and sit at the bow, Charon at the prow, releases the boat onto the water, and with mechanical efficiency the ferry man takes me across the river.

"You mean to tread where mortal man may not go, you are a bold one, my strange visitor from another world." Charon voice rasps, hard and clear above the roar of the water.

"What advice have you ferry man?" I ask him.

"It is too late to turn back, and that is the only advice I have for the living who dare to enter deaths realm."

Charon's pole slipped back and forth in his hand as the boat ran straight and true cutting an impossible course, magically he guided the ferry across the white froth cresting the twisting waves of the dark waters.

I say as I sight the other side. "Who rules Hades's Realm?"

"Never has the land of dead been so. No one rules here, and so every ghost and shade is King."

I wondered what kind of anarchy I would find on the other side. Hades was gone usurped by Ares, who in turn died at Diana's hand, as much as god may die, banished beyond Olympus, only to return in Bruce's body to fall once again back to that place. Now it would seem no one held sway over the realm of the dead.

Orpheus had pleaded his case before the underworlds god Hades and his Queen Persephone, for the ghost of his dead love Eurydice, would the lack of government make my task here harder or easier? Would I snatch Diana back more easily because there was no King to bargain with, to make conditions? Or without a ruler would the way home be barred to me – was this Hectate's true intention? Only time would tell I reflected as the sharp sand and gravel of the opposing bank of the Styx bit into the boat.

Charon directed me to leave his ferry, and with his fearsome eyes burning into mine I leapt into the shallows at the rivers edge. The dark waters seemed to boil around me, and I stumbled and fell into them, it was if a thousand tiny hands pulled me down, and the froth washed over me.

Charon's laugh echoed even through the roar of the river, even the water itself. "Hades does not welcome a living soul to it's shores."

I taste water, and bite down, mastering my desire to gasp for air, and dig my hands into the dirt, my limbs scramble, then my right finds the solidity of rock. I drag myself forward, the Styx pulls me back, I struggle, finding a foot hold, I at last crawl spitting water and rage onto the rocks, staggering forward I find cold sands and lay there for a moment catching my breath.

Wet, cold, my hands sting, grazed by my struggle to escape the unnatural waters of the Styx. Slowly I sit up, glad the unique alien fabric of my costume resists water, I run my hands through my wet hair, which does not. Around me grey mists swirl, shadows of white and dark, blurring my vision and obscuring the tortuous shapes of the wind shaped rocks. From this tumult a shade arises. My heart beats faster, I roll onto my knee, ready to fight.

"Pa?" I gasp. His familiar face welcome colour in the grey wisps.

"Hello son."

"How...?"

"Special dispensation from the management."

I frown deeply, and rise to face him. "This is Hades, the Greek underworld – the kingdom of the dead?"

"And I by rights, you're thinking I should be in the Kingdom of Heaven?"

"Yes..." My voice tails off into silence, he stands before me as he did in life, his blue jeans and checked shirt as much a uniform as my own.

"Look around you Clark." Pa says to me, his hand gesturing to and fro, a familiar gesture that distils my emotions. I trade surprise and disbelief, for equal measures of joy and grief. Jonathan Kent's loss is still raw for me.

Pa asks me. "Son do you Remember the parable of Lazarus and the rich man?"

"Sure I do." I offer a summation. "The rich man was selfish and treat the poor beggar Lazarus badly, they both died, then the rich man looked up from hell and saw Lazarus in the bosom of their ancestor Abraham."

"What does that tell you?"

"That Heaven and Hell aren't that far apart?"

Pa laughed. "True enough, Clark, true enough, but that isn't the whole story."

"Pa is this really you?" I dispense with game playing. He smiles in away I remember all too clearly. Jonathan Kent winks at me, an expression I had taken and made my own. My heart recognised my adoptive father, even if my head struggled to do so.
Pa then said. "The rich man saw hell – he saw into heaven, he saw Abraham, and Lazarus, but someone important missing from this picture."

I thought about the story for a moment, rehearsing the players, and then it struck me.

"God?" I answered. "The rich man can see into heaven, but he doesn't see God."

"Son if the rich man didn't know God when he was alive he sure couldn't expect to recognise God when he was dead. Simply he couldn't see the wood for the trees."

"You're saying what I see here in this place of spirits is determined by my the limits of my knowledge?"

"Of course, we paint heaven and hell ourselves, build our own reward and punishment by thoughts words and deeds."

I cut the chase. I hoped this ghost could answer me, I hoped this wasn't a cruel trick of this realm of the dead.

"How do I find Diana?"

"By recognising her Clark."

"How?"
"Follow your heart Son."

Then a violent wind rushed past us, and my eyes closed against the rain of dry dust and sand, when I opened them Pa was gone. I shook my head in wonder and disbelief, and yet I hoped, and yes I prayed. It was then I heard the clash of steel upon steel.