Misguided Angel Ch 3  Beneath the Gate

"I'm tired of being alone, the teary night…"

            "I am Cerberus," the golden beast bellowed, "the Guardian Beast of the Underworld.  Only the dead may pass this gate!"  He stood menacingly, the muscles of his splayed legs standing out powerfully.  His immense feline form blocked the gateway, tail swishing like a serpent waiting to strike.

            Priestess Sakura braced her staff before her.  This first challenge would be the simplest; she could not fail here.  "But I am dead," she stated in a strong voice.  "Yet there is one beyond this gate who is not, and I am here to return him to the living."

            Her words balked the Guardian Beast.  "You look pretty lively," he said in a conversational voice, fixating on her first statement.

            "Thank you," said Sakura.  "But I really am dead.  And I need to hurry."

            Cerberus brought his powerful head close to her face.  He sniffed, and eyed her with close scrutiny.  "You died so young.  That's kind of sad," he said.

            "Ummm… may I please pass the gate?" the young priestess asked.  The Beast moved aside, clearing the path that lead downward.  "Thank you," said Sakura sweetly, and headed into the forbidding gloom.

            "Do you know where you're going?" Cerberus called after her.

            "Yes!" called Sakura back, encouraged by her first success.  She gave Cerberus a little hand wave in parting because it seemed polite to do so.

            The light of her staff parted the darkness before her, but shapes were moving in the shadows.  Her pace slowed.  There was no longer a road before her, just the vast gloom, and she was not alone.  Sakura held back a scream when the thin remainder of what was once a living person drifted next to her; whether the wraith had been a man or a woman, adult or child, even it no longer knew.  Ghosts were all around her, shades uncertain of their places in Hades.

            Priestess Sakura clutched her staff and made herself think only of her quest.  She quickened her pace once again, trusting that, with her purpose clear in her mind, she would find her way to her goal.  A line of women crossed her path, carrying leaking clay jars in their blood-stained hands.  She shied away from them and found herself walking along another river, one that moved fast.  The water was crisply clear and looked inviting to drink, but Sakura knew the danger of the Underworld's temptations.

            At the edge of the river, kneeling in the mud, the shade of a woman cupped water in her hands and watched it flow down her arms.  "I've waited forever…" she murmured  with confusion, "for… who?".  She looked towards the young priestess without seeing her.  "Forever…" the ghost whispered with longing.

            Sakura fled from the river of forgeting, and from the lost souls that wandered its banks.  She realized that she was running through trees, and once again on a clear trail.  The gloom appeared more like twilight; perhaps, when the day died, this was its place in Hades, the young priestess contemplated.  She caught her breath again by slowing from her sprint to a brisk walk.  By the illumination of her staff and the extra light around her, she discerned that the short, fine trunked trees around her were flowering myrtles.  The sight of this sacred symbol of her goddess bolstered Sakura, and she felt her earlier fright fading.

Ahead, a looming shadow against the horizon revealed itself to be a tower and a high wall.  It seemed, to Sakura, that she was walking directly toward it.  This, perhaps, was Hade's palace at last; it seemed forbidding enough.  Priestess Sakura strode on. 

From beyond the wall, a blood-chilling cry split the air, stopping the girl in her tracks.  More terrible sounds followed: the cracking of lashes, screams, and noises like wet ripping.  As the sounds continued, Sakura nearly screamed herself.  She could not go back, only forward, so forward she went, even though she shook with every horrible new sound that assaulted her ears.

            Tears streamed from her eyes as she drew closer to the dark edifice.  Kythere forgive me, but I can't go into that place, she prayed silently.  Yet she continued on, becoming more reluctant to place each next step.  Sakura stared at her sandaled feet.

            Then the path before her split, becoming a wider road that in one direction would continue to take her toward the dreaded tower, and in the other direction, obliquely away from that terrible edifice.  Her heart heavy with guilt but lightened with relief, the priestess turned to walk down the narrower way.  She blocked out the harpy screeches that she could hear echoing beyond her light, and hardened herself to the moaning of souls in endless punishment.

            A soft, warm wind was blowing down the gently curving road.  It dried the tears on Sakura's face as they streaked across her cheeks.  She walked into a growing light that was as golden as a day in autumn, and up a slow rise.  Myrtle trees had given way to laurels, and their hard, shining leaves of deep green fluttered in that same zephyr wind.  Sakura dimmed her staff's light, and shrank the staff itself to small size.  She picked blades of the long grass that was growing all around, braided it into a looped string, then tied her staff to it and slipped it on over her head.  There was no path beneath her feet anymore, she saw, just the high meadow grass, and around her, vast fields dotted with trees.

            "I don't belong here," she said aloud to herself.  "I abandoned my duty.  I don't belong here."  There was no one around to hear her, only the little birds that tittered in a nearby cherry tree that was thick with pink blossoms.

            She grew accustomed to being alone.  The light never changed; it was always the merry glow of late afternoon.  She found fruit hanging from trees that were still thick with blossoms as well, the natural order of flower-to-seed suspended.  She felt no desire to eat, so she ate nothing.  She would sleep, and wake up again to the unchanged day, and not know how long she had slept.

Eventually, she longed for company, and when she did, she came across a gentle-faced man who was brushing at a broken piece of pottery.  He was sitting on the bare dirt of an area marked off in small squares; each square patch had been dug up at differing levels.  The man, whose dress and manner made Sakura think "teacher", was surrounded by small, neat piles of earthenware and other discards of past lives.

            "Hello," he greeted her, with a kind smile that reached his soft brown eyes.  He looked like a young father, and had a handsome face.

            "Hello," she answered back.  She kneeled at his side.  The dirt was dust-fine and soft beneath her knees.

            "Lovely place, isn't it?" he asked.

            Sakura looked into eyes that seemed full of understanding and ready forgiveness.  "I don't deserve to be here," the young priestess said.

            The man set down his brush and the clay shard.  "Why not?" he asked simply.

            "I was too afraid to enter Hade's palace.  It was my duty to do so for my goddess, and for my sister priestesses, but I just couldn't !"  She looked at the man pleadingly.  "It's a terrible place!  I was so afraid!"

            "You were afraid of the Villa?" the man inquired with bemusement.

            Sakura wiped her eyes.  "The… Villa?" she echoed back without understanding.

            The man pointed out across the low hills of waving grass.  "That's the palace of Lord Hades," he explained.  He was indicating a tile-roofed building bordered with cypresses.

            "But…" said Sakura.

            "The pines are a little gloomy, but I have never thought it looked  frightening," the man continued to muse.

            The priestess smiled with elated hope.  "Thank you!" said Sakura, jumping to her feet.  Impulsively, she quickly embraced her benefactor.  While the man recovered from her enthusiastic hug, she set her sights on the Villa and her sandaled feet barely touched the ground as she ran.

            She raced through Elysium, whose deep grasses, laurel and flowering cherry trees called to her to stay.  Her heart was light again, making the place beautiful to her, but hope called more strongly.  In short time, the low buildings guarded with flame-shaped pines met her approach. 

The palace beyond the fields stretched out with open and airy architecture.  Sakura walked beneath a pergola entwined with wisteria, down the brick paved corridor that led to the entrance of Hade's palace.   At the corridor's end, the peach trees that framed the portico were blooming.  Sakura pulled open the heavy door and entered.

            The interior was nothing like Priestess Sakura had expected.  Cold slate and granite would have suited the Lord of the Underworld's reputation, but the palace entryway was brightly lit with windows that spilled warm sunlight across the terra cotta floor.  Sakura walked cautiously down the hallway, seeking the throne room that would be jarringly out of place with the décor.  Among the furnishings were tables of richly dark wood that held bowls and baskets of pomegranites and golden apples.  The rooms held the presence of home, albeit the home of a god, with lavish accents like the fig-sized rubies that were piled around the base of an arrangement of dried strawflowers.  Yet the villa seemed uninhabited.  Sakura found a cooking area, a dining area, and a bedroom with doors that opened to a garden.  She walked past the bed that looked recently slept in, its crisp white sheets spilling carelessly to the floor, and out through the doors.

            There was an orchard beyond the patio: pomegranite, quince, persimmon, and fig.  Water splashed and danced in a fountain, sending up droplets that made a rainbow path, should Iris ever choose to visit this realm.  At first, Sakura thought that the giggling sounds she was hearing also came from the fountain.  When she realized that the sounds of mirth were coming from within the orchard, she sought their source with curiousity.

            Lord Eros lay with his head in the lap of the dark god while Lord Hades playfully fed the Erote fat Medjool dates.  The god of the Underworld carefully picked the fruit free of its pit before holding it teasingly to Yukito's lips.  Lord Eros was giggling, and Touya was answering with his own low laugh.  Watching them, Priestess Sakura felt herself coloring as pink as her robes.

            They continued to be completely unaware of her presence, and Sakura was paralyzed with indecision.  She was already standing in the sunlight, in full view, but their attentions were locked only on each other.  She tried to make a noise, and succeeded only in a small squeak.

            But the squeak was enough.  In an instant, Priestess Sakura learned how it felt to have the attention of the Lord of the Underworld.

. . .