Author's note: It's been forever, I know. Sorry! Well, if anyone's still reading this, here you go. :) I am going to try to post a bit more frequently and actually finish this thing!
"We had leverage over him," Rumplestiltskin said once they were clear of the Underworld palace. He started walking, following a path he had learned from the dead. Cora kept pace, looking unsurprised by the route. "You could have forced him to send Regina back. Why didn't you?'
Cora snorted. "I could ask you the same question."
"I don't want Hades anywhere near my family," he replied flatly.
Cora shrugged. "Well, then. It's the same for me."
"A wee bit late on that front, I'd say."
"Zelena? She's not my family." Cora smiled, but there was no warmth in it. "She made that clear when she killed me. Hades is welcome to her, and she to him."
"Let's hope the two lovebirds keep each other too busy to meddle with us," muttered Rumplestiltskin. "There's no telling how long this will take, or if I will even be able to return to the sunlit lands myself, much less bring anyone with me. This part of the Underworld is one thing, but Tartarus is meant to be a prison."
He opened a door in a back alley and stepped across the threshold and out of the haunted city. They now stood on the edge of a bottomless chasm with a burnt orange sky looming overhead.
Cora peered into the chasm. "A leap of faith, that's what they say. Supposedly a bridge will appear for those souls fortunate enough to make the crossing to a better place."
"I doubt either of us would be welcome there, dearie." Rumplestiltskin flicked a pebble into the chasm. It dropped into the darkness and was gone. "A quick jump into a worse place for us. In other words, Tartarus."
Cora shook her head. "Dropped into hell with no control over where we land? You're growing reckless in your old age."
"You have a better idea?"
"As a matter of fact, I do."
"I'm not hopping in a boat, if that's what you mean."
The rivers of the Underworld flowed into Tartarus, but the waters washed away the grime of mortal life, erasing memories and cutting attachments — something neither Rumplestiltskin nor Cora were willing to risk — and the boats that plied those waters had their own agendas.
"I mean Demonsgate."
"You know where to find Demonsgate?" He was mildly impressed. Demons had their own passage in and out of Tartarus, normally hidden from human sight.
"When I was in Wonderland, I had occasion to hire a wraith. A free-lancer, but he had once worked for the higher powers." Cora gestured, wrapping her magic around them both and transporting them to a hilltop shrine overlooking a stone road. It stretched out past the horizon in one direction and vanished underneath a massive freestanding arch in the other. The arch was built in an archaic style, decorated with ancient bas-reliefs that Rumplestiltskin couldn't make out from this distance, but probably depicted some triumph or other of the Olympians. The road looked well-trafficked, unlike the shrine, which was broken and crumbling, the altar torn down. "Before he retired, he was one of those assigned to drag marked souls into Tartarus."
"Ah." Rumplestiltskin studied the remains of the shrine. The wraith wasn't the only retiree. So much for the god of gateways. "And you managed to scoop a few secrets out of his head?" He wondered how much the Hatter retained of his old knowledge, and how much had been shed along with his divinity, but at the time, he hadn't liked to pry.
"One should never waste a resource." Cora peered into the distance. "Sooner or later, more demons will come down that road, dragging who knows how many hapless souls. I suggest we smuggle ourselves in among the prisoners."
"We'll fit right in, I'm sure." The gods marked those that most offended them for early damnation. Despite his words, Rumplestiltskin wasn't surprised that Cora, for all her ruthlessly power-hungry ways, had escaped their notice. Olympus tended to punish those who blasphemed, those who challenged the divine order. Cora had played within the rules as far as they were concerned, gaining her position through marriage and a few discreet murders. The gods had plenty of other fish to fry, given the number of realms they watched over. "Come to think of it, I should be offended that no wraith was ever sent for the Dark One!"
"You?" Cora laughed. "I'd pity the poor wraith that tried it. But you're more useful to the gods as their scapegoat. The Dark One makes a convenient bogeyman to scare the masses into submission."
Rumplestiltskin made a face. He knew what people said about him, especially the clerics. Cora wasn't wrong. He considered the archway. Demons and damned souls went into Tartarus, but only demons came out again. A possible loophole there. Not one he wanted for his family. But if there was no other hope... Cora's wraith had 'retired' to the sunlit realms, after all. Playing within the rules. That was what the town coward knew to do, but why else had he become the Dark One if not to change the game?
First they had to get in.
They waited in the ruins of the hilltop shrine until faint plumes of dust appeared in the far distance, marking the approach of what turned out to be an entire convoy of demons and prisoners. Some trudged on foot while others were carried in wagons, variously caged or chained or held by boards. The wagons were pulled by necromantic constructs resembling oxen and draft horses with flaming eyes and patchwork hides, bleached bones exposed where skin and flesh were lacking.
"Prisoner and escort," said Rumplestiltskin. Simple enough to pull the cloak of memory over himself again. He conjured a walking stick to his hand to match the crippled spinner. "I'll be the prisoner." He added shackles around his ankles, joined by a short chain, to add verisimilitude.
Cora eyed him critically. "Well, you look pathetic enough." She transformed herself into something scaled and clawed, covered and hooded in a faded dun robe. Nothing to catch the eye in a group of similar-looking demons.
They inserted themselves into the rear third of the convoy under the cover of a minor concealment spell, just enough to convince everyone that they had always been there. Passage into Tartarus was rarely contested. It was only the way out that was closely guarded. Rumplestiltskin felt the change in atmosphere as they passed under the arch. The air was gloomier, sinking its darkness deeper with every breath.
They found themselves on a city street. Lamps hung from the buildings on either side, casting dim circles of illumination in an eternal night. The convoy came to a halt in a plaza of sorts. They could have been farmers bringing their goods to sell on a market day, except for the nature of their livestock and the darkness overhead.
Rumplestiltskin and Cora discreetly slipped away and hid inside an illusion of emptiness.
"The city on the lake of night," said Cora softly. "The capital of Tartarus, where the demon officials hold court. They'll be taking those souls for processing, but from what I've heard it can be a long wait."
"Naturally." The souls were damned for eternity. Once they were no longer on the earth to offend the eyes of the gods, what matter how efficiently they were sent to their ultimate dooms? He wondered how thorough their paperwork was. Were his family's fates recorded in a ledger in some demonic office somewhere in this city? If not that, then perhaps he could find maps and other records to help navigate this unfamiliar realm.
Rumplestiltskin searched the puzzle pieces of the future for a path to what he sought. Seer's sight led him to another building. It resembled a fortress, with thick stone walls pierced by deep rectangular windows barred with iron. He didn't bother with the door. The darkness was everywhere, a murky layer congealing just under the skin of reality. He let himself sink into the shadow he cast under the murky light of a street lamp. Cora followed, pulled into his shadow long enough to pass through the building's security wards.
"What are we doing here?"
Rumplestiltskin ignored Cora's question, not wanting to lose the thread of his vision. He retraced steps he almost remembered deeper into the labyrinth inside the warded walls.
Dungeon cells.
A quick intake of breath when he realized. Then disappointment, mingled with relief, that it was not his wife or his son imprisoned behind these iron bars.
"Rumplestiltskin." A childlike voice called to him from one of the cells, but it was not a child.
An elf, he thought. But distorted. Wrong. And then he felt it, the tug of a magical debt, right before the creature spoke again.
"You owe me a favor, Dark One." The plea of a desperate soul, even if nothing of that could be heard in the dispassionate statement. The Dark One always knew.
Drawn forward by the words which were a summons he couldn't deny, Rumplestiltskin stepped up to the bars. He was aware of Cora behind him, seeing far too much, but he was bound by his own nature to acknowledge the debt. "Otterskin, I presume."
"Near enough," said the elf. This close, Rumplestiltskin could see the wild look in its eyes and the pinched, starved twist of its mouth.
Of course. A translation. Rumplestiltskin tried the name again in Elvish, and felt it land. "What can I do for you?"
"My people made another deal, once," whispered the elf. "I want you to end that deal."
"Ah." Rumplestiltskin could guess which deal the elf meant, though it had become myth long before the first Dark One was born.
"So the stories are true, then," said Cora softly from behind Rumplestiltskin. "The elves pay a tithe to hell."
"What made you desperate enough to make such a deal, I wonder?" mused Rumplestiltskin.
"We needed a home. Ours was destroyed in the war between the Titans and the gods. The gods offered us a new realm in return for our service. A piece of hell to call our own."
"This is 'service'?" Rumplestiltskin ran a claw along the iron bar. Iron, to counter elvish magic. "Left in the dark to starve?"
"Oh, no, not to starve." The elf laughed bitterly, thrusting a crumbling disk at the Dark One.
Rumplestiltskin eyed it curiously. It looked like some kind of baked seed cake, something to be served with the afternoon tea at the Dark Castle. But when he picked it up and sniffed at it, he caught a whiff of— "Blood?"
"The flour is mixed with blood and bone meal," confirmed the elf.
Everyone knew that elves were strict vegetarians. Animal flesh was anathema, because the taste of blood was said to change them.
"The gods have no use for elves. But demons who feed on the pain of mortal souls, who drink down suffering — demons to punish their enemies? That is the service they require of us."
"No, I don't imagine there's much call for fairy circles in hell. Who has the heart for singing and dancing in a place like this?" As a starving peasant, Rumplestiltskin had heard stories about lost wanderers invited to elven feasts and envied them. As the Dark One, he knew that they were only a more benign type of magical parasite, feeding on mortal joy and ecstasy, stranding their victims days or years from home. Perhaps the trade was worth it, despite the disapproval of clerics and fairies (who had nothing to do with the enchanted circles of the elves, but the misnomer persisted). It was an escape from the drudgery of everyday life otherwise out of reach of a commoner.
"A deal is a deal," said Cora. "Everyone has to adapt to their circumstances. If you're in hell, better to be a demon than a tormented shade."
"Is that what you think?" The elf glared past Rumplestiltskin at Cora.
"I know which one I'd choose."
"Even for your daughter?" Rumplestiltskin wondered if Cora had seen the same loophole he had. What else had she learned from her wraith?
"No, of course not," sighed Cora. "Why else do you think I came to you for help?"
"Why does everyone think I can help? The Dark One can do much, but you saw how little I could do against Hades."
"And yet your contract was voided. You'll do what you must to save your wife and your children." Cora gave him a look. "Must I remind you of the obvious? The longer they're in Tartarus, the worse their chances..."
"Yes, I do realize," snapped Rumplestiltskin, thinking that it wouldn't be enough. Even if he got his family out of Tartarus for now, it seemed the gods would banish their shades to Tartarus, doomed to eternal punishment. This elf (demon) was his opening to change things. "Very well. The Dark One never breaks a deal, but no one set a time limit on yours. My family comes first. Meanwhile..." He waved a hand over the tainted seed cake, cleansing it of its contaminants . He handed the cake back to Otterskin. "Here. We can't have you fainting from hunger along the way."
Another step through the shadows brought them to the edge of the city. The wall rose up before them, a boundary shaped out of the bones of the realm with nothing at all on the far side. A hodgepodge of doors pierced the wall, doors large and small, crude and elegant, of wood or stone or iron or rippling cloth.
"It matters little which door you choose." The elf looked less pale and insubstantial for having eaten, drawing more sustenance from the meal than a mortal could. "The doom lies in yourself, and the gateway is your judge."
"And a harsh judge at that, or so I've heard," said Cora. "Hence the number of appeals put to the courts in hopes of a more lenient sentence by those who manage to crawl out of the depths of hell to open a door from the other side."
"Only a few hardy souls have such strength of will," said the elf. "Or so I've heard." Few or not, it was more than enough to fill a city.
"It's irrelevant." Rumplestiltskin opened the closest door. "I have no intention of staying any longer than I must."
The doorway vanished as soon as they stepped through. The sky glowed with a malignant orange light, all the better to see their hell: a steep, jagged hillside covered with razor-sharp blades. One step and Rumplestiltskin stumbled, falling to his knees, hands sliced open as he tried to catch himself. Nearby, Cora cried out and bit back a curse. Even so, it was a gentle crossing into Tartarus, to enter intact and on their feet rather than plunging onto a bed of knives to become instant meat paste or worse.
"The Mountain of Knives," said the elf. "To shed your blood as you've done to so many others."
"How literal," grumbled Rumplestiltskin. He stood up carefully and looked around. His cuts had already healed themselves, the Dark One being invulnerable to most physical attacks. A shiver of magic bent the knives away from his feet.
Cora was not so lucky. Heavy steel shackles had materialized around her wrists. Rumplestiltskin could see the enchantment forged into them, blocking magic. She wrenched futilely at them before turning to Rumplestiltskin. "Don't think you'll fare any better, when you actually die and end up here."
"There's always a loophole." Rumplestiltskin considered the problem for a moment, then nodded at Otterskin. "You're not affected, either, and that's because you're part of the staff, isn't it? You have the authority to remove those shackles."
"Is that wise?" The elf eyed Cora warily. "Is she not safer thus bound?"
"Safer. And useless." Rumplestiltskin didn't exactly trust her, but they had an understanding and no deep grudges to impel either of them to irrational betrayal.
Otterskin sighed and acquiesced. He vanished the shackles from Cora's wrists in a puff of silvery smoke. "So be it."
Cora healed herself with a wave of her hand. "Well, it's clear why so many shades are reluctant to move on. The prospect of an eternity such as this is hardly inspiring. At least when I shed blood, I had my reasons. This? This is wasteful."
Rumplestiltskin chuckled dryly. "Yes, no doubt the gods in Olympus will appreciate your feedback. A novelty amidst all the prayers for mercy..." He surveyed the desolate landscape around them. It was not a single mountain as the name implied, but rather an endless range of peaks stretching out in every direction, sparsely populated with tormented souls. This was a hell that supplied its own punishments without the active supervision of demons. He told himself his family would not have been sent here: though they had killed before, they were not guilty of such egregious violence as stained his own soul and Cora's. "We need to find a way out..."
"The waters of the realm of death flow everywhere," said Otterskin. "According to legend, there is a spring at the root of the world and nine wells."
Rumplestiltskin nodded, reminded of the deep springs of the dark fairy realm. Magical waters demanded a steep price. "A fine story to drive damned souls to search for salvation, but not for us. Without a boat, we're better off walking on a road such as we took into Tartarus."
"The bone roads," Otterskin conceded, mistrust shading his soft reply. "The routes are taught master to apprentice, but I lack that learning..."
"But you can recognize one when it's beneath your feet," said Cora. "No use clinging to your secrets now. There's no measure so useless as a half-measure."
Rumplestiltskin snorted. "She does have a point. If your deal is to have any chance of coming to fruition, we need every advantage. If you would rather hold back, then you're better off jumping into one of the nine wells and saving us all the trouble."
Otterskin winced. "Very well."
The demon-built roads were a more subtle affair on this side of the gates of Tartarus, and Rumplestiltskin suspected that they could have searched for years before stumbling upon them without the elf's guidance. Now that they had, their steady, purposeful passage attracted a following of the damned. A few fireballs from Cora dissuaded any of them from approaching too closely, but they were persistent, hobbling and crawling along despite hands and feet cut to pieces by the knives.
"Let them follow if they want," Rumplestiltskin said to Cora in a low voice. "They can't harm us and who knows, maybe they'll help in the end." For all the souls she had sent to hell ahead of her, it was a wonder they weren't here holding the knives themselves. It was a wonder his dead weren't...
"Thinking of making more deals?"
Rumplestiltskin shrugged. "It's what I do." He had no real intention of dealing with them, but the sight of the pitiful limping, crawling shades reminded him too much of what he had once been. A lame coward bullied — or at best ignored — until he had become desperate enough to stab a stranger for a chance at power. If these were the souls of murderers, well, so was he. He scowled at the back of Otterskin's head.
The elf refused to look at the tortured shades. He led their way with gritted teeth and a pinched, unhappy expression on his face when he glanced over his shoulder to check that they were still on the road.
Then a scrape of metal caught his ear. Even as he turned to look, he heard a woman's voice calling out.
"Mother!"
And Cora was hurrying past him to the woman crawling onto the road behind them. "Regina!"
Not the face he had been looking for. The reunion of mother and daughter left a sour taste in Rumplestiltskin's mouth. Death had returned Cora's heart to her chest, lighting a warmer glow in her eyes.
Regina saw something else in her mother's eyes, shot the Dark One a glance. "That was quick work, Mother. Moved on already?"
Rumplestiltskin scowled. What a repugnant thought.
But Cora laughed lightly. "Don't be ridiculous. Rumple, tell your elf to get these shackles off my daughter..."
Regina was only here in spirit, nearly indistinguishable from the dead. He wondered how much time had passed for her in hell, and hoped it had been as long and painful as she deserved for what she had done. After extracting promises of cooperation from her, he persuaded Otterskin to release her.
They went on, an accretion of the damned growing in their wake. Then came a trickle of demons, the sundered cousins of the elves. Otterskin balanced uneasily between what he had been and what Tartarus wanted of him, but with or without him, the whisper of a deal gained a life of its own.
They passed out of the hell of knives and into the hell of ice. A demon came with a name for the Dark One: Mulctowne.
"That's where they are. Your people, your family."
Then that was where Rumplestiltskin would go, even if he had to walk blind. The crystal link he shared with Belle remained silent.
Until, somewhere, a door opened in his mind, just enough for a fleeting connection. He grasped at it in desperate hope. "I have to go."
"No, wait! Don't be stupid," Cora warned him sharply.
"There's no time. Follow as you can." Rumplestiltskin threw himself into the link. No time. There was no telling how long the connection would hold. He didn't dare wait. He sensed fear. Desperate fear. Belle.
Then he was elsewhere.
A rocky mound under the red-tinted sky. A heavy stone door swinging open, darkness beyond. The entrance to a tomb. And faint, distant — her presence.
An obvious trap. The cold ghost that haunted the darker corners of his soul held him back.
He didn't disagree, and yet he couldn't let that stop him. She's in danger.
The ghost didn't care. *You're* in danger.
Then stay! Hardly aware of what he was doing, Rumplestiltskin drew the dagger and sliced away his doubts (his cowardice, his fear). The ghost wailed a curse before vanishing. Rumplestiltskin paid it no mind (we do what we must). He took a long, steadying breath, then stepped across the threshold.
The chill and the damp closed around him, a clammy prickle against his skin. He was in a dark maze, all walls and empty corridors with only a fading psychic imprint to guide him. It led him at last to a chamber at the heart of the maze. A chamber, an iron cage. And a woman kneeling inside the cage.
"Belle!" Rumplestiltskin called fire to his hands.
Lit by flames, her eyes lifted to meet his. Her lips parted in a desperate plea, "Rumple, help me!"
But behind the words, he heard an echo in his heart, even more desperate. Run!
He shook his head blindly, answering in silence with a step forward, and another, even as Belle scrambled to her feet. Rumplestiltskin struck the bars with fierce intent, his magic shattering the cage. He caught her as she stumbled forward into his arms. "Belle, are you hurt? Who..."
Not waiting for her to answer, he was already scanning her with his magical senses, searching out injuries or spells.
She didn't wait, either. Belle reached past his defenses so deftly that it was not until he felt the sharp point of the dagger digging into his chest that he realized the danger. "Stop."
The simple command encompassed everything. It was all he could do to draw another breath against the force of the compulsion, even his heart stuttering in shock.
Around them, the pieces of the shattered cage melted and flowed away into a pattern of glowing lines etched into the floor. Symbols and spirals imbued with ritual power, locking together into a circle stronger than mere iron.
The trap had been sprung.
