The contrast made everything worse. One moment the Apprentice was basking in the glorious light of Olympus (albeit only its outer reaches) and the next, he had been dropped into the gloomy orange pall of the Underworld.
Zeus had finally offered him something concrete, a rank among the gods — but it was a poisoned promise, one that trapped him in hell. Zeus wanted the Apprentice to replace Hades as the god of the dead and take over as guardian of Tartarus. Or so he said. Easier said than done, considering Zeus had not offered any support in magic or armed forces to go along with his new orders.
"You may recruit among the disaffected shades of the Underworld," Zeus had told him. "Hades in his foolishness has alienated plenty of dead mortals."
It was all very well having permission from Zeus, but the Apprentice suspected that Hades would take a dim view of his sedition if caught. Zeus might be the king of Olympus, but this wasn't Olympus, and what mattered was which god was closer. That was why the Apprentice did his best to blend in, masking his aura to match those of the dead. He wandered more or less aimlessly at first. The Underworld contained echoes of the living world, so he ambled down dusty village roads and beyond to the half-remembered paths through the dead woods, deep ruts carved in the dried mud by non-existent wagons.
He found a city carrying memories of the Enchanted Forest, a mixture of Avonlea and the Maritime Kingdom, with a port that sat idle, the piers stretching over the waters flowing in from all nine rivers of hell. Those who disembarked from this ghostly city inevitably ended up in Tartarus. The lucky ones made the voyage in enchanted boats. The unlucky ones who fell into the harbor were swept away in wailing torment until they eventually washed ashore in one of the thousand hells.
The city was full of shades carrying on in a mockery of the living, but it was meaningless habit, a way to avoid facing the truth of their guilt and their regrets, a way to pass the time without thinking about whatever unfinished business kept them from moving on. Sometimes Hades amused himself by re-ordering their roles, a petty game he played on those that caught his interest. Sometimes he would pit one shade against another or toy with the power structures they had established among themselves, like setting crickets to duel or kicking an anthill to watch the ensuing chaos.
When I become a god, I won't be so cruel or arbitrary. The Apprentice shoved the thought to the back of his mind. First things first. He lurked in the city, teasing out the local rumors and casting out feelers for those who might be ready for a regime change. Most were ordinary mortal shades, but then he stumbled across one soul that was different.
The dead man carried a touch of divinity about him. Something he didn't really deserve, in the Apprentice's opinion, but there it was. If he could bind this shade, then he would have the first powerful soldier in his rebel army. The Apprentice watched and waited for an opening. The man didn't know how to properly channel his magic and had ended up serving the keeper of hellhounds as a lowly kennel boy. The keeper of hellhounds was an ancient demigod, a brute and a bully to mortals, reserving his tender side for his beloved demon dogs, whether they were of the three-headed or the fire-breathing variety.
On the day the Apprentice finally approached his target, the keeper had just chewed him out and set him to scrubbing the floors.
"Good day," the Apprentice suggested.
"Like hell it is," grunted the miserable shade, shoulders tense from his recent humiliation, no doubt worse now that he knew it might have been witnessed.
"Ah, but it could be." The Apprentice paused, long enough to prompt the shade to open his mouth — no doubt to tell him to go away — and cut him off with a smooth, "Gaston of Avonlea, I presume?"
The boat traveled on the river. Or, Baelfire thought, wherever the boat was, the river was. Even if it looked like there was only an arid rocky wasteland ahead, the enchanted boat floated onwards on a river that both appeared out of nowhere and had always been there. If it was a river at all — if there was a current, it was too sluggish to detect. He wondered if it was actually a loop that fed into itself, and they were stuck in an endless circuit around Tartarus.
Captain Hook and Milah had fallen quiet as their voyage continued. The pirate had the distraction of working the long oar, but Milah simply seemed at a loss for words.
Baelfire didn't have much to say to his mother, either. Nothing that would do anyone any good, at any rate. They both kept their eyes on the shifting landscapes passing by. Sometimes they saw souls caught in some awful torture. Most were too lost in their own screams of pain to even notice the boat.
"Don't look at them," his mother advised.
"There's no helping them," the captain said when Baelfire wanted to do something to save them.
"You helped me," Baelfire argued.
"That's different..." At Baelfire's angry look, the captain explained, "You're alive, but those souls, there's a reason they're here. You don't know what they've done in their lives."
"Do you know?" Baelfire asked pointedly, thinking that the pirate wasn't exactly innocent, either. "Do they all really deserve to be punished forever like this?"
The captain shrugged. "It's for the gods to know what a soul deserves."
Baelfire sighed. "What if they repent? Don't you think people should be given the chance to do better?"
"That's for the living, not for the dead. These souls, their time is over."
"Then what about you two?" Baelfire demanded. "Isn't your time over, too?"
"Aye, lad, only it seems fate had other plans for us."
"Then we can do something for those others, too."
The captain shook his head.
"Son, we can't. There are as many lost souls in Tartarus as grains of sand on the beach," his mother explained patiently. "If we invited them into this boat with us, we would all drown."
"We could still try something," Baelfire muttered sullenly, hunching over with his arms crossed over his chest, unwilling to admit that he didn't have a solution either.
Milah sighed.
The captain didn't answer. He looked over Baelfire's head and continued propelling the boat forward.
Finally, when the silence became too unbearable, Milah began asking in a low, tentative voice about Baelfire's life, how it had been with him, and what had become of him in the years since she had left.
"They're here somewhere, I think," he said after telling his mother a little about Emma and Lily. "I need to find them."
Milah nodded. "This boat is likely your best hope of that."
Baelfire agreed. Whatever magic was laid on the boat, it seemed to be winding its way through every part of Tartarus. Later, he couldn't say how long he was there. The sky never darkened to true night, nor did it grow lighter. It reminded him of Neverland, and he wondered if that island of dreams and nightmares was some long-lost shard of hell that had broken free to drift in an infinite sea. The sky didn't change, but the water did. They first noticed it when the captain took a rest from sculling, and instead of slowing to a stop, the boat continued to drift on, the landmarks on either side slipping, moving past.
"There's a current." Baelfire was the first to notice. He felt faintly alarmed, but the other two took it in stride.
"So there is," said the pirate. He chuckled. "A chance to give me old arms a rest..."
"Where do you think it's taking us?"
"Wherever we're meant to go," answered Milah with weary resignation. "What else is there for us in this realm?"
The current gradually picked up speed. The river was moving at a moderate walking pace when they saw the dark shape sweeping overhead. In the end, it was Emma and Lily who found him. A dragon had eagle-sharp eyes, and Lily spotted them in the boat. She flew over with Emma on her back.
"What the devil?" Hook rose to his feet, reaching for his cutlass. "Stay back!"
"No, no, it's all right," Baelfire moved to block the pirate. "It's them, it's my friends."
Milah tensed, gripping the side of the boat and casting wary looks between Baelfire and the dragon. "Be careful, son. This realm is full of trickery..."
Just like Neverland, he thought, but then Emma called down, "Bae?" It was her, he could feel it in his heart, and the knowledge dispelled his moment of doubt.
He waved vigorously in reply. "Emma! Lily!"
Lily descended until her foreclaws were just about at eye level. She snorted something at him.
"We're here to get you off that hell boat," Emma translated. She leaned over and stretched out a hand. "She can't carry four people, but we can take you to shore one at a time."
Shore meant a field of ice, cracked in between tall, ominous pillars. Lost souls were faintly visible, trapped inside the pillars.
"Come on... just a little closer..." Emma coaxed. "You can't stay here."
"The devil we can't." The captain put the sword away, but held onto the oar with no apparent intention of ever leaving the boat. "She's a sweet little vessel. She's carried us all this way safely..."
"It's enchanted," said Emma. "There's a spell on it."
"Everything here is enchanted." Milah remained seated. "I'm too tired to fight fate for another hundred years... or however long it's been. I once longed for adventure, to travel and see the world. I left my son with his father." She laughed bitterly. "And then I died, and was condemned to stand on one street corner in the Underworld for centuries watching other people's children. I'm ready to move on, wherever that may be."
"And I swore to protect her and stay by her side, in death if not in life," declared Hook.
Emma sighed and turned to Baelfire. "Bae? Please..."
He wavered. It did seem safer in the boat. "I don't know. The boat is big enough for two more people. Maybe you should join us. You and Lily have magic. You could use it to control where we go. What better way to get around in this hellscape, especially since Lily can't carry four people?"
"Bae!" Emma looked like she wanted to shake him. "Don't let the spell get to you!"
"I..." Baelfire did feel a deep reluctance to leave the boat. "I don't know... are you sure?"
"Yes!" shouted Emma. "Trust me!"
He met her eyes. And because he did trust her, he clambered to his feet, the enchanted boat barely wobbling under him, and stretched out his arm. She clasped his hand as Lily circled by once more, this time yanking him up and around in a swirl of magically augmented force to land on the dragon's back behind Emma.
Lily deposited him on the icy shore. Emma said, "Wait there... I'll try to get the others..."
Bae hugged himself, shivering and stomping his feet as the chill set in. The enchantment on the boat had insulated him from whatever heat or cold they had traversed. He watched as Emma argued with Milah and Hook, but couldn't make out their words. He could see by the expressions on their faces that there was little chance of extricating them from whatever fate bound them to the boat.
Emma and Lily gave up eventually and circled back to the shore. "I'm sorry. I think... I think it's different because they're dead..."
Baelfire sighed and nodded. He saw his mother looking at him, her mouth quirked in a small, melancholy smile. He wrenched his gaze away, begged Emma, "Can we follow them? At least a little bit? I wish... I don't... she's my mother. I have to..."
Emma nodded in understanding. "Lily?" Another snort from the dragon. "Yeah, ok, hop on."
They didn't have to follow for long. The current in the river accelerated, almost to the limits of the dragon's speed. And then it fell off the edge of the world.
Lily was the first to realize the danger in the smooth surface that ended in a sharp edge, and the implication of the white mist that sprayed up from the infinite depth, water tumbling and catching on the bedrock of hell as it plunged into the abyss.
"Shit! They're going over!" Emma was the first to say the words. It was far too late to try to pluck the passengers off the boat. It floated serenely to the edge, then tipped and went over. There were no screams. Then the river itself vanished, and they were flying over a field of ice that stretched out in every direction as far as they could see.
Baelfire, who had been watching in utter silence, now sighed and bowed his head. Then he whispered, "Good bye, Mama..." Wherever she had gone, he knew intuitively that he would never see her again. "I hope you find your way to a better place."
"Don't we all?" said Lily quietly, having shifted back into human shape. "I'm sorry, Bae. There was nothing any of us could do."
"But we're still alive." Emma flicked her fingers, summoning a flash of magic that settled over Baelfire like a warm cloak. "So let's make sure no one freezes to death, and then we'll look for a way home."
Baelfire nodded in thanks, accepting it as he had to. No way out but forward.
Regina, read the stone marker, the words cracked across the shattered surface.
"Look at that... wicked always wins," gloated Zelena. The Fury must have killed her sister after all. It wasn't much of a victory, but dead and condemned to Tartarus was worse than dead and roaming limbo, with a promise of better from the god of the Underworld. "So much for being Mummy's favorite!"
Zelena gave the gravestone a spiteful kick. To her disappointment, it didn't fall over, but a piece crumbled off the top corner and rolled to her feet.
"I don't blame you for hating her," came a voice from behind her.
Zelena whirled, calling magic to her hands. "You!"
Cora nodded, her expression and tone conciliatory. "It was my fault that you didn't grow up together as sisters. That regret haunts me now..."
"Really?" sneered Zelena, not letting herself believe the words she longed for so desperately when she was growing up.
"Really. My dear, I am so sorry for the pain I caused. It was my hope that the cyclone would take you to a better life." Cora sighed. "I had no money, no land, no prospects, do you understand? Your father... well... it was clear he was never going to be that for you."
Zelena ground her teeth. Lies, all lies. She couldn't let herself be swayed. "Your apology is a wee bit late, don't you think, Mummy dearest? You couldn't have spared a moment for your first born back when, oh, we were all in the land of the living?"
Cora touched her chest. "Without my heart, I couldn't feel as I do now." She met Zelena's eyes and said without a trace of irony, "I owe you my thanks for returning it to me, whatever the circumstances of that return."
Zelena wavered. "Yes, well..."
Cora moved forward, reaching out to caress the top of Regina's stone. "I came to find you to tell you that I'm sorry, but also... also that I hope my two daughters can finally have the chance to be sisters, as you were always meant to be. It tears me apart that you have become enemies because of me. I wronged you and I need to set it right."
Zelena glanced at the broken inscription. "Not much chance of that. We can hardly pop down to Tartarus for tea and scones, now, can we?"
Cora smiled enigmatically. "It's not as impossible as you might think." With a flourish of her hand, a small bottle appeared in a puff of purple smoke. "I have here a bottle of the Ale of Seonaidh. It has the power to summon the dead, wherever they may be." She opened the bottle and held it over the empty grave. "Shall we?"
Zelena considered. It would be satisfying to see what dire punishments her sister was suffering in hell, and to hear her grovel and beg for mercy. On the other hand, Regina was annoyingly stubborn, and might only spit insults at her, which would be frustrating no matter how many fireballs Zelena lobbed at her in retaliation.
Cora sighed. "Family is important. The world is a cruel place, and without family, you are alone and vulnerable. Would you be a lonely ghost for the rest of eternity, haunting the cemetery until you find your own grave?"
Did Cora really think Zelena and Regina would ever be more than bitter rivals? Could they put their past behind them and build something better? Zelena hated that she did want that. She had grown up among Timers, who were distant guardians to her and preoccupied with the endless schemes and prophecies of Nevethe. She had always wondered what it would be like to have a real, human family, even while she despised ordinary mortals as far inferior to her. In her daydreams, they loved and admired her, appreciating her talents and seeing how special she was. She knew she couldn't expect that from Cora, much less Regina, but still... maybe she could have just a taste of true family?
"Well, all right," Zelena said at last. She waved a hand carelessly at her mother. "Let's have some sisterly bonding time..."
Cora smiled again, more warmly. She seized Zelena's outflung hand in her own and squeezed gently. "Yes." With her other hand, she tipped the contents of the bottle out.
Zelena felt the sizzle of magic as the droplets hit the dirt. Then the air grew hazy, and a shape took form — a woman, literally being ground down between demonic millstones, bloodied hands clawing at the rim in a futile attempt to pull herself out. Zelena winced. There was a tremble of fear beneath her attempt at flippancy. "Well, that looks painful."
Cora's face turned serious and intent. "Regina!" She pulled Zelena towards the translucent image and joined their hands, magic thrumming through them to make the connection.
At first, it was like hearing a warm, pleasant song whose words she couldn't quite make out. But then it sharpened into something cruel, a surge of dark magic dragging her into hell. Zelena cried out and tried to pull free.
Cora's spell tightened, becoming a chain between them. Zelena fought harder, pouring all her power into breaking free. For a moment the two sisters swung, a pendulum hanging between the two spaces.
Then the link snapped and Regina was thrown out into the void. Zelena didn't know or care where her sister would land. All her concentration was focused on not falling in herself. She staggered backwards, away from the cracked gravestone, tears in her eyes and a lump in her throat as the truth sank in that she had been betrayed. Sacrificed, again, for the sake of someone her mother loved more.
"I should have known!" Zelena shouted through her sobs. Why did disappointment hurt so badly, when it was no more than what she had expected? "You only wanted to use me. You don't care about me at all."
"Oh, Zelena." Cora had the gall to sound regretful. "Of course I do. But you should know that you can't have it all — sometimes you have to make a choice. And I made mine a long time ago..."
For Regina. As always, since before Regina had even been born. The idea of Regina, the queen that Cora wanted. Well, Regina wasn't the only one who could become a queen. Perhaps Nevethe was out of reach now, but Zelena still had a chance in the Underworld. She swallowed everything that hurt and retorted, "And now I'll make mine! I don't need a mother like you, or a sister who would rather I rot in hell than have a bit of happiness. I'll go to someone who actually wants me!"
With a swirl of green magic, Zelena transported herself away to a clearing in the woods that felt familiar, harking back to a subconscious memory of the woods where her mother had once abandoned her. There, Zelena called out to the one person left to her, "Hades!"
Rumplestiltskin wished he knew more about the Underworld. The lands of the dead had their own rules, their own magic, their own separate fiefs and lords. Hades was the god of the dead, served by demons and hellhounds — that much was common knowledge — but the finer details were more obscure. As the Dark One, he had traded in knowledge almost as much as magic, knowledge being a form of power that was less corrosive overall to his soul. But as an immortal, he had been in no hurry to research the ins and outs of the afterlife. He had learned to bind the souls of the dead, but only while they remained in the sunlit lands. Once they passed on, he had no interest in bringing them back.
Dead is dead. The price of violating a fundamental law of magic was too high even for the Dark One. Only a god could afford such tricks, and then only infrequently.
It was the gods who had made Tartarus both a hell and a prison. The gates were far more tightly guarded than this upper level of the Underworld, which still had its doors and windows. Its unquiet shades could still haunt the living, and sometimes the living trespassed among the dead — the ferrymen and the hellhounds being notoriously bribable. But only demons, gods, and the dead were permitted into Tartarus. How his family had managed it was a conundrum... he suspected the involvement of Belle's cousin's lover, the Fury. As to why...? A question for later.
Well, he didn't have a demon at his disposal. He wasn't dead, either, no matter how well he cloaked himself so as not to attract attention. He would have to find a helpful dead soul to share its aura with him, and then find a way to slip through the gates of Tartarus. Ideally, he would sneak in, find Belle and Bae and the others, and sneak out again, steal a ferryman's boat, and return to the land of the living without any higher power taking any notice. The last thing he needed was for the god of the dead to decide to entertain himself by toying with the Dark One.
Rumplestiltskin explored the Underworld cautiously, mapping it out and listening to local gossip, and managing it with a minimum of magic. He came across a large town by the sea that seemed to draw upon memories of Prydania and the Frontlands. He initially had high hopes of finding someone he had dealt with, or some citizen of the Frontlands that would be well-disposed towards the Dark One. At the same time, he hoped to avoid running across anyone he had killed — shades that would sooner toss him into the harbor than help him.
Milah. He didn't want to think about her, but half-expected to see her every time he turned the corner. To his relief (or regret) Milah was not there. To his dismay, nor were any of his own people. No dead citizens of Schlaraffenland were to be found. And the one who did find him was—
"They're not here," the man informed him. Then he grinned, his hair lighting up in blue fire.
Rumplestiltskin sighed. "Hades..."