poetry – Nightshade Stories

The river reeked, even though the water ran through cavernous tunnels with a degree of force.
The unknown, ugly creatures that inhabited its scarlet turbulence had grown used to the boat skimming above them.

His cowled robe was tattered, ripped, and filthy from the flesh corrupting, healing, and tearing anew on his bones.

The stench of his new sores wafted on thick, warm breezes in the mist.

On the banks of the river he traversed collecting the souls of the damned, the pleading eyes of mortal spirits watched in pain and hopeful sadness until he passed.

They had to wait a century, sometimes longer, to enter the gates, and every night the beasts returned to gnaw and tear until morning. Then their flesh, like his, would heal anew, ready for the next night.

It never stopped, and they were powerless before the terrifying creatures that tormented them with licking, nipping, and powerful bites that made their preys’ screams echo in the caves, summoning more to the feast.

The river was a deep scarlet liquid ribbon dyed in eons of blood, viscera, and tears.

But for now, the quiet of the bow, and the damp cold mist coalescing and dissolving in the fetid breeze.

This was his lot, his fate, his calling, and he hated every moment of it.

He’d thrown the lantern down, deliberately spilling oil and fire into the boat, but it never burned.

He threw into the river, hoping the quenched flame broke the binding spell on his soul, but the lamp never sank, and always floated back toward the boat until he took it out of the foul current.

In his rage, if there were souls to take he would berate them, frighten them and give them visions of the torture they could expect.

He reveled in their anguished cries.

Those who jumped into the river met their fates when the ugly, unearthly things below the waves found them, and made short work of them, or worse, returned them to the boat.

Something he couldn’t see was walking on the bank, coming toward him.

***************I

It had no physical body, just a shimmering outline distorting the natural view, magnifying as it came down the bank.

“The mouths in the hall speak your name, Acheron. The wagging tongues tell your betters you tire of making this journey.”

Acheron looked up, but his face was darkened by the draping cowl, the filthy state of his skull, and the hollow spaces that once held his eyes.

“It has been too long. I want to leave and give it to another.”

There was almost a mocking lilt of laughter in its answer.

“Did you make another?”

“I did.”

“This changes things. Where are they?”

“In due time. And who..what, are you?”

“A gatekeeper.”

“I can’t see you.”

“No one can.”

“After all this time, you hid yourselves from me?”

“We are only seen by the supplicants.”

Acheron said nothing.

“Where is your freight?”

“They will be here later.”

“Then go. We expect you at eventide.”

Acheron pushed off to get his waiting cargo.

************

Chapter 2: The Journey Home

They cowered before him, and held onto each other as the boat swayed beneath their weight.

“I’ll hold it here. Balance yourselves.”

They shifted about, still gripping someone nearby, gripping the last of their humanity, sounding very much like a litter of puppies.

“Such good mortals. Shall we begin?”

He pushed off again, and the boat slowly wheeled into the slower current.

“You will see such wondrous sights…”

Acheron held his long knife out over the water, and the silver in the blade sparked dark red, like a dying ember.

The sights they saw on the river’s surface were unspeakable, bloody, and obscene, the reality of their fate finally becoming clear.

Acheron turned his attention to once more navigating the caves, and his passengers’ cries and screams soothed him.

Chapter 3: Entreaty

When the ferry passed the Waiting, they stood on the shore and watched with their owlish eyes as one of the ferry passengers tried to jump out and come to them on the shore, but his knees buckled and his back spasmed.

He fell to the boat’s wide deck, looking up into the blackness of Acheron’s hood.

Acheron backhanded the man while the others scrambled away.

He picked the man up by his collar, and shoved him into the arms of another one, making them both stumble.

They cowered beneath a gaze they couldn’t see, their imaginations making it all the more dread.

“Peace, children. We are near the end of our journey.

“Refrain from desperate outbursts. They serve no purpose now, and they will not help you.

“Your souls will abide in this realm, forever.”

He could almost see their spirits breaking, and hear the sigh of resigned relief that as bad as this was, they were not in pain or burning.

“What happens when we’re through the gates, and you leave us?” one asked.

“That has never been my concern.”

After a brief silence, a woman approached and spoke to him.

“Would you like to know?”

He was surprised at the question, and realized that he’d do anything to stop paddling this accursed ferry through the rank, perpetual gloom that clung to the Styx like a needy child.

“I think…I would.”

She smiled up at him. “My name’s Amira.”

Chapter 4: A Tired Ending, A New Beginning

Amira came back through the gates, walking towards the ferry.

When led away in chains, Acheron gave her one last look, but she couldn’t read his expression.

Regret? Gratitude?

She shivered, rubbing the coins in her robe pocket together as a distraction that she’d sent him to die.

He wanted that.

No, he wanted to stop rowing.

No, he wanted his freedom.

On it went, and soon there was too much crosstalk in her mind. She stopped walking, and took in the scene before her eyes.

The river kept flowing, and the dark, bleak boat skimmed the small waves smacking against the sides.

The gates closed, and a fetid breeze from inside the dark temple gagged her, covering her mouth and nose with the new black, heavy hooded robe some grinning thing gave her. Defeating the urge to retch, she got in the boat, centered herself for balance, then picked up the oar.

Pushing off took some effort. The scarlet-black water was silty and chunky with things she wouldn’t look to examine.

As she began her journey upriver her skin began to itch and burn.

She fought back a pang of panic, and setting down the oar a moment, she scratched the most urgent ones.

The skin under her now lengthy, darkening nails sizzled and dripped.

The panic rose anew.

“W-w-what is this?”

The river is claiming you for taking away Acheron.

“No! No! He wanted to leave you. I only told him what he already knew, but he’s the one who decided!”

The skin on her hands was coated in warts and calluses, as if she’d been rowing a long time. The pain in them was rising, but she couldn’t drop the oar.

“Stop it!”

You didn’t see him as he was beneath the robes.

We shall make you as Acheron.

One must prove worthy of the ferryman’s oar.

Chapter 1: Execution
The last thing Niah remembered from her life before now was how cold the water felt against her skin, and inhaling the blackened river water where they threw her bound body.
The fools believed its scum-covered, shadowy hue to be the souls of the wicked it had claimed through the years, bound by the current and unable to escape.
Over the years, the town elders oversaw and executed outright blasphemers, whores, and witches, no matter how mild or defiant. She had seen some of them dragged screaming and cursing to their deaths, made ‘examples of’ disobedience to the whims of the very ones who consorted with them, putting their cracked masks of piety back on their besotted faces.
When those events had run their course, they turned suspicious eyes to the healers, their small homes and herb gardens routinely searched and robbed of whatever things of meager value they owned.
She’d been one of them, and now it was her turn.
They broke down her door, shattered her flower pots, and burned her garden, all the while shouting false accusations over her pleading screams of innocence.
********
There was no reasoning with these inbred townspeople, but they thought she’d been tortured long enough. Her voice was sore from a raw throat that had been screaming in pain for almost an hour.
They only gave her moments to regain her breath, if not her wits, before they carried her down to the river and threw her into it. if she floated she was guilty, but if not, she was innocent.
She floated at first, then began to slowly go under, the scent of vegetative decay strong in her nostrils. The water had a thickness to it from the years of whatever loamy growth covered it like a second skin.
A brief tug on the rope around her waist sent another shock of pain through her, and the weight of her underclothes, now soaked and slippery with black detritus, was getting heavy.
Taking what she thought would be her final deep breath, she disappeared from their sight beneath the flow. She managed to still her thoughts and rising panic as she worked at the ropes on her wrists, hurrying to make anything in the knot loose.
Her thoughts racing with what might be coming for her in the murky water made her had to calm down or pushing herself back up for air would soon be impossible.
Thanking a deity she wasn’t sure existed, she sloughed off the rope on her wrists. Her skin was raw, and a small tendril of blood slithered out and up, curling in on itself in a slow, serpentine dance.
Her body jerked, telling her she was losing time as she involuntarily took in some of the water mixed with her blood. The coppery, briny taste forced her to place the last of her strength into her legs and push off with all her might, not knowing if she’d break the surface.

Chapter 2: Reclamation
She broke the surface, gasping loud, tears and slime blurring her vision, and she wiped them both away as she clumsily tried to swim to the riverbank. She made it, crawling and spitting and crying with gratitude that her nascent efforts were successful.

On the other side none of the townspeople remained.

Did they give me up for dead?
The setting sun was hazy behind graying clouds heralding a storm.
Of course they left me. They want to be indoors when it gets dark. How long was I down there?
Alone on the riverbank, the sky full of sunset shadows and leaden clouds, she clambered to her knees and tried to stand, but the shock of being bodily thrown into freezing, black, rushing water, and the close brush with death combined to make her fall back down and sleep.

Chapter 3: Redemption
When she woke, the rain clouds covered the first of the evening stars. They were distant from her touch, indifferent to her plight, but the evening breeze slipped around her like a lover’s arms.
She coughed up some black water, and found herself covered in the skimmed
slime.
It was most dense on her forearms, and streaking down to dapple her hands, so her first thought was to rinse them off. As soon as the thought came she smiled at the folly of it. Washing up in dirty water…
But something was different. Something was different.
She’d never felt more alive.
It was a curious thought, but there could be no other explanation.
She stopped a moment, the river loam giving way to ankle high grass as she left the river behind. It felt like her skin was drying in the breeze, but it didn’t feel normal.
Putting her arms out in front of her, she saw the black mucus seeping into her skin, and her fingers starting to glow with an eldritch light.
Everything in her wanted to scream as the light crept up, engulfing her, heating her face, drying her eyes and clearing her vision, and knowing it without any formal recognition of it, she knew she was now the thing they feared.
The men were feasting and dancing, the women gossiping and dancing, and the musicians played so lively and well. The Elder’s house was bright and festive, and the wards he’d carved himself on the gate and into the doorframe stood sentinel against the black magic Niah now held.
As the vision faded she heard the whispers of the river souls calling to her: Welcome, Niah. Greetings, Daughter. Sister, we’ve found you at last.
They assailed her mind with violent visions she might inflict on her accusers.
“Not tonight,” she said. “Let them think me dead, carried off by the current and over the falls.”
And with that, as the first drops of rain steamed and sizzled against the blackness on her arms and the runes of magic from past river souls were etched into them as she walked, she saw her desecrated home sitting in the field like an old dog too stiff to greet her, and with the most small and casual wave of her hand, she opened the door and lit a fire in the hearth.