Chapter Nine:

  “Only the Unburdened”

  There was no sound when the gate closed.

  No boom. No slam. Just the heavy finality of being sealed in.

  The five stood in silence.

  Behind them, the doorway had vanished. Ahead: a long stone path stretched across a chasm of black mist. The air was colder here, thick with salt and silence. The walls wept condensation. The very stones beneath their feet hummed, as if remembering what had passed before.

  Laid out before them on a narrow altar of obsidian were their weapons.

  John’s twin blades, polished and aligned. Rai’s folded war fan, edges glinting. Helen’s notched sword, wrapped in worn cloth. Dorian’s heavy-bladed axe, scarred from long use. RW sat beside them, tail curled, eyes daring anyone to question her place among the armed.

  “Convenient,” Rai muttered.

  “No such thing,” John replied.

  They reclaimed their arms in silence.

  Dorian hefted his axe and gave it a single test swing before resting it across his broad shoulders.

  The corridor ahead narrowed, sloping down. Somewhere far below, the sound of water—vast and slow—echoed up to meet them.

  Helen adjusted her grip on her sword, eyes forward.

  John slid his blades into the twin sheaths across his back.

  Rai cracked her neck.

  RW flicked her tail once and padded ahead, disappearing into the dark.

  They followed.

  Toward the river.

  The path narrowed until it vanished beneath their feet.

  What replaced it was not a bridge, not stone, not wood. It was silt—black, wet, and barely solid. Every step sank half an inch before holding firm. The air grew colder. The dark around them deepened into something physical.

  And then they saw it.

  The river.

  It didn’t flow. It churned.

  A wide, obsidian ribbon stretched out across a hollow basin too vast to measure. No visible shore on the other side. No stars overhead. The surface twisted in slow spirals, like oil in water—only beneath the surface, things moved.

  Shapes.

  Not fish. Not creatures.

  People.

  Or what was left of them.

  Hands brushed the underside of the black water. Faces pressed just beneath the surface, eyes open, mouths screaming—but no sound escaped. The river seemed to drink it in.

  Dorian took half a step back. "That’s not normal."

  No one argued.

  A dock jutted out from the near bank. Ancient, built from something that resembled bone more than wood, with a cleft in the center where a vessel might rest.

  It was empty.

  Until it wasn’t.

  From the far mist, a shape began to emerge—tall, hunched, wrapped in something that dragged across the water. A long pole struck the river’s surface with each stroke, sending tremors through the current.

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  The Ferryman came into view.

  He did not wear a cloak. His skin was the cloak—hanging in folds, gray and stretched like old wax left too long in the sun. His arms were long and jointed oddly, fingers too many and too sharp.

  He had no eyes. Only a hollow skull of a face, long and ridged, where light failed to cling.

  But when he spoke, the voice came clear.

  “Five,” he said. “As promised.”

  His vessel stopped alongside the dock without touching it.

  “Payment.”

  No one moved at first.

  “We don’t have coin,” John said evenly.

  “I do not trade in coin,” the Ferryman replied. “That is myth. I require worth. Memory. Blood. Steel.”

  He extended one hand—open, waiting.

  “Give what binds you to this life. Lay down your weapons.”

  Silence stretched.

  Even RW stilled.

  Dorian let out a low whistle. “Guess we should’ve brought gift baskets.”

  For a moment, no one spoke.

  The Ferryman did not move.

  John looked to Rai. She hadn’t blinked. Her war fan remained half-raised.

  "You said memory, blood, or steel," John said. "But you named steel last. Why?"

  The Ferryman tilted his head. "Because it is the most common. The least precious. And the easiest to part with."

  Dorian exhaled slowly, rolling his eyes. "Yeah, but it’s also the thing that keeps us from joining your swimming friends down there."

  The Ferryman said nothing.

  "You want all of them?" Helen asked.

  "Each of you will pay."

  "I do not make exceptions," the Ferryman added.

  Rai’s fingers flexed around the fan. “And if we refuse?”

  The Ferryman’s hollow face remained unmoving. But the river surged—just once. A pulse. A wave of motion beneath the surface, as if something massive had turned its attention toward them.

  “I do not ferry the unwilling,” he said. “Only the unburdened.”

  John looked at his blades. Then at the river. Then back at the Ferryman.

  “We’ll need them again,” he said.

  “No,” the Ferryman replied, “you won’t.”

  Silence again.

  Then—

  “I’ll go first,” Dorian said.

  Everyone turned.

  He stepped forward, axe in hand, but loose. His voice was calm, almost conversational.

  “Look, I like this thing. It’s ugly. It’s heavy. And it’s saved my life more times than I can count. But I’ve always known it’d end up in a ditch before I did.”

  He dropped the axe.

  It hit the dock with a sound that felt deeper than it should’ve—like something inside the wood responded.

  “I got other ways to survive,” Dorian said. “I always do.”

  He stepped back.

  The Ferryman said nothing. But he turned slightly—just enough to face the others.

  “Next.”

  Helen was the next to move.

  She walked to the dock with her sword in both hands, grip reversed. Her expression didn’t change, but something in her stance shifted—looser, almost resigned.

  “It was never mine anyway,” she whispered.

  She placed it beside Dorian’s axe.

  The dock did not shake. But the air around it felt thinner.

  John moved without speaking. He pulled the twin blades from his back and rested them carefully on the edge, palms lingering a moment longer than necessary.

  Rai followed.

  She did not unfold her war fan. She simply placed it, closed, atop the others.

  The moment the last item touched the dock, the river changed.

  The water went still.

  The vessel shifted forward of its own accord, its edge sliding into alignment with the cleft.

  The Ferryman stepped aside.

  “Board.”

  No one argued.

  They climbed into the vessel one by one. The wood did not creak. It felt cold underfoot. Lighter than it should’ve been. Like the thing was carved from hollow bone.

  RW curled at the front.

  John and Rai sat near the center. Dorian took the rear. Helen stood.

  The Ferryman stepped in last.

  And the river took them.

  The vessel glided without sound.

  No oar dipped. No wind stirred. The river pulled them forward like it had been waiting.

  Mist thickened around the boat, but never touched it. Shadows moved within it—too large, too slow. At times, they seemed to swim alongside. At others, they loomed beneath.

  “This is the quietest boat ride I’ve ever been on,” Dorian muttered, low.

  “Try not to ruin it,” Rai murmured back, not looking away from the water.

  John’s voice was quieter still. “What should we expect when we reach the shore?”

  The Ferryman answered without turning. “This is the outermost circle—the Domain of Echoes. Here walk the lost souls who refused to accept their end. They whisper their regrets, their denials, their half-lived truths. They will try to speak to you. They will try to follow you.”

  Dorian frowned. “What happens if we listen?”

  The Ferryman’s voice was like stone dragged across stone. “Then you may find yourself lost as well.”

  No one spoke after that.

  Helen kept her hand close to her hip where the sword had been. A phantom habit.

  Rai watched the water like it might rise and pull them down. Her breathing was calm, but her fingers tapped a rhythm against the bench.

  John’s eyes never left the far shore—though it could barely be seen through the fog. What was visible shimmered like heat: a faint red glow that pulsed like a heartbeat.

  RW stared into the water.

  After a while, she growled.

  Dorian leaned forward. “You see something?”

  RW didn’t answer. But her ears flattened.

  Beneath them, the river convulsed—like something vast had stirred from a forgotten sleep.

  Whispers rose—not loud, but layered. Not one voice, but dozens. Hundreds. Some sobbed. Some begged. Some simply repeated the same phrase again and again.

  "Help me."

  "Let me out."

  "Where did I go?"

  No one dared look over the edge.

  The Ferryman stood still at the bow, staff in hand, unmoving.

  A voice hissed from below.

  "He left me. He left me. He left me—"

  Helen’s breath caught.

  The glow ahead grew stronger.

  It wasn’t firelight.

  It was the red of molten stone. The red of fresh blood. The red behind closed eyes when you dream of drowning.

  The vessel neared the far shore.

  The whispers fell silent.

  The fog peeled back.

  And the first level of Nekrosyne waited.