Hermes's Arc

Chapter 8 of 13

The next dusk, Hermes climbed down to find the landing choked. Souls stood shoulder to shoulder on the bronze and obsidian steps before the dark gate, spilling back along the shore. They drifted in silence, pale as smoke, with nowhere to go. Across the black water, the ferryman's skiff sat tied to a far rock, its red sail slack. The old man had retreated to a leaning shack of driftwood and bone on the far bank, smoke curling from its roof. Hermes lifted his winged staff and tapped each soul as he passed. The snakes along the wood flicked, and a small red bead bloomed in the air for every count. Two hundred. Three hundred. Four hundred and twelve. The number hung above the crowd like a swarm of embers. He had never seen the landing this full. He spread his wings and crossed the river in three beats. The ferryman did not look up when Hermes ducked through the shack's low door. The old man sat polishing his gold-tipped oar, slow as honey. "Tide's wrong," he muttered. "Fog's thick. Can't be rushed." "Four hundred and twelve souls," Hermes said. He planted the staff. The red beads floated in through the doorway and hung around the ferryman's head, blinking. "That's a market square at closing time, old man. They have families waiting. Beds going cold. You're punishing them because I caught you skimming." The ferryman's jaw tightened. Hermes set a small stack of gold rings on the bench beside him — three crossings' worth, pulled from his own pay. "For your pride," he said. "Not your purse. Take it and row. Or I cross them myself, and the river will remember you sat in a shack while a god did your work." The ferryman stared at the rings a long moment. Then he stood, shouldered the oar, and walked past Hermes to his skiff. By moonrise the landing was thinning, the red beads winking out one by one. Hermes climbed back toward the gates with the route running again — but the gold he'd spent was gone, and the ferryman's debt had quietly grown teeth.