Contrary to what I thought, the path to the underworld began in the mortal world. To get there, Hecate transported us to the city of Taenarum, where it was said that there was a cave near the city that, if you crossed it, would lead to the entrance to the underworld, where Cerberus would be waiting for us.
With no time to lose, we followed Hecate's directions to where the cave was supposed to be.
The wind in Taenarum smelled of old iron and dry salt. The waves of the sea crashed furiously against the rocks of the cape, as if trying to warn us. No one else was walking among the nearby ruins. There were no birds. Not even insects. It was as if the world knew where we were going... and didn't want to accompany us.
"There it is," said Hecate, pointing with her staff to a rock formation at the foot of a cliff. "The entrance."
It looked like a crack in the mountain, a wound that never closed. The entrance to the cave had no decorations, no altars, no warnings. Only absolute darkness, as if the stone refused to reflect the light.
Demeter stepped forward. Her footsteps were silent, but her presence weighed like a blanket on the ground. She was not the maternal goddess many worshipped in flower-filled temples. Here, she was the fury of the earth in mourning. A mother who had sworn never to lose her daughter again.
I followed them, keeping my eyes ahead. The cave seemed to absorb more than shadows: it absorbed sound, heat, even time. My pulse began to slow, not out of calm, but because something in this place was trying to erase my humanity.
The entrance was right in front of us now. A natural threshold of black rock, flanked by petrified roots that looked like fingers trying to cling to the surface. Hecate stopped before crossing it.
"Once inside, there is no turning back," she said in her soft but unyielding voice. 'This is one of the last places where the living can access the Underworld without being torn from the world. But the price is... being halfway there."
"We've already made our decision,' Demeter replied without hesitation. "Let's open the way."
Hecate raised her staff and gently thrust it into the ground. A subtle wave spread from the point of contact. The cave responded.
Not with a roar, but more like a kind of moan produced by the structure itself.
As if the stone remembered all the souls that had passed through there... and all those who never returned.
Without another word, we entered.
At first, all that surrounded us was darkness.
But not the natural darkness of a cave. It was thick and very dense. As if each step took us not only deeper into the earth, but into the very depths of reality.
The walls were covered with marks... not inscriptions, but grooves made by desperate hands. Some were ancient. Others seemed more recent. Some were too large to have been made by humans, while others were too thin.
There was no set path. Just a continuous, winding descent that narrowed with each step.
Then the murmur began. At first it was low, almost like a distant stream. The further down we went and the more acute my hearing became, the more I realized that the sound was not water, but voices, thousands of them to be exact, which made the hair on my arm stand on end.
They were whispering things that could not be understood. Or worse, they could be understood... if one listened long enough.
"Do you hear that?" I asked in a low voice.
"Yes," Hecate replied. "Don't answer. None of those voices are alive, and some... aren't dead."
I swallowed hard. I felt a drop of cold sweat run down my back.
After what seemed like hours of descending, the cave suddenly opened into a vast underground chamber. Before us, stretching like a bottomless abyss, was the River Styx.
Black as ink, with no visible reflection and no visible waves, the water was flat as a sheet of paper.
A stone pier extended to where the water began. Chained there, with his front legs firmly planted and his three skulls tense, stood Cerberus.
The guardian of the Underworld.
A mass of muscle and fury, as big as a building, covered in coal-black fur. His three heads—one growling, one sniffing the air, the third watching with bloodshot eyes—moved restlessly, as if they never rested. Each jaw was bristling with dagger-like fangs, and a deep growl emerged from his throat, making the ground shake.
Each of his three heads sniffed us separately, and in all of them I saw a different gleam: hunger, vigilance, and judgment. The sight intimidated me instantly. The beast was gigantic, easily 20 meters tall, and with its heads swaying above us, my fear seemed to increase, which seemed to be sensed by the dog, as one of its heads fixed on me momentarily, and also by Hecate, who quickly stepped between the giant dog and me.
She raised her staff slowly.
"Cerberus," she said, without raising her voice. 'I have come before. You will recognize me. And she...' she pointed to Demeter, 'is the Queen's mother."
"Queen? What are you talking about?'' Demeter asked urgently.
She moved like a storm. In an instant, she was on top of Hecate, the fury in her eyes so vivid that the air seemed to heat up around her. If it weren't for my Divine Eye, I probably wouldn't have been able to follow her movement.
"Hecate! What did you say?"
Hecate didn't back down, but her gaze hardened.
"That Persephone... is now Queen of the Underworld. Hades took her with him."
Demeter paled.
"What are you saying? Hades has her? How long have you known this?"
Her voice thundered, and even Cerberus pricked up his ears. The roots of the stone beneath our feet began to crack, as if the earth itself were enraged with her.
Hecate clutched her staff with both hands, but did not defend herself.
"I told you it wasn't long ago, I saw her go in with him. What I didn't tell you is that she wasn't dragged away, Demeter. She went with him of her own free will."
"You lie!" cried Demeter. 'He tricked her, seduced her, forced her, as gods always do! And you knew it! And you didn't tell me anything!"
"It wasn't like that!' replied Hecate, more firmly. "He didn't force her! She chose to go with him!"
"She's a child! She's my daughter!"
"And she still is. But she's not the same anymore. She's not the same girl who used to pick flowers in the field." Hecate took a deep breath, lowering her voice a little. "I know it hurts, Demeter. But I saw her, and she didn't seem lost, she didn't seem trapped. In fact, she seemed... determined."
Demeter stood frozen, her lips parted. Her anger remained, but now she was trembling with another emotion: fear.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she whispered.
Hecate lowered her gaze, for the first time without her usual confident tone.
"Because I didn't know how, because I knew it would hurt you. And because I'm not sure I understand it myself."
For a moment, neither of them spoke. All that could be heard was Cerberus' heavy breathing, the slight creaking of the chains, and the murmur of the river beyond.
Then Demeter turned away abruptly, her shoulders shaking slightly, but barely visible.
Meanwhile, the monster continued to growl so loudly that the place shook, but it did not move.
"And he," she added, turning to me, 'is not dead, and besides, he is a god. He owes you nothing."
Cerberus' heads snorted in unison. His gaze fell on me. And for a moment, I felt my soul freeze. But the monster did not attack. It did not move away... but it did not block our path either.
Seeing my concern, Hecate approached me and whispered:
"Don't worry, he can't hurt you. Besides, the chains that bind him are made of enchanted metal created by Hephaestus himself. Even Cerberus would have a hard time breaking them."
I simply nodded silently, ashamed that someone I had just met had to reassure me. I felt like a coward. However, I couldn't dwell on that thought for long, because out of nowhere an old boat slowly materialized next to the dock.
"We'll take it to the other side," said Hecate. "From there, the real descent will begin."
Demeter climbed aboard without hesitation. I followed her, feeling the weight of the darkness increase with each step. Hecate was the last to board, and with a wave of her staff, the boat began to glide through the black waters without the need for oars.
I watched as the water closed behind us, leaving behind the dock, Cerberus, and his steaming breath. The silence weighed heavily, but I couldn't help speaking.
"What about the boatman?" I asked quietly. "He's supposed to be here... Charon, right?"
Hecate tilted her head slightly, a shadow of a smile crossing her face.
"Charon transports souls, not gods," she replied. "We don't need a ferryman to cross."
She fixed her gaze ahead again, as if the explanation were enough. And it was. Because, after all, we weren't ordinary passengers.
For the rest of the journey, neither of us spoke.
It was as if silence was a condition for floating on the Styx, or perhaps it was because there wasn't much to talk about. Demeter wanted her daughter back, end of story, while Hecate and I would help her achieve that, although at the moment I hadn't been much use, to be honest.
As I continued to sink into my low self-esteem, I could clearly hear a kind of voices, which must have come from the river as they murmured things under the boat's hull. There were many voices talking at the same time, so I couldn't understand very well what they were saying, but among all that collective and incoherent babbling, I was able to make out a few things. In short, some voices were murmuring about us, about who we were, about the gods, and some were even cursing us.
And at the same time, I heard... my own name. Whispered almost like a plea. I didn't understand who was saying it. Or if it was everyone, or if it was just me.
"This is only the beginning," said Hecate, finally breaking the silence. "When we reach the shore, we will cross the Gates of Hades. And only then will the real journey to the palace of the Lord of the Underworld begin... where she is."
Demeter nodded without looking at us. She didn't seem to be in the mood for conversation, although in her defense, it was understandable. If she knew that my daughter had run away with my brother to rule the underworld with him, I wouldn't be very talkative either.
Meanwhile, the boat glided silently along the river where prayers were destined to die.
And I... clenched my fists, because I knew the worst was yet to come.
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