The Giant Hunter and the Nightwater Flower
Minthe.
As cities multiplied on the surface and the living grew more numerous, the boats crossing the rivers came more often with every passing day. Lines formed at the ferry landings, the ledgers thickened, and the footsteps of the night’s servants quickened.
When I opened my eyes, I made a circuit of the corridors first.
Standing at the railing, I could hear the rivers layered over one another. The heavy current of the Styx. The burning of the Phlegethon. The Lethe made no sound at all, while the Acheron sobbed low.
From the direction of Tartarus below, the resonance of the things imprisoned there climbed up through the earth. It was also the sound of doors well locked, and I found a kind of reassurance in listening to that vibration.
And what had grown especially loud of late was the wailing from the Cocytus.
When I stood where the landing came into view, a boat was just putting in. Souls stepped down one by one and joined the end of the line. The coins each held in their mouths glittered in the lamplight. The ferryman, adjusting his pole, recognized me on the gallery above and bowed deeply at the waist.
I gave him only a look as I passed. That was enough for him; he took up the pole again. We had done this for eons. There was nothing new between us to remark upon.
The souls without coins stood idle among the reeds along the bank—those the living had failed to bury properly.
Before I had finished the circuit that day, a servant approached and reported.
"A hero’s soul has crossed the river."
"The name."
"Orion, my lord."
Orion.
Even I stopped walking at that name.
The giant hunter. The man said to have chased every beast that walked the world. To be honest, I had learned the name from constellations and sweets long before I ever met it in myth.
And already that name had crossed the river.
"Cause of death."
"An arrow, they say. And—"
The servant chose his words with unusual care.
"Lady Artemis’s arrow."
The goddess of the hunt had shot her own hunting companion. Rumor seemed to stop there, but I knew how that arrow had left the string. Apollo’s scheme. A wager to hit a speck floating on the distant sea. The goddess had not known what she had struck until she lowered her bow.
Even reading it in a book, that passage had left a bitter aftertaste.
"Bring him into the great hall. I will see him when the patrol is done."
Part of me wanted to run straight there and look. Still, the picture of a king dropping everything and racing off at the news of a hero’s arrival would not do. Too many eyes were watching.
So I finished the remaining corridors. I checked the sound of the rivers, counted the line at the landing with my eyes, and stopped by the study to clear the urgent seals.
Hero-class dead were not put in the judgment queue. I judged them myself in the great hall.
The great hall was the highest and darkest room in the palace. Ranks stood ready between the black pillars, and the lamps lit only the single path that led to the throne.
I sat. Only then did the bronze doors open.
Outwardly I arranged myself to look down with an impassive face, but my pulse had quickened a little. The Orion who had delighted me in so many sweets was walking into my hall now.
The soul that entered was a giant whose head nearly brushed the lintel. A beast’s hide hung from his shoulders, and a bronze club was in his hand. He had not let it go even in death. The arrow mark left on his brow looked almost too small for that frame.
The soul knelt on one knee only below the throne—a hunter’s courtesy. His head was bowed, but his back was not bent.
"Orion, the giant hunter. Even I have heard your name."
"You honor me."
"Two paths lie before you."
I raised two fingers.
"One. Drink the water of the Lethe, forget everything, and return to a new life. Two. Become my soldier and dwell in Elysium."
The soul lifted his head.
"It is the western plain where the sun never sets. There is neither pain nor hunger, and those who finished their portion to the end are there. By day they hone their spears; by night they share the cup. And when the call comes, they take up the spear."
Orion was silent a long while before he spoke.
"I decline the forgetting. I do not wish to forget a single name of the beasts I hunted."
"So you choose the soldier’s path."
"That is not it either."
The giant set the bronze club against the floor.
"I am no vessel for a soldier. I have never stood in a rank in my life, and this club sits better in my hand than a spear."
He paused a moment.
"My king. Are there beasts in the Underworld as well?"
"There are."
It is not only people who die. The souls of beasts roamed the Asphodel Meadows as they pleased, and the servants forever struggled to manage them.
"Then take me not as a soldier but as a hunter. I will handle the meadows."
It was an answer I liked.
"Rise."
The soul stood.
Still seated on the throne, I raised my hand once and let it fall. The shadow of the throne stretched along the path of lamps, swallowed the giant’s frame for a moment, and withdrew. The arrow mark on his brow was gone.
"From this day you are my hunter. I entrust the meadows to you."
Orion grinned, teeth showing.
The servants led him west. From the corridor railing I watched his back. From beyond the ash-grey plain the cries of beast-souls rode the wind, and I saw the giant’s hand adjust its grip on the club. His fingers were already itching, it seemed.
I did not want to build a kingdom where death was only an ending.
That was how the spears of Elysium had grown, one by one. And today a hunter had been added.
I returned to the study and looked over the backlog of seals—the Cocytus embankment budget, the landing expansion plan, the sorting of ledger copies. A crowded kingdom crowded its paperwork as well.
I was well into a run of signatures when a servant approached without a sound.
"There is a request for audience. Minthe of the Cocytus asks to be received."
Minthe.
A name I was hearing for the first time. There were any number of nymphs attached to the rivers, and I could not know them all. My lists had always been full of holes.
"What sort of nymph?"
A silence longer than usual came back.
"…She manages the Cocytus."
That was all. I saw the two servants standing nearby exchange a look. A taciturn breed on ordinary days, they were even quieter today.
"Let her in."
The hour when patrol ended and the seals began. A visit timed exactly to that hour.
The door opened, and water-light walked in.
Her water-colored hair was braided down without a strand out of place, and her dress was so excessively neat that it drew the eye. She wore only a single ornament at her ear. And there was a scent—a cool fragrance like peppermint.
When she entered, the two servants in the study quietly withdrew toward the wall—about two steps farther than usual.
"I present myself before the King of the Underworld. I am called Minthe of the Cocytus."
The nymph raised a black glass bottle in both hands.
"I have brought this as a token of audience. It is a Nightwater Flower that blooms only in the upper reaches of the Cocytus. A flower that opens even amid the lamentations."
A servant took the bottle and set it at the edge of the desk. In the black water a single pale flower swayed slowly.
Her voice was clear, not what one would expect of the manager of the River of Lamentation. The nymph bowed deeply at the waist, rose, and lifted her eyes. Her gaze lingered half a beat too long before it fell.
"Sit. What brings you?"
Minthe unrolled a scroll she had prepared.
"In the last hundred years the tears flowing into the Cocytus have tripled. As the dead increase, so does the wailing. We are the first to know when the lamentations rise. The taste of the river changes."
"And so."
"At this rate the lower landing floods with every rainy season. I have brought a plan to raise the embankments and split the watercourse in two."
I took the scroll and scanned it.
A hundred years of flow records were packed tight, with embankment positions and watercourse drawings attached. There were two drawings.
"Two embankment proposals."
"Twelve and fifteen. I thought Your Majesty would choose the side with margin, so I drew both."
"…Fifteen."
"As expected."
The second drawing was already on top.
The nymph smiled faintly. It meant she had mapped my habits of approval. Capable—or unsettling.
There was no hesitation in the fingertips that pointed at the plans. She knew the river like the lines of her own palm—where the water would overflow, where souls would tangle. Even the placement of twenty guide hands flowed on without a hitch, and I only needed to correct a few numbers.
"Approved."
"I will devote myself wholly."
When I returned the scroll, the hand that received it withdrew half a beat late. The peppermint scent thickened slightly, then thinned.
"I will deliver the construction reports in person. River business is more accurate from a mouth that knows the river. And written pages blot the moment they take on damp."
"As you prefer."
"I have heard the lamps in the king’s study burn late. I will come at an hour that is not too late."
She even knew the hours of my study lamps. I wondered briefly how far a nymph charged with a single river had reached, but I did not press. Good workers were rare in the Underworld.
Minthe made her bow and rose. She turned with the same unhurried, immaculate step with which she had entered and started for the door—then stopped.
Her gaze had gone to a corner of the study. The place that alone held color among the black shelves. Kore’s flowers, stacked season upon season until they had become a small garden.
"Precious flowers. Flowers that do not wither in the Underworld."
"A gift."
"…You keep them carefully."
The nymph took in the flowers and me once each, substituted a smile for farewell, and went out the door. Only light footsteps and the peppermint scent passed, instead of the sound of silver ornaments.
Just before the door closed, I saw her turn her head toward the far side of the corridor. The great hall lay that way. And in the great hall stood the throne. The time she spent taking it in was longer than a greeting.
The door shut.
I thought I understood why the servants had been so sparing with their words earlier. When long-lived things close their mouths, there is always a reason.
When I finished the remaining seals and closed the tablet, the lamps had burned down by half. In the black bottle at the edge of the desk the Nightwater Flower was still swaying slowly.
I started to rise, then went instead to the heap of flowers and tucked a protruding stem back in. I left the bottle where it was. The corner of the study and the edge of the desk. The distance between the two flowers was as wide as the room.
A scent like peppermint lingered in the study for a long while.