Free Nightsong by Michael Cadnum

restrained by its chain.
    Charon was silent, but gave the poet a meaningful look and patted his heavy purse as though to say, You’ve paid enough already .
    Perhaps eager to rid the dark realm of two living mortals, the ferryman plunged his pole at once into the water. They crossed the foul-smelling river quickly, and soon Orpheus felt the opposite quay beneath his feet.
    â€œDon’t!” gasped Eurydice as Orpheus nearly turned back to help her disembark from the lopsided ferry.
    The young poet shook himself, and gave an embarrassed – and startled – laugh.
    He was aching for another sight of her – and shocked to find how hard it might be to fulfill the simple, stark condition.
    Orpheus crept along the path, keeping his own progress slow, and reaching back often to take her hand.
    Even so, at times she fell behind, and the poet had to pause and listen carefully to catch the whisper of her footsteps. Reassured by her approaching, limping footfall, he would hurry ahead – only to stop and hold his breath as her progress was too far in the distance to make an audible sound. Perhaps she has lost the way, he thought several times, only to grow weak with relief as her steps made their way upward, closer and closer.
    She had many questions – about the well-being of her father, her brother, and all her many friends in the kingdom. Orpheus was delighted to tell her every detail as they journeyed upward, reassured that the mourning he described would soon be swept away by joyful life. When he got too far ahead once more, he called back to her and she answered, “I’m coming, Orpheus,” laughing breathlessly, as though her injury was a minor hindrance, nothing more.
    And as she climbed upward, she was growing stronger – the poet could hear it in her voice and feel it in the increasingly assertive grasp she offered him.
    It was true that the route was more rough and even more dangerous than Orpheus had recalled, the upward effort more difficult than the descent. For this reason the poet walked increasingly well ahead at times, sweeping sharp pebbles from the path with eager hands.
    The music of water, trickling down from above, reached his ears. The snaking roots of trees speared downward, through cracks in the rocks, and lichen splashed the stone walls. Just when Orpheus sniffed the first trace of daylight air, he stumbled, and put out a hand to the rocky wall to keep from falling to the stony floor.
    The trail crumbled, and broke away beneath his feet, the rocky shelf falling off into the dark. But only at the sound of Eurydice’s warning gasp did the poet realize that he had once again nearly turned back.
    â€œIt isn’t far now,” he said, his voice broken with anguish at the fatal blunder he had almost committed.
    Not far – his pulse hammered out the message.
    We are almost there .

TWENTY-SEVEN
    At last Orpheus stood beside the hard-gushing stream where Biton had slipped during the descent – it seemed so long ago.
    â€œWait, Eurydice,” he cautioned her without turning back. “I’ll make sure the footing is sound.”
    He stepped into the numbing water, alarmed at the loose stones that quaked and churned, nearly causing him to fall.
    He struggled through the icy torrent.
    And then he waited as Eurydice paused at the far bank of the stream. He continued to linger where he was, turned resolutely away from her, as she haltingly waded forward. He heard her shudder at the cold, and sensed her reaching for his hand.
    He continued to turn deliberately away from her, and at the same time he reached back. He stretched his hand all the way, as far as he could, praying that soon he would feel her touch.
    It did not come.
    She’s fallen .
    She’s helpless .
    Surely, he thought, that splashing is the sound of her trying to keep from drowning. Just one look, he thought. An instant glimpse would not really count against me – would it?
    Of course