Page 98 of Made

“Were you now?” Keir chuckled. "How could you doubt us?”

“Looks like you made a friend,” Kagan said, meaning Excruffenrox.

“This is Excruffenrox.”

“Hello,” said the creature.

Kagan lifted his hand as if to wave. “Hi. So, you can, em, talk.”

“We can. Yes. I see you can as well.”

Keir ignored that. Among other things, he wanted to avoid the possibility of having his brother verbally shamed in an exchange of banter with a three-headed dog. It wasn’t so much that he doubted Kagan’s intellect. It was more that his respect for Excruffenrox had grown with every minute they’d spent together. “It’s going with us.”

Kagan gave his brother a hard look. He had questions about that, but didn’t want them to get in the way of either celebrating his rescue or a quick journey back to the river.

“Escape plan?” Kagan asked.

Keir shrugged. “Run like hell?” His brothers shrugged their consent. “Exscruffenrox. Maybe you bring up the rear on retreat?”

“We will.”

They ran with their guide-turned-bodyguard following closely behind, barking all the way. Without slowing when they reached the cave entrance, they barreled ahead toward the barge. The boatman hadn’t returned, as Keir had hoped, but he’d promised they’d figure it out. And that was what they would do.

As the three leaped onto the barge, Keir turned to make sure Exscruffenrox was in pursuit. “Can you swim with the collars and lengths of chain?”

“We will,” said Exscruffenrox as he flew through the air before landing a prize-winning belly flop in the river.

Fortunately, the absentee boatman had left the pole. Keir picked it up and used it to push away from the black pebble beach. They watched as wispy black remnants of former people poured out of the cave opening and began fighting each other for closer proximity to the river. It made no difference. They had no way of leaving the shore. Ever.

In some ways, being confined to the beach abutting a waterway that led to the land of the living was a harsher punishment than clinging to a cold, dark wall in abject darkness. The fighting began to resemble a tornado, the spin of which created an accompanying buzzing noise. That was the last the lions saw of the Land of the Unworthy Dead as the barge made a wide turn around a bend.

“Exscruffenrox?”

“Yes?” said the monster as it dog paddled behind the barge.

“Doing okay?”

“We are. Thank you for asking.”

Something about that struck Kagan as funny. He chuckled. Keir and Killian both turned shocked looks his way. Kagan didn’t make laughing noises. He might not have laughed since he was a toddler. But he wasn’t done. His chuckling turned into actual laughter. The kind that requires full cooperation of lungs. As he laughed, he threw back his head and let it be known, if there was any doubt, that he was just as handsome as his brothers. Glittering eyes. White teeth. No furrows in his brow. There was no doubt of any of that because, as he laughed, the Cardinal overseer kept her promise. The flesh of their bodies became solid once again. Night turned to twilight. And twilight turned to full day as they approached a dock on a river reflecting the blue of a midday sky.

The barge pole had disappeared from Keir’s hand and he found himself guiding the rudder of a Phoenician boat with saffron sail.

“We did it,” Kagan said, smiling up at the sun, elbows resting on the side of the boat,

Keir and Killian remained quiet for a while, processing everything they’d seen and done to make sure their brother was as happy as possible. Neither had ever imagined this level of happiness was possible.

Exscruffenrox was first to leave the River Styx. The creature scrambled out of the water, crawled onto a grassy bank on its belly, then rolled onto its side where it stayed, breathing hard.

Keir jumped off the boat and went straight there. He put his hand on the monster’s shoulder and petted a little. “That was tough, huh?” Exscruffenrox was too exhausted to answer. “But guess what? You’re free.”

Though Exscruffenrox didn’t move his body, all six eyes were on Keir. What he saw in their gratitude. One of the headsmoved an inch so that it was close enough to lightly lick one of Keir’s fingers.

“Don’t be afraid, my friend,” Keir said. “I’m going to shift into my sephalian form so that I can rid you of these collars.”

Exscruffenrox was still panting and said nothing. He’d probably seen a lot in his life as a pawn of the gods because he didn’t move a muscle when the sephalian took shape.

One at a time, Keir inserted claws between collar and skin and jerked his paws in opposite directions. The iron snapped apart like paper.