Page 18 of Katabasis

T he Lethe. A great expanse, fathomless and immeasurably wide.

From the shore all one could see was endless darkness stretching toward the dim horizon.

Whatever waited across—King Yama’s throne, the gates back to the living—lay out of sight.

The Lethe was a visual paradox, two things at once.

At first glance, eyes unfocused, the waters were still and silent, a glassy obsidian surface reflecting glimmers of the ever-dying sun.

But then one looked closer, and the Lethe became an agitated churn, all whorls and eddies in currents without direction, and the longer one gazed the louder those waters sounded in one’s ears, bone-deep rumbles from waves roiling beneath the surface.

Alice stepped closer, entranced. As a child she had learned that white was all the colors wrapped in one, and she found this profoundly unfair; that one could have seen rainbows everywhere but instead, with weak mortal eyes, saw only plain light.

The Lethe seemed an inverse of this principle.

It was all darkness. But the moment you fixed your eyes on any one point it began to disambiguate, until you saw that what seemed like sheets of obsidian were in fact waves of color, and those waves of color formed memories.

You could just catch fragments if you squinted.

Here a faded teddy bear; there a pouring stream of red wine; and there a ringed, wrinkled, reaching hand.

.. all fragments teasing richer memories, specific details, all the detritus of human experience swirling, condensed into one unending wash.

Oh, great Lethe. Hell was always bound by a river.

All the sources confirmed this, regardless of period, geography, or religion.

You didn’t have to call it the Lethe. You could call it the Apanohuaya, or the Vaitanya.

You could call it the river of Meng Po. The domain of Neti.

But you could not deny there was the river, delineating boundaries between worlds, severing the cord between this life and whatever came after.

On this side, the courts of punishment. On the other, Lord Yama’s domain—and the promised golden circle where souls returned to the world of the living.

There were many rivers of power in this world—there were rivers of death, and rivers of love; rivers that could grant immortality, and rivers that could take it away.

Some washed away sin; some merely washed away the guilt. But only the Lethe washed memory.

Western Tartarologists preferred the name Lethe for its etymology.

Lethe comes from the Greek l ē thē (λ?θη), meaning “forgetfulness,” “oblivion.” Lethe also has connections to the Greek alētheia (?λ?θεια), meaning “truth.” Though what connection truth had to forgetfulness, Alice was not sure.

By some accounts, stripping all memories was a way to reveal the most fundamental truth—some ineffable element of the soul that was eternal.

By other accounts, the causation was flipped.

Truth was the necessary condition to deserving forgetfulness, and therefore reincarnation.

Only when one acknowledged the truth about themselves could they wash away the burden of past lives to begin anew.

Dominant theories linked the memory powers of the Lethe to Heraclitus’s theory of flux.

In most respects Heraclitus was a complete ass, and he was famous for bizarre proclamations like “Everything is its own opposite” and “All things in the universe are manifestations of an ever-living fire.” Despite this, Heraclitus had made the profound observation that one could never step in the same river twice, because it wouldn’t be the same river, and one wouldn’t be the same person.

The Lethe, then, equated forgetting with rebirth.

The continuity of one’s soul was tied inextricably to the persistence of one’s memories.

When memories were gone, a new soul was born.

The Lethe was forgetting was death was change.

“Suppose this is another way to go.” Peter was rifling through his notebook, thinking out loud.

“Around the courts, I mean. Jesse Hagen had these theories—well, I don’t know if you read Hagen, I did take out the only copy.

But we might move a lot faster if we traveled over water.

The Lethe must pass by every court, so theoretically.

.. hm.” Peter tapped his fingers against his chin.

“But we’ve nothing to build a raft with. ”

Alice had considered the same problem. Get on a boat.

Sail across; either to successive courts or even to King Yama’s Land across the way.

Yes, Alice had found a footnote citing Hagen’s theory.

But where would they get a boat? It was hard enough to take one’s mortal soul to Hell.

Pentagrams only stretched so large. No one had ever managed more than a bit of luggage, much less a vehicle.

And the boat would have to be airtight, waterproof; they could not risk even one drop spilling onto their skin.

On this subject, the literature was very clear.

The waters of the Lethe ate memory. Even trailing your fingers across the surface could strip you of truths you’d known your whole life.

Alice had concocted some half-baked ideas about forming a raft with the supplies in her sack.

She might inflate the blanket, perhaps, and try enchanting it so it held the weight of two, and formed a protective barrier besides.

But those waters looked impossible to fool with magick.

Those eddies looked hungry . They exuded a vicious gravity.

They were negative space, irresistible magnets, black holes of thought.

Try me, the river seemed to say. I’ll eat your chalk.

Her arm twitched suddenly. She tugged her sleeve down. An old injury.

Peter was saying something else, but her mind drifted, lost in the river.

She simply could not stop staring at that shifting, swirling surface.

She had the absurd urge to take a swim, and it was the same kind of thought that invaded her mind when she stood any place high up.

What if she climbed out that window? Tumbled off the edge?

The waters seemed so cool, so soothing, and she imagined herself dropping down through that glassy surface without so much as a ripple.

A blur marked her vision. Alice blinked, and when she opened her eyes she saw a woman standing by the shore, old and hunched, terra-cotta jugs arranged neatly on a table beside her. “Murdoch!”

“What?”

“Don’t you see her?”

“Who?”

“The woman.” Alice pointed. “The woman by the shore.”

Peter’s voice wavered. “I don’t...”

Why couldn’t he see? This was no hallucination.

Alice was certain. She knew this deity. She’d seen her crop up over centuries of texts.

Old Lady Meng Po, guardian of the river, mother of memory.

Her task was to distill those violent waters into a fragrant herbal liquor.

When souls crossed over it was the lady’s wine they drank; sweet and cooling, eternal relief.

The forgetting of rebirth, not of obliteration.

The lady met Alice’s eyes, and her mouth stretched into a slow, wrinkled smile.

There was no malice in that smile; only a simple, guileless kindness.

Drink , she said; and though no sound carried over the waves Alice understood perfectly what she meant. Drink, and be at peace, and be gone.

Oh, how wonderful that would be! Alice had thought rescuing Professor Grimes from Hell was the solution to her problems—but why go to all that effort?

She almost laughed. Here was the real answer: to wash away the dregs upon her mind and come out the other side dewy clean; a mewling babe ready to start afresh.

Memories rushed to the fore of her skull, hot and choking foul, and all she could think then was how nice it would be to offload them to the depths; to swirl away and then disseminate forever.

She was so tired of the contents of her mind.

Her thoughts were so loud; they pounded her skull, it never stopped, it was all too much.

For a long time now it had been all too much.

Everyone was so afraid of the Lethe—keep away, they said; stay dry—but why didn’t they understand it was mercy?

All the stories were wrong—no siren’s call was as alluring as the sea itself, and the quiet dark beyond the shore.

Peter said sharply, “Law.”

She looked down, and saw she’d crossed halfway to the river. Peter stood yards away at the bank above. That was odd. She didn’t remember moving her feet. “How...?”

Peter waved, the way one might at a misbehaving dog. “Why don’t you come back up here.”

Alice blinked at the river. “How very strange.” But she couldn’t move.

Peter waved again, more urgently this time. “Come on, Law. Please.”

“No.” Someone else’s voice came out of her; a musical tone, indifferent. Alice liked it; she liked to be spoken for. The river decided for her. “I think I shall go for a swim.”

The river roared louder, drowning out whatever Peter said next.

Alice did not care. She could actually feel her mind deflating, like a pricked balloon, all that terrible pressure removed at last. The image of forceful waters rushing through every crevice, flushing out the debris, smoothing the contours of her mind, until the whole worm-eaten rot had vanished and left only smooth bone, baby clear.

She felt that unanchoring again, which ought to have terrified her—she reached for her staircase but it was not there, the rush was too loud.

But this time she had no fear. The tumble was a good thing; the fall was not further in, but toward the empty.

The baptism was upon her. Yes , she thought— yes, yes, we are almost there—

Suddenly Peter was beside her. He gripped her arm, so hard it hurt.

“Ouch,” she said.

“Law, look at me.”

“Let me go.”