Another day, another morning writing session. The short story continues into its third part as a father and daughter meet to discuss her efforts to save the world. If you haven’t read the other parts, please start with A Conversation in a Cafe.

“The underworld is no place for a lady.”

This is my father’s response to my plan. Sitting here, crammed into the corner of our usual cafe as though we can somehow hide from the bright lights and cheery atmosphere, I don’t feel much like a lady. I don’t remember the last time I washed my hair; I’m pretty sure, from the looks I got as I walked through and headed upstairs, that I smell. Not that I care anymore. Greasy hair and a bad smell are the least of my problems.

“Well, no one else is going to go,” I say, crumbling a piece of cookie up between my fingers, letting the chocolate melt onto my skin. “And someone has to.”

”Why?”

I can’t help a small laugh at that. My father is an all-knowing being but I’m starting to realise all-knowing is not the same as intelligent. There is only one other table occupied up here at the moment; the cafe – the town as a whole – is quiet. The occupied table has a bunch of kids at it, pre teens or young teens or somewhere on that spectrum of adolescence. They’re laughing at a video on one of their phones. I can guess what they’re watching. They’re watching someone dying.

“You know, when the books warned about the undying I was expecting zombies,” I say. “This isn’t undying. This is the opposite of undying.”

He tilts his head to the side. “How so?”

“People are dying, they’re just not quite making it to dead. Which is why someone has to go down to the underworld and see what the hell is happening.”

He smiles. “What do you expect to find, child? A blockade? It is the end times; there is nothing to be found in the underworld but more pain and suffering. Best to focus your attentions up here.”

Talking of blockades.

“There’s nothing I can do up here,” I say. I reach out to take a bite of the cookie, but end up crumbling it between my fingers again. I’m not hungry. I don’t even know why I agreed to come. “I tried. God I tried.”

”I know.”

“You know,” I say dully. “So why don’t you do something? Because you can do more than try; you can stop this!”

I’ve raised my voice. The kids are glancing over at us, but they go back to YouTube and videos of people stuck in eternal torment. I’m never going to understand what some people find entertaining. 

My father is watching me gravely. I hold his stare, even though his eyes are gold and inhuman and he isn’t blinking. I hold his stare, and know that I am not blinking either, and that my eyes have flecks of that same gold in them.

He sighs, and drops his gaze. “I cannot,” he says gently. “I can encourage you. I can support you, as my daughter. But I cannot actively be involved in this. You know that. We decreed it centuries ago -”

”And centuries ago you were wrong.”

The flood came between the blood rain and the undying. It wasn’t actually as bad as I had imagined. For one thing, it was water, not blood, and that was an improvement as far as I’m concerned. Outside, there’s a certain wetness to the air but no more blood-slicked streets. Yet the place is empty. The schools are shut, the economy has ground to a halt. Things like that happen when people forget how to die. 

“Daughter?” I glance up at him. Lost in thought for a minute. He’s smiling at me again. “You will prevail,” he says. “Of this I have no doubt.”

He reaches his hand across, and tears off a corner of my cookie. Of course. I sigh. “Why don’t you just order your own damn cookie rather than always eating mine?”

He shrugs. “There is a certain … humanity in sharing yours.” I don’t know what to say to that. I don’t know what to say to half of what he says. This is our third meeting in eight months – in the twenty-eight years prior I had met him only twice. Our relationship is developing. Into what? I think, Father and daughter, mentor and mentee, unhelpful god and helpless demi-god?

“You said you have a map of the underworld,” he says, drawing me back to the situation at hand.

”Yes.” I reach into my bag and take it out. He raises an eyebrow; I raise mine back, daring him to comment on the fact that I’ve taken a priceless map and folded it in half so it fits into my satchel. He doesn’t, and I am allowed to spread it out over the table in piece.

I reach for a bit of cookie; he reaches over and smacks my hand away.

“Hey!”

He looks up and smiles. “The folding can be forgiven. If you get chocolate on it, I may have to smite you.”

”You just did,” I say, waving my hand in an exaggerated manner. 

He ignores me. He’s looking at the map.  I wonder whether he’s having the same moment of awe I had when I first saw it: the intricate detail, the parchment itself woven to withstand centuries of time, the black markings of the ink in strokes so small you need a magnifying glass to read them. Unless you have golden eyes and a prior knowledge. He is reading it intently, eyes darting from the tunnel that leads to the underworld to the river to the caverns through to the pictures of writhing, desperate souls.

Then he laughs. I stare. He keeps laughing. He laughs so loudly that the kids are quiet for a moment, that the sound echoes off the walls and comes back louder than the music.

“Umm, father?”

“Oh, daughter, you did not tell me you’d seen my brother.”

I frown. “I told you, I went up the mountain and he kicked me off – but this wasn’t from him, this was from an old man in an antique shop in Lebanon, it took me ages to track down.”

”This old man, what did he call himself?”

“He didn’t call himself anything; he sold me a map, that’s all.”

I’m getting frustrated. I wish he’d just come out and say whatever it is he has to say.

“Did he have a tattoo?”

“I didn’t really look.”

“This would have been obvious. A lizard, the head would be on his neck. It would have had a blue tongue.”

My brow furrows. I feel it; can’t stop it. Because the man did have a strange tattoo. And the fact my father recognises it only means one thing. “He’s one of yours.”

“One of ours,” my father corrects. “Your uncle. Known by many different names: you would probably recognise Loki, the trickster?”

I stare at the map. “Oh God.”

”Exactly. Would you like me to correct it for you?” I nod dumbly, still in shock that such a beautiful thing could be a trick. My father lays his hand on the map. “Firstly, the entrance to the underworld isn’t one place, it’s many. And the underworld itself is similar to an office block, except each level will take you further down.” The map rearranges itself as he speaks. The kids at the other table are openly watching us now. “Upper management, so to speak, is on the deepest level. You will find who you are looking for there.”

He looks up. The map is finished. There is none of the beauty, none of the craftsmanship, but it certainly is easier to follow. 

“Daughter.”

I force myself to look at him. “Yes?”

”I would suggest you do not go looking for him.” He takes a sip of his tea. The saxophone music playing in the background jars against his words. He reaches out to take another piece of my cookie, and waves it at me as he says, “Madness lies in seeking Death.”

“I know. But if I can stop this…” I wave my hands around, trying to somehow encompass the whole world in the gesture.

He nods. “I understand.” He smiles. “So. Shall we share a cookie when you get back?”

I’m about to go on a quest to the underworld. Chances are I’m not coming back. But his question makes me smile and I find myself nodding. “Of course. For your humanity, if nothing else.”

And mine, I add silently, but from the sad look in my father’s eyes I think he hears me anyway.