Silvius recognised the coldness. It drew him back to the vision of Python. The feeling lasted for a long time. He was dizzied, and fragments flashed in front of his eyes, confused and confusing.

The whiteness of a long fang. The smoke from a funeral pyre. Red-eyed enemies, rushing towards him, death in their hearts. All the time the creature sang to itself, a low rumble.

He fell and fell, until he could not tell what was up and what was down, and his head felt as if it might never stop spinning.

Without a bump, the falling simply stopped.

The creature released them.

Silvius rolled into a patch of boggy ground, the other two falling beside him. He lay disoriented for a second, sensing emptiness around him. With relief, he saw Elissa was near him, and then the Achaean, Tisamenos, helping her up. He jumped up too, his feet sinking into mulch. Above was a small, faint orb, and his eyes could only make out outlines.

In the far distance there was a red light, as if from a huge fire.

‘Python …’ Silvius tensed. ‘Where have we been brought?’ He moved closer to Elissa, able now to make out her worried features. He saw the Arrow on her back, and had a sudden longing for the light of Apollo. ‘Could you take it out?’ He reached towards it.

‘I don’t think so.’ Elissa moved away resolutely.

‘She’s right.’ Tisamenos came forwards. ‘The light of Apollo is not for this place …’

‘This is not what I thought the Underworld would be like.’ Elissa’s voice echoed loudly, making Silvius flinch. When Tisamenos put his arm around Elissa, Silvius turned away.

The white-faced creature that had brought them walked on, expecting them to follow. Silvius bent down to the ground, and his hand came away covered in some kind of slime. Walking through it was like wading through wet sand.

He trudged onwards, at the rear of the straggling procession. Blackness was all around them. At every step, his heart felt heavier. He began to wonder what it would be like to hear the trill of a bird once more, to feel the light broken by forest leaves on his cheek.

The glowing orb above them did not move. Time itself did not exist in this place. There was nothing to mark their way, and it seemed as if every pace was the same, that he was stuck in an endless loop, and would never be able to escape. The freezing air got into his eyes, his nose, his mouth, filling him from the inside with the touch of death.

When he thought he would not be able to move his foot again, the air around him subtly shifted, and became almost imperceptibly lighter.

‘Ahead!’ Elissa’s voice was faint but clear.

There were two dim spots, like stars in the night sky, shrouded in mist.

‘Light!’ Elissa spoke again, stronger now.