Overview

Jeremiah is a sage with a job that many people envy, even though hardly anyone understands the true nature of the burden the occupation heaps on his soul. As the emissary of ancestors and divines, he thinks he is doing okay until he shepherds the clueless Joseph in a journey that brings him face to face with the horrors of his ways. Joseph needs a lifeline. His earlier life as the inheritor of a legacy that involved wealth, power and goodness has been tainted by his embrace of evil, which leaves destruction, death and grief in its path. He knows what he is about to face and thinks that Jeremiah, a man who always reserved a soft spot for him, is the only soul capable of preventing the verdict anyone could predict. However, even Jeremiah knows the price to pay for defying the lords of the afterlife. Would he risk his soul to save a man who does not know what salvation is all about? Is destiny or fate responsible for the forces Joseph has been grappling with? Is mercy a tool for a sinning soul who pleas for forgiveness before acknowledging his crimes? The "Verdict of Hades" proceeds "Ngoko's Folly", and precedes "The Oaf" in the collection of short stories entitled "The Usurper: and Other Stories."