Phlegethon is not like the others: Lamentation, Despite, Forgetting and Woe are all the sorrows of death, but Phlegethon is its mystery and its merciless hope. In Phlegethon is vested the whisper of the divine and the promise of rebirth. It is the last bulwark of Hades against the intrusive living, the first wall that holds the dead in their allotted place. It is the stream that binds Erebus to the mortal world—as it must, for it is everywhere, in all places and times. It is the mask worn by Apeiron, or its opposite, and in the inability to judge that distinction is the difference between man and god.