But he did not. He could not. Gathering his courage, he took the first step into the tunnel. The darkness folded around him as he placed one foot before the other, pushing on against the temptation to go back. Eventually, he saw a pale light ahead of him. But it was not a light that offered hope. It was the sickly yellow glow of eternal misery, and the sight of it filled him with dread.
Coming to the end of the tunnel, he stepped out into a sulphurous yellow fog. Suddenly, he realized his senses had returned to him: he could feel the weight of his body again, and his ears were filled with a low, dismal moaning, clearer and more unbearable than that in the caves above. The air around him was foul-smelling and hot, scorching his throat as he breathed it and leaving him with a burning thirst. Grabbing the water skin at his side, he raised it to his lips and drank the few mouthfuls that remained, only to find it dried his mouth quicker than the air. He tore the skin from his shoulder and tossed it away in anger. Had he been given back his physical senses, then, only so that he could suffer more fully the torments of the Underworld?
Looking up through the fog, he saw a ceiling of black cloud high above him. It pulsed red like the walls of a great furnace, reflecting some great and as yet unseen fire. The sight filled him with despair, knowing there was no sky above it, only an impenetrable barrier of rock between the Underworld and the earth above.
He forced himself on into the all-consuming mist. The mud beneath his sandals was dry and cracked, without a single blade of grass to soften its unyielding surface. The awful moaning that filled the air was getting louder, and the heat and the stench grew more oppressive with each step. Hera had not sent him here to be destroyed by Cerberus, but to surrender all hope. If she could take that from him, then she had won.
Then he saw a translucent figure in the mist ahead, its back turned to him. At first, he thought it was the spectre of the old man he had seen in the cave, but as he came closer he saw that he wore a rich double cloak with an embroidered hem. The man turned to Heracles, a look of misery on his young face. His head was twisted and his neck bruised.
‘I’m not meant to be here,’ he said. ‘Not here. All I did was fall from my horse, but I’ve done that dozens of times. I have to go back.’
He clutched at Heracles’s arm, but Heracles waved him off and forged on through the fog. The wailing continued to grow and he saw more phantoms, each one feebly protesting his or her death and pleading to return to their homes and families. There was nothing unusual about who they were – beggars and slaves, farmers and merchants, fishermen and maidservants, mothers and children, soldiers and noblemen. They could have been plucked from any market square in any city in Greece. Death had not distinguished between man or woman, rich or poor; only between the old – whose grey heads were prevalent – and the young, who were fewer. Some wore the marks of their deaths, whether these were the sunken eyes and hollowed cheeks of famine and disease, or the open wounds of warfare, while others carried no outward signs of their demise, looking like living men and women who had wandered mistakenly into the realm of the dead.
As he moved on, the lone figures around him became small groups, and then crowds, their voices melding and rising upwards to form the wailing he had first heard as he had emerged from the tunnel. Then the mist thinned and the ground dropped away to reveal a sight that was awesome and terrifying. Stretching over the valley before him was a vast, macabre throng of the dead, pressed helplessly against each other as they waited along the shores of a great and terrible river of burning liquid. It moved slowly, black as the deepest night, yet crowned with tongues of fire that rolled and flickered as if blown by a non-existent wind. This was the source of the red light that filled the cavern, and the clouds that raged above reflected its fierce intensity. Fingers of rock jutted from the river, some of them broken stumps, others rising up into the ceiling of cloud like the columns of a great hall. The far bank was barely visible through the flames and smoke.
This, then, was the Styx, chief of the five rivers that ran through the Land of the Dead, the mere mention of which caused the living to cringe with fear. As he looked at the infamous River of Hatred, he glimpsed a strange craft creeping across from the opposite bank. It was flat-bottomed, with high, curving posts at stem and stern and a hull that had been charred black by the flames of the Styx. As it drifted between the skeins of smoke, he saw a tall figure standing in the stern, cloaked and hooded, leaning on a long pole that he used to push the vessel along. His name Heracles knew from legend: Kharon, the dread son of Erebus, Lord of Darkness. The only way Heracles could reach the gates of Hades’s kingdom and face his final labour was for Kharon to ferry him across the burning river.
Filled with sudden determination, he began to shove his way through the dead gathered on the shore. Though they were mere ghosts, as a ghost himself he was able to push them out of his path, just as if they had bodies of flesh and blood. But as they saw the approach of Kharon, they, too, began to surge forward, each one inexplicably desperate to get to the far bank. Using the strength in his massive arms, Heracles thrust them aside while shouting for those ahead to get out of his way. Then, as he neared the shoreline, he heard the distant howling of wolves. He paused to look back, but all he could see was the mournful faces of the dead, rank upon rank of them heaving towards him in a great mass. He threw them back with a snarl, then fought his way through the throng that remained between himself and the river.
As he reached the bank of the Styx, the flames rose up like a wall before him. He threw his arms in front of his face and stepped back. Then he saw the high stem post of the boat easing towards him through the smoke, the black silhouette of Kharon behind it. The ferryman plunged his pole into the river and slowed the boat to a halt at the water’s edge. Heracles forced himself forward, but Kharon held up his hand, checking his advance with an unseen power. Then, raising his other hand to his hood, he drew it slowly back from his face.
Chapter Thirteen
HADES AND PERSEPHONE
Iolaus stood at the mouth of the cave, listening to the sound of the sea and watching the white-capped breakers lapping against the beach below. The moon was peering over the eastern hilltops, casting a silver sheen over the black waters. Bats darted about like swallows in the darkness, their wings whispering as they sought their prey.
He had unyoked the horses and led them up the hillside to chew at whatever grass they could find by the cave. The place spooked him, and the company of animals was better than being alone. From the moment he had found the entrance, he had sensed the presence of the dead, conducted there by Hermes on their way to the Underworld. And sitting beside Heracles’s seemingly dead body had not improved the atmosphere, despite the crackling fire and its blazing light. After a while, he had left the cave to find more firewood, a task from which he was only now returning.
He wondered where his uncle’s spirit was – whether he had reached Hades’s kingdom yet and faced Cerberus. A single night did not seem a very long time to capture the Hound of Hell and bring it back to the world of the living. The very fact he had dared to attempt the labour at all spoke of his courage, or perhaps his desperation. Of all the tasks he had faced, to enter the Underworld alone had to have been the hardest, and Iolaus felt he had failed him by not going with him. More than that, this final labour had been his only chance to persuade Heracles that he still loved him; that he was still loyal to him, despite what had happened with Megara. But most of all, he had wanted the chance to somehow earn his uncle’s forgiveness and his approval to marry Megara. That opportunity had now gone forever.
Part of him, though, was relieved, even overjoyed, not to have descended into the Underworld. Ever since asking the witch for two vials of the potion, the prospect of entering the Land of the Dead prematurely had filled him with terror. A darkness had descended on his heart, blackening his mood so that he had barely been able to make conversation with Heracles on the journey to Taenarum. But now the darkness had been lifted. He was able to breathe the sea a
ir and feel alive again.
On the hilltop above him, he heard an owl hoot, rousing him from his thoughts. He turned and brushed aside the branches from the mouth of the cave. The fire was running low already, its flames casting a pale orange glow over the cave walls. Heracles’s body lay under a blanket, his head resting on his lion-skin cloak, which Iolaus had folded and placed beneath it to act as a cushion. His eyes were closed and his skin had taken on a pallid hue. His vast chest did not move, and not for the first time that evening, Iolaus wondered whether the witches’ potion had really put him into a long sleep, or whether it had actually killed him. If his spirit had not returned by sunrise, he would never know if he had failed to escape from the Underworld in time, or if the hag had simply lied.
As he stared at the corpse, a howl rose into the night air behind him. A second followed a few moments later, then a third. He set the wood down beside the fire, fed a few pieces into the flames, then left the cave again. The horses were standing with their heads raised and their ears twitching. He walked to the nearest, who extended her muzzle and raised her upper lip, then snorted and shook her head. Iolaus laid a hand on the base of her neck and spoke to her in calming tones.
‘Don’t worry, girl, I’m with you,’ he told her, looking around at the moon-silvered hillsides.
Nothing moved, yet he felt uneasy, as if he were being watched. Another howl from higher up on the slope spurred him to action. He untied the ropes he had used to tether the horses, and led them one at a time into the cave. They reacted at the sight of the fire and Heracles’s body, but the cave was easily large enough to fit them both inside, and with gentle persuasion they were soon standing in one corner, their tails flat between their hind legs and their ears twitching nervously. Iolaus felt sure they also sensed the passing of spirits between the cave entrance and the opening at the rear of the cave. But it was not the dead that concerned Iolaus any more.
Brushing aside the overhanging fronds of vegetations, he walked out into the cool night air again and climbed a short way up the slope for a better view. Something disturbed him about wolves being so close to the sea. He had only rarely set eyes on them, and then at a distance, in forests and on mountainsides; he had never heard of them hunting along the coasts of Greece. But there was something strange about this place: an eeriness that seemed to repel the creatures of the daylight – he had not heard a single bird since entering the mountain pass that led to the cove – but attracted the denizens of the night.
A howl startled him. It was close, and looking up at the hill he saw several low shapes moving between the outlines of shrubs and boulders. A further howl came from almost directly behind him. Drawing his sword from the scabbard on his back, he span around to see more figures trotting along the edge of the beach below, their doglike outlines clear against the hoary sand. He glanced aside at the orange glow glimmering from the mouth of the cave. Was that what had drawn them? More likely the smell of the horses, he thought. Or something more sinister.
He scrambled back down the hill and stood beside the old tree, eyeing the darkness nervously and wishing he had a torch. Then he saw two points of amber light staring at him from the shadows a mere stone’s throw away. Another pair of eyes appeared further up the slope, then two more off to his right.
He felt his palm sweating as he gripped his sword. Did wolves attack armed men? He knew of an old woodsman whose forearm had been shredded by a wolf, which had then run away after a blow on the head from a branch. He had also heard of a young girl being savaged to death and half eaten by a pack of wolves. But this was different. He was neither weak nor small, and the hulking shapes that surrounded him did not seem so desperate with hunger that they would risk attacking a full-grown man. But perhaps they were driven by a more malicious force than hunger: a divine force, drawing them to the cave to feast on Heracles’s body while his soul was absent.
He counted seven pairs of eyes now. An eighth wolf jumped up onto a boulder, its massive outline silhouetted against the moonlit sky. It bared its teeth as it turned its gaze upon him, and a deep growling thrummed the night air. Then the beast threw its head back and released a long, wailing yowl. The others in the semicircle joined in, their voices resonating together in a sound that chilled Iolaus’s blood. He wanted to retreat into the cave and grab a flaming brand from the fire, but was rooted by fear to the place where he stood.
Suddenly, the howling stopped. The wolf on the boulder barked loudly, then jumped down and ran towards him. For a moment he lost it in the darkness, only to see it leap out of the shadows at him, its shaggy chest and long forepaws filling his vision as it blotted out the stars.
* * *
Kharon’s hood fell back to reveal a grey face, with high, angular cheekbones and tightly drawn skin. His nose had rotted away and the hollows of his eyes were deeply sunken, giving him a skeletal appearance. Ragged holes in his cheeks showed the black teeth beneath, and a sliver of pale skull was exposed by a long gash across his forehead. Flies crawled across his dead flesh and maggots writhed in the open wounds, dropping down into the folds of his tattered cloak and onto the planks of the ferry. Spiders infested the lank hair that lay across his balding pate, preying on the flies, and as Heracles looked on him in revulsion, a cockroach slipped from his open mouth and scuttled out of sight behind his neck. The odour emanating from his thin, crooked body was the unmistakeable stench of decay. Yet his eyes gleamed like fire as they stared with loathing at the dead souls on the shore.
As the phantoms pressed towards the ferry, Kharon dragged his pole from the flaming river and jabbed it into the ample stomach of a well-dressed merchant. The spectre gave a wail of pain and fell back onto the shore. Others jumped into the gap he had left, but were warned off by a furious sweep of the ferryman’s pole. Heracles leaped forward, intending to grab the stem post and pull himself onto the boat, but with an agility that belied his abject appearance, Kharon swung the pole around and stopped him where he stood, holding the end hard against his chest.
‘What do you want here, mortal?’ he demanded. ‘Only the dead are permitted to enter the Underworld.’
‘I am dead.’
Kharon stared at him with cold odium.
‘Do you take me for a fool? I’ve ferried the dead across the Styx since the beginning of time – who are you to tell me who is dead and who is not? Look at the faces of these wretches around you. Every one shocked to have left the world of the flesh behind. Every one resentful and filled with anger, even the ones who knew they were dying and those who took their own lives out of desperation. In their minds, they should not be here. They belong in the world of the flesh, not this land of shadows. They should be back in their beds, their kitchens, their fields, their fishing boats and their palaces. They should be making love or killing their enemies, holding their children or praying to the gods – all the things a mortal should be doing. Not here,’ he said, sweeping his arm in an arc that encompassed the misery surrounding them. ‘Not here, with their nostrils filled with the stench of sulphur and their throats parched. A few bitter moments ago, they could see the light of the sun or the moon, taste the sweetness in the air, lay their hands on their faces and feel the soft warmth of their own skin. Now those joys have gone forever. They know it, and they hate the fact their lives have been unfairly stolen from them.
‘But not you. You have the one thing that none of these poor fools has. You have the belief you can return from this place! I don’t see anger and despair in your eyes – I see hope. Somehow, you’ve deceived your soul into thinking your body is dead, tricked it into leaving the flesh to come here. But you haven’t fooled me. I will not take you to the Underworld.’
‘You must,’ Heracles insisted, gripping the end of the pole. ‘I’m not here in the flesh. I’m a spirit, just like these others. I demand you take me across.’
‘These phantoms have paid for passage with their mortality,’ the ferryman replied, pulling at the pole that was held fast in Heracles’s hand. ‘But your b
ody still lives. You cannot cross the Styx without paying the price that they have paid.’
Heracles released the pole. He stared past Kharon at the expanse of the river. There was no other way across, but he had not failed in the labour yet. He still had one thing to offer.
‘I can give you something greater than my mortality.’
‘What does a man possess that is greater than his mortality?’ the ferryman scoffed. ‘Leave this shore and go back to your body. I have work to do.’
He pointed the pole at the ghost of an old priest, who shuffled slowly towards the boat.
‘Wait! My father is Zeus—’
‘I know who you are,’ Kharon sneered. ‘There are many sons of Zeus on the other side, but their heritage never bought them any favours.’
‘But he didn’t give them immortal strength,’ Heracles said. ‘I will surrender my father’s gift in place of my mortality.’
The ferryman stared at him, the fire in his eyes burning low as he contemplated the offer.
‘I said I know who you are, Heracles, but I also know why you are here – to capture Cerberus and take him back to your earthly master. Without your immortal strength, you will never overcome the Hound of Hell. Your task will be impossible.’
‘I’ve already completed eleven impossible tasks – the thought of another does not frighten me. Do you accept my offer?’
Kharon raised his pole towards Heracles’s chest again. Then, as the old priest reached out to take hold of the stem post of the boat, he flicked it aside, catching the phantom in the side of the head and sending him sprawling into the crowd of souls.
‘Come, then,’ he said to Heracles, dropping the pole into the black river and bringing the flat-bottomed skiff closer to the bank. ‘I accept.’
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