by Paul Neuhaus
The Reaper shrugged his armored shoulders. “Same old, same old,” he replied.
“Did you always want to gather up the dead?”
He looked mildly surprised. “No one’s ever asked me that before.”
“I’m assuming no one’s ever asked you much of anything. I mean you look kind of intimidating, and you’re in kind of a ghoulish profession. People probably think you’re not very talkative.”
He nodded. “It’s true, it’s true. I mean, try being me and wanting to meet girls. It’s impossible.”
“I can imagine. Do they have a lot of mixers down here? Meet and greets?”
“No, I haven’t been to a proper cocktail party since 1974. I met a clerk typist. Things were going well until she found out I was in Death.”
“Mmm. Right. It’s not a growth industry.”
“No, one might say it’s a bit of a flat line.”
I raised an eyebrow. Thanatos was wittier and more urbane than I would’ve expected. “I’ll ask around. See if I know any girls that’d wanna meet you.”
“Please do,” he said with just the hint of a smile.
Stephanie finally appeared at the gate and called me over.
As I walked toward her, I said over my shoulder, “What was it you wanted to be? Before you got into harvesting souls?”
“I wanted to design lingerie,” Thanatos replied.
Stephanie and I snuck past the obsidian thrones and took the steps on the left; the ones leading down to the Asphodel Meadows. Once we were in that section of the Underworld, we were free to talk. “What happened when you guys came back? You didn’t hurt my friends, did you?”
“No. Prometheus brought us. He said, ‘Give Hades and Persephone their crowns back’. What choice did your friends have really? They gave up the crowns and turned into shades.”
“Prometheus brought you down himself. Sounds like a schoolmaster dealing with rowdy pupils.”
“It had that feel about it, yeah. Neither one of us wanted to come back. Then again, Prometheus destroyed the pocket universe we were in so there wasn’t much left for us to do but take our old jobs back.”
We were walking through a grassy field with weeping willow trees. The air smelled like rain. “What do you think of Prometheus?”
Stephanie looked around as if she feared we might be spied upon. “I think he’s crazier than a shit-house rat. I guess being chained to a rock for thousands of years’ll have that effect on you. When he was freed, he was furious none of us were around anymore to take revenge on. To do it properly, he had to bring us back.”
“So, his revenge was to restore Olympus with himself in charge?”
Stephanie shrugged her shoulders. “I guess.”
“Not to mention going all Nazi.”
She sighed. “Yeah, all of that’s a bit too Teutonic for me.”
By then we were headed toward a particular willow. Standing underneath it was Connie. Sitting at his feet with her arms crossed on her chest was Amanda. Both of them were blue and translucent just like everyone else wandering around the Meadows. “Hi,” I said.
“’Sup?” Connie said. His manner was aloof. Like seeing me and talking to me was inconvenient and unlooked for. Amanda said nothing.
I didn’t have a lot of time so smoothing over bruised egos wasn’t in the cards. “Look,” I said. “I’m sorry you’re both dead, but I need something. I may be able to set the status back to ‘quo’.”
Amanda looked up at Connie. “Don’t listen to her. When have any of Dora’s crazy schemes worked out well for us?” Then she shot me a venomous glance.
Connie looked down at his former business partner. “Strictly speaking, the fact we’re dead and hanging out doing nothing for eternity isn’t Dora’s fault.” He looked back at me. “Although my life was better before you came on the scene.”
“Of course it was better,” Amanda shot back. “Before she came along, you weren’t mixed up with my too-short, no-titty-having ass.”
Connie closed his eyes and sighed, sensing it might be better to cooperate and be done with it. “What can we do for you, Dora?”
“I need the key. Medea’s key.”
At that moment, Stephanie stepped forward. “Medea’s key? To the Tartarus gate?”
I turned to her briefly. “Believe me: you don’t wanna know.”
Amanda rested her forearms on her knees and put her chin down on top of them. She glowered forward, saying nothing. Connie looked mildly surprised. “You wanna let the Titans out? Wouldn’t that be the very definition of a bad idea?”
Stephanie took another step forward. “I think he might be right about that.”
I ignored her. “Trust me, Connie. What I’m planning… It may be the only way to set things right.”
“The Titans are bad. You know that, right?”
“Not if they can be controlled.”
Stephanie put her hand on my elbow. I shook it off. Connie laughed. “Controlled? You might just as well say, ‘I’m gonna control the weather’. You’re talking about elemental forces here. Who’s gonna control that? You? You can’t even control yourself.”
I recoiled, though I didn’t mean to.
Connie felt immediately guilty. “Alright, look, I’m sorry. That was out of line.”
“Always the charmer,” Amanda mumbled.
“I’m not going to control them,” I said. “I’ve got someone to do that for me.”
“Who? Who do you have that could possibly control the Titans?”
It was my turn to look around for spies. “I’m trying to keep this on the down-low, but Zeus. I’ve got Zeus.”
Stephanie came around me in a hurry. She was very concerned. “Oh, Dora, no. What’re you doing? Surely, you don’t think Zeus can help with this?”
“What do you mean?” I replied. “Why wouldn’t he be able to help? He’s fucking Zeus.”
“Have you spoken to him?” My hostess asked. “He’s a mess. He’s a ball of neuroses.”
Again, Amanda chimed in. “Birds of a feather,” she said, meaning me and the allfather.
I snapped at her. “Shut up, Amanda.” I turned back to Stephanie. “I have spoken to him, and, yes, he does seem a little fragile, but he was the one that staged the revolt against the Titans in the first place. He cut his way out of Cronus when he was just an infant. He’s still a badass.”
“Is he? Do you know what trait unites all badasses? Willpower. The drive to see things done. Zeus has lost that particular trait. And a badass without willpower is just… an ass. If you release the Titans, they’re going to roll right over him. Sure, they’ll tear down Olympus, but do you think they’ll stop there? The whole world will be a smoldering ruin.”
Connie interjected. “I don’t have a dog in this fight,” he said. “I’m already dead. But you should listen to her. It really, really sounds like she knows what she’s talking about.”
Before I could answer, Stephanie started talking again. “After we fucked off, we’d go to dinner sometimes. In small groups; sometimes in large. Zeus would invariably start making a fool of himself. Shouting. Crying. I saw him become inconsolable once because his steak was too well-done. All he does now is blubber and fuck. And he does a whole lot less of the latter because almost no one wants to fuck a blubberer.”
“Does anyone care what I think?” Amanda said.
Connie, Stephanie and I all shouted “No!” before going back to our own conversation.
“Okay,” I said. “This is where I surrender the floor to suggestions. Prometheus is on top of Olympus which might very well be the most well-defended place on earth. It’s not like I can just sneak in there and put a gun to his head. I mean, if I had my pithos, I could suck him into it, but he’s got my pithos. Something’s gotta be done, and the whole Zeus-leads-the-Titans thing was my best idea.” I looked back and forth between Connie and Stephanie. Both of them looked away. Neither of them had a better idea.
“The key’s in a compartment on Hades’ throne.
In the seat,” Connie said.
“There’s a compartment in the seat of Hades’ throne?”
“Sure,” Stephanie said. “We gotta have somewhere to store our wallets. Maybe a magazine.”
When Stephanie and I crested the stairs back into the hub, Hades was still on whatever dumb errand Stephanie had sent him on. I went over to the king of the Underworld’s throne and, sure enough, there was a flip-up panel in the seat. Inside it, I found Medea’s key and a copy of The Firm by John Grisham. I took the key and re-closed the compartment. “Hades is into legal thrillers?” I said.
“Yeah. He says they allow him to turn off his brain and just relax.”
“Mmm.” I climbed down off the base of the chair and turned toward the gate. As I went by her, Stephanie grabbed my shoulder.
“Before you turn that key in the lock, ask yourself, ‘Is this really my best option?’.”
I nodded. “I will,” I said. Although, I already knew it was my best option.
It took me a few minutes to find Zeus. He was chatting up a leggy shade in a short toga. “Come on,” I said. “We’re all set.” I walked away from him, giving him little choice but to surrender his would-be conquest and follow.
“All set to do what?” he said. “It’s time to spill the beans.”
I held up the ornate key, so he could see it over my shoulder.
The allfather quickened his pace so we were walking next to each other. “that looks like the key to the Tartarus gate. How’d you get it? I had Hephaestus destroy it.”
“This is a copy. Medea made it from the magic of Orpheus and Eurydice fucking.”
“Those two crazy kids finally did it?”
“Yeah, and it released a huge mystic whammy. Like I say, Medea used it to make a new key to the Tartarus gate.”
“And you’re headed toward the Tartarus gate right now…”
“Right.”
“Because you’re planning to open it…”
“Correct.”
He stopped, grabbing me by my shoulder and spinning me to face him. “Why? Why the fuck would you do that? Have you met the Titans? They’re terrible.”
“I know, but we need an army, and we need an army fast. Can you think of any other force—on earth or below it—capable of storming Olympus?”
“We’re storming Olympus?”
“Of course. What’d you think this was about?”
“Who’s gonna lead this army? Who’s gonna make sure they stay on-task?”
I sighed, disappointed he hadn’t made the logical leap himself. “That’d be where you come in.”
“Me? Oh, no, no, no, no. I’m not doing that.”
“Don’t you wanna fuck off again?”
“I dunno. Now that I’ve gotten a taste of the real world again, I’m thinking maybe I could make a go of it.”
I glared at him.
“Look,” he said. “I don’t think you understand something. I have serious daddy issues. I was able to do what I did back in the day by riding a wave of pure anger. I don’t have that anger anymore. I’ve become the thing I was always destined to be: A middle-aged blowhard with abandonment issues.”
“Maybe Cronus has mellowed over the years. Maybe the two of you can reach some kind of understanding.”
“That’s the Afterschool Special version of this. In the real version of this Cronus rips off my head for throwing him in prison.”
I turned away from him and resumed walking toward the gate. “Alright,” I said. “I guess I’ll have to do it myself.”
He caught up to me and spun me again. “You’re just adding a step. After Cronus rips your head off then he’ll rip off my head. What’d be the point of two headless Mythniks?”
I stared at him for a moment, disappointed. Then I turned and headed back toward the Tartarus gate. When I reached it, Zeus surprised me. He took the key out of my hand, gave me a stern look, and opened the gate himself.
For a long time, nothing happened. Then a low rumble. Then a deafening rumble. then rocks and stalactites falling from the ceiling. Then frightened shades running everywhere.
Then silence. Deafening in its own eerie way.
Then the gates themselves collapsed into the earth, creating a huge crater. The mouth leading into Tartarus tripled in size and Zeus and I were forced to step back. The first of the Titans through the hole was, of course, Cronus himself. And he was terrifying. Twenty-feet high, feral, covered with hair, glowing yellow eyes.
I gotta hand it to Zeus. At least for that brief moment, he was able to summon what it was about himself that led to his becoming king of the gods. Wind swirled around him. Lightning flashed inside of the Underworld’s main room. Rains fell even though there were no clouds. With a deep, booming voice, he said, “Father! By right of my ancient victory, I command you to stand down! I command you and your kin to form ranks behind me and march forth as my army!”
Cronus seemed to consider this for a moment, then he picked up his son in a gnarled hand and swallowed him whole.
With that job done, the king of the Titans looked around to get his bearings and then walked toward the main gate. Behind him, a mob of similarly grotesque giants followed him out.
None of them so much as looked at me.
8
Purpose
As the last of the Titans passed me on my left, Stephanie and Hades appeared on my right. The cave was completely free of shades. Hades was, of course, enraged. “What did you do?!” he screamed. “What did you do?!”
I spoke so softly I could barely hear myself. “It looks like I let the Titans out,” I said.
“What?!” Hades got right up in my face like the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket. “What did you say?”
I didn’t withdraw from him. I turned my head to look him in the eye. “I said it looks like I let the Titans out.”
Stephanie came forward, pulling Hades back slightly. “Where is Zeus?”
Hades turned on his wife and only slightly lowered his volume. “Where is Zeus? Zeus is here?!”
I answered for her. “Not anymore. Cronus ate him.”
The king of the Underworld turned toward me again. What little color he had to start with had drained from his face. “How did you get the fucking key?!” he said, sparing a glance to the huge crater from which the Titans had emerged.
Stephanie started to speak up, but I cut her off. “Never mind how I got it. I take full responsibility.”
“Well, what’re you gonna do about it?!”
I looked back in the direction of the main gate. The doors had been ripped off their hinges, and more sunlight than normal flowed in. I could see the mighty Cerberus cowering in a corner.
“I… Haven’t figured that part out yet.”
As I walked through the cave toward the broken gates, Thanatos came down from his usual post and said, “What’d you do?”
“I let the Titans out.”
The Reaper sighed and walked back toward the hub. “I’ll get my shit,” he said. I felt bad because I realized then that I’d just given him a helluva lot of work.
When I exited the Underworld, I had to shield my eyes with my hand. The sun was high in the sky and illuminated the scene of devastation perfectly. Broken trees were strewn everywhere, and the river was disrupted by enormous footprints. Footprints so large they turned the river into a series of puddles. It wasn’t hard at all to follow the course the Titans had taken. The elder gods weren’t exactly subtle.
A voice beside me said, “That didn’t go especially well.”
I turned, and my eyes had to readjust. Standing next to me was a shade. It was the shade of Hermes, the fallen messenger god. “Hermes! What the fuck?!”
Hermes didn’t look at me. He was busy looking at the debris field in front of us. “I was in Elysium. Talking to Odysseus. And then, all of a sudden, things got very, very noisy. He said, ‘Oh, I guess Medea’s at it again’. But Medea was standing nearby, and she flipped us both off. I was curious; I wanted to see what
was going on, so I made my way up and out, and here we are.”
“Here we are.”
“You let the Titans out…”
“I did, yeah.”
“Can I ask you why you did that?”
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. “I sprang Zeus. He was gonna lead them in battle against Prometheus.”
“You know Zeus isn’t well, right?”
“Yeah, I know. Funny thing is, that didn’t enter into it. When the time came for him to step up, he stepped up. Then Cronus ate him.”
“Deja vu.”
“I know, right?”
He didn’t reply right away. He was thinking. At last he said, “What’re you gonna do now?”
“People keep asking me that. I don’t have a good answer. I mean, when I first came out here, I figured, ‘Oh, I’ll follow the Titans’, but then I was like, ‘Why should I follow the Titans? What will I even do if I catch them?’”
“Like dogs chasing cars.”
“Exactly. Right.”
He nodded and scratched his spectral beard. “Hang out. I’ll be right back.”
“Where’re you going?”
“To get my shit.” I knew what Thanatos meant when he said that. I had no idea what Hermes meant. He turned and went back into Hades while I continued to look at the jagged path left behind by the elder gods. After a while, I got to thinking Hermes wasn’t coming back. He finally did, and he was wearing hiking boots and a backpack. He also had a walking stick and a ram’s horn hung at his right hip.
“What’s with the horn?” I said.
“Here,” he replied. He took off the horn and handed it to me. As it passed between us, it went from being a spectral ram’s horn to a real ram’s horn. Which, even though I should’ve been thinking about other things, I noticed enough to think it was rad. Hermes then tromped off along the Titans’ path. I followed.