Odysseus II

by Odysseus II- The Journey Through Hell (retail) (epub)

  “Why should I?” said Odysseus, the sword still at her throat.

  “Because, because …” she stuttered, “… if I die, your men will be animals for ever. But if I live, I’ll free them. And I’ll give up being a witch, we’ll have wine and feasting, the wallabies will entertain your men – and I’ll give you your heart’s desire.”

  “Do you swear it?”

  “Yes – I swear it on the name of the White Goddess, the creator of all things, Protectress of all creatures.” Slowly Odysseus edged his sword away from her throat.

  “Now what is your heart’s desire?“

  Odysseus yawned. “A nice, big bed, please,” he said. “I haven’t had a proper sleep since we left Troy.”

  Days, weeks and months went by and the men started getting restless. Finally they hammered on Odysseus’ bedroom door.

  “Let us in!” they shouted. “You’ve been in that room for a year and you haven’t come out once.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me up before?” grumbled Odysseus, rubbing his eyes.

  “Are you kidding? We were having fun with the wallabies.”

  “I’m sorry,” replied Odysseus, putting his boots on. “I must have overslept. Circe, how do we get home from here?”

  “It’s impossible,” she answered. “Too difficult, too complicated for any man.”

  “That’s impossible!” shouted Odysseus, as his hope of reaching home slipped away from him once again. “Surely someone must know the way.”

  Circe gently kissed his forehead. “No. The only person who can help you is the prophet Tiresias.”

  “But he’s been dead for hundreds ofyears!”

  “Exactly,” said Circe, and unrolled a torn and faded map. “If you want to get home, you must visit THE LAND OF THE DEAD.”

  Chapter Three

  3 – The Faces of the Dead

  At the pace of a snail, the boat made its way up the cold grey river, and once more Odysseus unfolded the tattered map and stared at the writing.

  “At the end of the ocean is a sea,

  At the end of the sea is a river,

  At the end of the river … is the Land of the Dead.”

  The boat shuddered, and there was a loud crunching sound as its hull scraped the river bottom. The men looked round uneasily, and then looked up in horror. Staring down at them from above were a hundred, huge, cruel faces – gigantic carvings, the remnants of some ancient civilization.

  “This is the place,” announced Odysseus. “This is the gateway to the Land of the Dead.”

  The men began to shudder and Eurylochus rushed to his cabin and barricaded the door. But Odysseus just took his sword, jumped over the side, and headed for dry land. He was past fear. He knew what he had to do, he had his instructions and to hell with the consequences.

  He found himself in a stinking, boggy marshland. Great clouds of mosquitoes rose out of the reeds and swirled round his head, blinding and choking him. But on and on he waded, with the map held high above his head. When he got there, he heaved himself up on to the dusty shore, and looked at his map. He was looking for a waterfall and, a column of fire … and the entrance to Hell.

  *

  It didn’t take him long to find the waterfall. Just on the other side of the hill it came crashing down, spraying its water for hundreds of metres around. Odysseus licked the spray off his arms, and knew for sure he was in the right place. Its taste was salty. This wasn’t real water at all. It was a waterfall of tears. All the tears the Dead had ever shed.

  And just above the waterfall was the other thing he was looking for. Bubbling out from beneath a huge boulder was a thin stream oflava … molten fire. Odysseus drew his huge sword, tensed his muscles and WHAM! smashed the great boulder with one blow. It splintered, and the stream of fire turned into a torrent that poured down into the waterfall. The moment the two met, a huge pillar of salmon pink steam shot up into the air. Higher and higher it rocketed, until its top had disappeared into the clouds.

  Odysseus threw his arms wide open.

  “Spirits of the Dead,” he called, “show yourselves.”

  There was a clap of thunder, followed by a bolt of lightning which wrapped itself around the column like a snake around a tree. Then a face began to appear in the steam. A grey, ghastly face with a big grin. It was the Fat Batsman.

  “Hallo,” he said in his gormless voice. “I bet you didn’t expect to see me. Are you lost?”

  “Yes, that’s why I’m here, to ask the Prophet Tiresias the way home.”

  “Well, don’t stand outside all day,” continued the Fat Batsman. “Come on in.”

  Odysseus held his breath, then stepped into the pillar. Immediately he was in the grip of a powerful, unseen force which hurled him up into the sky. Higher and higher he shot, spinning round and round until BUDUNG! He came to a standstill. He was in a strange world of multicoloured fog. Swirling, cloudy shapes billowed all around him and the far off cries of tortured souls echoed in his ears.

  “It’s hell in here,” said a giggly voice by his side. It was the Fat Batsman again. He’d always had a pretty weak sense of humour, which death clearly hadn’t improved. Odysseus smiled grimly but politely, then asked where he could find Tiresias.

  “Go that way,” replied the Fat Batsman pointing through the swirling clouds. “You can’t miss him.” Odysseus turned to leave.

  “Oh! and send my love to the crew,” he added.

  “Yes,” replied Odysseus. “Anything else?”

  “No,” said the Batsman. “Oh, yes, sorry, one thing – you’ve only got one hour to find Tiresias. If you stay any longer you’ll die … horribly.”

  “Oh, great. Thanks for mentioning it,” replied Odysseus, and set off at speed.

  After some time, he saw coming towards him an old, ghostly woman with a dark veil over her face. Odysseus rushed up to her. “Excuse me. Am I going the right way for the Prophet Tiresias?”

  At the sound of his voice, the woman dropped her veil. Odysseus couldn’t believe his eyes. This was his worst dream come true.

  “Mother,” he gasped, and fell to his knees. “I didn’t … I didn’t even know you were dead.”

  His mother’s grey, ghostly hand reached out and touched his head, then slowly her bony fingers began to comb his hair.

  “Look at the state of you,” she moaned. “Your hair’s sticking up, your clothes are torn and there’s a dirty mark on your face!” And she drew out a ghostly, grey handkerchief, spat on it and wiped his face.

  “Go home, son,” she continued. “Everything there’s in such a state. I’m dead, the country’s ruined and as for your wife Penelope…”

  “Yes?” asked Odysseus anxiously.

  “Well, she’s in awful…” But before she could tell him, his mother’s voice started to fade and her body began to disappear.

  “Mother,” he cried, “don’t go! Talk to me! Talk to me! MOTHER!”

  He flung his arms round her and tried to hug her, but there was nothing to hug – only a few wisps of grey cloud. In seconds she had completely vanished.

  But he dared not stand and mourn her. Time was ticking by. He had only forty minutes left to find Tiresias. On and on he trudged and every moment the cries of anguish and despair grew louder. One man was begging desperately for a drink. He was tied to a stake, surrounded by a ring of blazing fire and just above his head was a bunch of succulent, juicy grapes. But every time he craned up to reach them, they rose tantalizingly out of reach.

  Further on was a poor, lost soul pushing a mammoth boulder up a hill, only every time he got it within an inch of the summit, it slipped out of his hands and went careering back down to the bottom.

  Then Odysseus saw something that in his heart he had feared since the moment he stepped into the Land of the Dead.

  Ahead of him was a small, silent group of ashen-faced soldiers. They were wearing the uniform of the Greek expeditionary force and he recognized them instantly. They were his comrades from the Trojan War. He sta
red in sorrow at faces last seen lying dead on the battlefield – Achilles, Philoctetes, Patroclus – Great Heroes, all dead. And even more terrible, he saw comrades he had thought were still alive – his best friend Diomedes, Archbishop Calchas and, towering above them, still wearing his leopardskin head-dress, was General Agamemnon.

  “How did you die?” whispered Odysseus. Silently Agamemnon held up his silver shield and Odysseus stared into it. It would tell the story.

  Etched all around its rim was a scene Odysseus remembered only too well. It was the Greek port of Aulis, on that fateful day twelve years ago when the fleet had sailed for Troy. There on the hillside stood Agamemnon with a dagger held high above his head, about to kill his daughter; sacrificing her on a stone altar so that the Gods would give his ships fair winds.

  And in the background was his wife Clytemnestra, staring at her husband with hate in her eyes.

  Then, the scene dissolved and the shield began to spin before Odysseus’ eyes. New figures took shape – Agamemnon and his men camped outside the walls of Troy, while back at home Clytemnestra plotted her revenge; with a new husband by her side, although Agamemnon was still alive.

  And once more the scene changed. Now Agamemnon was returning home in triumph, his ships piled high with glittering treasure and weeping Trojan slaves. Odysseus stood hypnotized and watched as the General left his boat and led a triumphant procession from the harbour to the palace. The enormous double doors swung open and there stood his wife with a loving smile on her face. She beckoned her husband inside, he turned and waved to the crowd, climbed the long flight of steps up to the palace, and the doors swung shut.

  The crowd seemed to hush. Then the whole shield erupted in agonized cries, followed by a long terrible silence.

  BOOOM! The doors burst open again, and there stood Clytemnestra with triumph in her eyes and blood up to her elbows; with her new husband behind her, staggering under the weight of Agamemnon’s body. He dropped it, and it rolled down the steps until it lay motionless in front of the crowd.

  Odysseus shut his eyes in horror, and when he opened them again he was staring at a solid silver shield once more. Slowly he lifted his eyes and looked into the face of poor dead Agamemnon. The General’s face showed no emotion, but a solitary tear trickled down his cheek.

  It was more than Odysseus could bear. He gave Agamemnon a final salute, clasped the lifeless hands of his dead comrades, embraced the wispy form of his dear old friend, Diomedes, and then turned to go.

  But at that moment he saw another figure, sitting far apart from the rest, staring into the distance.

  It was Ajax, his old rival – Ajax who had hung himself when the Greeks had chosen Odysseus as their hero.

  Odysseus walked across to the silent jug-eared giant, put one hand on his shoulder and held out the other in friendship. Surely he would forgive and forget now that he was beyond the grave? But no. Ajax’s lip curled in contempt, and he turned and walked away.

  Odysseus stared after him until he had disappeared into the mist. Then a pang of fear hit him at the base of his stomach. He had completely forgotten about the time, and now he had only five minutes to find Tiresias, or he would die himself and be trapped in this hell for ever. He turned desperately to his dead friends for help. They lifted their arms and pointed to a billowing bank of blue cloud. Odysseus sprinted towards it and burst through. He was shocked by what he found.

  There, perched on a golden throne, was not the old prophet he had expected, but a tiny blind boy.

  “Where is Tiresias?” Odysseus yelled, feeling death catching up with him every second. But the little boy just smiled.

  “I am Tiresias,” he said, in a childish tinkling voice, “ageless, out of time. I am Tiresias and you must listen to me very carefully, for your time is almost up. Your journey home will be full of terror, and you will only reach Ithaca safely if you follow my instructions carefully.”

  For five minutes Odysseus listened in terror to the fate that lay ahead for him. Such scenes of horror the boy described, that the King of Ithaca wept and shook his head in disbelief. If he had thought his sufferings were nearly over, he was wrong, so wrong.

  “And finally,” continued Tiresias, “when you reach your island home, you will discover an even worse horror. Your wife Penelope and your son Telemachus, whom you last saw in his cradle…”

  “Time’s up! Time’s up! Time’s up!” chorused a thousand twittering voices, and immediately the air was full of multi-coloured ghosts of all shapes and sizes, which wrapped themselves around Odysseus’ feet, blew in his ears, and tangled themselves in his hair. They wanted him. They wanted to keep him. They wanted to keep him for ever.

  Odysseus began to run. Faster and faster he fled until the billowing clouds ended and blackness began. He screwed up his eyes, dived into the black void and tumbled DOWN!

  DOWN!

  DOWN!

  until … SPLAT! He landed in a wet sticky coldness which choked and blinded him. He lashed out wildly, struggling to the surface, desperately snatching for mouthfuls of cold fetid air. Where was he now – what nightmare was this? He opened his eyes expecting the worst, but …

  No. It was the marsh! He had landed only a hundred metres from his ship! Slowly and agonizingly he crawled back to its safety, and once again the old stone carvings stared down at him. He had been through Hell, but they showed not the slightest interest – except for one. It was older than the rest, and so battered that it might have been merely a weather-beaten rock, but Odysseus knew that face – it was the White Goddess.

  “Are you all right?” she asked. “Are you all right? Are you all right?” rang a persistent echo in his head. Only now he saw it wasn’t the Goddess who was asking at all, it was Thersites shouting at him and shaking him roughly from side to side.

  Then SPLASH! He’d been hit in the face by a shower of icy cold water, and there was Eurylochus standing over him with an empty bucket.

  “Yes. I’m all right,” replied Odysseus in a dazed voice. “And I’ve found out how to get home.”

  Slowly the ship sailed back down the river and, as his men swarmed across the decks and over the rigging, Odysseus watched them with a terrible sorrow. Tiresias had told him that every one of them would die before they reached home.

  Should he tell them? No. “By the way, the Fat Batsman sends his love” was all he said.

  When they arrived back at the ocean, it was completely still. There was no wind and there were no seabirds, just a lap, lap, lapping sound as the men rowed rhythmically through the water.

  Then, on the third morning Odysseus held up his hand. “Listen!” he said. The men stopped rowing, and far, far away they heard a sound; a long low musical note, so quiveringly clear they were stunned by its beauty.

  “What is it?” they asked in an awed whisper.

  “It’s the song the Sirens sing,” replied their captain. “Soon we’ll be passing their island,” and he lifted a cask of beeswax from the bottom of the boat.

  “If you hear the Sirens’ song at full strength,” he continued, “it will sound so incredibly sweet that you’ll have an irresistible urge to join them on their island.”

  “Oh, good,” Thersites chipped in. “I like a good singsong.”

  “You’d go straight to your death,” snapped Odysseus, “like a thousand poor sailors before you. The ship would be wrecked on the razor-sharp rocks which surround their island, and the Sirens would drag you from the water and tear you to pieces.”

  The blood drained from Thersites’ face. “Then what are we going to do?” he whimpered.

  “Tiresias showed me the solution. I’m going to stuff your ears with so much wax you won’t hear a thing,” replied Odysseus.

  When he had finished, he beckoned to Eurylochus. “First Mate,” he ordered, “tie me to the mast.”

  “Pardon?” answered Eurylochus.

  “Tie me to the mast,” replied his captain.

  “I can’t hear you,” said Eurylochus. “I’v
e got wax in my ears.”

  Odysseus shook him until all the wax fell out again, then said, “No human has ever survived the Song of the Sirens. Tie me to the mast and however much I beg and plead, don’t let me loose. Then we’ll see what happens when a man hears their song … and lives.”

  So, tighter than tight, Eurylochus bound his master’s hands and feet, and wound leather thongs round his legs and body and arms. Then he crammed a few fingerfuls of wax back in his ears, took up his oars again, and left his master to his fate.

  As the hours went by, the magical sound grew louder. Odysseus was in ecstasy as first rhythms, then tunes and finally glorious harmonies made their way to him on the gentle breeze. Then the air was filled with singing – three exquisite voices. The words they sang were like words in a dream, and although they were in a strange, unknown language, yet he understood them completely. And whoever was singing, and whatever the words meant, Odysseus knew the song was just for him. And he knew that if he could only reach the singers he’d be happier than he’d ever been in his life.

  Then the island itself came into view, but he didn’t notice the murderous black reefs and the sandy beaches dotted with strange, white rocks. The song filled his head and pulsated through his body bringing tears to his eyes, and all he could see through the tears was a host of dazzling colours.

  To him the island was ablaze with a million exotic flowers, each one giving off a scent so intoxicating that his brain reeled. With a terrible cry he called to his men “Untie me! I order you! Untie me and let me live!”

  He begged, he pleaded, he shouted, he threatened. He offered them his money, his palace, his kingdom, his wife, but the men were deaf; they just kept their heads down and rowed. Odysseus stared at the island in agony.

  Suddenly there was a stirring among the flowers. Three flocks of goldfinches flew into the air and then the faces of three singing women appeared; the most beautiful women Odysseus had ever seen.

  “Come to me. Come to me,” they chanted.

  He heaved and tugged at his bonds, but the harder he fought the deeper they bit into his skin. Soon his body was dripping with blood, his wrists and ankles were cut to the bone – but still he struggled.