SERVANTS’ ENTRANCE
“Well, we didn’t see any other way in.” Pandy sighed.
“Alcie, do you remember a door when you were here last?” Iole asked.
“No. I just sorta materialized into one of the rooms, but when Persephone took me on a tour …,” Alcie answered, thinking back to her time in the underworld. “No. Nothing. Wait! Yes, there was! There was a little door leading out of the food-preparation room. I think there was some sort of garden with dead vines on the walls and rows of brown things. It’s where they grew the snails and let things like the liver and entrails spoil and rot. Gods, now I’m hungry. I’ll bet this gets us there.”
Two quick yanks from Homer on the handle of the door and they entered the garden, laid out just as Alcie had described it, and saw the small door leading back into the palace. But it was not overgrown with rotting foods and crawling with slimy, legless creatures. Instead, they were greeted with bursts of brilliant color as they came upon row after row of enormous strawberries, blueberries, squashes, and heads of lettuce. Greenbeans the size of small branches and huge crimson tomatoes hung from vines draping the inside walls. There were bright pink radishes and artichokes the size of Homer’s head, some blossoming into royal purple flowers. Plump white and black grapes clustered in arbors, and bees were busy storing honey in massive honeycomb hives nestled in two tall trees.
“No wonder you loved the food here,” Pandy said.
“Yes,” Iole said, popping a blueberry the size of a walnut into her mouth. “I’m also understanding why you gained a little weight when you were supposed to be so depressed about being dead.”
“No. No! This isn’t right,” Alcie cried, marching through the garden toward another small door set into an inside palace wall. “Where are the wilting field greens? Where’s my liver pudding on flatbread? Where’re my lamb entrails with minced kidney? This stuff is fresh and ripe and healthy—and—completely inedible! And I did not gain any weight!”
“Alcie, stop!” Pandy called. “Wait. Think for a moment. If everything else in the underworld is backward, upside down, in chaos, then it makes sense that nothing here would be as it should be, right?”
“Right,” Alcie said, coming to a halt.
“Which means that there’s probably a lot going on inside there and we have to be careful.”
“I see your point.”
“Okay, so just take it easy,” Pandy said, moving past Alcie and entering the food-preparation rooms in the palace of Hades.
“Yeah, I’ll take it easy. But I want some cream-of-tripe soup, I’ll tell you that.”
The cavernous food-preparation rooms were completely empty of spirits. The rooms were cold and still. Alcie went straight for the storage cupboards.
“Don’t touch anything!” Pandy cautioned.
“Too late!”
Alcie opened a cooling box, meant to keep cold items from spoiling—or, in the case of these strange rooms, to keep mold and spoilage fresh—and received instead a blast of hot air.
“Backward,” she muttered. “Everything is backward. Oooh, what do we have here?”
She reached for something small, black, and hard on the counter in front of a large oven and eagerly tossed it in her mouth. “Huh. No idea what that was.”
Then she casually flipped open the oven door—and screamed.
Inside, three spirits were crammed like ill-fitting pieces of a wooden puzzle.
“Oh, Alcie. I knew I recognized your voice,” came a familiar voice as two eyes peered out from underneath another spirit’s armpit. “I was certain that was you.”
“Cookie? I mean … uh … Cyrene?”
“Yes. Help an old spirit out of an oven, won’t you?”
Quickly, Pandy, Alcie, and Iole got Cyrene and the two others onto the ground. Pandy felt a cold chill as she closed the oven door; she and Alcie glanced inside and saw that it had been packed with ice. Alcie introduced Pandy, Iole, and Homer to the wizened woman, who was still hunched over.
“Thank you, my dear,” Cyrene said, straightening her crooked back with many loud cracks and snaps of her aged spine.
“Wow!” Alcie blurted out. Then, as everyone glanced at her, she flushed. “I just keep forgetting that you all are just like us except you’re dead. I mean, you have bones—is what I’m trying to say. I mean—I mean, oh Ares’ eyeballs, why don’t I keep my mouth shut!”
“Not to worry,” said Cyrene. “But, yes, in many ways, just like the living.”
“Don’t sweat it, Alce,” said Pandy. “None of us really realized it until we saw that Hera and Demeter had murdered those three judges.”
“What?” cried Cyrene. “Rhadamanthus, Aeacus, and Minos? Something’s happened to them?”
Pandy gave a brief account not only of the massacre of the three spirits at Hera’s and Demeter’s hands, but of the other strange and frightening sights they’d seen since coming to Hades. Cyrene put her bony hand over her mouth in grief.
“The judges were my favorites,” she said, her spirit eyes working hard to well up tears. “Especially that Minos—such a scamp. After a hard day of judging souls, they would come to my table, right over there, to sit and eat. We’d laugh and they would tell me stories of souls who thought they would surely be going to the Elysian Fields only to find out they were spending eternity in boring Asphodel. One woman who had led a rebellion of female slaves for better working conditions thought for certain she was going to Tartarus. Minos tried to describe the look on the woman’s face when they sent her to Elysium. I can’t believe they’re gone.”
Then Cyrene quickly sent the other two spirits out into the garden.
“Hide!” she urged them. “But keep your eyes on the door and I’ll let you know when it’s safe to come back inside.” Then she turned back to Pandy and the others. “Hera has raised the stakes, I see. She’s added a great deal of pepper to the soup, to use my language. Well, I can’t say I’m surprised; she’s always been the worst guest, had the filthiest eating habits and the manners of a gorgon. It was a nightmare whenever she ate at Hades’ table. She’d literally walk back here from the main dining hall and throw food at me if something came out of this room that wasn’t to her liking. My slugs are better behaved than she is.”
“Has Hera been in the palace recently?” Pandy asked.
“Has she …?” Cyrene looked at Pandy as if she were foolish to even ask. “Only days—or maybe it was hours ago—she stormed through here like she had a burr under her robes. The master had heard of some trouble with the hecatonchires. Apparently, they’d gotten loose. Although I have no idea why they would want to leave; they have a much better health plan than any of the rest of—”
“Yes, we know about them,” Pandy said, now trying to hurry the woman along, but not wanting to appear rude.
“Well, Hades hadn’t been gone but a short time when Persephone got word that other things were going awry in the kingdom, so she left to try to put as much right as she could. And that’s when Hera blew in through the front doors like a storm.”
“What front doors?” Alcie cried. “We didn’t see any front doors!”
“Well, of course there are front doors, child,” Cyrene chided. “What self-respecting palace has no front doors? Anyway, I heard the commotion way down at this end and I knew something was horribly wrong. So I got everyone out into the garden and out the servants’ entrance. Then I snuck—well, I tried to sneak—into the main halls without being noticed, but it’s been so long since I’d left the food-preparation rooms that I’m ashamed to say I got lost. I wandered about for ages, it seemed. I heard noises behind closed doors, but couldn’t find another soul. Finally, I … I came upon the main hall …”
Cyrene’s eyes grew quite large and there were actual tears. Her voice trembled as she became a little panicked. Pandy took hold of her hand to steady the frail spirit.
“… I knew it right away, because of the two great thrones. This is where the great Dark Lord of the underworld s
its with his beautiful queen. This is the room where they received Orpheus when he ventured down here to beg for his wife’s return. This is where they hold an enormous party every year for Hades’ birthday. And … and … what I saw!”
Cyrene stopped cold, reliving an awful memory.
“What?” Alcie asked. “What did you see?”
“Everyone, all the spirits, it seemed—chained together. Hands and feet. Some hanging from … and they were—oh, merciful Zeus! And the queen! Oh, my poor queen. So I ran—as fast as these legs would carry me, right back here. I found two other shades. I tripped on them as they cowered behind a large planter in one of the corridors. We didn’t know what else to do, so we jumped into the oven. It seemed the safest and the coolest place to hide. Oh, please, don’t make me go back there!”
“We won’t,” Iole said. “We promise.”
Cyrene clutched at Alcie’s and Pandy’s arms.
“But Alcie, you—and you, Pandora—why, all Alcie did when she was here was talk about you and how courageous and cunning you are. And she ate a lot, I do remember that. You all must help the queen! And those poor other souls. Say you will.”
“We will, Cyrene,” Pandy said. “We’ll do everything we can.”
“The gods be praised. Go now,” Cyrene said, using what little strength she could muster to shove them out into an immense hallway. “If you can help my poor queen, Alcie, there’s a batch of dove hearts in it for you.”
“You don’t need to ask me twice.” Alcie grinned. “Point the way, Cookie!”
Cyrene gestured in one direction down the long dark hall. Faintly, even from what was an incredibly long way away, came the sounds of moaning and weeping. Then, someone screamed.
“Fire up those ovens,” Alcie said, adjusting her carrying pouch and grabbing Homer’s hand, “or at least get the ice out of them. We’re on it.”
Walking away, Iole pulled Pandy close.
“Dove hearts?” Iole whispered. “She doesn’t even know what we’re getting into and she’s doing it for the dove hearts? Seriously?”
“I had a few in Rome,” Pandy replied out of the side of her mouth. “Totally worth it.”
Chapter Thirteen
Preparations
A good distance from the food-preparation rooms, the hallway branched into several directions.
“Which way?” Alcie asked.
“I think if we follow the wailing sounds,” Pandy said with a shudder.
“I hear it down here,” said Homer.
“But it’s also coming from this direction,” Iole said, staring off down the second corridor.
“Nope, I hear it loudest over this way,” Alcie claimed. “Do you think we should split up? I know my way around …”
“Alce, we’re not splitting up,” Pandy said. “I have a feeling this place is worse than the labyrinth of Crete.”
“Before my dad moved us all from Crete to Athens,” Iole said, “we used to go to the Labyrinth Land—it was an amusement park—all the time. I could find my way through the maze in under thirty minutes. I could take Homer and we could …”
“Everyone, stop!” Pandy said. “We’re not splitting up for the simple reason that if Hera found any of you alone, she wouldn’t hesitate to slay you on the spot. But she likes to chatter with me and that extra time might give us our best means of escape. But that’s a brilliant idea, Iole.”
“Of course,” Iole said. Then, “What?”
Pandy pulled the magic rope out of her carrying pouch.
“Rope,” she said, her voice low and serious. “The thickness of a thread and the strength of iron. Fade into the color of the walls. Length … uh … I don’t know yet. Just don’t run out.”
She looked down one hallway and made a decision.
“Oh, that idea.” Iole grinned.
“We’re gonna pull a ‘Theseus,’ ” said Pandy, heading off into the dimly lit unknown. “This way.”
Unspooling the thread of rope as they walked, Pandy, in the lead, turned the first corner at an intersection of two new hallways and immediately shoved everyone back around the way they’d come. No one made a sound. They watched from the shadows as a small group of spirits, bound and shackled together, was roughly shoved down the corridor. They were led by two other spirits with nothing to distinguish them besides small swords. Some of the bound spirits were crying softly. Sticking her head out to watch, Pandy saw that the entire group was herded into a room only a short distance away. After waiting only a few moments, Pandy and the others tiptoed down the hall and, by arranging themselves just right, managed to get all four of their heads in a vertical position enabling them to peep into the room—through the legs of one of the huge, unsuspecting guards at the door.
The slaves, still shackled but able to move about, were polishing large mirrors and scrubbing the floors. Lamps, unused for centuries if ever, were being dusted and filled with oil. Carpets were being laid out and tapestries hung in the blackened windows. And two spirits were beginning to paint the room a shade of blue.
One spirit, taking a moment from beating eons of dust from a rug, was poked sharply in her backside with the business end of a sword.
“No slacking!” barked a guard.
Pandy moved herself back into the corridor and the others followed. Quietly, they tiptoed back to the intersection and followed the thread back to the first junction of hallways.
“Redecorating?” Alcie asked. “At a time like this?”
“No.” Pandy shook her head. “There’s something more to it. Why would Hades want to paint a room? C’mon.”
Again, following the sounds of spirits in despair, she chose another hallway. This time, they met with no groups of shades on the move up close, although they did see two groups crossing at intersections far, far down the corridor. Pandy stopped and everyone flattened themselves against the walls, but they were all fairly certain that they were simply too far away to be noticed.
The first room they came to had a privacy curtain drawn across the entryway. Alcie moved past it, indicating that she’d look through, and gingerly separated the curtain from the wall. She gasped. This was a room she’d seen before when Persephone had given her a tour of the palace. Floor-to-impossibly-high-ceiling shelves held bottles and jars filled with potions and oils, which were now being smashed to bits by sobbing spirits, spreading musky, fetid, and medicinal odors all over the room. Upright stands filled with precious and ancient scrolls were turned over and emptied; charts of the human body were being ripped from where they’d hung on the walls since the creation of Hades’ home. The only things that were being set, gently, on a table in the center of the room were several odd and dangerous looking devices (meant for practice of the healing arts, Alcie was certain, but used for Hades-only-knew-what). The guards were talking conspiratorially and gleefully about these rather sinister contraptions, picking them up and indicating how they’d use them if they had the chance.
As Alcie watched, other enslaved spirits swept up the shards of oily glass and parchment, while still others placed shiny new bottles and vials on the shelves. Without warning, a small bottle slipped out of the hand of a spirit who’d had her hands too full, trying to do too much too quickly and avoid being poked with a sword. As the bottle shattered, another scent wafted into the air: a perfume unlike any other. One that Alcie had smelled before.
She pulled her head out quickly, but not before catching sight of the window on the far wall. She remembered that she’d been able to glimpse, during her first visit to Hades, the most astonishing color of green through the windows in almost every room. Persephone had told her the Elysian Fields were right outside. Now, through this window, she saw only a whitish gray.
She tried to breathe in clear air as quietly as possible.
“Take a whiff,” she said to Pandy.
Pandy put her nose to the opening in the privacy curtain and inhaled. Her brow furrowed as she looked at Alcie and then Iole, who was also catching the scent. Only Homer w
as completely clueless as to the various intricacies of this particular perfume, although he’d smelled it himself on a number of occasions. Pandy led them farther down the hallway.
“But why?” Pandy asked.
“And why here?” Iole furthered.
“Why what?” Homer asked. “What did you get from that noxious fragrance, which, by the way, Alcie, I will implore you never to wear when we’re married.”
“Oh, Homer. You’re such a guy,” Alcie smiled. “And don’t worry. I won’t wear it. I wouldn’t be able to find it even if I wanted to. That scent belongs to one person only …”
The name was on the tip of her tongue when at that moment a tremendous crash echoed off the walls from a room just a little farther down. They raced as noiselessly as they could to the entryway; Homer swept everyone aside with his arm and took a look inside.
Weapons of all kinds were strewn on the floor; only a few were still hanging from their hooks on the walls. The tapestries had been pulled from the windows, and a table and chairs had been overturned and sent flying into the walls, shards of wood lying among the spears, swords, and shields. At the far end of the room, three spirits sat on the floor, their backs against the wall. Homer recognized them at once: Hector, Odysseus, and Achilles. Standing over them were four guards, their swords pointed at the heroes’ necks. All around them, enslaved spirits piled the weapons near the door of the room as others hung floral curtains, polished a large standing looking glass, set up a reclining couch in the shape of a peacock, and added other feminine touches.
Homer withdrew into the hallway, his face grave.
“They should never have been caught unawares like that,” he murmured.
“Huh?” Pandy said.
“Let’s move,” Homer said, picking up the iron thread and respooling it. “I’ll tell you as we walk.”
Making their way back to the main intersection, Homer sighed heavily, more than once. When they were a safe distance away from the room, he slowed.
Pandora Gets Frightened Page 11