by James Welsh
Athena fainted.
The next moment she remembered, she was floating lazily in a circle around a tree. At first, she thought that she had been dreaming, because she could vaguely remember having a dream like that before. Except that dream was about a sycamore that was on the shores of some vast lake. Here, she was circling an olive tree at the base of some rocky crater, the walls looming above her and cutting out the sunlight. The darkness seemed to come alive in the olive branches, crawling out towards her.
Athena looked down at her fingers and she realized that she was in her godly form – she was somehow floating without being an owl. She also realized that she was holding onto a dead snake in her right hand. And that was when the memories began to flood back into her, and she moaned as she understood what had happened, or rather what had begun to happen.
She tried waving her arms back and forth, in a swimming motion, trying to float away from the tree, but the branches were magnetizing and drew her in. She struggled for a few moments to break free, but she was a ribbon in the branches. She wanted to break down and weep, because she knew what all of this meant, she knew that she wasn’t trapped in a dream. But she knew she couldn’t fall, she knew she couldn’t drop that snake’s corpse.
In her moment of duty, Athena reached down towards the rough soil, to try and uproot the tree. But her hidden, massive muscle was wasted – wherever she reached, the roots recoiled, digging further and further into the soil. The roots seemed to become more of a live snake than the one in her hand did. While she did this, she knew deep down that she couldn’t. But she still had to.
She felt a sudden wind on her neck and she looked up. At the very top of the volcano there was a dust storm that was beginning to rage – at least, that’s what it must have looked like to any mortals in the area. Athena knew that the dust storm was actually all of the shades beginning to gather. They wanted what she wanted – what she now wanted – but they too couldn’t reach for it.
“Sister!”
Athena recognized the voice and so she turned. Through the thick branches of the olive tree, she could see Apollo standing there, still in his full battle armor, the sunlight still catching and sparking in his blond hair, even though they were so far beneath the sunshine at this point. Athena felt an unusual thrill, because Apollo looked just as terrified for Athena as he normally was for his twin sister Artemis.
“Apollo.”
“What are you doing?” Apollo asked, confused. The last he had seen Athena, she was flying as an owl towards Zeus and Hades.
Athena held up the dead snake for Apollo to see. This did not answer Apollo’s question enough. He asked again, “What?”
“I’m holding Hades in my hands.”
It took a few moments for Apollo to register the significance of those words. His eyes widened, he said, hushed, “You mean you…?”
“Killed him? In a way, yes,” Athena said cryptically.
Apollo took a few steps forward, his hands outstretched, wanting to touch the snake’s corpse. He could not believe that his evil uncle was as dead as the Underworld over which he ruled.
But Athena put the snake’s corpse closer to her bosom, hiding it from view. “There’s no point in touching the wounds. Hades may be dead, but he’s very much alive.”
“How? You’re not making any sense.”
Athena spoke, her words muffled a bit from the branches, “Whenever a god is defeated, their victor has to take on their duties. It is what’s demanded of us. I have already taken on those duties before. This is no different.”
“You’re going to take over the Underworld?”
“I already have, the moment I ripped apart this snake’s scales. I have to become the Queen of the Underworld, else everything will fall apart. We need to make sure this tragedy doesn’t happen again.”
“But there has to be some other way.”
“For once, there isn’t. Now please help me. If we don’t hurry, we’ll have another catastrophe on our hands.”
Athena pointed up at the skies above them. The world was beginning to darken, the clouds of souls blotting out the sunlight.
“If we don’t open this entrance now, who knows what those shades will do. They must have an Underworld to go to, because they can’t stay here at the surface. We have already seen what a shade can do when they’re amongst the mortals.”
Apollo took a long look at his sister.
“What do you need help with?” Apollo asked.
“I need to remove this tree. Its roots are too pure and my hands are too corrupted now,” Athena said, holding up her hands which were already beginning to gray. She was already changing into the Queen – it would not be long before she was as decomposed as Hades.
Apollo hesitated and reached down into the volcanic ash, to pull out the roots and fell the tree. As his fingers latched around the roots, he looked up. “You know that the moment I do this, you’ll be lost forever.”
“I know.”
“You would not be welcome amongst the gods on Olympus. They’ll fear your aura of death.”
Athena smiled a little. “My family has already exiled me once from Olympus. Twice will make no difference.”
Apollo blushed, just slightly. He said gruffly, “Things changed. You’ve proven yourself with us.”
“I know, I know. Now pull.”
Apollo grasped the roots and he pulled with a mighty roar. At first, the tree did not budge, even as Apollo’s muscles worked and stretched. Then, bit by bit, the tree began to give in, the roots surface, and the trunk began its long fall to the ground. The tree had not completely fallen yet, but Athena could already feel the pull. She was seeping through the hole left by the tree – she was entering into the Underworld, she was entering a new phase in her life. Above her, the dust storm of souls had the same falling sensation, the cloud collapsing as one giant raindrop. As the shades and Athena began to swirl into the hole, the goddess did not grasp to the edges, trying to spend just a few more moments at the surface. She did not even take one last look at Apollo. Instead, she accepted her future, which was now her present. She closed her eyes and let herself fall in.
This time, she didn’t faint. She could still feel the wind rushing past her, as the countless shades fell into the depths of the world with her. Screams that weren’t her own filled her ears. She fell and fell – it felt like there was no end – until her feet touched a cold stone floor. She collapsed – not from the pain of falling, because she felt none – but in reverence, in obedience. Even as a monarch, she had to pledge herself to her new kingdom. She was now nothing without that world, just as that world was now nothing without her.
When Athena managed to stand, she followed the stream of the souls, which knew the path to the Underworld without knowing. As she walked with them, it felt like wading in a river, but in a river of air, not water. Yet the current was strong, practically sweeping Athena through curves and corners and somehow even deeper into the earth. And, through it all, Athena still held that dead viper in her hands, never letting go. She knew that Hades was not truly dead – just as she had accidentally killed Zeus but was still able to free him from his torture in the Underworld, she knew that Hades could always come back. Death was a major inconvenience for the gods, but it was still an inconvenience.
As she reached the River Styx, she could feel the snake corpse begin to writhe between her fingers. It was feeble twists in the body, but she knew it was now only a matter of time. She anxiously waited for the ferry to land, and she was the first to jump on board. Charon looked confused, for perhaps the first time in centuries. He was so used to dealing with shades, he wasn’t sure what to do with someone still breathing.
Athena said briskly, “I’m your Queen now. You will do as I ask, and I ask you to row, fast.”
Yet Charon didn’t move. And so Athena thrust the dead snake in the ferryman’s face, waving the corpse wildly.
“If you don’t move this
boat now, your old master will come back to life,” Athena snarled. “I don’t want that, and I’m sure you don’t want that. Now move.”
This prompted Charon into action. The ferry left the shore while only half-full, the remaining souls left on the banks roaring in frustration. As the ferry cut across the water, the snake’s body began to move more and more in Athena’s hands. Athena could have tried and crush the snake between her fists – or she could have tried and toss the body into the River Styx, where all things tossed are forgotten – but she knew, no matter what, Hades would come back. It was only a matter of time until the god in the beast remembered himself and roared back to life.
As Athena struggled with the slowly reanimating snake, she tried to think of a way to imprison her uncle before he became fully realized. If her father Zeus had a hard enough time to defeat Hades, Athena doubted if she would have any better luck. Yet there she was, in the Underworld with her nemesis, without any of her allies, alone against a new world. But even with all of that fear stacked against her, Athena still remained focused, her mind churning for answers. Then, the old familiar smile leapt onto her face, the smile that meant that she had a plan.
The moment the ferry touched shore, Athena leapt from the deck onto the rocky land and plunged through the thicket of granite towards the palace – her palace. She didn’t have time to dwell on this, though, as she pushed her way through the heavy doors, past the sleeping Cerberus – too tired to bite – and into the throne room. She could feel the snake’s body bend in her hand as she dashed around the room, desperate to find what she was looking for. And she found it: a basket on the table, holding moldy pomegranates for Hades and his wife Persephone. She emptied the basket on the floor, stuffed the basket, and closed it with a brittle wicker lid. Athena poured oil all over the basket before she grabbed an everlasting torch off the wall and doused the basket with flames. It took only a moment or two, but the basket became trapped in the miniature inferno. The squeals of the snake were barely audible over the crackle of the fiery basket.
Athena suddenly realized she hadn’t breathed in awhile – she exhaled and inhaled deeply, almost capsized with relief. She had been remembering all of her lessons. Of course she knew she already killed Hades once before – she could still feel him crunching between her hands, although her hands were an owl’s talons then. Yet, just like her father Zeus had come back to life, Athena knew her uncle could do much the same. And he especially could in the Underworld, where all the dead migrate to so that they can live and not suffer death again. And so the Underworld was not only an eternity for the dead, but it was also an immortality. Nothing can die, nothing can be truly drowned, nothing can be broken, and nothing can be burnt to ashes. That was the key to it all, and it was something Athena only wished she had known earlier. Although that basket would be ablaze for eternity, it would never burn down, not in the Land of the Dead anyway. If Hades were to break free from his prison inside of the basket – whether he did so as the snake or as his godly form – the worst would happen. The basket would break and the oily fire would latch onto his skin, biting like countless mosquitoes. And the fire would never end, because there was no water pure enough in the Underworld to put out the flames. And Hades would be in too much agony from the flames – which could not kill the god through his immortality but can sear him – to crawl up to the world above for water. And even if he could, Zeus would be there, waiting for him.
And that was all it took to exile a god as powerful as Hades. Nothing more than a burning basket.
Athena left the crackling, hissing basket where it laid on the stone floor – she was afraid of touching it, for it could catch her fingers on fire as well – and she walked towards the throne in the center of the vast room. Her steps were slow, but not once did she turn away. The throne loomed closer and closer until it filled her sights and her world, towering up above her. She climbed up the gold steps and sat down in the plush cushions. The first thing she realized was that, for a chair made completely out of gold, its back was surprisingly comfortable.
Still, as she tried to settle into the throne, a sickness began to overtake her. Most sickness begin in the stomach and pulse outwards like a dirty sun. This illness, though, it began at the feet and rise, like a flood of sewage. First, her feet felt claustrophobic and shriveled, until Athena was sure they were older even she was. Then, the bitter disease took over her legs, then her waist, then her chest and her arms. She could feel the malevolence ground her up into clay on the inside, twisting and massaging the bones and ichor out of shape, into something more necessary to rule over the Underworld.
All of this, this sickness, it took only a few minutes to rise up to her neck. Only a few minutes more and it would transform her into an entirely different being, perhaps something more like her uncle. Athena shuddered, both from the grainy feeling on the inside and from the thought of being like Hades. And then she wondered: perhaps this is what happened to Hades. Perhaps he was a bright god before his flame sputtered out in the darkness. She never thought to ask Zeus about that – though she imagined that Zeus could never imagine Hades as being anything besides evil.
Athena felt the urge to vomit rising within her. She hurriedly stepped down from the throne and rushed towards the doors. She couldn’t make it, though, and she threw up just in front of the wide doors, her vomit glistening with browns and reds. It took her a few minutes to recover – she staggered up, her eyes wet, her tongue burning. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand – when she did this, she noticed that her hand was an unhealthy shade of gray, much like the moon on a hazy night, perhaps even more. She noticed that it was the same pale color of skin that Hades always had.