by Tom Holt
After a long, uncomfortable time, I found myself flat up against a wall. It was marble, nicely finished, and I guessed it was a temple or something like that; too posh for a private house. The crowd seemed to have ground to a halt, like they'd reached the place they'd been heading for and were standing around waiting for something. Well, I had nothing better to do, so I waited too.
Not for long. Turned out the big deal was a music recital, of all the bloody things. In front of me, about fifteen ranks of bodies away, were the temple steps. At the top of these appeared a bunch of blokes in fancy frocks, the sort of thing priests wear, only they had harps and flutes and cymbals and stuff; and as soon as they looked like they were going to start playing, everybody shut up and stood still, like they'd just seen the gorgon's head and been turned to stone.
I'm not a great music fan at the best of times, and this wasn't one of them, either. I was dog tired, there was a fat bloke to my left standing on my foot, and I was bursting for a piss. All in all, I wasn't in the mood for the finer things in life; in fact, I'd gladly have traded the Nine Muses and the collected works of Virgilius Maro, sung by the author with Apollo on harp and Orpheus on castanets and the doggy whistle, for a bed of damp straw and half a mildewed sausage. But I didn't have the choice; so I held still, and listened.
They weren't bad, I suppose, if you like that sort of thing, which in this case was an incredibly long hymn to Mother Demeter, quite possibly the least interesting of all the gods and goddesses on Olympus . But they tootled and twanged and yodelled competently enough; at any rate, the people all round me were lapping it up like dogs round a leaky wineskin, which meant they were staying put, and therefore so was I.
I guess we've all got our own ways of staving off terminal boredom. Some people count sheep or recite poetry in their heads or think up their all—time great chariot-racing teams. For some reason I've never been able to figure out, though I think I might have told you about it before, I imagine sea battles. Crazy because I've never ever seen a sea battle, for which I'm profoundly grateful, and — well, you know what I think about boats generally. But that's what I do. I picture the two opposing fleets standing off against each other like forests of cherry trees in blossom. Then they close in, and I try and follow one or two particular ships as they jockey for advantage, trying to get a ramming line or snuggle in close to grapple and board; and here and there I'll see a ship on fire, where the other side have managed to land a direct hit with fire arrows or a catapult shot of burning straw; and there's a ship with its oars shorn off all down one side, helpless as a bird with a busted wing; and over there the marines are at it hammer and tongs on the top deck of a trireme, jumping about on the gangplanks and the oarsmens' shoulders. Exciting stuff, you'll agree; a damn sight more entertaining than some mouldy old hymn.
Well, by the time the musicians finished the third part of the hymn I was well into my imaginary battle; I'd already sunk two triremes and a couple of little galleys, and things were starting to look pretty grim for the Cilicians, or the Parthians, or whoever the enemy were. And then, just as my best trireme squeezed through a gap and ploughed into the side of a helpless four-decker (splintering timbers, sailors and marines jumping over the rail the sea gushing in through the gaping hole in the four-decker's side) my mind suddenly cleared, like a writing tablet when you shave off the old wax. It was as though someone had tapped me on the shoulder and said my name; and I had the weirdest feeling I knew who it was.
'Galen he said.
I didn't turn round or anything; I couldn't have done if I'd wanted to. Lucius Domitius, I said inside my head, is that you? 'Oh for pity's sake. Honestly, don't you know me by now?' Sorry, I replied. But you startled me. And anyhow, you're dead. 'Well, you ought to know about that. I just thought I'd say goodbye, that's all.'
Goodbye, I thought, stupidly Why, are you going somewhere?
'Of course I am, idiot. Don't you remember? We discussed it, that night in your barn.'
Oh yes, I thought, right. Only it's too late; the ship I booked you on is long gone, must be halfway to where it's going by now.
'Don't worry about that,' he said. 'I've made my own arrangements. The Scherians have said they'll take me anywhere I want to go. You don't turn down an offer like that.'
That's true, I thought, only, how come you know about them? They're a secret.
'Bullshit,' he replied, 'everybody knows that story. They live on the island at the end of the world, which isn't really there, except at the moment of death.
And when you die and the water closes over your head, you stand up on the beach on Scheria and they come and take you to wherever you're meant to be. Well, it's my turn now, but I just thought I'd drop by first and say so long.'
Hang on, I thought. That's not right. I've been there. 'Been where?'
Scheria, for crying out loud. It's a real place, somewhere off Africa , not far from where our ship went down. I got washed up there, in a floating coffin, and they rescued me— 'And took you where you really wanted to go. Oh come on, Galen, even you ought to be able to figure that one out for yourself.'
No, straight up, I told him, it's a real place. A real island. I've been there.
'Oh, sure. Maybe you'd care to point to it on a map. This is the Mediterranean Sea we're talking about, there's not a square yard of it that hasn't been charted. Something the size of an island would be pretty difficult to miss, don't you think?'
There's this reef, I told him; it protects them, because every ship that ever gets near there is smashed to bits, and all the people die—
'Yes,' he said patiently 'And then the Scherians take them where they need to go. Think about it.'
Oh, I thought. And then I thought; but that's still not right, because I'm still alive. I must be alive, or how did I kill all those people? How did I kill?
'Me, you were about to say All right, yes, you. Tell me that, if you're so damn smart.
'Ah yes,' he said, 'but I was dead already, remember? I died over ten years ago, in Phaon's villa. You killed me. I asked you to do it, and you were kind enough to oblige. You stabbed me; I dropped to my knees, muttered, “What an artist dies with me!” and snuffed it. That's what happened. Ask anybody, they'll tell you.'
Yes, I thought, but that wasn't how it really was, that was just telling the tale. But he didn't need to tell me that the tale is all there is, because of course I knew that already; like I knew I hadn't killed the senator and his gladiators, because they died when their cart went over a cliff; and I didn't kill Blandinia, because she died of the same disease that did for Mum; and I didn't kill Nero Caesar, because he'd died years ago; and I didn't kill Callistus, because he and I died on the cross, that day I first met Lucius Domitius. Ask anybody, and they'll tell you.
'Anyhow,' he was saying, 'I'm off now I suppose I ought to say thanks, for keeping me company and all; but I've got to be honest, all you ever did was keep me from being where I needed to be, what I always should have been. You meant well, but it was really just an unfortunate mistake. You know, seemed like a good idea at the time.'
I see, I thought. And now?
'They're waiting for me,' he said, 'down at the dockside, and I don't want to keep them hanging about, they're very busy people. And I also wanted to say, don't worry about what happened. It was a bloody stupid accident, is all; but it's all turned out for the best. After all, but for you I'd still be in the wrong place, instead of finally free and clear.'
And all your troubles are over, I thought. Heard that one before. But he'd offended me, so I just thought, well, so long, then, and didn't even try to look round (like Orpheus, in the story, remember?). And then he wasn't there any more.
The musicians had finally ground to a halt, and everybody was cheering and yowling like they'd just had a most amazing treat. The fat bloke next to me who'd been standing on my foot elbowed me in the ribs and said, 'Wasn't that grand?' and I nodded, just to be polite.
'Wonderful,' I said.
'Yes, wasn't
it? And so brave of them to perform it, too. I don't suppose it's been heard in public since he died.'
I had a bad feeling about this. 'Sorry,' I said. 'Since who died?'
The fat man looked at me. 'Nero Caesar, of course,' he said, like I'd just asked him what the big white round shiny thing up in the sky was. 'That was his Hymn to Demeter, his masterpiece. Brilliant,' he sighed, 'absolutely bloody brilliant. He may have sucked as an emperor, but what an artist.'
'Absolutely,' I muttered.
Of course, there weren't any mules, next day, when I went back round the bloke's house, after a few hours' sleep on somebody's shitheap. So I went home; and here I've been ever since.
You know, I think Lucius Domitius was wrong about the Scherians. True, nobody's ever heard of their island, and yes, you'd have thought somebody'd have noticed it, by now. But I'm pretty sure I'm still alive, at least when my back aches after a long day with the ponderous hoe, so I guess he must've been telling me the tale which is what artists do, after all, and I have it on good authority that he was one. And I think someone must've been to Scheria and lived to tell the tale, because it's there in the Odyssey, after all. And nobody's ever been to the land of the dead and then come back to tell about it, except maybe Ulysses, if there ever was such a person (and he went to Scheria too, so maybe there was). Talking of which, a year or so back I was in town with time on my hands, and I found myself outside a bookseller's stall; so I found a copy of the Odyssey and looked up the relevant bits, about Scheria, and visiting the land of the dead, and all. And there was this bit that's stuck in my mind, where Ulysses is down in the underworld and he bumps into the ghost of his friend Achilles, the great hero; and Achilles tells him that it's all very well being a great hero, but then you die and that's that. 'Don't you go telling me the tale about death, Ulysses,' he says. 'I'd rather be alive, and be some poor man's slave, with no land of my own, making a piss-poor living, than be king and emperor of all the glorious dead.' Which made me think, though generally I don't go a bundle on philosophising; all in all, I came out of it all right — better than I deserve, that's for sure —because I got home in the end, and now I'm free and clear, and all my troubles would appear to be over.
Anyhow, so here I am; and if I'm in a condemned cell awaiting execution, then isn't that always the way?