“We were as if in a dream,” I continued, closing my eyes again, “and somehow every meal after that was like salt fish in comparison.”
Diomedes was still staring at me and frowning.
“What?” I said at last.
“Miserable man,” he said in a whisper. He shook his head.
“What? What’s that supposed to mean?” I said, shaken from my daydream. Diomedes had always been blunt, but he rarely criticized me. “It wasn’t at all miserable,” I continued, a little hurt. “It was the finest night of my life.”
“And there’s your proof.”
“Proof of what? You’re just jealous because you never slowed down long enough to be happy.”
“It’s proof that you don’t know happiness any better than I do,” he said, stabbing his shield into the sand. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the rim. I looked at him more closely. He was troubled. His face had a tight, desperate look. “Think, Odysseus,” he said, his voice trembling, “of all that you and I have been through—of all our meals, our battles, our feasts, our travels. Tell me truthfully, was that night—that one night from your childhood—the most memorable?”
“Not the most memorable, perhaps. But the most pleasant.”
Diomedes cast his shield aside and crouched in front of me so that we were face-to-face. “That particular night,” he said. “You can’t think of a more memorable night than that.” There was real grief in his face. It was a look I’d seen only once or twice. “Think now.”
“What?” I said, startled by his sudden gravity. “What? What’s wrong with that? It was a wonderful night. I was so happy that night.”
He shook his head slowly.
“Oh! I understand now,” I said. “You’re right. There are other memories too.”
His face brightened a little. A softness came over his features like sunlight in the midst of a storm.
“The night I came home to Penelope. The birth of my son. The night of my marriage. You’re right, Diomedes. This time, you are absolutely right. There are other memories. More important memories. I understand what you mean now.”
Diomedes stood up and laughed. A short, bitter cough. “No, I don’t think you do.”
“You’re wrong, my friend. I do understand. I understand exactly what you mean. There have been—there must be—more important nights than that . . . nights more worth remembering.”
He shook his head again.
“It’s just that . . . those other nights weren’t quite so . . . perfect.”
“Perfect.”
“You wouldn’t understand, Diomedes, because you’re not an artist. You don’t like music or dance or poetry. You don’t have a fiery heart. The happiness I experienced on those other nights . . . well . . . the happiness wasn’t as pure. That night with Demodocus . . . it was . . . I was . . . there were no tears.”
“Exactly.”
“Exactly what?” I said, growing really frustrated. Usually Diomedes would give in by this point in an argument, if only to get me to shut up. But he was being stiff-necked, and I’d already conceded to him twice.
“Exactly what makes it all so miserable,” he said. “Look at you. You wasted your whole life trying to recapture that ‘perfect’ night of your childhood. And now you’re prepared to waste your afterlife as well. All this wandering about —it’s just a desperate search for that perfect, painless, magical world that really existed only in someone’s imagination—not even your own.”
I looked up at Diomedes. There were actual tears in his eyes. “Fine, then, Diomedes,” I said, stunned, “you’re right.” He turned his back to me and coughed. Spit in the sand. “I should have stayed at home,” I said. “I should have built that perfect world myself. I could have turned our beggars into princes with all the wealth I collected. I could have built the world of Demodocus’ songs.”
“No you couldn’t.”
“But—”
“Even now, you’re so full of your fantasies, you think it was all about you.”
“But I could have tried,” I said, looking from his back to the sand at my feet. “Instead, I went running to search for another world. I just could not be happy with my own. I’ve always had a restless heart, Diomedes, but the bard gave that restlessness a focus. His dreams gave me an excuse. Aiki! I spent my life searching for a world that didn’t even exist.”
“And abandoned your friends in search of it,” he added.
“Do you think that’s why the gods are punishing me?” I asked. “For deserting my family?”
“By the river Styx,” Diomedes said, his voice cracking, “you really don’t understand.”
I shrugged and stood up. “I understand you want to get moving.”
He turned and looked at me, his face like a strained flag. “I guess you have a plan for how to get us through those gates, then,” he said.
As a matter of fact, I did.
CHAPTER 2
GATES OF FIRE
THE GATEWAY WAS high enough and broad enough for two chariots to pass through side by side, so if it were simply a matter of passing through, we’d have no trouble at all. The problem was the heat. Even from this far away, it was oppressive. Just looking at it, I felt that my eyes might dry right up and fall out of their sockets like raisins.
I smiled stiffly. “Have you been with me this long, my friend, and still you do not know me?”
He shrugged.
“Of course I have a plan. You think I’ve just been sitting here moping this whole time?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I haven’t.” I stood up and brushed the sand from my tunic. “You’ve heard of the tortoise, right?”
“The animal or the military formation?” he asked. He was all business now. His old self. I was relieved. I didn’t know what had gotten into him, but whatever it was, it made me uncomfortable. “If it’s the military formation you’re thinking of,” he continued, taking his shield from the ground, “then we’ll need more than two men.”
“I’m thinking these shields could deflect some of the heat if we run through side by side. I could hold mine to the right, and you could hold yours to the left. It wouldn’t be comfortable, but if we run fast—”
“No, it wouldn’t be comfortable,” he grunted, “but I don’t fancy sitting here forever listening to your dreams.”
“Then off we go.” I strapped on the rest of my armor and stood for a moment studying the gate. “You ready?”
We jogged forward, crouched beneath our shields. Just ahead, the walls of the burning city shimmered and hissed. “In step now,” I gasped, though the air in my lungs seemed on fire. “One, two . . .” The smell of burning hair filled my nostrils. “One, two . . .” Diomedes picked up his pace. I closed my eyes against the heat. “One, two, one, two, one, two . . .” By the time we reached the Medusa, the air itself was fire. And just when I thought my flesh would peel from my bones, we passed through the gate and into the darkness of Middle Hell.
I dropped to my knees and sucked in the cold air. By now, however, my armor was glowing with a heat of its own. The leather inside my shield was actually smoking, and every time the collar of the breastplate touched my neck, I could feel the skin blister. I shook my helmet off and threw my shield to the ground, working the straps of my breastplate loose with trembling fingers. Not far away, Diomedes was doing the same.
“Your hair,” I said when at last I’d regained my breath. “It’s a little shorter.”
Diomedes felt the back of his neck, then ran his hand across his head. “Yours too.”
Sure enough, every inch of hair not covered by my helmet had been singed right off. Well, so much for the “Long-Haired Achaeans”. And my feet had little triangles of red scorched into them between the sandal straps. “So whose bright idea was this?” I groaned.
Diomedes started to answer, then checked himself. He shook his head. “If I ever needed a swallow of wine . . . ,” he said, opening the skin. He poured out a few drops to the gods,
then tilted his head back and swallowed. He grit his teeth, slapped his thighs, and sputtered. “Strong!” he gasped. Then he had another swallow.
“Here, let me try some,” I said. “Aiki!” I felt as if someone had slapped my face from the inside.
“If only we had some water to dilute it,” said Diomedes, “and a bite to eat.”
“There’s always our bread,” I said, removing one small loaf and placing it carefully on my shield. It wasn’t much to look at. “Judging by what it did for Ignotus, I’d say it isn’t poisoned.”
“Maybe we’ll grow wings.”
“It’s bound to do something,” I said. “It was made by the gods.”
Diomedes took the loaf off my shield and sniffed it. Touched it with his tongue. “You go first,” he said, handing it back to me.
“You licked it!” I said. “I’m not going to eat it after your tongue has been all over it. No telling where that thing has been.”
Diomedes rolled his eyes. He seemed to have recovered from his mood. Adversity always cheered him up.
“Besides, you’re younger,” I added.
“What’s eight years when we’re both over three thousand?”
“A lot can happen in eight years.”
Diomedes sighed. “Why do I bother arguing with you?”
“Because you’re an idiot,” I said, handing back the loaf. “Now eat up.”
He sighed again. “We’re just wasting time here.” He took a small bite of the bread.
“So?” I said.
“You’d think the gods would be better bakers. How hard can it be to add a little yeast?” He took another small bite, chewed, and swallowed, then put the rest of the loaf in his mouth and washed it down with more wine.
I watched him carefully, but nothing happened. And nothing continued to happen. Finally, I took a loaf for myself and nibbled on it. There certainly wasn’t anything outwardly remarkable about the bread, though I did find it filling. A few more swallows of wine, and I was ready for a nap.
“You stay here, then,” said Diomedes. “I’ll scout ahead.”
“Diomedes,” I said, catching him by the arm. He turned to face me. “About what we discussed back there . . . our memories and regrets and stuff—”
“Enough talk,” he said. He turned on his heel and jogged away.
I sat back down and leaned against my shield. Folks always said I was a complicated fellow, but Diomedes—there was a man you could know for a thousand years and still not begin to figure out. On the surface, he seemed like such an uncomplicated man—so practical, always focused on what needed doing. Then he’d go into a funk over some trivial comment like that business about my memories. I worked through the conversation for a while. I let my mind wander. Then I thought I’d sleep. But the air was too hot, and my skin hurt, and the ground was stony. I lay on my back, staring into that dull, starless sky, thinking over all I’d done and what was left to do.
It is impossible to keep track of time in the Underworld. Hours stretch into days, and centuries pass imperceptibly. It was a curious sort of insomnia that plagued me. My weary brain kept shifting from hope to despair and back again. On the one hand, I had only to open my eyes to grasp the crushing misery of my predicament. Yet whenever my thoughts returned to Ignatius and his mysterious words, I was filled with a deep sense of joy. “Here, where hope is so scarce,” he had said, “the slightest measure may suffice to conquer all.”
I had never expected much of the afterlife. Even the most optimistic Greeks have trouble seeing it as more than a sort of bleak abyss. But then I hadn’t expected a realm of ceaseless torment either. Now it seemed that there might be some place beyond Hades after all—a place populated by shining creatures like Ignatius, where the wine worked wonders and the bread had the power to transform demons into victories. “I was given leave to return to you only for a short while,” he had said. But return from where? And who gave him leave? My mind sifted through these questions till my head ached.
I must have dozed off eventually, because the next thing I knew, Diomedes was kicking me awake. “Get up. We need to move.”
“Mm-hmm. Just a little longer,” I protested.
“You’d spend your life asleep if you had the chance.”
I looked up at him. “Well, that’s probably true, Diomedes.” I loved to sleep—would indeed have spent much more of my life in that blessed state if Diomedes had not always been there to kick me conscious. It was a sort of ritual that had evolved between us over the course of our travels—my indolence struggling with his industry, so that I always felt overworked and he always felt restless. Diomedes considered sleep a waste of valuable time, and I never knew him to spend more than three or four hours with his eyes closed.
“Why rush?” I said drowsily. “Our situation couldn’t be much worse.”
“We’re not alone.”
“What?” I was awake now.
“It’s Proteus. I found tracks.”
“Proteus!” I practically shouted the name. “Didn’t he die by the wall?”
“Apparently not. I found tracks.”
“Show them to me.”
“I brushed them over.”
“Why?”
“If he retraced his steps, I didn’t want him to run into my own.”
“How do you know they were his tracks?”
“They were human. Then horse. Then bird. Then they disappeared altogether.” He nodded to himself. “Besides that, I can smell him.”
I took a long breath through my nose. Though faint, I could smell it too—that stale odor like seaweed. “So I guess our situation could be worse after all.”
“The tracks made straight for the horizon. Came up to a curious sort of field. Like a necropolis, I think. The terrain is smooth but crowded with tombs.”
“Tombs?”
“Made of stone. Square like ovens. Filled with fire. I couldn’t get close enough to look inside. The tracks turned to the left, but there didn’t seem to be a way through. Then they disappeared.”
“I guess we’ll head to the right, then.” I shouldered my gear.
“To the right it is.”
The valley was exactly as Diomedes had described it: disappointingly empty and monotonous—the same relentless landscape of rubble we’d seen all along, the only difference being the fiery “tombs” that littered the ground like stone wells, an evil orange glow reaching out from within.
“You have to ask yourself,” I mused aloud, “why anyone would build a wall like that if a graveyard was the only thing behind it.”
“Actually, you don’t have to ask yourself,” answered Diomedes. He kept glancing from side to side and overhead, watching for Proteus. It made me nervous.
“Maybe to keep out grave robbers,” I continued, “but then again, how could anyone get close enough to steal anything?”
We followed the bank of tombs to the right until we were almost to the walls themselves, but just as I was about to suggest we turn back, Diomedes spotted the path.
“There,” he said, pointing ahead, “about fifty paces.”
The tombs crowded all the way up to the wall, but here a gravel path wound among them, just wide enough for us to march single file without singeing the little hair we had left. On either side, flames sprouted from the earth like burning trees.
As we made our way down the path, I began to notice a melodic sort of hum below the cackle of the fire. In a way, it was a relief after the racket of our previous journey, but the longer I listened, the less it pleased me. At first I did not recognize it as weeping, but its effect on my mood was immediate, tugging cheerlessly at my soul like a beggar’s hand. Whoever was trapped in those tombs, I sincerely pitied them. It reminded me of the suffering I’d left behind in my own burning prison, and I was therefore all the more eager to put this leg of our journey behind us. Diomedes and I quickened our pace.
My loathing of the place, however, did not prevent me from noticing that each stone box was engraved with some
sort of text. “Diomedes,” I called out. “See here. These boxes are covered in writing.” Again, my curiosity was getting the better of me. I crouched to have a better look but couldn’t move closer because of the heat.
“Come on now, Odysseus. Your snooping has caused us enough grief already.”
“Yes, of course, my friend. But look,” I said, “it’s some sort of code. Or an alphabet. Not unlike our own, really. See, here’s an iota, and here an omicron, an alpha, a nu . . .”
Diomedes kept walking. “I won’t slow down,” he shouted over his shoulder.
“. . . and look over here: a pi, an upsilon, two lambdas . . . hmm. And is that a mu?” I may be a little scatterbrained at times, but once I’m engaged, there isn’t much anyone can do to distract me.
“I won’t make this journey any longer than it needs to be,” Diomedes said, turning back around.
“Just hold on a moment,” I shouted. I could almost make it out.
“ . . . alpha, nu—”
“Enough.” Diomedes hit me on the back of my helmet with his shield. Well, he knew how to get my attention.
“All right! All right!” I croaked, ears ringing. And I rose to follow him. As I did, however, a voice cried out from among the tombs: “Odysseus? Odysseus of Ithaca?”
Diomedes groaned and clapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. “I knew it.”
CHAPTER 3
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
I LOOKED BACK to see where the voice was coming from. I heard Diomedes’ sword slide from its sheath.
“Odysseus!” Not only was it my name, but the voice itself was familiar. “Odysseus, Lord of Ithaca! Come back! I command you!”
Then I recognized it. Looking to my right through a forest of flame, I beheld Agamemnon, Son of Atreus, Lord of the Argives. He stood about a stone’s throw away. The old warlord. The last I’d seen of him was on the beaches of Troy. He had a ship full of slaves and gold under his feet, and in spite of myself—for I never much liked the man—I thought he had never looked so majestic. “Say what you like,” I’d whispered to Diomedes, who had come down with me to see him off. “He is a bully and a lout and the sort of man who would steal his best friend’s woman . . . but that fellow knows how to carry himself like a king.” Even at the age of sixty, he cut a powerful figure: his tan face scarred and coarse from battle, his broad, broken nose and white beard falling across his chest in braids woven with gold . . . the man had a way of holding his head that made you want to bow.
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