Olympos

by Dan Simmons

  It will be worth it.

  This thought crashed through Menelaus’ skull like the point of a lance. It will be worth it—any price would be worth it—to kill that faithless bitch. Despite the weather—it was a cool, gray winter’s day—sweat poured down under his helmet, trickled through his short, red beard, and dripped from his chin, spattering on his bronze breastplate. He’d heard that dripping, spattering-on-metal sound many times before, of course, but it had always been his enemies’ blood dripping on armor. Menelaus’ right hand, set lightly on his silver-studded sword, gripped the hilt of that sword with a numbing ferocity.

  Now?

  Not now.

  Why not now? If not now, when?

  Not now.

  The two arguing voices in his aching skull—both voices his, since the gods no longer spoke to him—were driving Menelaus insane.

  Wait until Hector lights the funeral pyre and then act.

  Menelaus blinked sweat out of his eyes. He didn’t know which voice this was—the one that had been urging action or the cowardly one urging restraint—but Menelaus agreed with its suggestion. The funeral procession had just entered the city through the huge Scaean Gate, was in the process of carrying Paris’s burned corpse—hidden now beneath a silken shroud—down the main thoroughfare to the center courtyard of Troy, where ranks upon ranks of dignitaries and heroes waited, the women—including Helen—watching from the reviewing wall above. Within a very few minutes, the dead man’s older brother Hector would be lighting the pyre and all attention would be riveted on the flames as they devoured the already burned body. A perfect time to act—no one will notice me until my blade is ten inches into Helen’s traitorous breast.

  Traditionally, funerals for such royal personages as Paris, son of Priam, one of the Princes of Troy, lasted nine days, with many of the days taken up by funeral games—including chariot races and athletic competitions, usually ending in spear-throwing. But Menelaus knew that the ritual nine days since Apollo blasted Paris into charcoal had been taken up by the long voyage of carts and cutters to the forests still standing on Mount Ida many leagues to the southeast. The little machine-things called moravecs had been called on to fly their hornets and magical devices along with the cutters, providing force-shield defenses against the gods should they attack. And they had attacked, of course. But the woodcutters had done their job.

  It was only now, on the tenth day, that the wood was gathered and in Troy and ready for the pyre, although Menelaus and many of his friends, including Diomedes standing next to him here in the Achaean contingent, thought that burning Paris’s putrid corpse on a funeral pyre was an absolute waste of good firewood since both the city of Troy and the miles of Achaean camps along the shore had been out of fuel for campfires for many months, so picked-over were the scrub trees and former forests surrounding Ilium itself ten years into that war. The battlefield was a stubble of stumps. Even the branches had long since been scavenged. The Achaean slaves were cooking dinners for their masters over dung-fueled fires, and that didn’t improve either the taste of meat or the foul mood of the Achaean warriors.

  Leading the funeral cortege into Ilium was a procession of Trojan chariots, one by one, the horses’ hooves wrapped in black felt and raising little noise on the broad stones of the city’s thoroughfare and town square. Riding on these chariots, standing silent beside their drivers, were some of the greatest heroes of Ilium, fighters who’d survived more than nine years of the original war and now eight months of this more terrible war with the gods. First came Polydorus, another son of Priam’s, followed by Paris’s other half brother, Mestor. The next chariot carried the Trojan ally Ipheus, then Laoducus, son of Antenor. Following in their own jewel-bedecked chariots were old Antenor himself, down among the fighting men as always rather than up on the wall with the other elders, then the captain Polyphetes, then Sarpedon’s famed charioteer, Thrasmelus, standing in for the Sarpedon himself, co-commander of the Lycians, killed by Patroclus months ago when Trojans still fought Greeks rather than gods. Then came noble Pylartes—not, of course, the Trojan killed by Great Ajax just before the war with the gods began, but this other Pylartes who so often fights alongside Elasus and Mulius. Also in this procession are Megas’ son, Perimus, as well as Epistor and Melanippus.

  Menelaus recognized them all, these men, these heroes, these enemies. He’d seen their contorted and blood-filled faces under bronze helmets a thousand times across the short deadly space of lance-thrust and sword-hack separating him from his twin goals—Ilium and Helen.

  She’s fifty feet away. And no one will expect my attack.

  Behind the muffled chariots came groomsmen leading the potential sacrificial animals—ten of Paris’s second-best horses and his hunting dogs, droves of fat sheep—a serious sacrifice these last, since both wool and mutton were growing scarce under the siege of the gods—and some old, shambling crooked-horned cattle. These cattle were not there for their pride of sacrifice—who was there to sacrifice to now that the gods were enemies?—but there for their fat to make the funeral pyre burn brighter and hotter.

  Behind the sacrificial animals came thousands of Trojan infantry, all in polished armor this dull winter’s day, their ranks running back out through the Scaean Gate and onto the plains of Ilium. In the midst of this mass of men moved Paris’s funeral bier, carried by twelve of his closest comrades-in-arms, men who would have died for Priam’s second-eldest son and who even now wept as they carried the massive palanquin for the dead.

  Paris’s body was covered by a blue shroud and that shroud was already buried in thousands of locks of hair—symbols of mourning from Paris’s men and lesser relatives, since Hector and the closer relatives would cut their locks just before the funeral pyre was lighted. The Trojans had not asked the Achaeans to contribute locks for mourning, and if they had—and if Achilles, Hector’s principal ally these mad days, had passed on that request, or worse yet, formed it as an order to be enforced by his Myrmidons—Menelaus would have personally led the revolt.

  Menelaus wished that his brother Agamemnon were there. Agamemnon always seemed to know the proper course of action. Agamemnon was their true Argive commander—not the usurper Achilles and never the Trojan bastard Hector, who presumed to give orders to Argives, Achaeans, Myrmidons, and Trojans alike these days. No, Agamemnon was the Greeks’ true leader, and if he were there today, he’d either stop Menelaus from this reckless attack on Helen or join him to the death in carrying it out. But Agamemnon and five hundred of his loyal men had sailed their black ships back to Sparta and the Greek Isles seven weeks earlier—they were expected to be gone another month, at least—ostensibly to round up new recruits in this war against the gods, but secretly to enlist allies in a revolt against Achilles.

  Achilles. Now appeared that traitorous monster walking only a step behind weeping Hector, who kept pace just behind the bier, cradling his dead brother’s head in his two huge hands.

  At the sight of Paris’s body, a great moan went up from the thousands of Trojans massed on the walls and within the square. Women on rooftops and the wall—lesser women, not the females in Priam’s royal family or Helen—began a keening ululation. Despite himself, Menelaus felt goosebumps break out on his forearms. Funeral cries from women always affected him thus.

  My broken and twisted arm, thought Menelaus, stoking his anger as one would stoke a fading bonfire.

  Achilles—this same Achilles man-god passing now as Paris’s bier was solemnly carried past this honor-contingent of Achaean captains—had broken Menelaus’ arm just eight months earlier, on the day that the fleet-footed mankiller had announced to all the Achaeans that Pallas Athena had killed his friend Patroclus and carried the body to Olympos as a taunt. Then Achilles had announced that the Achaeans and Trojans would no longer make war on each other, but besiege holy Mount Olympos instead.

  Agamemnon had objected to this—objected to everything: to Achilles’ arrogance and usurpation of Agamemnon’s rightful power as king-of-king
s of all the Greeks assembled here at Troy, to the blasphemy of attacking the gods, no matter whose friend had been murdered by Athena—if Achilles was even telling the truth—and had objected most to the fact that tens and tens of thousands of Achaean fighters being put under Achilles’ control.

  Achilles’ response that fateful day had been short and simple—he would fight any man, any Greek, who opposed his leadership and his declaration of war. He would fight them in single combat or take them all on at once. Let the last man standing rule the Achaeans from that morning forward.

  Agamemnon and Menelaus, the proud sons of Atreus, had both attacked Achilles with spear, sword, and shield, while hundreds of the Achaean captains and thousands of the infantry watched in stunned silence.

  Menelaus was a bloodied veteran though not counted amongst the first ranks of heroes at Troy, but his older brother was considered—at least while Achilles had sulked in his tent for weeks—the fiercest fighter of all the Achaeans. His spearcasts were almost always on target, his sword cut through reinforced enemy shields like a blade through cloth, and he showed no mercy to even the noblest enemies begging for their lives to be spared. Agamemnon was as tall and muscled and godlike as blond Achilles, but his body bore a decade’s more battle scars and his eyes that day were filled with a demon’s rage, while Achilles waited coolly, an almost distracted look on his boy-man’s face.

  Achilles had disarmed both brothers as if they were children. Agamemnon’s powerful spearcast deflected from Achilles’ flesh as if Peleus’ and the goddess Thetis’ son were surrounded by one of the moravecs’ invisible energy shields. Agamemnon’s savage sword swing—fierce enough, Menelaus had thought at the time, to cut through a block of stone—shattered on Achilles’ beautiful shield.

  Then Achilles had disarmed them both—throwing their extra spears and Menelaus’ sword into the ocean—tossing them down onto the packed sand and ripping their armor from their bodies with the ease a great eagle might tear cloth away from a helpless corpse. The fleet-footed mankiller had broken Menelaus’ left arm then—the circle of straining captains and infantry had gasped at the green-stick snap of the bone—and then Achilles broke Agamemnon’s nose with a seemingly effortless flat thrust of his palm, finally kicking in the ribs of the king-of-kings. Then Achilles planted his sandal on the moaning Agamemnon’s chest while Menelaus lay moaning next to his brother.

  Only then had Achilles drawn his sword.

  “Surrender and vow allegiance to me this day and I will treat you both with the respect due the sons of Atreus and honor you as fellow-captains and allies in the war to come,” Achilles said. “Hesitate a second, and I’ll send your dog-souls down to Hades before your friends can blink and scatter your corpses to the waiting vultures so that your bodies will never find burial.”

  Agamemnon, gasping and groaning, almost vomiting the bile rising within him, had given surrender and allegiance to Achilles. Menelaus, filled with the agony of a bruised leg, his own set of broken ribs, and a shattered arm, had followed suit a second later.

  All in all, thirty-five captains of the Achaeans had chosen to oppose Achilles that day. All had been bested within an hour, the bravest of them decapitated when they refused to surrender, their corpses thrown to birds and fish and dogs just as Achilles had threatened, but the other twenty-eight had ended up swearing their service. None of the other great Achaean heroes of Agamemnon’s stature—not Odysseus, not Diomedes, not Nestor, neither Big nor Little Ajax, not Teucer—had challenged the fleet-footed mankiller that day. All had vowed aloud—after hearing more about Athena’s murder of Patroclus and, later, hearing the details of the same goddess’s slaughter of Hector’s baby son, Scamandrius—to declare war on the gods that very morning.

  Now Menelaus felt his arm ache—the set bones had not healed straight and proper, despite the best ministrations of their famed healer, Podalirius, son of Asclepius, and the arm still bothered Menelaus on cool days like this—but he resisted the urge to rub that ache as Paris’s funeral bier and Apollo proceeded slowly in front of the Achaean delegation.

  Now the shrouded and lock-covered bier is set down next to the funeral pyre, below the reviewing stand on the wall of the Temple to Zeus. The ranks of infantry in the procession cease marching. The women’s moans and ululation from the other walls cease. In the sudden silence, Menelaus can hear the horses’ rough breathing and then the stream from one horse pissing on stone.

  On the wall, Helenus, the old male seer standing next to Priam, the primary prophet and counselor of Ilium, shouts down some short eulogy that is lost on the wind that has just come in from the sea, blowing like a cold, disapproving breath from the gods. Helenus hands a ceremonial knife to Priam, who, though almost bald, has kept a few long strands of gray hair above his ears for just such solemn occasions. Priam uses the razor-sharp blade to sever a lock of that gray hair. A slave—Paris’s personal slave for many years—catches that lock in a golden bowl and moves on to Helen, who receives the knife from Priam and looks at the blade for a long second as if contemplating using it on herself, plunging it into her breast—Menelaus feels a sudden alarm that she will do just that, depriving him of his vengeance that is now only moments away—but then Helen raises the knife, seizes one of her long side tresses, and slices off the end. The brunette lock falls into the golden bowl and the slave moves on to mad Cassandra, one of Priam’s many daughters.

  Despite the effort and danger of bringing the wood from Mount Ida, the pyre is a worthy one. Since they could not fill the city square with a traditional royal pyre a hundred feet on each side and still have room for people there, the pyre is only thirty feet to a side, but taller than usual, rising up to the level of the reviewing platform on the wall. Broad wooden steps, small platforms in themselves, have been built as a ramp-way to the apex of the pyre. Strong timber, reft from Paris’s own palace walls, square and support the massive heap of firewood.

  The strong pallbearers carry Paris’s bier to the small platform at the top of the pyre. Hector waits below at the foot of the wide stairs.

  Now the animals are quickly and efficiently killed by men who are experts at both butchery and religious sacrifice—and after all, thinks Menelaus, what’s the difference between the two? The sheep and cattle’s throats are cut, blood drained into more ceremonial bowls, hides skinned, and fat flensed in mere minutes. Paris’s corpse is wrapped about in folds of animal fat like soft bread around burned meat.

  Now the flayed animal carcasses are carried up the steps and laid around Paris’s shrouded body. Women—virgins in full ceremonial gowns with their faces covered by veils—come forth from Zeus’s temple carrying two-handled jars of honey and oil. Not allowed on the pyre itself, they hand these jars to Paris’s bodyguards, now turned bier-bearers, who carry the jars up the steps and set them around the bier with great care.

  Paris’s favorite chariot horses are led forth, the four finest are chosen from the ten, and Hector cuts the animals’ throats with his brother’s long knife—moving from one to the next so quickly that even these intelligent, high-spirited, superbly trained war animals have no time to react.

  It’s Achilles who—with wild zeal and inhuman strength—flings the bodies of the four massive stallions onto the pyre, one after the next, each one higher onto the pyramid of timbers and logs.

  Paris’s personal slave leads six of his master’s favorite dogs into the clearing next to the pyre. Hector moves from one dog to the next, patting and scratching them behind the ears. Then he pauses to think a moment, as if remembering all the times he had seen his brother feed these dogs from the table and take them on hunting expeditions to the mountains or the inland marshes.

  Hector chooses two of the dogs, nods for the others to be led away, holds each affectionately for a minute by the loose skin at the back of its neck as if offering it a bone or a treat, and then cuts each dog’s throat so violently that the blade almost severs the animal’s head from its body. Hector himself flings the corpses of the two dogs ont
o the pyre—heaving them far above the bodies of the stallions so that they land at the foot of the bier itself.

  Now a surprise.

  Ten bronze-armored Trojans and ten bronze-armored Achaean spearmen lead forward a man-pulled cart. On the cart is a cage. In the cage is a god.

  3

  On the reviewing balcony high on the wall of Zeus’s temple, Cassandra watched the funeral ceremony for Paris with a growing sense of doom. When the cart was pulled into the center courtyard of Troy—pulled by eight chosen Trojan spearmen, not by horses or oxen—the cart carrying its sole cargo of a doomed god, Cassandra came close to swooning.

  Helen caught her elbow and held her up. “What is it?” whispered the Greek woman, her friend, who, with Paris, had brought all this pain and tragedy down on Troy.

  “It’s madness,” whispered Cassandra, leaning back against the marble wall, although whether her madness, or the madness of sacrificing a god or the madness of this whole, long war, or the madness of Menelaus below in the courtyard—a madness which she had been sensing grow over the past hour like a terrible storm sent by Zeus—Cassandra did not make clear to Helen. Nor did she herself know which she meant.

  The captured god, held not only behind the iron bars hammered into the cart but also within the clear egg of the moravec forcefield that had finally trapped him, was named Dionysos—or Dionysus, son of Zeus by Semele, god of fulfillment in wine and in sex and in release to rapture. Cassandra, whose personal Lord from childhood had been Apollo—Paris’s killer—had nonetheless communed with Dionysos on more than one intimate occasion. This god had been the only divinity captured in combat so far in the new war, wrestled into submission by godlike Achilles, denied his quantum teleportation by moravec magic, talked into surrender by the wily Odysseus, and kept in thrall by the borrowed moravec forceshield now shimmering around him like heated air on a midsummer’s day.