The War Nerd Iliad

by John Dolan

  Sleep shakes his head, turns away. He’s not going to be sweet-talked again.

  Hera thinks it over. “All right then, I’ll give you that girl Pasitea.”

  Sleep turns his huge eyes on her, showing real interest for the first time. “Pasitea? Yes?”

  She nods, “Yes. Although she’s very young.”

  He’s breathing faster. “I get Pasitea?”

  She nods again. “Mmmm. She’s so pretty, and soooo young.”

  He asks again, “I get her? Promise?”

  She nods.

  He bites his lip, then says, “All right. But before I take one step, you’re going to swear by the black river. Come on, stretch one hand to the sea—right, like that! And the other on the earth, yes, like that!”

  Sleep shouts to the air, “Hades! Do you witness her oath?”

  Nothing changes, but both of them flinch at once. They felt it, a pulse from far under the earth. Hades witnesses the oath.

  Sleep nods, “Yes, I’ll put your Zeus to sleep. But his mind is strong; he won’t sleep long. So be quick.”

  Hera nods, and transports both of them to the summit of Mount Ida. Zeus is sitting there staring down at Troy, making sure his wife and daughter don’t meddle in the fight.

  As Hera walks toward Zeus, Sleep climbs up a tree. He finds a good branch, changes himself into a buzzard, and settles down to wait.

  Zeus hears the sweet little jingling of Hera’s earrings and golden belt. He turns toward her, ready to scold—but then something melts inside him. His mouth gapes open, his eyes bulge, and he asks hoarsely, “Hera, I didn’t expect you here. Where is your chariot?”

  Hera lies, “Oh, I tied the horses down the slope.”

  Zeus is staring at her the way he did when they were first married. He mutters, “Why’d you come here?”

  Hera, all demure, lowers her eyes, traces a pattern in the dirt with her pretty feet, and whispers, “I wanted to get your permission to go see our parents, who are quarreling again. Isn’t it sad when husband and wife quarrel? A wife should always be obedient! That’s why I came to ask your permission for the journey. I’d so hate for you to be angry with me!”

  Zeus is staring at her, breathing through his mouth. He gasps, “I’ve never wanted a woman as much as I want you right now. And I’ve had ’em all, goddesses, mortals, demi-goddesses, so many I can’t even remember all their names! There was Ixion’s wife, what was her name? And Danae, O sweet little Danae, with those ankle bracelets … Leto … Semele, O Semele, and Alkmenae, who gave me my son Herakles …”

  “We don’t need the whole list! Get to the part about how I surpass them all!”

  He says, “That’s my point, darling: I never wanted any of them the way I want you right now. Oh yeah, right here. On this nice sunny mountaintop.” “Certainly not! We can be seen from Olympos! The whole family could be watching us! I’d never live it down! But there’s my room, the one Hefestos made me, soundproof, triple-locked. Let’s go there!”

  Zeus whines, “Darling, I don’t want to wait that long! I can hide us from the others right here!”

  He whispers something to the air, and all around them, a carpet of flowers sprouts, flowers so tender that when you roll over them in love-play, it only frees their perfumes. And above, a golden tent surrounds them, dripping glints of golden dew.

  They fall onto the carpet of flowers in each other’s arms. For a long hour Sleep watches from his buzzard perch, muttering and scowling.

  Then he sees Zeus step from the golden shimmer, stretching, yawning, and brushing flowers off his shoulders.

  Sleep hisses, “Always so pleased with himself! Happy as a bull among cows! Never mind; now I earn my sweet Pasitea!”

  He shakes off the buzzard-form, becomes himself—a scrawny husk with huge, burning, night-hunter’s eyes. He leans toward Zeus and whispers, “Sleep!”

  Zeus falls into Hera’s arms, already snoring. Sleep shouts to Hera, “Remember your promise!” and vanishes. Hera nods, and Sleep carries out his last task, going down to Poseidon on the battlefield and telling him, “Now, old Earth, you can do what you want to help the Greeks. That’s Hera’s solemn promise.”

  Poseidon mutters, “My brother Zeus … angry with me?”

  Sleep chuckles, “Hera and I took care of him. She made him happy and I put him to sleep! Zeus is out of action for a while, you can count on that.”

  Poseidon nods, flows to the front of the Greek host. He roars for their attention in a voice bigger than thunder: “Greeks, I lead you now! Good men take the best shields! Weak men take the bad shields! Strong men, take the best helmets! Little men, take the worst!”

  The Greeks obey, eager to please the thing with the voice of a great god and the blurred outline. Soon the best men are wearing the best armor, carrying the strongest shields.

  Hektor, facing the Greeks, sees what’s going on and turns to his men: “They have a god giving their orders today. I have no god-blood. But no matter; we’ll trade some of our blood for more of theirs.”

  He runs at the Greeks and throws. His spear catches Ajax right in the chest. But Poseidon will not let the Greek chiefs die. With Zeus unconscious, he can bend reality in the Greeks’ favor, just as he pleases. So he slows down Hektor’s spear, deflects it into the leather straps Ajax wears on his chest, one for his shield, one for his scabbard. It stops short of Ajax’s skin, though the force of Hektor’s throw knocks Ajax down.

  Hektor groans to see his perfect throw ruined by Poseidon’s cheating. He turns back to the shelter of the Trojan shields—but not fast enough.

  Ajax jumps up with a weapon in his hand. While he was lying stunned on the ground, he picked up a big stone, one of the boulders the Greeks used to keep the beached ships upright. Nowadays, it would take two men just to drag that stone a few feet. But Ajax picks it up with one hand and tosses it sidearm at Hektor without breaking a sweat. The big stone hits Hektor in the perfect spot, just over the rim of his shield, below the bottom of his helmet, on the side of the neck.

  He spins like a wooden top, falls flat in the dust.

  The Greeks are overjoyed, and swarm toward his body, but the Trojans spread their shields over him as hens fluff their wings out over their chicks.

  Polydamus, Hektor’s gloomy advisor, takes his master’s fall hardest of all. He lunges at Prothenor and rams the spear right through the Greek’s shoulder. As Prothenor grabs the dust with both hands, Polydamus screams, “There you are! My spear will make you a nice walking staff for your trip down into the dark!”

  The Greeks hate this sort of gloating. These Easterners can’t kill a man without trying to be witty. It’s unmanly.

  Ajax grabs a spear and tosses it after Polydamus, who’s scuttling back to the Trojan shields as fast as he can. Polydamus sees the throw and ducks; Ajax’s spear whistles over his head and hits Arkelokas, a Trojan warrior who opened his stance to let Polydamus back in. Ajax’s spear slams into Arkelokas’ neck-bone, lifts him right off the ground and pins him to the ground five paces back, while his feet are still in the air.

  Ajax is well pleased with that throw. To show that Greeks can gloat as wittily as Easterners, he calls, “Now, Polydamus, who was your friend that I just pinned to the earth? He looked rich! I’d say he’s just as worth killing as my friend Prothenor, wouldn’t you?”

  Suddenly everyone wants to be witty when they kill a man. Penelos kills Iliones, the richest man in Troy, sticking his spear into Iliones’ eye, bursting the eyeball.

  Penelos calmly yanks his spear out of the eye, takes out his sword, and chops off Iliones’ head and holds it up, showing it to jeering Greeks, then Trojans. He turns the bloody face close to his own and says, “Why, it’s the rich boy, Iliones!” Then he turns the severed head toward the Trojans and says, “Iliones says, ‘Tell Mother and Father I won’t be coming home! And tell my wife not to make dinner for me!’” As the Greeks laugh, Penelos tosses the head toward the Trojans and roars, “And he says you’ll all be joining him any
day now!”

  The Trojans feel their knees go soft as water.

  15

  APOLLO

  ZEUS WAKES UP in a bad mood. He looks down and sees Hektor lying half-dead, Poseidon openly helping the Greeks.

  He glares at Hera. She’s pretending to sleep, but he knows better. “Well, wife, I see you’ve done it again. Taken Hektor out of the fight, tricked me into bed, put me to sleep somehow.”

  She doesn’t react. He goes on, “I’m thinking of giving you a good hard beating. Remember that time you tried to tie me down? Remember what happened when I got free? I had to teach you a lesson. I let you hang by the wrists all night … couldn’t even sleep for your screams. It could happen again.”

  Hera’s scared, remembering that terrible night. She sits up and purrs, “I swear to you, husband, that whatever Poseidon is doing to help the Greeks, it has nothing to do with me. I tried to warn him! ‘Poseidon,’ I said, ‘you silly old fool, you should obey my dear husband Zeus!’”

  He laughs. “Sure you did! You know, woman, if you’d just let me run the family’s affairs, it’d all go a lot smoother. I’ve got it all planned. First I order Poseidon back into the ocean where I won’t have to look at him. Then I send Apollo to heal Hektor and put some fight into those Trojans. Then Patroklas, Akilles’ friend and vassal, will get himself killed by Hektor. Akilles will go crazy with rage and come back into the fight, and the Greeks will finally sack Troy. See?”

  She nods. He goes on, “But I’m not helping the Greeks until Hektor burns at least one Greek ship. That’s the promise I made to Thetis.”

  He stares at her. “So, you understand? Do it my way, or it won’t happen.”

  She nods again, but he can’t read her face.

  He grunts, “Fine. See if you can help for once instead of getting in my way. Go up to Olympos, find Iris and Apollo and tell them to come to me, here. I have things to arrange.”

  Hera bows her head, playing the dutiful wife.

  She crosses to Olympos in an instant. The gods are drinking as usual. As soon as they see her, they jostle to offer her a goblet of nectar, seeking her favor.

  She ignores every one but Themis. Themis always does things just right. In fact, she is the goddess of proper conduct. Themis hugs Hera and asks, “What’s wrong? Has your husband been threatening you?”

  “Oh, Themis, what that man has put me through! Call all the gods together, so I can tell them his wicked plans.”

  When everyone’s seated, Hera announces, “Kinfolk, we must give up. Zeus is our lord, our tyrant, and we must submit. He’s planning to kill many of our favorite humans, and …” she sighs, “... there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  She turns to Ares, takes his dirty, blood-stained hand, and says, “Poor Ares, did you know those cruel Trojans have killed your son Askalafos?”

  Ares goes into a fit, right at the table. He roars, “I’ll kill those Trojans! I’ll kill every one of them! I don’t care what my father says, I don’t care if he hits me with a lightning bolt, I’m going down to Troy right now!”

  He stomps out to hitch up his foul and eerie horses, Panic and Terror.

  Athena says to Hera, “Mother! You know he’ll just get hurt!” Hera runs out after Ares. As easily as a mother takes her baby’s cap off, she yanks the huge helmet from his head, slides the shield out of his grip, and finally wrenches away his spear. As she undresses him, she scolds, “Stupid boy, have you lost your mind? Father Zeus could squeeze you like a bunch of grapes! And if you make him angry, he’ll come here and do the same to all of us!”

  Ares whines, “But they killed my son!”

  She laughs, “What was his name, if you care so much about him?”

  He scratches his filthy, blood-encrusted hair, then mumbles, “It started with an ‘a,’ I’m pretty sure …”

  She grabs him by the scruff of the neck and leads him back to the banquet hall, saying, “Just forget about your son! Not that it matters, but his name was Askalafos, and he was nothing special. Better men than him have died in battle!”

  She pushes him back down onto his couch.

  Hera tells Iris and Apollo to go to Zeus. They arc over the horizon, landing on Mount Ida. Zeus is still sitting there, watching the battle by the ships.

  He nods, “At least you two show up when I ask you. Iris, I need you to go to my brother Poseidon. Be blunt with him. He’s a little slow to understand sometimes, and he can be stubborn. You tell him to stop helping the Greeks, right now. He can go wherever he wants, up to Olympos or better yet down into the ocean where I won’t have to see him, but I want him gone from that battlefield immediately.”

  Iris bows and begins to vanish, but Zeus says, “Wait!” She coalesces again. “And tell him that if he doesn’t like my orders he can fight me anytime.”

  Iris bows, transluces, and flows through the sky to stand before Poseidon on the plain of Troy. How ugly he is, all dirt-dark, wobbling before her.

  In her clear girl’s voice, she intones, “Poseidon, dark-haired prince of the earth, my lord Zeus brings you a message. You are to go up to the gods’ house, or down into your ocean.”

  Poseidon seethes, his somewhat human shape fluctuating as he thinks of a reply. Poseidon has trouble communicating with these bright young gods. He grunts, “Three brothers! Me, Zeus, Hades!”

  She shrugs, “My lord Zeus has instructed me to say that if you do not obey him, he will come down to fight you. He warns you not to challenge him, because he is stronger than you.”

  Poseidon is hurt. He tries to explain to this luminous girl-god thing: “Three brothers! Equals! We drew straws! Zeus drew sky, brother Hades drew down-world; I, I got this, earth in between!”

  She shrugs. He is so ugly, so old!

  He fumes, “Tell Zeus he can rule over you little younger gods! I am his equal!”

  Iris asks, “Poseidon, sir, do you really want me to return to my lord Zeus with this message? Think of the Furies, who will come for you even if the lightning bolt does not.”

  The blurred shape shifts, subsides, and Poseidon says, “I obey. But I am angry. And if Zeus spares Troy, then war between us.”

  Poseidon flows down, seething into the sea like lava.

  Apollo has arrived, in his usual effortless way. He stands before Zeus.

  Apollo is blinding today. He’s always bright, but he seems to know he’ll be unleashed on the Greeks he hates, and as a result, he’s too bright to look at. If he looks like anything, it’s a tall young man. But that’s not it either. He looks like the sun at noon. And like the noon sun, he doesn’t like to be looked at. Even Zeus finds himself squinting to the side.

  Zeus feels the need to boast—Apollo always scares him a little—so he begins, “I just told off your Uncle Poseidon. He was interfering again, helping the Greeks against my orders. So I sent him down into the ocean. Told him, ‘If you make me come down to fight you, Poseidon, then the Titans locked in their graves far below Hades will feel the shock when you fall.’”

  Apollo says nothing.

  Zeus tries again, “Now Apollo, what I want you to do is go down and give the Greeks a good scare. Kill as many as you want, put some courage into those Trojans, drive the Greeks right back to the ships.”

  Apollo has no comment.

  Zeus goes on, “You have free rein. You understand? In fact, you can use Aegis.”

  For the first time, Apollo shows interest. Zeus sees those eyes of burning magnesium for a moment and goes on, “Use it carefully, it’s not a toy!”

  Apollo tilts his head, and the name “Aegis” is posed. Not spoken, but presented to Zeus for verification. Zeus nods, “Aegis.”

  Apollo smiles. A sweet tone, beginning at the horizon, encompasses the two gods and Apollo falls to Earth. As he falls, the sound turns into the scream of a falcon diving on a dove.

  Hektor is sitting up, trying to get his breath back.

  Then the chaos of battle vanishes. He’s in perfect silence. He wonders if he’s dying, but in
stead of going dark, the world becomes sizzling white light. He squints through the glare. This is a god, one of the big ones.

  He asks the white glare, “Sir, which of the gods are you?”

  In reply, the light blasts Hektor’s eyes.

  Hektor bows, saying, “Lord Apollo, forgive me for leaving the battle. But as you may have seen, Ajax hit me with a big rock. I expected to go down to Hades’ country.”

  Apollo replies in the tune a sword would make if played on a huge bronze shield. Hektor will be healed and returned to battle, and the Greeks will run from him.

  The light strikes Hektor head-on, healing his wound, making his blood boil.

  He feels like a stallion let out of its stall. He wants to run, kick, splash through the river and run on again, forever. He stands up, grabs his shield and spear, and goes back to the fight.

  The Greeks are advancing until they see Hektor, magically healed, coming right at them. They stop, shields sagging, spears drooping.

  Thoas, a good man with a javelin, is the first Greek to recover his wits. He calls to his men, “Yes, it’s Hektor. I know he should be dead, but he isn’t! So help me hold him off.”

  Thoas waves his spear toward the weaker men, saying, “You common men, fall back to the ships.” They waste no time obeying.

  Then he points toward the front rank, to Ajax, Teucer, Ideomenus, all the heroes, and calls, “It’s up to us, the best men. We’ll form up tight and hold Hektor off, even if all the gods are with him.”

  Hektor comes on. Next to him is something that runs like a man, a very tall man, but if you try to make out his face it’s like looking at the sun.

  The tall man has no spear or shield. But as he sprints toward the Greeks, he lifts his right hand. There’s something in it, hard to see in the glare. It looks something like a gourd or severed head, with hair or some kind of fringe hanging from it.

  The Greeks stare at it, fascinated. And then the tall man flicks his wrist, and a sound comes from the thing in his hand. The sound is terror. In an instant, all the terrors of childhood—before a man learns words to keep the dark at bay—pour into the mind of every Greek on the field. Men who haven’t felt fear since their beards sprouted suddenly want to weep.