Omnipotence.
It manifests as a broad-shouldered figure of light, Its skin like iron heated to glowing, swathed in a tumbling robe, eyes white as burning phosphorus. The hair is golden but hard to distinguish from the flames that flicker from His head, and the radiance around all defies the eyes to gaze upon it.
Divinity.
This is Apollo, the Sun God, as they have never seen Him.
There is no recognition to soften the resistance they feel. Both Ilia and Leda stand fast.
But Danae has a purpose.
The wrath within her is as fierce as any crucible, and her resentment blocks out all else. She does not pause but, with impossible insolence, strides down the very centre of the great hall as if it were a royal causeway built exclusively for her. She is a tiny figure in all that magnificence, but one that refuses to be overwhelmed; her eyes are fixed on the God. Her long hair sweeps behind her, a trailing conflagration in the fiery light. As if fuelled by her audacity, her shadow rises behind her like a giant coming to assist, a testament to the intensity that burns within her.
For a moment she seems almost a match for the God.
Until He moves.
One mighty hand. A palm. Burning white. Raised.
Still 20 paces short of the dais, Danae seizes up. It is as if she is fighting a bungie cord that will stretch no further. Leaning forward and driving though she is, she cannot move. She cannot advance. Her shadow draws up even taller behind her, pushing her forward, a towering phantom whose head touches the roof – but it is no use. She is fixed.
Straining. Futility. Desperation.
As if her divinely bestowed strength, obstructed as it is, metamorphoses to sound and then erupts from her throat, she emits a grunting, anguished cry that echoes around the cavernous temple.
“LET…ME…GO!”
Ilia and Leda cover their ears. Even the God appears a little startled. But despite the enormity of Danae’s reaction, she remains inert.
He holds her there, by whatever force it is that He is exerting, simply watching. She continues to struggle, pushing, writhing. Her sisters watch on, admiring her irrepressible spirit, but they can see it is pointless. For their sister’s sake they are silently pleading for her to stop.
Finally, even Danae seems to realise that to fight this is futile. She straightens up, her shoulders slump, her chest is heaving.
Behind her Leda and Ilia advance, released from whatever it is that binds Danae. They approach their sister. Ilia places a gentle hand on her shoulder. Her hand feels the tension that has turned Danae’s body to steel.
“It’s ok, Danae...”
…Release!
As if it is a trigger, Danae breaks. Her heaving chest jerks into the spasmodic arrhythmia of grief, and she begins to sob, a long overdue release of sorrow that floods from her.
“It’s NO…NOT ok!” she shouts, desperately trying to maintain her anger.
Her knees give way and she falls to them. Her eyes are clenched like fists, yet from them the tears still flow. The pent up anguish that she has withheld all this time is being released in one great deluge.
A wail comes from her that is barely discernible:
“You …let…him…die!”
Leda and Ilia are fixed on their sister, kneeling beside her and embracing her, so they do not notice immediately. But soon all three become aware that the God’s aspect has changed.
His hand is down. The fire has cooled, the light faded. He seems to have shrunk; just a young man sitting on an over-sized throne. His head is no longer crowned with flame – just a simple wreath of laurel. The glow within the hall has dimmed to that only provided by the braziers and what comes through the open doors. His soft face sports an almost human expression – could it be pity?
As Danae continues to sob, comforted by her sisters, He stands and silently approaches, until He is standing before her. He places His hands on His hips and looks down at her with sympathy – but also with a hint of incomprehension.
“I am sorry,” He says.
She is just whimpering now, her chest still shaking. She looks up at Him through her bleary red eyes that are swollen to slits.
“You could have saved him. You let him die.”
He shakes His head gently.
“No,” He says simply, “I could not.”
She tilts her head in a scornful disbelief.
“You’re a God!” she accuses Him. “You knew the Minotaur would be there. You told us …to find the wings.”
“I did not know Asterion still lurked in His ancient House. Or more correctly, I did not know in what age of the world you would enter. But I told you, I cannot directly intervene. It would only make things worse.”
“How could they be any worse?!” she spits.
He does not react, but that sorrowful expression returns.
“Believe me,” He responds, “they could be a lot worse. And they have been. For you,” and here He looks at all three of them, “in this life it has only just begun.”
“Just begun?” says Leda, not comprehending. They all pause for a moment, a pause that Ilia is the first to break:
“Wait,” she says, shaking her head, “you’re saying Dad’s death was part of this curse upon us?”
His nod is almost imperceptible.
“But Dad died because we were trying to break the Curse, not because of it!”
“Without the Curse there would be no need to try and break it.” He says no more; He knows they will need some time to process this.
“Hang on,” Danae responds, with a mixture of anger and confusion that just comes across as annoyance; “that’s really messed up.”
Leda looks lost as well. Ilia, who is also struggling with her conclusion, resorts to thinking out loud:
“So, the dangers we face trying to break the Curse… are actually part of the Curse?” She sounds unconvinced. “I mean, we bring the Curse on ourselves by trying to break it…”
Leda then jumps to the logical conclusion, although she is so uncertain that she expresses it as a question:
“So …we would be better off ignoring it?”
“And then,” Danae adds, closing the cognitive loop, “it wouldn’t be a curse; if we ignored it then it wouldn’t exist…it would sort of go away…”
All three of them appear unconvinced, so they are not surprised when Apollo responds with a shake of His head.
“No, it does not work like that,” He explains. “Hera does not see everything you do and then set in motion counter-measures to harm you – for a start, if She could see everything then She would know what you are trying to do at any given moment and stop you, and She would be able to see you here with me. Instead, everything that you do has the potential to turn out good for you, or bad. But the Curse works like a stain on your souls that pushes outcomes towards the negative and attracts harm. You still have choices as to what you decide to do, and for each choice there is still the possibility that the outcome will be good or bad, but the Curse weights everything heavily towards a painful result.”
“So no matter what we do, we are screwed? Is that what you are saying?” That accusing tone returns to taint Danae’s voice.
“Not entirely, but the chances of things going wrong for you are much greater than the likelihood of them working out well.”
“So basically – we’re screwed,” Leda concludes, agreeing with Danae’s simplistic interpretation. Everyone ignores the inappropriate use of language by the 12-year-old.
As Danae begins to understand what she is being told, she finds her anger rising again, and reacts.
“So why would you let us go into the Labyrinth at all? The chances of it turning out alright were less than zero!”
“Not quite so low…”
“Well if I had a 1% chance of not being eaten by a shark, I can tell you I would never go in the sea! You should have told us!”
He does not answer; He just regards her seriously.
“Well?” Danae dema
nds obstinately.
“The odds were not good, that is true. But you did retrieve the Wings…”
“But it cost Dad his life! We will never see him again!”
Danae has risen to her feet now. She is squared up to the young God. Her fists are clenched so hard that they are like white knots at the ends of her arms. Her eyes have taken on a fierce dilation. Her flared nostrils are pulsing rapidly.
He remains impassive. Then He says the one thing that could completely disarm her:
“That is not certain.”
A moment’s lag then…
Shock!
“What?!”
It is like a slap across the face that leaves you staring, stunned. Danae’s fury is erased. All three are frozen. It makes no sense. A moment of hope and confusion is followed by disappointment. They have already accepted the truth.
“You mean, when we are also dead,” says Ilia cautiously.
He turns to her and stares deeply into her blue eyes. There is something within His look that stirs her to excitement. Something impossible. Her eyes widen.
“Maybe not.” He is far too calm for what He is conveying.
The girls are not. Confusion. Incomprehension. A wild hope. The terror of disappointment. These all compete within them. Of all three, it is Leda who thinks she understands first. She reveals this in one word that bursts from her lungs like a cannonball:
“Hades!”
He looks down to her and nods. Considering the hope that He is engendering, His expression is disturbingly grave.
“Yes. Hades.”
A pause.
The girls erupt.
“How??”
“What do you mean??”
“What do we need to do??”
“Do you mean it??”
“How is that possible?”
“Can we bring him back?”
It is impossible to describe how this sudden reversal hits them. It has taken them months to finally accept the unacceptable, to understand it is real, to truly know in their innermost being that Dad is gone for good and they will never see him again. And with that knowledge had come a heaviness, as if several feet of concrete had been poured into their souls and hardened there. The weight of it threatened to drown them.
But now, like a pendulum swinging from one extreme to the other, this certainty might be undone.
It is like the sun has exploded through a clouded sky and lit their world. Something they were accepting as irreversible has been overthrown. Their manner is transformed; an excited gleam in the eye that only the young possess; an energy in the limbs; expressions as vivid as spring flowers; voices babbling like a chattering stream.
Considering their reactions, Apollo observes them with an almost inappropriate solemnity. He waits for them quieten down, then raises a hand to keep them silent.
“The answer to most of your questions is …perhaps.” They are biting their tongues, eager to speak, but His serious demeanour is enough to momentarily inhibit their enthusiasm. “I said perhaps. But,” and here He almost winces as He speaks, as if struck by a scarred memory of terrible pain, “it is incredibly dangerous. Even the gods avoid Hades’ realm.”
“Tell us!” they demand.
He looks from one to the next, as if gauging their readiness for what He is about to tell them. He exhales slowly, seemingly convinced, then continues.
“The shade of your father is in the Underworld. He is with my Uncle, in that darkest abode where King Minos sits enthroned…”
“And we can go there?” Danae interrupts, a fire gleaming in her eyes. She poses this so insistently that it is almost a statement.
“It has …been done,” He responds, “but you must know this.”
For a moment they are silent as they search their memories. Then again Leda is the first to respond.
“Yes,” she blurts, “Odysseus! Odysseus went to Hades!”
“And Aeneas!” adds Ilia.
“So we can go too?” Danae presses urgently, almost willing the answer she wants to hear.
“They did,” Apollo agrees, “but do you remember the circumstances? And what they achieved?”
Leda is nodding.
“Yes!” she says. “Odysseus needed to speak to someone…”
“Tiresias, the prophet of…your prophet…” Ilia interjects.
“To learn how to get past Scylla and Charybdis…”
They all know their mythology well and the story is told by all, one talking across the other.
“And Odysseus summons him and the other ghosts up with a ritual he performs on the banks of the River Styx – pouring milk, honey, wine and …”
“…water into a hole, then adding the blood of a sacrificed…”
“ram…”
“And a ewe. The ghosts of the dead flock up to drink the blood and Odysseus keeps them away with his sword until they tell him what he wants to know…”
“Could we perform that ritual?” It is Ilia who asks this, cutting across the narrative. The others fall silent.
“The Nekuia?” Apollo appears sceptical. “It would not achieve what you desire,” He continues: “Odysseus merely wished to speak to the dead, not to bring them back. But there were others that achieved this…” He pauses, waiting for them to elaborate. Ilia is the first, although she sounds hesitant:
“I think Hercules went to Hades, to bring back Cerberus as one of his twelve labours…and to bring someone back as well?”
“Yes, Alcestis,” continues Apollo, “the brave wife of Admetus. Hercules was repaying a debt of hospitality. However, Hercules had to wrestle Thanatos to release her…”
“I’ll wrestle him!” says Danae without hesitation. “I have the strength. Who is Thanatos anyway?” she adds as an afterthought.
“Thanatos? He has many names in many cultures, living and dead. But for you, He is usually depicted in black robes and wielding a scythe; He is called Death.”
“Death?” Danae looks suddenly less confident. “Riiigghht. Oh! Well…perhaps if I can surprise Him?”
Apollo simply stares at her.
“Take Him of His guard?”
He remains unmoved.
“A few dirty tricks?” she adds, sporting with her cheekiest grin. The return of her humour is a good sign.
Finally, Apollo smiles too.
“I was not that generous with my gift!” He responds with mock consolation. “But there were others as well,” He continues, “who made that journey and did not rely on the strength of Hercules – although most were mighty heroes. Theseus descended to Hades, for example, and tried to rescue Persephone. However, there was also one who did not possess the heroic prowess of Hercules or Theseus and journeyed to the feet of Hades himself, returning alive. Do you know who that was?”
The girls eye Apollo thoughtfully, but remain silent, shaking their heads.
“Let’s sit,” He says. He turns and they follow him to the steps of the dais, taking a familiar position around Him. How strange this calm after the fury of only a few minutes before, but the God can have that effect. Once they are seated, He begins:
“Orpheus, was my son.” This is a surprise; they did not expect anything quite so personal. Indeed for a moment, Apollo appears mournful. “I tell you of him because in his tale there may lie some hope for you – but also therein lies a warning. His mother is the beautiful Muse, Calliope, and such love was between us that our son manifested the sum of both our musical gifts. Whilst yet young I gifted him with a golden lyre of exquisite craftsmanship, which I then instructed him to play. His skills, however, were his own, and his music was pure and untainted by custom or taste of others. Even with such pedigree his talent was astonishing. His mother then taught him to put words to melody and his singing was merged with his playing, creating such blended symphony of perfection that both Gods and men alike, whether friend or bitterest foe, were entranced by it. His song drew the naiads from their pure waters, the dryads from their graceful trees and the animals from their
leafy forests to dance the great rhythms of nature in an endless carousel around him – indeed even the trees and rocks, abandoned by their nymphs, drifted to him and joined nature’s ballet, shifting to his harmonies. There has never been a music like that of Orpheus, surpassing even my own divine art.
“Such an artist as Orpheus was destined to know only one great love and she was Eurydice, a tree nymph and also my offspring, as beautiful and graceful as his music was sublime. One day, playing his lyre in the deep forests of his home in Thrace, his music summoned her from her oaken shell and, as she came to dance around him, he was immediately entranced and from that moment his heart eternally captured. They were wed with great celebrations and the young God of marriage – Hymen – attended. But at what should have been a joyous feast He brought a shadow; He did not smile, no mirth was His, and continuously His sacred torch spattered and smoked and would not burn clean. The ill omens were clear to all well before Hymen made His dire prophecy; such a perfect union as theirs was not destined to last, but would shortly end in tragedy.
“The fate that loomed over them only increased their love and for a short time they shared the world in divine bliss. Orpheus, utterly inspired by her beauty, played as never before and Eurydice, equally smitten, danced around him with transcendent grace, intertwining the allure of movement and music in a symbiotic union of perfect form. But just as their union was blissful, so it was doomed.
“Deep in the forests one day, dancing among a grove of her beloved oak, with Orpheus playing on the very fringe of hearing, she was spied by a young shepherd named Aristaeus. He was as smitten by the vision of Eurydice as Orpheus had been and, mesmerised and mindless, he approached her, speechless. She turned to flee and without thinking he set in pursuit. She fled through grove and glade, leaping streams and fallen timber, and such was her speed that Aristaeus could not catch her and soon fell behind. Her terror did not allow her to rest, however, and finally her destiny descended upon her, and Eurydice stepped upon a coiled viper. Its bite was quick and deep, and Eurydice’s cry summoned her husband. No sooner had Orpheus come to her than she expired, breathing her last breath into his mouth.
The Progeny of Daedalus Page 24
