“I can’t bear an untidy room,” said Achilles, as Pandy felt her mouth open slightly. “Pain, starvation, war? Please, I’m fine. Blood gushing, broken bones, arms ripped from their sockets? That’s a good day. But a messy room darn near gives me a panic attack!”
Alcie’s mouth dropped a little.
“Achilles,” Persephone said. “This is Pandora, Alcie, Iole, and Homer.”
“Pleasure. Hi. Nice grip, youth. Oooh, love the copper hair …,” he said, shaking everyone’s hand in turn.
“They need to get to Tartarus and fast,” Persephone pressed on. “They know the rules, so you’re their escort.”
“Can I just straighten the gaming room first? Apparently, Hera was putting up chintz drapes and, even though I might lose my mind, I have to see for myself …”
“No!” Persephone cried in a tone no one had ever heard her use before.
“All right, serious mode. I’m on board. Sorry, boss,” Achilles said, standing straight, then moving his hand down in front of his face and turning his smile into a frown.
“You will take them straight through the E-Fields, understand? You will not stop to toss a javelin. You will not stop to throw a discus. This is a matter of life and death!”
“Oooh! Well, it all is down here, isn’t it!” Achilles joked, his smile back again, then his face fell when he saw no one was laughing. “Okay, sorry … didn’t mean to be a heel! Get it? My heel? Achilles’ heel?”
Pandy was on the verge of taking Persephone aside and begging for someone else—anyone else—to guide them.
“Right,” Achilles said, moving to the wall and removing the biggest sword anyone, including Homer, had ever seen.
“C’mon, honey,” he said to the blade, tossing it in the air as if it were light as a feather. “We’ve got work to do.”
Then he took his personal shield off the wall and turned to face everyone, shoulders back, mouth set in a firm line. Pandy gasped. This was the picture she’d always had in her mind of the great man; this was a man she could follow.
“Everyone ready?”
Alcie threw her arms around Persephone, who then hugged Iole and kissed Homer on the cheek. Bringing everyone close together in a small circle, Persephone touched Pandy lightly on the forehead.
“You all know I’m horrible at good-byes,” said the goddess.
“I know,” Alcie said.
“I know,” Persephone went on. “So I’m not going to say it. I’ll see you all again; I only hope it’s in sixty or seventy of your years …”
“They’ll be all wrinkly by then!” Achilles chirped, sticking his head into the circle.
“But,” Persephone continued, pushing Achilles’ head back, “just know that I adore all of you and even if Hera turns you all into little cinder piles, there will always be a place for you here.”
“Group hug!” cried Achilles as everyone bunched tightly together.
“Now go!” Persephone said, waving her fingers in front of her face as if to prevent her tears from falling. “Go before I make a fool of myself.”
Running to keep up with Achilles’ enormous strides, they were many hallways and many corners away from the armory when Pandy moved next to Alcie.
“Do you think that’s really Achilles?” Alcie asked softly, running backward so as not to be heard and nodding her head toward the warrior.
“Of course it is,” Pandy said, then her brow furrowed. “Why? Who do you think it is?”
“I have no idea,” Alcie said, turning to run face forward again, only keeping her voice very low. “I’m just thinking he’s not really warrior-like, y’know? His voice is more my-mom-like.”
“I know!”
“I know!”
“Well, he can talk like your mom or Sabina or me for all I care, as long as he gets us through the fields. I’m more worried about Persephone’s good-bye,” Pandy huffed. “Cinders? Piles of cinders? Not quite the farewell I expected. Not really a rousing, cheering send-off.”
“I’ll say it again,” Alcie said. “Persephone’s great, but she’s bonkers.”
Ten minutes later, Homer was barely breaking a sweat. But the blood was pounding in Pandy’s forehead, and she was starting to feel a searing in her lungs, as if each new step was bringing them closer to exploding.
“This place couldn’t have been this big the last time I was here,” Alcie was muttering, trying to keep up with Achilles as her footfalls became heavier and heavier. “They must have added on.”
Iole, however, was resting comfortably on Achilles’ shoulders, where she’d been for most of the long jaunt through the palace.
“May I ask a question of you, sir?” Iole said, not bouncing a bit because Achilles’ gait was so smooth.
“Ask away,” he replied.
“Do you like your name?”
“Wow,” Achilles answered. “That goes right into the category of bizarro, but yes, I love it. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, I’d just heard a rumor that your mother was thinking of naming you something else,” Iole said, recalling her time in the private chambers of Thetis just before Thetis’s marriage to King Peleus—thirteen hundred years earlier—when they were all on the hunt for Lust. “Something like Carpus or Cleon.”
“I’d heard that too! Crazy how stories get passed down, huh? Yes, I overheard Mother talking once about how she’d always liked those names, but some servant girl mentioned ‘Achilles’ and Mother went for it. Very glad she did—Cleon gives me the willies! And Carpus! Can you imagine doing something like that to a child!”
Iole’s very self-satisfied grin lasted only a few more moments until Achilles rounded one final corner and almost everyone found themselves in a massive entry room lit by two hanging oil lamps in the shape of huge narcissus flowers, one of Hades’ symbols. There, looming before them, were the front doors to Hades’ palace.
“Hey,” Pandy panted, slouching against the wall and looking at Alcie, far back down the corridor, now on her hands and knees. “Guess what we found?”
“Please tell me it’s Fear … you’ve put it in the box … you don’t need my help … and … I can just lie here for the next week,” Alcie gasped as Homer ran back to lift her onto his shoulders, carrying her forward.
“Could have used this about five kilometers ago,” she wheezed.
“Why didn’t you let me know?” he said. “Of course, I would have carried you.”
“Brains had her own personal chariot,” Alcie said, looking at Iole and feeling her heart rate slowing at last. “If you’d carried me, that would have left P running solo. Couldn’t do that to her. Wow! I knew this place had doors, but wow!”
The front doors were at least twenty meters high and ten meters across, and each door made a single flat-faced diamond. They reminded Pandy of Wang Chun Lo’s magic crystals—only about twenty times larger. And these doors seemed to be sparkling far more than they should have been in the light of the lamps, accompanied by a crackling sound.
“Something’s wrong,” Achilles said, his hand on the hilt of his sword.
“Yeah,” Alcie said, staring. “They’re cracking up!”
“What?” Achilles started. “Oh, no, silly. That’s not destruction you’re hearing. That just means the population is expanding. You’re hearing facets being cut.”
“Well … sure,” said Alcie.
“Every time a new soul enters the underworld, a new facet appears, magically cut into the doors. And since so many are always arriving, these doors are never silent. No, I’m talking about something else. This entryway is a rather dull shade of gray. There’s no color coming through the doors from the other side.”
“White is predominant,” Iole said.
“And boring,” Achilles said, poking her lightly in the ribs.
“But, what’s wrong with that?” Pandy asked.
“The Elysian Fields are right outside those doors. Also, the only place where the underworld sun shines as brightly as yours does on Earth,” Achilles
answered. “This whole entrance should be awash in the most delicious shade of green.”
“Then these are back doors! Maybe?” Alcie said. “Anyway, I was still right. Doors!”
“C’mon,” Achilles said to Homer. “Usually there are four or five of us athletic, burly types to open the doors. But you’re a hero in the making if ever I saw one. I’ll need your help.”
Homer shot a look to Alcie that, for one-tenth of a second, expressed pure pride and followed Achilles. They chose the door to the right and began to pull, their fingers finding easy holds in the many facets. At first, the enormous diamond wouldn’t budge and once again, Pandy became aware of time slipping away. Then Achilles let out a tremendous yell as he redoubled his efforts. Wanting to prove himself to the great warrior, Homer joined in with a long, loud shout and a greater pull. At last, the heavy door began to swing inward, revealing to all that it was at least two meters thick.
Instantly, the white light glinting off the doors blinded everyone.
“Outside, all of you,” Achilles said.
Shielding their eyes, Pandy, Alcie, and Iole brushed past Homer and Achilles and out onto a large terrace from which descended a long flight of stairs.
“Acclimate to the light before you fully open your eyes,” Iole cautioned.
But Pandy had already been peeking through her fingers. She saw the top of the stairs, and then she looked down to the bottom steps. Steps that should have led into the green meadows and rolling hills of Elysium but instead led directly into …
Snow.
Chapter Eighteen
Cold
“Okay, seriously?” Alcie said, opening her eyes slowly and taking in the vast expanse of white.
“That blue-robed bovine!” Achilles exclaimed. “Look what she’s done to my playground! I have always hated her! Even though she sided with us during the Trojan War, there was just something nasty about that goddess.”
Off in the not-too-great distance, all could see a faint orange glow on the horizon: Tartarus.
“So close and yet, so far,” Iole murmured.
“Hera,” Pandy said staring at the snow fields and the hills of solid ice, then she turned to Achilles. “We’ll never make it. We’ll freeze before we get there.”
“Our feet!” Alcie cried.
But Homer was already unfastening his cloak. Taking out a knife from his carrying pouch, he split the fabric and ripped until he had one long strip, then he sliced that strip neatly in the middle and handed the two pieces to Alcie.
“Off with your sandals, Alce,” he said. “Wrap your feet.”
“Nice thinking, youth,” Achilles said with a smile.
“Truly,” Iole agreed.
Homer began to rip another long strip when Pandy stopped him.
“You can’t go out there without a cloak.”
“You have no idea what I endured at gladiator school, Pandy,” he replied. “Especially when the instructors discovered that I wanted to drop out to become a poet.”
“Poet. Nice,” Achilles cut in.
“They put me in a box on the roof of the administration building for two weeks with no food or water. Blistering hot during the day and freezing at night. I can lose my cloak. I’ll be fine.”
“If I had a cloak, I’d cut it up for you, just so’s ya know,” Achilles said. “But living in a perfect paradise—normally—no need. Sorry.”
After everyone had wrapped their legs to the knees and re-laced their sandals, leaving Homer with a tiny capelet around his shoulders, Achilles led the way out onto the snow. They hadn’t gone but several meters when an enormous spike of ice burst through the ground, nearly cleaving Achilles in two. Another ice-spike erupted only centimeters away from Iole.
“Hera’s spiked the field! We have to make a run for it!” Pandy yelled, breaking into a tear as Homer scooped up Iole onto his shoulders for the umpteenth time. “How far is it to the other side?”
“I can usually cross it in one rotation of your topside sundial—that would be sixty minutes of your time,” Achilles replied, dodging a particularly jagged ice-spike. “But that’s at leisurely pace. We may be able to do better if you all can keep up.”
“Don’t worry about us,” Homer said, momentarily jerked backward as a spike shot out behind them, slitting Iole’s cloak.
“Follow in my path!” Achilles cried. “If I get impaled, I’d suggest going around me.”
They galloped, flat out, for the next quarter of an hour, Pandy consciously trying to forget that she’d just run like a hound through the long hallways of Hades’ palace. She tried instead to find that “feeling” that she’d heard about—the one the marathon runners always talked of when they got to a point where there was no longer any pain, only a sensation of exhilaration, a sensation that they were running on air.
“Yeah,” she thought to herself, dodging a spike. “Not really feeling it.”
“Oh, my beautiful Elysium,” Achilles moaned as he ran on, looking at icicles hanging from the trees surrounding the fields. “You’re never going to come out of this unscathed. I’ll be spending the next two hundred of your topside years just pruning and clipping. How’s everybody doing?”
“Good,” Pandy cried, slipping slightly on the slope created by an ice-spike exploding right next to her.
“Fine here,” Homer yelled. “Alce?”
There was no answer.
“Oh, Mother’s silver feet,” Achilles said, looking back only a moment. “I forgot to warn you all about …”
“Alcie!” Homer barked, stopping to turn around.
“… the well.”
Alcie was gone.
“ALCIE!” screamed Homer, Pandy, and Iole together.
From about fifty meters back came a cry, too muffled to be intelligible. With Iole still on his shoulders, Homer immediately began to head toward the sound as Pandy and Achilles followed.
“Wait!” Pandy said, halting for only a moment, noticing a stillness surrounding them on the frozen field. “The spikes have stopped.”
“Homer, keep going! I hypothesize that they’re only triggered by forward motion,” Iole said, scanning the field from her heightened position as Homer moved forward. “They’re not springing up to either side of us. My assumption is that they’re rigged to sense oncoming footfalls and, once sprung, that’s it. Don’t stray from our original path, Homer.”
“ALCIE!” he bellowed.
“Here!” came her voice, bouncing off the protruding spikes and now seemingly all around them.
“Gods! You didn’t think it might be smart to warn us that there’s a well?” Pandy all but screamed at Achilles—the greatest warrior and second-greatest hero Greece had ever produced.
“Hercules’ bad haircut,” he huffed. “I certainly didn’t see it! I just forgot, okay? Pardon me if I was just trying to get you all to the other side in the fastest possible time!”
“I don’t know why you spirits have to have a well in the first place,” Pandy went on, brushing past the demigod who now stood with his hands on his hips. “You’re all dead! It’s not like you get that thirsty.”
“It’s a delightful touch of home for most of us,” he called after her. “I’ll have you know I was in charge of the decoratives around this place!”
“Shut up and help us!” Pandy now really screamed back at him.”
“Oh great, now I have to deal with attitude.”
She ran over to where Homer and Iole, now on the ground, stood looking into a deep hole flanked on two sides by ice-spikes, one of which had snared Alcie’s cloak as she fell.
“Alcie?” Pandy called down. In the darkness, she could just make out Alcie’s form against a lighter background, perhaps twenty meters down.
“Here,” Alcie said. “I’m right here.”
“Are you all right?” asked Homer.
“Yeah, yeah. I guess when Hera started making it snow, it fell down in here as well. I landed in the stuff. My behind’s a little sore, but I’m good. Ares�
� fingernails, it’s cold. It’s, like, twice as cold down here as up there.”
“Oh, if only we had a rope!” Achilles said.
Pandy, Iole, and Homer did a slow look to Achilles.
“What?” he cried. “I was just saying. What’s with the look?”
“Hang on, honey,” Homer yelled down as Pandy fished the magic rope out of her carrying pouch.
“Help is on the way, Alce,” Pandy said.
“Good. ’Cause it’s really, really cold down here. And I don’t feel so good. It’s like something’s pushing me from all sides. Yeesh!”
“Rope, original thickness,” Pandy ordered. “One end stays here in my hand. Lengthen down to Alcie and tie yourself around her in a harness. Then wait for further instructions.”
Achilles watched as the rope stretched itself and disappeared down into the darkness.
“Now that’s just faaab-ulous!” he cried. “I could have won the Trojan War with that; wouldn’t have had to lift my sword.”
“Hey! Hey!” Alcie was suddenly protesting from the bottom of the well. “What’s this? … I think this rope’s trying to get fresh … What the? … Oh. Oh, okay. I get it.”
“Are you secure?” Pandy asked.
“It’s around my waist,” Alcie called. “Wow, do I feel weird. Okay, good to go!”
“Rope, pull!” Pandy commanded.
The rope began its ascent.
“What the …?” Alcie cried. “OW!”
“Alcie?” Pandy yelled.
“Ow! Whoa! OW! OW!”
“She’s hurt!” Pandy said, nearly dropping her end of the rope. “She’s hurt worse than we thought!”
“Rope, stop!” Iole screeched.
“Alcie?” Homer shrieked.
Silence.
“ALCIE!” he shrieked again.
“Alcie, talk to me!” Pandy called down. “Alcie?”
Nothing.
“Gods!” Homer wailed, then he grabbed the rope end from out of Pandy’s hand. “Okay, rope, tie this end here around my waist and lower me down …”
The rope had just begun to obey when they heard a soft moaning from the depths of the well, then Alcie coughed and cleared her throat.
Pandora Gets Frightened Page 15
