by James Welsh
As Athena flew off in the hopes of pulling life out of death, Hades was doing the same, but in a very different way. Far beneath the world, in the land of the dead, Hades stood like a giant over the expanding cloud of shades. The River Styx glowed like day behind Hades, the army of death in front of him burnt like night – Hades wondered if this was how dusk felt, caught in the middle between the sun and the moon, between the light and the darkness.
“My generals!” Hades called out. “My generals, approach!”
Figures in cloaks pushed their way through the crowds of shades until they stood in front of Hades. The god counted them to make sure they were all present, then, when satisfied, said, “Are you ready to do this favor for me?”
“Yes, King Hades,” came the response, unified.
Hades allowed himself to show a little smile. Then, “We will be entering the world through the volcano. I will march with you until then. Once we enter the outside world, though, we will go our separate ways: I, to Mount Olympus, and you, to every village and town and city in this entire world. When we meet again, we will meet as conquerors. Again, do you understand what it is I ask of you? You see, I can only keep up my part of the bargain if you keep yours.”
“Yes, our Lord Hades!”
“Good. Good.”
With that said, the generals turned and carried out their work. Each of the hooded figures was assigned their own regiment of shades. The first regiment to board the ferry was led by Nemesis. She was once a beautiful woman in the world above, married to the tyrant of a far-off city to settle a dispute between families. When the tyrant died of a mysterious illness sometime later, Nemesis took the throne and ruled her people until they loved her. Then, one of the tyrant’s old advisors stepped forward and accused Nemesis of murdering the ruler to gain power. Upon hearing the accusations, the people turned on Nemesis, decapitating her on the palace steps. The people did this, not knowing that it was actually the advisor who had killed their old ruler, not Nemesis. The advisor did this, thinking it would be easier to influence Nemesis, whom he thought was weak and inexperienced. When Nemesis did not play along with the advisor’s scheme, though, he simply turned to the people and tricked them. With her dying breath, Nemesis bitterly swore revenge for the betrayal. The moment her head was cut off, the advisor clutched his chest and collapsed on the steps, breaking his neck. Still, the thought of revenge consumed Nemesis in the Underworld, chewing away at her until she lost her humanity. Now, whenever anyone looked at her, all they saw was a mirage of the person who hated them.
The next regiment belonged to Thanatos, the jailor of the Tartarus prison. Thanatos was once human, in a way – he was the rare person who was born without a soul. He spent his childhood terrorizing his family and his town, and he was eventually caught up in a murder. Thanatos made no attempt to hide his guilt – when the villagers found him, he was sitting in a field, chewing on the raw flesh of the man he murdered, the corpse nearby. The villagers could not wait for a trial, and so they executed him in that field. The village was relieved, because they thought they would never have to worry about that monster again. Yet, even years later, the spot where Thanatos was executed was never forgotten, the grass still somehow stained red. As for Thanatos himself, he had no shade to send to the Underworld in his death. But Hades thought he could be useful, and so he reanimated the rotting body of Thanatos, and he made the walking corpse be the jailor for his prison. Thanatos loved the idea of torturing others for eternity, and so he readily accepted. Centuries later, Thanatos was still a jailor, even though the rest of his skin and muscle had since rotted away, leaving behind a dirty skeleton under the cloak. Only his hatred for all joy kept his bones glued together.
Following in the regiments behind Thanatos were his own prisoners. Thanatos would have rather that the prisoners be kept in their tortures, but Hades insisted that they come along. The prisoners were overjoyed at having their eternal torments interrupted, and they were even more thrilled to carry out their petty revenges on the world above.
There was Ixion, a mortal whose mother used to tell him that his father was Ares. Ixion loved the idea of his father being a god, until he made the mistake of telling the other children in the village. They laughed and teased Ixion, thinking that he was telling stories to make himself sound better. And that was how Ixion grew up, bullied and hating those who taunted him. When he was older and finally in love, he had visited his future father-in-law one fateful afternoon, to discuss the terms of the dowry. The men drank too much while discussing the price, and Ixion – feeling insulted – stabbed the man to death. The scandal drew in all of Olympus – many of the gods wanted Ixion dead, for breaking one of the most ancient of customs: that all hosts should respect their guests, and all guests respect their hosts. The last thing anyone wanted was news getting out about a guest slaughtering the man who welcomed him into his home – who would take up the custom after hearing such tragic news? But Ixion was, as it turned out, very much Ares’ son, although the god of war wanted nothing to do with him. Hera suggested that Ixion be invited to Olympus and be made to appreciate generosity. It was not like Ixion could kill any of them, even if he tried. The other gods were reluctant, but Hera believed strongly in the idea of reform as punishment, and she convinced them to invite Ixion into their home. The murderer gladly accepted and, when they saw him enjoy the infinite feasts, the gods wondered if Ixion had a change of heart. But, as it turned out, Ixion was enjoying his privileges as a guest a bit too much – Hebe spotted him sneaking into Hera’s chambers one night and sounded the alarm. The gods condemned Ixion for his daring, and Hera watched with sadness as a jealous Zeus threw the mortal into the fires of the Underworld. There, Thanatos strapped Ixion to a wooden wheel that spun forever, dizzying Ixion so much that he could not think of any schemes. When the wheel stopped, though, and Hades asked for Ixion’s help, the old schemes came back to the decayed mortal, who was already plotting his way back into Hera’s arms.
There was also Sisyphus leading another regiment. He was once a king who did not deserve royalty – if he was born a commoner, people would have called him spoiled. And he was greedy and ruined, hating anyone who entered his home and asked for him to share. And so, while he made his kingdom rich in trade, he killed any foreigner who was not a trader yet walked on his land. This soon caught the gods’ attention, and Olympus condemned him and his xenophobia to the depths of hell. When Zeus entered the palace to carry out the punishment, Sisyphus ordered the stranger to be arrested and executed, not recognizing the stranger for who he really was. In his fury, Zeus showed proof of his godliness to his jailors, who immediately disintegrated with the knowledge. Zeus then approached the king, grabbed him by the collar, and threw him down to Tartarus. There, Thanatos designed a punishment for his new prisoner: Sisyphus would have to push a massive boulder uphill, forever. Thanatos slyly told him that if Sisyphus could push the boulder to the top of the hill, then he would be freed. And so Sisyphus spent eternity trying to achieve this – but the ground near the top of the hill was slippery, and so the boulder rolled back downhill every time Sisyphus got close to the summit.
Tantalus was the last of the generals. Once an old pagan king who had ruled lands just north of Greece, Tantalus often had Greek traders and diplomats stay in his palace. When he would hear the stories about the Greek gods, Tantalus would burst out laughing – he refused to believe that gods could be so imperfect and childish. But he stopped laughing when he saw that a few people in his kingdom had converted to the Greek faith – and soon that few became many, and that many became all. And before Tantalus realized what was happening, he had lost his kingdom, the people abandoning their old idols and worshipping the new Greek gods. Tantalus invited the Greek gods to a feast, wanting to welcome them to a new realm of their worship. The gods accepted, not realizing that Tantalus had gone insane with frustration. They were halfway through their meal, enjoying their food greatly, when Tantalus
stood up and made his announcement: without realizing it, the gods were eating Tantalus’ son, Pelops. The king had his own son killed and baked into the food, refusing to have his son soon be king of a people whose faith was now strange and new and Greek. The gods, sickened by the cannibalism, threw up their food, and Zeus threw Tantalus down to Tartarus to join the other damned prisoners. There, Thanatos gave Tantalus what was perhaps the worst of punishments: Tantalus was hung from a cherry tree in a deep, flooded pit. The noose was not tight enough to choke, but Tantalus couldn’t free himself from it. Whenever he tried reaching for the cherries blossoming around him to eat, the branches all leaned away from his fingers. When he tried to scoop up water from the pool beneath him to drink, the water receded just out of grasp. And so Tantalus starved and thirsted for centuries, tortured by a meal for torturing the gods with a meal.
And so Hades and his generals and his army of shades made their way across the River Styx, through the winding valley of stones beyond the river, and up the rising tunnel towards the surface. The shades all marched with the promise of life after death – each of them wanted nothing more than to rejoin the world that they lost so long before. They wanted to see colors again, they wanted to taste food again, they wanted to embrace their loved ones again. The generals marched because they wanted nothing more than revenge. Zeus, whose name they spat, was already being shamed at that moment, the once-mighty god now reduced to being chased through a snow maze, constantly on the verge of being bitten for eternity. Zeus’ punishment was just a start, though – the prisoners of Tartarus wanted the rest of the Olympians to share in Zeus’ torture. They wanted the Olympians to feel the anguish that the prisoners had been feeling for centuries. They wanted the Olympians to know that a god’s decision could have consequences as eternal as they were. The gods may have forgotten years before about the prisoners that they condemned, but those damned certainly remembered – they always would remember.
And Hades – who marched at the front of the massive column of ash and dust and dirt and rotting flesh – he led the army because he wanted to be the first to reach Olympus. He wanted nothing more than his family to know that nothing controlled him, that he was his own god, his own ruler. He would mock them the same way they had mocked him over the years. For the first time ever, they would know what it was like to lose something – not just lose something, but to have something they loved taken away from them. They would understand that finally when Hades knocked down Mount Olympus into a pile of rubble.
And so Hades and his army marched, towards the growing pulse of light at the end of the stony tunnel.
Book 12
