by Diana Tyler
Orpheus stood and took the lyre into his arms, sure the queen would snatch it away and make good on her word to carry it to the tallest peak and fling it into its flames. But Clytemnestra didn’t approach him. Instead, she threw on her cowl and scurried off across the valley, leaping across a brook, squealing like a doe with an arrow in her flank.
As he watched her flee, Orpheus pondered the double-edged power of words, at their ability to both heal like medicine and cut like swords. He picked his plectrum up off the grass and tried to play something light that might cheer his spirits, but his fingers felt paralyzed; they were unable to move in the wake of the women’s feud. The bitter queen had gotten her way after all.
“Oh, Eurydice,” Orpheus half sung, half said as he walked toward the lake. “Wherever you are—basking in Elysium, I’m sure—do you have any idea what I wouldn’t do to sing with you for one quarter of a note? Or to see you for one fragment of a second?”
Orpheus stood at the edge of the lake and dipped his big toe into the water. He tried to remember what it felt like to do so on a hot, sultry day after walking miles in the woods, or threshing wheat in the fields. He wanted to feel the desperate urge to dive in, and then to have relief wash over him as his body went weightless in the water. He wanted to feel the reward of ecstasy after a hard day’s labor, or an afternoon spent composing or performing for throngs of merchants in the agora.
Most of all, he wanted to feel Eurydice’s hand around his wrist, pulling him from the tepid shallows into the colder deep, splashing him as she sung and spun, cleansing him more completely than the purest spring could ever do.
The poet looked down at the lyre, his closest companion; his only companion. He thought of the thousands of songs it had birthed and the millions of tears it had evoked, tears of both sorrow and unspeakable joy. He’d stopped counting the number of years the lyre had been with him there in the Vale, how long it had served as the angelic voice of his hellish grief. But he knew one thing: the day had come to part with it.
Orpheus raised the lyre to his shoulder and admired its turtle-shell sound-chest, its six strings made of the gut of a goat Apollo had killed in the foothills of Olympus. More lyrics flew from his lips.
“Like I’ve been pierced through with Achilles’ spear, or flung from Troy’s great wall,
Still, a greater pain would it surely be to never have loved you at all.”
His eye released a single tear as he rotated his torso, preparing to fling the hallowed instrument into the lake where it would rot and fade to legend.
“Don’t be rash, Orpheus,” came an impish, high-pitched voice behind him.
Orpheus lowered his lyre and said, without turning around, “What foul mischief brings you to our charming sector, Hermes?”
“The only charming thing here is that divine instrument, of which you are about to dispose,” replied Hermes, adjusting the dog-skin cap that made him invisible to the living and dead alike.
“What charm does it bring to you, Uncle?” asked Orpheus, shifting his focus back to the lake. “You never subject your ears to the wailing ghosts of the Vale unless my father has sent you on some spiteful errand. Take your business elsewhere.”
The poet raised the lyre again and took a firm step forward, then, like an Olympic athlete with a discus, he swung the lyre five times back and forth, releasing it on the sixth. The instrument went sailing through the humid air, bound for the murky center of the lake where it would sink into oblivion.
But then, in its apogee, the lyre stopped and hung still, suspended by Hermes’ magic.
“Stop your sorcery, Hermes!” shouted Orpheus as he pivoted back to his puckish visitor.
Hermes just gave his boyish smile, a smile that one could describe as endearing had it not belonged to Apollo’s slyest emissary. The spirit twirled his golden rod, then, mimicking a sailor heaving an anchor out of the sea, he leaned back and tugged on the wand, grinning as he pulled the lyre to shore.
“You didn’t create this treasure,” said Hermes, cradling the lyre like an infant. “What makes you think you can destroy it?”
Orpheus could feel his normal, equanimous deportment being undermined, replaced by the basest of territorial instincts. “What makes you think you can stop me?” He lowered his head like a bull and charged the saboteur.
Just before a collision could occur, Hermes lifted the wand and carved a fair-sized frame in the air between them. Orpheus stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the silhouette forming inside the frame’s silver edges. At first there was nothing but white wisps of mist, starting at the top and curling back in faint tendrils until they met the outline of a royal diadem. But then, in the middle, sharper features formed: an eyebrow, eyelashes, a nose, and lips Orpheus had dreamt of, waking and sleeping, every day and night.
“Eurydice!” Orpheus gasped.
He watched the image take on color. The diadem shone brightly with amethysts and emeralds. The white hair turned to pale honey. The eye glowed green; the lips became scarlet. As Orpheus reached out his hand to touch the cheek, the face became flesh and turned toward him.
“Orpheus,” the image whispered, Eurydice in solid form.
Orpheus stumbled forward, both arms outstretched, but the poet could not steal a single kiss; Eurydice disappeared in an instant.
“Get out of my sight, Hermes,” Orpheus growled. “Take the lyre back to your brother, or find someone else to torture with it.”
Then he stomped through the air where his wife’s face had been and kept on walking, toward woods so dense no light or sound got in. There he would join the others who, by lying down in darkness and denying their senses stimuli, sought an impossible end to their death.
“You think that was the end of my mission here, dear nephew?” Hermes called after him. “To conjure the image of your beautiful wife only to break your heart when you do that very well yourself?” Orpheus said nothing and continued his listless trudge. “Well, you are wrong. What if you really can have Eurydice back, to hold in your arms in Elysium for all eternity?”
Orpheus heard Hermes leap into the air, then saw him flying high over his head.
“Hear me out, Orpheus.” The wings of Hermes’ sandals fluttered as he hovered five feet above Orpheus’s reach. “That’s all I ask. No more tricks. There’s no worse Apollo can do to you if you refuse the message I have to relay, but trust me when I say there’s no worse punishment than to miss this opportunity. It may never come again.”
“What opportunity?” Orpheus muttered, eyes still fixed on the woods just yards away.
“Apollo needs your gifts for a task in the mortal realm. In return, he will raise your spirit to Elysium to be joined with Eurydice’s forever.”
Orpheus stopped walking and looked the imp in his twinkling eye. “What sort of task? And why should I believe you?” He scowled, shaking his head at himself for slipping into Hermes’ trap. “What reason do I have to trust you—you, the notorious knave who thrives on deceit like a tick on a dog?”
“What do you have to lose?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
MISSION
Hermes escorted Orpheus through the Vale, and when a swarm of jealous souls began to moan and shout and yank hard at the travelers’ cloaks, begging to follow behind, Hermes turned them to stone until he and Orpheus were out of sight. Those less hostile were lulled to sleep with a few notes of Orpheus’s lyre before their indifference could morph to madness as their chance at escape strode past them.
“Where are we going?” asked Orpheus.
They’d reached the end of the Vale, which was designated by a dolomite cliff overlooking a churning sea of lava; mourning souls sometimes flung themselves into it, only to be ushered back by Hermes to their sphere, their memories of life feeling more recent, raw, and sharper than on the day they’d died. Perhaps that’s how Apollo could punish him should he refuse to do his bidding—send harpies to throw him over the cliff, again…and again…and again, burning his thin, ghostly flesh, sea
ring his heart with a fresh recollection of love when it knew no threat or foe.
“Up,” was all Hermes said before adjusting his cap, clicking his heels, and grabbing Orpheus’s arm as he leapt out over the cliff, flying them across the lava toward the foggy Fields of Asphodel.
Orpheus had sung about birds, but never had he imagined he might one day fly like one, much less do so in the grim dome of the Underworld. But, as when he’d dipped his toe in the lake and felt no sensation of relief or release, he felt nothing as Hermes sped them through the air between Asphodel’s grayness below and Hades’ iron mantle above.
There was no breeze to guide them, no zephyr to sweep them higher or soften their descent. There were no birds to fly beside, no creature to call to or to follow, and no aerie on which to perch. There was no landscape worth encircling, no scene to admire, no treetops to dance upon.
All was a wasteland. The Fields of Asphodel consisted of nothing but confused clumps of souls whose memories had been washed away the moment they’d drunk from the River Lethe. Like cows grazing tirelessly in a pasture, they picked and picked at the pallid Asphodel blooms, filling wicker baskets and counting them one by one. They were witless, senseless, and for the very first time, Orpheus felt grateful for his plight in the tear-stained Vale.
“Would you like to go the long way, to the Plain of Judgment?” Hermes shouted into Orpheus’s ear. “You can get a good look at Sisyphus rolling his boulder uphill, only to have it crash back on him as he nears the top. And Tantalus, too. He’s the wretch who killed his own son and fed him to his dinner guests. Now he stands in a pool of water that recedes the second he bends down for a drink. And the branches of low-hanging fruit above his head recoil at his touch.” He laughed. “It’s quite pathetic.”
“I think not, Uncle. Unlike some, I do not derive joy from observing others’ pain.” Orpheus half expected Hermes to drop him into the River Lethe below, where his mind would be wiped clean.
“We’ll see about that,” said Hermes.
Their surroundings blurred as they shot fast through the sky, and Orpheus hummed an old tune.
Hermes slowed as the palace of Hades pierced through the smog of sulfurous ash. He landed them along the wall, near two towers and the roaring Chimera that kept watch between them.
Orpheus gazed in awe at the gigantic creature, marveling at its leonine face and torso, the buckskin goat head bleating from its back, and the hissing snake that comprised its tail. “I thought it was just a legend,” he said.
Hermes batted the Chimera on its rump, causing the lion head to whip around and roar so loudly that the walls around them shook. It lunged toward Orpheus and took a swipe at him with its paw, missing him by an inch or two. Then it bucked and turned, allowing the serpent tail to dance and strike as Orpheus sidestepped to avoid it. But it never hit him; he was only being teased.
“That’s enough, my dainty doll,” Hermes cooed as he stood on his tiptoes and rubbed the lion’s chest. “You really should work on being more hospitable to our guests, you know.”
The lion purred as the goat head lay down and the snake went slack, stretching itself gracefully toward the granite ground.
“That’s the problem with the living, and even some of the dead,” said Hermes, glaring over his shoulder at Orpheus. “If they can’t see something with their own eyes, they write it off as fantasy or futile speculation.”
“I didn’t write anything off,” said Orpheus. “But never mind; there’s nothing I’d rather do less in this miserable place than philosophize with you. I came to—”
“To see me?”
The voice rumbled like thunder in Orpheus’s ears. He turned to see the bright white figure of a man the size of a giant standing near the gated entrance that led down to the palace below. A soft yellow glow seemed to pulse above the man’s skin, shrouding even his eyes in a shimmering gossamer layer of light.
Orpheus hadn’t seen his father since the second most tragic day of his life, the day he lost Eurydice once again to the shadows of Hades. Her second death was more unbearable, because he’d caused it…
After the funeral, Orpheus had taken his lyre into the woods, intending to travel to the Cave of Charon, named for the ferryman who sailed the newly deceased across the River Styx. The cave was where Orpheus had planned to breathe his fill of poisonous vapors, fall down dead, and try to persuade Hades’ judges that he belonged with Eurydice, wherever they’d placed her. He had almost reached the cave’s mouth when Apollo had appeared and spoken words the poet could scarcely comprehend; his mind was so muddled with grief.
“Had I known how beautifully you’d play it, I’d never have given you that lyre,” Apollo had said. “It seems it has the power to persuade even the Lord of Death to let your Eurydice rejoin you in life.”
Orpheus had stopped strumming for the first time in days and waited for the apparition to fade or beckon him into the cave to meet his end. But Apollo had remained and continued with his proposition.
“Hades’ ears have been bewitched by your playing, my venerable son. He wishes to grant you back your wife.” Apollo paused just long enough to see dead hope quicken and rise into Orpheus’s eyes, then he extinguished it with the following condition: “However, the path to your love is not without its perils.”
He stopped again, this time to observe Orpheus’s reaction, but the poet was stone-faced. He would face a legion of hellish hybrids, empty-handed if he had to, for a single glimpse of his beloved’s face, let alone have her company forever.
“You must go to the Underworld,” continued Apollo, “enchant three-headed Cerberus until he sleeps, retrieve Eurydice, and then lead her out yourself. Should you turn to regard her as you depart, she will be swallowed back into whichever compartment the judges have assigned her. She’ll be gone forever, Orpheus.”
Orpheus nodded his understanding, still too shaken to speak. Which god of fortune was he to thank for this mercy?
Apollo waved his hands across his son’s face, cloaking him in a mystical nimbus meant to shield him from the cave’s fatal fumes.
Orpheus had chosen the most mellifluous ballad he knew and played it continually as he followed Apollo down into the smoldering bowels of Petros. When he reached the bronze threshold, he had no trouble charming the guard dog, Cerberus. In fact, nothing had ever so easily swooned under the spell of his music. He dropped the lyre when his eyes spotted Eurydice waiting for him in a dreary courtyard flanked by porticoes that flickered with lamplight and the eyes of on-looking spirits.
And then, with his love liberated and their freedom in sight, Orpheus made his irreparable mistake.
When he saw pink dusk appear before him, he had peeked back over his shoulder to make sure Eurydice was still there. In horror, he watched her scream his name as she dissolved into the twilight, her spirit translated back to Hades’ lair.
Orpheus became dizzy as Eurydice’s last anguished cry echoed in his brain, causing his head and neck to sweat, and his phantom heart to ache. He fell to one knee and held his hand to his chest, his guilt coursing hot through his veins like venom.
“My son, why do you cower in my presence?” Apollo said, stepping closer.
Orpheus mustered the strength to lift himself off the ground. He drew a breath, wiped his brow and tried to find his father’s eyes, well hidden behind the yellow aura.
As if sensing his son’s desire, Apollo let out a long exhale, melting the web of light around him and revealing exquisite armor, which was, from embossed breastplate down to shining greaves, entirely made of gold. His cerulean eyes sparkled like jewels set within an amphora of marble. The pupils dilated with a piercing glow that made Orpheus shiver for the first time since he’d been dead.
“I’m sorry, father. It’s been ages since we last met.” Orpheus lifted his eyes to the black mountain range that cut across the horizon. If Apollo was so powerful, why did he choose to live in the roiling belly of Petros and not aloft somewhere—anywhere—in the starry cosmos?
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Orpheus had never seen his father’s face. It had always either been masked by hoods or surrounded with that impenetrable mist: it was a thing of beauty, more magnificent than anything his peers had ever carved or painted, spoken of, or sung about. But it contained something terrifying, too. Something Orpheus couldn’t put words to. Something he could only feel in the remote reaches of his being. It seized every muscle, chilled every cell, and stiffened the very marrow in his bones.
“I’ve missed your music, Orpheus. I’m glad Hermes got to you before you fed it to the fishes.” A smile played on Apollo’s lips, and then, without moving, he pulled the lyre out of Orpheus’s hands and held it in his own. “I have a job for you and this lyre. And I think you’ll find the offer rather irresistible.”
“Forgive me, father, but the last time you presented me with an offer, it separated me eternally from my wife and expedited my suicide.”
“And who do you have to blame for that?” Hermes shouted, still standing beside the Chimera as all three of its heads slept soundly.
“Come, come, Hermes, don’t be cruel,” Apollo said, as his fingers plucked a few notes of the lyre. “That was a long, long time ago.”
“Hermes is right,” said Orpheus. He couldn’t deny that losing Eurydice was no one’s fault but his own. “I will do whatever you ask under the condition that you ensure my success. Hermes or another of your officials must come to my aid when I need it. And he must escort her to me, or me to her, the moment my task is complete. Lastly, there should be no possibility for this arrangement to be annulled.” Orpheus’s cheek twitched. Who was he to make demands on the general of Hades’ army?
“Oh, Orpheus,” Apollo said, his wide eyes glittering. “I’m glad to see that time apart from your muse has put some steel into your poet’s heart. That will serve you on your mission.”
“So we have an understanding?” Orpheus asked.
