The Eighth Arrow

by J. Augustine Wetta

  Diomedes looked at the giant in dumb shock, then over at me. For my part, I could only gape and shake my head. The hour had carried enough surprises already. The giant said nothing more but stood planted in the center of the assembly. There was a corresponding silence in the hall as the men around us studied their unusual guest. When at last the silence was broken, it was not Homer who spoke but the tall, gray-haired man who stood to his left. He wore a wreath of laurel in his hair, and his features had a sharpness that struck me as vaguely Trojan. In his hand he carried a long silver spear.

  “Enough grumbling.” As he spoke, he threw one corner of his mantle over his shoulder. “Be still and know that this is willed where power is power to do whatever it will.” He stepped up to the giant and held out the spear. “We found this many ages ago among the wreckage of the Primal War. It belongs in the hands of one such as you, and is perhaps a sign that even your presence here is within the reach of providence. Take it, then. And let it bring you courage where you lacked it before.”

  The man’s speech, lost on Diomedes and me, had a profound effect on our guide, who pulled his shoulders back and lifted his gray head. He accepted the spear and, with a slow bow to the one who gave it, turned and strode out of the hall without another word.

  “So is that the most you can do?” I asked, lifting my head to look Homer in the face.

  “Yes,” he answered. “For now it is. But we will think on your words and pray. Amphinomos will show you to the edge of the pit.”

  I turned to Diomedes. “Let’s go.”

  “Odysseus!” the bard called out. His voice rang from the rafters. “It is a journey, not a mission. Do not search for the answers that could not be given to you now. Learn to live the questions. Someday far in the future, you will live your way into the answer.”

  Amphinomos ran up and kissed his hand. Then the blind man whispered to him and sat back down.

  “Come!” said Amphinomos as he trotted past.

  With that, we took our leave of Homer.

  We worked our way back through the winding streets of Limbo until we arrived at another meadow. Here too there were immense and varied crowds of the dead. I was hoping to catch sight of my son, or at least to hear another word of Greek, but the crowd was so dense, and our guide traveled at such a brisk pace, that I soon gave up the search and resolved instead to focus on the journey ahead. From time to time, I would look up at the giant and wonder at the mysterious conversation I had witnessed in the hall.

  We hadn’t walked far before the crowd began to thin, and the landscape darkened from the verdant Elysium to the featureless gray of Hades—more familiar, though less congenial. Amphinomos slackened his pace a little, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t asked Diomedes about his time in the palace. He had a nervous sort of jitter that suggested he had something to tell me. I knew from experience, however, that he wouldn’t say a word about it until I asked.

  “Did you learn anything from that old man?” I said.

  “I heard a lot,” he answered, “but learned little. He is fond of riddles.”

  “So I noticed.”

  “Nice fellow, though. Made me feel right at home.”

  “Could have fooled me.”

  “Things got a little awkward once we returned to the hall. I think they were expecting a speech. You know how I am around strangers. But it was plenty nice in that garden of his.”

  This was just filler. It wasn’t what he wanted to tell me, so I waited.

  “He knew a song about you,” he said at last, finding a spot to polish on the inside of his shield.

  “The bard?” I said, matching his mood.

  “Yep.” Diomedes found an interesting hair to look at on the back of his hand.

  “He wrote the entire song while I was visiting Penelope?”

  “No, of course not. He wrote it long ago while he was alive.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes. It was famous. Everyone in the palace knew it. Some knew the entire song by heart.”

  “Is that so?” I said. “Not a long one, then.”

  “Oh no. Very long. I heard only a line or two, but they said it went on and on. All about how you made it home from Troy.” Diomedes looked at me and grinned. “They knew a song about me too.”

  There it was.

  “Well, of course,” I said. “You were the better soldier.” There might have been a touch of bitterness in my voice, but Diomedes was too pleased with himself to notice.

  “Oh, it was nowhere near as long as yours, of course, and there wasn’t a word of truth in it. But it sure is nice to know that we’re remembered, don’t you think?” Diomedes never had any trouble deferring to me, and if truth be told, I found it a little annoying. In every other respect, he was competitive to a fault, but when it came to our friendship, he was almost too eager to submit.

  “What was the song about?” I asked, regretting my jealousy.

  “Pure silliness. Do you remember Cressida?”

  “Calchas’ daughter.”

  “Right. The song is about her, mostly. She gets captured by the Trojans and marries one of Priam’s sons, then gets traded back to us but vows that she will never love again.”

  “This doesn’t sound like a song about you at all.”

  “Well it isn’t, really, but here’s the good part: when she gets to the Greek camp, I seduce her.”

  “You?” I asked incredulously.

  “The Son of Tydeus.” Diomedes actually looked pleased with himself.

  “You’d have about as much chance with Cressida as a mute Satyr with his head in a sack,” I said. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” he answered, laughing. “I’m as surprised as you.”

  I shook my head. This had to be why people loved him. He never assumed the worst of anyone and always took himself for granted. In spite of all my wit, he would always be better loved because he gave everyone the benefit of the doubt. I envied him that quality. I could make people laugh, but he could make them smile, and that made all the difference.

  “So did he tell you anything else?”

  “All sorts of things. Most of our comrades from the war are elsewhere in Hades. Many of our former enemies are too. Hector and a few others can be found in Limbo. But none of them wanted to see us, and I can’t say I blame them.”

  “How about Achilles?” I asked. “Did the bard say where we could find him? I’d like to have Achilles along for this. We could use his spear. A good man to have in a fight.”

  “Good in a fight, yes. But not so good overall, apparently. Ajax, on the other hand, was mentioned.”

  “Ajax!” I shouted, perhaps a little loudly. Here was the first bit of good news since our arrival. “The Son of Telemon. Now there was a man! A bit of a bully, perhaps, but when you’re nine feet tall and built like the Minotaur, who can blame you for focusing on your strengths?”

  Truly, Ajax was not the sort to win a battle of wits. When push came to shove, he didn’t have much to fall back on besides . . . well . . . pushing and shoving. But was he ever good at it! I once watched him drive an entire phalanx off its feet, by himself! He set that enormous shield of his across one shoulder and just leaned into it.

  “Where can we find him?” I asked, my spirits lifting.

  “The Wood of Suicides.”

  My spirits dropped right back down again. “Typical. The Wood of Suicides. Just once, I’d like to set off on an adventure through the Ravine of Pillows or cross the Ocean of Lusty Nymphs.”

  “That does sound easier.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Did Homer happen to mention how we would find Ajax once we got there?”

  “He told me to look for the largest tree.”

  “That doesn’t sound difficult.”

  “You’ll find a way to complicate it, I’m sure.”

  We marched on until we spotted a line of gray wall in the distance.

  “That is the border of the second ring,” said Amphinomos, slowing to a stop, “and
here is where I must leave you. The path you’re on will lead you to the gate.”

  “Sure you won’t come with us?” asked Diomedes. “We could use a good man like you.”

  “A good man,” said Amphinomos. He smiled for the first time since we’d met him. “Thank you for that. But alas, no. My place is in Limbo with the others.”

  I reached for his shoulder, then stopped myself. “I’m coming back for you,” I said. “When I find the way out, I’m coming back for all of you.”

  Diomedes looked at me like I’d just grown a beak, and Amphinomos actually laughed. When he saw that I was serious, the smile dropped. “Do I have your word on that?”

  No one had ever asked for my word on anything. Even my friends knew better. “I don’t think my word is worth very much,” I said.

  “It is now.”

  “Then you have it.”

  He nodded once, put his hand to his breast, then turned back toward the city. I watched him walk away.

  “What was that all about?” said Diomedes.

  “No one has ever looked at me that way,” I answered. “No one. Not ever. Not even my son.”

  Diomedes took me by the arm and turned me toward the distant wall. “Then I guess it’s about time.”

  More than ever, I wanted to stay. I wanted to run back into the city and give my word to every man, woman, and child in it. But I had a border to cross.

  The wall turned out to be nearer than it looked, and before long, it loomed bleakly over us. Here, a wide iron gate stood gaping open like an old wound, and a vast, restless swarm of despondent souls stood ready to enter. From every direction, and with varying degrees of reluctance, more and more trudged forward to join the crowd. Everywhere, a stale mist hung in the air, and just beyond the gate, we could make out the muffled shrieks of the damned.

  From where we stood at the edge of the crowd, it was difficult to make out much of what was happening by the gate, so together, Diomedes and I made our way through, using the giant as a bulwark. A braver man might have walked straight through that forest of wraiths. They were, after all, mere ghosts—as solid as mist. But touching them was like dipping your hands in a frozen pool, and although our flesh might pass straight through them, our armor would not. I’d rather have been pressed between two corpses than walk among that crowd. And they, it seemed, were equally unnerved by us. The closer we came to the gate, however, the harder it was to move forward, and at last we were squeezed to a halt. It was then that I began to panic.

  Crowds frighten me, you see. I’d rather face ten men in open combat than lock shields in the ruck of a phalanx. In fact, I remember once as a child, at the funeral games of King Icarius, I went with my cousins to watch a wrestling match in the agora. I was no older than seven or eight, and as we pushed to the front of the mob of spectators, I was separated from the others. I had not made it to the front when the match began, and the crowd squeezed forward, each man straining for a closer look. The summer air was hot and wet. The bodies around me stank of new wine and sweat. I was squeezed between the belly of one man and the buttocks of another, and as the match intensified, the pressure from all sides increased. I cried and gagged, clawed and fought against the rank flesh on every side until, overwhelmed by fear and nausea, I passed out. Hours later I awoke, bruised and filthy, on the empty floor of the arena.

  Now, as that mass of human dead jostled us forward under the combined weight of its panic, I felt that old phobia of my youth return.

  “Diomedes!” I called over my shoulder. “I have to get out of here!”

  Diomedes, however, was not listening. “Look up!” he shouted, and there above us towered the lintel of the house of Hades. Across the top, scratched into the iron in a ragged script, were the following words:

  ABANDON ALL HOPE YOU WHO ENTER HERE

  That did it.

  “I’ve had enough!” I braced my shoulder against the rim of my shield and drove with all my might till I was back at the edge of the crowd. Diomedes and the giant followed in my wake.

  “If we’re not going to pass through that gate,” growled Diomedes, “how are we going to get to the other side?”

  “I’ll think of something,” I answered, bent double, gasping and sweating.

  “So we’re stuck,” said Diomedes.

  I looked at the crowd, the gate, the wall. “We’ll go over it,” I announced. I unwound the rope from my waist.

  CHAPTER 13

  STORM

  CLIMBING THE WALL proved easier than anticipated. The stonework was crude on this side, and the exposed joints provided ample space for hand- and footholds. Where the climbing was more difficult, we could rely on the giant for a boost, or we could send him ahead with the rope and have him pull us up. But once we arrived at the top of the wall, we discovered that the other side was perfectly smooth, and our guide had to lower us to the ground, then jump down after. All in all, sneaking into Hell wasn’t much of a challenge. Whoever had designed its fortifications had been more interested in keeping people in than out.

  Thus we found ourselves on a dank stone shelf with the pit of Hades dropping into oblivion before us. Off to the right, the ledge narrowed against the wall; on our left, it widened somewhat, and just this side of the gateway, Minos, the half bull, sat on a stool behind a small wooden table, his horned brow furrowed in thought. He twitched and curled his tail as he greeted each new client. One by one, the souls approached him, wringing their hands with grief. His manner was so officious and so calm, one might have mistaken him for some minor bureaucrat. He might have been hearing petitions, or taking legal appeals, except that after a question or two, a nod or shake of the head, and a brief jot on a scroll spread out before him, he would grab the soul by its hair and toss it over his shoulder into the pit, shouting, “You who come to this sanctuary of pain, beware! Watch how you enter and in whom you trust!”

  “Think you’ve seen enough?” said Diomedes.

  I nodded.

  We were over the ledge and down to the next level before Minos or anyone else noticed we were there.

  “This is a change,” mused Diomedes, once we reached the ground. Here the black earth was littered not with ash and filth but with the ruins of what must have been a beautiful city: turrets and minarets, buttresses, columns, and fragments of stone were scattered everywhere. Indeed, the ground was so thickly strewn with debris that traversing it was as much a climb as it was a march. Before long, none of us had the energy or inclination to wonder at its artistry.

  We must have spent hours picking our way across that landscape of devastation, though without stars or sun, it was hard to tell how far we’d come; and so preoccupied were we with negotiating this rough terrain, that we failed to notice the gathering darkness until the storm was upon us.

  Don’t ask me how in the stagnant confines of Hell, meteorological phenomena are possible. Perhaps the vacuity of sin itself stirs the air, or the flames of the lower rings heat the clouds into currents. Whatever the case, the gloom that now enveloped us was cast by a dark storm gathering on our right, and before long, a cold breeze stirred the air, trailing the sharp, metallic smell of rain. From across the battered plain, a sound like a thousand sighs blew to us on the wind.

  “Better find some shelter,” said Diomedes.

  “Where?” I answered. “Everything here has been turned to rubble.” But our guide was as keen of sight as he was short on words. Just as the first drops began to scatter and pop, the giant found a bit of collapsed roof leaning against a wall. He pushed his way to the back of the tiny space, sat down, and wedged his spear into the corner. Diomedes and I piled in after him. There was just enough room to sit upright with legs outstretched.

  “None too comfortable,” grumbled Diomedes, “but it should keep the rain off us. Well done, giant.”

  Our guide wagged his head and scratched the back of his neck. Diomedes could charm anyone.

  I looked into the triangle of darkness beyond our shelter and studied the advancing front. T
he air had turned a shade of green, and tiny pellets of ice began to clatter against the stone. Diomedes shifted his shield to his outer arm, and I followed his lead, which changed the hissing patter of the hail into booming strokes on bronze timpani. It was then that I noticed the cyclones.

  Once, sitting on the beach in Ithaca, I watched a spring storm roll in from the sea. The water at that time of year was cool, but the air over our island was swelteringly hot, so the front came to a sudden halt just at the water’s edge. Above me, the sky was clear and sunny, but directly ahead, the clouds boiled against the column of heat. I watched as the storm pushed against this invisible wall. Little puffs of cool gave me goose bumps. I watched as the storm eased around the island on either side, and then, as the warmth began to give way, a long, black finger reached down from the clouds to the sea. The tornado was so close, I could see the seawater fly into spray around it, and I stood there awestruck with my feet buried in the hot sand, watching great quantities of ocean scatter into the sky.

  Now, as I contemplated the approaching tempest, memories of that spring day returned to me, for even as I looked on, a dozen dark columns of cloud stretched earthward. And as they ran their fingertips along the ground, another dozen formed in the clouds above. Then another. And soon, the air was as full of cyclones as the sky was full of cloud. Peeking out of our tiny shelter, it seemed as though the firmament itself was supported by a forest of winding pillars. Hundreds and hundreds of tornados danced across the devastated landscape, licking the rough earth and flinging its contents skyward. Great piles of stone were flung into the air like leaves, and the sky above swirled in an angry chorus of thunder.

  But if this had not been terrifying in its own right, the hurricane had yet another, more alarming attribute: a deep howling wind. And I don’t mean this in a metaphorical sense; the wind, I am certain, actually howled. It screamed, shrieked, yelped, and sobbed like a crowd of prisoners on the rack—or a herd of swine at slaughter—and by the time the storm had overtaken our tiny shelter, it felt as though the walls were quaking in terror.