Percy Jackson and the Greek Heroes

  When somebody you love dies, it’s a hard thing to get over. Believe me, I’ve lost some good friends. Still … most of us learn to keep going. Most of us have no choice.

  Orpheus couldn’t let Eurydice go. He had to bring her back from the dead. He didn’t care about the consequences.

  Maybe you’re thinking: Bad idea. This will not end well.

  You’re right.

  On the other hand, I understand how Orpheus felt. I’ve come close to losing my girlfriend more times than I want to think about. If she died, I’d do everything I could to bring her back. I’d grab my sword, march into Hades’s palace and … And I’d probably act just as recklessly as Orpheus did, only I wouldn’t be singing. I don’t sing.

  The Underworld has many entrances – fissures in the earth, rivers that plunge underground, the bathrooms in Penn Station. A weeping woodland nymph directed Orpheus to a large clump of boulders that concealed a tunnel into Hades’s realm. Orpheus played his lyre and the rocks split asunder, revealing a steep path into the earth.

  He descended into darkness, playing so sweetly that no ghost or daimon dared to stop him. At last he came to the banks of the River Styx, where the boatman Charon was loading the newly dead aboard his ferry.

  ‘Oi!’ Charon told him. ‘Clear off, mortal! You can’t be here!’

  Orpheus launched into a soul-piercing rendition of ‘Daydream Believer’.

  Charon fell to his knees. ‘That … that was our song! I was a starry-eyed teenaged daimon. She was a sweet young zombie girl. We, we …’ He broke down sobbing. ‘Fine!’ The boatman wiped his eyes. ‘Come aboard! I can’t resist your horribly sad music.’

  As they crossed the River Styx, Orpheus played such mournful tunes that some of the dead souls chose to leap overboard and dissolve themselves. Maybe they didn’t like golden oldies.

  At the gates of Erebos, Orpheus strummed a chord and the iron gates swung open, trembling on their hinges before the power of his lyre. The giant three-headed guard dog, Cerberus, crouched and snarled, ready to tear apart the mortal intruder.

  Orpheus sang the theme song to Old Yeller. Cerberus howled and rolled over, whimpering. Orpheus passed through the gates.

  He travelled through the Fields of Asphodel, waking the spirits with his music. Normally they were grey chattering shades who couldn’t remember their own names, but Orpheus’s songs brought back memories of the mortal world. For a few moments, they took on human shapes and colours again. They wept tears of joy.

  The sound of the lyre reached the Fields of Punishment. The three Furies, Hades’s most heartless enforcers, forgot their duties. They sat in a circle and cried their demonic eyes out, then had a group therapy session where they shared their feelings and complimented one another on their fiery whips and their bat wings. Meanwhile, the damned souls got a reprieve. Sisyphus sat on his hill, his boulder forgotten. Tantalus could have finally reached food and drink, but he was too busy listening to the music to notice. The guys on the torture racks were like, ‘Excuse me? I’m supposed to be flayed alive over here? Hello, anyone?’

  Orpheus played his way right into the palace of Hades. The heavily armed zombie guards didn’t try to stop him. They followed him through the corridors, making dry grunting noises as they tried to remember how to weep.

  In the throne room, the king and queen of the dead were having lunch. Hades wore a yellow lobster bib over his flowing dark robes. Bits of crustacean shell littered the dais around his skeletal throne. Persephone nibbled on a luminous subterranean salad from the palace garden. Her dress was yellow and grey, like the sun behind winter clouds. Her throne was woven from the bare branches of a pomegranate tree.

  As the intruder approached his throne, Hades rose. ‘What is this meaning of this? Guards, destroy this mortal!’ But it was hard to look menacing with butter dribbling down his chin and a cartoon lobster on his bib.

  Orpheus launched into a Duke Ellington number, ‘Stalking Monsters’.

  Hades’s jaw dropped. He sank back into his throne.

  ‘Oh!’ Persephone clapped. ‘Darling, it’s our song!’

  Hades had never heard Duke Ellington played so beautifully – so raw and painful and true, as if this mortal musician had distilled Hades’s life, with all its grief and disappointment, all its darkness and solitude, and turned it into music. The god found himself crying. He didn’t want the music to stop.

  Eventually Orpheus’s song ended. The zombies dried their eyes. Ghosts sighed in the windows of the throne room.

  The lord of the Underworld composed himself. ‘What … what do you want, mortal?’ His voice was brittle with emotion. ‘Why have you brought this heartbreaking music into my halls?’

  Orpheus bowed. ‘Lord Hades, I am Orpheus. I’m not here as a tourist. I don’t want to disrupt your realm, but my wife, Eurydice, recently died before her time. I cannot go on without her. I have come to plead for her life.’

  Hades sighed. He removed his bib and laid it across his plate. ‘Such extraordinary music, yet such a predictable request. Young man, if I returned souls every time someone prayed for it to happen, my halls would be empty. I would be out of a job. All mortals die. That is non-negotiable.’

  ‘I understand,’ Orpheus said. ‘You will possess all our souls eventually. I’m fine with that. But not so soon! I lost my soulmate after less than a month. I’ve tried to bear the pain, but I simply cannot. Love is a power even greater than death. I must take my wife back to the mortal world. Either that or kill me, so my soul can stay here with her.’

  Hades frowned. ‘Well, killing you I could arrange –’

  ‘Husband.’ Persephone set her hand on Hades’s arm. ‘This is so sweet, so romantic. Doesn’t it remind you of everything you went through to win my love? You didn’t exactly play by the rules, either.’

  Hades’s face reddened. His wife had a point. Hades had abducted Persephone and caused a global famine in his stand-off with her mother, Demeter. Hades could be very sweet and romantic when he wanted to.

  ‘Yes, my dear,’ he said. ‘But –’

  ‘Please,’ Persephone said. ‘At least give Orpheus a chance to prove his love.’

  Hades couldn’t resist when she looked at him with those big beautiful eyes.

  ‘Very well, my little pomegranate.’ He faced Orpheus. ‘I will allow you to return to the mortal world with your wife.’

  For the first time in days, Orpheus felt like playing a cheerful tune. ‘Thank you, my lord!’

  ‘But there is one important condition,’ Hades said. ‘You claim that your love is more powerful than death. Now you must prove it. I will allow your wife’s spirit to follow you back from the Underworld, but you must have faith that she is travelling in your footsteps. The strength of your love must be sufficient to guide her out. Do not turn to look at her until you have reached the surface. If you so much as glance back before she is fully bathed in the light of the mortal world, you will lose her again … and this time forever.’

  Orpheus’s throat became parched. He scanned the throne room, hoping to see some sign of his wife’s spirit, but he saw only the faces of withered zombie guards.

  ‘I – I understand,’ he said.

  ‘Then go,’ Hades ordered. ‘And no music on the way back, please. You’re keeping us from doing our jobs down here.’

  Orpheus left the palace and retraced his steps through the Fields of Asphodel. Without his music to focus on, he realized how terrifying the Underworld was. Ghosts whispered and chattered around him. They brushed their cold, spectral hands against his arms and face, pleading for an encore.

  His fingers trembled. His legs felt wobbly.

  He couldn’t tell if Eurydice was behind him. What if she got lost in the crowd? What if Hades was playing some sort of cruel joke? Coming into the Underworld, Orpheus had been consumed with grief. Now he had hope. He had something to lose. That was much scarier.

  At the gates of the Underworld, Cerberus wagged his tail and whimpered for another
rendition of Old Yeller. Orpheus kept walking. At the banks of the Styx, he thought he heard soft footsteps in the black sand behind him, but he couldn’t be sure.

  The ferryman Charon waited in his boat. ‘I don’t usually take passengers the other way,’ he said, leaning on his oar. ‘But the boss said okay.’

  ‘Is … is my wife behind me?’ Orpheus asked. ‘Is she there?’

  Charon smiled cagily. ‘Telling would be cheating. All aboard.’

  Orpheus stood at the bow. Tension crawled across his back like an army of ants, but he kept his eyes fixed on the dark water while Charon rowed, humming ‘Daydream Believer’ until they reached the other side.

  Orpheus climbed the steep tunnel towards the mortal world. His footsteps echoed. Once, he heard a sound like a small sigh behind him, but it might have been his imagination. And that smell of honeysuckle … was that Eurydice’s perfume? His heart ached to be sure. She might be right behind him, reaching out for him … the thought was both ecstasy and agony. It took all his willpower not to look.

  Finally he saw the warm glow of daylight at the mouth of the tunnel above.

  Only a few more steps, he told himself. Keep walking. Let her join me in the sunlight.

  But his willpower crumbled. Hades’s voice echoed in his ears. You must have faith. The strength of your love must be sufficient.

  Orpheus stopped. He’d never trusted his own strength. He’d grown up with his father constantly berating him, calling him weak. If it weren’t for his music, Orpheus would’ve been nobody. Eurydice wouldn’t have fallen in love with him. Hades wouldn’t have agreed to send her back.

  How could Orpheus be sure his love was enough? How could he have faith in anything but his music?

  He waited, hoping to hear another sigh behind him, hoping to catch another whiff of honeysuckle perfume.

  ‘Eurydice?’ he called.

  No answer.

  He felt entirely alone.

  He imagined Hades and Persephone laughing at his foolishness in falling for their prank.

  Oh, gods! Hades would say. He actually bought it? What an idiot! Hand me another lobster, would you?

  What if Eurydice’s spirit had never been there? Or worse, what if she was behind him right now, begging for his help? She might need his guidance to return to the world. He might step into the sunlight and look back, only to see her falling away from him as the tunnel to the Underworld collapsed permanently. That seemed like just the sort of trick Hades might play.

  ‘Eurydice,’ he called again. ‘Please, say something.’

  He heard only the fading echo of his own voice.

  If there’s one thing a musician can’t abide, it’s silence. Panic seized him. He turned.

  A few feet behind him, in the shadows of the tunnel, less than a stone’s throw from the sunlight, his beautiful wife stood in the blue gossamer dress she’d been buried in. The rosy colour was starting to return to her face.

  They locked eyes. They reached for each other.

  Orpheus took her hand, and her fingers turned to smoke.

  As she faded, her expression filled with regret … but no blame. Orpheus had tried to save her. He had failed, but she loved him anyway. That knowledge broke his heart all over again.

  ‘Farewell, my love,’ she whispered. Then she was gone.

  Orpheus’s scream was the most unmusical sound he had ever made. The earth shook. The tunnel collapsed. A gust of air expelled him into the world like a piece of candy shot from a windpipe. He yelled and pounded his fists on rocks. He tried to play his lyre, but his fingers felt like lead on the strings. The way to the Underworld would not open.

  Orpheus didn’t move for seven days. He wouldn’t eat, drink or bathe. He hoped his thirst or his own body odour might kill him, but it didn’t work.

  He begged the gods of the Underworld to take his soul. He got no answer. He climbed the highest cliff and threw himself off, but the wind just carried him gently to the ground. He searched for hungry lions. The animals refused to kill him. Snakes refused to bite him. He tried to bash his head in with a rock, but the rock turned to dust. The guy literally was not allowed to die. The world loved his music too much. Everybody wanted him to stay alive and keep playing.

  Finally, hollowed out from despair, Orpheus wandered back to his homeland of Thrace.

  If his story ended there, that would be tragic enough, right?

  Oh, no. It gets worse.

  Orpheus never recovered from Eurydice’s death. He refused to date other women. He would only play sad songs. He ignored the Dionysian Mysteries, which he had helped invent. He moped around Thrace and brought everybody down.

  Now, when you’ve gone through a big tragedy like watching your dead wife turn to smoke, most people will cut you some slack. They’ll sympathize up to a point. But after a while they’ll start to get annoyed, like, Enough already, Orpheus. Join the human race!

  I’m not saying it’s the most sensitive way to act, but that’s how people are, especially if those people happen to be maenads.

  Over the years, Orpheus had built up a lot of goodwill with Dionysus’s followers. He’d organized their festival. His dad was a veteran of the Indian War. But eventually the maenads got miffed that Orpheus wouldn’t join their parties any more. He was the most eligible bachelor in Thrace, but he wouldn’t flirt with them. He wouldn’t drink with them. He would barely even look at them.

  Orpheus’s mom, Calliope, tried to warn him of his danger, but her son wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t leave town. He just didn’t care.

  Finally the maenads’ anger boiled over. One night, when they’d been drinking more than usual, they heard Orpheus playing his lyre in the woods – another song about tragic love and desolation. His sweet voice drove the maenads even crazier than they already were.

  ‘I hate that guy!’ one shrieked. ‘He won’t hang out with us any more! He’s a total wet blanket!’

  ‘Let’s kill him!’ another yelled, which was the maenads’ answer to most problems.

  They swarmed towards the sound of Orpheus’s lyre.

  Orpheus was sitting on the banks of a river, wishing he could drown himself. He saw the maenads coming, but he just kept playing. He didn’t care about dying. He wasn’t sure he could die. At first the maenads threw rocks at him. The stones fell to the ground. The maenads threw spears, but the wind brushed them aside.

  ‘Well,’ said one of the maenads, ‘I guess we’ll have to take matters into our hands.’ She brandished her long, pointy fingernails. ‘Ladies, attack!’

  Their wild screams drowned out Orpheus’s music. They swarmed him.

  Orpheus didn’t try to run. He was actually grateful that somebody was willing to kill him and let him see Eurydice again.

  The maenads obliged. They tore him to pieces.

  Afterwards, the silence was oppressive. Even the maenads were horrified by what they’d done. They ran, leaving Orpheus’s body parts scattered through the woods.

  Calliope and the other Muses eventually found him. They collected what they could and buried the remains at the foot of Mount Olympus. However, two important things were missing: Orpheus’s lyre and his head. Those floated down the River Hebrus and washed out to sea. Supposedly his lyre kept playing on its own and his decapitated head kept singing as it floated away, like one of those Furby toys that just won’t shut up.

  (Sorry. I still have nightmares about those things …)

  At last, Apollo plucked the lyre out of the sea. He threw it into the sky, where it turned into the constellation Lyra. Orpheus’s decapitated head washed up on the island of Lesbos. The locals made a shrine for it. Apollo gave it the power of prophecy, so, for a while, folks from all over would come to Lesbos to consult with the severed head of Orpheus. Eventually Apollo decided that was a little too creepy. He silenced the Oracle. The shrine was abandoned, and Orpheus’s head was buried.

  As for Orpheus’s spirit, I’ve heard rumours that he was reunited with Eurydice in Elysium. Now he c
an look at his wife all he wants without fearing she’ll disappear. But wherever they go, just for safety, Orpheus lets Eurydice take the lead.

  I guess that means they lived happily ever after – except for the fact that they both died.

  There’s probably a song in there somewhere.

  La, la, la, I’ll love you dead or alive. La, la, la.

  Nah, never mind. I think I’ll stick with sword fighting. Music is way too dangerous.

  Hercules Does Twelve Stupid Things

  Where do I start with this guy?

  Even his name is complicated. I’m going to call him by his Roman name, Hercules, because that’s how most people know him. The Greeks called him Heracles. Even that wasn’t his real name. He was born either Alcides or Alcaeus, depending on which story you read, but ‘The Great Hero Al’ just doesn’t have much zing.

  Anyway, before What’s-His-Name was born, there was a whole big soap opera going on in southern Greece. Remember Perseus, the guy who cut off Medusa’s head? After he became king of Argos, he united half a dozen city-states – Tiryns, Pylos, Athens, Buttkickville, et cetera – into a powerful kingdom called Mycenae. (That’s my-SEE-nee; almost rhymes with mankini.) Each city had its own king, but there was also a high king who ruled over the whole nation. The high king could be from any city, but he was always supposed to be the eldest descendant of Perseus.

  Confused yet? Me too.

  By the time the third generation of Clan Perseus rolled around, the leading contenders for high king were two cousins from the city of Tiryns. One guy was Amphitryon. The other was Sthenelus. With handles like that, you’d think they were awarding the kingship to men with the most unpronounceable names.

  Amphitryon was older by a few days, so everybody assumed he would get the job. Then he messed things up by accidentally killing his father-in-law.

  It happened like this: Amphitryon had been negotiating with this dude Electryon for permission to marry his daughter Alcmene. As soon as they struck a deal, Electryon called in Alcmene to give her the good news.

  ELECTRYON: Alcmene, meet your new husband, Amphitryon!