DIOMEDES TIGHTENED his helmet and blew out his breath. He braced himself against the side of our shelter, cast one last desperate look in my direction, and then whispered a curse and stepped into the rain. He had taken maybe three steps when the wind caught his shield and sent him hurtling end over end. He spun around the rope like a flag on a wheel until at last the wind hurled him back into the hut. He hit the wall with a thud and lay panting on the ground.
“Are you all right?” asked Helen, bending over him to brush the rain from his face. It was dark in our little shelter, but I could see he was a little green.
“If it weren’t so painful, I might have enjoyed that,” said Diomedes, and then he gasped, rolled over, and puked. Helen retreated to the far side of the shelter. Since we hadn’t eaten in three thousand years, there wasn’t much to show for his efforts. Before long, he was ready to try again.
“Now use your shield to steady yourself against the wind,” I said before pushing him out.
This time, he did not spin around the rope but hurtled along the length of it, dragged by his shield arm, barking every time he hit a rock. There wasn’t much besides the rubble to slow him down, so by the time he reached the end of the rope, he was moving fast. The giant, arms outstretched and braced for the impact, was knocked on his back; and the two of them might have careened off into the hurricane if the giant had not shrewdly buried the arrow under several large stones.
Next, I secured Helen to the rope by her sash. She tucked up her tunic and stepped into the wind. Would you believe, she slid across like a bird in flight—straight into Diomedes’ waiting arms. She could not have been more graceful if she’d actually had wings. Some folk are just born to look good, I guess.
Now that it was my turn at last, I realized there was a flaw in my plan—I had failed to take into account what should be done with the rope once the last man came across. Obviously, I had to untie my end so that it could be reused once I arrived at the other. But that meant one end of the line would be unanchored. Well, like my father used to tell me, there are three things you don’t do in life: you don’t steal from a Cyclops, you don’t swindle a witch, and you don’t change your plans once you’ve put them in motion. It occurred to me as I peered out into the raging storm that I had deliberately violated his first two prohibitions and that the third wasn’t good advice anyway. So, throwing caution to the wind (in more ways than one), I untied the rope, fastened it to my belt, sat down on my shield, and launched myself into the squall, hoping that the combined efforts of the giant and Diomedes would be enough to reel me in.
I flipped about in that whistling wind like a lure on a fishing line. One moment I was bouncing head over heels through mounds of crushed marble; the next I was soaring through the air, caught up in a cyclone of bloodied flesh; then I was slammed to the ground again, where more bricks and marble broke my fall. My companions did their best to haul me in, and as I lay gasping at their feet, looking up into a blinding cloud of rain and sleet, I thought to myself that there must be a better way.
There wasn’t. We did, however, adapt to the process as we worked our way across that second ring of Hell, but I was knocked unconscious so many times that even now the whole episode remains a blur. At last we reached the edge of the storm, where the tornadoes yielded to a slow, greasy rain. Here we found the remains of some sort of temple, long demolished but not inhospitable compared to the chaos we’d left behind. Pillars of various sizes lay scattered across the marble floor, which, though running with rain, was at least free of mud and sharp stone. There we decided to rest.
This too turned out to be a bad idea.
We sat for some time, collecting our wits and admiring the new dents in our armor, the storm like a wall to our right, and a thick fog rolling on our left. Curiously enough, the rope had weathered the storm without any visible damage, and this lifted my spirits. But more curious still, Helen had come through without a single scratch or bruise. “Gracefulness is not without its advantages,” she said with a smile, and charming as that smile was, I couldn’t help feeling a little suspicious.
The giant, for his part, did not appear at all comfortable. He paced back and forth like a cat in a cage, and every now and then, he would stop to face the storm, as if in expectation of something yet unseen.
We didn’t have to wait long to see it. Diomedes and I were preparing to move on when the thing made its appearance. I had my shield up and was pulling the strap over my head when Helen stopped and whirled toward the clouds. “What is it?” I asked, unshouldering my bow; but already I could hear something moving toward us through the fog. It made a sound like a whisper but with a bit of a squeal at the end, and it pronounced exactly one word: “H-H-H-Helen.”
Helen’s face blanched, and we all froze, straining our eyes into the fog. I leaned into the breeze. Surely this was some trick of the senses. But no, the word came to us again on the wind, clearer now, and with more voice behind it: “H-H-H-Helen!” There was no mistaking it. Something was speaking to us from within the clouds. Diomedes drew his sword, and I nocked an arrow, figuring that whatever came out of the clouds, I wanted to hit it with something sharp.
A pungent odor engulfed us—like something dead, like an old wound—and then a deafening screech followed and an enormous mass of feathers and filth came hurtling out of the clouds. We ducked as it screamed over our heads and into a pile of marble on the other side. We looked on in horror as it stood up.
During my adventures, I had heard that Sirens dwelt in the Underworld. Moreover, I had spotted several off the coast of Anthemusa during my voyage home from Troy. But I had never been close enough to smell one, and I must say that of a Siren’s many abhorrent qualities, the smell was by far its worst—the kind of stench that had a personality of its own: an amalgam of rot, sweat, and excrement. And the only thing to distract from the smell was the beast’s sheer ugliness. It had the wings and lower half of a vulture but the upper half of a woman. Black hair fell in tangled mats across its skeletal shoulders and dangled into a face so twisted with rage and hate that the features seemed to run together. Broken yellow fangs protruded from its mouth at odd angles, giving its speech a wet lisp.
“H-H-Hel-l-len. Dear, lof-f-fely Hel-l-len,” it said. “You weren’t thinking of leaf-f-fing us, were you? No. No. No. Of course not. That wouldn’t do. We lof-f-fe you, Hel-l-len. We’d mis-s-s-s you terribly. You are our treas-s-sure.”
The great beast trundled forward several steps, black talons clicking on the marble. It moved awkwardly, listing from side to side, its hooked and dripping nose thrust forward. When it saw me draw my bow, the Siren halted and thrust its head under one wing, chewed savagely at some hidden itch, and sneezed. I noticed it had a silver shield slung over its back.
“I s-s-see you found your l-l-lance, Ignotus,” the monster hissed as it pulled its face out from under its wing, “but you’ll want to complete the s-s-set, will you not?”
Our giant didn’t speak but crouched behind us, holding his spear in both hands.
“Come now,” the Siren continued, “I’ll trade you the shh-hield for the girl. A generous of-f-fer by any account.” When Ignotus refused to answer, the Siren snapped its head to the side and examined me with one eye, then Diomedes with the other. “S-S-Sons of Adam,” it shrieked, “let me h-h-have the girl. She belongs h-h-here anyway. Let me take h-h-her, and perhaps I’ll let you es-s-scape into the f-f-fog.”
“With all due respect,” I answered, “the lady doesn’t seem to want to stay.”
The Siren screeched with laughter, coughed up a wad of feathers, and left a dropping in the dirt at her feet. “Give me the gir-r-r-l, or I’ll r-r-rip off your limbs and bathe in your blood.”
If truth be told, I was fully prepared to surrender Helen to the Siren if it came to that. Like I said, I’m not one to fight over a woman—particularly a woman like Helen. But I’m not too fond of bullies either; so I dropped to one knee and let fly the arrow. It strayed left and caught the Siren in the shoulder, but it was a good strong shot, and it knocked her over. As I stood to admire my handiwork, the Siren hurtled into the air screaming, plucked the dart from her shoulder, and flung it back at me. Had she taken time to aim, my story would surely have ended here, but the arrow landed among the rocks behind me. Infuriated all the more, the demon launched itself straight at me, slamming me against Diomedes and knocking him out cold. Then it turned and seized Helen in one claw, spread its tattered wings, and screamed like a winter wind. From where I lay, it was hard to make out exactly what was going on. The Siren had its back to me, and its broad wings beat a spray of stinking mud high into the air. But judging from the Siren’s curses, Helen was putting up a fight—and possibly having the better of it.
I reached for the only arrow at hand—the one still attached to the rope—and pulled my bow till I could hear the wood groan. When I saw Helen fall at the Siren’s feet, I let fly, skewering the great beast straight through its middle. The arrow landed with a clatter on the other side.
Strangely enough, the Siren didn’t seem to notice. “Ah! Proteus-s-s!” it screamed, pinning Helen to the ground with one claw. “I shh-hould have known. Clever. Clever-r-r.” It raised one talon and might have quartered her right there if I hadn’t given the rope a hard tug.
That got its attention. The Siren shrieked, spun around, and sprung at me with both claws. In doing so, however, it entangled itself in the rope and fell to the ground face-first. While it fluttered and thrashed on its back, I called for help. “Giant!” I shouted. “Ignotus! Help us! Now’s your chance!”
But the giant only dropped his spear and curled up on his side with his hands over his head. The Siren actually stopped struggling with the rope to laugh. “You’ll receive no assistance from h-h-him, I as-s-ssure you. Now come h-h-help me out of this tangle s-s-so I can unthread myself and loose your limbs-s-s.” Helen leapt to her feet, grabbed the arrow with both hands, and ran to the far side of the clearing. “Ah! Oh! That s-s-stings,” screeched the demon as the cord slid through her torso.
It took me only a few seconds to figure out what Helen was up to. Having wound the rope around two pillars, she lodged the arrow under a third, and took off at a run. “I’ll be back for you,” snarled the Siren over its shoulder, but I was already moving in the other direction with my end of the rope. Following Helen’s example, I ran until the cord pulled taut, wrapped it around two fallen columns, and tied it with a bowline around a third. Thus the demon discovered that no matter which way she tried to turn, and no matter how far she dragged herself along the rope’s length, she could not pull free without pulling herself in half. Back and forth she slid, leaving a coat of dark slime on the cord.
“Proteus!” the demon cried. “You duplicitous-s-s old fiend, there will be H-H-Hell to pay!” I couldn’t see past the Siren, but its words seemed to be addressed to Helen. “You s-s-slippery old coward,” hissed the monster, “you’ve been working at this-s-s ever since you arrived.”
Here and there, bits of the Siren’s innards stuck to the rope, and though she clawed and bit with all her might, the cord held true.
“This would be a good time to run,” shouted Helen over the shrieks of the demon.
Back and forth the Siren flew like a bead on a string. “Don’t you leave us-s-s, Proteus!” it screamed. “It only gets-s-s worse where you’re going. You f-f-follow these f-f-fools and you’ll wis-shh you h-h-hadn’t. They won’t protect you.” But when she received no answer, she directed her taunts to the giant. “Ignotus-s-s! You could not face even me. Do you really thh-hink you will be any challenge to my s-s-sisters? They will make a s-s-soup of you! Listen, Ignotus, I’ll m-m-make you a deal. Give me H-H-Helen and I’ll find you a soft job here among the lustful. Come now. Be r-r-reasonable. I’ll even give you your shh-hield back . . .” But the giant was already loping into the mist. For fear of losing him, I heaved Diomedes over my shoulder and followed.