WE WALKED ON for some time without speaking until we arrived at the far side of the pit. But the light grew dim here, and the path, once wide and smooth, now became narrow and steep. It was given to sudden dips and turns, and for fear of stepping off the edge, I had started tapping the ground in front of me with my sword. We were able to keep up a slow march until, following the trail around another sharp curve in the cavern wall, we met with a familiar—though unexpected—sound: against the distant crack and thud of crashing boulders, I could make out a gentle patter like rain; and sure enough, just ahead . . . the dull glitter of a spring trickling from the cavern wall. It formed a little stream, which ran along the side of the path opposite the pit on our right.
The sight of it lifted my spirits, and suddenly I became aware of how terribly thirsty I’d become. I ran up to the stream and dropped my shield, knelt down and plunged both arms in to the elbows. The disappointment was so deep, I actually started to cry.
“What now?” said Diomedes, standing over me.
“This cursed place!” I said, shaking my head. And the words themselves seemed to release the full weight of my despair. I slumped over my shield and wept outright.
“Spare me the self-pity!” Diomedes groaned. “It’s water, isn’t it? Be grateful for that at least.”
In answer, I lifted my cupped hands from the stream and let the liquid trickle to the ground at our feet. It was black and slimy and gave off an acrid stench. Diomedes put his own hands in the water, then cursed and punched the rim of his shield.
Helen crouched beside me and stroked my hair. I rested my head on her shoulder.
“Enough,” Diomedes barked. “We’re in Hades, after all. What did you expect? We need to move on.”
I lifted my head. It was too dark to see his face, but I hated that tone. “You . . . ,” I said, my voice like gravel on stone. “I blame you for this.”
Diomedes took a step back. “You what?”
“I blame you,” I said. Helen backed out from between us. “You always have to contradict me. You haven’t stopped since the moment we set foot in the Underworld.”
“How does that make it all my fault?”
“If you had listened to me from the start,” I said, “we’d have been out of here already.”
“Out already?”
“We could have opened that little gray door, but you had to have it your way.”
“You’d rather have faced the three beasts, then?”
“Ha.” I spit on the ground at his feet. “Three. If only there were three. I’d rather fight a dozen beasts than the myriad horrors we’ve already faced on this hopeless expedition.”
“But Athena said—”
“Athena! She told us herself that wasn’t her name. And how do you know it wasn’t she who sent us here in the first place? Athena! You think that was Athena, you sniveling dog? When did Athena ever expect us to grovel like slaves? You sicken me.”
Helen shifted around behind Diomedes and put her hand on his shoulder. Again, it was the two of them against me.
“I sicken you?” he said, lowering his voice and crouching so that we were face-to-face. “Your lies landed us here in the first place.”
“Is that so?” I leaned forward so we were nose-to-nose. “You have followed me about like a schoolboy since you were old enough to walk. Tell me, then, Diomedes, when have you ever had an original idea? When have you ever made a suggestion worth following? All your life you did exactly as your father told you. You believed every pietistic priest and superstitious old washerwoman that ever set foot in Achaea. No wonder the elders loved you so. You believed every lie you were ever told. You, Diomedes, are a fool.”
“And you, Odysseus, are a coward,” he whispered. “I wonder whom the men of Ithaca scorned more.”
Helen stifled a laugh.
That did it.
I couldn’t see his face in the darkness, but I felt the pop of my fist on his jaw. And it was as though that blow released some dark magic. A thousand years of resentment came boiling up out of the darkness. Beside the black pool, we cracked and thumped one another with our fists, piling spite on spite. We were mad with rage and fear and bitterness and jealousy and despair. Diomedes sprang to his feet. I caught the glint of a drawn sword and pulled my own from its sheath, bringing it up and over my head in a defensive arc. His blade came down with a crash, and a flurry of sparks lit the rage in his eyes.
Spinning to my right, I brought my sword up and under. But Diomedes knew my moves as well as I knew his. He brought his sword down firmly, lighting the darkness with another spray of transient flashes. The force of that blow knocked the blade from my hand, and as I bent over to pick it up, he kicked me onto my back. Then, clapping his own sword in both hands, he raised it over his head and brought it down against my chest. I had just enough time to pull my shield up, and through another shower of sparks, I watched the point grind across its shell and into the rocks beside the pool.
I can’t say for certain whether his action in fact set off the chain of events that led to our narrow escape, but the consequent explosion of light was so sudden I had little time to reflect on cause and effect. One moment I was cowering beneath Diomedes beside a foul black pool, the next moment I was on my face before a towering column of yellow flame.