I HAVE SPENT SOME TIME exploring this world,” continued Chiron, “and have heard it called by many names—Inferno, Erebus, Abaddon, Tartaros, Sheol, Gehenna . . . This is a place where wrongdoing is punished. A prison of sorts. To many here, it is known as ‘Hell’.”
“Hell.” On the Centaur’s lips, the word sounded more like a prison than Hades. “It all just keeps getting worse and worse.”
“And that is good news for you.”
Diomedes raised his eyebrows. “How’s that?”
“Well, as you might imagine, I have had quite a lot of time to think this over, and it stands to reason that if there is a place in the Underworld where the unjust are punished, then there is surely a place where the just are rewarded. Take the angeloi, for example. They must come from somewhere. They aren’t of earthly origin, but they clearly don’t belong down here either, so I can only surmise that there must be a third ‘world’ unlike Hell or Earth. You see, the one thing I have noticed on my expeditions is that every soul—every one without exception—deserves to be here. I never came across a single soul that had not earned exactly the punishment he received. But you are not the first to escape. A great number left Limbo at the time of the Great Tremor—the earthquake that caused the breach between this circle and the one above.”
“Breach?” said Diomedes. “Circle?”
“Forgive me,” said Chiron, looking at him with a curious half smile. “I am getting ahead of myself. The breach to which I refer is the very place where Nessos and Pholos found you.”
We looked at him blankly.
“The place where you descended from the level above. Just past the Minotaur.”
“The what?” we asked in unison.
“The Minotaur. Did you not see him? He lives in the breach.”
“I think we saw his tracks,” said Diomedes.
“Funny. I wonder why he didn’t bother you. Well, there’s something else for me to reflect upon after you leave. But it matters not. You are beyond them now. The place to which I refer is just about—move your arm—here.” Chiron pointed to a spot on the map about halfway down. “The wall gave way right here when the Great Tremor shook the Underworld. Before then, there was no way to move from one level to the next.”
I walked around the table and looked over Diomedes’ shoulder. It was hard to make sense of what the old Centaur was saying, but somehow it gave me hope.
“Just before the two of you died, the last of the Centaurs were driven from the world above. We had been a violent, vulgar race—no doubt, you have heard stories—and we found ourselves condemned to boil in this bloody river as our punishment. It was I who first suggested to my brethren that we lift our voices in prayer, but it took the Great Tremor to convince them. Such an earthquake shook this place that even Pholos relented and raised his arms to the heavens.” Chiron smiled now. “The answer was immediate. An angelos appeared at the bank of the river. A messenger of god like your friend, Ignatius. He was dressed in light and carried an orb of crystal in his right hand. In his left, he wielded a golden rod. On Earth, he said, the children of Centauros had disgraced their maker. We had failed to fulfill the purpose for which we had been shaped, embracing instead lives of violence and excess. For this, he said, we had been justly condemned.
“Well, we could see that the angelos spoke with authority, and the gravity of his words rang in our ears like thunder. Like thunder, I tell you. My people were thrown into a despair that felt all the deeper in the presence of such hope. There was wailing, and weeping, and a great gnashing of teeth. We begged the god’s messenger to show us how we might redeem ourselves. To intercede for us on Mount Olympus. After all, we had never known our purpose. How could we be blamed for forgetting it?
“We must have looked so wretched, groveling in the sand and blood. Whether this was what moved him, I cannot know, but he calmed his anger. Forgot his rage. Gave us a task, the completion of which would compensate for our failures—and beyond that, earn us immortality, for the god of the heavens, he said, is a god of mercy.
“Of course, we begged him to tell us the name of this unseen god, that we might worship him properly, but he only shook his head. ‘The four-letter name is not to be uttered here,’ he said. ‘You need only know that He is.’ ”
“Then he explained our task to us. We were needed here, on the banks of the river Styx to guard its occupants and prevent the Harpies from escaping to the upper levels. We accepted this charge and have remained here ever since, earning our freedom.”
I looked at the old Centaur and nodded. “Your words give me hope, venerable Chiron, and I am glad to hear that the race of Centauros will live on. But I don’t see how this will help us with our quest.”
“Look here.” By now he had managed to extricate the arrow from his beard and was using it to point to the map. “This is Hades as I have come to know it. Granted, the map is incomplete, but you can see there is a certain logic to the architecture of the Underworld. It is not merely a chaos of pain; its very structure is dictated by the demands of justice. Each level, you see, corresponds to a particular vice—sins of passion near the top, calculated sins near the bottom. Each level is smaller than the one above because the more evil there is in a place, the less it actually exists; so the whole landscape ends up looking like . . . like a kind of funnel. A series of concentric circles. And the lower you go, the more severe the punishment.”
“So the souls at the bottom are the ones that the gods really hate,” said Diomedes.
“No. No. No. You have missed my point. It is exactly the opposite. There is only one god—this god of the four-letter name—and he does not hate anyone. The damned souls hate Him.”
“So you’re saying the souls here have actually chosen their punishment?” I said.
“In a manner of speaking, yes. They chose to do evil and refused to repent. Didn’t you?”
I mulled over his words. I hadn’t exactly chosen to burn for three thousand years, but neither, in all that time, had I asked for release. When I did, the favor was granted.
“Here, then,” said Chiron, rolling up the map. He placed it in my hands, smiling. “Your stories have made an old Centaur happy and have won you a steadfast friend. I would like to give you this as a parting gift, one guest-friend to another.”
“But . . . I stole from you—in your own home!”
Chiron paused in thought for a moment as though I had suggested something novel. “Who is to say what is mine and what is yours in the afterlife? Seems to me it all belongs to someone else now.” He smiled at me and winked. “You must need it more than I do, or you wouldn’t have tried to steal it in the first place. Think of it as compensation for your story. I shall have many ages to mull over your words, and the pleasure I shall take in them is worth at least this piece of parchment. Or if you prefer, you may think of it as a favor to me. You can finish the map—fill in the gaps, and when you pass this way again, return it.”
“The gaps?”
Chiron took the map back out of my hands and unrolled it again. “You see this bit here?” He pointed to a large blank at the bottom of the page. “That is where you are going.”
I closed my eyes and lowered my forehead onto a fist. “I thought you said the map would help me.”
“I said it would help. I didn’t say it would help you.”
Diomedes laughed.
“But I think it will. I’ve been able to sketch out some of the larger features: the ten valleys of Malebolge, the bridges, Lake Cocytus . . . These are useful things to know.”
I smiled. “They are indeed, Lord Chiron. I am an ungrateful wretch. I would be happy to finish your map. I owe you at least that much for trying to steal it.”
He leaned over and touched his forehead to mine. It was an oddly intimate gesture. “Perhaps you have changed after all. Oh! And that reminds me . . .” He pulled a small vial from one of his shelves. “I want you to take this as well. It is the last of my healing oils. I brought a great load of them down with me when we were exiled from the living world, but our war with the Harpies has taken its toll. This is all I have left.”
I tied the flask next to Penelope’s cup, wondering how many more gifts I could afford to carry. As it was, I must have looked rather like a traveling merchant, with all the flasks, bottles, and bags I was toting. “Chiron,” I said, clasping his hand in mine, “Far-Shooter, Wound Healer, Mapmaker. I am unworthy of your friendship. It is with a heavy heart that I must leave you.”
Chiron released my hand. “Not so fast, Son of Laertes. We have to get you across this river, now, don’t we? And my brethren will not be eager to ford it. The woods on the other side are infested with Harpies.”
I shuddered. “Harpies. Now I’m not so eager myself.”
“Not to worry. We have been at war with those old hags for centuries, and they have learned to respect our bows. The difficulty will be in convincing my brethren to help you. Wait here. They have surely come to a decision by now. And Odysseus,” he said, stopping at the door, “help yourself to anything in my tent.”