IT DIDN’T TAKE ME LONG to start feeling bad again. The incessant groaning and swaying of the trees made me nervous, the air was cold and damp, and to top it off, Argos really did smell exceedingly foul. I reflected that the Wood of Suicides would have no shortage of dead things for him to roll in, but something about the smell struck me as singularly revolting—as though he had bathed in a barrel of dead fish. And with that, a terrible suspicion came over me: What if the smell wasn’t Argos at all? The more I thought it over, the more sense it made.
I slowed down until Diomedes and I were walking side by side. I leaned close and spoke to him in a whisper. “Diomedes, I’ve been thinking about this smell.”
Suddenly he looked as worried as I.
“What if it’s not the dogs at all?”
Diomedes narrowed his eyes.
“What if it’s—you know—the shapeshifter. What if he’s nearby?”
Diomedes swallowed and looked around at the forest. “Not nearby,” he said. “Here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it, Odysseus. What are the odds that in all the Underworld, you would run into your very own dog?”
My heart sank. “Do you really think—” But Argos sensed we were talking about him and came over to my side. Diomedes looked at him, frowning.
We spent the remainder of the walk in a morose silence, broken only by the groaning trees and Argos’ ill-suited barking. Soon the dogs themselves began to lose interest, and one by one, they wandered off into the woods, leaving only Argos and little Dionysus behind. I was growing increasingly troubled by our conversation, and increasingly annoyed with little Dionysus, who seemed forever under my feet. Finally, Diomedes picked him up and slung him under one arm like a sack of barley. Argos, for his part, kept silently by my side, bumping my knee with his head. “Good boy,” I said, patting him on the back. He leaned against my thigh as we walked.
The wide trunks of the trees barred our vision for a time, but as we approached the forest’s edge, the landscape opened up, and we were able to see the next great ring of Hell’s spiral of despair. Just beyond the tree line, the crumbling vegetation gave way to desert—league upon league of sweltering sand, stretched out beneath a stormy sky.
“Are the stars falling?” asked Ajax as we looked out across the dismal terrain.
Absurd as it may sound, the same thought had occurred to me, for the air, it seemed, was alive with countless points of light. In every direction, bright against the murky sky, embers cascaded from the clouds in sparkling sheets. Some fluttered to the earth like leaves, drawing long ribbons of soot in the air, but the greater part clattered to the ground in glowing heaps. Everywhere, the sand was pocked with black craters.
“No,” I said, “I have seen this before. They aren’t stars. They’re rocks.”
“You seen this before?” asked Ajax, looking uncomfortable. Argos, spooked by the brimstone rain, had judged Ajax to be the more worthy shelter and had left my side to work his way between the giant’s legs. Every time Ajax would lift a foot, the hound would bark as if his tail were on fire.
“Yes,” I answered. “On the island of Methena. I wasn’t more than a pup at the time, but I remember it well enough. There was a big mountain at the center of the island. It had a hole in the top of it, and every now and then, some steam or smoke or whatnot would belch out of it. The folk there used to think that Hephaestus lived in its belly. But this one time, the whole thing blew up, and for days, the sky looked just like it does now. Little red rocks falling out of the clouds as if Zeus were upstairs putting out a fire with a broom. But it wasn’t anything to laugh at, I tell you. Houses caught fire and folks burned to death, and the whole island was full of ash for years. A couple of priests lost their livelihoods over that one, not to mention their heads.”
“How we gettin’ through is what I want to know,” exclaimed Ajax, who seemed even more afraid of the fire than Argos was. Adding to the horror of the spectacle were the countless writhing souls cast on the sand like fish from a red tide. “And who’re all those people?” he asked.
I took out Chiron’s map. “We are in the seventh circle of Hell,” I replied. “Here we will find the violent—against God, against nature . . . Oh! And against art too.” I returned the map to my quiver and looked across the sweltering landscape. “It won’t be easy to cross, but we could try the tortoise again. Use Ajax’ shield as a sort of roof with yours and mine on either side, Diomedes.”
But Ajax was no longer listening. Trying to hold his attention was like holding a fly in your hand. “Boys,” he called out as though we weren’t standing right next to him. “Think I see a way around.”
Good old Ajax. Having him along was like having our own walking, talking watchtower. Thanks to him, we were able to circumvent the burning sands by moving along a branch of the river Phlegethon that flowed straight through the desert beneath a snaking cloud of red steam. Here, the brimstone was extinguished by the mist that rose from the boiling river, and so we were able to walk from one end of the desert to the other, swatting at the occasional smoldering ember but otherwise unharmed.
“Friends,” I said as we emerged at last on the other side, “if the rest of our trip is that easy, we’ll be out of Hell in no time.” I pushed past both of them and leapt into the cool air.
The next thing I knew, I was drowning.
Well, drowning may be an overstatement. One moment I was standing on the sand; the next I was up to my ears in water. My little bag of bread stayed afloat, gods be praised, but I was weighed down by my armor and never would have made it out if Ajax hadn’t caught me by the helmet crest and hauled me ashore.
The experience, however, was not altogether disagreeable, following as it did upon the long, hot march beside the boiling river. What’s more, I discovered by default that the water was fit to drink. After so much dry sand, a mouthful of water was quite welcome, even if it did taste like an old man’s foot. We sat on the bank and passed the wineskin once around. I filled my helmet with water and offered it to Argos. Then I broke up a loaf of bread, and together, Diomedes, Ajax, and I shared a meager supper, feet dangling in the cool river.
Neither of my companions was inclined to talk, and for once, neither was I. The Centaur’s words still lurked like phantoms in the darker corners of my mind. “Wily . . . lying . . . cruel . . . ruthless Odysseus.” I kept repeating the words to myself. Did they really sum me up? Thus we sat in silence, contemplating the darkness. When I looked at Ajax again, he was slumped over his shield, sound asleep. Diomedes too seemed to be nodding off, and soon I was . . . well . . . dead to the world.
I slept.
Again I dreamt of the tiger. Again of the tree and the seven suitors. This time, however, Ajax was not among them. Instead, it was my son who turned without reply and walked away. And the dream ended with the same aching sense of despair.