“Mmmmmmooooooo moo moo!” said Hercules. “Bye, cows!”

After all those years with the cattle, Hercules had learned to speak Cow.

“Mooo maaa. Moooo,” he added. “I’ll come back and see you.”

“Will you be back often?” asked Humus, sounding hopeful. “We could save the mucking for you.”

“Oh, let the boy go,” said Pita. “Can’t you see he’s fated for bigger things than mucking?”

In fact, Hercules was not done with mucking. But I’m getting ahead of the story.

After Hercules said his goodbyes, he turned to the lion. “Hop on,” he said.

“You’re wearing NeMean now,” said Cee. “You don’t need me.”

“He makes a good hat and breastplate,” said Hercules. “But you keep my neck warm.”

Cee took his place on Hercules’s shoulders, and our hero set off down the road.

I thought Hercules and Cee made a pretty good team. I figured that with Hercules’s strength and Cee’s good-hearted sense they’d be all right on their own. But before I went back to the Underworld, I wanted to wish Hercules good luck.

“Hercules,” I said. “It’s me, Hades.” I took off my helmet. FOOP! I appeared beside him.

“Yikes!” said Cee.

“Hey, Uncle Hades!” Hercules grinned.

“Hades?” said Cee. “As in Lord Hades? Ruler of the Underworld?”

“The one and only,” I confessed.

“Oh, this is a major thrill!” said Cee.

I liked him right away.

“Uncle Hades,” said Hercules, “you should have seen what just happened.”

“Actually, I did.” I told him how I’d been invisibly there. “I have to get back to the Underworld, but I wanted to wish you luck first. Where are you going? What’s your plan?”

Hercules turned to the lion. “Do we have a plan, Cee?”

“Of course,” said the lion. “First we’re going to walk to the oracle of Delphi. I’m going to ask the sibyl what to do with myself, since I’m not NeMean’s prisoner anymore.”

I nodded and turned to Hercules. “And what will you ask the sibyl?”

He wrinkled his brow in thought. “Where the path is,” he said at last. “You know, the hard path?”

“Good idea,” I told him. “Well, good luck on your journey, both of you. And Hercules, be careful. You know Hera is still out to get you.”

“I can take her,” said Hercules, putting his fists together and popping out his biceps.

“She’s a powerful goddess with a grudge,” I reminded him. “It’s not about muscles.”

“Right,” said Hercules. “Don’t worry about me!”

But that was the thing. I did worry. I went back to the Underworld. I attended the opening of a wrestling stadium in my kingdom, which was a minor disaster. And I even helped Theseus out of a few jams. But I could never get my mind off Hercules. He was big. But up against Hera, he was helpless. So, when I got the chance, I astro-traveled straight to Mount Parnassus, home to the oracle of Delphi. ZIP! My timing couldn’t have been better. Hercules and Cee had just gone into the sibyl’s cave. Invisible, I let myself in, too — saving the ridiculous $XV admission price.

The sibyl was always a lovely young mortal priestess. She always wore a white robe. That day the sibyl had on a white robe. But she had a mop of long, tangled hair that hid her face completely. Being a sibyl is a demanding job. I doubted that sibyls had much free time to devote to hair care. Still, this sibyl’s hair was an unruly mess. A rat’s nest! She could have run a comb through it, at the very least. You’d think an oracle as famous as the one at Delphi would have some standards.

As always, the sibyl sat on a tall three-legged stool called a “tripod.”

“Speak, pilgrim!” said the sibyl as Hercules and Cee approached. “What is your question for the oracle?”

That voice. It was so familiar. I wondered if I’d spoken to this sibyl before she let herself go in the hair department.

“You go,” Hercules told Cee.

Cee slipped off Hercules’s shoulders and cleared his throat. “I am Cithaeron, a lion,” he said.

“The point!” snapped the sibyl. “Get to it.”

“I’d like to know what to do with my life,” said Cee. “Can you tell me?”

The ratty-haired sibyl leaned waaaaaay over the steep precipice. She took a deep breath of the thick yellow smoke that billowed up from way down inside the earth. I feared that any second her stool was going to tip too far and send her crashing down to whatever lay below.

“The lion wishes to know what to do with his life!” the sibyl shouted into the abyss.

Clouds of yellow smoke billowed up. For a moment, they hid the sibyl entirely. When the smoke cleared, the sibyl leaned back so that all three legs of her tripod were on the ground. That was a relief.

“Hear me, lion,” the sibyl said. “Like honey dripping from the beehive, so shall you live.”

“What?” said Cee. “What does that mean?”

But the sibyl only said, “Next pilgrim!”

“I can’t believe this,” muttered Cee as he stepped back.

Hercules stepped forward. “Where does the hard path begin?” he asked.

Again, the sibyl leaned precariously over the yellow smoke. When she brought her stool back to an upright position, she said, “The hard path begins at King Eurystheus’s palace in Mycenae.”

Hercules stared at the sibyl in disbelief. “You mean my cousin, Eury? He’s a king now?”

The sibyl nodded. “You must go to his palace. You must kneel down before King Eurystheus. He will give you—”

“No way!” Hercules’s eyes flashed with anger. Even in the dim light of the cave, I saw that his face was turning red. “I’m not kneeling down before that tattletale!”

“Never interrupt a sibyl!” warned the sibyl.

“Sorry,” murmured Hercules.

“King Eurystheus will give you XII labors to do, Hercules,” the sibyl continued. “XII hard labors. Some—most, really—are impossible.”

That voice. I still couldn’t place it. And I’d never heard such a talkative sibyl.

“Hard labors?” Hercules was saying. “No problem. Impossible labors? Bring ’em on. But I won’t do them for Eury.”

“You must!” said the sibyl. “That is your fate. Now, get to work, Hercules!” She bowed her shaggy head. “Next pilgrim!”

Puzzled, I followed Cee and Hercules out of the cave. Sibyls often gave strange, hard-to-figure-out messages, like the one about the dripping honey that she gave to poor Cee. But this sibyl had straight-out told Hercules what to do. Something was wrong here, and it wasn’t just the sibyl’s nasty hairdo.

“Very strange,” Cee was saying. “All I can figure is that honey is sticky, so I guess I’ll stick with you for a while, Hercules.”

“Right,” said Hercules. “Hop on!”

I let them go ahead. I turned around and snuck back into the cave. And when I saw what was going on, I almost fell over the precipice myself.

There stood a lovely young mortal woman in a white robe. A sibyl. She was helping the ratty-haired sibyl off the high stool.

“And did you enjoy playing a funny trick on your friend?” asked the lovely sibyl.

“I did indeed,” said the second sibyl. Then she reached up and took off what turned out to be a wig of long, snarled hair. “I did indeed.”

It was Hera!