WE STOOD for a long time, facing one another in silence, our hearts torn between pride and fear. Diomedes was a leader of men, but not clever. Not like me. When I got an idea, he followed. And yet our history together had not been entirely edifying. Together, we had breached the gates of Troy in my wooden horse; we had captured Dolon, the infamous spy; we had beguiled the great beauty Iphigenia; and we had stolen the Palladium from under the noses of its temple priests. We had done legendary deeds together, but they had all been my ideas; and all of them—every last one—had been deeply, tragically wicked. Sure, we had pulled the information we needed out of that spy; we made off with the Palladium—and won the war as a result; we breached the Trojan walls without losing a single man.
And the death of Iphigenia? That one always did bother me, and more so than the others. I can still see her in that wedding dress, blushing with all the enthusiasm of a young bride. It was my idea to tell her she was getting married. She was so eager, we had to run to keep up with her. Well, it was a necessary evil. The wind wouldn’t blow unless her blood was spilled. So the seer told us. She had to be sacrificed. A necessary evil—or so I told Diomedes. Ah, but the cost of it. To my dying day, I could not forget her face, pale and blue under that white veil.
So my name lived on in legend, and I was remembered as a master of lies. Even my closest friends regarded me with suspicion. In all my long life, only one person ever really had faith in me: my wife, though I never understood why. Penelope herself was utterly trustworthy. I used to wonder if perhaps she was such a loyal soul that she simply could not recognize infidelity when she saw it. I believe that is why, even as I lay in the arms of the immortal Circe, I could not forget her.
But I digress. The decision that lay before Diomedes had little to do with my trustworthiness. The question was whether or not he would throw in his lot with me this one last time. And it couldn’t have been an easy decision. At some point during the tedious years of our mutual torment, it must have occurred to him that my ideas had never been all that good—that we had paid for our fame with our souls.
As I watched him, Diomedes frowned again, then sighed and shook his head. “I guess you would know better than I.” He trudged over and gave my sword a reluctant push; I pulled at it from the other side, and we worked in this way until it became clear to us both that the door would never move.
“So we leave now?” asked Diomedes.
“Now I gather the rest of my gear and we do as the goddess told us.”
“Good.” For the first time in three thousand years, I saw him smile.
I strolled back over to my gear and picked up the leather purse. I tugged on its strings.
“Odysseus!” Diomedes grabbed at it. There was a note of real fear in his voice.
“Yes?” I said, holding the purse away from him.
“Are you sure you want to open that bag?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“You remember the bag of winds?”
“I do.”
“So you remember how that ended.”
“Iolos told me not to open that bag.”
“And Athena told you not to open the door!”
“Are you trying to talk me into this or out of it?”
Diomedes grit his teeth and cursed through them. He balled his fists and shook his head. I knew from experience that once he locked his jaw like that, it was time to back down. Plus, there was a symbol stamped into the leather—a pelican—which could, I thought, mean wind.
“I see your point,” I said. “I’ll open it later.” I tied the bag to my belt. “I’ll have a look at the arrows instead.” I emptied the quiver at my feet. “Can you believe this? She gave me only seven. How long do you think these will last?”
Diomedes sank to the ground and put his head between his knees.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” I said. “No one’s waiting for us.”
“The sooner we begin, the sooner we get out of here.”
“I need to know my tools.”
“You and your curiosity. I tell you, one of these days . . .” He went on about how I never took anything seriously, and how at this rate we’d never even make it to the next ring of Hades, and why couldn’t I just focus on one thing at a time, and how come I never listened to anything he said, and so on and so forth. I don’t remember it all. I wasn’t really listening. This was pretty much the way we started anything—he anxious to begin, I waiting for something more interesting to come along.
While he droned on, I sorted the arrows by size and began examining them in detail, beginning with the smallest. The first was thin and razor sharp and seemed to be made of ivory, though it weighed heavy in the hand. The next two were of identical workmanship, one painted green, the other red. I’d never seen mere arrows constructed with such care. And their fletching had been dyed to match.
“Diomedes,” I said, “your eyes are better than mine. Have a look at this.”
I handed him the red arrow.
After some more grumbling and eye rolling, his curiosity got the better of him. “Pretty,” he said.
“Odd, though, don’t you think? If you’re just going to shoot it at someone . . .”
Diomedes tested the point with his thumb. “Maybe you’re not supposed to shoot it.”
“Then what’s the point?”
“Ceremonial?”
I snorted. “Isn’t that just like the gods? Give us a job we don’t understand, take us to a door we can’t open, hand us a bag without telling us what’s in it, and equip us with a quiver full of arrows we can’t use.” I groaned and shook a fist at the heavens, then looked to Diomedes for a reaction.
He cocked his head to the side, stood up, and gripped the handle of his sword. Bending one knee, he held the palm of his hand to the ground and closed his eyes. “There’s an army coming,” he whispered.
“You’re just saying that so I’ll quit fooling around,” I said, but then I could feel it as well: a slight tremor in the soil.
“It’s an army,” he whispered. “They’re moving fast. I don’t think we want to meet them.”
“Agreed,” I said. “We’ll look at the rest of these later.” I slid the arrows back into the quiver, took up my helmet, and pulled it down over my temples, framing the world in bronze. Then I slung the great shield on my back.
We set out at a jog—which wasn’t easy, and if you’ve ever tried to run in full armor, then you know what I’m talking about. The greaves cut into your ankles, the breastplate rubs against your armpits and hips, the helmet slips around on your head as you sweat, and you can’t brush the sweat from your eyes because you need both hands to keep your sword and quiver from flopping about—to say nothing of the bow. Meanwhile, the shield smacks your lower back with every stride, your sandals cut neat grooves into your shins, and the bag (which seemed the least of your worries when you tied it to your belt) slips around to the front and clocks you in the crotch. Plus, the armor is heavy. Really heavy. Like carrying a twelve-year-old on your shoulders.
The worst of it was that Diomedes didn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, I think he enjoyed the exercise. Luckily, we had run a short distance when he decided to stop again.
“We’re not taking a break so soon, are we?” I said, adjusting my shield strap. Already my neck was chafed.
“They’re coming on too fast. We need to hide.”
I didn’t much like taking orders from Diomedes, but I liked running even less. I nodded toward a great heap of charred rubble about a stone’s throw away on our left. We set out for it at once—Diomedes at a sprint, I at a brisk waddle—then skirted the base of the mound and climbed about halfway up, laying our shields flat. We sat with our backs to the slope and waited.
“Assuming they don’t spot us,” said Diomedes, chewing his helmet strap, “where do we go from here?”
“Stop that,” I said. “Three thousand years old, and you still have to keep sticking things in your mouth.” When he wasn’t sucking his thumb, he was chewing his helmet strap; and on formal occasions when neither seemed appropriate, he would chew the inside of his cheek. Our friends actually found it endearing, which may be why he never quit doing it—and why it bothered me so much.
He spit out the strap. It looked like a piece of wet jerky. “So? What now?”
“Believe it or not, I’ve passed this way before,” I answered. “Circe—the witch I met on my return from Troy—she showed me the way.” She hadn’t, actually. It was a sort of drug-induced hallucination at best, but I couldn’t have Diomedes questioning me now. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I have a plan.”
I didn’t.
The clamor of the approaching army grew steadily louder until it was so close I could make out individual voices. The noise was, in fact, distinctly unmilitary. It lacked the rattle and clang of armor, the underlying thrum of synchronized step, the stern calls of commanding officers. This was an army en route, not an army on the march.
“They’re making the strangest racket,” I said to Diomedes. His eyes were closed in prayer. “And what is that humming noise? Can you hear that? Like a chorus of horns.” It had an unnatural, almost mechanical quality, and the longer I listened, the more it vexed me, until finally, overwhelmed by curiosity, I rolled over to my stomach and lifted my head.
Indeed, the source of the noise was immediately revealed. But at the same time, so was I. The shouting ceased, and all together the faces of a hundred thousand men turned to meet my gaze. I ducked back behind the mound, but a great cry echoed across the valley, and the din of running feet rose to a roar.
“They spotted us!” I shouted.
“Curse your curiosity!” Diomedes growled. “I should have left you when I had the chance!”
He was right again. My wit had always been a two-edged sword. I’d cut myself on it as often as anything else, and poor Diomedes had usually been nearby when things took a turn for the worse. Now, with the seed of hope newly planted, he was about to die a second time.
“Make for the top of the mound!” he cried.
I expected a throng of enemies to come pouring over the summit at any moment, but when at last we arrived there, breathless and bewildered, the sight of the “army” took away what breath we had left. Stretching across the barren landscape in a winding column was a great host of wild and bloody men. At the head of the procession, a long gray flag snapped in the wind. It bore no markings of any sort yet seemed to hold some strange power over the multitude, for despite their curses, the crowd neither turned to face us nor in any way deviated from its course. From where we stood, we were also able to make out the source of the unnatural hum that had so provoked my curiosity: on every side, a roiling cloud of wasps enveloped the souls in an angry swarm. Here or there, a bloody face, a welted arm, a clawing fist would emerge, then disappear.
Most curious of all, however, were the solitary figures that moved on either side of the mob like towers of living flesh. Stone-gray giants—solemn and unswerving as guards at a tomb—strode along the edges of the column with clenched fists. I could not make out their faces, but there was something about the way they swung their enormous arms, and something about the way the crowd spun out of their path wherever they turned, that reminded me of wind. Looking more closely, I could make out black, withered wings between their shoulders, but still I could not see their faces, and although my deeper instincts told me to keep my distance, a yearning curiosity drew me closer. Before I knew it, I was climbing down the opposite side of the hill to have a better look. Behind me, Diomedes’ protests were lost among the echoes.
I made my way to the base of the mound, where I was able at last to discern faces in the crowd. By then, it was clear enough to me that this was no army at all and that, moreover, the throng numbered both men and women. But even from this vantage, I could not make out the faces of the giants. It was like reading a word in a dream: whenever I focused on them, their features seemed to shift and melt, but when I looked away again, I could swear I saw a face out of the corner of my eye. The leather-winged creatures paced back and forth along the margin as though herding a restless flock. And sure enough, as I turned to signal Diomedes, a deep voice boomed to me from the other side of the crowd, “You there. You with the bow. Put that back where you found it. Get in line.”
I turned to face my accuser and spotted one of the giants lumbering toward me. “Sorry; wrong man,” I answered. “I’m not one of this bunch and don’t intend to be.” But the giant pushed on till he stood directly before me, bending his burly frame forward to look me in the eye. Giant though he was, this was no Cyclops, and I could almost meet his gaze if I stood up very straight—an altogether disconcerting experience since, as I mentioned, he had no face.
There was a long silence between us, during which I kept my hand on my sword. At last, he straightened and shook his head. “You are not one of us. Where do you come from?” His voice was hard and low, like distant thunder.
I looked about for a moment, thinking that if this situation wasn’t begging for one of my famous “lying tales,” then I was a goat’s brother. “I am a messenger of the goddess Athena,” I cried. “I come with commands from Olympus. Bow before me, for I shall bestow upon you a task of highest honor for which the gods themselves will repay you in full.”
“You lie,” said the giant, and he seized me by the shield strap. Somewhere, I thought, there’s a goat running around with my family name.
The giant made as if to drag me away, but by now Diomedes had caught up with us. “Sir!” he said. “I apologize for my friend here.” This irked me, but I was hardly in a position to complain. “Odysseus doesn’t know any better, sir. He’s a liar and a cheat, but he means well.” Again, I felt I ought to be insulted, but his words did the trick. The giant set me down and turned his attention to Diomedes. “Look,” he continued, “we’re at your mercy. We’re here, we’re lost, and we’d be very grateful if you could help us.”
At this, the giant seemed to tremble a little. He took a step back and turned his face toward the fleeing crowd, the tail end of which was just now passing us by. He turned back again. The gray of his skin seemed to lighten a little. “Mercy?” he said. “How do you speak of mercy in this place? Do you not know where you are? This is the vestibule of the Abyss. That is the Army of Cowards. We of the withered wings are angeloi, called into being before the dawn of man. We are unfit for any world because we will not choose a side in the Great War. Even Hades spits us out. If there is one place you will find no mercy, it is here among the small souled. No, Son of Adam. Abandon all hope. Despair and die.”
“Son of a what?” I said as he turned away.
But Diomedes called after him, “Wait. Please. In the name of Athena, stop. In the name of the Parthenos!”
And then the giant did stop. “Where have you heard that name,” he growled, “and how dare you speak it here?” Despite his tone, the giant’s gaze remained fixed on the disappearing mob.
Diomedes took another step forward. “She is the one who sent us.”
The giant folded his arms and looked down at Diomedes, who took a step back again. “The name you speak commands obedience,” said the giant, “and until now, I had never heard it uttered in this realm. Even so, I am not a creature like you. I do not exist in time. Only mortals may change their minds, and only while they live. Here, no one turns back. No one repents. There is no past or future. We exist only in the now. What we decide, we do. And when it is done, it is thus forever. Perhaps there is hope for you, mortal, but I am pure spirit. I will not choose, and so I am damned.”
“Wait just a moment,” I said, stepping in front of Diomedes and dismissing him with an elegant flourish. The first principle of rhetoric, after all, is to establish a physical presence. Given that I’m rather on the short side, this has been a challenge for me, but I find ways to compensate. “Giant, you have undermined the basis of your own argument, for if, as you say, we are not in time, and, what’s more, you are not capable of turning back, then, by necessity, you are already committed to helping us, for you have just now left that mob behind. You cannot go back on that decision. By virtue of the very fact that you are standing with us now, you prove that when you chose your fate, you chose us to be part of it. Deny, then, what you see before you. Live or dead, here we stand; and you, giant, stand with us.”
Normally, I would have concluded the argument by locking my adversary in an iron gaze, but since the giant had no face, I locked eyes with Diomedes instead. The lower half of his countenance froze into a sort of desperate grin. The upper half frowned. He waved his hands in a gesture that might have been an attempt at a rhetorical flourish, then stomped his foot and shouted, “Ha!” then as an afterthought, “Yep.” It was no way to end an argument.
The giant looked down at Diomedes’ foot, then looked back up at the two of us. He folded and unfolded his arms. He looked back again at Diomedes’ foot. His broken wings twitched. He cast a glance after the fleeing mob. Then he leaned all the way forward and pounded one clenched fist into the sand. “What do you want from me?”
Diomedes gasped. “Huh?”
“What . . . do . . . you . . . want?”
Diomedes looked to me for an answer.
“A guide,” I said, and held out my hand.