Percy Jackson's Greek Gods (14 page)

HADES DOES HOME
IMPROVEMENT

I
 
FEEL FOR THE GUY
.

No, seriously.

Hades might be a creep, but there’s no doubt he got the short end of the universe. Despite being Rhea’s oldest son, he was always counted as the youngest, since the gods went by the order they got barfed from Kronos’s gut.

If that wasn’t bad enough, when the gods rolled dice to divide up the world, Hades got the least desirable part—the Underworld.

Of course, Hades was kind of a gloomy dude to begin with, so you could argue that he was destined to hang out underground. He was always brooding and dressed in black. His dark hair covered his eyes like one of those emo dudes from Japanese manga. Once he became lord of the Underworld, all the color drained out of his complexion, because he was leaving the mortal world behind.

Even if the other gods
wanted
to keep in touch with him (which they didn’t), the Underworld had really bad phone service and zero Wi-Fi. When Hades was down there, he had no idea what was going on in the world above. His only news came from the spirits of the recently dead, who would fill him in on the latest gossip.

In fact, in Ancient Greek times, whenever you invoked the name of Hades, you had to bang your fist against the ground, because that was the only way to get his attention. Kind of like,
Hey, I’m talking to you!

Why would you
want
to get Hades’s attention? I’m not sure.

Eventually the entire Underworld would be called
Hades
after the god Hades
,
which made things confusing; but the Underworld had actually been around much longer than the god. Its original name was Erebos, and when Hades took over, the place was a real fixer-upper.

Let’s start with the plumbing. Five different rivers flowed into the Underworld, and you wouldn’t want to use any of them for taking a bath or brushing your teeth. The
least
dangerous was the Cocytus, the River of Wailing, which looked tame enough. Its dark-blue waters wound peacefully through the plains of Erebos, with plenty of nice-looking spots on the riverbank for a picnic; but if you got too close, you would hear the cries of tortured souls churning in the current.

See, the Cocytus was fed by the tears of the damned. Just being near it would send you into a state of depression. If you actually
touched
the water…well, trust me, you didn’t want to do that. No amount of cute puppy videos on the Internet would ever lift your spirits again.

The second river was the Phlegethon, the River of Fire. It roared through the Underworld caverns like a torrent of burning gasoline, cutting channels through the black volcanic rock, lighting everything bloodred, filling the air with smoke and fumes until finally the river plummeted as a fiery waterfall into the deeper abyss of Tartarus, which was like the basement of the basement.

So, yeah…when Hades turned on the hot water in his shower, he got a face full of burning Phlegethon. No wonder the guy was always in a bad mood.

The crazy thing was, Phlegethon water wouldn’t kill you, even if you were mortal. Sure, it would burn like radioactive chili peppers sautéed in acid. It would make you
wish
you were dead. But the river was actually designed to keep its victims alive so that they could suffer forever—hooray! Many damned souls had to swim through it for all eternity, or be stuck in the fiery water up to their necks.

According to some legends, the Phlegethon could eventually burn away your sins and let you go free if you were really, really sorry for the things you’d done. If you want to test that theory, go ahead and jump in. Me, I think I’ll pass.

River number three, the Acheron, was the River of Pain. If you guessed it was painful, you win a cookie! The Acheron started in the mortal world, near a temple of the dead in Epirus. Maybe that’s why ghosts were drawn to it and filled the river with their own pain and suffering. The Acheron meandered along until it plunged underground and tumbled into Erebos. There it widened into a dark, steamy, swampy expanse that caused pain to anyone unlucky enough to touch its waters or even
hear
its current. After a while, the Acheron split into two smaller rivers—the Cocytus and the Styx—that flowed in opposite directions until they both spilled into Tartarus.

River number four was my least personal favorite: the Lethe, River of Forgetfulness. (I’ve had some bad experiences with amnesia. Long story.) Anyway, the Lethe looked harmless. In most places it was a gentle span of milky-white water that rolled over a shallow bed of stones, softly gurgling in a way that made your eyes feel heavy. You would think you could wade across this river, no problem. My advice? Don’t.

A single drop of Lethe water would wipe your short-term memory. You wouldn’t remember anything that happened in the last week. Take a full drink, or wade into those waters, and your mind would be completely erased. You wouldn’t remember your own name, or where you came from, or even that the New York Yankees are
obviously
better than the Boston Red Sox. I know—terrifying, right?

For some spirits of the dead, however, the Lethe was actually a blessing. Crowds of ghosts were always gathered at the banks, drinking from the river so that they could forget their former lives, because you can’t miss what you don’t remember. Occasionally spirits were even allowed to reincarnate—to be reborn in the mortal world for another life. If you took that chance, you
had
to drink from the Lethe first so that you wouldn’t remember your old life. Because, seriously—who would want to go through twelve boring years of school again if you remembered doing it before?

Poppies grew all along the banks of the Lethe, which is why poppy juice has the power to put people to sleep and dull their pain. (We call that
opium
, children. And don’t do drugs, because DRUGS ARE BAD. Okay, I had to put that in there.) At one point, the Lethe curved around the entrance of a dark cave where the god Hypnos lived—the god of sleep. What was it like inside? No one has ever described it, probably because anyone stupid enough to go in fell asleep and never came out again.

The fifth river of the Underworld was the Styx, the River of Hate. It was definitely the most famous river, but the name alone sort of dampened any chance for tourism.
“Hey, kids, we’re going to the River of Hate for spring break!” “Yay!”

The Styx flowed through the deepest, darkest parts of the Underworld. Some legends claimed it was created by the water Titan, Tethys, and was fed by salty springs from the bottom of the ocean.

The Styx circled Erebos like a moat, so you pretty much
had
to cross it to get into the Underworld. (Some stories say the Acheron was the river you had to cross, but since the Styx was a branch of the Acheron, I guess both versions are correct.)

The current was dark and sluggish, always shrouded in foul-smelling mist, and the water was corrosive to mortal flesh. Mix sulfuric acid with sewage and a splash of liquid hatred, and you’ve got the Styx.

So you’re wondering: Why would anybody
want
to get into the Underworld? I don’t know. But ever since humans were created, whenever they died, their souls just sort of instinctively drifted down to Erebos, like lemmings jumping off a cliff, or tourists flocking to Times Square. You could tell them all you wanted that it was a stupid idea, but they just kept doing it.

The problem was, the souls had no reliable way to cross the River Styx. A few managed to swim it. Others tried, only to dissolve in the water. Many just wandered along the mortal side of the river, wailing and pointing at the other side like,
I wanna go that way!

Finally, one industrious
daimon named Charon decided to go into business. What’s a daimon? It’s not a devil-type demon with a pitchfork and a tail and red skin. Daimons were immortal spirits, kind of like lesser gods. Some looked like monsters or mortals. Some were good. Some were bad. Some just kind of hung around.

This dude Charon was a son of Nyx, the goddess of night. Charon could take different forms, but most of the time he appeared as an ugly old man in tattered robes, with a greasy beard and a cone-shaped hat. If it was me and I could change shape, I would walk around looking like Brad Pitt; but I guess Charon didn’t care about impressing the ghosts.

At any rate, one day Charon realized that all these mortal souls were clamoring to get to Erebos, so Charon built himself a boat and started ferrying people across.

Not for free, of course. He accepted gold, silver, and most major credit cards. Since the Underworld had no regulations, Charon just charged whatever he wanted to. If he liked you, he might let you across for a couple of coins. If he didn’t like you, he’d demand a fortune. If you were unlucky enough to be buried without any money—oh, well! You’d have to wander around on the mortal side of the Styx forever. Some of the dead even drifted back to the mortal world to haunt the living as ghosts.

Even
if you got across the Styx, you’d find Erebos in complete chaos. The ghosts were
supposed
to divide into different groups according to how good they’d been in their lives. If they were real scum suckers, they went to the Fields of Punishment to enjoy special torture for eternity. If they were good, they went to Elysium, which was like Paradise, Las Vegas, and Disneyland rolled into one. If the spirits hadn’t been particularly good or bad in life but had just sort of existed (which was most people), they were forced to wander forever in the Fields of Asphodel, which wasn’t a horrible place—just incredibly, mind-numbingly boring.

That’s how spirits got sorted, in theory. Unfortunately, before Hades took over, nobody was policing the Underworld. It was kind of like a school day when all your teachers are sick and you have nothing but subs who don’t know the rules, so naturally the kids take total advantage. Doomed souls from Punishment sneaked into Asphodel and no one stopped them. The spirits from Asphodel crashed the party in Elysium. And some really dumb but noble spirits bound for Elysium took a wrong turn, ended up in Punishment, and either couldn’t get out or were too nice to complain about it.

To make matter worse, even the spirits who went where they were supposed to go didn’t always deserve to be there, because before Hades took over, you were judged for the afterlife while you were still alive.

How did that system work? I have no idea. Apparently a panel of three living judges interviewed you right before you died and decided if you deserved the Fields of Punishment, Elysium, or Asphodel. Don’t ask me how the judges knew you were about to die. Maybe they guessed. Maybe the gods told them. Maybe the judges just yelled at random people, “Hey, you! Get over here! It’s your turn to croak!”

Anyway, the judges listened to your testimony and decided your eternal fate. Guess what happened. People lied. They bribed the judges. They showed up in their best clothes, smiled and flattered and acted nice so the judges would think they
were
nice. They brought in witnesses to say, “Oh, yeah. This guy lived a
totally
awesome life. He hardly ever tortured anybody.” Stuff like that.

A lot of evil people managed to charm their way into Elysium, and a lot of good people who didn’t kiss up to the judges landed in the Fields of Punishment.

You get the idea…the Underworld was a mess. When Hades took over, he looked around and said, “Nuh-uh! This ain’t gonna work!”

So he went to Olympus and explained the situation to Zeus. Having to get Zeus’s approval for what he planned to do kind of rankled Hades, but he knew he’d need to get the Big Guy’s thumbs-up for any major changes to the afterlife, especially since humans were involved. The gods considered humans shared property.

Zeus listened and frowned thoughtfully. “So what do you propose?”

“Well,” Hades said, “we could keep the panel of three judges, but—”

“The audience could vote!” Zeus guessed. “At the end of each season, the winning mortal could be crowned Elysian Idol!”

“Uh, no,” Hades said. “Actually, I was thinking the judges could be spirits of the dead rather than living people. And each mortal soul would only be judged once it enters the Underworld.”

“So…not a competition format? Hmm, too bad.”

Hades tried to keep his cool. “See, if the judges are spirits under my control, they’ll be impossible to influence. The souls who come before the court will be stripped of everything but their essence. They can’t rely on good looks or fancy clothes. They can’t bribe the judges or call character witnesses. All their good and bad deeds will be laid bare, because the judges can literally see right through them. Lying will be impossible.”

“I like it,” Zeus said. “Who will you pick for judges?”

“Probably three deceased mortals who were kings in the upper world,” Hades said. “Kings are used to passing judgment.”

“Good,” Zeus agreed. “As long as the kings are all
my
sons. Agreed?”

Hades gritted his teeth. He didn’t like his brother getting involved in everything, but since almost every Greek king was a son of Zeus, there would still be plenty of kings to choose from. “Agreed.”

Zeus nodded. “How will you make sure the judgments are enforced, and the souls go where they’re supposed to?”

Hades smiled coldly. “Oh, don’t worry. I’ve got that covered.”

When he got back to Erebos, Hades appointed three former kings, all demigod sons of Zeus, as his dead-celebrity judges: Minos, Aiakos, and Rhadamanthys.

Then he rounded up the three Furies—those spirits of vengeance who had been formed from the blood of Ouranos ages before. Hades hired them to be his enforcers, which was a good call, since nobody wanted to cross a demonic grandmother with bad breath and a whip.

Like most daimons, the Furies could take different shapes, but usually they appeared as ugly old ladies with long stringy hair, black tattered robes, and giant bat wings. Their fiery whips could cause excruciating pain to the living or the dead, and they could fly invisibly, so you never knew when they would swoop down on you.

Hades used them to keep the dead in line. Sometimes he let the Furies go nuts and design new tortures for the worst of the doomed souls. He could even send the Furies after living people if they committed a truly horrific crime—like killing a family member, desecrating a temple, or singing Journey songs on karaoke night.

Hades’s next Underworld improvement: he made it a lot easier for spirits of the dead to find their way to Erebos. He convinced Hermes, the messenger god, to keep a lookout for lost souls on the mortal side of the Styx. If Hermes saw any ghosts who looked confused, he would steer them in the right direction and provide them with a handy full-color map, compliments of the Underworld Chamber of Commerce.

Once the souls of the dead made it to the River Styx, the daimon Charon would ferry them across for a standard fee of one silver coin. Hades had convinced him (read:
threatened
him) to charge everyone the same price.

Hades also spread the word to the mortals up above that they’d better take their funeral rites seriously, or they wouldn’t be allowed into the Underworld. When you died, your family was supposed to make offerings to the gods. They had to give you a decent burial and place a coin under your tongue so you could pay Charon. If you didn’t have a coin, you’d end up haunting the mortal world as a ghost forever, which was both pointless and boring.

How did Hades spread the word among the mortals? He had this army of black-winged nasties called
oneiroi
, or dream daimons
,
who visited mortals while they slept, delivering visions or nightmares.

Ever had one of those dreams where you wake up startled because you felt like you were falling? That’s the
oneiroi
messing with you.
They probably picked you up and dropped you, just to be mean. Next time it happens, smack your fist on the floor and yell, “Hades, tell your stupid daimons
to knock it off!”

Another upgrade Hades made: he tightened security at the gates of Erebos. He went down to the Tartarus Humane Society and adopted the biggest, baddest dog you can imagine—a monster named Cerberus, who was sort of a cross between a pit bull, a rottweiler, and a rabid woolly mammoth. Cerberus had three heads, so if you were a mortal hero trying to sneak into Hades’s realm, or a dead person trying to sneak out, you had three times the chance of getting spotted and devoured. In addition to razor-sharp fangs and claws, Cerberus supposedly had a mane made out of snakes and a serpent for a tail. I can’t vouch for that. I only met Cerberus once. It was dark, and I was mostly focused on not whimpering or wetting my pants.

Anyway, once the departed spirits got inside the gates, they were sorted out by the three dead-celebrity judges and ushered to their proper places. Like I said earlier, most people hadn’t really done much with their lives, good or bad, so they ended up in the Fields of Asphodel. There they existed as wispy shadows that could only chitter like bats and float around aimlessly, trying to remember who they were and what they were doing—sort of like teachers during first period, before they’ve had enough coffee.

If you had led a good life, you went to Elysium, which was about as nice as you could get in the dark Underworld. You got a mansion of your own, free food and drinks, and pretty much five-star service for whatever you needed. You could hang out with the other lucky good people and chill for eternity. If Elysium got boring, you could choose to drink from the River Lethe and be reborn in a new mortal life.

A few souls were
so
good, they managed to live three virtuous lives in a row. If that was you, you could retire to the Isles of the Blest, which were Caribbean-type private islands in a lake in the middle of Elysium. Not many people were that lucky or that virtuous. It was sort of like winning the Good Person Powerball Lottery.

If you’d lived an evil life, you got the special naughty treatment—boiling in oil forever, having your skin flayed, getting chased by hungry demons over a field of broken glass, or sliding down a giant razor blade into a pool of lemon juice. You know, the usual. Most of the punishments weren’t very creative, but if you managed to
really
annoy Hades, he could always come up with new and interesting ways to torture your immortal soul.

A couple of examples?

Tantalus. That dude was
messed up.
He was a Greek king—a son of Zeus, no surprise—who got invited to share ambrosia and nectar on Mount Olympus with the gods. Big honor, right? But Tantalus got greedy.

“Wow,” he said after dinner, patting his belly. “That’s good stuff! Could I get a doggie bag to share with my friends back home?”

“Holy me!” Zeus swore. “Absolutely not! This ambrosia and nectar is rare and magical stuff. You can’t go sharing it with just anybody.”

“Oh…” Tantalus forced a smile. “Of course. I see how it is. Well…next time, dinner at my place, huh?”

Tantalus should’ve let it go. He should’ve remembered what happened to Prometheus when he tried to take stuff from the gods and share it with mortals. But Tantalus was angry. He felt insulted. The gods didn’t trust him. They didn’t want him to become famous as the mortal who brought ambrosia to earth.

The more he thought about it, the angrier he got. He invited the gods to a feast at
his
palace, but to get back at them, he decided he would serve them the most insulting meal he could think of. He just wasn’t sure
what.

He was standing in his kitchen, staring at the empty cooking pots, when his son Pelops walked in.

“What’s for dinner, Dad?” Pelops asked.

Tantalus had never liked his son. I don’t know why. Maybe Tantalus knew the kid would take over his kingdom someday. Greek kings were always paranoid about stuff like that. Anyway, Tantalus gave his son an evil smile and pulled out a butcher’s knife. “Funny you should ask.”

That night, the gods gathered at Tantalus’s palace for dinner and got served a pot of yummy stew.

“What is this meat?” Demeter said, taking the first bite. “Tastes like chicken.”

Tantalus had meant to wait until all the gods had eaten, but he couldn’t hold in the crazy giggles. “Oh…just a family recipe.”