Percy Jackson's Greek Gods (15 page)

Zeus frowned and put down his spoon. “Tantalus…what have you done?”

Hera pushed her bowl away. “And where is your son Pelops?”

“Actually,” Tantalus said, “that’s him in the stew. Surprise, you idiots! Ha, ha! Ha, ha!”

Honestly, I don’t know what he was expecting. Did he think the gods would chuckle and slap him on the back?
Oh, Tantalus, you old kidder. Good one!

The Olympians were horrified. After all, they still had post-traumatic stress from getting swallowed by their father, Kronos. Zeus pulled out a lightning bolt, blasted Tantalus to ashes, and turned the king’s soul over to Hades.

“Make a special punishment for this one,” Zeus said. “Something involving food, please.”

Hades was happy to oblige. He sank Tantalus up to his waist in a pool of fresh water, his feet stuck in the riverbed like in cement. Over Tantalus’s head hung the branches of a magical tree that grew all sorts of luscious fragrant fruits.

Tantalus’s punishment was just to stand there forever.

Well, he thought, this isn’t so bad.

Then he got hungry. He tried to grab an apple, but the branches rose just out of reach. He tried for a mango. No luck. He tried jumping, but his feet were stuck. He tried pretending to be asleep so he could launch a surprise attack on the peaches. Again, no luck. Each time, Tantalus was
sure
he would score a piece of fruit, but he never could.

When he got thirsty, he scooped up water, but by the time his hands reached his mouth, the water had magically evaporated, and his hands were completely dry. He bent down, hoping to gulp straight from the lake, but the entire surface of the water shrank away from him. No matter what he tried, he couldn’t get a single drop. He just got hungrier and thirstier, even though food and water were so close—
tantalizingly
close, which is a word that comes from his name. Next time you want something really badly but it’s just out of reach, you’ve been tantalized.

What’s the moral of the story? I dunno. Maybe:
Don’t chop up your son and feed him to your dinner guests.
Seems kind of obvious to me, but whatever.

Another guy who got a special punishment was Sisyphus. With a name like
Sissy-Fuss
you have to figure the guy had issues, but at least he didn’t make his kids into stew. Sisyphus’s problem was that he didn’t want to die.

I can relate to that. I wake up every morning and think:
You know what would be good today? Not dying.

But Sisyphus took things too far. One day, Death showed up at his house. And by Death, I mean Thanatos, the god of death, the Grim Reaperino, who was one of Hades’s main lieutenants.

Sisyphus opened the door and found a big guy with black feathery wings looming over him.

“Good afternoon.” Thanatos consulted his notepad. “I have a delivery for Sisyphus—one painful death, requires a signature. Are you Sisyphus?”

Sisyphus tried to hide his panic. “Um…Why, yes! Come in! Just let me get a pen.”

As Thanatos ducked under the low doorway, Sisyphus grabbed the nearest heavy object he could find—a stone pestle he used to grind his flour—and smacked the god of death over the head.

Thanatos passed out cold. Sisyphus tied him up, gagged him, and stuffed him under the bed. When Mrs. Sisyphus came home, she was like, “Why is there a giant black wing sticking out from under the bed?”

Sisyphus explained what had happened. His wife wasn’t pleased.

“This is going to get us both into trouble,” she said. “You should have just died.”

“I love you, too,” Sisyphus muttered. “It’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

It wasn’t fine. Without Thanatos on the job, people stopped dying. At first, nobody objected. If you were supposed to die and you didn’t, why would you complain?

Then a big battle happened between two Greek cities, and Ares, the god of war, got suspicious. He hovered over the battlefield like he always did, ready for an exciting day of carnage. When the two armies clashed, no soldiers fell. They just kept whaling on each other, hacking each other to bits. Things got messy, with plenty of blood and gore, but no one died.

“Where’s Death?” Ares screamed. “This is no fun without Death!”

He flew from the battlefield and started asking all around the world: “Excuse me, have you seen Death? Big guy with black feathery wings? Likes to reap souls?”

Finally somebody mentioned that they’d seen a guy like that heading toward old man Sisyphus’s house.

Ares broke down Sisyphus’s front door. He pushed the old dude aside and spotted Thanatos’s left wing sticking out from under the bed. Ares pulled out the god of death, brushed off the dust bunnies, and cut his bonds. Then both gods glared at Sisyphus.

Sisyphus backed into the corner. “Um, look, guys, I can explain—”

BOOM!

Ares and Thanatos vaporized him with a double blast of godly wrath.

Once Sisyphus’s soul found its way to the Underworld, Sisyphus somehow managed to get an audience with Hades himself.

The old man bowed before the god’s throne. “Lord Hades, I know I did a bad thing. I’m ready to face my punishment. But my wife! She didn’t do the proper funeral rites for me! How can I enjoy eternal damnation knowing that the missus didn’t honor the gods with sacrifices as you have commanded? Please, just allow me to return to the world long enough to scold my wife. I’ll come straight back.”

Hades frowned. Of course he was suspicious, but he’d always been under the impression that spirits couldn’t lie. (He was wrong.) Also, Sisyphus’s story filled him with outrage. Hades
hated it when people didn’t take funeral rites seriously. And sacrifices to the gods? Those were even
more
important!

“Fine,” Hades said. “Go scold your wife, but don’t take too long. When you get back, I’ll have a special punishment ready for you.”

“I can’t wait!” Sisyphus said.

So his spirit returned to the world. He found his vaporized remains and somehow got them back together into a regular body. You can imagine his wife’s surprise when Sisyphus walked in the front door, alive as ever. “Honey, I’m home!”

After his wife woke up from fainting, Sisyphus told her the story of how he cleverly escaped death yet again.

His wife was not amused. “You can’t cheat Hades forever,” she warned. “You’re asking for trouble.”

“I’ve already been condemned to the Fields of Punishment,” Sisyphus said. “What do I have to lose? Besides, Hades is busy. He sees thousands of souls every day. He won’t even know I’m gone.”

For years, Sisyphus’s plan actually worked. He kept a low profile. He stayed at home most of the time, and when he had to go out, he wore a fake beard. Hades
was
busy. He forgot all about Sisyphus, until one day Thanatos happened to ask: “Hey, what’d you ever do to that creep who stuffed me under his bed?”

“Oh…” Hades frowned. “Whoops.”

This time, Hades sent the messenger god Hermes to look for Sisyphus. Hermes wore a helmet, so he couldn’t get whacked over the head so easily. The messenger god dragged Sisyphus back to the Underworld and threw him at the foot of Hades’s throne.

Hades smiled coldly. “Lie to
me
, will you? Oh, I have something
very
special for you!”

He took Sisyphus to the middle of the Fields of Punishment, to a barren hill five hundred feet high with sides that sloped at forty-five degrees, just perfect for skateboarding. At the bottom of the hill sat a big round boulder the size of a compact car.

“Here you are,” Hades said. “As soon as you manage to push this rock to the top of that hill, you can go. Your punishment will be over.”

Sisyphus sighed with relief. He’d been expecting much worse. Sure, the boulder looked heavy. Pushing it up the hill would suck, but at least it wouldn’t be impossible.

“Thank you, Lord Hades,” Sisyphus said. “You are merciful.”

“Right.” Hades’s dark eyes glinted. “Merciful.”

The god disappeared in a cloud of gloom, and Sisyphus got to work.

Unfortunately, he soon found out his job
was
impossible. Pushing the rock took every bit of his strength, and as soon as Sisyphus got close to the top of the hill, he lost control. No matter what he tried, the boulder would roll back to the bottom. Or it would run over him and
then
roll to the bottom.

If Sisyphus stopped to rest, one of the Furies came along and whipped him until he got moving again. Sisyphus was doomed to roll his rock uphill for eternity, never reaching the top.

Another happy ending! Ares, the god of war, got to watch people die again. Mrs. Sisyphus got some peace and quiet. And Thanatos, the god of death, decided not to ring anyone’s doorbell and require a signature anymore. From then on, he just sneaked around invisibly and took his victims’ souls without warning. So if you were planning on living forever by tying up the god of death and stuffing him under your bed, you’re out of luck.

So that’s how Hades got the Underworld organized. He built his dark palace on the edge of the Fields of Asphodel, and once he married Persephone, he more or less settled down and was about as happy as an Underworld god can be.

He started raising a herd of black cattle so that he could have fresh steak and milk, and he appointed a daimon named Menoetes to look after the cows. Hades also planted an orchard of magical pomegranate trees to honor his wife.

The Olympian gods rarely visited—except for Hermes, who had to deliver messages and souls—but if you happened to be in Hades’s throne room on any given day, you might find Thanatos hanging out, or the Furies, or the three dead-celebrity judges. The best deceased artists and musicians from Elysium were often summoned to the palace to entertain the king.

Were Persephone and Hades a happy couple? Hard to say. The old stories aren’t even clear about whether they had any children. Apparently Persephone had a daughter named Melinoe, who was the daimon in charge of ghosts and nightmares, but Hades may or may not have been the father. Some stories say the father was actually Zeus
disguised
as Hades, which gets us into a whole new level of gross.

A few poems mention Makaria, the daughter of Hades and Persephone. She was the goddess of blessed peaceful deaths, as opposed to painful, terrible, horrifying deaths, but there aren’t really any stories about her.

At any rate, Hades wasn’t always faithful to Persephone. He’s a god. What did you expect?

One time Hades was visiting the Titan Oceanus at the bottom of the sea. What he was doing there, I have no idea. Maybe he was checking on the salty springs that fed the River Styx. Anyway, while he was roaming around, he happened to meet a beautiful ocean nymph named Leuke, one of Oceanus’s daughters. She was tall and pale and lovely, and apparently she made a big impression. At the end of the visit, Hades abducted her and took her back to the Underworld.

It was just a fling, a momentary madness, but you can guess how Persephone reacted when she found out her husband had brought a souvenir girl home with him.

“She goes or I go,” Persephone snarled. “And don’t just send her back to the ocean. She stole my husband! She must die!”

“Um…okay,” Hades said. “I mean, yes! Of course, dear! What was I thinking?”

Hades ran down to the Fields of Asphodel, where Leuke was waiting for him.

“Well?” Leuke demanded. “You abducted me and brought me here. What do you plan to do with me?”

“Actually, it’s not going to work out,” Hades said. “My wife doesn’t approve.”

“What a shocker,” Leuke muttered. “Fine. Take me home!”

“I can’t,” Hades said. “Persephone wants you dead.”

Leuke turned even paler. “That—that isn’t right! You stole
me
!”

“It’s okay,” Hades assured her. “I have an idea. Instead of killing you, I’ll just change you into something—like a plant. Then you’ll live forever, and I can always remember you.”

“That’s a horrible idea!”

“Maybe a tree,” Hades mused.

“No!”

“A tall, pale, white tree,” Hades decided. “A tree as beautiful as you are.”

“I—”

POOF.

Leuke became the first poplar tree, and Hades hugged her trunk. “Thanks for understanding. I will always remember you.”

The poplar quickly multiplied, until the Fields of Asphodel were dotted with them—a little bit of beauty in the gloomy fields of Asphodel. The poplar became one of Hades’s sacred trees, and tended to grow especially thick along the banks of the Underworld rivers, maybe because Leuke remembered that she had come from the sea and was trying to grow her way back there. Good luck with that, Leuke.

After his failed romance with the poplar girl, Hades became depressed. One day he decided to take a long stroll along the River Cocytus, the River of Wailing, which is an odd place to walk if you’re trying to cheer yourself up.

Hades happened to see a lovely young woman in a pale-green dress sitting by the water. Her fragrance wafted toward him on the subterranean breeze—a sweet, subtle perfume unlike anything he’d ever smelled.

He walked over and stared at her in amazement. Hades tended to surprise people, being so dark and stealthy and all; so when the girl finally noticed him, she flinched in alarm.

“What do you want?” she demanded.

“Uh…” Hades found it hard to think. The woman’s eyes were pale green like her dress. “I’m Hades. You smell good. Who are you?”

The girl wrinkled her nose. “I’m Minthe, of course. Daughter of the River Cocytus.”

Hades frowned. “The Underworld rivers have naiads? I never knew that.”

“Well, maybe we’re not proud of it,” Minthe muttered. “It’s not easy being the nature spirit for a wailing river, you know. I’d much rather be in the upper world, where I could enjoy the sunlight and the fresh breeze.”

“I’ll take you there,” Hades blurted. “Just give me a kiss, and I’ll take you to the upper world.”

Minthe knit her eyebrows. “Why would you?”

“I love you,” Hades said foolishly, but he didn’t meet many beautiful women. Also, it was springtime. Persephone had gone to visit her mother in the mortal world, and Hades was lonely.

Minthe stood. She wasn’t sure what to think of this dark god, but a trip to the upper world sounded good. She said, “All right.”

She kissed him. Hades put his arms around her, and together they dissolved into shadows.

They appeared on the side of a hill near the Greek town of Pylos. Minthe gasped when she saw the blue sky and the sun, the green hills marching on forever.

She smiled and threw her arms around Hades, and for about twenty seconds they were very much in love. Minthe’s fragrance was intoxicating.

Then something changed. Hades tensed. Maybe the fresh air cleared his mind.

“What am I doing?” he wailed, pushing Minthe aside. “It’s springtime. My wife will be around here somewhere, making plants grow and whatnot. She’ll find us!”

“Who cares?” Minthe asked. “You said you loved me.”

“I—I—” Hades gulped.

Minthe’s green eyes were gorgeous. She was very pretty and she smelled good, but now Hades realized their love was hopeless. He remembered the murderous look in Persephone’s eyes when she’d heard about Leuke.