Hermes: Chapter 4

The first time Hermes visited the dead, he went with Merc. Olympus then was based around Chicago; the city of the living included the metropolis and the surrounding neighborhoods. Lake Michigan was the entrance to the afterlife; the Door Peninsula housed Hades’s realm.

Merc and Hermes took a steamer. The time period was the late 1980s but the Zeus and Hera back then liked historical additions—not real ones, of course, but history cleaned up, non-smelly, and functional. They’d already begun to make concessions on death to their followers. Community leaders could trade off death with other citizens, which meant more poorer citizens died, no matter how much Zeus and Hera bleated about fairness.

Merc and Hermes watched the current dead from their spot by the pilothouse. A few soldiers. A few elders from families who still accepted death as a natural consequence. The others were urchins and vagrants—not working poor but unstable ones.

“Do they know what they signed up for?” Hermes said.

Hades’s realm wasn’t as dangerous as it became before the Chaos. It wasn’t as pleasant as it was now.

Merc shrugged. “Some of them are being punished by Zeus and Hera. Some of them offered to come. In both cases, their families will get ‘blessings,’ goods in thanks for their sacrifice. We deliver the goods.”

They were a we by then and within months, Merc left Hermes to ride the steamer alone.

* * *

Hermes stood on the patio of Kouros’s temple, which resembled the Whole Foods from Portland, Maine, only the entrance was in the thrust-out atrium’s outer wall rather than to the sides.

Kouros was inside at the altar discussing the distribution of offerings with two of the Charites. One of them, Peitho, gave Hermes a wave and called, “I’ve got an equipment request for you.”

Hermes liked Peitho. He was a minor god and one of the few deities on Olympus who made formal requisitions in paper rather than behaving as if an off-hand remark at a party was enough to send Hermes scampering to the other world.

The Charites mostly worked for Hephaestus, so the equipment was probably a soil mapping machine.  Henry Thebley from the Woodston estate had mentioned how useful one would be, and Peitho had taken up the cause. The gift or blessing would merit careful monitoring. Gods could use technology from the other world. Citizens not so much. Henry Thebley was a citizen; his family did mining.

Of course, the gods who did have late twentieth century technology didn’t know what to do with it. Ven—that 1980s product who looked like a twenty-five-year-old hippie—kept forgetting about the computer Hermes got to help him track dating as well as separated and married couples. Apollo used his computer to promote his social media image in the other world. The Charites, at least, used up-to-date phones and trackers to spy for Hermes. Hades had computers in Tartarus, but he and Kouros relied on the judges, minor gods, to enter information and update programs. They were both far more interested in hands-on work.

“I’ve got news from Hades,” Hermes told Kouros as the younger man sauntered over.

Kouros was and looked about twenty-odd. Hermes was well over forty by now but looked about thirty. Kouros still made him nervous. He was a few gods rolled into one (not Jes-Jer’s choice). He was also reserved to the point of taciturnity.

And he was currently on Olympus rather than with Hades, the season being mid-spring. He’d returned from Tartarus a month earlier. Hence the overflowing offerings on his altar: gratitude for winter snows that filled the wells, for Kouros’s return, for good soil and healthy plants.

On Olympus, Jes-Jer controlled weather. But the farmers still thanked Kouros first.

Kouros said, “How’s Hades?”

During the spring and summer, Hades and Kouros saw each other mostly in meetings. They couldn’t make physical contact—not unless they wanted to create sleet and snowstorms on the mainland during non-winter months. But they were in love and all that. Hermes actually “got” their mutual desire to see each other. He knew that Kouros, like him, used Ven’s temple to work off his libido in the lean months.

So he didn’t say snarkily, “Missing Hades already?”

He did say, “Much as usual. He wanted you to know that Jackson Mills moved on. Jessie Collins now occupies the house at the far end of Island Avenue—your terminology—and Banji is still trying to set up a beekeeping operation.”

“I’m not sure Elysium can generate enough flowers when I’m not there,” Kouros said.

He leaned against one of the stone stanchions that bordered the steps to the patio. He had a rangy build and looked lanky despite being the same height as Hermes, who looked, he knew, sleek and muscular. Kouros ran a hand through  tangled hair that he grew long these days, possibly because Hades liked it grown out. The loose curls were dark like Hermes’s but less styled. Hermes couldn’t afford to look like a windblown slob.

Hermes said, “Banji says some bees live in caves--they might be induced to use the greenhouse flowers.”

“Huh,” Kouros said, which was practically a shriek of excitement from him.

Kouros gazed out over the field where citizens set up booths in the summer; the fruit trees and gardens that Kouros tended personally; and the long stretch of common land broken by a stream that various families and singles could cultivate for their use. While he was on Olympus’s peninsula, there wasn’t much he could do about Elysium (above ground) or Tartarus (below ground), even if he had the time. But he liked to get updates about Hades, and Hermes figured he should keep powerful people happy.

“Thanks,” Kouros said finally. “I’ll leave a message in the Annex for Banji.”

The Nekromanteion Annex in Hermes’s temple, he meant. Kouros sent messages from there to the dead and to Hades. And he wrote letters for Hermes to deliver to Hades. Despite being younger than Hermes, he made Hermes feel like a brash technology-obsessed twerp.

Hermes said, “You see any dogs on Elysium—other than Cerbie?”

To his surprise, Kouros looked uneasy. He rarely showed worry or rage or sorrow. Neither did Hermes, of course, but Kouros seemed to think that showing such emotions was a waste of time, not a matter of self-control.

He said, “Pets don’t really show up on the island.”

“Okay.”

“People ask about their pets,” Kouros said. “They don’t like the answers.”

Hermes couldn’t help but grin. “I can imagine. Not a change Hades is willing to make?”

“He probably would—but not right now—”

Kouros shrugged then, and Hermes nodded. Right now, Hades was sticking to natural law to determine the rules of death: people died due to illness, accident, infection, end-of-life physical failures. The moment Hades started to make exceptions, Jes-Jer would point to his hypocrisy or inconsistency or whatever and demand the right to make exceptions for their followers.

“You could ask the Fates to intervene,” Hermes said, not because he would ever do it—he would never ask a favor of those batshitcrazy women—but because Hermes considered it his job to remind people—other gods—of what they wouldn’t do either.

“I’m still paying off their last favor,” Kouros said.

Hermes allowed himself a smirk. Kouros gave him a look that Hermes knew wasn’t deliberately reproachful but made Hermes want to apologize anyway.

He didn’t.

He said, “I don’t mean pets though. Dogs—as in hunting dogs from history. Or myth. The hounds that a previous Artemis may have created when she punished a bunch of assholes.”

“They would have been turned back into humans when they died.”

“You know that for sure?”

“Sort of. Hades says when he arrived in Tartarus there were a bunch of pigs running around Cushing Island—you know, where the dead soldiers guard the evil dead. Hades finally figured out they were humans and got Jes-Jer to put them back to their ‘natural’ state. And he did a full inventory. If he’d come across other humans-as-animals, he would have got them switched back too. Jes-Jer were more agreeable then.”

Hermes said, “These young men attacked and killed their friend. Maybe Hades thought they should be punished.”

“Did they kill as humans or dogs?”

“As dogs.”

“Well, then—” Kouros shrugged.

Demeter might present herself as an advocate of “isn’t nature lovely and sweet” wonderfulness. Kouros, her adopted son, was more into “nature red in tooth and claw.”

Hermes said, “They were frat boy voyeurs. Maybe Hades decided they deserved to remain dogs.”

Now, the look Kouros gave him was almost amused. Hermes looked like a frat boy; he knew that.

Kouros didn’t comment on Hermes’s looks. He said, “Hades isn’t like that.”

Hades wasn’t. But Hermes allowed himself to look skeptical—while reminding himself that Kouros wasn’t the type of god to eviscerate him the next time they found themselves together on Tartarus.

“The dead move on,” Kouros said, which Hermes also knew. “Hades believes they move to another place. Another group of gods. Or God. Or Goddess. Or a triumvirate. Osiris. Isis. Horus. He believes in natural law. He also believes he will have to answer for his treatment of the dead. Not to Jes-Jer.”

Kouros’s voice was fond. Hermes was fairly sure that Kouros believed in little except Hades.

Hermes believed in himself.

“So no hounds on Tartarus?”

“Not when Hades arrived. It’s possible they got out into the tunnels, got to Earth or the other world. You might know better—”

They studied each other. Kouros was new to Olympus and young and irritatingly unworried about his status or rivals. He was the first Kore or Persephone in decades; he had plenty of followers, and he had inherited the role of Eros when the previous Eros left. He wasn’t afraid to mention Hermes’s past.

“I don’t know better,” Hermes said flatly.

A long pause, then Kouros shrugged again.

“Judge Rhadamanthus may know something,” he said, turning back to his temple. “She’s updating our records. She could help.”