Hermes: Chapter 5

When Hermes became Merc's companion, the primary gods were already playing with Olympus's rules and not only for death. They touted any “improvement” that made life easier and more comfortable for citizens. No rain on days when followers preferred sunshine. No burning sunshine after followers complained about sunburn. Fire heated food for barbecues. It didn’t set houses alight even when a candle tipped over.

Then The Persephone departed. Zeus and Hera’s followers had blamed her for the snows that occurred whenever she went to Tartarus.

Except the lack of snows, the droughts, became too much. Zeus and Hera began to sacrifice an Adonis, a citizen willing to bargain his life for his family’s improved standard of living. Every six months, then four months, then two, Hermes shared the upper deck of the steamer with a gaunt, blood-smeared man who watched the shore pass by with hollow eyes. Hermes hoped Adonis made a decent bargain for so much suffering.

He doubted it.

Idiot.

* * *

Hades was the more reasonable of the married-dead-gods duo. Hermes spoke to Kouros first because it was the natural next step, and he’d be damned before he admitted how much the younger man unnerved him.

He took the ferry to Tartarus that afternoon. He took the ferry whenever dead were waiting in the glass-fronted ferry building on what Kouros still called the Maine State Pier. With Olympus’s population, deaths averaged approximately one per day, but of course, natural death wasn’t so regulated plus citizens liked to “see off” the dead in communal ceremonies. Hermes usually rode with several dead at a time.

Today, he rode with two: a new arrival, Liam, who’d cut open an artery with a scythe—and was surprisingly uncomplaining of his own stupidity—and an older bachelor, Rupert, from Wiltshire whose neighbors made sure he had the fare. Per Hades’s orders, Hermes supplied the fare for the Darwin Award Winner.

Fred met the ferry with his ever-presented clipboard (the ferryman radioed the names of the dead ahead) and with Cerbie, who greeted all of them with slobbering licks. Liam laughed and knelt down to give Cerbie a good rub. Hermes bet Liam was slated for Elysium and was unsurprised when Fred gestured the cheerful man up the hill to the main street.

To Rupert, Fred said, “Kouros and Hades would like your help with surface greenhouses.”

Elysium—Peaks Island in the other Portland—didn’t experience seasons, not like the mainland. Kouros’s arrival in early November brought winter to both Elysium and Olympus. His departure returned Elysium to what Kouros called a chaparral ecosystem. Chaparral meant Elysium was mostly shrubs and pines in a cool temperature. The dead lived off ambrosia, which was mushrooms grown in cellars, not honey, though Kouros was hoping to eventually provide honey.

Hence, Elysium's above-ground greenhouses. Hades had to feed himself and Kouros and the judges plus the monsters on the other islands. The more he fed the monsters, the more they stayed off the mainland.

Hermes didn’t involve himself with those matters. The issue of monsters was between Ares and Hades. Hermes stuck to his own problems.

“Hades around?” he asked Fred.

Not that Hades could stray far, but he might be on the island that imprisoned the dangerous dead (called Cushing in the other Portland). He might be transporting meat to the islands where the monsters emerged (Little and Great Diamond Islands).

Fred said, “He’s helping test the new snowplows.”

Hermes smirked. “Since he and Kouros insist on producing Nor’Easters.”

“Exactly,” Fred said blandly.

Hermes entered the shed near the ferry. It similar to a bus stop, one side entirely open to the view of passersby. A screen faced the opening. It showed greetings—well-wishes—transmitted from the Neknomination Annex in Hermes’s temple. Citizens could send messages after they left offerings. Today, Hermes noted multiple notes to Rupert: “Hope you got a good place on Elysium. You deserve it.” There was also a scrawled note: “Mnemosyne got the book about avalanche rescues for Athena’s library—quick read—doesn’t lag.”

That last note was from Kouros to Hades. They read non-fiction and fiction books about nature. Avalanches and volcanoes and other natural disasters.

Letters sent through Hermes. Messages sent from the Annex. Occasional meetings on the mainland. Hermes kept wondering if the Kouros-Hades honeymoon would end. When it would end.

The floor of the shed doubled as an elevator. Triggered by Hermes’s weight, it sank through rock to a rest alongside an underground corridor. Straight ahead, a short passage led to what was Tartarus’s original throne room. It contained seats with backs graced by palmettes carved out of the rock. These days, the throne room was filled with tables and printouts from the nearby computer alcove.

Judge Rhadamanthus was present. Judge Aeacus managed the various greenhouses and was likely scurrying about above ground. Affable Judge Minos managed the books and was likely somewhere counting stuff. Rhadamanthus—a tall woman of striking appearance—oversaw the underworld’s mapping. She was the most useful to Hermes’s purposes.

“They aren’t any dogs here now,” she said. “Except Cerbie.”

She scrolled down a tablet (Hermes put in the wireless himself; more stealing from the other world). She frowned.

“How long ago?”

“No idea. Pre-Chaos.”

“We are reconstructing those records from a pile of documents we found deeper in Tartarus.”

Records from the bad dead’s living area then.

“We could use more help,” she added and gave Hermes a pointed stare.

He shrugged. He wasn’t going to mention the possibility of more minor gods for Hades to Jes-Jer. They had begrudgingly appointed the three judges when Kouros gained more powers. “Checks and balances,” they’d loftily stated, which was their way of conceding how much they didn’t appreciate making the concession.

Judge Rhadamanthus sighed and returned to her tablet. Without looking up, she said, “I guess you don’t remember seeing hounds in those years.”

“No,” Hermes said.

“It was a wild time,” Hades said as he entered the throne room.

Hades was a tallish man who appeared about thirty though he was closer to sixty. He kept his hair cropped, so he resembled the clean-cut astronaut from the film space opera that belonged more to Hermes’ time than Kouros’s though Kouros claimed to have watched it numerous times with a foster dad.

Hades was Kouros’s type. Hermes saw the appeal but could never forget that he, Hermes, was barely ten when he and Hades met. Another authority figure. Another person for Hermes to out-maneuver.

Not to mention, it was a wild time, and Hermes didn’t do everything Hades wanted during the years when Hades struggled to bring Tartarus under control. Hades didn’t bring up Hermes’s supposed failures, probably because he knew Hermes would shrug off any criticism.

Hades said, “Fred says you’re looking for hounds, Hermes.”

“Old myth. One of the Artemises changed a bunch of soldiers into hounds and they ripped apart their leader, who had insulted her.”

“Guess the Artemises don’t change,” Hades said and grinned.

“Girl’s gotta protect herself,” Hermes said, fiercely, and Rhadamanthus murmured approval.

Hades’s smile only deepened, and Hermes let himself momentarily wonder if Ven gossiped about Hermes to Kouros, who was mythologically-speaking Ven’s son, and if Kouros then told things to Hades.

My secrets are my own. He wondered if he had time to start a fire or smash a greenhouse or distract Hades with more of Jes-Jer’s regulations. But Hades didn’t talk anymore about Artemis.

Rhadamanthus said, “Any vicious hounds would be amongst the monsters.”

“No. If there were, Humbaba would know.” Hades gave Hermes another sympathetic smile. “Humbaba is better than the Fates,” he said gently.

Hades, Hermes assumed, still saw Hermes as that ten-year-old boy.