Author's Note

I have been in love with the character of Patroclus in the Iliad, and his relationship with Achilles, ever since those long ago days when I first read the Iliad for Western Civ in my freshman year at college. I wanted to write fan fiction about them even then, but it took over twenty years before this story-a novella, I suppose-finally crystallized.

The final impetus to make me write this work came six years ago, while my grandmother was going through her final decline at the age of 99 years. In those last weeks as she was dying, I wrote this. I don't know how she would feel about being connected with a tale of the romance of two men, but I hope she would not object. So I dedicate this work to her memory. Her final voyage out of life helped shape my thoughts in this work, exploring the entwining and mingling of death and life.

Since the edition of the Iliad that I read was Richard Lattimore's translation, I use his spellings of the names: for example, Patroklos and Achilleus. I should warn all potential readers that this first chapter (or "Book," as I'm calling it, harking back to the Iliad) includes semi-explicit reminiscences of sex involving the story's heroes. If the idea of a sexual romance between two men offends you, it would be better for you not to read this tale.

Waiting by the Shore

An Iliad Fan Fiction

Book I

Cold.

I have never been so horribly, damnably cold.

I suppose that is no surprise. I have never been dead before, either.

I jolted to consciousness to find myself on my knees. I had one hand pressed to the ground, as though I had fallen and was in the midst of shoving myself to my feet.

Instead of following through on that action, I frowned and looked about me, striving to gain some idea of my condition and surroundings.

The cold, deep and searing, was almost all that I felt. Almost, for when I concentrated hard I could feel crumbling, grassless soil under my fingers and the solidity of ground beneath my knees.

I had no doubt that I was dead. Only too clearly I remembered my brief, dazzling glimpse of Phoibos Apollo as he struck the armor from my body. I remembered the thudding sound and the shock as a spear point lodged between my shoulder blades. I remembered the strange wet slurping noise as Prince Hektor's spear caught me in the gut and drove through, and the soul-wrenching anguish that followed.

Cautiously I got to my feet, trying to judge if my death left any mark upon me. There seemed to be no wound now—though with the numbing cold, I thought I could almost thrust my hand into that gaping gut wound and never feel it.

I seemed to be wearing one of my tunics, and my feet were bare. I was clothed as if I were sitting on the beach with Achilleus—instead of standing here, torn from the world and from Achilleus' arms.

Grief welled up as I thought of all my death meant for me. But I told myself I could not take the time to think of it. More pressing by far was the need to determine where I was now, and what I had to do next.

Heavy, dark grey fog swirled all about me. Tendrils of it seemed to brush at my skin. When I looked at the places the fog touched, they somehow seemed even colder than the rest of me.

I wondered if the cold came from the fog, from me, or from both.

The fog was so thick I could see barely an arm's reach in any direction. I supposed I must be in daylight, or I would not be able to see the fog so clearly. But I saw no break in the grey pall. Nowhere did any light pierce through.

I thought, I can't just keep standing here waiting for something to happen.

There seemed no reason to walk in one direction rather than any other. So I simply started walking in the same direction I'd been facing.

To have some way of keeping track of how far I walked, I decided I would count my steps.

I had walked two hundred and eighteen paces, when the ground started to change.

Directly ahead of me, it was unaltered, with the same featureless flatness I'd walked on for those two hundred and eighteen steps. But just to my left, the ground started to slope down.

If the stories I've always heard are right, I thought, I'm going to need to cross a river.

It struck me that the stories ought to be right. After all, Achilleus' mother is a goddess. She ought to know about these things. If there was something different we needed to do when we got to the Underworld, wouldn't she have told us?

I had no way of knowing if I was anywhere near the river. But if I was, it made sense for the riverbank to be at the base of a slope. So I veered off to the left, and continued my walk in the fog.

The ground continued gently but steadily downward. Six hundred and twenty three steps from where I'd started my little stroll, the water came into view.

It definitely seemed to be a river. Sluggish and flat, unmarked by islets or rocks or even a water-worn log, it seemed a liquid version of the ground I'd been walking on. Only when I stood at the very edge could I see that the water was moving. I crouched down to study it and saw grains of the dark, sandy soil being caught up by the water and floating with ponderous slowness away to my left. I guessed, then, that direction led down river, although in this place I suppose there is no reason for the rules of our world to hold true.

The fog, I noticed, did not continue over the water. It seemed to hold back, almost hesitatingly, a foot or two from the river's edge. But this break in the fog did not reveal to me much more of my surroundings. In either direction the view was the same—the long, flat road of dark water, without the smallest pebble, twig or animal burrow to serve as a landmark. Above, stretched what seemed to be a grey sky: dull, but at least a lighter grey than the damnable fog. And I could see no trace of the opposite shore. Farther out into the current—or what I supposed was the current, though I could not see it moving—the water looked a gleaming black. It seemed to blend into an equally black sky, but I could not see where water ended and sky began.

At a sudden thought, I got to my feet again and took a hasty step backward.

I have always heard that one of the rivers of Hades holds waters of forgetfulness, and that those who drink of it lose all memory of their life in the world. This might not be that river, but I did not want to take any chances. I grimaced down at my feet and gingerly raised one from the damp sand that I could scarcely feel.

I thought, If this is the River of Forgetfulness, apparently its powers are not strong enough to act on me through wet sand.

The question now became what to do next.

I could, of course, just sit by the river and wait, but that notion had no appeal. If I sat, I was certain to begin thinking.

Keep walking, then, I thought. And maybe, although I held small hope of it, if I kept walking the exercise might finally warm me up.

One direction was as good as another, I supposed, so I turned to the left and started to walk downstream.

I don't know how long I had spent walking along the unchanging shore before I realized that I'd forgotten to keep count.

I stopped in my tracks and cursed aloud.

This is splendid, Patroklos, I raged at myself, this is magnificent! Where's the damned good of knowing you walked six hundred and twenty three paces to the riverbank from the place where you woke, to the riverbank, if you don't have the faintest idea of how far you've walked along the river?

I turned to look behind me. Even though I knew what I would see, I was disheartened to realize that the vista behind me was exactly the same as that before. I hadn't even left any footprints. I assured myself that was because the sand wasn't wet enough. It was not that the dead leave no footprints. To prove that to myself, I dug at the sand with one of my toes, and was ridiculously relieved when I saw that my toe did make a dent in the sand.

I was starting to think it had been a mistake to start walking along the shoreline. Perhaps I should simply have sat down where I had reached the river, maddening though that inactivity sounded.

Naturally, I was making this up as I went along. I had no way of knowing how close my thoughts might be to reality. But I thought there was at least a chance that I'd arrived where I had for a reason. Perhaps all souls arrive in the Underworld at around the same place. It hadn't been far to walk to the river—six hundred and twenty three steps, as I knew with annoyingly useless precision. So perhaps the spot where I'd reached the river was important. Perhaps the ferry boat would be arriving there, or somewhere near there. But to me the wretched spot was unrecognizable, identical to every other stretch of this cursed shore.

I told myself that I would compromise. I would walk a ways farther and then turn back. I might not know how many damned steps I'd walked, but I could probably manage to remain in about the same stretch of shoreline. If I just kept trooping up and down this same miserable bit of shore, I should be able to catch sight of any ferryboat eventually. If there was any ferryboat to see.

And this time, I ordered myself, you are damn well going to remember to count.

I carved an "x" in the sand with my toe before I started walking again. To give these ludicrous efforts some sort of arbitrary structure, I walked down river for a total of two thousand, three hundred and seventy two steps – two steps for each of our ships that had sailed to Troy. I then turned around and walked the same number of steps again—and was absurdly happy to see that I indeed came to a stop quite near my "x" in the sand.

I had to have something to do, so I kept on walking for another two thousand, three hundred seventy two steps. The point where I stopped then, I decided to designate as an arbitrary center point for these patrols of mine, regardless of how far it might actually be from the place where I'd first seen the river. I crouched down and drew another, larger "x" in the sand there, so I could find this place again if I lost count. Then I started walking in the other direction, upriver. With the first step, I launched yet again into counting, resolving to walk in this direction until I reached four times the number of our fleet of ten years ago. I felt more than half a fool. But this was all I could think of to do, apart from sitting down and probably starting to cry.

By focusing on the numbers with grim desperation, I caught myself a few times when I almost lost count. Several times I had to stop and just stand where I was, repeating the right number to myself until I'd fought back the thoughts that were stabbing at my mind.

Do not think, I ordered myself. You are not going to think. You are not going to think about what has happened to you. You are not going to think about everything you have lost.

You are not going to think. You are only going to count.

The landscape for those four thousand, seven hundred and forty four steps upriver was fully as featureless as everything else I had seen here. On reaching that random magic number I turned around with a gloomily irritated sigh and walked four thousand, seven hundred and forty four paces back again.

It was a very small satisfaction to me to see that I'd been keeping the length of my paces relatively consistent. When I came to the end of that four thousand, seven hundred and forty four, I was within a few arm's reaches of my large "x."

I would be surprised if any of the gods know how many times I trudged up and down that same stretch of river, counting out four thousand, seven hundred and forty four steps. Certainly I don't know it. If any of them do know, I am sure that they do not care.

The light and the weather, if one can call it that, were as unchanging as the landscape. Up and down that shoreline I walked, and still the same grey fog swirled; the same grey sky held sway above me. The same seemingly black sky brooded in the distance across the water.

At some point I remember wondering if this would be all there was to the afterlife, just walking up and down between the river and the fog.

I argued with myself again that this couldn't be all there was. If this were all we could expect, wouldn't Thetis have warned us?

But no, I thought then, maybe she wouldn't have. Maybe she didn't want to discourage us.

I was starting to wonder if I should give up and just sit down, when I saw a light on the water.

I forgot all about wherever I was in that damned four thousand, seven hundred and forty four.

The light was a little ways out on the river yet, but it definitely seemed to be drawing closer to this shore. As I watched it I saw that it seemed to be heading for a spot a couple of spear's throws ahead of me.

I managed to hold myself back from breaking into a run. Still, I certainly quickened my pace as I walked toward that spot.

Whether by coincidence or not that spot was only about one spear's throw beyond my big "x" in the sand.

I stopped at the place for which the vessel seemed to be aiming. Striving to maintain some sort of calm, I waited.

I could see now that the vessel was a large but fairly ordinary-looking ferryboat. It was perhaps more raft than boat, flat and shallow-drafted. The light, I saw, came from a long torch bound to the railing at the forward corner of the raft. The ferry seemed empty save for one lone figure: the ferryman, poling his vessel across the river with what seemed like more than human speed.

I was starting to think there was something very strange about all of this.

I asked myself, Where is everyone?

I wasn't going to believe that I was the only person in the world who had died recently. Come to that, I knew that I was not.

Even accepting the unlikely possibility that no one else across the entire world had recently met their death, plenty of men had died in the same battle with me. No small number of those were men whom I had killed.

So where are all of them?

The ferry swiftly drew near enough for me to discern the appearance of its master.

The fellow was of medium height but a burly build, with a barrel of a chest and shoulders the size of beef haunches. He looked more or less like an ordinary ferryman. He wore a conical cap and a red-brown tunic the color of a spear blade left to rust with the blood still caked on it. As the ferry crossed the last few feet toward the shore, I saw he had a short, spiky black beard that looked the consistency of a boar's bristles.

Ordinary ferryman he might seem, but his eyes were undeniably those of a god. Icy and as pitiless as lightning, they gleamed with that same discomforting brilliance that often shines in Achilleus' eyes.

With one last enormous heave of his pole, the ferryman drove the boat up onto the beach right in front of me. I had to leap aside to avoid being run over. He walked to the front of the vessel and posted himself there glowering. On his arms he cradled the gigantic pole which was as thick as my forearm and twice as tall as I was. He seemed to be entirely ignoring me. Being ignored was all the more aggravating to me since I was the only person there.

This is what you've been waiting for, I thought, prodding myself out of staring in offended astonishment.

I strode onto the boat—and immediately had to jump back again, as the ferryman took a swipe at me with that massive pole.

"Back, shade!" he snarled disdainfully. "How many times do I have to tell you people? Passage is not for the likes of you!"

For another instant I just stared. Then I planted myself in front of the ferryman, challengingly stepping once more onto his wretched boat. "You have never told me before," I snapped. "I just got here. And it wouldn't kill you to show a little courtesy."

He gave a short bark of a laugh. "Interesting choice of words, little shade! No, you're right on that, it wouldn't kill me. Newcomer, eh?" he went on, eyeing me with an expression that said he was very far from impressed. "Right, then, I'll tell you once. No funeral, no passage. If no one can be bothered to give you your funeral rites, then you don't get on this boat."

Stung by his attitude, and stung even more by the implication of his words, I grabbed hold of the ferryman's pole. Unsurprisingly, it didn't budge from his grasp. But I kept my hold on it anyway and announced, "I am Patroklos son of Menoitios, second-in-command of the Myrmidons and companion to swift-footed Achilleus, and you need to learn to keep a civil tongue in your head!"

With seemingly the smallest effort, the ferryman shoved on his pole, hurling me backwards. I went flying at least the distance of my own height, to land on my ass in the sand.

"I am Charon, Ferryman of Acheron," he declared. He added in mockery, "And it will not be you who teaches me to keep a civil tongue, O second-in-command and companion. If you're so important, why doesn't swift-footed Achilleus give you your burning?"

Charon turned his head slowly so that his glare raked along the shore. Brandishing the huge ferry pole in one hand, he repeated his ultimatum: "No funeral, no passage!"

I scrambled to my feet, involuntarily shuddering as I realized that the ferryman had thrown me back into the clammy, freezing fog. Before I'd even managed to stand, Charon was wielding his pole again, driving it into the sand and shoving his ferryboat off from the shore.

For a few steps, I ran after the ferry. But I pulled myself to a halt just before my feet would have touched the water.

I believed that I could catch up with the boat, even at the greater-than-natural speed with which the ferryman of the gods had it moving. But to do so, I would need to wade and possibly swim. My objection to touching that water was as strong as ever.

I had never heard in any story that the River Acheron has waters of forgetfulness. But I would not trust the survival of my memories to the chance of those stories being true.

For now, at least, my memories are all that I am.

I had no intention of risking my memories just so Charon the ferryman could toss me off his boat again.

So I stood there and grimly watched as the boat drew away from me. Finally it vanished from sight in the distant blackness of the river.

Even after it disappeared I stood there still.

I thought it made sense that the ferry would come back here, perhaps sooner rather than later.

For one thing, Charon had left without picking up any passengers. If this was some sort of designated ferry site—although, I thought, gods alone know how an unmarked piece of sand can possibly be designated— then it was likely that the charming ferryman would be back here again.

It made more sense for me to wait here in the one place where I'd had contact with anything other than fog and sand, than to go back to counting out four thousand, seven hundred and forty four steps.

To my complete surprise, considering what I'd seen of the Underworld thus far, the ferry did come back, almost immediately. Depending on how wide this river actually was, I thought it possible that Charon had just turned around and started back almost as soon as he'd reached the other shore. I hadn't even had time to grow impatient and start wondering what to do next, when I saw the light of his ferry's torch again.

Knowing better now what to expect, this time I chose a vantage point that enabled me to stand my ground. The ferry raft surged onto shore again beside me, rather than all-but on top of me.

As before, Charon strode to the front of the boat and posted himself there on guard. As before, I strode up to him, but this time I did not try to step onto his boat.

"Are you deaf as well as dead?" he demanded. "Unless you've just had the shortest funeral in history, you're not likely to get passage on this trip, now are you?"

"I seek only information this time," I told him. "Is this your regular ferry location?"

He looked a little bemused at the question, but gave a brisk nod. "I'm here twice a day," he said. "Morning and evening. You wait your turn like a good little shade, and maybe on some future trip you'll be getting on board."

"Which is it now?" I asked him, desperate for this knowledge that seemed it would bring me closer to the ordinary realities of the living. "Morning or evening?"

"Do I look like an oracle to you?" Charon snorted. But despite this complaint, he answered me, "Morning."

Just as before, the ferryman waited only a few moments before shoving his craft back into the water. Again I waited, watching. Again, before I'd even had time to grow particularly impatient, the light of the ferry's torch reappeared out of the river's blackness.

When the boat arrived, Charon's actions were the same as before. I thought I saw him glance at me from the corner of his eyes, and I thought he might perhaps have looked a little disappointed, when it seemed that I was not going to confront him.

I'd told myself that I would stay away from him, this time. I would only stand my ground, to proclaim that he had not intimidated me. I thought that I did not want to squander any possible good will of the ferryman by asking too many questions.

That had been my plan. But when I saw him perform the same bizarre ritual for the third time— standing on guard on his ferry boat for the briefest of waits, then shifting his pole to shove off from the shore, without there being even one passenger on board—my curiosity overcame me.

"Why go back without any passengers?" I called out to him. "Shouldn't you at least wait a little, to see if any buried ones arrive?"

The ferryman of the gods replied with derisive laughter. "Shows how much you know, second-in-command and companion!" he called back. "The boat's been full, both times. Only eighty or so aboard, this time; this'll be the last trip for this morning."

I stared at Charon and his boat in dismay. He grinned at my reaction, and I managed to ask him, "They're on the boat now?"

The ferryman bowed exaggeratedly, apparently to someone standing on the ferry beside him—someone whom I still could not see. With another sneering grin at me, he said, "You didn't think an unburied one like you would be able to see the good, upstanding buried citizens, did you?"

I was certain I would not like his next answer. But all the same I forced myself to ask, "What about the others? The other unburied ones? I should be able to see them, shouldn't I? Where are they?"

Again the ferryman laughed. "They're right here, little shade. They're all around you. What did you think the fog is?"

With that, and while I stared at him in shock worse than I had felt since I died, the ferryman of Acheron once more sent his craft surging into the river.

I kept staring until the ferry's light vanished again in the darkness. Then I could no longer avoid looking at what was behind me.

The fog.

I turned and gazed in horror at that dark grey mass that choked the land, hid the sky, and that seemed to reach out its tendrils to touch me.

I thought, How many of them are there?

Not of them, my thoughts corrected me mercilessly. Not of them, of us.

I'm one of them.

In dreadful fascination I glanced to either side of me, up and down the river. Nowhere was the line of fog broken. On all of my trips counting out that cursed four thousand, seven hundred and forty four, I had never seen any break in the fog.

How much of the fog, I wondered, represented one person? Was it a straightforward exchange, with each new unburied soul contributing a stretch of fog the same size as they had been in life? Or were we shrunk, condensed together? Was the piece of fog right in front of me made up of hundreds of people?

I supposed I must look like fog to all of the others—to my fellow unburied ones, and to all of the lucky citizens with funerals, who had taken their places this morning on Charon's ferry.

I wondered if I looked like fog to Charon.

I did not know which horrified me more: to imagine myself as the fog, or to think of the thousands on thousands of children, women, men, who even now must be crowding about me. Unburied, people who would never go on to any other afterlife, who could never do anything again but wander this empty shore.

I thought, If this has been the way of things since first man walked in the world—how many people must have gone unburied, since the days of men began?

I will not be one of them! I thought. I can not be one of them!

Achilleus will bury me. He will. He has to. It may only have been a day or so since I died; he will do it. He will bury me soon.

Somehow I forced myself to turn my back on the swirling ranks of fog. I sat down on the shore, as near to the river's edge as I could get without actually touching the water.

I sat there, fighting to will myself into some kind of peace.

You have no reason to fear the fog, I admonished myself. It is not some ravenous monster. They are only people. Only people, no more and no less.

I thought that if I could see them—if I could see them as themselves, not as the fog—then I would never fear them.

I closed my eyes and imagined the entire shore crowded with people. I imagined I could see the expressions on their faces. I saw men and women who paced angrily along the shore. I saw children who ran along the river's edge, laughing—finding ways to play, even here, though I thought it must be hard finding many games to play when each child could see no one but himself and the ferryman of Hades. I saw people who sat silently weeping, others who raged and cursed as they paced and shook their fists at the ferryman. And I saw others who only sat unmoving, their faces as bleak and lifeless as our blighted shore.

You pity those who flee the cities we sack, I told myself. You pity them, but you do not fear them. So should you pity your fellow unburied souls.

Pity them, and pray that you do not remain as one of them.

So I told myself, and they sounded very logical words. But still I caught myself shivering when a wisp of fog brushed over me. Still I thrilled with superstitious dread, when I thought I heard the faintest of whispers drift from out of the fog.

Each time I caught myself reacting so, I imagined I could see the people sitting next to me. I imagined I saw them shiver and shrink back from me, and I imagined their faces as they frowned into the fog and strove to see who might be there.

As the day, if so it could be called, drew on, I told myself I was far ahead of where I had been when I was pacing up and down on the shore.

Assuming I trusted in Charon's word—and I did not see that I had any choice but to do so—then I knew he would be returning here. That gave me something solid to hang onto.

I knew that simply by sitting here, I was doing what I needed to do. I no longer had to fear that I would be in the wrong place at the critical moment, that I would miss the ferry, that I would be trapped here simply because I walked down the shoreline at the wrong time.

And there was something else. Charon said he came back here morning and evening. There might be no morning or evening that I could recognize; no means of judging time's passage at all. But for Charon the ferryman, there was.

When he came back, I would know evening had come. And when he returned again, I would know that another night had passed. I could keep hold of that, as my way of clinging to reality. That way I could keep some fragile connection to the world and the life that I had lost.

Little though I liked to accept it, I knew that most of my fate lay in the hands of others, now.

That should be no new experience for me, I thought. Our fate is always out of our hands. That is why they call it fate.

Most of it was out of my hands, but I had one task left to me. I had to get through this time of waiting both calm and sane.

Gazing out over the black, flat water, I smiled as little as I remembered my thought of earlier that day.

I had thought, My memories are all I am.

If my memories are all I am, I told myself, then it's up to me to live in my memories as fully and deeply as possible.

Staring at the River Acheron, I set about reconstructing in my mind some of the most beautiful moments of my life.

One of those moments I chose was still only a few days old, from my last morning alive.

I closed my eyes and pictured the grey dawn light that filtered through the walls of our tent. I felt Achilleus, felt the glorious heat of him, underneath me, around me. I tasted the salt tang of his skin. I shivered at the feel of his arms about me, fingers digging into my back, holding on as though he never needed to let go. I saw myself kiss him on the nose as I got out of our bed, and I saw how he smiled as he lay there, watching me dress. I smiled as I felt again the innocent happiness of those moments—the innocence of lovers who have no idea that before the day is out, one of them will be dead.

The kiss with which we parted at the tent door that morning was a lingering one, but by the gods, it was not lingering enough. How I wish that I had lingered longer! How I wish that I'd lingered with him, that we'd stayed there in our tent making love all day—and that somehow, as I was kissing him and holding him, I had finally convinced him that we should leave this miserable, stupid war and go home.

It was an idle dream; I knew that too well. I've been trying to convince him of that for ten years. But since all of this was a daydream, I might as well include in the dream everything that I wanted.

We would go back to Phthia. We would have a reunion with our fathers. I would have a moment to savor the amazed delight on my father's face as he and I hugged, and he realized that I had not died in this war as he'd been certain I was going to. We would send for Achilleus' son to join us. Of course—there must always be some bittersweet note to any dream—that would probably mean that we must also send for Neoptolemus' mother. But I told myself that I could live with that. She would probably demand little more time from Achilleus than do any of the slave women who are part of both of our households. She might not even be willing to travel to Phthia. After all, she has lived ten years as a married woman, but without her husband there to impose his will upon her life. She might have no intention of giving that freedom up.

But wife or no wife, I told myself, we would be together. We would be alive. We could focus, finally, on the real business of ruling: on increasing the crops, improving coastal defenses, rooting out the bandits who are growing too entrenched in the hills. All of the beautiful everyday work of making life better for our people—instead of day by day, year after year, doing nothing but killing.

At that point in my daydream, I sighed, yanked back to my far less satisfactory reality.

The trouble with remembering making love to Achilleus in the grey morning light is that I do not know if that kiss at the tent door will remain our last.

I thank all the gods who are on our side, that Achilleus and I took the time to be with each other that morning. I thank them that when we parted later that day—I racing to put on his famous armor, and he to muster our troops—it was on the heels of those moments of shared peace and pleasure. If I had it to choose, it is the sort of last morning I would have chosen for us.

And yet again, as my thoughts wail out in protest and in grief, it is not what I would choose at all. Never, never would I choose to part from Achilleus, no matter how sweet the parting.

That morning gleams as a gem in my memory now. But the gem will be irretrievably tarnished if Achilleus and I do not see each other again.

If I think of that, I will begin to panic. So I will not think of it.

I wandered instead far back into my memories. Back to the distant time when we both still lived in the young man's illusion of immortality. When the possibility of our parting was a menacing prophecy that we never truly believed we would have to face.

I thought of one golden afternoon perhaps three years into the war. It was during one of our expeditions against Troy's allies, when Achilleus led the Myrmidons in capturing one after another of the island states.

We stopped for a few days at another island, this one inhabited only by sea birds and a herd of goats. We'd stopped to give our men the chance to rest, to make repairs to our armor, equipment and ships—and to give Achilleus and me an all-too-infrequent chance to be alone together.

We went wandering off that afternoon to explore the island. That was the official reason for our wandering. From the grins and jokes of some of the older men, they knew full well it was not the island that their young leaders would be exploring.

Achilleus and I made our way to a cliff top, from the edge of which we could look down and see our ships as tiny as a child's toys in the shimmering water below. There we sat to drink a little wine that we had brought. And there, as we wrestled and tickled each other and tasted the wine on each other's lips, we had an absurdly stupid idea.

I don't know which of us said it first. It began as a joke, and rapidly developed into a dare.

We'd neglected to bring any unguent with us—spit, after all, works just as well, in a pinch—and somehow we started saying that we would use the wine instead.

Anyone could have told us what a ridiculous concept that was, for wine just happens to be sticky.

It was my ass that suffered for it. We'd teased each other about it enough, and challenged each other's courage enough, that neither of us was going to back down. And by the time I was thinking, Hold on, that really hurts, damn it, we need to at least use some spit, too—I was too proud, and too eager for Achilleus, to say that.

A couple of days passed before I stopped feeling the sting of it. Far more lasting were other effects: such as my impression, whether real or imagined, that I could not escape the smell of wine. Our swim in the sea just afterwards, and several more swims and baths over the next few days, did not free me from that maddening ghost of a smell. I groaned to Achilleus that I felt like I would be shitting wine for a week.

It was years, of course, before Achilleus let me live all of this down. Whenever I gave him sensible advice that he wanted to ignore, he was certain to mention—if we were in private—that I might be the elder and supposedly wiser, but at least he hadn't let anybody stick his dick in him with the passage eased only by wine. For a long time after this, too, both of us were apt to break into giggles or start whispering suggestive comments to each other whenever wine appeared or was mentioned. It prompted many a sigh and much eye-rolling by all of our comrades who did not happen to be so young and so giddily in love.

If I must choose a few moments to live in for eternity, that afternoon will be among them, in spite of my aching ass, and the rock I'd managed to lie down on which gave me a bruise on my back, and the inescapable smell of wine. Sitting here by the black waters of the Acheron, I have recreated it for myself again and again. I have seized hold of every image, smell, sensation and sound.

The burnished gold of Achilleus' hair and his skin, as the sun gleamed upon him. The ocean breeze cooling my sweat-damp skin, even as the sun warmed it. The raucous calls of the sea birds blending with our cries. Mingled smells of the sea and our sweat and that ridiculous wine. Our hands and torsos and mouths all sticky with the wine, when Achilleus collapsed upon me at last. The two of us gasping and laughing as we lay in each other's arms.

I have thought of it over and over as I sit here, reclaiming for myself the warmth of the sun on my skin and the heat of Achilleus' body on mine—fighting to keep them as a bulwark against the dreadful, impossible cold.

I am fighting for them. But despite all my resolutions of courage, fears keep creeping in.

I tell myself I am being an idiot. I need not torture myself by imagining a nightmare future that may never come to pass.

So I tell myself. But horrible possibilities still creep into my mind.

What if Achilleus is already dead?

He would assuredly have sought to go after Hektor as soon as he learned of my death. I've no doubt that Achilleus is mighty enough, and beloved of the gods enough—or at least beloved of some of the gods—that he can conquer Prince Hektor. But what then?

Achilleus' mother prophesied, before ever we left for this wretched war, that if Achilleus dies here it will be shortly after the death of glorious Hektor. How shortly is "shortly," she was not able to say.

It could be years. It could be the same day.

All too easily I can picture Achilleus and Hektor cutting each other down, dying almost in the same instant. I can picture Achilleus killing Hektor but failing to adequately guard himself in the wildness of his grief, and being cut down in turn by Prince Hektor's companions.

My thoughts race on, heaping hypothetical grief upon grief.

I have imagined one version in which Achilleus is already slain, and his funeral has already been held—but mine can not be held, for my body was never recovered from the Trojans. Then he will go on across the river; or he may even already have gone on. And I will never be reunited with him. He may never know what has happened to me. He may search the Underworld for me, never realizing that I remain here, left behind him in the fog.

Or perhaps both of us will be lost here. Perhaps the Trojans have seized both of our bodies, and have flung them into the streets of Troy for their dogs. Then we will both of us wander in the fog. We will never know even if we are right next to each other, even if we brush through each other and shiver as the other passes by.

No, I tell myself, it is nonsense. Those gods who favor us would never let such things be.

Achilleus' mother is only a lesser goddess. But she has friends among the mightiest, numbering among them even Zeus himself. Perhaps Thetis cannot save our lives. But I am certain, certain that she will save our souls.

Time and again I tell myself I am being a fool, and I throw myself back into memories of warmth and love.

I tell myself that I must concentrate on gaining more information from the ferryman when next he returns—rather than wallowing in my fears. I must learn from him whether Achilleus has journeyed on his ferry, or whether he has seen Achilleus among those of us who are trapped in the fog.

Charon may not be delighted at facing a new batch of questions. Still, I feel the ferryman is like a man who kicks the stray dogs that crowd about his door—but who will eventually begin feeding them if they wait around long enough.

So I must simply make certain that I am the stray dog Charon decides to feed.

A little while ago I finally started to cry. The sensation jolted me with surprise. I suddenly realized that the tears on my face were warm.

They were the first warmth I have felt since first I woke in the fog.

The moment I realized it, my tears stopped. And they seem to have no intention of starting up again.

How typical of the Underworld it is that you cannot even cry here if crying would bring you comfort!

So I am sitting here. And I am not crying. And I am afraid.

Achilleus! How I long to hear your voice, to touch you, to hold you.

How I long for you, and how I fear that I will never, never see you again.