Author's Note:
At the heart of this chapter (or "book") is Book 23 of the Iliad, in which the ghost of Patroklos visits his grieving comrade and begs to be given his right of burning. It was that sequence that captured my imagination over 25 years ago, and that made me a fan of Patroklos and Achilleus from that day until this. Here we have the opportunity to see that scene from Patroklos' point of view.
Book III, the final chapter of this novella, is written, but it still requires a little editing before I feel ready to post it.
Waiting by the Shore
An Iliad Fan Fiction
Book II
The light of the ferry appeared in the dark water. I sprang to my feet.
Once again I fought to school my thoughts into calmness. I stood and watched as Charon and his ferryboat made their now familiar arrival.
The ferryman gave a minimal nod as he saw me standing there, and he said, "No funeral yet. Sorry."
I nodded, not particularly surprised. Deciding to cut straight to what I wanted, I asked, "Have you seen Achilleus Son of Peleus here?"
This time, Charon was not inclined to make things easy for me. He said, "Too many answers already, little shade. I must be getting soft-hearted. This is the Underworld, my friend. Answers must be bought or earned."
I watched as he stationed himself at the front corner of his boat, while, presumably, soul after soul of the buried dead trooped aboard. I wondered how many of my comrades, and of our foes, might be among them.
Bought or earned, I pondered. Bought with what? Earned how?
I could hardly buy anything, since I possess precisely nothing. Nothing except my tunic, but I do not even know if that is real, or just a part of the manifestation of my spirit. And even if it is real enough for this place, I do not think one tunic will buy me many answers.
Or, I supposed, I also possess myself.
But I won't negotiate with myself as currency, either.
I hardly believed any such offer would appeal to Charon. He is a god. I have no doubt he has countless concubines at his disposal. One unfortunate unburied shade is hardly likely to arouse his interest.
Even if I did intrigue him in that way, I will not make the offer. I still believe—I have to believe—that I will see Achilleus again. I have no intention of letting him be welcomed into the Underworld by the discovery that I have been offering myself to the ferryman of Hades.
That left the question of how else I might earn my answers.
I pondered that, as Charon set out with the evening's first round of invisible passengers. By the time he returned, I had decided on a strategy.
The second time the ferryboat surged onto the shore, I called out, "Charon! I challenge you to a wrestling match. If I win, you answer my questions."
I had no thought of actually winning against Charon. One never wins against gods. I simply thought that I must make myself his favorite among whatever stray dogs may hang around him. If I am entertaining enough, and perhaps surprising enough, he may be moved to occasionally toss me some scraps of knowledge.
The ferryman eyed me with skeptical amusement. He asked, "Are you serious?"
From my expression, he must have decided that I was. Charon strode onto the shore toward me. Once on shore he paused to harangue his next batch of passengers, still entirely invisible to me. "Keep on moving, there! Move on till the boat's full up."
He stepped in front of me and jammed his ferry pole downward, standing it upright in the sand beside us.
"We'll just go to one point," he stated. "I've got passengers waiting."
"All right," I conceded. Since I thought I had no chance of winning, I didn't see much sense in being a stickler for the rules.
We stripped off our tunics and tossed them to the ground. I did briefly ask myself what I thought I was doing. But I couldn't see that I had anything to worry about. I wasn't likely to get injured after my death, now was I?
As we grappled with each other, he nearly threw me in the first instant. I was startled to notice that Charon felt warm. Now it really was worth my while to ensure this contest lasted as long as possible. Contact with the ferryman might thaw out some of my supernatural cold.
With my first startlement passed, it seemed Charon and I were roughly equal in strength. How that could be, I do not know. I see no likelihood that I am as strong as even one of the lesser gods. Perhaps Charon held himself in check to make the contest last longer. For moments we basically just stood there. The only movement was somebody's foot sliding a little in the sand, or a minuscule shifting of grip on each other's arms. The only sound was an occasional grunt of effort.
Those were the only movements, until—cheating so flagrantly as to be laughable—Charon broke his grasp on me and reached for his ferry pole. He struck me so strong a blow with the pole that I went flying to land on my back, at a spot that seemed at least a spear's throw away.
"Never trust in the gods," the ferryman of Hades advised. "You ought to know that by now."
"I do know it," I answered cheerfully enough as I picked myself up again. "If gods could be trusted, I wouldn't be here."
Charon had already donned his tunic and was heading back to his boat. As I went to retrieve my own tunic I called after him, "How about a game of dice?"
Never mind that I loathe dice. I have not touched a dice set since the fatal game when I was eight years old—when the argument over my claim that my playmate was cheating ended with my fist breaking his nose and sending slivers of bone into his brain.
Charon stopped just short of the ferryboat and turned back to look at me in surprise. "Have you got a set with you?" he asked.
"No," I said. "I hoped that you might have one."
For an instant more he stared at me. Then he burst out laughing. "You are quite a fellow, second-in-command and companion," he decided. "You are quite a fellow."
With that, the ferryman departed, leaving me to wonder if I'd made any progress at all.
I reminded myself, You did say you wanted to make yourself amusing to him. I think it is safe to say that you have succeeded in that.
I sat down on the shore again, rather suddenly. It wasn't quite that my legs had given out beneath me, I assured myself, but they very nearly had. I was surprised to realize that I seemed to be feeling some ill effects from our brief wrestling bout.
I couldn't feel any muscle pain, or anything so solid as that. That is no surprise, I suppose, since I must not have any muscles; only the spiritual illusion of muscles. But I felt faint and nauseous. I didn't think I felt colder than before, but I felt less able to cope with the cold. I felt strangely thin and strained, as if I might slip out of consciousness. If I did lose my consciousness, I wasn't at all certain that I would get it back.
Some of my campaign to win Charon's favor must already have succeeded. He seemed genuinely concerned about me when he returned for another batch of passengers a short time later. More than once as he stood guard on his ferryboat, he cast worried frowns to where I sat dejectedly a few feet from the boat. When he left this time, he even went out of his way to encourage me.
"Got a bumper crop this evening," he said. "I'll be back for a fourth load of them. Don't lose heart, little shade. I'll come back here again once I've dropped off the fourth bunch."
Come back? I wondered. Come back for what?
He was coming back, I soon learned, for a dice game.
Leaving his pole on the boat this time, he walked over to me and sat down. He was brandishing a small, embroidered pouch, out of which he poured a set of finely carved bone dice.
I tried not to look visibly disturbed at the sight of them. Dice embody bad memories for me, anyway. And there seemed something sinister about the sight of bone dice in the Underworld.
I told myself that was stupid. They were probably carved of cattle bones, or swine, or something else perfectly ordinary and innocent. Just because they were in the Underworld, there wasn't any reason to assume they were carved from, say, the bones of unburied men.
"High score after three rounds wins," Charon suggested. "And if you win, I'll answer some of your questions."
"Right," I agreed, trying to conjure at least something resembling a smile.
"You throw first," said the ferryman.
I think I started to feel somewhat less horrible as the game went on. Whether that was caused simply by the time that had passed, or by the distraction of the game, I don't know. So long as I felt better, I saw no need to inquire about the reason.
For the first two rounds, it seemed that Charon and I were both in very middling luck. Our throws were consistently unremarkable, with no score that caused either of us to curse his luck or to exclaim in triumph. When both had completed our first two throws, my score was three points higher than Charon's.
I thought a brief but heartfelt prayer to Thetis, to Hera and to Athene, and I made my third throw.
It was another middling throw—bland that I wondered if indeed some deity might be guiding the fall of the dice. The throw was four, two threes, and one two.
Charon scooped up the dice, grinned at me as he briefly shook them in his hands, and threw.
Each one of the dice showed a one.
The ferryman of Hades gave a whistle. "Will you look at that," he remarked. "Looks like someone must be sending me a message."
I forced myself to keep my gaze and my nerves steady, as I wondered whether Charon would keep his word to me. I had not forgotten the end of our wrestling match, or the ferryman's warning never to trust the gods.
But this time, it seemed that he contemplated no ill turns. His expression turning solemn, he said, "Achilleus Son of Peleus has not been here. At least he has not journeyed on my ferry. And if he's here among the fog, he hasn't made himself known to me." With another, rueful grin the ferryman added, "I imagine he'd make himself as difficult to ignore as you do?"
Through the almost sickening rush of relief that I felt, I managed to nod. "Yes," I said, feeling a faint smile touch my face. "Yes, I imagine he would. Probably a great deal more difficult to ignore."
"He is not here," Charon went on, not looking at me as he scooped up the dice and deposited them back into their pouch. "But someone else you know is. Prince Hektor, breaker of horses."
My brief feeling of relief vanished, replaced by a frozen feeling that seemed, at first, to be no emotion at all. "Hektor?" I repeated in a whisper.
The ferryman nodded. "He's sitting right over there," he said, jerking his thumb and seeming to indicate a spot only a few paces distant from us.
I had not seen or heard Charon speak to anyone here except for me. But he must have, I thought, if he'd been conversing with Hektor. It was a strange thing to realize that there might be many things he had done here, right in front of me, that I had not seen or heard because he is a god and did not wish me to see or hear them—or simply because they were not intended for me.
None of that is important now, I told myself. I knew I was thinking of these things because I did not want to contemplate what Hektor's presence here must mean.
I said to Charon, "If you will, please convey my greetings to Prince Hektor. And tell him I am sorry he is here."
Charon nodded, stood up and walked the few steps to that seemingly empty stretch of shore. This time I had no difficulty hearing him, as he said, "Patroklos son of Menoitios greets you, and says he is sorry you are here."
After a moment he turned back to me and told me, "Prince Hektor greets you as well, and sends you the same message."
My throat seeming painfully dry, I said, "Please ask him for me who killed him."
The ferryman repeated the question, and an instant later the answer came. "Achilleus."
Charon walked back over to me and patted me on the shoulder. He remarked, though I could barely focus on his words, "You know, I think I would have answered your question even if you hadn't won. I think you're the first shade who's ever offered to play dice with me."
I believe I managed some sort of good night comment to him as he returned to his boat, but I am not certain of it. The ferryman departed, and I was left, caught in a tangle of emotions more confusing than anything I have ever felt.
Ordinarily I would find it disquieting to know that an invisible Hektor is sitting there just paces away from me. But just then, I wouldn't have cared if every damned soldier of Troy was crowded there about me in the fog.
Hektor is dead, I thought. Hektor is dead.
If the goddess Thetis' prophecy was right, it means that Achilleus will soon be dead, too.
Hektor is dead, and Achilleus has killed him—knowing that in doing so, he has almost certainly decreed his own death.
I will not claim that I thought of it every day of the ten years we've been at war. But I know if I'd been counting them, I would long since have lost count of the number of times I've sighed a little in relief at knowing that Hektor, breaker of horses, was still alive.
He was alive, so Achilleus' life was safe, too.
But now the breaker of horses lives no more. And there is no safety left for Achilleus.
Dismay, concern and dread tore at me as I thought, I don't want him to die!
For twenty years I have been his friend. For all that time I've wanted to protect him, to guide him, to be his shield against all sorrow and pain. Never mind that Achilleus makes all such wishes pointless, since he accepts no guidance, and thinks that so long as he wields his spear and his sword, he has no need of a shield.
For ten years I have been his lover, and his comrade in this war. Every day of those ten years, I have prayed to Zeus and Hera to bring him home safely at the end of this. To bring him home to all the joys I want for him, to all the gifts that belong to the man who lives a long and happy life.
I still want all of that for him! I insisted in my thoughts.
I still want it for him. I want him to go home to his father and his son. I want him to live to hold his grandchildren, to teach them and train them—since he gave up, for this war, the opportunity to do that for his son. I want him to someday sit by his hearth, smiling as he tells his grandchildren spellbinding tales of his glorious youth—and of his companion whose life's blood was spilled outside the walls of Troy.
I want him to have that.
But, my thoughts wailed, I don't want him to have all of that without me!
Furious and sickened with myself, I asked, Can I truly be so selfish a man that I wish my lover dead just so he can be with me?
I long for him, I want him, but I cannot, cannot want him at such a price.
I cannot want him to be with me if it takes from him everything I've always dreamed that he would have.
Thetis' prophecy only says he will probably die soon after Prince Hektor. I reminded myself of that again, as I've been reminding myself for ten years.
Maybe there is still a way for him to escape this fate. Maybe there is still a chance.
And if he does live? I asked myself. If he does go home to a long and happy life—what of me?
I thought of myself waiting all those years. And if my entire being were not cold already, I would have gone cold with the fear that at the end of those years he will no longer want me.
He will love others. He will move onward. And he will forget.
He will forget me, and I will lose every happiness that I have prayed for, for him.
But I must want that, I thought. I must.
How can I say I love him, if I want him to lose everything for me?
And can you stand it, I asked myself, can you endure it, if when at last you see him again, he wants you no more?
It does not matter what I can endure, I told myself flatly. What is fated, will happen, whether I can endure it, or not.
With such thoughts, I sat, as the grey day of the Underworld drifted, unaltered, into its grey night.
I tore at myself with those thoughts, with those questions and fears, until a woman's voice called out from behind me, "Patroklos!"
I scrambled to my feet and turned around. Racing through the fog toward me was a golden- haired woman in a gown and mantle the colors of the sea: silver-footed Thetis, sea goddess and Achilleus' mother.
I cried out to her, "Mother!" as she rushed into my arms.
She is not, of course, the mother who bore me. But she has become near enough to that as makes no difference, in the twenty years I have lived as companion to her son.
For a few sweet moments we held each other, both of us sobbing. Just last night I thought that I couldn't cry in the Underworld, but it seems that I still can.
At last she stepped back from me, still holding my hands—smiling at me, though she was crying still.
"Dear, dear Patroklos," she murmured. "Oh, my dearest, I'm so sorry for what has happened to you. I am so very sorry."
"Thank you for coming," I said to her. "How is Achilleus?"
Pain twisted her smile. She said, "Do you even have to ask that?" Thetis gave a deep, shuddering sigh. She told me, "He is doing badly. He is doing worse than you can imagine."
I suppose there should have been no surprise to me in that. But it still hurt horribly to hear it.
"I'm so sorry, Thetis," I whispered. "I'm so sorry for what you must be suffering with him."
"Come," she said, taking my arm and leading me a little farther along the sand—a few paces farther away from where I supposed Prince Hektor might still be sitting. "Sit with me and I will tell you everything."
I would have sat beside her, but she said, "Let me warm you, at least for a little while." She guided me to lie with my head on her lap, and she wrapped her mantle about me.
I thought I should probably be ashamed to accept a position so childlike. But I told myself I had no need to feel shame with her.
The goddess must know how it is with us here. She must know how I crave the warmth that now crept with painful slowness from her into me.
She stroked my hair, and she began to speak. Her soft, gentle voice did nothing to diminish the horror of her tale.
"Antilochus came to him to tell him of your death. Achaians and Trojans were battling for your corpse, with fair-haired Menelaos leading the fight to defend you. Achilleus could not go back into the battle, for his armor was lost with you. But Athene spread her aegis about him and joined her war cry to his, so that it carried over all the battlefield, and the Trojans were routed and fled. Then the Achaians were able to retrieve your body, and Achilleus and the rest of your comrades mourned by it all that night. He swore that he will not bury you until he has avenged your death, and brought Hektor's corpse to cast into the dust at the foot of your funeral pyre. I went to the lord Hephaistos and sought new armor and weapons for Achilleus, which I brought to him with the dawn."
Her beauteous face bore a troubled frown as she went on, "Achilleus wished to rush into battle with no further delay, but Odysseus and the other leaders of the Achaians insisted that the men must at least breakfast before they went into combat. The lord of men Agamemnon sent back the woman he had taken from Achilleus, and sent many gifts besides. Then the army broke their fast, but Achilleus would touch neither food nor drink, and swore that he will not, while you lie torn about with the sharp bronze, unburied and not yet avenged."
"What!" I exclaimed, sitting up. "He's going into battle without eating? Thetis, you've got to do something! Go to him! You've got to talk some sense into him, somehow, no matter what it takes!"
"Dearest, it's all right," she assured me, clasping my hands. "Zeus himself sent Pallas Athene to nourish him with ambrosia and nectar, so no weakness of hunger will come upon him."
"Oh," I sighed, feeling overcome by my relief. "That's all right, then. When you see the Son of Kronos next and the Lady of the Grey Eyes, please thank them for me."
"I will," she promised, and she went on with her tale.
"Achilleus led the bronze-armored Achaians against Troy. The battle raged all the day, and the slaughter he wreaked upon the Trojans is beyond telling. At last, as the long afternoon was wearing away, he met Hektor in single combat, and slew him."
"I know," I said. "Hektor's here. Charon told me."
"Yes," she nodded. "I saw him just now, when I was looking for you." A frown again knitting her perfect brow, the goddess continued, "Achilleus pierced Hektor through the throat with his spear, and when the life had fled him, Achilleus cut holes by the tendons between ankle and heel, and drew thongs of ox-hide through them, and fastened Hektor's body to the back of his chariot so that the head fell in the dust. And thus he dragged Hektor's corpse around the walls of the city, in full view of all his people. Then he dragged the body back to the ships of the Myrmidons, and hurled it face down on the ground at the foot of the bier where your body lies. And he and the rest of your companions are once again passing the night in mourning for you."
I will not deny that I felt a surge of vindictive pleasure as the goddess spoke of Hektor's corpse being dragged around the walls of Troy. But that pleasure swiftly vanished, fading into unease before she had finished speaking.
"It is not right," I said then, frowning toward the place where I supposed Hektor to be sitting. "No one should be forced to linger here unburied."
I might not have been so firm in that statement before I experienced this place for myself. But I am here, now, and being trapped on this shore for eternity is a fate I would not wish upon the worst of enemies—or indeed, upon the man who killed me.
I suggested, "Perhaps you can go to Achilleus, once the first frenzy of his wrath has passed, and convince him to send Hektor's body back to his people."
My frown deepened as I thought of other things she had said, and pieced them together. I said, "Then ... if he has slain Hektor, and cast him in the dust, then he's fulfilled all that he vowed to do. Then, is he holding my funeral now?"
"No," she sighed. "No, he is not. I don't know when he will."
"But—if he's fulfilled his vow, then there's no more need to wait—"
The goddess Thetis tightened her grasp about my hand. She said softly, "Patroklos—my son knows you are gone. He knows that. But—I believe your body is like an island to him, a rock that he can grab hold of in the waves, so that he does not drown in your loss." She sighed, shaking her head. "I do not know how long he intends to keep your body with him. I doubt if he has thought it through, himself."
Looking about to break into tears at the memory, she said, "When I brought him the armor from Hephaistos, I found him where I suppose he had been all night, lying weeping in your body's arms."
My face must have plainly shown how deeply disturbing that was to me.
She hastened on in the attempt to comfort me. "Your body will not be corrupted," she said. "I have seen to that. I have preserved it with ambrosia, so no harm will come to it. He could keep it by him a year or more, and it would not be changed."
That was a little better, I supposed; better that than to think of my body rotting away in the tent Achilleus and I had shared. But the mention of keeping my body for a year was not anything I wanted to hear, either.
"But he isn't going to do anything like that," I insisted. "He isn't—is he? Thetis, he cannot intend that. Can he?"
Her very uncertain expression sent a stab of fear through me. "I'm sorry, Patroklos," she whispered. "I wish I knew. I think—I think maybe he does intend to."
"Well, he can't be allowed to," I declared.
I wished, as I have wished so many times before, that somehow my damned pigheaded beloved could finally get some sense beaten into him.
"That's no decent way to live, crying in the arms of a corpse. He's got to stop. Will you go to him for me?" I asked her. "Tell him—tell him how it is with me here. If he won't see reason for his own sake, maybe he will for mine. Tell him that until he holds my funeral, I'm stuck here freezing my ass off in this fog!"
The goddess smiled at my less-than-dignified choice of words. "I have tried to tell him," she said, "though not exactly in those terms. I have tried to speak with him of it, as have many of your comrades. I think—I think nothing will truly get through to him until you tell him yourself."
I stared at her, feeling a wondering rush of fear and of hope.
"Can I do that?" I asked. "Is it possible?"
She nodded briskly. "It is. I will help you go back tonight. I've brought an offering that will help you to make the journey."
Thetis stood up, and I did the same. She clapped her hands once, and from the fog appeared the graceful form of one of her Nereid sisters. I had not known the other goddess was there, until that instant. But I recognized her: Nesaie, sweet-faced and black-haired, whom I remembered many times visiting Thetis at the palace in Phthia.
I managed a faint smile at Nesaie, and she smiled back. Any more formal greeting was beyond my powers then, for I was staring at what Nesaie held in her hands.
It was a wide, shallow bowl of gleaming bronze. Filling the bowl was a thick, wine-dark liquid that could only be blood.
Thetis spoke beside me, though I could not tear my gaze from the blood to look at her. She confided, "The dead aren't normally permitted to partake of their offerings until they've crossed the river. I've called in a few favors to bring this to you."
Nesaie stepped up to me and held out the shining bowl. Vowing that I would not let myself think of the strangeness of all of this, I took it in my hands.
I managed to nod in gratitude both to Nesaie and to Thetis, and I whispered to them, "Thank you." Then I lifted the bowl to my lips, and drank.
It seemed to taste of nothing—which I suppose is something to be grateful for, under the circumstances. But its effect was immediate and wondrous.
I gasped. I thought, I feel almost alive.
The cold was all-but banished, leaving only the smallest tendrils behind. The warmth glowing in its place seemed to radiate from within me, as nothing had done since I died. My limbs felt solid and real, almost as though I had a body again, instead of a spirit held together only by my stubborn desire to exist.
Nesaie took the bowl from my hands as I stood there marveling. That woke me from my amazement. I turned to Nesaie's sister, grasping up Thetis' hands and kissing them. "Thetis," I told her, "thank you."
She smiled at me, but she said, "We must hurry. You don't have much time."
The goddess Thetis led me by the hand into the fog.
This time I did not try to count my steps, or to decipher where or how far we might be walking. I trusted Thetis to lead me where I needed to be.
As we walked, she was continuing her warnings.
"You must not delay," she said to me. "You must not linger, however much you wish to. And you will wish to, but you must not. Make Achilleus hear you. You can't let anything get in the way of that. Remember that. You must remember."
"I will remember," I told her.
Thetis stopped walking, and I noticed that the fog seemed thinner just ahead of us. I still could not quite see through it. But I could tell that there was something to see beyond it. Through its grey wisps and swirls I saw something darker, and also an occasional gleam of light. With a jolt of elation I realized that there, beyond our grey nothingness that I so detest, must be the honest darkness of night.
Pointing to the dark beyond the fog, Thetis said, "He is just ahead of us."
I started forward and would have broken into a run, but the goddess put her hand on my arm to stop me. Gazing desperately up into my face, she said, "I wish we could change what has happened to you. I wish this sorrow had never come to you. But it was your fate. As it is Achilleus' fate to mourn you. And mine to grieve for both of you. Even gods cannot escape our fate."
Urgently she went on, "You won't be able to come back again, after you have had your burning. This will be the last time you see him—until he follows you. What you most need to say to him, say it tonight."
Her mention of Achilleus following me brought to the fore again the question that had been so tormenting me: the question of Achilleus' fate.
I clasped my hand around hers, and said, "Mother—there is one other thing I need to ask you. I beg of you to tell me. Do you have another prophecy? Have you seen his fate? Is it certain, now, that his death will follow close on Hektor's? Or does he still have a chance?"
She smiled at me in sorrow, reaching up to brush her hand across my cheek. "Dearest Patroklos," she said. "I have no new prophecy. I do not need one. My son has no chance for a long life, now. He has no chance—because if the opportunity comes for him to live, he will not take it. He has no reason to take it, now that you are gone."
She gave me no time for the grief and the protests with which I wanted to answer that. "Go to him," she told me. "Don't let anything stop you." The goddess stood on her toes and kissed my cheek, and she whispered, "Good luck."
I managed one last smile for her. Then I turned and walked out of the fog.
Nothing could have prepared me for the glorious beauty of the world.
I had thought Thetis underestimated me, when she kept insisting I must beware of lingering, of losing too much time.
Now I know it was I who underestimated the very real risk that I would do exactly as she feared.
I felt like I was suddenly drunk. A thousand sights, sounds and sensations rushed in at me, ravishing me, entrancing me.
The stars were so bright! I wondered if I had ever truly seen them before, as they pierced me with their impossible brilliance, glowing in lusters of silver and bronze.
The breeze, racing in off the sea, kissed me and danced through me, and I wanted nothing more than to lose myself in its embrace.
All the smells, so many of them, so intoxicating, seemed to weave themselves into the most exquisite of tapestries, that could only be the work of the goddesses of Olympos. I reveled in the wondrous bounty of all of them.
The salt depths of the sea. The tang of our cookfires and the rich sweetness of roasting meat. The dung of our army's horses and of the herds on which the strong-greaved Achaians have been fed year after year, as our encampment grew to be almost a city of its own, there on the beach of Troy.
Year after year. Those words jolted at me, reminding me of the passage of time. I knew a moment's wild fear that I had stood here for years, drunkenly swimming in all the sensations that were lost to me.
I will remember, I desperately repeated the promise I had made to Thetis. I will remember.
Somehow I forced myself to stop drinking in the glories of the world, and to focus on what was right around me.
I knew where I was. Near the encampment of the Myrmidons; I recognized the dark outlines of our ships off to my left along the shore.
The stretch of beach where I stood has become as familiar to me as are any of the sites in Phthia where we passed the days of our childhood. Here Achilleus and I have walked together times beyond count. Here we have sat together, apart from all of our comrades, talking of everything and nothing, weaving our golden dreams of futures that will never be.
This night, we were not here alone. Instead of being snugly tucked into their tents, our Myrmidons were scattered across the beach. Some of them slept, but most sat in small groups, talking quietly, clustered about the flickering glimmer of campfires. Some were close enough to me that I could almost recognize their faces; I thought that I would recognize them if I walked only a few paces closer. I thought of doing so, of wandering from one group of them to the next, and the next, basking in the simple comforts of hearing their voices and sitting beside them. I wanted to watch the firelight play across their faces with life and color and warmth that I would never know in the Underworld.
I am drifting again, I realized, cursing in sudden dread. I am forgetting what I must do.
The danger was all too close that I would waste the little time I had left to me. I would squander my only chance, without ever speaking with the man I was here to find.
Achilleus was very near to me, as his mother had said he would be. I saw that our men had posted themselves at a cautious distance from him. They were near enough to answer swiftly if he summoned them, or if they had to try and stop him from drowning himself, or some other such madness. But they were far enough that they need not be burned by the fire of his grief.
He lay asleep where he had flung himself down in the sodden sand. No, I thought, rather he must have flung himself down in the water itself. The tide was going out, but it was clearly not long since it had been where he lay. His tunic clung to his body, soaked through, and his skin glistened from the embrace of the waves.
I ran to him and dropped to my knees beside him in the sand.
"Oh, my love," I whispered. "Oh, my own, dear love."
All of his mother's warnings could never have prepared me for the state Achilleus was in.
He had obviously allowed no water near him since I died, except for the ocean's waves. His glorious hair—of which he is normally so proud—was hopelessly tangled, matted with blood and with the gods alone know what else. His face was dark with intermingled blood and dirt, cut through here and there by the worm trails of tears. More than the sea had soaked his tunic. In places blood still caked it, molding it and sticking it to him like a breastplate.
His face, always so childlike and innocent in sleep, looked wan now with exhaustion. I wished I did not have to wake him.
Oh, that's brilliant, Patroklos! I sneered at myself. Will you lose your chance to speak with him because you felt bad about waking him up?
Tentatively I reached out to him, as though it were the first time I had touched him. I ran one finger along his collarbone. I shivered, and in his sleep, I saw him do the same.
I could not truly touch him. But I could feel something. He was like a hot afternoon breeze, or like immersing my hand in ocean water warmed by the summer sun.
"Achilleus," I whispered. "Achilleus."
I leaned over him and placed a kiss upon his lips. He did not wake at my kiss, of course; that would be too much to expect. I told myself, That sort of thing happens only in the stories we tell to children. Not in life—or in death.
I moved lower, kissing his chin, his throat. I kissed along his collarbone, following the same path that my finger had traced.
There I stopped, for I told myself that if I did not stop now, I never would. I could sacrifice my sole chance to make him hear me, by doing nothing but kissing him until I was pulled back down to the Underworld.
And, I thought, it might not be long before that happened. I was sure that I did not feel the same strength and solidity I'd felt when first I drank Thetis' offering of blood. The old faintness and cold were creeping back. I might have very little time left.
"Achilleus. Achilleus! You've got to wake up and hear me."
This is ridiculous, I thought. Am I going to have to start shouting at the top of my lungs? I could just see it, if my shouts brought all of the other Myrmidons to us, but still did not wake the man I sought. I wondered if the others would be able to see and hear me. If they did, at least maybe one of them would wake Achilleus for me.
"Achilleus. Achilleus, damn it, wake up!"
My voice wasn't quite at the bellowing level yet, but it was getting close. Achilleus stirred and moaned a little, but he did not wake.
Panic raced through me. What would I do if I couldn't wake him? I supposed I should seek out one of our comrades. Antilochus, perhaps. Or, no, Automedon was a better choice. He would likely be somewhere closer to Achilleus, so I should be able to find him faster. I was sure he would believe in me—if he could see me and hear me—and would do everything he could to help me.
What I needed most was just for someone to wake Achilleus. If I delivered my message to someone else, I thought I might as well not have bothered. My beloved would be too cursed stubborn to change anything he thought or did, unless he heard me tell him what I needed, himself.
Hesitating on the brink of running to find someone who would wake him for me, I started trying to work one of the tangles out of his hair.
I was not solid enough to have really gotten the tangle out, even if I'd worked at it all night. But his hair moved a little as I touched it, as though in the gentlest breeze.
He shivered, and opened his eyes.
"It's all very well for you to sleep, Achilleus," I snapped, "while I'm lying unburied. You never used to be so forgetful of me."
His eyes widened, and he soundlessly whispered my name.
Immediately, I felt sorry for my angry words. My last chance to speak with him in this world, and I was going to waste it peevishly scolding him for sleeping?
"Achilleus," I murmured then, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
He struggled up on one elbow, and hesitatingly reached out his other hand toward me. I touched my hand to his. I felt the blissful warmth as our fingers mingled, and I wondered if my hand felt cold to him.
"Achilleus," I said, "you've got to give me my funeral. Give me my rite of burning; please, don't wait. I can't go on into Hades." I added with bitter humor, "The good, buried souls won't let me associate with them! I'll just be wandering in nothingness, until you let me go on."
"Patroklos," he whispered again. He looked down to where our hands melded, then up again to my face.
I felt so close to tears. I told him, "This is our last chance to be here together. We'll never sit here again, talking nonsense and dreaming. This is our last time—until you follow me."
"Soon," he said, looking at me in steadfast intensity. "I will follow you soon."
Gods, I felt so faint, so distant from him, as though I suddenly was not there at all. Hearing my voice shake, I rushed onward.
"Achilleus, please, when you die, have my ashes buried with yours. In the golden urn from your mother—I know she meant it for your ashes only, but please, let me be there, too." Somehow I could not help smiling a little, even now. "Like sharing a bed again," I mused. "Please, delight of my heart. I never want to be farther from you than that."
Urgently he said, "Patroklos, do not be angry with me. I didn't want you to journey to Hades until you've been mourned as you should be. Until you'd been avenged. I'm accomplishing the things I vowed I would do for you. I will do all that you ask.
"Please," he went on, "why do you hold back from me? If this is the only time we have, let us hold each other tonight. Let us weep together and take comfort in that, if every other comfort is lost to us."
"It's too late," I whispered, for the sudden cold that rushed through me left no doubt of what was about to happen. "I'm sorry, Achilleus. Achilleus, I am so sorry."
Then he was gone—or I was gone.
I seemed to be back exactly where, and how, I had started after my death. On my knees in the fog, as though I had just fallen, with one hand pressed to the ground.
Numbly I got to my feet. This time I made no effort to count my steps, or to care where I went. I walked precipitously through the grey nothingness, thinking that I did not care if I found the river or not. But my despairing half-hope that I would simply be lost forever did not find fulfillment. My steps followed the same route as they had before. Again I found myself trudging down the slope; again I stood on the bleak, unchanging shore.
Anguished grief washed through me as I stared blindly at the black water.
I grieved that I could not be with him, could not help him through all that was to come. I grieved that I could not hold him, could not kiss away his tears, could not wash the blood and filth from him. I grieved that we could not do as he'd said and mourn our parting together, in each other's arms.
I loathed to think of the pain that was ahead of him, as he forced himself to say farewell to all that he still had left of me. I loathed to know that I was still trapped here, waiting.
And I loathed that even now, we still did not know. We still did not know if, at the end of all, we would see each other again.
I sank down to the ground and lay there, sobbing out my heartbreak into Acheron's sands.
