The God of Olympus (21 page)

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Pericles, having now made himself King of Athens, was to use his power in many ways.  The chief Hellanodikai was to see that Pericles’ orders were enacted with exactness.  He was not thrilled with the job, but he had little choice in the matter now that Pericles was king.

More insidious
things were to occur in the future.  Pericles made it a priority to gather people in smaller towns and provinces of northern Greece together.  He explained his plan in depth with his chief servant.  “You see, we must gather all of our people outside of Athens to Athens, where they may be fed and supported by the women here.  Then all the men in Athens now must leave Athens to fight Sparta.”

“But why not have them
all stay in their towns?  If what you say is true then we are to win, not by numbers, but by our swiftness and cunning.”

“We are not sure we may be able to kill the King,” said Pericles.  “If we do not kill him Sparta will not surrender and we will have a great war on our hands.  O
ur greatest defense will be a good offense.  I will lead a majority of our armies out into battle against Sparta, crippling them.  Then if Sparta attempts to attack us at Athens you will remain here with some of my soldiers and men from the cities near this one.  It the best option we have now.”

The Hellanodikai
nodded.  “Very well.  I will obey you.”

Several minutes later the chief Hellanodikai gathered together
the small portion of soldiers that Pericles had given him and declared loudly, “By order of Pericles, all people in Attica and the Athenian cities nearby about must evacuate immediately.  They are to journey to Athens, where we must prepare for a great Spartan assault.  Some of you must remain here in Athens, but most of you must go to these cities and spread the word.  Travel with all speed, for our kingdom is in dire need of you!”

Th
e soldiers did this and left Athens in small groups to the various cities near Athens.  Sadly, women and children were torn away from their homes and all the men were to move into Athens and prepare for the war that was to come.

While all this was occurring Pericles was busy preparing his grand Athenian army for departure out of the city south towards Sparta.  Pericles moved among his men and said,
“Here we shall prepare for their attack, and I shall kill the king of Sparta!”

King Archidamas
also prepared himself and the entire nation of Sparta for war.  He had thousands of men prepared and he told his captains and generals to get all the men from the barracks that he could to attack Athens.  As opposed to Pericles’ strategy, to march with some soldiers, while leave the rest behind, Archidamas wanted all the soldiers in Sparta, except the ones needed to govern the city and keep it in order, to march north towards Athens.

Once all of his thousands of soldiers were gathered he declared, “
We will make an assault upon Athens to end this war!”

And so, within a day’s time, t
housands of soldiers, led by King Archidamas left Sparta for war.  Milo did not want to go to war, but he felt that his best chance to help the people of Greece against Hades was to, in fact, go with King Archidamas and his men to war.

Of course, unknown to King Archidamas, and while they traveled, Milo told other soldiers of Hercules.  He said,
“Hercules remained here in Sparta for a time!  Hercules did many great deeds for you in this city, hidden deeds of kindness and thus we must trust him, not our tyrant king who goes to war against Athens.”

The next day
Pericles put his armor on, grabbed his sword, and left Athens leading thousands of Athenian soldiers.  The chief Hellanodikai, or Pericles’ chief advisor, looked onward in sadness.  He did not like war and the devastation that would come from it.

Meanwhile
Philoctetes sat hooded and hidden high up on the roof of Pericles’ palace and watched as thousands of soldiers left the city moving west.  Philoctetes was sad, and felt that they were to all go to their death.

There Philoctetes sang a sad song:
             

                            “Oh, how do the innocent suffer because of the evil of one man,

             
              One does beguile and deceive and men do so easily believe him!

             
              Men do so easily see his works as good whose light is evil!

             
              But they do so easily look on my outward appearance!

                            To death these Athenians will go!

             
              Sound the trumpets, for the Day of Judgment will soon come!

             
              All of Greece will soon face its doom,

             
              For Hercules has gone!”

              This was Philoctetes’ sad song, a song noticed by nobody but himself and Zeus and Hera, who also mourned to see Greece on the verge of a great war.  Philoctetes continued to sing this sad tune until the sun descended that day and darkness had come upon all of Greece.

Chapter 12: Hercules’ Sacrifice

             
It is now time to return to the life of Hercules and Meg, for as the nations of Greece prepared to wage a war against each other, Hercules and Meg each waged a war within their souls.  For Hercules a small part of him thought that he should just leave Meg and go back and try to help Greece.  However, Hercules’ heart longed for Meg more than anything else and so he knew, deep down, that he could never leave her.  His only hope was to get her to leave the island with him.

             
For Meg, however, her inner war was quite different.  She was torn between obeying Hades’ word and finally being free from his grasp, having her old, beautiful form, and letting herself fall for Hercules.  However, there was grave danger in this.  She didn’t know if Hercules would truly love her after he learned who she really was and what she promised Hades she would do to him.  Also, if she did not obey Hades she would become a wraith again and she believed that Hercules could never love a wraith—someone so hideous.  In addition, Hercules would never want to spend his life in Hades’ dark underworld where Hades’ would surely force her to continue working.  So this option seemed quite out of the question.

Hades’ offer to Meg was a fulfillment of her dreams.  All she had to d
o is to tell Hades Hercules’ weakness, and she would be given her freedom and old form back.  This would give her a
clean slate
, what she thought she desired above all things.  And she knew that she could give this to him.  She knew that love was Hercules’ weakness—a weakness that she felt a long time ago that made her bound to Hades.

However,
Meg began to realize that this was not the life she wanted.  She never wanted a life that was completely alone, even if it was crafted to look like paradise.  Instead, she wanted someone else, a man to stay.  She knew that the very man she wanted to stay to be with her was the very man that she was to betray, and this brought her great sadness.  Why can I not have both?  Yet her love for Hercules lingered on.

When the sun rose on the third day both knew that they were run
ning out of time.  The third day on the island was a day very much different than the days previous to it.  The first day Meg was simply happy to be living with her new form on a brilliant new island away from Hades and in the light of the sun.  The second day Meg felt it necessary to learn more about Hercules and, if possible, be able to learn his weakness.  But the third day was a sad day.  This was a day that the burden of her task seemed too great for her.

“How could I,” she thought, “betray someone who loves me just as I was
betrayed by someone I loved?”

Interestingly enough, even though she was not a wraith and, to this point, had done nothing wrong, her soul was wracked with a horrible sense of guilt and misery.  She knew the time was nearing that Hades would arrive and expect an answer.

Like the previous morning Hercules gathered fruit from the trees in the garden for breakfast.  After Hercules had eaten breakfast he found it odd that he had not seen Meg and went walking through the garden searching for Meg.

After several minutes of searching he found her sit
ting on a bench overlooking the sea.  Hercules saw that Meg was in tears.  Her hair was almost touching the ground.

             
Hercules looked into Meg’s eyes.  “Why does such a fair and lovely woman weep?”

             
“Because my soul is full of darkness!”

             
Hercules looked Meg in the eye and said, “No, I think you do not know who you really are, what light lies within you.  I see that light and know that you just must let it shine.”

“The beauty you see, Hercules, is not real
,” said Meg. “The light you see is not a real light.”

             
Hercules smiled as he placed his arm on her shoulder.  She looked up at him and also smiled.  But after a few moments she got up and walked away from Hercules.  She moved gracefully, but wounded, like a swan with an arrow through her wing.  Hercules followed her.  “Where are you going?” asked Hercules.

             
“I am going where I must,” said Meg, “away from you.”

             
“You do not like being with me?” said Hercules.

             
Meg shook her head.  “It is not that,” she replied.  “I like being with you, in fact, I like it much more than you could know.  But I cannot be with you.  Your destiny lies far away from this island, but my destiny, my destiny is here on this island—to live here alone forevermore.”

             
Hercules reached forth his hand to hers to clasp it.  He looked into her eyes deeply and said, “I assure you, as long as I live, that shall not be your fate.  Your fate shall be one of joy, one where the heavens applaud you and your name, and where you live among the company of angels.  You see, your fate certainly is not what you suppose.”

             
It brought great joy to Meg’s soul to be able to hear Hercules say those words, for in this moment she imagined herself living amidst the Gods, and not stuck on this island or in Hades’ wretched underworld.  But then, after a few minutes she let go of Hercules hand and walked away into the garden.

             
Hercules did not say a word in these moments, although he wondered what great evil troubled her so.  Instead, he let Meg wander through the garden, while he moved back to the look-out overlooking the sea.  He realized that perhaps his time with Meg was over—perhaps Philoctetes was right.  Perhaps he had spent too much time here.

             
Meanwhile, however, Meg was facing the greatest transformation she had ever yet had—a transformation of the heart.  But this transformation did not seem to come without great price, for throughout that day she suffered a great pain, a pain to rival that of how she felt so long ago when she was lost to Hades because of her great love.  So great was her pain that the entire island seemed to grow darker.  The sky above inherited a darkness available for only the most miserable and ashamed, for although it was yet day clouds blocked the sun and let only a few rays pass through.  The trees, grass, and plants seemed to become a darker shade of green.

             
While Meg was facing with great transformation Hercules wandered through the garden and sang his own song:

              “Is it such a bad thing to fall in love?

             
For all my life I have wanted to be a hero,

             
Then why cannot I be a hero to her and the world?

             
But, oh, to do so I would have to leave this island.

             
Will she go with me?

             
Will she leave her prison and palace here for me?

             
And what will my father and mother think?

             
I cannot run away from my duties!

             
But I love her so!

             
I love her with all my heart!

             
To her I want to belong for all eternity!”

              For several moments throughout the day Hercules saw her wandering through her palace.  He went up into the palace where he found her sitting on a ledge surrounding the magical fountain.

Hercules needed to find the courage to ask her about what he saw the night before.  Hercules paused and then spo
ke: “I saw you last night.  You were drinking from the fountain and it seemed to change you.  Is there something about the fountain you aren’t telling me?”

There was several moments of silence, as if Meg were debating whether or not to tell Hades the truth. 
“The fountain is my life-force, you may say.  I must partake of the water every evening.  If I do not then I will fade away into the darkness.”

“So this is why yo
u must stay here on this island?” said Hercules.  “You need the fountain.”

Meg nodded, although she knew that there were more reasons than that.  One reason was that Hades own
ed her and she promised that she would not leave as part of the deal to be given her freedom.  But she didn’t dare tell Hercules this.

             
Then Hercules spoke:

             
              “Will you allow yourself to get old on this island?

             
              Will you allow yourself to live forever in the sting of unfulfilled                                          desires?

             
              Will you let every sun set on this island without experiencing what                                           lies beyond it?

             
              Yes, Meg, there is great evil in the world, but there is good and                                           you should let your soul explore it!”

             
Meg looked away from Hercules and hung her head down towards the ground.

Hercules
again finally gave into his impulses and said, “Meg, please tell me, what is it that charms your seemingly flawless happiness?  My heart cannot bear to see you so sad!”

Meg replied sadly, “It is
nothing.  It is just, when the clouds block the sun I am reminded of what I truly am—a creature bound by the darkness!”

“Bound, nothing could bind your beauty!”

Meg was silent.  She wanted to tell him everything—about Hades’ evil and his contract with her, but she knew she couldn’t.  To do so would be her death.  “You should not have come here Hercules,” replied Meg. “To come here will be your undoing and the longer you remain here the more danger you are in.  So please, go!  Leave me here to my beautiful, eternal prison to dwell here alone for the rest of my days!”

“Look, I am not leaving this garden unless it is with you!” replied Hercules.
“I will not let anything tarnish our love!”

Hercules stepped down and lifted up Meg’s head and looked her in the eye. 
Hercules then told Meg some deep and profound words.  He said, “You know Meg, it is amazing how much of the prime of life we spend looking for the one we want to share it all with.  How desperately men and women cleave to love, that when they think they find someone who they feel can be that person—can love them for who they are and will love being with them—they are enshrouded by a web of darkness that can only be cured by the presence of that person.  It doesn’t really matter who that person is, where that person came from, or what that person looks like, for if you can make yourself believe that you have found that “one” to be with you then everything else doesn’t matter.  Your mind is consumed with desire for that person and it feels as inescapable as the deepest pit in the earth, or the most powerful tornado, or the most powerful storm.  Meg, I don’t know why or how, but this is how I am feeling about you.”  Meg was suddenly silent.  She shook her head and turned away.  Tears were streaming down her cheek, but she couldn’t let Hercules see.  “So you don’t feel the same way about me?”

             
All Hercules could see was the back of her head.  It took Meg all of her strength to shake her head.  “No,” she mumbled as she looked up into his eyes.  “I do not.”  She knew that this was the only way to save Hercules.

             
Hercules looked shocked.  He felt inside of his soul that she loved him greatly.

Hercu
les turned and moved away from Meg.  He now felt inside of himself a great sorrow.  As he trudged away Meg began to secretly cry.

Hercules
went out into the garden.  He knew he couldn’t belabor the point any longer.  He knew now that she did not feel the same way about him.  Hercules moved ever slowly back towards Pegasus.  Pegasus looked up cheerfully at Hercules, as he held an apple in his mouth for Hercules to eat, but Hercules looked woefully down at Pegasus and did not take the apple.  Pegasus looked sad and dropped the apple.  He tried to comfort Hercules but it seemed no use.

Hercules sat up against a tree and looked up into the sky, a sky that was now continuing to fill with dark clouds.
  He then said to Pegasus, “I thought she loved me!  I thought that I could rescue her, but I guess there are some people the hero cannot rescue.  In a few moments we will finally leave this island Pegasus, to never return.”

Hercules thought that Pegasus would be happy to finally leave, but he was not.  It seemed that he had grown attached to the island just as he had grown attached to Meg.

After Hercules left Meg there in the courtyard she took another drink from the fountain and stared down into its water.  She saw herself emit a slightly brighter light.  She saw her skin become slightly more smooth and colorful.  She saw her hair become a little more smooth and sleek.  But as she stared down into its waters she realized that the waters did not make her feel any better.

She looked up into the sky and, for a moment saw only a portion of the
sun.  Meg ran away from the fountain and into the garden.  Suddenly rain began pouring down, as if Meg’s own tears and sadness was the cause of it.