Location: The Garden of the Hesperides, Western Africa
Time Remaining: 9 Months, 25 Days
The monastery wasn’t the only thing in the garden that had been allowed to fall into disrepair. Many beautiful exotic plants still flourished in the area, but all maintenance had been long since abandoned, and many of the flower beds were all but erased by overgrowth and weeds. The topiaries had grown into ordinary trees, and the statues had been covered over in heavy vines. He led the men into the monastery and, indeed, found a few skeletons – one of which appeared to have simply been crushed by a single blow from a massive object. The monastery was largely stripped of valuables – a display that Odysseus imagined once held some of the famous golden apples was bare of all save dust.
A couple of tapestries had survived, despite the humidity, and the men asked to take them home as souvenirs. Odysseus debated the matter with them at length. He didn’t want to rob the dead, but his men had come with the promise of adventure and riches. So far he’d failed to provide the latter, but they’d been content with the former. Eventually Odysseus compromised: they could take the tapestries and anything else they pleased provided they treat it respectfully and donate it to the temple of Hera when they returned to Ithaca – they would get to take their souvenirs without actually stealing from one of the most wrathful gods in the Mediterranean. For good measure, he insisted that the men bury what remains they could find and ask a blessing for the deceased while he scouted the tree behind the monastery.
Said tree was unlike anything Odysseus had ever seen. Its trunk could have been mistaken for white marble, and its leaves were like thin blue crystals, crisscrossed with angular copper veins. The sun filtered through them casting a blue shadow on the ground, and when the wind gently stirred them, they jingled softly.
Odysseus studied the branches and, indeed, there were what looked like golden, metal apples hanging from its boughs. It defied everything Odysseus knew about plants, but there they were. The men helped him search the grounds for any apples already dropped. While the search was not without fruit (literally), the apples they found were small and misshapen. If they really were solid gold – and by their weight, they certainly seemed to be – they would go a long way towards paying for this expedition. None, however, seemed likely to satisfy Athena’s requirements.
Odysseus bid the men to start gathering all of the fallen apples they could find while he ascended the massive, twisting trunk, using the gaps in the stone-like bark as handholds and footholds. About a hundred feet up, he nearly fell when he unexpectedly came upon Adestreia sitting on a branch in her naked human form.
“You know, you’ve passed a lot of fine apples,” she said.
“Yet, I keep spotting better ones the higher I go, and I figure a fall from two hundred feet is no worse than a fall from fifty, so I might as well press on.”
“You want to impress Athena that badly?”
“If it means marrying Penelope, then yes,” Odysseus swung a leg over the branch and straddled it, leaning against the trunk to take a break. He’d only ever seen Adresteia’s human form in dim light or darkness. Surrounded by the tranquil dazzling beauty of the tree, she seemed very different to him, and he suddenly found it hard not to think about the curves of her body and imagine the softness of her skin. When he realized his eyes had wandered, he snapped them back up to find Adresteia studying him with a raised eyebrow.
“I would not!” He stammered, “I mean I would never… I’m with someone!”
“If I was bothered by my friends seeing me bare-skinned, I’d have either stayed a bird or worked much harder at learning to summon garments.”
“You think we’re friends?” Odysseus asked, genuinely surprised by the sentiment.
Adresteia’s face turned to a painful look of disappointment, and Odysseus realized how poorly he’d phrased what he meant, “I’m sorry!” he apologized, “I like you as a person, and as a faithful animal companion as well, but I didn’t think someone… like you… would consider a simple human to be your friend.”
Adresteia smiled, clearly relieved by the explanation, but she blushed slightly with embarrassment over her sour response, “I’m sorry, I don’t normally express my emotions so… messily.”
“You think a smile and a frown are messy?” Odysseus asked, “I think so long as you don’t throw me out of this tree, we’re doing fine.”
She laughed lightly. It was the first time Odysseus had heard her do so. It wasn't a high pitched giggle like someone might have expected of a woman her apparent age, but a sort of sultry chuckle.
“I have discovered,” Adresteia said, “That emotions come easily, but expressing them is often inappropriate or… confusing.”
“Hm,” Odysseus thought quietly for a moment, “I think it’s important to know what the people around you are feeling, and guessing is often… tricky. I’m not always good at it, so – personally – I think it’s better, at least less confusing, if people are upfront about what they feel.”
“Really?” Adresteia looked at him skeptically, “What, then, do you feel right now?”
Odysseus felt briefly apprehensive at that question, and then decided to roll with it, “Anxious,” he said, “Partly because of the 100 foot drop my feet are dangling over, and partly because I’m talking to a demigod about feelings, which is something I’m not good at, and am worried about saying something that will hurt her feelings, both because that would, objectively, be a bad thing, and because she could push me out of this tree.”
Adresteia smiled and nodded, “And you’re not at all thinking about trying to seduce me?”
“Well, that really depends on what you mean by ‘thinking about’ – I think there’s a difference between planning to do something and fantasizing about it…”
“Really?”
“… And if purely inconsequential stray thoughts happen to pass through my mind, I’m hoping you can forgive me for what might be blasphemy…?”
“I can,” Adresteia said, “But I don’t think it's blasphemy. Just nature.”
“So... what are you feeling?” Odysseus asked.
“Uh…” Adresteia looked away, not sure how to answer, “Awkward, I guess. But glad to talk to someone without having to pretend I’m something I’m not.”
“Aren’t you, though?” Odysseus said, “Didn’t you say this isn’t your true form?”
“Hm, fair enough.” Adresteia slowly grew, gaining at least a foot of height, and black feathered wings emerged from her back like the petals of a blossoming flower. Her irises turned yellow, and golden scales covered her arms and legs. She flexed her fingers and toes, and long, razor sharp talons slid out of their tips. “Still attracted to me?” Adresteia asked.
“Yes, albeit somewhat uncomfortably so, now,” Odysseus admitted.
“Hm. Last time I assumed this form in front of a human he called me a monster.”
“I’m sorry,” Odysseus said, “That’s terrible.”
“Well, I caught him abusing a child and ripped out his liver. People say a lot of cruel things when you remove their internal organs through their groin.”
“You pulled his liver out through his groin?”
“It was the quickest route,” Adresteia said, “you had to be there.”
“Okay…” Odysseus wasn’t sure what to make of that, “Well, for the record, you and I are definitely friends and...”
“And friends don’t remove each other’s livers?
“Hey, look at that; we’re finishing each other’s sentences!”
Adresteia laughed again. She stood up on the branch, her talons clutching it effortlessly, “Let me go the rest of the way up and pick a good apple before the altitude gets to you. Athena won’t be happy if you end up splattered down there.”
“No complaint from–” Odysseus clammed up when the branch Adresteia was standing on sagged. She noticed it as well – all the branches were moving slightly in the breeze, but something had pulled the branch down, and was holding it down. “Do you see anything?” Odysseus asked as he climbed awkwardly to his feet.
Adresteia searched their surroundings – the windblown jangling of the crystalline leaves made it impossible to discern whether there was something moving among the branches. Odysseus hopped down to a lower branch, itself as big around as a large tree, and walked out a short distance to get a different angle. He realized the branch his friend was on had another branch twisted around it. He’d seen two trees grow into one, but never seen one branch twist around another like a vine.
Then the entwining branch moved.
At first Odysseus thought the movement he saw was a trick of the light, but then it moved again, crawling across the branch Adresteia was standing on. He studied the branch more carefully, and realized that the pattern of the bark on the moving branch was different, less bark like and more… scale like.
It was a snake.
The realization was unnerving – the length of it wrapped around the branch was at least three feet in diameter. Odysseus couldn’t see the head or tail anywhere, but now that he knew what to look for he could spot coils looped around branches all around them. He quietly got Adresteia’s attention, mouthed “Ladon” and pointed at the scaly coils. Her eyes went wide but she stayed quiet.
“They’re trying to hide, brother,” a voice rasped from the branch above Odysseus.
“Shhhh, brother. If we’re quiet too, maybe they’ll forget about usss.”
“You really think they’re as stupid as they think we are?”
“No, no, no… of coursse not, of courssse not. You’re right as alwaysss, brother.”
Well, no sense in trying to be stealthy then, Odysseus reckoned. If they could speak maybe they could be reasoned with.
“Good afternoon gentlemen,” he said, “I apologize for not introducing myself – I’m Odysseus, Prince of Ithaca. My friend and I have been enjoying your beautiful tree – it really is amazing – and we were wondering if it would be possible to barter for one of your apples?”
“He told uss hisss name, brother.”
“Very polite, brother, very polite.”
“Very foolish, brother.”
“Yes, yes, very foolish,” a massive white-scaled head lowered down to study Odysseus with its startling blue eyes, “You shouldn’t just throw your name about like that, dear mortal. Names have power, Odysseus, power that can be used against you.”
“I see,” Odysseus said, trying to pretend he wasn’t talking to a snake head larger than his own torso, “Thank you for that – in the future I will certainly be more careful. But you two clearly seem trustworthy. I mean, if you’d wanted to do us harm, I’m sure you would have had many opportunities already.”
“He’ss quite right, brother. We could have ssnatched them up and sssucked them down while they were flirting.”
“Flirting?” Adresteia finally spoke.
“Oh please,” the other voice said as the second head – this one with a nasty scar blinding one eye – rose up from another branch to examine her, “You two might not be planning to get busy here, but you were both thinking about it.”
“That’s absurd,” Adresteia said, “And how is it either of you came to have opinions on such matters?”
“We ssspent centuries protecting a group of lonely women who often found waysss to not be lonely,” One-Eye said.
“So, your missive was to guard the people, not this tree?” Odysseus asked.
“Oh, Hera put usss here to guard her tree, yesss,” Two-Eyes said, “but she hassn’t come round to check on it for a long time.”
“So we found it more worthwhile to protect the denizens of the monastery below,” One-Eye explained.
“Indeed,” Two-Eyes nodded.
“I see. Then you have my condolences gentlemen,” Odysseus said.
“Yes, we ssaw you had your men bury their bodies,” Two-Eyes said.
“We do appreciate that, yes,” One-Eye added, "It was not something we were equipped to handle."
“I guesss you could ssay, sssometimes we ‘need a hand’!” Two-Eyes answered.
The two snake heads snickered with a strange hissing sound. One-Eye sighed, “The girls would have loved that.”
“At the risk of dredging up past grief,” Odysseus said, “Might I ask what happened?”
“A ‘hero’ called Herakles came to steal the apples from the tree,” One-Eye said.
“Yesss,” Two-Eyes added, “And we had a great battle – we were badly wounded, but he wasss driven back.”
“That’s standard fare for demigod-heroing stuff,” One-Eye said, “Sometimes we’d drive them off, sometimes they’d just snatch an apple and run.”
“You never… ate them?” Odysseus asked.
One-Eye laughed, “If we ate humans, why on Earth would we live high in the branches of a remote tree?”
“You live on the apples?” Adresteia guessed.
“They’re not sssolid gold all the way through,” Two-Eyes said, “Peel back the metal and they’re nissse and juisssy inside.”
“Yes,” One-Eye added, “Demeter created the tree as a replacement for their Ambrosia. Didn’t work, apparently, but they’re still delicious.”
“What happened with Herakles?” Odysseus put the conversation back on track.
“Well, the girls had a tradition,” One-Eye explained, “When some particularly attractive hero would do really well, but still walk away empty handed, they’d invite him into their ‘monastery’ and offer him some apples from their own stores, in exchange for certain favors.”
“Opening a difficult amphora or reaching sssomething on a tall shelf,” Two-Eyes winked at Odysseus.
“The girls were more than happy to take in Herakles…”
“Yess, they were quite sssmitten…”
“But once inside, he and his apprentice went on a rampage. He murdered Erythea and Arethusa, and then came outside and killed Aegle as she was tending to our injuries. We would have avenged her, but his snot-nosed spear-carrier had the remaining girls at sword point.”
“What happened to them?” Adresteia asked.
“They took them,” the Ladons both said simultaneously.
“A ship came in from just off shore,” One-Eye explained, “And they took the girls aboard and held them hostage while the sailors loaded all the gold they could onto their ship.”
“We followed them a waysss out to sssea,” Two-Eyes said, “but when they spotted us following them, they butchered Hesperia and threw her to the sharks.”
“What could we do but turn back?” One-Eye lamented, “Better a slave in a faraway land than chum in the sea.”
“We thought Hera might intersssede,” Two-Eyes said, “Everyone sssaid she hated Heracles, ssso what an excussse to visssit sssome divine retribution on the monssster, right? She never even lifted a finger, though.”
“When we saw you assume your true form,” One-Eye said to Adresteia, “We thought perhaps our prayers had finally been answered. But you did not come here at Hera’s behest, did you, Nemesis?”
“Nemesis?” The pieces finally came together for Odysseus, and he felt something of a fool for not recognizing her in her true form.”
“No,” Adresteia said, “Hera didn’t send us to avenger her handmaidens. We came here to get an apple, the best apple we can find, just as Heracles did. But that doesn’t mean we wish to engage in his pugilistic barbarism, and it doesn't mean I won’t help you.”
“You mean, you would have helped usss,” Two-Eyes said, “Our one ssolassse is that horrible man musst surely be dead by now.”
“He’s not,” Odysseus said, “The rest of his men are, but Heracles lives. He favors his father’s constitution, and is unlikely to die of old age any time soon.”
The two heads hissed angrily in unison, the tree shaking with their agitation they disappeared around the trunk and then came back around so they could both talk to Adresteia eye-to-eye.
“Nemesis, goddess of divine retribution, scourge of the wicked, punisher of blasphemy,” One-Eye said, “Please hear our one prayer.”
“Heraclesss, ssson of Zeusss, hasss violated sssacred landsss with murder and theft, and taken for ssslavesss good, piousss women devoted to Hera,” Two-Eyes said.
“Please, please, Nemesis, balancer of scales, champion of justice, redress this wrong with Heracles’s blood.”
“We beg this of you, and provide this humble offering for your favor,” A scaly white tail dropped from a branch above Odysseus, coiled around a golden apple nearly the size of his head.
Thirty years ago, Adresteia wouldn’t have considered accepting such a prayer directly, let alone consider a request for divine retribution against one who was as close to the gods as Heracles. To say that a lot had changed, though, would be a terrific understatement
“You have my word, Ladon,” Adresteia said, “Herakles will die by my hand within the year.”
“We’ll make sure to send him your regards, too,” Odysseus added. Adresteia looked at him with surprise, but Odysseus simply nodded.
“Go then,” the Ladons said, “Take what you need from us, but show Herakles no mercy.”
When Odysseus returned to the ground with the giant apple, he decided it was best not to mention the conversation to the men – promising to assassinate the most popular and beloved man in Greece would likely have been bad for morale. He took some leaves from the tree to give to Penelope (he felt they were far more beautiful than the apples) and led his men back to the coast.
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