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“Checklist? I am not familiar with the term,” Ariana mused.
Ere waved his strange language aside.
“Never mind me. We foreigners often speak funny.”
Chrion grunted in agreement.
“My point is, if we look at the ordering of the instructions, it starts with finding the horn. Which, in a sense, we have. At least, we know where it’s kept.”
Ariana nodded, clearly following Ere’s logic.
“You weren’t instructed to ‘bring back the horn,’ just to find it. To your point, you already have. Next is ‘storm the mountain.’ This could mean that you must go to the Pelion Mountains where the horn is.”
“Andstormit,” Ere emphasized. “Our plan is for Andros and your centaur troop to take back the stronghold from the usurper Ixion, after all. There will be a Challenge, maybe a battle. Though, let’s please find ways to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. I’m so tired of wars. In any case, you don’t want to fight your own centaurs. Just kick Ixion’s ass down the mountain so he never returns.”
“True,” Chiron agreed with a thoughtful frown. “We desire peace. It is up to Andros to challenge Ixion and win. If he does not…”
“Then we’re screwed. But let’s think positively,” Ere injected quickly.
“What about the lyre?” he redirected the conversation back to the instructions from Shifu, the Jade Emperor’s representative.
Sorin wondered about that little old man. He was not what he appeared.
“Any magical lyres around here that produce destiny-weaving songs?”
“There are many lyres,” Ariana answered. “As for magical ones, the most famous is from the legend of Orpheus, the son of Calliope and Oeagrus, a king of Thrace.”
“Wait,” Ere said excitedly. “I know that story well. Apollo supposedly gave him the first lyre in creation, right?”
“That is the legend, yes,” Ariana replied.
“Orpheus’ singing and playing were so enchanting that animals and even trees, rocks and rivers were moved to dance with him. He saved the Argonauts from the Sirens by playing his own, more powerful music. When they all returned from their quest, he married the nymph Eurydice, a daughter of Apollo.”
“But Eurydice was pursued by the god Aristaeus,” Ere continued, picking up the tale. “In an attempt to evade him, she stepped on a snake and was bitten. She died.”
“Overcome with grief, Orpheus played melodies that were so mournful and tragic, that the gods wept endlessly,” Ariana said, taking on a faraway look, as if lost in the enchantment of the story.
“Even the furies couldn’t withhold their tears. So, the gods and essentially everyone around him convinced him to search for his wife in the Underworld. His music haunted and charmed the ferryman, Charon, to take him across the River Styx, as well as the guard dog Cerberus, to allow him entry into the Underworld. He even moved Hades to let him take back Eurydice to the world of life and light.”
“But Hades set one condition,” Chiron interjected. It was a well-known story.
“Don’t they always. Those fickle, sadistic gods,” Ere muttered.
Ariana nodded.
“Indeed. The condition was: upon leaving the land of death, both Orpheus and Eurydice were forbidden to look back. But, as they climbed out of the abyss, up countless steps, toward the opening to the land of the living, some say out of joy Orpheus couldn’t resist turning toward his wife to share it. Others say there was always fear in the back of his mind that Eurydice wasn’t real. Whatever the case, he looked behind him, and his wife disappeared.”
“Fucking gods,” Ere seethed beneath his breath.
Sorin concurred wholeheartedly. His own interpretation was that Eurydice had never been there in the first place. Hades had tricked Orpheus. Had given him false hope. He was never going to get his wife back.
Dead was dead.
“In the end, when Orpheus was later killed by the Maenads, he was said to be finally reunited with his beloved,” Ariana finished in a melancholy tone.
Ere harrumphed, clearly not putting much sway in the whole “reunited in death” notion, just like Sorin.
They both had ample reason to be skeptical.
