This Immortal Heart: A Novel of Aphrodite(51)

“What is it?” I demand, laughing with them.

“He’s the God of Wine,” Apollo drawls. His hair is falling across his face, and a lyre hangs from his hand.

I take another long sip. “That makes sense.”

“And these,” Zeus gestures again, the wild sweep of his arms encompassing all the girls in the grove, “are his Maenads.”

“Magnificent,” Eros breathes, and I don’t know if he’s referring to the wine or Dionysus’ beauty or the glorious Maenads. Maybe all three.

Apollo lifts his lyre and begins to play. Even in his drunkenness, the beauty of it drifting through the violet air is spellbinding. The fumes from the wine, rich with honey and spice, intermingle, and my mind starts to float, a pleasant intoxication stealing in. Even Zeus seems less objectionable in this moonlit grove, his company more tolerable. It might be the influence of Dionysus, who keeps the wine flowing and shares story after story. It’s impossible that he’s been to all the places he describes, or done half of the things he claims, his anecdotes getting more fanciful and raucous as we keep drinking. Gods grow swiftly—my own Eros went from infancy to adulthood in a single day. With eternity stretching before us, we rarely bother to keep track of time. We aren’t mortals, counting the precious seasons of our lives before they run out altogether. Even so, Dionysus can’t have been plucked from his dying mother’s womb long enough ago to have experienced half these stories, but still I can’t take my eyes off him. He’s so exuberant and handsome that I don’t care if what he says is truth or invention.

“Why were no other gods invited tonight?” Eros asks, rumpled and ruddy-cheeked but with a sly glint in his eye. “You didn’t bring Athena or Demeter. No Hera? No Ares?”

I give him a sharp look at that last name. He smiles, unrepentant.

Zeus guffaws. “We didn’t even invite you.” He swigs more wine, and it spills through his beard, dripping onto his chiton.

“But we’re glad you showed up,” Dionysus interjects. He raises his drinking-horn to me. “You can come here anytime you like.” His eyes lock with mine and I feel another wave of delightful dizziness rolling through me.

“Not the others, though,” Zeus says. “Leave them on Olympus.”

“You sent Ares to Corinth,” Poseidon reminds him, nudging his arm and losing his balance in the process, lurching to the side and sending his own wine in a surging tide over the edge of his horn. He looks at it stupidly and laughs.

Dionysus leans over to pour him some more.

“Corinth?” I ask, unable to hide my surprise. “Why?”

Zeus sits up, energized. “You remember the river god Asopos?”

I shake my head.

“Come on, you do. I told you about him. He came after me, complaining that I’d taken his daughter away.”

“Oh, yes,” I say. “You crippled him with your thunderbolt.” I think of Hephaestus, struck in the chest, the horror on his face and the smell of charred flesh. It gives me a sobering chill.

“Well,” says Zeus, “I found out who told Asopos where I’d taken her.”

“Someone in Corinth?” I guess. Zeus’ rambling tales are nowhere near as entertaining as listening to Dionysus.

“A king,” he says. “Sisyphus.”

“So why is Ares there?” I ask. “Have you declared war on his city?”

“No, no.” He pauses to drink, and I roll my eyes at Eros across the circle. “I sent Thanatos first.”

“To kill him?” Thanatos, God of Death.

“That’s right.” Zeus nods emphatically. “Thanatos was to put him in chains, ones forged by Hephaestus, and drag him to the Underworld. But—and I don’t know how—Sisyphus overpowered him.”

“How could a mortal overpower a god?” I ask.

“It must be the chains,” Apollo interrupts. His voice is so smooth, every word he utters sounds like poetry. “Thanatos could break free of any mortal restraints in an instant. But if the king managed to trap him in chains from the workshop of Hephaestus—”

“No one could escape, not even a god,” Poseidon finishes.

The hint of admiration frustrates me. The gods can see the value of Hephaestus’ genius; they know that his work is incomparable. But Eris was right when she said that none would speak up in his defense against Zeus. That’s her skill: she can see the truth and fling it down like a weapon, knows just how to use it to wound.

“Hephaestus gave me the key,” Zeus says. “He gave me the chains. The chains and the key. I gave Thanatos the chains.” He frowns, trying hard to follow his own story. “Before I threw him in a volcano. Hephaestus. Not Thanatos.”

Poseidon and Apollo are laughing, but I’m not amused. “So the mortal man has Thanatos chained up. You have the key. And you gave it to Ares? So that he can free Thanatos?”

“That’s right!” Zeus cries. “I saw him, on Olympus. He came back, I don’t know why. Ares hates coming to Olympus. But he was there, so I told him. I told him to go, and he obeyed.”

“That doesn’t sound like Ares,” Eros says slyly.

“No.” Zeus furrows his brow more deeply. “It doesn’t.” He shrugs. “Anyway, he and Thanatos will be taking Sisyphus to the Underworld by now.”