Percy Jackson's Greek Gods (Percy Jackson and the Olympians companion #5.5) - Rick Riordan Page 0,52

made it a lot easier for spirits of the dead to find their way to Erebos. He convinced Hermes, the messenger god, to keep a lookout for lost souls on the mortal side of the Styx. If Hermes saw any ghosts who looked confused, he would steer them in the right direction and provide them with a handy full-color map, compliments of the Underworld Chamber of Commerce.

Once the souls of the dead made it to the River Styx, the daimon Charon would ferry them across for a standard fee of one silver coin. Hades had convinced him (read: threatened him) to charge everyone the same price.

Hades also spread the word to the mortals up above that they’d better take their funeral rites seriously, or they wouldn’t be allowed into the Underworld. When you died, your family was supposed to make offerings to the gods. They had to give you a decent burial and place a coin under your tongue so you could pay Charon. If you didn’t have a coin, you’d end up haunting the mortal world as a ghost forever, which was both pointless and boring.

How did Hades spread the word among the mortals? He had this army of black-winged nasties called oneiroi, or dream daimons, who visited mortals while they slept, delivering visions or nightmares.

Ever had one of those dreams where you wake up startled because you felt like you were falling? That’s the oneiroi messing with you. They probably picked you up and dropped you, just to be mean. Next time it happens, smack your fist on the floor and yell, “Hades, tell your stupid daimons to knock it off!”

Another upgrade Hades made: he tightened security at the gates of Erebos. He went down to the Tartarus Humane Society and adopted the biggest, baddest dog you can imagine—a monster named Cerberus, who was sort of a cross between a pit bull, a rottweiler, and a rabid woolly mammoth. Cerberus had three heads, so if you were a mortal hero trying to sneak into Hades’s realm, or a dead person trying to sneak out, you had three times the chance of getting spotted and devoured. In addition to razor-sharp fangs and claws, Cerberus supposedly had a mane made out of snakes and a serpent for a tail. I can’t vouch for that. I only met Cerberus once. It was dark, and I was mostly focused on not whimpering or wetting my pants.

Anyway, once the departed spirits got inside the gates, they were sorted out by the three dead-celebrity judges and ushered to their proper places. Like I said earlier, most people hadn’t really done much with their lives, good or bad, so they ended up in the Fields of Asphodel. There they existed as wispy shadows that could only chitter like bats and float around aimlessly, trying to remember who they were and what they were doing—sort of like teachers during first period, before they’ve had enough coffee.

If you had led a good life, you went to Elysium, which was about as nice as you could get in the dark Underworld. You got a mansion of your own, free food and drinks, and pretty much five-star service for whatever you needed. You could hang out with the other lucky good people and chill for eternity. If Elysium got boring, you could choose to drink from the River Lethe and be reborn in a new mortal life.

A few souls were so good, they managed to live three virtuous lives in a row. If that was you, you could retire to the Isles of the Blest, which were Caribbean-type private islands in a lake in the middle of Elysium. Not many people were that lucky or that virtuous. It was sort of like winning the Good Person Powerball Lottery.

If you’d lived an evil life, you got the special naughty treatment—boiling in oil forever, having your skin flayed, getting chased by hungry demons over a field of broken glass, or sliding down a giant razor blade into a pool of lemon juice. You know, the usual. Most of the punishments weren’t very creative, but if you managed to really annoy Hades, he could always come up with new and interesting ways to torture your immortal soul.

A couple of examples?

Tantalus. That dude was messed up. He was a Greek king—a son of Zeus, no surprise—who got invited to share ambrosia and nectar on Mount Olympus with the gods. Big honor, right? But Tantalus got greedy.

“Wow,” he said after dinner, patting his belly.