Passalus: the younger of the thieving Kerkopes

Passalus was one of the Kerkopes, the pair of thieving, monkey-like brothers who dwelt in the Laconian Woods and later crossed paths with the young Kratos and his brother Deimos. Of orange fur and as child-like as he was monkey-like, he was the simpler of the two, content to follow the lead of his brother Acmon through their endless small schemes. He was living proof that a gift for pickpocketing and very little else could carry one a long way, albeit in an incredibly strange direction.

A child-like thief#

Passalus was the Kerkopes of orange fur, as child-like as he was monkey-like, and proof that a talent for pickpocketing and little else could take one a long way in a very strange direction. With his brother Acmon he stole the tools of the sculptor Konstantinos from his workshop, but the pair left fur everywhere, and Konstantinos easily guessed the Kerkopes were responsible. He sent Kratos and Deimos to recover what had been taken. When the brothers found the Kerkopes' hideout and the stolen tools, Acmon and Passalus appeared and protested that the tools were their own, but caught out by the fur, Acmon turned the pretence into a distraction, asking Passalus to help him look for something so the brothers could take the tools back. Kratos let them go unpunished.

A trail of half-truths#

Passalus and Acmon shadowed Kratos and Deimos from the Oenus Vineyard before springing out to admit they had only meant to frighten them, then directed the brothers toward a young boy they claimed to have glimpsed. Asked how he had become a monkey, Passalus offered his own explanation: he had simply had the hiccups, which must have annoyed the gods, for three days later he found himself transformed, a claim that sat oddly beside Acmon's insistence that they had been born that way. After Kratos and Deimos killed the Fylaki, the Kerkopes warned them that escaping spectral energy would raise the dead in the graveyards, urging them to put it down. At Mount Taygetos, Passalus fretted to Acmon that something was missing and guessed the band called the Katergaris had taken it, and the pair confessed they had sent the brothers to the mountain not from any sighting of Vasilis but because they had been driven off by a stymphalian bird and the Katergaris, who held something of theirs. Still, they lowered a rope to help Kratos and Deimos climb higher, an offer they freely admitted served their own ends.