Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume One (17 page)

A
talanta dwelt with the fisherman through that winter. She did not miss her bear family. They were asleep in their cave and she wouldn't have been with them anyway. She would have been living by herself in the winter hills. And the fisherman was a man very close to the earth and to the sea, attuned to the movement of animals and of fish. He knew where mullet dwelt, and cod, where lobsters fed, and what lured the octopus. He understood that only a sense of freedom would bind the wild child to him, and he allowed her to do as she pleased.

Although not a man of words, by any means he knew that she craved to learn human speech. And so he spoke to her. He taught her the meaning of words, and she learned faster than he taught. By springtime she could speak as well as he.

She went fishing with him, and was a great help. For she could swim like a seal, and was able to dive overboard and stay under to free a tangled net. She could even catch fish in her hands, and could skim across mossy, slippery rocks and catch crabs, which he used as bait for octopi.

She told him stories. She told him about how she had lived with bears. And he listened, enraptured. But the meaning of the tales did not sink in, for he still thought she was a Nereid child, and that the tale she was telling was some fragment of ancient undersea lore from time beyond memory when the earth was covered by water and those he knew as land animals dwelt underwater with the fish—wolves and bears, deer and panther and hawk. And the proof of this, he knew, was the seal, which had remained half animal even after the seas had withdrawn from the land.

But fisherman and wild child were fated to part before their year was up.

The robber band that had killed the shepherd who had taken care of the infant Atalanta had now split up. Former seamen, they had decided to return to the sea, but as pirates. They had stolen a ship and begun to prowl the waters. Laden ships they allowed to pass, and waited till they came home, riding high on the water, for then they knew that the cargoes had been sold and that the ships now carried treasure. These ships they grappled and boarded in the dark of night. Then they cut the throats of their crews, threw the bodies overboard, and helped themselves to the gold.

Normally, they did not bother with fishermen whose only wealth was their daily catch. But, as it happened, they were on the lookout for a small hidden harbor where they could moor safely between voyages. They sailed into that harbor one night, slipped silently into the circle of rocks, moored there, and sneaked ashore. They moved very silently, but Atalanta, who was still unable to sleep indoors, had bedded down beyond the hut. She slept as alertly as a wild animal, and heard something coming.

She sprang into the hut and shook the fisherman awake. “Something's coming,” she whispered.

He leaped out of bed, seized his fish spear, and rushed out into the moonlight—and received an arrow full in the throat, and died as he fell.

The pirates rushed into the hut to see if there was anything of value inside. One of them caught Atalanta. While it was not their habit to take prisoners, they sometimes kept a healthy child to sell at a slave auction. Atalanta swept a knife from the scaling table and slashed the hand that held her, cutting its finger tendons. She wrenched herself free and darted out the door. When they chased her outside she had vanished.

But she did not leave. She yearned to be off this bloody beach and into the hills where her bear family would be emerging from their cave. She stayed on the beach, however, keeping herself well hidden, and watched the pirates as they made themselves at home in the fisherman's hut. They enlarged the hut so that they could use it as a headquarters when resting between voyages. She observed their habits. When they sailed out on a raid they always left someone behind. For they returned at night always, and it was the duty of the one left behind to build a signal fire on moonless nights so that the ship could find its way back into the tiny harbor.

A plan ripened in the child's head. Like all wild animals she could read the weather. And she waited for a day that promised a cloudy night. After the ship slipped out of the harbor, she took care to study the man left behind. For he would get his breakfast, she knew, as soon as the ship vanished from sight. And each of the men had different feeding habits. One of them liked berries for his morning meal. Another preferred to catch a fish and roast it on a stick. A third liked to dig up clams and eat them raw. While still another craved honeycombs.

And it mattered to her which one would eat which breakfast. If it was the honey eater she would lie in ambush near a hollow tree where bees hived. If it was the berry eater she would hide among the blackberry bushes. She knew these bushes well, for they provided her own breakfast. She had a bear's taste for berries. Hiding among a fringe of trees, observing the hut, she saw a man come out, carrying a bow and arrow, and knew it was the one who liked to shoot a brace of doves for his meal.

She would have preferred the honey eater or the berry eater. Still, this one was better than the one who dug clams or caught fish, for either of those she would have had to stalk across an empty beach. This one, although carrying a bow with a notched arrow, and alert for sound and movement, would at least have to come among the trees.

She climbed a tree where doves roosted. They flew away as she climbed, but that didn't matter. She could imitate their mourning call. She had kept the scaling knife, and unsheathed it now. The man came among the trees, arrow notched. She cooed like a dove.

He came to the tree and looked up. It was a thick-boled oak tree. She crept around the trunk, moving silently as a squirrel, until she had come around in back of him and was poised above him. Then she leaped.

The man beneath the tree was a huge fellow. She knew that her weight could never bear him down. So she did not jump feet first; she dived upon him, knife held at arm's length, straight in front of her as she dived. And it was the knife that drove into him first, severing his spinal cord. He flopped like a fish on the ground, then was still.

Having been killed so suddenly, and in the midst of such hungry life, his wide-open eyes still seemed to be searching the tree for pigeons. Atalanta left him there. She ran down to the sea to wash the blood off her in a long, cold, cleansing swim. She ran back into the woods, found her berry bushes and had a big breakfast, then went to sleep.

She awoke in the late afternoon. She was restless, full of boiling energy, and she had things to do before nightfall. She walked down the beach for a few miles to where the rocks formed a jagged barrier between land and sea. On the beach were balks of driftwood, very heavy, but not too much for her strength. She dragged together a huge pile of logs.

By the time she had finished, night had fallen, the moonless night she had wanted—solid cloud cover, not a chink for light to shine through.

She ran back to the hut, took a dry branch and thrust it into the fire that always smoldered on the hearth. Then, holding her torch high, ran back to the woodpile. Shadows coursed after her, ran before her, as the windswept flame of her burning stick bent this way and that. And the dancing shadows seemed to rejoice in the vengeance that was to come.

She reached the pile of driftwood and poked her lighted branch among a bunch of dry twigs at the base of the pile. Pine twigs they were, rich in tar. The fire flared. She dragged more driftwood near in case the pirate ship had to stay out so long that she would need to feed the fire again. Then she squatted on the beach and waited.

The wind was light that night, coming in puffs from different directions. It didn't matter. The pirates always dropped sail at night and rowed into the harbor. No, it didn't matter, sail or no sail, wind or no wind. Beyond these jagged rocks the water swirled in a ferocious riptide. Just that afternoon she had seen huge tree trunks caught in the riptide, spinning like chips before being hurled upon the rocks.

She waited, watching the fire, trying to judge whether it was time yet to build it higher. She didn't want to build it too high, for the pirates, professionally suspicious of everything, might become alarmed by too huge a blaze. So she kept the fire as close to the size of a normal signal fire as she could. But she didn't mind this labor. She was being eaten by impatience, and fetching wood passed the time.

Finally, she heard what she had been waiting for: the grinding of wood upon rock, breaking timbers, men screaming. They screamed for a long time. They were all strong swimmers, she knew, but no one could last in that surf.

The screams died to whimpers, then stopped. But she could not leave. She waited on the beach till the sky paled; then she heard other cries, very welcome ones, the shrieks of gulls spotting an early feast. She knew what the gulls were saying, but she had to see for herself. Nimble as a water rat, she skimmed out on the slippery rocks until she found what she was looking for: the bodies of men sprawled among the jagged boulders. And fat black crabs scuttling away from the white blur of the men's faces, lest they, too, be caught by the diving gulls.

Atalanta was satisfied. Those who had killed her fisherman were dead themselves now. She turned and raced away, off the beach, through the woods, over meadows to the foothill, and up into the mountains where the mother bear was waiting, she knew, for her return.… And this year's cubs would be big enough to wrestle.

5

The Fatal Crones

Those three dire sisters, the Fates, were busily at work. Clotho, the youngest hag, was twirling her spindle, drawing thread from flax. Lachesis, the middle sister, was measuring the thread. And Atropos, eldest of the fatal crones, and their leader, wielded her shears cutting the thread of life, which Clotho had spun and Lachesis measured.

Every time she cut a thread, someone died.

Suddenly, Atropos shrieked. “What's the matter?” cried Lachesis in alarm.

“I'm bored,” growled Atropos. “Bored, bored, bored.”

“Oh, no,” murmured Clotho.

“Oh, yes,” cried Atropos. “Things can't go on like this. They must change.”

“But we're changeless,” said Lachesis.

“We can decree change,” said Atropos. “For we are the Deciders. Drop your spindle, Clotho. Lay down your measuring rod, Lachesis. Stop working, both of you, and listen to me.”

The younger hags, who always obeyed Atropos in everything, put aside spindle and rod and sat quietly.

“What is so boring,” said Atropos, “is that we sit up here ordaining how everything will come out. Who will live and how long; who will die and how soon. Then, having decided, we watch everything turn out exactly as we planned. Well, that's our duty in the high scheme of things, but I tell you that after ten thousand years of it I'm bored. And I've decided that even our stern routine can have a little variety. For have not the creatures called mortal been created for our entertainment? Well, let us be like the other gods and give ourselves a little sport with these humans before we kill them off. You ask me how?”

The others nodded in unison, although they had not asked anything.

“Well, I'll tell you,” said Atropos. “We'll play with something I've just invented and choose to call
free will
. We'll decide what to do with each life as before, but sometimes we'll pick a certain destiny and put a twist in it. We'll say, ‘You shall die young
if
you do this,' or ‘You shall live long
unless
you do that,' or the other way around. We won't do this with everyone, of course. Only the strongest mortals can handle free will. So we shall choose some strong, interesting ones and mix some choice into their destinies, and watch them struggle in our net of
ifs
and
unlesses
, trying to decide what to do. And that will entertain us, will it not, Sisters, will it not?”

“Oh, yes,” murmured Clotho and Lachesis. “That will surely entertain us.”

“Very well. I'm off to Calydon.”

“Why Calydon?”

“I have been watching a birth. A strong prince has just been born, heir to the Calydonian throne, and his personality should prove interesting enough to provide us with some sport. His and his mother's, too. I shall go down there now and bestow the treacherous gift of alternatives.”

6

A Prince, a Hag, and Two Evil Uncles

Althea, queen of Calydon, lay in the royal bedchamber, reaching her arms to take her newborn infant from the hands of the midwife. She expected to see something red, bald, and squalling, but this one had been born with a black shock of hair. He did not scream or whimper, but uttered a deep chuckling sound.

Then she did hear a scream, but it was the midwife, who was scuttling backward, retreating from something that had appeared in the room without coming through the draped archway. And what the young queen saw was fearsome enough to make anyone scream: a very tall and emaciated crone. Lank white hair fell about the wedge of wrinkles that was her face. And out of that face glared two eyes, blue as the core of flame.

The hag stood there, leaning upon a staff, glaring down at the royal bed. Then she raised her staff and pointed it at the young woman.

“Althea, Queen of Calydon,” she growled, “young mother, behold!” She whirled, flinging the staff into the hearth, where it immediately caught fire. “See that stick burning there? When it is consumed by flame, your son shall die.”

The queen leaped from the bed with such furious speed that no one would have thought that she had given birth just an hour before. She rushed to the hearth, stuck her hand in the flame and pulled out the charred stick.

“Will my son live?” she cried.

The hag laughed. “
Unless
you return the stick to the flame, or someone else does.”

“If I keep it safe, unburned, will he live?”

“If, if, if!” shrieked the hag. And vanished.

The queen had no way of knowing that she had been visited by Atropos, “Lady of the Shears.” She did know, however, that whoever the crone was, goddess or demon, she possessed awful powers and had to be believed. Althea, thereupon, took the charred stick in a massive brass chest, had it bound around with heavy chains, and ordered no one to open it on pain of death.