Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume One (22 page)

With a triple snarl the pup flung himself on the foot. Each pair of jaws snapped off a toe. A tremendous yell split the shadows. The other foot swung in a savage kick. But the puppy leaped out of the way. He scuttled off to a corner and began chewing on a toe. They were Typhon's toes he had bitten off. He didn't know that the giant was his father, didn't know what a father was, and wouldn't have cared if he had known. All he knew was hunger and rage and a wild joyous curiosity about this place so much more exciting than the egg—this new place with its dancing shadows and sudden voices and flailing feet and tasty lumps of gristle.

He crouched in the corner, chewing happily, ignoring Typhon who stamped about, toe stumps spouting blood, as he tried to find the pup and crush him underfoot. His dragon-head dipped down, spitting fire, chasing shadows.

Typhon saw the pup in a corner and lifted his good foot. But Echidne, for all her great size, could move as swiftly as a garden snake. She slithered across the cave floor and cast her coils about the pup, enclosing him in a tower of leather. The woman-end rose out of the serpentine loops to face her raging husband. She held a rock in one hand and a sword in the other.

“I'm going to strangle that little monster!” roared Typhon. “All three necks at once.”

“You'll have to strangle me first,” said Echidne. “And that may be difficult.”

“You mean to say you care for that misshapen cur?”

“He's mine,” said Echidne. “I shall call him Cerberus. Now run off and start an avalanche or something.”

By this time Typhon's mutilated foot had sprouted three new toes, for he was the kind of monster that could replace itself. But his foot still hurt; he was in a foul temper, and yearned to murder his latest offspring. Nevertheless, he knew what Echidne could do when aroused. So with a final growl, he departed, vowing never to return. This hardly bothered his wife. She had heard such pronouncements for a hundred years and expected to hear them for a hundred more.

Thus it was that the three-headed dog, Cerberus, was born. Echidne, that dread serpent-woman, treated her pup most tenderly, and he adored her.

2

Hades' Visit

Word reached Hades in the Underworld that the monsters he most admired had bred again and that their latest offspring was showing early promise. “Just what I need,” he said to Hecate. “A three-headed dog to guard the gates of Hell. I'll pay them a visit immediately. For beasts of that line grow to full size in seven days, and I want to see this one while he's still a pup.”

Black-robed, driving a black chariot drawn by six coal-black stallions of enormous power and speed, Hades charged up from Tartarus through rocky chambers and out of the mouth of a cave called Avernus. His great black stallions galloped so fast that the road seemed to smoke behind them. They came to a strip of golden beach at the edge of the sea. Here Echidne had swum ashore with her pup. Hades had sent her a message, asking her to meet him there, and even monsters do not ignore a summons from the Lord of the Land Beyond Death.

Hades never traveled unattended. Two demon outriders clung to the back of his chariot. They sprang off now and began unloading gifts for Echidne. The presents were all opulent—gold hoops as big as chariot wheels, set with diamonds big as onions. Echidne liked to slide her long, serpentine body through such hoops when she performed her hunting dance before a shark chase.

“You are generous, my lord,” said Echidne. “If these gorgeous hoops are meant as another birthing gift, then I accept them with thanks. But if they are offered as a purchase price for this pup, I must refuse. I doubt that he'll go underground to serve you, Hades, or ever serve anyone anywhere. All my children have independent spirits, as you know. But none of them are as willful and stubborn as this one, young as he is.”

Before Hades had a chance to reply, Cerberus began to prove his mother's words. The pup had been seized by an immediate loathing for the tall, black-caped figure standing before him. But he knew that his mother would be displeased if he attacked Hades while she was speaking to him, so he dashed at the horses instead.

Instinctively cunning, Cerberus avoided being crushed under their great hooves. He sprang to the shafts of the chariot and bit through the harness, then whirled faster and faster, his three pairs of jaws becoming a circle of teeth. The sight was so ghastly that the stallions kicked themselves free of the shafts and bolted down the beach, trailing their reins behind them. Cerberus scampered after them, barking furiously.

Hades, ruler of the hereafter and master of torment, was not easy to surprise. But now he stood stupefied, watching his gigantic black stallions being chased across the beach by a four-day-old puppy. The horses had disappeared in a cloud of sand, and the pup came racing back, muzzles wrinkled, not barking now, but uttering a triple snarl. He charged over the sand and launched himself through the air, straight at Hades' throat.

It was only Echidne's swiftness that saved the god from an unspeakable affront. Quick as the flick of an eyelid, she flipped her tail, catching the pup in mid-air and knocking him to the sand. Swiftly, she curled her serpent's tail about him, binding him fast.

“My lord, I beg your forgiveness,” she said. “But he's very young. Too young still to distinguish friend from foe.”

“I bear no grudge,” said Hades coldly. “Let us hope that his judgment ripens with age.”

“In the days to come,” said Echidne, “I shall explain to him how much your favor has meant to our family. In the meantime, my lord, I observe that your demons have caught the horses. I think it best if I leave you now, and cool this young one off with a long swim.”

“Take these golden baubles with you,” said Hades. “They are yours. I shall leave it to you, Echidne, to convince the brave little fellow of the advantages that will accrue to anyone entering my employment at the highest level—and I mean highest. He would rank with Charon and Hecate as my chief aides.”

Echidne reached down, lifted Cerberus from her coils, and held him tightly in her arms as she wriggled through the golden hoops, and slithered into the water.

“Farewell,” she cried. “Thank you again.”

“Farewell to you,” said Hades. “But I shall reserve my thanks until a later date.”

“You're a wicked, wicked, reckless pup,” Echidne murmured to Cerberus, as she glided through the water. “But I love you more than all my other children combined. And you shall never go underground to work for that arrogant fiend as long as I live. Still, we must beware. His disappointment can curdle into hatred—and his powers are vast.”

Cerberus did not answer. He was fast asleep in his mother's arms.

3

The Shark Hunter

Now, Echidne's brood fed upon the flesh of bird, beast, and fish. Man was considered a delicacy, though not too filling. Nor do monsters exclude each other from their diet. But this sea-dwelling family into which Cerberus had been born had a preference for sharks. They were big enough to make a main course and especially tasty when eaten fresh. But since sharks preferred eating to being eaten, and were accustomed to enforcing this preference, catching them was always a risky business.

Sharks offered exactly the kind of sport that Cerberus liked best, and he immediately proved to be a great help on the hunt. He began carving a legend for himself with his ability to follow an underwater trail. His three keen noses could pick up a shark's scent and follow it from reef to reef. And when he had closed in on the savage fish, he could be assured of the kind of action he craved.

Cerberus grew with monstrous speed and reached full size without losing any of his frisky, affectionate nature. But much as he wanted to, he couldn't find a playmate. He simply looked too fearsome to other creatures, and there were none of his own kind. Indeed, he was as big as a walrus now and much more powerful. And those three pairs of jaws studded with ivory teeth were more terrible than a crocodile's. He could seize a shark in each set of jaws, drag them down to the bottom of the sea, braid their tails together, and pull the three sharks home to the cave.

After a while Echidne and her brood grew weary of shark meat, and Cerberus was sent out after octopi. These were gigantic creatures, equipped with eight long arms set with powerful suction cups. Fishermen feared them more than they did sharks. For octopi could cling to the underside of a boat, snake up over the edge, grasp a fisherman, and pull him overboard. Some octopi, it was said, grew large enough to capsize sailing vessels. But these were only rumors. Certainly nobody who had encountered one that size had lived to tell the tale.

Cerberus hunted octopi with the same joyous ferocity he displayed in hunting sharks. Even more, perhaps, because these creatures were bigger and more strange. The greater the peril, the more Cerberus enjoyed himself. He would charge an octopus, stretching out his three necks and curling the rest of himself into a ball so that he became a wheel of teeth. Seizing an arm in each pair of jaws, he would braid them as he had the shark's tails, actually knotting the giant squid to itself. Then he would swim home, towing it behind him.

It came to pass that there was no creature in the sea that Cerberus feared—though he was feared by all the others.

4

The Fisherman's Daughter

In a small coastal village lived a little girl named Delia. She was the youngest child in a family of fisher-folk, and, from the very first, held strong ideas about everything. She could not endure, for example, being left at home with her mother while her father and brothers went out to fish.

Again and again Delia tried to hide herself on board her father's boat, crouching inside a barrel or rolling herself up in a net. But there wasn't much room to hide: she was always found and set ashore. Each failure made her more determined to succeed. She longed to do as her brothers did—to go out with her father upon the flashing sea among the great fish and come sailing home, all sunburnt and swaggering, laughing, and telling wonderful lies.

Since she could not stow away without getting caught, she decided to follow the fishing boat in a tiny, canoe-like craft called a coracle, which her father had made for her. She awoke at dawn, slipped out of the family hut, and hid herself among driftwood until she saw her father and brothers sail away. Then she slid the coracle into the surf, pushed it out past the breaking waves, and climbed in.

Delia was gliding into a great dazzle of sunrise. The wind whipped her hair. She laughed with joy. She was absolutely at home in the tiny boat, for she could paddle as well as her youngest brother and swim like a water-rat.

She was not worried when her father's fishing vessel vanished from sight. She knew where he would cast his nets. In this season, at this phase of the moon, the mullet were running, and her father knew where they ran.

In searching for a small fishing boat on the vast expanse of water, those wise in the way of the sea know that it is best to study the sky. For gulls throng where fishermen cast their nets. So Delia stared at the sky, looking for gulls, and did not see the triangular fin cutting the water toward her.

Cerberus was also prowling the sea that morning, quite unaware that this was the day that was to change his life forever. He was not after sharks but hunting octopi. His mother was about to lay another clutch of eggs, and at such times she had a monstrous appetite. Suddenly, Cerberus picked up a strong scent and forgot about foraging for octopus. He knew that something huge and terrible had crossed his path, a small killer whale perhaps, or a great white shark. Either of these meant a fine fight if he could track it down.

Now, fishermen built their own boats in those days, and Delia's father had used as much care in making the tiny coracle as he had in building his broad-beamed fishing vessel. Instead of using wood for the ribs, he had traded a month's catch for antelope horn, the same kind of tough, springy horn that was used in making bows. Over these strong ribs he had stretched sealskin instead of the woven reed fiber ordinarily used for the hull. He had made the swiftest, most durable coracle on the coast, and he was very proud of it.

“It'll last a hundred years,” he said. “My grandchildren's grandchildren will use it. My ghost will float on the wind like a torn sail, laughing all the way.”

Nevertheless, that coracle, made with such loving care, was not to last another day.

Delia shipped her paddle and let the little boat drift as she searched the sky for gulls. Something bumped the boat—hard. It rocked violently, almost spilling her out. The water split. An enormous fish burst out. It seemed to stand on its tail, towering above the tiny boat, its jaws gaping. Delia saw its teeth flash, felt herself choke in the stinking gale of its breath. It was a shark, a blotched white one, the biggest she had ever seen. She fell flat into the boat, pressing herself to the floorboards. The shark dipped, clamping its jaws on the edge of the boat like a child crunching a candy bar, wrapper and all. The coracle collapsed. Sealskin and ribs of horn closed about the little girl, shielding her from the butcher-knife teeth.

T
hings look bigger underwater. Cerberus, who had been following the shark's scent, found himself rising to meet a fish that looked as big as a war vessel. He had learned that the best way to meet a giant shark was to come up from beneath it and bite off its tail … something only he could do. It would take three bites, one with each head. For the tailbone of a shark is a continuation of its spine, and that spine is perhaps the toughest, most flexible in all animal creation. The first bite would slice through nerve fiber, paralyzing the great fish. The second bite would cut halfway through, and the third would shear off the tail completely. The shark, mortally wounded, spouting blood, would sink, and be easy to finish off underwater.

When Cerberus saw this shark, however, he decided to abandon his usual habit and surface in front of it. For this creature looked big enough to put up a real battle, and that is exactly what Cerberus craved on this beautiful summer morning. But when the dog reached the surface and poked his heads out of the water, his six ears quivered in wonder. The shark was screaming, screaming with a child's voice.