Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume One (23 page)

Then Cerberus saw that there was a little boat wedged between the shark's jaws, and he immediately understood that there was a child inside, still alive, still screaming. The dog moved so swiftly that his three heads blurred into one. He flung himself through the spray and hit the shark from the side. His left head lunged, striking into the fish at the hinge of its jaw, slicing through tendon and muscle. The great mouth fell open, allowing the two other dog heads to flash inside and pull out the crushed boat.

The wreckage floated. A voice still screamed from inside. But Cerberus was underwater again, busy with the shark, whose jaws still gaped, revealing the terrible rows of teeth, now made harmless. He tore out the shark's throat, and the fish sank, trailing blood.

The dog surfaced, grasped the bow of the coracle in one of his mouths, and drew it swiftly into calmer waters.

Delia had gone into a kind of swoon when the shark crushed her boat. She heard someone screaming, and realized it was herself. She didn't know that she was inside the boat. She thought she was in the shark's belly and that she was being crushed by the walls of a great intestinal valve, such as she had seen when her father gutted big fish.

She came out of her swoon to find six eyes peering at her. She thought she saw three dogs, then realized it was one huge dog with three heads.

“Don't be afraid,” said the middle head.

“Am I dead?”

“No.”

“No.… It's not dark enough, is it?”

Indeed, she was bathed in brilliant sunlight and seemed to be floating. She pulled herself up and looked about. She was lying quite comfortably on her wrecked coracle, which was floating like a raft. The dog swam alongside.

“Where's the shark?” she asked.

“That's who's dead.”

“Did you save me?”

“By accident. I was hunting sharks and found one chewing a boat. When I killed it, you floated out.”

“He didn't swallow me?”

“He didn't have time. What's your name?” asked Cerberus.

“Delia. What's yours?”

“Cerberus.”

“You speak quite well for a dog.”

“Just with my middle head. It's the smartest.”

“Don't your other heads get jealous when they hear you say that?” asked Delia.

“Not really. They're all me, you know. Besides, they can do other things better.”

“Most of us speak with only one head,” said Delia. “But thank you for saving me from that awful fish.”

“Well, I'd hate to be eating a shark and find a little girl inside.”

“Do you eat sharks?”

“Too often.”

“Do you like wild pig?” asked Delia.

“Never had any. But my uncle says they're good eating.”

“You should come home with me then. Our woods are full of wild pigs. They come for the pine nuts and acorns.”

“Don't you live on the shore?” asked Cerberus.

“Right on the shore. Sea in front, woods behind. Do you want to come?”

“You're not afraid of me?”

“Why should I be?”

“You don't think I'm ugly and horrible with these three heads?”

“As you say, they're all you,” Delia assured him. “And whatever's you is what I like.”

“Nobody's ever liked me much, except my mother,” Cerberus replied.

“Don't you have brothers and sisters, or anything?”

“They're not very affectionate—they're the Nemean Lion, the Hydra, and the Sphinx—just to mention those least likely to please.”

“I know what a lion is, of course, but I never heard of a Hydra or a Finks,” said Delia.

“Sphinx.”

“SS-ff-inks!”

“Yes. She has a tiger's body and a woman's face and wings and claws. And a very dangerous disposition.”

“Sounds awful. What's a Hydra?”

“A huge lizard who lives in a lake. He has a hundred heads, and each head has a hundred teeth. His bite is so poisonous that anyone who's even scratched by a Hydra tooth turns black, shrivels up, and crumbles into ash. Nor is it any use to cut off any of those heads, for two more will take its place.”

“How dreadful! And these are your sisters and brothers?”

“Yes.”

“Do you suppose that when you come home with me I'll have to meet your relatives?” asked Delia.

“I'll make sure you don't.”

“You know …”

“What?”

“You do the two things I like best—saving me from being eaten and telling scary stories.”

“I can't tell stories,” insisted Cerberus.

“Sure you can. You just did. About the something lion and the Hydra and the SS-ff-inks.”

“They're not stories. They're true.”

“That's what a story is, impossible but true. Like you. Are you my dog now?”

“Nobody else's.”

And the girl and dog paddled their way to shore.

5

Glaucus

Having no experience of humans, Cerberus did not realize that he had attached himself to the household of a remarkable man. Delia's father, Glaucus, was the best fisherman on the coast. He had a matchless instinct for the feeding habits, spawning patterns, and migrations of fish. He always managed to fill his nets, even on days when others caught nothing.

Nevertheless, he remained modest about his abilities. “It's not because I'm smart,” he said. “Actually, it's because I'm stupid. I think like a fish; that's how I know what they'll do.”

But his wife and children appreciated him and loved him for his gentleness, his bravery, and his radiant wisdom. He had observed that ailing fish ate of a certain underwater plant and swam away with their vitality restored. He brought a sprig of that plant home to his wife, who was as good a gardener as he was a fisherman, and asked her to replant it in a salt pool. The plant flourished and Glaucus was able to bring wounded fish to the pool and heal them.

He became known then as the “Fish doctor,” and his fame spread rapidly along the coast. He asked his wife to transplant the saltwater herb to a freshwater pool and crossbreed it with a certain kind of river-cress that also had healing properties. The freshwater pool became charged with vital energy. Sick animals drank of it and were healed.

The wise fisherman was delighted when Cerberus appeared on his doorstep, so much so that he didn't scold Delia for risking her life on the shark-infested waters and losing his precious coracle. He had always feared that the reckless little girl, who roamed the wild wood as well as the sea, would be injured or eaten one day by a shark or a boar. But now, under the protection of this enormous three-headed dog, he was confident that she would be safe. For all Glaucus's wisdom, he could not understand the evil seething in the bowels of hell—nor how Hades was plotting to extend his empire of Death.

Glaucus was a small, leathery, white-bearded man, very youthful for his age. In those first magical days when language was still in bud, people were often named for their appearance.
Glaucus
means “gray-green”; his mother had named him for his sea-colored eyes. Delia's eyes were the same color but larger. She didn't like to close them. She told Cerberus that she slept with her eyes open to see where dreams came from. And he believed her because he could actually do that. At night, his heads took turns sleeping, one remaining always on guard.

6

Wild Boars

Behind Delia's fishing village was a great forest. In this dark, dense wood was something more menacing than shark or bear. The trees were held sacred by Dodona, a powerful woodland goddess, who permitted no one to chop them down. They grew tall and broad. The acorns and pine nuts they dropped were very fat. And the wild boars that fed on pine nuts and acorns grew to enormous size. Weighing between seven hundred and a thousand pounds, they ran with crushing speed on their short legs. Their tusks were ivory spears, their hooves sharp as hatchets, and their bristles like barbed wire. Everyone feared them; no one hunted them. And they had formed a taste for human flesh.

To make matters worse, these wild pigs were very intelligent. They had learned to hunt in small herds, helping one another, as wolves do. When the killer boars went on a rampage, even bears and lions would slink out of their way.

But Cerberus, who had hunted the great white shark and giant octopi, viewed these boars as small game. His overconfidence was to plunge Delia into dreadful peril. She had promised him wild pig to eat. One day, blithely ignoring all danger, as was her habit, she led Cerberus across a wide meadow into the forest, where she knew the boars came to eat the acorns. The great dog bounded along, full of delight. Everything pleased him—the meadow grass, the smell of trees, the salt wind, the hot sun—and, most of all, the slender child running beside him.

Seeing the shadow of a hawk gliding over the field, he swerved suddenly and began to chase it for pure joy, leaving Delia far behind, whirling back only when he heard her scream. Beyond her, swifter than hawk shadow, dense, hurtling, murderous, was a wild boar. Delia ran toward Cerberus, but the boar was coming so fast she seemed to be standing still.

Cerberus left the ground in a mighty leap, sailed over the girl's head, landed on the other side of her, and crouched to meet the charging boar. The beast came fast, aiming the ivory spears of its tusks straight at the dog's chest. Three heads lunged. Each pair of side jaws seized a front leg of the boar. The jaws of the center head closed on the boar's snout, twisting it, trying to heave the animal over.

But a boar with its short legs and great weight is harder to overturn than a bull. The beast planted itself firmly, bracing its legs and shaking its head, trying to work free and stab its tusks into Cerberus. But the dog twisted with such cruel strength that the beast, wanting to ease the agony on its snout, began to turn away from the biting, and slowly let itself be pulled over.

Then all three sets of jaws savaged the belly of the boar. Its hatchet hooves struck. Cerberus bled. But he ignored his wounds and tore at the boar's guts. Then he crouched before Delia. She leaped on his back, and he galloped toward a nearby river. The rest of the herd appeared on the brow of the hill and began to race toward them. The beasts sped past the fallen boar, who, greedy even in his death throes, was eating his own entrails.

Cerberus raced to the river and plunged in. The herd surged after him, but they skidded to a halt at the edge of the water, watching the dog swim across, bearing the child on his back. Pigs swim, but slowly. They knew they could never catch him in the water. They watched as he swam to the opposite shore. To their amazement, the little girl, instead of vanishing into the woods, scrambled off the dog's back and climbed a tree, while the dog jumped into the river and swam back toward them.

The mob of wild boars howled savagely. Their enemy was actually coming back to challenge them. They couldn't wait for the pleasure of bearing him to earth beneath their weight, thrusting their tusks into his loathed body, trampling him to bloody rags under their sharp hooves.

Cerberus was swimming toward them. He stopped in the middle of the river and swam in slow circles, all three heads barking a challenge. The boars pawed the water's edge, hesitating—then, with a great splash, they rushed into the water.

Cerberus ducked under. The pigs tried to swim faster, but they were already pushing through the water as fast as they could. They reached the spot where the dog had been and swam around in circles, waiting for him to surface. They knew he had to come up to breathe. But like all things that seem certain, this had a flaw in it. What they did not know was that Cerberus, though dog-shaped, was sea-monster born and could breathe underwater. And such ignorance was fatal.

One by one the wild boars disappeared. Cerberus, hovering invisibly beneath the surface of the river, simply caught their legs in his jaws and drew each beast under, holding it there until it was thoroughly drowned. Then he'd let it sink to the bottom. The boars on the surface were barely aware of what was happening. If they saw the others disappearing, they thought they were diving for the dog and didn't realize their error until they felt their own legs being seized in a terrible grip, felt themselves being pulled helplessly underneath and watched with popping eyes as their own breath of life became bubbles rising away from them forever.

Delia balanced herself on the bough of an oak, watching the river. Cerberus was invisible, but having seen him kill a shark, she knew his prowess underwater and understood what was happening. She grew so excited that she began to dance on the bough. The heavy limb started swinging and almost threw her off. But she was as comfortable in a tree as a squirrel.

The last pig went under. Dragonflies, which had departed when the herd came, skimmed back, wings glittering. Cerberus surfaced and swam to shore. He shook himself mightily. Delia dropped out of the tree and ran to meet him. She flung her arms about each of his necks and kissed each cold nose.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“You're welcome,” growled the middle head.

“You're bleeding!” she cried. “Let's hurry home. My father can fix you. So can I. I know how to use those herbs.”

“Just a few scratches,” muttered Cerberus. “Nothing at all.”

“Not nothing!”

She leaped onto his back and lovingly drummed her heels into his side. He galloped toward home.

7

Hecate's Idea

Down in Tartarus, Hades sat on his great throne of ebony and pearl, receiving a report from his chief aide, Hecate. She was frowning importantly, but her wings quivered with secret pleasure. For she had bad news to pass on to her employer, and nothing pleased her more. She was the kind of underling, in fact, who believed that trouble and confusion conferred status upon her. If there was none, she made some. That was how she had risen to be High Hag of all the departments of Hell.