Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume One (37 page)

Now he was ready. Singing and shouting, he raced along the dark corridor until he came to a passageway that was blocked by boulders. He knew that beyond this place the hundred-handed giants had been trapped.

He saw that the rocks clogging the passageway were not socketed in earth, but were a kind of huge rubble; they had been wedged in together, leaning on each other. He studied the formation and selected a certain boulder—not the nearest one, not the largest one, but a rock that was central to the mass. He fixed his gaze on it and stared until he felt his eyes popping out of his head. It sat there, massive and motionless.

Zeus sent his mind back along the seedbed of ancestral memory, back to when the earth was a white-hot coal spinning on the edge of chaos, cooling into red-hot rock. In the deep fertile crags and valleys of the young god's mind, stone became liquid, and his gaze began to soften the rock he looked upon. It softened; it trembled like jelly. That ponderous boulder, central to the mass, quivered, shook, shifted—loosening the entire rock jam. Tons of rock came sliding out of the corridor, faster and faster, in a terrific cataract of stone.

Zeus leaped out of the way, or he would have been crushed like an insect. He watched the rocks clatter past. The passageway was clear; and the cave mouth was a black hole. Out of that hole slithered what looked like a gigantic centipede. It was one of the giants, crawling on his hands, blinking in the dusty light.

“Come out!” cried Zeus. “You are free!”

The other giants came crawling out of the cave and squatted in the passageway, blinking at the young god.

“You are free,” he said. “It is I who have ended your captivity. I, Zeus, your kinsman and your king-to-be, if you help me now.”

“Hail!” they shouted. “All hail to you, oh liberator! We shall serve you in any way you wish.”

“Come, then. A perilous task awaits. And I have need of your many strong hands.”

He led them at a run down the cavern chain. The giants were so big that they had to stoop, or their heads would have scraped the cave roofs. Startled bats wheeled in a cloud, chittering. He led the giants to the dragon den. Before entering, he gathered them about him and told them what they were to do.

They entered the den. It was littered with bones, for the dragons went up at night to hunt and dragged their kill back to their cave. A gust of blue lit the den as the dragon came to meet them, not yet spitting flame, but softly exhaling it. The many-handed ones were huge, and their wavering shadows even larger, but they looked small beside the looming beast—as small as ducks facing an alligator.

“Now!” cried Zeus.

The giants flung themselves on the dragon, which was frozen by surprise, for nothing ever attacks a dragon. Before it could recover, it was clamped by hundreds of hands with fingers stronger than baling hooks.

The giants, obeying their instructions, lofted the dragon high over their heads and held it there as they raced along the corridor. It was spitting fire, but its head was tilted firmly upward and the flame of its breath was going straight up, singeing bats on the wing.

With a mighty shout that bounced off the cave walls and redoubled, echoing, Zeus led the giants and their living torch to the place where, so many years before, they had wheeled the Cyclopes' cage. And there in the cage towered the Cyclopes. Dragon fire lit up their great, single eyes.

The giants had their instructions. Swiftly and expertly, they handled the dragon, wielding it as a welder does his torch. Using the beast's fiery breath, they aimed his blue flame on the bolt of the chain that bound the gate.

The big shackle grew red-hot, then white-hot, then melted away. The chain clanged to the floor, the gate slid open. The Cyclopes streamed out of the cage; they fell on their knees before Zeus.

He raised his voice and said: “Good Cyclopes, worthy giants, I who have brought you freedom now promise you vengeance. Your enemy is my enemy, and we shall fight him together. Yes, we shall wage war upon the tyrant Cronos and his Titan court. But to fight is not enough; we must also win. So we must prepare for this war. I bid you remain underground for a time. You, Cyclopes, shall search the caverns until you find a live crater to be your smithy. Stoke the volcanic flames that will be your forge fire. Swing your hammers in my service. Make an armory of weapons. But to forge these weapons you will need metal. You will need iron and copper. And this the giants will provide. They will dig and delve with their many mighty hands and tear the raw metal from the very entrails of the earth. And when the war is over and I come into my kingship, no one, I vow, will stand closer to the throne than you, my brothers and sisters. Yes, so high shall be your estate that your blemishes will be viewed as marks of privilege and everyone will regret not having been born with a single eye or a hundred hands.”

7

Family Reunion

While Zeus was underground, Gaia employed certain serpents to go down and tell her what was happening below. Upon the evening of the twenty-first day, one such serpent reported the liberation of the Cyclopes. Mother Earth shouted with joy and went to seek Cronos.

She said, “My mother's instinct tells me that you are troubled by indigestion.”

“A feeble term for what I suffer,” said Cronos. “Something sits on my gut like a rock.”

“Something you ate, no doubt?”

“No doubt, mother. No doubt.”

“I can help you, son. A wood nymph of my acquaintance has found certain herbs that can cure the worst stomach ache.”

“Go fetch her. I'll try anything.”

Far underground a topaz-eyed snake slithered toward Zeus, put its leathery head to the youth's ear, and whispered dryly: “I am sent by your grandmother. Her message is: ‘We strike tomorrow!'”

All night Zeus climbed up through the cavern chain, and dawn found him with Gaia. She took him into her huge embrace and said, “Today is the day, if all goes well, that you lose a father and gain some brothers and sisters.”

“You've been busy,” said Zeus.

“So have you, my boy. You have done great deeds below, and now that you have provided us with such strong allies, we can open hostilities.”

“I'm ready,” said Zeus.

“Clothe yourself in these rags and put on this wig of straw. You are to transform yourself into a bumpkin who has fallen in love with a beautiful wood nymph—so violently, so helplessly in love that your poor wits are quite addled. You have gone mute and can moan only ‘Dione … Dione,' which is her name, and follow her about, begging with your eyes.”

“An undignified role, grandmother.”

“You'll be able to afford dignity after you gain your throne, grandson. Now hearken. Disguised as this love-sodden swain, you shall attend the nymph when I bring her to meet Cronos. You shall remain in the background, but stand ready to act when I give the word.”

“Instruct me, Earth.”

Clad in rags and wearing a wig of straw, the tall young god listened carefully as Gaia told him what to do.

Now it is known that those who are most careful about themselves are precisely those who will submit to the most brutal treatment as long as it is recommended by someone who supposedly knows something about health. This has been going on since the beginning of time, and started with Cronos and his bellyache. The king of the gods had a completely suspicious nature. He mistrusted everyone, especially his family. He also loathed strangers. He surrounded himself with Titan guards and never ate until a slave had tasted the food, lest it be poisoned. He imprisoned and executed anyone who looked at him the wrong way. And yet, he was ready to believe his mother, whom he mistrusted even more than he did his wife, when she told him that a wood nymph had mixed certain herbs that would cure the griping pain in his gut.

He stood now on a sunny meadow, waiting. He saw his enormous mother trundling toward him over the grass, followed by two figures. One was a wood nymph clad only in leaves. Behind her came a shambling, slack-mouthed fellow with a thatch of straw-colored hair. He carried a keg and a flagon, and Cronos took him for a servant.

“All hail, king of the gods!” cried Gaia. “This is the dryad, Dione, come to ease your pain.”

“Glory, glory,” murmured the nymph in a voice that was like the west wind sighing through the treetops. “If by my poor woodland skills I am privileged to serve our beloved king, I shall count myself the proudest, happiest dryad in the entire forest.”

And she smiled at him so sweetly, and looked so long-legged and lovely in her brief costume, that Cronos was charmed and quite forgot that he had meant to have one of his Titans taste her potion first to make sure it wasn't poisoned.

“Come, pour!” said Gaia.

Whereupon the nymph's servant swung the keg from his shoulder and poured purple wine into the flagon. Cronos was amazed by the lad's strength. He handled the heavy keg one-handed, as if it were a pitcher. He passed the flagon to the dryad, who took a pouch from her girdle and dusted some powder into the wine. Kneeling, she offered the great flagon to Cronos, holding it out with both hands. He took it and lifted it to his lips.

Sun-ripened Attic grapes had been pressed for this wine, which was then aged in oak for a hundred years. Such a wine was always mixed with water, but this was undiluted. It was so strong that it quite hid the flavor of what the nymph had put into it—mustard and salt, mashed up with putrefying frogs' eggs.

Cronos drank down the entire flask in one gulp.

The earth tilted. Cronos braced himself between two trees and began to heave, a terrible, dry retching.

“The medicine is trying to work, my lord,” said Dione. “It needs a bit of assistance.”

“Now!” cried Gaia.

Zeus hiked his tunic, baring a long, sinewy thigh. He pivoted on his heel and, with all the terrific leverage of his immortally powerful young body, kicked his father in the belly.

Cronos doubled over and began to vomit. He spewed up first the stone he had swallowed, then each of his five children, who, being gods, were undigested and still alive. They came out in reverse order of the way they had been swallowed—the youngest first. This was a girl, Hera. Next came a boy, Poseidon. Then another girl, Demeter. Then another boy, Hades. And finally the eldest child, a daughter named Hestia.

Residing in the great belly, they had grown to child-size. Now, as they breathed the golden air, they immediately gained the full strength of their radiant youth and danced about their fallen father, shouting and singing.

“Brothers and sisters!” cried Zeus. “Welcome to the world!”

He had cast off rags and wig and stood revealed as himself. The young gods embraced him. Hera clung to him, kissing his face again and again.

“You saved us!” she cried. “You are the youngest of us all, but the bravest and the strongest and the wisest. You shall be our king!”

His two other sisters cried, “Yes, yes, you must be our king!”

Poseidon grinned falsely and nodded. Black-browed Hades, the eldest brother, looked very somber, but said nothing.

“You shall be our king now,” cried Hera. “And my husband later!”

“I shall serve as your war chief now,” said Zeus, “and king later, if we win. Brothers, sisters, you are under orders. Catch the old king! Bind him fast!”

But when they turned to obey, they gaped in astonishment. For Cronos, who had been sprawled unconscious on the meadow, was no longer there. Only Zeus understood what must have happened. From the depths of his swoon Cronos had realized his peril, and with his matchless talent for survival had summoned a last desperate magic and made himself vanish.

8

The Magic Weapons

Zeus visited the smithy where the Cyclopes were making weapons. With him was his sister Hera. When they entered the crater, they knew something was wrong. The iron music of the anvils had fallen silent. They heard angry shouts and the sound of scuffling. A party of Cyclopes came to Zeus dragging a young smith, bound hand and foot.

“He has gone mad, oh Lord,” said the head smith. “He refuses to work at his appointed task and, when questioned, will answer only in the wildest fashion about his hammer telling him something, and about something else he saw in the flames.”

“Question him yourself,” whispered Hera to Zeus.

Zeus spoke directly to the captive. “What is your name?”

“I am Brontes.”

“Why are you acting this way?”

“I am doing what I must.”

Zeus spoke softly to Hera. “It's the dreadful heat and the incessant din. It's a wonder more of them don't go crazy.”

“I don't think he's crazy,” said Hera. “Make him talk.”

Zeus said, “Brontes, tell me exactly what happened.”

“Exactly this,” said Brontes. “When I started work this morning, my sledgehammer jumped in my hands and danced on the anvil, beating out a song:

Light above,

Dark beneath.

To vanquish the sire

Staff with three teeth,

And spear of fire.

“Does it have a meaning?” asked Zeus.

“I looked into the forge fire,” said Brontes. “In the core of the flame I saw pictures form. A brass helmet like an overturned bowl, spilling darkness. A three-tined staff, or trident. Your brother Hades held the helmet. Your brother Poseidon wielded the trident.”

“How about the spear of fire?”

“A thunderbolt!” shouted Brontes. “For you, oh Zeus. Weapon now, scepter to be.”

Zeus turned to Hera, “What do you think?”

“Helmet of darkness,” she murmured. “Trident. Thunderbolt. Could these be the weapons to defeat Cronos? Perhaps this one-eyed fellow has been granted special insight. Perhaps he has been chosen to receive a message from the very center of mystery.”

“Perhaps,” said Zeus. “That crazed song has the ring of truth. I thank you, Brontes, and commission you to make this magical gear: a helmet of darkness, a trident, and a thunderbolt. Above all, my thunderbolt! Do that first.”