Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume One (42 page)

So the next time the shadow of wings fell upon him he held his ground and let the hedge-hawk stoop. But just before the great claws struck, his animal nature took over. Flight possessed him. And he was gone, gone in a flash, whipping away from the hawk's claws, and disappearing into the long grass.

All this time, without being aware of it, Abas had been making his way back toward the palace grounds. Finally, he found himself in the royal garden. It was pleasant among the roses and there were beetles and bees to eat. On the third day of his stay, he overheard a conversation between two gardeners that sent him into a frothing green fit. His father, he learned, had been badly wounded in battle and was now lying in the palace on the verge of death.

“Just exactly what I've been waiting for all this time,” Abas moaned to himself. “Why couldn't the old fool have gotten himself knocked on the head a little sooner? Then I'd have been hanging over his bed, pretending grief, instead of riding out in the damned fields, meeting that accursed goddess, and being changed into this loathsome thing that I am. But no … father had to wait until I was a lizard, and then get his stupid head beaten in. Now that brother of mine will inherit the throne. That simpering, goody-goody Triptolemus will be king!”

Raging to himself, he slipped into the castle, slithered up the wall, and crawled out among the rafters. He crouched on a beam above the royal bedstead and watched his father dying. His brother was beside the king, weeping.

“Look at him, squeezing out those tears,” muttered the lizard to himself. “What a hypocrite! As if he could be anything but ecstatic at the idea of being king in a few days. I hate him.”

H
unting was good among the beams of the old palace. Spiders had been busy there, and the lizard robbed their webs and ate their flies; any spider who came to object was also eaten.

And he who had waited so impatiently for his father to die now wanted him to linger on because he could not bear the thought of his younger brother becoming king.

O
ur story now crosses the Middle Sea to its eastern rim, where flourished the rich and powerful kingdom of Phoenicia. Agenor, its king, had three sons: two of them were splendid young warriors, royally lethal. The eldest prince captained the war fleet; the second one commanded the army. But the third son, Cadmus, seemed unfit for war or peace. Runty, clownish, of barbed speech and odd tastes, he was a grief to his mother, a political liability to his father, and a source of rage to his brothers. Only his younger sister, Europa, cared for him, and she was the only one he had ever loved.

Cadmus knew that he would lose her soon. For princesses were married off early in those days, and since her father was very rich and she was very beautiful, the suitors had already begun to swarm about the royal palace.

“No, I shall not lose her!” Cadmus vowed to himself. “Her husband is bound to be a warrior, always out conquering someone. I'll keep her company when he goes off—gossip with her and tell her stories. And make myself useful to him, perhaps, by doing some of the clerkly things that kings hate to be bothered with.”

But as this third son of the Phoenician king sat in the garden planning his tame future, he had no way of knowing that matters were being decided in high places that would plunge him into wild adventure, subject him to dreadful ordeal, and win him a place in legend forever.

2

The High Council

Zeus met with the high council in his throne room on Mt. Olympus. This council was composed of the three most powerful gods—Zeus himself, Poseidon, and Hades. There was a fourth member, Atropos, the eldest Fate. The withered little Scissors Hag sat wrapped in her fur cloak, for she was chilly even on the hottest days. She listened silently, never speaking unless spoken to. And she was never spoken to except in the form of a question, such questions being always about some twist of destiny, which the Fates alone understood. Her answers were always short, sharp, and precise. Everyone hated the Hag, but no one dared to cross her.

There was mighty business before the council this day, nothing less than the future of mankind. The gods had grown weary of the human race and wished to visit the earth with catastrophe—quake or flood or fire storm—to cleanse it of all life. Then, in time to come, they would permit the primal energies to express themselves anew in unobnoxious forms—as grass and trees, birds and beasts.

“We are beginning to repeat ourselves,” said Poseidon. “We have punished humankind before, wiping them out even to the last verminous specimen, only to find them returning, crawling back into the life chain, disguised as fish, birds, monkeys, or whatever, then casting off fur and feathers to stride forth in all their pestiferous presumption.”

“It is true,” said Hades. “This has happened on two separate occasions. But I, for one, do not find such annihilation useless. My own kingdom has been considerably enlarged by these episodes.”

“It's fine for you, brother,” said Poseidon. “You simply sat there on your ebony throne waiting for them to join your realm, but I went to a great deal of trouble tearing the seas from their beds and hurling them upon earth. Now, only a few eons later, we're again having the same old discussion.”

“On those other occasions,” said Zeus mildly, “we acted without consulting our venerable cousin, and may unwittingly have run counter to the Master Design. She is with us today, however. Speak, Atropos. What do you say about our intention to exterminate the race of man utterly and for all time?”

“It is not written,” said Atropos.

“Indeed?” growled Zeus, brows knotting.

The others watched uneasily as his huge hands fiddled with the lightning shaft that was his scepter. For they all knew that while Zeus spoke diplomatically about Destiny and Providence, which even the gods had to obey, he did not really recognize anything that did not serve his own intention.

“I pray you,” he said, “clarify your objection, good Atropos.”

“It is clearly stated in our Great Scroll that humankind enjoys a choice,” she replied. “Man is to be destroyed only if he destroys himself. It is further written that such impulse for destruction shall arise from a humanoid race spawned by a dragon-to-be on a certain riverbank in Boeotia.”

“Are you telling me that such dragon spawn will be more mischievous, more warlike than the present breeds of man? I find that difficult to believe.”

“The mandates I serve, great Zeus, do not require your belief, only our performance. Know this, cousin. Man is warlike today in an innocent bestial way. He fights as lions do, or wolves, or stags in spring—for a piece of territory, a haunch of meat, first choice of mate. And when the purpose has been accomplished, the hunger fed, then the fighting ceases. But the future breed of man, the sons of the dragon, shall depart from such innocent animal ways and attach their killing instincts to ideas of virtue. A simple but profound change will occur in the way people think; by a lethal twist, murder will be viewed as a solution for all problems—and quite legal, if done properly.”

“Imitating us again,” muttered Poseidon. “And in our most godlike activity. Intolerable.”

“May I continue?” asked Atropos. “Or ought I yield the floor to your moist majesty?”

“Your pardon, cousin. Pray continue.”

“Thus, impelled by such ideas,” said Atropos, “and having armed themselves with the primal fire, the nations of man will proceed to incinerate their enemies, that is, everyone else. But despite all their knowledge, they will not have learned the simplest lesson of fire—that it spreads—and so it will consume them as well.”

“Most encouraging,” said Zeus. “And all stemming from some future dragon, who will be a remarkable specimen, I presume?”

“Yes, indeed,” said the Hag, “to be called Abas the Abominable.”

“Aren't all dragons abominable?” asked Hades.

“This one more so,” said Atropos. “But hearken, Zeus. There is something you must do before the dragon can play its role.”

“Only you, dear cousin, may say ‘must' to me,” said Zeus.

“Be not wroth, my lord,” murmured Atropos. “All important events must bear your royal imprimature; how else could they become important? And in the intricate designs of Destiny one event is linked to another.”

“What must I do, my lady?”

“Something you will very much want to do—abduct the princess of Phoenicia, named Europa.”

“And all this dragonish activity, the spawning of an even more warlike breed of man, and the destruction of humanity shall be the result of my coupling with this Europa—is that what you're telling me, oh Sister of the Shears?”

“Yes, your majesty.”

“Is she beautiful?”

“Even the Fates, my lord, do not dare present you with an unattractive partner.”

This was closer to levity than Destiny's crone had ever come, and Zeus knew that mighty changes must indeed be afoot. He adjourned the council and sent for Hermes.

When the messenger god reported to his father, they discussed plans for abducting Europa without arousing the suspicions of Hera, who was Zeus's wife, and savagely jealous.

“In these matters,” said Zeus, “I have most successfully avoided detection through simple impersonations—as an eagle, a swan, a shower of gold, and so on …”

“What do you fancy this time?” asked Hermes.

“Well, according to Atropos, this will be a fateful abduction, heavy with consequence, so it would seem to call for something imposing.”

“Imposing? Well, how about a bull, a huge white one with golden horns and hooves, and eyes like pools of molten gold?”

“Sounds good,” said Zeus.

3

The Abduction of Europa

Prince Cadmus had wandered out of the royal garden and was walking along the edge of an orchard. He sat on a tree stump and let himself sink into the rustling silence. A bird called. He whistled. The bird replied. He saw something moving and chirped. A field mouse popped out of the grass near his feet, peering at him with bright beady eyes. Cadmus made a chittering sound; the mouse chittered back, and vanished.

“They whistle, they chirp,” he thought. “Bark, roar, growl, howl, hiss, and sing. It's all speech of a sort, and can be learned.”

A wind struck, rattling the leaves. It tore a piece of bark off a tree and sailed it toward Cadmus. It landed at his feet, and he picked it up. It was hard and wrinkled on one side, smooth on the other. He took a pointed twig and tried to draw on the smooth side of the bark. The marks were too faint to see. He drew his dagger and carefully pricked the ball of his thumb. It bled slightly. Dipping the point of the twig into the blood he started to make marks on the bark.

He drew an oval with two prongs coming out of it. “An ox,” he said to himself. The word for “ox” in early Phoenician was
aleph
. “Aaaahh-lef,” he muttered to himself. “The sign of the ox shall be the sound
ahhhh
, which should flash into memory every time this sign is seen. But there are so many sounds. Will I have to find a sign for each? Can I think of so many? And who will remember them if I do? Oh well.”

Cadmus then drew a box standing on its end, with a figure inside. “That's a house,
Bet
. By the sign of the house, one shall hear
b-b-b-b
. So I have two—Aleph, Bet … not much, but it's a start.”

Cadmus rose from the stump and wandered back through the royal gardens to the palace. The courtyard was in great tumult. But his mind was such a whirl of signs and sounds that he ignored the excitement and was passing through the crowd. His father's bellow shattered the air. “Ah, there he is, the little nitwit!” roared Agenor. “Dreaming his life away as the enemy comes ashore and steals his sister!”

“What, father? Who stole whom?” asked Cadmus.

The old man grew so red in the face that Cadmus thought he must burst like overripe fruit. The king clutched at his tunic and pulled it away from his neck so he could breathe. Cadmus had often enraged his father, but never like this. His brothers rushed to Agenor.

“Take him away!” gasped Agenor. “Take him off somewhere before I kill him. ‘Who stole whom?' … Aggh!”

“Someone please tell me what happened,” said Cadmus.

“Everybody knows but you,” replied Cyllix, the eldest brother. “While Europa and her maidens were playing on the beach, someone or something came out of the sea and carried her off.”

“What do you mean, ‘someone or something'?” cried Cadmus. “I don't understand.”

“Nobody does,” said Phoenix, the second brother. “Those silly girls tell a confused story. They speak of a bull coming out of the sea, a big white bull. They say that Europa jumped on its back. That it rushed into the sea and swam away.”

“Obviously, no bull,” said Cyllix. “It must have been one of those northern pirates who wear horns on their helmets. One of them must have slipped ashore and carried her off. And the girls were too frightened to tell the difference.”

“Very strange,” said Cadmus. “Shall I go question the girls? Perhaps you frightened them.”

“Yes, let him question the girls,” said his father. “What else is he good for? You two, gather your men and go search for your sister. Cyllix, sail westward with the fleet. Phoenix, take the army and march east. The abductors may have circled the headland and struck inland. And let this nincompoop stay here and question the girls and whistle at birds and chirp at field mice and chase his crazy dream of capturing speech in a tangle of magic marks—like a forester snaring birds with a net. Go, my brave sons, go. Pursue the abductor; save your sister.”

“Father,” said Cadmus.

“Get out of my sight!” muttered Agenor. “Oh, why couldn't someone have stolen you instead?”

4

The Lizard's Ambition