Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume One (63 page)

“Our shipments are dwindling daily,” he said. “Do you know why?”

“Fewer people are dying, my lord.”

“That much I am able to deduce for myself. The question is, Why aren't they dying as adequately as before? Do you have any ideas, or are you waiting for me to have one?”

“As you know, my Master, the Orpheus affair has taken me to earth frequently. And word has reached me of a certain doctor up there who is performing miraculous cures.”

“Who is this quack?”

“His name is Asclepius … a son of Apollo, they say.”

“Is he?”

“Who knows,” said Hecate. “These days, every village wife who bears a good-looking child is rumored to have entertained a god. And, since the rumor is flattering, she doesn't deny it.”

“Well, it makes a difference,” said Hades. “If he is Apollo's son he'll be harder to get rid of. I'll do what I have to do, but I'd rather not start any family feuds.”

“I was about to suggest, your Majesty, that my Harpies may be useful in this matter. If we set a night and day guard upon Asclepius and assign a Harpy to accompany him on each house call, why then she can hover invisibly over the bedside, and as the doctor tries to fan the spark of life, our Harpy, still invisible, can reach out and snuff it. Asclepius will just think he has lost the contest, as sometimes he must, and proceed to the next patient, where the same thing will happen. And again, and again, until even he grows discouraged.”

“Sounds good,” said Hades. “Send out your hags.”

N
ow, of late, Asclepius had been aided in his labors by a wonderfully beautiful and gentle girl, named Telesphora. She adored the doctor but knew she wouldn't be able to do anything about it until he was less busy. Whereupon, she was able to turn her love into healing energy, and to develop a unique skill. She learned to drain herself of strength each day and lend that strength to patients to carry them through the night—always the most dangerous time for those very ill. And, each morning, her strength renewed itself, and she was ready for that day's task.

She accompanied Asclepius everywhere. Her strong hands became magically gentle when they touched a sufferer's body; a vital force flowed through her fingers and into the sick body. And, despite the Harpies, who were now hanging over each bedside, trying to push the dying one over the brink, despite these invisible hags, Asclepius and his beautiful nurse were saving more lives than ever.

Hades grew so angry that he threatened to demote Hecate and put a vicious crone, Podarge, in charge of the Harpies.

“Give me one more chance, O master,” pleaded Hecate. “I'll go up there myself, and if I can't do something to mend matters, why, you won't have to demote me. I'll simply vanish from your sight forever.”

The whip coiled at Hecate's belt had a lash that was the tail of a stingray. Wielded by the Harpy Queen, it could scourge the flesh from the bones of anyone she flogged. But she rarely used it. Her claws and teeth were weapons enough; her long sleek body had the fluid brutality of a saber-toothed tiger. Rarely did she meet any difficulty in killing or capturing or punishing anyone she wished.

I
t puzzled her mightily now that she seemed unable to kill Telesphora.

For she was trying to kill the girl who was so skillfully aiding Asclepius. Even with the young woman's help, the great doctor was working himself to exhaustion, and Hecate knew that if she could deprive him of Telesphora, he would not be able to save so many people.

When the Harpy Queen had told Hades what she meant to do, he issued certain instructions. “Yes, kill her,” he said. “But it must seem like an accident. You mustn't attack her in your own form because everyone knows you work for me. And Asclepius will complain to his father, Apollo, who will complain to Zeus, causing endless trouble.”

“I'll be careful,” Hecate had promised. “She'll soon meet with a fatal but natural-looking accident.”

But this proved easier to promise than to perform.

Hecate studied her quarry carefully before determining what accident should take place. The girl went out on the river frequently to gather a certain watercress that Asclepius made into a poultice for cuts and bruises. So death by drowning seemed a good idea.

After further observation, however, Hecate changed her mind about drowning the girl. “It won't work,” she thought. “She swims like a naiad, damn her. I'll have to try some other way.”

The next day, Telesphora climbed a cliff to hunt for a moss that grew in high places. Hecate followed her. She hovered invisibly as the girl wandered near the edge of the cliff. Then she dropped out of the sky, hitting Telesphora with all her weight, knocking the girl off the ledge. And was amazed to see her turn while falling and dive cleanly into the water—then bob up and swim toward shore as if she had gone off a low rock instead of a high cliff.

But Hecate was hard to discourage. Being thwarted made her angry; rage sharpened her purpose. “To be crushed by falling rock would seem a natural fatality for a mountain-climbing lass,” she said to herself.

She waited until Telesphora was climbing another slope. Then, scooping up a boulder, Hecate sprang into the air, and hung invisibly above the girl. She dipped so low she couldn't miss, and dropped the boulder. As Hecate watched, the rock plunged through the shining air, then amazed her by skidding away from the neatly braided head as if glancing off an invisible helmet. The heavy rock crashed to the ground near Telesphora, who looked up, startled—and, seeing nothing, continued on her way.

Hecate was scorched by rage, and knew that only blood could cool her. She trembled with pent fury, wanting to swoop down on the girl and dig her talons into that glowing body. But she remembered Hades' instructions, and managed to control herself.

“Eurydice was lucky too until her luck ran out,” gritted Hecate. “I'll get this smug bitch if it's the last thing I do.… I know! I'll send the same snake that stung Eurydice to death. In fact, I'll send two.”

She uttered the snake call, a thin hissing sound. A pair of grass-green vipers whipped out of a hole and slithered toward Telesphora, so swiftly that they were upon her before she knew they were there.

Hecate watched, gloatingly. These were earth's most poisonous snakes. Once they sank their hollow teeth into the girl and injected her with their venom, she would stiffen before she could scream, die before hitting the ground.

Hecate heard the girl laugh. Saw her stretch out her bare arms. The snakes were climbing and twining about her. Her rosy, laughing face was flanked by two wedge-shaped heads that wove about her, tongues flicking, as if whispering into her ear. She looked like a living caduceus—the serpent-entwined staff of healing carried by Asclepius.

The girl, wound about with snakes, was twirling on her toes, singing. Finally, she plucked them off, playfully braiding them about each other, and flung them away. They untwined themselves and whisked back into their holes.

Hecate knew she would have to do something with her rage or find herself defying Hades' direct order—falling upon the girl and ripping her to pieces where she stood.

Hecate flew off the hill and into the forest. She searched until she found a bear, which she immediately attacked. Locked in a deadly embrace, they rolled over and over, wrestling, biting, gouging. When the Harpy rose to her feet the bear was a heap of bloody fur.

She dived into the river and cleansed herself of blood. Letting herself dry in the hot sun, she grew calm enough to resume her task.

“This is ridiculous,” she thought. “I'm being less than I can be. What good are my diabolical wits, honed in the very fires of hell, if I act like a stupid human, befuddled by failure, reacting instead of thinking? I've been on the wrong course with this girl. I see now that she cannot be harmed in any ordinary way, because he whom she serves, Asclepius, son of Apollo, has invoked his father's aid and cloaked her with an immunity. Which means that I shall have to attack her as if she were not quite mortal, but one of those superhuman creatures, hero or monster, who can only be defeated by turning its own strength against itself.”

“And what good is Telesphora's special strength, her unique attribute? Why does Asclepius value her so? It is because she has the ability to lend a dying person her own energy, keeping the patient alive, and then somehow being able to renew that energy in herself. I can use this! I can destroy her through her own virtue. I know just how to do it.”

Whereupon, Hecate scrolled her wings so that they hung about her like a shabby cloak. She stooped, making herself dwindle, making her skin parch. She retracted her claws and pouched her eyes, dulling their yellow fire—and wrapped the stingray lash of her whip about its stock so that it became just a cane used by a crone.

Transformed into a feeble old woman, the Harpy Queen hobbled off to the hospital Asclepius had built upon the riverbank. There she pretended to collapse. She fell on the grass, and waited for someone to come.

T
elesphora bent over the old woman who had been found in the garden. The girl had laid her on a pallet in one of the huts made of woven branches. Sequins of light slid across the ceiling, for one side of the hut was a wide door opening onto the sunlit river. The girl studied the old woman—the strange ashen face, the yolky eyes and shriveled shoulders. She seemed neither awake nor asleep, had not spoken, nor even moaned. Asclepius was away and would not return until the next day. The girl did not know whether the old woman would last, nor could she tell what was ailing her. For all her seeming weakness, her pulse was oddly strong. And yet … Asclepius had taught the girl that no two people were exactly alike, and that illness was always more than its symptoms.

One thing she did know. She would get no sleep that night. She would have to sit up with the old woman and be prepared to keep her alive by a transfer of energy.

Now, through eyes that seemed shut, Hecate was studying the girl who was studying her. The Harpy screwed her eyes tight so that no gleam of joy might show. For her plan was working, and soon, soon, Telesphora would deliver herself into the hands of her enemy.

Hours later, in that coldest, clammiest grip of night, just before dawn, Telesphora found herself shuddering with a dread she had never felt before. All night long she had sat beside the bed, letting her strength drain into the body of her patient. She was accustomed to this; this was her talent, her unique virtue, but it had never been quite like this before. The old carcass seemed to be soaking up strength like a sponge, claiming every last particle of energy. And the girl needed to save one drop of vitality so that she might renew herself in the morning.

Telesphora heard a rustling—a different kind of breathing. She tried to stand up. Too late! She felt a pair of claws fasten on her throat. Her eyes widened in horror as she saw the hag sitting up in bed. The limp cloak had become wings, spread like a falcon's, and the eyes, the pouched old eyes were pools of yellow fire.

These blazing eyes were the last sight the girl saw; the last sound she heard was a screech of triumph as the Harpy finished strangling her.

9

The Singing Head

Telesphora slipped out of the vaporous file of shades that were being led toward Hades' judgment seat. She watched them vanish into the mist, then struck off in a different direction across a great hushed plain. She groped through the thick mist, which was not quite fog but a brownish murk, smelling of sulphur.

She kicked something that cried out in pain. She bent to see. It was a head standing on a stump of neck. It was not a skull. Parchment skin stuck to whittled bones. The pale face was framed by a fall of thick, shining white hair. Eyes and mouth were holes, but the eyeholes streamed light, and the voice that issued from the mouth hole was pure radiant power—like sunlight made into sound. Telesphora felt herself fill with a rapture she had never expected to feel again.

“Who are you?” she cried, “whose voice is of such wondrous beauty?”

“I am Orpheus,” said the head. “Or, rather, what is left of him.”

“Orpheus? And do I hear your voice? Truly, hell has its privileges.”

“But who are you?” said the head. “
What
are you? Are you sure you're quite dead?”

“Why do you doubt it?”

“You give off a strange glow—like phosphorus on the night tide. You shed a fragrant warmth that ghosts do not.”

“They think I'm dead,” said Telesphora. “They tried their best to make me so. But it's your story I want to hear, minstrel. How did you get to be the way you are? Where's the rest of you?”

“Well, I'll tell you my tale, and you'll tell me yours.”

“Oh, yes! Yes!” cried Telesphora.

“One moonlit night,” said the head, “I was singing to a party of young women, revelers, you know, who followed Dionysius as he trod the Thracian slopes, fattening the vines. I was singing to them, and they were dancing, when Artemis, acting for the Council of the Gods, poisoned her moon rays, sending the women mad. They fell on me and tore me to pieces. They didn't realize how they were being used, poor creatures; they thought they were applauding my performance. And one of them, a very young one, ran off with my head; she intended to keep it among her dolls. But she was struck by lightning, and my head was taken to this place—and here I've been ever since.”

“But why?” whispered Telesphora. “Why were the gods so cruel to you?”

“I had offended them,” said the head. “My gifts were my undoing. I was born to sing, and I sang tales of the gods and goddesses, their deeds, their passions, their pets, their victims. My songs pleased men and women and children—oh, they pleased the children—but the gods were not pleased.”

“Why not? Why not?”

“My praise was not absolute, you see. I told their cruelty as I celebrated their power. I sang triumphs and crimes. For truth to me is always in motion, aquiver with opposing elements, like everything alive. And the truth I sang was a celebration of total nature, which contains both good and evil. I believed that this huge, rich pageant, human and divine, was a metaphor for something above and beyond, or, perhaps, below and beyond our comprehension—all-embracing, mysteriously inclusive, sublimely total. Unknowable, perhaps, but
not
immune to questions. Thus my song. Thus I offended the gods who like their hosannas loud and simple.”