Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume Two (11 page)

“Good news!”

“About time,” said Hera. “What's happening?”

“Fortune, which favors the fortunate—namely us—has called poetry to our aid.”

“I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about.”

“As it happens, Hercules is on his way to Mount Helicon, where the Muses dwell. He's on one of his absurd missions of mercy—to rescue some oppressed bards. They're always whimpering about one thing or another, you know.”

“How does all this help us?”

“Listen carefully,” said Hecate. “We shall manage the weather and clamp a great heat on Helicon when he gets there. So he'll be very thirsty and drink deeply of the pure crystal waters of the Hippocrene Spring, which casts those who drink it into a gentle frenzy. They believe their own visions and grow drunk on the music of words. In short, the hero you loathe will be transformed into an apprentice poet. Bits of verse boiling within him will slacken his warrior fibre. His wits will be addled. He'll lose muscle tone, and his reflexes will falter, then vanish. So he should be easy prey for Ladon.”

“Don't speak to me of Ladon!” cried Hera. “I've told you he's useless now. He's slobbering over that redheaded slut. It's absolutely disgusting.”

“No, it's good.”

“Good? What can you possibly mean?”

“I mean,” said Hecate, “this unlikely love affair can play into our hands also. I have thought the matter through, O Hera—forward and backward—and I have a further idea, one that will bind things together so that we may solve all our problems at once.”

“Sounds like fantasy,” said Hera. “But please tell me. I need something to lift my spirits.”

“We'll get word to Iole that Hercules is on Helicon. She'll hurry there, and Ladon will follow, for he can't bear to let her out of his sight. When she sees Hercules she'll rush into his arms, of course, and this—mark my words now—this will make the serpent madly jealous. He'll forget all that vegetable nonsense and attack Hercules, who, weakened by poetics, will be unable to defend himself.”

“Sounds all right,” said Hera glumly, “but a lot of things do till you start doing them.”

“You'll feel better when we go into action,” said Hecate.

“Where shall we start?”

“The first thing is to get word to the wench about Hercules' whereabouts. She's at sea, probably, with her snake. Your brother, Poseidon, can help us here. He has shoals of gabby Nereids who can spread the news.”

“I'll send him a message immediately,” said Hera.

She did. Poseidon spoke to his Nereids, who fanned out, jabbering to each other. Now gossip spreads even faster underwater than on land. And before long, Iole, who often dived off Ladon's head to frolic with sea nymphs, learned that Hercules was visiting Mount Helicon.

11

The Raid

A waking from the night-vision sent by Hypnos, Hercules knew that a mountainful of poets was in dreadful peril. He didn't quite understand the nature of the threat, but knew that he was being called on to help. Whereupon he set off for Helicon, beginning a journey that was to cover more distance than he thought.

But the Amazons were already on their way, riding swift horses, while Hercules went on foot. So the warrior women reached the mountain before he did. They climbed until they reached a grassy plain cut by a stream. Here, Hippolyte called a halt.

“Hearken, sisters,” she called. “Dismount and let the horses drink; then proceed on foot. Fan out and comb the slopes. Those you hunt are on their home ground and know every hiding place. They'll dive into holes, wedge themselves in hollow trees, and burrow into caves. But I want them taken, every last one.”

“Do we kill them on the spot?” called one girl, unfurling a whip. “Or can we have some fun first?”

“Neither,” cried Hippolyte. “This will be our collection point. I want them all brought right here so we can sort them out. There may be a few we'll want to take home. The others you can do with as you wish before finishing them off. But I want them all here first, cleaned up and ready for sorting. The Second Squad will be the scrubbing detail. Take 'em downstream for their bath, and scrub hard; they're a filthy lot, I hear. Better burn their clothes too, or we'll catch fleas. That's it, ladies. Good hunting!”

Yelling and laughing, the girls ran up the slope. Each bore bow and quiver as well as a length of rope, or a net. Long-legged and effortlessly fierce as storks hunting frogs, they fanned out in a skirmish line as they raced up the mountain.

The stream purling swiftly downhill formed a natural pool at the end of the meadow. Here was where the captives were to be bathed. While waiting for the first men to be brought in, the girls of the scrub detail flung off their tunics and dived into the pool. Singing and laughing, they cavorted in the cool water; they were sleek and powerful as dolphins.

Nycippe was stalking through an oak grove. Somewhere in the wood men were screaming, which meant they were being captured. But she hadn't caught anyone yet, and itched for action. She felt a sudden craving for something sweet, and began to search for honeycombs. She found a hollow tree and reached in—and touched something alive. It moved. She closed her hand on what seemed like an animal's pelt. Bracing her legs, she pulled a little man out by the beard. He made no sound, but looked at her out of big black eyes. She hoisted him over her shoulder and trotted downhill.

Her companions were streaming downhill, too. Each had caught at least one man. They carried them over their shoulders or tucked under their arms, or upside down, dangling by the ankles. One group of girls who had caught two men each had tied their nets together, stuffed their whole catch in, and were dragging the net downhill. The men struggled like herrings, trying to get to the center of the net bag because the outside ones were being bruised as they bumped over rocks.

Nycippe took her man to the pool and was about to throw him to the scrub girls, but suddenly decided to bathe him herself. She carried him into the pool, and after ducking him a few times and swishing him back and forth in the water, she pulled him out and stretched him on a flat rock. She had taken sand from the bottom and now began to scour him. The dirt came off, but she kept scrubbing. A fierce curiosity had seized her; she felt she was unpeeling him to discover what was within. She scrubbed harder and harder, then saw that his skin was actually peeling off. He was in pain, she knew, but he made no outcry—although the other men in the pool were weeping and screaming as the girls worked on them.

“What am I doing wrong?” called Nycippe.

“You want to mix oil with the sand before scouring,” said a scrub girl.

“No use bothering with that one anymore,” said another. “Look at the poor thing. You might as well drown him.”

Nycippe was rambunctious, but not really cruel. Now, she didn't recognize her feelings. She turned the little man in her hands to see how she had misused him. He looked like a half-flayed rabbit. He was a rabbit, and she felt herself turning into a leopard to rummage his bones. She saw the others looking at her, and knew they expected her to drown him.

She pretended to be pushing him under the water, but hid his face under her hand so that he could breathe. When the others were too busy to notice, she bore him to the shore and scooped some moss over him. He didn't say anything but his black eyes questioned her.

“You're not much to look at, but you've got guts,” she whispered. “Maybe I can whip you into shape. Stay right here until I come back.”

Now, Thyone had not let herself be lulled into carelessness while living happily with Malo. She had always suspected that the Amazons might come after their lost sister, and she had prepared against invasion. High up, near the mountain peak, she had arranged huge, round boulders, balancing them so that a slight shove would send them thundering down to crush anyone who might be climbing the slope.

Now, when the first sounds of the manhunt reached her cave, she snatched Malo up, set him on her shoulders, and raced toward the peak, letting him off only when they had reached the circle of rocks. She said, “I know you want to go down there and help your friends, my brave darling, but I won't let you.”

“You won't?”

“Absolutely not. You'd never come back. One of the sisters will take you to Scythia and peel you like an onion to see where the song comes from.”

Now, Malo's courage was confined to daring metaphors. The last thing he wanted to do was go down and fight. But he had always encouraged her to overestimate him. He heaved a deep sigh and said, “Very well, I'll stay up here—but only to please you.”

“Oh, thank you, sweetheart.”

In the pure hush of the mountaintop they heard faint screams drifting up from below. “Listen to them,” said Malo. “They're having an awful time. I really should—”

She swung him off his feet and hugged him tightly to her. “You can't go! You promised! Anyway, you told me you write better about battles you haven't been to. Didn't you tell me that? Didn't you?”

“True, true,” he murmured. “I shall want to write about this one, and had better not confuse myself with facts. Put me down now; you're breaking my ribs.”

12

The Hippocrene Spring

The Amazons, coming from Scythia, had ridden up the northern slope of the mountain. Hercules, coming from Thebes, was mounting its steeper southern slope, and was unaware of what the warrior women were doing on the other side.

He climbed steadily, and it was hot work. Hera had bribed Apollo to swing his sun chariot low that day, and the land lay sweltering. Nor was it much cooler on the mountain. Hercules was parched. He had to drink, and soon. Nostrils quivering, he snuffed the wind like a horse and tried to pick up the scent of water. A faint, cool odor did drift to him. He strained his ears and heard a distant splashing. He turned off the path and made his way over rough ground to a natural cupping of rock. Here, from deep in the mountain, a spring spurted with such force that it made a plumed fountain. Flowers grew there, wild roses and iris and hyacinth, and the one known as heliotrope because it always turns to face the sun.

Hercules knelt and plunged his face in. It was the most delicious water he had ever drunk, ice cold, sparkling, tasting faintly of mint; it was like drinking some pure essence of earth. He had no way of knowing that this was the Hippocrene Spring, whose coolness touched those who drank it with the incurable fever called poetry.

Hercules pulled his dripping face from the spring and gazed about in wonder. Everything had changed. Colors pulsed. Things presented themselves, insisting that he see them—a cypress, a berry bush, a soaring eagle, a goat far off. They uttered their names, and he heard them as if for the first time. This became a dance of names, seeming not only sound but colored music. The eagle he was watching became a white stallion balanced on golden wings, proclaiming the reliability of magic and the necessity for transformation—which poets know.

Hercules had drunk of the Hippocrene Spring and was becoming a poet. But he was unused to words and felt himself choking on a song unsung.

The fountain mist was making dim, gauzy rainbows, and Hercules couldn't quite see what had come to the other side of the spring. It was huge, a looming brightness. He stepped to one side and looked past the plume of water. He saw a stag, larger than any he had ever seen, and of a blinding whiteness. Its hooves were silver; its antlers were a candelabra of silver fire.

“A moon stag!” he said to himself. “Wandered away from the chariot. Artemis must be searching for him high and low. I shall catch it and bring it to her.”

It was not a stag belonging to Artemis, although of the same breed, and it had always run free. But beginners in poetry are apt to prate wildly about the moon.

“Yes,” thought Hercules. “Surely he is one of the team that draws the moon chariot across the night. And Artemis, maiden huntress, who swings the tides on a silver leash and hangs a torch for lovers, will thank me when I return this stag to her.”

He thought these things, but could not say them. He didn't yet know how. In that big, superbly wrought body, poetry bypassed words and became action. And he began to chase the stag as it bounded away. The stag fled, became a white blur going up the hill. Hercules watched it race to the top, then bound over, to go down the other side.

“Terrific sprinter,” thought Hercules. “We'll see how well he goes the distance.”

But Hippocrene fever was coursing through his veins. He half forgot about the stag even while following it.

Some miles off Attica, a wedge-shaped head split the water. It was the serpent, Ladon, swimming toward the coast. Iole rode his head, her red hair snapping like a pennant behind her in the wind of their going.

Informed by the sea nymphs that Hercules was on Helicon, she had asked Ladon to take her there, without telling him why.

Ladon crawled ashore and began to undulate across Attica. His body moved by contraction like a giant worm, and he moved very fast. He was heading northward through the Peloponnese, then would angle northeast toward Thessaly, where Mount Helicon stood.

Hercules ambled down the slope toward the encampment. Tall, suavely muscled young women milled about. Some were grooming horses. Some were in a pool, scrubbing little men who spluttered and wept. Others were sharpening swords against flat rocks. One group was playing with ropes, making their captives run and lassoing them as they ran. A pair of frolicsome twins, aglow with the excitement of their first raid, had tied their men to trees and were giving them a taste of the lash … not hitting hard—it was just an introductory flogging—the girls chatted and laughed as they swung their whips. Four Amazons were practicing archery with a human target. He was spread-eagled against the bole of a thick tree, and the women were shooting in turn. The idea was to come as close as possible without hitting him. And the archers were so expert that arrows outlined his body but none had touched him.