Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume Two (28 page)

“Where shall I meet you?” said Rhoecus. Palaemona could hear the hunger in his voice.

“I'll send you a messenger who will tell you when and where. You will know by noon. But do not fail me.”

“Send your messenger. I'll be there.”

The dryad kissed him again, glided back to her tree, and vanished.

The next morning, instead of going to the hut, Palaemona went to the oak tree, for she was eaten up by curiosity about the dryad. She wanted to suspect her of treachery, wanted to think she had been lying to Rhoecus and would send no messenger. But, if she did send a messenger, then Palaemona very much wanted to know whom she would send.

Where the woodsman had fallen was a heap of scoured bones. He had been picked clean as the dryad had promised. Humming a wordless tune, the tree nymph wandered over to the bones and kicked them into a neat pile, then kicked leaves over them. Her humming became a buzzing, as Palaemona heard her call, “Come … come … come …”

A fat bee flew to her, poising at face level, wings whirring—so black it looked purple. “I am here,” it buzzed. “What is your bidding?”

“I need a messenger to fly to my love, so I have called you, O honey maker. For who flies as swiftly as you? Fly then to Rhoecus—to the lad, Rhoecus, the sweet one, the brave one, and tell him to meet me at Cleft Rock three hours past noon.”

“Rhoecus. Cleft Rock. Three hours past noon.”

“Find him! Tell him! Fly … fly!”

The bee circled her head twice, then streaked off. As it shot past Palaemona's head, the girl heard it buzzing to itself, “Hive robber, beware.”

“She shouldn't have sent a bee,” thought Palaemona. “They hate Rhoecus.”

And she flashed away, not to the hut, but to where she knew Rhoecus would be at this hour—swimming at the bend of the river where it ran deep. He was there, splashing, caroling to himself, diving, scrubbing himself with sand. Hidden behind a tree, she kept listening for the hum of the bee but heard nothing. Rhoecus had clad himself again and was sitting on the bank throwing pebbles into the water, watching the circles widen. He did not wear his keen hunter's look; his lips were parted and his eyes dreaming. He arose and looked about, picked up a twig and snapped it, threw the pieces away. He patted together a wall of mud, then stamped it into the ground.

Suddenly, he began running. She followed him. He ran through the wood to his hut and burst in. “Mother! Mother!” he cried. “Has a messenger come?”

“Messenger?” she mumbled. “Have you brought me any honey? I haven't eaten since breakfast. I crave something sweet.”

“Did anyone come for me, Mother? Did anyone come to tell me anything?”

“Who comes here, my son? No one. Why should they? We don't want anyone. Go fetch me a honeycomb.”

He whirled and dashed out.

Palaemona was buffeted by different feelings. She was glad he was not meeting the dryad, but was sad because he was sad. And as she watched him waiting for the message that did not come, she pitied him more and more. “Shall I tell him myself?” she thought. “Appear before him and tell him where to meet her? He'll be so happy to hear from her he won't even notice me. Yes, I'll tell him.”

But she could not bring herself to do it. A magic circle had been drawn about the lovers, and she was forever outside. She must be forever invisible to him. She could not break that circle. She glanced at the sun. “Almost three hours past noon,” she said to herself. “I can't tell him, but I'll go to Cleft Rock and tell her that the bad bee never delivered her message. Then she can find him herself. They shall be happy together, and I'll go to another part of the forest.”

She left Rhoecus then and ran as fast as she could to Cleft Rock. When she got there, she found the dryad standing very still, her face pale and hard as she listened to the bee who was circling her head.

“I found Rhoecus,” said the bee. “I found him as you bade me and told him to meet you here at three hours past noon. But he brushed me away, crying, ‘Let her wait then, the fool, for I will never come. I love none but my mother, and never shall.'”

“You lie,” whispered the dryad. “He loves me. He killed my enemy and saved my life. He kissed me sweet as apples. Evil little wretch, why do you lie?”

“Lady of the Oak, I do not lie. I tell only the truth, I swear it. If you do not believe he spurns your love, then wait here and see if he comes.”

The bee flew away. “I'll tell her now,” thought Palaemona, and was about to go to the rock when the dryad suddenly shrieked. She stamped and moaned and moaned, and tore her hair. Her face had turned green, almost the color of her dress.

“It did not lie,” she cried. “If he loved me he would be here. Lovers hasten to their first tryst. No—he brushed off my messenger and laughed at my love. Well, the next bee that comes to him he shall not ignore.”

As Palaemona watched in horror, the dryad raised her arms toward the sky, whirled faster and faster until she was a blur of green. The green darkened. Her long form rose, pulling in on itself, rolling itself into a different shape. And there hung a bee, an enormous one, greenish black, big as a hawk. Glistening from its tail was a great naked sting, the size of a spur, needle sharp.

“Death … death … death,” hummed the enormous bee, and flew away so fast it seemed to vanish.

Palaemona started to race toward the hut, then stopped. “No, he won't be there. He'll be searching for her, poor lad. He'll be at the oak tree waiting for her. She's going to the hut for him. I'll get to the oak first and warn him.”

She raced toward the oak tree. Though she had run far that day, now she ran faster than she had ever run before. But it was a long way, and the sun was sinking as she reached the oak. Sure enough, there was the lad waiting.

“Rhoecus!” she called. “Rhoecus!”

She saw his face grow radiant, and thought, “He thinks it's her calling. That's why he's smiling.”

Then she saw his smile disappear, saw him spring to his feet. Heard a loud vicious humming. The huge bee flew straight at him. He tried to cover his face with his hands, but the bee plunged its terrible shining sting into the boy's chest. When his arms fell to cover his chest, the bee tilted, stabbing his neck again and again, as the humming grew louder and louder and mingled with the boy's screams.

Before she knew what she was doing, Palaemona found herself there, beating at the bee with a stick. She saw the ghastly, many-faced glitter of the bee's magnified eyes—and felt something stab her forearm. Icy coldness spread through her. Darkness swarmed.

She fell beside the boy. With her last strength she pulled her arm to her mouth and tried to suck out the poison. She sucked and spat, sucked and spat, feeling herself go under. She saw a bloated hairy blackness clinging to a branch above the boy's head. Dreamily Palaemona heard it sob with the dryad's voice. And in the last glimmer of her sense, saw it curl up and plunge the sting into its own body again and again and again.

The green body of the dryad fell on the other side of Rhoecus. Palaemona saw it fall as she sank into total darkness.

4

The Haunted Healer

Only where the moon trembled in the river was the black skiff briefly visible. It was going too fast to be drifting in that slow current, yet it bore no sail, no oars dipped. Was someone in it? It passed too quickly to tell. And when it rounded the bend past the drowned moon, it was engulfed in darkness.

But someone did ride that skiff, one who did not wish to be seen. He sat in the stern wrapped in a black cloak, face pulled into its hood, hands tucked under its skirt, so that no glimmer of him could be seen. The occasional hissing word he spoke could scarcely be distinguished from the wind among the reeds. It was serpent talk he spoke, a serpent he was speaking to. The great snake's tail was hooked into a ring bolted into the bow, the entire thirty-foot length of it lay awash as it pulled the skiff down the river. Frogs hopped frantically onto shore, fish dived, birds grew still as the serpent rippled by. The only sound the man heard was a buzzing of two bees sipping willow blossoms.

A tiny sound, but it made the man hiss something to the snake, who stopped swimming and moved its tail so that the skiff floated under the overhanging willow. The man listened intently to what the bees were saying, then hissed again. The serpent glided to shore, beaching the boat. The man climbed out and began to hurry through the trees, the serpent slithering alongside. But the man could not go fast; he limped. He spoke again to the snake, who immediately flowed up a tree, then swung down from a branch, and the man climbed him like a rope. He rode the serpent then as the strand of living muscle thrust itself from tree to tree in a smooth rush, going so swiftly that the man had to put his arms over his face to ward off the whipping branches.

They came to a clearing in the forest. There stood a huge oak. Under it lay three bodies. The man hissed. The snake wrapped itself about a limb and let itself hang to the ground, and the man slid down.

Palaemona felt herself being pulled up through fathoms of darkness. It was if someone had noosed her while she was swimming underwater and was pulling her up before she was ready. She arched her body, trying to curve downward into a dive again, trying to plunge back into that icy nullity.

“Convulsion,” she heard someone mutter.

She felt hands upon her, firm hands swimming over her body, spreading an oily warmth. Mercilessly, light and heat invaded her, piercing her to the marrow, dragging her up into the agony of consciousness. She opened her eyes. A face floated above her. White hair, white beard, burning black eyes. A serpent's head dipped in next to the man's head and poised there looking down at her. She tried to greet him but couldn't make her voice work.

The man's wrinkles kindled; he smiled, snag-toothed. She saw him lift a vial and pour a little oil into the cup of his hand. His hands came down on her again. They were very gentle, hard behind the softness, moving with great authority upon her belly, her legs, her shoulders, her chest. She felt the soles of her feet being massaged, and each arm slowly along its whole length, wrist and knuckle and palm. Fingers forked her nose, moving down over cheekbones, over lips and chin. And where the hands moved they dragged sleep behind them. She slid into a different darkness.

When she awoke again, the light had changed. It had been torchlight before, flickering and ruddy; now there was a pale seepage from one side, and against it, the man's head, black as a cutout. She was in a cave, she saw. She lay on a pile of rushes; he was sitting at the mouth of the cave, chin on chest, asleep. The serpent was gone.

She lay there, breathing easily, smelling the damp mustiness of the cave and the sweet odor of freshly cut rushes. There was a heaviness on her arm. She turned her head to look at it. The arm was bandaged. She lifted it, flexed it; there was a soreness. She sat up, trying to make no noise. She stared at the sleeping man, impatient of the faulty light because all she could see was his hair and beard.

Something flickered behind his head. The flicker became a swarm. A foul stench filled the cave. They were
bats.
They had leathery wings. Not bats. They had brass claws and tiny hag faces. She screamed. They screamed. The man was on his feet. He scooped up two rocks and clapped them together, catching one of the things between; it fell to the ground but was not crushed. It scuttled out, trailing one wing. They circled his head, diving at him, trying to gouge his face with their brass claws. He clapped his rocks furiously. They screamed in chorus and flew away. He hurled the rocks after them.

He turned to her. “Come,” he said. “It stinks in here.”

He left the cave and she followed. She could not believe that so deep a voice had come out of this small, emaciated, limping man. He sat cross-legged twirling a fire stick into a log. A spark winked; he blew on it gently, fed it twigs. It fattened into flame. He dipped into his pouch and pinched out some dust, which he dropped onto the fire. A fragrance arose. He waved his hand, sending the smoke into the mouth of the cave.

“That will drive out the stench,” he said.

“What were they?” she said. “What were those things?”

“Empusae.”

“What's that?”

“They are the small demons who attend Hecate, Queen of the Harpies, as she goes her rounds in Tartarus tormenting the shades. These scurvy creatures have one donkey's hoof each, and one brass hoof. Their hands are claws; they have leather wings. Sometimes they are sent up here on special errands.”

“What kind of errands?”

“The kind you saw. They are sent to torment me, in the first place; also to report what I am doing.”

“Why? Why should anyone want to torment you?”

“They serve Hecate. Hecate serves Hades, King of the Dead. And Hades hates me.”

The serpent thrust swiftly between them. He cast a single loop about Palaemona's shoulders, put his hard head against her cheek, then whisked away and coiled between them, rising out of his coils until his head was level with the man's. “Did they come again?” the snake asked.

“They did,” said the man.

“So much for black cloaks and night marches. It's no good; they find you wherever they go. You simply must not go anywhere.”

“Do I have a choice?” said the man.

“Choice? You? Are you not the great spokesman for choice, even among the helpless? Are you not he who preaches that illness itself is a matter of choice?”

“Sometimes I regret having taught you logic,” said the man.

“I wish I could teach you the essence of serpent lore, which is self-preservation.”

“Why does Hades hate you?” said Palaemona.

“My eloquent friend will tell you,” said the man. “Stand up, please.”

The man knelt as she stood and put his ear to her chest, listened, then moved it to another place. She stared at the white head under her eyes; she could see the pink skull underneath and smell its piney smell. She clung to the snake's hissing voice.