Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume Two (49 page)

They had sailed to certain southern lands where the customs were different from those they had known. Trees were shaped like parasols, their fruit brown, and hairy, and as heavy as rocks. The people of this land thought that cats and monkeys were gods who had warred with more powerful gods and been shrunken into bestial shapes. But they were gods, nevertheless, and had to be worshiped.

By the time the tale was told the sailors were falling asleep. The nymphs watched them doze, and conversed in urgent whispers.

“Circe will find out,” said Ligiea, “and send her servants to hunt them down. She'll go into a fit of fury when she realizes we've been hiding them. And you know what happens to anyone she takes a dislike to. She'll change these men into little animals and feed them to something big.”

“What shall we do?” asked Teles.

“Look at them; they're fast asleep now. So tired, poor darlings. Circe must be asleep too. We'll take them back to the palace, right to the witching room, and do a little magic ourselves. We'll be the ones who transform them. Then they'll be able to hide themselves among the other animals. And, one day, when we find a way to get rid of the wicked Circe, we'll change the poor dear creatures back into themselves, and swim away with them.”

“I suppose it's the only thing we can do,” said Teles. “But it's almost dawn, so let's do it.”

Tenderly, they lifted the sleeping lads from the rock, and carried them toward the palace.

All was still. Everyone was asleep. Even the dogs had stopped howling. They crossed the courtyard past the huge shadowy shapes of the animals. Earlier, a hundred eyes would have been burning holes in the darkness, but now the eyes were shuttered as the beasts twitched and moaned, clawing at the walls of a changeling dream.

Had the nymphs looked higher, however, up into the top branches of a cedar, they would have seen one pair of blazing eyes. They belonged to the owl—Athena's own special bird, which she had given to Circe as a sleepless sentinel. The owl watched the sea nymphs carrying the boys through the courtyard and toward the palace gate. She spread her great wings and slid silently into the air. By a cruel twist of fate, the sisters did not notice the owl, and had no way of realizing that they had been observed by Circe's spy-bird.

The nymphs entered the dark palace and made their way to the witching room. They stretched the boys on slabs of stone and began muttering the spells that Proteus had taught them. Remembering the tale they had been told, they changed Procles into a monkey, and Pero into a cat.

The monkey perched on Ligiea's shoulder. Teles had drawn the tomcat into her lap, and was stroking him when a horrid scream split the air, and Circe appeared before them. She was pointing a wand at them; it trembled in her hand. Her voice was so choked with rage that she could hardly utter her spell, but she managed to mumble:

Hobble, gobble,

I tell you that

with these words

You shall be birds,

and feed the cat!

Indeed, she did intend to change the sisters into birds and feed them to the cat. But in her fury, she mishandled the powerful spell and made the mistake of beginning the transformation by giving the sisters wings. The quick-witted nereids immediately spread their new wings, flew straight at Circe, knocking her to the floor, then flew out of the room, out of the palace, off the island, and out to sea.

3

The Sirens Sing

Between the small island where Circe dwelt and the enormous island which is today known as Sicily, lay a hidden reef that could tear the bottom out of any ship that tried to sail over it. But the reef was easy to avoid because two tall flat-topped rocks stood to the northeast of it. They were a distinctive formation that could be seen for miles; when they came into view, a helmsman would simply steer to the north or to the south of the reef.

It was upon these rocks that Teles and Ligiea landed after escaping from the Isle of Sobs. They were drunk with flight, happy to have been given wings—full of glee because what had been meant as a punishment had turned into a gift. On the other hand, they felt very confused. They were changed inwardly as well as outwardly, and no longer recognized themselves. Most curious of all, they were torn by new hungers. And, in satisfying these hungers, were doing things they found repulsive.

For nereids do not eat the flesh of beast or fish or fowl. Like swans they feed upon algae and seaweed and other succulent mosses. Now, however, they found themselves as savagely rapacious as sea-hawks. On their flight they had skimmed the surface of the water, catching fish in their new talons and gobbling them raw. Flying high, they had stooped to strike birds on the wing—heron, cormorant, and albatross—and had devoured them, feathers and all.

But the sisters had been only partially transformed, and the falcon in them was warring with the loving, joyous sea-nymph nature that had once been theirs. For all that, they were too young and healthy, too intoxicated by flight to brood about themselves. There was one concern though that they could not shake off. As they grew accustomed to the wild, fear-spiced taste of raw flesh and to the warm saltiness of fresh blood, they realized that if they became hungry enough they might be tempted to make a meal of a nice plump sailor.

But thinking of sailors made them remember the two enchanted lads they had left on the Isle of Sobs. What would become of the monkey and the cat who had been Pero and Procles? Would Circe pursue them with her vengeance? Feed them to a lion or a crocodile? Or would she forget about them and let them mingle with the rest of her zoo? If so, would they be locked in their animal shapes forever? Could they be rescued? The winged nymphs had much to wonder about as they sat on their rocks and gazed back toward Circe's island.

Out of their joy and grief and terror and wonder, they began to sing. And, hearing themselves, they realized that bird-notes had entered their voices now and made them more beautiful than ever. The heart-wrenching emptiness of the ocean waste was in their song, the seethe and chuckle of the tides, and all the shifting colors of light upon water.

They gave their song to the south wind, and it drifted out to sea. They sang and sang. The sun was sinking. Bloody light streaked the waters; the sea grew dark, then purple.

Suddenly, the sisters saw the lilac darkness bulge with a greater darkness. They heard a whipping of sails, a wrenching of wood and metal, and a clamor of men shouting. The nymphs dived off their rocks just as a ship rushed between them and broke upon the reef. The sunken rocks had torn the bottom of the ship out. It sank in a matter of minutes, dragging most of the crew with it.

A few men were struggling in the water. The sisters pulled them out and hauled them onto the rocks, where they stood, huddled and shivering.

“Sister, sister!” called Teles. “Let us not keep them. I have my reasons.”

“I know,” called Ligiea. “I'm growing hungry too.”

“What shall we do?” cried Teles. “If we throw them back, they'll drown. They can't swim to shore.”

“We'll fly them there,” answered Ligiea. “But let us do it now, quickly!”

Each nymph clutched two amazed sailors in her talons, lifted them off the rock, and flew them to dry land. They set them gently on the beach and flew away as fast as they could.

The sisters returned to the rocks and sang to the moon. A new loneliness entered their song, a new amazement, and a greater hunger.

Circe's owl flew from the Isle of Sobs to the mountaintop where Athena dwelt and told the goddess all that had happened. Athena flew off and sped to the bird-women's rocks. She hovered invisibly over their perch. She listened to them sing and understood what happened to ships that sailed within reach of their voices.

All this pleased her mightily. “Ha, ha, ha,” she chuckled to herself as she flew away. “Those rebellious nereids are more useful to me now than they were on Circe's island. Perched atop their rocks, singing with the voice of the sea itself, they cast their song like a silver loop about passing ships and draw them onto the reef … Yes! They will become a great navigational hazard, as wonderfully destructive in their own way as Circe is in hers. And every sailor that is drowned shall weaken the worship of Poseidon among seafaring people. I am pleased, very pleased with the way things have worked out. I shall give those sisters a new name:
Sirens
!”

The word meant “noose-throwers,” or “those who bind.” And that is the name the winged sisters were to bear till the end of time.

Afterward, however, Athena pondered the matter more deeply. “The Sirens have one weakness,” she thought to herself. “They're destructive without meaning to be. They pity the shipwrecked crews, and, one day, may give way to that stupid compassion. They can't stop singing any more than a pair of nightingales can, but they may start pulling sailors out of the water—which wouldn't do at all. Now, I want to keep them where they are, singing ships onto the reef, but it behooves me to make those waters even more deadly. But how? Shall I plant a school of sharks there? No, they're very brave and strong, those nereids, and, once their pity is aroused, would not hesitate to pull a sailor out of the very jaws of a shark. I'll have to think of something worse.”

She thought and thought, and finally produced a truly hideous idea.

4

Cannibal Fat

The elder gods knew that a fire as hot as the sun smouldered deep beneath the earth, sometimes burning through its crust and into the bowels of mountains, making volcanoes.

To contain this buried heat something was needed as unimaginably cold as the fire was hot. And, in the dawn of time, Uranus, the First One, accompanied by the Cyclopes and the Hundred-handed Giants, had traveled to the iciest wastes and quarried the frozen seas for what became known as “black ice”—the only substance in the universe capable of insulating the earth's surface from the fire below.

Enormous blocks of this black ice were used to construct a wall to hold the fires where they were, and to keep the surface of the earth cool enough for the seeds of life to grow. Eons later, when fish and birds and animals and man had been planted in the world, the spare blocks of black ice were kept in a cave gouged into the slope of Mount Olympus. And in this same den of abysmal frost were stored the leftover seeds and stuffs of creation.

Uranus had stationed a dragon at the mouth of the cave, for he wanted no one to enter. In time, Uranus was deposed by his own son Cronos, who then became King of the Gods, only to be deposed in turn by his own son, Zeus, who, in the family tradition, after getting rid of his father, named himself king. But under each reign, the cave remained a forbidden place, and the dragon stood eternal vigil.

Now, however, Athena needed to visit the cave to help herself to some of its taboo stores. She knew what manner of beast squatted before its portals, but the warrior goddess was not one to be dismayed by a dragon. Wearing breastplate and helmet, she carried her long spear in one hand and her shield in the other. This shield, unlike any other, was useful for more than defense; it proved deadlier than the spear. For it had belonged to the young hero Perseus—and was the one into which the image of Medusa's snake-haired head had burned itself.

Athena came striding up to the cave. The dragon flailed its tail and spat fire at her. Athena lifted her shield to deflect the flames. At the same time, however, the dragon looked upon the image of Medusa and was immediately turned to stone. The goddess stepped lightly over the stone dragon and entered the cave.

She searched among sacks of seed and huge bins until she found what she wanted. It was an enormous keg, bound with hoops of copper. She broke it open; out bulged a mass of something that quivered and pulsed and glistened. She had uncovered a mass of cannibal fat, some of the primal stuff of creation, a bit of which became part of every living thing. It fed upon other forms of life and converted them to energy for its own host—whatever form that took, be it ape, dove, crocodile, or crocus.

Wielding her spear, using its sharp, leaf-shaped head as a knife, Athena sliced off a throbbing lump of blubber. She stuffed it into an empty keg, hoisted it onto her shoulder, and strode out of the cave.

On her way out, Athena knelt and breathed into the stone mouth of the dragon. The stone hide cracked, became leathery scales; the spike tail twitched; flame flickered about its maw. It was alive again, as Athena had intended. She wanted the cave to appear undisturbed so that her theft would not be discovered.

The next ship that approached the Sirens' fatal reef happened to be captained by an old, very stubborn seaman, who insisted on acting as his own helmsman, although he was quite deaf. But it was this deafness that saved his vessel. The Sirens' song didn't captivate him because he couldn't hear it, and he steered his ship clear of the reef. But his crew were young men who heard perfectly. They were noosed by the song, and jumped overboard.

The Sirens saw men swimming toward them; then they saw that the water was churning strangely. A large, glistening blob floated to the surface. They couldn't make out what it was; they had never seen anything like it before. It was a jellyfish, but huge, twenty times larger than any they had ever known. It was altogether transparent; they could see its pinkish entrails clenching.

The sailors were swimming toward it. Instead of slithering away, it moved toward them, oozing out from its own center, spreading over the surface of the water. The living aspic covered the men, curled about them, folding over on itself. And the horrified nymphs saw that the men were inside the creature, completely wrapped in glistening jelly.

The Sirens tried to scream but couldn't interrupt their song. They kept singing as they watched the men being digested.

The sisters had no way of knowing that it was Athena who had dropped that primal lump of cannibal fat into the sea, where it became, quite naturally, a carnivorous jellyfish. What they did know was that it meant certain death for any sailor to fling himself overboard in those waters—knew that their song was a death-song now, made more deadly by its very beauty. Nevertheless, they couldn't stop singing any more than the wind can stop blowing or brave men can turn back from danger.