Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume Two (9 page)

“Yes, yes!” cried Hera. “And when his jaws closed he was crunching the ship—mast, oars, sails, and all. It happened too fast for anyone to escape. He swallowed the whole crew and spat out the wood. Not a man was left alive. I saw it happen, O Hecate, and the darkest closet of your Hell can offer no sight more stimulating.”

“We have our moments,” drawled Hecate. “You haven't visited us lately. We've added an interesting torment or two.”

“Forgive me, dear. All I can think of at the moment is Ladon. What a splendid beast—exactly what I need for Hercules. I can just picture those wonderful long jaws closing on that misbegotten cur. Chomp … gulp … nothing left but a bloody rag of lion skin and some splinters of oaken club. I can't wait.”

5

Another Hunger

Iole was wandering through a wood. She heard voices raised in terror—yelling, shrieking, sobbing. Moving swiftly as a cat she climbed a cedar that towered over the other trees, so that she was able to look down past a fringe of willows into a clearing where a village stood.

There she saw a serpent with huge, gaping jaws. He lay in a circle. His lower jaw rested on the ground; his upper jaw was lifted high, high. With his tail he was sweeping people into his mouth. He had encircled the entire population of the village, had eaten most of them, and was now finishing the rest. When the last one was gone, he spat buttons and bits of cloth, then carefully arranged his bulging coils and went to sleep.

“What a brute!” said Iole to herself. “I hope Hercules hasn't heard about it. Because my brave darling thinks he's been put on earth to protect people against monsters, and he'd surely challenge this one. But it's too big even for Hercules … Makes the Hydra seem like a tangle of earthworms … It's gorgeous, though, in its own horrid way. Those mottled leather coils, green and yellow, like patches of sunlight on the forest floor … Is it awake? Yes … It has very big eyes for a snake. I can feel the heat of them. It's a male, I think. Is he looking at me? He is! I wonder if he's still hungry? How could he be, after that meal! … I'm not afraid. I refuse to be afraid. I've always liked snakes, and they've always liked me. That cobra who used to visit the meadow—the flower nymphs were scared, but I used him to jump rope with. Perhaps this one would be friendly, too …”

Snakes have no eyelids; they can't blink. And Ladon very much wanted to blink. Something absolutely strange was happening high up in the cedar. Like all reptiles, tiny or monstrous, he was color-blind; things were different shades of gray to him.

But it was the mission of Iris to blazon the sign of the gods' occasional mercy across the heavens. When she hung her rainbow, she mixed a magic in its colors so that they might be visible to all creatures who walked, flew, swam, or crept. Iole had inherited this gift without knowing it. Her own colors blazed, banishing grayness, and came to Ladon now not only as a wonderful dance of light, but as a fragrance of flowers; more than that—almost like the maddening odor of game when he was famished; but different from that too, quickening another hunger, one he had never known.

He wanted to blink, but he couldn't. He wanted … wanted … He wanted to enter that weird dazzling and take what it held—that red-gold fall of hair, those green eyes, those ivory-bronze arms and legs. His entire length shuddered with dread and delight.

Ladon was in love.

Iole saw the serpent unwind himself. His lower coils stayed where they were; the upper part of him glided across the clearing, through the willows, toward the cedar. She saw him slide up the tree. He came halfway up. The great leather wedge of his head was weaving near the soles of her feet. His eyes stabbed into hers. They seemed to whirl, making her dizzy. She clung to the branch but did not look away from him. She did not wish to show fear.

“Greetings,” he said.

His voice came as a huge rustling, chopped into words. “You're not a person … What are you?”

“Demigoddess.”

“I am Ladon.”

“My name is Iole.”

“Iole …”

“
Oh
-le, not
you
-le.”

“Will you marry me?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Don't want to.”

“Why?”

“Just don't.”

“Can we be friends?”

“Well …”

“Why don't you like me?”

“You eat in an unkindly way.”

“Unkindly?”

“You kill first.”

“No. I prefer live meat.”

“That's even worse.”

“No live meat, no dead meat. What can I eat?”

“Things you don't have to kill.”

“Like what?”

“Grass … hay … stuff that cows eat, and sheep.”

“What I do is wait until a cow or a sheep has its meal, then I eat the cow or sheep or buffalo, or whatever. That way I get my meat and greens at the same time.”

“Your meat eating doesn't stop at cattle, sir. You've been eating people.”

“Mmm … delicious. Easy to catch, too.”

“That's why we can't be friends.”

“Just because I eat people?”

“That's right.”

“What do you care what happens to them? You're a goddess.”

“Only half—on my mother's side. My father was a mortal man. And I can't be friends with anyone who eats human flesh.”

“When would I have to stop?”

“Immediately.”

“That's very soon. Can't I sort of taper off?”

“Absolutely not! Bad habits must be stopped immediately, or they go on and on and on.”

He stared at her. She stared back. She was very young, but woman enough to know that she must not cool his ardor by telling him she loved another.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked. “Stop thinking. Just say yes.”

“To what?”

“That you'll marry me.”

“We're quite different, you know.”

“Well, you're trying to change me. If I stop eating people that will make us less different. And we can go on from there.”

“Anyway, I'm too young.”

“Much?”

“A few years, I guess.”

“What's that? Nothing at all. I'm thousands of years old. Been here from the beginning, you know. Seems now as though I'd been waiting for you all the time.”

“That's sweet,” she murmured.

“So I can easily wait a few more years. But you must stay with me while I'm waiting. Or I'll get impatient.”

“Will you stop eating people?”

“I'll just browse on that putrid herbage, I promise. Come down now. You can ride on my neck.”

“You're almost totally neck, aren't you?”

“I mean just behind my head. You'll be comfortable.”

“Then what?”

“We'll go anywhere you like. Cruising, perhaps. Would you like to go to sea? Would you like to visit the underwater cave where my family lives?”

“Are they monsters?”

“Certainly, purebred.”

“Will they like me?”

“Who can help it? Besides, they won't dare not to. I'm the eldest son.”

Hera, walking in the garden, saw a tall, green-clad figure approaching her. It was her sister Demeter, Goddess of Growing Things.

“Greetings,” she said. “It's rare that one sees you in the time of harvest.”

“Yes,” said Demeter shortly. “I understand that you take an interest in Ladon.”

“What of it?”

“I must ask you to restrain that gluttonous beast. He's been ranging up and down the land, devouring my crops. He can consume a wheat field in a single day, or finish off an entire orchard. All the Boeotian harvest has fled down his maw. Now he's starting on Thessaly. I won't stand for it.”

“Barley Mother,” said Hera, “you must be mistaken. That serpent is totally carnivorous. He touches nothing that is not meat.”

“Once, perhaps. Not now. He's fallen in love and turned vegetarian.”

“I don't believe it!” gasped Hera.

“Believe it, Sister. Why would I be saying this if it weren't so?”

“What vile enchantress has tamed that splendid ferocity?”

“Oh, you know her well,” said Demeter. “It's Iris's daughter—Iole.”

A windy dusk had flowed over the garden. The first pale stars were printing themselves on a great blowing lilac sky. Hera's screech of rage made them shiver on their axes.

6

The War God

Ares, God of War, needed hours of violent exercise before he could speak politely to anyone. Since Aphrodite was coming to visit him that afternoon, he spent the morning with a wild bull he had just added to his herd. It was a magnificent animal—huge, pure black, with coral nostrils, ivory hooves, and polished ivory horns. It had been sent as a gift by a tribe of Ares' most ardent worshipers, the women warriors of Scythia, called Amazons.

Ares knew that he had to teach the beast some manners before introducing it to his cows. The way to do this, he thought, was to master the bull on its own level—that is, by fighting it as if he, Ares, were a rival bull.

They were on a grassy meadow on a plateau north of Olympus, where Ares grazed his herds and trained his horses. Wearing nothing but his helmet, Ares circled the bull, crouching, moving very slowly. The bull simply turned as Ares circled, watching him always. Ares was patient. Again and again he circled the bull, until its eyes became holes of red fire and it began to paw the ground.

Suddenly, it charged. It bowled terrifically over the grass, a throbbing mountain of muscle, driving its sharp horns with enough force to pierce a stone wall. Ares stood his ground. He lowered his head, hunched his shoulders, and took the shock full on. Now the forehead of a bull, the space between its horns, is a heavy ridge of bone, solid as iron plate. And this frontal bone dented itself against Ares' helmet. One horn grazed his shoulder. Blood spurted.

But his legs were planted like tree stumps: He was immovable. The bull shook its head and trotted off a few yards. Blood streamed from its rubbery nostrils. Ares twisted his neck to look at his own bloody shoulder. Gods do not have red blood like humans. What runs in their veins is called
ichor.
It is pink and has a fragrance like fermenting honey, and clots very quickly, healing its own wound.

Swiftly, the bull moved again, hooking under now with one horn, trying to stab it into Ares' belly and rip his entrails out. Ares caught the horn, caught the other horn with his other hand, and vaulted between horns, landing on the bull's back. All in one motion he whirled, raised his rocklike fist, and slammed it down in a spot just in front of the bull's hump and in back of his skull.

The bull staggered, but did not fall. Ares slid off. He watched as the bull staggered a few more steps, then righted itself and turned to face him. The fire was gone from its eyes. It was too proud to admit defeat, but did not claim victory, and did not attack. It dropped its head and began to graze. And Ares knew it was fit to meet his cows—just as he himself was now, drained of rage, and calm enough to show courtesy to Aphrodite.

He heard her laughter. He turned and saw her. In the heat of battle he had not seen her coming. She had hidden behind a bush and had watched the whole thing. She flowed across the meadow, still laughing. She reached up, took the helmet from his head, and kissed the last drops of ichor from his shoulder.

“What a splendid beast,” she said. “Where did you steal him?”

“I didn't.”

“No, of course. You are Ares. You do not steal, you take.”

“Wrong again.”

“Purchase? Never!”

“It was given to me. A gift from a grateful congregation. From the Amazons, thanking me for granting them success in battle.”

“Those wild women, eh? What a crew.”

“Finest cavalry in the Middle Sea basin. And considered quite attractive by those who like their women big and fierce. As for me, I admire them, but would rather court a she-bear. Let me dive in the river. I'm too sweaty to converse with the most beautiful creature on Earth, or in Heaven.”

“You're so nice after you fight,” she murmured. “So dreadful before … Go take your swim. I'll be waiting.”

Some time later, they were lounging on a grassy bank near the river. Aphrodite was singing softly … a song dedicated to her by a poet named Thallo, who dwelt on Helicon.

“Very nice, I suppose,” grunted Ares. “But I have absolutely no ear for poetry.”

“I know you don't, dear.”

“Tell you what, I don't care much for those who churn out the stuff, either … Gabby, worthless lot … D'you know those Parnassus and Helicon fellows praise every god except me? They don't do Hades much either, but me even less. Not one single solitary verse. And they praise nongods too. Reams of stuff about those they call heroes. And yes—here's the sickening part of it: They'll praise warriors also, and feats of arms, and victories—and never a good word for me, who goes to all the trouble of starting those wars.”

“You're working yourself up again, dear. And I don't think that bull's ready for another go yet. You'll have to wrestle a couple of bears, or something.”

“Never mind, I'm serious now, and—hey! I've just had a great idea.”

She looked at him in a way that said, “Tell me your idea and I'll say it's wonderful, no matter what I think.”

He said nothing. He was gazing out across the river and there was a growl of laughter in his throat.

“When he laughs like that,” thought Aphrodite, “it means someone's about to suffer. Or some city or some nation. I don't think I want to know what that idea is.”

7

An Amazon's Dream

That dusk, Ares visited Lemnos, where dwelt Hypnos, God of Sleep. He was the son of Night, little brother of Death, and father of Dreams. He lived in a cave with his wife, Aglaia, most brilliant of the Graces. Outside the cave was a garden where the poppy grew, and the lotus, and other flowers that compel sleep.