SON OF ZEUS

by Glyn Iliffe

  ‘And what will you do?’

  ‘Find a slaver to take those wretches off my hands. The gods have seen their crimes, and now they’ll pay for them on a Phoenician galley or in the silver mines of Attica. And then I will go up to Mount Parnassus. To consult with the oracle.’

  ‘And what do you seek there?’

  ‘Answers,’ he said. ‘Guidance.’

  He stood and went to the cart, retrieving his olive wood club.

  ‘And absolution, maybe. Come, let’s go.’

  Chapter Two

  The Oracle

  The rain fell out of the black sky, hissing on the rocky plateau and drowning out Heracles’s thoughts. All around him were small campfires, long since extinguished, with here and there a hardy soul trying to sleep beneath sodden cloaks. Most pilgrims, though, were huddled in groups beneath the tall black cliff at the top of the slope, or under the eaves of the Temple of Gaea that was built against it. A few tents stood grey in the darkness, the property of nobles and wealthy merchants who had come to seek the wisdom of the earth goddess. Will I be rich? Will I be powerful? Will I sire an heir? Heracles could hear their entreaties now. The same old questions that had worried anxious minds from one generation to the next. Small and petty concerns compared to what he had come to ask.

  He had bathed at the sacred spring to purify his body for entry into the temple. Stripping naked in the stinging rain, he had submerged himself in the cold waters, feeling the exhaustion from the climb up Mount Parnassus leave his limbs. The ache of his wounds, too, had been relieved. But even a holy spring could not wash the filth from his soul or the horror of his crimes from his mind. Those things, he had been promised, could only be cleansed by the gods. And the Pythoness was their mouthpiece.

  A shepherd boy had sold him a young goat, which hung over his shoulders and bleated miserably in the rain. He stared up at the temple, set against the sheer side of Mount Parnassus. Its crude granite pillars soared up to support a tiled roof that jutted out from the cliff, from which streams of rainwater gushed down onto the steps below. These led up to a pair of tall, iron-clad doors, their wood blackened with age. Several men and women were sheltering in the narrow portico on either side, their pale eyes watching the tall, heavily built newcomer. He took the worn steps two at a time and slammed the heel of his fist against the doors.

  ‘They won’t open up,’ a man said. ‘Not until the sun’s risen.’

  ‘And when it does, you can wait your turn,’ added a woman behind him. ‘We’ve been here three days already and it’s us next.’

  Another man beside her pulled at her elbow and muttered sharply in her ear.

  ‘I don’t care how big he is. We were here before him.’

  Heracles ignored them and beat against the door, harder and louder this time so that it shook in its frame.

  ‘Piss off!’ came a voice from within.

  ‘Told you,’ said the first man.

  The woman just laughed and nodded sagely as Heracles turned and began to descend the steps.

  ‘That’s it, you wait your turn,’ she said behind him. ‘Must think he’s some sort of Titan…’

  Heracles ran up the steps and shoulder charged the doors. There was a loud bang, a crack of wood, and they flew open. Stepping inside, he seized hold of the heavy portals as they bounced back on their hinges and slammed them shut behind him. Two pieces of timber – the broken halves of the bar that had held the entrance shut – lay on the flagstones. He picked one up and fitted it into the iron brackets, then turned.

  The room before him was large, echoing to the sound of his footsteps as he walked towards the burning hearth at its centre. The smell of sulphur filled the chamber, a stink he had noticed faintly on his way up the mountain, but which had been masked by the rain. Raising a corner of his cloak to his mouth and nostrils, he looked around him.

  The temple had been partly delved into the face of the mountain, so was larger on the inside than it looked from the plateau outside. The walls on three sides of the room were man-made and set with alcoves, where painted figures of the gods stood in stiff poses holding objects or animals that distinguished them from each other: Apollo sported a lyre, while his twin sister, Artemis, held a bow; the naked figure of Ares carried a tall cowhide shield in one hand and a spear in the other; his counterpart, Athena, was also armed with a spear, though her shield bore the face of a leering gorgon. Furthest away on the right was Zeus, the father he had never known, and who – as a consolation, perhaps – had given him his great strength. Opposite him on the left was his jealous queen, Hera, whose glory he was named after. Ironically – or so his mother had been warned in a dream sent by Zeus – she hated Heracles with all the passion of a goddess scorned.

  Torches were fixed between the alcoves, their flames licking up at the lime-plastered walls above. These had recently been redecorated, and showed brightly coloured landscapes of mountains and valleys, meadows and forests, rivers and beaches. This was, after all, the Temple of Gaea, the earth goddess. The murals teemed with all kinds of beasts, birds and fish, some of which he knew and others that were too bizarre to be real. Figures of men and women mingled with them, at one with the other creatures as they walked among the flowers and trees. But here and there – in the depths of the ocean, on the heights of the mountains and in the shadows of the forests – lurked hideous monsters.

  Like the nightmares that stalk the edge of human consciousness, they haunted the seeming peace and beauty of the murals. From the surface of the sea, the Kraken had seized a galley with its tentacles and was devouring its crew. In a woodland glade, an enormous lion had leaped on a girl and was raising its claws in readiness to strike out her life. And from a cave in the mountains, a serpent had slid out to seize a man in its jaws. Legend had it that Gaea had given birth to many powerful and terrifying creatures – the Titans, the Cyclopes and the Giants among them. Perhaps the most terrifying of her offspring was Echidna, the half-nymph, half-serpent from whose womb had come countless monsters, each one a bitter enemy of mankind. Heracles frowned and turned away.

  ‘You can’t come in here!’ shouted a voice.

  A white-robed figure had risen from a pile of furs beside the hearth and was running towards him, his bare feet slapping on the flagstones as he pulled a black cloak around his shoulders.

  ‘And who’s going to throw me out?’ Heracles asked, placing his fists on his hips.

  The priest stared up at the giant figure before him.

  ‘No one, I suppose.’

  ‘Good, then let’s get on with matters,’ Heracles said. He opened his pouch, pulled out a silver ingot and pressed it into the priest’s palm. ‘That’ll more than cover your payment.’

  ‘But the Pythoness…’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘My what?’ the priest asked, bewildered and still half asleep.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Elatos.’

  Heracles looked at the tall, skinny man before him. A junior priest at best, he thought. But he would do.

  ‘That will cover the payment, won’t it?’

  Elatos looked at the silver ingot with wide eyes, as if noticing it for the first time.

  ‘Yes, of course…’

  ‘Then what are you waiting for? I’ve bathed in the sacred pool; now sacrifice the goat and take me to your priestess.’

  The young priest looked again at the huge figure before him – with his fierce grey eyes, thick black beard and the giant club that hung from his belt – then sighed and shook his head.

  ‘Very well, then. But you’ll have to help me with the sacrifice. The chief priest is with a prostitute in the village, so I’ll need you to hold the animal still.’

  Heracles nodded, and taking the animal from his shoulders, followed the priest to a whitewashed altar set on a dais. The back wall of the temple was bare rock, which no mason had worked on. A narrow crack ran from the floor almost to the ceiling of the temple.

  ‘This is just th
e upper temple,’ Elatos said, following Heracles’s gaze. ‘That cleft leads to the lower temple. The oracle itself. I can make your sacrifice for you and take your money, but if she isn’t willing to speak to you then I can’t force her. And neither can you.’

  ‘The choice doesn’t belong to her,’ Heracles said. ‘If she’s the mouthpiece of the gods, then it is up to them to answer my question. Which they will.’

  ‘If you say so. Put the animal on the floor.’

  He did as the priest told him and Elatos set a bowl of water before the bleating kid. Commanded by its thirst, or by the will of the gods, the animal bowed down to drink.

  ‘It agrees to give itself in sacrifice,’ Elatos announced, a hint of professional pleasure in his voice.

  He took a dagger from his belt and cut off a tuft of the goat’s hair, which he took to the hearth and threw into the flames. Returning, he indicated for Heracles to secure the animal, then put a second bowl by its forelegs and slit its throat. Blood sluiced out, splashing into the bowl and over the sides onto the flagstones. The goat went limp in Heracles’s grip.

  Elatos completed the sacrifice with impressive efficiency, then led Heracles to the opening in the back wall. Here he took a torch from its bracket and, holding it above his head, scrutinized Heracles’s face.

  ‘This is the Temple of Gaea,’ he said. ‘Python – her son – is its guardian. To reach the Pythoness, we must pass through his lair. Please, please , my lord, stay close to me, if you want to live. And don’t do anything…rash.’

  He ducked into the fissure and was gone. Heracles felt his hatred of small spaces clawing at his nerves, thought briefly of the plateau outside with its smell of fresh air and the feel of cold rain on his face, then lowered his head and followed. The space was tight, and the rough stone scuffed at his shoulders and arms. The stench of sulphur was much stronger here and the torch seemed to burn brighter for it; but veiled beneath the smell was another odour – subtler but fouler and more offensive. It reminded him of the reek of corpses that had bloated in the hot sun, and again he raised his cloak to his face.

  They soon emerged into another chamber. The air here was colder and the echo of their footsteps sounded more hollow and distant. He raised himself to his full height and took a deep breath, expelling the cramped feel of the tunnel. The light from the torch, which had been so bright moments before, now sank low and flickered dangerously in the currents of air that haunted the cave. Elatos moved it from side to side, as if searching for something. Then he paused and took hold of Heracles’s elbow.

  ‘Behold the monster, Typhon,’ he whispered.

  Heracles narrowed his eyes and peered into the Stygian darkness. The thought of seeing one of the ancient creatures of legend – as old as the gods themselves – excited and intrigued him. And then he saw a shimmering in the darkness, a dull gleam that grew and took shape as he stared at it. A great snake lay coiled on a carpet of bones – clearly, not all sacrifices went to the gods or the priests – its many scales reflecting the light from the torch. At the thickest, its girth must have been as wide as the trunk of an oak tree. He could only guess at its length; as long as a ship of war, at the least. But it was the great head that held his gaze and appalled him. Then he caught the amber glint of its eyes. Was it sleeping? Was it watching them, waiting for the moment to strike?

  ‘No time to linger,’ Elatos said. ‘Far too dangerous.’

  He continued through the chamber to an archway at the far end. It led to a natural tunnel with a low ceiling. Again, Heracles was forced to resist his urge to run back to the upper temple, and squeezed his bulk between its rough, narrow sides. It was noticeably warmer here, and as they descended the smell of sulphur grew so strong that it made him nauseous. He focused his attention on the flickering torch in Elatos’s hand – praying it would not go out and plunge them into darkness – and tried to forget that he was far below ground with the weight of a whole mountain above him.

  At last, he saw a glow in the darkness beyond Elatos’s torch. They turned a bend in the tunnel and entered a small cave. It was lit by torches on the walls and its ceiling was lost in darkness, but for a moment all he could see was the cloud of yellow fumes that filled the enclosed space. They rose up with an unending hiss from a crevice in the middle of the floor. The stench was almost overpowering.

  ‘Stay here,’ Elatos said.

  He edged round the mouth of the fissure to the other side of the cave. A large black tripod stood over the hole, but there was no sign of the famed priestess. Then a voice spoke from the shadows.

  ‘Is it dawn already?’

  ‘Almost, my lady, almost.’

  ‘But I’ve hardly slept. I feel so tired.’

  The voice surprised Heracles. It sounded young, bewildered even – not the voice of a woman who could see all things, past, present and yet to come. Elatos bent down in a corner of the cave and lifted something up. As he turned, Heracles saw there was a girl in his arms. Her bedraggled hair hung almost to the ground, and the skin of her arms and bare feet seemed jaundiced and waxy. She wore a white robe, but the body beneath it was painfully thin, the ribs, hip bones and knees showing through the material. As he saw her wretchedness he regretted not waiting until daybreak. What right did he have to disturb the rest of one so weak and fragile?

  Elatos placed her gently on the tripod, which acted as a chair. She sat slouched in it like a child’s doll, her hair covering her face and spreading over her body like a cloak. Heracles had to fight the instinct to go forward and keep her from falling out, fearing that at any moment she would go tumbling down into the abyss before her.

  ‘Mistress…’ he began, but Elatos held up his hand and frowned at him for silence.

  The priest held a small bowl in his other hand, which he placed in the Pythoness’s lap. She did not seem to notice it was there until he stroked back her hair and spoke quietly in her ear. She lifted her head slightly and, for the first time, Heracles caught a glimpse of her face. What he saw stunned him. The voice was that of a child, the body that of a beggar, but the face belonged to an old woman. Her small eyes were a milky blue, barely visible among the papery folds of her shrivelled face. He pulled back in revulsion.

  ‘Must I?’ she asked. ‘I’m so tired.’

  ‘Here,’ Elatos replied, taking a couple of leaves from the bowl and pressing them between her thin lips.

  Despite the priest’s soft voice and gentle caresses, Heracles was reminded of the brothels he had frequented before his marriage to Megara. The men who owned them were harsher and more brutal, but the Pythoness had no more freedom than those women. She was simply a commodity, performing whenever payment demanded.

  She chewed the leaves and Elatos took the bowl from her lap.

  ‘Ask your question,’ he instructed.

  ‘My lady…’ Heracles hesitated, wondering how to frame the request he had pondered for so many days. ‘My lady, I’ve done something terrible – unspeakable – and I can’t live with it any more. I’ve been purified in body, but that was merely a ritual. My soul is in agony.’

  Just the admission of his crime was like a dagger plunging into his raw conscience and reopening the wound that it seemed would never heal. He felt the cave begin to move around him, and reached out to place a steadying hand against the rock wall.

  ‘What is it you want from me?’ the girl asked, her voice almost inaudible.

  ‘Tell me why I did what I did. Was it drunkenness? A madness sent by the gods? Was it something inside of me? I have to know. And I have to know how to be free of the horror of it. Tell me what to do, I beg you.’

  The Pythoness drew herself up, straightening her spine and tipping back her head so that her hair tumbled over her shoulders and back. When she lowered her face to look at him again, he was shocked by the change in her. Gone was the diffident, childlike figure he had felt pity for. Now she had the bearing of a queen – powerful, composed, assured of her authority over him. Her eyes appeared to glow in the torc
hlight, as if filled with fire, reminding him of…of the eyes of Python! Indeed, they were now amber hued, with narrow slits for pupils. He flared his nostrils in revulsion, but held her gaze without flinching.

  ‘I see the blood on your hands, son of Zeus,’ she hissed, her forked tongue flitting over her lips. The voice seemed to come from the walls of the cave, detached and yet forceful. ‘The blood of the guilty, and the blood of the innocent. I see confusion too. How could you do such a thing, you ask? How could a liberator of cities and protector of the weak commit such an atrocity? What is this darkness that lies within you?’

  ‘I know the question, damn it! What’s the answer?’

  ‘That is not for you to know. Not yet. First, you must kill the spawn of Echidna that bears the immortal head. Then the answer will find you.’

  Heracles frowned.

  ‘Echidna’s offspring are countless. How am I to know which one to kill?’

  ‘The gods will reveal that to you when the time comes,’ she replied. ‘A great war rages for your soul, Heracles. Two Olympians – man and wife, king and queen – are divided over your fate. Zeus wants you to destroy his enemies on earth – the children of the Titans, who continue to defy his authority. Hera wants you dead. The outcome of their conflict has not been revealed to me, but you are already in the eye of the storm, and you will be tossed around by it as the whims of the gods decide.’

  ‘I am not a leaf to be blown about by the winds of Olympus,’ Heracles insisted.

  The Pythoness threw her head back and laughed – a hideous, hissing sound that rang from the walls.

  ‘It is good that you have confidence in yourself. You will need it! For the answer to your second question lies firmly in your hands. You can free your conscience from what you did, Heracles, but it will not be easy. No, it will be more difficult than you can ever imagine. Ten impossible tasks will be set for you…’

  ‘No task is impossible.’

  She looked at him for a moment, weighing his character in her mind.