1
Agatra was not the most beautiful woman in the world.
In fact, as local song and story have it, the men of the village of Nevila were hard-pressed to call her a woman at all. The only reason they did so was out of an acute sense of self-preservation. Those same local songs and stories have recorded instances of noses being skewered, hair being plucked by the strand from beards and scalps, and worse atrocities, just because a man forgot to say, "Morning there, Agatra, you're looking lovely today."
For a man, life in Nevila was just one damn thing after another.
The women, on the other hand, understood Agatra fairly well; and while they certainly didn't condone the plucking and the skewering most of the time, they knew they often felt that way themselves—
whenever things weren't going right, nothing fit, their hair wouldn't obey the brush or the comb, and the kids had turned into demonic spawn overnight.
There was, therefore, a certain kinship between the Nevilian women and Agatra, a bond that often saw a woman climb the wooded hillside in order to have a long heart-to-heart with her friend. Sometimes the woman returned red-eyed from sobbing, but serene and ready to move on; sometimes the woman returned without having visibly received any help at all; and once in a great while, the woman returned with iron in her spine and ice in her eyes, which was when the men knew the skewering and plucking were about to begin.
Late one morning a woman named Peyra made the climb.
There was no path, no trail; there were no signposts.
The women of Nevila knew the way by instinct.
Peyra was young and slender, her dark brown hair falling in thick waves to the center of her back and held away from her matching eyes by a wide red band. By her clothes it was clear she wasn't wealthy, nor was she ragged. Around her waist was a narrow leather belt from which hung a bulging pouch.
She made her way quickly through the widely spaced, high-crowned trees, oblivious to the blue sky, the gentle warm breeze, and the profusion of wildflowers that would have, on another occasion, made her laugh with the sheer joy of such a splendid display.
Eventually she reached a broad clearing. There were no flowers here, and the grass didn't dare grow very high. The slope rose precipitously at the back, and in its solid rock face was the mouth of a cave flanked by two twisted, stunted, virtually leafless trees that seemed as old as the hill itself.
Peyra hesitated as she stepped into the open. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. Maybe she should go farther afield, to one of the cities, to find what she needed. They were rumored to have anything a person could possibly want, natural or otherwise.
But she didn't know the cities, and she did know Agatra.
There was no one else who could help her.
Nervously she brushed her hands over her hair, smoothed the skirt of her dress, adjusted her belt, and patted her cheeks and brow to rid them of possible unseemly perspiration.
"Well, Zeus and beanpods," a voice called harshly, "are you going to stand there all day?"
Peyra smiled.
Agatra was home.
To the right of the cave's entrance was a boulder whose flat top had been smooth by the rump of many a visitor. It was just the height of a chair, and Peyra sat there comfortably, facing the cave. She couldn't see inside. Even when the sun was at its brightest and its light filled the clearing, an inch inside the cave there appeared to be no light at all.
Once settled, she said, "Good afternoon, Agatra. I have a problem."
"Of course you do. Nobody ever visits me otherwise. Nobody ever comes along just for the hell of it, do they? Bring me a pie, a dumpling, a little stew in the winter when my bones are creaking. No, they only come when they have a problem. I could be lying here, dying, falling apart, ants and spiders dividing me up for rations, and nobody would know it. Never write, never call out a greeting on the way by."
Peyra's smile broadened.
She was in luck.
Agatra was in a good mood.
"So, dearie, what can I do for you?"
Peyra wasn't sure how to begin. In the first place, listening to that rasping voice for any length of time made her want to clear her throat, cough, or beg for a drink of water. But if she did, Agatra would be insulted and force her to leave. In the second place, if she didn't word her problem correctly, Agatra might do something terrible, like plucking or skewering, neither of which were appropriate in this case.
"A man, right?" Agatra said in as solicitous a tone as that voice ever got.
Peyra shifted, and patted the pouch resting in her lap. "Well, yes. Sort of. My husband, actually."
"Ah. Young . .. Garus, am I right?"
Peyra nodded sadly.
"Oh my, I do hope he's all right."
Peyra shook her head, and scowled at a sudden sting of tears. She had promised herself she wouldn't do this. Agatra hated it.
"I hate that," Agatra snapped. "Stop it at once."
The stinging vanished.
"Now. Start at the beginning, dearie. I've got plenty of time. I always have plenty of time. Nothing else to do. Nobody here but you and me. Nobody's ever here. I'm all alone. In the dark. Just me. And a cockeyed spider."
Peyra couldn't help it; she giggled.
Agatra laughed. At least, Peyra thought it was a laugh. It sounded like someone coughing her way along the high road to an urgent appointment with Hades. Whatever it was, however, it made Peyra feel better already.
"Well," she began, staring at the worn grass at her feet, "we were in Hyanth, Garus and I were.
Visiting, you know?"
"No," Agatra grumbled sourly. "I wouldn't know."
Peyra ignored her. "We were looking for new cloth, something not seen around here often, and Hyanth, being on the crossroads, sometimes has things like that. For our shop, you know? Garus, he always looks for the bright stuff, the really make-your-eyes-close bright stuff. I myself was after something a little more subtle."
"Like blood red?"
' 'Yeah. It kind of makes a fashion statement, you know what I mean?"
"Haven't a clue, dearie."
"Oh." Peyra could sense the impatience, closed her eyes briefly, and patted the pouch again. "Anyway, our second day we heard there were going to be some performers in the square, so instead of coming home like we planned, we decided to stay another night and have a look."
"Your idea," Agatra said. "Not his."
Peyra nodded, and felt the stinging again. "Yes."
"Something happened."
"Yes."
"Something terrible."
"Yes."
"You going to tell me or do I have to guess?"
Peyra couldn't stop the tears this time, and she turned her head away in embarrassment, trying to dry them with the backs of her hands and her sleeves. Her sleeves got soaked, and the tears kept falling.
A noise then, like the gentle scraping of powerful, and really sharp, claws on the ground. Peyra couldn't believe it, and whirled just as Agatra stepped out of her cave.
Down in the village, and in the fields, and in the forest, and along the wide stream that ran past the village, every man froze in terror and inexplicable guilt.
In the trees around the clearing, the birds couldn't decide whether to flee or freeze, and one was so indecisive he fell off his branch.
To the left of the cave's entrance, opposite the rock on which Peyra sat, was a fallen tree whose bark, in places, had been rubbed off to the dark gray wood beneath and pocked with deep holes. Agatra didn't like the rock because she kept sliding off; she liked the tree because her talons could take better hold.
Fo
r good reason, Agatra was not the most beautiful woman in the world.
She was a Harpy.
•
•
•
It took a while for Agatra to settle herself on her perch. Unlike most of her kind, she was on the plump side, and while she insisted she only looked that way because her wings refused to lie straight, not even the men were fooled into thinking she was svelte.
And while her body resembled a sated, gluttonous robin after a particularly wonderful spring, her neck and head were those of a woman who had seen far too many springs slip away behind her. Her wrinkles were legendary, her thinning hair gray and in a sloppy braid around her crown, and not even her closest kin talked about the wattles.
Not if they didn't want to be plucked and skewered. And gutted.
Her eyes, however, were amazing. Large, slightly tilted at the corners, and of a blue that changed hue with every change of her mood. Which meant that most of the time they were ice or the center of a flame; now, however, they were warm, the color of a perfect summer morning.
"He dead?" she asked, clasping her hands in front of her. She may have been old, but her arms were thick enough to fell a tree with a single blow.
"No," Peyra sobbed. "Oh, Agatra, he's a frog!"
Agatra harrumphed. "Of course he's a toad, dearie. He's a man, isn't he?"
Peyra blinked. "No."
The Harpy sighed. "I know he's your husband, child, but be honest with yourself—he's still a man."
"No." Peyra reached into the pouch. "I meant what 1 said." She held out her palm. "He's a frog!"
Agatra looked, squinted, frowned, and nodded. "Be damned, you're right. He is a frog. Ugly, too. Who ever heard of a yellow frog?'
Frogs, when faced with a predatorial bird the size of a Harpy, either dove instantly into whatever water happened to be around and held their breath for several days, or they froze. Men, when faced with Agatra, froze. Men who used to be men but now were frogs did the only thing they could do—they rolled onto their backs and played dead.
Agatra looked at the frog lying on its back in Peyra's hand, looked at Peyra, and said, "I think, dearie, you'd better explain."
Then her stomach rumbled, and the frog may or may not have quivered a little.
The Harpy cleared her throat. "Sorry. Haven't had lunch yet."
Sensing the possibilities, Peyra hastily slipped her husband back into the pouch, composed herself, and said, "Well, it all started with this man who said he could pull a dinar out of a little boy's ear."
2
Sometimes even the best of days were spoiled by the ominous, and not always coherent, muttering of signs and portents.
A gentle sun and an eye-pleasing blue sky could be marred by the dark shadow of a circling hawk, a hunting eagle, or a vulture on its way to claim carrion for its own.
A comfortable breeze that caused the leaves to whisper and the grass to stir could carry on its back the muffled cough of a thief lurking in a thicket, or the rustle of a wolf making its way toward unsuspecting prey, or the smell of a flower that had no business blossoming in that season.
The shadows under a tree could, to the ordinary man, be nothing more than shadows; but to an extraordinary man, they could be subtle signals of approaching doom.
Hercules did not consider himself to be an extraordinary man.
That he was strong and powerful could not be argued, but that was because he was a son of Zeus, not because of any weight training he had done other than tossing a few bad guys around. Neither did he think he was particularly ugly—or particularly handsome, for that matter—and he was therefore constantly surprised when women were drawn to him without even knowing his name. He didn't complain; he was just surprised.
And the gods certainly knew he wasn't the luckiest of men.
Consider the afternoon.
Originally he had intended to head up to Thrace, a place he hadn't visited in quite a while. Enjoy life without the hassles. Sleep. Eat. Hunt. Fish.
In other words, relax.
Adventures, unfortunately, kept getting in his way, and by the time he was free to return to the plan, he realized that it would be close to winter before he reached his destination. That meant tromping around a bunch of bare rocky mountains being pummeled by heavy snows, and strong winds cold enough to freeze the snakes off a gorgon.
Not even remotely his idea of proper relaxation.
His alternate plan, conceived just this morning, had been to drift south and west, visit a few friends, put his feet up and let the days slip by without once having to stop a war or unseat a dictator or save someone from someone else determined to end the first someone's life for purely selfish reasons.
All in all, it was a good notion.
Signs and portents had no place in it.
When they elbowed their way in anyway, he couldn't help but wonder if maybe it wasn't time to put the always available emergency plan into action: find a deep cave, furnish it, roll a huge rock in front of it, and sit there for a few weeks, enjoying the peace, the dark, and the distinct absence of adventure.
The problem was—aside from the fact that there wasn't a cave handy—he wasn't the kind of man who could ignore those signs. And portents.
He sighed deeply—and loudly, in case anyone was listening and wanted to give him some pity— in resignation.
At first he wasn't sure he had heard anything at all.
Strolling through the lightly wooded forest had been uneventful thus far. Birds sang, tiny critters scuttled, the breeze blew, the sun warmed him, the road was clear and well marked, and he was at peace.
Until he thought he caught the sound of clanking metal.
A slight frown while he listened, a quick shake of his head when he decided he had been mistaken, and a complete rejection of the sound as a sign were all he needed to continue on his way.
Until he heard it again.
That was the problem with lightly wooded forests: sound carried. Especially the kind he didn't particularly want to hear.
When he heard it a third time, coupled with what could only be someone yelping in pain, he broke into a swift trot that quickly brought him around a bend in the road.
Another problem with lightly wooded forests was that you could see things in the distance.
In this case, two of the large, brightly decorated covered wagons the Athenians called caravans, each drawn by a pair of decidedly unhappy horses. On the one closest to him a man stood at the opening in back, swinging a short staff at a pair of men who, unfairly, were swinging long swords back. Beyond it, a second pair of men seemed to be trying to kick at something hidden under the caravan's bed.
The four thieves were hindered by a number of things, not the least of which was the horses, who reared, shied, sidestepped, and otherwise caused the heavy caravans to lurch and jerk, thus spoiling the aims of all involved.
For the briefest of moments Hercules thought the travelers would prevail. Until the horses hitched to the second vehicle decided to bolt. They couldn't, but the abrupt forward movement was enough to pitch the man in back to the ground.
The thieves cried out in triumph.
Hercules sprinted up the road, reaching the melee just as the fallen man raised his staff to block a blow and found it sliced rather neatly in half.
"Ha!" said one of the thieves.
"Help!" the fallen man cried.
"Sure," Hercules said.
The two thieves whirled, gaped, and might well have chosen a hasty retreat had not Hercules decided not to give them a choice. He grabbed one under the chin, heaved him off his feet, and pitched him into a nearby bush which, by the sound of the landing, was somewhat thorned. The second used the interlude to stab at Hercules' stomach. The trouble was, the stomach wasn't there when he finished his lunge, and he looked up pleadingly beneath a thick mop of curly hair just before he, too, was given flight.
The fallen merchant gasped his thanks.
Hercules nodded and hurried to the fron
t wagon, where the remaining thieves were still kicking at a bundle of clothing huddled behind one tall wheel.
The clothing yelped.
The thieves laughed.
Hercules cleared his throat.
The thieves stopped laughing, turned, and one of them snarled, "Who are you?"—even as he drew a dagger from his belt.
Hercules spread his arms to prove not only that he was not carrying a weapon, but that his arms were considerably thicker, and stronger, than the thief's.
It was a silent warning.
The thief looked at his partner and grinned as if to suggest that this had turned out to be more fun than they had planned. The grin slipped away, however, when he noticed his partner backing away. "What's the matter with you, Chicus?" he demanded.
Chicus pointed a trembling finger. "I know him, Sid, I know him."
"So introduce us, dear brother," Sid answered with a nasty laugh, and a nastier wave of his dagger.
The second thief swallowed hard. "That's He paled. "It's ..."
"Hercules," Hercules offered calmly.
Chicus nodded, blinked, and probably would have escaped into the woods had he not, in spinning around to flee, slammed into the high rear wheel and fallen flat on his back.
Sid, who was gap-toothed with a broad black mustache, then uttered a word which, in mixed company, would have probably gotten him lynched, and decided that flight was perhaps the wisest of choices after all.
It was, although probably not the kind of flight he had hoped for, as Hercules snared him by belt and scruff, hoisted him overhead, and tossed him easily into the two men near the second caravan, who had huddled together in an effort to come up with a plan to help their friends, and pluck out a few thorns.
The three went down in a symphony of grunts and moans, one that changed quickly to "Hey, knock it off!" and at least one "Yike!" when the merchant began to flail at them with his half-staff.
It wasn't long before they ran-stumbled into the woods, soon followed by their recovered partner.
Once the thieves were gone and clearly not about to return, Hercules shook his head in disappointment.
Men like that were giving thievery a bad name. And they were brothers, too.
Timothy Boggs - Hercules Legendary Joureneys 03 Page 1
