Dreamers

by James Gunn

  Hector leads us in that direction, too. But I do not blame him. His horses are fast, and it is Hector, even more than me, that the enemy most wishes to kill, for he is our champion, just as Achilles is theirs, and they have lost many comrades and kinsmen to his arm.

  Achilles cuts up the nearest companies and places himself between their chariots and the walls of Ilium. He charges in to kill, and each time at least one warrior drops.

  If we don't stop fleeing, this madman will kill us all.

  If, after living through this war, we could be sure of ageless immortality, I wouldn't take my place in the front line nor send you out to win honor on the battlefield. But life isn't like that. Death has a thousand pitfalls for our feet; and nobody can save himself and cheat Death. So in we go, either to yield the glory to other men or win it for ourselves.

  Sarpedon, whom the credulous call the son of Zeus, is the first to stop. He leaps down from his chariot and rallies his Lycians as Achilles, in his turn, dismounts and advances. Bloody raindrops fall around us like the tears of Zeus at the imminent death of his son. For Sarpedon is doomed, as Achilles first kills his squire, Thrasymelus, and then, after Sarpedon misses twice with his spears, pierces Sarpedon's body at the diaphragm.

  Glaucus calls out for help to save Sarpedon's body and armor, and Hector leads a group of Trojan heroes to battle with Achilles and the two Ajaxes. They fight back and forth across Sarpedon's bloody corpse, their scuffling feet kicking dust over the armor. Men die on either side, until Hector suddenly leaps into his chariot with a cry that Zeus has turned against them and they must retreat.

  If I had done it, Hector would have called me a coward and worse. Well, if I am not the warrior Hector is, at least I don't pretend to virtues I don't have. The Achaeans strip Sarpedon of his armor, but I spirit the body from their midst.

  Achilles follows Hector in his chariot and strikes down a dozen Trojan champions. In the grasp of his battle fury he attacks the walls of Ilium themselves. Three times he tries to scale the walls, and three times I hurl him back, and still he comes, but I shout at him and force him back once more.

  The final time, Hector is there in his chariot. Achilles throws a giant rock and strikes Hector's driver, Cebriones, crushing his forehead. Hector and Achilles struggle for the body, while other Trojans and Achaeans join the fighting. At last the Achaeans pull the body away and strip it.

  This terror has lasted too long, I tell myself. If I have artistic control at all, I must use it now. I resolve that Achilles must die as he charges again and again into the Trojan ranks, shouting his battle cry and killing seven, eight, nine at every charge. He must die! As I think it, Achilles staggers as if some giant hand has struck him between the shoulder blades. His crested helmet flies off, and his eyes start from his head.

  At that moment Euphorbus strikes him in the back with a spear and Hector sticks him in the lower belly. He falls, and I am exultant. Without Achilles the Achaeans cannot last. Disheartened, they must board their black ships for their dismal retreat across the Aegean. Victory! Victory and control.

  But as I am celebrating, Hector shouts, “This is not Achilles! It is Patroclus in Achilles’ armor!"

  The dying Patroclus says, “Enjoy your victory while you may, Hector, for you have not long to live. Soon Achilles himself will come to bring you death."

  Patroclus. Not Achilles but his friend from childhood. His death will bring Achilles from his hut, and if Patroclus can almost destroy us what will Achilles do?

  Why is this strange world so resistant to my desires?

  * * * *

  Samuel opened his eyes and found himself looking up into the ambiguous eyes of Helen. His dejection at the path of events in the world of Ilium melted into bewilderment, and his bewilderment melted into passion as her kisses matched his own in hunger and urgency.

  Helen comes to me as she came that first night at Cranaë...

  Her body was like a bowstring eager for his hands, and as they caressed her here and there, as they stroked and fondled, as they relearned all the familiar surprises and marveled once again at all the unique responses, his need grew along with hers, and the bowstring tightened for the fitting of the arrow into place.

  ...the most beautiful woman in the world...

  And she, with her blue eyes looking into his, was never passive. Her hands were as eager as his as they touched and held and encouraged, trembling as if with a passion too great to contain.

  ...her face like alabaster lit from within...

  Lips joined hands and fingers in turning flesh to flame, hers as well as his, and tongues shared the mingled honeys of their love

  ...her eyes dark with mystery, her body smooth and youthful...

  The urgency mounted into insistence, and they joined themselves, male to female, in a giving and a taking that became a joy that knew no end.

  ...her passion and skills in lovemaking as great as those of Aphrodite herself....

  The small red room became a paradise, a place of ecstasy achieved, sustained, a place of possessing and possessing, a place of fulfillment earned, repletion found....

  Afterward, as he lay stretched out upon the blood-red bed in the blood-red room, he felt a deep sadness within him, for her as well as for himself. He sighed and felt her stir against him.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  'Why did you do it?"

  She lifted up her head to look at him. Her blonde hair was streaked with perspiration.

  The ravish'd Helen, Menelaus’ queen,

  With wanton Paris sleeps.

  “You know why,” she said. “My reason is the same as the one that drives you back again and again to a dream that's killing you.

  “Nonsense,” he said.

  “If I couldn't have you as Zoe,” she said, “I'd have you as Helen."

  He turned his head now to look at her, to look into her blue eyes, the eyes that were not at all like Helen's. He should never have been deceived, and yet there was about her still the aura that Helen had, the assuredness of beauty beyond compare, the secret knowledge that all the world had gone to war because of her.

  “Where did you get it?” he asked.

  “There are things about computers that you'll never know because you don't care enough to learn,” Zoe said. “You can't lock me out. You can't keep secrets from me. I care. I took computer caps until I knew more than anybody, and then I got a sample from your dream and had it refined by another dreamer—a woman—but you aren't interested in the details."

  The thought of stuffing his head with data caps appalled him, but more than that, he could not accept the reality that his dream was no longer private. “My dream!"

  She must have sensed his horror. “Your dream! Your dream! What's so sacred about your dream? What about my dreams?"

  “I can't do anything about that. Understand? I can't. If I'm essential to the fulfillment of your dreams, I'm sorry; it wasn't my doing. You're meddling in my life—like telling Regi his commission was completed—and all I ask is to be left alone."

  “Of course. You've got to let go of this thing that's consuming you. It will destroy you if you don't share it, if you don't let it go. Remember what you told me! You're a dreamer, not a poppet."

  “You don't understand,” Samuel said patiently. “There's a dream, one dream, that lies at the heart of each of us. When it comes to that one true dream, the dream that our life is all about, all of us are poppets.” He was surprised to realize that what he had intended as rationalization had the feel of truth.

  “I'm not a poppet,” she said fiercely.

  He almost loved her. Certainly he wished he loved her. She was strong, and he was weak; she would persevere, and he would surrender. In his weakness he couldn't give her what he gave Helen; in her strength she wouldn't accept anything else. “And yet you pop."

  “Just for you."

  He winced. “Maybe I am your one true love. I know I'm not worth it, but I suppose that doesn't matter. If you can't pos
sess me—or what you think I am—you'll pop. Believe me. You'll pop and pop again."

  “But what we had was real,” she insisted. “It was wonderful. You can't say it wasn't wonderful."

  “What can I say?” he asked. “Obviously I was deceived. And yet I knew, I always knew, that you weren't Helen. It wasn't as wonderful as my dream."

  “That's sickness. That's just a dream,” she said. “This is reality.” She put his hand on her breast. “No, wait! If I should touch you once again, here and here, you would respond, I know. See? No, wait! I'll pop again. I'll do it better. I'll be Helen to your Paris, and we will shatter that world and this with our lovemaking. I'll do whatever you want; I'll be whomever you want me to be. Even Helen. I hate her, but I'll keep you as Helen."

  He recognized her tragedy, but he drew himself away from her and stood up, looking down at her naked body, and felt only sadness. “It's not enough. Give it up. Give me up. Find someone else who has love to give you. I have none."

  She sat up, hugging her knees to her breasts. “I won't. I won't give you up.” Her voice broke. He almost reached for her, to comfort her and seek for himself, once more, the courage of her arms. But he had the strength to restrain himself. “I don't know what I can do, but I won't give you up,” she repeated.

  “I'll never make love to you again,” he said. It was like a prophecy. “As Zoe or Helen, it doesn't matter. So nothing you can do can change anything. Give it up."

  Naked and cold, he watched her body shudder with unvoiced sobs.

  * * * *

  Achilles was told by his mother, Thetis of the silver feet, that if he went to Troy he would win undying honor but would die young; if he stayed at home he would live a long but inglorious life.

  From the top of the great tower of Ilium I see the battle spread before me with a clarity I could not believe when I was in the turmoil myself. Yesterday I had stood here. Yesterday the outcome of the war had seemed in doubt, as I was.

  The Achaeans and the Trojans had battled back and forth across the body of Patroclus. Many men on either side died unlovely deaths in order to retrieve or desecrate one man's corpse. Hector stripped the body of Achilles's armor but was driven from the remains by Big Ajax. And so the battle went, favoring first one side and then the other. Hector and Aeneas killed many Achaeans; the two Ajaxes, Menelaus, and Automedon killed many Trojans. Finally Menelaus and Meriones carried the body of Patroclus back to the black ships, back to the grieving Achilles, while the two Ajaxes repelled the pursuit.

  In the sunset as the Trojans paused upon the plain, Achilles, without his armor and clearly recognizable, appeared beside the trench in front of the Achaean wall. The Trojans fell back and held a conference on their feet.

  “Retire within the walls,” advised Polydamas, a comrade of Hector's who, the credulous believe, can read the future as if it were the past. “Achilles will not storm the citadel; he will never sack the town while we defend it."

  “We have suffered losses,” Hector admitted, “but we have been more successful than ever before. We have battled beside the Achaean ships and done more damage than in nine years of defending the walls of Ilium. Let's camp here and at dawn attack them again at their hollow ships. So we've seen Achilles. Let the great warrior join the fight. The man who thought he was going to do the killing sometimes gets killed himself."

  The Trojans cheered that folly then. Next morning the groans and screams of dying men were louder as Achilles in new and shining armor cut his way through the Trojan lines, killing men as if they were foolish geese running in front of him.

  From the right came the Achaeans, sparkling with the bronze of infantry and horse. From the left in front of the walls of Ilium came the Trojans in great waves across the plain. The dust roiled up as the two armies advanced; the earth shook beneath their feet. As they drew close, the armies paused. Aeneas, prompted by some foolhardy impulse, stepped forward to challenge Achilles.

  Aeneas cast his spear. It was stopped by Achilles’ great shield. Achilles’ spear passed over Aeneas's back. Achilles charged, his sword raised high. Aeneas lifted a huge rock to hurl at him. With a terrible premonition, I knew his effort would fail. I swept him from the field.

  Sometimes I had the clear knowledge that my will would control events; at other times, no matter what I tried to do, I could not make events respond. I would have called it simple artistic failure if I had not been successful so many times before.

  Now Achilles was among the Trojans, killing a warrior at every cast of his spear, with every slash of his sword. Hector tried to stop him. He threw a spear, but some unruly wind blew it back at his feet. I knew that I must rescue him. If Hector were killed, all might be lost. I set him elsewhere upon the battlefield, far from Achilles.

  The gigantic killer of men slew until his arm was weary and the blood splashed from his horse's hooves and the wheels of his chariot. He caught many Trojans by a ford of the Scamander and slaughtered them until the river ran red and bodies floated from bank to bank.

  When some Trojans tried to hide in the river along the bank, Achilles leaped in after them. In desperation I moved the waters of the river against him, throwing its waves against his great body, trying to knock him off his feet, to drown him, somehow to stop this carnage. Finally he ran from the fury of the river, but only far enough to avoid its reach before he turned once more to the slaying.

  The gates of Ilium had been thrown open to save the fleeing troops, and Achilles made straight for them. Agenor, son of Antenor, moved into his path and challenged him. He launched a spear that hit Achilles’ shin guard but failed to penetrate. Before Achilles could attack, I removed Agenor from the battlefield.

  By now the gates had been closed. Old Priam had climbed beside me and gave me a scornful look. Below us in the streets were the bloody, dusty, beaten Trojans, panting and lamenting. All but Hector.

  Now Achilles comes, and Hector remains outside to stand along, on his back the armor of Achilles that he stripped from the dead Patroclus.

  For the moment great power was yours. Now you must pay for it. There will be no homecoming for you from the battle, and Andromache will never take the glorious armor of Achilles from your hands.

  We stand helpless upon the great tower and watch the duel develop. Helen's hand creeps into mine, and I look at her, my breath caught in my throat between concern and desire. Of late she has been cool, as if she knows something that I do not, but I will make her mine again.

  When I look back I see that Hector is running, with Achilles, swiftest of the Achaeans in spite of his great bulk, close behind him. Under the walls of Ilium they run, past the lookout and the fig tree, along the cart path and past two springs, one hot and one cold, and close beside them the stone troughs where the women of Ilium washed their clothes before the Achaeans came. Time after time Hector dashes for the Dardanian Gates, hoping that the archers above can discourage Achilles’ pursuit, but each time, Achilles heads him off toward open country. It is like a nightmare chase, where pursuer cannot catch up, but neither can the pursued escape.

  Three times they race around the walls of Ilium. As the fourth circuit begins, Hector stops and stands panting, awaiting Achilles’ approach. “Come, let us fight, man to man, until one of us is dead,” he says.

  Achilles answers, in a voice like an angry lion's, “You are as good as dead.” He casts his spear, but Hector crouches under it. Hector throws his only spear at Achilles. I guide it in its flight. It strikes the center of Achilles’ shield, and then rebounds, useless.

  Suddenly Achilles’ spear is back in his hand again, and Hector has none. Hector charges, sword in hand, and Achilles thrusts with his spear. It enters the gap above the bronze armor. It pierces Hector's throat.

  Come alive! come alive! Hector! I implore, but he is dying, and I cannot save him.

  “Let my body be ransomed,” Hector asks, his voice faint.

  “The dogs will eat you,” Achilles says implacably.

  Hector's throat f
ills up with blood. It is difficult to understand his reply, but I am sure—I am almost sure—I hear him say, “The gods will remember how you treated me when your turn comes, and you are brought down at the Scaean Gate in all your glory by Paris and Apollo."

  Even if prophecies are an illusion, there is a certain sanctity that pervades the last words of dying men. Isn't there? Isn't there?

  * * * *

  Terror still was coursing through Samuel's veins when he awoke, curled up on one side. He did not know why he was afraid until later. Too weak or too tired to cleanse himself, he slumped in a pneumatic chair trying to piece his recent experience into a pattern.

  Hector was dead. Samuel didn't know whether he could revive him. So far, at least, he had not been successful with anyone who had really expired. Ordinarily that wouldn't matter. It was a dream, after all, and Hector was alive in some parts and dead in others, and if one wished to experience him alive, he had only to relive the dream.

  Of course Samuel could bring Hector back to life by redreaming the episode, but artistically there would be a wrongness to it that he would know and others might sense. Besides, Hector's death had a kind of dramatic rightness that Samuel recognized beyond the implicit structure of the Homeric epic.

  If he could convince himself that Hector's death was due to his subconscious recognition of the artistic appropriateness of the event, then he need not fear that the dream was being controlled by someone else. It would be like any other dream, and when it came to an end—as every dream must—he would go on to other dreams, or, if he wished, he could retire and dream no more.

  Have I not made blind Homer sing to me?

  But this was not any other dream. It had lasted far longer, and he had returned to it far oftener, returned with a compulsion he had never felt before. Perhaps he had been right when he told Zoe, “When it comes to our one true dream, the one dream that our life is all about, we all are poppets."