The Arms Of Hercules

by Fred Saberhagen

  As long as we were still airborne, the chariot had glowed with a kind of inner warmth, which had sufficed to keep my mortal flesh from freezing. But when we came to a halt and I jumped out, the full arctic blast of Hyperborean wind struck at me, and I was very glad to follow the gesture of the golden maid, who beckoned me to her through the doorway, into a place of comfortable warmth and cheerful light.

  I started to speak to the maid as I hurried past her, but before I had finished a sentence I was completely sure that the figure before me was neither human nor god, but only a device of metal and magic, cunningly formed into the shape of a young girl. Apollo, entering the fortress right behind me, ignored the golden marvel and strode on down a long hallway, halloing ahead in the manner of a man entering a familiar house. The maiden promptly closed the outer door behind us.

  Moments later my divine companion and I were standing in a vast room, almost as big as the hall of Hades in the Underworld, furnished with chairs and tables of heroic size, and lit by the orange glow of a distant forge. Another moment after that, and we were being welcomed by a marvelous company, in which Daedalus, the only mortal present besides myself, made the least impressive figure.

  Half a dozen tall, formidable figures were gathered in the hall, and most of them turned their heads to look at me as I entered. Their faces wore a variety of expressions, and presently I was being introduced to Hephaestus, also known as Vulcan, or the Smith.

  The Smith's hands were big, with gnarled fingers, and he limped on a right leg that was slightly twisted and deformed. His muscular torso was bare and sweating, and he was gripping some tool I did not recognize.

  Before I could start to worry about any possible awkwardness in my being introduced to Hera, the thing had been accomplished. I bowed low before a majestic woman in formal robes, who responded with a gracious nod. A golden circlet crowned her head, and a peacock was strutting at her feet.

  Close beside her was standing Mars, also called Ares, unmistakable with his armor and his spear. I knew a strange sensation down the back of my neck when the God of War nodded to me with respect.

  I was sure that my first glance on entering had shown me several other deities in the group, but whoever they might have been, all were gone now, vanished like a rainbow when the sun is suddenly engulfed in clouds.

  Daedalus said he had important business to transact with me, now that I was available, and he called me away from the gathering of gods and goddesses as soon as he could without offending any of that company. With one of the golden maidens to assist him, he was prepared to show me the important work that he and Hephaestus were engaged in. Meanwhile I started to tell him about my experience with Atlas.

  Gladly I followed the Artisan into another room. I had pictured the inside of this establishment, when I tried to picture it at all, as a gigantic forge or foundry, filled with flame and smoke and the clang of metal, and all of these were present in the central hall; but the first workroom I actually entered was equipped and furnished very differently. Most of the laborers, it seemed to me, were as invisible as so many Dionysian sprites.

  Now Daedalus showed me an ongoing laboratory experiment, in which he and the Smith were hand-forging helmets out of a special alloy of bronze, containing a slight mixture of the residue of a fallen Giant's body. Daedalus had hopes that this alloy would effectively shield the wearer's brain from the Giants' destructive rays.

  Naturally I rejoiced to hear this news. It was obvious from past experience that the assembled divinities would need some kind of protective devices if they were going to have any chance of making a successful fight of it in the open.

  At the time of my arrival, Hephaestus had only one helmet ready. Conferring with Daedalus and his magic helpers, he tried to get a production line going.

  Ordinarily, Zeus and his colleagues wore gold or silver, when they encumbered their comely bodies with any metal at all. I got the impression that they all considered helmets, like their other accoutrements, as purely decorative. In the ordinary course of events deities needed no protection, from either violence or weather.

  Vulcan put his experimental helmet on his own head. He wanted to demonstrate his own handiwork by getting someone to accompany him in an airborne chariot while he hunted for a Giant and attempted to attack him.

  When the Smith's devine peers heard of this planned demonstration, they were upset, and all agreed that he was too important to the cause to risk himself in such a fashion. Naturally no mortal human would be of any use as a subject in this case, and so it was decided to call for volunteers among the lesser deities.

  But as soon as word went out from Hephaestus and Daedalus that they were seeking some minor god willing to be experimentally befuddled, Dionysus volunteered at once, saying that such a mental state was nothing out of the ordinary for him.

  "I fear my esteemed colleagues do not understand," proclaimed the Twice-Born. "I am no hero. It's just that I expect to experience little difference between the mental state brought on by this experiment and the ecstasy I commonly share with my worshipers."

  The Smith shook his head doubtfully. "Then it seems we ought to find some other volunteer for our test. Who else is available?" And this discussion, too, seemed likely to dissolve in hopeless wrangling. I feared there was no way that the important test could be accomplished anytime soon.

  After I had been given a preliminary tour of the secret workshop, Hephaestus called me aside, saying he had prepared for me special gifts.

  "Hercules, I have heard much of you, and I like what I hear."

  This came as a complete surprise to me, but you may believe I followed with alacrity. In another room, where the fire of a smaller forge was burning, he showed me that he had ready a suit of chain mail, forged from a different metal alloy than the gods' helmets, and padded with fine wool. This, he promised me, would be just what I needed. The garment had been forged and trimmed with divine skill into a shape that fit me excellently well.

  I put it on at once, found that it allowed me perfect freedom of movement, and once more thanked its creator. It would offer considerable protection from any weapon the Giants might strike at me with, and from the arctic blasts of freezing air as well.

  I thanked the Smith as politely as I could, while keeping to myself my serious doubts that I would ever need armor of any kind to shield me in a fight—on the other hand, if we were going to fight in a cold climate I would certainly be grateful for something to keep me warm.

  Daedalus, who had come to observe the fitting, cautioned me that the suit's materials had not been tested against burns or poisons.

  And Hephaestus said: "Since I have been told something of your strength, I have not stinted on the armor's strength by trying to reduce its weight. Few mortal men who wore this would be able to lift their arms, or even move their feet. But you should have no difficulty."

  He also told me that his mortal name was Andy Ferrante. "You might as well call me Andy, Hercules. I'm even newer at this game than Apollo is." And he put out his hand for me to shake.

  And in the course of our talk, Hephaestus mentioned his dream of someday, somehow, gaining the power of manufacturing Faces. But any such effort would have to wait until the war was over.

  When I was dressed in my new suit, and after I had allowed myself a few hours' sleep and had eaten, I resumed my study of the research projects that were currently under way.

  There was another golden maiden here, and other inhuman helpers who were less spectacular, if only because they were invisible.

  By studying the materials and processes that the Giants had used to create the monsters, the Smith and the Artisan between them thought they had gained some important insight as to the nature of the Giants, and some clues to their special weapon as well. Though the Boar and Hydra, and the sea monster that had almost eaten the Trojan princess, were of course of different species than the Giants, they, too, were designed creatures, incorporating odylic magic.

  Part of the work recentl
y accomplished by the Smith and the Artisan had been the building of a kind of greenhouse on a remote high ledge of Vulcan's fortress, and the planting of Apple seeds therein. So far there had not been enough of a crop to allow much in the way of experimentation.

  Daedalus told me as he suspected that the Giants, whether moved by some intellectual curiosity or only acting on instinct, had also been experimenting. Not with helmets, unfortunately, but with means of turning all native earthly life into monstrous variations that would cease to reproduce. So far they had had only occasional success.

  "And we still don't know with any certainty where the Giants themselves came from—I find it fascinating that Atlas told you they issued from the earth. I wonder if he meant that the first ones grew like plants? Oh, how I wish I had been there when you were talking to him!"

  "I wish so, too," I told the Artisan. "Maybe when this war is over we can go back and talk to him again."

  Almost all the Giants with whom people had reported having encountered were male. But my tutors assured me again that female examples, Giants who seemed to have been modeled in more or less crude imitation of human women, were not unknown.

  Though Giants rarely spoke to gods or humans, there had been a few dialogues between the two species over the centuries. Generally these communications consisted of little more than shouted threats, challenges, or warnings. Presumably the Titans communicated more frequently among themselves.

  The life span of each Giant seemed to be enormous, though probably not comparable to that of a god.

  Neither Daedalus nor Hephaestus had yet been able to learn exactly where on earth the Giants had first sprung to life, or when—except that it must have been in the remote past.

  Or whether, somewhere in the dim past, they had actually been human—to me that was the most chilling possibility of all.

  The more I thought about our race of enemies, the more I realized that I knew almost nothing about them. I spoke my thoughts aloud to Daedalus. "I wonder, are there Giant infants somewhere?"

  "I suppose everything that lives must pass through some stage of immaturity. Antaeus, as you describe him, Hercules, must have been quite young, as Giants go."

  "That had never occurred to me," I remarked, trying to cast back my thoughts. "True, he had no beard, and I think no hair on chest or belly. It may be he was but half grown." I tried to compare his remembered image with that of the Giant who had shot Apollo's chariot out of the air with me aboard.

  As later research demonstrated, those Apples of Hesperides were essential to the Giants' reproduction and important in their nourishment, if not essential to their absolute survival.

  "If we can eliminate the Apples entirely from the earth, that ought to make the survival of our enemies much more difficult. It might even finish them off entirely."

  It was perfectly true, several deities assured me, that the Giants sometimes sexually assaulted women, and even goddesses. A number of cases had been recorded down through the years. But Daedalus now contended that their assaults on females were only being misinterpreted as sexual.

  Hera, who had quietly approached and was listening to the lecture, was not pleased with that point of view and issued a stern decree that the rights of women should be everywhere defended.

  The next point to be argued, by some of the other gods, was just what those rights should be. Our discussion was going nowhere when Zeus suddenly joined us, materializing apparently from out of nothing, surprising everyone already inside the laboratory. My father was dressed simply, though much more regally than when I had seen him in the wrestling ring. Especially astonished were those gods, chiefly Vulcan, who thought that all intruders had been effectively excluded. But when they saw who this intruder was, they only shrugged their shoulders.

  Diplomatically Zeus sidestepped the debate on women's rights. It seemed that a council of war was about to get under way, and as I was so important to the Olympian cause, I was invited to attend. Zeus now publicly acknowledged me as his son in front of his assembled colleagues, none of whom seemed in the least surprised.

  Hephaestus, pleased that I had taken to his customized armor with such enthusiasm, was ready now to show me my new club, which he said he had made from a particular oak tree.

  This weapon was no larger than other clubs of similar shape that I had used in the past, but it was certainly heavier, and stronger. This one had been loaded by Vulcan with metal weights, and strengthened with steel bands and rods. I understood that the Artisan had been instrumental in its design.

  It was so heavy that Daedalus, after one abortive effort to lift it cleanly, did not try to carry it to me himself, but employed one of the golden maidens for the job. The slender metal figure bore the weapon with an ease that not even an Amazon could have matched.

  Daedalus said to me: "An ordinary man would be considered very powerful if he could even lift this weapon, let alone use it. It is designed especially for one of your size and strength."

  I swung it a few times in the air, reveling in what seemed perfect balance, and looked about for something to hit.

  * * *

  The inconclusive wrangling of the gods was cut off in midsentence by a Titanic blast, which shook the floor of rock beneath our feet.

  My divine allies and I were startled, and some of us were staggered, when rock over our heads shuddered, as if Thor's hammer had struck home, and a fine sprinkling of dust came sifting down.

  A moment later, the speeding figure of the Messenger came darting into the vast room from somewhere to warn us all in a stentorian voice that the Giants had taken the offensive and were now bombarding Vulcan's island laboratory with huge rocks, while an actual invasion was about to get under way.

  The walls and roof of Vulcan's laboratory, as I have said, looked almost unimaginably strong. But still I had a feeling in my bones that they would give way if that bombardment were continued. Each direct hit sent tremors through the solid rock beneath our feet, shook down a shower of fine debris, and produced an almost deafening gonglike reverberation in the ears of all who occupied the fortress.

  The Olympians' immediate response to the attack was to plunge into an argument as to whether the rock and metal walls of the fortress could be depended on to shield their vulnerable brains from memory depletion, as long as they remained inside.

  "To the Underworld with memory depletion!" shouted a deity I could not recognize. "We'd better get ourselves out of the way of flying rocks!"

  Mars pounded the butt of his spear on the stone floor and roared out his contempt of such a cowardly attitude. Shrinking out of sight of the enemy was no way to win a war.

  Meanwhile, I was more than ready to enter combat. Gripping my new club in both hands, I almost cried aloud for joy as I ran toward the place where, as I remembered, a door led to the outside.

  Zeus now echoed the War God in a ringing call to arms. And now indeed the numbers in our company were growing. I could not recognize most of the new arrivals, nor tell where they were coming from—perhaps from some other chamber in the fort.

  I learned a little later that before the fighting started, Zeus had been sending out messengers, summoning every god and goddess whose support he had any hope of getting, to take part in a climactic battle. He had meant to convene a conference of deities, where he could present to his colleagues a reasoned case for all-out warfare against the Giants; but that argument had now been made for him, and forcefully.

  Sprites had done most of the messenger work, maintaining a fairly effective communications network on our side, leaving only a few of the most vitally important missions for Mercury to handle personally.

  The invitations, or urgent summonses from Zeus to join the fight, had gone only to his fellow deities—this was not a matter in which mere mortal humans could be expected to be of any help. All the kings and high priests of earthly power would have to remain standing on the sidelines, beside the humbler members of the human race.

  Meanwhile, in the main room of the w
orkshop, the molten, carefully blended bronze alloy was being poured into ingots, which were then in turn hammered and welded into the shape of the desired helmets. Something like a production line had been established, operated chiefly by the Smith's two golden metal aides, with help from some Dionysian satyrs, and other creatures I could not immediately identify.

  The great building shook under the impact of another enormous boulder as the bombardment continued.

  Still, some of the Smith's clients were unhappy with the helmet design. Rarely have I known any group of mortals as prone to argument as were the gods. Some of their number insisted on debating the question of whether Vulcan had got his proportions right in that alloy, and even the relative efficacy of bronze, as compared to iron, or cloth, or simple unalloyed tin or copper.

  As I listened to them, there dawned on me suddenly something I ought to have realized before: that deities were no braver than anyone else, when facing what they thought might be a real danger. Some eagerly embraced even the weakest excuses to put off the moment of real testing.

  Certain other deities, of course, were at the opposite extreme of readiness. Blustering Ares now demanded that he be given the first helmet. Hephaestus complied, and as soon as Mars had the bronze casque on his head he lived up to his reputation by actually leading the way into combat. The metal was still so hot from the forge that it was almost glowing, but Mars did not appear to notice the heat as he gripped it in both hands.

  "If you are looking for some guarantee of perfect safety," he barked at his timorous colleagues, "we will not find it here inside this fort, or anywhere!"

  Some of the gods railed at Ares for his bragging, but others shouted their readiness to follow him into battle.

  Mars pointed at me and sought to shame them by my example. "Will you stand back and allow a mere mortal to lead the way?"