The Arms Of Hercules

by Fred Saberhagen

  At one point Zeus said: "I can see now that trying to preserve secrecy was a mistake, and we should have put more trust in our fellow humans." Looking at the only two mortal humans present, he added: "It would be natural for you to side with us rather than the dirt-faces."

  Daedalus agreed. "And siding with the Giants would have been a great mistake on our part. In a world ruled by Giants, ordinary people would be reduced to the status of cattle. The centaurs have chosen poorly."

  I was sure that some of them, including Pholus, would not be on the Giants' side.

  One of the gods philosophized: "After all, we are humans, however much we like to call ourselves immortal. Our Faces that we boast about, that other people worship, are only masks that we put on."

  Eventually our expeditionary force got under way.

  When the time actually came to move out, Apollo reached out an arm and scooped me aboard his chariot. Beside us drove Mars, behind a pair of magnificent black horses, their hoofbeats thundering on air.

  Thanks to the speed of movement afforded us by the divine Sandals and chariots, we were able to travel more than a thousand miles to the south in only a few hours. Most of the flight was at high altitude, but the chariot of Apollo provided warmth and somehow even air to keep the Far-Worker's passengers, Daedalus and myself, almost comfortable.

  The sprites had provided our leaders with accurate intelligence, and at the expected time we came in sight of a village, built on a gigantic scale, in the midst of a green and sunlit land. Looking over the rail of my host's chariot, I could catch a glimpse in the distance of a broad blue arm of the Great Sea; but it was too far away to let us obtain any help from Neptune and his legions.

  A score or more of flying chariots came sweeping in rapidly on a cluster of huge buildings, each tall enough for its builders and owners to stand upright inside. The construction materials used were the trunks of many large trees and huge stone blocks. Roofs had been thatched with giant plants.

  The air was much warmer here than it had been around the laboratory's desolate island, and things were green and growing. We had seen only a few humans on our final approach to our objective, but in this climate it seemed likely that Apples could be grown easily and plentifully. As we were on the point of landing, I looked out over long rows of budding trees that would be huge when they had got their growth; another orchard nearby held a smaller number that were already grown and producing fruit.

  The inhabitants must have been warned somehow of our approach, for we found not a single Giant in any of the buildings or nearby fields.

  Here and there as we came sweeping in, movement swarmed on pairs of tiny legs, no bigger and much weaker than my own—ordinary mortal humans who had been dwelling here with the Giants, or by their sufferance.

  "Do they not know that we come to save them from the Giants?" I demanded of the world.

  Daedalus shook his head. "They probably realize that we bring war. And a war between gods and Giants is not something that most humans will want to watch at close range."

  There were also penned and pastured animals, doubtless being bred for food, that we dispersed by breaking down the fences. I also caught a glimpse of a few centaurs galloping away, but all my thoughts were on other matters at the time.

  "I don't suppose this place is the Giants' headquarters," the Artisan observed to me. "But it must be the nearest thing to one that our scouts could find."

  "I suppose they must have other orchards elsewhere," I agreed. "There certainly can't be many Giants in the world, if this is their biggest town."

  He nodded. "It seems a fair assumption that somewhere they have other settlements and orchards, ten times the size of these."

  And then we were on the ground, the silence shattered by a loud rumbling of wheels while our vehicle jolted to a stop. Daedalus prudently stayed with Apollo's chariot, while I jumped out and joined some of the bolder gods in prowling through the buildings, seeking for our foes. They were not to be discovered in that place, but their property was everywhere, in the form of gigantic tools and furnishings.

  One of our more bellicose gods was shouting: "Come out, Alkyoneus, come out and play! Where are you hiding?"

  But no one, it seemed, was ready just then to join us in another game.

  "These are the Apples of the Hesperides," cried Zeus, pulling open a huge bin of fruit, calling everyone's attention to the fact. Everyone could recognize them, from the sample I had earlier obtained. It was impossible to mistake them for any other kind of fruit or vegetable. The yellow, melon-sized fruit were in all the buildings, arrayed on racks or snuggled one or two in a nest, like the eggs of barnyard fowl.

  As we broke into the place and battered our way through it, my companions and I stumbled upon an indoor nursery for seedlings, roofed with a kind of oiled paper that let in much sunlight. I pounded the trees and their containers into splinters with my club, and the gods to the right and left of me wrought similar destruction.

  "If Hades were here," some minor god suggested, "he might generate a nice earthquake and tumble these walls down."

  "It seems we'll have to do as best we can without him," cautioned Zeus.

  We also found another huge building, in which the balloons used in the attack on the island had evidently been manufactured.

  But we were not going to be allowed to pillage and ruin the enemy stronghold unopposed: In a nearby grove of towering trees forces had been gathering to oppose our invasion, and now they were ready to strike at us. The counterattack was signaled by a new barrage of flying rocks.

  The counterattack did not really take us by surprise, but we were too near that situation to feel comfortable about it. Yet another Giant now advanced on me with murderous intent.

  Apparently some of our enemies were still ignorant about me. Certainly this advancing Titan, like the others I had faced, must have believed I was a god—or he would not have wasted his special weapon trying to disable me.

  Like the others I had so far confronted, this one misplaced his confidence in the magical beams he could project from his fingertips.

  As the long day of fighting wore on, I saw some minor goddess struck down, whose name I did not know. Her head was shattered, a sickening display of colors punctuated with pieces of white bone, making a portrait of beauty and power brought low by overwhelming brutal force. If she had been wearing a bronze helmet, it had offered no protection against such a ferocious blow.

  I looked at her feet for flying Sandals, thinking that I might gain speed enough to let me catch up with my opponents.

  But either she had not been wearing Sandals, or someone else had taken them ahead of me.

  Moments later, I saw something I truly had never expected to behold: a momentarily victorious Giant, still feeling desperate enough, or perhaps simply adventurous enough, to try on a Face. He picked it up from the body of his comparatively diminutive slain opponent.

  In the hand that raised it, the Face was a tiny, insignificant thing. At a little distance it looked like nothing more or less than a translucent mask designed to fit a mortal human head. It was no match at all for the Giant's great, pale, rocklike sketch of a countenance. And it remained stubbornly unabsorbed when he tried to press it between his eyes with one huge finger.

  The Face was still stuck on the end of his fingertip when I got his attention by beginning to cut him down.

  Again Alkyoneus, the archenemy of the gods, appeared, clad in rattling strips and chains of metal armor, inspiring the Giant forces to renewed efforts.

  Many of the gods recoiled as the Giants' champion strode forward. But again Mars chose to meet him head-on, howling a challenge. Alas, Ares had no more success in this joust than in the previous one.

  But our forces rallied, the thunderbolts of Zeus flew thick and fast, the Arrows of Apollo killed and wounded. I could see that Alkyoneus was hurt, but he kept to his feet.

  Mars was slower to climb back into his chariot this time, slower to plead with his fellow Olympia
ns that we must pursue the enemy as quickly as we could. Zeus added his own urgings, but it did not matter. Most of the surviving gods insisted on having time to rest.

  Not that any who had come this far were ready to quit. We were determined to hunt down and exterminate the fleeing enemy, or at least get rid of Alkyoneus.

  Even at the much later date on which I write, the ideal of complete extermination has so far proven impossible to achieve. Some minimize the continued threat. And Poseidon and some of the other gods, who had been deranged and driven early from the field, in later days rejoined divine society having forgotten that there ever was a battle at all. To this day some of them do not remember it; and a few even believe, or pretend to believe, that the whole story is an utter fabrication. My own memory of these events is probably better than that of any god, simply because I never fell victim to the Giants' magic force—and that indeed is one reason why I am writing these memoirs.

  I was surprised to see how, despite their heavy bodies, the Giants could move quite rapidly over long distances, outpacing racing cameloids when they were forced to make the effort. And I was surprised also at their numbers in their counterattack around their village. Obviously their survivors from the earlier fighting had been reinforced.

  In the fierce battles of that day there were perhaps a hundred gods in all, arrayed on one side, and perhaps as many as two hundred Giants on the other—along with certain centaurs and whatever other creatures might have been induced to join them.

  At the beginning, and again later, whenever events allowed us a breathing space, the strategic questions were fiercely debated—such as, whether it was possible, or even desirable, to concentrate our forces in one place. But, as I suspect happens in most battles, once the fighting started, fine plans and strategy were all but forgotten by both sides as we concentrated on the mechanics of destruction, and on keeping ourselves alive. On every side the fighting was spreading like wildfire, and the commanders could no more manage it than they could have regulated a conflagration.

  Many of the gods who did join in the fighting were comparatively minor figures, and some achieved more than their more famous colleagues. I hesitate to name names.

  Even Mars was accused of cowardice by some. He could not be everywhere, and others who fought missed seeing him at all.

  His appearance whenever he did show up inspired terror in many, including some of our opponents, if one could judge by the speed with which they fled from him.

  At one point I saw with horror that the God of War had lost his helmet.

  Shortly after that, the Giants scored on him with their special weapon; but in the case of Ares the effect was not what his enemies had hoped. Even when he had almost entirely lost his memory, he charged ahead, caring for nothing but killing.

  I saw him send home a spear-thrust that felled a Giant, then whip his chariot horses on in pursuit of his next target.

  Running up to one of my huge opponents at the level of his ankles, I prepared to swing my club with force enough to annihilate one of his leg bones, bulging beneath the skin. But the stepping motion of his leg changed at the last moment, and again I lost respect for our enemies' intelligence. This Giant, like several of my earlier opponents, was prepared to stomp on me with a gigantic foot—a moment later he reacted as if he'd stepped on a sharp stone. Partly the result of the fine steel armor with which Hephaestus had provided me—and partly because I held up my club on end to prick his foot.

  * * *

  Some have assured me that Giants have always had a special fear of lightning. But what mortal creature does not fear the thunderbolt? Whether the enemy particularly dreaded them or not, the fulminations of Zeus had a powerful effect. Even when the Thunderer failed to score a direct hit, his blasts still did considerable damage. Daedalus later discovered that the iron component of my club had been magnetized strongly enough to pick up nails.

  The Thunderer also gathered thunderbolts into loose magnetic spheres and rolled them at his enemies like bowling balls. On contact they tended to produce truly satisfying explosions.

  But Alkyoneus was obviously possessed of some form of immunity. It was as if his whole body served as a kind of lightning rod, conducting the power harmlessly down into the earth.

  Later we discovered that his armor, which he had had designed specially for a duel with Zeus, offered an all-metal pathway that kept his body inside it safe.

  Neither was I to be outdone when it came to throwing things, small though I was. Zeus and all other gods were able to magically extend the reach of their hands and arms, enabling them to uproot and move whole mountains, or at least small hills, and hurl them as projectiles.

  "What's that?" I called out in amazement. Around us the whole earth seemed to be shuddering.

  "One of them," said Zeus, "is throwing mountains at us."

  I choked out something stupid, I am sure, for I could not believe the fact. Later I saw convincing evidence.

  "It's true enough," my father told me. "Well, I will show them that I can do the same."

  When a god or Giant literally uprooted a mountain, the whole earth quivered for many miles around, and clouds of dust billowed up, darkening the sky. When the Giant or god hurled such a missile, the huge mass cast a cloud-sized shadow in its passage. If it was thrown hard enough, the shock wave in itself was enough to knock down trees and lesser vegetation.

  I on the other hand remained limited in my reach, even if my strength was equal to the Thunderer's. I had not my father's power to exert force outside my body, and could never get my arms around such a huge object. But once I had boulders in my grasp, I could propel them with the velocity of pellets shot from a crossbow—or even faster, faster than the eye could follow, if I put all my strength and will into the throw.

  Never before in my life, not even, as it seemed to me then, not even in my wrestling match with Zeus, had I ever exerted my full strength.

  My aim was not too good at first, and I missed my target by a quarter of a mile—a visible splash, startling white against the wine-dark sea, or a fountain of dust on land, showed where the missile struck—but my skills rapidly improved with practice.

  Whenever one of my missiles struck home, it cracked a Giant's skull or ribs. I think I saw one lesser Giant's head carried entirely away, but at that distance it was hard to be sure.

  Any lesser being I hit, such as a centaur, was of course obliterated by the impact.

  And when a mass of earth or rock, hurled by some Giant, came toward me far too fast for me to dodge, I could only brace myself and try to withstand the impact. A deafening roar was followed by smothering darkness—and then, gasping and choking, I had to dig myself out from under several yards of soil and broken rock.

  Some have said that when our battle for the Apple orchard had run its course, certain Giants who had been captured alive were locked away in Tartarus by Zeus; that the Thunderer for some reason wanted to spare their lives but doom them to eternal exile. I think this is extremely doubtful. Another legend has it that a remnant of our foes retreated to some portion of the Underworld as to a last defensive redoubt; and the gods decided that the difficulties of digging them out of any fastness so well fortified would have been so great that even Hades had doubts of being able to accomplish it.

  Later legends have stated that the gods could do no more than stun the Giants, and depended in every case on the arms of Hercules to provide a finishing blow. In fact, Giants were wounded and killed, often without any help from me, in a number of ways, some particularly gruesome.

  Some of our opponents on that day were no bigger than Antaeus had been. But none, I think, were any smaller.

  Of course legend has played its role in history, as usual. One hears, for example, that the superhuman giant Tityus, when his body was stretched out at full length, covered nine acres. And Enkelados was so energetic that the whole weight of Mount Aetna was barely enough to keep him from bursting free. These were definitely exaggerations.

  To my as
tonishment, some have lately questioned whether the Giants ever existed, and put forth the foolish argument that if they had, surely some of their bones would still remain as evidence. But the truth, as I have been trying to explain convincingly in these pages, is that when they died, their bones, along with the rest of their vast bodies, soon decayed into a substance indistinguishable from ordinary dirt and gravel.

  Diana, traditionally called the twin sister of Apollo, appeared from somewhere to take part in the fighting. She was said to be a virgin huntress, who carried arrows and a spear and was of a vindictive nature.

  I saw her kill the Giant called Gration, riddling him with pointed shafts, and I was mightily impressed.

  Several of our enemies were especially impressive, too, each in his own way. Briareus in his furious efforts almost proved true the legend that credited him with a hundred arms, while Typhon practically played the part of a volcano, breathing out fire. At various times most of the gods showed some fear of these beings, though not to the degree ascribed by legend, in which the Olympians all fled to Egypt and hid themselves under various forms.

  The renewed fighting around the devastated Giant village turned fierce indeed.

  Porphyrion, while trying to seize Hera, perhaps as a hostage, was overpowered by a team of gods, and Enkelados was slain by Athena. Ephialtes died when one of Apollo's Arrows struck him in the eye.

  Apollo in general played a major role in the fighting, his Arrows doing almost as much damage as Zeus accomplished with his mighty bolts of lightning.

  Hephaestus also battled fiercely, angered I suppose by the attack upon his laboratory. I saw his figure, looking larger than life-sized, carrying in each hand an enormous gobbet of what must have been molten iron, which he hurled at any of our enemies who came in range.

  Alkyoneus was not to be defeated, but soon the landscape was littered with the bodies of dead Giants, and he gave his surviving colleagues the signal to withdraw.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The Last Word