“Vanish!” he growled. “Before I do dreadful things to you.”
“You won’t. I’m your daughter.”
“You taint my darkness with your damned bright hair.”
“Mother says it’s just like yours—except not quite so red.”
“My hair and beard are black, can’t you see?”
“You just dyed them, that’s all. The stuff’s coming off on my hand. Why did you do that to yourself? So you wouldn’t glow in the dark?”
“That’s right. I hate the light. I need utter darkness. Now run away. Get off my mountain while you’re still in one piece.”
“You won’t hurt me. I’m your daughter. You have to love me.”
“Love … Pah!”
“I don’t care whether you drive the sun or not. I’ve decided to live with you for a while.”
He laughed a laugh that was like a snarl.
“Why are you so grumpy?” she asked. “Are you hungry?”
“I’m always hungry.”
“Do you do your own cooking?”
“I don’t do any cooking. You need a fire to cook with. Fires cast light. I eat my meat raw.”
“You can’t like it that way.”
“I like fires less.”
“Well,” she said, “I can be quite useful to you. I can cook without fire.”
“I take it back,” he said. “You’re not stupid. You’re crazy. Now jump down and disappear. I’m getting very angry.”
She did leap off his shoulder, landing lightly as a leaf. “Watch!” she called. She whirled about three times, hair whipping her face like tendrils of flame. She pointed at a rock. “Watch, watch …”
Helios saw the rock begin to change shape. Smoke came off it, and a hot meaty smell. He walked slowly toward it.
“It’s all right,” she said. “It’s roast lamb. Eat some.”
He tore off a chunk and crammed it into his mouth. It was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted, roasted rare, redolent of garlic, rosemary, and thyme.
“Like it?” she called.
“Not bad,” he mumbled. “How’d you do that?”
“I’m quite magical for my age. I can do other things, too. I can be useful to you.”
“The most useful thing you can do is go away,” he said.
He left her then and entered his cave, plunging again into utter darkness. He thought he heard her voice even through the thick rock and couldn’t tell whether she was weeping or singing. Then he heard a crack of thunder and a great wash of rain. He knew that she was still on the slope, waiting for him to come out. He pictured her under a drench of rain. He groaned aloud and stamped his foot so hard he thought he felt the floor of the cave shaking. Like a flower she was crouching under the rain, being nourished by it, growing like a flower in his mind.
He rushed out of the cave. He didn’t see her. Wind drove the rain in sheets. He was immediately as wet as though he had jumped into a river. He knew that the black dye was washing out of his hair and beard. He saw the hair of his arms smouldering in the rain. He saw a smaller patch of light.
It streaked up to him and a weight hit him on the chest. Wet arms were about his neck. He smelled violets. “Father, father,” she cried. “You came out again! It’s raining very hard.”
“You don’t say,” he grunted.
He carried her into the crater. They lit up the darkness. He watched, amazed, as the solid blackness trembled and flowed away from their forms like an ebbing tide. Shocked by light, a canopy of lizards swayed and chittered.
“Lizards!” she caroled. “How lovely!”
“You like them?”
“Oh, yes. Don’t you?”
He grunted. She laughed and grunted, imitating him. “Does that sound mean yes or no? Never mind, it doesn’t matter. What a big cave. What a wonderful place to live. Are you hungry again? Shall I cook something else? Rain makes me very hungry. Doesn’t it you?”
“Everything makes me hungry.”
After three days the crater was brimming with light. Helios was scrubbed clean. Every hair of his head and beard and body pelt was a glowing filament. The light he cast was the hot red and gold of the sun at noon. And Circe shed a silvery gold, the new quivering light of dawn. Savors of food hung upon the air—baking bread and roasting meat, garlic, rosemary, and thyme.
The exiled Titan, who had been existing in a cold, sullen, clench of rage, knew that he had been visited by a budding sorceress. He was bewildered, but submitted to enchantment. She had thawed him, healed him, had relit the great lamp of his spirit. He felt suddenly that in his new health he was breathing up all the air in the cave; he wanted to knock a hole in the rock wall to let more air in for her. He had to move. He whirled and stamped. She spun with him, screeching with laughter. Her hair whipped about her face.
“What am I doing?” he said.
“Dancing. I am, too.”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
“Are we happy or something?”
“I’m very happy here with you, Father. And you’re almost happy.”
“Why only almost?”
“You won’t be completely happy until you’re driving the sun chariot again.”
Helios stopped dancing in midstride. He stood there, thinking. “I’m thinking,” he thought. “I like to think sometimes, but it’s hard to start.” He couldn’t think without using his hands. Thoughtfully, he picked up two boulders and smashed them together. He scattered handfuls of rock dust.
“Stop it!” she cried. “You’re making me sneeze.”
“You know what I think?” he asked.
“No, what?”
“You said that about me driving the chariot again just because you want a ride.”
“Of course I do, if it’s you driving. I mean it’s not just for the ride, it would have to be you at the reins. I wouldn’t want to ride with Apollo, for instance.”
“Apollo—pah!” He spat.
“Do you hate him, Father?”
“Of course.”
“Suppose, just suppose, you did want to take me for a ride. How would you get the chariot? Steal it?”
“It was stolen from me. It was mine. I’d repossess it.”
“How? Can I help? Please let me.”
“You’ll wait here until I come back for you. That stable is closely guarded. Hundred-handed giants ring it about. It’s no place for a little girl.”
He did not realize how she had maneuvered him into making her intention his.
“How would you get in past those horrid giants?” she asked. “Won’t it be very dangerous?”
“I won’t try to get in,” he said. “The chariot will come out. I’ll stand off and whistle. The stallions will awake and gallop out, dragging the chariot behind them. They love me, those sun horses. It was I who greeted them when they were foaled by the Great Mare. I trained them myself. They obey Apollo now because Zeus has made him their master, but it’s me they love. And they’ll come when I call.”
“And you’ll pick me up here? Promise?”
“Not here,” said Helios. “The chariot must not swing too low or trees will burn like torches, and the earth scorch. When I leave, you must leave also and climb to the top of our highest mountain, which is Pelion. Go to the very top, stand there at dawn, and I’ll scoop you up.”
“Oh, Father, I love you so much.”
He just grunted, but he was very pleased.
4
The Stolen Sun
The sun chariot was trundling across the sky. The huge wheels were turning, casting light, warming and brightening the earth, chasing the shadows of night. Hot with pride, Helios was driving. And the great golden stallions, feeling their old master’s hand on the reins, were trumpeting their pleasure as they went.
Circe stood raptly in the chariot, stretching on tiptoe so that she might see over the scalloped side at what was passing below. She saw specks of houses, little humps that were mountains, and splinters that were trees—and, f
arther off, a purple smudge of sea.
“Mother is somewhere among those oaks down there,” she thought. “And all the other dryads I know. But even if they’re looking up at the sky they won’t see me because we’re too high. Wouldn’t they be surprised to know that I’m up here, though … I wonder if they’ll believe me when I tell them.”
They were passing over tiny cliffs that dropped off into the puddle of sea. She gasped in pleasure as she saw the water start to sparkle in the early light. “Lower!” she cried. “Lower, Father! Go down!”
“Why?”
“I want to see if we can make the water boil.”
Helios twitched the reins, putting the horses into a dive. The chariot swooped low over the sea. Circe saw the water bubble and hiss. Steam arose, and a strong, hot chowdery smell as the fish began to cook.
“Phew!” growled Helios. “What a stink!” He shouted to the horses, and they began to climb so steeply that the girl felt herself sliding toward the back of the chariot and clung to her father’s waist. She saw gulls, maddened by the smell of boiling fish, diving toward the sea, screaming greedily as they went. She saw them pull up short. The sea was too hot, the steam too thick; they could not alight. And bears and wolves thronged the headland, coming down to the shore to feed, but they, too, were driven back by the heat of the boiling sea.
Screaming with excitement, Circe clung to her father as the chariot careened over the billowing steam. And her screeching was a wild song to Helios, who had never loved anyone before and didn’t understand his new, strange feelings. All he knew now was that he would do anything, anything at all, to keep this daughter shrieking so joyously.
“Faster!” he called to his horses. “Go, my golden ones—faster still!”
The great stallions broke into a gallop. The chariot smashed across the sky fifty times faster than it had ever gone before. And folk on earth saw a sight most strange: night pursuing day like a black hound chasing a golden stag. And no sooner had the sky turned black than silver light began to nibble at its eastern rim. Silver turned to pink, to red, to orange. Bars of orange fire branded the horizon, flushing to hot gold, becoming a golden flood of light that washed away the last darkness.
To the gods atop Olympus watching the sun chariot streak by, it seemed that earth’s day was flashing on and off like a child playing with a lamp.
“What’s happening?” said Zeus to Hera. “Has Apollo gone mad?”
“Ask him,” said Hera. “There’s your golden boy now racing up the mountain as fast as he can.”
“Apollo!” cried Zeus. “Why are you down here with your sun high in the sky?”
“Oh, Father, ’tis not I in the sky. I’m right here, as you can see. Someone has stolen my chariot. And the damned fool is racing the horses without mercy. They’ll pull up lame.”
“You’ve lost your chariot? How careless!”
“I didn’t lose it. It was stolen, I told you.”
“You allowed yourself to be robbed? By whom?”
“By Helios.”
“Him? Are you sure?”
“Very sure. It must be Helios. The horses will allow no one else to drive them. Except me, of course.”
“Helios driving the sun chariot?” growled Zeus. “Against my strict edict. He’s either very crazy or very brave.”
“Probably both,” said Hera.
Poseidon suddenly appeared on the mountaintop. The sea god was looking very unlike his elegant self. His hair was matted with boiled seaweed, and a huge, half-cooked stone crab was clinging to his beard. He walked toward Zeus, bellowing: “Do something about Apollo; he’s gone mad! The sun is out of control. My sea has turned to steam, and my fish are all cooking.”
“I’m here, Uncle!” cried Apollo. “Can’t you see? I never touched the reins this morning. Helios stole my chariot. It’s he who’s driving it so fast, day chasing night, and night chasing day. Oh, Father Zeus, can’t you do something?”
“Yes, Brother,” said Poseidon. “Do something.”
“Yes, Husband! Something … anything,” said Hera.
He drew back his arm and hurled his thunderbolt. The fiery spear sizzled across the sky and hit Helios in the chest, knocking him out of the chariot. He fell to earth as the masterless horses galloped over the horizon, dragging darkness in their wake—so that Helios, ablaze, fell like a star.
Without hesitation, Circe leaped out after him. Her hair floated, casting a nimbus of light. The steam was still coming off the sea where she fell, slowing her descent. It was like falling into a cloud, falling in a dream. And when she landed it was upon a seabed left by the evaporated tide. She found herself among the corpses of octopi and whales and the skeletons of foundered ships, and she didn’t know whether she was awake or asleep; whether a happy dream of her father had turned into nightmare, or whether she had really found her father, and had fallen into this slimy nightmare and would soon awake. But awake or asleep, she had to find him. She moved off along the seabed, among the dead, huge bodies of whales and sharks and manta rays, and threading through the skeletons of sunken ships, calling, “Father … Father …”
5
The High Council
Helios had vanished after being hit by the thunderbolt. He was not dead, Zeus knew. Titans, being of the god breed, are immortal; they can be made to suffer, but cannot die. And Zeus was determined to make Helios suffer as much as possible. He called a meeting of the High Council to organize the pursuit. They met in the great throne room of the cloud castle atop Olympus.
Zeus, clad in his star-encrusted purple judgment robes, sat on a gold and ivory throne, fingering the volt-blue zigzag shaft of lightning he used as a scepter. He addressed the gods briefly, outlining the task.
“I have a question, Your Majesty,” said Poseidon. “Do we really need to mobilize such vast forces against one unruly Titan?”
“Well,” said Zeus, “if you think back to our war against Cronos and his Titans, you will remember that Helios was one of our most dangerous foes. His strength has not diminished with age—and he seems to have grown more reckless than ever. He will not, I assure you, be easily subdued.”
“In any case,” said Poseidon, “we have to catch him before we start subduing him.”
“Exactly,” said Zeus. “And that is why I shall ask Brother Hades to lend us his Furies. In addition to their other formidable skills, they fly so fast, and their noses are so keen for the hunt, that they’ll be able to ransack all the corners of earth and heaven for that cursed rebel. Once we take him we’ll make sure he’s incapable of any further escape, and his endless punishment will begin.”
“The Furies will report to you this very night, My Lord,” said Hades.
“Our thanks to you, Brother,” said Zeus. “And while they’re up here they can attend to some other matters. As I mentioned, some of my mortals are getting out of line and need a bit of professional torment to teach them their place. Yes-s-s, your hags will find themselves fully employed.”
6
Dione
Searching for her father, Circe was walking through a wood in Arcadia. The trees thinned into a clearing; she crossed it heading toward a stand of oaks. She stopped when she saw a big woman standing there. Too tall for a mortal; she seemed to be a goddess. But Circe couldn’t tell what she was because her hair was white and her handsome face looked worn, and no goddess, Circe knew, ever aged past her glorious prime. Whatever she was, though, the girl immediately preferred the look of her to anyone she had ever known, except her mother and father. In fact, her wide gray eyes reminded Circe of her dryad mother. Her voice was curious, too—rich but harsh—as she called to Circe.
“You there, stop lurking. I see you.”
“I’m not lurking,” said Circe. “If I didn’t want you to see me I wouldn’t have come this close.”
“Come closer.”
Circe came right to her and looked up into her face. “My name is Circe,” she said.
“I am Dione.”
“The oak goddess?” cried Circe.
“Well, I used to be.”
“Used to be?”
“I’m no longer a goddess, but am still an oak something, I suppose.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Can’t blame you,” said Dione. “I scarcely understand it myself, but it happened.”
“What happened exactly? How could you stop being a goddess once you started?”
“I fell in love, shed my divinity, and became a woman.”
“Oh, tell me, tell me!” cried Circe. “Whatever you are, I seem to be growing fond of you quite rapidly. Which is odd because I’m coldhearted.”
“Who told you that?”
“My mother—many times. Anyway, we must be related. My mother is a dryad of the Oak Clan. Her name is Arlawanda.”
“Arlawanda … Circe … Yes, they’re clan names. I’m probably your great-aunt or something. Do you really want to hear my story?”
“Yes, please!”
Circe sat on a stump and looked up at Dione. She saw that the gray eyes were brimming with tears.
Dione said: “Cronos, who gave his name to time, was master of all its cruel tricks. I went to him and pleaded that my husband, who happened to be human, be granted immortality. Cronos pretended to heed my plea. He said that year by year, bit by bit, I might bestow my own immortality upon my husband. And if I managed it skillfully I’d be able to keep him alive for a thousand years and we’d both die at the same time. I accepted the conditions joyfully, for I had no wish to outlive my dear one. And so the bargain was struck, but I didn’t realize what a foul trickster Cronos was. For, while I was able to keep my husband alive by shortening my own life, I could not keep him young. And he aged much faster than I did. Kept withering, shrinking … Behold him now!”
She pointed to a tree. At first Circe saw nothing, then when she went closer she saw a tiny man leaning against the trunk. No larger than a three-year-old child, he wore a long, grizzled beard, and his skin was as wrinkled as bark.
“I shall lose him soon,” said Dione. “If a hawk doesn’t take him, or a fox, he’ll simply dwindle away till there’s nothing left. But he shan’t go alone into Hades, poor little darling. I shall take full advantage of my mortality. I shall slay myself, and our shades will embrace as we journey to the Land Beyond Death.”
Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume One Page 38
