“Will you help me against the Furies?”
“If they threaten you, yes.”
“Suppose I want to threaten them?”
“You are a cool one. Well, we’ll see. Now go to your isle, which lies off the huge island of Trinacia. The name of yours is the sound the wind makes—Aiee. It’s a beautiful place, hilly, rich in oaks, abounding in herbs. You will be able to practice a special sorcery there.”
“Let our pact be made, O Goddess,” said Circe, bowing before Athena.
“Arise, young friend. The pact shall be observed. And we shall both prosper.”
She vanished. And Circe laughed with pleasure.
12
Final Enchantments
For many centuries, then, Circe dwelt on the island of Aiee and served Athena well. She taught herself a spell that allowed her to shift the winds about her island, blowing Trinacia-bound ships into her harbor. Hungry crews disembarked and were drawn by the savors of roasting meat to her courtyard. There a spitted ox was turning over a fire, crackling, sending out a smell that made the sailors slaver with greed.
A beautiful, golden-haired woman then appeared and invited them all into dinner—where they glutted themselves and drank heavily of spiced wine. They fell asleep at the table; when they awoke, they were animals. She had read their natures and turned them into the various beasts they resembled: lion, bear, wolf. Pig, weasel, monkey. Some into birds and fish.
Among the ships that came was that of the great war chief, Ulysses, who had fought in Troy for ten years and had been wandering the sea for ten more, trying to get home but meeting disaster after disaster. This crew, half-starving, had rushed to Circe’s castle while their captain followed more slowly.
Circe watched the men gorging themselves and turned them all to swine. When Ulysses came charging into the castle demanding that his men be restored to him, she was about to turn him into a fox. But she changed her mind. His fiery red-gold hair reminded her of Helios; his knotted bronzed arms gave off a musky heat like a ripe field awaiting the last harvest of the year. For the first time since she had lost her father she felt her cold heart thawing.
She undid her magic, restored his men to their own shapes, and begged him to stay with her. He agreed. Her beauty enchanted him. They had fallen under each other’s spell, but she was the one most transformed—into a loving warm woman.
Although she offered to share her immortality with him, she could not keep him. For after ten years of war and ten years of wandering, he loved his wife Penelope more than ever, and knew he had to return to her.
So he sailed away and never came back. But they never forgot each other.
Athena, always vigilant, soon learned what had happened and feared that a brokenhearted Circe might lose her magical powers. She decided, therefore, to bring her some information she had been saving for an emergency. The goddess visited the island of Aiee and appeared before Circe, who sat on a rock looking out to sea, toward where she had seen Ulysses’ sail disappear.
“Greetings,” said Athena. “I bring you good news.”
“Thank you, Goddess, but there is only one piece of news that I would consider good, and that I shall never hear. For he has vowed never to return, and he keeps his vows.”
“Try this,” said Athena. “I know where your father can be found.”
Circe sprang to her feet. “Where?” she cried.
“In Tartarus. No, he’s not dead. On the contrary, he has chosen a very safe hiding place, for who would think of seeking him there where no one goes voluntarily? But there he dwells in a great roasting pit, disguised as a working fire.”
“I want him here—with me! What can I do?”
“Gently, gently. I’m about to tell you what you can do. Although the risk is considerable. You many be torn to pieces doing it.”
“Tell me, tell me!”
“Well, you know that the Furies nurse a grudge against you.”
“Do they? They haven’t bothered me. I haven’t seen them since they carried off Dione.”
“No, they don’t dare attack you while you’re up here under my protection. But on their home grounds—that will be quite different.”
“Their home grounds? You mean Tartarus?”
“Yes. I know that now I have told you, you will make an attempt to rescue your father. If you rush down there without a plan you will end up in bloody fragments just as Dione did. But I am known as Mistress of Tactics, and will provide you with a plan. A very risky one, but it’s your only chance. Now, listen well …”
When she chose to, Circe could run so lightly over a field that she did not bend the grass. And she drifted lightly now over the hot ashes of Tartarus. She drifted slowly, offering herself as bait to the Furies. She had located the great roasting pit where her father hid but had not revealed herself to him. She was waiting for the Furies to attack.
Now, far off, she heard them screeching. She sprang into the air and floated whitely over the roasting pit, sheathing herself in her own coolness because the heat was terrible.
The screeching grew louder. She saw three black shapes diving at her, wings and claws glinting in the ruddy firelight. She floated there, waiting. Just as they were about to grasp her in their claws, she slipped away like a blown leaf. But they were hurtling so fast they couldn’t quite stop their dive. They spread their wings, skidding in the air.
And Helios arose from the pit, and in a wild mimicry of affection took the hags into his fiery embrace. Black shapes threshed violently. There was a shrieking, a roaring. Flame wrestled with shadows.
The fire was broken, scattered, flared separately here and there. But the Furies had vanished. Scorched rags were all that was left of them. But the hags were immortal; the vital force was still in them. The black, scorched rags fledged into bats, thousands of bats, who immediately flew away to find caves in the upper world.
Helios divided into flame, and lived separate lives. He lives still, some say, as marsh fire, will-o’-the-wisp, wherever wandering fires are seen. Others say something worse: that Helios, vowing to avenge himself upon the world, has squeezed himself into a tiny space without losing his strength. For he knows that man, the questioner, the toolmaker, will one day search out his hiding place, will rudely force it open and release a compressed fire, hot as the sun—scorching earth and sky and all above, below, and between.
Circe, given new hope by the sight of her father and the destruction of the Furies, returned to her island and continued to weave spells in the service of Athena—until the old gods vanished and no one believed in magic anymore.
But Circe, as has been told, was immortal, which means that she is still alive somewhere, although no one knows where. She no longer turns people into beasts. She feels it’s unnecessary; they’re doing too good a job of it themselves. Besides, she chooses to live quietly and not draw attention to herself. But she is a sorceress still, and keeps in practice. What she does is change an occasional animal into a person.
So if you meet a girl with green eyes and feel you’ve met her somewhere before and want very much to meet her again, don’t fight the feeling. She may have been a cat of yours who wandered away and never came back, one that you’ve never been able to forget. What you must do is look very carefully at her fingernails. If she can pull them in and stick them out again, then you can be sure that your lost cat is now a found girl.
But be careful. She scratches.
GERYON
For my grandson
NATHANIEL EVSLIN
who is less a monster than any child I’ve ever met.
Characters
Monsters
Geryon
(GUR ih uhn)
A three-bodied monster; also known as the Triple Terror of Thessaly
Snapping turtle,
Sickle-fish, and
Whip-snake
The appropriated forms of the river god Castelos
Giant shark
An ordinary fish, magically enlarged
; Gods
Castelos
(KAS tell uhs)
A river god; father of Calliroa
Atropos
(AT roh pohs)
Eldest of the Fates; Lady of the Shears; she cuts the thread of life
Lachesis
(LAK ee sihs)
The second Fate; she measures the thread of life
Clotho
(KLOH thoh)
Youngest of the Fates; she spins the thread of life
Hera
(HEE ruh)
Queen of the Gods
Ares
(AIR eez)
God of War
Poseidon
(poh SY duhn)
God of the Sea
Demigods
Calliroa
(kuh LIHR ruh)
A river nymph; daughter of Castelos and mother of Geryon
Hercules
(HER ku leez)
Son of Zeus; the greatest hero of ancient times
Others
Giant bats
The guise of the Three Fates
Suitors
Those who come to woo Calliroa
Pygmies
A colony of little people on the river Nile
Tattle-bird
Hera’s spy
Hundred-handed Giants
Hera’s servants
Slaves
Those who serve Geryon
Contents
CHAPTER I
The Three Fates
CHAPTER II
Bats on the River Bank
CHAPTER III
The Suitors
CHAPTER IV
The War God
CHAPTER V
Queen of the Pygmies
CHAPTER VI
A Vengeful Goddess
CHAPTER VII
Abduction
CHAPTER VIII
The First Massacre
CHAPTER IX
The River’s Ally
CHAPTER X
Send a Storm!
CHAPTER XI
The Trial of Hercules
CHAPTER XII
Clam and Gull
CHAPTER XIII
Hero Meets Monster
1
The Three Fates
Of all the monsters who sought to destroy Hercules, the most dreadful, perhaps, was the three-bodied Geryon, also known as the Triple Terror of Thessaly. This tale has deep roots; its seeds were planted long before Geryon was born, in the very year that the dawn-hero, Perseus, was stalking the snake-haired Medusa.
It all began one windy night in a cave on the western slope of Olympus, where dwelt three ancient sisters known as the Fates. Atropos, the Scissors Hag, was ranting at her sisters, raising her voice above the screech of the wind:
“We have enemies, I tell you!”
“Who dares challenge us?” yelped Lachesis.
“Yes, sister, who, who?” howled Clotho.
“Stop hooting like an owl,” said Atropos, “and listen. A new breed has arisen among humankind, a select few who seek to blur the designs of destiny. Instead of worshiping the official gods and meekly obeying our edicts, they intend to follow the arch-meddler, Prometheus, who defied us by giving man the gift of fire.”
“Who are these troublemakers, who, who?”
“They are called heroes,” said Atropos. “They move restlessly from adventure to adventure, upsetting the natural order, breaking the webs of fate we so carefully spin.”
“How?” asked Lachesis. “What do they do?”
“Different things, all of them troublesome. They’re either brawling young brutes like Hercules and Perseus, who go about killing monsters who should be killing them. Or they’re pesky questioners who keep poking their noses into our most sacred arrangements, always asking ‘How does it work? How can it be changed? Why, why?’ And then there’s the sneaky, gentle kind like Asclepius, who dares to overturn our dooms, dosing people with his damned herbs, sewing up wounds, resetting bones, pulling his patients from the very brink of death and robbing our cousin Hades of his proper quota of corpses.”
“Makes you think, doesn’t it?” murmured Lachesis. She was the one who measured the thread that Clotho spun and Atropos cut. This was the Thread of Life, out of which the three sisters wove the web of Fate. Each time Atropos cut the thread it meant death.
“Yes,” said Clotho. “Her words are full of wisdom; they do make one think. And thinking makes one thirsty, very thirsty.” She dipped a ladle into the great vat of barley beer that stood near the hearth; the other sisters dipped their ladles too, and drank deep. They were gluttons. As ancient as they were, they had kept their big yellow teeth and could crack marrow bones, something they did all day long and much of the night. The sisters sat down to regular meals, of course, but they also ate while they worked. Nor did they foul their webs, for they kept curly-headed slaves to wipe their greasy fingers on.
“Thinking makes one thirsty,” muttered Lachesis. “And drinking makes one hungry.”
“But you never speak idly, sister,” said Clotho. “An intention always lurks behind your words. What do you want us to do—reinforce our webs so that these heroes can’t escape their fates?”
“By all means,” said Atropos. “We should do that. But we must do more, I’m afraid. We must leave our cozy home and go on an inspection trip to see just what these pesky heroes are up to. Then we’ll be able to patch our webs more precisely.”
“Oh dear,” said Lachesis. “I hate to travel. It’s a sorry business. Can’t eat properly on the road.”
“As it happens, we can do two things at once,” said Atropos. “A place I particularly want to visit is the western shore of the River Castelos, where great events are fated to transpire. We must look over that ground carefully. There’s an oak grove near the river whose acorns are very fat and flavorsome. And the wild pigs who eat these acorns are also very fat and flavorsome. The flesh of their suckling pigs is said to be of unparalleled flavor.”
The sisters slavered as they heard these words. Roast piglet was their favorite dish.
“Yes,” said Atropos. “We’ll round up a nice batch of these sucklings and bring them back with us. That should make up for the discomforts of travel.”
2
Bats on the River Bank
The three sisters changed themselves into bats for their journey, giant bats, who slept by day and flew at night. When they flew low their wingspread blotted the moon. They flew here and there, spying on people—on kings and slaves, heroes and cowards, lovers and killers, and many who were none of these things but simply lived as they could, hoping to avoid trouble and keep going from day to day.
On the last night before returning home, the sisters alighted on the shore of the River Castelos, where they hoped to catch suckling pigs, enough to last them through the winter.
Now, the local river god who had given his name to these waters was someone very hard to get along with. He had a savage temper. He hated strangers—almost as much as he despised acquaintances. Boasting the purest waters in all the land, he drove away any animals that tried to hunt along his shores, for he couldn’t bear the idea of blood seeping into his river. The only creature in the world he didn’t hate was his beautiful naiad daughter, Calliroa. Nevertheless, he had always wished that she were a boy. For he dreaded the prospect of her marrying someone someday; he knew he would hate her husband, whoever he was.
Particularly loathsome to Castelos were bats. His waters were fed by icy little springs born out of the winter snows, which turned into boisterous streams as they tumbled down the mountain slopes. These streams ran through caves and under rock walls where bats clung. They hung like rags from the ceilings of the caves until nightfall when they suddenly became winged rats with terrible claws, who hunted through the night, killing everything they could catch and drinking its blood.
Upon this night, the moon knelt low and burned so brightly that it was like a muted sun, strong enough to cast shadows. Castelos and his daughter rose
from the spangled river to bathe themselves in golden light.
Something darkened the moon. The naiad uttered a half cry. Castelos saw the shadow of wings branding his shores—huge wings, not tapered but fan-shaped and strangely ribbed. Three enormous bats were settling upon the riverbank. The god had seen enough. He grasped his daughter’s arm and pulled her under the water.
“What are they, father?” she cried. “Are they bats? They’re so big!”
“Stay here,” he said. “I’ll get rid of them.”
He pushed her into the underwater cave where they dwelt, and began to stir his river into a flood. So enraged was he at the sight of the loathsome creatures that he didn’t even bother to surface for another look. He didn’t see the bats strip off their wings like capes, twitch their rat faces back into crone faces, and stand revealed as themselves, the Three Hags of Fate.
Tittering and chuckling in the moonlight, they began to caper with excitement, for they smelled suckling pig on the wind.
But the hags were given no chance to hunt. Castelos was busy below, and the river swelled with his rage. It rushed, it foamed, it overflowed its banks in a mighty spate and swept over the land, washing away everything that stood before it, including the three sisters. Being immortal, they couldn’t drown, but they could suffer discomfort.
Now, gathering their wet cloaks about them, they bobbed on the surface, shivering, and clinging to one another. Castelos rose from the river and saw a seething waste of waters. He studied the treeline and the sky, saw no bats flying against the moon, and laughed to himself. He raised both arms high and whistled loudly, summoning the waters to subside. Obediently, they shrank back between their banks.
Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume One Page 41
