The God Beneath the Sea

by Leon Garfield

  His ugliness increased. He was misshapen, having vast strength in his shoulders and arms and great weakness in his legs. His discontent became fierce and violent. There seemed no outlet for it till Thetis gave him an anvil and hammer to play with, and Eurynome made him a forge. Then he was able to vent the fury of his nature on metals that knew no pain.

  The goddesses brought him gold and silver and watched as he hammered and twisted them into shapes as tormented as his own. His brows furrowed and his eyes retreated into the recesses of his head. At last the metals began to obey him and the monster chuckled with delight.

  Wonderingly the goddesses saw there was a second nature in Hephaestus far deeper than the first. As there was no mirror in the grotto, his vision was untarnished by sight of himself. It was uninterrupted beauty that came from the forge as he rendered into changeless metals the changing marvels he saw.

  Bracelets, necklaces, combs and buckles he made for the two goddesses, jointed and lapped together as marvellously as the gleaming scales of the sea-creatures that jostled the crystal window. He made sandals, silver for Thetis and gold spun as fine as the bending ferns for grave Eurynome, with designs of waves upon them as if to remind her of the time when she’d danced on the first wide sea.

  But the loveliest thing he made was a brooch. In silver, drawn and beaten till it seemed like foam, he had imprisoned a sea-nymph and her lover, coiled and twined in a pearl and coral embrace. All the wild and urgent passion of creation was in this little brooch . . . and a strange new tenderness besides.

  ‘Hephaestus!’ whispered Thetis. ‘If Olympus only knew what a god they have lost to the sea!’

  She stretched out her hand for the marvellous brooch. But ugly Hephaestus drew back. He scowled with all his old savageness and ill-temper, and limped to the furthest part of the grotto where he leaned, panting, against the rock. He stared at the goddesses who had nursed him, and had brought him this far in the tale of Creation.

  ‘What more is there?’ he muttered. ‘Why am I lost to Olympus? Who am I?’ His ragged brow shone with sweat, as if he was trying to drag the answer out of the air. ‘Why do I always dream of falling?’

  He raised the brooch threateningly. ‘Tell me or I will destroy it!’

  There was silence in the grotto. No sound was heard save for the soft roar of the waters through the conch, and, far, far away, the silvery voices of the Sirens as they sang the song they’d learned from Thetis – the very song that had once lulled the infant Zeus upon Mount Ida, long ago.

  Then grave Eurynome raised her eyes and stared across the grotto at the brutish infant, who scowled like the rocks against which he crouched. Then her eyes shifted, and she seemed to be looking beyond him, back to an ancient time. It was as if the tormented child’s question had been no more than a reminder of something that had happened long ago. She began to speak, and though her voice was gentle, the air seemed to turn chill and bleak and the fire of the little forge flickered into dust. Once more the walls dissolved as Eurynome told the monstrous story of Zeus and his mad father, Cronus.

  When Cronus slept, dreams of old Uranus would visit him so that he would awake, groaning and struggling, with a violent pain in his left hand – the hand with which he’d seized his father when he’d murdered him with the sickle. He would lie sweating in the darkness and the air would be filled with the sound of beating wings and the stench of snakes. He would stare and stare till his eyes all but burst from his head. Then a wing would scrape across them, and he would turn with a scream and entomb his head in his pillow, on which in the morning would be drops of blood. As always, the Furies parted with the dawn. But now, as they blackened the casement with their going, they left behind their whisperings, to creep and rustle in every quiet corner. ‘Vengeance is near. Soon it will strike . . . soon . . . soon . . .’

  The mad king would stumble from his bed and glare out on the quiet dawning world. Fearfully, his eyes would range the shadowy valleys and mysterious mountains, whose shapes resembled formidable monsters . . . What was that? A flash and glimmer among the foliage on Mount Ida. He had seen it before – several times – but never more than a glimpse, and then it had gone. Yet it seemed to menace him. What was it . . . so quick and horribly bright? Nothing, nothing. All was in his shattered mind . . . Stop. There it was again: as always, on Mount Ida.

  He shouted for his guards and bade them search the mountain and destroy whoever they should find. Hurry – hurry, before it is too late!

  The guards went, and Cronus gnawed his lip until they returned. But they had found nothing on the mountain: only some bears and a strange serpent that flashed as it writhed away. Could it have been the snake that the king had seen?

  Next night Ida was in darkness. No uncanny glimmer broke among its foliage nor moved among its trees. And most marvellous of all, the Furies did not come. For the first time since he had murdered his father, Cronus slept long and without dreams. He awoke with a start in fiery sunshine. The pain in his left hand was gone, and his only discomfort was a curious thirst.

  He called for a cupbearer to fetch his honeyed drink. But his thirst was not quenched. Indeed, it seemed to have been increased by drinking. So a second cup was fetched. He drained it and laughed uneasily. What was thirst after the nights of the Furies? He flung the engraved cup across the room, where it cracked and splintered against the wall. A third cup! The king was still thirsty. ‘Quickly! Quickly!’ He cursed the cupbearer for a creeping fool. Then Rhea, smiling gently, rustled in to calm her lord. Behind her came another cupbearer, with another cup. ‘Here, Cronus, my lord! Drink! The king must not go thirsty! Drink to your heart’s content!’

  So Cronus took the cup and drank.

  He drank with barely a glance at the strange cupbearer, and the drink was rushing down his throat before an oddness struck him. Though he stood in Rhea’s shadow, this cupbearer seemed to shine as if by the light of another, secret sun. And in that same instant he saw a look exchanged between Rhea and the stranger whose shining seemed suddenly menacing. The drink tasted sharp, and his throat began to sting and burn. But it was too late, he had drained the cup. Rhea smiled, and the cupbearer smiled; and Cronus knew that they had poisoned him.

  ‘Who – who are you?’ he whispered. The stranger’s radiance seemed to increase till Cronus could not endure to look at him. ‘Who – are – you?’

  ‘Ask of the Furies, Cronus.’

  Cronus opened his mouth to scream for help – but no words came. His throat was on fire and needles of pain stabbed at his belly. He fell back as cramps seized him and he began to retch. Wider and wider stretched his gigantic mouth till he felt the tendons split and tear at their roots. There was a tumult in his head – a mighty uproar. The bones of his gaping mouth were cracking and splintering as they were forced apart. And all the while, in his dreadful agony, he saw Rhea, his wife, and Zeus, his son, staring down on him with implacable hate.

  Then Cronus began to vomit. Six times the poisoned Titan erupted and, like some shaking mountain, spewed out the fiery inhabitation of his belly. At last it was over; and Cronus stared in dread at what he’d brought forth. They rose up before him like columns of fire; the children he had consumed. In their midst, mockingly cradling the fatal stone with which he’d been deceived, was Rhea. ‘Behold your sons and daughters!’ she shouted. ‘Behold the avenging gods!’ Cronus shrieked and fled.

  He fled high up among the granite mountains, stumbling and calling to the universe for help. At last he reached his fortress, and it was there that Atlas and all the Titans of the old order joined him in the war to destroy the gods.

  Some say that this war raged for ten years; but there was no certain way of measuring it. Night and day were so obscured that time itself was blinded and could no more than mark the tempests, earthquakes and scalding storms of the battles. Huge mountains were plucked from the earth and hurled like pebbles against the sky, where they made black holes in the milky fabric of the stars. Again and again the gods approached the
fortress of Cronus, and again and again they were beaten back.

  In angry despair, Zeus stared up at the mighty stronghold that seemed to have become a part of the very sky. Then he remembered something that the timeless nymphs of Mount Ida had told him – for they were not always singing. They had told him of certain ancient prisoners who still lingered in Tartarus – the Cyclopes and the hundred-handed giants, tremendous children of Mother Earth, who had been forgotten by Cronus in his madness and pride. Even now they raged and rotted in their chains. Even now they waited.

  With his brothers Hades and Poseidon, Zeus went down into Tartarus. Through the groves of black poplars and across the wide dark river Styx the three gods moved like flickering flames. Further and further into the dreadful region they voyaged, passing among steaming rocks and between tall cliffs of jet. Now the air grew foul and thick with fog. Briefly the three gods glinted in and among it. Groans and harsh weeping echoed all about them, together with the grinding of chains. Then the air rifted as if worn threadbare by agony and gloom, and through the holes and rifts the gods saw the gigantic prisoners, chained to the everlasting cliffs. There hung the unbelievable hundred-handed giants, enmeshed in iron; and beside them, so huge that they towered to the height of the cliffs, were chained the Cyclopes in each of whose single eyes was such pain and despair that even the gods were appalled.

  Swiftly the brothers freed them and led them up out of Tartarus. They crossed the river Styx and passed through the groves of black poplars beside the ocean. So vast was the bulk of the creatures who had been freed that in the darkness the gods seemed like moving stars, followed by a second, blacker night. At last they came to the mountain of Cronus, and the three gods greeted their three sisters who had awaited them. Together the children of Cronus stared at their terrible allies.

  The strange eyes of the Cyclopes, set in their heads like monstrous jewels, glinted faintly in the starlight. For the first time since the days of old Uranus they were smiling. They stared up at the fortress in the sky; then they nodded and gave the gods the weapons they would need. To Hades they gave the Helmet of Invisibility, to Poseidon they gave the Trident that shakes the earth, and to mighty Zeus they gave the Thunderbolt before which all must fall.

  Hades put on the helmet. At once he faded so that where the grim god had once stood was now no more than a shadow such as might have been fancied by a tired eye. Quietly this vague shadow began to drift up the mountain towards the lofty fortress, and the armed gods followed stealthily after.

  A little apart, but following the same course, moved another shape . . . rapid and skipping, but curiously formidable. It leaped the crevices, then vanished in the shadows. Was it an ally – or was it a spy?

  The mad Titan sat on his throne. Not even the Furies could torment him any more. He and tall Atlas had sworn to tear the universe to tatters before they would yield up a single star of it. Ten years was it since the war had begun? What was ten years to beings as vast as Titans? No more than a day in their great span.

  Sometimes Cronus fancied that the ghost of his father, old Uranus, was in a darkened corner, squealing and gibbering for revenge. Indeed, he imagined much. He imagined that Rhea, his wife, was still by his side; he imagined that he was young again and that his father still lived and ruled and tended his garden, the earth . . . and the Furies were no more than tame birds who mistook his eyes for crumbs. Yet he knew all was in his mind.

  A faint shadow seemed to drift through the opened window. Cronus shook his head. His eyes were tired. There had been no shadow. Quiet sounds seemed to scrape across the floor. Cronus sighed. He heard many quiet sounds inside his head. He leaned back against his throne. Beside him lay his mighty spear and the horn that would summon all the Titans and the elements themselves, should he have need of them.

  He fancied the horn trembled and began to stir as if of its own accord. He closed his eyes. They saw many strange sights these nights and days, and he knew he’d but to close and open them for the dream to be dispelled. He opened his eyes. His horn and spear were gone. He looked up.

  Hades stood before him! He shrieked – and turned away. Huge Poseidon was there, with the trident aimed at his breast!

  ‘Dreams – dreams!’ screamed the ruined Titan, and twisted to shut them out. Then all the world blazed up as he saw the fiery Zeus. He crawled and tumbled from his throne even as the thunderbolt struck and split it to the mountain’s root.

  ‘Dreams – dreams!’ moaned Cronus, lying in the ruins of his power.

  But the roar of the thunderbolt had roused the Titans. With mighty Atlas at their head, they came storming in to save their king. Out-numbered, the gods drew back. Sudden victory seemed changed to sudden defeat. Then in through the huge casement skipped the shadowy form that had followed the gods up the mountain.

  Half goat, half god, it grinned with savage joy. It opened its bearded mouth and gave a mighty shout. It was a shout such as no ear could endure nor brain withstand. It was a shout that had come from Chaos. It pierced the Titans’ heads and called them back into the old, blind uproar from which they’d sprung.

  Then, each driven wild by his own dark fears, the Titans fled before the grinning goat-god whose name was Pan, the maker of panic. After them rushed the hundred-handed giants, every hand an engine of fury and revenge for their grinding imprisonment. The reign of the Titans was over; the reign of the gods had begun.

  Pan vanished as mysteriously as he’d appeared. None knew for certain who he was. Some say he was a foster-brother of Zeus; some say he was older, far older . . . He went back to the fields and woods of Arcadia while the gods hunted down the enemy Titans, one by one. Rhea and her sisters were spared; also the mighty Prometheus and his brother, who had shrewdly taken no part in the war. Titans though they were, there was a grandeur about this gigantic pair that made even Zeus hesitate. They were left in peace to find themselves such homes as the ravaged earth could offer. But the rest were imprisoned in hateful Tartarus where the hundred-handed giants still watch over them with eternal eyes. Last to be seized was the great Atlas, whose punishment was harshest of all. He was condemned to hold up the sky on his shoulders for as long as the gods should reign. At last the Furies’ prophecies had been fulfilled and murdered Uranus had been avenged.

  THREE

  THE FRUITS OF POWER

  The gods in their victory ranged the wide universe till they chose as their home Mount Olympus whose peak hung in the clouds. Here they fashioned their palaces and a great council chamber with ivory columns and a golden floor. It was in this council chamber that the three mighty brothers drew lots from a helmet for the three realms. Here, Hades drew the underworld, home of shades and the unborn dead; here great Poseidon drew the sea and all that lay beneath it; and here Zeus, lord of them all, drew the lot that gave him sovereignty over the boundless sky. But earth, the fair garden of old Uranus, was awarded to none of them; Zeus decreed it free to all.

  Then Zeus turned to the three eternal sisters and gave them their powers. To Hestia, lovely, gentle Hestia, he gave dominion over all homes and the peace within them. To marvellous Demeter he gave the harvests and the fruits of the garden earth. Then he turned to the last goddess – who should have been the first. He turned to blazing Hera, mightiest of the three.

  This was not well done. The radiant god, overcome by the largeness of his gestures, had overlooked his chief sister. What was there left for her?

  Hestia and Demeter, already satisfied, looked to Zeus with reproach. How could he have forgotten Hera? Poseidon and Hades looked away. Then Zeus, great in all things, smiled on the mighty lady. ‘And to you,’ he said grandly, ‘nothing less than the king himself. To you I give the – the queendom of the sky. To you I give myself. You shall be my wife, Hera—’

  He opened his golden arms, and the godlike smile was still upon his lips. There was a silence in the council chamber. Even the clouds that drifted past the inlaid casements seemed to pause uneasily. The god’s smile remained unanswered; his ar
ms unfilled.

  ‘You shall be my wife, Hera.’

  But Hera made no answer. Her face was dark with anger.

  She had been slighted. She swept from the high council chamber, her rich robes flying and her eyes afire. Awed, the gods watched her go – then turned to the king of the sky who stood, with golden arms still outstretched.

  He frowned and a night of angry shadows filled his eyes. He was lord of the sky, and he was lord of the gods. He would be Hera’s lord if he had to scour the universe to find and subdue her.

  She was gone from Olympus. Torn threads of cloud wisped down the steeps to mark the haste of the goddess’s passing. Trees leaned and the tops of high groves were scorched by her anger. Zeus followed after like a fiery meteor, dispelling all shades and darkness so that Hera might have nowhere to hide.

  He asked of the earth-spirits and the sisters of Rhea if they had seen her – but none could or would tell him where Hera had fled. So he quenched the fury of his passion upon them and then passed on. Themis he left to bear him the Seasons, and on Mnemosyne, nymph of Memory – who was subtle enough to hold him for nine nights – he begot the Muses.

  At last he came to the mountain where Cronus, his father, had fought his last battle. The ruined fortress still stood. Zeus looked up and saw a radiance gleaming from the ancient casements. He had found her.

  Once before the fortress had fallen to him; now it would fall again. He began to mount. Then, halfway up, he paused. His brow furrowed as he brooded and stared up at the bulk of the walls against the darkening sky. How to breech them – how to bring them tumbling down . . .? He smiled . . .