The God Beneath the Sea

by Leon Garfield

  ‘And now?’

  ‘I am ashamed, Hephaestus.’

  The goddess’s voice was suddenly firm, even cold. And her head was high.

  ‘The hand you stretched out, great Hera—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘May I see it again?’

  The goddess lifted her white arm.

  ‘Was this the hand that cast me out?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Revenge . . . revenge . . . the scrawny bird screeched and twittered in Hephaestus’s savage head,

  ‘I had not dreamed it was so beautiful.’ He still scowled – but it was against the prickling radiance in the hall. ‘If it is still your wish, great lady, I will make you bracelets for this arm and rings for these fingers such as will be the envy of creation.’

  Then Hephaestus held out his own scorched and twisted hand with its immensely strong fingers. Briefly it nested in the great goddess’s white palm. Her fingers closed upon it and the monstrous son felt his mother’s strength gently drawing him down into the chamber.

  His weak legs stumbled as he touched the floor – then all the silent multitude gave a mighty shout.

  ‘Welcome, Hephaestus, maker of beauty! Welcome, great god of the hammer and fire!’

  So . . . so, he was on Olympus at last. Well he supposed one might grow used to it. One grew used to anything, in time – even a grotto under the sea.

  He moved among the gleaming throng, seeing with his own aching eyes the gods he’d heard of only, had seemed to invent inside his head. They were different . . . curiously different. Hestia was warmer, gentler than he’d supposed, while great Demeter was more generous in her dimensions and wore a soft, wide, amorous smile.

  Well, well: the immortal gods—

  He saw the Titan Prometheus standing somewhat apart; and, strangely, that vast being was greater than he’d dreamed – more haunted of eye and deeper of purpose.

  Radiance . . . radiance everywhere; his poor eyes found no shadows, no rest.

  His glittering mother was offering him a forge with twenty giant bellows and all the gold he could work. Well, well – his were busy hands and they longed to be a-making. He nodded and shuffled on, peering sideways, half grinning, half scowling, and mumbling under his breath.

  Then he came to his father, almighty Zeus; and even the lord of the sky was not as he’d supposed. Though the great god’s radiance was blinding and his stature immense, Hephaestus felt no fear of him; and when he bowed his head it was only because Zeus’s brightness hurt his eyes.

  ‘You shall make me thunderbolts,’ said the father of the gods. ‘And Olympus will never fall.’

  Wearily Hephaestus nodded, and his father smiled. ‘I see you carry your birthright in your hands, my ugly son – and in your skilful head. What then will you ask of me as a father’s gift?’

  Gift . . . gift? What did he want that he could not make? He looked about him. His dreams had been so different.

  Then suddenly he saw one that was not. Once, he remembered, he had dreamed of a nymph that answered all his desires. She was compounded of many images and many aspects of them. She was such a nymph as only writhed and moaned and lay amid the pillows of the mind. So he had made her – as best he could – in blushing coral.

  But now he saw her, laughing and moving in the hall. His nymph – at last a dream was answered and Olympus had been worth the ascent.

  ‘Give me her,’ muttered Hephaestus – and pointed to Aphrodite.

  The hall fell silent. Aphrodite’s doves and sparrows flickered uncertainly about her golden head; and Athene’s owl, freed from its pain and misery, opened wide its timeless orange eyes.

  ‘Give me my nymph.’

  Aphrodite, her laughter stifled, looked uncertainly at mighty Zeus. The great god stared at his deformed son and then at the magical goddess of desire. He frowned at the terrible inequality of the match.

  ‘Ask again, Hephaestus—’

  ‘Does great Zeus deny his first-born son a gift?’ said Hera coldly. ‘Or does he seek Aphrodite for himself?’

  Zeus’s frown grew dark as thunder – and the throng in the hall began to dwindle before the coming storm.

  ‘What right has he by Aphrodite’s side?’

  ‘A better right than you, lord Zeus.’

  ‘Hera—’

  ‘All the gods are witness to it. You offered a gift; then denied it.’

  ‘Hera—’

  But the queen of Heaven was not dismayed by Zeus’s mounting anger. Her own overtopped it. She stood opposing him and her splendid eyes flashed with fury for her son.

  ‘So . . . so . . .’ said Zeus, at length. ‘The gift. Since I promised and your mother wishes it, take Aphrodite for your wife.’ The great god nodded in confirmation of his word, and thunder was in the air.

  Then Hephaestus took her – this most marvellous creation of Zeus’s – and walked the length of the hall with her, his seamed and ugly head scarce reaching to her matchless shoulder. Her doves and sparrows tried to peck him, but he drove them off with a wave of his vast dark hand. He grinned and grinned; and frightened Aphrodite, in spite of herself, began to laugh again.

  Then they left the hall, led by triumphant Hera; and the banquet guests followed uneasily after.

  Zeus remained behind. His brow was black as night. Had there been thunderbolts to hand, Olympus would have rocked to them.

  Suddenly he was not alone. In the midst of the vast golden floor, whining with hatred and infantile rage, crouched little Ares.

  ‘My gift – my gift!’ he screamed, and beat the floor with his fists. ‘The nymph was mine! Father Zeus – you’ve cheated me! You’ve given me no birthright! What can I be god of?’

  Mighty Zeus stared down at the child who was as misshapen within as was his brother without.

  ‘Hatred! Discord! War!’ shouted the lord of the sky. ‘Let that be your birthright, Ares! What else are you fit for?’

  Then he rose and left the hall in a blaze that seared the infant’s eyes.

  For a little while, the child whimpered alone; and then, as if wafted through a keyhole, came crooked-smiling Hermes.

  ‘Poor Ares – and on your birthday, too!’

  ‘The earth – the earth!’ shouted the child suddenly, and ran to the casement that overlooked the pleasant world. ‘I want the earth!’

  Hermes joined him and looked down.

  ‘They say the earth is for none of us. Not even for you, Ares.’

  ‘Then who will have it? Tell me and I’ll tear him to pieces!’

  Hermes glanced at the raging child, and even he was chilled as little Ares swore the oath that the gods must never break.

  ‘I swear by the River Styx that whoever has the earth I will tear and bite and hack into bloody pieces! I swear – I swear!’

  The earth – the sweet green earth. To whom would it be given? Hermes brooded – then bethought himself of the Muses on Mount Parnassus. From them he was to learn the secrets of prophecy and all that was to come.

  He climbed up on to the casement and, with a brief backward look at savage Ares, he flew outward like a mighty silver bird, and winged his way towards Parnassus.

  PART TWO

  The Making of Men

  EIGHT

  THE CREATURES OF PROMETHEUS

  Three blind, stone-faced beings crouched in the groin of a mountain. Robed in white, they were neither nymphs nor goddesses nor the daughters of anything that had ever seen the light of day. From time to time, their thin arms and sharp fingers would reach out to fondle certain curious objects that were placed in their midst. A spinning wheel, a measuring rod – and a pair of shears. A short way below there grew an ancient thorn bush against which the mountain goats would brush and leave clots of their hair. Whenever this happened, one of the blind three would rise and stumble to the bush, finger it over for wool and return to her sisters with her gleanings, which she would add to an already sizeable pile.

  Their names were as strange as their occupation. Clotho,
the spinner; Lachesis, the measurer; and, smallest yet most terrible, Atropos – she who cannot be avoided – the wielder of the shears.

  They were the Fates . . .

  Suddenly, they turned their blind faces upward; and their sockets, half-grown over, resembled irregular black stars in their heads.

  Said Clotho, ‘A sudden brightness passed. At great speed – and very high. I felt it, sisters . . .’

  ‘It was a god,’ mumbled Lachesis. ‘I know the warmth and the scent of them. It was a god flying from Olympus towards Parnassus. He will be there by now . . .’

  Then shrunken Atropos, forever playing with her shears, said shrilly: ‘It was Hermes, sisters, it is the day we have waited for. Listen – listen—’

  The three creatures bent their heads towards each other, and began to smile. A faint but unmistakable creaking sound was heard; the wheel had begun to turn.

  The dreadful hands of Clotho and Lachesis reached out; and Atropos’s fingers tightened over her shears.

  Far, far aloft, immortal Hermes brushed a fold of cloud aside and looked down.

  He saw the three white shrouded sisters sitting like maggots in the mountain’s groin. Many times he had seen them before; but now there was a difference.

  Their spinning wheel was moving; and the three sisters had leaned forward as if they were about to begin – what?

  Hermes frowned – and sped even faster to Parnassus where all answers were to be learned.

  He reached the mountain where the three grave Muses instructed the wild children of the wild nymphs. Once, these daughters of Zeus had been wild themselves, but time, responsibility and the dignified example of Apollo had mellowed them into three goddesses as wise as they were respectable.

  They drew their robes about them at the god’s approach, endeavouring to conceal their beautiful limbs from the bright fire of his gaze. But Hermes was most studiously polite, and the gleam that had risen to the eyes of the once wild sisters died slowly away.

  Augury . . . prophecy . . . the future. He had understood from his friend and brother Apollo that he might learn it on Parnassus.

  The Muses stared at the youthful god who stood so straight and bright in their quiet glade. So . . . so he had only come to learn. They sighed, recalling, perhaps, their old days; then they led him to a stone basin filled with mountain water and showed him how to cast five white pebbles sideways into it.

  ‘You must watch the way they dance, sweet Hermes. And mark how they fall. It is all in the pattern of their movement and the design of their rest. See . . . see . . .’

  They cast the pebbles, splashing one another as they did so – and gently shrieking; then inadvertently splashing the god and hastening to dry his fair limbs on their gowns . . . ‘See . . . see . . . like so!’

  Hermes smiled – and learned.

  Then they left him, for the god had caught the skill with wonderful speed.

  They glanced back through the trees and saw him crouching over the stone basin with the pebbles held in his cupped hands.

  He shook them, whispered to them, shook them again. ‘Who will inherit the earth?’

  Then he cast them sideways into the water and watched them dance and fall.

  What was their answer? Slowly, Hermes read it out. ‘It – concerns – Prometheus.’

  The god frowned in surprise. Again he shook the pebbles, whispered and cast them into the basin. ‘Why has Clotho’s wheel begun to turn? What is she to spin? What will Lachesis measure – and what will Atropos cut?’

  The pebbles rattled against the stone sides like frightened fishes; then they came to rest. ‘It – concerns – Prometheus.’

  Again Hermes frowned; and for a third time shook the pebbles, whispered to them and hissed them on their way.

  ‘When will this be?’

  The pebbles dropped, rolled a little, then were still. Their answer was, ‘Even now.’

  Prometheus had a garden in Attica; a pleasant, cultivated grove in the lap of Mount Hymettus where the wild bees made the honey from which the nymphs distilled the nectar for the gods. Here, the Titan and his brother grew such fruits as the earth would yield and had built themselves a house round an ancient fig-tree. It had been Hestia herself who had taught them the art of building; and wise Athene had come often to sit and talk of how best to cultivate the soil while her beloved owl had perched in the wrinkled branches of the tree.

  But now the Titans walked among their glades and across their close-cut lawns. Prometheus was troubled; his mighty head was bowed in thought. He feared for the lovely earth.

  Little by little the brothers’ shadows lengthened as the sun rode down into the sea. Prometheus was silent and Epimetheus, his brother, shrugged his shoulders and returned into the house. Of the two, he was the simpler and did not foresee, as Prometheus did, that present pleasure may be bought too dear.

  Prometheus stared through the shadowy leaves of his orchards to the wide expanse beyond.

  ‘All this,’ he whispered, ‘to no purpose? It cannot be!’

  He raised his unhappy eyes and gazed towards Olympus. He tried to fathom what might be in the mind of almighty Zeus. He did not trust the god. He believed that sooner or later Zeus would beget a child and give it the world to play with. Even a child like murderous Ares . . .

  He shivered and knelt down. He took up a handful of the rich earth and crushed it in his fist. He opened his hand. The earth, moist from the rain, had taken the imprint of his fingers. He frowned and tried to mould it further, thinking of the marvellous coral nymph the ugly Hephaestus had made under the sea. But he lacked the god’s skill and his effort was vague and clumsy. Must the Olympians always be better than he? Angrily he threw it down and stode on to where a stream whispered lazily among tall reeds. Here the soil was heavy with clay and more obedient to the shaping hand. So Prometheus made a second image; and it looked like a little angry Zeus.

  Prometheus laughed; then, suddenly, a strange excitement filled him.

  He bent down and with both his vast hands gathered up more clay. He scooped out half the bed of the stream, so that the worried waters gushed and gurgled as if in a whirlpool.

  Then, when the moon was gone into a cloud and the garden was in darkness, he hastened back to his home with the clay still dripping in his arms. He believed he had been very secret.

  There was a room in the Titans’ home that belonged to Prometheus alone. Its rafters were formed from the trimmed and polished branches of the fig-tree that still grew from the middle of the floor. It was in this room that Athene had loved to sit and discourse with the profound Titan on matters of the universe, while aloft her owl made two orange suns with its eyes.

  The room was rich and heavy with thought. It was here that Prometheus brought the clay and laid it on an oiled and polished bench that stretched for the room’s great length.

  Under this bench were several stone jars, well stoppered and sealed. No one knew of these jars but the two Titans who had guarded them jealously since the far-off days of murdered Uranus. One of them was cracked and skilfully repaired. The damage had been done during the wild war between the Titans and the gods. A mountain had crashed to blazing ruin and shaken the jar from a shelf. But Prometheus had saved it.

  Now at last he broke the seal and opened it. Within was the divine substance of Chaos from which all things had been created.

  Prometheus had seen it, still ungrown, lying in a deep pit. It had glimmered and winked up at him. Eagerly he’d gathered it and stored it in the jars.

  He poured it out. Everywhere in its shining bulk were the bright, immortal seeds trapped like fireflies in some black, festooning web.

  Firmly and quickly the great Titan kneaded this ancient substance into the riverbed clay, till the precious seeds were evenly distributed. Then he set to work in earnest.

  In the groin of the Fates’ mountain the three blind sisters laughed aloud. Their wheel was creaking and grunting as it spun like a mad thing.

  Prometheus shaped
the clay into images of the immortal gods. His fingers grew more and more skilful as his great mind wrestled with the mysterious quest for form. His memory and imagination seemed to body forth shapes in the air, and swiftly he enclosed them in the curious clay.

  Little Zeuses, Heras, Apollos and Poseidons ran from his fingertips; even a dark-browed Hades and a proud Artemis with a wart on her knee where the Titan’s finger had fumbled.

  Then he set the little godkins up before him and rested his mighty head on his aching hands. Already the immortal seeds had begun to stir and grow within the thick insensitive clay. Quietly, the Titan watched.

  But he was not the only watcher. High among the crooked rafters perched an intent bird. It was a crane whose bright, bright eyes were the eyes of Hermes . . .

  The clay was swelling, growing. Channels were being formed within it down which the burst seeds sent crimson tears to course, nourishing, colouring and warming into life.

  Eyelids grew thin as gauze, flicked open to reveal strange little pools of wonderment. Lips reddened, parted on white teeth . . . and tongues began to stir under the force of mounting breath.

  And still they grew till their proportions were all but god-like. Everywhere in the vast room limbs were stretching, bodies twisting and hair stirring in the night breeze.

  At last, they grew no more. The seeds had spent themselves; their task was done. The great Titan smiled.

  ‘Go,’ he whispered. ‘Go seek your inheritance before it is too late.’

  His door was open and the starlight drifting in glinted on their sweet new limbs.

  They turned their faces back to the vast dark room in which they had been made. Their eyes met the deep eyes of Prometheus. They smiled – and then they went out into the glorious garden of the night.

  The Titan watched them and inexplicably his eyes grew full of tears and his huge heart ached with love and hope for the creatures he had made.

  Suddenly, one gave a wild, wild cry and fell at the foot of a poplar tree. Prometheus hastened to his side; stared down, touched – then recoiled. His new-made child was cold and still.