Dangerous Secrets (100 page)

The voice had less of a hiss in it, sounding
more like the human being it had pretended to be. “Poor little boy wanted to be
a man and all you really are is meat, just cold meat. At least I appreciate you
for that!”

The rock that bounced off its head did not come
from the wheat field. Nor did it come from the hand of a coward.

The girl stood astride the road, her hair
unbound, her eyes bright with clean tears. They didn’t impede her aim. She
swung a second stone in the sling she′d improvised from her head-cloth.
“What are you waiting for?” she shouted.

The snake reared back, ready to spit at her.

I woke up from my own astonishment. Dropping
the useless sword, I reached behind my head and pulled my own. All the energy
pent up in my body let loose as I jumped forward with a yell that rivaled the
harpy’s in volume. I sank my sword deep into the creature’s neck, at the angle
of the jaw.

It hissed and twisted, sucking down its own
venom deep into its throat. It tried to bite me but if there’s one place you
cannot bite it is under your own lower jaw. It reared up, up and up, almost the
entire length of the body, then fell backward, thrashing as violently as the
snake that had nearly bitten Temas.

Only this time I was riding athwart the ridged
muscle of the body. Where does a snake’s neck end and the body begin? My sword
cut a jagged line through the white skin and spurting flesh as the creature
twisted and writhed.

It heaved over onto its belly and began beating
its head on the earth, trying to kill me with its own death throes. Dazed, I
leapt off but not so dazed that I stood where it could still spit its hatred at
me with its dying breath. I whirled my sword up and over, cleaving the head off
in a blow so hard it went right through to the ground.

The eyes glazed over, the white membrane
falling over the half-human pupils. My sword was smoking; I shoved it under the
dirt of the road.

I sank to one knee as the girl came closer. I
wish I could claim it was in homage but the truth is that the snake had been
right. I was exhausted. But I had three more men to fight, four if you counted
Eurytos himself. The Fates alone knew what vile abominations Eurytos’ remaining
little friends would prove to be. What other creatures had he found on his
travels, converted like the snake into some new thing neither honestly animal
or entirely human? A wolf, a bear, a boar?

The girl produced a wineskin full of
well-watered wine. I could have drained it in a breath but remembered in time
that someone else had been out in the heat as well. After she’d drunk, I said,
“That was a well-thrown stone.”

“When I was a little girl, they set me in the
fields to keep off the crows. I had nothing else to do but practice
rock-throwing. Then when my brothers were born, I had to learn to weave
instead.”

“If you throw a shuttle as skillfully as you
throw a rock, you must weave better than the spiders. You saved my life.”

“I didn’t do it for you; I did it for Yanni.
And Pacci.”

“Pacci?”

The whiny boy came out from the wheat, dirty,
disheveled, dragging his feet with shame. His brown eyes looked like a scolded
puppy’s. “Where is Yanni? Did he run away?”

The girl dug her foot scornfully into the dead
snake’s side. “He’s in here, eaten at a gulp like a pelican downing a fish.”

The boy shivered and turned white. I had a
feeling he had nothing more to be sick with. “Shouldn’t we let him out?”

The girl and I just looked at each other. She
handed him the wineskin. “Drink that. We’d better be getting home.”

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Omphale, daughter of Demos, farmer and smith.
That is my brother, Paculi. He wants to be a hero.”

“No, I don’t. I want to be a blacksmith and
never, never look at another sword. I’ll make pitchforks and shovels and
horseshoes forever and a day but I won’t ever make a sword or a knife longer
than my finger! I swear by Hephaestus Himself!” It was the kind of fervent
prayer that finds its way at once to Heaven and the ears of the Gods. I had no
doubt it would be recorded there. Perhaps with time and much labor, he could
erase the memory of his cowardice. It would help if his sister wasn’t always
there to remind him of her courage.

“Has your father arranged your marriage?” I
asked. It’s the sort of polite question we old, worn-out men ask young and
lovely maidens when we met them.

She shook her head and drew down her scarf from
where she’d flung it over her shoulder. With deft fingers she bound up her hair
again. “Come on, Pacci. You’ll have to apologize to Father but he’ll forgive
you. He always does.”

She walked away, her back straight. There’d be
no more tears on that face, not where anyone could see them. At night, under
the eye of the moon, perhaps. I hoped Artemis would turn her tears to pearls.

Pacci lingered behind a moment, shifting from
foot to foot nervously. “It was him,” he whispered with a frightened glance at
the snake’s body. “Yanni. She was supposed to marry Yanni. His grandfather’s
the second richest man on the island, next to the King.”

“She’s well out of it, then. He was a....”
there didn’t seem any words that would do him his proper justice.

“Oh, he was bad, I guess, but good company.
I’ll never have another friend like him.”

“You’re well out of it too, then.”

He shot me a glance full of dislike, the sort
that should accompany an out-thrust thumb or tongue. I hoped his father would
sweat the brattiness out of him behind a plow or an anvil. It would take more
than work to make a man of him, though. Strange how a girl could inherit all
the balls in a family.

Like most men, I don’t really understand women.
According to the ancient story of the Flood, after Deucalion, son of
Prometheus, and his wife Pyrrha drifted to safety over the surface of the
waters, they repopulated the earth by throwing stones over their shoulders. The
stones thrown by Deucalion became men; those thrown by Pyrrha became women. But
how can men and women be made of the same stuff, from the ‘bones of the earth’,
and yet be so utterly different from one another?

I’m glad I’m a hero and not a philosopher.
These kinds of questions make my head hurt.

I rested a while not far from the corpse of my
fallen foe. I felt as though I’d been beaten, slowly and expertly, by teams of
tiny men with large hammers. The wine had helped but I didn’t want to meet the
next enemy looking like I’d come off second best from the last encounter.
Besides, I had a lot to mull over.

First of all, I had to get off this island. I
was getting too involved, too interested in what was going on here. I felt an
urge to stay, help Temas to clean up and set things right. I wanted to know
more about that girl and her brother, talk to their father, get the kid’s feet
set on a better path. Even drinking down in the tavern with Phandros had a cozy
sound. It was a pretty place, Leros, or would be once the evil that festered
here was gone. Maybe my future bride would like it too.

I rubbed my head vigorously, putting those
dreams aside for a better time. The foes I had to face next might be stronger
and more fell than the snake-creature. I was beginning to take Eurytos′
measure. If I′d been defeated by any of the guards I′d met so far,
well and good. He could hold his stronger forces in reserve. But if I won out,
as I had, he′d need to throw something more powerful yet at me.

Was Eurytos in league with the three-headed
thing in the temple? It had been more dangerous than the snake, commanding
strange powers. This big fellow whose remains lay beside me had been something
more than mortal. Evil had been done to it. It had been an animal, twisted into
a semi-human with a bad attitude, but the thing in the temple had seemed like a
manifestation of something else, something capable of far-reaching sorcery. Was
Eurytos the font of all the evil on the island or just another tool, like
Nausicaa and the late king?

I sat on, gripping my forehead as if squeezing
it would help, trying to remember everything the evil three-headed creature had
said. I felt that there was a clue there, if I could tease it out. It
couldn′t be under Eurytos′ control because it had said it wanted to
be Queen. And the dead boy had called Eurytos
‵
King′ and talked about
his plans to take over Leros. The thing in the temple had talked about ruling
everything. Eurytos must be working for that unknown queen as I had a hard time
believing in the coincidence of two evil magicians at work at the same time in
the same place.

Be that as it may, I knew at least Eurytos had
some supernatural creatures at his command. What did I have to use against him?
A sword or two, twigs, rocks, my strength? None of it particularly useful until
I got a look at my opponents.

The wind had picked up, drying my clothes. The
monotonous song of the cicadas had started again, as soon as the snake had
fallen. I could do with another drink. Pity the wine-skin was dry.

When the wings beat over my head, I mistook
them for the rising wind. But when a soft down puff floated before my very
eyes, I glanced up.

She was there, hovering with long strokes of
her wings, floating with a strange grace. Her claws weren’t ten feet above my
head, cruel as the hooked barbs on an arrow, designed to rend flesh from bone.
The sun threw rays of light over her bronze body, receiving her radiance in
return. I could feel her looking at me but she was far too bright for me to
gaze long upon her.

The hilt of my sword was near to my hand. I
could have snatched it up, clipped her wings and brought her crashing to earth.
I could have bound her with the ropes young Omphale had dropped and returned
later to deal with Eurytos. I did nothing of the kind and it was not the
thought of the claws that stayed my hand. Perhaps it was a recompense for her
timely cry during my fight with the snake. Perhaps it was the soft cooings she
was making now.

When it changed suddenly to a snarl, I did
glance up. She’d moved away from me, to hover effortlessly above the snake’s
body. Her claws flexed as a human might tighten and ease a fist.

She dove down over the head, digging her claws
in to the thin flesh that covered the skull. With powerful beats of her large
wings, she lifted it off the ground. The cut neck trailed a thin dripping of
blood as she flew off with it. Thankfully, she did not fly over me.

With renewed strength, I followed her. She was
going in the right direction, toward Eurytos’ natural fortress. From what the snake
had said, I knew the harpy was no friend to my enemies.

She led me up into the cliffs above the sea by
a secret path that only one who could see from the sky would know. When I
stopped or turned in the wrong direction, she would come back, drop the head
and rest on it, watching me. I found myself talking to her, the way I would
explain my actions to a dog, knowing it understood nothing but the tone of my
voice. Yet it is a comfort to speak sometimes, especially while working hard on
something that requires much bodily labor.

Just before I poked my head for the second time
over the ridge that ringed the men’s hideout, she left me, still clutching the
snakehead in her sharp talons. I watched her fly up, getting some altitude. I
wished her good appetite, though why she’d chosen the head was beyond me. Maybe
she liked brains.

Bordered on one side by the ocean, the sandy
clearing was about a hundred yards across, encircled by embracing arms of
stone. There was a tunnel below me, through the ridge. I could, by leaning out,
see the tall wooden doors bound with iron that closed off this side. The heads
of the nails were still gleaming in the sun from Eurytos’ recent repairs.
They’d made their natural fortress stronger with all the tricks of military
men. It seemed odd that the doors were open, however, unless it was a trap for
me.

For the rest, they had a few tents, enough for
ten men, and two piles of arms, some swords and bows, one quite near the tunnel
entrance, the other closer to the high-tide mark. A fire burned between the
two, a large shining perch suspended on a spit above it. My stomach rumbled as
I caught the smell of the grilling fish. I′d been working hard without
time to eat. Two men stood by the fire, talking with their heads close
together.

Then, with wings outspread, the harpy dove into
the bowl of the camp, a gilded figure of heavenly vengeance. I watched in
gape-mouthed admiration as she glided so low that the two men threw themselves
flat to avoid her, and then she powered out again with a few strong, almost
lazy wing beats. Her terrifying beauty so drew my eyes that I almost forgot to
watch my enemies.

Her cry echoed off the stone walls, magnifying
their terror until it seemed as if a hundred harpies shrieked.

I heard shouts of consternation and saw two
more men run out from the tunnel into the middle of their camp. For the first
time, I saw their leader. He wasn’t the tallest, or the most muscular. He wore
a simple leather vest over his burly chest and, true to report, his right hand
ended in a claw like a crab’s. One could almost overlook that macabre touch.
Eurytos walked as if he were king already.

The harpy flew twice around the camp, her cry
at its most piercing. Only I could hear the note of triumph underlying the
bloodcurdling blare. The second pass saw three of them, including Eurytos, flat
on the ground, their hands over their ears. The fourth figure stood unmoved,
his face hidden under a broad-brimmed straw hat. None of them, however, seemed
to have enough wits left to seize one of the bows lying about.

Then she dropped the snake′s head, right
amongst them all. It only seemed a pity that it had stopped dribbling an hour
or so earlier.

From the increasing horror of their shouts, it
was obvious that they recognized their fallen comrade, even in this guise. It
was only then that Eurytos himself hurried to grab up a bow and a quiver of
arrows. His claw didn’t seem to impede him much.