Hercules (8 page)

Now, he had been very careful about choosing the place to take his stand. The marsh was ringed by boulders. Beyond the boulders was a grove of pine trees. He had chosen to meet the birds at a place where one rock lay over two others, making a kind of shelter, which he had known he might need if he were losing the battle.

He needed it now. He dropped to the ground and crawled into the open cave. Just in time. As he pulled his leg under, a beak drove into the ground; a second later and he would have been nailed there with a beak through his foot. Before the bird could pull away, he smashed its head in with a rock. Then he crouched under his boulder roof as the birds, enraged, dived at the boulder, driving their beaks against it.

To his horror, he heard the huge rock begin to crack. He had been told that the Spear-birds could crack rocks with their beaks, but he hadn’t believed they could do anything against that heavy boulder. He heard them diving down at it, chipping away at it. He saw small rocks falling off like hailstones.

“By the gods,” he whispered. “Another hour of this and they’ll break through that boulder and I’ll be like a turtle without its shell.”

He saw that the low opening of his rock shelter was filling with red light, and he knew that the sun was sinking. He tried to think how long it would be before darkness fell. It was important, because these birds flew by day and roosted by night and would not keep up the attack after dark. So he crouched there listening to the boulder crumble over his head, watching the rocks slide off to make a heap of rocks, watching the red light fade, trying to think of a way to defend himself if the monster birds did break through. So busy was he measuring the light and planning what to do that he forgot about his pain and just prayed for darkness.

The red light faded, became a purple light, a blackish-blue light, then blackness. He kept watching the boulder overhead, listening to the beaks drive into the rock. And just as the last light went, a beak did come through. But it disappeared immediately and he heard a beating of wings and felt a trickle of draft through the hole in the boulder roof. He knew that the birds were flying away into the darkness and that he was safe until dawn.

“I can’t sit here,” he said to himself. “I must use this night I have been given. I’ve got to stop this bleeding, get some strength back, and prepare for dawn. They’ll be back at the first light.”

He pulled oregano leaves from his pouch and chewed them into a pulp, which he then spread over his wounded chest. Chiron had taught him that the leaves of the wild mint plant called oregano had great healing power over wounds made by iron. He felt the pain draining out of his chest, felt the blood beginning to clot. But he had bled so much that he was still weak as he crawled out from under the rock and made his way into the grove of trees.

For he had a plan. It was a desperate plan, but it was the best he could do. He went among the pine trees, took vines, and braided them into a rope of vines. Then braided the ropes into a cable of vines. He found a young pine tree and bent it to the ground, then let it go. It whipped out of his hands with terrific force, snapped through its own arc, and touched the ground on the other side. He broke off a heavy branch from a fallen tree, fitted its forked end against the top of the pine, and bent the young pine again. He bent it to the ground and let it snap up. Like a giant bow it hurled the stick of wood toward the sky. Hercules bent the pine tree again, tied one of his vine cables to it, and tied the other end of the cable to the base of a nearby tree. It was a clear night, luckily, and he could see by moonlight. He found another young pine and did the same thing. He kept bending pines and tying them in a bent position until he had cocked some forty trees.

By now he was very tired. The wounds on his chest had opened again and were bleeding. He chewed more oregano leaves and plastered them to his chest with great scoops of marsh mud. Now half his work was done; but he still had the other half to do, and the sky was growing pale. He had only an hour until dawn.

He raced back to his rock shelter, spread out his lion skin, and shoveled the chipped rocks onto the hide. Then he drew the four corners of the lion skin together into a great sack and swung the sack to his shoulder. It was so heavy it made him walk bowlegged, but he toiled back into the grove of trees again. One by one, he visited his bent pine trees and stuck rocks into the top branches, wedging them carefully—tightly enough so that they would not fall, but loosely enough so that they would fly out of the trees when the time came. The bent trees strained and quivered against their binding of vine as he wedged in the rocks that the Spear-birds had broken for him. But the vine cables held, and Hercules kept working until the sack was empty and the bent trees were loaded with rocks.

Now the sky was pink. He heard a loud rusty cawing as the birds settled on the marsh and began to hunt water snakes. But feeding kept them too far apart. Each bird had its own territory and drove its beak into its own space, spearing the snakes. He needed the birds in one tightly packed flock.

He picked up the two rusty shields again, stretched his arms wide, and clapped the shields together, making a horrid metallic din. The birds beat their wings, tearing their legs from the mud, rising in a great cloud out of the marsh, blotting out the pink sky.

Hercules turned and bolted toward the grove of trees. The birds hung in the air, waiting for him to show himself. But now he was among his bent pines. He drew his knife and lashed a vine cable. The young pine whipped in an arc, loosing a storm of stones. With all the force of the springing pine behind them, the rocks hurtled more swiftly than an arrow shot from a bow or a stone flung from a sling and swept through the flock in a murderous hail.

Birds dropped. Hercules watched them fall. He yelled for joy and sprang from tree to tree, slashing vines. The trees whipped up, loosing their hail of stones, sending them among the flock. The flock broke. Single birds began to scoot away. None dived.

The pink sky was yellow now, a glorious full dawn. The marsh was free of birds. Dead birds lay among the bones of the creatures they had killed, and soon their bones would be added to the rubble.

Hercules was very weary. He had lost much blood. But he had scattered the flock and killed most of the Spear-birds. It would be a long time before they could terrorize the countryside again. He picked up his lion skin and his weapons and limped away from the marsh, heading for a river where he could swim and cleanse himself.

“Then,” he thought, “I’ll sleep for the rest of the day and all tonight. And tomorrow I’ll set out, but not for Mycenae. No, I’ve earned a bit of rest. I shall go to Thebes and see my parents and tell Iole the story of my adventures.”

I
N THOSE DAYS, EVERYONE
knew that the earth was flat and that the sky was held up by mountains. But at the very northwestern corner of the world, in the uttermost island behind the West Wind, that part of the sky was held up by a Titan named Atlas, who did a mountain’s work. He was there because in the beginning of time he had fought against Zeus, and it was his punishment to stand in that orchard forever holding the sky on his shoulders.

The place he stood was called the Garden of the Hesperides, but it was more of an orchard than a garden. Apple trees grew in that orchard, and one tree bore apples of solid gold. This tree had not always been there. It was Mother Earth’s wedding gift to Hera and had been planted in the Garden of the Gods on Olympus. Hera had been very selfish about these apples and would never give any to the other gods, who, after a while, began to help themselves. So she dug up her tree, took it as far as she could—to the western edge of the world—and replanted it in the orchard there. And to make sure that the fruit would not be stolen, she set a giant serpent to guard the tree. It wound itself around the trunk and devoured anyone who came near.

To fetch one of these golden apples from the dangerous orchard on the western rim of the world, where the Titan, Atlas, held the sky on his shoulders, became the next task facing Hercules.

Hercules was given this message as he stood before the iron gates of Mycenae, and again it was Copreus who brought him the king’s commands.

“I’ll need some directions, my friend,” said Hercules. “Everyone has heard of this tree and these apples, but no one seems to know how to get there.”

“Only one creature in the world can tell you that,” said Copreus. “The Old Man of the Sea alone knows the secret of the orchard.”

“And where do I find him?”

“He dwells on the island of Ner, which is his kingdom. His own name is Nereus, but he is known as the Old Man of the Sea. And I must warn you: he’s a pretty unpleasant sort of fellow. Not at all easy to deal with.”

“I’m getting used to that,” said Hercules. “Everything about these missions gets unpleasant sooner or later. Farewell.”

Hercules, as usual, felt very much alone in the world as he set out on his mission. But this time he was less alone. For someone else was also thinking very hard about the Old Man of the Sea. It happened this way.

After leaving Thebes, Iole and the Blind Man had wandered here and there for many months and had at last reached a wild and lonely beach, where they decided to stay. They built a little driftwood shack and lived there. The Blind Man spent hours telling her stories, and the more he told, the more she wanted to hear. She loved his stories. He also taught her to play the lyre, which he played beautifully. Often, in the evening, they would sit on a rock at the very edge of the sea, and he would touch the strings and sing a story-song. The fish would come to the surface and bob in the swell, listening.

Iole made friends with these music-loving fish, especially a dolphin, because the Blind Man had known him a long time and had taught the dolphin to speak. But the man was not easy to live with. Sometimes a mood would come on him, and he would sit on his rock all day from dawn to dusk, gazing out at the sea, refusing to eat, not speaking a word. And would sit there all night, too, without sleeping, his milky eyes looking out into the darkness of the waters. Then, Iole knew, the next dawn he would be choking with visions and gasp out strange words. These words would dance upon the air and form a picture of what was to be.

She stayed close to him on such dawns, although he didn’t seem to know whether she was there or not. But she always listened thirstily to his prophecies, for she knew that they were very important to her without knowing why. Upon this dawn, he arose suddenly from his rock, stretched his arms to the rising sun, and cried, “The apples, the golden apples! The eight-armed fish, the lobster-faced liar, beware, beware … He’s a liar, Hercules, beware, beware …”

Iole saw him sway on his feet. His arms dropped. She leaped to him and flung her arm around his waist, easing him to the sand, where he lay insensible. This had happened before, and she knew what to do. She dragged him up on the beach beyond the high-tide mark, fetched a blanket from the shack to cover him with, and set some lentil soup to boil. For he would awake very hungry, she knew, and could not be questioned about his words until he had eaten. And she had to question him very closely, for this prophecy concerned Hercules.

He woke up after a few hours and ate his soup greedily. Then Iole asked him about the words he had spoken out of his trance.

“What do they mean, Grandfather?”

He sat there silently.

“Tell me. Please …”

“I’d rather not.”

“It’s about Hercules.”

“That’s why. What I saw in my darkness will grieve you.”

“It won’t. I mean, he’s always fighting monsters. Whatever he’s doing now can’t be worse than what he’s done before. What is the eight-armed fish?”

“An octopus. A giant one. One which has killed and eaten a great white shark.”

“What has it to do with Hercules?”

“This octopus guards an island called Ner, where dwells one named Nereus, known as the Old Man of the Sea. And Hercules is coming to visit him. Now, one of two things will happen, and I don’t know which is worse. Either Hercules will be devoured by the octopus, or he will reach the island and question Nereus, who will give him a fatal answer.”

“What will he ask Nereus?”

“Hercules’ task is to fetch a golden apple from the Garden of the Hesperides. Only Nereus knows the secret of that orchard—how to find it, and how to pick the apples.”

“And he’s a liar, isn’t he? You called him a lobster-faced liar.”

“He is that. He has been bribed by King Eurystheus to tell Hercules exactly the wrong way to go about things, a way that will get him killed in the shortest possible time. Don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying, I’m thinking. I fear the liar more than the octopus. I’ve seen Hercules fight the Hydra, and I know what he can do, although he fights better on land than in the water. But he’s so honest himself that he doesn’t understand about lies and liars. He’ll believe Nereus. He must be warned.”

“How can he be warned? He sails toward Ner now; I’ve seen him sailing upon the waters of sleep.”

“I shall warn him. Good-by, Grandfather.”

Before he could say anything, she hugged him, kissed his blind eyes, and flashed away. She ran to the edge of the beach, shouting and singing. Her voice mixed with the wind and the seething of the waves. A dolphin breached in a glittering arc, slid into the water again, and stuck its head out near her.

“You have called?”

“I have called, and you have come.” She leaped onto his back.

“Do you want a ride?”

“A long ride—to the island of Ner.”

The dolphin stopped swimming. He turned his head back to look at Iole, who was riding him astride, as though he were a horse. “Dearest girl,” he said, “the sea holds many dreadful creatures, and there are few that I fear. I have fought off killer whales, slid through the coils of sea serpents, and will dare them again if I must. But the one creature I fear is the giant octopus that guards the island of Ner.”

“But I’ve adopted you as my best friend and my water steed,” said Iole. “If you won’t take me there, I can’t go. And I must.”