Hero for Hire (23 page)

They took him away with surprising gentleness, guiding his fumbling footsteps. As he went, I heard him say, "She made me a crown of golden flowers...."

I looked at the queen, her face like a mask of Pride worn in some triumphal pageant. "What are those things you are giving him?"

"A little ambrosia from the Gods' own table."

I remembered what Aphrodite had said. Looking around, I saw the orange dust on the clothes of everyone in the room except for Zosime and myself.

"I believe the Gods are eating it but why do you want them to?"

"They have remarkable properties, these little tasty treats. You eat them almost mindlessly and you don't want anything else. Whatever you are doing, playing a game, say, becomes the most important thing in the world to you. Nothing else matters. Someone could slaughter your children and it would mean nothing."

She brought the bowl to me. "Have some. They're really quite delicious."

They didn't look created by mortal hands that was for certain. For one thing, each one was pretty much identical to all the others. Strangely enough, despite what she'd told me, they did look like something worth trying. Their smell was cloying and as ever-present as the dust that fell from them yet it somehow stimulated both my curiosity and my taste buds.

"It's going to be harder to bend me to your will than that, Queen Zosime."

"Perhaps. Who can say?" She clapped her hands. "Leave me with this man."

The bodyguard said pointedly, "I'll be right outside the door, my queen."

After a moment, she dragged forward a simple folding stool, her every clumsy movement demonstrating how unused to simple tasks she was. She sat down gracefully, though, arranging her draperies, studying me covertly the whole time. "I have waited a long time to see you, Eno."

"And I you, lady."

"Now that I do, I realize what a waste it would be to kill you. Such strength. Such a spirit should not be sacrificed wantonly." Her eyes searched my whole body in a way that reminded me of nothing so much as a housewife planning how many meals she could get out of a haunch of venison. For all her beauty, she had about as much seductivity as a pool of cold, scummy water.

"You know, there's always a choice to be made in this life. You can choose death or a much more glorious future. What I offer you is a life without limits, a life of absolute power over all the earth."

"If this is leading up to a job offer as head of an army of the dead, I've heard it."

She leaned forward, letting her bosom fall against the opening of her gown. "But have you thoroughly considered all that such a position would entail? Imagine yourself, clad in the finest armor, under a banner of red and black. Armies, unconquerable armies would flock to you. The whole world would tremble at your command. City-states would fall before you. In the end, you wouldn't even have to raise a sword. The mere mention of your name would bring Athens, Troy, Sparta, on their knees before you, all of them begging for your mercy. What is a mere kingdom compared to that?"

"An entrancing picture."

"Isn't it?" she said, her eyes already smoking with the fires of burning cities. Her breasts rose and fell to her heightened breathing. No passion would draw forth such pleasure as her imagining the misery of millions.

Zosime reached forward one delicate hand, her nails shining like pearls, and ran them up from my knee to my thigh. My skin crawled. "And I to ride beside you...."

"You would not like a battlefield. Smelly. Dirty. No place for a lady."

"You'll need me. Only I, by my magic, can raise your enemies to serve in your army forever. The more you kill, the more numerous your own ranks grow, General Eno. My," she said, meeting my gaze, "what a noble sound that has. General Eno."

I nodded. "Not bad."

"She will reward you well once you give up this foolish fight against her."

"Who is that, exactly?"

She laughed in her throat. "The Dark Lady. Once she was queen over all mortals and so she will be again. She serves her brief hour in Hades, dividing the dead souls for punishment or reward. But not for much longer. Soon she will take her rightful place on the Throne of Heaven. Very, very soon."

I tried piecing together these clues. I felt as though there were something I should know but I could not bring it forward. Maybe there'd been one too many clouts on the head earlier in the evening. "Who?"

She looked at me as a teacher instructing a tiny child in the first lisping repetition of the names of the commonest objects. "Hekate, queen of witches, seeresses and enchantresses. You will serve Zosime now and her holy will always."

"Or?"

"Or...?"

"An ultimatum usually has a threat included."

She stood up, her nails digging into my leg as she scraped them down toward my knee again. Then she turned abruptly and went to a chest hung on the wall, unlocking it with a pin she drew from her neckline. A strange reddish glow emerged when she swung open the lid.

Zosime turned, a vial of blood-red glass in her hand. "This is a potion that will bind you to my will and make you forget your foolish opposition. It contains Hypernian wine, the juice of three persimmons, twelve crushed petals from the unholy flowers that bloom along the River Styx, captured vapors from the depths of the Nekromanteion, and five drops from the Waters of the River of Lethe."

"Sounds tasty."

"Join with me of your own free will or drink this and forget there ever lived such a man as Eno of Thrace."

I suppose she was expecting me to shiver, shake and plead. But I was busy with other thoughts. The Waters of Lethe were alleged to wipe the memories of souls passing into the Underworld, forcing them to forget their mortal lives and desires. The Styx and the Nekromanteion were gateways to the Underworld. That this queen possessed the ingredients for such a potion was proof of her service to the Gatekeeper of Hell.

"You already know I'm not going to join. You're not stupid."

"But think! How much better to serve her as her beloved and all-powerful General...than to be a slave, without will, without memories, without hope."

"Was that your choice, Zosime?"

"Mine? I had no choice. No. There was never any choice for Zosime." She turned and poured off the liquid into the goblet.

"You know," I said, "you really need to make up your mind if you want me alive or dead."

"No, not really. Either way you will serve her. If you take my advice, choose to go willingly. It may make things easier for you." She spoke as if she knew.

"Shall I leave you for a few moments to think it over?"

"I'd like that." There was a window behind her. Two seconds alone in the room and I'd be gone like vapor, if I had to crawl.

She laughed again, outright, shaking back her thick hair. "To me!" she shouted.

The door burst open and the bodyguard all but fell into the room.

"Wait," she said when he would have hit me. "Hold him."

She came near again, with that drifting grace both elegant and horrible. "You said I was not stupid, for which I thank you. I'm certainly not stupid enough to leave you to make your escape."

Zosime held out the goblet. "Choose. Life, love and battle...or nothingness."

"I choose...nothingness."

She wouldn't have believed me if I'd said anything else. The bodyguard clasped his hands around my face and neck, forcing my mouth open. I tried to rise to my feet, to shake him off but I hadn't the strength. Only then did I realize that Zosime wasn't boasting when she said she had power over me. I struggled uselessly, feeling like an ordinary man for the first time in my life.

She approached slowly, giving me a chance to change my mind. When I only continued my useless struggle, she raised the cup high in the air, then shot the contents straight down my throat.

The bodyguard stepped away. I saw that he was sweating, so I'd given him at least a little trouble. But that satisfaction was nothing.

What would the potion do to me and how soon would the effects show? I didn't feel any different yet. Would I even know when I forgot, if I didn't know I was forgetting?

These matters were too complicated for me. One thing only I knew. As soon as I swallowed, my strength came surging back. I could have done anything. Break Zosime in half. Throw the bodyguard out the window. Tear the palace down stone by stone til I found the harpy. But what to do first?

When in doubt, play dumb. I let my eyes glaze over and my mouth hung slack. I forced my fists to open. "I don't feel well."

"Don't be afraid. The Goddess offers you a new, glorious life."

"Goddess?"

She laughed again and came closer to inspect me, her dark eyes flickering. If we'd been alone, I'd have sent her with a wrenched neck to Hekate. "Do I know you, lady?" I asked.

Her body-guard knelt beside me. "Are you sure, my lady?"

"The Waters do not fail. He will be nothing but clay for my molding now."

He shrugged broad shoulders, though his eyes stayed narrowed in suspicion.

"Stand up," she ordered.

I stretched, unkinking twisted limbs, yawning. "What day is it?"

"A day of celebration. What is your name?"

I opened my mouth as if to speak but so great was the force of her will, commanding me with unspoken power not to remember, that for a moment I halted, dumb as a bell without a clapper. I ventured the first name that popped into my mind. "Phandros?"

"Phandros. Very well. You will go with this man and he will instruct you in your duties. Serve me well."

I bowed clumsily in imitation of the other man and followed him. I drew a clandestine breath of relief once out of her sight. Queen Zosime seemed to exhale a sweet but evil scent, like some tropical flower luring small creatures to a poisoned drowning within lush petals.

I had followed him into the hall when suddenly he pivoted and pinned me to the wall. "I don't trust you."

My eyes must have been as big as eggs with innocent wonder, for the iron-bar of his arm across my wind-pipe lessened just the slightest bit. It was enough. A moment later, he was on the floor, my foot on his throat. "Wise," I said, "but too little, too late."

I stilled his efforts with a kick to the head and dragged him, no less a weight than I myself, into an empty room. No time for fancy knots. I bundled him into a large chest of clothes and put the bed on top of it. I didn't worry whether he'd suffocate.

Then quick as I could, for I didn't know how long it would be before the potion took effect, I went hunting. The palace was large enough to hide an enchanted princess in any dark corner or hidden chamber. As I went upward, I reproached myself for not questioning the bodyguard before knocking him cold. Well, I could always go back and twist it out of him.

From somewhere nearby, I felt a chilly breeze whispering over the floorboards. I found a door and wrenched it open. I found myself on a parapet looking out over the city of Troezan, a city crawling with life the way the soil under a rock teems with frightened, creeping things. I could hear voices and cries, mingling into a pulsing moan, almost a song. If the grubs and worms under a stone could sing a terrified song of praise to the creature that had lifted the rock perhaps it would sound much the same.

Everything that was happening -- from Jori's death to the planned sacrifice of some fantastical animal tomorrow -- had a meaning and a purpose that I could only dimly comprehend. Zosime had hinted that her Goddess was ready to emerge, like some foul creature from a black cocoon. But then, I didn't really need to know all the details. I could wreck all their nasty plans by my ignorance just as easily, if not more easily, than with wisdom.

I smiled, planning mischief, as I ran briskly around the parapet on the topmost tower. On the farthest side from the doorway, a cage hung swinging on a beam cantilevered into the palace wall. I recognized the workmanship for the plans had been mine.

"Princess...." I gasped.

A dark mass huddled in the center of the floor. She couldn't be dead; all my logic said she was destined to die in the morning at the hand of her own uncle. And I had sent her back to Troezan!

I leapt onto the beam in the darkness, guided only by the dim stars. Though it had looked straight, once I was on it, I realized that it was bending under the levered weight of the cage and the harpy. It creaked and swayed under my feet as if I stood on a boom at sea. I inched along, wishing with all my might that I weighed no more than a pigeon. If I could only reach her and open the cage, she could fly away.

She stirred as my weight upon the beam shook the cage. I saw the reflection of her brilliant eyes as she raised her head from her breast. Impossible to say if she recognized me. "You've got to get out of here," I told her, keeping my voice low and reassuring. "Fly to the mountains and hide up there. If I can, I'll get there and we'll find a way to change you back. There's got to be a greater magician some place. I hear there's some smart guys in Samarkand."

I felt the beam sway beneath me as one of the pegs holding it to the wall jumped away with deep-noted 'sproing.' I ducked instinctively and heard another one burst free.

She could fly, of course, but I could only fall.

In the hope of evening out the load, I gingerly knelt, then lay at full-length, face-down, balancing myself on the beam, which suddenly seemed far narrower. I fumbled for the cage door. She didn't cry out or try to slash my hand from my wrist, which I counted as a sign she knew me. I mumbled the reassuring words a man might offer a dog with a sore paw.

The door opened, but she stayed huddled on the floor. "Go on, now," I urged. "You're free."

She sighed but did not move. Had the Queen in her cruelty clipped her wings?

Perhaps it was just long experience that made me feel so jumpy. I doubted the Queen's bodyguard would stay quietly unconscious for long and, though the beam no longer bucked like a runaway horse, I didn't trust my perch to last. A quick scuttle backwards would make me awfully happy but I couldn't leave her and I didn't dare put my hand in to grab her. I was fond of my fingers.

Then I heard that chittering sound around us, as the Queen's minions found me. My attention had been too focused on the harpy. They waited for me, for they could see that to step on the beam meant a long, screaming death for everyone concerned. Even minions don't want to go like that.

Like a tropical sun flooding the sky with golden light, the Harpy's cage filled with blinding brilliance. She spun around, wings outstretched and the cage burst apart, sliced pieces falling away. I was no less dazed than the minions. Had she known she could break free at any moment?

She hovered, fiery wings beating at the air. Her triumphant voice shattered the starry silence, scattering the mutated creatures around us as a hot wind sends leaves flying. Impelled by her courage, I stood up in one move, drawing my sword. It seemed to catch her fire, reflecting into the eyes of our enemies.

Then one came through the rest, larger, bolder, a trickle of red still in the corner of his mouth. The Queen's bodyguard hefted a bow, the razor-sharp arrow pointed not at me, but at the harpy, the string already drawn to his cheek.

I dived, as the arrow flew, while she strove to rise. Without knowing quite how, I found myself lying across the parapet, the stone edge all but cutting me in half, both hands over, scraping against the wall as something swung between them.

Turning my eyes toward the bodyguard, I demanded that he help me. "She's your rightful queen, you ass," I said, in more or less those words. "And you shot her."

"She is a beast and shall die as a beast."

"She? Then you do know. And you're an idiot." At least he didn't try to stop me as I pulled her up. He may have even kept back the minions but I had no further attention to waste on him.

The arrow had pierced her out-stretched wing. She snapped feebly at me for I am sure I caused her great pain, though I gripped her above the wound. Her feathers scraped me, all her dazzling light extinguished, except for one spot that refused to stay still but danced over her body. No matter how I turned my head, I couldn't catch it except from the corner of my eye.

"That's not so bad. You'll be all right once we get that out."

Her eyes were fixed on my face. I am, as you have guessed by now, extraordinarily dense sometimes. It wasn't until I looked closely at the puffy skin where the arrow entered that I realized the spot of light dancing around was coming from me. Specifically, from the place on my forehead where the Goddess had kissed me.

She had called me her missionary. But what is a missionary but one who carries a message from a god? I knew the message wasn't for me. "Bend, princess," I muttered and pressed my lips to the pin-feathers on the top of the Harpy's head.

No sparkling lights, no harpist's strain, no spirits or fat sprites appeared. One instant, I held a wild beast in my arms, bleeding copper-scented blood, the next a girl, red-blooded and naked. The light of Aphrodite's kiss went out so I couldn't see even one glimpse of her face among the shadows of the wall, only the merest outline of her profile.

The bodyguard came up to us. With the princess in my arms, I could neither avoid nor ride the fist he threw at my chin, all his wounded pride and knowledge of his folly behind it.

She and I fell together, a tangle of limbs, her bosom in my face. I pushed her aside and bounded to my feet. He fired again but the arrow went wild as he tried to dance out of range while aiming.

Reaching out, I grabbed him by the back of the neck and shook him as an eagle whips a snake. He cried out and tried to reach me with blind fists. I gave him another vigorous shake for good measure. Then I thrust him down on his knees before the wounded princess.

"This is the rightful ruler of this black and misbegotten land. Obey her or die."

"I will die anyway," he said, gasping. "When the queen finds out."

"Then you might as well die doing the right thing as the wrong one. Help me and be judged for the good you have done."

"Is there such a judgment?" he muttered, hanging his head.

The princess sat up, one hand to the hole in her shoulder. "I, Kissos of Troezan, swear by all the Gods that I will forgive you even this," she said in a voice scraped raw, "if you serve me faithfully from now onward."

He raised his head and wiped his hands across his mouth. "I will. Forever. I also swear by Ares and Hermes that if I am ever foresworn I shall die by my own hand."

It was all very touching but time was gnawing at my heels.

I ripped a strip from his tunic and bound up her arm. Naked, she was as regal as a queen in full royal regalia. Even the minions, copying the bodyguard, knelt to her.

"What is your name? What are you doing here?" she asked me.

"Just a hero for hire, my princess. A wanderer." I didn't know if she remembered me from Leros or not.

"You have wandered into my life with good timing, hero. What shall we do now?"

After a few minutes' discussion, the bodyguard got his chance to take another swing at me. This time, I fell down into a long black slide into nothingness, the princess' late cry of 'No!' following me into oblivion.

* * *

When I awoke, still with that 'No!' in my head, I became aware of a strange but familiar sound. It mingled with the roaring in my ears. Searching my recent memory, I remembered. Those animal cries were the sound of the Queen's menagerie, slightly muffled as if by distance or an obstacle.

Testing the limits as usual, I tried to move a hand. No, I was obviously tied to something, something flat. Was I an opening act for the sacrificial festival? Cautiously opening an eye, I saw that it was still night. The same night?

I raised my head as a booming knock sounded nearby. That sound had roused me from the sleep I'd taken, courtesy of the queen's former bodyguard. The gate creaked open.

“Get out of the way, fool!”

The keeper was muscled aside as five guards in armor, complete with shields and spears strode in. They were followed by a covered two-wheeled cart, dragged by half a dozen human slaves, followed by several female servants, soberly but richly dressed, carrying torches. One carried a basket, covered with a cloth that moved. She kept one hand on whatever it was. Last, and undoubtedly least, I was wheeled in on a flat-bed cart which, by the smell, was usually used to carry shit out of the zoo.

The sergeant lined up his men at the salute, then strode around to the rear of the cart and got the door open.

An arched hand, limply elegant, waited for the sergeant to take it. The queen of Troezan came forth, veiled head to foot with the finest black linen, and the sergeant guided her down the three steps at the rear of the cart. She seemed to float, consciously graceful in every gesture and movement.

Everyone stepped back when she reached the ground. I knew it was less in homage than in abject fright. She paused, as if waiting for something. She turned her head toward one of the female servants who gasped. I could almost feel the tingly shock that passed from the veiled figure to the girl. She handed her torch to one of the others and stepped up to take away the veil, immediately kneeling at the woman’s feet.

The woman pushed her over with the ball of her foot. “Fool,” she said, in a low, throaty tone that carried like a deep-tolling bell. It awoke echoes of memory in me, from even earlier than our interview in her chambers. “Where’s that gate guard?”

Phandros approached, rubbing his hands together obsequiously. He didn't look at me. “Here I am, my lady.”

Her deep-set eyes narrowed. “My lady? Have I been demoted?”

“I beg pardon, my queen.”

“That’s better.” She showed her white teeth in what might have been a smile. “You are not the regular guard.”

“No, my queen.” He held up his hand, pointing behind him at the town. His hand shook. I hadn’t thought he was that good of an actor. “He has gone to the festival. I am substituting.”

“Oh, you are substituting, are you? Very well. Show my servants out, lock the gate, then return.”

“Yes, my queen,” he said, all but bobbing a curtsey.

The maid with the basket and the sergeant remained behind. I wondered if she missed her usual bodyguard who, I hoped, was watching over the princess. If he'd grabbed a fast horse and ridden away, I couldn't blame him. But if he were smart enough to see that a grateful princess was worth more than a doomed queen, he'd stay with the girl. -I had every intention of making sure Zosime didn't return to her palace.

Queen Zosime glanced about her. “It smells,” she said, and held her perfumed sleeve to her nose.

The bizarre yet familiar embroidery running around the cuff caught the torch-light, sparkling with gold thread. No doubt it was the dancing fire that gave the illusion that each sigil moved with intention and sinuous pleasure. I felt a hot jumping sensation in my abdomen muscles and had to take several deep breaths to keep calm. I saw a vision of the dead king of Leros as I'd seen him last, shuffling along, one more among the reanimated dead.