Hero for Hire (27 page)

My sword in my hand, I ran full tilt toward the huge white columns of his ankles. I heard Aphrodite cheering me on. “Run, my sly young fox, run!”

The wind seemed to be lifting me up. I made sure my sword was in my hand. I had no idea why Kronos had told me I smelled like a god but I had evidence that my sword, mysteries of mysteries, could injure him.

Artemis, the only god still in a car, raced up beside me, her fleet-footed deer flecked with sweat-foam. “I will carry you, if you wish, mortal man.”

“I decline with thanks....” I took another breath. “It will be dangerous when he falls.”

“Athena and Hera have the girdle of Dionysus. When Kronos falls, they will bind him. Good hunting...mortal.” She grinned at me as carefree as if she rode at ease in the cool-scented morning. She turned her chariot aside, neatly avoiding Kronos’ stomp.

I braked hard and threw myself on my knees. As I slid past, I sliced deep into the tendons of Kronos’ pulsating ankle. He let out a bellow they must have heard up above as an earthquake.

I reversed my grip, brought my hand up and over, stabbing sharply into the hollow behind the ankle on the other side. The sword was almost torn from my grasp as he pulled away from the sudden pain shooting up his leg.

He began to collapse like a house built on sand. Sinking to his knees, he began to vomit from the pain, bringing up Hermes, Dionysus and Poseidon, reversing the order in which he’d swallowed them.

I ran out from between his knees, avoiding blood, vomit and wedding tackle but not his swift hand. He bellowed my name, cracking the vault of the Underworld, letting a trace of blue sky in upon that bitter place. He cupped me in both hands, gazing up at the sky, his own father whom he'd tried long ago to murder.

“Father,” Zeus called. “Let him go.”
“Yes....”

Well, so he did. He closed his hand over me. I held my sword ready to drive him off if he should squeeze. He rattled me like dice, then, I presume, threw me with all his might into the darkness beyond the darkness.

How long I fell or how far I traveled, I cannot say. Tumbling end over end, I lost all sense of myself. I felt sicker than Kronos ever had but there was no way to stop or control my precipitate flight. The miseries of my situation were nothing compared to the uncertainty that tortured me. What would happen? Would the Gods triumph? I wouldn’t know until I returned to earth, if it and I survived.

At first, I thought I had gone back. But in all my comings and goings, I’d never arrived anywhere like here. I didn’t land on sand; I rose up through it from underneath, first black sand, then white pouring off my body.

I realized I was on a beach, with a gentle surf washing the sand not a body-length away. Except for that susurration on the edge of hearing, there was no sound at all. Not a bird sang. Not a leaf rustled. Not a fish leaped from the water to splash again.

Lying there, I felt no need to move, even to glance around for my location. I was warm, the sand conforming perfectly to my body, the sea whispered of sleep, of rest, of surcease.

After about five minutes, measured by my pulse, my nose itched, my foot had fallen asleep and I was pretty sure from the tickling that a spider was shopping my ear as a potential new house. Nothing like minor annoyances to let you know you’re still alive.

I sat up, rubbing my ear. No spider. Only sand, white instead of black, powder instead of grains. The sea was a uniform greenish-blue as far as I could see. Behind me was a grove of trees, not many, that stood straight and motionless. Except for the soughing of the sea and the green of the clump of trees, there was nothing. The whole place seemed to be waiting to be brought to life.

Since I had no idea how long I’d be there, I started to explore. I was stymied at the start. Though the ocean seemed a few strides away, I couldn’t reach it. There was nothing between me and it but I never got any closer. Same story with the trees. They were there, a little farther away apparently than the sea, yet they might as well have been on the other side of the moon.

The only path I could actually walk along was a narrow one. The beach curved and I could walk around the curve in a lane not more than three paces wide. “Strange....”

Keeping an eye on the sand prevented me from kicking the head of the only other person there.

“Jori?”

He was lying down, hands folded behind his head, staring up into the blank sky. No sun or cloud ever crossed that expanse, the hot flat white of an endless summer afternoon.

Sitting up, he squinted at me a moment. “Oh, hello, Eno.”

His voice held no hint of surprise. He turned his head to look out at the featureless sea. After a moment, as if remembering his manners, he said, “How have you been?”

“Well...” I sorted among my thoughts. I didn’t think any of my recent adventures would interest him now. “You know. Not much is new.”

I sat down beside him on the sand. Jori picked up a handful and let it pour from his fingers. It was so fine there wasn't a grain left to cling to his skin. He looked out to sea again.

“What are you looking for?”

“The
Chelidion
. I’m waiting here until she comes.”

I couldn’t ask him how he came to be here; I already knew. The Judges of the Underworld and their enforcers, the Furies, are endlessly inventive in their punishments. Sisyphus and his ever-rolling rock, Tantalus and his ceaselessly unsatisfied appetites, the forty-nine daughters of Danaus who are forced to carry water eternally in sieves for the murders of their cousin-husbands were the best known. But to doom a sailor to wait on shore for a ship that will never come seemed too cruel even for the Kindly Ones.

His eyes, so empty of all the merry trickery that had made him my best friend and an enemy both, turned again to the ocean. “I’m waiting for the
Chelidion
.”

After a while, he stood up and walked down the narrow path to the other end. I dozed. When he came back and sat down, he seemed to have forgotten that I was there. He could be spoken to but his attention never strayed from the barren sea for very long.

Then I was drawn up and away. I saw Jori growing ever smaller and realized the limits of his prison. There was no sea, except in front. It was just a blob of dirt set down in the midst of that same featureless black sand that formed the rest of Hades’ dominion.

All honor to the Gods and all that but I was getting pretty tired of being yanked around, without so much as a ‘if you wouldn’t mind....’

I had been returned to Hekate's secret place of sacrifice in Troezan. The tiny tiles in the center of the floating rock were cracked and scattered. I picked one up and rubbed my thumb over the surface. The thick coat of white glaze was impenetrable and permanent. Kicking my foot through the pieces, I saw that they were all white, no trace of pattern or meaning left.

Red fire glowed on the walls and the stone began to tremble even as a great wind will shake the sturdiest foundations. A low rumble rose all around me. I started to run back toward the tunnel. A thunderous crack struck through the chamber as the aisle of stone split clean across.

I leapt the crack, even as it widened under my flying feet. Just as the narrow way snapped, I reached safety. The great floating slab had gone, dropped into the Pit Itself. There wasn’t even an echo of the fall. I knew as soon as I turned away, the tunnel’s mouth would be gone as well.

“The Gods are thorough indeed....”

Maybe in time someone would use the tunnel to store feed out of the rain and sun. It would be a better use for it than any it had ever been put to. I had begun to climb out when I heard a tremendous commotion bouncing off the tunnel walls. I glanced behind to see if the echoes had finally caught up to the crash but those roars and cries came from living throats.

“Phandros!”

Not even when Kronos chased me had I shown a better turn of speed. I emerged at the top expecting a scene of absolute massacre. But Phandros’ head was still on his shoulders, his guts in place, or so I presumed, and the basket still in his hand. He presided over a congress of wild and violent creatures.

I’d heard that someday the lion will lay down with the lamb. Traveling entertainers have been known to show it, though I understand they have to replace the lamb fairly often.

And here, in the menagerie where they’d awaited death, Lion sat with sheep, Bull let Bear Cubs ride on his back, and Bear Herself was enjoying a leisurely ear-scratching from a bemused Phandros. She only growled when he stopped so he, naturally enough, didn’t stop.

“Eno!” he said with joy as I came toward him tentatively. “I’m so very glad to see you, alive and unharmed. What happened?”

“It’s a long story, something to fill the long hours on our trip back to Mykonos.”

“We’re going back there?”

“Maybe. What’s going on here?”

“I have no idea. They seem to like me.” Considering that four hundred pounds of Bear was pressing her great head against his side would seem to be evidence of that.

“I thought for sure you’d get eaten. Forgive me for my lack of faith.”

“You were almost right. The Lion seemed to have a grudge against whoever put him in that cage. He was so glad to get out that he knocked me flat. When I sat up, he was sniffing my feet. I thought my last hour had come but he seemed to conclude that I wasn’t the one he was looking for.”

“How long do you think it’s been since we parted?”

He glanced up at the moon. The storm had either passed or changed its mind. “About half an hour, maybe. Why, is it important?”

“Probably not. So what happens now? You can’t take them all on the
Doris
. The captain would hurl us both overboard.”

“If you’ll take over here,” he said, guiding my hand to the spot just under the rounded ear, “I’ll find out.”

“Wait....” But when a huge head tosses under your hand, demanding attention, and that mouth is bearing a full set of very unsympathetic teeth, ear-rubbing rises to its own importance.

For all the strange and heart-twisting things I’d seen and done, I was missing only a spare half hour out of my thread’s length. I wondered how many times lately the Fates had raised the scissors, thinking ‘ah-ha, now we've got him.’ Maybe Aphrodite distracted them, sharing beauty secrets or what-have-you with Lakhesis, Klotho and Atropis, until I’d scraped through.

Artemis had heard his prayers now and Hermes the Trickster was, as usual, way ahead of the game. I had no doubt that he’d enchanted the animals so that Phandros met no harm. He was the protector of travelers and Phandros had traveled a long way.

A darkness surrounded me and the great weight of the bear’s head ceased to press against me. The reek of the lion faded and I no longer heard the snuffling of the bull’s breathing. All the sheep and goats were gone as well when the cloud lifted again.

Phandros was still on his knees, his lips moving in prayer...or conversation. I waited for him to be done.

Hearing a few little sounds from the basket, I took a quick peek. A small black snout lifted and sniffed, then yapped. “Hungry, little fella?”

I slipped my hand under his soft belly and lifted him up to eye-level. The black wings were feathery, too thin yet to get him air-borne but they flapped in concert with his wagging tail. He could scratch under them too, just like his ears. “I wonder what Phandros will call you?”

“Griffin, of course. In memory of what could have been.”

I wondered if Phandros could see the same glow in my eyes, the glow of one who has conversed with a god, that I could see in his. “All well?” I asked.

“They have been returned to their proper places. I only hope they’ve all learned their lessons and won’t be captured again.”

“Not by Troezen, at any rate. I’m going up to the acropolis now to make sure of it. Do you want to come along?”

“Yes. This little guy needs some milk and bread and soft-cooked meat. I’m more likely to find that at the fortress than on the ship.”

So, after a pee for the pup, we headed up the hill. Silence had fallen over the town. No flute, no drum, no voice could be heard. We came across a man, half-dressed in a leopard-skin, his head on a doorstep. “Is he dead?”

I felt the corner of his jaw. “No, just asleep.”

“Drunk then?”

“I don’t think so. Enchanted, maybe.”

Farther on there were more, just fallen over wherever they’d been. Some smiled in their sleep; others twitched and groaned. Of the ones who had hunted us, of the many minions, there was no sign at all. I wondered if they had vanished when Hekate vanished and what had happened to her 'niece', my harpy princess. I hoped there was at least one physician sober enough to see to her arrow wound.

The guards at the acropolis gate slept too. The long period of peace prior to the start of the war in Troy had encouraged many city-states to abandon the stern acropolis for a pleasanter palace. But most fortresses still had quarters for the royal family in case of attack.

Phandros headed for the kitchens. I ascended the narrow winding stair, finding soldiers sleeping at their posts, an elderly maid passed out on her own laundry pile, and an interestingly posed group that sleep had caught in mid-orgy. There would be some red faces tomorrow.

At the top was a large wooden iron-enforced door. Symbols of a nature well-known to me were carved into the panels for protection. When I touched the door, it crumbled into sawdust, the iron-hasps shattering like pottery on the stone floor.

“What? How did you do that?”

The King of Troezen started up from his chair. Maybe the symbols had kept Morpheus out of this room for he didn’t look sleepy. Nervous, anxious, near-starved...but not sleepy. His large eyes were almost popping from his thin, aristocratic-looking face.

“I bring a message from your late queen....”

That’s as far as I got. “Late...late? You mean...late? Not just delayed?”
He began to laugh, rocking back and forth, his arms crossed over his belly as if to keep his interiors in. “Zosime is dead...she’s dead...and I’m not!”

“Steady on, man,” I said, hoping I wouldn’t have to slap him. A jug of wine was empty but there was water in another. I shot it over him and he fell back into his chair, gasping.

“How dare you!” he demanded, just as if he hadn’t been hysterical.

“I’ll do it again if you don’t shut up.”

“Who are you?”

“Eno the Thracian.” Now that I didn’t have to contend with him, I glanced around the chamber. It was large but comfortless, not even a fire or much in the way of furnishings, except two standing lamps. “Where’s your niece?”

“My niece?” he said, his eyes shifting. “Is this a trick? One of Zosime’s tricks? I won’t tell you anything...you can’t make me.”

“Of course I could. But relax, will you? Zosime is dead. I sort of killed her myself. At any rate, I helped.”

“Prove it,” King Pavlos demanded. “Show me her body.”

“That’s complicated too.” I thought about explaining that his wife had actually been a rather nasty Titan in disguise but decided to skip it.

“I believe you are a madman. Guards....”

Before he could call again, I picked him up out of the chair and dragged him by his weedy beard to the crumbled remains of the door. His guards were slumped in their niches, snoring lustily. “If you can wake them up, arrest me. If you can’t, head down to the kitchen. There’s a man there and, if I know him at all, he’s cooking something. Maybe soup.”

There was an inner door in the chamber. It did not obligingly crumble when I touched it. I had to set my shoulder to it. The lamps in the room behind me shed dim illumination. From somewhere in the darkness, a quiet rustling came to my ears.

Out of the darkness, a sword sang free of a scabbard. I parried it blindly, my instincts more aware than my eyes. A sweetly sharp voice called out. "Herodias! Stop that!"

“Kissos? Princess? Harpy?”

There was the patter of feet and my arms were suddenly filled with a woman, soft-skinned but firm in all the places that counted. Maybe my resistance was low through exposure to Aphrodite or just from all I’d experienced lately, but I didn’t exactly push her away.

Well, not for a while anyway. When I did, there was plenty of evidence that my doing so was not caused by any repugnance on my part. “Slow down,” I said, a little breathlessly.

“I'm very happy you've come back,” she said. “Where did you go? Is Zosime dead?”

“Yes.” I half-expected her to break out into a song or something, considering the king’s reaction to the news. But Kissos was made of stronger stuff.

She stood with downcast eyes, her arm tightly bound. “I always felt that she hated me but I never knew why. When she first married Uncle Pavlos, I thought she was so wonderful. I know my father hoped she’d stand as a mother to me. But she always hated me.”

The light gilded the thin gown over her perfect body. She had the ‘vase’ figure, the ideal, a waist slender as a vase’s neck and her hips flaring full. Her face, now that I could see it clearly, had the straight nose and full cheeks so beloved by our sculptors.

“It’s all over now,” I said. “She won’t be coming back and the evil she did has passed with her.”

“I will mourn the woman I wished she had been,” Kissos said, her voice as soft as a dove’s. Then she looked up at me and smiled more enchantingly than any spell. “You were so kind to me when I was...changed. Even though I didn’t have any memory of my life as a woman, I remember that you were kind.”

“I betrayed you,” I said, the coldness of my tone directed at myself. “I used your affection for me to capture you.”

“And you saved me too. I think the people of Leros would have killed me, sooner or later.”

She came closer and touched my chest. “My uncle will abdicate in my favor. I will have much to do to alleviate the evils of the last dozen years. It goes deeper than just my aunt. She has been twisting the running of the city, lying to our allies at Argos, and putting wicked men in place to collect taxes and police the city. All that must be changed. Together, we can make Troezen a measure by which all other cities will be judged.”

I pressed her hand against my heart, tempted as much by her vision of doing good as by her remarkable beauty. She was everything any man could dream of and what did I have? A glimpse of a pair of eyes, the flicker of light on pale gold hair, and about a half-a-smile. Not much to build on, there.

“Glorious Kissos,” I said, “compared to you, Helen of Sparta is an old shoe. I only hope Paris never catches a glimpse of you or he’ll realize what a bad bargain he’s made.”

Her beautiful eyes narrowed slightly. She was nobody’s fool. “This sounds not like acceptance.”

“I am the son of a Thracian shepherd. I am not fit for palaces and great counsels. My natural place is on a sylvan hillside, piping songs for sheep.”

“Men rise to greater heights than their birth every day.”

“You are a queen and I am no king. It is not in me to rule. Not even over you.”

She turned away from me then, picking up an over-dress that lay over a clothes-chest. Donning it, she proceeded to do up her hair, though her hands trembled. “When will you leave?”

“Soon. There are a few things I must do first.”

“Whatever you wish, will be given to you. See to it, Herodias.”

The queen's former bodyguard bowed to me but he would never trust me. "What do you want?"

“Well, there’s this ship in the harbor....”