Iolaus came to his aid, reaching his arms blindly into the river and seizing hold of Phorcys, who resisted his efforts to pull him free. But Heracles had a firm grip on him now, and rising first to his knees, and then his feet, he dragged him back towards the cave. Though the god appeared shapeless and flowed through his captor’s fingers like cascading water, he could not escape his grip. Iolaus came after, holding something that resembled a tail as he followed Heracles into the cave.
Together, they hurled the phantasmal shape against the back wall of the cave. It splashed over the rock, but rather than cascading down to the floor, it seemed to implode, the scattered droplets falling back on themselves to take on a new shape. Black fur and huge claws materialized before them, then a black mane and jaws that filled the cave with a momentarily deafening roar. Suddenly, Heracles was faced with the green eyes of the foe from his first labour. The memory of the Nemean Lion’s corpse-strewn lair filled him with fear. Then the beast leaped across the cave at him, bellowing with fury. Instinctively, he reached up and seized its huge paws, twisting aside and throwing it against the cave wall.
It gave a childlike cry, and Heracles found himself looking into the face of his eldest son, Therimachus. His skin was ashen white, and there was blood on his lips and livid bruises around his neck. Despite the marks of his death, the child stared at Heracles with fearful, pleading eyes.
‘Daddy!’ he gasped. ‘Daddy, no!’
Heracles released him at once, his eyes wide with horror as he fell back onto the cave floor and tried to drag himself away.
‘Don’t let him go!’ Iolaus shouted, leaping forward and taking hold of the phantom. ‘It’s not Therimachus, it’s—’
As he spoke, the figure changed again, assuming the naked form of Megara. Now it was Iolaus’s turn to falter and stumble backwards, though somehow he clung onto her wrists, pulling her on top of himself. For a moment, Heracles looked on in amazement, unable to believe that it was not his wife that straddled his nephew. Every detail was complete, exactly as he remembered her from their many intimate times together, even down to the birthmark below her left breast.
‘Let me go, Iolaus,’ she pleaded. ‘Don’t let him hurt me, don’t let him take me back.’
Iolaus looked up at her in confusion, then shook his head and released her wrists. But before she could launch herself towards the cave entrance, Heracles grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back against himself. Immediately, her body was consumed by a searing ball of flame. He cried out as the fire blistered his skin and scorched his nerve endings, sending torturous barbs of pain through his flesh. Yet he knew it was a hallucination and forced himself to deny the pain and hold on. Then, as suddenly as the flame had appeared – filling the cave with blazing orange light – it disappeared again. He fell on his back, an old, clammy-skinned man clutched hard in his arms.
‘Enough! Enough!’ he said. ‘Tell me what you want and let’s be done with it.’
‘How do I know you won’t try to escape again?’
‘You have my word as a god. Just put me down, will you?’
‘With pleasure,’ Heracles replied, letting Phorcys go.
He slumped to the floor and dragged himself to the back of the cave, where he turned to face his captors. From the waist down, he had a tail like a large fish, covered in silver scales and with a wide, purple fin at the tip. His upper torso, though, was that of a man, with once powerful muscles that had turned to fat and a belly as round as the base of a small cauldron. There was a blue tint to his pale skin, which gleamed with a wet sheen. His grey beard reached down to his stomach and was plaited into two forks, while his long hair lay in twisted locks over his shoulders and across his forehead, framing his face so the only visible features were his pointed nose and his watery green eyes.
‘Well,’ he began, impatiently, ‘you have managed to capture me, and I assume you didn’t put me through all that just for sport. What is your question?’
‘Then you are Phorcys.’
‘Just as you are Heracles, son of Zeus, and the boy there is Iolaus, your brother’s son. Now, listen: mortal company bores me and I want to return to the sea to wash away the repulsive feel of your hot, rough hands from my skin, so do hurry up.’
Iolaus rose to his feet and stood beside Heracles.
‘Pleasant, isn’t he?’ he muttered. ‘Just ask him where to find this garden.’
‘There are many gardens in the world, boy,’ Phorcys replied. ‘I can tell you the way to any of them, but first your master must say which one he seeks.’
‘Do you not already know? Heracles asked. ‘You who can assume the exact form of my dead son, or imitate every detail of my wife’s body. How can you know such things, but not know why I came looking for you? Can you read thoughts and memories, or is there some other trickery that you use against your pursuers?’
Phorcys stared at Heracles, twitching his tail as he pondered his answer.
‘In truth, I’m not able to see into a man’s mind and I don’t know why you’ve come to me. But I can see the emotions of those I touch – their most powerful fears and desires, their greatest regrets and innermost ambitions. I felt your pain and guilt at the death of your child and I used it against you, for which I am sorry. Had there been just one of you, I might have escaped your clutches; but I also realize that you would have continued to seek me until you had the answer to your question – a question that, I sense, relates to the death of your sons. Now, forgive my irritation at being captured; tell me the name of this garden you seek.’
Heracles sat opposite the Old Man of the Sea and looked into his ancient eyes.
‘I don’t know its name, only that it is tended by the Hesperides, the daughters of Atlas.’
‘Ah, yes, the Nymphs of the West, whose beauty is as enchanting as the setting sun. I have seen them and I have seen the garden you seek. It is on the highest slopes of Mount Atlas, in the land of the Hyperboreans, where the chariot of the sun comes to rest at the end of each day.’
‘I’ve heard of the place,’ Heracles said. ‘But I don’t know how to get there.’
Phorcys pointed to the wall of the cave, to Heracles’s right. Several faint lines of golden fire appeared, spreading across the rock to join with each other in forming a curious pattern. The fire glowed brightly for a moment, burning the pattern onto Heracles’s retinas, before fading away to leave only a charred black outline.
‘What is it?’ Heracles asked.
‘A map, of course. Here, give me your bow.’
Reluctantly, Heracles slipped his prized weapon from his shoulder and handed it to the god. He took one end and rested the other against the map.
‘This is the Great Sea, and this is Greece with its many islands,’ he began, circling the tip of the bow over parts of the cave wall. ‘This is the Adriatic, and this is where we are now. Mount Atlas is up here.’ He dragged the bow diagonally upwards and to his left. Heracles had little concept of what a map was, and had no idea of scale; but judging by the distance from Greece to where Phorcys said the River Po was, then Mount Atlas was four or five times as far in the opposite direction, across terrain that the crude marks on the wall gave no clue to. ‘It will take you a long time to get there by horse or chariot, and only a little less by sea – if you could find a ship willing to take you to coastlines far beyond the knowledge of any helmsman. But if you ride north-west, with the setting sun in your left eye, you will find what you are looking for. And now that I have told you what you want—’
‘Thank you, my lord,’ Heracles said, holding up a hand. ‘But the priest who told me to find you said that I could ask you as many questions as it was my desire to find the answers to.’
Phorcys sighed and gave a nod.
‘Tell me about the tree at the centre of the garden,’ Heracles continued. ‘I’ve been sent to pick three apples from it and take them back to King Eurystheus in Tiryns. But as easy as it sounds, I know it will be difficult, even impossible. What do I need to kno
w?’
‘You’re right to think it won’t be easy. The apples have magical powers, and are jealously guarded. The tree’s first warden was Atlas, the strongest of all the Titans. Hera entrusted it to him on the promise that he would leave its fruit untouched. He placed a sentinel over it and surrounded it with a small garden, tending it lovingly, until the inevitable day when he fell to temptation and plucked one of the golden apples. The moment he bit into it, he was changed forever. He began to see the gods differently – and to see himself differently, also. In his folly, he incited the Titans to rebel against the Olympians. After the uprising was defeated, Zeus punished him by making him carry the weight of the heavens on his shoulders for eternity.
‘Next, Hera left the tree in the custody of Atlas’s daughters. They enlarged the gardens, making them a place of such beauty that the gods would often visit to admire their work. But in the end the Hesperides, too, became enamoured of the golden fruit that lay at the heart of the gardens. They attempted to steal some for themselves, but the sentinel their father had placed over the tree prevented them. When Hera found out, she banished them from the gardens they had created, and which still bear their name.’
‘And what of the sentinel?’ Heracles asked.
‘The tree is guarded by Ladon, offspring of Echidna and Typhon. She is a serpent with many heads, each one able to speak a different language. Unlike her siblings – the Nemean Lion, the Hydra, and Orthrus, which you have already slain – Ladon is not a creature of hatred or violence.’
‘Then she will let me take the fruit?’
‘Only if you are able to answer the questions she will ask you,’ Phorcys replied, ‘and that is said to be impossible.’
‘I have been set many impossible tasks, yet I completed them all.’
‘You will not complete this one.’
‘Then I will kill the beast and help myself to the fruit.’
Phorcys laughed, his voice filling the cave.
‘Kill Ladon and your task will fail utterly. But there is another way, a way that only a man of your strength might choose.’
‘What is it?’
‘Find Atlas and offer to take his burden for a short time, while he fetches the fruit for you. He was the one who set Ladon to guard the tree, and the serpent will tolerate him taking the apples. Or you could ask Hera,’ Phorcys added, with a knowing smile.
‘And where do we find Atlas?’ Iolaus asked.
‘After Hera banished the Hesperides from the garden, they became shepherdesses to Atlas’s flocks, which roam the flanks of the mountain that bears his name. They can tell you where to find their father. Now, Heracles, will you permit me to go? I cannot stay out of the water all night long.’
‘You are free to go,’ Heracles answered. ‘After one more question. How can a Titan carry the heavens on his shoulders, let alone a man?’
‘That I cannot tell you,’ the god answered. ‘You must see for yourself. And may the gods be with you, Heracles.’
Chapter Eight
THE GARDEN OF THE HESPERIDES
Weeks passed before they spotted the peak of Mount Atlas, alone in the distance with the sun setting behind it. Its skirts were wide and covered in shadow, and its summit was lost in a bank of cloud. The land between the mountain and the ridge, where they stood in Iolaus’s chariot, was undulating and wooded, split by the broad, winding course of a river. A few swampy meadows kept the trees from the riverbank in places, and here and there the bald, grassy head of a hill pushed itself up from the roof of the forest. But there were no signs of man other than the dirt track that had brought them there: no villages; no farmsteads; no crops or vineyards. The land belonged to the gods, and few mortals dared to venture there.
They camped on the ridge and set off at dawn the next day, following the track deep into the woods. The sun broke through the leafy canopy in several places, illuminating the darkness with columns of yellow light. On several occasions, Heracles spotted groups of deer standing in clearings among the trees. Not having eaten roast meat for several days, and with their rations already low, he considered drawing an arrow and killing one of the beasts. But his instincts told him to leave them alone.
The track led them to the river, and after a night spent under star-filled skies, they followed its banks to the foot of the mountain. Here the ground became rockier as it began to climb, and the track became a narrow path, making it impossible to take the chariot any further. Ordering Iolaus to remain with the horses – despite his nephew’s protests – Heracles continued on foot.
The path followed the twists and turns of the river as it rushed noisily down from the mountain. After a while, it veered to the left and took him higher into the forest, away from the roar of the fast-flowing water. The air was scented with pine and there were many unseen birds singing in the branches above. Occasionally, he glimpsed the summit of Mount Atlas, its mysterious peak still obscured by cloud. Yet there was no sign of a garden, and he began to wonder where the path was leading him.
As the afternoon crept on, the slope levelled out and the boulders and hard tree roots gave way to lush grass and woodland flowers. Then he glimpsed a stone arch through the trees ahead of him, flanked on either side by a thick hedge. Taking new heart, he ran towards it and pushed open the thick wooden door. Beyond it was an avenue of trees of many kinds, most of which he did not know. Flowering shrubs grew thickly between the trunks, and the grass was seeded with countless tiny flowers. The mingled aroma of flowers and herbs filled the air, refreshing his weary limbs and clearing his troubled mind as he breathed it. Whereas the forest behind him was wild and uncultivated, here everything had been brought into obedience. It was undoubtedly a garden, though not like any he had ever experienced. It had a harmony too perfect to have been planted or pruned by the hands of men – or, indeed, gods – and seemed rather to have willed itself into order. Yet there was no sound of birdsong here, and the branches were not stirred by any wind.
He stepped inside and followed the avenue of trees. From time to time, he passed stone seats that had been carved for bodies much larger than his own. But he felt no desire to sit and rest. This was not a place meant for the pleasure of men, and the further in he went, the more uneasy he felt. If he had reached the Garden of the Hesperides, he wanted to find the tree and its guardian, then find his way out again as quickly as possible.
Heracles had long ago resolved to tackle the labour direct, despite Phorcys’s advice to seek the help of Atlas first. He had already slain three of Ladon’s siblings, and if he could not answer the serpent’s questions, he would kill her too and help himself to the golden fruit. The only shadow of doubt came from Phorcys’s warning that to kill Ladon would doom the task to failure. In previous labours, he had been forbidden from harming the Ceryneian Hind, or killing the Erymanthean Boar or the Cretan Bull. But Charis had not said anything about the tree’s guardian, let alone forbidden him to kill it.
The avenue of trees ended at a meadow bisected by a small stream. Daylight still filled the glade, though the flowers in the grass were already closing against the coming of evening, and the woods on either side were deep in shadow. At the far end, the trees parted to reveal a grassy slope rising up to an outcrop of rock. On top of the outcrop was a single tree with wide-reaching roots, a short, thick trunk and a head of shaggy green foliage. Despite the encroaching twilight, it seemed to gleam with a light of its own. Then Heracles saw the fruit hanging from its branches, each one a warm golden colour and as big as his fist.
He waded through the brook and strode up the slope towards the rocky ledge. Thick bushes grew in a semicircle around the tree, and as he came closer, he expected the many-headed serpent to emerge from them and challenge him. But the only movement was the now gentle breeze among the leaves. For some reason, the tree was unguarded.
Then he saw a movement at the base of the tree. One of the roots was moving. He stopped a spear’s throw away and watched as it raised itself from the grass, the tip opening like a
mouth. More roots were twitching into life and pulling themselves from the ground, rising up and twisting together in a slow dance that was enthralling and yet terrifying to look at. As they moved, they began to transform – their girth expanding until each was as thick as Heracles’s thigh, increasing in length until they coiled over the grass and towered up to the height of the tree, the ends splitting open to reveal long fangs and forked tongues, while at the sides of each new head eyes blinked into life. A monstrous hissing filled the air, and as the serpent continued to grow, the earth beneath Heracles shifted and trembled, almost throwing him from his feet.
With a sudden sense of panic, he sprinted towards the tree, desperate to pluck the fruit before the mutation was complete. But he was too late.
‘Stop!’ a female voice commanded.
It was as if he had hit an invisible wall. He was thrown to the ground and held there by an unseen weight. He struggled against it, trying to raise himself onto his elbows, but for all his great strength, he could barely move.
‘You may stand.’
He felt the force lift from his chest. Pushing himself to his knees, he stared at the serpent. Her snake-like heads swayed and twisted, gliding around each other as they stared at him through slit-like pupils. The fierce glow of the setting sun reflected on the serpent’s scaly skin, giving it a golden sheen. He thought of his battle with the monstrous Hydra – of its poisonous breath and the heads that regenerated when killed. But Ladon was much smaller than her brother, with no visible means of moving from the earth to which she seemed rooted. Though she had many more heads – there were fifty, at least – they lacked the murderous ferocity he had seen in the eyes of the Hydra. Rather, Ladon seemed to observe him with curious interest. One head rose up above the others.
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