Clash of the Titans

by Alan Dean Foster

  Thunder rumbled through the chamber and down the slopes of Olympus, the not-fog twisting uneasily at the violence. "Then he will be punished. All who concurred in this evil must be punished. A cruel and ruthless crime, a blasphemy!"

  Tall figures clad in flowing robes and glowing vestments began to stir, turning to face the throne. There was about them all an air of the imperturbable, born from the knowledge that they need fear neither time nor death.

  In his initial anger Zeus had half risen from the throne. Now he settled back. There was thunder in his expression as well as in the air.

  "And he prays, oh so fervently, does this Acrisius, along with his perverted priests. Prays to me to forgive his savage jealousy and cowardly revenge. His incestuous desires thwarted, he would condemn to a lingering death even the daughter who still loves him." The great head shook slowly in anger and disbelief.

  "And Argos joins with him in this monstrousness. She has shamed their honor." He snorted derisively.

  " 'Their honor.' The honor of a city which supports a tyrant like Acrisius. Argos has grown fat and wealthy on the backs of others. Her gold is smelted with tears, her commerce supported by slaves taken in conquest from plundered cities."

  Zeus may have been the most imposing figure in the chamber, but the most elegant and confident now crossed to stand calmly before the throne.

  "Acrisius has always shown full devotion to the gods of Olympus, my husband." Hera toyed with her necklace, pretending to watch only the sparkle and flash of unearthly jewels in the mist-diffused light.

  "Can you condemn a warrior simply for being successful? His people follow him willingly because he leads them to success after success. Those same conquests which have enriched Argos have paid for many a magnificent temple dedicated to you, great Zeus, father and ruler of the gods."

  "A hundred such deeds cannot atone for one such callous murder. A thousand temples or sanctuaries", whether dedicated to me, or to you, Hera my wife, or to any of us,"—he made a sweeping gesture that encompassed the other immortals nearby—"cannot wipe out or forgive this one, contemptible act of blood."

  Hera shrugged. "Is Acrisius then so much worse than many another worshiper, the actions of Argos any more vile than that of a dozen other warrior cities? Besides, what can it matter, the death of one girl and her child?"

  "One girl . . . Danae was his own daughter! You know my feelings when the sanctity of the family is violated."

  "Indeed I do," Hera murmured. Zeus eyed her uncertainly for a moment before his anger again overwhelmed all other thoughts.

  "And this abomination was condoned—nay, approved—by the priests and the populace of Argos. They have lost all respect for themselves, and for the teachings of the gods, if they can allow such vileness."

  "I cannot deny that many seemed pleased by the decision, brother," put in Poseidon.

  "After a lifetime's respect and devotion," Hera murmured, "you would cast down a devoted worshiper?"

  "Enough! I love you, Hera, but you twist words the way my brother Hades twists souls." He rose. "I have decided. Acrisius must be punished, and his heartless people along with him." He looked down at his impatient brother.

  "Poseidon, I command you to return to your element. I command you to raise the wind and the sea. Destroy Argos! It shall be a lesson to those who would think of flaunting injustice and evil, in the name of serving the gods. I will not allow my laws to be used to justify such murderous acts.

  "To make certain that not one stone of the city remains standing, not one creature crawls free to mock my justice, I command you to let loose the last of the Titans. Let free the Kraken."

  It takes much to upset a god, but the mention of that last survivor of the great war of an eternity ago sent a shudder through the room. Of all the gods, only Zeus and Poseidon had the will and strength to control one of the Titans.

  Now only one of those titanic beings remained, safely caged and chained away to remind the gods of Zeus's ancient triumph. No greater punishment could be wreaked on man or god than to expose him to the wrath of that monster, who rested and waited for the rare occasion on which he might be allowed to vent a thousand years of frustrated fury.

  "The kingdom of Acrisius must be destroyed."

  "As you command." Poseidon bowed again, sorry for the work he now had to perform. Yet he could not go against his brother's decision. That was the Law.

  "Stay a moment, Brother."

  Poseidon paused, glanced back toward the throne. Already the anger was fading from Zeus's face, replaced now by an expression of concern as deeply felt as his often capricious fury. The sea god waited patiently. He knew his brother well enough to guess what was coming.

  "Danae and her son have been cast by Acrisius into the care of the sea. Into your care," Zeus said softly.

  "Make certain no harm befalls them. Speak to the waves and to all who dwell beneath. Make certain they convey mother and child safe to some remote and peaceful shore. Go now, and swiftly be about this business."

  "By your command." Once more the sea god turned away. He strode out of the chamber, to be swallowed by the mists.

  Zeus slowly descended from the throne. Hands clasped behind his back, he walked toward a distant, curving shape. Hera moved to stand close by Aphrodite and Thetis. The mist swirled tightly about them, trying to overhear their whispers.

  "No pity. No mercy. I have seen him upset over such mortal triflings before, but never like this." Hera sounded concerned. "Why should this instance rouse him to such fury? There are more corrupt cities than Argos and worse tyrants than the dutiful Acrisius."

  Thetis and Aphrodite exchanged a glance. Hera was usually understanding, but it was difficult to be sure.

  It was the sea goddess who finally spoke. "His reasons are not entirely impartial. His involvement is personal, Hera. We had hoped to spare you such information."

  Hera's gaze rose toward a higher heaven. She sighed, said nothing, and waited expectantly. This was a revelation she had experienced all too many times before.

  "Zeus loved the girl," said Aphrodite.

  "This Danae?"

  Thetis nodded. "She is rumored to be very beautiful. So beautiful that her father Acrisius grew jealous and kept her guarded from the eyes of men, locked behind iron doors. His own passions for her he refused to acknowledge, but he would let no other have her. She could not understand. Their frustration fed off each other's."

  "Go on," said Hera, knowing what she would hear but as always, curious about the details. Her husband was famed and worshiped for many things, but marital fidelity had never been one of them.

  Aphrodite continued when Thetis could not. She was not as reticent to discuss such matters, which after all fell within her province of administration.

  "Zeus transformed himself into a glittering shower of gold and visited her. Visited her, and loved her as a mortal man. Father Zeus is notoriously persuasive at such times, and Danae, locked away for years, was understandably receptive to his sympathetic advances."

  "Then why should I show any compassion?" wondered Hera. "Why should I care what happens now? Let her drown, and the child with her."

  "But it answers your question, Hera," Thetis explained. "Do you not see the torment father Zeus is undergoing? The child Perseus is his half-mortal offspring, his son. That is why he must be saved. The threat to him is what prompted so extreme an outburst of hatred against Argos and its king. Perhaps Acrisius's crime and the consent of his people would have doomed the city anyway, but because of the child's heritage Argos's fate was sealed the moment her people voted to expose Danae and her son to the elements."

  "See," murmured Aphrodite, pointing across the floor. "It begins."

  Zeus had halted before a strange construct. It was a model of an amphitheater, a god-toy within which he could observe the playacting that men called their lives. With a touch here, a gesture there, the gods could alter the play, moving and shaping events from above. It amused Zeus to form his stage in the im
age of man's own.

  Behind the shimmering metaphor were dark marbled walls filled with row on row of figures set in small niches. Those mortals whom the gods presently attended to were represented by such figures. Most men were not represented, their life-streams being of no importance to the future of the world. Occasionally a figure would be added, sometimes another would be removed. Empty niches awaited others destined to play important roles in the course of human history.

  Two small statuettes stood motionless in the center of the amphitheater, facing one another on the stage of life.

  Zeus had placed them there earlier. Now he stood gazing thoughtfully down at them. Events could be altered, but not fate. How then had he managed to put himself in so difficult a position? It was not the first time. But there was nothing to do now but follow fate through.

  One figure, stiff and stonelike, was a simulacrum of the tyrant of Argos; the other, a young woman cuddling an infant. Zeus shook his head dolefully. He did not enjoy such moments, but he was compelled to determine their resolution.

  If only men would learn to emulate the teachings of the gods. Yet they persisted in acting like men. And what of the gods, he thought? Do we not sometimes lower ourselves to act like mortals? It was a disquieting thought for one who was not supposed to show doubt.

  He lifted the statuette of Danae and the baby and set it carefully in an empty, waiting niche in the near wall. It was the still formless shape of the male infant which held his attention.

  What kind of future had he unwittingly set that child on? What larger part might he play in the game of life?

  Well, that was for the future, a bare moment from now. For the present . . . he lifted the statuette of Acrisius.

  Hades, my dark distant brother, make room in thy kingdom. Many immigrants are soon to arrive. As he thought, his fingers tightened slightly on the statuette . . .

  II

  "My lord!" The soldier looked on with concern as King Acrisius suddenly bent over in pain, his arms wrapping around his chest. The little knot of warriors halted just inside the entrance to the palace.

  "Nothing . . . it's nothing, Kimosos." Then he winced again, his eyes bulging wide in surprise as another sharp pain shot through his chest.

  The soldier watched helplessly as the king's face twisted in agony. Then his gaze turned to look back toward the opening on the main square.

  A troop of ten guarded the palace entrance. The guard was necessary for appearance, as well as for another less publicized purpose. For while most inhabitants of Argos thought Acrisius a brave and noble leader, there were those few fanatics who believed him a vicious tyrant worthy of assassination. The guard and the populace took delight in such attempts on the king's life, for it would mean another traitor to hang by the heels in the square, swinging until dead for the amusement of casual passersby.

  The guard of ten—the most brutal and insensitive men in the royal phalanx—had stepped back into the shelter of the entryway and were muttering nervously to one another. Outside, the wind had risen with unnatural speed: it howled and shrieked and tore at the marble facing of the palace while citizens scurried for cover.

  Acrisius's arms moved away from his chest and he took an unsteady step forward. Immediately his arms tightened again around his ribs and this time he stumbled to his knees, howling with pain. He appeared suddenly incapable of speech, and unreason was rising in his eyes.

  Terrified, his bodyguards dropped their weapons and fled in all directions.

  "The vengeance of the gods!" yelled one who had mounted the cliffs that morning with uncertainty, but who had done nothing to stay the course of injustice.

  "Come back!" shouted the officer Kimosos. "Come back, cowards! The decision was just. The people and the priests approved it, as did you yourselves." He waved his sword warningly at the retreating backs of the king's bodyguards.

  "It's only another storm, you fools! I will see you all set on the rocks with your guts ripped open for the birds to feed upon!" But threats did not slow the pace of those running from their king. They were swallowed up by the bowels of the palace, a refuge whose strength and solidity was suddenly vanishing.

  Kimosos bent to his king. "My lord, I will have them tracked down and properly dealt with. You need stronger men for your personal guard. Men who are fit to match your own . . . your own . . ."

  Kimosos stumbled away, the back of one hand covering his mouth, his shield clattering to the marble floor. He had looked into the king's eyes. In them he had seen madness, and his own incipient destruction.

  Wind roared through the columned buildings, tore potted plants from atop balustrades and porticos, and ripped at the friezes worked by dying slaves to immortalize their uncaring masters. Dust filled the air. Oak and olive trees began to splinter under the force of the gale while smaller bushes were uprooted and thrown through the streets.

  Men and women who had thought themselves the chosen stumbled about in confusion as they sought shelter from the anger of the sudden storm.

  It blew straight in off the Gulf of Argolis and from the Aegean beyond, that wind. It rose from the far stretches of the Mediterranean, nurtured by sources beyond the range of human perception.

  Near the seaward side of the city, terrified soldiers fought to close the great harbor gates against the wind, as though they could shut out the storm like some mortal, but close by the water's edge the gale was too strong. The gates were thrown open, the soldiers sent tumbling like toys in the dirt.

  The seas have their own private places. But man persists in searching them out, probing and peeking with his tiny devices to see what lies beyond the next overhang, beneath the next reef. There are some places never to be discovered and best left forever undisturbed.

  Poseidon glided purposefully toward one such place. Ahead lay a massive underwater seamount fronted with metal worked by Hephaestus himself. Those gates, requiring a thousand mortal years to forge, had to be strong enough to hold something older than a god.

  Bubbles larger than boats occasionally emerged from cracks between mountain and metal. They burst there in the dark depths or worked their buoyant way upward around unhealthy-looking sea growths: distorted corals, bloated anemones, hideous sponge things noisome with coatings of luminescent slime.

  A rush of bubbles erupted from behind the massive doorway. The sea god knew the thing beyond sensed his coming. It hated him, as it hated all the gods who had destroyed its kin and taken mastery over the world. But Zeus had bound it, kept it alive for millennia, and it would do his bidding.

  If it could not kill them, it would settle for killing whatever was offered.

  The great bars on the doors were thick with crustacea and tangled growths, but even these odd life forms moved aside at the sea god's command. Even cleared, it required all Poseidon's inhuman strength to draw those bars aside. Among the gods only he and Zeus could master the creature, but even so, it was prudent not to challenge it unnecessarily.

  It knew already what was expected, and moved impatiently inside its cage, eager to be about its task.

  Poseidon slid the last bar aside, then moved away as he tugged the great doors open.

  A head emerged hesitantly from the opening in the side of the seamount, a head larger than the entire figure of Poseidon. It was followed by an immense, dark body propelled by a huge scaled tail. The Kraken possessed a pair of arms and below them, a pair of cephalopodan tentacles lined with rasp-edged suckers.

  It paused there a moment, enjoying its freedom. The horny crested skull turned right to left, the massive beak opening and closing.

  "Go!" Poseidon finally ordered it, sickened by the sight of the grotesque aberration. "Go and be quick with it, lest I shut you back in your hole now."

  The Kraken did not speak, nor could its fixed face smile, but Poseidon sensed it was not impressed by his threat. It remained a moment like that, drifting in the water. Then it turned away, the eyes moving reluctantly downward. The ancient bonds Zeus had imposed on it remain
ed unbreakable.

  It kicked once with its enormous tail and was gone, racing to the surface. Poseidon watched it depart with a mixture of disgust and relief.

  The fishermen were laughing as they related once again the story of Danae and her bastard, joking about what they might do if they happened to chance upon the floating burial chest. No need, they chuckled, to waste such a fabled beauty if they happened upon her. Once they were finished with her they could always replace her in the ark-chest. No one in Argos would know, or care.

  The waters beneath them erupted. A head far larger than their ship shattered vile dreams and dreamers into small bits. The Kraken hung suspended a moment above the sea before all four massive limbs and its immense upper body fell with a thunderous crash back to the surface. It had not even noticed the small fishing craft.

  A wall of water fifty feet high bulged upward and raced toward the harbor at the head of the narrow inlet. The soldiers on the walls saw the angry green cloud rushing at them through the windblown dust, but had no time to flee—only time enough for final, hasty prayers, and a scream.

  Tons of water swept over the city gates, sending great blocks of granite flying like grains of sand. Marble pillars that seemed thick enough to support mountains snapped like broom straws.

  People repented too late and to no avail. Waves threw them against stairways and walls or sent them spinning like dolls through the river channels that had once been broad avenues. A few refugees sought shelter in Argos's largest edifice, the royal palace. Smaller, more peaceful towns and cities had given up their gold and people to raise that wonderful structure. In isolated places its marble was still stained with their blood.

  Now vast, tireless ocean swells swept around the columns and through the grand rooms. The altars of the various gods were swept aside along with the pitiful reminders of a lost dominance: swords and shields, coins and vases and stolen statuary.

  Acrisius lay slumped still on the floor of the main hall, ignored by his people as they ran for shelter around him. The roaring outside grew louder. Water swirled around his feet, but he was unable to rise.