The Face of Apollo

by Fred Saberhagen

  But even as he indulged himself his mind kept wandering, jumping from thought to thought. Sal's lash marks had been worse than his, and she'd been carrying this very thing of magic with her, all during the very worst of her suffering. So why hadn't she used it to heal her injuries, or save her life, or even to ease her pain? That was something to puzzle over. She must have known more about it than he did, which was almost nothing at all. . . . Now, even in the midst of growing pleasure, the troubling no­tion came to Jeremy that the exotic joys evoked by the shard were not meant to be experienced by the likes of him—or at least it was somehow wrong for them to be obtained so cheaply. Because Sal was involved.

  Certainly she hadn't given him her treasure to use it for this purpose. What would she think if she could see what he was doing now?

  Shivering as with cold, feeling vaguely guilty of some indefin­able offense, Jeremy pulled the object away from his body and held it at arm's length.

  No. This—this thing—which was Sal's great gift to him, had to be dealt with properly. With respect.

  The magic had helped his back and his injured legs. Whatever helped him to heal now would help him achieve his sworn goal. What other worthy purpose might he find for powerful magic?

  Well, he couldn't eat the thing if he tried—his fingers could tell that it was far too tough to chew. But now when he tried hold­ing it against his belly, his hunger pangs were soothed just as the pain of his wounds had been.

  Suddenly the glassy eye reminded him of the spectacles he'd once or twice seen old folk wearing. Once more, as on almost every day of his life, Jeremy had the thought that doing what he had to do would be a hell of a lot easier if he could only see. Any­thing that might help him in that regard was worth a try.

  Carefully, eagerly, Jeremy lifted the translucent oval toward his face again, holding it at first at a level slightly higher than his eyes. Yes, his earlier impression had been right. The world really did have a different look about it when seen through the mask's single glassy eye.

  Suddenly hopeful, convinced that at least he was going to do himself no harm, Jeremy brought the fragment close against his nose and cheek, pressing it tight against the skin of his face, try­ing to seat it there more snugly. At first the results were disap­pointing. His left eye now peered into a field of vision even more wildly blurred than usual. It was like looking through some kind of peephole. It would be marvelous not to have to be nearsighted any longer. If he could just get the distance between his own eye and the crystal pupil exactly right, he might be able to—

  A moment later, the boy let out a half-voiced scream and jumped to his feet, heedless of the fact that his involuntary leap had carried him splashing knee-deep into the river.

  Because the object, Sal's treasure, was no longer in his hands. It had attacked him like a striking snake. He hadn't seen what hap­pened, because it had been too close and too quick to see. But he'd felt it. Sal's thing of magic had melted in his fingers, dissolved into liquid as quickly as ice thrown into a fire—and then it had disap­peared.

  The damned thing was gone, dissolved away—but it had not run down his arms and body toward the ground. No, instead of streaming along his skin to the earth, it had run right into his head. He'd felt it go there, penetrating his left eye and his left ear, flowing into his head like water into dry sand. The first shock had been an ice-cold trickle, followed quickly by a sensation of burning heat, fading slowly to a heavy warmth....

  The warmth was still there. Clutching at his head with both hands, Jeremy went stumbling about in the shallows, groaning and whimpering. There was a long moment when his vision and his bearing blurred and he knew with dreadful terror that he was dead.

  But maybe, after all, some god was looking out for him. Because here he was, still breathing, and his body showed no signs of having sustained any damage. At the moment he couldn't see at all, but he soon realized that was only because he had his eyes covered with his hands. His feet and legs just went on splashing, until he stumbled to a halt, still in water up to his knees.

  Slowly Jeremy spread his trembling fingers and peeked out. Yes, he could still see. Whatever the damned thing had done, it hadn't killed him. No, not yet. Maybe it wasn't going to.

  His three savage lash marks once more throbbed with pain, be­cause of all his jumping around—still they did not hurt nearly as much as they had before Sal's magic touched them. His head still felt—well, peculiar.

  For what seemed to Jeremy a very long time, he just stood there, right below the grassy bank, almost without moving, knee-deep in mud and water. Gradually he brought his empty hands down from his head and looked at them and felt another slight increment of reassurance.

  Something alien had entered his body by speed and stealth, trickling right into his damned head, and it was still there. But these were his familiar hands. He could still do with them what­ever he wanted.

  He tried to tell himself it had all been some kind of trick or an illusion. What he'd thought was happening hadn't really taken place at all. Slowly, slowly, now. Stop and think the problem out. He could almost hear his father, trying to counsel him.

  All right. The piece of ... whatever it was, wasn't in his hands now. It wasn't anywhere where he could see it.

  One moment he'd been pressing it firmly against his face. In the next moment, it was gone.

  So, it had sure as all the hells gone somewhere. Magical trea­sures, of great value, didn't just cease to exist.

  Raising empty hands again, the boy squeezed fists against his temples. Again he reassured himself that there was no pain in his head, and by now even the sensation of liquid warmth had faded. Whatever had happened hadn't hurt him. Something of a funny feeling persisted, yes, very subtle, deep in behind his eyes, where he'd thought he'd felt the thing establishing itself. But.. . But other than that, everything seemed practically back to normal. Yes, he could hope that he had been mistaken, after all.

  Abruptly Jeremy crouched down in the water, moving on hands and knees. Now he was getting the cool bath he'd started out to take, but he didn't care what it felt like, because he wasn't doing it for amusement or relief from the day's heat or even to soothe his injuries. All those things had been forgotten. All the boy's attention was concentrated on searching the muddy bottom with feet and hands, working his way in a semicircle through the opaque brown water beside his private beach, groping for the missing object.

  Of course the mask fragment—if that was what it was—being light in weight, might easily have been carried some distance downstream by a normal current. But the current at this point, right on the flank of the island, was only a gentle eddy, actually turning and swirling upstream insofar as it moved at all.

  And Jeremy's memory kept prodding him with the fact that there had been no splash, not even a small one, when the damned thing ran out of his hands and disappeared. Even a tiny pebble made some kind of splash. No, the thing he was concerned about could not have fallen into the water at all.

  Panting with new fear and exertion, he paused in his muddy, desperate search, then after the space of only a few heartbeats plunged back into it, splashing and gasping. But he knew now that he was doing it only as a duty, so he could tell himself later that he had done everything possible to make sure.

  At last he came to a halt, eyes closed again, panting for breath, standing waist-deep in the river, leaning his body against the stern of his canoe, most of whose length was firmly grounded.

  He knew quite well where Sal's treasure had gone, where her precious, priceless bit of magic was right now. Because he had felt it going there. It was just that he didn't want to let himself believe the fact or have to put it into words.

  Not even in his own mind.

  The answer was in his own head.

  He had no choice but to believe it, because when he opened his eyes again, new evidence was at hand.

  Seven

  A tremendous change indeed had come upon him. The simple fact was that now he could see,
which meant that his left eye, having been treated to a dose of Sal's magical melting ice, was now functioning, showing him things in a way that he had to believe was the way human eyes were meant to work.

  Turning his head to right and left, looking upstream and down, Jeremy confirmed the miracle. No more mere smears of brown and green. Now he could not only count the trees on the far bank but easily distinguish individual leaves on many of their branches. And miles beyond that, so far that it took his breath away, he could make out the precise shapes of distant clouds.

  Again Jeremy had to fight to regain control over himself. He was still standing in waist-deep water at the curved stern of the canoe, gripping the wood of the gunwale in an effort to keep from shaking. In this position he kept closing his eyes and open­ing them again. In spite of his improved vision, fear still kept him hoping and praying, to every god that he could think of, for the thing that had invaded his body to go away. But there was not the least sign that his hopes and prayers were going to be fulfilled.

  Even at the peak of his terror, the glorious revelation of per­fect sight shone like a beacon. At last there came a moment when he could forget to be terrified.

  Drawing a deep breath, Jeremy insisted that his body cease its shaking. The effort was not totally successful, but it helped.

  Now. He wasn't going to go on playing around here in the shallows, like a child making mud pies. It was pointless to go on looking for something that was not there.

  Finally he admitted to himself that the fragment of some un­known divinity's face was somewhere inside his head. He'd felt the thing invade his skull, and the reality of that staggering experience was being steadily confirmed by the transformation in his vision.

  Concentrating on that change, he began to realize that it went beyond enabling him to see distant things. Now in his left eye the whole world, near objects as well as far, was taking on a dis­tinctly different aspect from the familiar scene as still reported by his other eye in its half of his visual field.

  And belatedly Jeremy began to realize that his left ear was no longer functioning in quite the same way. His hearing had always been normal, so the change wrought in it was not as dramatic as that in his vision—but an alteration had definitely taken place. Some sounds as he perceived them on his left side were now un­derlain by a faint ringing, a hollow tone, like that resulting from water in the ear—but again, it wasn't exactly that.

  Gently he pounded the heel of his hand against the sides of his head, first right, then left, but to no effect.

  He wasn't quite sure whether his hearing on the left was actu­ally improved—but possibly it was. The situation wasn't as clear-cut as with sight.

  Time passed while the boy's pulse and breathing gradually re­turned to normal. He was still standing waist-deep in water, clinging to the boat, but the invasion of his body appeared to be producing no additional symptoms. Eventually Jeremy stopped shaking, and eventually he was able to force himself to let go of the canoe—only when his fingers came loose did he realize how cramped they had become maintaining their savage grip.

  Rubbing his hands together to get some life back into them, he waded slowly ashore, where he stood on the riverbank dripping, naked—anyone watching would be certain he wasn't carrying any mysterious magical object—and waiting for whatever might be going to happen to him next.

  What came next was a renewed surge of fear and worry. De­spairingly Jeremy thought: I had it, Sal's treasure, right here in my hands, and now I've lost control of it. Like a fool I pushed it right up against my face, and right into . . .

  Never mind all that. All right, he knew quite well where the damned marvelous thing had settled. But just stewing about it wasn't going to do him any good.

  The reassuring belief remained that Sal—well, Sal had at least liked him. She wouldn't have played him any dirty tricks. No. Sal had—well, she'd called him love that one time. At least once. He really couldn't stand to think of the most that might have meant—but yes, at least she'd liked him, quite a lot.

  And the precious object she'd lost her life trying to save had now become a part of him, Jeremy Redthorn. Of course that wasn't what was supposed to happen.

  Possibly what he'd just done—what had just happened— meant he had already failed in the mission for which she'd given up her life. But no, he wouldn't stand for that. He'd still fulfill his promise to her—if he could.

  Even if he still had not the faintest idea of what the treasure really was, what it really meant.

  Slowly Jeremy pulled on his wretched clothes again. As usual, the coarse fabric of his shirt scraped at the lash mark on his back. But that injury, like those on his legs, was notably less painful than it had been an hour ago. And it was really not pos­sible for him to go without clothes all the time. At least during the day, he had to protect the parts of his hide not already deeply tanned and freckled. Already weakened by his lash marks and by hunger, the last thing he needed was a case of sunburn.

  Once more the boy became absorbed in testing the miracle of his new vision, closing one eye at a time. Each trial had the same result. The world as seen through his left eye, especially in the dis­tance, now looked enormously clearer, sharper in detail. Certain objects, some trees, bushes, a darting bird, displayed other changes, too, subtle alterations in shape and color that he would have been hard put to describe in words.

  When he grew tired of these experiments, the sun was still high above the shading willows. He had decided to stick to his plan of waiting for nightfall before he pushed off in the boat again. Meanwhile, he really needed more sleep. All emotions, even fear, had to give way sometime to exhaustion.

  Jeremy lay back on the grassy bank and closed his eyes. This made him more fully aware of the change in his left ear, which kept on reporting new little differences in the everyday events of the world around him. Whenever wavelets lapped the shore nearby or a fish jumped in the middle distance, there came hints of new information to be derived from the sound. His left ear and his right presented slightly different versions of the event. Not that he could sort it all out just yet. In time, he thought, a fellow might learn to listen to them all and pick out meaning.

  It crossed Jeremy's mind that this might be the way a baby learned about the world, when sight and hearing were altogether new.

  He had to try to think things through . . . but before he could think any more about anything, he fell asleep.

  His slumber was soon troubled by a dream, whose opening se­quence might have placed it in the category of nightmare, except that while it lasted he remained curiously without fear. In fact all the action in the dream took place with a minimum of emotion. He dreamed he was beset by a whole cloud of airborne furies, even larger than life-size, as big as the harpies that his waking eyes had never seen. Huge bat-shaped forms came swirling round him like so many gigantic screaming mosquitoes. But somehow the situation brought no terror. Instead he knew the exquisite pleasure of reaching out, catching the neck of one of the flying monsters in the grip of his two hands, fully confident of being able to summon up, in his hands and wrists, a sufficiency of strength to wring its neck. In fact, the action was almost effort­less on his part. The physical sensation suggested the familiar one of chicken bones crunching and crumbling.

  Then abruptly the scene changed. No more nightmare mon­sters. Now Jeremy was presented with an image of his lovely Sal and was overjoyed to realize that she was not dead after all. What had seemed to be her death was all a horrible mistake! She wasn't even wounded, not so much as scratched, her face not even dirty.

  Jeremy's heart leaped up at the sight of her wading toward him, thigh-deep in the river, dressed in her familiar clothes—the only garments he'd ever seen her wear, but now new and clean in­stead of torn and dirty.

  She was smiling directly at him—at her friend, her lover, Je­remy. And Sal was beckoning to him. She wanted him to come to her so the two of them could make love. Love. Her lips were forming the word, but silently, be
cause the Enemy, the unknown and faceless Enemy, must not hear.

  Jeremy—or was he really Jeremy any longer?—seemed to be drifting, disembodied, outside himself. He was observing from a little distance the male youth who stood waiting onshore while the young woman approached. He who had taken Jeremy's place deserved to be called a young man rather than a boy, though his smooth cheeks were still innocent of beard. He, the other, was casually beckoning Sal forward, with his outstretched right arm, while under his left arm he was carrying a stringed musical in­strument of some kind.

  He, the newcomer, stood a full head taller than Jeremy, and the boy knew, with the certainty of dream knowledge, that this other was incomparably wiser and stronger than himself. The nameless stranger was dark-haired, his nude body muscular and very beautiful. Plainly he was in total command of the situation. His beckoning fingers suggested that he was masterfully controlling every detail of Sal's behavior.

  And something utterly horrible was about to happen. . . .

  ... and Jeremy was jarred awake, his mind and body wrung by nightmare terror, a fear even beyond anything that the actual presence of the furies had induced in him.

  He sprang to his feet and stood there for almost a full minute, trying to establish his grip on waking reality. When at last he had managed to do so, he collapsed and lay on the ground in the shade of the willows, feeling drained, his whole body limp and sweating in the hot day. Gradually his breathing returned to nor­mal.

  Overwhelmed by fantastic memories, he struggled to sort them out, to decide what had really happened and what he had only dreamed. No girl, no Sal or anyone else, had really come wading out of the river to him. And no dark youth stood on the bank now. He, Jeremy, was completely alone ... or was he?

  Suddenly confusion gripped him, and he thought in panic: What had happened to the treasure Sal had entrusted to him? Something of transcendent importance, having to do with some god ... it had come loose from inside his shirt. . . . Only after some seconds of frantic groping and fumbling did he remember where it was now.