by Gene Wolfe
“Get your things,” I gasped. “If it suits Aruns, we’ll sail with the tide. We won’t even wait to load supplies.”
“We haven’t any things.”
“Tell your parents, then.”
“They died last year—swamp fever.”
I spoke quickly to hide my emotion. “Do you know ships at all?”
“We have sailed as cabin boys around Hesperia.”
“Where are you going?” asked Aruns.
“Beyond the Pillars of Hercules. Around Libya.”
“In search of a wicked enchantress,” Astyanax added.
“Who changes men into animals.” I expected the boldness of our venture to discourage him. If anything it made up his mind.
“May I come with you? I know the Halcyon like a daughter. On such a voyage, I think she will need a father.”
I engaged him at once and promised myself that, after we had found Circe, I would give him back his ship.
“Now I will show you the rest of the Halcyon,” he said.
Aruns stepped from the cabin and, assured that Vel and his men were nowhere in evidence, called us after him. To rest my arms, I deposited Astyanax in a coil of rope and followed Aruns’ finger as he pointed to the red linen sail, heaped at the foot of the mast.
“The tide is with us,” he said. “We have only to raise the sail and man the sweeps.”
“All we need now,” I said, “is a woman for luck. The Argonauts had Atalanta.”
“We have one,” called Astyanax from the bulwark. He pointed to the water. The snowy beak of a dolphin broke the surface. It was Atthis.
“I have just engaged her to be our pilot.”
“Atthis!” I cried. “But she is the one who capsized us and got us captured!”
“She is terribly ashamed, she says. The whole thing was an accident. She meant to surface beside us instead of under us. She has followed all this way to ask our pardon.”
I studied her in the water, remorseful, pleading, and yet without obsequiousness, a proud being humbled to ask forgiveness. If she told the truth, she had done her best to atone for the blunder.
I leaned over the bulwark. “Nice girl,” I said in the tone of a man coaxing his favorite dog. “Would you like to lead us?”
Astyanax whispered in my ear, “You mustn’t call her ‘girl.’ She is five years old—for a dolphin that’s as old as you are. Call her Atthis.”
I looked into her face and saw, for the first time, the dignity of a beak and an airhole. I had treated her like a child or a pet. She was neither, she was indefinably yet incontestably a woman, with pride and high intelligence.
“Atthis,” I said. “You will honor us by becoming our pilot.”
She opened her mouth and uttered a series of barks. “She says yes,” Astyanax interpreted.
“What else?”
“She says, ‘I will pilot Bear and serve him as he deserves.’”
The words were ambiguous, but I took them to be a compliment. “She actually called me Bear?”
“There isn’t a word for bear in her language. She had to improvise. She called you ‘The Furry Prowler’—two barks and a trailing squeak.”
“Now,” I began, “we shall—“
“Go to find Circe,” cried the brothers.
“And supplies,” said Astyanax. “And dinner.”
Our escape, after all, had not been difficult. It was only men who had tried to stop us. The women—and the woman—were still to come. Except Atthis.
III: OUT OF THE INNER SEA
In Agylla we took on supplies and I paid Aruns for the purchase of his ship.
“Remember,” I said, “she still belongs to you.”
We sailed north, hugging the coast of Hesperia. Fishermen rose in their skiffs and stared enviously at our red sail, which caught the sun like a net, and our blue, unbarnacled hull. They saw that a luck-bringing white dolphin not only accompanied but led us, and to share in our luck they shouted the blessings of the sea-god Nethuns, whom the Romans call Neptune. Astyanax manned the sweeps to hold us on course, and carefully scanned the waves, hoping to find his parents or other Tritons. The brothers tended the sail, a square of canvas divided into smaller squares by leather webbing and secured by forestays and afterstays; they set the yards with braces and reefed when a squall blew up, and we came about, tacked or ran with the wind. Aruns was lookout and I, as captain, moved freely about the ship and coordinated my crew. Atthis, of course, was pilot. With a skill beyond any man’s, she kept us from hidden shoals, which the Greeks call “Ants,” and nosed out currents that might increase our speed.
Late every afternoon we moored in a river mouth or a cove, triced the sail, and sent the brothers to bargain with local farmers for the produce of the land—figs, pomegranates, goat’s milk, eggs, chickens—or, in the wilder country, to hunt for boars and gather chestnuts. We built a fire on shore to cook our dinner, ate like seasoned adventurers, and afterward returned to the ship. While a pine-knot torch blazed above our heads, Aruns played double-pipes and the brothers danced, throwing their chins back, curving their hands, and in spite of their size brushing the deck as lightly as deer or conies. Atthis, who listened to the pipes through her tiny earholes, rolled on the surface in rapture. Sometimes Astyanax dove in the water and clung to her dorsal fin. More often he stayed on deck and, with touching wistfulness, watched the feet of the brothers. One of the boys might lift him and leap to the music and Astyanax would sway his arms with the grace of a practiced dancer.
One night, when Aruns had tired of playing the pipes, he bowed his head in thought. We quickly fell silent and hoped for a story, for he knew both Homer and Hesiod, the lore of Tages, the legends of Isis and Set. He had told us how Tarchon, the Lydian prince, had sailed to Hesperia and built a city with roads of basalt and temples raised on platforms; how Charon, the demon, waited for souls in Hades; and how gray-winged Vanth, goddess of fate, brooded above a world she did not love. Tonight he sang about Circe, and his rich, musical voice surged like the wine-dark sea:
Round that place lay the beasts of the mountain, lions and gray wolves
Whom with evil drugs administered Circe had enchanted…
Then the words of Odysseus’ friend, Polites, before he is metamorphosed:
Listen, O friends. One sings within as she weaves at her great loom.
Lovely the song she sings—the whole house throbs with the music—
Goddess it may be she is, or a woman…
Lit by the torch, the mast seemed a burning tree; somewhere ashore a wolf cub howled in hunger and, very close, a lamb bleated in terror. I thought of Circe, the end of all my voyages, the last and loveliest of the will-o’-the-wisps I had chased through twenty-five years. A hyacinth over the hill, a murex at the bottom of the sea: the distant and the perilous. I had sometimes loved in the past, for a week or a month; one girl had tired me with tears, another with laughter; I had tired of red hair and dark and hair the color of barley when the harvesters come with their scythes; and most of all, of the waiting which love demands, the standing still while the moon curves up the sky and birds fly south. But who could weary of Circe? Only Odysseus had left her, because of home.
“Do you think she will turn us into pigs?” asked Balder with shattering suddenness.
“Nonsense,” cried his brother. “Nobody knows such secrets.”
“The Egyptians knew them,” said Aruns. “Hence, their fondness for gods with the heads of jackals or cats. They are said to have taught them to the Cretans, and Circe, of course, is Cretan.”
“You won’t become a pig, Balder,” Astyanax reassured. “A mountain lion, perhaps, with tawny hair and powerful legs.”
Balder did not look consoled. “And Bar will be a bar?” He and Frey, with their Scandian accents, could not pronounce my name.
“Bear will be a prince, and Circe will take him for her lover.”
“Husband, you mean?” asked Balder, shocked.
“Lover,” Astyanax repeated. “Bear is too exper
ienced to tie himself down. Like Odysseus, he will dally and depart.”
I concealed a yawn. Every evening, regardless of the conversation, an urge to sleep possessed me.
“Bear is sleepy,” Astyanax announced. “It is time for bed.”
Aruns and I shared the cabin, he on a reed mat, I on the couch with Astyanax at my feet. When the weather was clear Balder and Frey slept on deck; when it rained they descended to the hold among our supplies, the skins of wine, the great yellow cheeses, the jars of olive oil. In the morning they would smell of cheese and hurry to take a dip before Astyanax could threaten to eat them for breakfast. Atthis dozed on the surface beside the ship, opening her eyes several times a minute to avoid attack by sharks or other killers. The heavy sighs of her airhole, like thunderous snores, were noisily reassuring. I had almost forgotten my early doubts about her.
I stretched on the couch and, before I could fall asleep, felt Astyanax snuggle against my feet. I shivered. As usual he had taken a swim and forgotten to dry himself.
“Bear, what do you think Circe will change me into?”
“What do you want to be?”
“It has nothing to do with what I want. Odysseus’ men didn’t want to be pigs.”
“Maybe you deserve what you want.”
“No,” he said. “Nobody deserves that much.”
Then I fell asleep.
We skirted the coast of Liguria, keeping far from shore to avoid the bushy-haired natives who kidnap sailors and sacrifice them to a bloodthirsty god on Mt. Begos. The brothers grew daily taller, or so it looked, and their pale fair skin became brown with the sun. Aruns forgot to be sad. He persisted in wearing his red domed cap, since his hair was thinning on top, but otherwise he was hardly recognizable. When he scrubbed the Halcyon’s decks or mended her sail, his wistful eyes brightened like those of a parent. He loved her himself and knew her loved by us.
Twenty-six days after our departure from Graviscae, we docked at Massilia, the city of Artemis, and received a warm welcome from the Etruscan garrison, which had recently expelled the Greeks and captured the lucrative wine trade of the interior. Our stores replenished, our hold bulging with wineskins and our deck garlanded with acanthus leaves by the friendly inhabitants, we sailed for the Pillars of Hercules, a month’s voyage from Massilia.
* * * *
The western Pillar, like nothing human or animal, sprawled to the starboard; a thing of rock only, dry, barren, harsh, its limestone face pitted with caves. A single rock, it was said, had barred the access to Ocean till Hercules, bound for Erythea to fetch the cattle of Geryon, had burst it in two and mingled the waters of Ocean with the Inner Sea. But our way was nonetheless blocked. A formidable warship rounded the base of the rock; the lower deck bristled with oars, and the upper deck, hung with shields, glittered with helmeted warriors. Its vicious beak and glaring painted eyes lunged at us through the waves.
“It’s Carthaginian,” I said with a show of relief I did not entirely feel. “We have nothing to fear.” For many years Carthage and Etruria had joined their might by a treaty. While the powerful galleys of Carthage patrolled the Pillars and refused egress to the Greeks, they allowed Etruscans free passage to the Islands of Tin and to frozen Scandia. They had, however, to assure themselves of our identity; Greeks might sail in round-built Etruscan ship.
The galley snaked beside us. Sweat and leather, acrid and sweet at once, assaulted our nostrils. Armor winked in the sun. The shields on the gunwale burned like mirrors of polished bronze. Etruscans take pride in their armor; horsehair plumes wave proudly above their heads. The Carthaginians opposite us, bearded and heavy-browed, wore low plumeless helmets which thoroughly protected their skulls but seemed to say that war is an occupation and not an honor, a duty and not a glory. Where Etruscans temper their melancholy with a passionate zest for the moment, on the battlefield or at the banquet, Carthaginians seem always to walk in darkness, as if the black immensities of their continent have imbued their blood with shadows. They are morbid and humorless, though brilliant warriors and loyal friends.
The ships swayed together in the current. The Carthaginian oarsmen, not slaves but warriors like the men in armor, forestalled a collision with their blades. For a moment I feared that they would use their massive grappling hooks on the spotless decks of the Halcyon, and Aruns clutched a sweep as if to say, “Grapple at your risk!” But the captain was not so heartless. Standing on the upper deck, he called down to us. By now he had assured himself that Aruns and I, at least, were Etruscans. Robes could be borrowed or imitated but our almond eyes assured him of our lineage. The Scandians he seemed to take for slaves, and Astyanax he ignored.
“Bound for the Isles of Tin?” he boomed in a funereal but not unfriendly voice.
“Around Libya to the south,” I replied. It was pointless to tell him that we were following a woman who had preceded us by a hundred years. “A voyage of exploration.”
“Ah,” he said. “Etruria grows cramped at home. New colonies in the offing, eh? But you will find little to interest you in the south. Though I have never sailed there myself, the Numidians say there is nothing but monsters—pygmies and giants and,” he added ominously, “fabulous beasts. Monoceroses, camelopards,”—he eyed Astyanax and lowered his voice—“Tritons, hippogriffs, and sphinxes.”
Aruns shuddered, and even the redoubtable brothers, who had snatched Astyanax out of the arms of Vel and fought the Black Rats without flinching, moved very close to each other.
“Don’t sail near the jungle,” the captain continued. “Hippogriffs lurk in the branches and might mistake your mast for a tree. I urge you to turn back at once—or sail northward, where the men are human even if they paint themselves blue. Why, half your crew are children!”
Frey and Balder looked offended. I hurried to add, “They’re experienced seamen.”
“What is experience against camelopards? It doesn’t keep you from getting eaten, and your slaves, if I may say so, look particularly edible.” To a dark Carthaginian, yellow hair was a marvel. “May Tanit go with you!”
The galley receded, dwindled to a far sea bird skimming the waves. An alien wind puffed our sail and bore us, foolish, frightened, and adventuresome, out of the Inner Sea, which, though large, held friendly ports and courteous captains, and into the stream of Ocean.
* * * *
After the warning of the Carthaginian captain, we had looked for beasts in the shape of monsters. Thus, we were not prepared for a creature so beautiful that Frey, staring, almost fell into the sea and Balder had to catch him by his feet. Then they stood side by side, arms on each other’s shoulders, and stared at the marvel with all the mute wonder of boys whose world had been a narrow peninsula; and I, the experienced traveler, pressed beside them with Aruns and Astyanax.
A forest of sun-drenched cedar trees, like tall green torches, flared into the sky, and the creature—I hesitate to call her a bird—trembled down from the treetops and strutted ostentatiously along a rock-strewn beach, as if to flaunt her orange fires against the dusky forest.
“It must be a phoenix,” I said. “The rarest bird in the world. Yet she isn’t even trying to hide.” I should have suspected a reason behind such boldness. “There’s a cove ahead. Shall we go ashore for a look?”
“I’ll stay aboard,” said Astyanax. “I would hold you back.” He wriggled across the deck and collected a rope which lay at the foot of the mast. “Here,” he said to Balder. “Capture the phoenix. Or else bring me a feather.”
Aruns agreed to stay on the ship with Astyanax. They watched from the deck as we paddled ashore in our dinghy, while Atthis swam in our wake and called goodbye with a whistle. I hated to exclude them from our promised adventure.
Hushed in our boat, we watched the phoenix strut like a queen of Carthage, decked in the barbarous colors of the south. The long graceful legs, black as onyx, the curving, swan-like neck, the plumage billowing a fountain of orange fire: here in truth was the fabled bird of the poets, the
bird, so they sang, who ignited her own nest and, perishing among the spicy leaves, arose reborn from the ashes.
We stepped ashore on crumbling coral and broken shells.
“Ah,” sighed Frey. “She is going.”
A brazen queen to the last, unhurried and unembarrassed, she turned from the beach and stalked among the trees. Well, we had not expected her to wait for us.
A few hundred feet ahead of us, beyond the beach and a range of grassy hillocks, the cedar trees chattered with sunbirds, iridescent blue, purple, and green; and little oval nests; with porchlike roofs projecting above their entrances, hung from the branches. The birds were not singing; curious, expectant, altogether fearless, they seemed to be watching us. There was something malevolent about their watchfulness. It seemed that they almost wanted us to capture the phoenix, whose brilliant plumage eclipsed their lesser fires.
We entered the woods where the orange feathers had flickered into green shadows. Fallen needles crunched beneath our sandals and patches of undergrowth pricked us with thorns and burrs. The wide-spreading cedars, clustering needles and cones, broke the sunlight into pools and rivers, and aromatic fragrances tingled in our nostrils. A long-nosed incredible fennec peered at us from a thicket and wriggled his snout in patent mistrust. A gazelle skittered across our path. Where was the phoenix?
“Ve sound like an army,” said Frey. “Ve ought to split up.”
Without waiting for approval, he veered away from our path.
Balder called after him. “Vait, Frey. You can’t go alone. There may be beasts.”
“I am fifteen! I don’t need my bruder everyvere.”
Balder shrugged helplessly. “It is no good to go after him.”
“We have to go after him,” I said. “He may get lost. And the birds—“
The sunbirds were following us. Their reptile eyes smoldered with hatred. They were avid for something to happen, and not, it seemed, to the phoenix.
Balder caught my concern and charged ahead of me, calling his brother’s name: “FREY. Frey. Frey-y-y-y!”