The Arms Of Hercules

by Fred Saberhagen

  Now there were only forty feet between us, now no more than thirty. As I continued my methodical advance, with club upraised, the lion crouched and sprang.

  I swung my five-foot log with two hands, and all the power that I needed was there to draw upon, unfailing and seemingly unlimited, as I had never really doubted it would be.

  But on that day, in my instinctive reaction to the onrushing threat, I must have called upon more than I really needed, far more than I had ever tried to use before—though the surplus was not so extravagantly disproportionate as it might have been. Under the impact of heavy green wild-olive wood striking its extended forelimb, head, and shoulder, the massive tawny body changed direction instantly in midleap, ricocheting almost at right angles. It was as if I had swatted a large insect out of the air. The lion hit the ground ten yards away, rolled another five, and lay there with its four legs sprawled. Its body was convulsed by violent spasms, which even as I watched declined into a sporadic twitching.

  My greenwood weapon had survived intact the crushing impact, though the force of the reaction, descending through my body, had driven the heel of my right sandal, on which my weight was braced, several inches into the hard, dry ground. Neither my heel nor any other part of my anatomy was bruised, or even tender. Power had simply flowed from its mysterious, invisible source through all my joints and tendons, bones and skin, seeming to turn my modest muscles momentarily into steel, the flow protecting my own frame even as it worked destruction on another.

  Warily, somewhat awed at my own success, I approached the lion, club upraised. But it was easy to see at once that no second blow was needed. The tawny hide was still amazingly intact, but my one stroke must have created chaotic internal ruin. The body on the ground looked shrunken and half-boneless. One eye had been popped out of its socket, leaving a raw hole, and dark blood was trickling past the white fangs of the open mouth to form a little pool on the bare ground.

  There was a sound of running feet, and Enkidu came up, panting, to stand in awe beside me, muttering in a high childish voice the names of gods and demons.

  "I saw it. But no one will believe it," he observed after a moment. I looked around and saw that the other boys were only now coming back into sight, atop a little hill two hundred yards away.

  "They will if we show them the hide," I said.

  We drew our knives and got to work upon the grotesque, almost boneless corpse. Or rather tried to get to work. Our blades could make no more impression on that skin than had my useless arrows.

  Belatedly the bright idea occurred to me that it might be possible to skin the beast using its own claws or fangs as tools. We soon discovered that the claws of a great predatory cat were ugly things, filmed with rancid grease from rotting bits of raw meat. Whatever the special nature of those sharp, stained points, they worked. Skinning the cat was still a clumsy job, but no longer impossible. Gradually the other herders came to gather around, trusting the evidence of their eyes that the lion was dead.

  Soon I decided that the job of skinning would be more easily completed back at camp. With a single heave, I lifted the beast's dead weight easily onto my shoulders and went stalking away with it.

  The other herd boys soon rejoined us. After a quarter hour or so of near speechlessness, they began to be generous with praise, and with advice on how to cure the hide.

  A couple of them claimed to know something about the process. "We'll just stretch it in the sun for the time being." And some began to gather poles of wood to make a frame.

  * * *

  "See?" Enkidu was poking at the dead, misshapen head. "You could make the jaws into a kind of helmet. So you'd be looking out through the open mouth."

  "Sounds uncomfortable." And so it proved to be, when at last I was able to try it on. But by that time, I had other matters to worry about, of far greater moment.

  Later, as months and years went by, a legend somehow spread far and wide that had me wearing the lion skin as my chief garment from that day on. In truth I tried to do so for a while, but the smell of a hide so crudely tanned was hideous, and there were other inconveniences. The poor beast's pelt survived in legend vastly longer than it did in fact. Before long I parted with it in disgust, and I have no idea whether anyone ever picked my discard up.

  Chapter Four

  A Visitor

  Naturally the flurry of questions continued. I grunted responses, and Enkidu kept thinking up new answers. To begin with I had told the simple truth, that I hit the lion and it died. The only trouble was that no one was going to believe that. All right then, so be it. Actually I felt uncomfortable about letting the simple truth be known. I could not forever keep my terrible strength a secret, but I wanted to postpone as long as possible the day when everyone knew about it.

  None of the other boys had actually seen me kill the beast, though some were puzzled by having heard, from beyond the hillock, a single sharp jolt of sound, reverberating from other nearby hills to give the impression of something like a thunderclap. It came to me that they meant the impact of my club.

  "Was the lion struck by lightning?" one naked urchin demanded of me.

  "No." Ready to give up attempts at cleverness, I repeated in a few terse words the plain truth of how I had killed the beast.

  Still it did not really sink in. "We heard a noise," remarked another. "Like a big thump."

  But Tarn only shook his head. "No, seriously, Hercules. What happened?" He seemed convinced that I must be joking; but now there was a certain deference in his tone.

  "All right, then," I agreed. "Enkidu and I walked around that hill and found the animal dying. Maybe a big rock fell on it out of the sky."

  "What?" Boys looked up, startled, craning their necks and hunching their shoulders as if they feared a shower of stones was on its way. "What rock?"

  "All right." I shrugged my shoulders. "That couldn't have been it. Then someone or something must have poisoned it."

  "What?"

  By this time most of my other colleagues were gathered closely around the carcass, beginning a detailed inspection. Soon a couple of them were waving hands smeared with lion's blood and reporting that many of the big cat's bones were broken. How could that happen, one wanted to know, if the beast had died of poison?

  If my fellow herders had scarcely known what to make of me before I had killed the lion, they were now totally confused. But gradually the conviction became established among them that I must be somehow responsible for the monster's death, and soon no one any longer disputed that idea. As long as they ceased to pester me for explanations, I did not mind. In later years, of course, when my fame had grown, the legends never left room for any doubt about how I had slain the beast. And in this case the legends were remarkably near the truth.

  It was soon plain that the boys who had boasted of their skill in curing and tanning animal skins had stretched the truth considerably, as boys are wont to do. In fact, none of none of us knew much of anyhting about the process. Gloriously magic that the tawny hide might be, but it stank so that even a pack of unwashed ruffians like us could not endure it. We stretched it ona vertical frame made from thin logs, using the lion's teeth and claws as tacks or points to hold the skin in place. Then—I had some eager volunteers to help—we scraped the inner surface clean, as thoroughly as possible, and rubbed it down with sand. After that we left it exposed to the sun and rain. A day passed and then another, but still the hide retained a prohibitively powerful stench.

  The lion's carcass was scarcely cold, and we were still working on the skin, when the business of tending the herd, exciting a few hours ago, already began to seem to me excruciatingly dull. At first, saying nothing to anyone, I contemplated sallying out into the great wide world to seek my fortune in some form of high adventure. The animals I had been sent to look out for were no longer in any particular danger, so I thought I could hardly be accused of violating any important trust if I simply left.

  About all that held me back was my uncertainty ov
er which way to go, what to do next when I did leave. Unlike many young men, I had no wish to go to war; there had been a certain satisfaction in crushing the lion, but my memory of killing Linus had nothing pleasant about it, and I would have given much to be free of the dreams in which I relived that scene.

  On the other hand, if I went home, I could expect to lead a dull and controlled life. Not only would I be subject to parental authority again, but, as in my last few days under Amphitryon's roof, everyone would be walking around me on tiptoe in fear of some fresh act of violence. Within a year or two I could expect to be pressured into an arranged marriage with some woman or girl from one of the families with whom Amphitryon wanted to cement an alliance. And I was afraid I knew just which girl the general would have in mind.

  Moodily I tried to explain all this to my nephew. We were both chewing on straws, sitting in the shade of one of the few live trees that dotted the grazers' landscape.

  "What will they make you do?" Enkidu asked, wrinkling his forehead in an evident effort to imagine parents compelling anyone as strong as me to do anything.

  Downwind from us, the lion's skin was stretched out. It seemed to be willfully ignoring the bright sunshine that was supposed to cure and dry it, and was continuing to poison the air. Maybe the magic that kept it from being pierced was going to keep it from being tanned as well.

  I said: "Get married, I expect, for one thing. To someone . . ."

  "Who you don't want to marry."

  "Right."

  My confidant thought that over a bit. "She's not good-looking, hey?"

  "If it's the one I think it is, she's a couple of years younger than you are, and already ugly as Cerberus. No reason to think she'll be any handsomer when she grows up. And then I'd have her whole family for my relatives, and that . . ." I made a helpless gesture, despairing of being able to explain. My private thoughts had turned to Megan, as you might suppose, and in a persistent daydream I imagined myself standing beside her in a formal wedding ceremony. But of course nothing of that kind would be tolerated.

  Enkidu wasn't listening to me anyway, but shading his eyes with his hand, gazing into the distance. "We have a visitor," he said.

  * * *

  That happened to be the evening when a traveler, no doubt worried about lions and glad to find any honest-looking company, approached our fire and asked to be allowed to spend the night. We had no objection, being always ready for some news of the world. He was a burly, bearded man, and now and then he would suddenly look back over one shoulder or the other, as if he had just heard behind him a certain footfall that he had no wish to hear. He was wearing a short sword, in itself nothing out of the ordinary.

  Naturally the first thing our visitor took notice of on his arrival was the lion's pelt—it was not an easy object to ignore, stinking as it did, and framed as it was, held up like a banner. He claimed to have heard, in a city many miles away, about the famous lion whose hide was proof against edged weapons, and he said he had come our way deliberately, detouring many miles into the remote backcountry, hoping to encounter someone who had actually seen the beast.

  But now he squinted dubiously at the stretched-out hide. "This is the one that was killing so much livestock?" He sounded unconvinced.

  "The very same," said Tarn, sounding as proud as if he were the slayer.

  Our visitor frowned at it critically. "I expected it would be bigger."

  "Maybe it's shrunk," Enkidu put in. Then he was inspired with what he thought was a better idea: "Actually there were two lions, and the really big one got away." But I was the only one listening to him, and that only with half an ear.

  "Any lion can be a killer," the stranger admitted, still considering the stretched hide. "Of course not the worst monster I've heard about. Not by a long bowshot. Lucky for your little lion there it didn't try hunting in the eastern swamps. Likely it would've been eaten if it went there. Swallowed whole, even if no tooth could pierce its hide."

  "Eaten?" Tarn's jaw dropped. "What could eat a lion? What do you mean, swallowed whole?"

  And the stranger began to tell us.

  Around the fire in the herders' camp that night, we sat with open mouths, listening to the traveler's exotic stories. When the wandering stranger found how ignorant we were on the subject, he began to entertain us with stories regarding the Lernaean Hydra, which he claimed was terrorizing folk who lived near the marshes of Lerna near Argos, which lay hundreds of miles overland from where we were. None of us had ever been there, of course, or anywhere near.

  Aye, there were great things being done out in the great world! Privately I came near deciding that I would be gone with the first light of morning. I could see that Enkidu's mouth was hanging open as he listened, and I decided to invite him to come along.

  Our informant swore to the truth of another item that also stuck in my memory: that a wealthy man named Augeus had recently offered a reward, of what seemed a truly fantastic sum of money, to anyone who could rid the land of the Hydra. So far, only two men had tried to claim the prize, and both of them had promptly disappeared into the swamps, not to be heard of again.

  At this point all my colleagues simultaneously turned their heads, as if unconsciously, to look at me. Our visitor seemed to take note of this, but his only reaction was a frown, as if he resented the fact that momentarily he had ceased to be the center of interest.

  One more quick look over his shoulder into darkness, and he who had been telling us the wondrous news was ready to expand on it.

  "Compared to the Hydra in the Lernaean marshes, your upland lion is nothing," he concluded. His tone and attitude, as he glanced once more at the stretched skin, seemed to say that it couldn't even have been much of a lion if a couple of herd boys had taken off its hide.

  Enkidu spoke up sharply, suggesting that our visitor try his own knife on the hide. But the traveler seemed to be paying him no attention.

  "What is a Hydra, anyway?" asked one of the younger herd boys, too humble to worry about seeming ignorant.

  The visitor was eager to reply to that one, in some detail. "The Hydra is enormous. It has twenty heads, and each head has a set of jaws filled with teeth as big as my hand. It eats lions as readily as it eats deer, or cattle—or people. What I'm telling you lads about is a monster born of monsters—they say that Typhon was its father and Echidna its mother." On the last word, he tossed one more quick look back over his shoulder into darkness.

  "Typhon was a Giant," put in the tallest herd boy. Tarn was gradually beginning to feel secure in his leadership again, seeing that I had no interest in the job; but he had made no attempt to give me orders.

  "Still is, as far as I know," put in someone else.

  "What's Echidna?" asked the smallest urchin.

  "Another monster, of course," I replied. But I think none of us really knew.

  It was on that night that I encountered in my sleep, for the first time, one of the strangest figures I had ever met, awake or dreaming. And the oddest thing about it, as it seemed to me while I lay lost in slumber, was that the apparition bore no resemblance at all to any of the creatures of wonder we had been discussing around the fire.

  In my dream I stood surrounded by high stone walls, so close on every side that I could not help feeling closed in, very nearly trapped. He who stood confronting me was very tall, looming over me as if I were a child. The figure stood on two legs, and in general it was very manlike, strongly built and wearing a kilt and sandals. The chief exception to its human appearance was the head. That was a bull's head, complete with two long, sharp, curving horns; the head of a creature that, if discovered in the herd, might have given even our lion pause. And when the man, if he was indeed a man, opened his bull's mouth to speak, the voice that came out of it was very odd. Still, every word was clear.

  "Come to me, Hercules. Come to me and learn. Bring your great strength to me and I will find employment for it."

  And I awoke, sweating, and afraid of I knew not what.


  In the morning, the traveler moved on, leaving us with a few words about the marvelous country he was bound for, where he said he expected to find giant birds capable of impaling people with their beaks. He might have been hoping that one or more of us would volunteer to come with him, but no one did. And even as he cast a last nervous look back over his right shoulder, I had a sudden flash of insight. I understood, as surely as if I had suddenly been granted the gift of prophecy, that as soon as the wanderer reached the glorious land he spoke of, he would begin to tell its inhabitants about the fabulous lion whose stretched skin he had just seen, more wonderful than any creature they had ever beheld or imagined. And he would tell them also about the godlike strength of a youth called Hercules, who had felled the monster with a single blow.

  My restlessness had not abated overnight. The traveler's stories, though I understood that they might be mostly lies, had only made it sharper. I began to tell my nephew what I was thinking. A little later on that same morning, Enkidu and I took leave of our fellow herders, whose lives had suddenly become much safer and more peaceful, and went heading out in the opposite direction from that our visitor had taken.

  When I issued my invitation, Enkidu was willing and even eager to abandon his assigned job with the herd and come adventuring with me. And why not? So far, his time away from home had all been fun.

  "If people come asking after you—" Tarn began, when he understood that we were really leaving.

  "Tell them Hercules and Enkidu have gone out to see the world."

  We had not been an hour on the road again before my nephew asked me: "Here, what are Giants like? If one of them could father a monster like the Hydra."

  "Huge, I guess. Well, of course, that's why they're Giants. But I've never seen one, any more than you have."

  "But where do they come from?"

  "How in the Underworld should I know?" He might as well have asked me what kind of people lived on the far side of the moon.

  It bothered me that I knew so little about Giants. Sometimes I found it disturbing that the number of subjects on which I was ignorant seemed so vast.