The Arms Of Hercules

by Fred Saberhagen

  I doubted also that the boy was paying any attention to what I said, for he did not reply. He tried on an assortment of golden armlets, rings, and necklaces, one after another, as well as belts that carried jeweled swords and daggers. But in the end, under my disapproving stare, he contented himself with a bag of coins of comparatively modest size.

  Then my nephew looked around the little space and sniffed the air. "Do we want to spend the night in here? It'd be warm."

  "I don't want to spend the night with him," I said, nodding toward the curtain and what lay in the room beyond.

  "We'd put him outside. We could even bury him." That was widely supposed to make the walking of a ghost less likely. "Burial might be a good idea, but I'd rather not stay in his cave at all. We're in no danger of freezing to death, especially with these new clothes. We'll find somewhere."

  Enkidu shrugged. "All right. The stew in the other room smells tempting, though."

  So the Lizard had turned out to be hospitable after all. Before leaving his cave, we tasted the contents of the simmering pot, decided that it was nothing worse than it first appeared to be, stewed rabbit, and dined on it heartily.

  As we were leaving, I stopped just outside the entrance to the cave, tore down the furry robe that kept in warmth, and put my hands on the edge of the doorway, trying out this grip and that. Soon I found one that I thought would do the job. Pulling steadily, I dislodged a few key supporting rocks from the limestone cliff so that a portion of the steep hillside shuddered, and my nephew and I had to jump briskly to get out of the way. Nearby trees vibrated as in an earthquake, shaking dark leafless branches, and the whole front of the cave collapsed, belching a cloud of dust and dirt into the chill air. It was just too neatly situated for a robber's roost.

  Meanwhile, on the death of their master the two little lizards had fled the cave, screaming in their high small voices. When we got outside we found their tracks marking the thin snow. But I doubted that Deimos and Phobos had run far, and supposed they would come back before long. The collapse of the entrance had still left room for their small bodies to pass, and the inside of the cave would stay warm at least until the fire went out. And there they would now find fresh bones to chew.

  Chapter Eight

  Centaurs

  After leaving the robber's cave, Enkidu and I resumed our quest for centaurs, in particular the one named Pholus. We roamed about for several weeks, seeing few people, zigzagging back and forth across the region in which we had some reason to believe we might be able to locate our quarry. More than once I was on the point of giving up our intermediate objective and trying to get back on the direct road to Mount Erymanthus, where the Boar was supposed to be. I was impatient to find the damned monster, whatever it was like, deliver it as instructed, and then get on with my life—Hermes, after all, had not insisted that the centaur's help was absolutely essential.

  Several times my nephew and I thought we were completely lost, and the fact that we were now warmly shod and clothed no doubt saved our lives.

  Among the other treasures contained in the robber's cave had been a small arsenal of captured weapons, and we had picked up slings, almost as an afterthought, along with our other booty. My nephew, putting in long hours of practice in the following days, became skillful enough to bring down some small game to tide us over when we could not find a hospitable farm to give us food and lodging.

  Our wanderings during those weeks took us well away from Erymanthus, whose snow-capped peak we could glimpse in the distance now and then. But we persisted.

  At last we found ourselves among settlements where people did not look blank when we mentioned centaurs, or speak of them as fantastic marvels. In this rugged country of wooded hills and deep ravines, there were few human settlers. None of the people we encountered in this region had any doubt that centaurs were real enough. But they insisted, almost to a man, that they knew nothing about such creatures, and wanted to know nothing. It seemed that in these parts, at least, the two races were well aware of each other's day-to-day presence, but still good at keeping out of each other's way.

  Eventually we met one woman, an elder and also a healer, who not only had seen centaurs but claimed to be personally acquainted with the very one we wanted. She confirmed that Pholus was much more likely than most of his tribe to seek out human contact.

  Our informant not only described the appearance of Pholus in great detail but (once she was convinced that we were not out to hunt and kill him as a form of sport) advised us where we were likely to find him.

  Armed with this information, Enkidu and I stubbornly pressed on. On the afternoon of the second day since leaving the house of the helpful woman, we came upon a strange trail that at last sent our hopes rising.

  Every one of our informants, including Hermes, had assured us that we might track centaurs by looking for what seemed to be the prints of horses' hooves.

  The marks before us had clearly been made by hard hooves that were certainly not a goat's, or a deer's, nor belonged to any animal that my nephew and I had ever seen.

  "Are these horse tracks, Enk?"

  The expert tracker squinted at them carefully. "Maybe. Or maybe a centaur's. What do you think?"

  "Could be a demon's for all that I can tell."

  Despite difficulties, at last we had some success. The ground again was covered in light snow, which made the tracks easy to follow, and even one as little skilled in the art as I was could study them in some detail.

  Having proceeded on some further distance, through moderately thick woods, we began to hear a chopping sound.

  I stopped in my tracks, holding up my hand. "Hear that? Sounds like a woodcutter up ahead."

  "Maybe he's seen the one we're looking for."

  "Maybe. Or . . . centaurs have arms, don't they? One of 'em could swing an axe."

  Moving on as quietly as we could, we soon came to a stop at the edge of a small clearing and stood there, hardly daring to breathe.

  My first impression was that a horse was standing at the far side of the little clearing, facing away from us, tail switching now and then, broad flanks steaming faintly in the cold. I thought it was an ordinary man, his torso naked despite the cold, who sat astride the horse. It was an awkward position for chopping, but the man's arms were vigorously wielding an axe against a thick dead branch projecting from a tree. A moment or two had passed before I noticed that the human legs of the apparent rider were nowhere to be seen. Nor were the horse's head and neck.

  I snapped a twig underfoot about that time, trying to move to get a better look; but the being on the far side of the clearing did not turn around. Either he had not heard us coming, or he was indifferent to the approach of a mere pair of humans.

  At last I called out in a loud voice. "Greetings!"

  Now he who was standing with his back to us did take notice at last, and turned gracefully on his four hoofed legs, and answered with a nod, as if he were loath to be interrupted at his work. He had long hair and a long beard, adorning a face as fully human as the rest of his upper body. All of these made him a good match for the description given us by the woman.

  Moving forward a few more steps, I called out boldly: "My name is Hercules. This is my nephew, Enkidu. And if you are Pholus, we have walked a long way indeed to find you."

  The centaur pushed back long hair from his face. "I am Pholus. But why have you gone to all that trouble? And just how far is a long way?" His voice was deep and pleasant.

  "All the way from Cadmia. I have gone to so much trouble because a god commanded me to do so."

  Pholus frowned, as if he were thinking over very seriously what I had just said. Our new acquaintance now grabbed up and pulled on some kind of shirt or jacket, which I supposed he had earlier taken off in the heat of chopping. His arms looked brawnier than those of most entirely human men—he could easily have been a match for the late Lizard.

  When he had his shirt on again, he picked up a bow and quiver of arrows from the gr
ound and slung them over his shoulders, just as a normal man might do. The fresh carcass of a deer lay at his feet, I saw now; evidently his hunting had been successful. His mode of carrying a deer was different, of course, as he tucked it behind his human torso.

  I am sure that you who read this must have seen pictures of centaurs, if not the thing itself: the head and arms and torso of a man, in the case of Pholus strongly built and in the prime of life. But where you might expect to find the hips, the body as it were began over again in its equine stage, as if the man's torso were a horse's neck. Human hair and beard were the same color as the horse's tail—there was no mane on his human neck or upright torso.

  Only later, months and years after this first meeting with one of their race, did I begin to realize how hard the life of a centaur truly was.

  For one thing, the huge body requires much nourishment, and it all must pass in through the small human mouth, where whatever chewing was necessary had to be done by small human teeth. Centaurs eat meat, when they can get it—to chew and swallow enough vegetables to support the massive body would be well-nigh impossible. There were of course other problems, too, including those that come of having two stomachs—but in my ignorance none of them occurred to me at that first meeting.

  When we had introduced ourselves and had at least begun to discuss the Boar, Pholus invited us to his house, actually only a kind of hut. It was a mile or two away, and our host courteously slowed down his normal cantering pace to one that we could match.

  The little house with its thatched roof stood by itself in a modest clearing, with no other buildings near. The front door was large enough to fit a stable, and the place smelled faintly like one, though it was as clean as any house might reasonably be expected to be—in fact cleaner than I have seen the palace of the king of Cadmia, especially on the morning after a late revel. There was little in the way of furniture inside—natural enough, I realized, when I considered that the owner and his usual visitors must rarely sit down and commonly slept while standing. A couple of tall, shelflike tables, skillfully made, offered space for reading and writing, and there were some books, stored on even higher shelves. At one side of the large room a fire of modest size, built on a stone hearth that was raised chest-high to a man, gave out comforting heat and light. There was no sign of any other occupant, and the look of the place strongly suggested that Pholus lived a hermit's life.

  The interior was not as cheerfully lighted as that of the last dwelling that my nephew and I had been urged to enter; but in this case we were urged by a gesture of genuine hospitality. Almost involuntarily I cast a glance around to reassure myself that here there were no skulls.

  Enkidu volunteered to play the role of butcher and cook, and dragged the deer outside. After some rummaging in a large cupboard or closet built into one wall, Pholus brought out one ordinary chair, which was I suppose the only one he had, and offered it to me. Enkidu, looking quite content to be almost ignored, sat tailor-fashion on the floor against a wall. Obviously the lad was fascinated by our host, and he could not keep from staring at him.

  There was a notable jar of wine here, our host informed us, and at once began to tell us the story connected with it. The huge container had been in his house—which, he assured me, was older than it looked—for generations.

  According to this ancient tale, all totally new to me, the wine was to be kept, unopened, until a son of Zeus should come for a visit.

  "Since you make that claim," said Pholus, "I will take you at your word and open it. Another reason is that I have always been curious about the wine."

  By now Enkidu's efforts had born fruit, and the smell of roasting venison enriched the air. When Pholus rolled the wine jar into view, tilting and balancing it on one side of its bottom edge, I saw that it was indeed huge, and made of clay. The top was dusty, the lid closed with a seal of wax so dark and crusted that it might well have been as ancient as he claimed. Pholus grappled it with powerful arms and rolled it out of its closet to a position near the center of the room.

  Next he wished to lift the barrel up, into a kind of rack that held it in a position where it could be easily tapped. I could see that this was a job that would ordinarily take two men to accomplish, and I offered to give him a hand.

  When I did, of course the great cask went up easily between us. He stepped back, wiping his brow and frowning at me. "Where does your strength come from, lad?"

  "An inheritance from my father."

  "I see."

  When I heard how long the wine had been there, I was not optimistic about its quality, having learned that any left aging for more than a few decades would turn to vinegar, or worse.

  Returning to my chair, in which it seemed impossible for a human to get comfortable, I asked our host: "Folk don't usually keep their tuns of wine that long, do they?"

  Rummaging in another closet, he had come up with a mallet and a wooden spigot, which he was now holding, one in each hand. "I am the wrong one, Hercules, to question on the habits of humanity. Are you then a good judge of fine wine, Hercules, son of Zeus?"

  "Nothing of the kind, good Pholus. But of course we had wine in the house where I grew up, and now and then I've listened when people were talking on the subject. I might repeat some of their words, if that would amuse you."

  He laughed and gave me all the details he could of the ancient prophecy, which were not many. According to the story passed down among the centaurs, bad things would happen if this cask was tapped before a son of Zeus arrived—and some catastrophe even worse might be expected should it not be broached when the proper time was reached.

  When he had driven in the spigot with a few sharp blows and turned it properly, he handed me a flagon, filled with a liquid that looked rich and almost solid red, save for a tiny froth of bubbles on the top.

  As my nephew began to serve us dinner, the centaur filled another cup for himself. Nor did he completely forget Enkidu, but tapped him a little wine as well, in a broken clay cup, the only other vessel that seemed readily available. Evidently drinking parties were not a common occurrence in this house. The boy looked sourly at this poor share, but brightened as soon as he tasted it.

  For my part, I had to admit that my drink was as far from vinegar as any that I had ever tasted. Even to my uneducated palate this wine was superb, and I wanted to have one more cup at least, to wash down my bread and meat.

  I began to tell Pholus of our adventure with the robber. Our host heard me out with close attention, and he was openly impressed. He said that the Lizard was locally quite infamous, and that the folk for miles around would rejoice that we had finished him.

  "Congratulations, son of Zeus, on your escape."

  "I'll drink to that."

  We both smacked our lips with satisfaction.

  Now the centaur was squinting at me intently. "Just how did you manage to foil the Lizard's plans for you? If you have no objection to explaining?"

  "None in the least." Realizing that my previous demonstration of strength had been insufficient, I picked up an iron trivet that lay as a decoration on his table, and with my fingers twisted the thick bar that formed it into quite a different shape. Then, reminding myself that my host had not much furniture to spare, and even this trinket might have value in his eyes, I bent it back again.

  Pholus said: "Ah," and leaned his human torso back, like a man settling himself more comfortably in a chair, though of course his body remained standing on its four strong, stable legs. And I thought his manner altered subtly. Not that he was suddenly afraid of me, but now I thought that he truly began to believe what I had told him about being a son of the Thunderer.

  The strong wine was certainly beginning to go to my head, and I was on the point of asking Pholus rudely whether there was not a stallion or mare in his immediate ancestry. But our friendly conversation was soon interrupted by a noise outside, the thudding on hard ground of many hooves, and it was plain that either more centaurs had arrived, or else a group of men ridin
g on horses.

  Getting up from my chair, I peered out at the side of a window and saw the heads and shoulders of about a dozen men, and the dark bulks of the same number of horses. In the dim light I could not be absolutely sure that I was really looking at a gang of centaurs until one cantered closer to the house. At least half of those I saw were armed with bows and arrows, and some were carrying other weapons, too. The one who had come near the house now called out in a raucous voice: "Pholus, we see by the trail that you have company. Two of those ugly creatures, so-called humans, that have only four limbs, totter and toddle on only two feet, and move not much faster than rocks and bushes. Ugly and clumsy monsters, they must be."

  These words were hardly reassuring, and I thought the tone of the newcomers' voices boded ill for the success of my mission, though I was not personally afraid. Their mood was obviously less than jovial and seemed to resent my presence. So far they had not taken any particular notice of Enkidu, and he had shrunken so far into a corner that he seemed on the verge of utter invisibility.

  Pholus looked worried and seemed uncertain of what to do; I opened the door of the house and stood out where the newcomers could see me plainly.

  One centaur—later I learned his name was Nessus—conspicuously the rowdiest of the group, for some reason seemed to hate me on sight, more than any of the others did.

  On getting his first clear look at me, Nessus declared: "So, this is the spawn of Zeus, of whom so much has been prophesied! What do you say, god-bastard, are all the things that the prophets say about you true?"

  I remained standing in the doorway, leaning on my club, as if it were only a walking stick. Feeling the wine, and arrogantly conscious of my own strength, I called back: "It would take a wiser man than me to answer that. Especially since I have no idea what your prophets say. They may be only ranting fools. In fact, that seems quite likely."

  A round of jeering answered me.

  Without the further warning, one of the gathering loosed an arrow at me. It struck me before I saw it coming, and stuck in my winter jacket. I pulled it out and looked it over negligently, then broke it between my fingers.