* * *
It crossed my mind as we walked that perhaps I ought to persuade Apollo that my duty was to report to Zeus before doing anything else. But how could I be sure that Atlas had now been located unless I saw him for myself?
My companion set a brisk walking pace, but not one that I found impossible to keep. As we moved along, with the chariot keeping pace behind us, Apollo described his own mind as like a painting on a canvas, one that had been torn full of holes, so that the scene depicted was now barely recognizable.
He added: "I ought to remember something about Atlas, and almost I do. But 'almost' is no help to us."
"What I can't understand, Lord Apollo—Jeremy—is how can any being, however great, support the sky?"
"I suppose that's one of the things we may find out, if we keep going."
I walked on, trying to picture what Atlas could be like, trying to picture what might happen if he simply got tired and let go. And again I thought to myself: The edge of the -world? But no, one of my early tutors had taught me that wise folk had demonstrated in several ways that the world was round.
As we hiked along, Apollo told me the little he could currently remember about Atlas. As time passed since his last brush with the Giants and their exotic weapon, some details about the case were starting to come back to him.
"I am now beginning to recall a certain legend," he added. "One that says Atlas represents another case of fearful punishment inflicted by one of your father's predecessors in the endless chain of avatars of Zeus. That earlier Zeus sentenced a certain particularly rebellious Giant to bear the weight of the firmament, for all time to come."
"The firmament. I suppose that means the sky?"
"That is correct."
"Is this some poetic figure of speech?" Somehow I could not imagine that even I myself would be strong enough for that.
"My thought is that it must be." And Apollo turned and looked at me, as if the fact that I might think about poetry had surprised him.
As we trudged on, the chariot still following us at a little distance, my companion added suddenly: "If we happen to meet a Giant, and if I should fall in combat with him—"
"Zeus forbid it!"
"I doubt your father has the power to forbid such things. So, listen to me, Hercules. If I do fall, you must press on, to do the next thing that Zeus asks of you."
"If we meet a Giant," I said, "other than this Atlas, who of course must be questioned, to find out what he knows—the first thing I'll do with any other Giant is beat his brains out with my club." And I made it sing through the air.
"I wish you success in the endeavor."
"I've fought one of them already," I assured my companion. "Antaeus tried to use his memory-destroying magic on me, but it had no effect, as far as I could tell. So, it might be wise if I went first. It might save you from losing another chunk of memory."
Apollo seemed to give the matter serious thought, then came to a prompt decision and nodded his agreement. With divine assurance, he judged himself too valuable to our cause to risk his life unnecessarily; and the risk to me in fighting another Giant would probably be minimal.
We held a brief conversation, after which Apollo waited for his chariot to catch up with him and then climbed into it. He promised to keep an eye on my progress from a distance and to come to my aid at once if I appeared to be in trouble.
When I turned again to look around, neither god nor chariot were anywhere to be seen.
Pushing on alone at a steady pace, I came in two or three hours to the cone-shaped hill and began to climb. The slope looked much longer now than it had from a distance.
The day was far advanced by that time, and presently I sought a place to rest for the night. I am a creature of daylight, basically, and I also thought my ally Apollo would be at his strongest when the sun was bright.
The stars were over me when I drifted off to sleep, and my last clear thought was something to the effect of how ridiculous it was that any creature of the earth could hold them up.
I slept soundly, and in the morning resumed my climb. On top, I found a spring where I could slake my thirst. Looking about me, I gradually convinced myself that I had found what seemed to be the place that Prometheus had described.
The big hill I had just climbed had on its top a cup-shaped indentation perhaps two hundred yards across. In the middle of this, in turn, stood a small hill. And it struck me that from a vantage point atop this small interior elevation the whole sky would seem to be spread out for comfortable inspection. So I went there as soon as I had caught my breath.
After my encounter with Antaeus, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what Atlas would be like, but it soon turned out that I was wrong.
The small hill had, again, a small depression at its summit. This concavity was no more than ten yards wide, and it seemed to have been paved at some time in the remote past, for remnants of a regular layer of stones or tiles showed through the clumps of grass and deposits of dry earth that overlay it now. And at the middle of the small depression stood an object that inevitably drew my attention, first because of its position, and second because it looked something like a tree stump, at the very center of this concentric series of otherwise completely treeless hills and hollows.
With a faint chill I realized that its rounded upper surface had some vague similarity to what I imagined the grainy head of a bald Giant must be like. But the resemblance was still greater, I thought, to a tree stump.
Something like a tree stump, about four feet high, and half that in diameter. But the substance of it did not look like wood, but rather like a pillar of rock, or of compacted earth. In fact the color of it and the grainy surface made me think of Giants' skin. Around the base of this pillar, or stump, the earth was muddy, and I supposed that any hard rain must cause quite a puddle there at the bottom of the once-paved bowl.
I went to stand beside the peculiar stump, rested an arm on it familiarly, and looked around. For all I could tell, I was indeed now positioned at the very center of the earth and sky, my line of sight clear to the remote blue horizon, which seemed equally distant in all directions.
Then it occurred to me to wonder if Atlas, for all his strength and possible bulk, might be invisible, like a sprite; and that possibly the giant pillars that held the sky, if any, were invisible as well. But I could walk in every direction around the central stump without bumping into anything of the kind.
When at last I grew impatient, and called out for Atlas, no one and nothing answered, leaving me feeling a curious mixture of disappointment and relief.
On becoming even more impatient, I took hold of the strange tree stump and began to exert the force that would soon have wrenched it from the ground.
Then at last a great voice, that seemed to come from everywhere around me, boomed out, commanding me to stop.
You may believe that I stopped at once.
"I am Hercules of Cadmia," I informed the world, and the invisible owner of the voice. "I have come here in search of one called Atlas."
The top of what had looked like a dead stump clicked open suddenly, an abrupt flowerlike blooming that revealed not petals but what I took to be a huge eye, glassy and translucent, staring back at me with an intensity I took to signify intelligence.
"I am Atlas," said the same voice, at last, now diminished to a more reasonable volume.
Had I been even ordinarily susceptible to fear, I would probably have taken to my heels at that moment. As it was, I recoiled a couple of steps, then demanded of the thing bluntly, "Are you a Giant?"
The voice regained its. former volume. "A CASTLE CALLED DOUBTING CASTLE," it boomed out. "THE OWNER WHEREOF WAS GIANT DESPAIR."
"I do not understand you."
"THE PEACE OF GOD, WHICH PASSETH ALL UNDERSTANDING."
It certainly passed mine. I stood silent for a while, trying to think. If this—this thing confronting me was all there was to see of Atlas, he certainly bore no resemblance to Antaeus.
At last I said: "You are no Giant, then. And you are certainly not a man. Nor like any god that I have ever seen or heard described."
"YE SHALL BE AS GODS, KNOWING GOOD AND EVIL."
"I do not understand you. I am trying to determine if the legends about you are true or false. They say that you hold up the pillars on which the stars are supported."
"AND WHEN THE STARS THREW DOWN THEIR SPEARS, AND WATERED HEAVEN WITH THEIR TEARS, DID HE SMILE HIS WORK TO SEE?"
"I assume that question is somehow rhetorical. Yes, yes, very well. What can you show me, or tell me, about whatever it is that holds stars in their places?"
Finally I had managed to ask a question of my own that evoked something like a real answer.
And then there occurred something so far beyond my understanding that even now I have difficultly trying to describe it. Somehow Atlas conjured into existence, atop his stump-head, a much larger visionary space, spread before me like a kind of stage.
The apparitions on this stage were clear and brilliant, and moved in a way that seemed perfectly lifelike. Yet it seemed to me that none of them had ever truly been alive.
I regretted that Apollo was missing this show, and even more that Daedalus could not see it.
A voice spoke to me, in my own language, and the marvelous pictures came and went. I have neither the space here nor the inclination to set down all that Atlas told me on that day. But among other things, it was revealed to me that every star I saw in the night sky was really another sun—and that many of those stars were actually bigger and brighter than the sun that gave us all life, and that our poets called the Eye of Apollo.
The voice from the pillar spoke to me also of inconceivable times and distances.
And gradually I came to realize that, in a symbolic sense, what the legends said about Atlas was quite true. When later I had a chance to talk to Daedalus again, I had this thought confirmed: Atlas indeed supported the celestial sphere, sustained the structure of the Universe, in the sense that he retained and preserved many basic truths about the world that would otherwise have been utterly forgotten.
When I asked Atlas where the Giants came from, he told me that they had issued from the earth.
The beginnings of new understanding grew in me. My imagination relaxed, glad to be relieved of the effort of picturing huge pillars, by which the weight of the whole sky might be transferred to one unimaginable set of shoulders, part of some Giant body sitting or standing in this spot.
As I continued to question Atlas about the world, another thing he showed me was a parade of human shapes, or images. And he told me also about something he called the machinery of Olympus, which still diligently made such records of certain folk, records in the form of images, which were then caused to appear in the Underworld.
But I was no longer listening carefully, because my imagination had been truly caught by that one phrase. The machinery of Olympus. Those words, if they meant anything, must mean that Olympus still existed somewhere.
Meanwhile, the strange being who dealt in the tree stump, or issued from it, spoke on, telling me about the spritelike creatures who had made the shadow images that I watched, in pursuit of some vast project that all human and Olympian minds had long since forgotten about.
There was more, more than I will attempt to set down now, more than I can even remember. When at last the demonstration ceased, I fell into a kind of reverie of contemplation.
Apollo had to call me twice to rouse me. I looked around to see him standing in his chariot, behind his pair of magnificent white horses. All the marvelous display that Atlas had stunned and enlightened me with was gone, and the day was far advanced.
I thought the Far-Worker was looking at me strangely. He said: "My curiosity got the best of me, Hercules. What's going on?"
I pointed at the peculiar central column. "Atlas, here, can probably explain things better than I can."
"This—is Atlas?" But the god did not stay for an answer to that question. Instead he immediately faced the tall stump and demanded: "Tell me, oracle—where is lost Olympus?"
The reply this time must have come in a form perceptible only to divine senses, for I saw and heard it not. But Apollo understood something, because he grabbed me by the arm and pulled me back into the chariot. A moment later, the horses went bounding away at top speed.
I thought at the time that our hasty departure was probably a mistake, and now, looking back, I am sure of it. The god and I might both have learned much more from Atlas, had it not been for Apollo's eagerness to find his way back to Olympus, and my eagerness to be at his side when he made that discovery.
How far we traveled, or even in exactly what direction, I could not have said, for our flight was extremely rapid, and the sky around us was full of clouds much of the time. When Apollo and I finally came to the place that he said had once been Olympus, we discovered it deserted now, another almost barren mountaintop.
We landed a short distance below the summit, dismounted from the chariot, and began to climb. The danger of being seen by Giants had apparently been forgotten. I felt my ears pop on the ascent.
The air was so thin and cold, and there were moments in my short stay there when I had trouble breathing.
"Was this it? Yes, I think . . . but I can't be sure." Coming to a temporary halt, Apollo pressed his fists against his temples.
Old memories, long forgotten, began to come back to him. He tried to convey them to me, sometimes stammering in a most ungod-like way, and I could tell he felt a grievous sense of loss. Once this place must have had the appearance of an earthly paradise, but now it was only dust and blowing tumbleweed.
As we advanced, the Far-Worker began to tell me, in a dreamy, abstracted voice, about another mountaintop he had visited, only a few years ago, and in his current avatar. There, for a brief time, he had thought he had rediscovered Olympus.
"It was the similarity between that place and this that half awoke old memories, made me almost think that I had really returned here."
I murmured something.
He went on: "Somehow, when I found myself facing a sudden howling wind that stirred piles of old bones—it reminded me of this. Of the last time I, Apollo, saw Olympus—that was many years before Jeremy Redthorn was born. Oh, many years indeed."
But I paid little attention to what sounded like an old man's reminiscences, coming from the lips of a beardless youth. Instead I was caught up in trying to discover more marvels somewhere on the dusty, barren, flattened hilltop where we were now. Alas, that effort was doomed to disappointment.
Evidence of one kind and another, visible to us on every hand—broken glass and tile, shreds of what might once have been fine cloth—suggested that the site once known as Olympus had been raided, perhaps occupied for a long time, one way or another ruthlessly despoiled by Giants. Apollo told me that for years all the gods and goddesses had been afraid to show their faces there. And then, what was worse, almost all of them had totally forgotten.
I shuddered faintly, inwardly. For the moment, Jeremy Redthorn seemed to have disappeared, and it was the Sun God, the Far-Worker, who walked with me around the blasted mountaintop. But he was still a mentally crippled deity. As we progressed, he sometimes thought he saw the remnants of familiar landmarks, but in no case could he be really sure.
For a time, Apollo sat on a rock with his face buried in his hands. When he looked up, it was to tell me that before the Giants' first onslaught, this had been a place of surpassing beauty.
"I gathered that much, Lord Apollo, from what you have already said."
He sighed. "Memories are coming back, a little at a time. Do you know anything of that war, Hercules?"
"Nothing, my lord—nothing, Jeremy."
My companion did not seem to be listening, or to care which name I addressed him by. He said softly: "It must be a thousand years. But if I stop now, and close my eyes, I can almost hear the music again . . ."
And to my amazement—though I really shoul
d not have been amazed—I saw tears on his young face.
Chapter Nineteen
Downed
My recent adventures had wearied me, in mind more than in body, and left me profoundly confused. In the course of the last few days I had confronted the awesome deity Apollo, had almost incurred his enmity, and then had finally joined forces with him. Together Apollo and I had rescued Prometheus, and then had managed, or at least survived, an encounter with the entity called Atlas. That meeting in itself would have been enough to befuddle me. But when it was over I had been privileged to walk beside the Far-Worker as his comrade while he rediscovered and explored the ruins of Olympus.
The two of us left Olympus together, once more riding the chariot, cruising at low altitude behind slow-pacing horses. At first it seemed to me that we had no definite destination.
I could only hope that my experiences since leaving home had begun to teach me something about the world. Certainly they had begun to reveal to me the depth and breadth of my own ignorance. Physical strength could give a great advantage, and sometimes it could be vitally important. But I had begun to realize that it did not guarantee success in any but the crudest trials.
Very little of the knowledge I had gained so recently and with such difficulty was reassuring. In fact, the more I learned about the world, the more I felt that it was on the verge of collapsing around me, and I was not sure what to do next.
Looking back over my shoulder, I cast a last look at the rugged slopes of what had once been high Olympus.
Apollo's mood seemed to mirror my own, a readiness for rest and reflection.
The Arms Of Hercules Page 24