The Arms Of Hercules

by Fred Saberhagen

  On that night a certain servant, attendant in the palace, asked so winningly for the honor of sleeping with me that I agreed, and the question never arose as to what otherwise might have happened between me and Meleager's sister.

  When full sleep finally claimed me, I was granted only a few hours of peace before Prince Asterion showed his horned head before me in a dream. Even before he spoke, I understood that he had come to give me warning. It seemed to me that the prince and I were standing in a vast, dark room, or hall, swept by a cold wind that blew through open doors and windows. I had the feeling, the inward knowledge, that what he was about to say was so terrible that I awoke, sweating and gasping, before I heard even the first words of what he said. The young attendant who shared my bed was frightened and hurriedly left the room, never to return.

  On the next morning I left the king and queen behind, amid a clamor of rejoicing bells. I waved farewell to Danni's haunting green eyes and slender form, and climbed into my little boat and sailed away, my ears almost deafened by a renewed chorus of prayers and good wishes, eager to get home and see my wife and son again.

  Now I must pause here in my writing to gather strength to deal with what must next be told.

  I have known for some time that for some tasks, even the strength of Hercules may not be enough.

  The next leg of my great journey was uneventful. Not many days after departing the kingdom of Admetus, I arrived again in my homeland. Having the speed of the Skyboat at my disposal meant that much of the known world was only hours or days away, instead of weeks or months.

  On drawing near my homeland, I left the boat at the same place I had moored it on my previous visit, and took to my feet with a light step.

  When I was almost within sight of the walls of Cadmia, trudging eagerly up a narrow road, I caught sight of a lone figure standing ahead of me, straight and unmoving in the very middle of the road. It was an ebony figure of shadow, outlined against the mottled clouds of a red sunset. At a distance I could recognize the hair of curly black and the protruding ears. Enkidu had come to welcome me, but he did not advance to meet me, so whatever news he had could not be good. My heart turned over in my breast when I drew near enough to see the look upon my nephew's face, and that he wore the ragged clothes prescribed by tradition for one in mourning.

  "Enkidu, you are alone," I said as I approached.

  "Everyone else was too much frightened to come with me," he answered softly. His arms hung loose at his sides, and he tried to avoid meeting my eyes.

  "Frightened of what?" I asked. Although as I now look back, it seems to me that I already knew.

  My nephew had put on weight since I had seen him last, and also gained a little height, but the rags of ritual mourning hung on him loosely. And now his face was so pale that he only looked ill, and not like a young man prosperously married.

  His voice, too, seemed unnatural. "Hercules, the prince Asterion appeared to me in a dream and said that you were coming home. He said also that I must be the one to go to meet you."

  There followed a long and terrible silence. Then somehow Enkidu managed to speak the necessary words, so that at last I heard the blunt facts, the terrible news of how my wife and child had been horribly murdered. The hands that had done the deed were more than human.

  It was as if my spirit had been forced partly out of my body by the shock. The next thing I remember is as if I were observing the scene from outside. I have a kind of vision of myself, sitting helpless in the dust of the road, while Enkidu bent over me, avoiding giving any real answers to the horrible questions that thronged up in my mind. In a kind of madness I kept demanding more details.

  What he did tell me was that the bodies of my wife and child had been buried, with honors that made the ceremony almost worthy of a royal funeral. The king had seen to that. Eurystheus had been much saddened by the tragedy, and he sent word that he hoped soon to be able to express his condolences in person.

  Enkidu had to help me to my feet. Then he and his young wife took me into their large house, where first servants, and then physicians, were brought to attend me.

  There followed a period of time, lasting for days, when fits of senseless violence came over me, and things were broken; fortunately none were human bodies. But eventually such seizures passed, and a time came when others felt safe in approaching me.

  From what people told me of the horror of the days just preceding my return home, I realized that Thanatos must have come to wreak destruction on my family as a means of revenge for his humiliating beating.

  No other Cadmians had been struck down. None had tried to defend Megan—how could they? I felt no special anger at any of them, from King Eurystheus on down, for their failure. My time for real anger had not come as yet. Never did I see the king, and indeed I had almost forgotten him and his bronze box.

  Instead, I was struck by the supreme irony that I had been concerned for what my son would be when he grew up. For that was never going to happen.

  Weeks passed. Day after day I sat alone in a room in my nephew's house, or sometimes on a terrace, while all, or almost all, feared to come near me. Once Amphitryon came, and from a little distance murmured his condolences.

  It seemed that even before my own arrival, the news had already reached Cadmia of what feat I had achieved at the court of King Admetus. People avoided me and spoke of me in hushed whispers, as they might of any blasphemer who had made an enemy of a powerful deity.

  Once—but I am almost sure that this visitation was only in a dream—Apollo himself came to speak to me in soothing words. When I dared to threaten him with my fist, he withdrew himself again—but I was almost sure that it was only in a dream.

  And again—and that this was a dream I had no doubt—Prince Asterion came to me. He confronted me calmly, even though in the dream I raised my fist against him, as I had in waking life against my other friends. This time he had no words to say in his strange voice, but blessedly he turned aside a nightmare that had begun to ride me, so that I could sink into a kind of rest, oblivion.

  And so in time the full madness of grief passed from me, as all things must pass. A day came when I was again aware, however dully, of the songs of birds outside my guest room's window. And somewhere in Enkidu's household a servant's child was crying, and I could find some reassurance in the fact that there were still children in the world.

  Pulling myself together, I stood up and tore off the torn and wretched garments of my mourning. I put on a clean tunic and went out of the house in which I had been hiding, to breathe again the outdoor air of the living world.

  It seemed that I was doomed to live on for a time, and now I could begin to face the prospect without shrinking. Quietly and reasonably I called for servants to bring me water for a bath, and oil with which to anoint my hair and my youthful beginnings of a beard.

  People approached me, cautiously, and now I could speak to them rationally enough. Presently I requested that simple preparations should be made, for I would soon be departing on a journey.

  And I called at last for food, for though I had only the beginnings of an appetite, I knew that I would soon need my strength.

  For the first time in weeks, I took notice of what I ate, and thought the taste of it was pleasant. I was drinking a bowl of soup when Enkidu came to see me.

  "What will you do now, Hercules?" my nephew asked, when he had assured himself that I was largely recovered from my madness, but saw that I was determined to leave. His young wife and her attendants stood looking over his shoulders.

  "I am going to look for Death," I answered, carefully setting down the bowl.

  It took my hearers a moment or two to be sure that I was not talking about suicide.

  I was sure now, had finally accepted the fact, that my wife and son were beyond rescue. He who was Death would have made very certain, in this case. I had not seen their bodies buried, but I went to look one final time upon their graves, and this time the sight brought almost the same feeli
ng of finality.

  "I will come with you, then," Enkidu said. I think the words cost him a considerable effort, but they were firmly spoken. His body was heavier than it had been, but his cheeks were still quite beardless.

  "No, my friend, my comrade," I told him immediately. "I thank you for the offer, but where I am going this time you may not go." And I saw his young wife, still standing behind him, suddenly relax.

  Some prominent citizens of Cadmia came to see me. They were worried that Death would return to harry their land again, now that I was gone.

  "And so he will," I told them. "Death comes everywhere. But sooner or later he will again find himself in the same place with me."

  Now I was determined, as never before, to enter the realm of Death himself and make him pay. Selecting a log of seasoned wild-olive wood, I fashioned myself a new club.

  "How and where I do not know," I said, "but somehow I will find his world. He cannot hide from me forever." And I picked up from the dirt of a flower bed a small stone that felt as hard as granite, and between my thumb and fingers absently crushed it into powder.

  It seemed to me that no other purpose remained to me in life, except to find my way to the Underworld, and there to have my revenge upon Thanatos.

  But when it was actually time to depart, I had to overcome an urge to hesitate. I would take the road back to where the Skyboat waited—but then in which direction was I to seek?

  Kneeling in the bottom of the boat, I rested my forehead against the ivory box of the compass-pyx that had once—it seemed so long ago!—been given me by the gods. Then I let my thoughts flow as a dark stream. I would leave it to Skyboat to find the way to Hell.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Tartarus

  The Skyboat's compass-pyx reflected only shadowy images into my mind as I fed it with my hatred—what better fuel for a voyage to Hell?—and the urgency of my need for revenge. Presently my craft jerked into motion, and we were under way. The effort took me a long time—weeks passed, perhaps a month, and whenever I truly relaxed we drifted aimlessly—but in the end I was successful.

  The powers of the Skyboat were even greater than I had imagined them—or perhaps I give them too much credit. It may be that success was due to my own human, mortal will, stronger than either my friends or enemies had calculated, and to the fuel of hate.

  My entrance to the Underworld lay in a strange and unfamiliar land, and I reached it near sunset, following a day of oppressive weather, when storms threatened, but no lightning had yet struck to purge the air.

  The magic Skyboat brought me as far as it could, down one stream and through the Great Sea, then up another watercourse through several branchings, until the stream at last became too shallow, and I was forced to abandon my vessel.

  I had left home with a substantial supply of food and still had enough left to maintain my strength for perhaps another week. I carried also a waterskin, which I refilled when I could. These modest supplies, and my club, made up the whole of my equipment. Now I began to climb on foot beside the rivulet, and the sprite, buzzing invisibly as usual, came with me.

  Climbing the rough hillside for a hundred yards or so, I came to a growth of cypress and a thicket of cedar on a small shelf of land. In this hidden place the stream I had been following was born, in a pool fed by deep springs. Another and lesser trickle of water fell inconspicuously from the same pond, pouring away out of sight over a narrow lip of stone, vanishing through a hole that opened into a lower darkness between two tilted slabs of granite.

  When I put my head into this dark hole, I could hear, rising from far underground, the muted thunder of a small waterfall. Also my nose was attacked by a foul, sulphurous smell, which I took as a hopeful sign. Surely this was the path for the Underworld, to which my boat had done its best to carry me.

  I took it as another favorable sign that now the sprite who had come with me on my last climb deserted me abruptly.

  I silently waved good-bye to the invisible creature, and to my abandoned Skyboat, now also out of sight behind rocks and trees. Shouldering the most recent version of my club, I tried to wedge my body into the dark hole, following the subterranean waterfall.

  At the last moment the start of my descent was delayed. The hole in the rock was not quite large enough for me to work my entire body into it; briefly I laid my new club aside, and a moment's work with my two arms wrought a minor dislocation in one of the small bones of the mountain, affording my body now room enough to pass.

  Whatever drama might have been inherent in my thus beginning a journey underground was somewhat spoiled by an anticlimax. The way beyond the entrance opening was dark, but never quite too dark for me to find my footing, though I could not determine any source for the faint light.

  Minute after minute, and then hour after hour, while the last traces of daylight faded and vanished far behind me, I trod a path that seemed to have been worn into the earth and rock by the passage of innumerable feet. Yet paradoxically I encountered no other travelers. Certainly, I thought, no such army as the silent majority could ever have passed between those granite slabs without leaving many traces. If all the dead of all the world were somehow required to traverse that narrow opening, I'd have encountered such a crush and press above-ground that I'd still be trying to get through.

  No, I thought. The Underworld must receive its recruits, or the great preponderance of them, through some system more complex than that.

  When at last I grew weary from my long trek underground, I paused to rest, in a place where dry dust made a pillow softer than plain rock, and fell into a slumber.

  As I slept, Apollo appeared to me in a dream, to offer his sympathy on my tragic loss. He also told me he was pleased that I seemed to be recovering from the shock; and he reassured me that his memory, damaged in the Giant's assault that had aborted our journey to Vulcan's workshop, was now largely restored again.

  Vaguely I was aware that the prince Asterion was arranging this communication, and from time to time I could see his horned head in the background.

  It seemed to me that in my dream I asked, or tried to ask, Apollo whether he could, or would, try to join me in the realm of Hades. And I thought that the Sun God concluded by telling me: "I am not welcome down there, and my appearance would only provoke another terrible fight with Hades, one that our cause can ill afford just now. But I will see you again, Hercules, in waking life, soon after you emerge from the Underworld—provided you are able to do that."

  Groaning and sneezing with the dryness of the dust that made my pillow, I awoke from sleep, not knowing for a moment who I was, or where, or why—but then I remembered where I was, and why.

  While still only half awake, it seemed to me that I heard a great dog barking in the distance. This made me wonder whether the entrance to the Underworld that I had found might be the one where Cerberus kept watch—or perhaps, I thought, that story was nothing but legend.

  When I was fully awake, I heard no barking. Groping around me in the dimness until I found my club, I set it on my shoulder and moved on.

  That next portion of my descent lasted for what seemed many hours. Where the shadows were thickest I went probing the way ahead with the length of my club, sometimes on a declivity so steep that I had to use it as a staff and grip rock with one hand to keep my balance. Though the darkness was unending, still it never became quite absolute. The tortuous path beside the gurgling rivulet of water at last flattened out into a level space, and the close rocky walls fell back. As I went lower the air grew warmer, but at the same time became thick and foul.

  On the way I had had plenty of time to ponder where I was going, and what I was about. I remembered an ancient story that one of my early tutors had required me to memorize: It told of a cave of immeasurable depth, its mouth hidden by the darkness of a forest on the shore of a black lake. No birds flew over those waters or in those woods because of the foul air rising from the lake, whose name, Avernus, meant that it was birdless.

&nb
sp; Presently, as I went farther and farther along the level way, the stench that had assailed my nostrils as I reached the depths began to fade—or at least, as is the way with most foul smells, I ceased to notice it.

  And then, to my considerable astonishment, I came upon a deserted village—scattered houses, built much in the style of peasants' homes I was familiar with above. It was hard to imagine what fields the villagers might farm, what crops they grew; yet I was unable to shake a feeling that these dwellings ought to be occupied, that very likely there had recently been people in them, and they would be inhabited again as soon as I looked away.

  But I knew I must not expect to find things here as they were in the world above. Now I felt that I was truly in the realm of Hades. I had gone beyond worrying over what might happen to me. But it did strike me as odd that so far I had encountered not another soul, neither human, god, nor demon.

  Whether there was any longer a solid roof above my head or not, I could not have said. But for a long time now, the stars had ceased to be visible.

  The whole place was unrelievedly dim and shadowy, with, as far as I could tell, not so much as a mushroom growing anywhere. Still, enough light to let me see where I was going came from somewhere, but I could not identify the source. Such was the effect of those surroundings on my mind and soul that I never doubted that these conditions were doomed to persist eternally. I would have taken an oath that Apollo's blessed sunlight had never touched that gray and lifeless scene, and I could find no reason to believe that it ever would. It seemed I could feel as much as see the clouds that weighed above me, and patches of fog seemed to spring up out of the barren ground.

  On I pressed through the forbidding landscape. Looking back now, I suppose that I must still have nursed a faint hope of being able to save my wife and child, a hope so faint and distant that I dared not acknowledge it to myself—otherwise I might well have been overcome with terror to find myself in such surroundings. No mere curiosity, no thought of material treasure, not even the bitter anger that still held me in its thrall, could have driven me further on.