The First Heroes

by Harry Turtledove

  With the Chalcippus more heavily laden than she had been while we were outward bound, I did not like to bring her up on the beach every night. I had learned to respect and to fear the rise and fall of the waters against the land, which seems to happen twice a day in the regions washed by the Ocean. If the waters withdrew too far, we might not be able to get the galley back into the sea. To hold that worry at arm’s length, we dropped anchor offshore most nights.

  That too, of course, came with a price. Because we could not let the ship’s timbers dry out at night, they grew heavy and waterlogged, making the Horse of Bronze a slower and less responsive steed than she would otherwise have been. Had a bad storm blown up, that might have cost us dear. As things were, the gods smiled, or at least did not frown with all the grimness they might have shown, and we came safe to the Inner Sea once more.

  As we sailed east past the pillars said to hold up the heavens, I wondered once more about the mans, and how they escaped the gods’ wrath. Most folk—no, all folk I had known up until then—are content to live in the world the gods made and to thank them for their generous bounty. What the gods will, lesser folk accept, as they must—for, as I have remarked, the essence of godhood is power. Were I as powerful as a god, what would I be? A god myself, nothing else. But I am not so powerful and so am no god.

  Nor are these mans gods. That was plain. In our cerevisia-spawned madness, we slew them easily enough. Yet they have the arrogance, the presumption, to seek out the gods’ secrets. And they have the further arrogance and presumption to believe that, if they find them, they can use them.

  Can a folk not given godlike powers arrogate those powers to itself? The mans seem to think so. How would the gods view such an opinion? If they did take it amiss, as I judged likely, how long would they wait to punish it?

  Confident in their own strength, might they wait too long? If a folk did somehow steal godlike power, what need would it have of veritable gods? Such gloomy reflections filled my mind as we made our way across the Inner Sea. I confess to avoiding the sirens’ island on the homeward journey. Their temper was unpleasant, their memories doubtless long. We sailed south of them instead, skirting the coast where the lotus-eaters dwell. I remember little of that part of the voyage; the lotus-eaters, I daresay, remember less.

  I do remember the long sail we had up from the land of the lotus-eaters to that of the fauns. The sail seemed the longer because, as I say, we had to keep clear of the island of the sirens. We filled all the water jars as full as we could. This let us anchor well off the coast of their island as we traveled north. We also had the good fortune of a strong southerly breeze. We lowered the sail from the yard, then, and ran before the wind. Our hes were able to rest at the oars, which meant they did not grow thirsty as fast as they would have otherwise. We came to the land of the fauns with water still in the jars—not much, but enough.

  That breeze had held for us all the way from the land of the lotus-eaters to that which the fauns call home. From this, I believe—and I certainly hope—the gods favored our cause and not the sirens’. This I believe and hope, yes. But I have not the gall to claim it proves the gods favored us, or to use it to predict that the gods would favor us again in the same way. I am not a man. I do not make stone circles. I do not believe a stone circle can measure the deeds and will of the gods.

  By what has befallen the other folk on the Tin Isle besides the mans, I may be mistaken.

  From the easternmost spit of the fauns’ homeland to ours is but a short sail. Yet the Horse of Bronze came closer to foundering there than anywhere on turbulent Ocean the Great. A storm blew up from nowhere, as it were. The Chalcippus pitched and rolled and yawed. A wave crashed over the bow and threatened to swamp us. We all bailed for our lives, but another wave or two would have stolen them from us.

  And then, as abruptly as it had sprung to life, the storm died. What conclusion was I to draw from this? That the gods were trying to frighten me to death but would spare me if they failed? That drawing conclusions about what the gods intend was a risky business, a fool’s game? I had already known as much. I was not a man, to require lessons on the subject.

  We came home not only to rejoicing but to astonishment. Most of the hes we left behind on setting sail in the Chalcippus had expected to see us no more. Many of the shes we left behind also expected to see us no more. That led to several surprises and considerable unpleasantness, none of which deserves recounting here.

  It often seemed as if the tin we brought home was more welcome than we were. Few cared to listen to our tales of the great stone circle or of the strange mans who had built it. The fauns, the sirens, the lotus-eaters we centaurs already knew. The stay-at-homes were glad enough to hear stories about them.

  Certainly the smiths welcomed the tin with glad cries and with caracoles of delight. They fell to work as if made of bronze themselves. We have a sufficiency of copper—more than a sufficiency—for we trade it with folk whose land gives them none. But tin is far less common and far more dear; were it otherwise, we would not have needed to fare so far to lay hold of it.

  Spearheads and shields and swords and helms began to pile up, ready for use against the sphinxes or whoever else should presume to trouble us. Now we could match bronze against bronze, rather than being compelled to use the softer copper unalloyed. Some of the younger hes quite looked forward to combat. That far I would not go. I have seen enough to know that combat too often comes whether we look for it or not; what point, then, in seeking it?

  The smiths also made no small stock of less warlike gear. I speak of that less not because I esteem it less, but only because, when bronze is not measured against bronze, its hardness as compared to copper’s is of less moment.

  Not too long after our return, I learned that we in the Chalcippus were not the only band of centaurs to have set out in search of tin. A he named Pholus had led a band north by land. There are mountains in those parts that yield gold and silver, and Pholus hoped he might happen upon tin as well.

  Although those mountains are not far as the raven flies, our folk seldom go there. The folk who live in those parts are strange, and strangely fierce and formidable. They come out only at night, and are often in the habit of drinking the blood of those they kill. And they are persistent of life, though sunlight, curiously enough, is alleged to slay them.

  This Pholus affirmed for me, saying, “After we caught a couple of them and staked them out for the sunrise, the others proved less eager to see if they could sneak up and murder us by the light of the moon.”

  “Yes, I can see how that might be so,” I told him. “Good for you. But I gather you found no tin?”

  “I fear me we did not,” he agreed. “It is a rich country. Were it not for these night skulkers, we could do a great deal of trade with it. They care nothing for bargaining, though. All they want is the taste of blood in their mouths.” His own mouth twisted in disgust.

  “Many good-byes to them, then,” I said. “Maybe we ought to send a host up that way, to see how many we could drag out for the sun to destroy.”

  “Maybe.” But Pholus did not sound as if he thought that a good idea. “If we did not get rid of them all, they would make us pay. And besides—” He did not go on.

  “Besides, what?” I asked when I saw he would not continue on his own.

  He did not answer for a long time. I wondered if he would. At long last, he said, “I swore my hes to secrecy, Cheiron. I did not take the oath myself, for I thought there was no need. I knew I could keep a secret. Perhaps the gods foresaw that I would need to speak one day, and did not want me forsworn. I know you can also hold a secret close at need. The need, I think, is here. I have heard somewhat of your voyage, and of the peculiar folk you met on the Tin Isle.”

  “The mans?” I said, and he nodded. “Well, what of them?”

  “That is the secret we are keeping,” Pholus replied. “Up in the mountains, we met some of what I think must be the same folk ourselves. They were coming down
from the north, as much strangers in those parts as we were. They did not call themselves mans, though; they had another name.”

  “Why did you keep them a secret?” I asked.

  He shivered. Pholus is bold and swift and strong. I had never thought to see him afraid, and needed a moment to realize that I had. “Because they are . . . what we ought to be,” he answered after another long hesitation. “What we and the satyrs and the sphinxes and those troublesome blood-drinkers ought to be. They are . . . all of a kind, with more of the stuff of the gods and less of the beast in them than we hold.”

  I knew what he meant. I knew so well, I had to pretend I knew not. “More of the gall of the gods, if they truly are like the mans I met,” I said.

  “And that,” he agreed. The hard, bright look of fear still made his eyes opaque. “But if they are coming down from the north—everywhere from the north—how shall any of the folk around the Inner Sea withstand them?”

  I had wondered that about the mans, even on the distant Tin Isle. If they had also reached the mountains north of our own land, though, there were more of them than I had dreamt, and the danger to us all was worse. I tried to make light of it, saying, “Well, the blood-drinkers may bar the way.”

  Pholus nodded, but dubiously. “That is the other reason I would not go after the blood-drinkers: because they might shield us. But I do not think they will, or not for long. The new folk have met them, and have plans of their own for revenge. Do you think the night-skulking blood-drinkers can oppose them?”

  “Not if they are mans of the same sort I knew,” I said. “Are you sure they are the same? What did they call themselves?”

  “Lapiths,” he answered. The name meant nothing to me then. But these days the echoes of the battle of Lapiths and centaurs resound round the Inner Sea. We are scattered to the winds, those few left to us, and the Lapiths dwell in the land ours since the gods made it. And Pholus knew whereof he spoke. The Lapiths are mans. They remain sure to this day that they won simply because they had the right to win, with no other reason needed.

  They would.

  The Indo-European-speaking ancestors of the Hittites probably brought their culture into Anatolia during the late third millenium B.C. After several hundred years, their descendants established an empire that rivaled and sometimes destroyed other, older Near Eastern kingdoms until they themselves fell to foreign enemies at the end of the Bronze Age. Despite their ancient (and modern) reputation as warriors, their culture was first and foremost agricultural. They were also literate, and among the Hittite texts is the story of one Hupasiya summoned to aid the gods. The original text is, like so many others from antiquity, broken, and the ending is lost, but Josepha Sherman, with her expertise in folklore and the ancient world, here attends to that.

  A Hero for the Gods

  JOSEPHA SHERMAN

  Hupasiya stepped out of his farmhouse, then stopped dead, grabbing for his old woolen mantle and hastily wrapping it around himself. Gods, it was cold out here!

  He still looked very much like the true Hittite warrior he’d been just a few short years ago: burly and muscular, black of curly hair and beard, with a narrow scar like a white blaze of lightning seaming his face. His bronze sword hung on a wall inside, and he still kept it polished and oiled as befitted a good blade. But the battles he fought these days were only with the fields and the harvests, and no regrets about it.

  Almost no regrets, he corrected wryly. Springtime—ha. Not a touch of softness to the biting air, not a hint of greenery poking up out of the frozen fields. And the snow on the towering mountains of Anatolia all about him hadn’t even begun its retreat up to merely cap them, but still gleamed blazing white halfway down the slopes.

  “Husband?”

  Hupasiya turned at the sudden voice. Even now, as always, he felt a smile curve his lips at the sight of Zaliya. Still lovely, so lovely, even after having borne them a daughter and a son. Lovely even with her hair in a simple braid and dressed in a simple gown of undyed wool. Once she’d worn more elegant clothes, and gleamed with gold as befitted an officer’s wife . . .

  Then Hupasiya saw the worry in her dark eyes, and the smile faded. “Nothing,” he told her reluctantly. “Just like the day before, and the day before that. Nothing but this dry, endless cold.”

  Zaliya shivered. Hupasiya held open a fold of his mantle, and she gladly huddled against him, letting him wrap the wool about them both. “It’s never stayed so chilly this late in the spring,” she murmured. “If the crops don’t sprout soon . . .”

  He shrugged helplessly.

  “Hupasiya . . . you don’t suppose . . .”

  “What?”

  “The gods—”

  “Are angry with us?” Hupasiya snorted. “Then they are angry with all who live near or in Ziggaratta. We all suffer the same weather.” He looked sideways at her, suddenly anxious. “Zaliya . . . are you regretting this?” His sweep of an arm took in their farm. “I mean, you had a fine life as an officer’s wife—”

  “I had a terrible life!”

  “What—”

  “You’d go off to war against the Akkadians or the Egyptians or the gods only know who else, and me, I’d be left back in Ziggaratta with the other wives, wondering if a living husband would return to me, a husband with arms and legs and—”

  “And all the necessary parts. Hey!”

  Zaliya had pulled a hand free to smack him on the arm. “You do not show the proper respect.” But she was smiling.

  “Papa?” a sleepy voice asked from within the sturdy farmhouse. A second voice added quaveringly, “Mamma?”

  “Hush, loves,” Zaliya called back. “Nothing’s wrong. Papa and I are just talking.”

  “That’s why I left,” Hupasiya murmured, gesturing with his head back into the house. “Not just for us. So that they could have a normal, happy life.” And if it demeans me to be a farmer instead of a warrior, so be it.

  But Zaliya’s eyes were still worried. “And what’s to happen to them if the crop fails? We don’t have enough from last year’s harvest to tide us over.”

  Yes, his mind chided, and at least in the army you drew steady wages. And a pension for your wife were you slain.

  Oh, and there was cold comfort for Zaliya and the children.

  I am a husband and father, not some fool of a hero with his gleaming bronze sword—

  “It’s too early to worry,” Hupasiya said.

  I will protect them. Even if I must sell what may be left of honor. I will protect them.

  The mountaintop was slick with ice and chill with bitter wind, and not quite in the mortal world. She who paced angrily back and forth, never slipping on the icy footing, never risking a fall, was Inaras, daughter of the Storm-God and Goddess of the Wild Beasts. Beautiful as a wild thing in her long-fringed robes, she was all sleekness and peril, with dark hair glinting with hints of light and eyes the ever-changing colors of her father’s stormy skies. “We cannot let this be!”

  The other gods would not meet her angry glare.

  “Hebat, wife of my father! You know we cannot suffer this! My father cannot be defeated yet again!”

  The Storm-God’s wife, all matronly curves and fullness, suddenly became very busy combing knots out of the mane of the sacred lion that lolled at her feet.

  Inaras let out her breath in an angry sigh, and turned sharply to another deity. “You, Telepinus, you know what happens when the proper order is overturned!”

  Green-robed and handsome, he was Lord of Agriculture, and Inaras’s brother. And yes, Inaras thought, he certainly did know. Once, when he was angry, he had hidden from the world. The crops had suffered, and the human people with them, until Telepinus had guiltily returned.

  “What is there to be done?” he muttered. “The Dragon has already defeated our father once.”

  And that is why Father does not even dare to show his face at his meeting! Inaras thought. “That is because we thought to fight Illuyankas as though he were one of us.
He is not!”

  Kamrusepas frowned. “What are you proposing?” Goddess of Healing though she was, there was a hint of warrior anger in her voice. “There are none of us who are not divine.”

  Inaras turned sharply to her. “And that was where we made our first mistake. This time the Dragon will be slain—because this time I will bring us the aid of a mortal. Yes, yes, I know, it has never been done. Mortals are fallible, mortals are unpredictable—that uncertainty is exactly what will make this man so valuable!”

  Kamrusepas raised one elegantly curved eyebrow. “What’s this? Have you already chosen your hero?”

  Hebat made a soft, disapproving tsk. “This does not surprise me. When has Inaras not chosen herself a mortal man?”

  “A hero!” Inaras corrected angrily. “I chose only heroes!”

  “If that’s what you wish to call them.”

  “Listen to me, all of you! Do you not see what has happened to the mortal world since the Dragon came to power? There is no spring, no ripening crops, nothing for the beasts of earth to eat! Telepinus—”

  “You are right,” he agreed reluctantly. “I say yes, let it be done. Bring us your mortal hero and see what he can do for us.”

  Hupasiya bent over the frozen furrow, trying to see if maybe, maybe, that tiny speck of green was actually something he’d planted starting to grow. He straightened with a grunt, working a knot out of his back with one hand, and—

  Found himself without warning facing a woman who had appeared without a sound. She was tall and eerily beautiful, high and wide of cheekbone, full and lush of figure, the woman of whom any man might dream. No . . . a chill ran up his spine as he realized that this was never a woman. Never a human one, Hupasiya corrected uneasily.

  She was simply too alive for any mere mortality, fairly radiating a force that was sheer Life. It crackled in the ringlets of her long, blue-black hair and in her gleaming dark eyes. The curves of her body, clearly outlined under the folds of her lightweight robes, were all that was woman yet more perfect than any human woman could ever boast. In that moment of awareness, in that sudden state of nearly helpless awe and lust, Hupasiya threw up his hands in a ritual gesture of respect. It seemed the safest thing to do.