This Immortal

by Roger Joseph Zelazny

"Nonsense, Phil. Life Force? In what century do you make your home? You speak as though all of life were one single, sentient entity."

  "It is."

  "Demonstrate, please."

  "You have the skeletons of three satyrs in your museum, and photographs of live ones. They live in the hills of this country.

  "Centaurs, too, have been seen here-and there are vampire flowers, and horses with vestigial wings. There are sea serpents in every sea. Imported spiderbats plow our skies. There are even sworn statements by persons who have seen the Black Beast of Thessaly, an eater of men, bones and all-and all sorts of other legends are coming alive."

  George sighed.

  "What you have said so far proves nothing other than that in all of infinity there is a possibility for any sort of life form to put in an appearance, given the proper precipitating factors and a continuous congenial environment. The things you have mentioned which are native to Earth are mutations, creatures originating near various Hot Spots about the world. There is one such place up in the hills of Thessaly. If the Black Beast were to crash through that door at this moment, with a satyr mounted on its back, it would not alter my opinion, nor prove yours."

  I'd looked at the door at that moment, hoping not for the Black Beast, but for some inconspicuous-looking old man who might sidle by, stumble, and pass on, or for a waiter bringing Diane an unordered drink with a note folded inside the napkin.

  But none of these things happened. As I passed up Leoforos Amalias, by Hadrian's Gate, and past the Olympieion, I still did not know what the word was to be. Diane had contacted the Radpol, but there had been no response as yet. Within another thirty-six hours we would be skimming from Athens to Lamia, then onward by foot through areas of strange new trees with long, pale, red-veined leaves, hanging vines, and things that brachiate up above, and all the budding places of the strige-fleur down among their roots; and then on, across sun-washed plains, up twisty goat trails, through high, rocky places, and down deep ravines, past ruined monasteries. It was a crazy notion, but Myshtigo, again, had wanted it that way. Just because I'd been born there, he thought he'd be safe. I'd tried to tell him of the wild beasts, of the cannibal Kouretes-the tribesmen who wandered there. But he wanted to be like Pausanius and see it all on foot. Okay then, I decided, if the Radpol didn't get him, then the fauna would.

  But, just to be safe, I had gone to the nearest Earthgov Post Office, obtained a dueling permit, and paid my death-tax. I might as well be on the up-and-up about these things, I decided, me being a Commissioner and all.

  If Hasan needed killing, I'd kill him legally.

  I heard the sound of a bouzouki coming from a small cafe on the other side of the street. Partly because I wanted to, and partly because I had a feeling that I was being followed, I crossed over and entered the place. I moved to a small table where I could keep my back to the wall and my eyes on the door, ordered Turkish coffee, ordered a package of cigarettes, listened to the songs of death, exile, disaster, and the eternal faithlessness of women and men.

  It was even smaller inside than it had seemed from the street-low ceiling, dirt floor, real dark. The singer was a squat woman, wearing a yellow dress and much mascara. There was a rattling of glasses; a steady fall of dust descended through the dim air; the sawdust was damp underfoot. My table was set at the near end of the bar. There were maybe a dozen other people spotted about the place: three sleepy-eyed girls sat drinking at the bar, and a man wearing a dirty fez, and a man resting his head on an outstretched arm, and snoring; four men were laughing at a table diagonally across from me; a few others, solitary, were drinking coffee, listening, watching nothing in particular, waiting, or maybe not waiting, for something or someone to happen.

  Nothing did, though. So after my third cup of coffee, I paid the fat, moustached owner his tab, and left the place.

  Outside, the temperature seemed to have dropped several degrees. The street was deserted, and quite dark. I turned right into Leoforos Dionysiou Areopagitou and moved on until I reached the battered fence that runs along the southern slope of the Acropolis.

  I heard a footfall, way back behind me, at the corner. I stood there for half a minute, but there was only silence and very black night. Shrugging, I entered the gate and moved to the tenemos of Dionysius Eleutherios. Nothing remains of the temple itself but the foundation. I passed on, heading toward the Theater.

  Phil, then, had suggested that history moved in great cycles, like big clock hands passing the same numbers day after day.

  "Historical biology proves you wrong," said George.

  "I didn't mean literally," replied Phil.

  "Then we ought to agree on the language we are speaking before we talk any further."

  Myshtigo had laughed.

  Ellen touched Dos Santos' arm and asked him about the poor horses the picadores rode. He had shrugged, poured her more Kokkineli, drank his own.

  "It is a part of the thing," he'd said.

  And no message, no message…

  I walked on through the mess time makes of greatness. A frightened bird leapt up on my right, uttered a frightened cry, was gone. I kept walking, wandered into the old Theater at last, moved downward through it…

  Diane was not so amused as I had thought she would be by the stupid plaques that decorated my suite.

  "But they belong here. Of course. They do."

  "Ha!"

  "At one time it would have been the heads of animals you had slain. Or the shields of your vanquished enemies. We're civilized now. This is the new way."

  "Ha! again." I changed the subject. "Any word on the Vegan?"

  "No."

  "You want his head."

  "I'm not civilized.-Tell me, was Phil always such a. fool, back in the old days?"

  "No, he wasn't. Isn't now, either. His was the curse of a half-talent. Now he is considered the last of the Romantic poets, and he's gone to seed. He pushes his mysticism into nonsense because, like Wordsworth, he has outlived his day. He lives now in distortions of a pretty good past.

  "Like Byron, he once swam the Hellespont, but now, rather like Yeats, the only thing he really enjoys is the company of young ladies whom he can bore with his philosophy, or occasionally charm with a well-told reminiscence. He is old. His writing occasionally shows flashes of its former power, but it was not just his writing that was his whole style."

  "How so?"

  "Well, I remember one cloudy day when he stood in the Theater of Dionysius and read a hymn to Pan which he had written. There was an audience of two or three hundred-and only the gods know why they showed up-but he began to read.

  "His Greek wasn't very good yet, but his voice was quite impressive, his whole manner rather charismatic. After a time, it began to rain, lightly, but no one left. Near the end there was a peal of thunder, sounding awfully like laughter, and a sudden shudder ran through the crowd. I'm not saying that it was like that in the days of Thespis, but a lot of those people were looking over their shoulders as they left.

  "I was very impressed also. Then, several days later, I read the poem-and it was nothing, it was doggerel, it was trite. It was the way he did it that was important. He lost that part of his power along with his youth and what remained of what might be called art was not strong enough to make him great, to keep alive his personal legend. He resents this, and he consoles himself with obscure philosophy, but in answer to your question-no, he was not always such a fool."

  "Perhaps even some of his philosophy is correct."

  "What do you mean?"

  "The Big Cycles. The age of strange beasts is come upon us again. Also, the age of heroes, demigods."

  "I've only met the strange beasts."

  "'Karaghiosis slept in this bed,' it says here. Looks comfortable."

  "It is.-See?"

  "Yes. Do I get to keep the plaque?"

  "If you want…"

  I moved to the proskenion. The relief sculpture-work started at the steps, telling tales from the life of Dionysius. E
very tour guide and every member of a tour must, under a regulation promulgated by me, "…carry no fewer than three magnesium flares on his person, while traveling." I pulled the pin from one and cast it to the ground. The dazzle would not be visible below, because of the angle of the hillside and the blocking masonry.

  I did not stare into the bright flame, but above, at the silver-limned figures. There was Hermes, presenting the infant god to Zeus, while the Corybantes tripped the Pyrrhic fantastic on either side of the throne; then there was Ikaros, whom Dionysius had taught to cultivate the vine-he was preparing to sacrifice a goat, while his daughter was offering cakes to the god (who stood aside, discussing her with a satyr); and there was drunken Silenus, attempting to hold up the sky like Atlas, only not doing so well; and there were all the other gods of the cities, paying a call to this Theater-and I spotted Hestia, Theseus, and Eirene with a horn of plenty…

  "You burn an offering to the gods," came a statement from nearby.

  I did not turn. It had come from behind my right shoulder, but I did not turn because I knew the voice.

  "Perhaps I do," I said.

  "It has been a long time since you walked this land, this Greece."

  "That is true."

  "Is it because there has never been an immortal Penelope-patient as the mountains, trusting in the return of her kallikanzaros-weaving, patient as the hills?"

  "Are you the village story-teller these days?"

  He chuckled.

  "I tend the many-legged sheep in the high places, where the fingers of Aurora come first to smear the sky with roses."

  "Yes, you're the story teller. Why are you not up in the high places now, corrupting youth with your song?"

  "Because of dreams."

  "Aye."

  I turned and looked into the ancient face-its wrinkles, in the light of the dying flare, as black as fishers' nets lost at the bottom of the sea, the beard as white as the snow that comes drifting down from the mountains, the eyes matching the blue of the headcloth corded about his temples. He did not lean upon his staff any more than a warrior leans on his spear. I knew that he was over a century old, and that he had never taken the S-S series.

  "A short time ago did I dream that I stood in the midst of a black temple," he told me, "and Lord Hades came and stood by my side, and he gripped my wrist and bade me go with him. But I said 'Nay' and I awakened. This did trouble me."

  "What did you eat that night? Berries from the Hot Place?"

  "Do not laugh, please.-Then, of a later night, did I dream that I stood in a land of sand and darkness. The strength of the old champions was upon me, and I did battle with Antaeus, son of the Earth, destroying him. Then did Lord Hades come to me again, and taking me by the arm did say, 'Come with me now.' But again did I deny him, and I awakened. The Earth was a-tremble."

  "That's all?"

  "No. Then, more recent still, and not at night, but as I sat beneath a tree watching my flock, did I dream a dream while awake. Pheobus-like did I battle the monster Python, and was almost destroyed thereby. This time Lord Hades did not come, but when I turned about there stood Hermes, his lackey, smiling and pointing his caducaeus like a rifle in my direction. I shook my head and he lowered it. Then he raised it once more in a gesture, and I looked where he had indicated.

  "There before me lay Athens -this place, this Theater, you-and here sat the old women. The one who measures out the thread of life was pouting, for she had wrapped yours about the horizon and no ends were in sight. But the one who weaves had divided it into two very thin threads. One strand ran back across the seas and vanished again from sight. The other led up into the hills. At the first hill stood the Dead Man, who held your thread in his white, white hands. Beyond him, at the next hill, it lay across a burning rock. On the hill beyond the rock stood the Black Beast, and he shook and worried your thread with his teeth.

  "And all along the length of the strand stalked a great foreign warrior, and yellow were his eyes and naked the blade in his hands, and he did raise this blade several times in menace.

  "So I came down to Athens-to meet you, here, at this place-to tell you to go back across the seas-to warn you not to come up into the hills where death awaits you. For I knew, when Hermes raised his wand, that the dreams were not mine, but that they were meant for you, oh my father, and that I must find you here and warn you. Go away now, while still you can. Go back. Please."

  I gripped his shoulder.

  "Jason, my son, I do not turn back. I take full responsibility for my own actions, right or wrong-including my own death, if need be-and I must go into the hills this time, up near the Hot Place. Thank you for your warning. Our family has always had this thing with dreams, and often it is misleading. I, too, have dreams-dreams in which I see through the eyes of other persons-sometimes clearly, sometimes not so clearly. Thank you for your warning. I am sorry that I must not heed it."

  "Then I will return to my flock."

  "Come back with me to the inn. We will fly you as far as Lamia tomorrow."

  "No. I do not sleep in great buildings, nor do I fly."

  "Then it's probably time you started, but I'll humor you. We can camp here tonight. I'm Commissioner of this monument."

  "I had heard you were important in the Big Government again. Will there be more killing?"

  "I hope not."

  We found a level place and reclined upon his cloak.

  "How do you interpret the dreams?" I asked him.

  "Your gifts do come to us with every season, but when was the last time you yourself visited?"

  "It was about nineteen years ago," I said.

  "Then you do not know of the Dead Man?"

  "No."

  "He is bigger than most men-taller, fatter-with flesh the color of a fishbelly, and teeth like an animal's. They began telling of him about fifteen years ago. He comes out only at night. He drinks blood, He laughs a child's laugh as he goes about the countryside looking for blood-people's, animals', it does not matter. He smiles in through bedroom windows late at night. He burns churches. He curdles milk. He causes miscarriages from fright. By day, it is said that he sleeps in a coffin, guarded by the Kourete tribesmen."

  "Sounds as bad as a kallikanzaros."

  "He really exists, father. Some time ago, something had been killing my sheep. Whatever it was had partly eaten them and drunk much of their blood. So I dug me a hiding place and covered it over with branches. That night I watched. After many hours he came, and I was too afraid to put a stone to my sling-for he is as I have described him: big, bigger than you even, and gross, and colored like a fresh-dug corpse. He broke the sheep's neck with his hands and drank the blood from its throat. I wept to see it, but I was afraid to do anything. The next day I moved my flock and was not troubled again. I use the story to frighten my great-grandchildren-your great-great-grandchildren-whenever they misbehave.-And he is waiting, up in the hills."

  "Mm, yes… If you say you saw it, it must be true. And strange things do come out of the Hot Places. We know that."

  "… Where Prometheus spilled too much of the fire of creation."

  "No, where some bastard lobbed a cobalt bomb and the bright-eyed boys and girls cried 'Eloi' to the fallout.-And what of the Black Beast?"

  "He too, is real, I am certain. I have never seen him, though. The size of an elephant, and very fast-an eater of flesh, they say. He haunts the plains. Perhaps some day he and the Dead Man will meet and they will destroy one another."

  "It doesn't usually work out that way, but it's a nice thought.-That's all you know about him?"

  "Yes, I know of no one who has caught more than a glimpse."

  "Well, I shall try for less than that."

  "… And then I must tell you of Bortan."

  "Bortan? That name is familiar."

  "Your dog. I used to ride on his back when I was a child and beat with my legs upon his great armored sides. Then he would growl and seize my foot, but gently."

  "My Bortan has been dead
for so long that he would not even chew upon his own bones, were he to dig them up in a modern incarnation."

  "I had thought so, too. But two days after you departed from your last visit, he came crashing into the hut. He apparently had followed your trail across half of Greece."

  "You're sure it was Bortan?"

  "Was there ever another dog the size of a small horse, with armor plates on his sides, and jaws like a trap for bears?"

  "No, I don't think so. That's probably why the species died out. Dogs do need armor plating if they're going to hang around with people, and they didn't develop it fast enough. If he is still alive, he's probably the last dog on Earth. He and I were puppies together, you know, so long ago that it hurts to think about it. That day he vanished while we were hunting I thought he'd had an accident. I searched for him, then decided he was dead. He was incredibly old at the time."

  "Perhaps he was injured, and wandering that way-for years. But he was himself and he followed your track, that last time. When he saw that you were gone, he howled and took off after you again. We have never seen him since then. Sometimes, though, late at night, I hear his hunting-cry in the hills…"

  "The damn fool mutt ought to know it's not right to care for anything that much."

  "Dogs were strange."

  "Yes, dogs were."

  And then the night wind, cool through arches of the years, came hounding after me. It touched my eyes.

  Tired, they closed.

  Greece is lousy with legend, fraught with menace. Most areas of mainland near the Hot Places are historically dangerous. This is because, while the Office theoretically runs the Earth, it actually only tends to the islands. Office personnel on much of the mainland are rather like twentieth-century Revenue Officers were in certain hill areas. They're fair game in all seasons. The islands sustained less damage than the rest of the world during the Three Days, and consequently they were the logical outposts for world district offices when the Talerites decided we could use some administration. Historically, the mainlanders have always been opposed to this. In the regions about the Hot Places, though, the natives are not always completely human. This compounds the historical antipathy with abnormal behavior patterns. This is why Greece is fraught.